Category: News and Views
I'm sure that this article will bring much discussion and controversy. But I'm honestly interested in what you think.
http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-12-03-blind-man-baffles-neighbourhood
I can't say that I agree with all of Mr. Zaranyika's ideas, particularly not using a cane or guide animal and not using braille in school, but he's obviously proven that he can do it. I also thought the statement "“I am not scared at all for I know I have divine protection from God. I have power within myself that will scare a thief or mugger.”" was a bit ridiculous. Yes, I believe in The Gods, and I think that it's better to live than to be afraid, but there's nothing that anyone has in them that would seriously prevent an attack, unless, perhaps, they look extremely imposing. At any rate, his academic accomplishments are astounding, particularly because they're in maths and science and he did everything verbally. I would love to know how he travels to new places, how he remembered the Pastor's voice and name only one day after meeting him and I'm especially curious as to how on Earth he knew that someone else was driving the car instead of it's owner! My guess is that someone told him or he spoke with the driver and was being funny.
I'm not even sure in which country this took place, but it seems that the blind are accepted there. Still, he mentioned basketry and crafts as possible jobs for the blind, and while I'm thrilled to see someone who doesn't bash these fields, I did find it surprising that he didn't mention more modern/advanced occupations. I would say it might be a cultural thing but he seems to be disproving that idea.
Well I don't know, but I've always felt that the reason more blind folks aren't mugged and whatnot isn't so much due to some moral code in the world of thieves, muggers and murderers but more likely because they feel we're not likely to have anything on us worth stealing. Oh some of us might have assistive tech on us but most people aren't going to know what that is and therefore wouldn't know how much it would be worth. That and if they did attack a blnd person it might create something of the sort of backlashh that child molester's get in prison.
Now there's a logical response! I hadn't thought of some of those.
.zw is the country domain for Zimbabwe, not famous for its universities, however Hadley is a decent school, though I do not think they offer whole online degrees and it is not a university per se, but I might be wrong about that.
I think this article is fake, or at least hugely exaggerated.
You can recognize the sound of an old car while walking somewhere else, that is possible, you can get by without learning braille, you can do math without learning braille (if you have speech), there are just different methods that work for different people. I recently saw a blog post by an Open University professor that said only 15% of visually impaired people in the UK are braille readers (not sure whether he counts all v.i. people or just blind users, either way, lower number than I would have expected).
Sure, it is uplifting and inspiring and all that stuff, I just have a hard time believing it. For one thing any screen reading technology I know off needs an O.S. to run on it, so repairing random computers with software and O.S. problems sounds dodgy (ok, Linux definitely has some functionality in this area, but what are the chances)?
Ok, he might have booted it up from an external CD or hard drive or something, with an O.S. and speech, but I just find it far fetched.
There is no way you can hear steps going down, or a single step, from 20 meters (approx 60 feet), or even closer. May be in a close area with walls so you can read sounds off of it, but in a forest with trees and noises or in a crowded city, I don't buy it.
If you walk very fast and you hit uneven ground or a step down you will hurt yourself.
http://www.hadley.edu/
The article also didn't sound very professional/formal but I chalked that up to the fact that English is probably not the writer's first language. If it is a hoax, it makes me wonder why anyone would go through all that trouble. I personally hate satirical things when they're made out to be real instead of stating somewhere or making it obvious in the text that they're meant not to be taken as fact.
Fake, if you ask me.
I'll address some of these things one by one:
Articles like this, or some things produced by supposed blindness organizations often put a lot of undue pressure on young blind kids to perform at unrealistic levels, levels which never really happened but were there to create a story about a fictional character, or at least fictionalize parts of a character's life.
Personally I'd rather be completely forgotten and never thought of again after I die, than to be fictionalized and had my name used to put real obstacles in people's way for improvement.
As to travelling without a cane and without any form of mobility guidance: This was the way I went as a child, adults being praised for how blind I didn't look. Certain magazines for parents of the blind proffer this as a solution. It's main downfall is an incredibly inefficient system by which you are expected to navigate solely by memory across wide open spaces like an empty field with no sense of real direction, or through and around loud sounds like lawn mowers or chain saws, where your echo / sound / sonar sense is completely and utterly useless to you.
I did cross streets without the use of an aid, much to some adults' peril I think, and while listening for cross-traffic to go will get you across, it's definitely not safe or recommended. The echo or sound shadow or whatever it is, the way sound bounces off of things, can also trick you. If you're relying exclusively on it, as I did as a child, even a change in wind can generate phantom sounds, providing the illusion the coast is clear, and there you go right into a tree.
If any part of this guy's existence is real at all, he's going to age, and as bright and clear as the sonar sense was in my early twenties, it's not so bright and clear now at age 40. Do I still use it? Of course. I have no hearing loss at all, but the sense itself has dulled over time.
Well, makes sense: My wife is fully sighted but she now has a pair of reading glasses. Fortunately for us, we can't hurt our ears straining for certain indicators we used to take for granted, unlike a sighted person squinting at things that used to be clear.
Also, refusal to use anything blind as I said, renders you very very inefficient, no matter what someone gets out of it from a fashion sense. You people helped me immensely on two occasions: once with the recommend of getting a light probe, and once with the Wireless Sound Beacon. Are the numbskulls who write rag mag material too good for this stuff? Probably. However, in the case of the sound beacon, I planted it atop a stump I was working on, then when I came outside with a fresh beer rather than try and remember how many feet or so from the fence I'd left my tools, I pressed the button and went right for the sound.
The other day, I was just starting with my Bluetooth keyboard, and used the light probe to immediately tell what light came on and for which item, e.g. was it ready to pair or not. No guesswork, incredibly efficient. Of course I've known for many years why these LED lights are there, even what colors they often use to mean what, and I know they're extremely useful indicators. Only I have had to use a different way to analyze the situation (not even possible many times), or find someone to ask, explaining what they're looking for, where, and depending on them to know enough to report back something useful. Sometimes, even when it's their stuff and they're asking me for help, they can't really be expected to do this efficiently.
While for most of my life, I've not known of any of this blind technology save a cane, Brailler, slate, and Windows reader, I did reasonably well, there are a lot of ways I've operated extremely inefficiently. Timing, guessing based on what happened with what sound to determine which device or part of a board was on or off, all sorts of work-arounds.
I have recently heard of people who could use a device called the Optacon to read a monitor, albeit slowly, but in a pinch when they needed to address a CMOS issue or deal with a command-line situation - FDisk comes to mind.
Not really that relevant anymore, but had I been allowed to learn that piece of technology, an employer of mine in the 1990s could have profited immensely from my using it, rather than me doing everything via first putting together a network-aware script to re-image someone's box, and second occasionally have to use a human reader to address CMOS, a situation they understandably never liked.
These are just a couple of examples. This is no Reader's Digest tale of 'ooo look how amazing that is' or 'how wonderful you don't use or look like anything blind', it's just gross inefficiency, not just at my expense but the expense of other people who rightfully depend on me.
If this guy is remotely real, or if someone thinks it's cute and fashionable to make their kid or whatever try and emulate this, all that's going to come of it is an extremely frustrated and inefficient set of outcomes. That's really going to show up when this person has people that depend on him / her to get things done, provide, or whatever.
As harsh as this sounds, at the end of the day, nobody cares how non-blind someone looks: They care how much you deliver, how efficiently, and in what sort of a timely manner said delivery happens. And, if you do anything that requires accuracy, how accurate you are. Not using the tools is being a complete fool. A worse fool is the one encouraging him / her to do things that way.
And as I said, I'd rather be completely and utterly forgotten after I die, than to be remembered and fictionalized at other people's expense. That is how strongly I feel about this.
Nothing wrong with applying real standards, but when you take something that was deliberately fictionalized for effect and then apply it as a standard, it's just porn for the one holding up the ideal. What is porn after all? Fictionalized, unrealistic, unreachable, but with the added twist of making it appear totally real. Unlike just straight fantasy, where everyone knows there is no such thing as goblins, or hobbits or whatever, but everyone's having a good time at playing it out.
So people who promote this form of unrealistic expectation are the Larry Flints and people eating it up are the fifty-something trucker jerking it at the remote truck stop. Nothing more.
For some reason, I neglected to paste in my entire post. Here's what I wrote before the Hadley link. I, too, found it a bit bizarre. I know that echo location exists but one of it's main flaws is being able to judge depth. This is why a cane or guide animal is so important. Hadley now partners with certain universities to offer college courses. This is a fairly new program and I'm not sure if they offer degrees, college credit or just experience with college material.
To LeoGuardian: Your points are certainly valid, and for once, we're completely on the same page. I'm all for promoting independence but only what a person could handle, at an appropriate speed and not with pie in the sky ideas like this. Even if this man was real, it should have been stressed that most blind people, while capable of great things, don't do things this way and aren't as independent as him. That way, expectations are taken off children and not seen as realistic by parents and teachers. As I've said before, why anyone would do such a thing, by creating or totally embellishing a man's life, is totally beyond me.
While the idea sounds nice, I seriously couldn't imagine travelling alone without a cane or guide animal or at least a technological aid of some kind. It might be acceptible for someone with a little sight, and certainly for someone with some usable vision, but not for a totally blind individual like myself. I don't like looking blind either but there are some things that simply can't be helped. That said, I'm not really sure how a cane gives a sense of direction. I'm constantly veering, unless I follow a shoreline. I, too, wonder what will happen when this man gets older, assuming he exists. I never thought of it but you're right. Hearing does decline, or at least gets less clear. Still, I never thought that it would happen so early in life and especially not to someone who's blind and who uses it as a main sense. I thought our hearing was slightly better than that of the sighted.
Refusing to use blind technology is plain stupid. I could understand choosing a laptop over a braille notetaker, but even there, you would still need adaptive equipment of some kind if you couldn't see well enough to read the screen or couldn't see at all. The light probe and thewireless sound beacon sound extremely cool! Where did you get them and how much did they cost? I've heard alot about counting steps and such and have never really done that. Usually, if I'm in a familiar environment, I just know where things are located. I can't explain it. Then again, I hardly ever leave anything in the middle of nowhere. I usually put things on tables etc. The only exception is the deck with the pool, since it's huge and I sometimes get lost there. I've heard of led lights but never thought much about them. I don't know what things have them or what colours mean what, though I guess knowing these things can help in certain situations. There are times when Grandma or my boyfriend Spiros will leave the light on when they go and I have no idea until the next day when someone tells me that they saw it on. This is extremely annoying. So I might get that prove to avoid the hastle.
Opticon!!! I want one and have for years! I can only hope that they make something newer and better or that I can find a working one at a decent price. I'd love to be able to read print by touch! The only problem with that device is that it contains a single line of pins so it can't be used for graphics etc. That, and I hear that certain people have had trouble using it. Still, I would love to try one out. Then, I could install DOS and a screenreader without help, plus read food packages etc! Neat!
The issue of hearing being improved over the sighted is a myth mostly made up from storytellers.
If you think about it, you remove one item from a system, say pull out the wires that connect your microphone from your stereo, that doesn't mean the speakers will work better. Blindness is just a hardware issue after all, blind = lack of sight for one reason or another, and vision and hearing work in parallel not in series so it's really difficult to imagine how the absence of one would render another more efficient, at least at the hardware / biology level.
The only way that could be possible would mean you alleviate a load from one, providing processing power to something else. I'd imagine to a very limited extent that is technically possible but a system that evolved that way would be even more inefficient than biology often is now.
Basically if you have to use something, you get better at it. Not all sighted people see the same types of things nearly as well. Take someone who's a fashion snob and totally enamored with all the bright and shining things, to such a proportion they give birds a run for their money: Put them through an ordeal like a hit and run, then ask them even the most basic details of what they saw. You're likely to come up empty. Put an accountant, a construction worker, or even a graphic designer, anyone who has had to train their brain to observe visual detail most people miss, they'll be an investigator's dream in that situation. It's all in what you train yourself to do.
As to the 'who is more independent than whom', I find all of this very subjective and anecdotal. Much as this would raise some hackles, a rich guy being waited upon hand and foot is far more independent, if you will, than someone like me earning at the lower end of a middle income. Why? Independence = access to and control of resources, pure and simple. All the subjective and anecdotal stuff is completely moot when it comes to reality. If you can get the job done, whatever that is at the time, who cares how?
My point about efficiency was just that the way he's doing things, except maybe as a circus act for Reader's Digest, are extremely and grossly inefficient, prone to error, and not really something a consumer would want to pay for or a dependent would wish to depend upon.
lol You and your hardware. It's fine with computers/technology but not with people. That said, you seem to have made some of the same points that came to my mind. It actually makes perfect sense that the senses which you use more frequently become heightened, particularly if you're compensating for the loss of another sense. This is why hunters have such good hearing and/or sight, chefs have such a good sense of taste, and to a lesser extent, why musicians/singers have an understandingof pitch, tone etc. They're trained to do this just as we train our brains to use our four senses and not sight.
I must disagree with you on the comparison of the blind to the rich. If said rich person never learns to cook or to take care of himself and then finds himself in a situation where he has to do so, he's just as helpless as the blind person who never learned these things. Being independent means being able to do things for yourself, being free of the need for others in most situations. If it's all about the resources, than a blind person who utilised sighted assistance for everything would be considered independent.
The hardware analogy does carry some weight though. Cutting the wires to a tape recorder's microphone doesn't make any other components work better than it would. The same can, in fact, be said of this situation. Cutting off the wiring between the brain and the eyes, so to speak, regardless of what the underlying cause might be, doesn't automatically mean that the ears work better. If there is some improvement to a blind person's hearing over that of the average sighted schmoe, it's because it became that way over time. We're not actually born with enhanced hearing or extrasensory perception the way many sighted people seem to think we are, but since we have to rely on hearing more we tend to develop that sense more than the average person would. The same can probably be said of touch. Since we don't have our eyes or in the case of actual visually impaired individuals very limited sight, we have to rely on the other seses and in particular our ears and hands. So we tend to develop them more as we grow up and after.
The way I explain whatever I hear is that it seems I notice more things than most people because they're probably concentrating on the visual aspects of things. I don't think my hearing is any better than anyone else's, I just have to rely on it more than average folks. The idea that one's other senses are compensated for if one is lost is a nice romantic notion or fantasy but it's not true. It's wishful thinking of the ignorant.
But as regards the article, a couple of points.
First, if this story is even a real one, I think the one thing that grabbed me was how this guy did not use what we think of as conventional adaptive techniques, and I think part of it is that he thinks or he was convinced to think that such things are bad because they might make him appear blind or if anything, old. News flash, if you're a blind person, there's nothing wrong with appearing blind because this is what you are. To claim you must appear sighted whilst being blind is living a lie. OK it'll make ya stand out and get you undue attention perhaps because people are ignorant of the different, but you'll live.
Second thing is this. Articles like this about amazing blind people tend to present a rather extreme example. It's hard for this nerdy introverted slacker to relate to such things or even consider wanting to be like these people. They seem to be people who live whirlwind lives, always go-go-go, very outgoing, very high achieving, etc. I just don't think that's most of us, blind or sighted. So my reaction is, "Oh, cool for them, but so what?"
I agree with both of you. I never thought that we are born with better hearing or that this is automatic. I, too, think it takes time. It's just that, for those of us who have been blind since birth or since a young age, we don't remember the adjustment. But it does relate to loss of sense, in a way, because we're forced to rely on other senses more, and as a result, they become stronger.
Well eah. And that's what's hard to explain to a lot of people. I don't necessarily think any of us is born with "better" hearing than the average person but if some of us do happen to have better hearing it's because we took the time to develop it more than the average person would. I've heard of blind people with hearing so accute that they couldsupposedly enter a library and tell right away if one of the books was sitting slightly out from the rest of them just by the "sound" of the environment. Personally I couldn't imagine being able to do that but that doesn't mean there aren't those who can.
Now that I find extremely difficult to believe. I'd have to personally meet someone like that or read a medical explanation/confirmation on it to believe it.
I'm not sure I'd believe it even if I did meet someone like that. He'd have to point out exactly which book on which shelf was sitting out of position and more than, say, once or twice in a row or whatever.
In order to keep from repeating another post, let's just make this quick. lol I pretty much agree with poster 2.
I have to add, that this is the most interesting story I've heard in a long time...
Keep in mind a few things here though:
1. Sight is a sense that can be used at a greater distance than hearing. Hearing depends on sound waves bouncing off of an object, and us being able to both pick up, and locate, that object. Sight can do this with more accuracy (light is present more often than sound, especially during the day) and sight can be used to locate an object with far more accuracy, and from greater distance than the sharpest of hearing.
2. Everything is taught visually, by default, so being able to think visually can be of huge help to a blind person. I am never saying that someone who was born blind cannot deal just fine, but I think someone who has a visual understanding, may be someone who used to see, cannot understand a lot of things better than someone born blind. You see this, for instance, in swimming, where a guy who used to be sighted, holds all the world records. He learnt the technique visually and has a greater understanding than someone born blind (to be fair, breaststroke recordes are held by a guy born blind, very great athlete, but the rest of them, or most of them, are held by a guy who used to be sighted).
Well, otherwise, same things as already pointed out, unrealistic expectations, silly stereotypes of blind people and something that discourages blind people from using the most tried and true techniques that work for most people.
I'm sorry, but these types of articles sadden me. I totally agree with the idea that we, as blind people, have very few limitations, but just about everyone will agree that we often use different methods to accomplish these things. When someone comes along and is publicized for being able to travel without a cane, or stick, as the article put it, it really makes some people wonder why we all can't do it that way. Everyone finds ways that work for them, but there is absolutely no shame in admitting that we need a cane or a dog guide.
This guy doesn't seem the least bit amazing to me. That is, if this article even has any truth to it. You know, in a lot of ways, he reminds me of Ben Underwood. He had way more hyp than he deserved, in my opinion, as does the man in this article.
I agree. And divine protection from mugging?
I just saw another article about yet another supposed amazing blind person, namely Daniel Kisch. This is another one who does the echolocation thing and apparently wants to teach it to others. Yet another gee-whiz article about another gee-whiz blind person.
People have tried to teach me the echo location thing and i just couldn't get the hang of it.
It comes in handy sometimes, but using a cane is still very necessary, in my opinion. I find myself using both in combination with one another sometimes, but never echo location alone, unless I'm in a small room with which I'm familiar.
I love echo location but always use it with a cane when in unsafe (steps/things on floor etc.) or unfamiliar surroundings. The two together make quite a good combination.
I can do echo location, but I use it to find an alcove. Like, one large buildings, there is usually an alcove where the door is, and it echoes quite nicely. I use echo location to find that.
I had one person try to teach me echo location once. I told them that if they could walk, and have a conversation at the same time, and pass one other test I put up for them, I'd go through the lessons and learn. They didn't make it a block without hitting a pole because they can't do echo location and talk at the same time.
The other test, I called a sighted friend of mine who was a girl and had her watch the guy walk. I asked one simple question, "does he look like an idiot?" She gave one simple answer, "Yeah, pretty much."
If your walking down the street, with no cane, no dog, nothing to denote you as a blind person, and your clicking your tongue for no apparent reason, and have your head down, guess what bud, you look like an idiot. Give up any dream of being socially excepted.
People don't understand echo location, so when they see that, they think insanity, not highly inabled super blind person.
And if you need any further evidence, daredevil, the blind guy we all wish we were, if he hadn't been played by a sucky actor, never once clicked his tongue, and he got to make out with carmen electra. If you need any more evidence, I don't think you'll ever be convinced.
Who cares how you look, unless you're going somewhere truly important? If it works, use it. It's not like you're doing it to be cool or to get noticed. It's a tool just as a cane is one. Why would it matter if the person could hold a conversation? Sure, it's wonderful to be able to do so, but since most people are sighted, the odds are that you would be talking with one of them. So why not use sighted guide in those cases if you really want to talk? Again, I'm not recommending trying this without a cane. i'm just pointing out a few things.
well said, Cody. thank you.
Tif, because I personally have blind friends, with whom I want to talk, or what if your on your phone? And don't say, "I don't walk and talk on the phone at the same time", cuz everyone does at some point.
As for caring how you look, I personally do. I personally don't like people thinking I'm an idiot, or I look stupid. That is why I try and dress nicely, why I shower every day, and why I shave regularly, so I don't look like I can't take care of myself. If you want people not to stereotype blind people as stupid, disabled people who are cmpletely helpless, you first have to not look like you fit into the stereotypes. Welcome to a world where no one cares if your blind and have enormous amounts of self-pride, you can sit at home alone with your self-pride all you like. Its the ones who conform as much as necessary, while keeping their own identity, who go out and are accepted into a sighted world. Its harsh reality.
I completely agree, Cody.
Personally, the thing I understand the least about this whole thing is the fact that so many people think this guy is so amazing. If the rest of us learned it, and were okay clicking our tongues with our head down, and walking with no cane, most of us could do it, too. We just choose not to for reasons Cody already mentioned. If it works, more power to you, but it's not worth all the media attention.
yeah, I am with the majority here, and most of it is stated so clearly i don't have to say much, it doesn't work.
Hello everyone,
Think most of what I would want to say as been said so just two basic points.
First, one of the early posts mentioned their surprise at the percentage in the UK who know Braille, which I know is off topic I guess, but it is regretably lower, think but don't know the figure for sure lower than the 15 per cent, I know someone who doesn't know Braille, and relies on speech alone, apparently they did get or rather were introduced gto Braille but they didn't keep it up, and not that I'd gtell them but that saddens me. *SIGH*
Second, I can't do the echo location myself, I do have a tiny bit of sight and nowadays which members of my family, well one in particular think is odd, but I do where glasses, as I'm slightly shorted as well, and no despite the humour, it is not fashion, I do think that helps, but sorry I go off topic again. I cannot do ech location myself, so rely on a cne, and one day I hope to qualify for a guide dog but I was too ambitious the other year but won't go into that here, certainly not on this board topic posting.
OK that's my what I hoped to be brief contribution, oops went a bit logner in the end.:((
Kind regards,
Timber AKA Timothy Bamber User #7902
NB: in a hurry, so forgive typos please!...