I was out doing things that needed doing, that will eventually warrant their own entry if I ever get around to doing something that doesn’t involve news article mockery, and I got to where I needed to do the mobile version of multitasking. Which, for those who don’t do it very often, involves doing something with one hand (in this case, I think, I was putting something away for Trish), and trying to navigate the insane that is Apple’s obsession with the idea that people who can’t see the screen absolutely have to know exactly where everything is on the screen to be able to use it with the other. Now, I like to think I can do a passable job with it in most cases on a good day, particularly since I’ve had the thing now for about a month and for a couple days during the move, I had that plus the laptop as my only means of actual communication. I can at least not take 10 minutes to find what I need to access anymore, anyway. But trying to translate that into being able to use it the way most people who don’t have a lot of time to be sitting/standing in one place for long need to use their mobile devices? That’s just not happening. Navigate the screen one-handed? Try again. Navigate the thing without a headset? Sure, but I’d recommend doing it with the phone flat in front of you or, if that’s not practical, up side down–the speaker is in a very, and I do mean very, crappy place (Apple, are you taking notes, here?).

I’ve never been an overly large fan of the way Apple’s designed their user interface–for the sighted, nevermind the blind. And don’t even get me started on typing with the thing–that’s an entry for after I’ve had sleep. But this evening’s adventure in interface navigation succeeded only in reinforcing the already enforced idea that such a thing would require a third hand. Making or answering calls? Awesome. I can, in a sort of pinch, manage that without putting everything else on pause–done that more than once. But if I wanted a make and receive calls device, it wouldn’t be made by Apple. I wanted a phone I could use. For on-the-fly whatever–email, texting, bouncing random passing thoughts off of my lately rarely used Twitter profile (I did once, when I had 5 minutes to not do anything), or just general reviewing of info while enroute somewhere potentially meaningful. I’m not feelin’ it with this device. Yeah, great, it talks without costing me an additional $100. Thanks for that, Apple–no, I mean it; my wallet thanks you. But where’s the rest of the plus?

I like the iPhone–for a phone. I could get used to it for other things, with enough brain breakage–except that typing thing, but I’m investigating options. But I’m not in love with this iPhone. Nor, I think, will I ever be–not quite. It’s a device with potential. With the right kind of tweaking, there could be some reality to that potential. But for what it does? I’m not in love with it. For a thing that’s supposed to be the future of smartphones everywhere, that’s a small problem.

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Sometime last week, a University of Ottawa student wound up needing to replace her iPhone. Someone decided she didn’t really need the one she had, so offered–rather forcefully–to take it off her hands. Two things make it headline worthy, according to 1310 news–one of which is untrue. The girl in question was blind–and, if it’s who I’m thinking of, I actually used to know her, and less accurately, the iPhone was incorrectly labeled as being specially designed for her with text to speech software in place. As much as I disagree with apple on several hundred levels, I do have to say they’ve at least done that right–the same text to speech software is available in every iPhone sold, at least in the last year or so. This particular one just so happened to have it enabled. That’s what made it extremely easy, once they decided to do it, for three Rogers employees to replace the phone. Had the technology she was using been specially designed for her use, the story probably wouldn’t have had the ending it did. Now if every news article could end kinda like these ones here, special needs included or otherwise.

Related: If this person’s the same one I’m thinking of, I kinda wondered what happened to her. Now, I know. Thanks, 1310, for that if nothing else.

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I don’t think Bill diamond will be flying American Airlines any time in the near future. Particularly not after a flight attendant on his trip from Pittsburgh to Chicago decided his cane was, in fact, some kind of threat to airline security and promptly asked him to surrender it.

Now, whether or not you agree with how he handled himself during the afair, it’s a no-brainer this shouldn’t have even come up. Especially given the thing was folded when he boarded–after being taken, I’ll add, to the plane in a wheelchair. I’m not even going to get into the whole issue of his being told to hand over his cane under threat of arrest. Well, except to say um, hell no.

A little note to American Airlines. He’s not carrying a weapon. He’s not carrying something that any sane/reasonable person would determine to be a weapon. And it sure as hell wasn’t potentially explosive. It was a tool for mobility, and whether or not he could get around without it–apparently, this one couldn’t according to the article–you don’t get to decide whether or not he has the option. But, thanks for trying. Next time, try a little harder.

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Further proof that blind does not, in fact, mean an easy target, just in case folks are keeping track of things like this. A guy in Windsor, Ontario, walked into apartments belonging to two blind people while they were occupied–one was in the bathroom, for crying out loud–and proceeded to steal from them. His first victim, the one who was in the bathroom, reported her glasses and some jewellery missing to the police, and said she got at least a partial look at the guy doing it on his way out–so, okay, she wasn’t totally blind, but still. The second was kind of an act of stupid on both their parts–the victim was apparently asleep, with his door unlocked. The guy leaving woke him up when the door closed, at which point he discovered his wallet and cell phone missing. When police found him, they called the missing cell phone, still turned on and in his pocket. Can we say busted by ring tone?

Needless to say he’s not doing so hot right now. Still, the fact this guy was specificly targetting blind people–yeah, even if he had some incredibly horrible luck with the ones he picked–puts him in his own, special little category. There’s blind folks out there who, for lack of a better way to put it, don’t have the observational skills or the mental capacity to put it all together if something like that should happen to them. Which I get the impression was what this guy was expecting. I should know–I went to school with a few of them. He could have easily walked in on one of those type, plucked up whatever he was interested in, turned around and left without even breaking a sweat. If anyone noticed at all, by the time they did he’d probably have already done whatever he was going to do with what he stole and realisticly, finding him at that point would be a little more than difficult. These two just happened to be part of a shrinking minority, so he was escentially screwed from the second he opened the first victim’s door. Still, for someone who’d try something like that, regardless to his chances of actually pulling it off without the victim either reporting him or just outright kicking his ass, it takes a special kind of character. There’s a special place in hell for that kind of character, if you believe in such things. Personally, if such places do exist, he’s got himself a first class reservation. Here’s hoping he likes the view.

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Warning: this is a blindness tech related entry. You may read if you wish, or you may not. It’s here either way.

KNFB is usually pretty well known within the blindness community for software, usually for your cell phone, that’s actually useable by folks who can’t see. So you’d think, when they team up with someone who’s got a bit of experience with similar software only for the computer, they’d come out with an accessible solution, right? If you said yes, give your head a shake then keep reading.

Their new e-reading software, available today for the PC and being called Blio, is branded as an accessible reading solution for the disabled. Except for the part where it isn’t. In their defense, they say there’s one coming. In our defense, I say so’s Christmas. Any bets on which one gets here sooner? Now, granted, even if it was accessible I’d very likely not use it–I rarely listen to audiobooks, nevermind the e-variety. But still, if your bread and butter is accessibility, you may not want to flub off on that. Not if you happen to have any sense of self-preservation, anyway.

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Disclaimer: This entry may be offensive to the religiously sensative. I only wrote it; you chose to read it. You have been warned.

I used to see it only on rare occasions, but the more time I spend watching and interacting with the community, the more a patern sticks out that kind of has me at least somewhat scratching my head. There are an aweful lot of blind folks out there who’ve decided to fall into religion. Of the religions out there, the most common one for folks to fall into, at least in my experience, has been Christianity–and not just the absent belief in God, but often times some of the strictest definitions of Christianity.

Some were very likely raised on it, and would have very likely fallen into it whether they were blind or not as a result–there’s an entire sub-entry on that subject I’ll get into when I’ve got a little more brain power. But a surprising number seem to fall into it later in life, and usually fall hard as a result. I sometimes wonder what prompts people to suddenly flip that switch on in their brain that throws them into ultraconservative mode. I’m not sure it’s a particular type of personality or what have you that does it, per say. The more level-headed usually end up being for some reason or another nudged in that general direction by someone/something either known or not to them, whereas folks with less balanced personalities tend to make the decision to do so at the drop of a hat–there are several dozen examples of folks well-known for doing things that most Christians would be convinced they’d be on a fast track to hell for doing, who have suddenly had a change of heart, and overnight seemed to switch off that other lifestyle/persona, and switched on the lifestyle/persona who would have probably sat in a room with their previous one and been more than happy to spend 20 minutes on exactly how many levels of wrong and in exactly how many ways that lifestyle was. And there are still some who, quite probably out of not knowing exactly what they’re trying to accomplish, seem to float somewhere between the two–one minute they’re a Christian, and the next they’re into the whole bondage thing or what have you that, once again, their Christian side would probably want to slap out of them. Twice.

It probably doesn’t help a whole lot when you consider that Christianity in particular, though I suspect other religions as well, regularly refer to blindness as just a part of the evil that God will wash away if you’d just let him–the phrase “Was blind, but now I see” comes to mind. In my view, no one reinforces the viewpoint of blindness being somehow bad/wrong/evil/whatever better than a large portion of Christianity. I can see folks who are uncomfortable/unhappy/disenchanted/whatever about being blind gravitating to it for that, possibly–the thought that if they try hard enough to believe/pray/do all the things a good Christian’s supposed to do, they might possibly regain–or, in some cases, gain–their sight. According to the bible that’s how it’s supposed to work, right?

Is being blind, even having been born so, such a life-altering experience that your only option in most cases is to cling to the first thing that offers to “cure” you, or is there more to it than that? And what about the people who, while they say they’re perfectly comfortable being blind, still cling to a faith who escentially dictates that by virtue of not having a working pair of eyes, they are somehow less equal at best, sick at worst, and the ideal beneficiary of some other honest Christian’s cherrity in either case? What draws them to the church? What keeps them there?

A conversation was had among friends a few weeks ago that really started me thinking about that aspect of this entry. A girl who lives a ways out of the city for her own reasons has to rely on people in her church group to help her with doing her grocery shopping. These people don’t necessarily approve of the way she eats and/or in general keeps herself, and make no bones about trying to change her mind–forcefully, where possible. This includes things like offering to take her for groceries, on the condition that said groceries do not include dog food in the hopes that she’ll get rid of her dogs and move into the city, or the purchase of supposedly healthier products because they don’t approve of her usual choices, in spite of the fact the offending healthier products just so happen to be products she’s apparently alergic to. Yet she stays there, and still goes to that church, and still goes with that group for her groceries in spite of that.

On a more personal level, and one that seems to back up the perception that at worst you’re viewed as sick, on one of my very first few trips down here, Jessica and I were coming back to her apartment from somewhere and we were stopped on the street. A nice, apparently young lady asked us if we knew where a particular church was–the name escapes me at the moment. Not being Christian or having had any other reason to be in or near that church, we didn’t, and told her as much. Then, without missing a beat, she responds, “Well, our service is at 9. You should come–God will heal you.”. When she left, Jess and I stood there and just looked at each other for a minute or two with that “Bwuh?” expression on both our faces, before continuing home. I think the exact words that came out of my mouth when we’d cleared earshot were “Do we need healing?”. Someone clearly thought we did–and that’s probably far less surprising than it should be.

It’s things like that, among several others–but this entry’s already a mile long, that make me wonder just what it is blind people in particular see in it, and why so many, even if they were never really brought up around it, seem to be drawn–or, if you’d prefer, run screaming–towards it. Is there something mixed in with all this other crap that I’m just not seeing? Do people actually like a lot of this other crap? Is it something else entirely that I just plain won’t understand on account of not being one with the collective? I’ve spent years trying to wrap my head around it and only succeed in wrapping it around a headache. Is there some connection here between blindness and faith, or is it just blind faith? Inquiring minds want to know.

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If you’re one of the few blind people on this side of the border that still actually uses braille, you may be looking to learn the inner workings of a new standard. Until recently, Canada’s been relying on the rules of braille as published by the Braille Authority of North America for its teachings to folks growing up learning braille. I was one of those brought up on that system, back when I didn’t have much choice but have everything in braille. There are rumours–albeit unsubstantiated ones, according to my google ability–that we’ll be switching in the near to immediate future to the adopting of Unified English Braille.

What the hell does that mean for anyone who actually still reads braille? Good question. Beyond having to relearn what goes where and when according to a new standard, I’m not exactly sure. I’ve not exactly been keeping up with current braille-related politics–largely due to the fact I don’t generally give a damn. I haven’t really actively used braille since college, and even that was only barely. I’ll be quite surprised if I land myself in a job wherein braille usage is going to be necessary. So, to me, it doesn’t really translate to a whole lot of anything. But to folks who still on a daily basis make use of it, you might be going back to school to relearn how to read. Of course, the CNIB would probably be all over this as something really and truely awesome for blind people everywhere. And why not–they stand to make a kkilling off fund raising to teach the poor lost souls who supposedly depend on them to breathe how to use this new system. But, beyond what it does if anything for CNIB’s publicity, I’d bet my next paycheck on it not having much in the way of significant advantages for anyone else. That is, if I had a next paycheck to bet.

Congrats go out to the industry, though. They ran out of reasons to make blind people in general come off as approximately this far from educated, so they went out and invented one. Ladies and gentlemen, braille is dead. Long live braille.

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As a blind person, I tend to associate with a fair few others in similar situations. Among them, one of the things that crops up every now and again is, “I’d get a braille display, if it would read more than one line of bloody text.”. Which is, rightfully, a valid criticism–I, personally, find it a hundred times faster/easier to just have the computer talk to me than to try and read, for example, some of the news articles I plan to link to on one of today’s braille displays. Fortunately, for folks who happen to be fans of using braille display technology, someone’s looking out for you.

Researchers from North Carolina State University now say they have devised a display that would allow visually challenged users to read a full page at a time — and at a much lower cost than existing displays.

“We have developed a low-cost, compact, full-page braille display that is fast and can be used in PDAs, cellphones and even GPS systems,” says Dr. Peichun Yang, one of the researchers working on the project, who is himself blind.

Braille display tech, meet the mainstream. Next stop, maybe? Quite possibly inside your cell phone. That is, if it ever gets beyond the experimental/theoretical stage. Either way, though, it’s this kinda stuff that keeps me interested in all things geeky. Hey, if you’re blind, this is geeky. Work with me here.

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Since birth, I’ve had glaucoma, which has resulted in, among other things, my retinas being detached–a significant contributing factor to my not having sight. When I was younger, the resulting fluctuations in eye pressure glaucoma triggers made for some very insane headaches. It was discovered that those headaches were as a result of the pressure quite literally being out of controll. Several surgeries later, and they managed to fix that–I’ve gone years without having headaches to that extent or that frequently. The headaches I did get after that point were, well, no different from the types of headaches anyone else would get–and a lot more manageable.

Possibly because of my higher than normal pain tolerence, or because I’ve had and survived more powerful headaches, a typical headache usually doesn’t bother me. I can and usually do go through a normal headache day without breaking stride–anyone who wasn’t me likely wouldn’t know I was dealing with a headache. Where most folks would be reaching for the tylenol or something like it, I’d usually just turn down the TV.

Lately though, I’ve been dealing with more frequent headaches of the type I actually have to take notice of. These particular headaches, one of which I actually spent last night taking care of, usually take up residence right behind my left eye–the one that hasn’t suffered as extensive damage from my dealing with glaucoma. And, more often than not, they usually result in me having to actually take it easy for a few hours until they pass. In the event that doesn’t work, I have been known to pop a tylenol or two to get rid of the last of it.

Because I’ve had pressure issues before, and the symptoms are somewhat similar, I’m partially wondering if it may be the result of the glaucoma starting to get a little more out of controll again. It hasn’t happened since I was like 3 or 4, but that’s not to say it hasn’t started. Since my left eye has pretty much not been all too badly harmed by it, short of the detached retina and the need to replace a cornia, it might very well not be beyond logic to suggest that we might have a tiny case of reappearance in that eye.

Since I’ve been curious anyway about exactly how undamaged the optic nerve actually is in that eye, and–though I don’t know that I’d actually go through with it–if there was a way that, should the nerve still be relatively healthy, it could be put to some use in an attempt to at least give me partial sight, I’ve thought about getting myself in to see a specialist anyway. Never having had sight before, it’s not something I’m all over getting or my world will never be the same or anything, but I like knowing what my options are, should I someday decide hey, this is worth considering. In doing that, I may also bridge the headache topic with the specialist at that time, should I decide to actually go that route. Not to suggest they’re definitely related, but it would be an excuse to see one way or another. Until, if, I actually get around to doing something like that, however, it’ll be business as usual for me. Including whichever down time I need to deal with another just like it. It’s only a few hours–my day’s not completely written off as a result, so I don’t see it as a huge deal. Besides, it could always be worse–I hear migraines are hell.

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