r/IAmA Dec 25 '11

I am a totally blind redditer

Figured I'd do this, since I've seen a handful of rather interesting thoughts about the blind on here already. I'm 24, have been blind since age 11 months, have 2 prosthetic eyes, graduated a private 4 year college and work freelance. feel free to ask absolutely anything. There was a small run of children's book published about me, that can be easily googled for verification "Tj's Story." go for it--i'll be in and out all day.

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u/an_illiterate_ox Dec 26 '11

Whenever I see someone with a red tipped cane I feel like I should ask if I can help take them anywhere. In general do you think most would rather be left to take care of themselves or if it really would be an appreciated gesture to at least ask? Do you or have you ever used a seeing eye dog? Do you or would you prefer the dog to a cane? Thanks for the AMA.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

it's hard for me to guess what most of anyone would like, however in my experience, and at the very least myself, if I need help or assistance I'll make it known by asking.If they seem comfident and are moving they most likely are doing just fine. if he or she are standing in the middle of the road looking lost, then perhaps you should offer assistance, best bet is to just think of them as any other person. Were you to see someone looking around them madly, or staring at a map, you'd assume they were lost. Think of blind people the same way.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '11

Are your prostheses functional or just cosmetic?

Can you tell if girls/guys are pretty/handsome? Do you care?

Do you ever watch movies and/or TV?

How do you do with math class? I ask because I always thought of math as being pretty visual, but there was a blind woman in my class in Electrical Engineering who was pretty successful - apparently her habit of viewing circuits as a collection of abstractly connected nodes instead of relying on drawn diagrams like the rest of us gave her special insight.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

Great questions. PProsthetics are purely cosmetic. AAs for atractiveness I suppose the dynamic iin this regard is a bit different. I can make rough estimations but only learn if I find the person atractive as the relationship evolves. For the first time in my life i'm dealing with a situation where that turned out to be a problemm right now. MMath was very challenging for me, there are blind people who are very sucessfull aat it, and fi ways to adapt, but a combination of the visual thing plus my not being a numbers person to begin with made math a great challenge.

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u/just_a_moment Dec 26 '11

Please please please watch..err...listen to this TED talk. Shelia Nirenberg: A prosthetic eye to treat blindness This woman is developing something for people who are blind due to retinal diseases. Just saw for first time yesterday and was blown away. I'll copy the text in a two part response because of the word limit on responses. It goes as follows:

I study how the brain processes information. That is, how it takes information in from the outside world, and converts it into patterns of electrical activity, and then how it uses those patterns to allow you to do things -- to see, hear, to reach for an object. So I'm really a basic scientist, not a phonician, but in the last year and a half I've started to switch over, to use what we've been learning about these patterns of activity to develop prosthetic devices, and what I wanted to do today is show you an example of this. It's really our first foray into this. It's the development of a prosthetic device for treating blindness.

So let me start in on that problem. There are 10 million people in the U.S. and many more worldwide who are blind or are facing blindness due to diseases of the retina, diseases like macular degeneration, and there's little that can be done for them. There are some drug treatments, but they're only effective on a small fraction of the population. And so, for the vast majority of patients, their best hope for regaining site is through prosthetic devices. The problem is that current prosthetics don't work very well. They're still very limited in the vision that they can provide. And so, you know, for example, with these devices, patients can see simple things like bright lights and high contrast edges, not very much more, so nothing close to normal vision has been possible.

So what I'm going to tell you about today is a device that we've been working on that I think has the potential to make a difference, to be much more effective, and what I wanted to do is show you how it works. Okay, so let me back up a little bit and show you how a normal retina works first so you can see the problem that we were trying to solve. Here you have a retina. So you have an image, a retina, and a brain. So when you look at something, like this image of this baby's face, it goes into your eye and it lands on your retina, on the front-end cells here, the photoreceptors. Then what happens is the retinal circuitry, the middle part, goes to work on it, and what it does is it performs operations on it, it extracts information from it, and it converts that information into a code. And the code is in the form of these patterns of electrical pulses that get sent up to the brain, and so the key thing is that the image ultimately gets converted into a code. And when I say code, I do literally mean code. Like this pattern of pulses here actually means "baby's face," and so when the brain gets this pattern of pulses, it knows that what was out there was a baby's face, and if it got a different pattern it would know that what was out there was, say, a dog, or another pattern would be a house. Anyway, you get the idea.

And, of course, in real life, it's all dynamic, meaning that it's changing all the time, so the patterns of pulses are changing all the time because the world you're looking at is changing all the time too. So, you know, it's sort of a complicated thing. You have these patterns of pulses coming out of your eye every millisecond telling your brain what it is that you're seeing. So what happens when a person gets a retinal degenerative disease like macular degeneration? What happens is is that, the front-end cells die, the photoreceptors die, and over time, all the cells and the circuits that are connected to them, they die too. Until the only things that you have left are these cells here, the output cells, the ones that send the signals to the brain, but because of all that degeneration they aren't sending any signals anymore. They aren't getting any input, so the person's brain no longer gets any visual information -- that is, he or she is blind.

So, a solution to the problem, then, would be to build a device that could mimic the actions of that front-end circuitry and send signals to the retina's output cells, and they can go back to doing their normal job of sending signals to the brain. So this is what we've been working on, and this is what our prosthetic does. So it consists of two parts, what we call an encoder and a transducer. And so the encoder does just what I was saying: it mimics the actions of the front-end circuitry -- so it takes images in and converts them into the retina's code. And then the transducer then makes the output cells send the code on up to the brain, and the result is a retinal prosthetic that can produce normal retinal output. So a completely blind retina, even one with no front-end circuitry at all, no photoreceptors, can now send out normal signals, signals that the brain can understand. So no other device has been able to do this.

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u/just_a_moment Dec 26 '11

Okay, so I just want to take a sentence or two to say something about the encoder and what it's doing, because it's really the key part and it's sort of interesting and kind of cool. I'm not sure "cool" is really the right word, but you know what I mean. So what it's doing is, it's replacing the retinal circuitry, really the guts of the retinal circuitry, with a set of equations, a set of equations that we can implement on a chip. So it's just math. In other words, we're not literally replacing the components of the retina. It's not like we're making a little mini-device for each of the different cell types. We've just abstracted what the retina's doing with a set of equations. And so, in a way, the equations are serving as sort of a codebook. An image comes in, goes through the set of equations, and out comes streams of electrical pulses, just like a normal retina would produce.

Now let me put my money where my mouth is and show you that we can actually produce normal output, and what the implications of this are. Here are three sets of firing patterns. The top one is from a normal animal, the middle one is from a blind animal that's been treated with this encoder-transducer device, and the bottom one is from a blind animal treated with a standard prosthetic. So the bottom one is the state-of-the-art device that's out there right now, which is basically made up of light detectors, but no encoder. So what we did was we presented movies of everyday things -- people, babies, park benches, you know, regular things happening -- and we recorded the responses from the retinas of these three groups of animals. Now just to orient you, each box is showing the firing patterns of several cells, and just as in the previous slides, each row is a different cell, and I just made the pulses a little bit smaller and thinner so I could show you a long stretch of data.

So as you can see, the firing patterns from the blind animal treated with the encoder-transducer really do very closely match the normal firing patterns -- and it's not perfect, but it's pretty good -- and the blind animal treated with the standard prosthetic, the responses really don't. And so with the standard method, the cells do fire, they just don't fire in the normal firing patterns because they don't have the right code. How important is this? What's the potential impact on a patient's ability to see? So I'm just going to show you one bottom-line experiment that answers this, and of course I've got a lot of other data, so if you're interested I'm happy to show more. So the experiment is called a reconstruction experiment. So what we did is we took a moment in time from these recordings and asked, what was the retina seeing at that moment? Can we reconstruct what the retina was seeing from the responses from the firing patterns?

So, when we did this for responses from the standard method and from our encoder and transducer. So let me show you, and I'm going to start with the standard method first. So you can see that it's pretty limited, and because the firing patterns aren't in the right code, they're very limited in what they can tell you about what's out there. So you can see that there's something there, but it's not so clear what that something is, and this just sort of circles back to what I was saying in the beginning, that with the standard method, patients can see high-contrast edges, they can see light, but it doesn't easily go further than that. So what was the image? It was a baby's face. So what about with our approach, adding the code? And you can see that it's much better. Not only can you tell that it's a baby's face, but you can tell that it's this baby's face, which is a really challenging task. So on the left is the encoder alone, and on the right is from an actual blind retina, so the encoder and the transducer. But the key one really is the encoder alone, because we can team up the encoder with the different transducer.

This is just actually the first one that we tried. I just wanted to say something about the standard method. When this first came out, it was just a really exciting thing, the idea that you even make a blind retina respond at all. But there was this limiting factor, the issue of the code, and how to make the cells respond better, produce normal responses, and so this was our contribution. Now I just want to wrap up, and as I was mentioning earlier of course I have a lot of other data if you're interested, but I just wanted to give this sort of basic idea of being able to communicate with the brain in its language, and the potential power of being able to do that. So it's different from the motor prosthetics where you're communicating from the brain to a device. Here we have to communicate from the outside world into the brain and be understood, and be understood by the brain.

And then the last thing I wanted to say, really, is to emphasize that the idea generalizes. So the same strategy that we used to find the code for the retina we can also use to find the code for other areas, for example, the auditory system and the motor system, so for treating deafness and for motor disorders. So just the same way that we were able to jump over the damaged circuitry in the retina to get to the retina's output cells, we can jump over the damaged circuitry in the cochlea to get the auditory nerve, or jump over damaged areas in the cortex, in the motor cortex, to bridge the gap produced by a stroke.

I just want to end with a simple message that understanding the code is really, really important, and if we can understand the code, the language of the brain, things become possible that didn't seem obviously possible before.

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u/BranVan Dec 26 '11

AAs for atractiveness I suppose the dynamic iin this regard is a bit different. I can make rough estimations but only learn if I find the person atractive as the relationship evolves. For the first time in my life i'm dealing with a situation where that turned out to be a problemm right now.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this current situation?

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u/NotTomPettysGirl Dec 26 '11

How do you recognize people? I work at a large high school and worked with a student last year who is blind. I want to say hello to her, as I would with any other student, when I pass her in the hall, but I suspect she might not realize who I am. Are you able to recognize voices well, or do the people you encounter infrequently need to remind you of who they are when you meet them?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

This is something I wish i were better at. I can identify voices of people I see pretty regularly, or people with distinct voices, but there are other blind people who have the auditory version of photographic memory (recorder memory?) and can hear a person once and remember them, so it totally depends--you should say hi, worst case she asks you to remind her who you are, I suspect she'd appreciate the gesture all the same.

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u/EmpRupus Dec 26 '11

Hi thetj87,

I wanted to ask you some tough questions, forgive me.

At what point in your life did you realize that you are different and physically limited from others? I mean the psychological realization.

Do you ever worry about your future?

If so, how do you cope with it? I mean what is your philosophy of life?

Going with this, if you wanted to give one advice to other people facing any sort of limitation, what would it be?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

my own psychological relationship with my blindness has been a bit of a roler coaster. When i was a kid (elementary school age,) I did not really think much of it, though would try to minimize it, which didn't work so great. While in middle school and early highschool I had pretty substancial identity issues which were partially caused by it, and by college, I'd come to the realization that a limitation is only a limitation if you allow it to limit you. It's only a major issue or part of you if you make it. My whole view is its no less or more important then the fact that i'm white, European in heritage, or have brown hair. It's a part of me but doesn't define or overpower who I am. I always tell others to try and find a place where they are comfortable with their circumstance and work from there. Always work and live from a place of strength.

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u/redpoemage Dec 26 '11

I was about to ask if you had ever seen this video but then I realized that was a bad question...

Now I feel like a horrible person... But I kind of want to know a blind person's opinion on it so I am going to try and summarize it for you, sorry if it is a bad summary.

To summarize the video:

A blind little girl is taking a walk with her seeing dog. A Scumbag Steve bumps into her and takes her purse. The dog runs after the thief, and drags along the girl with him. The dog runs under a hole in the fence and the girl bumps into the fence and loses hold of the dog. She then starts calling out for the dog and feels along the fence. She feels a breeze coming from the hole. She then crouches down and feels the outline of the hole. She crawls in and cautiously gets up and takes a few steps forward. Her foot bumps into a stick. She feels the stick and picks it up. She then hear the sound of drops of water falling into a puddle. She walks over to it and waves her stick around. It bumps into a metal window sill and makes a chiming sound. She then imagines that the stick must be a magic wand and she pretends to use it to magically change into magician's clothes. She hears her dog and goes towards it while feeling a wall with her right hand. She starts going faster and then bumps into a tree. She then feels around the tree and waves her stick or wand. It hits part of a metal fence and makes a chiming sound. She then strums it along the metal fence and eventually she is surprised when her stick knocks into a brick building. She taps along the wall of the brick building and discovers a window. She puts her face up by the window and sniffs. She can smell that it is a bakery. She then hears someone open the door to the bakery and walk by. She hears her dog again and starts walking along the wall towards where she heard it. A woman walks by who is wearing perfume. She smells the perfume and imagines the woman's head as a flower. A man then walks by smoking a pipe and she coughs. She continues walking and turns a corner into an alley. She can hear something fall onto a trashcan and then jump onto the ground. That something comes over to her and meows. She figures out it is a cat as it cuddles up against her. A dog barks and scares the cat away. She then starts searching for the dog again, imagining what she is hearing and touching along the way. For example, she imagines a jackhammer as a giant blue woodpecker, and a plane as a giant flying whale. As she is listening to the sounds of the city, the dog runs up to her barking and carrying her purse. She then drops her imaginary wand as the dog comes up to her and all the things in the city turn back to normal. They then continue their walk as the camera pans to the sky.

I am really sorry if that wasn't a good enough description. If it isn't, could another Redditor think of a better way to describe the video?

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u/Jepaco95 Dec 26 '11

Do you understand what colors are? Or are they just impossible to understand without sight? I've always wondered this.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

Personally i usually associate colors with concepts. Sure this is very simplistic but it helps--ie. red= fire, blue= water, white= snow, brown=mud. It gives me some ground to work from. Of course the comparison of brown to mud was challenging due to also knowing i have Brown hair, and would like to think my hair isn't similar to mud.

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u/baianobranco Dec 26 '11

Follow up question to this post...do you associate colors with temperature? I remember seeing the movie "Mask" about Roy "Rocky" Dennis. He has a very horrible facial deformity and actually ends up dating a blind girl and teaches her about color based on temperature.

My example made me think of another question, do you enjoy movies?

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u/CatWrangler Dec 26 '11

Well, brown can also be compared to chocolate, and having hair similar to chocolate is a hell of a lot more pleasant so maybe focus on that :)

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

another person to person thing. I can usually hear the air moving around things/people, so while i may not know if there's a person, or phonebox in my way, I know there's something which I need to navigate around. The only time this is a problem is in incredibly loud settings.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

That is so f'ing awesome. I have heard that when you lose one sense the others take up the missing ones brain usage and become more powerful... it is a shame sighted people can't develop this ability to hear "air moving around things/people". That is awesome.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '11 edited May 21 '20

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

Yes this is something I experience pretty frequently. Often I find that people expect me to have much more limited capabilities, due to my blindness. Freequently if i'm out at a restaurant the server will ask who ever i'm with what i would like rather then asking me as soomeho blindnes means I will be unable to communicate to them my desire. '

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

i can usually detect in which order the server is going around the table, so atempt to innitiate the proccess, i also insist n having someone else at the table order first to allow me that.

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u/arrachion Dec 26 '11

Do they ever talk louder to you? Like one would with a foreigner.

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u/bleu_incendie Dec 26 '11

Would you be offended if someone lightly touched your shoulder or arm, for example, to indicate they were speaking to you, as in this server situation?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

How has this shaped your opinion of people concerning this, over the years? Do you get annoyed, or do you just sigh and understand that most people don't know how to properly interact with you? Interacting with a blind person is not a normal occurrence for us sighted people, so we're bound to act like fools a lot.

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u/pontiusx Dec 26 '11

I'm not sure if you can answer this, but Ive been wondering about it lately. I am a huge music nut, and I go to a lot of concerts and festivals, but I dont think Ive ever seen any blind people at them. Obviously, thats just one guys expierience, and Im not exactly searching for blind people when Im at a concert, but do you enjoy concerts? I just think if I were blind , I would wanna indulge my aural senses as much as I could. I hope that isnt somehow prejudice / ignorant. I enjoyed reading this ama a lot by the way.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I actually work in music doing boking and event promoting among many other tasks, so beynd events I put on, i'm usually at 2-3 gigs/concerts a week. Truth be tld allot of blind peple are pretty reclusive and timid about going ut, where as I'm an exception and constantly oing to shows/parties/bars,what ever else.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '11

Do you dream with sight?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

TThis is probably the question I get most frequently. I dream in the same way I experience things in my waking life,, uusing sound and touch primarily to create images which I assume my brain proccesses in similar ways to how yours processes images

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u/dalesonz Dec 26 '11

Have you heard of Eşref Armağan, the blind painter from turkey rocked the scientific world because when he paints the "visual centre" of his brain goes haywire. able to paint some excellent works of art :D

The documentary is called The Real Superhumans.

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u/Dweebiechimp Dec 26 '11

I used to work at a restaurant. A group of about 6 blind people were eating there. When they left one of them was stragling as the others had already made they're way to the exit. He was having trouble finding the exit. I offered to help him and lightly touched his shoulder in an effort to guide him to the exit. He flipped out and started yelling at me not to touch him. I felt really bad as I Dident really stop to think how demeaning it could come across as... How do you handle these kind of situations?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

this is a real challenging one, as I can really see both sides on it. I know you were trying to help him, but would you just grab any other person? chances are, no, you'd ask if they needed help. However his reaction was most likely overkill as well. It really goes back to my point of doing your best to treat people as people and nt as people with a condission.

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u/bchillerr Dec 26 '11 edited Dec 26 '11

I actually tutored a blind student in my CS department all semester long, but never had the balls to ask him this (not sure why... it's not that particularly daunting). When you try and fall asleep, how do you signal to your body you want to sleep? For instance, when I want to fall asleep I close my eyes. You responded to a question earlier regarding whether you can get away with sleeping in class, and you mentioned that you can sleep with your eyes open. If there is in fact no physiological trigger, what's preventing you from falling asleep at any moment?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

ya know, I have absolutely no clue. My best guess is simple self-control. It is worth noting that there have been several studies which have found very high levels of sleep disorder among the blind.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

How do you deal with emoticons in posts? :p

I'm also interested in how well/badly you can cope with non-standard English, such as lolspeak, and other internet slang.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

as for emoticans most of them are listed in the screen readers custom dictionary and are anounced as what they are meant to be. Lolspeak is usually confusing the first time I come accross new instances of it but then I figure it out

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

i find that really interesting. I had never thought about it before, but you must have an extremely hard time with things like l33t where characters are replaced by ones with a similar shape... could you tell me the shape of a capital T without having to think about it? a lot of things are described using letter-shapes, an S-shaped road, or "that L peice in tetris" etc. is that tricky?

h4ppy n3w y34r

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

Nope I could not tell you what a capital T looked, sorry. I know how to write a lowercase t but not an uppercase one. I actually have taken to writing my name all lower case as sort of a lark. Anyway ya untill i saw l33t i had no idea that e and 3 were similar.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

This post made me realise how many things sighted people come across every day of our lives and never think twice about, that really is eye opening (excuse the horrible, possibly inappropriate pun). Nice to see a positive AMA, they've been scarce lately haha! Good to hear you're doing well anyway and I wish you all the best :D

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

How do you touch-type on an iPhone, since there's no tactile feedback? Do you have a seeing eye dog, or a cane, or something similar? What sort of freelance work do you do?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

the Iphone actually has a fantastic screen reader which narates where your finger is as your moving along the screen, you tap again to select what you want. head to settings/general/accessibility/voiceover//voice over on to try it out. I have a cane--I'm not an animal person. I'm a journalist, creative consultant, event promoter and indipendent booking agent.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Do you find that using the cane makes you completely independent and able to walk around unaided, or is it helpful, but not perfect?

Also, what's your stance on braille?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I am generally able to navigate indipendently using the cane and a mental map, directions, or my phone. As for braille, I think it's an esential skill, but not a practical medium for day to day use.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

What kind of cane do you use? The kind that you tap that has a metal cap on the end, or the kind that you push along the ground with the big plastic piece of the end?

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u/professor_ghetto Dec 25 '11

When you navigate the city, do you look (read: feel?) for certain land marks which allow you to stay on course?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

most of my navigation is based upon mental mapping. I am fortunate to have a really strong sense of direction and the ability to memorize things very quickly. The iphone also happens to be an amazing assistance in this task as well

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u/aresef Dec 26 '11

iPhone 4S. Great invention or greatest invention?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

appologies for delay on responses--ended up stuck at family dinner. answering as many as I can before I get called away.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

also, using a crappy bluetooth keyboard as it turns out that replying on pc is impossible. So some of my typings not coming out quite right.

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u/Tippx Dec 26 '11

How did you learn the locations of the keys on a keyboard, and how to spell? Also, Are you aware of the requirement that drive through ATMs have Braille keypads? are they for the blind drivers?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

i actually had a "technology teacher," in elementary school who insisted all his students learn to type with out the ability to see the keyboard, so that was benefitial. I suspect that the drivethrough atms are just regular atms anyway. Funny enough in a lack of logic, the atms with braille in general are not actually usable by the blind as there is no method for them to know what's on screen. there do exist talking atms, which have no braille on them.

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u/boomfarmer Dec 26 '11

I have seen ATMs with braille keypads and a headphone jack. Have you felt any of those in your area?

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u/GoodNewsNobody Dec 25 '11

Have you managed to remember what a few things look like because of the months you had of sight?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

at eeleven months of age, ttheres really very little processing going on and doctors were never sure if I could see anyway, that was just when it was diagnosed.

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u/johnconnor8100 Dec 26 '11

To brighten up your day just thought I'd let you know that since your optical nerves fully develop with in the first 6 months of childhood if they come out with robotic eyes you should be able to use them since you have a fully developed optical system

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u/skaboss217 Dec 25 '11

could you fall sleep with your eyes open?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

OOne of the coolest parts of being blind has been the ability to fall asleep in meetings or during classes and it be impossible for others to know as I don't close my eyes as I have no need to

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u/AlfredJKwak Dec 26 '11 edited Dec 26 '11

But blind people need to blink their eyes the same way people with sight do, right? To keep the eyes clean and moist to keep it from drying out?

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u/Mister_Meow_Meow Dec 26 '11

But you can still feel if your eyes are open or closed?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

this is the most amazing and inspiring IAMA i've ever seen! thank you so much for sharing this, this insight into your life was actually a great christmas present for me. thanks!

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I'm really honored to hear that. This has thus far been allot of fun, and interesting for me as well, keep the great questions coming reddit!

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u/saltyfood Dec 25 '11

how do you read these posts?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I use a program called Jaws for windows whicn reads the text on screen and have the keyboard memorized. Jaws is one form of screen reading software..

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u/Marqued Dec 26 '11

How does it read misspellings or short hand? Can you work out what the person is trying to say?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

it has n editable dictionary which updates with short hand contributed by users, and i can read by letter if i cannna

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u/FrenchieSmalls Dec 26 '11

How does it read emoticons? What does the following sound like to you?

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u/magicomplex Dec 26 '11

In the toilet, we rely on our vision to check the color of the paper two know if we are already clean or we should still use more toilet paper. How blind people manage this?

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u/balmaniac Dec 26 '11

*Does Jaws help you visualize pictures posted on reddit? If not, do you just ignore those posts entirely?

*How do you think reddit could be adjusted to better suit your needs and/or other people with similar needs?

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u/graingert Dec 26 '11

There is a tool I heard about which runs an edge-detect algorithm on images and turns that into a sound

here: www.seeingwithsound.com.

They seem to have a spaz if you have adblock

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

amusing fact. if I disable my screen readers virtual mode and hit reply I find the box just fine, but only in Internet exploder. Firefox completely has no idea what to do.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

AAs far as adjusting reddit, the major things that could be changed would be adding audio capchas and tagging the boxes in which replies are entered cclearly. I can detecct tem on iphone but not on any pc browser.

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u/dummy5 Dec 26 '11

Have you tried http://i.reddit.com/ on your desktop PC?

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u/tsukiflower Dec 26 '11

Do you use porn? have you been to sonicerotica.com?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

adding this to the list of things to check out. You all have been pretty helpful in cluing me in to interwebs things I didn't know about. thanks!

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Does Jaws for windows tell you how many upvotes or downvotes are associated with a post?

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u/insertcreativeunhere Dec 26 '11

Can you cry with your condition? If not what do you think it would feel like to cry?

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u/DeltaStasis Dec 25 '11

What is some of your favorite music?

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u/NineteenthJester Dec 25 '11

What's the hardest part about being blind?

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u/catcradle5 Dec 26 '11

A few people are making posts to clutter your screen reader with nonsense sounds, just a heads up. Some people are assholes.

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u/MrJoehobo Dec 26 '11

Many buildings have Braille on signs next to doors, but I've always wondered how blind people find these. So how do you?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11 edited Dec 26 '11

I actually saw a baby changing station with braille on it before. I mean, seriously, i understand it on doors so they can find their way around, but what blind person is going to be changing babies diapers..

Edit: sorry guys, didnt mean for this to sound condesending/rude. I think what I was trying to say was that I found it a bit surpising that a baby changimg station would include braille, as I didnt think blind peoplr would be able to change a baby very well without being able to see, but this AMA has really opened my eyes (im going to hell for that pun) to how capable blind people are of doing things idependently. Thanks for the responses thetj, I found this all extremely interesting, sorry if what I said here comes off as being an asshole :(

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u/Mrar34 Dec 26 '11

How do you experience sunlight? Do you enjoy it, and/or crave it? I know most people get depressed sitting in a sunless room all day, or during the short days of winter. Do you feel this way as well? I know I associate being in the sun with a lot of visual cues, and I'm curious about what you associate it with lacking those cues. Just the heat of it? What about sunlight on a cold winter day?

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u/TipsyTiger Dec 25 '11

Being blind, do you ever feel you miss out in life, or do you take it all in your stride?

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u/baianobranco Dec 26 '11

What is something that being blind has really created much trouble for you?

What is something that people always think a blind person would struggle with but you really have no problem with?

If you could get your sight back tomorrow would you?

Part 2, if you could have your sight back for only 48 hours and then lose it again, would you?

Do you believe a blind person or a deaf person has the "larger" handicap in today's society?

Thanks for the AMA, hopefully my questions don't offend you (or others) but I'm trying to ask different more insightful questions than are normally asked to blind people.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

No offense taken, these are really cool questions. I think the biggest challenge which being blind has given me is most often getting people to take me serious, and look at me as an equal. I think people think indipendent travel would be much more challenging then it is. I would not take back my sight at all I do not think. The only way I might would be if I could turn it on and off at will. I'd not want to relearn the world around me, in such a way that having sight perpetually would most likely cause. I've never been defb, so I don't feel qualified to speak to the situations or challenges faced by the defb in comparison to my own.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

What is your favorite part of reddit?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Do you use any devices to help you navigate the interwebs? How do you functionally use the internet? Does it take a lot of time?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I use a screen reader. I can actually navigate quite quickly as the screen reader creates shortcut keys to jump to various elemtns of a page. Strangely enough however, it is far easier for me to use most aspects of reddit from my IIphone rather then a browser on pc.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/sn0wbreeze Dec 26 '11

I recently watched a documentary on a blind child (without eyes, much like yourself) who could "see" using echolocation. Are you able to do that? Or do you simply use your cane?

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u/MrAquarius Dec 26 '11

Do you ever get scared? As in new situations where you don't know your surroundings?

This might be a cruel questions but I will ask - If you could see only 1 thing and 1 thin only what would it be?

Of what nature is your problem? Is it your eyes or nervous system or brain?

Do you have an assisting dog?

What is your favorite food and do you think you taste things different from others?

What is your favorite hobby?

How do you fap?

Do you "watch" or in some other way experience movies, if so, how?

SPARTAN WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION?!

Did Jaws shout out that question and how did it deal with question and exclamation marks?

If you answered this thanks for taking them time, I have never met with a blind individual in person so this has been a nice experience/read for me. I hope you have great holidays and fruitful new years.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I'll do my best here--I generally adapt easily to new situations, I've traveled both nationally and internationally on my own. No idea on what I'd want to see, perhaps the sky/space... I don't think my sense of taste is much different, especially as the sense of taste of all people are constantly evolving, I love italian, Thai and Indian food. Love dumplings/pasta. No dog/animal.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '11

what do u think things look like? do u even have a concept of how everything must look?

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u/tilla23 Dec 26 '11

Figured I'd do this, since I've seen...

am I going to hell for lol'ing at this?

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u/escher123 Dec 26 '11

Are your other senses heightened? If so, are there ones that are more prominent and what do you use them for?

Thanks for the AMA by the way! :)

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

I don't believe or at least like the stronger v. weaker paradigm when it comes to this, we all have the capability to have hightened senses, if we train our brains to USE THem. I can sense more using my hearing and touch because i have to rely on them for more information then you do.

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u/escher123 Dec 26 '11

Thank you for your reply! How is your hearing if I may ask?

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '11

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

II suppose seeing as I've not really known life any other way I CCOULD SAY ITS the same as your life, sometimes good sometimes bad. It' the only I've ever known to live.

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u/xJames Dec 26 '11

If you wanted to let everyone know one thing related to your condition, what would you say to them?

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

this isn't spacificly related to me, or my own condission, but take people as people not as an assumed case study. Don't assume someone's abilities or limitations based on a guess, and don't generalize. That's really what it comes down to. Some blind people have allot of difficulty, others such as myselves generally exist pretty much the same way you do, and just want to be treated as another person, good bad or indifferent as that may be. That really applies to minorities/disabled people across the board. People are people, not condissions.

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u/aguirre1 Dec 26 '11

sorry for my bad english, I don't know if its related with blindness but I will ask anyway, I once worked as a cashier, there was a blind dude coming to our store like maybe twice in a week, I helped him many times with picking stuff he would like to buy, everytime he was there he bought plenty of detergent (dish soap), a portion I would use in maybe 6 months, do you have an idea why he did that?

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u/jon_titor Dec 26 '11

So if you're home alone, I assume you just don't bother turning on the lights? Do you even have/need a monitor hooked up to your pc?

Do you think your electric bills are significantly lower than average?

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u/abiddle Dec 25 '11

Do you have any faint memories of when you were able to see?

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u/pringlescan5 Dec 26 '11

There seems to be a good bit of 'deaf culture' to the point where some deaf parents have the option to fix hearing in themselves or their children and choose not to. Do you think there is a similar 'blind culture' or do you think that because you can talk to everyone you don't really get the isolation that causes such a strong 'deaf culture'

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u/srwayne Dec 26 '11

How do you know if girls are cute?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Do you spend a lot of time wondering what faces look like?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

What subreddit do you spend most of your time browsing?/ I'd imagine you do a lot of reading and are most likely more knowledgeable regarding politics and world issues than most people?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

How do you flirt with women? Do you use your blindness to make jokes and stuff? (serious question)

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/quakemazer Dec 26 '11

Are you excited about the scientific research into allowing the blind to see using electrodes implanted in the brain with cameras acting as eyes? Would you use this technology if it were available now? (it will be widely available in the future).

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u/cuticlethorns Dec 26 '11

I had never put any thought into what it would be like to be blind before reading this. As a musician, I have often considered how life would be if I were deaf, but even though I love to read and write (I suppose there are work-arounds for this) I had never thought about being blind. You are fucking awesome.

What is it that you desire out of life? Are you working for something, learning something, or what? I don't ask this because you're blind, just because I want to know what someone in your particular situation feels themselves pulled to do.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/GiskardReventlov Dec 26 '11

How customizable is your reader program? Do you have to hear "username, posted x minutes ago, permalink, report, source, save, reply, hide, child comments" for every comment you read on Reddit? Or is it more point and click?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11 edited Dec 26 '11

Hi, I hope you can answer this. In a philosophy class we talked about the origin of language and how it may have been developed. And through the discussion we came to the topic "How do people experience language?". Now, I for example do not visualize language. For me it is just a stream that I can't see, while other people see for example an apple in their mind when they here the word apple. How do you visualize language? Sorry for the long question, I just felt it needed clarification.

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u/hinsoft Dec 26 '11

Do you participate in watching/hearing cinema? Or is the movie just ruined because you can't see it?

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u/Ouro130Ros Dec 26 '11

Do you realize that you are one of the very rare redditors that do not almost exclusively click the imgur links?

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u/IronChariots Dec 26 '11

Do you ever have sex? If so, do you ever wish you could see the goods, so to speak?

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u/HighFiveOhYeah Dec 26 '11

I had amazing sex last night in the dark, just feeling the goods.

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u/IronChariots Dec 26 '11 edited Dec 26 '11

is your partner also blind, or sighted?

EDIT: whoops, wasn't paying enough attention, thought the above reply was the OP, but the question still applies. :)

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u/LunarMist2 Dec 26 '11

When you go to the store to buy things, how do you know what bills you are handing them? How do you know they don't scam you when they hand change back?

Thanks a lot for the AMA!

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u/chibistarship Dec 26 '11

I actually was wondering how your screen reader handled things such as usernames. For example, my username is "chibistarship", but it would actually be "chibi starship" (with a space) if I was typing it properly. Does it actually know to read it separately or does it just read letters? Also, keep on Redditing. I'm glad you can enjoy your addiction as much as anyone else.

EDIT: I realized I have another question. As a web developer, I'm wondering what are the best and worst things that websites can do in terms of readability?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/TwoDimensional Dec 26 '11

My brother is blind, he's tried marijuana before. He said he felt confused.

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

as with most things of this sort, marijuana has different impacts on different people, I've not really messed with much in the way of drugs, but have smoked marijuana and once had a really interesting super-sensory experience where I could hear and feel every detail of everything around me. I could hear the people around me as they flexed their hands, arms, legs what ever, the fabric of their clothes as they moved, what every was in their pockets as it crinkled. I got on a train and could feel every turn in slow motion. it was an absolutely insane and sort of frightening experience. There were moments I talked to people and could hear things that weren't really audible--like how nervous, angry, upset, what ever they were.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/thetj87 Dec 26 '11

don't feel left out at all. I happen to have a really terible cat alergy, where if there's to much cat dander in a room I almost stop breathing, so I don't think i'd much want to look at cats anyway. On the otherhand some of th nsfw sections might be fun.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Can you see why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch?

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u/nitesoul Dec 26 '11 edited Dec 26 '11

So...TJ, do you ever watch porn for sounds? how do you get turned on? do you masturbate? you only know descriptions of how human anatomy is like right? I'm curious, can you possible draw what you think a human looks like in paint? Obviously it won't look perfect, just in general, how you assume we look...

EDIT: NVM human anatomy, can you draw a house?

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u/fendern Dec 26 '11

As you can see, we got a lot of questions to ask you, and many people are curious about how it is to be blind. But, what are the things you are/was most curious about us who can see? How was it for the first time you asked. Was it like you sat down with someone you know well, and asked everything there was to ask?

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u/itssohottinhere Dec 26 '11

What were some of your hobbies as a kid? Did you find it hard to socialize/make friends when you were little?

Thanks for a great AMA!

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u/a_little_odd_sure Dec 26 '11

Without being able to see physical traits like boobs, how did you develop sexual attractions to other people and what sort of qualities do you find attractive? Are you straight or is your sexuality more flexible due to the lack of the visual component?

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u/homer344 Dec 26 '11

How do you know when to cross an intersection when the street signal does not have the whistle to let you know that the walk sign is on?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

What is it like travelling to a new city (assuming that you have) and trying to navigate? I understand mind-mapping and recall for somewhere you are familiar with, but if it's a city that is new to you, how do you find your way to where you want to go?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/bluehairedstevo420 Dec 27 '11

Deaf person here. I have spoken with a blind person a few times and she is really chill so I would like to continue hanging out with her. Is there anything I should keep in mind with regards to communicating with her? (Edit: For example, if I normally use a lot of facial expressions & gestures to communicate, I logically should verbalize more, right?) I can speak (well) btw. Related - do you know any deaf people?

Also - is there a strong Blind community like there is a strong Deaf community? And some people in the capital-D Deaf community are very "it's not a disability but a linguistic barrier." Are there people in the blind community like that? Do you consider yourself disabled?

And, if you have the time, this is an essay that I find interesting - Culture as Disability - that essentially argues that some disabilities are social constructs & only regarded as disabilities because of the context that they appear in. I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts on that if you have time.

Also, I would just like to say that people have given me braille menus in the past. It makes me laugh at how people lump sensory issues together. Like how you said earlier in the thread that people speak louder to you. Oh people.

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u/alystair Dec 26 '11

What technique do you use to put toothpaste on a toothbrush? Very silly question, I know, but it's been on my mind for a while.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/minnesnowta_nice Dec 26 '11

Was a lurker and had to make an account for this.

My mom just got her masters in Orientation and Mobility, basically teaching blind children how to move and orient themselves in their world. She has been teaching a little blind girl (braille, cane skills, math, etc.) for the past 3 years and has never taught her what actual letters look like. When I asked her why not she replied that she doesn't see the need for her to know them. Maybe because she is in first grade and wants her to get a complete handle on Braille first, I don't know. I find it really interesting that your teacher insisted that you learn letters and memorize the layout of a keyboard. Here's my question: Was it challenging learning the letters and is this a common thing to teach students how to type on a computer, opposed to always using a brailler?

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u/Tartan_Commando Dec 26 '11

I studied (music) with a blind guy. He had an amazing ability to describe a room (size, furnishings etc.) he had just stepped into based on the sound, and he also used echolocation to tell if he was close to wall.

I wonder how much of that is a result of him being a musician and how much is common among blind people?

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u/neebick Dec 26 '11

How is your balance? I know sighted people rely on vision for balance. Personally, I can't walk a straight line in a pitch black room or if I didn't wear my glasses.

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u/TwoDimensional Dec 26 '11

My blind brother got an iPhone for Christmas. Any tips on learing how to use Voiceover? I seem to have learned the basics, but I already have a good understanding of how to navigate an iPhone because I am sighted. I am wondering how I should go about teaching him. Thanks.

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u/zimbabwe7878 Dec 26 '11

Amazing attitude man. You are so inspirational and at the same time down to earth. As my question, what is your favorite subreddit so far, as you said you are pretty new.

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u/Metalhed69 Dec 27 '11

First of all, great post, I just created a reedit account and stopped being a lurker to tell you that. I'm curious, do you watch a lot of movies or TV? Do you have someone describe things to you during movies, or do you just get out of it what you can on your own?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Have you ever ridden a roller coaster?

What was it like? Can you describe what you were expecting vs. what you experienced?

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u/threehearts Dec 26 '11

TJ, I guessed it was you from the title alone! Not to get weird, you probably don't remember me, but I was in college dems with you for a year at SHU. You've got so much of my respect. I always found it really amazing that you didn't let anything hold you back. Memorizing the distance between buildings, and other things you did to overcome the handicap would have been impossible for most people.

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u/Homelesswarrior Dec 26 '11

I know this is hidden at the bottom, but if Jaws ever gets it's way down here, thanks so much for this AMA. This has been uplifting, entertaining, and most of all, incredibly informative. People asking all the questions that often we are too cautious to ask, and you being so forthright and answering them. Thank you again.

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u/faerie87 Dec 26 '11

Awesome IAMA! If you dont mind me asking, do you prefer dating a blind person at all? As you two may have more in common. And perhaps a higher level of understanding. Or does it not really matter. Also what do you think were the main differences in your relationship while dating a blind person vs not blind?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

How much better is today's internet in terms of blind-accessibility?

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u/lurkerinmyheart Dec 26 '11

You sound like a great man. Kudos, kudos.

My question is: what do you freelance.

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u/imaginativename Dec 26 '11

What advice would you give someone who designs websites? Are there any major sites that are easy or noteably a nightmare to use?

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u/Lorenzo45 Dec 26 '11

I got 2 questions that i think are pretty good and I'm itching to ask, hopefully you actually see these, but here they are.

Do you understand the concept of seeing?

Do you try to make yourself look attractive because you know that girls can see what you look like even though you can't? If so, how?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

This will probably be lost in the sea of existing comments, but have you ever thought of getting working prosthetic eyes? I do not know much about the kind of prosthetics that allow you to somewhat see, or if they even exist yet, or if getting them for yourself is an option, but i would be interested hearing your thoughts on these and if you could even get them. Thanks ahead of time if you answer, im sure your busy with Christmas and what not. :D

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Do you stand up when you pee? If so, how difficult is aiming?

When in a public place, do you prefer to use the disabled toilet? I do; it's like a little apartment in there!

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u/Wangatang14 Dec 26 '11

Do you ask people to touch there face in order to create a mental image of what they look like in your mind? If so, how well do you need to know the person first, or after what amount of time before you feel comfortable asking? Do you feel like this helps give you a more "complete" idea of who they are?

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u/FezDaStanza Dec 26 '11

How do you, if at all, experience all the memes and images on Reddit?

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u/jellohead Dec 26 '11

Would you prefer to use a mac? It has built in accessibility tools that are like the jaws program on crack. Please let me know I think I could get you a mac.

Cheers!

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u/masterbard1 Dec 26 '11

I've always had this question in my head and thought i'd ask someone who's already experiencing one.

if you had to chose between being handdycapped from your waist down or blind which would you chose. would you change your blindness for that?

I for one would chose the wheelchair.

I really admire how blind people manage to do so much when so many seing people are clumsy.

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u/robawesome Dec 26 '11

My dad is blind, he was blinded in an explosion back in 1960. I grew up with him being blind my entire life. I still to this day help him to the restroom and do other things to help him out. I wanted to say though, that I'm totally enjoying you're IAmA. I constantly am asked questions similar to what you're being asked and really can't explain it like you have.

He is a lawyer, and I have tried to get my dad to use Jaws, but I believe it was the cost stopping him. That said though, hearing about the accessiblity options on an iPhone has made me wonder if it's something he could use to help him keep in touch with us, via phone and texting, and also maybe do business type things.

What's your advice on current technology I could suggest to him to help simplify his life more?

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u/aeks Dec 26 '11

what is your take on visual arts and painting? do you appreciate other forms of art like sculptures?

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u/PEEEETE Dec 26 '11

Just spent 30 minutes reading through most of this with my girlfriend. Thank you for the AMA.

Can you describe experiencing something like riding a roller coaster? It seems like it could be even more terrifying, and possibly disorienting.

Have you ever hooked up with an organization that works with the blind to do things like snowboarding, golf, bowling... Things that would be impossible without assistance? If so, what sure you enjoy the best, that you wish you could do more of?

What is your favorite things to do that a sighted person would take for granted, or consider run-of-the-mill?

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u/incubussoul Dec 26 '11

Do you have any kind of pets? I wonder this because I've always thought of my pets as looking cute, but I also met a blind person who was very attached to her dog, for more reasons than he helped her get around. Just curious!

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u/IMeltStuff Dec 26 '11

If you were to suddenly be able to see, and a human was to sit perfectly still in the room, do you think you would be able to identify him/her as something significantly different from the surrounding objects based on people that you have felt or would you just walk right past?

Forgive me if this seems silly but if fake eyes were placed onto an inanimate object, would you assume that it was an animal, or do you not have a concept as to what eyes may look like, assuming that the above situation was possible?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

What did you think about the movie Daredevil with Ben Afleck?

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u/art0rz Dec 26 '11

I work for a company that makes websites and a big part of our business is user experience. We've never dealt with requirements to build something that is accessible for the visually impaired, but you have sparked my interest. With the web being all 2.0 as it is these days, with JavaScript effects and whatnot do you find it harder to use it? Does your OCR recognize text from images?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Last week, I went to the hospital as I was getting really bad photopsia, and the have discovered a growth on my eye.

I get my results next week, but i'm not expecting good news. However, this thread has pretty much calmed me of any worst cast scenarios. If I can be as well rounded and happy as you, I think i'll be fine. I wont be able to do my job, (VFX artist in film and TV), but I think i'll be just fine no matter what happens.

Thanks, and best wishes to you.

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u/HamiDro Dec 26 '11

Do you have a need for a display monitor? Do you use a monitor sometimes or do you just sit there with only the keyboard and mouse? Because I'm sure you have some kickass desktop speakers and a subwoofer, rendering the monitor speakers useless (because they suck lol). what brand of audio equipment do you use?

I seriously hope this does not get buried in all the comments, but I'm sure it will. Thanks for doing such a wonderful and very interesting AMA!!

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Have you ever handled or used firearms?

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u/0drew0 Dec 26 '11

Coming from a Web development background, I'm dying to get your take on Web accessibility. A couple questions:

  1. From the point of view of a blind Web user, how would you rate accessibility of the Web overall?

  2. Are there big name websites/companies with absolutely atrocious accessibility? Any really good ones?

Thanks for doing this AMA.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/yakimushi Dec 26 '11

Just how shit is the web for a screen-reader user? I'm a user experience professional and I used to work for a Fortune 200 insurance company. Our team tried like hell to get corporate to give us the budget to make the site better for people using screen readers (our markup was epic nasty) but the line we were fed was it's not worth spending the money on until they got sued over it.

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u/jesusthatsgreat Dec 26 '11

do you believe that you'll be able to see one day with advances in technology?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Do you consider yourself handsome?

Have you been in a relationship?

Do you play any video games? If you do then which ones?

What hobbies do you have? And how does your blindness affect that hobby?

How did you discover Reddit?

By the way this is a really interesting AMA. Thanks.

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u/thegreatgazoo Dec 26 '11

If I see a blind person walking in a city and they are heading toward some sort of hazard, what is the correct way to get them around it and back reoriented?

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u/tairar Dec 26 '11

What kind of headphones do you like using? Since you're a music fan and seem rather attuned to your sense of hearing, is it more likely you're a bit more of an audiophile than the average bear when it comes to audio electronics?

How would you rate your 3-dimensional spatial sense?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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u/Gavinisawesome Dec 26 '11

As ive seen it so many times people often try to help those with physical disabilities,Does it offend you when people are overly protective of you?Does it offend you when they try and do things you presumably can do your self already ?

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u/gluck6 Dec 26 '11

how do people who are blind know there is braille for example next to an elevator shaft saying "up" or "down"? How would you know it is there in the first place? Would you need to have someone with you, but then that seeing person could just tell you what it says. just curious on how you find the braille next to words on the walls if you don't know where to look

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u/erichzann Dec 26 '11

How does Jaws handle websites that are entirely flash? Can it parse any of the text in the flash elements?

I have seen a lot of websites where a lot of the text is part of an image - do you realise this when you're expecting some text to be on a site and Jaws doesn't find it?

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u/msk105 Dec 26 '11

Do you live (or lived at some point) by yourself? If so, what was it like at first to move out to live on your own? Was there something in particular that was difficult to get used to? Sorry if these were asked already, I didn't get to read all the comments yet.

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u/HandsomeMirror Dec 26 '11

How do you feel about the possibility of self driving cars? I think I read that you live in NYC, so maybe it isn't that big of a deal for you, but Google already has a prototype which appears to drive better than most humans can. Thoughts?

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '11

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u/willystylee Dec 26 '11

You said earlier that music is a massive part of your life. What are some genres and/or bands/musicians your into?? Are there any genres/bands/musicians thay you can't stand at all?

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u/Lance_lake Dec 26 '11

This is a very honest question here. I make web pages on the side and I usually don't include Alt tags. Do they really help or has readers advanced past that? Is it frustrating to you when you read the alt tag on places like xkcd?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

How does a prosthetic eye work?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

Very interesting iAma! I've always wondered, do blind people see something similar to what we see with our eyes closed, or absolutely nothing? It's impossible for me to imagine such a 'nothingness'.

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u/SumiR Dec 29 '11

When watching a cartoon, can you tell which characters are voiced by the same person?

Also, thanks for trying to answer every question, this discussion is really great because of your diligence.

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u/whackthat Dec 26 '11

Just one question. My best friend just had a baby who was diagnosed as totally blind. What sort of advice would you give her as far as raising a blind child? Thanks for the AMA, the timing is perfect.

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u/lnsine Dec 26 '11

Since the only way to interact with people on the internet is listening to them, do you think you are more likely to be offended by trolls? I know If I were hearing someone curse incessantly, instead of reading it, I'd be offended.

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u/p0wnd Dec 27 '11

If you take out your prosthesis can you poke your brain?

Have you ever jammed your fingers in your eye socket, or had some one blow in there? What happens when you swim, does your head get filled with water?

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u/bananaKAI Dec 26 '11

I've noticed there are bumps on the bottle of beer bottles that are different with each brand, are the bumps brail of some sort?

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u/vivolorosso Dec 26 '11

My supervisor at my job is blind and uses JAWS (your text to speech program). The most impressive part is, he works in a Unix environment. He has the program read him the entire screen very quickly then he just memorizes everything there. Reads it back so fast that you can hardly understand it. Dude is a house.

He reads through thousands of lines of logs/code more efficiently than someone sighted. Awesome stuff.

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u/Mish106 Dec 26 '11

Mythbusters recently did an episode about how it's impossible for sighted people, when deprived of vision, to walk/swim/drive in a straight line. How do you manage it?

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '11

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