Somewhat Silent

** If you’re on twitter, please something on this and post http://tinyurl.com/cchange and include #cchange in the post as well.  **
Dear President-Elect Obama (And technical crew)

We greatly appreciate your efforts for accessibility, and the sentiments that you expressed on your site. We understand that transcripts are generally considered “adequate” accommodations for the Deaf and hard of hearing… However, I’d like to point something out that might not have occurred to you or to anyone on your staff.

If you are communicating to the American people using video, the way you are on change.gov, transcripts are worthless.

Perhaps that sounds a bit harsh. But it’s true. Transcripts are worthless. A speech, an address, a video appeal to the American People is not meant to be an article or the written word. They are different formats. A transcript is devoid of a good 45% of meaning for Deaf people. We rely as heavily on facial expressions and the pacing of words as most people rely on tone of voice. We read a person’s face as we read the closed captioning, alternating between lipreading and text. Between your words and your expressions.

We fought long and hard to bring closed captioning to most television shows, just in time for the internet to take over and destroy our efforts. Very little video on the web is captioned or accessible. The technology advances have catapulted us back into the dark ages of accessibility in many ways.

This does not have to be.

Adobe has added closed captioning features to Flash, and the service that you use: Youtube, has recently announced closed captioning made easy. Please take advantage of this feature.

Over 10% of the population has a hearing impairment. On top of that, many people have speech processing disorders and find that closed captions assist them in understanding what they are hearing. On top of that, many Americans speak English as a second (or third or fourth) language and find that being able to read along with what they hear helps them to better understand.

Closed captioning is tremendously valuable to a huge demographic. Please open your videos up to everyone that wishes to watch them. Please lead the Internet back in the direction of accessibility.
Thank you.

Write to the Obama team here: http://change.gov/page/s/contact  and request that they close caption their videos. Transcripts were fine, but now closed captioning has come to the web and it’s time for the web to catch up.
* The videos referenced are those at http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/your_weekly_address_from_the_president_elect/

* The closed caption feature of YouTube is detailed here: http://www.youtube.com/t/captions_about

* You can view what people are saying about this either in the comments below, or on twitter here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cchange

* We in no way blame Obama or his administration for the lack of the closed captioning. It is a new feature of YouTube and flash in general. However, it is a feature that they NEED to make use of.

So, is anyone still active around here on Somewhat Silent or has this blog site died out?

-A

I will be working with an interpreter next year, I was still only thinking about it when I heard from the interpreter yesterday and said that it already has been confirmed for next year…

thing is, My understanding and reading of sign is very good, but my production of sign is crap to say the least, but I dont really need to because I have my voice and im not afraid to use it! So I will be combining lipreading, sign and speaking to make it through my degree next year. Will it work?

I have never worked with a terp before, but I know her and her sign is very clear and I understand her very good, but I am just a bit nervous as I usually stick to myself in college to get things done, having someone with me all the time is going to be different, any sugestions for a newbie with a terp?

cheers.

…for what the ‘breathing through my ears’ feeling actually is!

I went in to the specialist yesterday for my first review since the operation in January and there was good and bad news.

Good news: My ear drum is healed. and I have been given an explanation to what this sensation I and everyone else on here has been having!

Bad News: My left ear drum is healed but is retracted again and it is inevitable that fluid will build up again very soon, and they dont want to risk putting tubes back in as my drums wont be able to take it, and the fluid will detieorate the middle ear bones and my residule hearing will suffer regardless!

Also… there is no cure for the sensation of breathing through your ears!…

What it is: My estachian tubes are in a constant state of dysfunction, they are always closed and in a constant state of pressure. I dont breath or hear or feel the way whats considered to be normal. My estachian tubes are under developed. This breathing through my ears is when the tubes open for a brief moment and actually function properly as they are supposed to!!!!

But because I have lived with this all my life, this feeling is hurtfull and uncomfortable. when I pinch my nose and suck in to make the discomfort go away, all im doing is putting my estachian tubes back into a state of dysfunction, which is what im used to and what feels normal to me!

He was honest and he said, he wouldnt give me false hopes, he said there is no cure whatso ever and that I will just have to learn to live with it.

He said it is common for people who have PET or ETD (Palatous estachian tube, or estachian tube dysfunction) I have the latter and this is my situation.

yours may be different to mine, but to be honest I dont mind that there is no cure, I wish there was but at least I have an answer

So its official, I have to have my tenth operation on the 21st of Febuary, read more at my blog: www.kimododreams.com/lette/?p=329 because I cant add all the links on here! cheers