This was most hilarious! Apparently I resemble J. Lo (not on a good day, folks), my 12 year old looks like Don Johnson, my dog looks like Marlon Brando... But i am most afraid my cat looks like the President of China. That explains a lot about the cat.
Meanwhile I don't share those concerns at all! I have "lived" on IRC for the past 8 years or so now. If I went looking I could find pirated things to download, sure. I could find animal porn, whatever. All of this I could also find on P2P or web. Why is IRC so different ??
Well for me, it provides realtime and interactive community that works well with a screenreader. I have found friends all over the world. I met my girlfriend (who actually lives locally) on IRC.
Like any community there will be the good, the bad and the ugly. Just to comment for a moment on the GOOD tho.. my girlfriend had her life saved a number of years ago by a friend she knew on IRC. She was a member of a channel for supporting who were losing their vision due to retinitis pigmentosa. She was not coping well with impending blindness and has gone into an alcholic coma while online. Her IRC buddy from california called my girlfriends local 911 and they found her in time. Its about community!!
I have trouble seeing the entire negative viewpoint of that article.. like the rest of the world, you find what you are looking for.
It all depends on how deaf and how blind you are! I think that the first misconception is to assume that users are both totally deaf and totally blind! (I will add my $0.02 Canadian here saying I am dating a deaf/blind woman who knows all about this stuff and teaches others to use it). A user with some usuable vision may use a screen magnifier, larger fonts, more contrast. A user with some usable hearing (with a hearing aid or cochlear implant) may turn up the sound on the screen reader, make the screenreader speak more slowly and so on.
Screen readers for Windows, such as Window Eyes or Jaws will also send the output to a "Braille Display". Instead of using mouse clicks, the software has keyboard shortcuts for various functions i.e. tab to the next link, press enter to follow it and so on.
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This was most hilarious! Apparently I resemble J. Lo (not on a good day, folks), my 12 year old looks like Don Johnson, my dog looks like Marlon Brando... But i am most afraid my cat looks like the President of China. That explains a lot about the cat.
Meanwhile I don't share those concerns at all! I have "lived" on IRC for the past 8 years or so now. If I went looking I could find pirated things to download, sure. I could find animal porn, whatever. All of this I could also find on P2P or web. Why is IRC so different ??
.. my girlfriend had her life saved a number of years ago by a friend she knew on IRC. She was a member of a channel for supporting who were losing their vision due to retinitis pigmentosa. She was not coping well with impending blindness and has gone into an alcholic coma while online. Her IRC buddy from california called my girlfriends local 911 and they found her in time. Its about community!!
.. like the rest of the world, you find what you are looking for.
Well for me, it provides realtime and interactive community that works well with a screenreader. I have found friends all over the world. I met my girlfriend (who actually lives locally) on IRC.
Like any community there will be the good, the bad and the ugly. Just to comment for a moment on the GOOD tho
I have trouble seeing the entire negative viewpoint of that article
It all depends on how deaf and how blind you are! I think that the first misconception is to assume that users are both totally deaf and totally blind! (I will add my $0.02 Canadian here saying I am dating a deaf/blind woman who knows all about this stuff and teaches others to use it). A user with some usuable vision may use a screen magnifier, larger fonts, more contrast. A user with some usable hearing (with a hearing aid or cochlear implant) may turn up the sound on the screen reader, make the screenreader speak more slowly and so on.
Screen readers for Windows, such as Window Eyes or Jaws will also send the output to a "Braille Display". Instead of using mouse clicks, the software has keyboard shortcuts for various functions i.e. tab to the next link, press enter to follow it and so on.