Posts Tagged ‘fail’
Self-deprecating humor fail
Yesterday, at a conference, I was speaking with a colleague who is rather essential in her area. A woman who was also clearly an critical particular person, and also obviously deaf, came up to speak to my colleague, suggesting that their two organizations may operate together.
Her interpreter was signing everything we mentioned. I acknowledged him, because he had, for the previous hour, been up in front of the space signing for a plenary session of the conference. I told her that I believed he had done a marvelous task in the course of that session.
The woman informed me, proudly, that her interpreter is ready to sign fluently in 7 different languages.
“Wow,” I replied enthusiastically, “that’s impressive!” adding, in my very best self-deprecating manner, that I, on the other hand, am still working on my English.
She then asked me, really politely, what my 1st language was.
“Oh,” I stammered weakly, realizing only too late that some thing had been lost in translation, “my initial language is English.”
Scifi fail
I’ve enjoyed watching the BBC science fiction Television series “Torchwood” (a Dr. Who spin-off). I watch it on NetFlix, which signifies that I have a tendency to see episodes extended soon after they had been initially broadcast. Last evening I saw an episode from season three, initially aired in 2009. This wonderful season consisted of a single really extended narrative spread over 5 gripping and effectively produced episodes. But there was a technical detail that threw me completely for a loop.
It’s a given that most scifi will introduce some sort of scientific element that does not truly exist in right now’s planet. This may well be make contact with with an alien race, or a long term technological advancement, or some as-yet-undiscovered human capability. Such premises are a fundamental portion of the entertaining and interest of the genre. But it’s quite an additional point if a perform of science fiction violates its personal premises. And that’s just what happens in the otherwise superb third season of Torchwood.
In specific, our intrepid Torchwood team use a genuinely nifty technological innovation: Make contact with lens cameras. These helpful small gadgets appear specifically like ordinary make contact with lenses, but when you put them on, a remotely positioned colleague with a laptop computer can see everything you see.
It turns out that there is a limitation: the lenses can see, but they can’t hear. The only way the remote operator can understand what a individual is saying is if the cyber-get in touch with lenses are looking at the individual’s face. Then sophisticated image processing software package can analyze the speaker’s lip movements, printing the now acknowledged speech as text on the laptop screen.
Am I the only person who thinks there is some thing deeply wrong with this technology situation?