Meme from Alumiere
Five Accessibility Issues -- "Write down the first five accessibility issues you have as you go about your normal day, and your solutions, if any. The micro level stuff that you get around with duct tape and cussedness, I mean. The practical, every day stuff you don’t really think about anymore."
1. Lack of speech recognition software for Linux/ Nuance being an accessory to Monopo$hit's taking advantage of my disability to EXTORT money from me.
I would MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH rather use Ubuntu than Monopo$hit's latest bloatware, because Monopo$hit does not provide the service that its victims "customers" are paying for (i.e. the privilege of being an end-user-- installing antivirus is one thing, but if I have to memorize everything that should be in my process list, keep abreast of everything that should not, clear out extraneous crap in the startup folder, then what am I paying them for?). A commercial OS should work tolerably well out of the box. Since Monopo$hit has not produced an OS that meets that criterion in, oh, let me see, EVER, and I am tolerably familiar with Unix, my choice is between two equally high-maintenance operating systems, one of which costs a lot of money, and the other of which is a whole lot less demanding on system resources. Now, if I the latter were more accessible, the choice would be obvious, but since it is not, I have NO CHOICE but to buy Monop$hit's operating system, which does not even work very well with my accessibility software, because speech recognition is irreducibly demanding, and Monopo$hit doesn't think they have to write anything but lazy, bloated crap.
Why do I have no choice?
You see, Nuance makes the only speech recognition software that is half decent (Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
But Nuance has chosen to help Monopo$hit in its war on Linux, effectively enabling Monopo$hit to extort money from me, rather than making their software available to a leaner, cheaper OS.
There is a bit of an orphan drug effect with speech-to-text for Linux. There are no Linux developers because there are no viable solutions to make Linux accessible, because there are no Linux developers dependent on speech-to-text software, because...
That is not to say that the Linux development community is not trying. The Linux development community is trying-- but it's kind of difficult for someone to make Dragon (which apparently has a LOT of anti-compatibility code) work with, for instance, Wine, when they don't use Dragon enough to know which of the issues they are encountering are known issues, and which are compatibility issues.
I have tried to help, but my mic is kind of iffy right now, and I can't test anything, because Linux is not accessible. Nuance is making sure of it. There is a petition, asking Nuance to release us to choose our own OS, but Nuance knows that we have nowhere else to go.
They would rather aid and abet mass extortion. Remember that the next time someone tries to tell you that Monopo$hit is benign, or that Gates is not such a bad guy, or that they are not forcing anyone to become a Monopo$hit victim "customer." Monopo$hit is victimizing disabled people, because they CAN, and they will keep behaving that way as long as they can-- they deserve every bit of piracy and hatred they get, and so much more!
And then there is American University's endless ADAfail
2. : American University once told me point-blank that they are not interested in being responsive to nontraditional age or off-campus student issues. They said that nontraditional age students are a small minority, and often too busy to advocate for ourselves, so they don't have to listen to us. This isn't directly an ablism issue excapt that, like so many nontraditional age students, my reason for being nontraditional age is a struggle with a disability.
American is also notorious for being inaccessible. Disabled students are another group that is too small to interest them.
3. Most of the buildings on campus are completely or mostly inaccessible to the mobility impaired. I've never seen any campus of anything that was less accessible. Almost everything has stairs, and they think a few token ramps on one or two buildings make it okay. But disabled students still have to consider location in signing up for classes, because the overwhelming majority of classrooms are totally inaccessible. The monster MS has not yet succeeded in making me incapable of climbing stairs. Yet. Climate control is an accessibility issue too-- I am very sensitive to heat, and MS is not the only condition that carries this liability, but AU doesn't care about that. I'm a member of too small a group for them to care (although, as we all now know, they don't care about women students either, even thought we are more than half of the student body).
4. They have two adaptive technology rooms on the entire campus. That is two rooms where I can actually work on projects. Even with my laptop, there are no rooms that I can use it in, other than the AT rooms, because I need a quiet place where I can talk to my computer. I am reduced to wandering around, with my laptop (which is so heavy that I now have at least one herniated disc) in search of empty conference rooms or empty classrooms. There have only been one or two occasions when I actually got more than 30 seconds of computer use before someone more important than a disabled student (i.e. anyone else, including, as we shall see, some drunken frat-rat) claimed the room.
5. This one is not me, but it tells you everything you need to know about AU's attitude towards the ADA. Their idea of "reasonable accommodation" apparently does not include a key to a broom closet, or a bigger dorm room.
1. Lack of speech recognition software for Linux/ Nuance being an accessory to Monopo$hit's taking advantage of my disability to EXTORT money from me.
I would MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH rather use Ubuntu than Monopo$hit's latest bloatware, because Monopo$hit does not provide the service that its victims "customers" are paying for (i.e. the privilege of being an end-user-- installing antivirus is one thing, but if I have to memorize everything that should be in my process list, keep abreast of everything that should not, clear out extraneous crap in the startup folder, then what am I paying them for?). A commercial OS should work tolerably well out of the box. Since Monopo$hit has not produced an OS that meets that criterion in, oh, let me see, EVER, and I am tolerably familiar with Unix, my choice is between two equally high-maintenance operating systems, one of which costs a lot of money, and the other of which is a whole lot less demanding on system resources. Now, if I the latter were more accessible, the choice would be obvious, but since it is not, I have NO CHOICE but to buy Monop$hit's operating system, which does not even work very well with my accessibility software, because speech recognition is irreducibly demanding, and Monopo$hit doesn't think they have to write anything but lazy, bloated crap.
Why do I have no choice?
You see, Nuance makes the only speech recognition software that is half decent (Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
But Nuance has chosen to help Monopo$hit in its war on Linux, effectively enabling Monopo$hit to extort money from me, rather than making their software available to a leaner, cheaper OS.
There is a bit of an orphan drug effect with speech-to-text for Linux. There are no Linux developers because there are no viable solutions to make Linux accessible, because there are no Linux developers dependent on speech-to-text software, because...
That is not to say that the Linux development community is not trying. The Linux development community is trying-- but it's kind of difficult for someone to make Dragon (which apparently has a LOT of anti-compatibility code) work with, for instance, Wine, when they don't use Dragon enough to know which of the issues they are encountering are known issues, and which are compatibility issues.
I have tried to help, but my mic is kind of iffy right now, and I can't test anything, because Linux is not accessible. Nuance is making sure of it. There is a petition, asking Nuance to release us to choose our own OS, but Nuance knows that we have nowhere else to go.
They would rather aid and abet mass extortion. Remember that the next time someone tries to tell you that Monopo$hit is benign, or that Gates is not such a bad guy, or that they are not forcing anyone to become a Monopo$hit victim "customer." Monopo$hit is victimizing disabled people, because they CAN, and they will keep behaving that way as long as they can-- they deserve every bit of piracy and hatred they get, and so much more!
And then there is American University's endless ADAfail
2. : American University once told me point-blank that they are not interested in being responsive to nontraditional age or off-campus student issues. They said that nontraditional age students are a small minority, and often too busy to advocate for ourselves, so they don't have to listen to us. This isn't directly an ablism issue excapt that, like so many nontraditional age students, my reason for being nontraditional age is a struggle with a disability.
American is also notorious for being inaccessible. Disabled students are another group that is too small to interest them.
3. Most of the buildings on campus are completely or mostly inaccessible to the mobility impaired. I've never seen any campus of anything that was less accessible. Almost everything has stairs, and they think a few token ramps on one or two buildings make it okay. But disabled students still have to consider location in signing up for classes, because the overwhelming majority of classrooms are totally inaccessible. The monster MS has not yet succeeded in making me incapable of climbing stairs. Yet. Climate control is an accessibility issue too-- I am very sensitive to heat, and MS is not the only condition that carries this liability, but AU doesn't care about that. I'm a member of too small a group for them to care (although, as we all now know, they don't care about women students either, even thought we are more than half of the student body).
4. They have two adaptive technology rooms on the entire campus. That is two rooms where I can actually work on projects. Even with my laptop, there are no rooms that I can use it in, other than the AT rooms, because I need a quiet place where I can talk to my computer. I am reduced to wandering around, with my laptop (which is so heavy that I now have at least one herniated disc) in search of empty conference rooms or empty classrooms. There have only been one or two occasions when I actually got more than 30 seconds of computer use before someone more important than a disabled student (i.e. anyone else, including, as we shall see, some drunken frat-rat) claimed the room.
5. This one is not me, but it tells you everything you need to know about AU's attitude towards the ADA. Their idea of "reasonable accommodation" apparently does not include a key to a broom closet, or a bigger dorm room.