Inside a Microsoft Computer Lab
My sister needed help studying for a Microsoft Computer Lab test. After taking it, she showed me the exam. She got a hundred.
It really made me laugh to think about how they went out of their way to call it a Microsoft computer lab, then had the students take a very easy examination which two computer literate slackers had no trouble passing. I love to laugh. They had three groups, one of five questions and two of four. Each group shared the same multiple choice answers, more like a matching test as opposed to a real multiple choice test. All the questions simply matched rather lame definitions against one of the shared terms.
Looking at the terms and definitions, it occurred to me that some words have changed. For example, they match “Home Page” with the page which a browser loads upon starting, which I would call a start page.To me, a home page refers to someone’s personal web site. They also refered to saving a local copy of a web page as downloading. To me, downloading refers to saving a file. I wouldn’t consider saving a copy of the currently viewed web page as downloading it, because I have already loaded it. On the other hand, if I explicitly save a single web page, or a hierarchy of pages, I would call that downloading them, since I went out of my way to save them, if that makes sense. Of course, to me, a “computer class” refers to a computer science class, not this hilarious joke.
Things change. When I took my note-taker to class, people still considered it a novelty, and treated it as such. Now, they have kids taking classes and even exams remotely. This opens the door to all sorts of opportunities for good or ill. It also allows for such a disconnect, that the professor would never know which. Why even go? What do students pay for with that sort of arrangement?
I hope you have enjoyed my tour around the potential Microsoft Lab of the future. We will do this once a week for a little while, so I may have more tales of hilarity to report.
A Token Gesture to the Blind
Last week, a friend called to tell me that he had just seen a commercial for the commemorative Louis Braille silver dollar coins. Immediately, I saw it as a literal token gesture. If they really want to help the blind, why don’t they mark currency so we can identify it by touch?
The coins crack me up. They have the standard symbols and sayings as American currency. On one side, it has a portrait of Louis Braille, the inventor of braille, the system that a decreasing amount of blind people use to read by touch. On the other side, the coin has a picture of a boy with a bookcase of braille books behind him.
Now for the life irony: The coin has the letters “brl”, the contraction for braille, embossed in braille on it. Grade II braille has 189 contractions to shorten the amount of characters in this already bulky medium. “brl” stands for braille, any American braille reader would know this. Embossing “brl” on the coin just makes me laugh, sort of like the story I’ve told here before where the hotel had “NO SMOKING!” signs outside of each room. Why not write “Print” in print on it? They should emboss “$1″ that seems much more practical.
If they really want to help the blind deal with money, they should emboss or mark the currency, as they do in Europe. Some currency has actual braille on it, and other currency has special markings. I actually like this solution more than standard braille, because the markings don’t ware down as easily, and it requires less special equipment and overhead, which means less excuses from sighted bureaucrats. If Europe can do it, certainly America can! Stop giving us these token gestures! Do something real!
Summer Shines in the Winter
I have done it! I have gotten Linux installed on my Netbook. Specifically, I used Arch Linux for the Blind. Coming from Slackware, it made a good choice, since it already has Espeak installed, and I can get Gnome working out of the box as well. I believe I may even switch my desktop over, since Slackware 13.0 couldn’t even compile the stock kernels which ship with it. They require a newer version of gcc, which I installed, but that of course has broken some other things. I feel very impressed with Arch Linux so far.
I love having a portable computing device. The blind have had portable note-takers for years. I first got my Braille ‘n Speak in 1988 or so. I used and loved that thing for over ten years, then the company merged with others and became the Microsoft of the blind community. After that happened, I no longer had a constant computer at my side tow rite things down. I tried to fill the void with crap, but nothing satisfied me.
The Netbook has arrived in full force of course, and Linux accessibility provides incredible solutions. I can even ssh (log in) to my desktop upstairs while sitting in my living room recliner, and control it pretty much as if at the console. Can you do that with Windows? One crappy note-taker costs the same as thirty-one netbooks! They provide the lock, and GNU/Linux the key. Making a note-taking productivity suite under Linux has the advantage that I can port it to whatever machine I wish no matter what cool thing in the future comes out. As long as it runs an accessible version of Linux I can rock and roll!
I can’t reiterate how great this feels. I feel rejuvenated, like part of me has come back, now that I have this new medium of expression. I feel comfortable and free. This will go very well with blogging. I have Twitter running under Emacs. I also plan to make extensive use of Orgmode. “Your life in plain text” sounds just about right!
I find that suspend works far better under Linux. I disabled it under Windows, since it locked it up and didn’t seem as stable. Linux works wonderfully, I just keep the suspend mode active when I close the lid while on DC. It uses around one percent of battery charge per hour while in suspend. Then, I just open the lid and it pops right back up.
I now have my EeePC 1000HE in a very nice configuration. I kept the original 80GB Windows partition, and installed Arch Linux on the second partition. I now have a nice dual-boot configuration, though will do 99% of my work under Linux. I even have Firefox working under Gnome with Orca. Having Linux on a Netbook rules, and I would recommend it to anyone who has the time and desire.
It just occurred to me that I didn’t blog about what happened. The Thursday before last, a freak power surge took out the drive in my desktop. I’ve had to rebuild since then, and wanted to get my Netbook functioning, since I sort of needed it. Now things will work out, I will have a rocking new setup, and hopefully I can get the data off the old drive.
A Genuardi’s Zen Story
One day, two friends ordered some groceries from Genuardi’s. The order contained a number of essentials, including a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes. When the order arrived, the delivery man said that they didn’t have the potatoes. One friend became visibly upset, but signed the receipt and escorted the man to the door. After he left, the other friend became enraged, and loudly cursed the delivery man. The first friend explained that the order should have said “Same Size Different Brand” instead of “Same Brand Different Size” and apologized, since they had placed the order. The other friend didn’t care, and yelled insults at the no longer present delivery man, who probably didn’t even shop for the order in the first place.
“Have people become so robotized that they can’t even think for themselves, and can only follow the stuff written down on a form, and badly at that? You know, I think the Illuminati’s conditioning has worked a little too well, dumping sedatives and sterilants into the water and the like.” The other friend smiled. “Put down the moron from Genuardi’s. I did back at the front door.”