[BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach

Wed Apr 18 00:26:38 UTC 2018

I hope you and  your TVI / instructors  have put in for a field test with
one in the next months.  If you haven't you should go to Aph's site and do
so.  You would be the perfect person we want these in the hands of.  As for
us saying this has been coming for 10 years, welcome to my world.  I had
been hoping for a Graphing calculator for 20 years and I was able to be the
project lead on making a the  Orion TI-84 so sometimes it takes time to get
things.  There is so much more now than there was 27 years ago when I lost
my sight so your living in a golden age even if it may not feel like it.
Just think back to before the braille displays, when I had to scan my own
books so I could keep up and it took all night to convert 100 pages. We are
close now with these displays as you saw at CSUN.  Even with the Graphiti
though there are future steps to make it even better.  As we work on the
Graphiti there are other companies working on other devices.  WE are at the
point where the electronic braille displays were when they were first
starting to come out 27 years ago. I myself wish that Dot View with KGS
would have stuck with developing their display back in the day but they
found it I guess cost ineffective to do so.  WE could be so much farther
along.  We are witnessing and some of us are involved in the birth of a new
way blind people can view data and you are living it.    I know that doesn't
help you in your current classes and all I can say is you know someone as
rich as Bill Gates that will drop a big chunk of cash on us we are to the
point in the industry that there are several technologies that can be made
into a very impressive Graphic display.  So the equation now is it takes
longer with less money but with less money the technology is not far away.
With more money the technology gets closer and gets made faster.  Thanks to
people like you , Sina, and others  on this list. We who work behind the
scenes know what is needed it is just getting there. There is nothing but
time, engineering, and money slowing us down. 

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Amanda Lacy via
BlindMath
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 2:39 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Amanda Lacy <lacy925 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach

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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