Netbooks: the end of Notetaker Fascism
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.
My first post from my Netbook
During my Summer Solstice Lord of the Rings party and ritual, I dubbed this the Summer of the Netbook. Shortly thereafter, I ordered one, an Asus EeePC 1000HE. It ranks as the number one best seller on AMazon, and it has a long battery life. Users have also had good success installing Linux on it, which I plan to do. This seemed good enough for me.
Two days ago, I received it. I felt impressed by the unit. It has a keyboard with 92% the size of a normal one. Typing feels very natural, not cramped at all, something one would expect on a laptop. I still have to figure out a few of the buttons and a switch or two, and I will document my findings to benefit the blind. I just need to figure out how to disable the touch pad, something sighted users will not have to worry about, but something which will annoy blind users.
Unfortunately, it runs Windows right now. I will change this as soon as possible. It has a recovery feature, hitting f9 thrice reinstalls the stock image, which I had to do once already after getting it locked into a loop after trying to alter the boot settings without sighted assistance. Bad idea! Installing Linux will require this.
Currently, it runs Windows XP (not Vista!). For a screen reader, I use NVDA, an open-source screen reader. It works very well, and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and an eye. I used Windows Narator and System Access to Go to get NDVA installed, and now have a fully accessible Windows system without shelling out any more money, which I feel at least somewhat proud of. I figured if I had to run Windows for a few days I’d at least make it more tolerable, so installed Firefox 3.5.
And as I relight my pipe and enjoy the outdoor ambience, I reflect on the implications of this wonderful technology. I never used wireless networking before, largely out of paranoia, but grudgingly activated it and now I can effortlessly use my netbook while sitting on my back deck, smoking tobacco and drinking a fresh cup of Cacao. The air feels slightly humid and warm, with a pleasant breeze. This has become the Summer of the Netbook indeed. NVDA provides wonderful access with Firefox, at least I can write this entry for now. I just touched the touchpad with my thumb, damn!
Now that I have gotten my feet on the ground so to speak, I must consider my options to install a more mature operating system. I have a few options, including Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and some other related projects, including Easy Peasy, and Eeebuntu. Vinux also deserves a mention. I will probably need some sighted help to get it booted properly, then hopefully I can get Orca running and install from there. We shall see.
In conclusion, I love the hardware, and have made the software tolerable for now. The 1000HE has a great battery life, and a 160GB hard drive, partitioned into 2 80GB ntfs partitions by default. I look forward to upgrading the operating system.
I wonder how its mobility will effect things. For example, how will writing outside change blogging? Perhaps the altered and relaxed atmosphere will inspire some interesting entries. Only time will tell. I certainly feel freer. Now I can get some fun in the sun and still do computer things. Very cool! Everyone should get a netbook! Eventually, I’d love to market netbooks for the blind running Linux, but I will save that for a different post and site. I welcome any suggestions, tips, links, experiences, and the like.
Twitter, Spam, and the Law of Attraction
I have some tech blogging to do, as I received my EeePC 1000HE Netbook yesterday, but I wanted to get this down. Earlier, a friend asked on twitter why bad days propagate. I responded that it happens due to the Law of Attraction, and joked that it had become newagy pop. Within hours, I had five new followers, all of them spammers. It didn’t take long to figure out why.
The fact that the law of attraction attracted a bunch of spammers seems to have some universal irony, albeit only due to them automatically searching for a popular keyword, “Law of Attraction” in this case. It seems especially funny because I even referenced how the law of attraction had become a pop newage thing, despite its basic truth. It simply states that you attract what you focus on. A bunch of documentaries, self-help books, websites, and the like have sprung up around this simple concept, giving it somewhat of a bad reputation. Despite the fact that a bunch of marketers have latched onto it as the latest fad of 2006, its universal truth remains, though I don’t care for the greed or selfish aspects it has since inherited. A song plays in the background: “I trust I always will have love, I trust I always will receive love” which synchronistically and concurrently proves all my points.
Did those spammers prove the law of attraction, or the inevitability of parasite marketers? Whether or not one believes in it, or whatever one thinks of the various dreams and schemes which have recently sprung up around it, one objective truth does exist that we can all agree on, and one from which all the marketers of the world cannot escape: Spammer Saturday happens in three days! Use it as a tool for self-improvement. It won’t give you riches or that perfect partner, but it will help elevate the collective spirit of humanity in some small way. Just use the #SpammerSaturday tag on twitter, followed by all the spammers who have followed you this week. For a real bonus, tweet about the Law of Attraction. In a way, this entire post serving as a promotion for Spammer Saturday proves yet another point in somewhat of a self-referential way. I love metahumor!
Do things happen for a reason? From our point of view, they do. From the universe’s point of view, they don’t. Meditate on that, acai berry farmers! While on the subject, this reminds me of another thought I had during meditation: Good intention paves the way to Hell. Good attention paves the way to Heaven.
Remembering my friend Ben King
Every year at this time I remember my friend Ben King. We met via my bulletinboard, since I had written a popular game called Barneysplat!. I introduced him to Discordianism, and to Esperanto. We went to an Esperanto course in 1995 and 1996. In 1996, he bought surprise tickets to a Weird Al concert. While driving back from the concert, we got into a car accident, and he died.
I remember us making comics for La Bulteno, the newsletter of the course. Our favorite one showed an older woman walking down the street in San Fransisco, where the course resided. “Chu vi havas kanabon?” asks a yyoung guy. “Jes, du gefiloj.” she responds. “Mi amas San Fransiskon, la popoloj estas tre amikaj!” she remarks. Hilarious! I have so many memories, and share more every year. Check out the archive of this year’s memorial.
Michael Jackson! (what else?)
Celebrity deaths always come in threes. First, we had Ed McMahon, who died on the 23rd. This made some headlines, but he lived a long life. Today, Farah Fawcett died. She starred in Charlie’s Angels. I didn’t know her at all, but others did. Later in the day, of course, everyone heard about the death of Michael Jackson. Sorry, Mark Sanford, your news cycle has ended. Sleeping with an Argentinian woman seems to normal in comparison.
Why would a celebrity’s death hold my attention? Usually I wouldn’t give one a second thought. I remember listening to Michael Jackson on a tape recorder radio with one speaker. I kept hearing about Michael Jackson, then upon hearing him, I thought he sounded like a girl. I remember Weird Al’s parodies. I also remember this schoolyard chant:
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Michael Jackson is a fag
Pepsi Cola messed him up
Now he’s drinking 7-up
7-up tastes like pee
Now he’s drinking ice tea.
Some other memories surface. In college, while teaching myself Esperanto, he released his History album which had some of the language on the cover or something. Our dorky resident assistant played the album loudly. What a dork! Of course, more recently, child molestation charges came to light, something many had long suspected, as evidenced by the schoolyard rhyme I quoted from the mid eighties. Only Michael Jackson could show up in court wearing pajamas and get acquitted!
As of this writing, a late-breaking report said he collapsed after a powerful injection of Demerol. Surprise, surprise! Television specials have already begun to air. One even called itself “The Life and Death of Michael Jackson. This seemed strange, especially considering they haven’t done the autopsy yet. That will happen tomorrow, and we will probably find out the awful truth we can all feel in our gut.
I decided to turn on the television for the first time in a few months. I turned on the local ABC affiliate. Sure enough, I caught the end of a special. I instinctively felt annoyed at just catching the end, but reminded myself that we would probably hear tons about Michael Jackson over the next few weeks, in fact we will probably get sick of hearing the name, if we haven’t already. I pressed the channel-up button, and found another special. Now it started getting surreal. I hit channel-down twice, and found another.
A family lawyer acted very emotional, warning the family of Jackson’s use of prescription pain killers. He said that if this turned out true, he would speak out. During the commercial, they played an ad for the antidepressant Cymbalta. At least, I assume that it advertised an antidepressant, because it had a warning about suicidal thoughts in a small percentage of patients. This seemed rather disrespectful. Can we please not see ads for prescription medications while getting bumbled with the latest news about Michael Jackson and how he may have died from them? No taste! My finger accidentally hit one of the numbers on the remote control, and it randomly flipped to another channel. Guess what? Another special. I apprehensively turned back to the other one with the lawyer. They played the disturbing interview from Sixty Minutes and that did it, I turned the TV off, I had had my fill. Seeing him likening sleeping with children to something Jesus would have done just seemed like too much.
While I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, I understand the range in reactions. “Burn in hell pedophile.” says the first comment on one article about his death. “No tears here over the death of a pedophile.” writes a friend of mine on Twitter. I included that ridiculous rhyme at the top for a reason. Nevertheless, I can feel the collective reeling, which I think answers my question about why this story holds my attention. 22.61% of tweets currently contain the phrase “Michael Jackson” or “MJ”. The world is changed. Life has gotten weirder. Who
knows, maybe the Illuminati faked his death to generate enough news over the next few weeks while they crash our economy, and in return Michael Jackson could live a guilt-free debt-free life. I wish I had some MJ, and I don’t mean the King of Pop!