...To blogging and the frustrations of job hunting
Oh my! You thought I died in a plane crash on the way home from Milwaukee last summer, didn’t you? Well, I did not. I’m still alive, though I can’t really say “well.” I’ve been going a bit insane looking for a job over the past three months. I have a degree! I can write. I can edit. I can organize. I can use a copier, a fax machine, a scanner, the internet, and all your basic Microsoft Office programs. Now will somebody please hire me? I’ve had all kinds of things I could have written about in terms of my experience as a young person with hearing loss over the past few months, but I was either too busy working or too busy trying to find work and better techniques for doing so.
I’ve been attending workshops at the One-Stop (a place for job seekers organized by the state) and they all say that staring at job boards all day is not the way to go about getting a job. The real trick is networking. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, and I do the best I can using social media sites and whatnot, but what about real, human, face to face interaction? Let’s say I go to a job fair. There are a hundred people in one room, most of them trying to get a job, and all of them talking at once. My head is reeling. I try talking to a few people, but I just end up nodding as if I heard what they said, when I really didn’t hear more than a few words. The one thing I do understand is that they aren’t looking for English majors. I even joined Toastmasters and used this phrase in my first speech: “Job fairs aren’t exactly hard of hearing friendly, but then again they aren’t exactly English major friendly either.”
I can’t even manage turning ordinary social events into networking opportunities. I was at my cousin’s wedding reception yesterday. They had a DJ booming music inside. Most of the people outside were busy supervising children in the bounce house. Before the wedding I made a few business cards to hand out, but with my hearing loss and introversion I found it nearly impossible to talk to anyone who wasn’t already familiar with me and my hearing loss. It was quite frustrating.
Don’t even get me started on the difficulty in determining how much to disclose about my hearing loss to potential employers. I know the laws, and I know that they all claim to be “equal opportunity employers,” but I can’t help but wonder how much of an influence my hearing loss may have on their decision, consciously or unconsciously. My hearing loss (and my introversion) are what the people at the One-stop call “barriers to employment.” That isn’t to say I’m not in the midst of trying to overcome them, but it’s sure been a challenging ride.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I'm Off!
I'm leaving for the airport to go to the convention in about half an hour. Be sure to follow me at
http://hlaaconvention.blogspot.com
Sorry, no time to fidget with it and make it a link. Just copy and paste.
http://hlaaconvention.blogspot.com
Sorry, no time to fidget with it and make it a link. Just copy and paste.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
HLAA Convention
Check it out. I'm going to be blogging for the HLAA convention.
FYI: Whatever blog updates I make in the next 2 or 3 weeks or so will most likely be on there.
FYI: Whatever blog updates I make in the next 2 or 3 weeks or so will most likely be on there.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Music and Cool Gadgets
I've been working at my current temp job for over a month now. My boss had said long ago that I could bring in an iPod or something of that sort to work so I don't die of boredom. (I'm doing some really tedious work organizing a room full of personnel files, but hey, they're paying me a real wage, so I can't complain). I tend to feel kind down when left to my tedious file sorting, but since I started listening to music while I work I feel a lot better. I guess music therapy really does work. In fact, I have a friend graduating with her degree in music therapy tomorrow.
Anyway, it took me a while to figure out how to go about finding some sort of music player to bring in. My new hearing devices are cool since I can’t stand headphones. They’re either big and bulky and irritate the back of my ear, or they’re tiny and irritate the inside of my ear. Either way, I have to trade my hearing aid for them and vice versa if someone wants to talk to me. That’s why the iCom and Phonak Versata are so cool. Unfortunately, I don't own an iPod, and my walkman cd player is a bit unwieldy and would take up too much space on the already-cluttered desk. My only other choice was a cheap mp3 player that holds about 30 songs on it. So I ended up using my mp3 player and I'm just about to the point where I'm getting sick of the songs that are on there. They're all good songs, of course. In fact, sometimes I try to quietly sing along, because if I sing too loud I'm likely to be thought of as the crazy girl working in the file room. My cousin read my facebook status and said,
“Sing and dance girl! Who cares if you look crazy. At least you are enjoying yourself. If it makes people around you smile then your listening to music has made their day better too” to which I replied
“ Even if Good Day Sunshine is a happy song, I doubt my singing is going to make anyone’s day better.”
Oh well. The music helps the day of tedious work go by faster at any rate. My boyfriend also said he might give me his old iPod shuffle and buy himself a new one. It sure would be an improvement on what I’ve got, but even with my little digital mp3 player I still feel like the “cool kid.” When I’m in my file room I’m off in my own little world. Remember that cool hearing aid I got a couple months ago? It’s pretty awesome. Even though I haven’t gotten anything except my cell phone to connect with my iCom device wirelessly via Bluetooth, I can plug the device into any headphone jack for audio output and listen directly through my hearing aid, no bothersome headphones necessary!
Even though I’m pretty isolated most of the time, every once in a while someone will come in and ask me something. They don’t know right away that I’m listening to something. I usually have the device around my neck and the wire connected to the mp3 player in my pocket, but I may or may not be listening to music. No one else can tell because I’m not wearing headphones or anything. Someone starts talking to me and I’ll tell them to hold on a second. Seeing me press the button, they’ll start talking again, and I’ll have to tell them to wait just one more second. Because the iCom and mp3 player are connected to my hearing aid it takes another second for the hearing aid to recognize that there’s no sound coming from the device and reconnect me with the real world. When I explained how it worked to my boss she thought it was so cool that she had to bring me over to our co-worker’s office so I could show her, too. Everyone I explain the devices to is pretty impressed, and here I thought I was lame because I don’t have an iPod… I guess my gadgets are pretty cool after all.
Anyway, it took me a while to figure out how to go about finding some sort of music player to bring in. My new hearing devices are cool since I can’t stand headphones. They’re either big and bulky and irritate the back of my ear, or they’re tiny and irritate the inside of my ear. Either way, I have to trade my hearing aid for them and vice versa if someone wants to talk to me. That’s why the iCom and Phonak Versata are so cool. Unfortunately, I don't own an iPod, and my walkman cd player is a bit unwieldy and would take up too much space on the already-cluttered desk. My only other choice was a cheap mp3 player that holds about 30 songs on it. So I ended up using my mp3 player and I'm just about to the point where I'm getting sick of the songs that are on there. They're all good songs, of course. In fact, sometimes I try to quietly sing along, because if I sing too loud I'm likely to be thought of as the crazy girl working in the file room. My cousin read my facebook status and said,
“Sing and dance girl! Who cares if you look crazy. At least you are enjoying yourself. If it makes people around you smile then your listening to music has made their day better too” to which I replied
“ Even if Good Day Sunshine is a happy song, I doubt my singing is going to make anyone’s day better.”
Oh well. The music helps the day of tedious work go by faster at any rate. My boyfriend also said he might give me his old iPod shuffle and buy himself a new one. It sure would be an improvement on what I’ve got, but even with my little digital mp3 player I still feel like the “cool kid.” When I’m in my file room I’m off in my own little world. Remember that cool hearing aid I got a couple months ago? It’s pretty awesome. Even though I haven’t gotten anything except my cell phone to connect with my iCom device wirelessly via Bluetooth, I can plug the device into any headphone jack for audio output and listen directly through my hearing aid, no bothersome headphones necessary!
Even though I’m pretty isolated most of the time, every once in a while someone will come in and ask me something. They don’t know right away that I’m listening to something. I usually have the device around my neck and the wire connected to the mp3 player in my pocket, but I may or may not be listening to music. No one else can tell because I’m not wearing headphones or anything. Someone starts talking to me and I’ll tell them to hold on a second. Seeing me press the button, they’ll start talking again, and I’ll have to tell them to wait just one more second. Because the iCom and mp3 player are connected to my hearing aid it takes another second for the hearing aid to recognize that there’s no sound coming from the device and reconnect me with the real world. When I explained how it worked to my boss she thought it was so cool that she had to bring me over to our co-worker’s office so I could show her, too. Everyone I explain the devices to is pretty impressed, and here I thought I was lame because I don’t have an iPod… I guess my gadgets are pretty cool after all.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Some Exciting Updates!
I've been pretty busy with work and work related issues. I haven't posted anything at all since I started a temp job at the beginning of April, but I have good reason to get back into blogging mode... Today I received an e-mail from Nancy Macklin, Director of Events and Marketing for HLAA, and she offered to make me the OFFICIAL BLOGGER for the Hearing Loss Association of America's national convention in Milwaukee next month! Also, I haven't blogged in so long, I never announced that I'd won a scholarship to the convention! I and 5 other young adults each received a complimentary convention package as well as $500 for travel and accommodations. This was in addition to the two Rocky Stone scholarships for this year's convention.
If anyone has never gone to an HLAA convention and is interested in going next year, be sure to apply for a scholarship at the beginning of the year (applications are typically due by the end of March). The scholarships are only for first-timers and HLAA is always trying to encourage more young adults to attend!
I attended a leadership training for the Southern California division of HLAA in March which was fun. A lot of it was for leaders of established HLAA chapters,
but it was informative nonetheless.
Let's see, what else? My hearing aid is working fairly well now. Turns out the beeping noise I thought was some sort of "interference" was just the low battery warning.
My old aid supposedly had that but I never heard it. It just sort of gradually went out. The volume control is awesome. I didn't have that one on my old one. The t-coil for landline phones is a lot better than the one for my old one. I wish I could tell if it works well in looped rooms, but I never come across any. With all this HLAA talk maybe I should actually attend a meeting to try it out. They always have the room looped.
Other than HLAA stuff, I also missed an opportunity to spread the word about the awesome new documentary "See What I'm Saying!" It's about 4 deaf performers and includes spoken words, ASL and captions! It's the first commercial film of its kind in that respect. It was really inspiring and I could especially relate to a lot of what
hard of hearing singer, TL Forsberg, had to say about being hard of hearing in a hearing world with a completely separate Deaf culture. I saw it with some friends in LA
on opening weekend and it was amazing. Seriously, if you're Deaf, deaf, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, have fully functional hearing, I don't care what your status
is as someone with a hearing loss or not, go see it! Apparently with help from people like me and my friends spreading the word the film is doing really well and has been opened up for more screenings in LA and around the country! So go see it! Look for local showings and show your support for this amazing film. Tell all your friends. It really is an inspiring flick.
The only other new thing I can think of is the fact that I'm having some issues with a certain job position right now and I'm investigating to figure out if I might have an EEO (equal employment opportunity) or ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) case here, but first I'm going to try to rationally settle the dispute. It's rather personal and I'd rather not get everyone up in arms about equal rights if I can calmly come to a reasonable agreement with said employer. That said, I think I may have covered everything. I'll be sure to post again soon, so if I can think of any other updates I will be blogging about those in the near future.
If anyone has never gone to an HLAA convention and is interested in going next year, be sure to apply for a scholarship at the beginning of the year (applications are typically due by the end of March). The scholarships are only for first-timers and HLAA is always trying to encourage more young adults to attend!
I attended a leadership training for the Southern California division of HLAA in March which was fun. A lot of it was for leaders of established HLAA chapters,
but it was informative nonetheless.
Let's see, what else? My hearing aid is working fairly well now. Turns out the beeping noise I thought was some sort of "interference" was just the low battery warning.
My old aid supposedly had that but I never heard it. It just sort of gradually went out. The volume control is awesome. I didn't have that one on my old one. The t-coil for landline phones is a lot better than the one for my old one. I wish I could tell if it works well in looped rooms, but I never come across any. With all this HLAA talk maybe I should actually attend a meeting to try it out. They always have the room looped.
Other than HLAA stuff, I also missed an opportunity to spread the word about the awesome new documentary "See What I'm Saying!" It's about 4 deaf performers and includes spoken words, ASL and captions! It's the first commercial film of its kind in that respect. It was really inspiring and I could especially relate to a lot of what
hard of hearing singer, TL Forsberg, had to say about being hard of hearing in a hearing world with a completely separate Deaf culture. I saw it with some friends in LA
on opening weekend and it was amazing. Seriously, if you're Deaf, deaf, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, have fully functional hearing, I don't care what your status
is as someone with a hearing loss or not, go see it! Apparently with help from people like me and my friends spreading the word the film is doing really well and has been opened up for more screenings in LA and around the country! So go see it! Look for local showings and show your support for this amazing film. Tell all your friends. It really is an inspiring flick.
The only other new thing I can think of is the fact that I'm having some issues with a certain job position right now and I'm investigating to figure out if I might have an EEO (equal employment opportunity) or ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) case here, but first I'm going to try to rationally settle the dispute. It's rather personal and I'd rather not get everyone up in arms about equal rights if I can calmly come to a reasonable agreement with said employer. That said, I think I may have covered everything. I'll be sure to post again soon, so if I can think of any other updates I will be blogging about those in the near future.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Technological Advancements
They're really great, aren't they? Especially for the hearing impaired. I haven't updated in a while. I've been focusing on the job search. However, I have some very important updates, to be detailed further in another blog when I have more time and have discovered more about these things. Anyway, here are three technological advances that have either affected me or I hope will have a positive effect on my life and the lives of other hard of hearing, hearing impaired, deaf, and Deaf people in the near future!
1) Google announced today that auto captioning will be available to everyone! I'm excited. The sample video of Obama's speech about the earthquakes in Chile looks really good. Read the official YouTube blog for more information. I will update as I learn more about this, but the update was just made today.
2) I've been hearing more and more about a kind of captioning glasses- similar to the concept of 3D glasses- that have been developed by a group of grad students at UCLA. I missed the opportunity to attend a focus group to test these glasses, but I hear they're trying to figure out how to market them in the near future. This is such an awesome idea. With these glasses everyone who wants to see captions would be able to, and those hearing people who are bothered or distracted by captions won't have to see them. It's really an ingenious invention. Sure movie theaters offer a limited number of captioned showings of each movie they play, but I don't think it's enough. At any given theater, they will show a movie with captions for 2 or 3 days, 1 or 2 showings per day, during the whole month they're showing the flick. Who says my friends and I aren't just as busy as "hearing" people? Who says we can fit our schedules together during such a small time frame? Well, the movie theaters say we should be able to or just wait for the film to come out on DVD. It's just not right. I'm hoping these glasses get on the market soon, because they'd definitely solve the problem. Then again, waiting for DVD has its advantages, too. For one thing you can rent a DVD for 5 bucks instead of paying for tickets at 10 bucks a pop, plus whatever buying or renting these glasses might cost. Ideally they would be widely available for free to those who need/want them for accessibility purposes, but we do not live in a perfect world, so I suspect that it may cost us something to use this great new technology. It would definitely be worth it, though. I'll post more once I learn more about them.
3) I recently got my new blue tooth enabled hearing aid, the Phonak Versata P in cobalt/black and was scheduled to go in for a follow up today to tell the audiologist what needs to be adjusted. However, that's not going to happen until tomorrow, and boy do I have reasons to complain. I've only been wearing my new aid off and on because it bugs me so much. Oh, don't get me wrong. The blue tooth is awesome. Of course, I'm still getting used to the fact that I can just press a button on a device around my neck to answer the phone instead of searching the room for my phone, and there's a bit of interference, but for the most part it's been cool. I haven't gotten it to connect wirelessly with my laptop yet, but the device I got with it can be plugged into any ordinary headphone jack for audio input. It's still a pain to be plugged into my computer, but it's so much better to be hearing directly from my aid instead of having to take it out and put on huge headphones that press my glasses into my head. The most annoying thing that's been happening is that the interference- at least I think it's the interference- causes any little bang, clang, clap or snap to trigger a loud popping noise directly in my ear. I have to either switch out to my old hearing aid or put it on mute in order to do the dishes. Otherwise I'd go insane. The click, click, click when I turn on the gas burner on the stove? Pretty much unbearable. Sometimes even just typing loudly can trigger it. I'm hoping either it's something temporary or that it's an easy fix. Otherwise I really am likely to go insane. I started hearing this "beeeep beeeep", like one of those emergency tests on television, and it was getting more frequent with time. It took me a while to figure out that maybe it was an indication that the battery was low. My previous hearing aids supposedly had "warning beeps" but I never heard them. My aid just sort of slowly died. I'd be able to turn it off and on again and get it to work for another 5 minutes a few times until it finally died completely. I was also told that with my old aid my batteries would each last about two weeks, but this one seemed to go much faster. I don't know if it has to do with how often I've been plugging it in to the computer or what, but I changed the battery and guess what? The beeping has stopped. We'll see what happens at the audiologist tomorrow. It would be really cool if I could get this thing to connect wirelessly with my computer. We shall see.
1) Google announced today that auto captioning will be available to everyone! I'm excited. The sample video of Obama's speech about the earthquakes in Chile looks really good. Read the official YouTube blog for more information. I will update as I learn more about this, but the update was just made today.
2) I've been hearing more and more about a kind of captioning glasses- similar to the concept of 3D glasses- that have been developed by a group of grad students at UCLA. I missed the opportunity to attend a focus group to test these glasses, but I hear they're trying to figure out how to market them in the near future. This is such an awesome idea. With these glasses everyone who wants to see captions would be able to, and those hearing people who are bothered or distracted by captions won't have to see them. It's really an ingenious invention. Sure movie theaters offer a limited number of captioned showings of each movie they play, but I don't think it's enough. At any given theater, they will show a movie with captions for 2 or 3 days, 1 or 2 showings per day, during the whole month they're showing the flick. Who says my friends and I aren't just as busy as "hearing" people? Who says we can fit our schedules together during such a small time frame? Well, the movie theaters say we should be able to or just wait for the film to come out on DVD. It's just not right. I'm hoping these glasses get on the market soon, because they'd definitely solve the problem. Then again, waiting for DVD has its advantages, too. For one thing you can rent a DVD for 5 bucks instead of paying for tickets at 10 bucks a pop, plus whatever buying or renting these glasses might cost. Ideally they would be widely available for free to those who need/want them for accessibility purposes, but we do not live in a perfect world, so I suspect that it may cost us something to use this great new technology. It would definitely be worth it, though. I'll post more once I learn more about them.
3) I recently got my new blue tooth enabled hearing aid, the Phonak Versata P in cobalt/black and was scheduled to go in for a follow up today to tell the audiologist what needs to be adjusted. However, that's not going to happen until tomorrow, and boy do I have reasons to complain. I've only been wearing my new aid off and on because it bugs me so much. Oh, don't get me wrong. The blue tooth is awesome. Of course, I'm still getting used to the fact that I can just press a button on a device around my neck to answer the phone instead of searching the room for my phone, and there's a bit of interference, but for the most part it's been cool. I haven't gotten it to connect wirelessly with my laptop yet, but the device I got with it can be plugged into any ordinary headphone jack for audio input. It's still a pain to be plugged into my computer, but it's so much better to be hearing directly from my aid instead of having to take it out and put on huge headphones that press my glasses into my head. The most annoying thing that's been happening is that the interference- at least I think it's the interference- causes any little bang, clang, clap or snap to trigger a loud popping noise directly in my ear. I have to either switch out to my old hearing aid or put it on mute in order to do the dishes. Otherwise I'd go insane. The click, click, click when I turn on the gas burner on the stove? Pretty much unbearable. Sometimes even just typing loudly can trigger it. I'm hoping either it's something temporary or that it's an easy fix. Otherwise I really am likely to go insane. I started hearing this "beeeep beeeep", like one of those emergency tests on television, and it was getting more frequent with time. It took me a while to figure out that maybe it was an indication that the battery was low. My previous hearing aids supposedly had "warning beeps" but I never heard them. My aid just sort of slowly died. I'd be able to turn it off and on again and get it to work for another 5 minutes a few times until it finally died completely. I was also told that with my old aid my batteries would each last about two weeks, but this one seemed to go much faster. I don't know if it has to do with how often I've been plugging it in to the computer or what, but I changed the battery and guess what? The beeping has stopped. We'll see what happens at the audiologist tomorrow. It would be really cool if I could get this thing to connect wirelessly with my computer. We shall see.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
YouTube
So I just submitted this blog for a possible "unpaid social media internship." It sounds like I'd be getting to do the same stuff I always do, but I'd get to put on my resume that I did it for a company, albeit one that's just starting up. Anyway, here it is.
The day I discovered YouTube was a very unproductive day. Here were thousands of videos available to watch as I procrastinated on school projects and looked for things to entertain myself with. However, since that day, something had always frustrated me as a hard of hearing person. There were no captions available for most videos. The only time I saw words on the screen was when the audio consisted of a song playing in the background and the visuals consisted of the lyrics to the song. Don't get me wrong. That can be cool sometimes, but I've gotten frustrated with user-made videos in which people speak at a fast pace or mumble or have a funny accent. Unlike my friends who were born deaf or lost their hearing at a young age I'm not very good at lip reading and my mom always worries that I'm doing even more damage to my ears when I wear headphones with the volume turned up. Naturally, when I heard that YouTube was going to make it easy for users to add captions to their videos I got pretty excited. I'd been waiting for something like this to come along.
Then I realized- months after this announcement had been made- that hardly anyone was using this option. The little [cc] button was there for most videos, but 95% of the time rolling over it just gave me a message that read "captions are not available." Recently, I decided to investigate. I made a YouTube account and a short, 20 second video on my digital camera. Then I posted the video and researched how to add captions. I figured when YouTube said it was "easy" to add captions that it was a simple cut and paste sort of thing, the kind of mindless activity that allows any moron to post a blog. Apparently, I was wrong.
The first thing that was a bit annoying was that I had to "research" how to add the captions. It was not clearly explained on a main page on YouTube, though there were a few videos explaining the process, and it was easily found among “help” files on YouTube. With the help of my comp sci major boyfriend, I finally figured it out. You have to create a special "SRT" file that can be created in notepad. It involves numbering the captions in order and timing them within the video. It looks something like this:
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000
(hr:min:sec to hr:min:sec)
Hello, everybody
Welcome to my video
Now, this was fairly easy to do for my entire 20 second clip. However, I can see how it might get tedious for a 5, 10 or 20 minute video. An entire movie would be extremely time consuming. Consider writing the file, uploading it to the video, playing the video, fixing the timing or wording accordingly in the SRT file, refreshing the page and going through that process over and over.
Google has come up with technology including voice recognition and automatic timing. However, the use of this new technology is limited. It's only available to some government channels and Google partners. Feel free to watch this interesting video about the need for captioning and the new technology that's being developed.
If you'd like help adding captions to your own YouTube video you can go to the YouTube help page .
I appreciate captions on videos that I watch even more now that I know how much work it actually is for most people to add them. However, being the lazy Web 2.0 user that I am, I can understand why most people don't bother. We're not all the type of pros who make fancy html web pages every day. All I can say is that I look forward to the day when Google perfects its captioning technology for mass use and all web content will be fully accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing.
The day I discovered YouTube was a very unproductive day. Here were thousands of videos available to watch as I procrastinated on school projects and looked for things to entertain myself with. However, since that day, something had always frustrated me as a hard of hearing person. There were no captions available for most videos. The only time I saw words on the screen was when the audio consisted of a song playing in the background and the visuals consisted of the lyrics to the song. Don't get me wrong. That can be cool sometimes, but I've gotten frustrated with user-made videos in which people speak at a fast pace or mumble or have a funny accent. Unlike my friends who were born deaf or lost their hearing at a young age I'm not very good at lip reading and my mom always worries that I'm doing even more damage to my ears when I wear headphones with the volume turned up. Naturally, when I heard that YouTube was going to make it easy for users to add captions to their videos I got pretty excited. I'd been waiting for something like this to come along.
Then I realized- months after this announcement had been made- that hardly anyone was using this option. The little [cc] button was there for most videos, but 95% of the time rolling over it just gave me a message that read "captions are not available." Recently, I decided to investigate. I made a YouTube account and a short, 20 second video on my digital camera. Then I posted the video and researched how to add captions. I figured when YouTube said it was "easy" to add captions that it was a simple cut and paste sort of thing, the kind of mindless activity that allows any moron to post a blog. Apparently, I was wrong.
The first thing that was a bit annoying was that I had to "research" how to add the captions. It was not clearly explained on a main page on YouTube, though there were a few videos explaining the process, and it was easily found among “help” files on YouTube. With the help of my comp sci major boyfriend, I finally figured it out. You have to create a special "SRT" file that can be created in notepad. It involves numbering the captions in order and timing them within the video. It looks something like this:
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000
(hr:min:sec to hr:min:sec)
Hello, everybody
Welcome to my video
Now, this was fairly easy to do for my entire 20 second clip. However, I can see how it might get tedious for a 5, 10 or 20 minute video. An entire movie would be extremely time consuming. Consider writing the file, uploading it to the video, playing the video, fixing the timing or wording accordingly in the SRT file, refreshing the page and going through that process over and over.
Google has come up with technology including voice recognition and automatic timing. However, the use of this new technology is limited. It's only available to some government channels and Google partners. Feel free to watch this interesting video about the need for captioning and the new technology that's being developed.
If you'd like help adding captions to your own YouTube video you can go to the YouTube help page .
I appreciate captions on videos that I watch even more now that I know how much work it actually is for most people to add them. However, being the lazy Web 2.0 user that I am, I can understand why most people don't bother. We're not all the type of pros who make fancy html web pages every day. All I can say is that I look forward to the day when Google perfects its captioning technology for mass use and all web content will be fully accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing.
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