Rachel Kolb, deaf
Rhodes scholar, on lipreading: "
Even the most skilled lipreaders in English, I have read, can discern an average of 30 percent of what is being said. I believe this figure to be true. There are people with whom I catch almost every word—people I know well, or who take care to speak at a reasonable rate, or whose faces are just easier on the eyes (for lack of a better phrase). But there are also people whom I cannot understand at all. On average, 30 percent is a reasonable number. But 30 percent is also rather unreasonable. How does one have a meaningful conversation at 30 percent? It is like functioning at 30 percent of normal oxygen, or eating 30 percent of recommended calories—possible to subsist, but difficult to feel at your best and all but impossible to excel."
[more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee
on Mar 7, 2013 -
29 comments
Recent technologies developed at American universities are making communication easier for the sight and hearing impaired. Last summer a Stanford undergrad developed a
touchscreen Braille writer that stands to revolutionize how the blind negotiate an unseen world by replacing devices costing up to 10 times more. Thanks to a group of University of Houston students, the hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language. During the past semester, students in UH’s engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and
prototype for MyVoice, a device that reads sign language and translates its motions into audible words, and vice versa.
posted by netbros
on Jul 3, 2012 -
4 comments
The Teenager Audio Test "Clicking the play button below will produce a tone that is generally only heard by people under the age of 25. It has been used as a deterrent device to keep teenagers from loitering in malls and shops, and sounds similar to a buzzing mosquito. The elderly and people with hearing damage often cannot hear the sound." SLTO (Single Link The Oatmeal post)
[more inside]
posted by sid
on Feb 24, 2010 -
201 comments
What would you do if you only had a month left to hear? With a
disease that put tumors on her brain stem, Jessica Stone was given a month to savor the sounds in her world before surgery took away her hearing for good. Her story ran on
Good Morning America.
[more inside]
posted by sjuhawk31
on Aug 27, 2008 -
23 comments
See For Yourself - Purves Lab's optical illusions web page with empirical explanations of familiar and unfamiliar illusions.
posted by nthdegx
on Nov 16, 2007 -
6 comments
"I do not recall" --meet Lurita Doan, Administrator of
the GSA (
Our mission is to help other agencies better serve the public by meeting – at best value – their needs for products and services, and to simplify citizen access to government information and services.), and hear about the powerpoint presentation from Rove's office all about electing Republicans in 08 and how her agency should help. Her office supplied it to Congress--but it was just a (GOP) "team-building exercise" and "brown-bag lunch". (YouTube) Read up on
the Hatch Act too.
posted by amberglow
on Mar 28, 2007 -
54 comments
Hearing Aid waiting list The BBC reports that in some British NHS hospitals the waiting list time for a digital hearing aid is 200 weeks (in others it is 2 weeks...) and perhaps 4m people could benefit from an aid, but don't have one.
Not an NHS bashing - but what would the situation be elsewhere? Presumably in some countries - the US? - the waiting list for a digital hearing aid would be infinite, eg if you don't have the money you'll not get one? Does Medicare/Aid cover this over 65? What about Canada?
posted by A189Nut
on Oct 16, 2006 -
48 comments
Painkillers destroy hearing - Looks like America's fascination with Vicodin, Oxycotin, and other hardcore painkillers has a lasting effect other than addiction. Studies are showing that "rapid hearing loss, even deafness, in some patients who are misusing the drugs". This is serious enough for Vicodin's manufacturer to add a "warning about the potential for hearing loss to the drug's label."
Is Rush Limbaugh's
sudden deafness and recent involvement in a
painkiller drug investigation simply a coincidence?
posted by Argyle
on Oct 3, 2003 -
38 comments
Limbaugh gets hearing back. Love him or hate him, it is great to know that technology has enabled someone to get some hearing back. However, to implant the device requires doctors to "destory the inner ear". But it seems to have worked.
posted by ericdano
on Jan 21, 2002 -
44 comments
'Necklace' designed to aid those with profound hearing loss. Almost totally deaf and reliant on lip reading since her 20s, Sherry Cramer couldn't believe her ears in 1994 when she first wore the microphone array necklace that electrical engineering Professor Bernard Widrow and his students had designed. Listening to a CD, she could hear every note of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto as the necklace received and transmitted sound in magnetic form to her behind-the-ear hearing aid.
posted by RylandDotNet
on Jun 13, 2001 -
8 comments
And thanks to all the fish? British researchers say fans of loud music may be responding to a 'pleasure-inducing hearing mechanism' passed down through evolution from fish to humans.
Well, slap me with a large trout!
posted by prolific
on Feb 17, 2000 -
4 comments
