~ established 2008 ~
Archive for the ‘Media publishing adequate content’ Category.
Im Jahr 2011 stellten mein Arzt und ich einen Antrag bei der IV und bei meiner Krankenkasse. Es ging um die Durchfuehrung einer Krukenbergoperation. Dabei würde der Unterarmstumpf so aufgetrennt, dass zwischen Radius (Speiche) und Ulna (Elle) eine Greifzange entsteht.
Sarah Herron, the “girl with one arm”, one of the competitors, candidates or bachelorettes in the The Bachelor series where a guy – here, he is called Sean – gets to meet a few dozen women and pick one “to spend the rest of his life with”, is a below elbow amputee. So I found it rather interesting to review the series from point of view of disability dating and what else there is in terms of social aspects.
Sheila Niremberg, PhD, is a researcher at Cornell University and she runs the Niremberg Lab. There, she generally appears to chase the question “How do networks of neurons process information?”.
Recently it appears they developed an encoder and transducer unit that allows to replace the eye up to the optical nerve. This, and the way they go about this, is ground breaking. I cannot conceal that I instantly became a great fan of hers : )
Continue reading ‘Sheila Niremberg – bionic eye encoding ~ solved [technical miracle]’ »
Hugh Herr is a double leg amputee who comes up with new prosthetic designs that are out there in terms of manufacturing and selling to everybody – far too complex, far too expensive.
But great promises go along with them. From these, he and contemporary ”bionic limb” representatives generate these utterly unrealistic trumpet-sound like promises that sound too good to be true and they are always the same.
If these hype aficionados restricted their trara to prosthetic legs it’d be alright as sooner or later they sure could advertise to build a 3000 horsepower leg system that propels people at jumbolino airplane speeds – but inasmuch as prosthetic arms are concerned, I take a personal interest (remember the title of the blog here that you clicksed on?).
So interestingly, i-Limbs and its likes also repeat to be mentioned – apparently a “bionic” hand is “bad ass” looking. Well, by the sound it is not bad-ass at all. It may be bad ass looking maybe to some people that never stopped playing with puppets, but entirely useless to do anything even remotely real bad-ass for everyone out there.
To merge man and machine, that was what part again that Hugh Herr wants to merge to the man? Yes that part? Ah, a “machine“. Now, that’s gotta actually be a machine in the very narrow sense of the word: a functional well designed, well engineered piece of engineering that actually functions (rather than just visually represents) to accomplish a task and to perform work. Let that melt on your tongue before moving on (we are talking about prosthetic hands and arms, right? remember the title of my blog?) – p-e-r-f-o-r-m w-o-r-k.
Continue reading ‘Hugh Herr and the rest of the world [phantasy talk, science fiction, hype]’ »
I watched the movie Home of the Brave (2006) (summary in German / English) and still feel nauseous and wretched from that. That movie hit too close to home. That is because Jessica Biel really nailed it. It was not just good. It was so good I almost puked.
Even more so because it seems like she just takes a (part of a) 100 minute walk through some of the more uncomfortable if not painful aspects of (also) my life, she manages to plug in some of the real monsters that populate(d) my daily roller coaster of my life, switch them on, wiggle them a bit – and after that, and in all beauty and elegance, she manages to walk out of the movie and into her own perfect actress world. She even said in an interview that “it is work, you get there, you get emotional, you do your thing, you have got to let go and move on to the next scene”. She must be an acting machine, managing that dive-in and dive-out with real elegance. Leaving everyone else trying to get some fresh air and wonder why some buttons of their jacket still remain stuck in the button holes – despite even having a prosthetic arm. Great acting, absolutely great work – but, phew.
But I anticipate too much, too early. Let me write in temporal sequence.
In that movie, Biel plays Vanessa Price. Vanessa gets injured in Iraq, loses her right arm below the elbow and the story then shows how she deals with some situations as a recently amputated right below elbow amputee who happened to also have lost her dominant hand. Wait, she lost what? Screw it. I knew why I felt this concerns me too.
Get it here:
Continue reading ‘Home of the Brave (2006) [movie portrayal of right below elbow amputee issues]’ »
All media frenzy over hyped up issues fade, all distortions pale against Alanna Henderson’s account which deeply resonates with me.
Continue reading ‘Alanna Henderson: Picking up the pieces [interview crosspost]’ »
This is a new occurrence – refreshing, well done and informative. That is the way things are done. Exactly that is what everyone expects everyone else to do. Chill, be nice.
Watch it. This is very instructive.
Continue reading ‘Stigmatization and demonization VII – proper attitude [that's how it's done]’ »
The Carnes arm here has some previous entries, check them out.
Now, Mark actually visited the man that sold him the Carnes arm ‘over Internet connection and friends’ (Mark: anytime again : ) Turns out things are now really going in the right direction.
Particularly for transhumeral amputees, I believe the Carnes arm has a lot going for it, but it definitely needs a tune up both in terms of materials and ease of clockwork. With osseointegration, you want light weight and as much integrated function as ever possible. Combining elbow flexion and supination is one really good example of a possibly sensible integration over several joints.
As far as I am aware, even combined hand and wrist motion, leave alone hand – wrist – elbow combinations, are really nothing our current commercial consumer product designers do consider in their current “all things are called now ‘bionic’” rage. So as every now and so often, amputees have to look out for themselves.
It really appears that the Carnes arm re-engineering now is underway as I read this hot off the press news. Great stuff.
Continue reading ‘Carnes arm getting re-engineered by an Australian [news]’ »
