Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
OK2TALK Like Hearing Aid From Shockwave Rider
The OK2TALK.org website is designed around a simple idea: let people who feel isolated and unable to connect with anyone to speak about their problems to a sympathetic ear.
The goal of OK2TALK is to create a community for teens and young adults struggling with mental health problems and encourage them to talk about what they’re experiencing by sharing their personal stories of recovery, tragedy, struggle or hope.
Readers of John Brunner's 1970's classic The Shockwave Rider recall a similar idea. A call to the ten nines gets you an anonymous connection with Hearing Aid:
And talks to a blank though lighted screen. It's a service. Imposing no penances, it's kinder than the confessional. Demanding no fees, it's affordable where psychotherapy is not. Offering no advice, it's better than arguing with that son (or daughter) of a bitch who thinks he/she knows all the answers and goes on and on and on until you want to scream.
The anonymity of the call was protected by a special form of the computer worm idea that was also a Brunner original.
Teens and young adults who suffer from mental illness can feel hopeless and alone. Many don’t know what’s wrong with them but feel like it’s their fault. Those who understand what is happening fear they can’t be helped. Because of the stigma attached to mental illness, it’s often hard for those suffering and their families and friends to talk about what they’re going through. But help is available, and it works.
Stonkered or clutched or quite simply going insane, someone reaches for the phone and punches the most famous number on the continent: the ten nines that key you into Hearing Aid.
(Read more about Brunner's hearing aid)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/6/2013)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Culture ")
California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.' John Brunner, 1975.
Chinese Hospital Tries Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' Cosplay
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half
blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.' - Kurt Vonnegut, 1961.
A Remarkable Coincidence
'There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1953.
Is It Time To Forbid Human Driving?
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.' - Bernard Brown, 1934.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Amazing Photonic
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.'
Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.'
Rogue AI Replicated Itself
'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'
HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots
'... all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
When AI Takes Its First Breath
Any suggestions?
Chinese Aircar Light And Airy, Not For Blade Runners
Daytime version.
The Morphing Wheel And The Smartwheel
'If you surf over a bump, the spokes contract to roll over it.'
Transporting Antimatter
'...drawing plans for the magnetic tongs and bed plates and relays.'
Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...'
I Wish This Plaudit Pin Was More Like A Wristpad
'Frank was cursing into his wristpad, switching between Arabic and English.'
World's Largest Teleoperated Arm
'...a pair so huge that Stevens could not conceive a use for it..'
Japan's AI Buddharoid Automonks
'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
