Reading in the dark

It's kind of like the Scrabble word challenge to music...

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:55:06 GMT

Feeling the need to listen to something other than the wind whistling around the aerye (not that I didn't enjoy listening to that for a couple of hours, but it does get kind of monotonous after a while), I decided to go with something kind of upbeat which doesn't feature homicidal AI or the undead, and so I've been listening to the new Barenaked Ladies kids album, Snacktime. Definitely my favorite song is "Crazy ABCs," which features some of my favorite words, like "irk" and "ouiji" --did I spell that correctly? -- and there are a lot of other words which I expect would be really useful for Scrabble addicts. I totally encourage people with kids to get this album, and I also recommend it for all those WERS listeners out there who, like me, are sad that The Playground only plays on the weekends. Oh, and I bet nobody can correctly spell all the words in the "Crazy ABCs" song.
Note: I downloaded the new album from eMusic, which is very accessible.

NFB leader for blind computer users claims ComputerWorld article inaccurately portrays PDF issues

Mon, 12 May 2008 13:53:05 GMT

Kes: Curtis Chong, computer science president for National Federation of the Blind, claims that the ComputerWorld article "Microsoft grows DAISY for blind computer users while Adobe wilts," by Eric Lai, published on May 8, inaccurately contextualized what he actually said, makes the very valid point that, despite all the usability issues with the PDF format and other proprietary formats developed by such corporations as Adobe and MicroSoft, usability issues are usually associated with poor document construction rather than inaccessible format. I would add that, in my experience, DRM (digital rights management) shares an equal amount of culpability in locking out assistive technology users from PDF and/or MS Reader format documents.

Curtis Chong's announcement issued through email distribution:

block quote start
>The article, "Microsoft grows DAISY for blind computer users while Adobe
>wilts," by Eric Lai, which appeared in Computerworld on May 9, 2008, turns
>some good news into an unnecessary and unwarranted opportunity to denigrate
>the efforts of a company (Adobe) which has done some very good work to
>improve accessibility for the blind and people with other disabilities. (A
>copy of that article is herewith attached.) Furthermore, it inaccurately
>reported the views expressed by me as president of the National Federation
>of the Blind in Computer Science. The tone of the article and its
>inaccurate reporting of our position diminishes the credibility of
>Computerworld as a reputable source of information. On the contrary, it
>bolsters the view, expressed by many in the blind community, that the
>mainstream press has not taken sufficient time truly to comprehend the real
>problems of blindness, let alone accurately reporting on the specific issues
>pertaining to nonvisual access to technology and electronic information.
>
>The title of the article pretty much says it all. It implies that while
>Microsoft is taking the lead to improve accessibility for the blind, Adobe
>is withering on the vine. I wish to make it clear that this is NOT an
>opinion shared by the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science.
>Our view on the matter is quite different.
>
>Over the years, Microsoft, Adobe, and other companies in mainstream
>information technology have spent a good deal of time, money, and effort to
>improve aspects of their respective technologies so that the average blind
>computer user would have a more positive experience using specific programs
>with screen access technology. When Microsoft's Word program was first
>released to run under the Disk Operating System (DOS), most blind people
>were not able to use it at all; today, Microsoft Word is used by most blind
>people who operate Windows-based computers. When Adobe first released its
>Acrobat Reader software for the Disk Operating System (DOS), no blind person
>I knew was able to use it with speech-based screen access technology; today,
>Adobe Reader works quite nicely with screen access technology for the blind,
>and the problems we encounter with PDF (portable document format) documents
>stem from poor document construction--not inaccessible software. Both Adobe
>and Microsoft today engage in substantive discussions with representatives
>of the blind community to address the myriad accessibility challenges that
>still need to be addressed. Both companies have made progress, and both
>companies still have much to do if access to all of their respective
>products is to be achieved by people who are blind. For an article such as
>the one which appeared in Computerworld on May 8, 2008 to assert that "Adobe
>wilts" interjects controversy and acrimony where neither is needed nor
>helpful.
>
>In the article, I am quoted as saying that "Adobe has done a lot of work to
>make reading a document accessible, but it has done far less work on the
>composition side." With all due respect to Mr. Lai, I would like to point
>out that this statement was quoted out of context. While it is true that
>literally thousands of blind people have had experience with Microsoft Word,
>a composition tool, it is equally true that far fewer individuals have had
>any experience with any Adobe composition programs that would be used to
>produce a PDF document. Therefore, as I told Mr. Lai, the average blind
>computer user can comprehend the work that Microsoft has done to make Word
>accessible through direct experience with that software. However, far fewer
>people would have any experience with Adobe's programs to produce a PDF
>document. Therefore, the majority of blind computer users, I said, could
>not help but believe that Adobe had done a lot of work to make Adobe Reader
>accessible and a lot less work to make PDF composition tools accessible;
>they would believe this based on their own practical experience no matter
>what any technology experts might tell them. In the end, I said, what the
>average blind computer user was going to notice, regardless of whether a
>document was coded in PDF, DAISY, or some other format, was (1) whether the
>program used to read the document would work at all with a screen access
>program, (2) whether there were any parts of the document that could not be
>read at all with a screen access program, and (3) whether or not efficient
>navigation within a document was at all possible using a screen access
>program.
>
>Let me say in closing that I and the members of the National Federation of
>the Blind in Computer Science are indeed pleased with the work that
>Microsoft has done to enable documents to be saved in the DAISY format.
>This work is commendable. However, its true benefit will only be realized
>if the DAISY documents that are so produced are properly marked up. The
>fact that Adobe has not engaged in a similar effort is, at this point, not
>of any real concern to us. We know (and we know that Adobe knows) that more
>work still needs to be done to improve accessibility by the blind to Adobe
>software. We intend to continue talking with Adobe to seek the improvements
>we believe to be necessary. Misrepresentations of our views in this area
>are not helpful to our discussions. We trust that Computerworld will take
>steps to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Curtis Chong, President
>National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science
block quote end

If you see that some strange person has friended you on Facebook...

Sun, 11 May 2008 20:28:58 GMT

that strange person might be me. The name has the initials A.V. I'm also trying to find the most usable application for integrating my LJ, something that doesn't create more GUI noise for me to ignore...

Books read in April

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:48:29 GMT

1. The Memory of Whiteness by Kim Stanley Robinson (1985) [scanned myself]
One of my favorite science fiction novels, in which music meets physics to create a synesthetic experience of space and time. Poetic prose, trippy images, and Machiavellian plots--what's not to like? Also, and oddly I had forgotten this, the protagonist is a blind musician. While he does have artificial eyes, a cool feature is that they are not perfect in that way that science fiction likes to render all prosthetics, but instead only give the musician a limited degree of low vision.
In the world of Kim Robinson's Mars trilogy, Memory of Whiteness is set after the Mars trilogy although Robinson wrote this right before he began the trilogy.

2. Mad Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors by Lisa Appignanesi (2008) [scanned myself]
Discusses the history of madness in women from the early nineteenth century through the present, with a focus on exploring how tied up the mind doctors were in not only diagnosing but transforming these patients into "star patients" who helped to make these doctors famous. I use the phrase "star patients" because not only, as the author points out, is there some transference from the doctor to the patient regarding what he desires in his ideal patient, but because many of the female patients discussed were themselves famous, from Mary Lamb to Virginia Woolf to Sylvia Plath (a slight disappointment was the lack of any mention of Caroline Lamb, who seemed referenced in the title, as she described Byron as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," although the same could have been said, perhaps, of herself).
One of the truly disturbing threads is how male doctors linked creativity, or any mental exercise at all, particularly reading, with mental instability in women. These women were often given enforced "rest cures" --not to mention, often highly addictive drugs-- in order to prevent them from doing anything, period. Lots of fascinating information about the connections between women's writing and madness, such as the real-life doctor portrayed in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper."
Very readable prose, good starting place for the subject.

3. "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" from _Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences_ by Ursula K. Le Guin (1987) [Bookshare.org]
I Read about this story in _Coyote At Large_ and really can't believe I've managed to miss it all these years. A young girl is stranded in the desert after being in a plane crash and is temporarily adopted by Coyote. Fun feminist myth plus wacky eyeball humor--highly recommended.

4. Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies (2006)
alexx_kay read this one to me--it was a Christmas present from him--and it is just a really fun book with lots of very witty rhymes and pictures portraying some fun-loving bats. The author does a lot with the pictures, including the fact that he includes different types of bats.
You can hear Daniel Pinkwater and one of the NPR hosts reading this book and describing the pictures here
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5507234
--stick around through the end and you'll hear a few verses of Jimmy Durante singing "The Day I Read a Book."

5. _The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature_ by S.T. Joshi, editor (2000) ]scanned myself]
6. _The Modern Weird Tale: A Critique of Horror Fiction_ by S.T. Joshi (2001) [scanned myself]
I admit, I only heard about S. T. Joshi from mssrcrankypants at the 2007 Readercon http://www.readercon.org ,
since it is difficult for me to hear about small and/or indie press books, as they tend to not get a lot of publicity. Better late than never, though, and I was really excited to have an annotated edition of Lovecraft's _Supernatural Horror in Literature_, as it is one of the best books on horror, made even more valuable by Joshi's footnotes and bibliography.
As for Joshi's _Modern Weird Fiction_, it put into words some of my niggling sense of annoyance with a lot of contemporary horror, mostly in the fact that much of it seems to be mainstream fiction dressed up in cliched dimestore Halloween costumes. Don't read this unless you want your critical appreciation of horror heightened.

7. _Little Brother_ by Cory Doctorow (2008) [etext]
Previously raved about in this blog.

8. "The Scarecrow" by Neil Martinson article from the magazine Proof (2008) [scanned myself]
alexx_kay pointed out this magazine in the Harvard Coop because the cover featured Patrick McGoohan as Dr. Syn in the Disney remake "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh." The article turned out to be a fascinating discussion not only of the Dr. Syn movies but also of various traditions involving scarecrows, complete with a few book titles on the subject.
The Dr. Syn entry in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Syn
has more info on the Dr. Syn films, the original book series, and various readings and reenactments.
Another interesting article from this magazine was titled "The Dada Girlfriends" by Molly Wicked, which discussed some of the women in the Dada movement and the tension between the movement and its complacency regarding maintaining the traditional roles of women in culture.

9. _Black Light_ by Elizabeth Hand (1999) [scanned myself]
A rereading of what is possibly my favorite Elizabeth Hand book due to its ievocation of the traditional weird story.

10. The Magician and the Fool by Barth Anderson (2008) [scanned myself]
The first seventy pages of this novel read a bit like a queer Tim Powers story, although at times it felt a little slow to me. Things soon speed up, however, and the last seventy pages or so speed by. I'm still trying to work out what the ending means; it's not ambiguous in a bad sloppy way, but in a "there are two ways you can interpret the story action" way, both interesting.

11. Death and Restoration: A Jonathan Argyll Mystery by Iain Pears (1996) [etext]
12. The Immaculate Deception by Iain Pears (2005) [etext]
Enjoyable art mystery set in Rome with two likable protagonists, Flavia, who works in the art theft division of the Roman police, and Jonathan, her fiance, a former art dealer turned art professor.

13. Armor of Light by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett (1988) [scanned myself, incomplete]
I should have loved this book, as Kit Marlowe is one of the main characters (the other being Spenser, of "The Faerie Queen" fame). Granted, this Kit is an older and supposedly wiser Kit who didn't die young, but he's pretty boring and mostly wanders about brooding over all the people who want to kill him. On page 23 it is decided that there should be a secret journey to the court of King James of Scotland, and by page 105 the journey still hasn't begun. What's worse, not much else has happened except lots of relationship angst on the part of Kit and Spenser (not with each other, sadly).
If you're a Kit Marlowe completist you will probably enjoy this more than I did.

14. _Consider Flebas_ Iain M. Banks (1987) [etext]
The first novel in the the Culture series. Space opera with lots of detailed world-building although the plot is like an SF Guns of Navarrone, which is actually appropriate, as see the reference to space opera.

Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi interviews

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:12:03 GMT

Neil Gaiman at Google
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LmfCGy_ZLg

and for those in the Boston area, Neil will be the speaker for the first julius Schwartz Memorial Lecture happening on May 23, 7-10 p.m., Kresge Auditorium at MIT.
http://cms.mit.edu/events/specialevents.php#052308

John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow talk about their new young adult books, George Orwell fan fic, and new ways to mentally torture your dog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THEGpbnp1tM

Also of potential interest is Cory's article in The Guardian about his top tips for sorting email
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/29/email.filter

Free remixable audiobook of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:21:31 GMT

Here's the announcement from Cory, and you can read my review of the book in the post previous to this one:

block quote start
My next novel, Little Brother, officially goes on sale today! In
addition to the US print edition, there's a DRM-free audio edition
(there's also forthcoming editions in the UK, Greece, Russia, France and
Norway, with others pending) from Random House Audio. My deal with
Random House is that they're absolutely not allowed to sell the book
with DRM on it, which, sadly, means that Audible (the largest audiobook
store in the world) won't carry it -- they insist on selling books with
DRM, even when authors and publishers don't want it.

Instead, you can buy the audiobook from Zipidee, a retailer that Random
House uses -- they have the spiffy embeddable Flash sales-object you can
find on Craphound.com (feel free to paste it into your own blog or
whatnot), and there's also a static URL for those of you who can't use
Flash.

The audiobook comes with my own sampling license: once you own it,
you're free to take up to 30 minutes' worth of material from it and
remix and then redistribute it as much as you like, provided that you do
so on a noncommercial basis, make sure that it's clear that this is a
remix and not the original, and make sure that you tell people where to
find the original. This is in addition to all the fair use remixing that
you're allowed to do without my permission (of course!).

I'll also be releasing (as always!) a free, Creative Commons-licensed
version of the text of Little Brother, just as soon as I get back to
London (I'm presently in Toronto, visiting my family with my newborn
daughter). It'll likely be Monday or so -- there's a bunch of little
clean-uppy things I need to do with the Little Brother distribution site
that I need to be in my office with uninterrupted time to accomplish.

Random House's page for Little Brother:
http://www.randomhouse.com/littlebrotheraudiobook

Buy Little Brother audio:
http://www.zipidee.com/zipidAudioPreview.aspx?aid=c5a8e946-fd2c-4b9e-a748-f297bba17de8

Buy Little Brother:
http://us.macmillan.com/Retailer.aspx?isbn=9780765319852
block quote end

Free download of Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen McHugh

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:41:46 GMT

Small Beer Press is offering a
free ebook download of Maureen McHugh's _Mothers and Other Monsters_
http://lcrw.net/mchugh/index.htm ;
if interested, here is a review I did of this book for Green Man Review
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_va_fictionquartet.html

Book review: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:12:12 GMT

block quote start
I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco's sunny Mission district, and that makes

me one of the most surveilled people in the world. My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when

this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced "Winston."
block quote end

As is obvious from the very first paragraph of _Little Brother_, Cory Doctorow's new book

begins with a bang and pretty much keeps up the pace straight through to the very end of the

story.

Marcus and his friends are typical teenagers in a not-too-distant future. They worry about

dating, getting into college, and how to skip class and not get caught. Then one day they

are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when a 9/11-style terrorist attack occurs in

San Francisco and they, along with many others, get picked up in a Homeland Security sweep.

Marcus soon finds himself under constnat suspicion and surveillance by his own government,

even as he begins to ask himself and others, including the adults around him, why he is

being forced to conform to a culture of fear or risk being labeled unAmerican.

As Marcus faces very real risks in objecting to being tracked and bullied by Homeland

Security, school administrators, and even his own father, who rationalizes the increasing

government surveillance, Marcus discovers the connections, both good and bad, between

technology and government control.

Without any doubt, this is Cory Doctorow's best work yet, both in the quality of the writing

and the very powerful story he has created. In a culture where adults constantly accuse

teenagers of being self-absorbed and apathetic, Cory has created a character who reflects

the very real political and technological savvy that many of today's teenagers actually

demonstrate. Additionally, the character of Marcus is very believable: he isn't a

supergenius and he isn't a saint. He fucks up but he learns from his mistakes. Similarly,

despite the fact that many of the adults insist that "no one who isn't guilty has anything

to worry about" (an attitude which sadly I have heard a number of times since 9/11), there

are some adults who try to have honest conversations with Marcus about the history of the

civil rights movement. Along the way, Marcus finds out about cryptography, the history of

protests in San Francisco, and how easy it is to cow even adults into conformity and

silence.

Reading _Little Brother_ reminded me of one of the books that changed my way of thinking,

and that was reading Thoreau's _Walden_ and _Civil Disobedience_ when I was sixteen. Since

then, there have become even more ways of demonstrating to teenagers that they are always

under suspicion, including more cameras, methods for tracking through cell phones, and even

drug tests you can buy in the local pharmacy and force your kid to take. Being the object of

such suspicion is hard on anyone, and finding ways to resist, especially once such attitudes

of fear and suspicion have leaked out to become culture and nationwide, becomes a way of

taking back power when others would prefer you feel powerless.

And Cory has indeed provided information about modes of resistance, for the book also

includes in the introductory material and the back matter a lot of information where

teenagers and teachers can find resources to learn more about cryptography, organizing

activist groups, and just about anything else you need to get involved in discussions and

demonstrations of resistance to the culture of fear. In addition, at least one group has

been inspired by _Little Brother_ to begin posting project howtos. Here is the post from

Cory.

block quote start
My next novel, Little Brother, is coming out in a couple weeks -- it's a
young adult novel about hackers who use technology to challenge
authority. The folks from Instructables saw an early copy of the book
and were really inspired by all the ingenuity demonstrated by the book's
heroes, so they've made a series of HOWTOs in the voice of M1k3y, the
techno-guerrilla who tells the story in Little Brother.

The first one has just gone live: Photo-Emulsion Screen Printing, a
HOWTO for making t-shirts for your movement's wardrobe needs.

Photo-emulsion screen printing:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Photo-emulsion-Screen-Printing/

block quote end

I like to think that good books always have at least a tiny kernel of subversion to them

and, by that yardstick, _Little Brother_ is a very very good book.

Other reviews:
Farah Mendlesohn's review in Strange Horizons
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2008/04/little_brother_.shtml
alexx_kay's review
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/211208.html

Kestrell gets a Catscan, a followup to migrains post

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:12:59 GMT

During December and January I had a lot of migraines, so my GP gave me a referral to a neurologist. The neurologist asked a lot of questions, especially as one symptom of fibromyalgia, which I have, is very bad headaches, complete with sensitivity to sounds and smells, so it is more complicated distinguishing these from migraines. Aside from quintupling the amitriptilin I was already taking for my fibro, the neurologist ordered some bloodwork and a Catscan. (It would have been an MRI, but I was unable to say for certain whether I had any pieces of metal in my head since, despite my asking questions from my various eye surgeons, they were unable to answer this question. One more reason for demanding that doctors give you any and all information on surgical procedures.)

Anyway, the catscan itself was kind of fun, in a very science fiction kind of way, so I thought I would share the details.

Despite receiving paperwork on where to go for the appt., I didn't receive specific pre-appointment directions, but as herooftheage is now an expert on many medical procedures, it seemed pretty likely I was not supposed to eat. This was later confirmed by a nurse, but, in the case of a catscan, you only need to abstain from eating two hours before the appt., and that is because the iodine dye used makes many people nauseous.

Before the catscan, a nurse used a needle to insert a tiny tube into my arm, as this tube is the delivery method for the dye. Note: this was delayed by the fact that I had just had blood drawn, thus using one of my best vein sites. The nurse said that these two procedures could have been done at the same time, thus cutting down on the amount of time I had people poking me in that vein, both with needles and with their fingertips.

When I entered the room where they do the catscan, there is this giant science fiction machine. I lay down, fully clothed, on the gurney, which had flaps that held my head in place.

When the catscan is started, there is this sound like you are in the mothership and it is taking off for space, think large engines. The gurney begins to automatically rise in the air, which made me giggle and say, "It's aliiiive!" alexx_kay was in a connected observation booth, and he said at this point there were little laser dots running over my face.

The technicians do one series of catscans, then a nurse came up and attached a device which alexx_kay said looked like a double-barreled phaser gun to the tube inserted in my arm. The iodine dye is injected, and the nurses allow five minutes for it to travel through the brain. As the nurse explained this, I thought, Hey, this could be useful information in case I ever write a poisoning scene, so I asked how long it takes for the injected fluid to get to the brain. The nurse answered it only takes seconds, but they allow five minutes to make sure it gets to all the smaller capillaries.

The dye causes this sensation of warmth, which was just as well, because the hall I had been waiting in was, to me, quite cool and my hands had been getting cold. There is also this sensation of having a full bladder, but it goes away pretty quickly, before the end of the five minutes it takes for the technicians to do the second series of scans.

The whole procedure probably took ten to fifteen minutes, after which alexx_kay and I spent an hour walking around outside of Boston Medical trying to find a bus to take us back to the redline, an especially fun feat on the day of the Boston Marathon. By the time the second bus driver said he didn't go to the redline but we could get on and go to the Orange line and then back to the etc. etc., I was down to my last spoon and I was on the verge of hijacking the bus (I figured alexx_kay could just yell "go right!" or "go left!"). Fortunately, the bus driver admitted that yes, there was another possibility that was less complicated and he gave us directions to find the supersecret bus which would get us back to the redline, and friends, we did, and everything was groovy except that I need to say, if I ever have something seriously wrong with me and end up at Boston Medical, I am going to spring for a taxi back home because every time I go there it takes just as long to get home as it takes for whatever medical procedure I am getting.

Wikipedia entry on Catscan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catscan

Online talk on accessible chess

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:05:23 GMT

Kes: Anna Dresner produces some of the most knowledgeable and useful discussions on accessible media, so I highly recommend this event to anyone interested in the subject.

Anyone For A Game of Chess? | Accessible World
Date: Monday, April 21, 2008

Time: 5:00 p.m. Pacific, 6:00 p.m. Mountain, 7:00 p.m. Central, 8:00 p.m. Eastern and elsewhere in the world Tuesday 0:00 GMT.

Where: Tek Talk Conference Room at:
http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2
or
http://www.accessibleworld.org

The Accessible News Wire April 13, 2008, Indianapolis, Indiana USA
http://accessibleworld.org/content/anyone-game-chess

Chess has been defined many ways but most will agree that it is not merely an idle amusement but essentially in its essence it is a game, in its form an
art, and in its execution a science. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened
by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions. the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century
after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian Origin dating back somewhere before 600 A.D.. Today, while chess is one of the world's
most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally, only a limited number believe
that it can be played and enjoyed by individuals who are blind. Anna Dresner and Alan Dicey will demonstrate to the Tek Talk audience that Whether you're
new to chess or a seasoned player, blindness does not have to stop you from playing, and playing well. It really is a game that can be played effectively
and enjoyed by those who are totally blind.

IN their presentation, they will describe adaptive chess sets, discuss playing as a blind person, tell you where to get free lessons, and suggest lots of
ways to meet other players - sighted and blind, from the U.S. and elsewhere - and develop your skills via e-mail, voice chat, and computer chess programs.
So listen in, then grab a board and join the fun!

Contacts: Woody Anna Dresner, National Braille Press. Email:
adresner@nbp.org

Alan Dicey, President of the U.S. Braille Chess Association. Email:
adicey@bellsouth.net

. Select the Tek Talk room, enter your first and last names on the sign-in screen.

All Tech Talk training events are recorded so if you are unable to participate live at the above times then you may download the presentation or podcast
from the Tech Talk archives on our website at
http://www.accessibleworld.org.

All online interactive programs require no password, are free of charge, and open to anyone worldwide having an Internet connection, a computer, speakers,
and a sound card. Those with microphones can interact audibly with the presenters and others in the virtual audience.

If you are a first-time user of the Talking Communities online conferencing software, there is a small, safe software program that you need to download
and then run. A link to the software is available on every entry screen to the Accessible World online rooms.

Sign up information for all Accessible World News Wires and discussion lists are also available at our website:
http://www.accessibleworld.org.

Looking for Linux scanning program

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:09:35 GMT

Anyone have any recommendations?

Username Faust review

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:57:51 GMT

Yesterday alexx_kay, juliad and I attended "username: faust," currently playing at the New College Theater. I found it both enjoyable and thought-provoking; my ultimate judgement is that creatively, it is a fabulous play, but politically, I completely disagree with its theme.

Here is the story (note I think I am conflating the character name with the actors' names, due tot he way the program presented this information). Alice, a wheelchair user who works from home at a data entry job, becomes drawn into the Internet, posting to LiveJournal and later, under the influence of Sophie, creating YouTube videos. Soon she finds herself withdrawing from her real-life friend and neighbor, Wendy, in order to cultivate the adoration of her online fans. All of this comes about through a literal Faustian bargain, with Lucifer being played by a sort of "remixed Old Nick," who sings all his parts through pieces from various Faust operas.

The acting was impressive (although I wish the female lead had projected a bit more), and the opera was wonderful.

My main issues with the play are that it takes the easy route in some of it's narrative, including a pat "technology is evil" moral stance. To be specific, the action of the play presents the idea that the Net robs you of "real" experience and substitutes superficial meaningless virtual experience. It is to be noted, as
this other review
http://galen-reviews.livejournal.com/12688.html
points out, that this is a Harvard student's senior thesis, but still, I feel a more complex unpacking of the pros and cons of technology is, at this point in the 21st century, to be expected.

As a disability and technology advocate, I have to strongly object to this theme.

1. From a 21st century perspective, the "technology is evil" stance is over-simplified and not very useful to a culture which uses technology every day, in all sorts of contexts, for all sorts of reasons. The narrative possibilities were restricted by the one act length of the play, but still, it would have been refreshing to see something new. (alexx_kay pointed out that the theme was even self-contradictory, as much of the content was presented through the use of technology, including projections of cmputer screens and YouTube videos.)

2. Particularly as the theme was contextualized by the fact that the characters were people with disabilities, there was some implication that they were more susceptible to the lure of Internet relationships because their real lives were unfulfilling, with Wendy complaining of having no boyfriend and Alice complaining about her tedious data entry job. I felt really uncomfortable with the portrayal of these two characters who seemed to have no connection with books, or music, or hobbies. In other words, these weren't like any of the real people with disabilities that I know, but they did serve to underscore how emotionally vulnerable PWD could be, with the implication that PWD might more easily fall pray to the lure of Internet-based relationships.

Ultimately, I feel there needs to be more portrayals of the positive uses of technology and th reality that the user has the power to adopt, adapt, turn it on and turn it off through their own sense of agency. While the ending of the play did show the lead character turning off her computer and leaving the stage, this ending was problematized by the fact that she was still showing up on the cameras, which continued to be viewed by Sophie and Lucifer. This left a sense that, once the genie has been let out of the bottle, the user has no way back, no means of really reclaiming agency, and will never truly escape the exploitive gaze of the technological eye.

You can find Alice's blog entries on LJ (sorry, not certain of the url), and you can catch some of the YouTube videos shown within the play and audience commentary (including my own contribution) at
the username: faust YouTube channel
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yVVzEPFbg4o&feature=PlayList&p=1F537754225D8FE6&index=1
[updated and corrected url].
(Just as an aside, when we returned home last night, alexx_kay went off to World of Warcraft and I went off to LJ.)

Reader's block

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:42:06 GMT

I have read a couple of posts on this subject lately and, as I experienced this at the end of last year, I thought I would write about what I did to recover from this insidious and distressing condition.

During November and December of last year I found myself really struggling with a feeling of reader's ennui. I had never in my life as far as I could remember experienced a lack of interest in reading, not even when I had serious eye problems. I was griping about it at a party one night and someone said, "Well, maybe you're just not in a mood to read anything; I feel like that sometimes." I didn't reply verbally to this idea, but I'm positive my expression conveyed my thoughts of "Do I know you? or more to the point, do you know me?"

What I finally did was take a long look at what I had been reading and try to determine, much as if I was considering my nutritional intake, if I was getting what I needed out of my reading choices. My new habit of posting what I read over the past month and the source of those books is one of the things I am trying to do in order to more proactively think about what I am reading. I'm also conscious of the fact that I seem to have entered a phase as a reader where I am much more critical regarding not wanting to read a story that seems to be like a hundred or even a dozen other books I have read before.

For a number of years I was a full-time student who spent much of her time scanning textbooks and research material, so it was only recently that I had the time to really choose what I read. I had fallen into a lazy habit of just reading whatever I found in an already accessible format on Bookshare.org or the National Library for the Blind. These libraries tend to reflect tastes that are more mainstream and, while this was what I needed in my down time while I was a student, once I had more time to choose what I read, I felt I wasn't really reading the sort of more complex books I wanted to read. The impression I had was of feeling sort of malnourished, from a reader's standpoint. I decided that perhaps I would read fewer books but, instead of reading whatever came to hand, I would choose more carefully and then scan the books I really wanted. You'll notice, if you look at the source of the books I have been reading this year, that roughly half I have scanned myself. This also recaptures for me the sense I had as a sighted reader, of enjoying the process of browsing itself, and of choosing carefully. In a sense it is much like when I was a kid and could only take out x number of books from the library, so I would spend a couple of hours just deciding what I would check out. I wonder if to some degree the almost infinite choices that the Internet offers for being able to purchase almost any book has not in some way dulled the sense of using one's own, call it a literary current or an undertow, perhaps: that sense of being drawn toward certain narratives, certain stories and subjects that distinctly speak to you, personally, as a reader.

Ultimately, what I found to be a "cure" for reader's block is t rediscover the browsing process and to be aware of your own narrative fetishes, the sort of stories which truly excite you on a very personal level. At the same time, I tink it is important to consider keeping a record of which books you liked and which you didn't, along with even a single reason why you liked or disliked those books. I have found, for instance, that I no longer have the patience to read a three hundred or four hundred plus book where nothing has happened by the first seventy to one hundred pages. Now I am trying to refine what I mean by this idea of "something happening": roughly I mean a sense of movement, although that sense of movement does not have to be external action. It can be a sense of movement conveyed through internal dialogue that the character is interacting with the world, is reflecting on what happens to him or her, and is wrestling with acting more than merely reacting with complaints or angstt (this is where a lot of chicklit or "novels of manners" lose me).

These suggestions may not work for other people, I'm just saying they have worked for me and I have been quite pleased to feel that I have recaptured that sense of getting excited about the books I read.

Book reviews: new books by Elizabeth Hand, Walter Jon Williams, and more

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:36:32 GMT

There is a new edition of Green Man Review online
http://www.greenmanreview.com/whats_new.html
and I have four reviews in it:
_Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration_
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_ashenden_charleswilliams.html ,
Elizabeth Hand's _Bride of Frankenstein_
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_hand_brideoffrankenstein.html ,
_The New Weird_, which made me question what the purpose is of all those extras editors are so fond of stuffing into anthologies nowadays
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_vandanmeers_thenewweird.html
and
_Implied Spaces_ by Walter Jon Williams, which made me a new convert to Williams's writing
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_williams_impliedspaces.html

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!: theatre

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:13:53 GMT

alexx_kay and I will be attending the 3 o'clock performance of
username: faust
http://kestrell.livejournal.com/423183.html#cutid1
since this performance will be providing a descriptive track for visually-impaired attendees.
Also of note for Sunday performances is
William Shakespeare Vampire, Hunter
http://community.livejournal.com/bard_in_boston/63160.html

Books read in March +"science fiction melodrama"

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:00:56 GMT

1. "Fountain of Age" Nancy Kress (2007) [Fictionwise]
Along with the short story "Memory Dog" mentioned next, I have generated a subgenre which I call "science fiction melodrama." It tends to have really unsympathetic characters who I am supposed to want to see redeemed, except I don't believe it because a short story is too short a period for people like this to suddenly turn around and become someone else. Also, the tech in these stories tends to be just a MacGuffin used to instigate and/or resolve the story. All this aside, even as I forced myself to finish these stories, I found myself thinking "I just know these stories are going to win awards." Maybe I'm just not girl enough to like "relationship" stories.
2. "Memory Dog" by Kathleen Ann Goonan from Asimov's April/May 2008 [Fictionwise]

3. Midnight Premiere edited by Tom Piccirilli (2007) [scanned myself]
I had been lusting for this anthology of horror stories about horror movies since I first read about it last summer and when I saw a used copy on Amazon for under $25, I jumped on it. It wasn't a disappointment, and the stories range from the subtley weird to the complete gross-out. Standout stories for me were the first and last stories in the book:
Gary Braunbeck's story"Onlookers," which exploits the uncanniness of film itself and reminded me a bit of Ramsey Campbell's _The Grin of the Dark_ in its focus on early silent film, and Ed Gorman's "Scream Queen," which is the perfect endnote as it highlights the difference between movie horror and real-life horror. "Between the Storms" by Gerard Houarner was another excellent story which used an eerie setting to really deliver the shivers.

4. 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School (2007) [scanned myself]
A small book which highlights some of the basic ideas of creating buildings and spaces with an emphasis on how people move through the space and ways to attain certain effects.

5. From _The New Wave Fabulists_ (2002) [scanned myself]
"The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" John Crowley, "Entertaining Angels" by M. John Harrison and "Beyond the Pale" by John Clute. Harrison's story initially hit me as a fractured surreal dream, but then the meaning (or a meaning) slowly sank in, making me immediately go back and read it again. Clute's essay is rather dense in its language but is a fascinating discussion of what Clute calls the "club story," that kind of story which is framed by a group of people telling stories (another one of my narrative fetishes) and how this form adds authenticity to the story.

6. "Captive Girl" from _Unwelcome Bodies_ Jeniffer Pelland (2008) [ebook purchased from Fictionwise.com]
A Nebula-nominated short story which addresses disability and the power exchange in relationships; Pelland's work to me is suggestive of a downbeat John Varley, with characters not only being dressed up in extreme tech, but also having to deal with the resultant issues of identity.

7. "Stars Seen Through Stone" Lucius Shepard (2007) [Fictionwise]
Another Nebula-nominated short story, this one more of a weird tale. Shepard, along with other "fabulists" like M. John Harrison, Liz Hand, and John Crowley, writes luxurious arabesquing prose which I just fall into.

8. Norman Spindrad's books column in the April/May Asimov's
Spinrad writes a great rebuttal to those SF writers and critics who have declared SF dead, claiming that today's SF has no "big ideas."

9. Altered Carbon Richard K. Morgan (2002) [scanned myself]
Great story with a character who reminded me a lot of Philip Marlowe in _The Long Goodbye_.

10. Odd and the Frost Giants Neil Gaiman (2008) [scanned myself]
A fun little book, great for reading aloud and doing the animal voices.

11. Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror compiled by Steve Jones (1997) [scanned myself]
Along with _Pandemonium_, this glossy book documents Barker's influences and the themes with which he is occupied. This book was based upon a t.v. series which Barker hosted.

12 The Devil Rides Out Dennis Wheatley (1935) [etext]
I read this along with Fritz Leiber's _Conjure Wife_ because both were mentioned in _Horror: The 100 Best Books_ edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. Unfortunately, both stories suffer from the prejudices of the time they were written in. It's not enough for Wheatley that his bad guys must be people of color or foreigners or disabled, but they must be foreign people of color with disabilities. Still, probably worth reading as an antecedent of the supernatural thriller or the paranormal romance.

13. _Conjure Wife_ by Fritz Leiber (1943) [etext]
Another unsympathetic protagonist who seems to view all women through the filter of pathologizin gthem into categories of "neurotic," "hysterical," and child-like. Here is how he thinks of his wife: "If he had ever wondered about Tansy and superstitions at all, it had only been to decide, with a touch of self-congratulation, that for a woman she was almost oddly free from irrationality." Still, if horror is a reflection of cultural anxieties and fears, this book, along with the Wheatley one, make interesting mirrors.

14. Implied Spaces Walter Jon Williams (2008) [scanned myself]
reviewed for Green Man Review

15. The Bride of Frankenstein by Elizabeth Hand (2007) [scanned myself]
reviewed for Green Man Review

16. The New Weird (2008) [scanned myself]
reviewed for Green Man Review

17. Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration by Gavin Ashenden (2008) [scanned myself]
reviewed for Green Man Review

American newspapers, then and now

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:33:34 GMT

Kes: More on the death of the American newspaper, but this one includes a bit of history (excerpt included below).

The News Business
Out of Print
The death and life of the American newspaper.
by
Eric Alterman
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman

March 31, 2008

block quote start
Arianna Huffington questions newspapers’“veneer of unassailable trustworthiness.”

The American newspaper has been around for approximately three hundred years. Benjamin Harris’s spirited
Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick managed just one issue, in 1690, before the Massachusetts authorities closed it down. Harris had suggested
a politically incorrect hard line on Indian removal and shocked local sensibilities by reporting that the King of France had been taking liberties with
the Prince’s wife.
It really was not until 1721, when the printer James Franklin launched the New England Courant, that any of Britain’s North American colonies saw what we
might recognize today as a real newspaper. Franklin, Benjamin’s older brother, refused to adhere to customary licensing arrangements and constantly attacked
the ruling powers of New England, thereby achieving both editorial independence and commercial success. He filled his paper with crusades (on everything
from pirates to the power of Cotton and Increase Mather), literary essays by Addison and Steele, character sketches, and assorted philosophical ruminations.

Three centuries after the appearance of Franklin’s Courant, it no longer requires a dystopic imagination to wonder who will have the dubious distinction
of publishing America’s last genuine newspaper. Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing
advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago. Bill
Keller, the executive editor of the Times, said recently in a speech in London, “At places where editors and publishers gather, the mood these days is
funereal. Editors ask one another, ‘How are you?,’ in that sober tone one employs with friends who have just emerged from rehab or a messy divorce.” Keller’s
speech appeared on the Web site of its sponsor, the
Guardian, under the headline “NOT DEAD YET.”
block quote end

Free award-nominated stories offered by Night Shade Books

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:45:39 GMT

Whenever I start to feel that genre fiction is getting stale, I pop over to Night Shade Books and get an attitude adjustment. I'm currently writing a review for Walter Jon Williams's new book _Implied Spaces_, to be released by Night Shade Books in April, and noticed that NSB is offering some free downloads at their downloads page
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/downloads/

Andy Duncan's Nebula-nominated short story"Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse"
Garth Nix’s Ditmar-nominated story “Bad Luck, Trouble, Death, and Vampire Sex”:
Richard Kadrey’s novel _Butcher Bird_ (formerly titled _Blind Shrike_, it features a yes! blind swordswoman)
Jon Armstrong’s "shocking high-fashion dystopian" novel _Grey_, nominated for the John W. Campbell Award

You can also order other great new SF from Night Shade Books like Walter Jon Williams's _Implied Spaces and
_The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 2_, featuring stories by Stephen Baxter, Peter S. Beagle, Holly Black, Ted Chiang, Greg Egan, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Susan Palwick, Bruce
Sterling, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, and many others.

Faust play featuring actors with disabilities at Harvard

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:12:17 GMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

username: faust
taking accessible theatre into the digital age

(CAMBRIDGE, MA) - Tickets are on sale for username: FAUST, an original
multimedia production featuring an ensemble of local performers with a
variety of disabilities. Performances will be held April 9-13, 2008 at
Harvard's New College Theatre, 12 Holyoke Street, Cambridge, MA.

Directed by Harvard senior Charlie I. Miller, this adaptation of the Faust
legend is a collaborative work, created in partnership with the cast. Miller
assembled a group of artists with disabilities ranging from blindness to
bipolar disorder, and began working with them last fall. What began as
improvised workshops, scenes, and video projects has become a cutting-edge
performance unlike any other theatrical or cinematic event.

While complicated in its technical execution, username: FAUST is at its core
accessible theatre. Miller designed the show to be a stimulating
multi-sensory experience that can be enjoyed by a diverse audience.
Additionally, the venue at Harvard's New College Theatre is completely
accessible to patrons with disabilities, and the production will offer open
captioning and audio description. ASL interpreters are available upon
request.

Miller's inclusive vision started in his native Colorado, where he worked
five years for the Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League
(PHAMALY), the nation's only theatre company that produces large-scale
professional productions featuring an entire cast of actors with
disabilities.

username: FAUST will thrill everyone from opera fans to YouTube junkies. The
show integrates live theatre, music, and video to tell the story of an
isolated woman's attempt to gain popularity by remaking herself as an
Internet celebrity. When a demonic tech support team jeopardizes her
password-protected existence, she must overcome digital distortions to
regain control of her life. Videos on the "usernameFAUST" YouTube channel
complement the live performance

The cast includes Maureen Finnerty as the reclusive Cass, Alice Dampman as
her friend Wendy, Leslie Rosenberg as the scheming Sophie, and baritone
Wesley Ray Thomas as Lucifer.

Finnerty, an experienced dance and acting teacher who uses a power
wheelchair, has enjoyed working with Miller on the project. "Incorporating
our disabilities into the performance enabled us to reinvent the Faust
story," she said.

username: FAUST opens Wednesday, April 9th and runs through Sunday, April
13th. Performances are at 7 pm on April 9th, 7 pm and 9 pm April 10th
through 12th, and 3 pm and 5 pm April 13th. There will be open captioning
and audio description at the 3 pm performance on Sunday, April 13th. Tickets
are $10 and are available through the Harvard Box Office,
www.boxoffice.harvard.edu, (617) 496-2222, and in person at the Holyoke
Center Arcade. For accessibility arrangements, contact Roxanna Myhrum at
usernamefaust@gmail.com. For more information, visit charlieimiller.com.

For media requests, please contact Roxanna Myhrum at (857) 753-8721 or
usernamefaust@gmail.com

It's good when you can laugh

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:38:37 GMT

One reason I listen to http://www.937mikefm.com
is that they play these really amusing little soundbites. The one which just played was
News flash! Boston Mayor Menino wants to outlaw violent video games.
...News flash: Mayor Menino knows what video games are.

It seems, according to this story
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1080874&srvc=home&position=rated
that the mayor is blaming teenage street violence on video games. I've always been curious about this arguement: if kids are home playing video games, how can they be out shooting people? Also, is it an election year for the mayor?

Bookshare.org Partners with Don Johnston to Provide Free Text Reader for Print-Disabled Students

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:09:51 GMT

From the Daisy Talking Book mailing list

Bookshare.org Partners with Don Johnston to Provide Free Text Reader for Print Disabled Students
Special education publisher (Don Johnston) partners with non-profit online library (Bookshare.org) to provide free assistive technology software for students with print disabilities.

Palo Alto, CA and Volo, IL
) March 13, 2008 -- Bookshare.org and Don Johnston have announced a partnership to provide qualified print disabled students with a free text reader to access electronic books from the Bookshare.org library.
This technology access partnership announced at the 2008 CSUN conference in Los Angeles, CA, will serve an estimated 1-3% of the total K-12 student population, specifically those who receive special education services and qualify under the 1996 Chafee Amendment.
We chose Read:OutLoud because of its strong support tools for students with reading disabilities and its ability to read DAISY files that have the richness that comes from the NIMAS publisher files. Benetech and the team at Don Johnston are working closely together to create more equality for students with learning disabilities and special needs.

Beginning at the start of the 2008-09 school year, qualified students will have the opportunity to use Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader (Windows Version) to access more than 36,000 books, magazines and newspapers in the Bookshare.org library.
The Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader offers embedded reading comprehension strategies and instructional supports that align with state educational standards. The text reader software includes audio feedback, electronic highlighting and note-taking features that allow students to effectively capture ideas. A Mac version will follow in 2009.

"Don Johnston and his products have a solid reputation in the special education community," says CSUN keynote speaker Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, the Palo Alto, California-based nonprofit organization that operates Bookshare.org. "We chose Read:OutLoud because of its strong support tools for students with reading disabilities and its ability to read DAISY files that have the richness that comes from the NIMAS publisher files. Benetech and the team at Don Johnston are working closely together to create more equality for students with learning disabilities and special needs."
The goal of this partnership is to help eliminate barriers for print disabled students and provide the tools needed to ensure access to educational texts. Bookshare.org offers digital books produced from the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) and delivers them to students in the BRF Braille file format and the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) standard for Digital Talking Books. Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud Bookshare Edition text reader gives students better access to books and effective reading instruction through a direct connection to Bookshare.org's digital texts.
"Now that students with the most significant print disabilities will have free technology access to Bookshare.org's library of texts, we want to make sure that they will also benefit from using our technology to improve their reading comprehension skills and study habits," says Ruth Ziolkowski, President of Don Johnston.

About Bookshare.org
Bookshare.org is an online community that allows people with print disabilities to legally download books and periodicals to be read as Braille, large print or synthetic speech. In October of 2007, Bookshare.org received a $32 million five-year award from the U.S. Department of Education to significantly expand the availability of accessible digital books and software for reading those books. Over the next five years, Bookshare.org expects to add over 100,000 new book titles and textbooks to its collection.

About Don Johnston Incorporated
Don Johnston empowers educators with supplemental instruction and intervention solutions to help struggling learners build core literacy skills with confidence. Since 1980, the company has partnered with literacy experts, psychologists, teachers, researchers, and scientists to develop over a dozen educational technology access products. The company also publishes Start-to-Finish®, a collection of paperback, audio and computer books to engage struggling readers and ESL learners. 1-800-999-4660 - http://www.donjohnston.com/ www.donjohnston.com

Resource Links:
Read:OutLoud® Bookshare.org Edition Text Reader
http://www.donjohnston.com/products/rol_bookshare/index.html http://www.donjohnston.com/products/rol_bookshare/index.html
CSUN - California State University at Northridge Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference - http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2008/ http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2008/
American Foundation for the Blind - Chafee Amendment: Initiated by the late Senator John J. Chafee (R-RI), enables students with visual and print disabilities to qualify for specialized technology to access print materials. http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=44&TopicID=16&SubTopicID=33&DocumentID=1785 http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=44&TopicID=16&SubTopicID=33&DocumentID=1785
US Copyright Law: http://www.loc.gov/nls/reference/factsheets/copyright.html http://www.loc.gov/nls/reference/factsheets/copyright.html
Learn about NIMAS. Watch NIMAS 101: What Educators Need to Know http://www.donjohnston.com./prof_services/nimas/index.html http://www.donjohnston.com./prof_services/nimas/index.html

New interface translates thoughts into speech

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:05:21 GMT

Kes: Another device where PWD get to be the early adopters, but no doubt all the able-bodied kids will want one too, 'cause hey, we've seen it in the science fiction movies, although I'm particularly thinking of Connie Willis's short story, "Spice Pogrom."
from the Technology Review blog

Speechless Conversations
A new device translates your thoughts into speech so that you can have a cell-phone conversation without uttering a word.
Friday, March 14, 2008By Brittany Sauser
Ambient Corporation

, a company based in Champaign, IL, that develops communications technologies for people with speaking disabilities, is calling its latest system "voiceless
communication" with good reason. The company has engineered a neckband that translates a wearer's thoughts into speech so that, without saying a word,
he or she can have a cell-phone conversation or query search engines in public.

Don't fret: the device, called Audeo, can't read minds, so it won't capture your secret thoughts. It picks up the neurological signals from the brain that
are being sent to the vocal cords--a person must specifically think about voicing words--and then wirelessly transmits them to a computer, which translates
them into synthesized speech. At the moment, the device has a limited vocabulary: 150 words and phrases.

The video below shows Michael Callahan, a cofounder of Ambient and a developer of the device, demonstrating the technology at the
Texas Instruments Developers Conference, which was held in Dallas from March 3 through 5. In his speech, he says that by the end of the year, the device will be ready for use by people with Lou
Gehrig's disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that can cause sufferers to become completely paralyzed. He also says that in the future, if
a person is walking down the street thinking about where a bus station is located, the device will automatically wirelessly query a search engine to find

Go to original story to watch video
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/22037/?nlid=942

Finalists for 20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards Announced

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:53:38 GMT

Kes: The complete list other than the SF finalists is below the cut.
Q: I was thinking it would be great to try to organize a group of blind SF fans so that we could each pick one book and scan it, then contribute the group of books to Bookshare. Anyone interested in participating in a blind queer SF fan distributed effort?

LGBT SCI-FI/FANTASY/HORROR

* Wicked Gentlemen, Ginn Hale (Blind Eye Books)
* A Companion to Wolves, Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (Tor Books)
* Spaceman Blues: A Love Song, Brian Francis Slattery (Tor Books)
* The Dust of Wonderland, Lee Thomas (Alyson Books)
* Ha'penny, Jo Walton (Tor Books)

For the 20th year, the Lambda Literary Awards are set to recognize the best in LGBT

literature and literary achievement.

SAVE THE DATE: THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2008
Today, we are pleased to announce the 107 finalists in 21 categories. Congratulations
to all the finalists and their publishers!
Best wishes,
Charles Flowers, Executive Director

LGBT ANTHOLOGIES

* Juicy Mother 2, Jennifer Camper (Manic D Press)
* Vital Signs, Richard Canning (Carroll & Graf)
* First Person Queer, Richard Labonte and Lawrence Schimel (Arsenal Pulp Press)
* Men of Mystery: Homoerotic Tales of Intrigue and Suspense, Sean Meriwether &
Greg Wharton, (Haworth)
* Baby Remember My Name, Michelle Tea (Carroll & Graf)
LGBT ARTS & CULTURE

* Media Queered, Kevin Barnhurst (Peter Lang Publishing)
* Art That Dares, Kittredge Cherry (AndroGyne Press)
* The View From Here, Matthew Hays (Arsenal Pulp Press)
* Feeling Backward, Heather Love (Harvard University Press)
* Other Men's Sons, Michael Rowe (Cormorant Books)
LGBT CHILDRENS/YOUNG ADULT

* Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, Peter Cameron (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
* Freak Show, James St. James (Dutton Children's/Penguin)
* Hero, Perry Moore (Hyperion)
* Saints of Augustine, P.E. Ryan (HarperTeen)
* Parrotfish, Ellen Wittlinger (Simon & Schuster)
LGBT DRAMA/THEATER

* Dose: Plays & Monologues, Dan Bernitt (Sawyer House)
* Niagara Falls, Victor Bumbalo (Broadway Play Publishing)
* Return of the Caffe Cino, edited by Steve Susoyev and George Birimisa (Moving
Finger Press)

LGBT EROTICA

* The Golden Age of Lesbian Erotica, Victoria Brownworth & Judith M. Redding
(Magic Carpet Books)
* Red Light, J.D. Glass (Bold Strokes Books)
* Ardennian Boy, William Maltese & Wayne Gunn (MLR Press)
* The Mammoth Book of New Gay Erotica, Lawrence Schimel (Carrol & Graf)
* Homosex, Simon Sheppard (Running Press)
* Every Dark Desire, Fiona Zedde (Kensington)

LGBT NONFICTION

* Between Women, Sharon Marcus (Princeton University Press)
* Pink Harvest, Toni Morosevich (Mid-List Press)
* Other Men's Sons, Michael Rowe (Cormorant Books)
* Gay Artists in Modern American Culture, Michael S. Sherry (University of North
Carolina Press)
* Imagining Transgender, David Valentine (Duke University Press)

LGBT POETRY

* Blackbird and Wolf, Henri Cole (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
* A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering, Dawn Lundy Martin (University of
Georgia Press)
* Otherwise Obedient, Carol Potter (Red Hen Press)
* Fata Morgana, Reginald Shepherd (University of Pittsburgh)
* The Second Person, C. Dale Young (Four Way Books)
* Human Resources, Rachel Zolf (Coach House Books)
LGBT STUDIES

* Writing Desire, Bertram Cohler (University of Winsconsin Press)
* The First Man-Made Man, Pagan Kennedy (Bloomsbury)
* Between Women, Sharon Marcus (Princeton University Press)
* Caribbean Pleasure Industry, Mark Padilla (University of Chicago Press)
* Once You Go Black: Choice, Desire, & the Black American Intellectual, Robert
Reid-Pharr (NYU Press)
BISEXUAL

* Look Both Ways, Jennifer Baumgardner (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
* Becoming Visible, Beth Firestein, Ed., (Columbia University Press)
* Split Screen, Brett Hartinger (Harper Collins Children's Books)
* The Tourists, Jeff Hobbs (Simon & Schuster)
* Stray, Sheri Joseph (MacAdam/Cage)

TRANSGENDER

* Transparent, Cris Beam (Harcourt
* Male Bodies, Women's Souls, LeeRay M. Costa, PhD, (Haworth)
* The Marrow's Telling, Eli Clare (Homofactus Press)
* What Becomes You, Aaron Raz Link & Hilda Raz (University of Nebraska Press)
* Nobody Passes, Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore (Seal Press)
LESBIAN DEBUT FICTION

* Lockjaw, Holly Farris (Gival Press)
* Dahlia Season, Myriam Gurba (Manic D Press)
* Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking, Aoibheann Sweeney (The Penguin Press)
* Breathing Underwater, Lu Vickers (Alyson Books)
* O Street, Corrina Wycoff (Other Voices)
GAY DEBUT FICTION

* Tales from the Town of Widows, James Canon (Harpercollins)
* A Push and a Shove, Christopher Kelly (Alyson Books)
* That Was Then, Michael Quadland (Red Hen Press)
* SoMa, Kemble Scott (Kensington)
* Freak Show, James St. James (Dutton Children's/Penguin)

WOMEN'S FICTION

* Biting the Apple, Lucy Jane Bledsoe (Carroll & Graf)
* The IHOP Papers, Ali Leibegott (Carroll & Graf)
* Greetings from Jamaica, Mari San Giovanni (Bywater Books)
* The Child, Sarah Schulman (Carroll & Graf)
* The Kind of Girl I Am, Julia Watts (Spinsters Ink)
* The Mandrake Broom, Jess Wells (Firebrand Books)
WOMEN'S ROMANCE

* Sheridan's Fate, Gun Brooke (Bold Strokes Books)
* The Road Home, Frankie J. Jones (Bella Books)
* Out of Love, K. G. MacGregor (Bella Books)
* For Now, for Always, Marianne K. Martin (Bywater Books)
* When Dreams Tremble, Radclyffe (Bold Strokes Books)
WOMEN'S MYSTERY

* Wall of Silence, 2nd Ed., Gabrielle Goldsby (Bold Strokes Books)
* Mortal Groove, Ellen Hart (St. Martin's Press)
* In the Name of the Father, Gerri Hill (Bella Books)
* Selective Memory, Jennifer L. Jordan (Spinsters Ink)
* Laura's War, Ursula Steck (Bella Books)
WOMEN'S MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

* Comfort Food for Breakups, Marusya Bocurkiuw (Arsenal Pulp Press)
* And Now We Are Going to Have a Party, Nicola Griffith (Payseur & Schmidt)
* An Army of Ex-Lovers, Amy Hoffman (University of Massachusetts Press)
* Two Lives: Gertrude & Alice, Janet Malcolm (Yale University Press)
* Waiting for the Call, Jaqueline Taylor (University of Michigan Press)

MEN'S FICTION

* Call Me By Your Name, Andre Aciman (Farrar Straus Giroux)
* First Person Plural, Andrew W.M. Beierle (Kensington)
* Dark Reflections, Samuel R. Delany (Carroll & Graf)
* Fellow Travelers, Thomas Mallon (Pantheon)
* The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, Manuel Munoz (Algonquin)
MEN's ROMANCE

* Changing Tides, Michael Thomas Ford (Kensington)
* A Secret Edge, Robin Reardon (Kensington)
* Right Side of the Wrong Bed, Frederick Smith (Kensington)
* Broadway Nights, Seth Rudetsky (Alyson Books)
* A Few Hints and Clews, Robert Taylor (Haworth)
MEN's MYSTERY

* Double Abduction, Chris Beakey (J. Boylston/ ibooks, Inc.)
* Stain of the Berry, Anthony Bidulka (Insomniac Press)
* Pierce, Roberto Ferrari (Haworth)
* Murder in the Rue Chartres, Greg Herren (Alyson Books)
* Mahu Surfer, Neil Plakcy (Alyson Books)
* Drag Queen in the Court of Death, Caro Soles (Haworth)
MEN'S MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

* Forgiving Troy, Thom Bierdz (Hudson House)
* Dog Years, Mark Doty (HarperCollins)
* The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, Martin Duberman (Knopf)
* The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory, Kenny Fries (Perseus
Books)
* What Becomes You, Aaron Raz Link & Hilda Raz (University of Nebraska Press)
* Mississippi Sissy, Kevin Sessums (St. Martin's Press)
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Web broadcast: It’s a Small World: How Virtual Worlds Are Changing the Ways We Relate”

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:12:55 GMT

The Web broadcast of the MIT event I went to on Wednesday has been posted online
It’s a Small World: How Virtual Worlds Are Changing the Ways We Relate”
http://alum.mit.edu/broadcasts
** Warning: While the initial link claims you need RealPlayer to access the broadcast, there is a Windows Media Player option once you click on the first link. However, I could not get this to play the video with my screen reader, so I'm not certain how accessible this site is.

Two comments of particular interest

1. Henry Jenkins's comment that one of the things which is standing in the way of virtual worlds retaining more users is the complexity of the interface. Note that many of the aspects of accessibility which I discuss in this blog include those same characteristics of a userface which tend to make it more easily usable by everyone, including keyboard shortcuts, the ability to get cues or hints as to possible actions, and other features such as
captions and subtitles (someone on the igda.org accessibility mailing list posted this link to
Valve statistics on user experience
http://steampowered.com/status/ep1/?captionsHelp
which includes the fact that
12.33% of users use subtitles and closed captions).

2. Beth Coleman's comments on the six aspects of a healthy virtual world (if anyone listens to this video, I would appreciate a post listing the six characteristics and the title of the 1998 HCI article she references).
Also note that Beth Coleman
blogs at
http://www.projectgoodluck.com/blog/
and is soon releasing a book titled _The Virtual World Primer_.

Keyboard shortcuts for browsing Gmail faster

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:21:08 GMT

MakeUseOf.com has a post today on
basic keyboard shortcuts for browsing gmail faster
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/essential-shortcuts-to-browse-through-gmail-faster/
which may be of particular use to visually-impaired users.

These shortcuts may be of particular interest to blind users who, like me, find themselves using the default interface instead of the accessible interface because, while the basic html interface may be quote accessible unquote like many of the sites which go for a separate accessible interface (such as Amazon.com, for example), the accessible alternative lacks a large amount of the functionality of the default interface.