Podcasts about Braille

Matt Forbeck is all that and so much more. He grew up in Wisconsin as what he describes as a wimpy kid, too short and not overly healthy. He took to gaming at a pretty early age and has grown to be a game creator, author and award-winning storyteller.   Matt has been designing games now for over 35 years. He tells us how he believes that many of the most successful games today have stories to tell, and he loves to create some of the most successful ones. What I find most intriguing about Matt is that he clearly is absolutely totally happy in his work. For most of Matt's career he has worked for himself and continues today to be an independent freelancer.   Matt and his wife have five children, including a set of quadruplets. The quadruplets are 23 and Matt's oldest son is 28 and is following in his father's footsteps.   During our conversation we touch on interesting topics such as trust and work ethics. I know you will find this episode stimulating and worth listening to more than once.     About the Guest:   Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer of over thirty-five novels and countless other books and games. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming.    Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer.   Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, interactive fiction, interactive audiobooks, games for museum installations, and logic systems for toys. He has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into at least 15 languages.   His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook, the Spider-Verse Expansion, Monster Academy (novels and board game), the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels, and the Minecraft: Roll for Adventure game books. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife and a rotating cast of college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.   Ways to connect with Matt:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/mforbeck Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbeck Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/forbeck.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mforbeck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mforbeck/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forbeck/ Website: https://www.forbeck.com/     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset today. We get to play games. Well, not really, but we'll try. Our guest is Matt Forbeck, who is an award winning author. He is a game designer and all sorts of other kinds of things that I'm sure he's going to tell us about, and we actually just before we started the the episode, we were talking about how one might explore making more games accessible for blind and persons with other disabilities. It's, it's a challenge, and there, there are a lot of tricks. But anyway, Matt, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Matt Forbeck ** 02:02 Well, thank you, Michael for inviting me and having me on. I appreciate it.   Speaker 1 ** 02:06 I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I think it'll work out really well. I'm I am sure of that. So why don't we start just out of curiosity, why don't you tell us kind of about the early Matt, growing up?   Matt Forbeck ** 02:18 Uh, well, I grew up. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin, which actually live in now, despite having moved away for 13 years at one point, and I had terrible asthma, I was a sick and short kid, and with the advent of medication, I finally started to be healthy when I was around nine, and Part of that, I started getting into playing games, right? Because when you're sick, you do a lot of sitting around rather than running around. So I did a lot of reading and playing games and things like that. I happen to grow up in the part of the world where Dungeons and Dragons was invented, which is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from where I live. And because of that I was I started going to conventions and playing games and such, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started doing it when I was a little bit older. I started doing it professionally, and started doing it when I was in college. And amazingly enough, even to my own astonishment, I've made a career out of it.   Speaker 1 ** 03:17 Where did you go to college? I went to the University   Matt Forbeck ** 03:21 of Michigan over in Ann Arbor. I had a great time there. There's a wonderful little college, Beloit College, in my hometown here, and most of my family has gone to UW Milwaukee over the years. My parents met at Marquette in Milwaukee, but I wanted to get the heck out of the area, so I went to Michigan, and then found myself coming back as soon as we started having   Speaker 1 ** 03:42 kids well, and of course, I would presume that when you were at the University of Michigan, you rooted for them and against Ohio State. That was   Matt Forbeck ** 03:50 kind of, you know, if you did it the other way around, they back out of town. So, yeah, I was always kind of astonished, though, because having grown up in Wisconsin, where every sports team was a losing team when I was growing up, including the Packers, for decades. You know, we were just happy to be playing. They were more excuse to have beers than they were to cheer on teams. And I went to Michigan where they were, they were angry if the team wasn't up by two touchdowns. You know, at any point, I'm like, You guys are silly. This is we're here for fun.   Speaker 1 ** 04:17 But it is amazing how seriously some people take sports. I remember being in New Zealand helping the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind. Well now 22 years ago, it's 2003 and the America's Cup had just finished before we got there, and in America beat New Zealand, and the people in New Zealand were just irate. They were complaining that the government didn't put enough money into the design of the boat and helping with the with the yacht and all that. It was just amazing how seriously people take it, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 04:58 once, I mean, it becomes a part of your. Identity in a lot of ways, right for many people, and I've never had to worry about that too much. I've got other things on my mind, but there you go.   Speaker 1 ** 05:08 Well, I do like it when the Dodgers win, and my wife did her graduate work at USC, and so I like it when the Trojans win, but it's not the end of the world, and you do need to keep it in perspective. I I do wish more people would I know once I delivered a speech in brether County, Kentucky, and I was told that when I started the speech had to end no later than preferably exactly at 6:30pm not a minute later, because it was the night of the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the Kentucky Wildcats were in the championship, and at 630 everyone was going to get up and leave and go home to watch the game. So I ended at 630 and literally, by 631 I timed it. The gym was empty and it was full to start with.   Matt Forbeck ** 06:02 People were probably, you know, counting down on their watches, just to make sure, right?   Speaker 1 ** 06:06 Oh, I'm sure they were. What do you do? It's, it is kind of fun. Well, so why did you decide to get started in games? What? What? What attracted to you, to it as a young person, much less later on?   Matt Forbeck ** 06:21 Well, I was, yeah, I was an awkward kid, kind of nerdy and, you know, glasses and asthma and all that kind of stuff. And games were the kind of thing where, if you didn't know how to interact with people, you could sit down at a table across them and you could practice. You can say, okay, we're all here. We've got this kind of a magic circle around us where we've agreed to take this one silly activity seriously for a short period of time, right? And it may be that you're having fun during that activity, but you know, there's, there's no reason that rolling dice or moving things around on a table should be taken seriously. It's all just for fun, right? But for that moment, you actually just like Las Vegas Exactly, right? When there's money on the line, it's different, but if you're just doing it for grins. You know, it was a good way for me to learn how to interact with people of all sorts and of different ages. And I really enjoyed playing the games, and I really wanted to be a writer, too. And a lot of these things interacted with story at a very basic level. So breaking in as a writer is tough, but it turned out breaking as a game designer, wasn't nearly his stuff, so I started out over there instead, because it was a very young field at the time, right? D and D is now 50 years old, so I've been doing this 35 years, which means I started around professionally and even doing it before that, I started in the period when the game and that industry were only like 10 or 15 years old, so yeah, weren't quite as much competition in those   Speaker 1 ** 07:43 days. I remember some of the early games that I did play, that I could play, were DOS based games, adventure. You're familiar with adventure? Yeah, oh, yeah. Then later, Zork and all that. And I still think those are fun games. And I the reason I like a lot of those kinds of games is they really make you think, which I think most games do, even though the video even the video games and so on, they they help your or can help your reactions, but they're designed by people who do try to make you think,   Matt Forbeck ** 08:15 yeah. I mean, we basically are designing puzzles for people to solve, even if they're story puzzles or graphic puzzles or sound puzzles or whatever, you know, even spatial puzzles. There the idea is to give somebody something fun that is intriguing to play with, then you end up coming with story and after that, because after a while, even the most most exciting mechanics get dull, right? I mean, you start out shooting spaceships, but you can only shoot spaceships for so long, or you start out playing Tetris, and you only put shapes together for so long before it doesn't mean anything that then you start adding in story to give people a reason to keep playing right and a reason to keep going through these things. And I've written a lot of video games over the years, basically with that kind of a philosophy, is give people nuggets of story, give them a plot to work their way through, and reward them for getting through different stages, and they will pretty much follow you through anything. It's amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 09:09 Is that true Dungeons and Dragons too?   Matt Forbeck ** 09:13 It is. All of the stories are less structured there. If you're doing a video game, you know you the team has a lot of control over you. Give the player a limited amount of control to do things, but if you're playing around a table with people, it's more of a cooperative kind of experience, where we're all kind of coming up with a story, the narrator or the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, sets the stage for everything, but then the players have a lot of leeway doing that, and they will always screw things up for you, too. No matter what you think is going to happen, the players will do something different, because they're individuals, and they're all amazing people. That's actually to me, one of the fun things about doing tabletop games is that, you know, the computer can only react in a limited number of ways, whereas a human narrator and actually change things quite drastically and roll. With whatever people come up with, and that makes it tremendous fun.   Speaker 1 ** 10:04 Do you think AI is going to enter into all that and maybe improve some of the   Matt Forbeck ** 10:09 old stuff? It's going to add your end to it, whether it's an ad, it's going to approve it as a large question. Yeah. So I've been ranting about AI quite a bit lately with my friends and family. But, you know, I think the problem with AI, it can be very helpful a lot of ways, but I think it's being oversold. And I think it's especially when it's being oversold for thing, for ways for people to replace writers and creative thinking, Yeah, you know, you're taking the fun out of everything. I mean, the one thing I like to say is if, if you can't be bothered to write this thing that you want to communicate to me, I'm not sure why I should be bothered to read this thing well.   Speaker 1 ** 10:48 And I think that AI will will evolve in whatever way it does. But the fact of the matter is, So do people. And I think that, in fact, people are always going to be necessary to make the process really work? AI can only do and computers can only do so much. I mean, even Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when people and computer brains are married, but that still means that you're going to have the human element. So it's not all going to be the computer. And I'm not ready to totally buy into to what Ray says. And I used to work for Ray, so I mean, I know Ray Well, but, but the but the bottom line is, I think that, in fact, people are always going to be able to be kind of the, the mainstay of it, as long as we allow that, if we, if we give AI too much power, then over time, it'll take more power, and that's a problem, but that's up to us to deal with?   Matt Forbeck ** 11:41 No, I totally agree with that. I just think right now, there's a very large faction of people who it's in their economic interest to oversell these things. You know, people are making chips. They're building server farms. A lot of them are being transferred from people are doing blockchain just a few years ago, and they see it as the hot new thing. The difference is that AI actually has a lot of good uses. There's some amazing things will come out of llms and such. But I again, people are over the people are selling this to us. Are often over promising things, right?   Speaker 1 ** 12:11 Yeah, well, they're not only over promising but they're they're really misdirecting people. But the other side of it is that, that, in fact, AI as a concept and as a technology is here, and we have control over how we use it. I've said a couple times on this this podcast, and I've said to others, I remember when I first started hearing about AI, I heard about the the fact that teachers were bemoaning the pack, that kids were writing their papers just using AI and turning them in, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether it was something that was written by AI or was written by the student. And I come from a little bit different view than I think a lot of people do. And my view basically is, let the kids write it if with AI, if that's what they're going to do, but then what the teacher needs to do is to take one period, for example, and give every student in that class the opportunity to come up and defend whatever paper they have. And the real question is, can they defend the paper? Which means, have they really learned the subject, or are they just relying on AI,   Matt Forbeck ** 13:18 yeah, I agree with that. I think the trouble is, a lot of people, children, you know, who are developing their abilities and their morals about this stuff, they use it as just a way to complete the assignment, right? And many of them don't even read what they turn in, right, right? Just know that they've got something here that will so again, if you can't be bothered to read the thing that you manufactured, you're not learning anything about it,   Speaker 1 ** 13:39 which is why, if you are forced to defend it, it's going to become pretty obvious pretty fast, whether you really know it or not. Now, I've used AI on a number of occasions in various ways, but I use it to maybe give me ideas or prepare something that I then modify and shape. And I may even interact with AI a couple of times, but I'm definitely involved with the process all the way down the line, because it still has to be something that I'm responsible for.   Matt Forbeck ** 14:09 I agree. I mean, the whole point of doing these things is for people to connect with each other, right? I want to learn about the ideas you have in your head. I want to see how they jive with ones in my head. But if I'm just getting something that's being spit out by a machine and not you, and not being curated by you at any point, that doesn't seem very useful, right? So if you're the more involved people are in it, the more useful it is.   Speaker 1 ** 14:31 Well, I agree, and you know, I think again, it's a tool, and we have to decide how the tool is going to be used, which is always the way it ought to be. Right?   Matt Forbeck ** 14:42 Exactly, although sometimes it's large corporations deciding,   Speaker 1 ** 14:45 yeah, well, there's that too. Well, individuals,   Matt Forbeck ** 14:49 we get to make our own choices. Though you're right,   Speaker 1 ** 14:51 yes, and should Well, so, so when did you start bringing writing into what you. Did, and make that a really significant part of what you did?   Matt Forbeck ** 15:03 Well, pretty early on, I mean, I started doing one of the first things I did was a gaming zine, which was basically just a print magazine that was like, you know, 32 pages, black and white, about the different tabletop games. So we were writing those in the days, design and writing are very closely linked when it comes to tabletop games and even in video games. The trick of course is that designing a game and writing the rules are actually two separate sets of skills. So one of the first professional gig I ever had during writing was in games was some friends of mine had designed a game for a company called Mayfair games, which went on to do sellers of contain, which is a big, uh, entry level game, and but they needed somebody to write the rules, so they called me over, showed me how to play the game. I took notes and I I wrote it down in an easy to understand, clear way that people had just picked up the box. Could then pick it up and teach themselves how to play, right? So that was early on how I did it. But the neat thing about that is it also taught me to think about game design. I'm like, when I work on games, I think about, who is this game going to be for, and how are we going to teach it to them? Because if they can't learn the game, there's no point of the game at all, right?   Speaker 1 ** 16:18 And and so I'm right? I'm a firm believer that a lot of technical writers don't do a very good job of technical writing, and they write way over people's heads. I remember the first time I had to write, well, actually, I mentioned I worked for Kurzweil. I was involved with a project where Ray Kurzweil had developed his original omniprent optical character recognition system. And I and the National Federation of the Blind created with him a project to put machines around the country so that blind people could use them and give back to Ray by the time we were all done, recommendations as to what needed to go in the final first production model of the machine. So I had to write a training manual to teach people how to use it. And I wrote this manual, and I was always of the opinion that it had to be pretty readable and usable by people who didn't have a lot of technical knowledge. So I wrote the manual, gave it to somebody to read, and said, Follow the directions and and work with the machine and all that. And they did, and I was in another room, and they were playing with it for a couple of hours, and they came in and they said, I'm having a problem. I can't figure out how to turn off the machine. And it turns out that I had forgotten to put in the instruction to turn off the machine. And it wasn't totally trivial. There were steps you had to go through. It was a Data General Nova two computer, and you had to turn it off the right way and the whole system off the appropriate way, or you could, could mess everything up. So there was a process to doing it. So I wrote it in, and it was fine. But, you know, I've always been a believer that the textbooks are way too boring. Having a master's degree in physics, I am of the opinion that physics textbook writers, who are usually pretty famous and knowledgeable scientists, ought to include with all the text and the technical stuff they want to put in, they should put in stories about what they did in you bring people in, draw them into the whole thing, rather than just spewing out a bunch of technical facts.   Matt Forbeck ** 18:23 No, I agree. My my first calculus professor was a guy who actually explained how Newton and Leipzig actually came up with calculus, and then he would, you know, draw everything on the board and turn around say, and isn't that amazing? And you were, like, just absolutely enamored with the idea of how they had done these things, right? Yeah. And what you're doing there, when you, when you, when you give the instructions to somebody and say, try this out. That's a very big part of gaming, actually, because what we do this thing called play testing, where we take something before it's ready to be shown to the public, and we give it to other people and say, try this out. See how it works. Let me know when you're starting out of your first playing you play with like your family and friends and people will be brutal with you and give you hints about how you can improve things. But then, even when you get to the rules you're you send those out cold to people, or, you know, if you're a big company, you watch them through a two way mirror or one way mirror, and say, Hey, let's see how they react to everything. And then you take notes, and you try to make it better every time you go through. And when I'm teaching people to play games at conventions, for instance, I will often say to them, please ask questions if you don't understand anything, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Means I didn't explain it well enough, right? And my job as a person writing these rules is to explain it as well as I humanly can so it can't be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Now that doesn't mean you can correct everything. Somebody's always got like, Oh, I missed that sentence, you know, whatever. But you do that over and over so you can try to make it as clear and concise as possible, yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 19:52 Well, you have somewhat of a built in group of people to help if you let your kids get involved. Involved. So how old are your kids?   Matt Forbeck ** 20:03 My eldest is 26 he'll be 27 in January. Marty is a game designer, actually works with me on the marble tabletop role playing game, and we have a new book coming out, game book for Minecraft, called Minecraft role for adventure, that's coming out on July 7, I think, and the rest of the kids are 23 we have 423 year olds instead of quadruplets, one of whom is actually going into game design as well, and the other says two are still in college, and one has moved off to the work in the woods. He's a very woodsy boy. Likes to do environmental education with people.   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 Wow. Well, see, but you, but you still have a good group of potential game designers or game critics anyway.   Matt Forbeck ** 20:47 Oh, we all play games together. We have a great time. We do weekly game nights here. Sometimes they're movie nights, sometimes they're just pizza nights, but we shoot for game and pizza   Speaker 1 ** 20:56 if we get lucky and your wife goes along with all this too.   Matt Forbeck ** 21:00 She does. She doesn't go to the game conventions and stuff as much, and she's not as hardcore of a gamer, but she likes hanging out with the kids and doing everything with us. We have a great time.   Speaker 1 ** 21:10 That's that's pretty cool. Well, you, you've got, you've got to build an audience of some sorts, and that's neat that a couple of them are involved in it as well. So they really like what dad does, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 21:23 yeah. We, I started taking them each to conventions, which are, you know, large gatherings gamers in real life. The biggest one is Gen Con, which happens in Indianapolis in August. And last year, I think, we had 72,000 people show up. And I started taking the kids when they were 10 years old, and my wife would come up with them then. And, you know, 10 years old is a lot. 72,000 people is a lot for a 10 year old. So she can mention one day and then to a park the next day, you know, decompress a lot, and then come back on Saturday and then leave on Sunday or whatever, so that we didn't have them too over stimulated. But they really grown to love it. I mean, it's part of our annual family traditions in the summer, is to go do these conventions and play lots of games with each other and meet new people too well.   Speaker 1 ** 22:08 And I like the way you put it. The games are really puzzles, which they are, and it's and it's fun. If people would approach it that way, no matter what the game is, they're, they're aspects of puzzles involved in most everything that has to do with the game, and that's what makes it so fun.   Matt Forbeck ** 22:25 Exactly, no. The interesting thing is, when you're playing with other people, the other people are changing the puzzles from their end that you have to solve on your end. And sometimes the puzzle is, how do I beat this person, or how do I defeat their strategy, or how do I make an alliance with somebody else so we can win? And it's really always very intriguing. There's so many different types of games. There's nowadays, there's like something like 50 to 100 new board games that come out and tabletop games every month, right? It's just like a fire hose. It's almost like, when I was starting out as a novelist, I would go into Barnes and Noble or borders and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these books. And now I do the same thing about games. It's just, it's incredible. Nobody, no one person, could keep up with all of them.   Speaker 1 ** 23:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, way too much. I would love to explore playing more video games, but I don't. I don't own a lot of the technology, although I'm sure that there are any number of them that can be played on a computer, but we'll have to really explore and see if we can find some. I know there are some that are accessible for like blind people with screen readers. I know that some people have written a few, which is kind of cool. Yeah.   Matt Forbeck ** 23:36 And Xbox has got a new controller out that's meant to be accessible to large amount of people. I'm not sure, all the different aspects of it, but that's done pretty well, too   Speaker 1 ** 23:44 well. And again, it comes down to making it a priority to put all of that stuff in. It's not like it's magic to do. It's just that people don't know how to do it. But I also think something else, which is, if you really make the products more usable, let's say by blind people with screen readers. You may be especially if it's well promoted, surprised. I'm not you necessarily, but people might well be surprised as to how many others might take advantage of it so that they don't necessarily have to look at the screen, or that you're forced to listen as well as look in order to figure out what's going on or take actions.   Matt Forbeck ** 24:29 No, definitely true. It's, you know, people audio books are a massive thing nowadays. Games tend to fall further behind that way, but it's become this incredible thing that obviously, blind people get a great use out of but my wife is addicted to audio books now. She actually does more of those than she does reading. I mean, I technically think they're both reading. It's just one's done with yours and one's done with your eyes.   Speaker 1 ** 24:51 Yeah, there's but there's some stuff, whether you're using your eyes or your fingers and reading braille, there's something about reading a book that way that's. Even so a little bit different than listening to it. Yeah, and there's you're drawn in in some ways, in terms of actually reading that you're not necessarily as drawn into when you're when you're listening to it, but still, really good audio book readers can help draw you in, which is important, too,   Matt Forbeck ** 25:19 very much. So yeah, I think the main difference for reading, whether it's, you know, again, through Braille or through traditional print, is that you can stop. You can do it at your own pace. You can go back and look at things very easily, or read or check things, read things very easily. That you know, if you're reading, if you're doing an audio book, it just goes on and it's straight on, boom, boom, boom, pace. You can say, Wait, I'm going to put this down here. What was that thing? I remember back there? It was like three pages back, but it's really important, let me go check that right.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 There are some technologies that allow blind people and low vision people and others, like people with dyslexia to use an audio book and actually be able to navigate two different sections of it. But it's not something that is generally available to the whole world, at least to the level that it is for blind people. But I can, I can use readers that are made to be able to accept the different formats and go back and look at pages, go back and look at headings, and even create bookmarks to bookmark things like you would normally by using a pen or a pencil or something like that. So there are ways to do some of that. So again, the technology is making strides.   Matt Forbeck ** 26:37 That's fantastic. Actually, it's wonderful. Just, yeah, it's great. I actually, you know, I lost half the vision of my right eye during back through an autoimmune disease about 13 years ago, and I've always had poor vision. So I'm a big fan of any kind of way to make things easier,   Speaker 1 ** 26:54 like that. Well, there, there are things that that are available. It's pretty amazing. A guy named George curser. Curser created a lot of it years ago, and it's called the DAISY format. And the whole idea behind it is that you can actually create a book. In addition to the audio tracks, there are XML files that literally give you the ability to move and navigate around the book, depending on how it's created, as final level as you choose.   Matt Forbeck ** 27:25 Oh, that's That's amazing. That's fantastic. I'm actually really glad to hear that.   Speaker 1 ** 27:28 So, yeah, it is kind of fun. So there's a lot of technology that's that's doing a lot of different sorts of things and and it helps. But um, so for you, in terms of dealing with, with the games, you've, you've written games, but you've, you've actually written some novels as well, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 27:50 Yeah, I've got like 30, it depends on how you count a novel, right? Okay, like some of my books are to pick a path books, right? Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff. So, but I've got 35 traditional novels written or more, I guess, now, I lost track a while ago, and probably another dozen of these interactive fiction books as well. So, and I like doing those. I've also written things like Marvel encyclopedias and Avengers encyclopedias and all sorts of different pop culture books. And, you know, I like playing in different worlds. I like writing science fiction, fantasy, even modern stuff. And most of it, for me comes down to telling stories, right? If you like to tell stories, you can tell stories through a game or book or audio play or a TV show or a comic, or I've done, you know, interactive museum, games and displays, things like that. The main thing is really a story. I mean, if you're comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a drink with somebody, doesn't have to be alcohol, just sitting down and telling stories with each other for fun. That's where the core of it all is really   Speaker 1 ** 28:58 right. Tell me about interactive fiction book.   Matt Forbeck ** 29:01 Sure, a lot of these are basically just done, like flow charts, kind of like the original Zork and adventure that you were talking about where you I actually, I was just last year, I brought rose Estes, who's the inventor of the endless quest books, which were a cross between Dungeons and Dragons, and choose your own adventure books. She would write the whole thing out page by page on a typewriter, and then, in order to shuffle the pages around so that people wouldn't just read straight through them, she'd throw them all up in the air and then just put them back in whatever order they happen to be. But essentially, you read a section of a book, you get to the end, and it gives you a choice. Would you like to go this way or that way? Would you like to go beat up this goblin? Or would you like to make friends with this warrior over here? If you want to do one of these things, go do page xx, right? Got it. So then you turn to that page and you go, boom, some, actually, some of the endless quest books I know were turned into audio books, right? And I actually, I. Um, oddly, have written a couple Dungeons and Dragons, interactive books, audio books that have only been released in French, right? Because there's a company called Looney l, u n, i, i that has this little handheld device that's for children, that has an A and a B button and a volume button. And you, you know, you get to the point that says, if you want to do this, push a, if you want to do that, push B, and the kids can go through these interactive stories and and, you know, there's ones for clue and Dungeons and Dragons and all sorts of other licenses, and some original stories too. But that way there's usually, like, you know, it depends on the story, but sometimes there's, like, 10 to 20 different endings. A lot of them are like, Oh no, you've been killed. Go back to where you started, right? And if you're lucky, the longer ones are, the more fun ones. And you get to, you know, save the kingdom and rescue the people and make good friends and all that good stuff,   Michael Hingson ** 30:59 yeah, and maybe fall in love with the princess or Prince.   Matt Forbeck ** 31:02 Yeah, exactly right. It all depends on the genre and what you're working in. But the idea is to give people some some choices over how they want the story to go. You're like, Well, do you want to investigate this dark, cold closet over here, or would you rather go running outside and playing around? And some of them can seem like very innocent choices, and other ones are like, well, uh, 10 ton weight just fell on. You go back to the last thing.   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 So that dark hole closet can be a good thing or a bad thing,   Matt Forbeck ** 31:28 exactly. And the trick is to make the deaths the bad endings, actually just as entertaining as anything else, right? And then people go, Well, I got beat, and I gotta go back and try that again. So yeah, if they just get the good ending all the way through, they often won't go back and look at all the terrible ones. So it's fun to trick them sometimes and have them go into terrible spots. And I like to put this one page in books too that sometimes says, How did you get here? You've been cheating there. This book, this page, is actually not led to from any other part of the book. You're just flipping   Speaker 1 ** 31:59 through. Cheater, cheater book, do what you   Matt Forbeck ** 32:04 want, but if you want to play it the right way, go back.   Speaker 1 ** 32:07 Kid, if you want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, some people are nosy.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:15 You know, I was always a kid who would poke around and wanted to see how things were, so I'm sure I would have found that myself but absolutely related, you know,   Speaker 1 ** 32:23 yeah, I had a general science teacher who brought in a test one day, and he gave it to everyone. And so he came over to me because it was, it was a printed test. He said, Well, I'm not going to give you the test, because the first thing it says is, read all the instructions, read, read the test through before you pass it, before you take it. And he said, most people won't do that. And he said, I know you would. And the last question on the test is answer, only question one.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:55 That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 32:57 that was cute. And he said, I know that. I that there's no way you would, would would fall for that, because you would say, Okay, let's read the instructions and then read the whole test. That's what it said. And the instruction were, just read the whole test before you start. And people won't do that.   Matt Forbeck ** 33:13 No, they'll go through, take the whole thing. They get there and go, oh, did I get there? Was a, there's a game publisher. I think it was Steve Jackson Games, when they were looking for people, write for them, or design stuff for them, or submit stuff to them, would have something toward the end of the instructions that would say, put like a the letter seven, or put seven a on page one right, and that way they would know if you had read the instructions, if you hadn't bothered to Read the instructions, they wouldn't bother reading anything else.   Speaker 1 ** 33:42 Yeah, which is fair, because the a little harsh, well, but, but, you know, we often don't learn enough to pay attention to details. I know that when I was taking physics in college, that was stressed so often it isn't enough to get the numbers right. If you don't get the units right as well. Then you're, you're not really paying attention to the details. And paying attention to the details is so important.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:07 That's how they crash from those Mars rovers, wasn't it? They somebody messed up the units, but going back and forth between metric and, yeah, and Imperial and, well, you know, it cost somebody a lot of money at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What do you   Speaker 1 ** 34:21 this is kind of the way it goes. Well, tell me, yeah. Well, they do matter, no matter what people think, sometimes they do matter. Well, tell me about the Diana Jones award. First of all, of course, the logical question for many people is, who is Diana Jones? Yeah, Diana Jones doesn't exist, right? That's There you go. She's part game somewhere? No, no, it doesn't be in a game somewhere.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:43 Then now there's actually an author named Diana Wynne Jones, who's written some amazing fantasy stories, including Howell's Moving Castle, which has turned into a wonderful anime movie, but it has nothing to do with her or any other person. Because originally, the Diana Jones award came about. Because a friend of mine, James Wallace, had somehow stumbled across a trophy that fell into his hands, and it was a pub trivia trophy that used to be used between two different gaming companies in the UK, and one of those was TSR, UK, the United Kingdom department. And at one point, the company had laid off everybody in that division just say, Okay, we're closing it all down. So the guys went and burned a lot of the stuff that they had, including a copy of the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the only part of the logo that was left said Diana Jones. And for some reason, they put this in a in a fiberglass or Plexiglas pyramid, put it on a base, a wooden base, and it said the Diana Jones award trophy, right? And this was the trophy that they used they passed back and forth as a joke for their pub trivia contest. Fell into James's hands, and he decided, You know what, we're going to give this out for the most excellent thing in gaming every year. And we've now done this. This will be 25 years this summer. We do it at the Wednesday night before Gen Con, which starts on Thursday, usually at the end of July or early August. And as part of that, actually, about five years ago, we started, one of the guys suggested we should do something called the emerging designers program. So we actually became a 501, c3, so we could take donations. And now we take four designers every year, fly them in from wherever they happen to be in the world, and put them up in a hotel, give them a badge the show, introduce them to everybody, give them an honorarium so they can afford to skip work for a week and try to help launch their careers. I mean, these are people that are in the first three years of their design careers, and we try to work mostly with marginalized or et cetera, people who need a little bit more representation in the industry too. Although we can select anybody, and it's been really well received, it's been amazing. And there's a group called the bundle of holding which sells tabletop role playing game PDFs, and they've donated 10s of 1000s of dollars every year for us to be able to do this. And it's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd be end up running a nonprofit, but here I'm just the guy who writes checks to the different to the emerging designer program. Folks are much more tied into that community that I am. But one of the real reasons I wanted to do something like that or be involved with it, because if you wander around with these conventions and you notice that it starts getting very gray after a while, right? It's you're like, oh, there's no new people coming in. It's all older people. I we didn't I didn't want us to all end up as like the Grandpa, grandpa doing the HO model railroad stuff in the basement, right? This dying hobby that only people in their 60s and 70s care about. So bringing in fresh people, fresh voices, I think, is very important, and hopefully we're doing some good with that. It's been a lot of fun either way.   Speaker 1 ** 37:59 Well, I have you had some success with it? Yeah, we've   Matt Forbeck ** 38:02 had, well, let's see. I think we've got like 14 people. We've brought in some have already gone on to do some amazing things. I mean, it's only been a few years, so it's hard to tell if they're gonna be legends in their time, but again, having them as models for other people to look at and say, Oh, maybe I could do that. That's been a great thing. The other well, coincidentally, Dungeons and Dragons is having its best 10 year streak in its history right now, and probably is the best selling it's ever been. So coinciding with that, we've seen a lot more diversity and a lot more people showing up to these wonderful conventions and playing these kinds of games. There's also been an advent of this thing called actual play, which is the biggest one, is a group called Critical Role, which is a whole bunch of voice actors who do different cartoons and video games and such, and they play D and D with each other, and then they record the games, and they produce them on YouTube and for podcasts. And these guys are amazing. There's a couple of other ones too, like dimension 20 and glass cannon, the critical role guys actually sold out a live performance at Wembley Arena last summer. Wow. And dimension. Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden. I'm like, if you'd have told me 20 years ago that you know you could sell out an entire rock stadium to have people watch you play Dungeons and Dragons, I would have laughed. I mean, there's no way it would have been possible. But now, you know, people are very much interested in this. It's kind of wild, and it's, it's fun to be a part of that. At some level,   Speaker 1 ** 39:31 how does the audience get drawn in to something like that? Because they are watching it, but there must be something that draws them in.   Matt Forbeck ** 39:39 Yeah, part of it is that you have some really skilled some actors are very funny, very traumatic and very skilled at improvisation, right? So the the dungeon master or Game Master will sit there and present them with an idea or whatever. They come up each with their own characters. They put them in wonderful, strong voices. They kind of inhabit the roles in a way that an actor. A really top level actor would, as opposed to just, you know, me sitting around a table with my friends. And because of that, they become compelling, right? My Marty and my his wife and I were actually at a convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and this group called the McElroy family, actually, they do my brother, my brother and me, which is a hit podcast, but they also do an actual play podcast called The Adventure zone, where they just play different games. And they are so funny. These guys are just some of the best comedians you'll ever hear. And so them playing, they actually played our Marvel game for a five game session, or a five podcast session, or whatever, and it was just stunningly fun to listen to. People are really talented mess around with something that we built right it's very edifying to see people enjoying something that you worked on.   Speaker 1 ** 40:51 Do you find that the audiences get drawn in and they're actually sort of playing the game along, or as well? And may disagree with what some of the choices are that people make?   Matt Forbeck ** 41:02 Oh, sure. But I mean, if the choices are made from a point of the character that's been expressed, that people are following along and they they already like the character, they might go, Oh, those mean, you know that guy, there are some characters they love to hate. There are some people they're they're angry at whatever, but they always really appreciate the actors. I mean, the actors have become celebrities in their own right. They've they sell millions of dollars for the comic books and animated TV shows and all these amazing things affiliated with their actual play stuff. And it's, I think it, part of it is because, it's because it makes the games more accessible. Some people are intimidated by these games. So it's not really, you know, from a from a physical disability kind of point. It's more of a it makes it more accessible for people to be nervous, to try these things on their own, or don't really quite get how they work. They can just sit down and pop up YouTube or their podcast program and listen into people doing a really good job at it. The unfortunate problem is that the converse of that is, when you're watching somebody do that good of a job at it, it's actually hard to live up to that right. Most people who play these games are just having fun with their friends around a table. They're not performing for, you know, 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. So there's a different level of investments, really, at that point, and some people have been known to be cowed by that, by that, or daunted by that.   Speaker 1 ** 42:28 You work on a lot of different things. I gather at the same time. What do you what do you think about that? How do you like working on a lot of different projects? Or do you, do you more focus on one thing, but you've got several things going on, so you'll work on something for one day, then you'll work on something else. Or how do you how do you do it all?   Matt Forbeck ** 42:47 That's a good question. I would love to just focus on one thing at a time. Now, you know the trouble is, I'm a freelancer, right? I don't set my I don't always get to say what I want to work on. I haven't had to look for work for over a decade, though, which has been great. People just come to me with interesting things. The trouble is that when you're a freelancer, people come in and say, Hey, let's work on this. I'm like, Yeah, tell me when you're ready to start. And you do that with like, 10 different people, and they don't always line up in sequence properly, right? Yeah? Sometimes somebody comes up and says, I need this now. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of this other thing right now, so I need to not sleep for another week, and I need to try to figure out how I'm going to put this in between other things I'm working on. And I have noticed that after I finish a project, it takes me about a day or three to just jump track. So if I really need to, I can do little bits here and there, but to just fully get my brain wrapped around everything I'm doing for a very complex project, takes me a day or three to say, Okay, now I'm ready to start this next thing and really devote myself to it. Otherwise, it's more juggling right now, having had all those kids, probably has prepared me to juggle. So I'm used to having short attention span theater going on in my head at all times, because I have to jump back and forth between things. But it is. It's a challenge, and it's a skill that you develop over time where you're like, Okay, I can put this one away here and work on this one here for a little while. Like today, yeah, I knew I was going to talk to you, Michael. So I actually had lined up another podcast that a friend of mine wanted to do with me. I said, Let's do them on the same day. This way I'm not interrupting my workflow so much, right? Makes sense? You know, try to gang those all together and the other little fiddly bits I need to do for administration on a day. Then I'm like, Okay, this is not a day off. It's just a day off from that kind of work. It's a day I'm focusing on this aspect of what I do.   Speaker 1 ** 44:39 But that's a actually brings up an interesting point. Do you ever take a day off or do what do you do when you're when you deciding that you don't want to do gaming for a while?   Matt Forbeck ** 44:49 Yeah, I actually kind of terrible. But you know, you know, my wife will often drag me off to places and say we're going to go do this when. Yes, we have a family cabin up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that we go to. Although, you know, my habit there is, I'll work. I'll start work in the morning on a laptop or iPad until my battery runs out, and then I shut it down, put on a charger, and then I go out and swim with everybody for the rest of the day. So it depends if I'm on a deadline or not, and I'm almost always on a deadline, but there are times I could take weekends off there. One of the great things of being a freelancer, though, and especially being a stay at home father, which is part of what I was doing, is that when things come up during the middle of the week, I could say, oh, sure, I can be flexible, right? The trouble is that I have to pay for that time on my weekends, a lot of the time, so I don't really get a lot of weekends off. On the other hand, I'm not I'm not committed to having to work every day of the week either, right? I need to go do doctor appointments, or we want to run off to Great America and do a theme park or whatever. I can do that anytime I want to. It's just I have to make up the time at other points during the week. Does your wife work? She does. She was a school social worker for many years, and now as a recruiter at a local technical college here called Black Hawk tech. And she's amazing, right? She's fantastic. She has always liked working. The only time she stopped working was for about a year and a half after the quads were born, I guess, two years. And that was the only time I ever took a job working with anybody else, because we needed the health insurance, so I we always got it through her. And then when she said, Well, I'm gonna stay home with the kids, which made tons of sense, I went and took a job with a video game company up in Madison, Wisconsin called Human Head Studios for about 18 months, 20 months. And then the moment she told me she was thinking about going back to work, I'm like, Oh, good, I can we can Cobra for 18 months and pay for our own health insurance, and I'm giving notice this week, and, you know, we'll work. I left on good terms that everybody. I still talk to them and whatever, but I very much like being my own boss and not worrying about what other people are going to tell me to do. I work with a lot of clients, which means I have a lot of people telling me what to do. But you know, if it turns out bad, I can walk I can walk away. If it turns out good, hopefully we get to do things together, like the the gig I've been working out with Marvel, I guess, has been going on for like, four years now, with pretty continuous work with them, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. They're great people to work with.   Speaker 1 ** 47:19 Now, you were the president of Pinnacle entertainment for a little while. Tell me about that.   Matt Forbeck ** 47:24 I was, that was a small gaming company I started up with a guy named Shane Hensley, who was another tabletop game designer. Our big game was something called Dead Lands, which was a Western zombie cowboy kind of thing. Oh gosh, Western horror. So. And it was pretty much a, you know, nobody was doing Western horror back in those days. So we thought, Oh, this is safe. And to give you an example of parallel development, we were six months into development, and another company, White Wolf, which had done a game called Vampire the Masquerade, announced that they were doing Werewolf the Wild West. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Fortunately, we still released our game three months before there, so everybody thought we were copying them, rather than the other way around. But the fact is, we were. We both just came up with the idea independently. Right? When you work in creative fields, often, if somebody wants to show you something, you say, I'd like to look at you have to sign a waiver first that says, If I do something like this, you can't sue me. And it's not because people are trying to rip you off. It's because they may actually be working on something similar, right already. Because we're all, you know, swimming in the same cultural pool. We're all, you know, eating the same cultural soup. We're watching or watching movies, playing games, doing whatever, reading books. And so it's not unusual that some of us will come up with similar ideas   Speaker 1 ** 48:45 well, and it's not surprising that from time to time, two different people are going to come up with somewhat similar concepts. So that's not a big surprise, exactly, but   Matt Forbeck ** 48:56 you don't want people getting litigious over it, like no, you don't be accused of ripping anybody off, right? You just want to be as upfront with people. With people. And I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody, at least in gaming, in tabletop games, rip somebody off like that. Just say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're stealing that it's easier to pay somebody to just say, Yes, that's a great idea. We'll buy that from you, right? As opposed to trying to do something unseemly and criminal?   Speaker 1 ** 49:24 Yeah, there's, there's something to be said for having real honor in the whole process.   Matt Forbeck ** 49:30 Yeah, I agree, and I think that especially if you're trying to have a long term career in any field that follows you, if you get a reputation for being somebody who plays dirty, nobody wants to play with you in the future, and I've always found it to be best to be as straightforward with people and honest, especially professionally, just to make sure that they trust you. Before my quadruplets were born, you could have set your clock by me as a freelancer, I never missed a deadline ever, and since then, I've probably it's a. Rare earth thing to make a deadline, because, you know, family stuff happens, and you know, there's just no controlling it. But whenever something does happen, I just call people up and say, hey, look, it's going to be another week or two. This is what's going on. And because I have a good reputation for completing the job and finishing quality work, they don't mind. They're like, Oh, okay, I know you're going to get this to me. You're not just trying to dodge me. So they're willing to wait a couple weeks if they need to, to get to get what they need. And I'm very grateful to them for that. And I'm the worst thing somebody can do is what do, what I call turtling down, which is when it's like, Oh no, I'm late. And then, you know, they cut off all communication. They don't talk to anybody. They just kind of try to disappear as much as they can. And we all, all adults, understand that things happen in your life. It's okay. We can cut you some slack every now and then, but if you just try to vanish, that's not even possible.   Speaker 1 ** 50:54 No, there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said for trust and and it's so important, I think in most anything that we do, and I have found in so many ways, that there's nothing better than really earning someone's trust, and they earning your trust. And it's something I talk about in my books, like when live with a guide dog, live like a guide dog, which is my newest book, it talks a lot about trust, because when you're working with a guide dog, you're really building a team, and each member of the team has a specific job to do, and as the leader of the team, it's my job to also learn how to communicate with the other member of the team. But the reality is, it still comes down to ultimately, trust, because I and I do believe that dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that people that dogs are much more open to trust, for the most part, unless they've just been totally traumatized by something, but they're more open to trust. And there's a lesson to be learned there. No, I   Matt Forbeck ** 52:03 absolutely agree with that. I think, I think most people in general are trustworthy, but as you say, a lot of them have trauma in their past that makes it difficult for them to open themselves up to that. So that's actually a pretty wonderful way to think about things. I like that,   Speaker 1 ** 52:17 yeah, well, I think that trust is is so important. And I know when I worked in professional sales, it was all about trust. In fact, whenever I interviewed people for jobs, I always asked them what they were going to sell, and only one person ever answered me the way. I really hoped that everybody would answer when I said, So, tell me what you're going to be selling. He said, The only thing I have to really sell is myself and my word, and nothing else. It really matters. Everything else is stuff. What you have is stuff. It's me selling myself and my word, and you have to, and I would expect you to back me up. And my response was, as long as you're being trustworthy, then you're going to get my backing all the way. And he was my most successful salesperson for a lot of reasons, because he got it.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:08 Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I mean, I've worked with people sourcing different things too, for sales, and if you can rely on somebody to, especially when things go wrong, to come through for you. And to be honest with you about, you know, there's really that's a hard thing to find. If you can't depend on your sources for what you're building, then you can't depend on anything. Everything else falls apart.   Speaker 1 ** 53:29 It does. You've got to start at the beginning. And if people can't earn your trust, and you earn theirs, there's a problem somewhere, and it's just not going to work.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:39 Yeah, I just generally think people are decent and want to help. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had issues. Car breaks down the road in Wisconsin. Here, if somebody's car goes in the ditch, everybody stops and just hauls them out. It's what you do when the quads were born, my stepmother came up with a sign up sheet, a booklet that she actually had spiral bound, that people could sign up every three three hours to help come over and feed and bathe, diaper, whatever the kids and we had 30 to 35 volunteers coming in every week. Wow, to help us out with that was amazing, right? They just each pick slots, feeding slots, and come in and help us out. I had to take the 2am feeding, and my wife had to take the 5am feeding by ourselves. But the rest of the week we had lots and lots of help, and we were those kids became the surrogate grandchildren for, you know, 30 to 35 women and couples really, around the entire area, and it was fantastic. Probably couldn't have survived   Speaker 1 ** 54:38 without it. And the other part about it is that all those volunteers loved it, because you all appreciated each other, and it was always all about helping and assisting.   Matt Forbeck ** 54:48 No, we appreciate them greatly. But you know every most of them, like 99% of them, whatever were women, 95 women who are ready for grandchildren and didn't have them. Had grandchildren, and they weren't in the area, right? And they had that, that love they wanted to share, and they just loved the opportunity to do it. It was, I'm choking up here talking about such a great time for us in   Speaker 1 ** 55:11 that way. Now I'm assuming today, nobody has to do diaper duty with the quads, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:16 Not until they have their own kids. Just checking, just checking, thankfully, think we're that is long in our past,   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 is it? Is it coming fairly soon for anybody in the future?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:27 Oh, I don't know. That's really entirely up to them. We would love to have grandchildren, but you know, it all comes in its own time. They're not doing no well. I, one of my sons is married, so it's possible, right? And one of my other sons has a long term girlfriend, so that's possible, but, you know, who knows? Hopefully they're they have them when they're ready. I always say, if you have kids and you want them, that's great. If you have, if you don't have kids and you don't want them, that's great. It's when you cross the two things that,   Speaker 1 ** 55:57 yeah, trouble, yeah, that's that is, that is a problem. But you really like working with yourself. You love the entre

Confused about JAWS subscriptions, Apple upgrades, and the soaring cost of assistive tech? This episode of Double Tap dives deep into Vespero's UK pricing controversy, iPhone nostalgia, and the future of accessible devices for blind users. This episode is supported by Pneuma Solutions. Creators of accessible tools like Remote Incident Manager and Scribe. Get $20 off with code dt20 at https://pneumasolutions.com/ and enter to win a free subscription at doubletaponair.com/subscribe!Stephen Scott and Shaun Preece unpack a lively mix of emails from listeners on the latest in accessibility tech and pricing frustrations. The conversation begins with a playful debate over iPhone models, including the allure of the 13 mini versus the battery-hungry 15 Pro, and whether an upgrade to the iPhone 17 is truly worth it.The focus shifts to Vespero's JAWS licensing model, with listeners sharing candid reactions to the sharp UK price hikes, home subscription confusion, and the lack of parity with US and Canadian offerings. Strong opinions ignite around the sustainability of assistive tech pricing and the community's growing adoption of free alternatives like NVDA.Later, the hosts explore broader accessibility topics: the prohibitive cost of Braille devices such as the Monarch, the promise of remote support tools like Pneuma Solutions, the rise of Ramblio for blind social audio, and practical tips for blind language learners. Relevant LinksPneuma Solutions: https://pneumasolutions.comDouble Tap Newsletter: https://doubletaponair.com/subscribeRamblio Community: https://ramblio.com Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

Flashnet CEO Ethan Marcus breaks down Bitcoin's on‑chain trading, fee wars, stablecoin hurdles, and why Spark aims to outpace Lightning—all in under 35 minutes. Flashnet CEO Ethan Marcus joins us to discuss Bitcoin's scaling landscape, on‑chain spot markets, the challenges of stablecoins, and how Spark's signing protocol offers a fast, cheap alternative to Lightning. He also shares candid lessons from a $300 k load test and his vision for Bitcoin‑native finance. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes:     Coinbase charges ~70 bps per trade.     Spark handled $300 k in 9 min during beta.     Bitcoin spot volume ≈ $20‑30 trillion yr.     Lightning's fee‑free stablecoin rollout deemed “disaster”.     Spark's operator model uses threshold signatures.     Braille's USD‑BTC stablecoin launches on Spark. Timestamps: 00:00 Start 01:52 Is Flashnet crypto or fintech? 02:23 What is Spark? 03:25 Role of the Operator 05:06 Like a State Chain but different 06:50 Spark idea origins 08:54 Flashnet 11:08 Why not build on Lightning? 12:16 Hyperliquid 15:00 How does Spark fit into BTC scaling? 16:30 Why use a DEX? 18:38 Evolution of on-chain exchanges 20:35 Braille & stablecoins 21:58 RGB & other protocols 24:15 Park launch troubles 26:16 Degens lend a helping hand 28:08 Corporate chains 30:21 Single sequencer = server 32:09 Zero Day 33:08 Innovations in BTC -

Sarrah Mae Villoria Priagola is Inventor of Brailleiance. Brailleiance is a modified braille tool to make learning braille easier for the blind. Brailleiance comes with different levels of learning, properly guiding the learning of the non-sighted - from learning braille characters to actual reading of braille words and sentences. This episode is recorded live at the USeP KTTD Office, in partnership with AGILab TBI - knowledge and technology transfer division and technology business incubator of University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City.In this episode | 00:57 Ano ang Brailleiance? | 07:43 What problem is being solved? | 12:27 What solution is being provided? | 28:55 What are stories behind the startup? | 41:05 What is the vision? | 44:27 How can listeners find more information?USEP KTTD OFFICE | Facebook: https://facebook.com/usepkttdAGILAB TBI | Facebook: https://facebook.com/usepagilabTHIS EPISODE IS CO-PRODUCED BY:YSPACES: ⁠https://knowyourspaceph.com⁠APEIRON: ⁠https://apeirongrp.com⁠TWALA: ⁠https://twala.io⁠SYMPH: ⁠https://symph.co⁠SECUNA: ⁠https://secuna.io⁠RED CIRCLE GLOBAL: ⁠https://redcircleglobal.com⁠MAROON STUDIOS: ⁠https://maroonstudios.com⁠AIMHI: ⁠https://aimhi.ai⁠CHECK OUT OUR PARTNERS:Ask Lex PH Academy: ⁠https://asklexph.com⁠ (5% discount on e-learning courses! Code: ALPHAXSUP)Argum AI: ⁠http://argum.ai⁠PIXEL by Eplayment: ⁠https://pixel.eplayment.co/auth/sign-up?r=PIXELXSUP1⁠ (Sign up using Code: PIXELXSUP1)School of Profits: ⁠https://schoolofprofits.academy⁠Founders Launchpad: ⁠https://founderslaunchpad.vc⁠Hier Business Solutions: ⁠https://hierpayroll.com⁠Agile Data Solutions (Hustle PH): ⁠https://agiledatasolutions.tech⁠Smile Checks: ⁠https://getsmilechecks.com⁠CloudCFO: ⁠https://cloudcfo.ph⁠ (Free financial assessment, process onboarding, and 6-month QuickBooks subscription! Mention: Start Up Podcast PH)Cloverly: ⁠https://cloverly.tech⁠BuddyBetes: ⁠https://buddybetes.com⁠HKB Digital Services: ⁠https://contakt-ph.com⁠ (10% discount on RFID Business Cards! Code: CONTAKTXSUP)Hyperstacks: ⁠https://hyperstacksinc.com⁠OneCFO: ⁠https://onecfoph.co⁠ (10% discount on CFO services! Code: ONECFOXSUP)UNAWA: ⁠https://unawa.asia⁠SkoolTek: ⁠https://skooltek.co⁠Better Support: ⁠https://bettersupport.io⁠ (Referral fee for anyone who can bring in new BPO clients!)Britana: ⁠https://britanaerp.com⁠Wunderbrand: ⁠https://wunderbrand.com⁠EastPoint Business Outsourcing Services: ⁠https://facebook.com/eastpointoutsourcing⁠DVCode Technologies Inc: ⁠https://dvcode.tech⁠NutriCoach: ⁠https://nutricoach.com⁠Uplift Code Camp: ⁠https://upliftcodecamp.com⁠ (5% discount on bootcamps and courses! Code: UPLIFTSTARTUPPH)START UP PODCAST PHYouTube: ⁠https://youtube.com/startuppodcastph⁠Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/6BObuPvMfoZzdlJeb1XXVa⁠Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-up-podcast/id1576462394⁠Facebook: ⁠https://facebook.com/startuppodcastph⁠Patreon: ⁠https://patreon.com/StartUpPodcastPH⁠PIXEL: ⁠https://pixel.eplayment.co/dl/startuppodcastph⁠Website: ⁠https://phstartup.online⁠This episode is edited by the team at: ⁠https://tasharivera.com

Mona's Eyes (Europa Editions, 2025) is an enchanting debut novel written by art historian Thomas Schlesser. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in Paris who briefly loses her vision. After much testing, the doctor suggests that Mona might benefit from seeing a psychiatrist, and Mona's grandfather offers to take her to her appointment each week. Instead, every Wednesday afternoon for an entire year, he takes her to visit masterpieces of art from the past five hundred years, now displayed in the great museums of Paris. Henri, Mona's grandfather, carefully explains each piece, shares the history of its creator, and emphasizes a lesson to be learned from it. He hopes that if her blindness returns, she will have internalized the colors, emotions, and beauty of 52 of the world's finest and most influential pieces of art. Thomas Schlesser is the director of the Hartung-Bergman Foundation in Antibes, France. He teaches Art History at the École Polytechnique in Paris and is the author of several works of nonfiction about art, artists, and the relationship between art and politics in the 20th century. Thomas received a PhD in History and Civilizations from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and obtained the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR), a specific academic qualification in France, authorizing him to supervise doctoral research (as professor at École Polytechnique in Paris). He is the grandson of André Schlesser, known as Dadé, a singer and cabaret performer who founded the Cabaret L'Écluse. Mona's Eyes is Thomas's second novel and his American debut. It has been translated into thirty-eight languages, including Braille. Thomas was awarded 2025's Author of the Year by Livres Hebdo. In his spare time, Thomas loves cooking and organizing aperitifs, dinners, and festive gatherings. He's also passionate about retro gaming and pop culture, and he enjoys wandering and exploring at a leisurely pace. He constantly reflects on his many flaws and tries to work on them, although it's not easy. He listens to others, and if he has one message to share, it's that life is about patching things together — rigid, overly normative, and definitive frameworks should be approached with caution. He'll add that the cause of animal welfare and the rights of people with disabilities are very dear to him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Mona's Eyes (Europa Editions, 2025) is an enchanting debut novel written by art historian Thomas Schlesser. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in Paris who briefly loses her vision. After much testing, the doctor suggests that Mona might benefit from seeing a psychiatrist, and Mona's grandfather offers to take her to her appointment each week. Instead, every Wednesday afternoon for an entire year, he takes her to visit masterpieces of art from the past five hundred years, now displayed in the great museums of Paris. Henri, Mona's grandfather, carefully explains each piece, shares the history of its creator, and emphasizes a lesson to be learned from it. He hopes that if her blindness returns, she will have internalized the colors, emotions, and beauty of 52 of the world's finest and most influential pieces of art. Thomas Schlesser is the director of the Hartung-Bergman Foundation in Antibes, France. He teaches Art History at the École Polytechnique in Paris and is the author of several works of nonfiction about art, artists, and the relationship between art and politics in the 20th century. Thomas received a PhD in History and Civilizations from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and obtained the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR), a specific academic qualification in France, authorizing him to supervise doctoral research (as professor at École Polytechnique in Paris). He is the grandson of André Schlesser, known as Dadé, a singer and cabaret performer who founded the Cabaret L'Écluse. Mona's Eyes is Thomas's second novel and his American debut. It has been translated into thirty-eight languages, including Braille. Thomas was awarded 2025's Author of the Year by Livres Hebdo. In his spare time, Thomas loves cooking and organizing aperitifs, dinners, and festive gatherings. He's also passionate about retro gaming and pop culture, and he enjoys wandering and exploring at a leisurely pace. He constantly reflects on his many flaws and tries to work on them, although it's not easy. He listens to others, and if he has one message to share, it's that life is about patching things together — rigid, overly normative, and definitive frameworks should be approached with caution. He'll add that the cause of animal welfare and the rights of people with disabilities are very dear to him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Explore Apple's 2025 accessibility updates, including Vision Pro Zoom, Braille Access, Magnifier for Mac, and new App Store accessibility labels. Learn how Apple is reshaping inclusive tech for low vision, blind, and deaf-blind users.This episode dives into Apple's latest accessibility announcements for 2025, featuring insights from Sarah Herrlinger, Senior Director of Accessibility at Apple.Discover how Vision Pro now supports Zooming on your surroundings, live object recognition, and third-party accessibility camera access. We explore Braille Access, a powerful tool for taking notes, opening BRF files, and even using live captioning on braille displays to support deaf-blind users. We also cover Magnifier for Mac, which leverages an iPhone or external camera for classroom and workplace independence, with perspective correction and integration with the new Accessibility Reader. Finally, learn how Apple's new App Store accessibility labels help users identify apps that truly support features like VoiceOver, Voice Control, captions, and audio description.Relevant LinksApple Accessibility: https://www.apple.com/accessibility/Be My Eyes: https://www.bemyeyes.comiOS Access for All (by Shelly Brisbin): https://www.iosaccessbook.com Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

From underserved African languages to a revolutionary Braille display — the latest Somewhere on Earth podcast covers stories that matter. Story 1 – AI and African LanguagesHausa, spoken by 94 million people, is understood by ChatGPT only 10-20% of the time. The issue? Lack of training data. A team behind African Next Voices has recorded 9,000 hours of speech across eighteen African languages, creating datasets to train AI and finally bring these languages online. Dr Ife Adebara CTO of EqualizeAI and Lead Solutions Engineer at Data Science Nigeria shares insights into the challenges, scope, and wider economic potential of this project. Story 2 – Micro-Explosive BrailleMost braille displays only show one line at a time, limiting access to complex content. A team from Cornell, MIT, and Michigan Universities has developed a multiline braille display using micro-explosions of fuel gas in silicone sheets to raise dots safely and rapidly. Tested successfully with users, this innovation could bring tactile reading into classrooms, libraries, and homes, while opening applications in VR, AR, and biomedical research.   The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell and the studio expert is Ania Lichtarowicz.   More on this week's stories: AI models are neglecting African languages — scientists want to change that Explosion-powered eversible tactile displays   Production Manager: Liz Tuohy Editor: Ania Lichtarowicz For the PodExtra version of the show please subscribe via this link: https://somewhere-on-earth-the-global-tech-podcast-the-podextra-edition.pod.fan/ Follow us on all the socials: Join our Facebook group Instagram BlueSky   If you like Somewhere on Earth, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify   Contact us by email: hello@somewhereonearth.co Send us a voice note: via WhatsApp: +44 7486 329 484   Find a Story + Make it News = Change the World Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're celebrating International Dot Day with the return of bestselling author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds to the pod! In this episode, we catch up with Peter on what's been keeping him busy lately and how he's expanding the Dot movement to millions around the world.Together, we dive into Peter's work, including new stories that champion kindness and courage, and learn more about how he's continuing his mission to unlock creativity in every learner.---ABOUT OUR GUESTPeter H. Reynolds is an accomplished writer, storyteller, and illustrator who has been acclaimed around the globe for his best-selling “stories for all ages” about protecting and nurturing the creative spirit, including the three books in his “Creatrilogy” - The Dot, Ish, and Sky Color.The Dot has now been published in over twenty languages, including Braille, and has won numerous awards. Each September, a growing number of educators and students have joined International Dot Day for a global celebration of creativity in the classroom.---SUBSCRIBE TO THE SERIES: ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube Music⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Overcast⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW US: ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠POWERED BY CLASSLINK: ClassLink provides one-click single sign-on into web and Windows applications, and instant access to files at school and in the cloud. Accessible from any computer, tablet, or smartphone, ClassLink is ideal for 1to1 and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠classlink.com⁠⁠⁠.

As you will learn, our guest this time, Walden Hughes, is blind and has a speech issue. However, as you also will discover none of this has stopped Walden from doing what he wants and likes. I would not say Walden is driven. Instead, I would describe Walden as a man of vision who works calmly to accomplish whatever task he wishes to undertake. Walden grew up in Southern California including attending and graduating from the University of California at Irvine. Walden also received his Master's degree from UCI. Walden's professional life has been in the financial arena where he has proven quite successful. However, Walden also had other plans for his life. He has had a love of vintage radio programs since he was a child. For him, however, it wasn't enough to listen to programs. He found ways to meet hundreds of people who were involved in radio and early television. His interviews air regularly on www.yesterdayusa.net which he now directs. Walden is one of those people who works to make life better for others through the various entertainment projects he undertakes and helps manage. I hope you find Walden's life attitude stimulating and inspiring. About the Guest: With deep roots in U.S. history and a lifelong passion for nostalgic entertainment, Walden Hughes has built an impressive career as an entertainment consultant, producer, and historian of old-time radio. Since beginning his collection in 1976, he has amassed over 50,000 shows and has gone on to produce live events, conventions, and radio recreations across the country, interviewing over 200 celebrities along the way. A graduate of UC Irvine with both a BA in Economics and Political Science and an MBA in Accounting/Finance, he also spent a decade in the investment field before fully embracing his love of entertainment history. His leadership includes serving as Lions Club President, President of Radio Enthusiasts of Puget Sound, and long-time board member of SPERDVAC, earning numerous honors such as the Eagle Scout rank, Herb Ellis Award, and the Dick Beals Award. Today, he continues to preserve and celebrate the legacy of radio and entertainment through Yesterday USA and beyond. Ways to connect with Walden: SPERDVAC: https://m.facebook.com/sperdvacconvention/ Yesterday USA: https://www.facebook.com/share/16jHW7NdCZ/?mibextid=wwXIfr REPS: https://www.facebook.com/share/197TW27jRi/?mibextid=wwXIfr About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. We're going to deal with all of that today. We have a guest who I've known for a while. I didn't know I knew him as long as I did, but yeah, but we'll get to that. His name is Walden Hughes, and he is, among other things, the person who is the driving force now behind a website yesterday USA that plays 24 hours a day old radio shows. What I didn't know until he told me once is that he happened to listen to my show back on K UCI in Irvine when I was doing the Radio Hall of Fame between 1969 and 1976 but I only learned that relatively recently, and I didn't actually meet Walden until a few years ago, when we moved down to Victorville and we we started connecting more, and I started listening more to yesterday, USA. We'll talk about some of that. But as you can tell, we're talking, once again, about radio and vintage radio programs, old radio programs from the 30s, 40s and 50s, like we did a few weeks ago with Carl Amari. We're going to have some other people on. Walden is helping us get some other people onto unstoppable mindset, like, in a few weeks, we're going to introduce and talk with Zuzu. Now, who knows who Zuzu is? I know Walden knows, but I'll bet most of you don't. Here's a clue. Whenever a bell rings, an angel gets his wingsu was the little girl on. It's a Wonderful Life. The movie played by Carol from Yeah, and she the star was Carolyn Grimes, and we've met Carolyn. Well, we'll get to all that. I've talked enough. Walden, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're   Walden Hughes ** 03:19 here. Hello, Michael boy, I mean, you, you had John Roy on years ago, and now you finally got to me that's pretty amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 03:25 Well, you know, we should have done it earlier, but that's okay, but, but you know what they say, the best is always saved for last.   Walden Hughes ** 03:34 Hey. Well, you know, considering you've been amazing with this show on Friday night for the last year. So here yesterday, USA, so we you and I definitely know our ins and outs. So this should be an easy our place talk.   Michael Hingson ** 03:47 Yes. Is this the time to tell people that Walden has the record of having 42 tootsie rolls in his mouth at once?   Walden Hughes ** 03:52 That's what they say. I think we could do more, though, you know. But yeah, yeah. Well, we won't ask, miss, yeah, we won't ask you to do that here. Why not?   Michael Hingson ** 04:03 Yeah, we want you to be able to talk. Well, I'm really glad you're here. Tell us a little about the early Walden growing up and all that.   Walden Hughes ** 04:12 I'm my mom and dad are from Nebraska, so I have a lot of Midwestern Nebraska ties. They moved out here for jobs in 65 and I was born in 1966 and I was the first baby to ever survive the world Pierre syndrome, which means I was born with a cleft palate, being extremely near sighted and and a cup and a recession. So I was the first baby through my mom and dad debt by $10,000 in 17 days, and it was a struggle for my folks. You know, in those early days, without insurance, without any. Thing like that. You know, people really didn't think about medical insurance and things like that in those days, that was not an issue. So, um, so I've always had extremely loving family. Then I went through five retina detachments, and starting when I was seven years old, up to I was nine, and I finally woke up one morning seeing white half circle so the retina detached. Sometime in the middle of the night, went to the most famous eye doctor the world at times, Dr Robert macchermer, who was the one who invented the cataract surgery and everything. Later, he wound up being the head of Duke Medical that was down in Florida, and they took one last ditch effort to save my sight, but it was a 2% chance, and it didn't work out. So they went blind in November 75 and went into school for people who may or may not know California pretty aggressive in terms of education, and so when I wear hearing aids, so I parted a hard of hearing class. Newport school. Mesa took care of the kids who were hard of hearing and the blind children went up to Garden Grove. So when I walked my site, went up to Garden Grove. And so that was my dedication. I was always a driven person. So and I also had a family that supported me everything I ever did. They didn't it just they were ultimately supporting me in education, all sorts of stuff. So I wound up in the Boy Scout Program. Wound up being an Eagle Scout like you, wound up being visual honoring the OA. And this was always side of kids. I was sort of the organizer all decided kid, and there was Walden that was right, I was that way in my entire life, which is interesting that the most kids are all hanging out. We were sighted and and even the school district, which was pretty amazing to think about it, Newport, they told my mom and dad, hey, when Wong ready to come back to his home school district, we'll cover the bill. We'll do it. And so my freshman year, after my freshman year in high school, we thought, yeah, it's time to come back. And so the Newport school, Mesa picked up the tab, and so did very well. Went up, applied to seven colleges, Harvard, a Yale Stanford turned me down, but everybody else took me   Michael Hingson ** 07:53 so, but you went to the best school anyway.   Walden Hughes ** 07:57 So I mean, either like Michael Troy went to UCI and I graduated in three years and two quarters with a degree in economics, a degree in politics, a minor in management, and then I went to work as a financial planner with American Express and then a stockbroker. I always wanted to go back get my MBA. So I got my MBA at UCI, and I graduated with my MBA in accounting and finance in 1995 so that's sort of the academic part Wow of my life.   Michael Hingson ** 08:32 How did your parents handle when it was first discovered that you were blind? So that would have been in what 75 how do they handle that?   Walden Hughes ** 08:42 They handle it really well. I think my dad was wonderful. My dad was the one that took, took me my birth, to all the doctor appointments, you know, such a traumatic thing for my mom. So my dad took that responsibility. My mom just clean house. But they, they My dad always thought if I were going to make it through life, it was going to be between my ears. It could be my brain and I, I was gifted and academically in terms of my analytical abilities are really off the chart. They tested me like in 160 and that mean I could take a very complicated scenario, break it down and give you a quick answer how to solve it within seconds. And that that that paid off. So no, I think, and they they had complete and so they put in the time.   Michael Hingson ** 09:47 What kind of work did your dad do? My dad   Walden Hughes ** 09:51 wound up being a real estate agent, okay, and so that gave him flexibility time. My mom wound up working for the Irvine camp. Attorney, which is the big agriculture at that time, now, apartments and commercial real estate here in oil County and so. So with their support and with the emphasis on education, and so they helped me great. They helped my brother a great deal. So I think in my case, having two really actively involved parents paid off, you know, in terms of, they knew where to support me and they knew the one to give me my give me my head, you know, because I would a classic example of this. After I graduated from college at UCI, I was looking for work, and mom said, my mom's saying, oh, keep go to rehab. Talk to them. They're both to help you out, give it. I really wasn't interested, so I sat down and met with them and had several interviews, and they said we're not going to fund you because either A, you're gonna be so successful on your own you pay for your own stuff, or B, you'll completely fail. So when I, and that's when they flat out, told me at rehab, so I I had more more luck in the private sector finding work than I did ever in the public sector, which was interesting.   Michael Hingson ** 11:39 I know that when I was in high school, and they it's still around today, of course, they had a program called SSI through the Department of Social Security, and then that there, there was also another program aid of the potentially self supporting blind, and we applied for those. And when I went to UC Irvine, I had met, actually, in 1964 a gentleman while I was up getting my guide dog. He was getting a guide dog. His name was Howard Mackey, and when I went to college, my parents also explored me getting some services and assistance from the Department of Rehabilitation, and I was accepted, and then Howard Mackey ended up becoming my counselor. And the neat thing about it was he was extremely supportive and really helped in finding transcribers to put physics books in braille, paid for whatever the state did it at the time, readers and other things like that that I needed provided equipment. It was really cool. He was extremely supportive, which I was very grateful for. But yeah, I can understand sometimes the rehabilitation world can be a little bit wonky. Of course, you went into it some 18 to 20 years later than that. I, in a sense, started it because I started in 6869 Yeah. And I think over time, just the state got cheaper, everything got cheaper. And of course, now it's really a lot different than it used to be, and it's a lot more challenging to get services from a lot of the agencies. And of course, in our current administration, a lot of things are being cut, and nobody knows exactly what's going to happen. And that's pretty   Walden Hughes ** 13:30 scary, actually. When I went to UCI, the school picked it up the pic, the school picked up my transcribing. They picked up my readers and all that. So interesting. How?   Michael Hingson ** 13:39 But did they let you hire your own readers and so on? Or do they do that?   Walden Hughes ** 13:43 They just put out the word, and people came up and and they paid them. So they just, they were just looking for volunteer, looking for people on the campus to do all the work. And, yeah, in fact, in fact, I had one gal who read pretty much all my years. She was waiting to get a job in the museum. And the job she wanted, you basically had to die to get it open. And so she for a full time employee with the read, can I be taking 20 units a quarter? Yeah. So I was, I was cranking it out. And in those days, everybody, you were lucky they I was lucky to get the material a week or two before midterm. Yeah, so I would speed up the tape and do a couple all nighters just to get through, because I really didn't want to delay, delay by examinations. I wanted to get it, get it through. But, uh, but, you know, but also, I guess I was going four times just throughout the quarter, set them into the summer. Okay, I wanted to get it done. Yeah, so that's, that's how I   Michael Hingson ** 14:50 did it. I didn't do summer school, but I did 16 to 20 units a quarter as well, and kept readers pretty busy and was never questioned. And even though we have some pretty hefty reader bills, but it it worked, no and and I hired my own readers, we put out the word, but I hired my own readers. And now I think that's really important. If a school pays for the readers, but lets you hire the readers, that's good, because I think that people need to learn how to hire and fire and how to learn what's necessary and how to get the things that they need. And if the agency or the school does it all and they don't learn how to do it, that's a problem.   Walden Hughes ** 15:36 If fashioning is just a sidebar issue, computer really became a big part. And with my hearing loss, TSI was really, yeah, telesensory, the one Incorporated, right? And they were upscale, everybody. It was, you know, $2,500 a pop. And for my hearing, it was the was for the card, the actual card that fits into the slot that would read, oh, okay, okay, right. And eventually they went with software with me, a lot cheaper, yes, and so, so my folks paid for that in the early days, the mid 80s, the computers and the software and a lot of that were trial and error terms of there was not any customer support from the from the computer company that were making special products like that, you were pretty much left on your own to figure it out. Yeah, and so time I went to graduate in 1990 we figured, in the business world, financial planning, I'm gonna need a whole complete setup at work, and we're gonna cost me 20 grand, yeah, and of course, when we have saying, We biking it, we're gonna finance it. What happened was, and this has helped with the scouting program. I knew the vice president of the local bank. And in those days, if it was, if it was still a small bank, he just went, he gave me a personal loan, hmm, and he, I didn't have to get any code centers or anything. No, we're gonna be the first one to finance you. You get your own computer set up. And so they, they, they financed it for me, and then also Boyle kicked in for 7500 but that was, that's how I was able to swing my first really complicated $20,000 units in 1990   Michael Hingson ** 17:33 the Braille Institute had a program. I don't know whether they still do or not they, they had a program where they would pay for, I don't know whether the top was 7500 I know they paid for half the cost of technology, but that may have been the upper limit. I know I used the program to get in when we moved, when we moved to New Jersey. I was able to get one of the, at that time, $15,000 Kurzweil Reading machines that was in 1996 and Braille Institute paid for half that. So it was pretty cool. But you mentioned TSI, which is telesensory Systems, Inc, for those who who wouldn't know that telesensory was a very innovative company that developed a lot of technologies that blind and low vision people use. For example, they developed something called the optic on which was a box that had a place where you could put a finger, and then there was attached to it a camera that you could run over a printed page, and it would display in the box a vibrating image of each character as the camera scanned across the page. It wasn't a really fast reading program. I think there were a few people who could read up to 80 words a minute, but it was still originally one of the first ways that blind people had access to print.   Walden Hughes ** 18:59 And the first guinea pig for the program. Can I just walk my site in 75 and they, they wanted me to be on there. I was really the first one that the school supply the optic on and has special training, because they knew I knew what site looked like for everybody, what Mike's describing. It was dB, the electronic waves, but it'd be in regular print letters, not, not broil waters, right? What   Michael Hingson ** 19:25 you felt were actually images of the print letters, yeah.   Walden Hughes ** 19:30 And the thing got me about it, my hand tingled after a while,   Michael Hingson ** 19:35 yeah, mine   Walden Hughes ** 19:36 to last forever,   Michael Hingson ** 19:38 you know. So it was, it wasn't something that you could use for incredibly long periods of time. Again, I think a few people could. But basically, print letters are made to be seen, not felt, and so that also limited the speed. Of course, technology is a whole lot different today, and the optic on has has faded away. And as Walden said, the card that would. Used to plug into computer slots that would verbalize whatever came across the screen has now given way to software and a whole lot more that makes it a lot more usable. But still, there's a lot of advances to be made. But yeah, we we both well, and another thing that TSI did was they made probably the first real talking calculator, the view, plus, remember   Walden Hughes ** 20:25 that? Yep, I know a good sound quality.   Michael Hingson ** 20:28 Though it was good sound quality. It was $395 and it was really a four function calculator. It wasn't scientific or anything like that, but it still was the first calculator that gave us an opportunity to have something that would at least at a simple level, compete with what sighted people did. And yes, you could plug your phone so they couldn't so sighted people, if you were taking a test, couldn't hear what what the calculator was saying. But at that time, calculators weren't really allowed in the classroom anyway, so   Walden Hughes ** 21:00 my downside was, time I bought the equipment was during the DOS mode, and just like that, window came over, and that pretty much made all my equipment obsolete, yeah, fairly quickly, because I love my boil display. That was terrific for for when you learn with computers. If you're blind, you didn't really get a feel what the screen looked like everybody. And with a Braille display, which mine was half the screen underneath my keyboard, I could get a visual feel how things laid out on the computer. It was easier for me to communicate with somebody. I knew what they were talking   Michael Hingson ** 21:42 about, yeah. And of course, it's gotten so much better over time. But yeah, I remember good old MS DOS. I still love to play some of the old MS DOS games, like adventure and all that, though, and Zork and some of those fun games.   Walden Hughes ** 21:57 But my understanding dos is still there. It's just windows on top of it, basically,   Michael Hingson ** 22:02 if you open a command prompt in Windows that actually takes you to dos. So dos is still there. It is attached to the whole system. And sometimes you can go in and enter commands through dos to get things done a little bit easier than you might be able to with the normal graphic user interface, right? Well, so you, you got your master's degree in 1995 and so you then continue to work in the financial world, or what did   Walden Hughes ** 22:35 it for 10 years, but five years earlier? Well, maybe I should back it up this way. After I lost my site in 1976 I really gravitated to the radio, and my generation fell in love with talk radio, so I and we were really blessed here in the LA market with really terrific hosts at KBC, and it wasn't all the same thing over and over and beating the drum. And so listening to Ray Breen, Michael Jackson, IRA for still kill Hemingway, that was a great opportunity for somebody who was 10 years old.   Michael Hingson ** 23:18 Really, they were all different shows. And yes, I remember once we were listening to, I think it was Michael Jackson. It was on Sunday night, and we heard this guy talking about submarines, and it just attracted Karen's and my attention. And it turns out what it was was Tom Clancy talking about Hunt for Red October. Wow. And that's where we first heard about it, and then went and found the book.   Walden Hughes ** 23:45 But So I grew up in the talk radio, and then that, and I fell in love with country music at the time on koec, and then Jim Healy and sports, yep, and then, and then we were blessed in the LA market have a lot of old time radio played, and it was host like Mike was here at K UCI, John Roy, eventually over KPCC, Bob line. And so my relatives said you should listen to this marathon KPFK, which was a Pacific did an all day marathon. I fell in love with that. Jay Lacher, then one night, after I walked my site, I tuned in. Ray bream took the night off, and Bill balance had frankly sit in. And the first thing they played was Jack Armstrong, and this is where Jack, Jack and Billy get caught up in a snow storm and a bone down the hill. And Brett Morrison came in during the one o'clock two o'clock hour to talk about the shadow. And so my dad took me to, oh, I'm trying to think of the name of the record. Or if they gave away licorice, licorice at the at the record store tower, yeah, not Tower Records. Um, anyway, so we bought two eight track tapes in 1976 the shadow and Superman, and I started my long life of collecting and so. So here we up to 1990 after collecting for 15 years. Going to spill back conventional meetings. I knew Ray bream was going to have kitty Cowan at the guest. Kitty Cowan was a big band singer of the 40s who later the fifth little things mean a lot. And I figured nobody was going to act about her days on the Danny Kaye radio show. And so I called in. They realized I had the stuff. I had the radio shows, they took me off the air, and Kitty's husband, but grand off called me the next day, and we struck up a friendship. And so they were really connected in Hollywood, and so they opened so many doors for me. Mike I Katie's best friend with Nancy Lacher, SR bud with the one of the most powerful agents in town, the game show hosting, who could come up with a TV ideas, but did not know how to run a organization. So that was Chuck Paris, hmm, and Gong Show, yeah, so I wound up, they wound up giving me, hire me to find the old TV shows, the music, all that stuff around the country. And so I started to do that for the Sinatra family, everybody else. So I would, while we do the financial planning, my internet consulting thing really took off. So that wound up being more fun and trying to sell disability insurance, yeah. So one wound up doing that until the internet took over. So that would that. So my whole life would really reshape through kitty Carolyn and Ben granoff through that. So I really connected in the Hollywood industry from that point on, starting 1990 so that that really opened up, that really sure reshaped my entire life, just because of that   Michael Hingson ** 27:28 and you've done over the years, one of the other things that you started to do was to interview a lot of these people, a lot of the radio stars, The radio actors   Walden Hughes ** 27:39 and music and TV, music,   Michael Hingson ** 27:44 yeah.   Walden Hughes ** 27:45 And I think when Bill Bragg asked me to interview kitty Carol, and I did that in 2000 and Bill said, Well, could you do more? And so one of Kitty friends, but test Russell. Test was Gene Autry Girl Friday. He she ran kmpc for him. And I think everybody in the music industry owed her a favor. I mean, I had Joe Stafford to Pat Boone to everybody you could think of from the from that big band, 3040s, and 60s on the show. Let's go   Michael Hingson ** 28:24 back. Let's go back. Tell us about Bill Bragg.   Walden Hughes ** 28:29 Bill Bragg was an interesting character all by himself. Born in 1946 he was a TV camera man for CBS in Dallas. He was also a local music jockey, nothing, nothing, big, big claims of fame boys working for channel two. And then he in Dallas, he was at a press conference with LBJ, and LBJ got done speaking, and the camera crew decided that they were going to pack up and go to lunch. And Bill thought it'd be fun to mark what camera, what microphone the President used for his address, and the guys were in a rush door in the box, let's go have lunch. So Bill lost track, and that bothered him. So he started the largest communication Museum in 1979 and he collected and was donated. And so he had the biggest museum. He had a film exchanger. So in those early days of cable TVs, you know, we had a lot of TV stations specializing in programming, and there were channels, I think this was called a nostalgic channel, wanted to run old TV shows and films. They had the film, but they didn't. Have the equipment. And they got hold of Bill. He said, Okay, I'll do it for you. But what you're going to give me is games. Bill was a wheel and dealer, yeah. And Charlie said, We'll give you your own satellite channel. And I was talking to Bill friend later, John women in those days, in the 1983 when Bill got it, the value of those satellite channels was a million dollars a year, and he got it for free. And Bill would try and figure out, What in the world I'm going to do with this, and that's when he decided to start playing with old time radio, because really nobody was playing that on a national basis. You had different people playing it on a local basis, but not really on a national basis. So Bill was sort of the first one before I play old time radio. I became aware of him because of bur back, so I was trying to get the service on my cable TV company. Was unsuccessful.   Michael Hingson ** 30:58 So what he did is he broadcast through the satellite channel, and then different television stations or companies could if they chose to pick up the feed and broadcast it. Did, they broadcast it on a TV channel or   Walden Hughes ** 31:13 on radio public asset channel. Okay, so remember note day a lot of public it would have the bulletin boards with the local news of right community, and lot of them would play Bill can't   Michael Hingson ** 31:28 play Bill's channel because the only because what they were doing was showing everything on the screen, which didn't help us. But right they would show things on the screen, and they would play music or something in the background. So Bill's programs were a natural thing to play,   Walden Hughes ** 31:44 yeah, and so Bill wound up on a stout then he wound up being the audio shop Troyer for WGN, which was a nice break and so. And then Bill got it to be played in 2000 nursing homes and hospitals, and then local AMFM stations would pick us up. They were looking for overnight programming, so local throughout the country would pick it up. And so Bill, Bill was a go getter. He was a great engineer, and knew how to build things on the cheap. He was not a businessman, you know, he couldn't take it to the next level, but, but at least he was able to come up with a way to run a station, 24 hours a day. It was all the tapes were sent down to Nash, down to Tennessee, to be uploaded to play into the system. Eventually, he built a studio and everything in Dallas. And so,   Michael Hingson ** 32:38 of course, what what Weldon is saying is that that everything was on tape, whether it was cassette or reel to reel, well, reel to reel, and they would play the tapes through a tape machine, a player or recorder, and put it out on the satellite channels, which was how they had to do it. And that's how we did it at kuci, we had tape, and I would record on Sunday nights, all the shows that we were going to play on a given night on a reel of tape. We would take it in and we would play it.   Walden Hughes ** 33:13 And so that's how it's done in the 80s. Eventually built bill, built a studio, and then started to do a live show once a week. Eventually, they grew up to four days a week. And so here is about 1999 or so, and they were playing Musa from kitty cat, and did not know who she was. I would quickly, I would quickly give a couple background from AIM hang up. I didn't really they had no idea who I was yet. I didn't talk about what I would do and things like that. I was just supplying information. And eventually, after two years, they asked me to bring kitty on the show, which I did, and then I started to book guests on a regular basis for them, and then eventually, the guy who I enjoyed all time radio shows listening to Frank Percy 1976 built decided that I should be his producer, and so I wound up producing the Friday Night Live show with Frankie, and eventually we got it up and running, 2002 So Frank and I did it together for 16 years and so that so Bill built a studio in Texas, mailed it all to my House. My dad didn't have any engineering ability. So he and my bill got on the phone and built me a whole studio in six hours, and I was up and running with my own studio here in my bedroom, in 2002 and so overhead, I'm in my bedroom ever since Michael, you know, there you go.   Michael Hingson ** 34:58 Well and to tell people about. Frank Bresee Frank, probably the biggest claim to fame is that he had a program called the golden days of radio, and it was mainly something that was aired in the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service on the radio, where he would every show play excerpts of different radio programs and so on. And one of the neat things that's fascinating for Frank was that because he was doing so much with armed forces, and doing that, he had access to all of the libraries around the world that the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service had, so he could go in and oftentimes get shows and get things that no one else really had because they were only available in at least initially, in these military libraries. But he would put them on the air, and did a great job with it for many, many years. Yeah, Frank   Walden Hughes ** 35:53 was an interesting character, a pure entrepreneur. He invented a game called pass out, which was a drinking game, board game, and he for 20 years, he spent six months in Europe, six months in United States. And he was making so much money in Europe, he would rent out castles and lived in them, and he would and he would spend months at a time in Germany, which was the main headquarter of art, and just sit there in the archives and make copies of things he wanted to play on his show, yeah. And so that's how he built that. And then he he started collecting transcriptions when he would to 10 he was a radio actor, and so he had one of the largest collection, collection, and he his house, his family house was in Hancock Park, which was the, it was Beverly Hills before Beverly Hills, basically, what did he play on radio? Well, when he was, he was he was deceptive. He was the backup little beaver. When someone Tommy, writer, yeah, when, when Tommy Cook had another project, it was Frank be was a substitute. And so that was a short coin of fame. He did bit parts on other shows, but, but that's what he did as a kid. Eventually, I think Frank came from a very wealthy family. He wound up owning the first radio station when he was 19 years old on Catalina Island in 1949 and then he wound up being a record producer. He worked with Walter Winchell, created albums on without about Al Jolson worked on Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante and anyway, Frank, Frank had a career with game with creating board games, doing radio and having an advertising company. Frank was responsible for giving all the game shows, the prices for TV and the way he would do it, he would call an advertise, he would call a company. He said, you want your product. Beyond on this section, go to say, yes, okay, give us, give us the product, and give me 150 bucks. And so Frank would keep the cash, and he would give the project to the TV shows,   Michael Hingson ** 38:17 Dicker and Dicker of Beverly Hills. I remember that on so many shows   Walden Hughes ** 38:23 so So Frank was a wheeling dealer, and he loved radio. That was his passion project. He probably made less money doing that, but he just loved doing it, and he was just hit his second house. The family house was 8400 square feet, and so it was pretty much a storage unit for Frank hobbies, right? And we and he had 30,000 transcriptions in one time. But when he was Europe, he had a couple of floods, so he lost about 10 to 20,000 of them. Okay? Folks did not know how to keep them dry, but he had his professional studio built. And so I would book guests. I arranged for art link writer to come over, and other people, Catherine Crosby, to come over, and Frank would do the interviews. And so I was a big job for me to keep the Friday night show going and get Frankie's guess boy shows. I would have been. He died,   Michael Hingson ** 39:22 and he was a really good interviewer. Yeah, I remember especially he did an interview that we in, that you played on yesterday USA. And I was listening to it with Mel Blanc, which is, which is very fascinating. But he was a great interviewer. I think it was 1969 that he started the golden days of radio, starting 49 actually, or 49 not 69 Yeah, 49 that was directly local, on,   Walden Hughes ** 39:49 on Carolina, and K, I, G, l, which was a station I think heard out in the valley, pretty much, yeah, we could pick it up. And then, and then he started with on. Forces around 65   Michael Hingson ** 40:02 that's what I was thinking of. I thought it was 69 but,   Walden Hughes ** 40:06 and well, he was, on those days there were armed forces Europe picked them up. And also, there was also the international Armed Forces served around the far eastern network, right? Yeah. And so by 67 he was pretty much full on 400 stations throughout the whole world. And I that's probably how you guys picked him up, you know, through that capability.   Michael Hingson ** 40:30 Well, that's where I first heard of him and and the only thing for me was I like to hear whole shows, and he played excerpts so much that was a little frustrating. But he was such a neat guy, you couldn't help but love all the history that he brought to it   Walden Hughes ** 40:46 and and then he would produce live Christmas shows with with the radio. He would interview the guest he, you know, so he had access to people that nobody generally had, you know. He worked for Bob Hope, right? So he was able to get to Jack Benny and Bing Crosby and yes, people like that, Groucho Marx. So he was, he had connections that were beyond the average Old Time Radio buff. He was truly a great guy to help the hobby out, and loved radio very much.   Michael Hingson ** 41:21 Well, going back to Bill Bragg a little bit, so he had the satellite channel, and then, of course, we got the internet, which opened so many things for for Frank or Frank for, well, for everybody but for Bill. And he started the program yesterday, usa.net, on the radio through the internet,   Walden Hughes ** 41:44 which he was the first one in 1996 right? There's a great story about that. There was a company called broadcast.com I bet you remember that company, Mike. Anyway, it was founded by a guy who loved college basketball, and he was a big Hoosier fan, and he was living in Texas, and so he would generally call long distance to his buddy, and they would put up the radio. He could went to the basketball games. And eventually he decided, well, maybe I could come up and stream it on my computer, and all these equipment breaking down, eventually he came up with the idea of, well, if I had a satellite dish, I could pick up the feed and put and stream it on the computer, that way people could hear it right. And he hired bill to do that, and he offered bill a full time job installing satellites and working Bill turned them down, and the guy wound up being Mark Cuban. Yeah, and Mark Cuban gave every every employee, when he sold broadcast.com to Yahoo, a million dollar bonus. So Bill missed out on that, but, but in exchange, Mike Cuban gave him broadcast.com While USA channel for free. So Bill never had to pay in the early days, until about 2002 so when Yahoo decided to get out of the streaming business for a while, then that's when we had to find and we found life 365 eventually, and we were paying pretty good. We're paying a really good rate with like 265 Bill was used to paying free, and we were paying, I think, under $100 and I knew guys later a couple years, were paying over $500 a month. And we were, we were, but there was such a willing deal able to get those things for really dope less   Michael Hingson ** 43:45 money, yeah. Now I remember being in New Jersey and I started hearing ads for an internet radio station. This was in the very late 90s, maybe even into 2000 W, A, B, y. It was a company, a show that a station that played a lot of old songs from the 50s and 60s and so on. And it was, it was, if you tuned on to it, you could listen. And after four or five hours, things would start to repeat, and then eventually it disappeared. But I started looking around, and I don't even remember how I found it, but one day I heard about this radio station, www, dot yesterday, usa.net. Right, yep.net.com,   Walden Hughes ** 44:31 yep, and yeah. And   Michael Hingson ** 44:33 I said, Well, oh, I think I actually heard an ad for it on W, A, B, y, when it was still around. Anyway, I went to it, and they were playing old radio shows, and they had a number of people who would come on and play shows. Everyone had an hour and a half show, and every two weeks you would have to send in a new show. But they. They played old radio shows, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, except they also had some live talk shows. And I remember listening one day and heard Bill Bragg talking about the fact that he was going to have his standard Friday night show with Walden Hughes, it would start at nine o'clock. I had no idea who Walden was at the time. And the problem is, nine o'clock was on the in Pacific Time, and it was, I think, Midnight in New Jersey time, as I recall the way it went anyway, it was way too late for me to be up. And so I never did hear Walden on yesterday USA, or I may have actually listened. Just stayed up to listen to one and fell asleep, but the show, the whole innovative process of playing radio all the time on the internet, was intriguing and just opened so many opportunities, I think. And of course, the internet brought all that around. And now there are any number of stations that stream all the time. And Bill Bragg passed away. What in 2016   Walden Hughes ** 46:15 2018   Michael Hingson ** 46:18 1819 2019 Yeah. And Walden now is the person who directs, operates, and is the manager of yesterday USA. And so when I go ahead,   Walden Hughes ** 46:30 it's fascinating. In the height of the station, there was 15,000 internet radio stations out there in 2000 they did a survey yesterday, USA was number three in the world, behind the BBC and CNN, which I thought was a pretty nice number to be concerned. We had no budget to promote, right? And the last time I saw the numbers been a couple years, we were number 44 in the world, which I don't think of, 15,000 radio stations. Not bad. No, not at all. You know, really not bad. But now there is more talk than there used to be, because Walden and the gasmans, who we had on years ago on this podcast, but   Michael Hingson ** 47:16 have interviewed a lot of people, and continue to interview people. And of course, so many people are passing on that. We're trying to talk to people as much as we can, as they can, and all of us now, because I've started to come a little bit and become a little bit involved in yesterday USA. And as Walden said on Friday night at 730 Pacific Time, see it's earlier, we we do a talk show. Bob Lyons, who did a lot of radio out here, and for 50 years, had a program called Don't touch that dial. And John and Larry and Walden and I get on the air and we talk about, Gosh, any number of different things. We've talked about Braille, we've talked about sometimes, everything but radio. But we talk about a lot of different things, which is, which is a lot of fun.   Walden Hughes ** 48:04 And I think it probably is, you know, in the old days, it would pretty much no entertainment, and Bill telling some stories and things like that. But with me, I always had a focus in interviews, but it's so much more fun to do radio as a co host. And that's when Patricia and I connected back in the 2007 I knew was in 2005 she's my co host. And Patricia didn't grow up with whole town radio. She became a fan after she found yesterday, USA into 2000 but she's a very articulate person, and so through the shows, what she and I did on Saturday night, the audience grab it and just we should talk about everything, and I just generate calls. I mean, when she and I were doing eight hours a night, we would average about 18 calls a night, which was pretty amazing, but we would cover the gamut, and I think a really good talk show host had to know a little bit about a lot of things. Yes, he got it. You got to be flexible. And Patricia and I compliment each other that way, that we're able to cover history and politics and music and just everything. And so when I do a show with her, you never know what direction we go with where. When I'm with John Roy, it's more radio centric. So it depends on what night a week people tune in, is what you're going to   Michael Hingson ** 49:40 get. And Walden has Patricia on now Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but we know why she's really on there, because she likes hearing Perry Como song Patricia that starts out every show Walden plays that he's in love with Patricia. One of these days, there's still the possibility. But anyway, we. We, he, we love it when he, he has Patricia on, and it's every week. So, so it is really cool. And they do, they talk about everything under the sun, which is so fascinating. Tell us about Johnny and Helen Holmes.   Walden Hughes ** 50:15 Ah, well, it's an interesting story. I I say the second biggest old time radio station in the country, after yesterday USA. It's about half the size in terms of audience basis. Radio once more, and you can find them at Radio once more.com and they do a good job. No else with probably yesterday USA branch offers own internet radio station, and he found he would go to the east coast to the nostalgic convention, and he connected with Johnny and Helen. Holmes and Johnny and Helen are people who love to attend nostalgic convention and get autographs and things. And they became really friends. So Neil convinced them, why don't you come on? Just come on radio once more. And so after a while, they do the presentation the coffee shop. Neil convinced them to take it, take it to the air, and they started to have their own show, and I was aware of them, and I produced the spirback convention, 2017 in Las Vegas. So Johnny helm came to the convention, and Johnny wanted to say hi to me. I said, I know who you are. I think he was for by that that I knew who he was, but I invited Johnny and Helen to come on with Patricia and I one night to talk about their coffee shop presentation and their show on Radio once more. And we just bonded very quickly and easy to bond with Johnny. They really are really fabulous people. He's really a generous guy, and so over the last six, seven years, we have developed a great friendship on you, and almost have created a whole subculture by itself, playing trivia with them. Every time they come on,   Michael Hingson ** 52:17 they do a lot of trivia stuff, and Johnny produces it very well. He really does a great job. And he'll put sound bites and clips and music, and it's gotten me such a major production with Johnny and Helen. And people look forward to it. I sometimes count the interaction people hanging out in the chat room, on the phone, email, about 18 to 20 people will get and get an answer question, was it amazing that that many people will be interested in trivia like that? But and, and Johnny also collects, well, I guess in Helen collect a lot of old television shows as well. Yep. So we won't hold it against him too much, but, but he does television and, well, I like old TV shows too, you bet. Well, so you know, you are, obviously, are doing a lot of different things. You mentioned spurred vac oop. They're after you. We'll wait. We'll wait till the phone die. You mentioned, well, I'll just ask this while that's going on. You mentioned spurred back. Tell us a little bit about what spurred vac is and what they've been doing and what they bring to radio.   Walden Hughes ** 53:23 Sprint vac started in 1974 it's the largest full time radio group in the country, called the society to preserve and encourage radio drama, variety and comedy. John Roy Gasman were two of the main driving force behind the club. It reached up to a membership of 1800 people, and they've honored over 500 people who worked in the golden days of radio and to speak at their meeting, come to the special conventions. And so I attended some dinners at the Brown Derby, which was a great thrill. I started attending their conventions, and it was just, it was wonderful. So I so I really got to meet a lot of the old time radio personality and become friends with Janet Waldo and June for a and people like that. And so I eventually got on the board. I eventually became one young, somewhat retired. I wound up being the activity person to book guests, and started producing conventions. And so that became a major part of my life, just producing those things for spur back and in other places, and I first started to do that for reps. Was it the Old Time Radio Group in Seattle in 2007 so they were actually the first convention I produced.   Michael Hingson ** 54:54 And rep says radio enthusiasts of Puget Sound,   Walden Hughes ** 54:57 right? Reps online.org, G and so I would produce new convention. I was helping super vac, and I also helping the Friends of all time radio back in New Jersey and so. And it probably helped my contact, which is 300 pages long, so, and I would book it. I would also contact celebrities via the mail, and my batting average was 20% which I thought were pretty good. I got Margaret. I got Margaret Truman. She called me, said, Walden, I got your order, and I forgot that I did the show with Jimmy Stewart. I'd be happy to come on talk about my memory. You know, she talked about Fred Allen on the big show, and how, how Mike Wallace had a temper, had a temper. She was a co host. Was among weekdays, which with the weekday version of monitor. Monitor was weekend and weekday, we see NBC. And so she was just fabulous, you know, so and I would get people like that 20% bad average, which was incredible. So I met, that's how it's up to two, my guess was, so I, I was sort of go to guy, find celebrities and booking them and and so in that help yesterday, USA helped the different conventions. And so it and so you're so you're booking the panels, and then you're coming up with ideas for radio recreations. And so I produce 37 of them, ranging from one day to four days. And I get counted, over the last 18 years, I've produced 226 audio theater plays with it. A lot at least, have an idea of how those things   Michael Hingson ** 56:55 work. So right now, speaking of recreations, and we're both involved in radio enthusiasts of Puget Sound, and for the last couple of years, I've participated in this. Walden has done radio recreations, and twice a year up in the Washington State area, where we bring in both some some amateurs and some professionals like Carolyn Grimes Zuzu and so many others who come in and we actually recreate old radio shows, both before a live audience, and we broadcast them on yesterday USA and other people like Margaret O'Brien who won   Walden Hughes ** 57:46 Gigi Powell coming this year. Phil Proctor. David Osmond from fire sign theater. Chuck Dougherty from Sergeant Preston. John Provo from Timmy from Lassie, Bill Johnson, who does a one man show on Bob Hope. Bill Ratner from GI Joe. Bill Owen, the who might have had he is the author of The Big broadcast, Ivan Troy who Bobby Benson, Tommy cook from the life O'Reilly Gigi parole, a movie actress of the 50s, as you mentioned, Carolyn grime, Beverly Washburn and others, and it's just the radio folks are really down to earth, really nice people, and you get to break bread with them, talk to them and reminisce about what was it like doing that radio show, this movie, or that TV show, and then They still got it, and they can perform on stage,   Michael Hingson ** 58:43 and they love to talk about it, and they love to interact with people who treat them as people. And so yeah, it is a lot of fun to be able to do it. In fact, I was on Carolyn Grimes podcast, which will be coming out at some point in the next little while, and Carolyn is going to be on unstoppable mindset. So keep an eye out for that. Bill Owens program is coming out soon. Bill and I did a conversation for unstoppable mindset, and we're going to be doing Bill Johnson will be coming on, and other people will be coming on. Walden has been very helpful at finding some of these folks who are willing to come on and talk about what they did, and to help us celebrate this medium that is just as much a part of history as anything in America and is just as worth listening to as it ever was. There is more to life than television, no matter what they think.   Walden Hughes ** 59:40 And also, we do a Christmas thing too. And hopefully Mike, if his speaking engagement allow him, will be with us up at Christmas saying, Well, I will. I'm planning on it. We're gonna do, It's a Wonderful Life. Keith Scott, coming over from Australia, who's a he's the rich little of Australia. And we'll do, It's a Wonderful Life. We'll do. The Christmas Carol, milk on 34th Street film again, Molly Jack Benny will have a great time.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:07 These are all going to be recreations using the the original scripts from the shows, and that's what makes them fun. And for those of us who don't read print, we do have our scripts in Braille, absolutely so that's kind of fun. Well, Walden, this has been absolutely wonderful. We're going to have to do it some more. Maybe we need to get you, John and Larry all together on that. That might be kind of fun. But I really, I don't think we need a host if you that. No, no, we just, you know, just go on. But this has been really fun. I really enjoy it. If people want to reach out to you, how do they do that?   Walden Hughes ** 1:00:45 Oh, I think they can call my studio number 714-545-2071, I'm in California, or they can email me at Walden shoes at yesterday, usa.com, W, A, l, D, E, N, H, U, C, H, E, S at, y, E, S T, E, R, D, A, y, u, s a.com, I'm the president of radio enthusiast sound, that's reps online.org or on the board of Sper back, which is S, P, E, R, D, V, A, c.com, so while waiting shakes me down, when   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:25 will the showcase actually occur up in Bellevue in Washington?   Walden Hughes ** 1:01:30 That will be September 18, 19 20/21, and then our Christmas one is will be Friday, December five, and Saturday, December the sixth. And then we're also going back and spir back, and I bet we'll see you there. We're going to go back to the Troy Blossom Festival next April, 23 to 26 and we'll know, are we set up to do that now? Yep, looks like that gonna happen? Yeah? Oh, good, yeah. So kick out the phone with Nicholas here a few days ago. So everything's gonna go for that, so that will be good.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:03 Yeah, we will do that. That's cool. Well, thank you for being here, and I want to thank you all for listening. I hope you had fun. This is a little different than a lot of the episodes that we've done, but it's, I think, important and enlightening to hear about this medium into to meet people from it. So thank you for listening wherever you are. We hope that you'll give us a five star review of unstoppable mindset wherever you're listening or watching. Please do that. We'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at Michael H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, and you can also go to our podcast page if you don't find podcasts any other way. Michael hingson.com/podcast, that's m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O, n.com/podcast, singular. So thanks again for being here and for listening to the show, and Walden, once again, I want to thank you for being here. This has been great.   Walden Hughes ** 1:03:01 Thank you, Michael,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:07 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Discover how Tailscale can simplify remote access, file sharing, and home networking, plus listener insights on Script Talk, WordPress accessibility, Braille 3D printing, and indoor navigation.This episode is supported by Pneuma Solutions. Creators of accessible tools like Remote Incident Manager and Scribe. Get $20 off with code dt20 at https://pneumasolutions.com/ and enter to win a free subscription at doubletaponair.com/subscribe!Steven Scott and Shaun Preece dive into another lively inbox session filled with tech talk and listener feedback. Steven shares his new obsession with Tailscale, explaining how it makes connecting multiple computers, sharing files, and remote access more secure and accessible. The hosts also explore challenges with old hardware, Wi-Fi connectivity issues, and Mac recovery frustrations.Listeners contribute valuable insights: Stan praises Script Talk for accessible medication labeling; Scott shares a Mac Finder tip for USB drives; Lucas reports issues with NLS Bard accounts; Paul suggests workarounds for WordPress's block editor; Elijah demonstrates how blind users can 3D print Braille using JSCAD; and Mark proposes RFID navigation ideas.The episode highlights real-world accessibility tools like Script Talk, blister packs for prescriptions, and Numa Solutions' Remote Incident Manager and Scribe. It blends practical tech advice, witty banter, and thought-provoking listener ideas, showcasing the Double Tap community's innovation and resilience.Chapters00:00 – Diving into the inbox00:41 – Steven's new interest in Tailscale03:10 – Why connect your computers?08:28 – Remote access made simple10:10 – Discovering old tech in the loft18:19 – Mac recovery accessibility issues22:11 – Emails and feedback23:43 – Stan on Script Talk and store accessibility34:01 – Scott's Mac USB tip36:36 – Lucas on NLS Bard account suspensions38:04 – Paul's WordPress accessibility advice47:24 – Elijah on 3D printing Braille50:30 – Mark's RFID indoor navigation idea56:59 – Wrap-up and Samsung Galaxy teaser Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

20250904 I Love Braille Originally Broadcasted September 4, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Our guest speaker, Bill McCann, gave a presentation on "Using Braille as a Musician".   Sponsored by: East Bay Center for the Blind Access Archives Email Vileen Shah     Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

Our Chairman, Dave Wiliams, was thrilled to have addressed the American Council of the Blind (ACB) at their 64th Annual National Conference & Convention held in Dallas, Texas. On 10 July 2025, Dave delivered the keynote speech at the annual Convention banquet to a sold out audience. He called for greater investmentt in braille as a proven literacy tool that can transform the lives of blind people around the world. He was introduced by ACB Treasurer and Master of Ceremonies, the Reverend Michael Garrett, from Missouri City, Texas. Sponsorship With thanks to Dot Inc. for sponsoring Dave's attendance. Find out more about Dot Pad X and the Raising the Dots Podcast. Dot is proud to have played its part in the Monarch, in partnership with the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) and HumanWare. Links Related to the Braillists National Braille Press (NBP) Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation Points of Light award 1982, 8 February 2023 Links Related to Braille The International Council on English Braille (ICEB) Links Related to RNIB RNIB, the Royal National Institute of Blind People RNIB Tech Talk Links Related to ACB ACB Media Braille Revival League Links Related to the World Blind Union and European Blind Union World Blind Union (WBU) European Blind Union (EBU) Living Braille, the website of the EBU Braille Working Group Links Related to Running Parkrun UK Couch to 5K (C25K) Abbott World Marathon Majors Full Text of Dave's Speech Good evening ACB President, friends, advocates, everyone here and online. Thank you for your hospitality! I am grateful for your invitation to share in ACB's “Big Dreams and Bold Ideas”, not only this week here in Dallas, but over many decades in many places far beyond your shores. It is a privilege to stand before you tonight, as someone whose life has been profoundly shaped by this movement. Let me begin with a deeply personal truth: for a long time, I resented my blindness. Like many, I struggled to accept blindness as part of my identity. Through you, I learned to think differently, to dream boldly, and to act decisively. That shift in perspective changed everything. It is why I am here tonight—to celebrate what is possible when we embrace who we are and empower others to do the same. Our blindness stories break down barriers and build bridges. They turn isolation into community, fear into action, and doubt into confidence. Together, I believe we can ignite that transformation for countless others. When I talk about blind people, I intend “blind” in the broadest sense. Whether you identify as blind, low vision, vision impaired, we are all valued in this community and our voices carry equal importance. And if you are a sighted person who works to elevate the voices of blind people, we thank you for your solidarity. Before I share how it was you in this movement who taught this northern English lad to feel differently about my blindness, becoming a passionate braille advocate and Six-star World Marathon Majors Finisher, we must extend our gratitude to our friends at Dot, who's support means I can be with you here tonight. I know many of you took the opportunity this week to get your hands on Dot Pad X, a highly versatile multiline braille and tactile display portable enough to be carried in a schoolbag. Dot's technology is disrupting the braille display industry. Using Dot Pad and the Dot Canvas app, I recently supported my sighted 16-year-old son's math revision and got to touch his signature for the first time. Dot and partners are delivering new educational and employment opportunities we could only dream of just a few years ago. Do we have any first timers here? My first ACB Convention was Birmingham, Alabama. Your Birmingham in July is a bit warmer than our Birmingham near my home in England. We simply do not have anything like these blindness conventions in the UK. I jumped in at the deep end with you. 2003 was an eventful year for ACB. General Session ran over into an extra day. As Director of ACB Radio, I was responsible for making sure ACB's membership, and listeners tuned in from offices and homes in countless countries, could hear our coverage. And while we were very well looked after by ACB's Alabama affiliate, the internet connectivity at convention that year was especially problematic and seamed to get even more challenging during the liveliest debates. My purpose then, as it is today, is to empower as many blind people as possible by increasing our access to the information and tools we need to live our best lives. A year before Birmingham, ACB Radio's founder and mentor to many of us decided to move on. I took the call. My predecessor, Jonathan Mosen, would be an impossible act for anyone to follow. But he believed in me. Long before ACB Radio, as a young blind man, I avoided the tools and skills that could have empowered me. I resisted the cane. I dismissed braille. I thought these things marked me as “different” in a way I was not ready to accept. I mistakenly believed specialist skills separated me from sighted people. These days we would say “othering”. I cast those skills aside for a long time. It took me years to recognise that confidence can come from a cane or guide dog, and enjoying bedtime stories with our kids can come from braille. The voices I heard on ACB Radio via my dial-up modem—leaders like Marlaina Lieberg and Paul Edwards—challenged me to rethink what it meant to be blind. They taught me that tools like braille and the white cane do not separate us from society—they connect us to the people and world around us. Their advocacy lifted me up, and I realized I could be part of something bigger. When I took on the role of ACB Radio Director, I was terrified. Could a young man from a small town in the UK really lead an initiative that connected blind people across the globe? But I said yes. Why? Because this movement showed me the power of taking risks. And because I knew that by sharing our stories, we could empower others to do the same. One of my first tasks as ACB Radio Director was to convince Marlaina to host her own talk show. She was so humble and asked me what if nobody listened? What would we even call it? I told her I was sure everyone would listen, and the name of the show would be Marlaina. Like many of you, I miss her lots and think of her often. I also knew Paul Edwards was a natural broadcaster and must have his own show. He teamed up with Brian Charlson, and Tuesday Topics was born. You certainly kept me busy. When I was not producing audio or trying to secure sponsors, my email and phone rang 24/7. If it were not a server in California needing a reboot, it was listeners frustrated they had missed the latest episode of Main Menu, Blind Handyman or Cooking in the Dark, and would I please send it to them? I convinced our tiny team of volunteer software developers to build us a listen again on-demand service, an early form of podcasting. ACB Radio did not just stream content; it brought blind people together online, long before Zoom calls and virtual conventions became the norm. We created opportunities for storytelling, advocacy, and community that spanned continents. From broadcasting ACB conventions to global events like the World Blind Union General Assembly, we ensured that the voices of blind people could be heard. The impact did not stop there. ACB Radio became a launchpad for careers, a platform for innovation, and a catalyst for change. It inspired similar initiatives worldwide. It proved that when blind people lead, we redefine what is possible. That legacy continues today through ACB Media, and its ripple effects are felt in every corner of our community. We will never know how many blind lives this priceless service has transformed. When it was my turn to pass on the ACB Radio baton, it was to join a team working on one of the first mobile screen readers with touch support. Talks, Mobile Speak and Pocket Hal pioneered many of the concepts we now take for granted in VoiceOver on iPhone and Talkback on Android. Following the early success of ACB Radio, blind people in many nations started their own online radio stations. In 2003, the Royal National Institute of Blind People in the UK launched Europe's first station for the blind community, now known as RNIB Connect Radio. I worked at RNIB for 6 years as their Inclusive Design Ambassador. We partnered with companies like Canon, Netflix, and Sony to advance their accessibility efforts. My ACB Radio experience meant I was also invited to host around 150 episodes of RNIB's flagship technology show, Tech Talk. We were recognised by the UK radio industry and were awarded community station of the year in 2024. As well as interviewing many movers and shakers from the technology world, including accessibility leaders from Microsoft and Google, I had the incredible honour in March 2024 of recording a short interview with legendary singer songwriter Stevie Wonder. As we were introduced, I recalled the awe with which Marlaina had interviewed Ronnie Milsap years earlier. She had taught me that it is ok to feel that child-like excitement even during the moments that define our careers. After shaking Stevie's hand, I asked if he would be willing to share some messages about accessibility and inclusion with our blind brothers and sisters in the UK. I held my breath. He said let us do that now. I began recording. He asked about my recording equipment, and he playfully imitated my English accent. You should hear his Bob Dylan. As we were talking, we were forced to move due to being jostled by the crowd. Before I could grab my cane, Stevie took my arm in his and proceeded to walk us both forward. Hold the phone, I am now being sighted guided by Stevie Wonder? He said, “don't worry Dave, in a moment I'll Walk you into a wall.” My other lasting memory of that moment, in the interview, Stevie said, “I could not have the career I enjoy were it not for braille.” He talked about how he uses braille to write and edit his many songs. And how he has an ambition to publish his catalogue in braille for blind musicians to study. Stevie is not alone. We can all think of high-profile blind people who would link their success to an ability to read braille. Leading journalists, educators, lawyers, politicians holding high office have all relied on braille to get the job done. As for many of you, spreading braille and tactile literacy is a subject close to my heart. Every day I continue to be amazed how combinations of just six little dots fitting neatly under our fingerprints represent every letter of the alphabet, numbers, punctuation, math, music, and other symbols for accessing any subject and any language. Incidentally, six is also the number of big city marathons you must run to complete the classic Abbott World Marathon Majors series. I may have mentioned that somewhere. I will come back to running later. Braille's invention meant for the first time blind people could independently read and author our own stories, find our voices, become educated, and employed, label household items, read our own greetings cards, identify medications, the list goes on. Whether you read braille or not, we can all recognise how deeply linked braille is with the emancipation of blind people. Of the many tactile reading systems developed in the 19th century, and there were many, it is no accident that the system that prevailed was one developed by a young person who knew what we really needed because he was blind. Braille is an early example of that modern disability mantra, “nothing about us without us”. And it is blind people who today, through organisations such as the International Council on English Braille, continue to maintain our code. Blind people around the world have been celebrating two hundred years since braille's invention. I have been communicating braille's value in national broadcast and print media, meeting with hundreds of braille ambassadors at libraries across the UK. On January 4, the Braillists Foundation delivered the UK's first face-to-face World Braille Day Conference. I recognise that in the US, Braillists refers to a braille producer. But in the UK, Braillists often describes any blind person who relies on braille. We formally established the Braillists Foundation in early 2020 to promote braille and tactile literacy. The aims of the Braillists Foundation are: Promote the value of Braille as a proven literacy tool that enriches the lives of blind people. Support efforts to make affordable Braille and tactile reading technologies available to all blind people irrespective of education and employment status. Provide an open forum for the exchange of ideas about the development of future Braille technology. When social distancing forced everyone online, we began offering classes to introduce braille to beginners, supportive reading groups for practicing braille skills, drop-in sessions where readers can get braille questions answered, and masterclasses covering more advanced braille topics. The work of the Braillists Foundation, to spread braille literacy, especially during the pandemic, was recognised by your National Braille Press Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation, a UK Prime Minister's Point of Light Award, and in May this year I was honoured to accept an invitation to a Royal Garden party celebrating learning and skills at Buckingham Palace. You are invited to join the international community celebrating Braille 200 for the rest of this year. The European Blind Union Braille Working Group encourages everyone to share creative experiences celebrating braille. You can do that through their website at LivingBraille.eu. You can follow the hashtag #Braille200 on social media. There's still time to organise your own braille two hundred events. And always you can elevate the voices of braille readers by connecting with ACB's Braille Revival League. And next year, 2026, APH will open the Dot Experience in Louisville to celebrate braille's rich heritage. Braille's profoundly personal connection with written language cannot be underestimated. Braille enabled me to write my proposal of marriage on a braille scrabble board. I waited, heart pounding, while my then girlfriend rummaged in the bag to find letters to compose her answer. She wrote blank e s. Next week we will celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary. I was also deeply moved, shortly after I crossed the finish line at the Tokyo Marathon this March, to discover braille featured on the finisher medal. I had run an exceptionally long way to get to that point, and reading that braille for myself, rather than having to ask a sighted person to read it to me, that really did feel like inclusion. Completing the much sought-after Abbott World Marathon Majors series was some journey. Blind since birth with Leber Congenital Amaurosis, I never saw myself as a runner. Seven years ago, I weighed over 220lb and could not run a bath. I had an idea of converting a guide runner into a pilot for my tandem bike gathering dust in my garage. I signed up for the England Athletics' “Find a Guide” database, a bit like your United in Stride. I soon met Steve and, later, Bex, my first real guide runners, who had no interest in piloting my tandem. What started as huffing and puffing to reach a mile turned into weekly runs and a community of support. I hated physical education at school: ill-fitting kit, smelly changing rooms, PE teachers. During those early attempts at something you could not describe as running, I thought about a blind lady I knew with asthma who ran marathons. I was reminded of Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Everest, also interviewed by Marlaina. Just exactly what was my excuse? I decided I was going to get fit and set an example for my son, Arlo. With lots of encouragement, especially from other blind runners sharing their stories, I dragged myself from couch to 5K. While no guide runner seeks recognition for themselves, they really are amazing people. Some blind runners told me how they wanted their guides to appear in results and officially receive a finisher medal at London Marathon. It was the advocacy skills I learned from this movement that enabled me to support that campaign by producing a package for BBC Radio. Our combined efforts changed London Marathon's policy. In my excitement about this small win for guided running, I returned home from the pub one night and went online. Alcohol and the internet are always a winning combination, you know? I found myself filling in a ballot entry form for a place in the New York City Marathon. What was I thinking? I had barely run six miles at this point, and here I was entering a lottery to run 26.2 miles. Not to mention the thousand miles you need to run in months of training. Surely, I would not get a place? I would not need to tell anyone, right? Wrong! “Dear Mr Williams” the email read. “Congratulations, you have a place in the 2019 New York City Marathon”. This had to be a joke. I checked my bank. Oh shoot. New York Road Runners had taken $270. Now I would have to tell my wife. I had nine months to train. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to show my then 10-year-old son that us blind dads could do things. Through the summer, I ran up and down hills in Worcestershire to prepare for the five massive bridges you must cross in the NYC marathon: Verrazano-Narrows, Pulaski, Queensboro, Willis Avenue, and Madison Avenue. I was doing my homework. I even joined a gym. It was a beautiful autumnal morning at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island as we lined up with 53,000 other runners to take on my first marathon. Helicopters hovered overhead and canons blasted as earlier waves set off. Nobody more surprised than me to be a part of it. Sinatra's New York, New York and Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind were on high rotation. New York would be the first of six starts that also included London, Boston, Berlin, Chicago and Tokyo: six big city marathons that have come together to make the classic Abbott World Marathon Majors series. These big city marathons are 26.2-mile street parties. The atmosphere is electric. You really feel the heartbeat of a city when the crowds turn out in force. Complete strangers yell your name to encourage you on. Not only do you get to feel like a rockstar, but you run the same course on the same day as the best athletes in the world. 1st Avenue in New York City and Tower Bridge in London are exceptionally loud. The shrill piercing screams of Wellesley's students in the Boston Marathon put me in mind of Beatlemania. I need to channel that energy especially when the running gets tough, as it always does. When the course is hilly and the weather is hot, I can find myself contemplating my life choices. There have been many times when I have gulped down buckets of Gatorade and walked for a while. Ultimately, drawing on that positive energy from all those people willing me on, and the power of the marathon to bring people together, is replenishing. Some of these cities have deeply divided histories. But they come together to support the runners. Your life, your marathon, has the power to bridge division. It is that sense of hope that drives me on through the exhaustion running to the finish line every time. Shout out to Chicago, London and Tokyo who gave me a medal that featured braille. Berlin, Boston and New York City, you can do this too. But it is not over. In 2024 Abbott announced that the Majors series will be extended to include a seventh, eighth and nineth star. Next month I am heading to Sydney for my first marathon in the Southern hemisphere. If you have ever taken a risk, bitten off a little bit too much, felt like an imposter, found yourself winging it, you are among friends. I certainly feel a little bit of that every time I go out for a run or stand up to deliver talks like this one. As blind people we know we must push the boundaries and take a chance. None of us got here by always taking the easy path. While I live thousands of miles away, you and I have a shared history. Some of which is written in People of Vision, ACB's story, a copy of which I have at home. Braille is also part of our shared history. Braille is a tool of liberation. It has empowered generations of blind leaders. Yet, we know that braille literacy is not where it should be. Too many blind children and adults lack access to the tools they need to thrive. This is a call to action for all of us. If we believe in independence, in dignity, in opportunity, then we must invest in braille. We must champion its teaching, ensure its availability, and celebrate its value as the cornerstone of blind empowerment. Let us dream bigger. Today, blind people are excelling in fields once thought inaccessible—technology, arts, business, politics, sports. But there is so much more to achieve. Imagine a world where every blind child has access to quality education, where workplaces are universally inclusive, and where we lead not as exceptions but as examples. Technology is a critical piece of this puzzle. But innovation is not enough. We must advocate for systemic change. We require policies that prioritize accessibility in every industry. We must have blind leaders at the decision-making table, shaping the future of inclusion. And we need allies—sighted people who amplify our voices, speaking with us, not for us. Tonight, I challenge each of you: How will you contribute to this movement? Will you mentor a blind youth, helping them see their potential. Will you advocate for better policies in your community. Or will you share your story, inspiring someone else to embrace their blindness as a source of strength. Whatever it is, do it boldly. Do it with the knowledge that your actions ripple outward, creating change far beyond this room. At the same time, let us not forget the power of collaboration. ACB, RNIB, the Braillists Foundation—together, we are stronger. Let us share strategies, pool resources, and align our goals to create a global network of blind advocates. The challenges we face are too big for any one organisation to tackle alone. But united, there is nothing we cannot achieve. As I stand here tonight, I am reminded of a truth that has guided me throughout my journey: stories change lives. Whether it is a marathon medal, a braille book, or a conversation with a stranger, every story we share chips away at prejudice and builds a more inclusive world. Thank you, ACB, for teaching me to think differently about blindness. Thank you for showing me what is possible when we embrace our identities and lift each other up. Let us keep running—toward inclusion, toward equality, and toward a future where every blind person has the tools and opportunities to live their best life. Let us find each other at the next starting line. Thank you, and good night.

Resumen: El audio cubre el traslado de 4000 menores y las quejas autonómicas, así como las ayudas tras los incendios en Galicia y la situación en Ucrania. En deportes, repasa resultados de La Liga, partidos futuros de fútbol, baloncesto y tenis. Un bloque central aborda la importancia de la escritura a mano, y una entrevista con Carmen Ballarín explora el sistema Braille, sus desafíos diarios y su creciente visibilidad. Otro segmento científico explica cómo el cambio climático afecta a las aves (se hacen más pequeñas con alas más grandes) y presenta una guía de supervivencia del gobierno de EE.UU. ante un "apocalipsis zombi" (un plan real con un enfoque lúdico para promover la preparación ante desastres). También se discute la posible existencia de hongos "zombi" en la naturaleza y cómo esto inspira ficciones como "The Last of Us", destacando preocupaciones científicas sobre el impacto del cambio de temperatura en las infecciones por hongos.

1825 stellte Louis Braille seine revolutionäre Punkt-Schrift vor. Christine Felsmann vom Deutschen Zentrum für barrierefreies Lesen erklärt, warum die Schrift auch im digitalen Zeitalter noch wichtig ist.

On today's episode, we explore the incredible impact of the National Prison Braille Network—a groundbreaking initiative that's transforming lives by empowering individuals to produce braille materials for students who are blind or low vision. Discover how this program fosters rehabilitation, literacy, and opportunity both inside and outside prison walls.Then, stick around for our Tech Takeaway, where we break down everything you need to know about updating your Monarch device.On this episode (in order of appearance)NarratorSara Brown, APH Public Relations ManagerJayma Hawkins, APH National Prison Braille Senior DirectorJennifer Wenzel, APH Technology Product SpecialistMichael Dennis, APH Technology Product SpecialistMatt Bittinger, APH Monarch Technical Support SpecialistAdditional Links and InformationNational Prison Braille NetworkMonarch Tech Support - 833-447-8444 Hours 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. estEmail Monarch Support

20250828 I Love Braille Originally Broadcasted August 28, 2025, on ACB Media 5   On this Braille Fun day, Linda PI brought some innovative fun ideas to share with all. Sponsored by: East Bay Center for the Blind Access Archives Email Vileen Shah Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

Episode Notes She may be legally blind, but this week's "Exceptional Educator" certainly hasn't let this stop her from admirably serving other individuals with vision loss, and inspiring them to be the best they can possibly be!! Presenting Abby Cocanougher, a braille instructor at the Charles McDowell Center for the Blind in Louisville. Abby will give us a synopsis of her student days at the Kentucky School for the Blind, and explain the means by which she discovered her calling to teach braille. She also describes the steps she took to make this career goal a reality, the importance of braille within the visually-impaired community, and fascinating aspects of her life outside the classroom such as her guide dog and musical hobbies. Listening to Abby without smiling might as well be scientifically impossible! And, for additional information about the Charles McDowell Center for the Blind, simply visit the web page linked here: https://kcc.ky.gov/Vocational-Rehabilitation/seeking-services/CharlesMcDowellCenter/Pages/default.aspx. Find out more at https://blabbin-in-the-bluegrassblabbi.pinecast.co

ACB Braille Forum September 2025.

This week we're bringing you new bangers from indietribe, Miles Minnick, Lecrae, Adrian Rojo & Lul DreDay and Jon Keith! Our Back In The Day segment features iconic heat from CHH legend Braille! We get new Listener Submissions from Allen Thomas, Godson! and Austin Jarrell! Plus, we go around the world with International Love and new songs from Dillon Chase, Si Knightly and Mike Zoto! Elevate Your Music & Elevate Your Mind!

20250823 Doing Braille Digitally Originally Broadcasted August 23, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Doing Braille Digitally returned after a long hiatus. This week, Eden Linea joined us to tell us all about the Monarch. Please join us to hear about this exciting new innovation! Email us if you have something you would like to present on the call or have an idea for something you would like us to try to find and present. Email the Facilitator Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

In this episode we explore Simon & Garfunkel, Louis Braille, Charles Barbier, Valentin Haüy and René-Jus Haüy, Marvel Comics, Popular Science Magazine, Plato and even George Washington. How the world has fought Darkness has been pretty amazing . . . and crazily it's all because of one family 

Explore Chatterbox TTS voice cloning with Robin Christopherson, the latest updates to accessible devices like the Mantis Q40 and Victor Reader Stream, delays to Agiga's EchoVision smart glasses, Google's Gemini for Home, and community insights on Linux accessibility.Thanks to Turtleback Low Vision for sponsoring this episode of Double Tap. As a thank you to the Double Tap community, Turtleback is offering 12% off your entire order with promo code DT12. Visit https://www.turtlebacklv.com to shop the full lineup!In this episode, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece dive into a packed inbox and welcome Robin Christopherson for a detailed demo of Chatterbox TTS, a voice cloning tool from Hugging Face that quickly generates natural-sounding speech. They also cover major assistive tech updates, including new audiobook support for the Mantis Q40 and Victor Reader Stream 3, plus APH's discount on Studio Recorder.The conversation shifts to breaking news: Agiga delays its EchoVision glasses due to hardware issues, Meta expands its Ray-Ban smart glasses lineup, and Google hints at new smart speakers alongside Gemini for Home. Listeners Ken and Scout weigh in on the accessibility of Linux distros like Accessible Coconut, while others share questions on keyboards and Mac VoiceOver shortcuts.With humor, honesty, and practical advice, this episode captures the evolving landscape of accessible tech and the community's role in shaping it.Chapters0:00 – Intro and Inbox banter6:45 – Google event critique and presentation style14:22 – Agiga EcoVision glasses delay22:30 – Meta Ray-Bans & transition lenses explained31:00 – Google Gemini for Home smart speaker rumors44:10 – Updates: Mantis Q40, Victor Reader Stream, Braille devices51:20 – APH Studio Recorder anniversary discount55:05 – Robin Christopherson demo: Chatterbox TTS voice cloning1:11:40 – Listener emails: Accessible Linux (Ken & Scout)1:23:15 – Keyboard accessibility questions1:32:00 – Mac VoiceOver shortcut issue1:38:15 – Wrap-up and sign-off Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

20250821 I Love Braille Originally Broadcasted August 21, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Diane Scalzi was our polestar for the month of August. She shared her experience with learning and using braille.   Sponsored by: East Bay Center for the Blind Access Archives Email Vileen Shah     Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

Feel like not enough people are talking about this. So we're breaking down the prophetic new EP from Tyson Motsenbocker, Minor Love, and how it addressesur modern problems with the Internet and social media.Support me on Patreon and watch The Bonus Tracks at: https://www.patreon.com/c/imcliffordtodayWant your music on our Spotlight segment? Submit it here:https://forms.gle/YFsEUTjcVku1h1aTANew Sherwood Forest music!New single "Feed My Lambs" featuring Saint of Pine Hills: https://sherwoodforest.bandcamp.com/track/feed-my-lambsThe Wingfeather Saga: Season One Commentary: https://cliffordclose.bandcamp.com/album/the-wingfeather-saga-season-one-commentaryMy first line of merch! https://im-clifford-today.myspreadshop.com/New episode every other Monday 12pm CST.Follow the I'm Clifford Today Show on any podcast platform! https://anchor.fm/imcliffordtodayFollow me on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/imcliffordtodayMy clips and highlights channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ImClippordToday My gaming channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH0vEbkItCajSezxh3JjejwCheck out the Podwood Forecast! https://anchor.fm/podwoodforecastCheck out my "Cliff's Picks" Spotify playlist!https://open.spotify.com/playlist/137H5LBYkA9GX4Jqq7vk0s?si=aa64e4163083420fLeave a like and a comment! Subscribe for more content like this: https://www.youtube.com/ImCliffordTodayFollow my X: www.x.com/imcliffordtodayLike my Book of Faces: https://www.facebook.com/imcliffordtoday[00:00:00] – Introduction[00:00:38] – Housekeeping[00:17:52] – Introduction to Tyson Motsenbocker[00:27:18] – Minor Love[00:36:12] – Nathan 1[00:46:46] – SPOTLIGHT[00:47:57] – Nathan 2[01:34:17] – I Don't Want To Be On the Internet Anymore[01:44:22] – My Humble Opinion: Visitor Pass, Lily Zappin, The Rocky Valentines, Anchor & Braille[02:12:14] – Outro

Jackie gets her sphincter lasered, creates a fake Instagram for her husband, and has the harsh realization that she may never see Cheryl again.Thanks for supporting my sponsors!Hero Bread: Use code JACKIE at checkout to get 10% off your order at www.hero.coHungryroot: For a limited time get 40% off your first box plus a free item in every box for life at www.Hungryroot.com/bitchbibleLittle Spoon: Enter code BIBLE at checkout to get 30% off your first order at www.LittleSpoon.com/BIBLERitual: Get 25% off your first month at www.ritual.com/BIBLESKIMS: Shop my favorite bras and underwear at www.SKIMS.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We were very fortunate to have Anchor & Braille on the podcast to talk about his new album, "New Mexico". Enjoy! Anchor & Braille Socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anchorbraille/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anchorandbraille/ Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/anchor-braille/268914349 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0ofu3spkMmDV3INNoMtXbM Grab some GNP Merch!: https://goodnoisepodcast.creator-spring.com/ Check out the recording gear we use: https://www.amazon.com/shop/goodnoisepodcast Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/goodnoisepodcast Good Noise Podcast Socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodnoisepodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goodnoisepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@goodnoisepodcast Discord: https://discord.gg/nDAQKwT YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFHKPdUxxe1MaGNWoFtjoJA Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/04IMtdIrCIvbIr7g6ttZHi All other streaming platforms: https://linktr.ee/goodnoisepodcast Bandcamp: https://goodnoiserecords.bandcamp.com/

20250814 I Love Braille Originally Broadcasted August 14, 2025, on ACB Media 5 Under the title "I have a question", participants asked and answered braille-related questions. It was quite an interactive session. Sponsored by: East Bay Center for the Blind Access Archives Email Vileen Shah Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

Retrouvez la boutique LEGEND ➡️: https://shop.legend-group.fr/Merci à Ninon d'être venue témoigner sur LEGEND Story. Elle est devenue aveugle à 17 ans après un grave accident de cheval. Elle a dû réapprendre à vivre entièrement avec la cécité, tout en continuant ses études. Elle raconte aujourd'hui ses difficultés, son parcours et les défis quotidiens qu'elle surmonte.Retrouvez Ninon sur Instagram ➡️: https://www.instagram.com/ninon_forget_rider/?hl=frRetrouvez l'interview complète sur YouTube ➡️ Pour toutes demandes de partenariats : legend@influxcrew.comRetrouvez-nous sur tous les réseaux LEGEND !Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/legendmediafrInstagram : https://www.instagram.com/legendmedia/TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@legendTwitter : https://twitter.com/legendmediafrSnapchat : https://t.snapchat.com/CgEvsbWVx Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

In this inspiring podcast, Kopila Tamang shares her remarkable journey of losing her eyesight in early childhood and how she bravely accepted her hard reality. Despite the challenges, she learned Braille and adapted to school life with determination and resilience. Kopila opens up about her childhood in a hostel, the supportive and sometimes difficult interactions with family and society, and how societal perceptions towards blind individuals affected her experience. She demonstrates how she writes using the slate tool and candidly discusses her exam preparation and SEE exam experience. Kopila also talks about her study routine, future ambitions, and how she learned to use a computer, which empowered her further. Beyond academics, Kopila reveals her passion for singing, sharing a beautiful moment singing on the podcast. Her story is a powerful message of hope, perseverance, and breaking barriers for visually impaired students. This video is a must-watch for anyone interested in stories of courage, education, and overcoming adversity. Join us as Kopila Tamang inspires us all with her resilience, optimistic outlook, and determination to succeed despite her blindness. Keywords: losing eyesight, Braille learning, blind student, SEE exam experience, study routine, social perception, future ambitions, overcome adversity, blind education, Kopila Tamang.

Discover how a robot vacuum is redefining home cleaning—and why a new AI shopping tool could change how blind users browse and buy online.In this lively episode, Steven and Shaun marvel at Roborock's innovative vacuum cleaner that doesn't just clean—it picks up after itself using a robotic arm. Thanks to OmniDescriber, listeners get a narrated demo of the vacuum's sock-fetching abilities, sparking both amusement and serious conversation about the potential of robotic assistive tech in the home. Ashley Wu from RoboRock speaks to our Marc Aflalo about the company and its products.The show then turns to a deep dive into InnoSearch with CEO and co-founder Patrick Long, who introduces their latest AI-powered upgrade, CoBrowse AI. This new tool allows users to navigate the InnoSearch website using voice commands, making online shopping more accessible and intuitive for blind and low-vision users. Patrick also shares insights into broader applications for the technology, including voice-based navigation for seniors and people with mobility challenges.Listener emails explore creative approaches to reading quiz questions with VoiceOver, and actor Ryan Kelly from The Archers shares his script-reading workflow—offering real-world perspective on balancing Braille, screen readers, and accessibility devices like the Victor Reader Stream and SensePlayer.A heartfelt discussion about living with vision loss, guilt around not using Braille daily, and the importance of validating all lived experiences rounds out the show. Plus, the hosts revisit the value of multi-line Braille displays, like the Canute from Bristol Braille.Chapters00:00 - Introduction01:07 - Steven plays with OmniDescriber01:32 - RoboRock is a smart robot vacuum with the ability to lift things out of its way02:31 - Audio described video explaning how RoboRock works in practice05:55 - Ashley Wu from RoboRock talks to Marc Aflalo about the company and its products13:30 - Listener Paul helps Shaun with Reaper and asks about the best way for a blind person to host a quiz night16:46 - Listener Ryan talks about how he reads his scripts for his role in The Archers25:16 - Listener Cyndra gets in touch for the very first time with lots of thoughts30:53 - Introudction31:14 - Patrick Long from Innosearch joins the guys to discuss a new way to browse the site52:41 - Listener Darran gets in touch to briefly give a mention to Bristol Braille Canute Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

In this final episode of Season 5, and the last chapter of our mini-series on diversity, equity and inclusion in wine, Janina sits down with the incredible Aidy Smith – award-winning broadcaster, content creator, drinks educator and the only global TV host living with Tourette's Syndrome. He's also the founder of Drinklusive and a powerful advocate for representation, empathy, and accessibility in the wine world. Aidy brings his signature energy and honesty to this conversation, sharing his path into wine and the moments that shaped his mission. From supermarket favourites and wine hacks to wineries doing amazing work in inclusion – this episode is heartfelt, informative and a perfect way to close the season. You'll also discover: [03:32] – Aidy's first step into the drinks world (in a crumpled suit and a glass of Napa Cabernet!) [06:26] – Link back to Episode 46 and his love for California wine [07:46] – How Tourette's, ADHD and being openly gay shaped his career in wine [14:45] – Why good intentions and asking questions are key to progress [17:28] – The most under the radar wine region: Patagonia, Argentina [21:00] – Bodega Otronia and its icy anti-frost system and Bodega Chacra and their Pinot and Chardonnays [22:39] – Beginner-friendly supermarket recommendation: Diablo Dark Red £9 with nectar Sainsburys [24:27] – How to expand your palate with Kadette Cape blend by Kanonkop (South Africa) £13.50 Sainsburys [26:22] – The importance of transparency on winery websites [29:06] – Favourite hot weather wine: white wines from Plaimont, Southwest France [30:24] – Wine hack: always pack a corkscrew in your toiletries bag [31:11] – What is Drinklusive and how it empowers new voices in wine [39:17] – Advice for wineries wanting to be more inclusive [43:57] – Janina's shoutout to Michel Chapoutier (First producer to put Braille on labels) and tasting their Saint-Péray £20 mix 6 Majestic [44:47] – Champagne Telmont, sustainability and inclusivity focus [49:17] – Final reflections: what Aidy has learned and what still needs to change Follow Aidy on Instagram

En este nuevo episodio presentamos y comenzamos a descubrir juntos la nueva línea Braille B.Note de la empresa francesa Eurobraille. En este primer episodio dedicado a la misma, hacemos una descripción del dispositivo y proporcionamos una panorámica general. Si queréis poneros en contacto conmigo podéis escribirme a la dirección de correo electrónico mariagarciagarmendia@gmail.com

Thanks to Turtleback Low Vision for sponsoring this episode of Double Tap. As a thank you to the Double Tap community, Turtleback is offering 12% off your entire order with promo code DT12. Visit https://www.turtlebacklv.com to shop the full lineup!Can blind people access new AI-powered video description apps independently? Steven and Shaun break down tools like Omnidescriber, Vidiscribe, and Pickybot—and debate the barriers around braille literacy, tech pricing, and whether a screen reader might serve you better in the long run.In this Friday edition of Double Tap, Steven and Shaun get into everything from public tech etiquette to powerful new tools for blind users looking to access video content. Shaun shares a personal story involving his Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, while Steven reveals his own “blind card” moments in public spaces. The two reflect on when—and how—using screen readers, voiceover, or audible notifications should be kept private.The core of the episode dives into video description software. Steven details his experience with Omnidescriber, a fully accessible Windows app that uses Gemini and OpenAI APIs to generate audio descriptions for videos. They also touch on Vidiscribe, Pickybot, and even the video feature in Seeing AI—comparing their functionality and accessibility pros and cons.The episode rounds out with powerful listener emails. One listener shares their excitement about learning braille and how tools like ChatGPT can now generate downloadable braille files. Another raises an important issue: are revolutionary tactile graphic devices like the Monarch really solving accessibility problems—or simply pricing people out?Steven and Shaun confront uncomfortable questions: Should braille training be more available through public education? Are braille advocates overselling its workplace value? And in the end, is learning a screen reader more practical for blind users than investing thousands in braille tech?Chapters00:00 - Introduction10:22 - Listener asks about apps that audio describe video content25:47 - Listener Dave asks how to find Double Tap on AntennaPod and how to use a computer without a mouse31:52 - Get in touch with Double Tap33:56 - Listener Trevor on various topics including the importance of braille45:36 - Listener Dan on tech that often feels so out of reach Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

En ce mois d'août 2025, et comme chaque année, nous faisons une pause avec les Hebdoxytudes, nos podcasts hebdomadaires sur l'actualité des nouvelles technologies et de l'accessibilité. Et pour vous faire patienter jusqu'à notre rentrée début septembre, nous vous proposons un jeu concours qui se déroule sur les 5 vendredis de ce mois d'août. Nous vous proposons des interviews chacun des vendredi d'août en remplacement de nos Hebdoxytudes. Pour chacune de ces interviews, nous posons une question en rapport avec son contenu. Interview 2 - Les nouvelles technologies et l'enseignement du braille Christelle et Éri, deux enseignants braille, abordent dans ce podcast l'apport des nouvelles technologies dans l'enseignement du braille. Les sponsors et les lots en jeu Les sponsors suivantes ont répondu favorablement à notre sollicitation pour vous offrir des lots qui vous seront utiles. Nous les remercions pour leur première ou pour leur énième participations ! Accessolutions - Accessoires et matériel pour malvoyant et aveugle Accessolutions offre : Un lecteur et enregistreur d'étiquettes vocal pour personnes aveugles PennyTalks, valeur : 175 €. Une montre parlante et en gros caractères à deux boutons pour personnes mal et non-voyantes, valeur 59,90 €. Une montre uniquement parlante à trois boutons pour personnes non-voyantes, valeur 59,90 €. Le site de Accessolutions. Didactiweb - Les formations adaptées aux déficients visuels Didactiweb offre un an d'accès à l'ensemble de ses formations en ligne, valeur : 125 €. Pour le cas où le gagnant serait déjà abonné, il pourra en faire cadeau à quelqu'un de son entourage. Le site de Didactiweb. JM Services - Matériels pour personnes âgées et déficientes visuelles JM Service offre une montre Porte clef parlant blanc avec date et heure, valeur : 19,50 €. Le site de JM Service Okeenea - Leader de l'accessibilité Okeenea, spécialiste des balises sonores et de la mobilité offre 5 exemplaires de sa télécommande de dernière génération pour feux et balises sonores, valeur 25 € chacune. Le site de Okeenea. Sonar Vision - Application de guidage conçue pour les personnes déficientes visuelles Sonar Vision offre 3 abonnements annuels “découverte”, valeur 150 € chacun. Le site de Sonar Vision. Notre podcast Interview : SonarVision, une application de guidage piéton précise à 1 mètre. Voxiweb - L'Internet accessible à tous Voxiweb offre un an d'abonnement à ses services en ligne, valeur : 99 €. Le site de Voxiweb. L'équipe d'Oxytude L'équipe d'Oxytude offre : Un SSK SSD Externe 250Go, valeur : 40 €. Un Détecteur de Portefeuille,Carte AirTag avec Blocage RFID,Rechargeable par USB,étanche IP67,Fonctionne avec Apple Find My., valeur : 25 €. Le jeu Chaque vendredi du mois d'août 2025, une question en rapport avec l'interview publiée en podcast ce jour-là vous sera posée sur la page de celui-ci sur le site Oxytude.org.. Pour soumettre une réponse, il faut remplir le formulaire ci-après avec nom ou pseudonyme, adresse email et la réponse à la question de la page. A noter qu'une seule réponse par adresse email et par question sera prise en compte. Il sera possible de répondre aux différentes questions jusqu'au 3 septembre 2025 inclus. A la fin des 5 semaines, pour attribuer les lots, un tirage au sort sera effectuer parmi les personnes qui auront répondu correctement au plus de questions. Ce tirage au sort sera réalisé lors de l'enregistrement de l'Hebdoxytude du 4 septembre 2025, publication le vendredi 5 septembre 2025. Question 2 Quel est le nom de l'outil d'apprentissage du braille, développé par Éric et utilisé dans leur enseignements par Christelle et Éric, imprimé en 3D, qui combine relief et contraste élevé en blanc et noir, adapté aux aveugles et aux malvoyants ? cliquable texte

https://pneumasolutions.com/ Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

20250807 I Love Braille Originally Broadcasted August 7, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Our guest speaker of the month, Kathy Keck spoke on Loving Touch Connection and explained how she got involved in designing braille gifts for the blind and visually impaired.   Sponsored by: East Bay Center for the Blind Access Archives Email Vileen Shah     Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

For the final episode in our Audiofeed interview episodes, we're joined by artist Zane Vickery. Zane gets into his life and what led him to getting into music and the compelling story behind the writing of his latest album, Interloper. Plus, a lot of other really cool things!Check out Zane's music! https://www.zanevickery.com/Support me on Patreon and watch The Bonus Tracks at: https://www.patreon.com/c/imcliffordtodayWant your music on our Spotlight segment? Submit it here:https://forms.gle/YFsEUTjcVku1h1aTANew Sherwood Forest music!New single "Feed My Lambs" featuring Saint of Pine Hills: https://sherwoodforest.bandcamp.com/track/feed-my-lambsThe Wingfeather Saga: Season One Commentary: https://cliffordclose.bandcamp.com/album/the-wingfeather-saga-season-one-commentaryMy first line of merch! https://im-clifford-today.myspreadshop.com/New episode every other Monday 12pm CST.Follow the I'm Clifford Today Show on any podcast platform! https://anchor.fm/imcliffordtodayFollow me on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/imcliffordtodayMy clips and highlights channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ImClippordToday My gaming channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH0vEbkItCajSezxh3JjejwCheck out the Podwood Forecast! https://anchor.fm/podwoodforecastCheck out my "Cliff's Picks" Spotify playlist!https://open.spotify.com/playlist/137H5LBYkA9GX4Jqq7vk0s?si=aa64e4163083420fLeave a like and a comment! Subscribe for more content like this: https://www.youtube.com/ImCliffordTodayFollow my X: www.x.com/imcliffordtodayLike my Book of Faces: https://www.facebook.com/imcliffordtoday[00:00:00] – Introduction[00:07:42] – INTERVIEW: Zane Vickery[00:26:40] – SPOTLIGHT[00:27:42] – INTERVIEW: Zane Vickery (cont.)[01:07:31] – Housekeeping[01:11:49] – My Humble Opinion: Visitor Pass, Lily Zappin, The Rocky Valentines, Anchor & Braille[01:53:52] – Outro

Learn how to navigate Amazon Kindle with JAWS for Windows. This episode covers opening the Kindle for PC app, managing your library, using search and filters, downloading books, and reading content with JAWS commands. Plus, discover tips for using the Kindle Store, syncing devices, and creating a smoother reading experience with both speech and Braille.

In this compelling episode of Think Inclusive, host Tim Villegas engages in an enlightening conversation with Elizabeth Bonker, a prominent advocate for non-speaking individuals. Elizabeth shares her inspiring journey of becoming a voice for non-speakers through typing. Despite the communication barriers she faced, Elizabeth emerged as a powerful force in advocating for inclusivity in education and society. Elizabeth discusses the challenges non-speaking students encounter in schools, particularly the prevalent resistance to recognize typing as a legitimate communication method. She compares typing to Braille for the blind or sign language for the deaf, advocating for its integration into educational settings as a civil rights issue. The episode delves into Elizabeth's personal experiences, emphasizing the significant impact of presuming competence. She underscores the necessity of educational reform to facilitate access to typing for non-speakers, advocating for a shift in perception that acknowledges their potential. Complete show notes and transcript: https://mcie.org/think-inclusive/podcast-episode-template-title/

20250731 I Love Braille Originally Broadcasted July 31, 2025, on ACB Media 5   Our guest speaker, Nafisa Keels, presented on "What AI can and cannot do with regard to Braille.   Sponsored by: East Bay Center for the Blind Access Archives Email Vileen Shah     Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co

This week on the show, Rob, Ryan, and Lis are joined by the multi-talented Tamara Vandendool Cable who is a musician, educator, disability advocate, and the creative force behind Unsightly Opinions and Odyssey Music. Tamara shares her journey from academia to advocacy, opening up about the challenges of creating meaningful, accessible content about her lived experiences. A passionate champion for accessible music education, Tamara also shines a light on the barriers students with disabilities face in learning music, highlighting the limitations of tools like music Braille and makes a compelling case for affordable, innovative solutions that can empower all learners. Show Transcript https://atbanter.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/at-banter-podcast-episode-434-tamara-vandendool.pdf Show Notes Unsightly Opinions https://www.unsightlyopinion.com/ Odyssey Music https://odysseymusic.ca/ AT Banter is brought to you by Canadian Assistive Technology, providing sales and training in Assistive Technology and Accessibility with over 30 years of knowledge and experience. Visit them online at www.canasstech.com or call toll-free 1-844-795-8324 or visit their Assistive Technology Showroom at 106 – 828 West 8th Avenue, Vancouver. Need repairs on your device? Chaos Technical Services offers service and support on almost any piece of Assistive Technology, while also providing parts and batteries. Visit them online at www.chaostechnicalservices.com or call 778-847-6840.

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie sits down with Kassy Maloney—Orientation and Mobility Specialist and founder of the Society of Exceptional Educators—to talk about what SLPs really need to know when working with students who have visual impairments. Kassy shares practical, real-world tips for adapting your lessons (even if you don't have braille or fancy tools), why collaboration with TVIs and O&Ms is a game-changer, and how small changes—like saying your name when entering a room—can make a big difference. If supporting students with visual impairments has ever felt intimidating, this convo will leave you feeling more equipped, more connected, and ready to jump in—no braille training required.Bullet Points to Discuss: Just got a student with a visual impairment on your caseload? Here's what to know before you start stressing.Easy ways to adapt your lessons and keep students engaged—no Braille expertise needed.Common faux pas when working with visually impaired students (we've all been there!)—plus what to do instead.Here's what we learned: Reach out to the TVI and O&M specialist early—they can give you quick tips that save tons of guesswork.Always say your name when entering or leaving—it's a small habit that builds connection and clarity.Use real objects to bring concepts to life—it's faster, easier, and more effective than trying to reinvent your whole lesson.Skip hand-over-hand guidance—offer your arm and talk them through it instead.Build in more wait time than you think they need—it's not hesitation, it's processing.Check for background knowledge—they might be missing basic concepts most kids learn through sight.Don't guess on tactile tools—talk to the TVI to make sure your adaptations match their learning style.No need to avoid words like “see” or “look”—natural language is fine.You don't need to learn braille—just focus on clear input, creative supports, and collaboration.Learn more about Kassy Maloney: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kassandra-maloney-6b815844 Website: https://www.exceptionaleducators.us YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@exceptionaleducators Instagram: https://instagram.com/exceptionaleducators.us Facebook: https://facebook.com/exceptionaleducators.us 5 Key Strategies to Every Educator Needs to Support Students with Visual Impairments (Quick PDF Guide)Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

Why is braille still undervalued in 2025? In this powerful conversation, Steven Scott welcomes accessibility leader Dave Williams to discuss his journey from RNIB to DOT, a company creating a new type of braille tech, and the cultural barriers still holding blind people back. From leadership gaps to breakthrough devices like the Dot Pad X, this episode offers deep insights into blind empowerment, inclusive design, and the state of accessible technology today.Steven Scott is joined by longtime accessibility advocate and technologist Dave Williams for an in-depth discussion on braille literacy, blind leadership, and new innovations in tactile technology. Dave shares why he left RNIB after six years to focus on braille full-time with DOT, the South Korean company behind the Dot Pad—one of the most advanced multiline braille and tactile graphics displays available.The episode dives deep into systemic issues affecting blind people, from infantilization to the lack of blind people in leadership roles. Dave argues that lived experience must be more than a buzzword—it should mean direct, daily experience of blindness. Together, they reflect on challenges within the charity sector, mentorship, and representation, and why blind people must be empowered to speak for themselves.Later, the two geek out one the upcoming Dot Pad X, comparing it to Humanware's Monarch and evaluating trade-offs in price, compatibility, and design philosophy. Dave also previews his new podcast, Raising the Dots, focused on braille and tactile literacy.Chapters00:00 - Introduction01:06 - Dave Williams from Dot joins the show!01:50 - Dave talks about leaving RNIB05:19 - Dave's thoughts on RNIB's position on braille11:22 - Dave and Steven discuss the role of blind leadership18:45 - The value of the blind community25:29 - The challenge of getting stuck in our own little boxes30:00 - Get in touch with the Double Tappers30:23 - Dave talks about previously taking over RNIB Tech Talk41:37 - Dave talks about the Dot Pad X Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

Can blind people solve the Rubik's Cube? Yes—and Paul Martz is proof. In this episode, Steven Scott interviews the author of Solve It, a fully accessible speedcubing guide for blind users. You'll also hear listener feedback on guide dog life, choosing the right headphones for Braille displays, and the complexities of blind navigation.This episode is supported by Pneuma Solutions. Creators of accessible tools like Remote Incident Manager and Scribe. Get $20 off with code dt20 at https://pneumasolutions.com/ and enter to win a free subscription at doubletaponair.com/subscribe!While Shaun Preece takes a short sick leave, Steven welcomes author and blind tech enthusiast Paul Martz to the show. Paul shares his journey with RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa), switching from programming to writing, and what led him to create the first screen reader- and Braille-friendly Rubik's Cube speed-solving guide: Solve It.Paul explains why he believes blind users already have the memory and tactile skills needed to master the cube—and how his book is helping bring a new community of “tactile cubers” together. He also dives into Mac vs. Windows accessibility, screen reader comparisons, and why VoiceOver on macOS still frustrates many blind users.The episode also features listener emails about guide dog experiences, challenges with canes and chronic pain, and how a simple coffee meeting can become a mental gymnastics routine for blind people. Steven also offers low-latency headphone recommendations for the Mantis Q40 Braille display.Chapters00:00 - Introduction00:22 - Shaun's off sick!!02:41 - Listener Kevin asks what headphones to buy for the Mantis Q4008:30 - Listener Frank on having a guide dog15:55 - Listener Leannda on blind curiosity18:32 - Sponsor: Pneuma Solutions19:34 - Subscribe to the Double Tap newsletter21:01 - Paul Martz talks Mac, Windows & Rubix CubesGet in touch with us by email at feedback@doubletaponair.com or connect on WhatsApp at https://www.doubletaponair.com/whatsapp Find Double Tap online: YouTube, Double Tap Website---Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedin Subscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheart About Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited. "Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc.

This week, Mike Munzenrider, and Patrick Kigongo, speak with Max Harrison-Caldwell about the piece he co-wrote for the San Francisco Standard about Braille's rise and fall along with Aaron Kyro's rise as a religious leader. Listen here and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

7:40 - Table Of Content, Episode Topic Breakdown. - Sarah is feeling extra tough today because her testosterone levels are through the roof and people think Susie looks like a villain, so we're quite the pair. Hear what traits you need to be perceived as cool. We have a new catchphrase and we think it's super book (you heard us). People are getting AI Avatars of their family members to talk to them after they die, and we see a few issues with this form of grieving. We debate which animals are the gayest (shoutout to flamingos). Susie watched visually impaired kids compete in a Braille reading competition, and she explains why Braille is a dying language. We hear what pretty much every famous man is doing to avoid going bald, but we think they're nuts because bald is beautiful.00:27 - Sarah's Testosterone levels are off the charts!3:39 - Drama from the comment section.7:40 - Table Of Content, Episode Topic Breakdown.10:45 - Susie's favorite food delivery is HungryRoot.13:28 - Science can tell us what it takes to be "cool".25:06 - Our favorite hair partner. Nutrafol. 26:44 - AI Avatars of people who have passed away.33:17 - Need help with your lived experience? Try Betterhelp.35:25 - Statistics on which children's picture book characters are traditionally male, or female.44:28 - Susie's favorite glasses. Pair Eyewear.46:20 - Grenfell Uncovered Netflix documentary. The tragic fire in a UK block of flats.54:01 - Is the use of braille fading away with the rise of audio technology?59:01 - Male baldness. They're all doing it!1:02:59 - If men had flippity sloppity body parts, the'd find a solution! #SUSIERANTSBrain Candy Podcast Website - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/Brain Candy Podcast Book Recomendations - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/books/Brain Candy Podcast Merchendise - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/candy-store/Brain Candy Podcast Candy Club - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/product/candy-club/Brain Candy Podcast Sponsor Codes - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/support-us/Brain Candy Podcast Social Media & Platforms:Brain Candy Podcast LIVE Interactive Trivia Nights - https://www.youtube.com/@BrainCandyPodcast/streamsBrain Candy Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braincandypodcastHost Susie Meister Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susiemeisterHost Sarah Rice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imsarahriceBrain Candy Podcast on X: https://www.x.com/braincandypodBrain Candy Podcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/braincandy (JOIN FREE - TONS OF REALITY TV CONTENT)Brain Candy Podcast Sponsors:Go to https://paireyewear.com and use code BCP for 15% off your first pair. And support the show by mentioning that The Brain Candy Podcast sent you in your post-checkout survey!Get $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to https://nutrafol.com and enter the promo code BRAINCANDYThis episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off their first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/braincandyGet 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life when you go to https://www.hungryroot.com/braincandy and use code BRAINCANDYSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.