When I was four or five years old my family went to K-mart often. During one of our trips my brother spotted a Batman nightlight. My brother asked if he could have it. My mom promply told him no. "Put it back," she instructed him.
My mom was engrossed in her shopping when my brother stealthily added the nightlight to the bottom of the cart. He gestured for me not to say anything. I normally followed my brother's instructions, so I didn't say anything. When my mom was finished she went to the checkout counter to buy the items. When she spotted the nightlight she tried to explain to the cashier that she wasn't buying the nightlight. My mom didn't realize the nightlight was in the cart until the cashier wanted to scan the item. Confusion resulted. The cashier neither understood our language (American Sign Language) nor our intentions.
25 March 2010
23 March 2010
Auto Captioning on Youtube
I was going to make a post about "full term breastfeeding", but I got distracted by the captions.
Youtube introduced a feature called auto-captioning that transcribes speech into text automatically on screen. (Click here to read more information). It's a noble idea. However, the speech recognition technology still needs a lot of work.
Take a look at the captions for this video. (To view the captions scroll over the CC emblem and click "Transcribe Audio" under the Caption Actions list.)
Youtube introduced a feature called auto-captioning that transcribes speech into text automatically on screen. (Click here to read more information). It's a noble idea. However, the speech recognition technology still needs a lot of work.
Take a look at the captions for this video. (To view the captions scroll over the CC emblem and click "Transcribe Audio" under the Caption Actions list.)
22 March 2010
Down Memory Lane: Hearing Dog
My mother was a single mother who struggled to raise two children (before my younger brother was born). We were extremely poor. Everything we owned was of value to us.
One night we went to sleep like usual. I slept in the living room, which placed me between the front door and the bedrooms. When morning came I woke up to my mom's anger. A burglar snuck into the house while we were all asleep. I don't know what was stolen, but my mom was furious. She turned on me. "Why didn't you stop him?" she angrily asked me. I was still somewhat confused as to what happened. I tried to explain that I had been sleeping. My mom punished me anyway. I never saw the burglar, nor did I even see any signs of forced entry.
I love my mom. I don't mean to create bad impressions or pave the way for presumption. This is simply one of the memories I have of my childhood. I try to stress to people that hearing people are not just like hearing dogs. We don't hear every single thing. We don't always wake up to noises.
One night we went to sleep like usual. I slept in the living room, which placed me between the front door and the bedrooms. When morning came I woke up to my mom's anger. A burglar snuck into the house while we were all asleep. I don't know what was stolen, but my mom was furious. She turned on me. "Why didn't you stop him?" she angrily asked me. I was still somewhat confused as to what happened. I tried to explain that I had been sleeping. My mom punished me anyway. I never saw the burglar, nor did I even see any signs of forced entry.
I love my mom. I don't mean to create bad impressions or pave the way for presumption. This is simply one of the memories I have of my childhood. I try to stress to people that hearing people are not just like hearing dogs. We don't hear every single thing. We don't always wake up to noises.
21 March 2010
Down Memory Lane: Lip Reading
I recently went to go see my family in Arizona. My family and I have so many memories. We mostly had sad memories, but some of our memories were happy ones. Some of them were funny (at least to me).
When I was a kid I often got asked questions I didn't understand. One question was "does your mom lipread?" Finally I asked someone what lip-reading meant. "It's when she can look at your lips and know what you're saying," I was told. I was fascinated. I thought it was something like telepathy. For several weeks I wanted to see this magic in action. I pointed to my lips and mouthed out the word or phrase I was trying to say whenever I came across a difficult concept to sign. My mom just blinked at me, wondering what was wrong with me. After several weeks of seeing no magic I stopped.
When I was a kid I often got asked questions I didn't understand. One question was "does your mom lipread?" Finally I asked someone what lip-reading meant. "It's when she can look at your lips and know what you're saying," I was told. I was fascinated. I thought it was something like telepathy. For several weeks I wanted to see this magic in action. I pointed to my lips and mouthed out the word or phrase I was trying to say whenever I came across a difficult concept to sign. My mom just blinked at me, wondering what was wrong with me. After several weeks of seeing no magic I stopped.
16 March 2010
Rant on Presumption
I noticed that human analysis gives way to presumption often. I often make statements that appear to be plain English to me, yet do not appear to be plain English to someone else. I find this to be very frustrating.
On the one hand, it is natural for human beings to want to make sense of the world around us. Even from childhood we have a tendency to categorize things and give the categories certain attributes. For instance, we learned that certain large vehicles with wheels are called "cars". We discovered that cars tend to be larger than adult humans. They all tend to have things in common, such as the tendency to have four wheels, a pair of headlights, hood, trunk, etc. However we know that if a car loses a wheel it is still a car. It is the norm for a car to have four wheels, but this is not the only thing that defines a car.
On the one hand, it is natural for human beings to want to make sense of the world around us. Even from childhood we have a tendency to categorize things and give the categories certain attributes. For instance, we learned that certain large vehicles with wheels are called "cars". We discovered that cars tend to be larger than adult humans. They all tend to have things in common, such as the tendency to have four wheels, a pair of headlights, hood, trunk, etc. However we know that if a car loses a wheel it is still a car. It is the norm for a car to have four wheels, but this is not the only thing that defines a car.
15 March 2010
Liza Minnelli's Quiet Love
Someone has written a blog about this song called Quiet Love. Here is the link:
http://fookembug.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/liza-minnelli-sang-quiet-love-in-sign-language/
This song is awesome. I am somewhat grumpy that I've never heard this song until today. It is so beautiful and raw. It makes me wonder about the inspiration behind the song. I can't find much information about it.
http://fookembug.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/liza-minnelli-sang-quiet-love-in-sign-language/
This song is awesome. I am somewhat grumpy that I've never heard this song until today. It is so beautiful and raw. It makes me wonder about the inspiration behind the song. I can't find much information about it.
04 March 2010
See What I'm Saying
Ok, so there's been a lot of buzz about the new movie "See What I'm Saying". I can't wait to see it! I'll write more about it when I see it. For now, this is my new favorite song:
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