Category: the Rant Board
Am I the only Vissually Impaired member of The Zone who isn't so damn passionate about it? Today I tried selling a DAB Digital Radio on our Student Notices and got an E-mail back saying "Is it accessable"? so I replied saying it was accessable enough for me to use and therefore it's accessable enough for any normal person to use. I can imagine that person and people like her going round shops asking that question "Is It Accessable" about every fucking product they get an "audio description" of. For Fucks sake! and then, there's the word that is making elequence crash and all of those who are into been blind are getting all hysterical about it and sending it to people thinking they're so cool! Really there just sad! Surely people who get so hysterical about these things must realise that if they did so in front of popular sighted people, those sighted people would abandon them because they didn't fit in and quite right too. Yeah it's cool that someone discovered that fault, but It's nothing worth getting so excited about! When are these people who care so deeply about accessability and all of the things which make them different to sighted people going to be normal? Or shall I give up waiting and just accept that these weirdos will be weirdos for ever!
excuse me pal but you have contradicted yourself there you were trying to sell a DAB radio right...which was created for blind/vi users, therefore you obviously cared enough about this issue at some point to buy the damned thing.
..now you are childishly turning your back on the few who are trying tirelessly to improve things for blind/vi users, have you forgotten that there are 1,000's of newly blind /vi who cannot use their old technology thru a complete inability to cope ect..any new advance, improvement or invention, is a godsend to these people..so before you insult those who are trying to improve things THINK!
because where would we all be without these campaigners hmm!..
Hehe, and so, with your approach WW we'd have no screen readers surely (because Microsoft does not care about accessibility it costs them millions of dollars to help the screen reading companies make products accessible, no need to be ashamed of your visual impairment you know), no talking gadgets of any kind well granted you'd have the george Formaemann grill and may be a few audio books, good job there man .. and, well, a word that crashes your computer, people find that cool there was a craze regarding special font and letter combinations that showed the twin towers e.g. and if you select a ccertain range of cells in Excel and did an operation to them you opened up a little flight simulator, it was a secret app, people went crazy over those things and showed them to all their friends, we may be pathetic but we're just as pathetic as anyone else .. you need to come to terms with your blindness .. ok visual impairment, otherwise you'll never be happy.
I agree with the quangle wangle in that he's right that some people do not act normally and tend to bleat on about accessibility for no apparent reason. However, as usual, the quangle wangle's in a tanble about the reasoning he deploys to get to his answer, as wildebrew has demonstrated above. PS: quangle wangle is ergonomically far more friendly to type than Wainderful Wangel.
I'm probably going to get complaints about that now! it's probably politically incorrect for some reason or another.
I'm told you get the death penalty for making fun of somebody's screen name, but that's just rumor. Probably not true, so just go right ahead and do it LL and the bleeding-hearts can go cry in their beer over it. Now, I admit I might ask if there are certain models of a given item that are accessible, like these memory-based mp3 players, just so I don't spend money on something I can't use. However, if a blind or visually-impaired person is recommending an item, I must assume it is reasonably accessible, in that I can find the buttons what will do what I need it to do even if it's just basic operation.
I'm not even sure what I think anymore, this topic has got itself into a right old 2 and 8.
The DAB is a normal Digital Radio which wasn't created for blind people and I don't actually recall saying it was created for visually impaired people! My answer to the person who asked abouts its accessability meant, that I could use it though I never thought about its accessability, because accessability isn't something I'm obsessed with, even though by not been obsessed with it, I appear to represent the minority of visually impaired people. As for jaws and speech software, all that stuff is great helpful and useful for us visually impaired people, but I'm not someone who takes a particular interest in the software, I just use it.
WW, see, that's fine for you not to be interested in it or not to advocate accessibility in general but putting down those who put work in to that particular field is what I take an issue with.
I think this largely depends on your definition of the word "accessibility" from your description "is it accessible" as applied to the radio meant "can I use it, being blind" and "can I use this product" seems to be a perfectly valid question to ask before you buy it. I always insist on testing software or EText to make sure I can use them before I spend hunderds of dollars on that product, if you choose to e.g. spend $200 on Scanning software only to find that you can't use it without learning a whole Jaws scriting manual, that's up to you. I spent e.g. $50 on software for cd burning 3 years ago, turned it it was impossible to use it without a mouse, the manufacturer did nothing about it (in fact I believe this is still called NTI cd-maker pro) and thus I lost $50 completely.
But if you mean people insist everything has to be accessible, yes, some peole are too obsessed with accessibility. I, e.g. do not expect accessible billyard/snoker or video games, there are things that are visual in nature and if blind people were to lay it it would change the nature of the game completely and if it's a sighted game I have no problem letting sighted people enjoy it without complaining about me not being able to participate. That's the line you have to tread, if you show complete apathy to the possibilities of making things accessible that could improve your life, your life won't be improved .. however you also have to know when it's not worth it to complain about accessibility of certain devices.
B makes a valid point above in that there ar some products which would not be able to be made accessible, and for someone to insist on accessibility of those products would be pointless. However, although you may not go around insisting that a product/site/service be accessible to you, you subconsciously do seak out such services, if that were not the case, you wouldn't be on this site, after all there are lots of other chat sites out there, but the reason you can't go to those is because they are not accessible. and ll don't you think that quangle wangle sounds a bit like some kind of ancient torturing device?
I've spent time in many chat sites. I just heard about this one off someone who told me to go on it and heard about the games so I joined. Then I happened to red the boards and interact with other members. It wasn't just another blind person needing somewhere accessable. Some sites are inaccessable to me, I don't complain about it, I just go elsewhere. I'm not suffering by not been able to access those sites afterall usually! I've also got nothing against those who put a lot of effort into making accessable products which benefit me and other visually impaired people. Some people though who use these things are too obsessed with accessability. You've got people complaining that Yahoo for example isn't accessable to them because they're blind. This isn't the case if you use your brain and work out how to reply to E-mails on Yahoo for example and they complain about word varification as well? if they're normal, they'll have sighted friends who can read the varification codes for them. My problem is with people who constantly draw attention to their disability with their "is this accessable" attitude, and over indulgence in things sighted people wouldn't really give a shit about!
Right let me just correct a false impression that seems to be developing alarmingly: if a site is not accessible to you, you can, I repeat, you can now complain if the site is a UK site run by a UK-based organisation. An example might be www.conservatives.com. These organisations and companies are obliged by law to make reasonable adjustments to make their sites accessible.
Most people would complain, but I wouldn't. I would just not visit the inaccessable site. It's a simple solution and no website is important enough for me to get teribly worked up about. There was one site which I did E-mail asking if they could rename the links because they were all addresses instead of page names, but I didn't complain, I just politely asked them if they could change it stating reasons why.
Well there you go then, yo u do have some sense after all, illusory thought it may be for the most part. Okay Wainderful Wangel, let's say for a moment that you wanted to be a barrister: you are seeking pupillage and you see a set of chambers, which for our purposes we shall call 5 Blackwell Yard, whose website is inaccessible to you. Now, you know from the pupillage handbook that it's a really good set of chambers, does all the areas of law in which you are interested, but you have to download an application form from their website in order to apply. The deadline for submitting your application is Monday afternoon, and today's Saturday, so there's no time to request one from the senior clerk by telephone. What do you do? The site is inaccessible. Would your philosophy that 'no site is important enough for me to complain about it' still hold good?
Lol LL good scenario. Um ... as for me ... I kind of agree on both accounts. First off, I agree with WW in that some people are way to rapped up in accessibility in that they go "Is it accessible?" and by that they mean, "Does it have scripts/" or whatever. If somethign doesn't have scripts, that doesn't mean it's inaccessible. However I do think that some sites are very inaccessible and I do think that those peopel need to be told, not just so I can complain but because ... well some people might really need to get on it and won't be able to! So why not tell them, at least some of the time? And also, I do agree, that word variciation thing. I mean it's very veyr annoying but why not get a sighted person to read it, it's not too difficult. But I do think that that is very annoying to blindies, me being one of htem and whatn ot.
Okay I'm done! Take from that probably compeltely incomprehensible rant what you will!
The fact that it was error-strewn Caitlin did, I'm afraid, mean that it was less comprehensible than it otherwise might have been, but then again, I too have been a defaulter in that respect recently, as eagle-eyed readers will have surmised from my last contribution to this topic started by our good friend the quangle wangle, which as well as being the nickname I have given WW is also a character from the Owl and the Pussy Cat I believe. Anyway, thisbloodycountry.blogspot.com is happily 100 percent accessible.
Well when you apply for a job you don't have to do it online, there are other ways. I'm sure a career as a barister doesn't depend on you been able to access a website. So, therefore you could find alternative means of applying for the job and a committed person wouldn't leave things until the last minute anyway.
Actually, I beg to differ. A lot of companies are going to only allowing online applications, and for a good part they have good reasoning. From what I've heard their reasoning runs something like this, our age is the information age; which means the Internet and computers, and most work, or a lot of it, requires some know how with computers, so, if someone can't apply online they don't know enough to be even considered. Also, this means is quicker, as well as saves on paper and other such products. Now, as for accessibility, I will hunt for products that I can logically figure out a way to use. For example, just a few months ago I was looking at buying a cell phone. I found out about Talks, but I left my options open for the simple reason that it isn't necessary to me for everything to talk to me. I found a cell phone that was good enough for me to use; meaning it gives enough audible clues...As far as Web sites...Well, I pay and view a lot of my bills online, because, I can't read the paper bill that is sent, so, if the Web site isn't accessible how can I do this? Also, I go to college, and my college does a lot of things online. Such as some school work, and signing up for classes. They have no other means which to sign up for classes, so, if they weren't accessible how could I accomplish this? Depend on the sighted? Why? The people bound to wheel chairs don't have to count on others to go up stairs, in the US it's demanded that there be ramps/elevators, so, why should I have to depend on the sighted? If people didn't have the attitude about accessibility you seem to be down grading, no one would have strived to make braille, speech applications, or, anything such as this.
Oh dearr me now our friend the Wainderful wangel knows everything, absolutely everything, about my profession does he? Let me inform you, Wainderful wangel, that pupillage applications are now handled by a central website called pupillages.com. You fill in a form online called the olpas form and that's sent to all the chambers. So if the olpas site were not accessible, that would be a grave problem indeed, would it not? Ah but lawlord, says Wainderful wangel in reply, knowing about the bar as I do, I know that not all chambers subscribe to the Olpas scheme, so get out of that one! Absolutely right, Wainderful Wangel, a very astute observation, but you'll also no doubt be aware that those chambers who do not subscribe to the olpas scheme have, for the most part, their own online electronic application forms. Very very few ask you for a handwritten or typed application on paper now, and even if they do, they ask you via the pupillages website! but then again, Wainderful Wangel, you knew that already, didn't you?
Well it does always help if websites are accessable, and I've put forward a suggestion of what to do if you're having difficulty with the site. It is true more companies prefer online applications. If the sites are inaccessable though, either make a reasonable request for them to change it, go to another one, or get a different job.
There is a difference between law companies and chambers, as you very well know Wainderful Wangel, being the sage old soul that you are. A chambers is not a company as I'm sure you were aware. Get a different job? Bit late for that when you've already done the qualifying exams isn't it? Don't talk about things you so blatantly do not understand. i don't blame you for not understanding how the bar works, or how solicitors get their jobs, for I doubt that you have ever ventured down that road, but if you don't understand it, don't try and teach someone who has been through the system what the rules are.
And he still doesn't know what a non sequitur is, although if you want to see the non sequitur applied in practice, see some of his posts.
Some of the options you have put forth are not always practical. For the record I do try niceness first, however, if that doesn't work I will go that extra mile. Partly because I know what it takes to make the Web accessible, and I guarantee you this, anyone can do it if they're made to.
Don't blame him, witchccraft. He has a liking for the non sequitur, even though I'm not sure he knows what a non sequitur is.
And I don't think he wants to ask anyone what it is.
and he still hasn't asked what a non sequitur is.