[BlindMath] Godel Escher Bach

Wed Apr 18 00:48:54 UTC 2018

Dear All:

Here is my solution that sometimes works:
1. Look for the PDF version of the math book that you would like to
read.  My source is b-ok.org.
2. Break the book into 100 page chunks. I use PDFill tools.
3. Use Inftyreader.

Not perfect but better than Bookshare.

Regards,

Ramana

On 4/18/18, Ken Perry via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 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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>>>
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>>
>>
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>
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