Thumbs up to Taza!
Filed under: Herbs and Health, Open-Source Cooking, Spirituality
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!
Full #Moonfruit Freakout!
Filed under: Audio Madness, Blind Rage, Herbs and Health, High Weirdness, Politics, Spirituality, Technology
Every Full Moon has its own adventures, and seems to follow a similar pattern. Skeptics will say that the full moon doesn’t feel any different, or cause people to behave differently, but many would beg to differ. I would argue that if one becomes aware of it, and if one does something to commemorate the cycle (listening to the Dark Side of the Moon while taking a salt bath, for example) then they will notice the effects much more. It seems repeatable, and thus subject to the same laws and methods as any other repeatable phenomena. It starts out feeling pretty normal, gradually escalates, then things start feeling really weird at about the halfway point, and by the end you feel ready for it to end. This full moon proved no exception, and I thought I’d just document a few of the little things I wanted to write down in one post.
The weirdness started after I took an awesome salt bath, which I love to do on full moons because a salt bath helps the body detoxify, which apparently happens during full moons. I slept for a few hours, and woke up very early (or late depending on your point of view.) I learned that Asus had just released the successor to my Netbook literally the day before I ordered mine. I felt kind of upset, and for about ten minutes, considered returning mine for the newer model. I decided not to, however, because it didn’t differ too much – 6.4 ounces lighter, an extra hour of battery life, and a new case design didn’t seem worth the hassle.
That prompted a rousing discussion about Microsoft versus Linux on a Netbook. I will not rehash the whole debate, as many have already become familiar with the various arguments. Blind people may know Windows, but having something forced on them by a monolith does not make it the best. As for the argument that the manufacturers design the Netbook for Windows, I would just say that without people with the hacker spirit, wanting to do things with their machines beyond their design, we wouldn’t have Netbooks in the first place!
After I simmered down from that, I read a rather disconcerting and poignant email from my friend Chuck Young. You can find him on the blog roll, though I doubt he will publish the article he sent me! By this time it had gotten onto about eight o’clock in the morning, and I need to take a power nap, prepare a shopping list, and meditate.
As well as declaring this the Summer of the Netbook, I also declared it the Summer of Zazen. They don’t call the hara the Golden Stone for nothing!
After recharging and getting my shopping order, it had gotten on to around three o’clock, or noon Pacific time. Ordinarily this wouldn’t matter, but today something extraordinary happened, at least in the eyes of many: Michael Jackson’s Memorial. Oh no! I feel awful blogging about this. I only watched small amounts, as I couldn’t stand hearing people going on and on about Jesus. Viewing it reminded me of viewing Twitter in the past week: lots of #moonfruits! Ha, I saved that joke for now! Things felt kind of creepy, and a kid cried. I tried to enter the mind of a Michael Jackson fan, and feel some remorse. It worked for around two minutes. I still don’t know what the scene looked like, but I heard they had a solid gold casket on stage. I kind of hoped that something cool would happen, like they would lower it down on air, or that the lid would creak open and Michael Jackson’s ghostly countenance would emerge. Alas, nothing of the kind happened, but as with the initial event of his death, I could feel the collective pull. Every channel showed it, and within minutes of it ending they had sound bytes and collages. Programs continue to run as I write this. It also sort of weirded me out that it happened under a full moon. Did they know?
As I sit here outside typing on my lovely netbook, I realize how much I love blogging under the night sky with a full moon, the cool feel of the summer air mingles with the sounds of a suburban town, and the astral light of the full moon permiates my spirit and this entry. I can sense it with my third eye. I only ever saw moonlight once in my life, when a September full moon reflected off the ocean. It looked like a glittering mirror.
More mysteries of the EeePC 1000HE
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
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
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 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.
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!