[BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach

Tue Apr 17 18:38:30 UTC 2018

Hi Ken, I was at CSUN and I remember the amazing displays. I really want one.

But some of you have been saying "it's getting better" for the past
ten years. Meanwhile, my situation is exactly the same as it was ten
years ago.
I can't read math books.
I can't read CS books which rely heavily on math.
Blindness is a trivial problem compared to this one.

On 4/17/18, Ken Perry via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> I want to add the other part to this.  There are several graphics displays
> on the way that will help with this.  ON the display I currently have on my
> desk I can blow up images and read the actual text and words rather than
> see
> it in braille as a 100% blind person.  So when I find something I can't
> read
> by OCR or braille or screen reader.  I throw it at the Graphiti and it
> shows
> up as an image that I can feel.  These displays are not out yet but it will
> change the way we deal with Stem once they come out.  I was just playing
> with it and looking at allt he emogi's and that was fun but looking at math
> problems and instant tactile representations of Microscope slides is
> amazing.
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Sina Bahram via
> BlindMath
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 2:01 PM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Sina Bahram <sina at sinabahram.com>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach
>
> Having done a lot of work in this space, please allow me to share some
> thoughts.
>
> With mathematics in textbooks, the problem is rather complex, as you may or
> may not know. MathML is one possibility, but rarely do publishers offer
> this
> (though that pipeline is getting much better). That means that often times
> the mathematics is imbedded into the books as picture files, which is
> completely useless for accessibility purposes. That, sadly, is one of the
> better cases, because the worst case is when the book needs to be
> physically
> scanned instead of electronically provided, at which point one is at the
> mercy of OCR and other suboptimal technologies for converting visual
> representations of mathematics into digitally accessible semantic
> representations therein.
>
> I and many other people are working on all of these problems, and the
> Diagram Center, part of Benetech who runs Bookshare, are some of the
> hardest
> working and most knowledgeable people in the space, but it takes a lot of
> time to transform entire industries whose digital practices last evolved in
> the 90's and 00's.
>
> Various research projects around the world involve using computer vision
> and
> machine learning to recognize mathematics and subsequently transforming
> that
> into accessible formats. Still other efforts involve educating publishers
> about including accessible information within their digital formats and
> providing reference implementations of HTML5 and other templates to
> facilitate access for all audiences, not just those who are
> vision-impaired.
>
> None of the above removes the frustration of not having immediate access to
> a book like one's peers, but I can confidently say that things are slowly
> getting a lot better.
>
> Take care,
> Sina
>
> President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.
> Twitter: @SinaBahram
> Company Website: https://www.pac.bz
> Personal Website: https://www.sinabahram.com
> Blog: https://blog.SinaBahram.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sabra Ewing <sabra1023 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 1:43 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Sina Bahram <sina at sinabahram.com>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach
>
> They were not fantastic about it with me. Every time I try to get a math
> textbook from them, it was not accessible. The equations we're not exactly
> removed, but it is hard to describe what they are like. Amanda was there
> though. She can tell you what they were like. Book share never fixed it.
>
> Sabra Ewing
>
>> On Apr 17, 2018, at 11:32 AM, Sina Bahram via BlindMath
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> If you let bookshare know through the form on their website, they are
>> fantastic about rescanning/correcting the book.
>>
>> President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.
>> Twitter: @SinaBahram
>> Company Website: https://www.pac.bz
>> Personal Website: https://www.sinabahram.com
>> Blog: https://blog.SinaBahram.com
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Amanda
>> Lacy via BlindMath
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 1:12 PM
>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>> Cc: Amanda Lacy <lacy925 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach
>>
>> Does anyone know where to get an accessible version of this book?
>>
>> I was enjoying it until around the chapter on recursion. At that point
>> the text version I found contained gibberish where the theorems should
>> be.
>> The Bookshare version was just as useless; it left them out altogether.
>> How'd you like to read, "...and when you combine theorem removed with
>> theorem removed..."
>>
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>>
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>
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