'Twas blind, but now I see? — Virgil surgically regained his sight after nearly 50 years of blindness: "
On the day he returned home after the bandages were removed, his house and its contents were unintelligible to him, and he had to be led up the garden path, led through the house, led into each room, and introduced to each chair." In the end, he and
others like him
[PDF] would have rather stayed in the
Country of the Blind.
(A happier ending was the more recent case of Mike Mays, previously posted here.)
posted by cenoxo
on Jun 17, 2006 -
19 comments
The Bumpy Yet Finger-tingling Road to God Arriving in
17 volumes, and taking up
76 inches of shelf space, who needs the
mp3? These nice folk print and distribute Bibles in braille.
(Please use this link for good and not evil. Abuse this service and go directly to Hell. Do not pass Purgatory. Go directly to Hell.)
posted by Sully
on Jun 17, 2005 -
21 comments
The Simpsons as read by WGBH. WFMU's Station Manager Ken discovers an extra audio track on the Simpsons that describes the visuals for blind people. He even provides a
21 MB, 23 minute MP3 of
a recent episode that is surprisingly listenable. Sure it's missing all the sex and drugs, but your iPod is a handy way to take the Simpsons with you. Are podcasts of TV show audio tracks next? Will we be listening to Family Guy and the Daily Show during our commutes?
posted by revgeorge
on May 21, 2005 -
22 comments
Blindfold Blog. One of the first steps to becoming a guide dog instructor is to spend ten days blindfolded, living in a guide dog school dorm with a class full of blind students who are there to learn how to use their new dogs. [via links clips notes etc.]
posted by soundofsuburbia
on Apr 18, 2004 -
6 comments
Three Blind Phreaks, See How They Scam ... The Badirs pulled off Mamet-worthy phone cons, employing cell phones, Braille-display computers, ace code-writing skills, and an uncanny ability to impersonate anyone from corporate suits to sex-starved females. On the phone, the brothers morph into verbal 007s, intimidating men, seducing women, and wheedling classified information from steely-voiced security personnel [...] An intense cat-and-mouse game developed: the Badirs on one side, with fraud investigator David Osmo and prosecutor Doron Porat on the other [...] his car's GPS system and email were repeatedly hacked. "There was a message waiting for him with his password in it," says Ramy, sounding quite pleased. "After that, he changed his password every hour before giving up on email altogether and using a typewriter."
posted by Blue Stone
on Jan 30, 2004 -
7 comments
The gift of sight is easy to take for granted. Not for
Mike May, blinded in infancy, Mike had partial vision restored at the age of 43.
This is his journal, written with infectious delight for his new gift and documenting the unexpected problems that the miracle brings. There's much, much more to vision than
just the data and Mike is an unprecedented opportunity to better understand how perception works.
[via the Guardian and previously mentioned here]
posted by grahamwell
on Aug 26, 2003 -
14 comments
The Appalachian Trail is a continuous marked footpath that goes from Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, a distance of about 2160 miles. It passes through 14 states and takes about 5 to 7 months to hike through. Hey, if a
blind man could do it, so can you. If you are not actually up for hiking right this moment, you could always...(more inside)
posted by Secret Life of Gravy
on Oct 8, 2002 -
22 comments
Virtual light - "...the wires plug into Patient Alpha's head like a pair of headphones plug into a stereo. The actual connection is metallic and circular, like a common washer. So seamless is the integration that the skin appears to simply stop being skin and start being steel."
Cameras that jack into a blind man's brain, allowing him to 'see' may soon be here.
posted by GriffX
on Aug 14, 2002 -
23 comments
''Tim,'' said Spitzer with a laugh, ''just slaughtered them.'' What's so special about one geek slaughtering other geeks in a game of Quake?
Tim is blind and a company named
ZForm is developing videogames to help blind people compete fairly with sighted people. Way cool.
posted by WolfDaddy
on Jul 8, 2002 -
13 comments
Live audio description of Bush inauguration If you get PBS and if your PBS station broadcasts in stereo, you will likely be able to hear only the second-ever attempt at audio description of a live event - the inauguration of Bush. (The other live-described event was Clinton's inauguration.) This of course is audio description, ostensibly for blind viewers. Set your TV or VCR to SAP and compare the approaches of the standard announcers, who call the event assuming the viewer can see, and the describers, who don't. (No sexy Web page for this event.)
posted by joeclark
on Jan 14, 2001 -
9 comments
