It appears that the effort and skills required to follow through with a product vision and take it to market are greater than or equal to those required for its conception.
This political correctness stick is brought up on these occasions to ridicule a world where you can't say certain things any more. But this stuff isn't about this invented construct of PCness - does anyone claim to be politically correct? It's just a pejorative term invented by people who want to still be racist and old-fashioned. It's about respecting people whatever their background and not making sweeping and offensive statements about them based on the colour of their skin or where they come from or their disability, sexuality or gender.
"Deaf-mute" has mostly fallen out of usage, much like other once-commonplace derogatory classifiers such as "colored", "oriental", and "savage".
Generally speaking, "deaf" = physically deaf, i.e. unable to hear, and "Deaf" = culturally Deaf, i.e. part of a visual-culture / signing linguistic group. Big-D Deafness does not necessarily imply little-d deafness, nor the other way around. Children of Deaf adults, for example, often learn a signed language before an auditory one, despite being physically able to hear. And sadly, many physically deaf children are still deprived of language until quite late in their development.
And, as always, if a Deaf person tells you something that contradicts me, that person is right.
It's hard to keep up with quickly-changing political correctness, especially if you're not a native English speaker (like the author). Words that were once considered sensitive are now derogatory and new words invented to replace them. In a decade or two, that new word will be insensitive and new words will need to be invented. People will then forget the word was offensive. "Idiot" was once the technical term to describe someone with severe mental disabilities.
Colored can hardly be called derogatory, just ask the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: the NAACP.
I agree it can be difficult, and these things do change drastically over time. The NAACP was founded at a time when "colored" was not considered derogatory, and they haven't changed the name since, for a number of reasons. But if you go around talking about "colored people", you will get lots of weird looks.
Beyond simple political-correctness, though, the most important thing is to understand how our language affects people. A major problem with "Deaf-mute" (and also with "colored" and "oriental") is that these terms are oversimplifications at best, and drastic misrepresentations at worst. They're not just words - they represent actual cultural misunderstandings.
With the Deaf, for example, the core misunderstanding is usually thinking of deafness as a medical disability. It comes as a surprise to most people that the Deaf do not generally consider themselves "disabled", but instead possessing a different human experience. This is difficult, I think, for a hearing person to imagine if they have not met and interacted with a Deaf person.
Anyways, that was a very long-winded way of saying that it's not just about finding the most politically-correct term to use - it's about finding terms that describe the world as it actually is.
Looks like more bedside table clutter... What problem does this solve? Your significant other doesn't care for you enough to wake up for fifteen seconds when your alarm goes off? You need a divorce, not more crap.
At the risk of being patronising towards someone using English as a foreign language, to my mind the best thing is the text accompanying the cartoon story: "The piteous woman is disturbed. A sweet dreaming is broken. She is feckless in the hospital". For some reason I find that utterly charming.
My favourite Portugese to English phrasebook of all time, incidentally, is English As She Is Spoke, which I learned of in Stephen Pile's book, The Book of Heroic Failures, where he comments: "Is there anything in conventional English which could equal the vividness of 'to craunch a marmoset'?"
Piteous and feckless are fairly uncommon words in English as well. Speaking a foreign language, I know there are some books that offer some... odd translations to words that are hardly ever used in that language anymore. I would guess this person learned English from an older book teaching proper English.
Sorry, never awake and not-at-work at the same time
He gets home from work at 6pm, she's been at work since 2pm
He goes to bed at 10pm, she finishes work at midnight
He starts work at 8am, she's still asleep
Great! Now all I need are some products to allow me to get dressed in the dark; quieten opening draws and wardrobes; silence the noise I make as I hop around the bedroom trying to get my left foot in a sock; stop the floorboards from creaking...
Marpac Sleepmate can help with this. I've been using one for about five years. Occasionally I go to sleep without turning it on and invariably my sleep is interrupted by noise from outside or another room.
I find the idea fascinating, and would do wonders for my relationship... but I doubt I would be able to get a tension on the thing that would be soft enough to not bother me during wearing it, but strong enough to keep it on all night.
42 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 96.1 ms ] threadAlso, I understand how this product benefit deaf people, but I don't understand how it would be any more useful to mute people than non-mute people.
According to Wikipedia, just 'deaf'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf-mute
I'll resist the urge to rant about political correctness.
This political correctness stick is brought up on these occasions to ridicule a world where you can't say certain things any more. But this stuff isn't about this invented construct of PCness - does anyone claim to be politically correct? It's just a pejorative term invented by people who want to still be racist and old-fashioned. It's about respecting people whatever their background and not making sweeping and offensive statements about them based on the colour of their skin or where they come from or their disability, sexuality or gender.
http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/?id=2299
Generally speaking, "deaf" = physically deaf, i.e. unable to hear, and "Deaf" = culturally Deaf, i.e. part of a visual-culture / signing linguistic group. Big-D Deafness does not necessarily imply little-d deafness, nor the other way around. Children of Deaf adults, for example, often learn a signed language before an auditory one, despite being physically able to hear. And sadly, many physically deaf children are still deprived of language until quite late in their development.
And, as always, if a Deaf person tells you something that contradicts me, that person is right.
For more info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture
Colored can hardly be called derogatory, just ask the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: the NAACP.
Beyond simple political-correctness, though, the most important thing is to understand how our language affects people. A major problem with "Deaf-mute" (and also with "colored" and "oriental") is that these terms are oversimplifications at best, and drastic misrepresentations at worst. They're not just words - they represent actual cultural misunderstandings.
With the Deaf, for example, the core misunderstanding is usually thinking of deafness as a medical disability. It comes as a surprise to most people that the Deaf do not generally consider themselves "disabled", but instead possessing a different human experience. This is difficult, I think, for a hearing person to imagine if they have not met and interacted with a Deaf person.
Anyways, that was a very long-winded way of saying that it's not just about finding the most politically-correct term to use - it's about finding terms that describe the world as it actually is.
After some soldering I even managed to get the live serial output to my laptop with a python app.
[1] http://www.myzeo.com/sleep/shop/featured-products/zeo-sleep-...
Edit: no Android version?
Edit2: charge every day?
My roommate was using one for a little bit, not sure how he feels about it now but I know he was frustrated that there wasn't wireless data syncing.
My favourite Portugese to English phrasebook of all time, incidentally, is English As She Is Spoke, which I learned of in Stephen Pile's book, The Book of Heroic Failures, where he comments: "Is there anything in conventional English which could equal the vividness of 'to craunch a marmoset'?"
Each of them would have to sleep more than 12 hours each day for that to even be possible.
He gets home from work at 6pm, she's been at work since 2pm He goes to bed at 10pm, she finishes work at midnight He starts work at 8am, she's still asleep
There's always weekends I suppose :(
http://www.marpac.com/