Welcome to my homepage. I became blind at birth from retinopathy of prematurity. I developed an early interest in computers and radio. I use Linux, MacOS, and iOS. I have an extra class amateur radio license. I practice Qigong daily. I consider myself a Taoist. I don't drink alcohol, eat meat, or gluten. It makes me feel optimal, and helps with migraines, which I also have to deal with. For the rest, you'll have to read my articles.

Big Boom!

August 14, 2009

I write this article under strange circumstances. On Sunday, we had a thunderstorm. It quickly escalated into a very severe storm, with wild lightning and mad thunder. With a crash, the power blinked off, and the phone went dead, and did not return. The net went with it. A hum filled the air, coming in through the open windows. A 12,000-volt power line had fallen to the ground. Sparks and arcs burst forth as the rain continued to fall, thunder and lightning continuing as well. The air resonated with the loud 60 hertz hum, and the awful sounds of the electricity sounded truly terrifying. I felt afraid to touch anything metal. From the depths of my past, Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” played in my head. I ran around the house to try to hear more, and returned to the computer room. The brutal sounds continued. I hoped my hair wouldn’t start standing on end. Visions of electric death filled my head, and I smelled some smoke.

This continued for fifteen or so minutes. Trucks then began to arrive. The transformer went off and on momentarily, but continued. Someone yelled: “Sir! Get back in your house!” I felt glad that I decided to stay inside and avoid the urge to check it out for myself. Trucks and people began working, the fire department and electric company had come. Finally, they shut off the transformer, but power remained on. Work continued long into the night and early morning. At some point, I did indeed lose my power, before getting it back again later. I still have no phone or Internet as I write this, and will have to wait to get online to publish this article.

Whenever I lose power for an extended time, I find myself having similar thoughts. These mainly revolve around how much we depend on electricity, and wondering what people did before we had it. These thoughts then become refined, and I begin reflecting on how electricity alters our behavior patterns. I also note how good it feels to not have an electric smog surrounding me, and wonder what I can do to experience this while experiencing electricity’s benefits.

As soon as the realization hits that power probably won’t return immediately, everything changes. All the devices that seem so futuristic immediately seem like useless relics. Walking through a room with computers feels like walking through a museum of ancient dust-covered non-functioning exhibits. Having electricity transforms the present into the future. Not having it transforms the present into the past. It amazes me how much humanity accomplished without it. Imagine getting on a boat in England as my ancestors did, setting sail for a far off land never to return, and with no way of communication. I can’t!

Along a similar vein, I can’t help but wonder what exactly people did without electricity, especially once the sun went down. Did religious leaders really need to tell their flocks to be fruitful and multiply? I’d think that after sunset, they wouldn’t have much else to do! Electricity makes it possible to do things at all hours of the day. You can listen to music, watch a television show, communicate, eat, work, anything you want. It also makes it less necessary to interact with others, and they probably did a lot more of that in the past as well. Battling and babbling with Verizon’s automated customer service computer demonstrated this point. Today, when I went to the bank to get some cash, I couldn’t use the ATM, and actually had to go inside and talk to a human to get it. Weird! Perhaps having electricity messes with our heads more than not having it.

How do we bring balance? I thought of meditation techniques, EMF balancing devices, things of that like, then an answer emerged from another angle, perhaps indicative of the effect. Do things that don’t require electricity. Good luck with that.

Verizon came out the next day to fix the problem. Their automated tests claimed that they could get a dial tone on my line, and could ping my router, both of which I doubted. “Tell them to actually call your number.” suggested my Mom. Whatever, they dispatched a technician. He determined that the outside box got fried, as well as the plug to my router. I told him of the tests, and he said: “I don’t see how that’s possible.” Don’t believe Verizon’s somewhat freaky automated service. It also weirded me out how the cell phone distorted its hold music to sound like satanic industrial music, or something. Anyways, he fixed the problems, and I returned online. I meant to publish this article sooner, but have gotten immersed in learning Emacs. I’ll have much more to write

about that, for sure.

Thumbs up to Taza!

July 17, 2009

I celebrated my 32nd birthday on the 14th. My cousin gave me some Taza Chocolate. I unwrapped a hand-wrapped packet containing two elegant discs. I slowly ate a disc throughout the course of the evening, and felt quite fine – a real smooth buzz. I ordered a case upon returning home. First class!

Each disc contains organic cacao, organic cane sugar, and a particular flavor, such as chili powder, cinnamon, or salt and almonds. The disc breaks cleanly. Either break off a small piece, or grate some and combine it with hot (not boiling) water. The disc makes the most convenient form for the cacao enthusiast. Never go without.

Along with the convenience, the discs contain the highest quality cacao. Each kind of cacao has a different feel. Some have a more physical stimulation, with social overtones. Others have a more cerebral feel. Still others have a more spacey psychedelic feel, and these discs joyfully fall into this category. They will take you to Cloud Nine. I love these discs! Thumbs up to Taza!

More mysteries of the EeePC 1000HE

July 04, 2009

Like a woman, a netbook has many layers and mysteries. I have solved two more I felt worthy of documenting as I freely write from my armchair in the living room.

Firstly, the switch on the bottom simply acts as a lock for the battery. When I first got it, I feared that it might do something catastrophic if switched, maybe switching the source of power, causing it to blow up like the train set we got as a kid. My dad never reads directions, and plugged the transformer’s wires into the “DC” terminals. Even as a child I knew what would happen, which it soon did. Not pretty! Not so with this beautiful creation, it simply acts as a secondary emergency lock.

Secondly, I wondered why I couldn’t get into the boot menu. I tried and tried to hold down escape, pressing it repeatedly, holding it down, and pretty much every variation thereof. Tonight, I learned that it requires entering the BIOS by hitting F2, then going over to the “Boot” options, and turning on “Quick Boot.” Then save the configuration, and then you can hit the escape key when booting to bring up the boot menu to boot from a thumbdrive, or so say the legends. This requires sighted help, of course, so I will let you know.

This just reinforces why I would love to sell these things to the blind, working out of the box with free software and an interface to match. We mustn’t let evil prevail!

In the meantime, I installed Cygwin while sitting on my front porch. If you want to dabble in Linux while still using Windows, I would recommend this, albeit the setup interface which one uses to add and remove packages needs some accessibility work.

Netbooks: the end of Notetaker Fascism

July 02, 2009

the blind have had notetakers for years. i remember first purchasing a braille ‘n speak, a wonderful beloved device about the size of a vhs tape. it used a braille keyboard and had acceptable (imho) speech. more importantly, it just worked. you turned it on, and could immediately start writing. the thing worked – no crashes, no needing to reload the software in the middle of an important edit, etc.

as its featureset improved, though without feature-creep syndrome, and as the internet and personal computers and th eneed to network with them became more popular, it outgrew its z-180 processor. blazie engineering tried to release a new unit, but it didn’t take, and at the same time the most awful thing happened: they merged with a few other companies to form freedom scientific – the microsoft of the blind world.

words cannot express the contempt i feel for this company. they destroyed a once great company and their outstanding reputation, replacing their reliable products with crappy crap that ran a crappy operating system (windows ce) with a crappy screen reader (pocket jaws) and crappy microsoft software. this began a new and i hope the final trend in notetakers.

companies began to think that they could just bundle some standard software on a crappy piece of proprietary hardware. sadly, this even applied to the linux notetakers. the trend continued even recently.

i remember purchasing an elba braillex, a linux-based notetaker. they designed a wonderful, though expensive, piece of hardware. they tried to put their own menuing system on it, but it still ran text-based software. normally i would not have a problem with this, i use most of the very same software on my desktop, and this led me to believe that i would enjoy this notetaker. unfortunately, their screen reading just did not cut the mustard. the insane price of the unit coupled with complete apathy on the part of the developers relegated that product to a prominent spot under a shelf. “what, what do you want?” one employee shouted at me during a phone call. “i want the sourcecode. i want support.” they promised they would release the code, but never did. i lost interest. when i received it, as i brought it inside, the simpsons played in the background. “what a waste of talent!” said principal skinner as i hauled the box through the door. that says it all.

meanwhile, back in the freedom scientific world, the world most knew, and the option indiscriminately pushed by most companies in the field, the madness continued. they continued pushing the pac mate, the previously described chincy piece of hardware running equally chincy software. people pay extortionate prices for this. i would love to smash one on video sometime, and if anyone would like to donate one for this purpose then contact me. to my knowledge this continues, despite ever falling sales due to an ever worsening economy.

i sincerely hope that the netbook will put an end to these profitiering gluttons, these parasites upon the blind community, preying upon the suffering of the disabled. like microsoft, they consider themselves the best because they have the biggest market force and legal team. this does not make it so! a blind person needs no longer to spend $2500 plus to get the same or better features of a netbook. of course, many will still feel they have to purchase their awful screen reader, jaws for windows. at least some compeditors exist, including gw micro’s window eyes, system access, and the free and open-source ndva, which i have previously referenced, and wish nothing but success. i also have good feelings towards gw micro, since they started back in the day, on the apple ii/e, and do their work for the right reasons. i think they have a notetaker, but i haven’t heard much about it. humanware, another oldschool company, sells a notetaker for $4500, very expensive as well. they made the keynote, the very first laptop adapted for the blind, a toshiba t1000 with msdos 2.1.1 in the rom! i had good experiences with them back in 1988, but don’t know how they have fared. a friend described their notetaker, the braillnote, as an amish brailler, due to its clunky sound. hah!

i primarily direct my rage and this rant at freedom scientific. may they soon fall from their false glory. may the netbook deliver the final death blow to a bloated parasite, long past its usefulness.

I must also say that in a very important way, GNU/Linux has become more accessible, not just in terms of usability, but in economic terms as well, something of increasing importance. I know those evil scum at Freedom Scientific want to find a way to profit from this Netbook mania, and will probably try selling one bundled with JAWS for a hefty price tag. I will dedicate myself to working to defeat them using free software. Won’t you join me? Give me Linux or give me death! I smell roses as I write this outside on my new Netbook. I feel calmer now.

Some basic tips for the EeePC 1000HE

July 02, 2009

I finally got a text version of the manual for the 1000HE. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works! I wanted to share a few tips to help get acquainted.

If you have ever used a laptop, the keyboard shares a lot of characteristics. The bottom row goes like this: left control, left windows, fn, left alt, spacebar, right alt, application menu, and right control. The four arrows reside to the right, with the left arrow, down arrow, right arrow, and the up arrow above the down arrow. The right Windows key sits above the right arrow. I hope this makes sense. On the top of the keyboard, you have the escape key, followed by the twelve function keys, then pause, snapshot, insert, and delete.

Now for our featured presentation: the extended keys. To get these, you hit the fn key, which again resides to the right of the left control key. Fn-up arrow acts like pageup, fn-down arrow acts like pagedown, fn-left arrow acts like home, and fn-right arrow acts like end. This may seem a little weird, especially when using combinations like control-end, which you’d do by hitting control-fn-right, but it works. Now, for the function keys, again remember you hold down fn and one of these.

  • F1 places the EeePC into suspend mode.
    • F2 toggles the wireless networking and bluetooth. It defaults to wireless on and bluetooth off, and cycles through the four states.
      • F3 turns off the touchpad!
        • F4 adjusts the screen resolution.
          • F5 decreases the display brightness.
            • F6 increases the display brightness.
              • F7 turns off the display backlight. This saves power.
                • F8 toggles between the internal monitor and an external one. It has four states: lcd only, crt only, LCD CRT clone, and LCD CRT extend.
                  • F9 runs the task manager.
                    • F10 mutes the speakers. Watch out for this one if you use speech!
                      • F11 turns down the volume.
                        • F12 turns up the volume.
                          • Space</a> cycles through power-saving settings.
                            • Insert acts as numlock, making part of the keyboard act like a numpad.

                              • Delete acts like scroll lock. I don’t think anyone knows what scroll lock does. Did it ever do anything? Sorry, I had to add that. </ul> I hope this comes in handy for someone. Now for some power saving tips. The blind don’t need to worry about the monitor, so turn down the brightness by hitting fn-f5 repeatedly. Press fn-f7 to turn off the backlight, which you don’t need and which will save batteries. You will have to turn off the backlight whenever you power on, but your brightness setting will remain.

                                If you use Windows,yu can do some of these things with some included programs. Click on the EeePC Tray utility in your system tray. Disable the web camera and bluebooth if you don’t need them. Next, right-click on the EeePC Super Hybrid Engine icon, which also speaks. If you use a screen reader, use the application key to do this. From here, you can select a different power level, for example lower power. You can als go to “My Computer Control Panel Power” Select the “Max Battery” tab. You might also like to turn off the stand by function by tabbing over to it and hitting down arrow until “Never”. This presents problems especially when using speech, so you may as well disable it. Speaking of disabling things, disabling the touchpad will save you lots of annoyances if you can’t see and don’t use one anyway.

                                I hope these tips will help people, especially the blind, get their netbook started up properly. Some of these tips use Windows, and I will find and post their Linux equivalents when I discover them. I can’t wait to get this thing running Linux, but feel sort of glad that I investigated the Windows side, if only for a little while. Bon appetit!

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