really cool!
How the Blind Are Reinventing the iPhone:
Maria Rios, 66, woke up at 6am. She got out of bed in her little second floor apartment on the north side of Central Park, and checked her iPhone for the weather. Then she felt around in her closet, where she had marked her navy blue garments with safety pins, to tell them apart from her black ones. In the adjacent room, her roommate Lynette Tatum, 49, picked out a white sweater and dark denim slacks. She used her VizWiz iPhone app to take a photograph and send it to a customer-service rep who lets her know what color the item is.
For the visually impaired community, the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 seemed at first like a disaster — the standard-bearer of a new generation of smartphones was based on touch screens that had no physical differentiation. It was a flat piece of glass. But soon enough, word started to spread: The iPhone came with a built-in accessibility feature. Still, members of the community were hesitant.
But no more. For its fans and advocates in the visually-impaired community, the iPhone has turned out to be one of the most revolutionary developments since the invention of Braille. That the iPhone and its world of apps have transformed the lives of its visually impaired users may seem counter-intuitive — but their impact is striking.
Watching Rios and Tatum navigate the world with the aid of their iPhones is a lesson in the transformative and often unpredictable impacts that technology has on our lives. After getting dressed, they strap on their backpacks, canes in hand, and walk out the door. They can’t see the sign someone hung in the elevator, informing them the building is switching to FIOS, but the minute they’re outside the fact they can’t see is a minor detail. They use Sendero — “an app made for the blind, by the blind,” says Tatum — an accessible GPS that announces the user’s current street, city, cross street, and nearby points of interest.
via theatlantic
11:36am May 5, 2012
If any of you guys have ever been interested in going to Haiti, this is a great way to do it. I would love to go but unfortunately have to work and take a class this summer. If you are free though, feel free to post and let me know so I can live vicariously through you!
Seriously the trip of a lifetime <3
11:32am May 5, 2012
It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.
–Aldous Huxley, Island (via olivia-nicole)
February 25, 2012 10:41am
(Source: moreofamore)
Via The Deeply SuperficialUpsetting Story, Great Read
I just finished reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and I won’t give anything away in case you want to read it (it’s a quick read and a great book) but I feel the need to say something about how I felt when I read the ending. Since the title IS Things Fall Apart, I expected the ending to be somewhat upsetting but I didn’t know that it would be so infuriating and depressing! Reading the story made me wish so badly that things had ended differently and that I could have helped but of course, there’s nothing I could do even if it were a true story because it is set in the past.
It’s one of those books where you get so captivated by the characters and their way of life that you start rooting for them and when things don’t go well…well it sucks! That’s how I feel right now but it was definitely worth the read. It’s also great that this novel teaches a bit about history, even as a work of fiction. If you haven’t read it, please do. And let me know what you think! I would be very happy to discuss.
February 16, 2012 9:43pm
So true. Then I can use him as my police cadet and not appear to be too overprotective :)
January 30, 2012 6:17pm
(Source: doesnteverybodywanttofallinlove)
Now that we’ve all started school again (or work/whatever your day-to-day activity is), I know there may be some stressful or annoying things going on. Maybe being grateful for the things that are going right can really help take your mind off of it.
As for me, today I’m grateful for:
1. not having to go to class and brave the freezing wind
2. not needing to buy some books because we won’t be using them much for the class
3. creating a great Valentine’s Day gift for my sweetheart (and being excited to give it to him)
January 30, 2012 6:10pm
Something to Hope For by The Undeserving
This is a great song. Can be a pick-me up or a downer, depending on how you look at it. If you don’t have a lot of time, just listen to the chorus. It’s really cute. I hope today gives you something to hope for!
12pm January 17, 2012
Update
Hello readers,
Sorry that I haven’t been posting anything for a long time. I’ve been having writers’block and was also really busy. Bad combination for my blog. I promise to update it soon.
Thanks for sticking by me!
1/17/2012
Things I’m Thankful For Today
1. Thinking to close the skylight above my bed before going to sleep.
When I woke up, I heard rain pitter-pattering on the window above me. It would NOT have been pleasant if it was pitter-pattering on my actual head.
2. No tourists allowed in the Science Center, no photos, no videos.
I had seen the sign last week but didn’t think much of it. Now that I’ve seen it over and over again, I’m pretty happy. I’m worried that it’s too good to be true but hopefully it means there will be no repeats of the atrocities of bold summer orgo tourists ever again.
3. Google Chrome has been installed on the computer lab PCs.
I use Google Chrome on my laptop and always felt kinda weird without it when I have to come here. Now I don’t have to feel that way. (Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape or form associated with Google. I kinda wish I was because I would have way more money. But I’m not.)
I hope you’ve found things to be thankful for today as well :)
September 6, 2011 2:57pm
You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go- into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you’re not really there, you’re someplace else where there is blue sky and a road you don’t recognize. If you squint your eyes, you think you see him, in the shadows, beyond the trees. You always imagine that you see him, but he’s never there. It’s only his spirit, that’s what’s there beneath the bed when you kiss your husband, there when you send your daughter off to school. It’s in your coffee cup, your bathwater, your tears. Unfinished business always comes back to haunt you, and a man who swears he’ll love you forever isn’t finished with you until he’s done.
–Alice Hoffman (via olivia-nicole)
damn, I hope it doesn’t turn out like this for me
August 22, 2011 1:41pm
Via The Deeply SuperficialAbout me
Started to share my thoughts, ecc. in Italia. Will most likely be continued to let off steam and procrastinate :)
