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Contents
Will Vision Australia Even Give Blind People a Chance to Apply to be CEO?.. 7
Looking for Air Fryer Recommendations. 15
When and How to Disclose Blindness to a Potential Employer 18
A 3D Audio Ride in a Self-driving Vehicle.. 20
How Do You Keep Up With So Much Information?.. 22
The Medical Experience of Blindness. 25
Truncated Messages on iPhone.. 26
Zoom H1 Essential and Robotic Guide Dogs. 26
Odd Problem with Windows Computer 30
Responses to Who Should I Donate to.. 36
Thoughts on Abuse in Care.. 37
Seeking Recommendations for Bone Conduction Headphones. 39
Reaper and Markers Generated by the Zoom Recorders. 40
Smart TVs With TalkBack, and Other Comments. 43
The Word Blind in Other Languages. 45
Welcome to 296
[music]
Voiceover: From Wellington, New Zealand, to the world, it’s Living Blindfully – living your best life with blindness or low vision. Here is your host, Jonathan Mosen.
This week: the blindness leadership crisis – why is it so difficult to get blind people leading the agencies that serv us, and will Vision Australia even give a blind person a chance to apply?, we take you on a 3D ride in a self-driving vehicle, and plenty more talk about those popular Zoom recorders.
I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that our long area code and country code drought is almost over. But the bad news is not this week. We know that there are no US area codes starting in 29 anything, and there’s also no country code 296. But that’s okay because we have another action-packed episode to get through this week.
Advertisement: Our transcripts have become one of the most valued features of Living Blindfully, and they’re made possible, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Pneuma Solutions. Pneuma Solutions, among other things, are the RIM people.
If you haven’t used Remote Incident Manager yet, you really want to give it a try. It is a fully accessible, screen reader agnostic way to either get or provide remote assistance. And it works for PC and Mac completely transparently. So if somebody assisting you is using a Mac and you’re using a PC or vice versa, RIM will handle that no problem at all.
We all want to use accessible websites whenever possible, right? But there are some times where we just have to get something done on a website that’s not accessible.
I try not to do it too often. But every so often, I’ll get in touch with one of my adult children and ask them if they have a couple of minutes to get me past a difficult accessibility problem on a website, or even in a specific app. For this, we use RIM.
I like it because I don’t have to tab around looking for some sort of arbitrary code in a semi-accessible app. We can choose the keyword that is going to be used.
And now, of course, I can call Aira and have a professionally-trained visual interpreter assist me through RIM.
I’m pleased to be a RIM user because Remote Incident Manager was designed by blind people with blind people in mind, but it has advantages over other remote access solutions that sighted people have been used to using, but are nowhere near as accessible. So if you have a family member sometimes assisting you through a murky web situation, I’m sure you won’t regret switching to Remote Incident Manager to get the job done.
To get the app for PC and Mac, you and the person assisting you can head over to [GetRIM.app](https://pneumasolutions.com/products/rim. That’s G-E-T-R-I-M.app.
[music]
Blind, Low Vision, and Deaf-Blind People Continue to be Denied the Chance to Lead Provider Organizations
Blind community, we have a problem. We have a major problem with what National Federation of the Blind President Mark Riccobono calls the vision industrial complex. And that problem is that we, blind people, seldom get to lead these service provider organizations. Some people are succeeding in this endeavor in the United States, but it’s patchy.
For example, I congratulate and express solidarity with deaf-blind people in the United States who’ve recently been protesting the appointment of a sighted, hearing executive director of the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-blind Youths and Adults, which has a mission to enable all individuals who are deaf-blind to live and work in the community of their choice. HKNC provides comprehensive vocational rehabilitation training and assistance with job and residential placements. Services in the field include 10 regional offices, more than 40 affiliated agencies, a national training team, the Older Adult Program, and the National Consortium on Deaf-blindness. HKNC serves all adult Americans who are deaf-blind or have severe vision and hearing impairment, and maintain a national registry of individuals who are deaf-blind.
Well, the Helen Keller National Centre went out to market for an executive director, and appointed another hearing, sighted person.
A group of people put a petition together, and this is what it said:
“We, the undersigned members of various deaf-blind communities, are fed up with Helen Keller National Centre continuing to be controlled by hearing and sighted people.
HKNC’s mission is to serve deaf-blind, yet always resisted deaf-blind representation and leadership. Helen Keller Services, HKNC’s distant parent entity, recently selected yet another hearing and sighted person to be HKNC’s next executive director. Qualified deaf-blind candidates, including the top finalist, were passed over. HKNC has never had a deaf-blind person hold the position. The current HKS Board of Trustees has only one deaf-blind representative.
Qualified deaf-blind leaders have expressed interest in the director position, or applied for it since at least 1956, when HKNC was known as the Ann Sullivan Macy Services Federal Pilot Program.
There have been protests before”, the petition continues.
In recent years, HKNC made unspoken but clear promises that a deaf-blind director would be hired ‘next time’. Yes, haven’t many of us heard that before?
Enough is enough. It’s time we make the following 4 demands:
First, a deaf-blind person is appointed executive director of HKNC.
Second, HKNC is separated from Helen Keller Services for the Blind, so that HKNC becomes its own autonomous entity.
Third, HKNC’s newly created Board of Trustees is made up of 80% or more deaf-blind members.
Fourth, HKS and all of its subsidiaries will not retaliate against any HKS or HKNC employee, family member, or student for any civil action related to the selection process or related issues.”
Isn’t it so sad? I’m just pausing here to say that they have to put that in there, and yet I understand why they put it in there, but this is one of the issues that people are very worried about criticising these agencies for fear of biting the hand that feeds, and there being some sort of retribution in terms of the quality of services that they get or something else. It’s an extremely sad and imbalanced situation, and these agencies have an enormous position of power, and it makes a lot of people fearful.
Now, the National Federation of the Blind’s Deaf-blind Division has also entered the debate, issuing this statement:
“The National Federation of the Blind Deaf-blind Division understands that the work the Helen Keller National Centre (HKNC) does is important for deaf-blind persons who are in need of adjustment training.
We strongly urge this institution to implement the changes listed below:
- The HKNC should actively engage in finding and employing more blind and/or deaf-blind staff members.
- The HKNC should strive to have a majority of its Board of Directors be deaf-blind people.
- The HKNC should recruit and employ a deaf-blind director in order to instill community support among current students, consumer organizations, and the deaf-blind ourselves.
- We believe that it is critical for students to seek competent role models in teaching positions. This shows students that after their training is completed, they, too can live the lives they want. We urge the Helen Keller National Centre to work closely with the NFB Deaf-blind Division and the National Federation of the Blind on these matters.”
That’s the NFB’s Deaf-blind Division’s statement.
Earlier in the month, in response to the petition, Sue Rozenski, who’s CEO of Helen Keller’s Services issued this statement:
“Dear community members, colleagues, friends, and HKC family,
We share a mission to support, champion, and forward the interests of the deaf-blind community. That requires trust, collaboration, and the assumption of good intent and willingness to work together.
We acknowledge that a growing number of community members are disappointed that we were unable to fill the position of Executive Director of HKNC with a deaf-blind candidate, and have expressed their desire for needed change through a petition. Underlying assumptions about the selection of a hearing, sighted leader has led to a further division between members of the deaf-blind community and HKNC.
Long-term collaborators and highly respected and revered community members have joined others on the petition.
We have shared already about our process, and were truly following our best practices. It was inclusive and aligned with the values and responsibilities of ensuring we have a leader with the skills, talents, and qualifications to bring HKNC to the next level of success.
After an extensive national search conducted with the assistance of an external search firm and representation from the HKS Board of Trustees, the HKNC National Advisory Committee, and the Consumer Advisory Committee, we selected the best person available for the job. We know the process was thorough, and the outcome fair.
Nonetheless, the outcome strikes a chord among all of us, that change and action is needed.
The result has made it clear that our community faces 2 significant challenges:
- Identifying and reaching skilled and experienced deaf-blind candidates, and
- Expanding the limited pool of candidates for leadership roles at HKS and elsewhere.
The petition speaks of a deadline whereby we must agree to certain terms, or further action will be taken. This is difficult, to say the least. A broader conversation and process of inclusive dialog is critical.
This experience has strengthened our resolve to support talent development within the deaf-blind community not only for our organization, but also to address a broader range of cultural values and inclusive best practices. In the coming week, many of you will hear from us as we seek your help and input to address these difficult questions. Together, we will formally establish and announce a working group in partnership with community members external to HKS and other leaders working on behalf of organizations grappling with similar challenges and who have valuable perspectives.
One goal is to create a leadership development program that will address the limitations revealed by this search. We are seeking valuable input from organizations such as DBCA, AADB, and other individuals with a mindset of unity.
HKNC is committed to a more inclusive strategy, working collaboratively to improve leadership, growth, and advancement opportunities with the community. And additionally, bring important best practices with the adult learning environment at HKNC. We know that this time reveals opportunities for growth.
And from conflict, we can experience new beginnings, fresh insight, and positive change. But it cannot happen without a shared common denominator of good intentions.”
Will Vision Australia Even Give Blind People a Chance to Apply to be CEO?
Another organization facing a similar issue is much closer to my home, and that’s Vision Australia, which is the dominant provider of blindness-related services in Australia.
Now, their CEO resigned recently, and there is word that they are not going to go to market at all, giving any blind person the opportunity to apply for the role. But instead, make an internal appointment of a sighted person.
I reached out to Vision Australia Chair Bill Jolley to seek clarification of this. He indicated to me that he wasn’t in a position to make any comment at the moment.
So why not talk to a previous chair, in fact, the founding chair of Vision Australia, and that is Graeme Innes, who has been on the podcast before.
Graeme, it’s good to talk with you again.
Graeme: Always great to talk with you, Jonathan.
Jonathan: Does this matter?
Graeme: It matters very much. I think that our organization should be led by one of us. Not only is it important to build the confidence of people who are blind or have low vision in that context, but it’s a really important message to send to other organizations that we can be leaders as well.
I thought that it mattered when I was Chair 20 years ago. We couldn’t find a suitable candidate at that point.
And 12 years ago, when the role was available and I was Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner, I applied for the role. Now, I didn’t expect to automatically walk into the job. I did expect to get an interview, though, which I did not. So that indicated to me that there was significant cultural problems in the organization.
So when the role came up a week or two ago when the CEO resigned, I reached out to a number of board members to suggest that it was really important to go to market and to look at potential candidates who were blind. I actually sent them a list of 5 people. I thought of 6 more after I’d sent that list.
But I’ve heard the suggestion that you mentioned at the top of this segment that it’s possible that the board will go to an internal appointment. And I find that very disappointing, given that they’ve got an employment policy which preferences people who are blind. If blind people are equal to alternate employees, then they are given the role. That just seems contrary to those sorts of policies.
Jonathan: What would you say to people who say these organizations are now large and complex, they have to operate in a commercially sustainable way, they are businesses, and it’s just really difficult to find blind people with that sort of acumen?
Graeme: Well, the first thing I’d say is that it would be very difficult if you don’t try.
The second thing that I would say is I no longer buy that. There are blind people out there who can carry out these roles. They’ve done it in other organizations around the world. Bryan Bashin, who you interviewed recently, is just one of many examples. And so they are there. We are there. We’re ready to compete for these roles. We need to be given the chance to do so.
Jonathan: And yet, very often, when blind people do compete for those roles, they are overlooked, they’re disregarded.
And since you disclosed, I will disclose. I was the chief executive of a national disability organization in New Zealand for 5 years. And during that time, the chief executive position of Blind Low Vision NZ, which is the blindness provider in this country came up. It was a very difficult time for the organization. It had been run by yet another sighted chief executive. In fact, there has not been a blind person appointed to the role, which was formerly called director since 1923. So there’s now over a century of no leadership at the top from blind people in this country. So naturally, I put my name forward for that.
Elements of the process were inaccessible. For example, there was a form that you needed to sign that was inaccessible with a screen reader. I find it unforgivable that a blindness organization would allow a process like that to take place.
And eventually, I did not get to the very final stage, and they appointed somebody who was sighted, who has no past experience of the blindness sector whatsoever.
You look at the RNIB, for example, and their current chief executive is somebody who has a background in retail. I understand he formerly was with Marks and Spencers.
CNIB’s a little better. They’ve just appointed a new CEO who is sighted, but at least had worked for the organization for a wee while.
Why is this happening? It seems to me like despite the fact that we’ve been placing a lot of emphasis on governance, you do have blind people at the governance level who don’t want to appoint a blind chief executive.
Graeme: Well, of course, I haven’t had discussions with blind people who are on the board. There’s a number of them about this, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do that.
But I have had discussions with many in Australia in the area, and there is this view amongst some, which I have challenged, that there aren’t blind people who are equipped for the role. I just don’t accept that. And I also would say that we will never be equipped for the role if we’re not encouraged, supported, and mentored. And I mean, if there is concern about people not being appropriately equipped, then let’s appoint them and mentor them to develop their skills. Because there’s nothing inherently different about blind people that means that they couldn’t carry out the role. In fact, I think there’s something inherently different which would resource them to carry out the role, and that is their own lived experience.
Jonathan: See, that’s the key thing, isn’t it? That because there is so much misunderstanding about blindness in the community, it is pretty difficult for a blind person to get to that role because there are so many myths that persist. And if an organization for the blind buys into that and consistently declines to put a blind person at that leadership role, you’ve got this vicious cycle going on and nothing ever changes.
Graeme: Yeah, and we know in our community, and we see it in our community in other areas, Jonathan, bias which is both conscious and unconscious. And I think there’s some significant unconscious bias here.
I obviously didn’t expect to get the job 12 years ago. But as a high-ranking government official, I thought that I would get an interview. I was shocked when I didn’t. And that’s one of the things that’s prompted me to take the action I have.
Jonathan: When you look at a job description and you’re on that hiring panel, what often happens is that they assign certain percentages to certain values. So it might be – has good financial acumen – 20%, and knowledge of disability. What percentage would you say lived experience should have? How important is that lived experience element?
Graeme: That’s a really interesting question. I haven’t turned my mind to it.
But I would have thought it would have to rate between 10 and 20% if you were putting a number on it because as someone with lived experience, you have the empathy, you have the understanding, and what you’re doing in the CEO role is setting the strategic direction of an organization. And as a blind person, you’ve just got an understanding of what the challenges you face are.
I sit down today as the Chancellor of a university. I talk to my colleagues who are well-qualified, well-meaning, and supportive of my role. They are shocked by some of the things that happen to me as a blind person, and some of the experiences that I have, and they are also shocked by some of the things that I do and just take as a matter of course doing.
The Vice-Chancellor (and I can tell this story because he’s told it openly himself) said to me in my interview for the Chancellor’s role, “I really feel that I need to ask, Graeme, how did you get here today? How did you get to the interview today?”
Jonathan: [laughs]
Graeme: And I said, “Well, I caught the train. That’s what I’ve done all my life.”
So his assumption was (and he freely admits this, now that I’ve sort of challenged it) that I wouldn’t be able to do that. So I wouldn’t have that level of independence. It’s amazing where the bias lies.
Jonathan: Yes. I had an amazing experience last year, which actually really encouraged me to put my name forward for the Blind Low Vision CEO role.
I was mentoring a group of students. And there was a student who had cochlear implants, but his vision was deteriorating. So he was used to the deafness, but the blindness was new.
Graeme: Yup.
Jonathan: And somebody said to him, “You can be anything you want to be. There’s a chief executive right here in New Zealand who is blind, and also wears hearing aids.”
And this kid did not believe them. He just did not believe that was possible.
And so they contacted me and said, “Would you find time to have a meeting with this kid?”
And I said, “Of course, I will.”
Graeme: Of course, you would. Yes.
Jonathan: I’d love to do that. So I sat down, and I talked.
I followed up recently, and they told me his whole outlook on life has completely transformed because he knows what might be possible now. He knows that his deaf-blindness doesn’t need to hold him back.
Graeme: Yeah.
Jonathan: And this is why it is so important, at all levels, to have blind people leading blindness organizations.
Graeme: It really is. It’s critical.
And you know, I wrote about that in my autobiography which was published a few years ago, talking about how lucky I was because my parents took that view of not placing limits on me, not wrapping me in cotton wool, but treating me like my other siblings and encouraging me to have that worldview that I could do things. It’s made such a difference in my life. And I see it in others.
And I’m like you, Jonathan. I mentor in those sorts of circumstances whenever I get the opportunity because it’s so important.
Jonathan: Alright. Let’s talk about what happens next with Vision Australia.
Obviously, you’re waiting for the word. And I suppose you’ll be hoping that by being a bit preemptive, you might be saying to Vision Australia, listen. If you appoint internally without even giving a blind person a chance to apply, this is not going to go well. So I suppose you’re hoping to front foot it, right, and change this?
Graeme: That’s exactly my intention, and the intention of others who’ve written to members of the board, and I know that they have. There’s a lot of chat going on in the blindness community over here at the moment about this. In fact, Blind Citizens Australia, our consumer organization has made a public statement supporting the opportunity for people to openly apply for roles, not just in Vision Australia, as you said at the top, but for any blindness organization.
But yes, it’s much harder to change a decision like this than it is to have the right decision made in the first place, so I think a number of us are trying to pre-empt. But there’s an AGM in October, Jonathan, so there are other alternatives.
Jonathan: Well, what would those look like? Because I presume, they’re not actually required in any legal sense to go to market for the role, are they?
Graeme: No. I’m not aware of any requirement in a legal sense. I think there’s a moral obligation, but not in a legal sense.
But I guess they would look like asking questions, or standing for board positions. That’s the only options that I can think of.
Jonathan: I wonder whether there’s any kind of legal redress, maybe under the Disability Discrimination Act or something else that says by not even giving a blind person a chance to apply as CEO of a blindness organization, there has been enormous discrimination perpetrated here. And I wonder if that might be challengeable, and some sort of resolution offered.
Graeme: I don’t think it is challengeable legally. In fact, it’s interesting you ask that question because I’ve had others here in Australia asking me the same question. I suppose they would come to someone who knows that legislation reasonably well, but I don’t think it’s challengeable legally.
But I think that there is so much publicity on this score now that any sighted person who was appointed is now going to be on notice that if the board membership changes, then some of those decisions may change as well.
Jonathan: Should there be a constitutional requirement (and I believe CNIB may have had this for a long time) to insist that chief executives of these organizations must be blind?
Graeme: Well, our consumer organization here, Blind Citizens Australia, has that requirement. I’m not sure if it’s in their constitution, or if it’s in their operating rules or charter, but they have a commitment to employ a CEO who is blind, and to only employ a CEO who is blind.
And I think there should be. I think that when you see these decisions being contemplated and you see the risk of yet again an organization not being prepared to at least consider some of the potential leadership candidates in the CEO role, then I think that that is a requirement.
I’m a member of Vision Australia. And if the appointment is made of a person without considering the blind candidates who are the alternatives, that may well be a route that people want to go down.
Jonathan: Is there anything, just before you go, that Australians can do who are listening to express their views on this, if they feel strongly that blind people should at least have the chance to apply?
Graeme: I think there’s two things. One is to express that view to members of the board of Vision Australia, and the second is to make sure their membership is up to date.
Jonathan: That’s the inaugural Chair of Vision Australia and Australian disability icon, Graeme Innes.
It is great to see Blind Citizens Australia and individual Australians having the intestinal fortitude to fight hard on this one. The next CEO of Vision Australia must be a blind person.
Update on Google Calendar
Voice message: Hello, everyone! It is Carolyn here from Auckland again. Jonathan, just thought I’d give you an update on the ongoing saga of Google and their calendar.
The initial problem was that the edit field where you put the title of your event in was not working. So for example, I opened the Google Calendar. I wanted to add a new event into it. So I click add new event, and you go in and you get a screen that opens, and the first edit box in the area is the title of the event. So for example, I could put, oh, Living Blindfully podcast.
Jonathan: Quite right.
Carolyn: And then, I would move to set the date, the start time, the end time. I could even type in the location, and that would open up and you could hear what you were typing in in the location area. You can hear what you’re even typing in in the notes.
But in the title field, there’s no feedback at all, so you get nothing when you type in there whether you’re using the on-screen keyboard, or a Bluetooth keyboard. Nothing at all.
In the early days, if you swiped back up there, yes, you could read it. But then trying to edit it, you kept getting the bonk bonk bonk when you were backspacing, so you didn’t even know when you’d completely backspaced and deleted everything out or not. It was really really badly constructed edit field.
They had made this mistake once before, and it took them months to fix it. And then, of course, it got fixed.
And now, they’ve reverted back again.
So anyway, over time, it’s got worse. You can no longer swipe up and hear what’s written inside that field. The only time you are able to find out what’s written inside that field is once you’ve filled out all the information, you save it, and then it’s sitting there in the calendar. That’s not very useful.
So anyway, I got an email this morning from Google, claiming that with the latest update (and they gave the version), that it was fixed. And I thought really? I hadn’t noticed.
So I go and check the version of the Google Calendar that I’ve got on my phone, and it’s the latest version that she’s referring to. And I go and I double check. No, it’s not fixed.
And I replied and I said, “Well, I don’t know who’s doing your testing, but I would like to know who’s doing your testing. I have offered, on several occasions, to send you a screen recording of the problem, which you have refused to accept.
But”, I said, “it’s still not fixed, and that’s not good enough.” And I’ve basically said to them I’m going to delete it, because there are other more accessible products.
I’m also having a similar issue and Jonathan, you might be able to help me with this one.
The NZ Post app has been recently updated. Now, I had it on my phone, and it was working okay.
With the update, it’s logged me out. Okay, not a problem, says me. I can log back in.
No way! You can’t access the edit fields at all. They are no longer edit fields. It’s telling you what information is required – name, address, whatever it is that’s required. But there’s no way you can access it to enter that data, to actually even log in.
I’ve had a month of going backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards with NZ Post, telling them I can even provide a screen recording to show what’s happened.
“Oh, that would be fantastic. We have a third-party that develops the app. We’ll let you know where you can send it.”
Still waiting. Still waiting. I mean, these companies that design these apps really are getting worse in some cases with accessibility.
So that’s my 2 frustrating issues at the moment.
Jonathan: Thanks, Carolyn!
I don’t use the New Zealand Post app regularly because I have an app called Parcel, and it costs me, I think it’s 4 New Zealand dollars a year to maintain that subscription. And it’s such a cool app because whenever I get tracking numbers, I just send them to the Parcel app and it doesn’t matter what carrier they’ve come from. They all live in the Parcel app. I get updates, and it’s a beautiful thing.
But I did take a look after I got your message, and I think this one might be a Safari problem because what’s happening is when you double tap the sign in button, it’s saying it requires NZPost.co.nz to sign in, and I think it’s coming up with a WebKit window that you’re supposed to be able to sign into. And when you double tap, it doesn’t seem to be bringing up the virtual keyboard.
A very strange environment, that. But perhaps, it is the developers’ issue. And yes, it is very unfortunate that these things continue to happen.
LinkedIn is Impossible
Let’s talk LinkedIn, or as I sometimes hear text-to-speech engine say, LinkEdIn. Sounds pretty cool when they talk about LinkEdIn.
Joe says:
“Your podcast often discusses the topic of unemployment and underemployment in the blind community, and accessibility barriers.
As you and your listeners know, the number 1 networking tool for professionals has become LinkedIn, as well as one of the major job search online tools. I have been a LinkedIn member for probably 20 years, and despite all its web iterations, versions of Windows, versions of the Microsoft browser, and versions of JAWS, to this day, I find it difficult, if not impossible to use LinkedIn on my PC now running Windows 11.
I don’t claim to be the foremost expert at JAWS, as I do primarily use it for Outlook and Word, as limiting my JAWS skills to those programs enables me to master what is essential for my work. Nonetheless, I have made many serious attempts to navigate LinkedIn without success.
Recently, I received an email from LinkedIn, offering me the installation of a desktop version of the LinkedIn app, and I tried it. The desktop LinkedIn app on my PC was completely invisible to JAWS. JAWS could not speak a single thing. It’s outrageous that the foremost workplace software company (Microsoft) that owns LinkedIn has not made this vital networking and job search tool easily accessible with a screen reader.
I talked to other blind friends who are quite good with JAWS, and they have the same difficulty with LinkedIn. They can’t use it.
I have an unemployed blind friend who wanted to use LinkedIn to find a job and went to JAWS training just to learn LinkedIn with no success. He told me the JAWS instructor could not navigate LinkedIn with any ease. The instructor was encountering the same problems he had. He came away from those instructions with no ability to use LinkedIn.
I am curious to know whether you or your audience has been able to use LinkedIn with proficiency, as I do wonder whether I should keep on trying to figure it out or just give up on it.
Perhaps you can track down the chief accessibility officer at LinkedIn and invite them to be a guest on your podcast. I, and I’m sure your audience, would appreciate hearing directly from LinkedIn as to why they have not improved accessibility, and what they are planning to do about it.”
Thanks for writing in, Joe.
I, too, would be interested in hearing others’ experiences with LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is one of those sites where I feel like I gotta be on it. And every so often, a talent scout hits me up there. They want to sound me out about the next big thing, and we have discussions. And so, it has some uses. But I find it hard to get enthusiastic about LinkedIn.
Most of the time, I use it on my phone. I find it pretty good on the phone these days. Accessibility on iPhone has improved a lot over time.
I also don’t have massive difficulties with it on the PC. But that said, most of the time, I’m browsing for status updates. That seems to work pretty well. I can post to it from the PC without any difficulties. So I guess without more specifics, it’s hard to know what the difference between maybe what you’re trying to do and what I’m trying to do.
I did download the LinkedIn app from the Microsoft Store after getting your message. I was able to sign in successfully, and then just browse the site.
It’s essentially a wrapper of the website (nothing too special there), and it worked fine. The virtual cursor came up for me in the Windows LinkedIn app, and I was able to navigate by heading and do all the things that I can do on the website.
So let’s find out a bit more about this. How’s linkedin working for you?
I’m not saying it’s perfect, intuitive, or anything like that. But I kind of find linkedin a bit nebulous anyway, to be honest with you. [laughs] It’s a strange old site, that one.
If you get value from LinkedIn, I’d be interested in hearing that too – whether this is your go-to social network, how you find it helpful, how you use it to make sure that you’re getting the best value from it.
By all means, be in touch on any of this. Go to LivingBlindfully.com/opinion, and you’ll find all the ways that you can be in touch with us. We’ll be delighted to hear from you via any of those methods.
Looking for Air Fryer Recommendations
Are you hungry? Maybe it’s air fryer time.
Christopher Wright says:
“Hi, Jonathan,
Do you know about an accessible air fryer with physical controls? I’d ideally like something with a dial that clicks for each setting, or physical buttons that are easy to feel and press.
The more I think about it, the more I don’t want a model with Wi-Fi connectivity, as I’d hate to be locked out if either the app becomes inaccessible, or the company decides to shut down the server that controls the device.
Any recommendations would be very helpful. We have one, but I can’t use it at all because it’s purely operated via touch.”
Yes. It’s a bugbear, that, isn’t it?
We used to have an accessible air fryer. I think it was from Philips, if I’m remembering correctly.
But the models differ so much around the world. Typically, appliances like these are not dual voltage so they vary from market to market, particularly the 110 volts market and the 220 volts market.
But we gave our air fryer to one of our grateful children because we got a Breville CombiWave, which I’ve talked about on the show before. This is a combination convection oven, microwave, and air fryer. You have to do a cheat sheet. You have to memorize the order of the key presses and everything. But it’s all got physical buttons, and the air fryer works a treat. And that’s what we use.
I know the Breville CombiWave is available in the US Market. But given that you just want an air fryer, it might be a little bit of an overkill option.
So if anyone’s got any accessible air fryer options they can recommend for the US market, do be in touch. Just visit LivingBlindfully.com/opinion, where you’ll find all the ways that you can get in touch with the show.
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Nasty iOS Beta Bug
Voice message: Hello, Jonathan and everyone else on Living Blindfully. This is John Dowling.
I have a bug that I’d like to report to Apple regarding the recent iOS 18, the newest developer beta build.
One thing I noticed is that the screen change sound in VoiceOver, it seems to happen a lot more frequently now. Like even when I’m browsing websites, or even really just doing anything in an app, It seems to be just constantly changing the screen or just making the screen change sound, and VoiceOver’s focus keeps jumping.
For example, in the Lire (it’s that RSS reader). I read a lot of articles on that app, and my VoiceOver focus keeps jumping. It’s really jarring and really annoying. The screen keeps refreshing. Is that the correct term? Sometimes, when I am reading a long article and I get near halfway down to the bottom, the focus will jump again, and it will jump all the way to the top of the article again. So I’ll have to go back and keep flicking until I find the part of the article that I was reading.
Jonathan: Thanks very much for talking about this, John.
I’ve prioritized this contribution because of its time sensitivity. I would encourage everybody who is seeing this to report it, and let Apple know exactly what they might do to duplicate it.
There are a couple of things going on in the latest 18.1 that I’m using, which is beta 2.
The first is that I think an old bug has crept back in. I think this was there in some of the earlier builds where every time you press the volume up or volume down button, it’s triggering something that’s causing a pop-up on the screen, at least VoiceOver thinks it is. Maybe it’s some sort of volume bar that is popping up visually. I’m not sure. But you can be reading something continuously, for example. Just press the volume up button to try and get a bit more volume, and your VoiceOver will stop speaking because something’s popped up on the screen. That’s the first area where I’ve noticed it.
The second area where I’ve noticed it is if you go and update your apps. Now, I don’t have automatic updates turned on for my apps. But John, if you do, this might explain why sometimes, it just seems to be happening at random to you. Because I always go in, I manually peruse each update and what’s new. And if I think there might be some sort of accessibility regression with an app that I depend on and use regularly, I’ll take a cautious approach. It’s easy to get burned and very hard, impossible really, to revert unless you have some pretty specific third-party software.
And when I go and I update my apps (and there might be 30 or 40 updates that come down at a time when I do this) every time an app update is complete, it makes that sound like something’s popped up on VoiceOver’s screen. And if I’m continuously reading, then it stops, focus is lost if I’m, say, flicking through posts on Mastodon.
It is quite disruptive, I agree with you. And because it’s so disruptive, I would like to think that it’s annoying the blind Apple engineers and QA people as much as it’s annoying many of us, and that this one will get fixed in short order. No guarantee, of course, because we have seen some pretty debilitating bugs come out at release time. But I do hope this one is addressed because you’re right, this one is quite consequential.
When and How to Disclose Blindness to a Potential Employer
Let’s talk about something we have talked about before, but it’s good that it’s coming up again because it is a dilemma that people face every single day, and we get new listeners all the time.
This email comes from Haya Simkin who is in Israel, and he says:
“Hi, Jonathan and blindful listeners,
I just applied for a job that would be perfect for me. The job would consist of interviewing elderly people over Zoom about their lives, and writing their life stories into books for them and their family members.
When I wrote my cover letter for the job, I didn’t mention that I was blind because that doesn’t prevent me from doing the job, of course, and because there is no requirement that I should tell them. Because if I tell, I know from experience that I would not get the job. Perhaps I wouldn’t even hear back from the people who would hire me.
I happily did get a reply. I was told that I would hear back from them in 2 weeks from Sunday, August the 11th, and that when I heard back from them, we could talk more about the job and what it entails.
My question to you and the listeners is, when and how to disclose blindness? You know that it isn’t relevant for the job.
I am in a catch-22 situation. Like I said, if I disclose my blindness too early, I won’t get the job and I may not hear back from the people who would employ me at all. If I don’t, past experiences have taught me that if I just show up to an interview, I end up being treated like a liar. I used to hide it in my resume under the computer skills section where I explained about screen readers.
One of my first job interviews was to be a ticket salesperson at a science museum aimed at families. I sent in my resume, thinking that the people hiring would read it through, since it’s not very long. I was very glad to get the call back to schedule the job interview.
But when I showed up with a friend and a guide dog, I was treated with suspicion. It turns out that the interviewer hadn’t read my resume to the end. The interview took the tone of an interrogation, and I was asked about all kinds of situations like what if somebody bought too many tickets. Obviously, I’ve heard of scalping, but scalping is usually for main sports events or huge concerts, not for museums aimed at families with children. The whole thing was bizarre, and the job didn’t work out because their software wasn’t accessible. But this just tells you what I have to contend with.
My second question is, how to disclose it. In the lousy vocational rehabilitation program that I participated in, I was advised to talk about it when they ask questions like, what do you consider your biggest character flaw? Then, you were supposed to talk about all the ways that you overcome blindness such as using a Braille display and screen reader, etc.
There are several problems with this.
First of all, blindness is not a character flaw, and so you’re not really answering the question.
Second of all, talking about blindness as a character flaw does entrench negative perceptions about blindness at a very crucial moment when you need to be seen as something positive.
Third of all, and most importantly, like I said before, when I explain myself and show off how cool screen readers are, people still have their doubts and don’t change their mind, no matter how I answer their questions.
That is my question to you and the other listeners, and perhaps to Bonnie who works in this area, I believe. Bear in mind that culturally, it could be that people in New Zealand or other parts of the world may be more cognitively flexible or open to new ideas and experiences than people here. Does anybody know what actually works?
This subject always makes me apprehensive, even though I am not ashamed to be blind. Please help.”, concludes Haya.
Well, first of all, best of luck with the interview, Haya. They are very difficult things, aren’t they?, because you want to be on your best behavior, you want to impress, you know the blindness thing is the elephant in the room. There is a lot to contend with.
But I want to send a bit of encouragement and praise your way because the one job you’re not going to get is the one you don’t apply for, so good on you for continuing to apply for them and going through the process.
Sadly, I do know of many blind people who, in some cases, have applied for hundreds of jobs before they finally landed one.
After getting your email, I had a lovely chat with ChatGPT, and I asked it to inform me about legislation in Israel that might prohibit discrimination on the grounds of disability in employment, and it looks like there is some legislation from 1998. It can be hard to prove, though, right? That’s the problem with this sort of legislation. It goes underground. And while I would never ever want to go back to a time when such legislation didn’t exist, one of the challenges that we face is it does kind of take the conversation underground, because companies are so fearful of being accused of disability discrimination that they just don’t ask any question that might get them into that quagmire and that can stifle discussion, and that does mean that you need to seize the initiative.
I would portray the blindness as a strength. My personal view is if you’ve got this far, and they’re going to get back in touch with you soon, I wouldn’t disclose anymore. I mean, what’s to be gained really from disclosing? As you say, you’re not required to. So when they go through the whole strengths and weaknesses argument, rock them with the strength of being a blind person. This is Living Blindfully after all, and I’m proud to be blind. Rock them with the strength of blindness. You’re a problem-solver. You have to be organized. You face disabling barriers in society all the time including attitudes, and you overcome them. You’re resilient. You’re going to be a loyal worker. You’re going to make this work.
And Zoom is a very accessible application. You may well even be able to advise other members on the team who are less experienced with Zoom than you are. So leave them in no doubt that they would be losing a competitive edge, a real asset, if they passed up on hiring you.
Sometimes, you can sense the reticence in the room, that they’re going through the motions. They’re not really asking the questions, and it’s very difficult when you get in that environment.
But one thing you can do is seize the initiative and say, “I imagine you haven’t met many blind people before.
As it happens, I am a very competent computer user. I’m a good listener. You see, this job is all about listening. And I, as a blind person who gets so much of my information from audio, am a great listener.
But I understand that you’ll have questions about how I do the job, so let me explain.”
Maybe the interview will be on Zoom, and that could be advantageous because you could even prepare a PowerPoint presentation or something, and rock them with a cool, glitzy PowerPoint.
Now, there may be some people who say look. Once you’ve got the interview time locked in, then disclose the blindness, because it’s not going to surprise them then. They’ll be ready for a blind person turning up.
Of course, the danger of this is that if they really are freaked by it, they could find some sort of way of cancelling the interview, and you wouldn’t really be able to prove discrimination. It’s possible to come up with all sorts of excuses.
So on balance, I would not disclose. I would just turn up and be prepared to be amiable, confident, answer the questions without defensiveness, and try and put them at their ease. There’s no right answer, but that’s one answer.
And if anybody wants to contribute, LivingBlindfully.com/opinion gives you all the info about how to get in touch.
I wish you once again, the very best of luck. I’ll have everything crossed for you. I hope that you get this.
A 3D Audio Ride in a Self-driving Vehicle
Alright. You got your ears on? Good, buddy, because you’ll want to hear this with good headphones if you can.
Tristan’s writing in and says:
“Hi, Jonathan,
It’s Tristan, previously from Phoenix, Arizona, and now from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Thank you so much for your excellent podcast. I always find them entertaining and informative.
In Living Blindfully 294, you mentioned wanting to experience riding in a Waymo car.
I have attached a 5-minute abridged version of a Waymo ride. It is in 3D audio, and I spoke over it to guide people on the experience. You’re welcome to play it if you find it interesting enough.
Thanks again, and keep up the amazing shows.”
Wow, Tristan! Having listened to this, I just can’t wait to play it to the Living Blindfully family. This is so cool.
[start of recording]
Tristan: Hi, friends! It’s Tristan Snyder, reminding you that this is a 3D audio experience. So put on your headphones, and let’s go.
I was notified in the app that the Waymo was there to pick me up, but I noticed it was parked a few doors down from my address. There’s a button in the app that I was able to use to… [horn sound] honk the horn, so I could find the car.
Given our time constraints, I had to abridge our 3D experience, so there will be a few jumps in audio as we go.
[sound of car door closing]
Female voice: Good evening. To begin your ride, press the start ride button in your app.
[Tristan fastens seatbelt]
Female voice: Heading to Sip Coffee and Beer.
Please make sure your seatbelt is fastened. For any questions, press the call support button to speak with a rider support agent.
Tristan: The car is an electric sedan. I’m not sure the make and model.
I’m sitting in the back, on the left-hand side.
In the middle at the center console is a passenger screen, which seems to mirror the buttons in the app. The buttons are Car View, Map View, Music, Riding Tips, and Call Support.
Female voice: Proceeding on North Hayden Road.
Tristan: Apparently, there’s a map on the screen that shows our car and the traffic around us, and it shows a time to the destination. There’s also a pull-over button.
There are some tactile buttons on the ceiling, but they’re unlabeled in Braille. I know there is a start button, a pull-over button, and a call support button. There are also cameras in the car so the support agents can see what’s happening and assist, if needed.
Female voice: Proceeding on East Indian School Road.
Tristan: With the music button, if you’re an iOS user, you do have to install Google Assistant. But then, you can tie it into your Apple Music or anything else, and it will play your music in the car.
Female voice: Almost there. Don’t forget your belongings.
Finding a spot to pull over.
Tristan: The first time I rode in one of these cars, sometimes, the movements were jerky. But this time, the acceleration, deceleration, and turns were all as smooth as butter, even when finding a spot in the parking lot.
Female voice: You’re here. Please make sure it’s clear before exiting.
[Tristan unfastens seatbelt]
Female voice” We’ve arrived at your destination.
To exit, pull on the door handle or contact rider support for assistance.
[Tristan exits the car]
[end of recording]
Jonathan: Thanks so much for sending that in, Tristan. Really appreciate it. I can’t wait to experience that for myself sometime.
How Do You Keep Up With So Much Information?
A text message from the WhatsApp machine. I know not who this is, but it says:
“Hello!
I was wondering how you manage to keep up with all your RSS feeds and your Mastodon timelines while being so busy. I know that you have a more relaxed schedule now. But before, when you had a full-time job, the podcast, and other responsibilities, how did you manage it?
I got a Mastodon account a few months ago, and I’ve recently started looking at it again after taking a break for a few months. And even following a few people creates quite a few posts per day in my personal timeline. There’s also the instance timeline that is very active.
The same thing is true of RSS feeds. I tried Lire”, (that’s L-I-R-E), “and I found it to be a good app, but the default selection of news sources results in lots of articles per day.
You follow more people on Mastodon than I do, and probably subscribe to way more RSS feeds than I would so I would imagine you would be swamped by so many posts and articles every day that it would take hours to go through, even if you just listened to the summaries with VoiceOver at the maximum speed.
It’s easy with podcasts for me because I can listen while I eat, or do other tasks that I don’t have to devote much mental attention to. But with Mastodon and RSS, I have to control my device while I go through my timeline, so I can’t do it while I do other things.”
Well, the first thing I would say is you can actually do these things while you’re doing other things. You could use Voice Control if you have an iPhone. I imagine there is an Android equivalent. I created some of my own Voice Control commands to optimize them.
And if you were listening to me using Voice Control when I’m going through RSS feeds or whatever, it might sound like I was running some sort of military operation because I’m sitting there going right, right, right. And then, if I want to hear something again, I go left, right. [laughs] So it must sound a little bit weird. But then, I do it in the comfort of my own home, so no one really hears me other than Bonnie, and she’s long accepted my idiosyncrasies.
So the Voice Control thing is really efficient for navigating these sorts of things hands-free.
One of the things I really like about Mona for Mastodon is that they’ve implemented the reverse timeline feature. What that means is you can bring up your timeline, it will remember where you last were, and then you can just do a continuous read with a 2-finger flick down, and all the posts will be read to you while you go around and do other things. If you want to reply, you can obviously stop the continuous reading and reply to the post that you just heard.
I very seldom look at the public timeline for a Mastodon instance. The exception would be if there’s some sort of major event that’s happening, and I want to know what people are saying about it.
So if there’s a big political event, I might check a Mastodon public timeline on an instance where I know There’ll be a lot of comment.
If there’s a major blindness event going on, I might check the public timeline of Tweesecake.social and DragonsCave… What are they? DragonsCave.space, I think it is. But normally, I would just leave the public timeline alone.
I also use lists. There are certain people whose posts I never want to miss, and I’ll put them in a priority list. I used to do this on Twitter (or now X) as well. So you don’t have to go through all your posts every day, but there may be people who you just want to keep up with at all times. You can put them in a priority list.
Regarding Lire, I would subscribe to any of the feeds that they offer that don’t interest you.
I’ve customized my RSS feeds over the years. I’ve been using RSS feeds a very very long time. Gosh! I hate to think how long. well over 20 years, and I have RSS feeds that I never miss.
And again, you can group them into folders. So I have a core group of technology news that I put in my tech folder. I never miss out on that for more than a couple of days, and I always catch up with it.
On the other hand, I have folders containing other types of news that I’m more relaxed about missing. If I don’t keep up, if I just mark them all as read from time to time, that’s fine. But if something major happens, then I can go into that folder and take a look at the feeds that I’ve subscribed to.
So just because you’ve subscribed to a feed, it doesn’t mean that you’re committed to reading every post from that feed. And likewise, just because you follow someone on Mastodon, it doesn’t mean you have to read every post that they write. there are lots of ways to streamline the content. I hope that’s of some help.
If others have some tips and tricks in terms of streamlining all the information we have access to, be in touch. LivingBlindfully.com/opinion will provide the summary of all the ways that you can be in touch.
Isn’t it interesting? When I was a kid, I used to crave information. I used to pester my sighted siblings to read newspapers to me. Now, we’ve got information overload big time.
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The Medical Experience of Blindness
Going to the WhatsApp machine for a text. This one says:
“Hello, Jonathan,
This is Oais Patel, and I am a college student working on my social work diploma. And yes, I am blind.
Throughout my experience as someone who is blind, I have noticed an interesting thing regarding the medical experiences of blind people. The majority of people I have met have either been blind since birth, or they have experienced an eye-related illness later during life that led them to living with blindness.
Well, this was the case in my situation. When I was 4 years old in preschool, I experienced a brain tumor cancer that affected my optic nerve that translates visual stimuli to the brain. I live with the tumor to this day.
I became blind, learned Braille,” (with an uppercase B) “and a lot of the skills that accompany blindness.
However, the one thing that continued was rigorous chemotherapy, surgeries, and eventually, radiation. Despite all of this, the tumour is still there. However, it is not growing anymore. To this day, I take daily medications. Yes, this is normal after such a traumatizing experience.
But the point is that many people do not understand the complexities that come with blindness. Acknowledging the struggles is as equally important as moving on, to ensure that one appreciates the future opportunities they are presented with.
In my experience as a child going through the mainstream educational system, I noticed that the smartest students were always praised. While the weaker or those who struggled were either never mentioned, or they were told to follow in the footsteps of the academically advanced ones. The smartest ones were praised because they achieved the high grades independently, while it took those who struggled more time and at times, some assistance.
It is the second group that I was a part of. Coming home, my mom often saw tears in my eyes, so she comforted me. After calming down, my mom told me healthy and smart people reach the end points earlier. If one is weak, it’s all right. You’ll reach success as well, even if it is after some delay. And I did.
Consequently, the opinion I have formed is this. Some people have access to skills and capabilities that others may not be fortunate to have. As a result, it is important to hold their hand and lead them to where they wish to be.
Thank you for taking the time to read my contribution on the show.”
You’re very welcome, Oais.
It sounds like you have had quite a journey there. And you’re right. I think it’s important that we respect what an incredibly wide continuum spectrum we have in our community.
When I attended the School for the Blind here, I certainly remember seeing students struggling with things similar to that which you’ve described. It isn’t easy, and I congratulate you for hanging in there and achieving what you have.
Truncated Messages on iPhone
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan and Living Blindfully listeners. It’s Rich Yamamoto. I wanted to comment on the discussion about truncated iMessages and text messages that was first brought up in episode 270.
I actually have seen this. What happens is when there are super long messages that take up a lot of lines (and I think it’s when they’re longer than a page, or what’s deemed a page on a touch screen), it gets truncated. So what happens is it will read part of it. And then, it cuts off, and I think it has an ellipsis at the end of it. But then, once it cuts off, you can double tap on that iMessage and expand it in its own message view. So for those expandable truncated messages, they’re viewed in their own window or screen, I guess, if you will.
I don’t know how that works on the Mac. I think the Mac automatically expands it because the Mac has a bigger screen, and can scroll better in that regard. But on an iphone or an ipod (especially an ipod because the screen is so small), you have to double tap on the message to expand it.
And I’ve seen that a lot in situations where… Actually, the most I’ve seen it is when my friends and I use ChatGPT to generate stories, and the stories are so god-awful long that when we text them to each other, they get truncated and you have to actually open them. And I think, that’s where those red arrows come in. I didn’t know that there was an icon for that.
But that is the best explanation I can give for why those are being truncated. It’s not a thing you see very often, but I’ve seen it enough to grasp what Reg is talking about in that episode.
Zoom H1 Essential and Robotic Guide Dogs
Voice message: Hey, everybody! This is Alex calling from Pennsylvania. Well, I just wanted to say a couple of quick things real quick.
One is about the Zoom H1 Essential Recorder. I know that a caller was calling in and talking about how the recording wasn’t very loud and wasn’t loud enough, and we were talking a bit about audio editors and how we could make it a little bit louder.
Well, let me tell you what I do personally. Now, I do use GoldWave. GoldWave is a really good editor.
There are a couple of different normalization settings, both in the volume control setting. You can go to a setting called Maximize Volume, and that’ll maximize the audio for you if you hit the preset Full Dynamic Range. Full Dynamic Range is just like a normalization thing.
There’s other presets in there. Not sure what they do. But that’s the one I use.
Another one you could do is go to loudness (also in the volume settings), and there’s one called Average Online Music. It’s a little more effective and it’s a little stronger than the older normalization scheme, but it works.
Both these schemes, I think you have to have a certain quietness because my understanding of normalization means the louder the file is, (someone can correct me if I’m wrong), then it won’t be as effective. Unless, you do it different ways. There are other ways of doing it.
You could just change the volume and make it louder or softer. There are presets for that, too. You can make it double volume, or you could do it manually. There’s a way you can go up and down to make the volume louder or softer.
You can then save it to MP3, or whatever you want to play it. On the Victor Reader Stream, I’d probably do MP3 because you know, those 32-bit files floating points can get real big.
Or you could normalize it on the device as well. And if it’s still not loud enough, you can put it in your audio editor and do a little more tweaking to it.
Just remember that wind is sensitive, so be careful about the wind because wind can definitely mess with the volume, and maybe mess with the normalization a little bit. So, you know, make sure you got some kind of windscreen on it. Otherwise, you’ll be okay.
The last thing I want to talk about real quick is the robotic guide dog approach. Now, I think that’s a pretty interesting idea.
For me though, I would rather see just a robotic device. It doesn’t have to be a dog, and it doesn’t have to have the same kind of comforts or bonding as you would with a 4-legged friend. For me, this robotic device’s job would have one function and one function only, and that’s to get me where I want to go safely, and when I want to go.
Now, I think that the device, it had 2 modes – an automatic pilot mode, which means you’re relying solely on GPS. You somehow tell it the destination of where you’re starting from and where you’re going. Or if you’re having GPS, I guess it’ll be able to know where you’re starting and where you’re going. And then somehow, there could be signals and patterns that can kind of guide you like the direction. Turn right here, turn left there. It could be turn by turn. It could be whatever it could be.
But if you’re somebody who has directional challenges like I do because I’m a sighted guide user, and I’ve been a sighted guide user pretty much all my life. I have some very serious mobility directional challenges, which kind of prevent me from being able to use a cane very well. That’s why I use Sighted Guide a lot. And so what would be neat is if this device could act like Sighted Guide.
I don’t want to replace Sighted Guide. But if it’s hard for someone to guide me right now and I need to go somewhere in an emergency, this would be a very good solution for me.
And so Automatic Pilot Mode would basically, the device would kind of take you there, give you some kind of clues and signals of what directions to turn. I don’t know how that would work. That’s something we’d have to look at. Maybe the device like a guide dog will turn. You just hold on to it, and it’ll know where to go. I don’t know if it would be on wheels or whatever, but some kind of thing like that.
Or you could have manual mode, which you would know where you’re going. This would be for mobility people who are good with their orientation.
Manual mode could also be good if you’re in an area where GPS is not good, but you know where you’re going, manual mode. You would just somehow, I don’t know how you would, not like a steering wheel, but there’d be some kind of mechanism on the device that when you know when you’re going to turn right, you would turn it to the right and then go right, or turn it to the left and go left. So that could be an overriding mode if GPS is not very reliable in that area or something.
Jonathan: Thanks for being in touch again, Alex.
In case you haven’t heard it, you might want to check out episode 277 of Living Blindfully, where we spoke with Amos Miller from Glide. That Glide device is intriguing.
And there are a number of others around at the moment as well. So this whole space is going to be very interesting, as artificial intelligence continues to become more capable.
Now, let me indulge my inner audio geek with respect to your first comment. I want to talk about 3 concepts here for making things louder.
The first is normalizing to a specific decibel level, and this is a pretty traditional way of making a file louder. I would also say it is the crudest method. It has some flaws.
So what you can do is you can specify a DB level, say, -6 decibels, and you can tell your sound editor – Reaper, GoldWave, SoundForge, Studio Recorder, whatever it is that you use, that you want the overall volume of the audio to be normalized to the value that you nominate.
When you do that, that will result in the loudest point in the file being at the value that you specify. So if you’ve got a wide dynamic range, in other words, you’ve got a lot of very soft stuff going on, and then some very loud stuff going on, normalizing using that traditional method to a decibel value may have limited effect because the loudest point of the file, if it’s really loud compared to everything else, is going to kind of skew the whole file.
A more modern form of normalization that is used, particularly in industries like broadcasting and podcasting (we use it here on Living Blindfully) is normalizing to a specific LUFS value. LUFS stands for loudness unit relative to full scale.
Various providers have standards that they would like you to meet in terms of LUFS. Spotify has a LUFS standard when you upload podcasts. Various other providers do as well.
Living Blindfully always normalizes to the same LUFS value every week. So if you go through the Living Blindfully catalog, they’re all going to sound about the same in terms of their volume.
The reason why this has become so popular is that it provides a more accurate representation of how humans perceive loudness, so it’s much better for providing a more consistent listener experience, particularly, as I say, in areas like podcasting, broadcasting, and streaming.
Finally, you can make the file more even by using a bit of good old dynamic audio compression. We use that here too, on Living Blindfully. You’ve got to use it carefully. Otherwise, things are going to sound too punchy and weird.
I lament how much dynamic audio compression is put on modern music these days. The new Billy Joel song came out earlier this year. I was thrilled to hear him recording again. But mate, the dynamic audio compression in that song drives me up the wall. I don’t like it.
[laughs] I really am sounding like a curmudgeon.
But anyway, dynamic audio compression reduces the volume difference between the loudest and the quietest parts of the audio. So it compresses the dynamic range, and that’s why we call it compression.
If you have a track where the whispers and shouts vary greatly in volume, adding just a nice touch of audio compression is going to make the whispers louder and the shouts softer, and that makes everything more even.
So there is a lot that you can do when you put a file into a sound editor to clean it up and make it louder.
Abuse in Care
“Hello!”, says this message on WhatsApp. “It’s Charlie from South Africa.
I was listening to episode 293 of the Living Blindfully podcast, and I found the first part incredibly hard to get through. Hearing about the disability abuse you and others faced in New Zealand was heartbreaking. I can only imagine how immensely difficult and painful it must have been for you to read Kylee’s statement reflecting years of neglect and abuse. That’s inhumane, and no amount of apologies can truly make up for it.
In South Africa, we often have a rosy view of European countries, thinking they have it all. However, your experiences remind us that issues of disability mistreatment are global.
As a blind person, I sometimes encounter people who, despite knowing little about blindness, still have preconceived notions about how we should act. It’s frustrating and hurtful.
For instance, when my fiancé was pregnant, Some family members joked that I couldn’t be the father because I was blind.
But what do you know? Donum” (I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly.) “is standing proud and tall right now at 2 years old. And lo and behold, he is a spitting image of me.
Such images are demeaning, and reflect a deep-seated ignorance about our capabilities.
I want to extend my sincerest apologies to the deaf-blind, blind, and broader disability community in New Zealand. I hope that the New Zealand being shaped today is one where disabled people are cherished and treated with the dignity they deserve.
I also want to share an experience of my own.
In South Africa, I had to give up my guide dog because the public transport system, particularly the minibuses, refused to accommodate us.
However, others say they manage, despite efforts to raise awareness. But ignorance still persists.
In 2012, while working as a switchboard operator at a hospital, I had a terrifying experience. While commuting, the driver of a minibus taxi mistook my folded cane for a firearm when it was unfolding, and pulled over to shoot me. The passengers’ screams eventually made him realize his mistake, but it was a horrific experience that I’ll never forget.
I share these stories to express my deep empathy for you and your fellow New Zealanders.
It’s heartening to know that your fight for justice has been heard, and I hope that the painful past does not dictate the future. May you find hope and strength moving forward.”
Thanks for the WhatsApp message, Charlie. I really appreciate that.
You know, your story is interesting to me because I’ve often thought when I’ve taken my folding cane out and sort of unfolded it in one gesture, it can sound a bit like a firearm being armed. I’ve wondered about this over the years.
But to hear that story from you makes me think maybe I need to be a bit more careful in certain countries, especially about the sound I make when I’m uncurling my cane. Maybe I need to do it a bit more gently. But that must have been really frightening.
Odd Problem with Windows Computer
Voice message: Hey, Jonathan! It’s me, Gino J.
First and foremost, I want to just say congratulations on the podcast. Loving it.
I’m using a new headset, actually. It’s a really cool headset. It’s the Corsair HS80. It was recommended to a friend. It is wireless. It uses USB-C, but I had to get a camera adapter kit just to get it to work.
Downside is that you can’t record using Telegram and different things like that, so I don’t even know if it’s actually recording with the headset or what because some apps work, some apps don’t.
Anyway, I wanted to comment and find out if any of your listeners may have an idea of what’s going on.
My wife works for a large bank. She works in the fraud department.
And as of late, she’s been getting a lot of issues with JAWS. I don’t know what version she’s running, but she would get this message that would pop up in her tab windows (when you do an alt tab anyway), and it says Microsoft Windows on top. Now, she can’t alt tab to it. But when she does the command in JAWS to pull up the different applications using the JAWS menu, she sees it. When she focuses on it, nothing is being displayed.
She’s reached out to IT through her company, and they have no idea. We weren’t sure if it had something to do with the company. But she was just speaking to a friend of hers, and her friend has noticed that same issue.
I don’t know if anyone has any idea. I don’t use JAWS enough. I use Fusion, and I don’t have that issue. But I’d like an answer to this, too. And I’m basically posing the question out to you, the listeners out there. So if you have any idea of what this “Microsoft Windows operating system on top” message is, it would be greatly appreciated.
Jonathan: Good to hear from you, Gino J. [reverb] Gino J. Dude!
I have seen this before with other computers that I’ve had the pleasure of configuring, or otherwise.
I reached out to Glenn Gordon to see if he could refresh my memory about this. He was very willing to help, and I appreciate that.
I think the best advice we can give the famous Ash is if she presses the JAWS key with F10 to bring up the list of windows on the screen, you should be able to find that window there. And it may just not say anything when you arrow through the list, but it should be there. You should then be able to press delete to close that window. It may not ever come back again. But even if it does after a restart, at least closing that window kind of gets it out of the alt tab order until the next time you restart. So maybe she can give that a go and hopefully, that will help.
iOS Notification Center
Melissa Kane is writing in. That’s Kane with a K.
But even so, that is such a cool name for a blind person to have. I’m totally envious.
Melissa says:
“I was just listening to episode 292 of your Living Blindfully podcast.
I heard you mention the error where you swipe down to open the Notification Center and it acts like it opens, but it does nothing.
I have been getting the same thing for a long while now, too. I just thought it was something that I was doing. It doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough to be annoying.”
See, I’m glad I spoke up about this now because it makes me feel not alone to hear that there are others who are experiencing this. It’s really annoying. [laughs] And sometimes, it gets into a groove where it can be very difficult to get the Notification Center to come down at all.
So maybe, if we keep reporting it to Apple, they might be able to crack it if we can provide them with telemetry data.
The trouble is, in Apple’s defense, when you’ve got a bug like this that doesn’t happen all the time, it can be quite hard to track down. And it’s one of those things where if you got on the phone or some sort of other thing with an Apple person, what do you reckon the chances are of it working every time? Really high. The tech demons seem to know when somebody in authority is watching.
## Zoom Essential Series Recorder
Let’s talk some more about the Zoom Essential series recorders, certainly a hot topic on Living Blindfully this year. We say bonjour to Stephane, who says:
“First of all, I’d really like to congratulate you for all the investigation work you are doing. I’m writing from France.
I’m a bit late, but I just listened to the demo you did of the Zoom H4 Essential Recorder. In this demo, you say it is possible to adjust the levels after having recorded. But unfortunately, I think you didn’t get time to demonstrate this process. Would it be possible to have this feature demonstrated in a future podcast?”
What I’m getting at, Stephane is that with the Zoom recorders, you’re recording in 32-bit float, and that means you have full ability to adjust the recording levels after.
So what I would do is put it into Reaper, (that is the tool that I use, but you could use anything that works with 32-bit float WAV files), copy them onto your computer, and then you can adjust the recording in whatever tool it is that you choose to use.
Russell says:
“I want to thank you for your absolutely wonderful demos of the Zoom Essential series of recorders.
After listening to the demo of the Zoom H4 Essential, I went out and purchased one. I love it.
I thought I heard you say that Zoom had released an accessible user guide for the H4, but I am not able to find it anywhere. Do you know if there is an accessible guide available? And if yes, where can I find it?”
As far as I know, Russell, the only accessible guides were released after people provided feedback about the inaccessible nature of the PDFs they produced for those manuals, and they are accessible update guides. So when you get those PDFs, the ones that tell you about how to update the software, they’re accessible. But I don’t think new versions of the full user guides have been released that are accessible.
I would love to be corrected if i’m wrong about that and there have been updates, because it is something that Zoom really should do.
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Voice message: Hey, Jonathan! This is Firas.
I currently own a shiny new iPhone 15 Pro Max, and I like it a lot. The move to USB-C has been quite significant. I just like everything about it. The battery life is great.
This is the first time I’m using a bigger sized iPhone. This is my first Pro Max size, actually, which is really cool to see. It’s definitely not the heaviest. It’s definitely big, but it’s not in the way you expect.
But one question that has occurred to me is, since the European Union has been forcing Apple to do certain things, … For example, when Apple switched to USB-C on the iPhone 15s after nearly a year of the iPhone 15s being out, do you think they’re so disappointed that they switched to USB-C? Do you think that they did not want to do so?
Because I know with sideloading, when Europe forced Apple to do sideloading, they’ve tried to go heaven and earth to make it as difficult and as hard as possible for it to happen. Essentially, they’re like okay, we’re going to do the bare minimum so that most users can’t even try to access sideloading.
Do you think they feel the same way with USB-C? Do you feel like they’re just doing the bare minimum and just giving us USB-C, and are they still kind of mad about it in a way? Are they kind of upset that they didn’t want to switch to USB-C?
What are your thoughts? Because I think USB-C is the future with so many accessories, so many devices, now switching to USB-C. I would love to get your thoughts on this.
Jonathan: Well, on the software side, I think they are dragging the chain a bit. Some officials in the EU are pinging Apple about this now and saying, you’re barely compliant. In some cases, you’re not compliant. You are deliberately being obstructive. And that process will take its course.
My view is that Apple would have gone USB-C at some point. It just makes sense. As you say, USB-C is the future.
It is so cool having an iPhone with USB-C. There are just so many peripherals you can plug into it, and they just work – from audio interfaces, to network devices, to hard drives. It’s very cool indeed. And Apple’s not going back on that one. USB-C is indeed the future.
I think it’ll be interesting to see though, the degree to which there is variation between what these products look like in Europe, and what they look like elsewhere. For example, Apple’s grudgingly allowing some degree of sideloading in Europe. They don’t want that to be available to others.
And yet, there is a cost. There’s a compliance cost involved in trying to work out where someone’s coming in from, what options are available in one market, and what options are available in another. But I mean, they are a multi-trillion dollar company, so I’m sure they can throw some money in that direction to sort it out.
But if American customers, for example, say well, the Europeans can sideload. Why can’t we? There may be some regulatory pressure placed on Apple in other markets going forward.
Beware of AI
Voice message: Hey, Jonathan! My name is Roman. I’m based in the state of New Jersey USA, and I’m following you guys for a long time, I quite not remember.
But I have to say, Mr. Mosen, you have inspired me a lot. Thanks for advocating for us blind folks. It means so much to me and a lot of people like myself.
I wanted to comment about the wearables and the technologies which are getting advanced with AI features.
I would like to say that I think we should step back when it comes to AI technologies because first off, it is not reliable. It is just, you know, LLM (Large Language Models), which can make mistakes.
Secondly, I do not know if you have seen the demonstration of ChatGPT 4O on the AppleVis website. It was quite a while ago. But I would like to add my opinion that, what if the phone’s battery dies and we are stranded somewhere where there is no kind of human help, and we are solely reliant on AI? It just scares me that these technologies are getting advanced and one time or the other, it’ll just bog us down and we’ll be in trouble as blind individuals, since we are relying on that too much.
Jonathan: Roman, a pleasure to hear from you, and thank you very much for your kind comments.
We should definitely be cautious. No question about that.
One of the phrases that OpenAI has popularized (and I hear this parroted by all sorts of people now) is the current version of large language models is the worst AI we will ever see.
And that is true. I think it is a lot more capable, a lot less inclined to hallucinate than it was when it first came on the scene, but it is far from perfect. And it worries me too, to some degree, about what happens if someone depends on it in a critical situation and gets wrong advice. So being sensible about this is absolutely essential, literally for our safety in some cases, if we’re using this technology when we’re out and about seeking directions, seeking information.
The difficulty is this AI genie is out of the bottle now. It’s not going away. And I think we, as blind people, have to be in there, influencing it. Because while it is a bit rough and ready around the edges still now, it has tremendous potential.
Even the reality of what it achieves now is quite something. When you look at things like Access AI from Aira, Be My AI from Be My Eyes, and PictureSmart from JAWS, what we’re getting back in terms of really good quality descriptions of photos, in many cases anyway, is just streets ahead of what we had 2 years ago.
And the juggernaut is not slowing down. I have the fortune or misfortune (I think it’s fortune because it beats the alternative) of having been around a wee while now. And I can remember with every major piece of technology that’s come out in the blindness space, and sometimes not in the blindness space, people have said, don’t get too reliant on this because what if it breaks? I think the first time I recall this being said was with the pocket calculator, in fact. And I’ve seen this with Braille displays, computer devices, all sorts of things. People say, make sure you maintain your basic skills because if the technology breaks, you’ll be up soup creek. And fair enough, it is important to maintain those skills.
But I also think if the technology exists, we’re going to use it, right?
But we do have a whole bunch of new dilemmas coming up. There’s no doubt about that. When ChatGPT 4O starts to roll out more widely, and we get this real-time thing going on, and you’re walking down the street and it’s giving you real-time information about what it thinks it’s seeing and what’s going on, it is going to require a whole new level of judgment, and I think your caution is very well advised.
So wonderful to hear from you. Hope you’ll keep in touch.
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Responses to Who Should I Donate to
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan! I’m listening currently to the podcast, and I’ve just reached the part where the gentleman would like to think about who to give this large sum of money to when he passes.
I believe that something that could be worthwhile to consider would be providing this To an organization that promotes giving assistive technology to the blind and visually impaired in the third world, or Africa. I’m not quite sure of any organizations that do this. There’s a couple South African organizations, but I’m not sure whether or not they allow for such things.
There’s Blind SA. That’s the first one that comes to mind. They, for instance, have started providing Bookshare to South African citizens, and I have a Bookshare account. So look. If that’s something that you possibly are interested in, I definitely think it would be worthwhile, specifically for Africa, though maybe I’m biased.
Caller: Hey, Jonathan! This is Scott Greenblack calling you from Tampa, Florida, in the United States.
I was just listening to your most recent podcast on Living Blindfully, and the gentleman was asking about where he could make bequests after his passing to help the visually impaired, and all that. And it occurred to me, in terms of technology, that a useful area to donate money might be to either the WeWalk Group or Smart Canes. They can donate those to people in need.
Or I don’t know if Glidance does it, but perhaps a bequest to Glidance to give free Glide devices once they’re being produced and being sold next October. I thought that both of those would give blind people a lot more independence, and be a great way to support technology that is helping us directly.
Shokz Headphones
Voice message: Hi, Jonathan and listeners! This is Debee Armstrong.
I just got the AfterShokz OpenComm2 Bluetooth bone conduction headset, and I love it. It works great with my Windows 11 PC, it works great with my iPhone, and iPad. It uses Bluetooth 5.1.
Thanks to Walt Smith who figured that out for me on the Victor Stream list because the Victor Stream 3 uses Bluetooth 4.2, so it will not work with the AfterShokz OpenComm2 Bluetooth bone conduction headset, which is kind of unfortunate. But it works with everything else.
And what I really like about it is that I can use it with my hearing aids. And Jonathan, I’m new to hearing aids, so I don’t know how you use headphones and hearing aids together. But for me, I found that most headsets were a giant pain, and I mean a physical pain to wear the headset and the hearing aids at the same time. But if I took off the hearing aids, I lost a lot of the treble from what I was listening to. And this is the first headset I’ve been able to use because you actually put it in front of your hearing aids. So it’s touching your cheeks in front of your ears and therefore, it doesn’t seem to interfere with them, and the aids can actually enhance the sound coming through the headphones.
So disappointing that it doesn’t work with the Victor Reader Stream 3, but very wonderful that it works with hearing aids.
Other listener comments would be great to hear.
Jonathan: Thanks, Debbie. Always good to have a purchase you’re happy with.
Just answering your question specifically, I seldom use headphones because I don’t need to. When I’m using my PC, I’m using the Roger On. And when I’m using my phone, it’s pairing with the hearing aids directly, as is the Apple Watch.
Thoughts on Abuse in Care
Hi, Jonathan and other Living Blindfully listeners! I wanted to comment on a couple of things that came up in episode 293.
You mentioned a segment where you talked about the Royal Commission report from New Zealand, which was a topic that fascinated me. I also grew up in a residential blind school in Montreal, but I suspect the experience would be similar, at least in the Commonwealth countries and probably other countries, at least in most Western countries, I suspect our experiences would be similar, so I’m actually very keen to read this report. I have not yet, because it will be long and probably intense, because I think we all had struggles in those institutions.
And to get to a place where as a nation, there was a commission appointed to acknowledge that and to reach out to survivors, I think is fascinating and fantastic. We have never had something similar.
And I know that some of my experiences had pretty major impacts on the remainder of my life. The most striking example is when I became a parent. I was very concerned that I would not repeat patterns. And thankfully, I think I haven’t, but I’ve done a fair bit of work to get here.
But some sort of acknowledgement would actually, I think, feel good at least, if nothing else. So I will read this report because I find the whole discussion fascinating, and I think that it would be of value for many of the countries that had residential institutions for disabled students to go through that exercise.
The other thing I wanted to comment on was in that same piece, you mentioned that the service provider organization is using Ontario as a model for accessibility legislation, and I find this concerning is putting it very mildly. We have legislation that was passed in 2005, which was intended to make Ontario accessible by January 1st, 2025. As I’m recording this, it is August 5th, 2024, so a hundred and something days left.
I would classify our accessibility progress to this point as, oh, barely detectable might be a good phrase. There has been little bits of progress, but mostly not much. Society in general, the built environment, etc. has not really changed significantly. In the field where I work, which is digital accessibility, we still have reference to a 2008 standard with all sorts of exceptions that make it almost worthless.
Anyway, I won’t go off on that tangent because I could talk for an hour on that tangent, but I really do caution that I think this is very much a failed model. Others may disagree. But particularly with our current pretty far-right government who has made public statements that this regulatory-type stuff is contrary to our “open-for-business” agenda, it’s failed, and we’re not going to get there in 150 days, or whatever it is before January 1st.
So I’m really hoping what you propose in reorganizing something more along the lines of the ADA and a consumer-driven grassroots effort is successful, so that you don’t repeat our experience.
Anyway, thank you for listening. I love the podcast! I’m very proud to be a plus subscriber because I find an immense amount of content in this podcast that’s useful.
Jonathan: Well, thank you for your contribution, and for your subscription to Living Blindfully plus. I really appreciate that.
And yes. Now that the commission’s got us back on track with proper civil rights legislation, let’s hope we can progress in an informed way, and in a way that will make a materially bigger difference to New Zealanders’ lives than what was hitherto being proposed.
WhatsApp and Braille
Voice message: Hi, this is Marion, otherwise known as Piano Marion from Holt, Michigan, United States. Couple of things.
First off, I do have the updates tab. I have spent the better part of 20 minutes looking for the Living Blindfully channel, to no avail. I’ve searched it thrice. I’ve looked through the directory, again thrice, with no success. Not finding it. Confused.
That preamble out of the way, I don’t remember the number of the episode that I’m about to refer to. But you spoke to a lady who was talking about Braille, and basically spreading the gospel, how relevant Braille still is today.
And I’ve come to a decision. Today is karaoke day in my household, and we’re going to go do this thing.
One of the things that I am going to do, I’m taking my NLS eReader with me (if only I could learn to talk), and I am going to sing a song I don’t know the words to by memory.
I’ve done this before, twice. The first time I had a lot of people commenting on the box I was reading on my waist. And the second time, no one said a word.
So this week is going to be One Moment in Time, in honor of the Olympics. I read through the words real quick on my phone, but I will do it with the eReader at karaoke tonight, and I’m going to do that once every time I go to karaoke. I will do one what I call Braille display song.
Jonathan: Good for you. What a marvelous idea.
And isn’t the NLS eReader program also a marvelous idea? So good to see Braille being put under the fingertips of more and more people. It’s a program that other countries might like to emulate, I’d suggest.
Regarding the WhatsApp channel, I’m sorry about that. If you’ve got other channels showing up for you, I really can’t explain it. I know there are still some people who don’t have channels rolled out to them yet. But if you’ve got other channels but not ours, I can’t tell you why that is because when I search for it, it’s there. And we also have, I don’t know, maybe between 100 and 200 subscribers, last I checked. So maybe it’ll appear in time. I hope so.
Seeking Recommendations for Bone Conduction Headphones
This email comes from Aparna, and it says:
“Hello, Jonathan,
Many congratulations on receiving the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award. You’re one of those people who I feel aren’t very Euro-American-centric in how you do your podcast, and people like me (I’m writing in from India) certainly appreciate that.”
Thank you very much. I’m still smiling about the award, which was a huge honor.
Aparna continues:
“I wanted to ask you and fellow listeners about bone conduction headphones.
Aftershockz, now Shokz, used to sell these nice wired bone conduction headphones.
But now, their entire range has gone wireless. And on writing to them, I was told none of their products are particularly low/no latency.
If I would like headphones/earphones that aren’t in-ear, like AfterShokz or on-ear, like your average headphones that cover the ears, If I want something that is low/no latency, leaves my ears free, and lets me retain situational awareness, what would you suggest I look at? I’d like to use them with my laptop. I will mostly be reading, writing, browsing the internet, etc. And with my iPhone, for more of the same.
A little bit about the Shokz OpenRun Pro. My father bought a pair recently, and I gave them a go. I felt like the sound quality is decent, there’s hardly any leakage of sound, as I was afraid there might be, and they sit comfortably, although they’re designed for bigger heads than mine, it seems. Thing is, there is noticeable latency, both on pairing with a Windows and iOS device, and that disqualifies it for me. I find it disorientating to type/navigate quickly, and receive delayed feedback.
Any suggestions that you or your listeners could help with would be great.
And like always, listening to Living Blindfully is a joy, and I thank you for all that you do.”
Jonathan: That’s a very kind message. Thank you so much, Aparna.
I’ve not much help on this one, because I’m not a headphone wearer. But this is where a good old cable can’t be beat still. You do get some inherent latency in this wireless technology. And I’m with you. It’s annoying, so let’s see if anybody has any answer.
It sounds like ideally, what you’re looking for is something that will plug in to a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. You’d need a dongle for that, obviously, on your iPhone that is bone conducting, or doesn’t cover your ear in some way.
So if anyone has any thoughts on this, LivingBlindfully.com/opinion is where you go to find out all the ways you can contact us.
Reaper and Markers Generated by the Zoom Recorders
Voice message: Hello, Jonathan! It’s Ali Kazi here from the UK. I thought I’d join the WhatsApp bandwagon. And at the same time, chime in with a question about Zoom recorders.
I recall you saying when you were doing your demonstrations that you thought there might be a way for markers that are inserted in recordings on the recorder to then appear in Reaper.
Now, I’ve tried this, and I’ve tried to use the normal methods of moving to the next and previous mark using Osara. I think, off the top of my head, it’s ; to move to the previous mark. And then on my keyboard, it’s, curiously enough, the # symbol or the number sign to move to the next marker.
Those don’t seem to work when you insert either the master WAV file into Reaper, or the WAV file for any of the tracks, the separate tracks.
Is there, in fact, no way at all to do this, or am I missing something here?
Just purely out of curiosity, I’m kind of interested because you know, it’s an interesting topic, often talking about country codes and things. Why is it that Living Blindfully has got a UK-based mobile phone number for WhatsApp rather than a New Zealand one?
Jonathan: I’ll start with the last one first, I think, because it’s the simplest one to answer.
There are various virtual number providers around the world. But not all of those virtual number providers interface with WhatsApp for Business, and I wasn’t able to find a virtual number provider that has a WhatsApp number in New Zealand. And since when you’re calling on WhatsApp you don’t incur long distance charges, I figured it doesn’t really matter where the number is. So there you go, another mystery solved for you.
And I’m on a roll, because I’m going to solve the second mystery for you as well.
There’s one important step that you’re missing if you want to import a WAV file that has markers in it. This is not unique to the Zoom recorders. If you get a WAV file from anybody and it’s all marked up with that metadata, just inserting the file into a track on Reaper is not going to give you the markers.
So as the old saying goes, this is what you do.
I have got another copy of Reaper open. I’ll go into that.
This just has a file in it that I made with the built-in microphone of the Zoom H6 Essential. Nothing fancy. And it was very quiet, as is the case with these recordings, when I brought it into Reaper. So I’ve taken the liberty of normalizing it to negative 23 LUFS, and we’re good now.
So I’m going to play this recording. You can hear what’s going on.
[start of recording]
Okay. Nothing fancy here, I’m just talking into the built-in mic of the Zoom H6 Essential.
I’m going to press the mark button.
I have inserted a mark at this point. Now, I’m going to just talk a little bit longer, and push the mark button again.
And hello, after inserting mark number 2.
And just for good measure, I’ll push the button a third and mercifully final time, and there is mark number three
[end of recording]
I’m going to go to the top of that file now.
Okay, nothing fancy.
I’m going to stop playing it, and we’ll check the time.
JAWS: 0 minutes, 0.000 seconds.
Jonathan: Now, I’m going to press the key to the right of the semicolon to advance to the next mark.
JAWS: 32.631 seconds.
Jonathan: And we are at the end of the file.
Why didn’t it work? Because there’s one important step we have to take. So I’ll go to the top of the file. And now, I’m going to select this item.
JAWS: 1-2-4-0-8-1-0-1-3-3-5-0-3-t-r-mic.wav – 0.000 seconds. Track view.
Jonathan: It’s selected now, and I’ll bring up the context menu by pressing the application key.
JAWS: Context menu. I. Item settings, submenu. I.
Jonathan: I won’t use first letter navigation. I’ll navigate down in this case, so you can hear the choices.
JAWS: Item properties…, P.
Source properties…, control+F2, P. P.
Group submenu. G.
Take submenu, A.
Comps submenu, C.
Item and take color submenu, I.
Item processing submenu, I.
Jonathan: And that is the one we want – item processing. So I’m going to press the right arrow key.
JAWS: Normalize items. Peak/RMS/LUFFS…
Jonathan: Now, I’m going to up arrow because this is the quickest way to get there.
JAWS: Propagate item to all similarly named items, P.
Propagate Propagate take to all similarly named active takes, P.
Propagate item to similarly named items on track, P.
Propagate take to similarly named active takes on track, P.
Import media cues from items as project markers, I.
Jonathan: This is the magic trick – import cues from media items as project markers.
I’ll press enter.
JAWS: Leaving menus.
Jonathan: I’m going to go to the top of this file. Just to be sure we’re there, I’m going to press the space bar to start playing. and then, I will navigate by marker.
Okay, nothing fancy.
JAWS: 01 markers.
Jonathan: I have inserted a mark at this point.
And hello after inserting mark number 3.
I was wrong about the number, wasn’t I?
JAWS: 03.
Jonathan: And there is mark number 3.
So there we go. We’ve got our markers now, and we can work with them.
[music]
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Accessibility of Jira
Voice message: Hi, guys! Christian here from Australia.
Does anyone use JIRA, the bug tracking software from Atlassian? Wanted some tips and advice on how to use it with a screen reader. I mean if one-on-one training could be provided, that would be ideal. But otherwise, just some tips and tricks.
Because we use JIRA at work. And I mean, I’m getting used to it slowly. Like, I can do adding comments and all that stuff. It’s a lot to learn.
But yeah. If anyone uses JIRA in the workplace and you can help, that would be really appreciated.
Blind Barbie
Voice message: Aloha, Living Blindfully listeners! This is your old friend. Well, not quite old. [laughs] Keao Wright from Hawaii, here to speak about the blind Barbie.
I like her, and she’s pretty cool. I believe that it would be a great role model for kids and adults to think positively about her. And also, we live in a well, not really perfect world for us but you know, it makes a good outlook on life.
And also, the one with the wheelchair will be a perfect example as well to show that we have a disability, but if we learn through life, we’ll be able to survive.
So that’s my thoughts about it. I got her actually when I came back from Washington, And she’s pretty cool.
Smart TVs With TalkBack, and Other Comments
Here’s an email from Pranav Lal, who says:
“Hi, everyone,
To John in episode 294, I have a Sony TV which does indeed run TalkBack. Yes, it has the Android TV operating system.
I can use apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I use only OTT (over the top) services, and do not have a cable or satellite connection.
TalkBack is sluggish, even when used with the remote control. I would have thought that using it with a device that has regular buttons would have made the experience better, but that doesn’t happen.
What does help though, is using the TV with a regular USB keyboard. This is handy when entering passwords during initial setup.
Overall, TalkBack is sluggish, and you are subject to the same accessibility quirks on the TV as you are on a phone.
Note: As of this writing, at least in India, a better, more accessible combination of technologies is using the Amazon Fire Stick with its VoiceView screen reader. I do not own a Fire Stick. Therefore, cannot comment. I did try an old Fire Stick once, but found that to be as slow.
As for smart glasses, they are the flavor of the year, I think. I am annoyed by manufacturers still giving us sub-optimal hardware.
Do the Envision glasses tell you about drop-offs?
In India, I know 3 companies working on smart glasses. None of them are usable in the real world.
I am testing one of them, and am trying to find something positive to say. The form factor is good. But in terms of functionality, as of now, the mobile phone outshines them all.
Having said the above, it is important to engage with these companies in the hope that they will produce something that we can use. And to any entrepreneurs listening, please take cross-sectional feedback from the blindness community because one size does not fit all.”
AppleVis
Voice message: Hi, everyone! This is Lianda from the UK. Thanks for a wonderful episode of Living Blindfully.
I did have to smile when you were talking about AppleVis. And I can’t remember your name, but the editor, I think you hit the nail on the head. Yes, it is a shame that AppleVis is closing. But like you say, other things will come like they have in the past. And also, the people who are contesting to it the most, it’s a shame a group of them couldn’t get together and look at a way to resolve it, and not just talk about it, if there was any way of doing that.
I’m on a lot of WhatsApp groups through iAccessibility, which I really love. And also, they have a great website full of resources for the blind. IAccessibility.net, I believe, if you want to check this out before you post this, that’s great.
The Word Blind in Other Languages
Voice message: Hello, Jonathan! This is Bill Belew in Ashland, Oregon, and I have a question for your many listeners around the world in various countries where they speak other languages, in regard to the discussion about the word blind.
I’m interested in if the word in their language for the word blind is used in many negative ways, as it tends to be in English.
I am a Living Blindfully plus member. I really appreciate your podcast, and the information and interesting discussions that you bring us. Thank you very much.
Jonathan: Well thank you, Bill, for your plus subscription. I appreciate that.
And it’s always good to hear from a legend. I think you were lurking around the same bulletin boards that I was in, the very early days of dial-up modems, and all that kind of stuff.
And I remember that Bill ran a company called Custom Eyes. 2 separate words – Custom, and then E-Y-E-S. It was a computer business. I remember seeing that on the bulletin boards and thinking, oh my word! That is my kind of name. Why didn’t I think of that?
I thought of some good ones, subsequently. Brailliant is mine. I came up with that one, and a few other ones over the years. I’ve named a few products that are still lurking about and still in use.
When I was rocking Freedom Scientific, I also named quite a few JAWS features, actually, that are still in use today. But Brailliant is the favorite thing that I’ve named.
But Custom Eyes, that one takes the cake. [laughs]
Anyway, great to hear from you, Bill. And it’s a good question because we’ve talked frequently on Living Blindfully about the negative portrayal of the word blind and how far too often, it’s used as a synonym for incompetence or ignorance. It would be interesting to find out if that is replicated in other languages.
LivingBlindfully.com/opinion is the web page that gives you all the ways that you can get in touch with Living Blindfully. And if you’re bilingual or multilingual, maybe you can give us the skinny on this, as they say, and then we can chew the fat as you give us the skinny. What a weird language English is?
Closing and Contact Info
And on that note, I’m out of here.
Thank you very much for your company this week, and all the contributions coming in.
Remember, when you’re out there with your guide dog, you’ve harnessed success. And with your cane, you’re able.
[music]
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