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smilingbackatme

Listed below are comments made by smilingbackatme between Wednesday, 8th July 2009 and Thursday, 17th September 2009.

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The shame of wearing hearing aids 1:28pm on 17 Sep 2009 Talking of wearing boxes round your neck.... [And apologies to anyone that reads this post: it's a bit rambolic....]

I have the Streamer that works with some of Oticon's hearing aids (my private ones); and too love the Bluetoothedness (real word, honest...) of it: letting me walk down the street looking even more of an expletive-deleted than the guys with their big, black, bad-ass, one-eared jewels, talking into thin air, with my little box dangling, glowing green, and flashing blue; and my own, personal wireless network. (The Streamer glows orange when my iPod's connected!)

And I don't care... -- I really don't! -- what others think. I'm odd, anyway (mild Asperger, with go-faster walking stick...). And, being somewhat anti-social, perhaps it helps keep people at arm's length...?

Seriously, though: it's a shame that Bluetooth headsets haven't helped hearing aids become fashionable. [Although I do like the sound of Martyn's gold circuitry! -- my NHS ones, which also have clear moulds (which I struggle to put in, because of problems with fine motor control) just don't look that 'kewl'....]

I also use my Streamer to connect to my landline phone, and to my television (which I can have at a different volume to whoever else is watching -- jacked, wirelessly, straight into my head... -- my neighbours are also grateful!); and it has totally changed the way I interface with the world. Before, I was scared of the telephone: which was tough, seeing as how, some weeks, I can be house-bound. Now, it's a lifeline.

I've always embraced technology, though: and, I suppose, I see my hearing aids, therefore, as just another part of my technological toolkit....
The shame of wearing hearing aids 8:43pm on 10 Sep 2009 I've only just started wearing 'hearing instruments' -- my siblings and I are all genetically programmed to shout at each other increasingly, as we get older....

I can understand the problem with childhood bullying; but, as an adult, I nearly ordered mine in bright red (but went for a nice blue, in the end, to match my eyes (tee-hee)) -- as I hold with both what the first poster said, and something Bob Holness said in an RNID publication: along the lines of us not being ashamed that we have problems with our eyes, so we wear (increasingly fashion-conscious) seeing aids -- so why should we be ashamed of wearing spectacles for our ears? [I have short hair, by the way.]

NB: Now that I know what a difference they can make (and I paid a lot for mine, too...), I wish I HAD bought them in red. [That colour too often also matches my eyes....]
Another year older, another year wiser 1:44pm on 29 Aug 2009 I'm sorry (although I don't know why I'm apologizing...): but I have a real problem with some of the comments on this article....

Firstly, I don't think it's meant to be an expression of Tom's academic side... -- he's just celebrating (if that's the right word) a year of change (some positive; some negative...) -- and, even if it were academic, I've always found him honest and modest enough to admit where he's made (what he sees as) mistakes or changed his views (unlike so many other of us fallible human beings...). [I also know that a lot of the views he expresses -- for instance, in his 'Disability Rights and Wrongs' book -- are unpopular with many in "this 'disability rights movement' he speaks of" (which he defines extremely well in the aforementioned book).]

Secondly, I just do not understand where all this vitriol comes from (...especially when, it seems, many weeks, Tom's posts go uncommented: perhaps because they don't offer such a sitting (sorry) target as this one does?) -- unless this is just an excuse, of course...? It's not very easy to respond to criticisms in a book, or an academic paper; but a BBC forum...?

Perhaps 'my' disability is of the wrong sort, too*; and my views are therefore "wrong"... -- but (i) I have always found myself (mostly) in empathy with what he writes (academically and personally -- and in combination); and (ii) I have seen plenty of evidence to believe that his advocacy is not a new thing (which seems implied, at least once, above).

No doubt Tom's perspective has changed, along with his condition... -- doesn't it for all of us...? -- but I think the 'solidity' of his core beliefs (from where I stand) has never wavered.... It is those beliefs (I believe) -- along with hard graft, of course -- that have earned him his position in academia, etc.; and, therefore, his column, here.

Some of us may not like that -- for whatever reason... -- but I really do not think we need to get personal over it....

*[I'm sure this will make me as popular as Tom: but I offer it only as an insight from years of observation and silence....] There often appears to be a hierarchy of disabilities that can come into play when making judgments on others' opinions: whether it is based on length of time, severity, type, or even non-existence.... [A lot of early "activists" were, as I remember, non-disabled -- and this seems to have made them the most judgmental and most voluble (if that's the right word...) of all.]

Why this should be, I leave for others to decide or discover. I just wonder, sometimes, why this drives some of the comments that are made...?

[My non-disabled partner has just asked why we all seem to argue so much "when you would think that [we] would all want the same thing" (meaning 'disability rights' and their definition...). Maybe we do; maybe we don't, though? Perhaps it's not what we want, but what we're motivated by...?]
Hacker Gary McKinnon's asperger review 9:40pm on 30 Jul 2009 There was a play on Radio 4, some time back, that dramatized Gary McKinnon's 'hacking' and its consequences. I don't know whether it's available on iPlayer, or anywhere on the BBC's websites, but it is well worth listening to (or reading, if you can get your hands on the script). It demonstrates just what his intentions were; and the fact that he did no harm whatsoever... -- in fact, he probably did the paranoid US military a favour: in pointing out just how lax their security was....

Please don't let this man suffer any more. I know what it is like to have Asperger's. And he should not be punished (more) for being slightly different to the majority....
Caption Competition 11:15am on 10 Jul 2009 Antony Gormley: the artist formally known as Plinth.
Chrome - living in a Google world? 7:25pm on 08 Jul 2009 It may not win over the majority of users' hearts: but this looks to me to be very similar to what Palm's Web OS is doing for the smartphone/PDA market. How many people out there simply use their computers for web-oriented tasks; and how long before others move to cloud-oriented models of behaviour? I don't think Apple have anything to worry about whatsoever (Tim Cook's scathing comment about netbooks shows that they're either not interested in this space; or that they will continue to revolutionize it, as they have done with the iPhone 3GS and the iPod touch); but, sooner or later, the business world has to see that the ball chained around their ankle labelled Micro$oft isn't necessarily the only way to limp forward.

I'm not saying that Google's OS is the only alternative: but that it may be the idea that's got the marketing oomph behind it that finally wakes people up to the alternatives....

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