[stylist] Addressing echo location

[Robert Leslie Newman]

In traveling as a totally blind individual, using echo feedback is my 
biggest source of information! Like ah, check it out -- with a cane in your 
hand, you can reach out -- what, 5, 6, 7, 8, feet? And with your hearing, by 
use of picking up and interpreting echo feedback from obstacles 360 degrees 
around you , the distance then is like 10, 20, 50, 70 90, 100, 200, 300, 
Plus feet. Boy, the few times that I have lost the tip from my cane --  
woo -- I lost my major echo factor and it cut down my information to mostly 
touch only; granted, natural environmental sounds were still there, and 
there was still some super limited echo feedback from my footsteps. And in 
contrast, comparing operating with the echo feedback created by a good metal 
tip, to going without, it really made me feel like I was  traveling --  
blind.



And for any of you who are thinking of how to improve your travel and are a 
cane user, and if you now do not use a metal tip, do try one. It sends out 
the best type of sound for echoing back -- it carries out the furthest  and 
"paints" the object the clearest. (Paints, is I guess a word that I have 
seen used by the military in terms of how a radar beam will cover the size 
and shape of a distant object.)



In writing all this, it is my opinion, though it is also the experience of a 
big bunch of other blind travelers, too. And I will also say, that all blind 
people are different and what works for one, is not necessarily the best for 
the next person.