Podcast appearances and mentions of mark riccobono

Welcome back to the EPPiC Broadcast! Our latest episode features Mark Riccobono, the President of the National Federation of the Blind. Mark has been a lifelong advocate for those with blindness and low-vision, and today he discusses how important parental rights are for families affected by blindness, sharing stories of how unjustly the child welfare system treats parents who are blind.For more information about the National Federation of the Blind, check out their website here: http://nfb.org/. You can also explore nfb.org/convention, which has information on their National Convention, which is the largest gathering of blind people in the world.The EPPiC Broadcast is hosted by Michael Ramey, president of the Parental Rights Foundation. You can sign up for email alerts to keep yourself informed on parental rights news at https://parentalrightsfoundation.org/get-involved/.Support the show

During his September 2024 Presidential release, National Federation of the Blind President Mark Riccobono announced that Jonathan Mosen has joined the team at the National Federation of the Blind to pursue a range of initiatives in technology, accessibility, and communications. In this special episode, Mark and Jonathan discuss Jonathan's role, and how you can get involved.

In this episode of the PAVECast, we interview Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Tune in to hear President Riccobono's insights on the history of NFB, the advocacy work they do for blind individuals, and how autonomous vehicles can help create more accessible mobility options. President Riccobono also shares the origins of the Blind Driver Challenge, a project initiated by NFB in 2004 to explore the possibility of creating technology that would allow blind individuals to drive independently. We discuss the evolution from blind drivers to driverless cars, and the importance of including blind individuals in the development and testing of AV technology to ensure authenticity and effectiveness. Learn more about the NFB: https://nfb.org/

In this 100th episode of White Canes Connect, Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, joins Lisa and David for a celebratory and insightful discussion. President Riccobono reflects on the podcast's journey, emphasizing its role in amplifying the voices of the blind community and fostering a sense of belonging and empowerment. He shares his journey with blindness, highlighting the transformative impact of finding mentorship and a supportive community within the Federation.  President Riccobono discusses the significance of advocacy, the evolution of technology for the blind, and the importance of challenging societal misconceptions about blindness. Through his narrative, listeners understand the Federation's mission, the value of resilience, and the collective effort to build a more inclusive society.  President Riccobono's passion for baseball shines through his unique experiences with the sport, notably his achievement of throwing out the first pitch at two Major League Baseball games in two different stadiums. As a lifelong baseball fan, this opportunity was more than just a ceremonial gesture; it was a moment of pride and representation for the blind community. He even tells us his choice: Brewers or Orioles. President Riccobono's achievement as the first blind person certified to independently sail a Badger Tech at the University of Wisconsin showcases his pioneering spirit. He explains that one of the tasks to get certified was to capsize the sailboat and then right the boat himself. Show notes at https://www.whitecanesconnect.com/100  Links Mentioned Article written by President Riccobono on the Presidential Release and customary endings: https://web.nfbcal.org/pipermail/brl-monitor/2018/000071.html  Apply for a Jernigan Scholarship to the National Convention in Orlando: https://www.nfbofpa.org/jernigan/  National Convention in Orlando July 3-8. Book it: https://nfb.org/get-involved/national-convention-prep  Connect with President Riccobono On Mastodon: @president@nfb.social, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.a.riccobono, on Personal.ai: https://riccobono.personal.ai/messaging/profile. You can also email him at OfficeofthePresident@nfb.org. An Easy Way to Help the NFB of PA Support the NFB of PA with every purchase at White Cane Coffee Company by going to https://www.whitecanecoffee.com/ref/nfbp. When you use that link to purchase from White Cane Coffee, the NFB of PA earns a 10% commission! Share the link with your family and friends! Listen to Erin and Bob Willman from White Cane Coffee on episode 072 of White Canes Connect. Donate to the NFB of PA If you want to donate to the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania, visit https://www.NFBofPA.org/give/. We Want to Hear Your Story Reach out with questions and comments, or share ideas! We want to hear from you. Call us at (267) 338-4495 or at whitecanesconnect@gmail.com. Follow White Canes Connect Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/white-canes-connect/id1592248709  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1YDQSJqpoteGb1UMPwRSuI  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pablindpodcast   

What does it mean to be blind in the 21st century? How can technology and community help people with low vision and blindness live the life they want? In this episode, Nate Carper talks to Mark Riccobono, the President of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the oldest and largest organization led by blind people in the United States.

As I have always told our guests, our time together is a conversation, not an interview. This was never truer than with our guest this time, Andrew Leland. Andrew grew up with what most people would call a pretty normal childhood. However, as he discovered he was encountering night blindness that gradually grew worse. Back in the 1980s and early 90s, he was not getting much support for determining what was happening with his eyes. He did his own research and decided that he was experiencing retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that first affects peripheral vision and eventually leads to total blindness. I won't spend time discussing Andrew's journey toward how finally doctors verified his personal diagnosis.   Andrew was and is an incredible researcher and thinker. He comes by it naturally. In addition, he is quite a writer and has had material published by The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. He comes by his talents honestly through family members who have been screenwriters and playwrights. Example? His grandfather was Marvin Neal Simon, better known to all of us as Neal Simon.   This year Andrew's first book was published. It is entitled, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. I urge you to get and read it.   Our conversation goes into detail about blindness in so many different ways. I am sure you will find that your own views of blindness will probably change as you hear our discussion. Andrew has already agreed to come on again so we can continue our discussions. I hope you enjoy our time together.     About the Guest:   Andrew Leland's first book is The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. His_ writing has appeared in _The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. From 2013-2019, he hosted and produced The Organist, an arts and culture podcast, for KCRW; he has also produced pieces for Radiolab and 99 Percent Invisible. He has been an editor at The Believer since 2003. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and son.     Ways to connect with Andrew:   Website: https://www.andrewleland.org/   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 also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   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 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. And we're gonna get to have a little bit of all of that today. I get to interview someone who I've talked to a couple of times and met a couple of months ago for the first time, I think the first time at a meeting, Andrew Leland is the author of the country of the blind. And he will tell us about that. And we will have lots of fun things to talk about. I am sure he's been a podcaster. He's an author. Needless to say, he's written things. And I don't know what else we'll see what other kinds of secrets we can uncover. Fair warning, right. So Andrew, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Andrew Leland ** 02:01 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 Well, I really appreciate you coming. Why don't you start by telling us a little about kind of the early Andrew growing up in some of that kind of stuff? Oh, sure. A lot of times go in a galaxy far, far away. Yeah. Right.   Andrew Leland ** 02:18 planet called the Los Angeles. I was born in LA. Yeah. And my parents moved to New York pretty quickly. And they split when I was two. So for most of my childhood, I was kind of bouncing in between, I live with my mom. But then I would go visit my dad on holidays. And my mom moved around a lot. So we were in New York, just outside the city. And then we moved to Toronto for two years, and then back to New York, and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then to California, Southern California. So I lived a lot of places. And that was all before college. And yeah, what can I tell you about young Andrew, I, you know, I always was interested in writing and reading. And I come from a family of writers. My mom is a screenwriter, my grandfather was a playwright. My aunt is a novelist. And so and my dad, you know, remember when I was a kid, he had a column for videography magazine, and has always been super interested in digital technology, you know, from the earliest days of desktop publishing. And he worked for, like early days of USA Network, you know, so like this kind of shared interest that I inherited from my parents of, you know, creativity and media, I guess was one way you could put it, you know, storytelling and sort of like playing around with electronic media. And, you know, I grew up I was born in 1980. So by the time I was an adolescent, the internet was just starting to reach its tendrils into our lives. And I remember my dad bought me a modem. And when I was like, I don't know 14 or something. And I was definitely one of the first kids in my class to have a modem and you know, messing around on message boards and stuff. So that was very influential for me. You know, when it was around that time that I started to notice that I had night blindness, and I kind of diagnosed myself with retinitis pigmentosa on that early web, you know, before the days of WebMD or anything like that, but it just there didn't seem to be a lot of causes for adolescent night blindness. And so I kind of figured it out and then sort of just compartmentalized it like kick that information to the side somewhere dusty corner of my brain and just went about my life and then it wasn't until later my teenage years I'd already done a year in college I think in Ohio where I said you know what, this is getting a little more intrusive and then I've that my mom finally booked me an appointment at a at a real deal, you know, medical retinal Research Center and at UCLA. And then, you know, an actual retinal specialist said, Yep, you've got retina is pigmentosa. You'll you Will, you know, maintain decent vision into middle age and then it'll fall off a cliff. Once again, I just carried that information around for, you know, the next 20 years or so. And I'm 4040 How old am I? Mike? 22 years old? Right? Well, I actually I'm a December baby. So we gotta go, Okay, you got a couple of months to go a 42 year old medicine me. You know, and at this point in my life, you know, I had the, you know, I read about all this in the book, but I have a feeling that, like that part of his diagnosis way back when is coming true, you know, and I feel like, okay, it's all finally happening, and like, it's happening more quickly, but then my current doctor is kind of careful to reassure me that that's not actually happening. And that RP, you know, their understanding of it has evolved since then. And there's like, you know, different genetic profiles, and that, in fact, maybe I might have some residual useful vision for many years to come. But one of the things that I really wrestled with, both in the book and just in my life is the question of, you know, how much to claim to that site and how useful that site really is. And, and, and trying to figure out what, what it means to be blind, if I'm blind, you know, certainly legally blind, you know, I've half got about five or six degrees of, of central vision. You know, and so, so, so my so So, I've left your question behind at this point. But I wrote, I wrote this book, in some ways to answer that question of, like, where I, where I fit into this world of blindness? And am I an outsider, or am I an insider? like at what point do I get to be part of the club and all those really tricky questions that were really bothering me as a person, I got to kind of explore in the form of a book.   Michael Hingson ** 06:52 The interesting thing about what you said in the book, however, concerning Are you an outsider or an insider, Am I blind? Or am I not? is, of course a question that everyone wrestles with. And I personally like the Jernigan definition, have you ever read his article, a definition of blindness?   Andrew Leland ** 07:11 Oh, maybe tell me what he says. So what he says   Michael Hingson ** 07:15 is that you should consider yourself blind from a functional standpoint, when your eyesight decreases to the point where you have to use alternatives to vision to be able to perform tasks. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the residual vision that you have. But what you should do is learn blindness techniques, and learn to psychologically accept that from a blindness standpoint, or from a from a functional standpoint, you are blind, but you do also have eyesight, then there's no reason not to use that. But you still can consider yourself a blind person, because you are using alternatives to eyesight in order to function and do things.   Andrew Leland ** 08:00 Yeah, no, I have heard that from the NFB I didn't realize its source was Jernigan. But I really aspire to live my life that way. You know, I think it's, there are some days when it's easier than others. But, you know, I'm here, learning, you know, practicing Braille, using my white cane every day, you know, like learning jaws and trying to try to keep my screen reader on my phone as much as possible. And it's funny how it becomes almost like a moral mind game that I play with myself where I'm like, okay, like, Wow, it's so much easier to use my phone with a screen reader. Like, why don't I just leave it on all the time, but then inevitably, I get to like a inaccessible website, or like, I'm trying to write and write a text message. And I'm like, Oh, am I really going to like use the rotor to like, go back up, you know, to these words, and so then I turn it back off, and then I leave it off. And I'm just like, constantly messing with my own head and this way, and I've heard from, from folks with ARPI, who are more blind than I am, who have less vision. And there is the sense that like, one relief of even though it's, you know, incontrovertibly, incontrovertibly inconvenient to have less vision, right? Like there's there's certain affordances that vision gives you that shouldn't make life easier. But But one thing that I've heard from these folks is that, you know, that kind of constant obsessing and agonizing over like, how much vision do I have? How much vision am I going to have tomorrow? How am I going to do this, with this much vision versus that much vision? Like when that goes away? It is a bit of a relief I've heard.   Michael Hingson ** 09:28 Yeah, I mean, if it ultimately comes down to you can obsess over it, you can stress about it. What can I do if I lose this extra vision or not? Is is a question but the other side of it is why assume that just because you lose vision, you can't do X or Y. And that's the thing that I think so many people tend to not really deal with. I believe that we have totally an inconsistent and wrong definition of disability. Anyway, I believe that everyone on the planet has a disability. And for most people, the disability is like dependents. And my case from then my way from making that is look at what Thomas Edison did in 1878. He invented the electric light bulb, which allowed people to have light on demand. So they could function in the dark, because they couldn't really function in the dark until they had light on demand, or unless they had a burning stick or something that gave us light. But the reality is, they still had a disability. And no matter how much today we offer light on demand, and light on demand is a fine thing. No, no problem with it. But recognize that still, without that light on demand, if a if a power failure happens or something and the lights go out, sighted people are at least in a world of hurt until they get another source for light on demand. Mm hmm. I was I was invited to actually Kelly and Ryan's Oscar after party to be in the audience this year. So we went to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is fun. I used to go there for NFB of California conventions, a great hotel, man. So we got there about three o'clock on Thursday, on Saturday afternoon, and it was my niece and nephew and I and we were all there. And we just dropped our luggage off. And we're going downstairs when suddenly I heard screaming, and I asked my niece, what's going on. And she said, there's been a power failure in and around the hotel. And I'd love to try to spread the rumor that it was all Jimmy Kimmel trying to get attention. But no one's bought that. But but the but the point is that suddenly people didn't know what to do. And I said, doesn't seem like a problem to me. And you know, it's all a matter of perspective. But we really have to get to this idea that it doesn't matter whether you can see or not. And you pointed out very well, in your book that blindness is not nearly so much the issue psychologically, as is our attitude about blindness? Absolutely.   Andrew Leland ** 11:58 Yeah, I remember I interviewed Mark Riccobono, the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, and he made a very similar point, when we were talking about the nature of accommodations, which is something that I still I'm thinking a lot about is I think it's a very tricky idea. And a very important idea, which I think your your your idea of light dependency gets at, you know, in America, Bono's point was, you know, look, we have the the BR headquarters here in Baltimore, and we pay a pretty hefty electricity bill, to keep the lights on every month, and that, you know, the blind folks who work there, it's not for them, right? It's for all the sighted people who come and visit or work at the at the center. And in some ways, that's a reasonable accommodation, that the NFB is making for the sighted people that they want to be inclusive of right. And so that just even that idea of like, what is a reasonable accommodation? I think you're right, that we think of it as like the poor, unfortunate disabled people who need to be brought back to some kind of norm that's at the center. And there's the kind of reframing that you're doing when you talk about light dependency or that Riccobono is doing when he talks about, you know, his electricity bill, you know, it kind of gives the lie to puts the lie to that, that idea that, that the norm takes precedence. And the reality is that, you know, that we all need accommodations, like you say, and so what's reasonable, is really based on what, what humans deserve, which is which is to be included, and to be, you know, to have access equal access, that   Michael Hingson ** 13:38 ought to be the norm. Jacobus timbre wrote a speech called the pros and cons of preferential treatment that was then paired down to a shorter article called a preference for equality. And I haven't, I've been trying to find it, it's at the NFB center, but it isn't as readily available as I would like to see it. And he talks about what equality is, and he said, equality isn't that you do things exactly the same way it is that you have access and with whatever way you need to the same information. So you can't just say, Okay, well, here's a printed textbook, blind persons that's equal under the law, it's not. And he talks about the fact that we all really should be seeking equality and looking for what will give people an equal opportunity in the world. And that's really the issue that we so often just don't face, like we should. The fact of the matter is, it's a part of the cost of business, in general to provide electricity and lights. It's a part of the cost of business to provide for companies a coffee machine, although it's usually a touchscreen machine, but it's there. It's a cost of doing business to provide desks and computers with monitors and so on. But no one views provide Seeing a screen reader as part of the cost of business and nobody views providing a refreshable Braille display or other tools that might give me an equal opportunity to be a part of society, we don't view those as part of the cost of doing business, which we should, because that's what inclusion is really all about. You know, we don't, we don't deal with the fact or sometimes we do that some people are a whole lot shorter than others. And so we provide ladders or step stools, or whatever. But we don't provide cost of doing business concepts to a lot of the tools that say, I might need or you might need. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 15:37 yeah, it's one thing that I've been thinking about lately is, is really even just the challenge of understanding what those accommodations are. Because, you know, I think I think, practically speaking in the world, you know, you'll, you'll call up a blind person and say, What do you need, you know, like, we're trying to make this art exhibit or this, you know, business or this, you know, HR software accessible, what do you need, you know, and that one blind person might be like, well, I use NVDA, you know, or that one blind person might be low vision, right. And they might be like, I use a screen magnifier. And it's so difficult to understand, like, what the accommodations are, that would be, that would be adequate to cover, like a reasonable sample. And so just like, it's just so much more complicated than it originally seems, you know, when you have a really well meaning person saying, like, we really value diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility. And but then like, the distance between that well meeting gesture, and then actually pulling off something that's fully accessible to a wide swath of the whatever the users are, is just, it's just unfair, quickly, huge. So that's something that I'm thinking about a lot lately is like how to how do you approach that problem?   Michael Hingson ** 16:46 Well, and I think, though, the at least as far as I can tell, I think about it a lot, as well, as I think any of us should. The fact is that one solution doesn't fit everyone, I'm sure that there are people, although I'm sure it's a minority, but there are people who don't like fluorescent lights as well as incandescent lights, and neither of them like other kinds of lighting as compared to whatever. And then you have people epilepsy, epilepsy who can't deal as well, with blinking lights are blinking elements on a webpage, there's there isn't ever going to be least as near as I can tell, one size that truly fits all, until we all become perfect in our bodies. And that's got a ways to go. So the reality is, I don't think there is one solution that fits everyone. And I think that you, you pointed it out, the best thing to do is to keep an open mind and say, Yeah, I want to hire a person who's qualified. And if that person is blind, I'll do it. And I will ask them what they need. You know, an example I could give you is, was it three years ago, I guess, four years ago, now actually, I was called by someone up in Canada, who is a lawyer who went to work for a college. And we were talking about IRA, artificial intelligent, remote assistance, a IRA, you know about IRA, you wrote about it. And she said, you know, a lot of the discovery and a lot of the documentation that I need to use is not accessible through even OCR to be overly accurate, because there will be deep degradations and print and so and so I can't rely on that. And certainly, Adobe's OCR isn't necessarily going to deal with all the things that I need. So I'd like to use IRA is that a reasonable accommodation? And I said, sure it is, if that's what you need in order to be able to have access to the information, then it should be provided. Now the laws are a little different up there. But nevertheless, she went to the college and made the case and they gave her iris so she could read on demand all day, any document that she needed, and she was able to do her job. And not everyone necessarily needs to do that. And hear in probably some quarters, maybe there are other accommodations that people could use instead of using IRA. But still, Ira opened up a VISTA for her and gave her access to being able to do a job and I think that we really need to recognize that one solution doesn't fit everything. And the best way to address it is to ask somebody, what do you need in order to do your job, and we will provide it or work it out. And here in the US, of course, given although they try to renege on it so much, but given the definition of what rehabilitation is supposed to do, they're supposed to be able to and help make people employable. They should be providing a lot of these tools and sometimes getting counselors to do that. Just like pulling teeth, I'm sure you know about that. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 20:02 I do. I do. I mean, it's interesting because I think in the face of that complexity of saying, like, Okay, we like interviewed a dozen blind people, and we like have this we know, our website is it's compatible with all the screen readers. And, you know, this event, like, you know, let's say you're doing an event, and the website is compatible with every screen reader, and it's got dynamic types. So the low vision users are happy, you know, and then the event starts and you're like, oh, wait, we forgot about the existence of deafblind people, and there's no cart, or captioners. Here. And, you know, and then the question for me another another thing I've been thinking about lately is like, how do you respond to that, you know, like, what is the? What is the response? And even just like on a kind of, like, a social level, like, is it scathing indictment, like you, you terrible people, you know, you have you have like, you don't care about deaf blind people. And so I hereby cancel you, and I'm going to, like, tweet about how terrible you are? Or is there like a more benign approach, but then you don't get what you need. And like, sort of, and I think, I think a lot of this is a function of my having grown up without a disability, really, you know, I mean, like, growing up, my I went through my, my full education, without ever having to ask for an accommodation, you know, maybe I had to sit a little closer to the board a little bit. But you know, nothing, nothing like what I'm dealing with now. And I think as a result, I am just now starting to wrap my head around, like, how when self advocates and what styles are most effective. And I think that's another really important piece of this conversation, because it's easy, I think, to walk into, you know, cafe x, or, you know, I just did it the other day, yesterday, last night, I saw this really cool looking new magazine about radio, which was an interest of mine, like great for radio producers. And it was print only, you know, and I wrote like, Hey, how can I get an accessible copy of this cool look in new magazine? And they're like, Oh, actually, we're, we're putting our resources all it were kind of a shoestring operation, all our resources are going into the print edition right now. You know, and then, so then I had a question before me, right? Like, do I say, like, Hey, everybody, like, we must not rest until you agitate for these people to make their accessible thing, or I just sort of wrote a friendly note. And I was like, there's a lot of like, blind radio makers out there who might find your stuff interesting. And I like, affectionately urge you to make this accessible. And then, you know, their hearts seems to be in the right place. And they seem to be working on making it happen. So I don't know what's your what's your thinking about that? Like how to respond to those situations.   Michael Hingson ** 22:34 So my belief is whether we like it or not, every one of us needs to be a teacher. And the fact is to deal with with what you just said, let's take the radio magazine, which magazine is it by the way? Oh, I   Andrew Leland ** 22:51 didn't want to call them out by name. Oh, I'm   Michael Hingson ** 22:52 sorry. I was asking for my own curiosity, being very interested in radio myself. So we   Andrew Leland ** 22:57 give them some good and bad press simultaneously. It's called good tape. Okay, it's brand new. And at the moment, it's as of this recording, it's print only. And,   Michael Hingson ** 23:06 and tape is on the way up a good tape. No, that's okay. Anyway, but no, the reason I asked it was mainly out of curiosity. But look, you you kind of answered the question, their heart is in the right place. And it is probably true that they never thought of it. I don't know. But probably, yeah, they didn't think of it. I've seen other magazines like diversity magazine several years ago, I talked with them about the fact that their online version is totally inaccessible. And they have a print version. But none of its accessible. And I haven't seen it change yet, even though we've talked about it. And so they can talk about diversity all they want, and they talk a lot about disabilities, but they don't deal with it. I think that it comes down to what's the organization willing to do I've, I've dealt with a number of organizations that never thought about making a digital presence, accessible or having some sort of alternative way of people getting to the magazine, and I don't expect everybody to produce the magazine and Braille. And nowadays, you don't need to produce a braille version, but you need to produce an accessible version. And if people are willing to work toward that, I don't think that we should grind them into the ground at all if their hearts in the right place. And I can appreciate how this magazine started with print, which is natural. Yeah, but one of the things that you can do when others can do is to help them see maybe how easy it is to create a version that other people can can use for example, I don't know how they produce their magazine, but I will bet you virtual Anything that it starts with some sort of an electronic copy. If it does that, then they could certainly make that electronic copy a version that would be usable and accessible to the end. And then they could still provide it through a subscription process, there's no reason to give it away if they're not giving it away to other people, but they could still make it available. And I also think something else, which is, as you point out in the book, and the country of the blind, so often, things that are done for us, will help other people as well. So great tape is wonderful. But how is a person with dyslexia going to be able to read it? Yeah, so it isn't just blind people who could benefit from having a more accessible version of it. And probably, it would be worth exploring, even discussing with him about finding places to get funding to help make that happen. But if somebody's got their heart in the right place, then I think by all means, we shouldn't bless them. We should be teachers, and we should help them because they won't know how to do that stuff.   Andrew Leland ** 26:10 Ya know, I love that answer to be a teacher. And I think there was I think there was a teacher Lee vibe in my, in my response to them, you know, like, this is a thing that is actually important and useful. And you ought to really seriously consider doing it. You know, I mean, I think if you think about the how people act in the classroom, you know, it's those kinds of teachers who, you know, who, who correct you, but they correct you in a way that makes you want to follow their correction, instead of just ruining your day and making you feel like you're a terrible person. But it's interesting, because if you, you know, I mean, part of a lot of this is the function of the internet. You know, I see a lot of disabled people out there calling out people for doing things and accessibly. And, you know, I feel I'm really split about this, because I really empathize with the frustration that that one feels like, there's an amazing film called, I didn't see you there by a filmmaker named Reed Davenport, who's a wheelchair user. And the film is really just, like, he kind of he mounts a camera to his wheelchair, and a lot of it is like, he almost like turns his wheelchair into a dolly. And there's these these, like, wonderful, like tracking shots of Oakland, where he lived at the time. And there's this there's this incredible scene where it's really just his daily life, like, you know, and it's very similar to the experience of a blind person, like, he'll just be on a street corner hanging out, you know, in somebody's, like, the light screen, you know, like, what do you what are you trying to do, man, and he's like, I'm just here waiting for my car, my ride, you know, like, leave me alone. You don't need to intervene. But there's this incredible scene where there are some workers in his building are like, in the sort of just sort of unclear like they're working. And there's an extension cord, completely blocking the path, the visible entrance to his apartment, and he can't get into his house. And he's just this, like, the, the depth of his anger is so visceral in that moment. You know, and he yells at them, and they're like, oh, sorry, you know, they kind of don't care, you know, but they like, they're like, just give us a second. And he's like, I don't have a second, like, I need to get into my house. Now. You know, he just has no patience for them. And it's understandable, right? Like, imagine you're trying to get home. And as a matter of course, regularly every week, there's something that's preventing you. And then and then and then you see him when he finally gets back into his apartment. He's just like, screaming and rage. And it's, you know, so that rage I think, is entirely earned. You know, like, I don't I don't think that one one should have to mute one's rage and how and be a kindly teacher in that moment. Right. But, so So yeah, so So I kind of see it both ways. Like, there are moments for the rage. And then I guess there are moments for the mortar teacher like because obviously, like the stakes of me, getting access to good tape magazine are very different than the stakes for read like getting into his apartment. Right?   Michael Hingson ** 28:53 Well, yes and no, it's still access. But the other part about it is the next time, that group of people in whatever they're doing to repair or whatever, if they do the same thing, then they clearly haven't learned. Whereas if they go, Oh, we got to make sure we don't block an entrance. Yeah, then they've learned a lesson and so I can understand the rage. I felt it many times myself, and we all have and, and it's understandable. But ultimately, hopefully, we can come down. And depending on how much time there is to do it, go pick out and say, Look, do you see what the problem is here? Yeah. And please, anytime don't block an entrance or raise it way up or do something because a person in a wheelchair can't get in. And that's a problem. I so my wife always was in a wheelchair, and we were married for two years she passed last November. Just the bye He didn't keep up with the spirit is what I tell people is really true. But I remember we were places like Disneyland. And people would just jump over her foot rests, how rude, you know, and other things like that. But we, we faced a lot of it. And we faced it from the double whammy of one person being in a wheelchair and one person being blind. One day, we went to a restaurant. And we walked in, and we were standing at the counter and the hostess behind the counter was just staring at us. And finally, Karen said to me, well, the hostess is here, I don't think she knows who to talk to, you know, because I'm not making necessarily eye contact, and Karen is down below, in in a wheelchair. And so fine. I said, maybe if she would just ask us if we would like to sit down, it would be okay. And you know, it was friendly, and it broke the ice and then it went, went from there. But unfortunately, we, we, we bring up children and we bring up people not recognizing the whole concept of inclusion. And we we really don't teach people how to have the conversation. And I think that that's the real big issue. We don't get drawn into the conversation, which is why diversity is a problem because it doesn't include disabilities.   Andrew Leland ** 31:16 Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, that seems to be changing. You know, I mean, you have you know, you have a lot more experience in this realm than I do. But But But haven't you felt like a real cultural shift over the last, you know, 2030 years about disability being more front of mind in that conversation?   Michael Hingson ** 31:36 I think it's, it's shifted some. The unemployment rate among employable blind people, though, for example, hasn't changed a lot. A lot of things regarding blindness hasn't really, or haven't really changed a lot. And we still have to fight for things like the National Federation of the Blind finally took the American Bar Association, all the way to the Supreme Court, because they wouldn't allow people to use their technology to take the LSAT. Yeah, lawyers of all people and you know, so things like that. There's, there's so many ways that it continues to happen. And I realized we're a low incidence disability. But still, I think, I think the best way to really equate it. You mentioned in Goldstein in the book, Dan, who I saw, I think, is a great lawyer spoke to the NFB in 2008. And one of the things he talked about was Henry, mayor's book all on fire. And it's about William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist and he was looking for allies. And he heard about these, these two, I think, two ladies, the Grimm case, sisters who were women's suffragettes, and they and he said, Look, we should get them involved. And people said, no, they're dealing with women's things. We're dealing with abolition, it's two different things. And Garrison said, No, it's all the same thing. And we've got to get people to recognize that it really is all the same thing. The you mentioned, well, you mentioned Fred Schroeder and the American Association of Persons with Disabilities at various points in the book. And in 1997. Fred, when he was RSA Commissioner, went to speak to the AAPD talking about the fact that we should be mandating Braille be taught in schools to all blind and low vision kids. And the way he tells me the story, they said, Well, that's a blindness issue. That's not our issue, because most of those people weren't blind. And that's unfortunate, because the reality is, it's all the same thing.   Andrew Leland ** 33:41 Yeah, no, that's something, uh, Dan Goldstein was a really important person for me to meet very early on in the process of writing the book, because I mean, just because he's, he's brilliant. And yeah, such a long history of, of arguing in a very, you know, legalistic, which is to say, very precise, and, you know, method, methodical way. A lot of these questions about what constitutes a reasonable accommodation, you know, as in like, his, his, the lawsuits that he's brought on behalf of the NFB have really broken ground have been incredibly important. So he's, he was a wonderful resource for me. You know, one of the things that he and I talked about, I remember at the beginning, and then, you know, I had lunch with him earlier this week, you know, we still are talking about it. And it's exactly that that question of, you know, the thing that the thing that really dogged me as I pursued, writing this book, and one of the kinds of questions that hung over it was this question of identity. And, you know, like, the sense that like the NFB argues that blindness is not what defines you. And yet, there it is, in their name, the National Federation of the Blind by and like, Where does where does this identity fit? And, you know, and I think that when you talk about other identities like Like the African American civil rights movement, or, you know, you mentioned the suffragette movement, you know, the feminist movement. You know, and it's interesting to compare these other identity based civil rights movements, and the organized by movement and the disability rights movement. And think about the parallels, but then there's also I think, disconnects as well. And so that was one of the things that I was it was really, really challenging for me to, to write about, but I think it's a really important question. And one that's, that's really evolving right now. You know, one of the things that I discovered was that, you know, in addition to the sort of blind or disability rights movement, that's very much modeled on the civil rights model of like, you know, my the first time I went to the NFB convention in 2018, you know, the banquet speech that Mark Riccobono gave was all about the speech of women and the women in the Federation, you know, which, which someone told me afterwards like, this is all new territory for the NFB, like, you know, they don't, there, there hasn't traditionally been this sort of emphasis on, including other identities, you know, and I found that was, I found that interesting, but then also, I was so struck by a line in that speech, where Riccobono said, you know, the fact that they were women is not as important as the fact that they were blind people fighting for, you know, whatever was like the liberation of blindness. And, you know, so it's, there's still always this emphasis on blindness as, like, the most important organizing characteristic of somebody is a part of that movement. And it makes total sense, right, it's the National Federation of the Blind, and they're fighting that 70% unemployment rate. And, you know, I think by their lights, you don't get there by you know, taking your eyes off the prize in some ways. And, and so I was really struck by some of these other groups that I encountered, particularly in 2020, when a lot of the sort of identity right questions came to the fore with the murder of George Floyd, right. You know, and then I was attending, you know, because it was 2020 it was that the convention was online, and I you know, I read it, this is all in the book, I, I went to the LGBT queue meet up, and which, which is also like a shockingly recent development at the NFB, you know, there's this notorious story where President Maher, you know, ostentatiously tears up a card, at a at an NFB convention where there are LGBT. NFB is trying to organize and have an LGBTQ meet up and he sort of ostentatiously tears it up as soon as he reads what's on the card. You know, a lot of still raw pain among NF beers who I talked to about that incident, anyway, like that this this LGBTQ meetup, you know, there's, there's a speaker who's not part of the NFB named justice, shorter, who works in DC, she's, she's blind, you know, and she's part of what is called the, you know, the Disability Justice Movement, which is very much about decentering whiteness, from the disability rights struggle and centering, black, queer, you know, people of color, who are also disabled, and and in some ways, I've found the NFB struggling to, to connect with with that model. You know, I talked to a Neil Lewis, who's the highest ranking black member of the NFV, you know, and he wrote this really fascinating Braille monitor article in the wake of, of George Floyd's death, where he's sort of really explicitly trying to reconcile, like Black Lives Matter movement with live the life you want, you know, with with NFB slogans, and it's, it's a tough thing to do, he has a tough job and trying to do that, because because of the thing, you know, that that I'm saying about Riccobono, right, it's like he is blind is the most important characteristic, or where do these other qualities fit? So it's a very contemporary argument. And it's one that I think the the organized blind movement is still very actively wrestling with.   Michael Hingson ** 39:02 I think it's a real tough thing. I think that blindness shouldn't be what defines me, but it's part of what defines me, and it shouldn't be that way. It is one of the characteristics that I happen to have, which is why I prefer that we start recognizing that disability doesn't mean lack of ability. Disability is a characteristic that manifests itself in different ways to people and in our case, blindness as part of that. For Women. Women is being a woman as part of it for men being a man as part of it for being short or tall, or black or whatever. Those are all part of what defines us. I do think that the National Federation of the Blind was an organization that evolved because, as I said earlier, we're not being included in the conversation and I think that for the Federation and blindness is the most important thing and ought to be the most important thing. And I think that we need to be very careful as an organization about that. Because if we get too bogged down in every other kind of characteristic that defines people, and move away too much from dealing with blindness, we will weaken what the message and the goals of the National Federation of the Blind are. But we do need to recognize that blindness isn't the only game in town, like eyesight isn't the only game in town. But for us, blindness is the main game in town, because it's what we deal with as an organization. Well,   Andrew Leland ** 40:40 how do you reconcile that with the idea that you were talking about before with with, you know, with the argument that like, you know, with the historical example of, you know, it's the same fight the suffragettes and like it because it doesn't that kind of, isn't that kind of contradicting that idea that like, having the intersection of identities, you know, and these movements all being linked by some kind of grand or systemic oppression, you know, so it is it is relevant? Well,   Michael Hingson ** 41:06 it is, yeah, and I'm not saying it any way that it's not relevant. What I am saying, though, is the case of the Grimm case, sisters, he wanted their support and support of other supportive other people, Garrison did in terms of dealing with abolition, which was appropriate, their main focus was women's suffrage, but it doesn't mean that they can't be involved in and recognize that we all are facing discrimination, and that we can start shaping more of our messages to be more inclusive. And that's the thing that that I don't think is happening nearly as much as it ought to. The fact is that, it doesn't mean that blind people shouldn't be concerned about or dealing with LGBTQ or color, or gender or whatever. Yeah. But our main common binding characteristic is that we're all blind men. So for us, as an organization, that should be what we mostly focus on. It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't be aware of and advocate for and fight for other things as well. But as an organization, collectively, the goal really needs to be dealing with blindness, because if you dilute it too much, then you're not dealing with blindness. And the problem with blindness as being a low incidence disability, that's all too easy to make happen. Right?   Andrew Leland ** 42:35 Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting, just thinking about that question of dilution versus strengthening, you know, because I think I think if you ask somebody in the Disability Justice Movement, the dilution happens precisely, with an overemphasis on a single disability, right, and then you lose these like broader coalition's that you can build to, you know, I think I think it comes down to maybe like the way that you are our analysts analyzing the structures of oppression, right, like, right, what is it that's creating that 70% unemployment? Is it something specifically about blindness? Or is it like a broader ableist structure that is connected to a broader racist structure? You know, that's connected to a broader misogynist structure? You know, and I think if you start thinking in those structural terms, then like, coalition building makes a lot more sense, because it's like, I mean, you know, I don't know what kind of political affiliation or what but political orientation to take with us, you know, but certainly the Disability Justice Movement is pretty radically to the left, right. And I think traditionally, the NFB, for instance, has had a lot more socially conservative members and leaders. And so it's, you know, that reconciliation feels almost impossibly vast to to think of like an organization like the NFB taking the kind of like, abolitionist stance that a lot of these disability justice groups take to say, like, actually, capitalism is the problem, right. So yeah, so I mean, the thought experiment only goes so far, like, what like a Disability Justice oriented NFP would look like. But you know, that I think there are young members, you know, and I do think it's a generational thing too. Like, I think there are NF beers in their 20s and 30s, who are really wrestling with those questions right now. And I'm really interested to see what they come up with.   Michael Hingson ** 44:29 I think that the biggest value that the NFB brings overall, and I've actually heard this from some ACB people as well, is that the ENFP has a consistent philosophy about what blindness is and what blindness is. And and that is probably the most important thing that the NFP needs to ensure that it that it doesn't lose. But I think that the whole and the NFP used to be totally As coalition building that goes back to Jernigan and Mauer, although Mauer started to change some of that, and I think it will evolve. But you know, the NFB. And blind people in general have another issue that you sort of brought up in the book, you talk about people who are deaf and hard of hearing, that they form into communities and that they, they have a culture. And we don't see nearly as much of that in the blindness world. And so as a result, we still have blind people or sighted people referring to us and and not ever being called out as blind or visually impaired. But you don't find in the deaf community that people are talking about deaf or hearing impaired, you're liable to be shot. It's deaf or hard of hearing. And yeah, the reality is, it ought to be blind or low vision, because visually impaired is ridiculous on several levels visually, we're not different and impaired. What that's that's a horrible thing to say. But as a as an as a group. I was going to use community, but I but I guess the community isn't, as well formed to deal with it yet. We're not there. And so all too often, we talk about or hear about visually impaired or visual impairment. And that continues to promote the problem that we're trying to eliminate. Mm   Andrew Leland ** 46:22 hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that question of blank community is fascinating. And yeah. And I do think that I mean, you know, from my reading the book, I certainly have found blank community. But, you know, if I really think about it, if I'm really being honest, I think it's more that I've met, it's, you know, my work on the book has given me access to really cool blind people that I have gotten to become friends with, you know, that feels different than, like, welcome to this club, where we meet, you know, on Tuesdays and have our cool like, blind, you know, paragliding meetups, you know, not that not that people aren't doing that, like, then they're a really, you know, I would like to get more if I lived in a more urban center, I'm sure it would be involved in like, you know, the blind running club or whatever, willing to hang out with blind people more regularly, but it doesn't feel like a big community in that way. And it's interesting to think about why. You know, I think one big reason is that it's not, it's not familial, in the same way, you know, Andrew Solomon wrote a really interesting book called far from the tree that gets at this where, you know, like, the when, when, when a child has a different identity than a parent, like, you know, deaf children of hearing adults, you know, there doesn't, there isn't a culture that builds up around that, you know, and it's really like these big deaf families that you have with inherited forms of deafness, or, you know, and then schools for the deaf, that, you know, and with deaf culture in particular, you know, really what we're talking about is language, you know, in sign language, right, creates a whole rich culture around it. Whereas, with hearing blind people, you know, they're more isolated, they're not necessarily automatically you have to, you have to really work to find the other blind people, you know, with, with travel being difficult, it's a lot easier to just like, Get get to the public library to meet up in the first place, and so on. So, yeah, it feels a lot more fractured. And so I think you do see groups more like the NFB or the ACB, who are organizing around political action, rather than, you know, like a culture of folks hanging out going to a movie with open audio description, although, I will say that the weeks that I spent at the Colorado Center for the Blind, you know, which is, you know, you can think of it as like a, you know, it's a training center, but in some ways, it's like an intentional blind community do right where you're like, that's like a blind commune or something. I mean, that is just a beautiful experience, that it's not for everyone in terms of their their training method. But if it is for you, like, wow, like for just such a powerful experience to be in a community, because that is a real community. And it nothing will radically change your sense of what it means to be blind and what it means to be in a black community than then living for a while at a place like that. It was a really transformative experience for me.   Michael Hingson ** 49:11 Do you think that especially as the younger generations are evolving and coming up, that we may see more of a development of a community in the blindness in the blindness world? Or do you think that the other forces are just going to keep that from happening? Well,   Andrew Leland ** 49:30 you know, one of the things that I discovered in writing the book was that, you know, and this is sort of contradicting what I just said, because there there is a blind community. And, you know, I read in the book like, at first I thought that blind techies were another subculture of blindness, like blind birders are blind skateboarders, right. But then the more I looked into it, the more I realized that like being a techie is actually like a kind of a basic feature of being a blind person in the world. You know, and I don't hear if it's 2023 or 1823, you know, because if you think about the problem of blindness, which is access to information, by and large, you know, you basically have to become a self styled information technologist, right? To, to get what you need, whether it's the newspaper, or textbooks or signs, road signs, or whatever else. So. So I do and I do think that like, you know, when my dad was living in the Bay Area in the 90s, you know, when I would go visit him, you know, he was a techie, a sighted techie. And, you know, he would always be part of like, the Berkeley Macintosh user group, just be like, these nerds emailing each other, or, you know, I don't even know if email was around, it was like, late 80s. You know, but people who have like the Mac 512, KS, and they would, they would connect with each other about like, Well, how did you deal with this problem? And like, what kind of serial port blah, blah, blah? And that's a community, right? I mean, those people hang out, they get rise together. And if there's anything like a blind community, it's the blind techie community, you know, and I like to tell the story about Jonathan mosun. I'm sure you've encountered him in your trailer. I know Jonathan. Yeah. You know, so I, when I discovered his podcast, which is now called Living blind, fully blind, fully, yeah. Yeah. I, I was like, oh, okay, here are the conversations I've been looking for, because he will very regularly cover the kind of like social identity questions that I'm interested in, like, you know, is Braille like, is the only way for a blind person to have true literacy through Braille? Or is using a screen reader literacy, you know? Or like, is there such a thing as blind pride? And if so, what is it? I was like? These are the kinds of questions I was asking. And so I was so delighted to find it. But then in order to, in order to get to those conversations, you have to sit through like 20 minutes of like, one password on Windows 11 stopped working when I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11. And so like, what, you know, if you what Jaws command, can I use in and I was like, why is this? Why is there like 20 minutes of Jaws chat in between these, like, really interesting philosophical conversations. And eventually, I realized, like, oh, because that's like, what this community needs and what it's interested in. And so in some ways, like the real blind community is like the user group, which I think is actually a beautiful thing. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 52:14 Well, it is definitely a part of it. And we do have to be information technologists, in a lot of ways. Have you met? And do you know, Curtis Chang,   Andrew Leland ** 52:23 I've met him very briefly at an NFB convention. So Curtis,   Michael Hingson ** 52:28 and I have known each other Gosh, since the 1970s. And we both are very deeply involved in a lot of things with technology. He worked in various aspects of assistive technology worked at the NFB center for a while and things like that, but he always talks about how blind people and and I've heard this and other presentations around the NFB, where blind people as Curtis would put it, have to muddle through and figure out websites. And, and the fact is, we do it, because there are so many that are inaccessible. I joined accessibe two years ago, two and a half years ago. And there are a lot of people that don't like the artificial, intelligent process that accessibe uses. It works however, and people don't really look far enough that we're not, I think, being as visionary as we ought to be. We're not doing what we did with Ray Kurzweil. And look, when the Kurzweil project started with the NFB Jernigan had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it, but Ray was so emphatic. And Jim Gasol at the Washington office, finally convinced kindred again to let him go see, raised machine, but the rules were that it didn't matter what Ray would put on the machine to read it and had to read what Gasol brought up. Well, he brought it did and the relationship began, and it's been going ever since and, and I worked, running the project and the sense on a day to day basis, I traveled I lived out of hotels and suitcases for 18 months as we put machines all over and then I went to work for Ray. And then I ended up having to go into sales selling not the reading machine, but the data entry machine, but I guess I kept to consistently see the vision that Ray was bringing, and I think he helped drag, in some ways the NFB as an organization, more into technology than it was willing to do before. Interesting.   Andrew Leland ** 54:27 Yeah, I heard a similar comment. The one thing I got wrong in the first edition of the book that I'm correcting for subsequent reprints, but I really bungled the description of the Opticon. And my friend, Robert Engel Britton, who's a linguist at Rice University, who collects opera cones. I think he has got probably like a dozen of them in his house. You know, he helped me you know, because I didn't have a chance to use one. Right he helped me get a better version of it. But he also sent me a quote, I think it was from Jernigan was similar thing where like, I think they were trying to get the public I'm included with, you know, voc rehab, so that that students could not voc rehab or whatever like so that students could get blind students could use them. And it was the same thing of like, you know, this newfangled gizmo is not going to help, you know, Braille is what kids need. So I do that, that's all to say that that makes sense to me that resistance to technology, you know, and it's like, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of conservative stance of like, we understand that what blind people need are is Braille and access to, you know, equal access. And don't don't try to give us any anything else. And you know, and I think, to be fair, like, even though the Opticon sounded like an incredibly useful tool, as is, of course, the Kurzweil Reading Machine and everything that followed from it. There. There is, you know, talking, I talked to Josh Meili, for the book, who's who now works at Amazon, you know, he had this great story about his mentor, Bill, Gary, who, who would, who would basically get a phone call, like once a week from a well, very well meaning like retired sighted engineer, who would say like, oh, you know, what the blind need? It's like the laser cane, right? Or the Yeah, it's like, basically like a sippy cup for blind people like so that they don't spill juice all over themselves. And, you know, and Gary would very patiently be like, Oh, actually, they don't think that that would be helpful to do probably, yeah. Talk to a blind person first, maybe before you spend any more time trying to invent something that blind people don't need. So I think that resistance to like newfangled technology, there's a good reason for it. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 56:26 there is but the willingness to take the Opticon. Look, I think the fastest I ever heard of anybody reading with an optical was like 70 or 80 words a minute, and there are only a few people who did that. Yeah. You know, Candy Lynnville, the daughter of the engineer who invented it, could and Sue Mel Rose, who was someone I knew, was able to and a few people were but what the Opticon did do even if it was slow, yeah, it was it still gave you access to information that you otherwise didn't get access to. And, and I had an optic on for a while. And the point was, you could learn to read and learn printed letters and learn to read them. It wasn't fast. But you could still do it. Yeah. And so it, it did help. But it wasn't going to be the panacea. I think that tele sensory systems wanted it to be you know, and then you talked about Harvey Lauer who also develop and was involved in developing the stereo toner, which was the audience since the audio version of the optic comm where everything was represented audio wise, and, and I spent a lot of time with Harvey Harvey at Heinz a long time ago. But the the fact is, I think the question is valid is listening, and so on literacy is literacy, like Braille. And I think there is a difference there is, are you illiterate, if you can't read Braille, you point out the issues about grammar, the issues about spelling and so on. And I think that there is a valid reason for people learning Braille at the Colorado Center, they would tell you, for senior blind people, you may not learn much Braille, but you can learn enough to be able to take notes and things like that, or, or put labels on your, your soup cans, and so on. So it's again, going to be different for different people. But we are in a society where Braille has been so de emphasized. And that's the fault of the educational system for not urging and insisting that more people be able to use Braille. And that's something that we do have to deal with. So I think there is a literacy problem when people don't learn braille. But I also think that, again, there are a lot of things that Braille would be good for, but using audio makes it go faster. It doesn't mean you shouldn't learn braille, though, right? Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 58:51 no, it's another I think it's interesting. And it's a related idea, this, this sense that technology, you know, this like, just sort of wave your hands and say the word technology as a sort of panacea, where I think, you know, it's, it's a tragic story where, where people will say, Oh, well, you know, little Johnny has, you know, some vision. So like, he could just use technology, like he doesn't need Braille. And it's fascinating to me, because I never really felt it. And maybe it's because I encountered Braille at a point in my development as a blind person that I really was hungry for it. But, you know, people talk about Braille the way they talked about the white cane, like the white cane, I felt so much shame about using in public, and it's such, it's just so stigmatized, whereas Braille, I just always thought it was kind of cool. But you know, you hear it so much from parents where they it's just like their heartbreak seeing their child reading with their fingers, which is, you know, and so as a result, they're like, why don't I just buy like a gigantic magnifier, that maybe in five years, you're not gonna be able to use anyway, but like, at least you're reading the same type of book that   Michael Hingson ** 59:56 half hour or 45 minutes until you start getting headaches. Exactly. And that, you know, I worked on a proposal once. I was an evaluator for it. We were in a school in Chicago, and one of the teachers talked about Sally who could see and Johnny, who was totally blind, literally, it was Sally and Johnny. And she said, Sally gets to read print, Johnny has to read Braille. Sally couldn't read print very fast. her eyesight wasn't good. Yeah, she got to read print. And Johnny had to read Braille. Yeah, it's the kind of thing that we we see all the time. And it's so unfortunate. So yeah, I, I do understand a lot of the technology resistance. But again, people like Ray helped us vision a little differently. But unfortunately, getting that conversation to other people, outside of the NFB community, like teachers and so on, is so hard because so many people are looking at it from a science point of view and not recognizing it as it should be. The the NFB did a video that did it. Several, they have had a whole series of things regarding Braille. But they interviewed a number of people who had some residual vision, who were never allowed to learn to read Braille. And invariably, these people say how horrible it was that they didn't get to learn to read Braille, they learned it later. And they're, they're reading slower than they really should. But they see the value of it. And it's important that we hopefully work to change some of those conversations. Yeah,   Andrew Leland ** 1:01:33 I mean, it gets back to our earlier in our conversation a

Send us a Text Message.Live the life you want!  Blindness is not the characteristic that holds you back!  In this interview we talk with the President of the National Federation of the blind! President Mark A. Riccobono speaks on his journey in the organization, leader ship, and the national convention happening the first week of July!Welcome to the Speak Your Vision Podcast where we talk about having a strong growth mindset and a positive lifestyle.

In celebration of Black History Month, this episode highlights the National Organization of Blind Black Leaders, a division of the National Federation of the Blind. Melissa and Anil talk with Shawn Callaway, the division's president, who is also president of the Washington, DC affiliate and a member of the national board of directors. Shawn explains the inspiration for forming the division, its mentoring and educational efforts, and how it functions as an integral part of the National Federation of the blind. The division welcomes all, and you can become a part of it by reaching out to Shawn at callaway.shawn@gmail.com.   Important links: Transcript of this episode Reflection, Revolution, and Race: A Growing Understanding Within the Organized Blind Movement, 2021 banquet address by President Mark Riccobono (transcript): Strength through a Diverse Organized Blind Movement: The Intersection Of Characteristics And The Common Bond Of Raising Expectations; Moderator: Colin Wong, Co-Chair, National Federation of the Blind Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, a panel from 2021 National Convention (transcript) Not Blind to Color in the Federation: A Panel on the Experience of Black and Blind in America, a panel from 2021 National Convention (transcript)

The President of the National Federation of the Blind Mark Riccobono was the keynote speaker at our National Federation of the Blind of SC State Convention! This is the wonderful Banquet speech he gave to our affiliate in person and listeners on Zoom.

Kia ora Mosen At Largers. A reminder that this podcast is indexed by chapter. If you listen with a podcast client that offers chapter support, you can easily skip between segments. We also make transcripts available, thanks to funding from InternetNZ. You can find these on our website at Here are the topics covered in this episode, and the time in the file for each. Feedback on the Mark Riccobono interview,0:00.000 What constitutes literacy in a blindness context?,2:40.406 what does literacy mean in a blindness context, travel tips, and a thorough look at the Zoom F3 digital field recorder.mp3Noise cancelling headphones,30:52.151 Travel tips,35:34.573 Zoom F3 introduction,42:44.511 Zoom F3 physical description,45:59.096 Zoom F3 menu structure,1:01:54.902 The Zoom F3 Control app,1:10:41.506 ZoomF3 conclusion,1:39:51.599 Recap of charger and power products,1:47:36.518 Braille improvements in iOS 15.6,1:50:30.366 The Bonnie Bulletin recorded on the Zoom F3,1:51:04.755 Closing and contact info,1:59:11.002 Share your thoughts on these topics or any others. Drop me an email in writing or with an audio attachment, Jonathan at MushroomFm.com, or phone the listener line in the United States, +1864-60Mosen, that's +18646066736. Keep up with Mosen At Large between episodes. Follow MosenAtLarge on Twitter where you'll get audio extras, links to interesting news stories, sneak peeks about what's coming up and more. If you'd like to subscribe to our announcements only email list, please send email to And if you like the show, we'd love a positive review and for you to spread the word. Thank you.

Kia ora Mosen At Largers. A reminder that this podcast is indexed by chapter. If you listen with a podcast client that offers chapter support, you can easily skip between segments. We also make transcripts available, thanks to funding from InternetNZ. You can find these on our website at Here are the topics covered in this episode, and the time in the file for each. Listener feedback on the Mark Riccobono interview,0:00.000 Abuse at schools for the blind,14:58.349 Problems with Siri and delayed notifications,30:13.525 Learning DutchBraille,41:52.821 Looking for eReader advice,42:23.931 Comments on episode 187,46:06.643 Blind people and the medical profession,49:38.284 Aira outside its service area,58:40.689 Waymap CEO Tom Pey,1:05:19.354 Alt+Tab, and renaming files,1:38:48.369 System Error Five on Victor Reader Stream,1:40:49.531 A guide to using Lyft with VoiceOver on iOS,1:43:53.337 iBeacons,1:51:17.208 Sony WH-1000XM5 and Sony WF-1000XM4,1:53:02.821 Share your thoughts on these topics or any others. Drop me an email in writing or with an audio attachment, Jonathan at MushroomFm.com, or phone the listener line in the United States, +1864-60Mosen, that's +18646066736. Keep up with Mosen At Large between episodes. Follow MosenAtLarge on Twitter where you'll get audio extras, links to interesting news stories, sneak peeks about what's coming up and more. If you'd like to subscribe to our announcements only email list, please send email to And if you like the show, we'd love a positive review and for you to spread the word. Thank you.

From one president to another. Doug Lawlor has become President of the Canadian Federation of the Blind. This week on Outlook On Radio Western, we speak with Lawlor about this new position and the responsibility that goes along with it, including his recent first-time experiencing a National Federation of the Blind national convention where he had an introductory meeting with the NFB's president Mark Riccobono. On the show, we hear about all this, but we begin by hearing about Doug's childhood in Newfoundland, the trauma of being sent to a school for the blind in Halifax at just six years old, and how it was for him to go from integration to segregation and back again. From Newfoundland to Halifax, and from Kingston to Louisiana. Doug Lawlor has traveled, using his skills and available technology and he joins us on Outlook in his newest role, always willing to figure it out as he goes. President of the Canadian Federation of the Blind is no different, but what is next for this Canadian blindness organization? To learn more, check out the official website: https://www.cfb.ca

Kia ora Mosen At Largers. A reminder that this podcast is indexed by chapter. If you listen with a podcast client that offers chapter support, you can easily skip between segments. We also make transcripts available, thanks to funding from InternetNZ. You can find these on our website at This week's episode is devoted to an interview with National Federation of the Blind President, Mark Riccobono. Here is a timeline of the key topics covered. These are also chapters in the MP3 file. Introduction,0:00.000 Early life and background,1:44.792 NFB membership numbers and the place of advocacy organisations in the Internet age,7:44.441 Feeding the family,16:43.920 Is NFB advancing a left wing agenda?,18:02.460 COVID at the 2022 convention,22:18.826 Is NFB truly a democratic organisation?,24:47.933 Perceived conflicts of interest,42:32.969 sexual misconduct,56:20.901 The place of Federation philosophy today,1:30:33.175 How does NFB determine which individual advocacy cases to take on?,1:34:55.514 Accessible COVID tests,1:37:55.478 accessible voting,1:40:04.169 advocacy for new accessibility legislation,1:42:05.966 The Museum of the Blind Peoples' Movement,1:44:57.477 Reunification?,1:47:35.941 Concluding questions,1:50:26.122 Closing and contact info,1:54:41.079 Share your thoughts on these topics or any others. Drop me an email in writing or with an audio attachment, Jonathan at MushroomFm.com, or phone the listener line in the United States, +1864-60Mosen, that's +18646066736. Keep up with Mosen At Large between episodes. Follow MosenAtLarge on Twitter where you'll get audio extras, links to interesting news stories, sneak peeks about what's coming up and more. If you'd like to subscribe to our announcements only email list, please send email to And if you like the show, we'd love a positive review and for you to spread the word. Thank you.

Dr. Hoby Wedler has been blind since birth and, as you will hear in this episode, is definitely unstoppable. He is a scientist, an entrepreneur, a sensory expert, and is driven by his passion for innovative, creative, and insightful thinking. In 2016, Hoby earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from UC Davis. In the same year, he began opening doors to the world of wine aromas by developing Tasting in the Dark, a truly blindfolded wine experience, in collaboration with the Francis Ford Coppola Winery. Hoby has just launched his own line of spices and other tasty products. He is also a recognized public speaker. Among other positions, Hoby serves as the board chair for the Earle Baum Center of the Blind in Santa Rosa California. Now, come hear this inspiring and unstoppable person in action. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About Our Guest: Dr. Hoby Wedler is an insightful, disarming, and passionate thinker who loves to bring people together to help them see new possibilities. With the heart of a teacher, Hoby helps turn your dreams into realities. Hoby has been completely blind since birth. He is a scientist, an entrepreneur, a sensory expert, and is driven by his passion for innovative, creative, and insightful thinking. Hoby is remarkably tuned into his surroundings and has frequently chosen to walk the unbeaten paths in life over known territories. In 2016, Hoby earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from UC Davis. His fearlessness is infectious, and he has actively paved the way for others to join him in his quest to follow passions regardless of the challenges that lie ahead. In 2011, Hoby founded a non-profit organization to lead annual chemistry camps for blind and visually impaired students throughout North America. In the same year, he began opening doors to the world of wine aromas by developing Tasting in the Dark, a truly blindfolded wine experience, in collaboration with the Francis Ford Coppola Winery. He has since expanded the program to a global market in a variety of industries and special projects. Over the years, Hoby has become a motivational speaker, a mentor, and an educator. He is also committed to making the world an inclusive, equitable, and accessible place for everyone. In his work, you will find a unique trilogy between sensory awareness, scientific knowledge, and a love for sharing his insights. Numerous people and organizations have recognized Hoby's work over the years. To name a few, President Barack Obama recognized Hoby by naming him a Champion of Change for enhancing employment and education opportunities for people with disabilities. Also, Forbes Media named Hoby as a leader in food and drink in their 30 under 30 annual publication. Hoby's dedicated to impacting everyone he works with by unlocking doors, overcoming challenges, increasing awareness, and expanding their horizons. 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 also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. 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  01:23 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we have really fascinating guests. He comes from the scientific community, as an essence, have I as you all know, because of my getting a master's degree in physics and being involved in various scientific endeavors, and our guest today Hobi Wendler comes from a different process. But by the same token, he also comes from the scientific world, specifically chemistry. You're going to hear about that, and lots of stuff today. So hope you welcome to unstoppable mindset. And thanks for being here.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  01:58 Mike, thank you so much. It's a real honor to be here. I think it's so cool what you're doing with the podcast and just very happy to be a guest.   Michael Hingson  02:07 Well, I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun. And I think we'll find some interesting things to talk about. So my   Dr. Hoby Wedler  02:13 it's all about, it's all about just jiving, and in coming up with, with topics that makes sense   Michael Hingson  02:20 and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So needless to say, I think we played it a minute ago, you are blind, you've been blind your whole life.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  02:29 I have never seen anything. There you go. Well, I've   Michael Hingson  02:32 had a little bit of light perception I did when I was growing up. And I didn't even notice that it went away. But at one point in my life, it suddenly dawned on me that I'm not even seeing light anymore. And when I went to an ophthalmologist, I find out that cataract had developed over my eyes, but I couldn't convince them to get rid of the cataract because it's not going to do you any good. And I said, Well, I might see light again.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  02:55 Mike, what is it? This is an interesting question. As someone who has literally never been able to see at all, what does it feel like to see like you describe that sensation?   Michael Hingson  03:06 I don't know how to really describe it. So the problem is, it's like, I asked people all the time, what is it like to see red? Or what is it like to do? Or what is it? Or since we both do it? What is it like to hear? We can simulate not hearing by completely covering our ears and cutting out all sounds? And there are ways to do that. I don't know whether that's exactly the same as profoundly deaf people experience not hearing, but how to describe hearing as such, or how to describe seeing, yeah, I don't know how to do that. I've only heard people do it with analogies. You know, red well, they talk about hot fire rages. Yeah. So let me see if I can try this. Have you ever been walking along and crashed your forehead into a wall or something?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  04:06 I was born blind, you know? Yes.   Michael Hingson  04:09 Well, you know, but you might be really good. But when what happens? What happens? What do you experience the the moment you do that?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  04:17 It's that feeling of sudden stopping and a little startling.   Michael Hingson  04:24 So for me, when that happens, you know, you've probably read books where someone gets hit on the head and so on. And suddenly they see stars and yeah, and, and I'm wondering if you see any other kind of foreign or you experience any other kind of foreign sensations? I   Dr. Hoby Wedler  04:40 don't know. You know, it's so funny because as someone who's never been able to see, I honestly don't know. It's such an interesting and good question though. You know, it's interesting actually thinking about senses in general in the sense of smell. Because the and that's an area where I do a lot of work and spend a lot of my time a lot of people lost either their sense of smell or taste or both during the pandemic that we're just coming out of, or maybe not. And, and talk about the fact, I've read countless articles now say, I just find it all fascinating. They talk about the fact that they didn't realize how much they used those two senses until they weren't there until they weren't there. And I find that so fascinating, because you and I, whether whether it's subconscious or not, we use our sense of smell the navigate all the time, or I think we do I do.   Michael Hingson  05:38 Well, actually, in the spirit of full disclosure, I discovered in 2013, that I had lost pretty much all of my sense of smell and a lot of sense of taste. And it happened, I think, because I took one of those cold medications that in fact, caused that to happen. And it's never shaken it there. Well, there was zinc in it. And, you know, there have been others where I know that people haven't had that problem, but there were some that did. So I don't know what the formulary was that created that and caused it to happen. But, um, so I don't smell as well, I can still taste some differences in in wines, and certainly differences in foods, but it's not as sharp as it was.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  06:28 I'm sorry to hear that. That's no fun to lose that sense. It isn't.   Michael Hingson  06:31 But you know, the other side of it is that I know what I had, and I know the experiences from that. And so it still is helpful when I experienced tasting and so on, to know what was there. And so I can sort of fill in some of the gaps, which probably is is similar to what happens to people who lose their eyesight. I imagine that's true. They can they can fill in the gaps or not. And that is one of the reasons I'm a firm believer in people who are partially blind when they discover they're losing their eyesight, and they go to centers to learn about techniques. I am a firm believer that people should learn to travel under sleep shades centers should really be teaching people that it's okay to be blind and don't use your eyesight as much as you can. Yeah, because the reality is that they may very well lose the rest of it. And if they start to recognize now that their their world is really one of being blind, then their eyesight will help them all the more for it and that will turn to trust a cane. Ken Jernigan, the past president of the National Federation of the Blind, created and wrote an article called a definition of blindness, which anyone can read if they go to the NFB website, www.nfb.org NFP being National Federation of the Blind. But what Dr. Jernigan says, Because you are blind, if you have lost enough eyesight that you have to use alternatives to eyesight to accomplish tasks. Absolutely. Which doesn't mean that you've lost all of your eyesight.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  08:13 Yeah, no, it doesn't. And I say, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna say in that sort of vein, I honestly think and this is often contrary to what a lot of sighted people think. I think you and I have it easier than the people who have partial sight?   Michael Hingson  08:30 Oh, I think so in a lot of ways, because we grew up with it. But also we we had parents who encouraged us and we had other parts of the community that encouraged us, and our makeup allowed us also to resist people telling us what we couldn't do.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  08:46 Right. Well, and I, to your point, I think so much of success, or there is a failure in the disabled disability world comes down to the support system that surround early on and particular particular families and that parental support. Man, that's a huge thing. If our parents were overly protective of us and held us back and locked us away when we were babies. Think about what we wouldn't have done and tried to do now.   Michael Hingson  09:16 I have, I have met people who actually lived in Chicago when I lived in Chicago. I was born in 1950. So you can do the math, anyone. But for the first five years of my life, I lived in Chicago. I was born two months premature. A lot of kids were it's a part of the whole baby boomer era, right? But I have met people since both even as a child but then later, whose parents sheltered them a lot more. And I saw and continue to remember what I experienced about what they could and couldn't do and how house self sufficient or independent, or even mentally thinking about being self sufficient or independent they were or they weren't. And the reality is that kids who are more sheltered, don't grow up learning a lot of the things that that they could learn just by being out in the world. And that's why I am a firm believer that parents need to what we would probably say today is take more risks. It is that's absolutely right. It isn't really a lot of risk taking it is really, your child being exposed,   Dr. Hoby Wedler  10:33 it might feel like risk taking, but it really isn't, you know, it's I mean, it is, in some ways, if there be take that, you know, if you if you do things that are, some people might, I can see why people would call it that. But you know, there's another another element of parenting. Children who are blind that I think is so crucial and often gets unnoticed is the idea of talking and seeing what you're doing. That is where my parents really one of the areas, they really excelled. They in the kitchen, for instance, when they were making breakfast, they would describe I remember my mom describing exactly what she was doing. And I didn't think anything of it at the time, I was pretty young toddler. But now when I think back on it, I realized the whole point of that was that things didn't just happen mysteriously, you know, if you imagine raising a sighted kid and you get them a bowl of cereal, you know, they're going to see you get that walk over to the cupboard, get the bull's eye, okay, now I know where the holes are stored, or my cereal comes from, they're gonna see the box of cereal come out of a different cabinet, they're gonna see the cereal get poured into the bowl, they're gonna see the parent, go to the fridge and get the milk, they're gonna see the spoon get taken out of the drawer and set down on a napkin next to the bowl, and then they're gonna see this bowl be set before them. And it's not a mystery. But if you don't say anything, and you do all that with a blind kid, they're not gonna know the milk goes in the fridge. They're not, they're not gonna be able to figure that stuff out. So it's, you've got to talk about it.   Michael Hingson  12:03 And the children whose parents did that the chil the children whose parents recognized that no matter what the disability, it didn't mean that their child didn't have gifts and that they needed to do everything they could to and Hance or allow children to learn to use those gifts. Isn't that those are the lucky kids.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  12:28 Yeah. Yeah. And there are relatively few of us.   Michael Hingson  12:32 And there are relatively few of us. Some people are good. Some people have learned it later in life and have done well. But from from a standpoint of kids, there are there there are apparently, few of us, you're gonna ask,   Dr. Hoby Wedler  12:47 Oh, it's just gonna ask us for sort of mentioned that a comment or a question, rather, that I get a lot of the time is would you ever want your eyesight? And my answer to that is a resounding no. Because I don't want to have to learn how to really live in this world. I know braille, I read Braille, very proficiently, I don't need to learn print, I don't need to know what it looks like to drive down the road, I can roll my window down and smell the air, I can listen to the air blow by. So it's no I don't, I don't need to change the world I live in because I love the world I live in. And I don't want to throw the same question back at you. And ask you, you know, what is your response to that question?   Michael Hingson  13:27 I respond a little bit differently than you. But it amounts to the same thing. And that is? Well, yeah, I suppose I might be interested in doing it only because it would be another adventure. But the reality is, I'm very comfortable in my skin. And I and I also know, in a sense, what visually I don't see. So driving down the road, the experience of driving and doing the things that that sighted people do, being able to drive and avoid that car that's coming at you and then stick out your your finger at them or so on. So some of that we don't get to do but also. I know that the time is coming, that we're all going to change. So I I have actually driven a Tesla down I 15 going from Delhi up here down toward Riverside and so on.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  14:24 I do not I tell me a little more about the story. How did this happen?   Michael Hingson  14:29 I was going down to do a speech and the person who was taking me down, owned a Tesla. And we talked a lot about the technology and he said you want to drive it and I said sure. And so I reached over and basically it was in a a well, copilot I won't say a self driving mode but copilot so it was watching what was going on on the road. And basically it required that someone keep their hand on the wheel. So it wasn't that I was doing a lot of work. But we had programmed into the GPS where we were going, and the Tesla and the automation, steer the vehicle, we avoided cars and so on. So I got a great feel for it. And I recognize that the car was in control. But I've also been to Daytona, yeah, in 2011, for the Rolex 24 race and the Blind Driver Challenge, the challenge where Mark Riccobono, the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, drove a car independently around the Daytona speedway. And that was using technology that gave him the information so that he could drive the car, not with automation, like in a Tesla, but literally drove the car, avoiding obstacles, and so on. And he had to do all of the work. And I did, I did drive the simulator, so I got a feel for it. But I also know that we're all eventually going to be using autonomous vehicles, a lot of things are going to change. And the other part to answering your question is, oh, my God, I don't want to be able to see and do what those people do. There are too many crazy drivers on the road. I don't want to be responsible for that.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  16:11 You got it? Yeah, absolutely. Tiger.   Michael Hingson  16:15 But you But you, you had very good parents, you were very fortunate in terms of being encouraged to do what you you do and what you did. So where did that take you? You went out of high school, you went into college? What did you do in college? And what was your major and all? Yeah, you   Dr. Hoby Wedler  16:32 know, my parents, just to just to circle back a little bit, or, or, like, they dispense still on my biggest supporters. And, you know, they, they did two things really, really, really did many things really well. But I'll focus on two right now. My brothers two years older and sighted. And the first major thing is they treated us with the same high expectations, I was not given lower expectations to follow, because I happen to be blind. And keeping us both to the same high high standard was really crucial to me growing up and, and being an active participant in this world we call home. They also taught us that the most important thing we can do is to take responsibility for ourselves, our lives and our actions. And hey, if we take responsibility and challenge ourselves in situations, and we succeed, we deserve the credit for that success. And frankly, if you fail, you deserve to take the blame. And that that pushed me and my brother so far. I see a lot of a lot of blind kids with sighted peers. There's a little bit of jealousy. And there's a lot of Oh, yeah, you know, we have high expectations of one and not the other. And I just, I just don't think that's necessary. And I think it actually really creates bad feeling so, so grateful and very happy now that my parents just really pushed me and in a nice way, and expected, by the way, that we would have the same ultra high expectations of them. So that was a really powerful thing. Um, after high school, I went on, I was in high school when I fell in love with chemistry. When it came time, I took physical science and loved chemistry there. And then when it came to my junior year, I said, Well, shoot, I'll take the test to get an honors chemistry. And I'm not sure the instructor was really expecting me to take the test and get the top score on it. But I ended up taking the test. And then she's in a pickle of God, he took the test now what do we do get to get these, you know, we got to get him into the class. So sure enough, I came into the class. And it was a Yeah, it was a great experience, we found someone to work with me who had taken the class before, as my eyes in the laboratory. But the instructor would would do something kind of interesting. She would tell the class, you all should think about studying chemistry. It's amazing. We live it, we breathe it, we eat it, we drink it, it really describes the world around us. And I know the physicists out there saying now physics is a little more fundamental. So you can comment there, if you will. But I think chemistry is pretty darn fundamental. And she would tell me when I was in her classroom, getting assistance, solving problems and that sort of thing. I'd say, hey, let's, uh, you know, I want to study chemistry, I actually want to do what you're asking us to do. And she would say, Oh, holy, it's really impractical. It's such a visual science. I don't know how that's gonna work. And I still vividly remember the day the exact day that I went into a classroom was the second week of the second semester. It's early in the morning before students arrived. And I said, you know, you've been telling me that chemistry is a visual science and that it probably wouldn't make sense for me to study. But I gotta tell you, nobody can see at us. So therefore chemistry is truly a cerebral science. And she had a light bulb go off and said, Hmm, that's interesting. You're right. And from that point on, became an absolute supporter and ally, and still is a dear friend and supporter and everything I do. So that was an incredible opportunity to realize that, hey, chemistry really isn't a cerebral isn't visual science, it's in our head, we use our eyesight for some of what we pick up in the laboratory. But if you think about the electromagnetic electromagnetic spectrum running from, you know, very small distances of Pico meter length waves all the way up to several meters, there's only one little tiny itty bitty part that we can see, which is between 704 100 I should say it in a different order, 407 100 nanometer wavelength light. And that means there's a whole lot of other light that can be detected, that has nothing to do with our eyesight. And we used a lot of that light in terms of radio waves and microwaves and that sort of thing to understand what's going on in our in our chemical samples, and then review the data. So I ended up long story short, I'm sure you wanted a shorter answer than this. But I ended up studying chemistry in college and not really knowing that I was a nerd at that point and wanted to teach, I always had the heart of a teacher, that was always my goal is to, is to teach.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  21:18 I got a degree in United States history as well, because I knew that I was going to be in graduate school in order to teach and I didn't know how accessible chemistry was going to be. And I didn't necessarily want an assistant, you know, looking over my shoulder 16 hours a day in the laboratory. So I thought, well, let me let me study history, so that I have a backup plan. And I was actually and I minored in math just because I'm a nerd and can't help myself and found abstract algebra really useful for chemistry. And it's like, I took those three courses. And I don't know, some career counselor, some advisor in the math department said, you know, you're only two courses away from a math minor. Oh, okay. Well, I took a logic class and a history of math class, which I loved as well. And ended up with a minor in math. But beside the point, I ended up, I was ready to apply to history graduate schools throughout the state, actually, of California. When I met my graduate advisor, who studies Computational Chemistry, I worked in his lab for a while as an undergraduate. And as great mentors often do, he sort of saw a future for me in chemistry in computational chemistry, before I kind of saw it for myself, and just recommended that I study chemistry and in his group, and apply and hopefully get into graduate school, so I did, ended up doing both my undergraduate and graduate work at UC Davis, University of California Davis, which was interesting. And a reason one reason for that there's a few reasons but one main one, Mike, is that I didn't want to have to convince another group of staff in the chemistry department and faculty that I could do what I could do, it was just easier to work with people who are believed in me and trusted me, quite frankly, I'm ended up earning my PhD in 2016, and have gone on from there and done nothing in chemistry.   Michael Hingson  23:07 Well, as a physicist, I'm glad that we were able to help you by inventing light for you. So you know. But yeah, thank you, I really think I think both physics and chemistry are part of the universe, and it isn't really fair to ever say one is so much better than the other. I believe that's true, we would have a hard time living without chemists or physicists. And and I think both of us could also say, and we would have a hard time living without engineers, who everybody seems to pick off. So it's okay.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  23:40 We think we can handle the nitty gritty stuff, but we need someone to build things for us. Okay.   Michael Hingson  23:44 Yeah. And and we need someone to figure out what it is that we need to do to handle the nitty gritty. So the mathematicians count as well.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  23:52 That's it. No, absolutely. Well,   Michael Hingson  23:55 so you just said a very interesting thing. You graduated in 2016, with a PhD in chemistry, and then haven't done anything with it since? Why?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  24:08 Well, and I won't say I've done nothing with it. Once again. That's one society. Well, sure, once once you go that far, you're always a scientist. And I will always consider myself a chemist. I wanted to teach. I told you that. And I had the honor of teaching some undergraduate classes. And so my desire to teach was to get people early on, excited about something maybe they didn't know they were excited about. So I wanted to be that instructor who came into the freshmen chemistry class with, you know, four or 500 students at 8am. On a Monday morning after a long weekend partying and get some of those students. Now, 90 plus percent of them are there because chemistry is a prerequisite and they just can't wait to get it over with. Yeah, I want to get some of those students excited about studying chemistry beyond this, this general chemistry course. That was my passion. I wanted to be a chemistry lecture to the very early chemistry students, because that's when you can shake people and help change how they think about what's possible for them. And I taught several of those courses at Davis and I realized something that was hard to realize, which is that students did not speak chemistry, they want some explanation of what they see on the screen. But what they really want to see are pretty pictures and animations and videos showing exactly what's what's happening with a lot of this years. And that there's and then we put this over here, and we can see this red thing down over there and then be ready for the test on Friday. Now, I can't explain chemistry to you very well. But I need to use my words, mostly. Now, I do understand that many concepts are very much supported by images, and and graphs and charts and diagrams, and whatever the case may be. So I absolutely would spend time with assistants putting together PowerPoints with some of those images. And what I realized is I was spending a lot of time and money working on basically making beautiful presentations with beautiful video clips, and animations and things that would slide in and slide out and fly around just to keep the students entertained. And I'd have to spend hours memorizing these presentations so that I could talk about them cohesively as I, as I showed them, basically. And that was all time spent working with several different assistants. The other thing that I found disappointing was that students didn't read the textbook, if I would say, Okay, we're focusing on Chapter two sections three and four. Tomorrow, I would say maybe 2% of my students actually read the book, and came ready to talk about it. And for for those students out there, I will just tell you, if your instructor teaches from a book, read the book ahead of time. So that lecture feels like a review. Right? That's, that's really crucial, in my opinion. So one thing led to another and while I was in graduate school, concurrent with my graduate tenure, I had the opportunity of working with Francis Ford Coppola, I know you have as well. He asked me through a friend, I met him. And he asked me to host a truly blindfolded Wine Experience. And he said, You decide how this is done. The reason I'm asking you to do this, is I don't want it to be gaudy. And   Dr. Hoby Wedler  27:38 you know, so gamified, I want it to be real and authentic. And I commend him for wanting to have a blind person design and run this program, because I can use the blindfold. And I will never tell you, Hey, this is what it's like to be me, that would be silly. But what we can do is we can use the blindfold not at all as a toy, or as something gimmicky. That's the other thing Francis said, he said, above all OB, this can't be gimmicky, and I couldn't have agreed more. So, you know, we built out the experience. Where the blindfold is literally something that temporarily removes a sense that we use for to take in a lot of our information if we're sighted. So when we remove it logically, our other senses were differently. And we can focus on different variables, maybe we can focus more on how wine smells, maybe we can focus more when we're not distracted by our eyesight on how wine tastes. And maybe we can just focus on what's being sat around us a little more the voices that we hear that way, the chair we're sitting on feels, all sorts of things. And by the way, I really do believe and this is sort of an aside, that if you're going to do blindfolded stuff, you have to do it tastefully, and you have to do it well. And there are some programs out there that do it well, and there are a lot of programs out there that don't do it well. So I am one who really takes pride in giving sighted people that temporary experience and not distracted by eyesight in a way that does not be little, or suggests that this is what it's like to be me or anything of the sort. And I'm very, very careful about that. By the way.   Michael Hingson  29:18 That's one of the concerns I have about things that are called dining in the dark is that most people say you'll get to see what it's like to be blind. No, you won't. You don't have any of the training. You don't have any of the background. But I like what you say which is that if you treat eyesight as a distraction, or if you treat being blindfolded, as a way to avoid the distraction that goes along with eyesight, then you can use your other senses, which in fact for something like tasting are just as important, if not more, so unless There's something that's an absolute requirement for the presentation of the food. Absolutely. And, and I understand that, and I appreciate that we watched Food Network a lot, we see things about presentation and was my immediate reaction as well. So the taste of the food, but I also do appreciate that there is a place for presentation, but for tasting and so on, you need to get rid of distractions. It's like anything else, you need to get rid of distractions to focus on what it is that you want to focus on. And the last time the last time I heard, we didn't have eyes in our mouths so that we could see the wine as we're tasting it exactly in our mouths. So yeah, but But I hear what you're saying. So you did that with France.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  30:43 Someone asked me a funny question. When I was a freshman in college and the dining hall. They said, How can you eat when you don't know where your mouth is? And my response to them was like, That's news to me, I guess you with a rearview mirror on your head all the time? Not? Okay. You know? Yeah. It's just interesting. People's people's perception, people's perceptions. Yeah. So you work with friends you work through that, for a while actually took took it on the road pretty soon after we started as a hospitality experience for his wineries in Sonoma County, right. And as soon as the Sales Team National Sales Team heard about it, they wanted it for them. So we brought it on the road. And what's great about being a computational chemist is that my laptop was my laboratory. And my advisor was very willing to say, go travel and figure out what you want to do. So I worked with them. And I got really involved in this in the world of food and beverage, and that community in the sensory aspects of food and beverage and met a lot of really neat people who I thought were really interesting and really cool. And this is concurrent with teaching, feeling a little less accessible than it honestly could. So one thing kind of led to another and I found myself really loving the world of sensory design and designing high end experiences and products to an extent based on our non visual sensory input. And logically that works into food and beverage quite well. So I do a lot of personal consulting in the in the food and beverage world on product development, on tweaking products to make them even better than they already are. These sorts of things, we still do a lot of speaking a lot of these tasting experiences, when and where desired. There's nothing regularly scheduled, but I do them a lot as a consultant. And then I love thinking about creative as well. So it's not only science and taste, it's it's science and art, and how can we straddle that very fine intersection between science and art. And the way that I've come up with is through being creative. So I'm a creative thinker, and I thought that creative was a good thing to focus on. So I actually co founded a creative and marketing studio called cents point in 2017. And my business partner, Justin is here in California with me, our third partner, is our creative director as well, man named Jody Tucker, who's based down in Adelaide, Australia. And because of my love for food and beverage, and in gaining popularity in the industry, I just this last year started my own brand of gourmet seasonings, it's expanding a lot right now, by the way, in terms of the products that we have out there, we currently have two products on the market, hoagies essentials as the name of the brand, and we have a rosemary, salt, and a blend of sort of an all purpose dry rub that we're calling happy paprika, but that line is expanding very quickly into about half a dozen more products, probably before the end of the year. So we're really excited about that.   Michael Hingson  33:38 Well, we're gonna need to get some of those to, to put on meat when I barbecue and I do the barbecuing and the grilling in the house. So absolutely. We need to to work that. But so I'm going to ask right now, and I'll probably ask at the end, if people want to learn more about that. How do they do it?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  33:56 Where do they go to hobi.com? And that's H ovy.com. And that's got all my stuff? My my personal website, the homies essentials brand site, everything's there.   Michael Hingson  34:07 Yeah. Are any of the hobbies essential products being sold in any kind of mainstream markets yet? Or is it too new   Dr. Hoby Wedler  34:14 not a Gaussian distribution in Novato at p hardware? And you know, which it very well, it's a great place, isn't it? Yeah. And then Rex hardware up here in Petaluma, which is another H store and a couple of markets out in Sebastopol. So we're small but we're growing that retail presence.   Michael Hingson  34:34 So when do we get to see you on Shark Tank? Oh, you know Shark Tank?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  34:41 That'd be fun. Yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. I do a lot of it.   Michael Hingson  34:45 There you go. So when do we get to see you on Shark Tank? That's the question.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  34:48 Ah man, well, maybe sooner rather than later my funding dries up.   Michael Hingson  34:53 Or don't wait for it to dry but enhance it. There it is. There it is one of the things that in impressed as me and you know, needless to say, we've known each other a while and I've had a chance to, to watch you and so on and see what you do. You, you really do talk the talk. And by that I mean and walk the walk. But you, you act as a role model in a lot of ways. So yes, you've formed hobbies, essentially, yes, you helped create sense point design. But you've also taken it further, in that when you see opportunities to address issues regarding disabilities, I've seen that you've done a lot of that. And I know that one of the things that you have taken a great interest in is the whole idea of inclusion and access on the internet.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  35:43 Yeah, I do care a lot about that, and many other things as well. We started a nonprofit, which is now on hiatus called accessible science that basically basically brought blind kids together for annual chemistry camps, that enchanted Hills camp for the blind, and taught them how to do hands on organic chemistry. That was what we call it, but really, it was to teach them they could do whatever the heck they wanted them or how visual the career seems. And we've had students come from that and become, you know, get their get their PhDs and masters and all sorts of things and fields, they didn't really think were were possible for them to study. So it's kind of fun to just open minds a little bit to what's possible. And, and because the word mindset is in the, in the title of your part of your show here. You know, I think it's all about forming the right mindset. And with the right mindset, we can do anything we want. And the same thing, I think it's about, you know, making the internet more accessible, is all about mindset, and all about really thinking about the user while designing the webpage.   Michael Hingson  36:52 You have, you have clearly done a lot in the the the internet world and so on. And you've used your experiences with sense point design, as I said, and hope is essential as to to role model, what kinds of ways have you helped to influence what's occurring with access in the internet and so on?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  37:13 You know, number one, I just I think it's when we design websites for our clients, we think about that. And we want a solution because not all of us are accessible web accessibility experts. So our what I loved is kind of obsessively is a part of your life. When I found out about accessory it made perfect sense to me if there's a if there's an automated tool that we can use to help make websites fully accessible, that's exactly what I want. Because my team aren't necessarily experts in the in the accessibility. I mean, we know about accessibility and the WCAG you know that but some of these some of these people are really our experts and frankly, a lot of our clients can't afford what it takes to maintain a website is fully accessible it's 1000s of dollars a month. So they get really excited when I present them with a solution that's only $49 a month that makes their site very accessible across many different platforms. So that's that's the main way that I have found to fully it will take to make fully accessible the websites we consult on or design   Michael Hingson  38:27 how did you find accessible How did you discover it?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  38:30 That's a really funny story. I actually found excessively initially because my brother was chatting with your CEO about possibly investing in the company I'm not sure where that conversation went but he mentioned excessive yes or no that's interesting. And then a few years later a couple years later I saw the solution when looking for just good automated tools to make websites more accessible and contacted someone in your in your sales department a woman by the name of Jenna Gemma Fantoni don't know if you know her. But she then set us up as a as an affiliate partner accessory. So since point is an affiliate partner of accessory, and it's really easy to to use and make your site accessible.   Michael Hingson  39:15 What do you think about the people who have concerns about using an artificial intelligence system and an automated solution to help address access and inclusion, as opposed to the manual coding traditional way of dealing with it?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  39:32 I think there's a solution for every client and it's not going to be the same for anyone. I think if you can afford the the manual coding, which again is going to be several $1,000 a month, use it if that's what you want to do use it. I don't see any problem with automated tools. You know if we were talking about cars becoming more automated, I'll tell you that Elon Musk back in September We were a group of four civilians up to space, they orbit at higher than the International Space Station at 519 kilometers. These people didn't know how to fly spacecraft, but the automated spacecraft, flew them around the earth and low Earth orbit for 72 hours, launched them and brought them right back to Earth. And, boy, if that's not if that's not a suggestion that that automation and some AI can really help, I don't know what is. So when it comes to websites, I see absolutely no reason that it's a that it's a problem. Sure, there are things that it might miss. Yeah, that's, that could be true. But what's great about that you and I have an extensive talks about this. But when we find a problem, and we fix it in the back end of accessibility, we're fixing it for all the people who have accessible, not just that one website. So it really, it really is a practical solution. And I don't understand this one or the other approach, you know, it's let's be more inclusive and think about what's best for the client. You know, I've got clients who are more small wineries or use very small organizations that can afford to make their make their stuff fully accessible by hard coding. They are really excited by an option that makes their site accessible and usable by all parties. The other thing that accessory does the overlays like accessibility really well. And I think accessory does particularly well is thinking about other disabilities. It's not just those of us who are visually impaired. Think about blinking pulsating cursors for people with epilepsy, and how that might stimulate seizure. There's so many things that we can that we should be considering when we think about accessibility. And I really like a solution that includes all all parties and all folks in in that, that solution. So I really, I really do believe in accessibility, Oh, no.   Michael Hingson  41:59 Well, I have maintained for quite a while that when we talk about disabilities, and so on. In reality, the concept of diversity has gone away. People never talk about disabilities or very, very, very, very rarely talk about disabilities. When it comes to diversity. I mean, we were hearing regularly, especially every year around Oscar time about how there has to be more diversity. There have to be more women, there has to be different racial content, we have to have more directories of   Dr. Hoby Wedler  42:36 diversity, the photo has to look more diverse   Michael Hingson  42:39 in the photo, but they never talk about disabilities being a part of it. Why is it that we don't have a blind movie director? And why is it that we can't there's there's no reason. Now I don't know how to do it. And I am not interested in being a director. Although I'm sure I could learn to talk like one you know, and all that but, but I'm not really interested in being a movie director. But I suspect that there are some blind people who have the knowledge and the talent, certainly people in wheelchairs and so on. And Marlee Matlin is a person who is deaf has done a great deal in, in the entertainment world. But the reality is we don't get included. How do we change that conversation? At a basic level in society to get more inclusion, about people with disabilities, the conversations that we have?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  43:37 Yeah, it's an interesting question. You know, I think I see that from from multiple different angles, the first thing I'd say is that I personally believe that a blind person's perspective is an extremely diverse one, and a life that was lived very differently than others, and should be listened to. I also think that diversity means literally bringing people with different perspectives. It's not how they look or what their you know what their gender is, or anything like this. It's sure those things matter tremendously. But it's about the perspective that they bring that their upbringing and their background brings to the table. And I think if you have a more diverse team, you're going to have more perspectives at the table to come up with a broader solution to a problem. And frankly, in a business setting, a more diverse team is going to increase your bottom line fairly dramatically. Why specifically, are people with disabilities not included? I think we're trying to change that. I think we're trying to remind people, Hey, we, you know, those of us with disabilities have have perspectives that are very unique and very worth considering. And, you know, I think we need to just show society, what it is that we can do. You know, it's that's one of the reasons that I was happy to get the graduate degree that I got. And I imagine it's the same for you, even if you don't end up using it, you know, for academics, you know, people know that We know how to work hard. And but I think that a lot of the reason we don't get included is because not because people don't are angry with us and don't want to include us. It's simply because they don't know how to include us. They don't know what we can do. I think it's our job to educate people and say, Hey, no, we we can be right. They're at the table with you, you know, and help solve problems and all that sort of thing.   Michael Hingson  45:24 I think there's a fear element, but it comes down to not knowing right? People are also afraid of things they don't understand. They don't understand primarily disabilities. And they're also afraid, well, that could happen to me, which is probably the the best thought that they can have. Because the reality is, it could happen to you. So why aren't you including people up front who have disabilities, or who have those characteristics that you do not have? It's disabilities as a, as a classification is one of those characteristics that most people, including most people who happen to have disabilities today are not born with? It's true, but it is a characteristic that anyone can acquire.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  46:06 It's no one minority group that we all can and probably will join, if we live are lucky enough to live long enough,   Michael Hingson  46:12 in one way or another? Absolutely. And there's no reason for a lack of inclusion, one of the things I really love about accessibility is that it is really helping in its own way to change that the very fact that it's a scalable solution. Yeah, it's a solution that can work in so many ways. And accessibility is also now creating a suite of products that go beyond the overlay. But the other thing that I think that happened this year, that really excites me, is that excessive, be created a series of television commercials. Yeah. And everyone in the commercial had disabilities. It was all done with actors. Incredible.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  47:00 Yep. Showing and showing that this actually matters. And we are not only going to help people with disabilities, we're going to put them we're going to put them in our advertisements, putting them to work. Yeah, absolutely.   Michael Hingson  47:14 And the reality is, I don't I don't know all the the video vignettes that were shown, but I know a number of them. And the reality is that it really shows that we can be anywhere just like anyone else, which is, of course, one of the things that I hope people learn from, from my story, you know, we wrote thunder, dog, and so on, and it's all about fine people can be anywhere just like you including near the top of the World Trade Center in escaping. And it and it isn't luck to escape anymore than for anyone else it is in strategy. It is absolutely strategy and preparation. Yeah, it   Dr. Hoby Wedler  47:55 is. And being ready for that day. When it comes frankly, and, and having the training that you need. You know, I by the way, I'll just say something about commercials and people with disabilities, I've seen something that I don't particularly enjoy, which are people with disabilities being used for advertising purposes. And then to see the company not hiring people with disabilities, that's a little frustrating. So if we're going to show people with disabilities, let's make a commitment to bring them in on our team as well.   Michael Hingson  48:25 I think that's important. And I also think that companies that say that they're accessible, and they have a lot of visible stuff relating to so called Accessibility, don't really need to prove it. I've seen any number of products that come out, or get updated over the years, and accessibility gets broken. That should never happen. I agree. And it's it's truly unfortunate that those those kinds of things occur. Yeah, of course, it's easy to sit here and say excessive he can help with, with APA well with internet stuff right now to address that. And we'll see what happens with apps down the line. But sure, but but the fact of the matter is inclusion is something that we all should take very seriously. And we should adopt a more inclusive mindset. There's there's nothing wrong with doing that.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  49:17 No. It's important.   Michael Hingson  49:21 Well, it is and we have to do our part. And I think you've said it very well. We do have to be the educators and we we must work in an environment where we don't get offended or upset when people ask us questions, especially when they're really legitimately and obviously trying to learn. The last thing we want to do is to not be good teachers and discourage people. No, that's   Dr. Hoby Wedler  49:48 absolutely true. I would I would agree with that head over heels.   Michael Hingson  49:54 So where do you go from here? What what's next in your adventurous life?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  49:59 I think Working on this season's brand, getting it out there really, really trying to try to put together I'm actually working on a show right now just about experience in the food and beverage industry that we're going to try to popularize here. And that's going to be in the next probably latter half of say latter half, maybe mid mid part of, of 2022. And, yeah, just growing from there and see where see where the journey of food and beverage takes me. How's that?   Michael Hingson  50:30 Can you tell us a little about the show? Or is it too premature?   Dr. Hoby Wedler  50:32 It's pretty premature. I'll hold off on that. But I'll tell you why. After we do our pilot, maybe maybe you'll be kind enough to have me on again. And I'll tell you,   Michael Hingson  50:41 I would love to and you know, of course, if you need another blind person to to volunteer in any way, let me know.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  50:48 Thank you very much. I will do that. Even if tasting   Michael Hingson  50:51 isn't my forte at the moment. Well, I can taste salt. But you also do some other work. You're involved with some other nonprofits. I know you're the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Euro bound Center for   Dr. Hoby Wedler  51:05 the Blind. You and I both care deeply about the Euro bond center and are on the board. This great, it's a blindness Training Center in Santa Rosa, California, serving four counties, Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Mendocino, and I live in Petaluma, which is in Sonoma County. And it's pretty great to have an awesome training center in our backyard.   Michael Hingson  51:27 It's it's interesting, because during the pandemic, URL by Baum did some very interesting things to help keep classes going. And I know you did. And I participated remotely in some of the orientation and mobility classes in some of the other classes. Partly for encouragement, but also partly to help teach alternative techniques and use our skills to help people understand even if it's remotely how they can use good cane skills and other skills to be able to function. I was really impressed with Earl balms innovative approach to that because I saw other agencies that didn't do nearly as much of that. They had this well suspend classes until the the pandemic was over or until it lessened. Right, I'm not sure as you I'm not sure if it's over or not, or close to being over. But Earl balm was very creative in some of the things that it did.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  52:28 Well, they pivoted in less than a week. It was really fast. Yeah. And really cool to see, by the way.   Michael Hingson  52:36 And and they've done it well. Yeah, they have.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  52:39 Yeah. Well, I also serve on the board of the Petaluma Educational Foundation, where basically fund or private foundation funds, grants and scholarships to students all over Petaluma. So I have fun with that, too. More than chemistry,   Michael Hingson  52:53 I hope.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  52:55 We do fund all programs. Yes. Yes, that's right. That's cool. That's fun. It's fun to get out there and be involved.   Michael Hingson  53:04 And that's, that's really it. Right? It's, it's all about having fun and enjoying what you do   Dr. Hoby Wedler  53:10 is because when you do that, it doesn't feel like work.   Michael Hingson  53:14 And an incentive really isn't. Well there any last things you'd like to say any last thoughts you have that you want to leave with people.   Dr. Hoby Wedler  53:22 Don't forget to live life with the most positive mindset you can have. And a great way to feel good about yourself is to challenge yourself and succeed. So I always say, abundance mindset, the more people you know, the better. The more opportunities you have in the world, the better just Just live your life to the best of your ability. And don't forget to have a little fun while you're doing it.   Michael Hingson  53:47 And that makes you unstoppable. And I that's exactly what it's all about. And that makes anyone who does that unstoppable will hope you Wendler, thank you for being with us on unstoppable mindset today. It's been a lot of fun. One more time, how can people reach you and   Dr. Hoby Wedler  54:03 just visit hoby.com That's the best way to get in touch with me. All my contact info is there and there's a contact form. You can find our Hoby's Essentials product line there. You know you see a link right from that website to us. So that's that's the hub for everything.   Michael Hingson  54:24 Cool. Well thank you for being here. And if and if any of you listening will please do so I hope that you'll go to your podcast host or you can go to MichaelHingson.com/podcast that's M I C H A E L H I N G S O N.com slash podcast and give us a five star rating. We would appreciate your ratings and your comments. You're also welcome to reach out. To me. The easiest way is through email. You can email me at MichaelHI  M I C H A E l H I At accessiBe.com. accessiBe is spelled A C C E S S I B E. So Michaelhi@accessibe.com. we'd love to hear from you hear your thoughts what you think about the show. And hopefully you or anyone listening if you think of others who ought to be guests on on the unstoppable mindset podcast would definitely appreciate you letting us know and and suggested many others. Well, great, we we hope that you will fill our calendar with   Dr. Hoby Wedler  55:30 lots of will not be I will not be shy to introduce you.   Michael Hingson  55:33 Please do not be shy and we won't be shy about inviting you back. So well. Thank   Dr. Hoby Wedler  55:38 you very much   Michael Hingson  55:39 me posted and we'll we'll   Dr. Hoby Wedler  55:40 I shall. Thank you, Michael. It's been a pleasure.   Michael Hingson  55:45 Thanks again. Hopefully this has been really fun, which is of course what you want us to do.   55:49 Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.   Michael Hingson  55:59 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.

President Mark Riccobono delivers presidential release #511 before a live virtual and in-person audience. He provides perspective on the eighty-first anniversary of the Federation and our mantra this year, Forward. He discusses NFB-NEWSLINE services, Washington Seminar, advocacy efforts for the Access Technology Affordability Act and the Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act, and updates on the Federation Family.

President Mark Riccobono delivers presidential release #510 before a live virtual audience. He provides perspective regarding the 2022 Washington Seminar, eliminating subminimum wage update, our work on kiosks, revisions on our code of conduct, and introduction of our new Blind Survivors Group.

President Mark Riccobono delivers presidential release #509 before a live virtual audience. He provides perspective regarding Blind Equality Achievement month, expectations on employment, and what to expect for the month of October.

President Mark Riccobono delivers presidential release #508 before a live virtual audience. He provides perspective regarding Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and announces the rebrand for our important October campaign formally known as Meet the Blind Month. We are excited to celebrate Blind Equality Achievement Month.

For more information, resources, and transcript visit https://www.adalive.org/episode-winn-dixie On April 7, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Gil v. Winn-Dixie that websites operated by businesses are not “places of public accommodation” under Title III of the ADA. Gil’s inability to access the Winn-Dixie website, due to his blindness, therefore, was not in violation of the ADA. In the court’s opinion, the company’s website, without a point of sale, did not present an “intangible barrier” to Gil’s shopping for goods and services at Winn-Dixie’s physical stores. Please join us for this special edition of ADA Live! when Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, Howard Rosenblum CEO of National Association of the Deaf, Bruce Sexton, JD, plaintiff in National Federation of the Blind v. Target, and Peter Blanck, Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University discuss the impact of this decision. Disclaimer Note: The personal opinions expressed by guest speakers in this episode should not be understood as an endorsement by the ADA National Network, the Southeast ADA Center, or Syracuse University.

Join us for a special event with ACB President Dan Spoone, as he sits down for a fireside chat with leaders from across the blindness field, including Mark Richert, Interim Executive Director for the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER), Kirk Adams, President & CEO of American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), Craig Meador, President of the American Printing House for the Blind (APH), Don Overton, Executive Director of Blinded Veterans Association (BVA), Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), and Lee Nasehi, President & CEO of VisionServe Alliance.

The Zoom where it happens! The National Federation of the Blind convention goes virtual for the very first time, allowing thousands of members to assemble virtually for what will potentially be the largest gathering of blind people across the nation. Join us as we hear the sneak peek of our upcoming convention, scheduled to take place from July 14-18, 2020. Special thanks to President Mark Riccobono, Pam Allen, Patty Chang, and NABS board members Kathryn Webster, Dustin Cather, Mausam Mehta, and Johna Wright. Created and produced by: Seyoon Choi and Nina Marranca Find the National Association of Blind Students on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Nabspage/ Follow the National Association of Blind Students on Twitter and Instagram: @nabslink Are you interested in assisting in the planning and production of the NABS Now Podcast? Email Nina at: ninam0814@gmail.com and Seyoon Choi at: schoi09@outlook.com for more information.

On FSCast 182, we focus on coping with COVID-19. NFB president Mark Riccobono, and ACB president Dan Spoone discuss what these advocacy organizations are doing to help. Richard Tapping talks about product offers for students and employees now at home, and Rachel Buchanan lets us know about special training opportunities.

Did you know that in a majority of states the government can take your children from you just because you have a disability, like being blind? Don't miss out on this episode, where Michael talks with Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind. President Riccobono sheds crucial light on how blind parents are discriminated against, and how they're fighting back to protect their children and their rights.Support the show (http://parentalrightsfoundation.org/donate)

In part two of Randy Cohen's conversation with Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, the focus is on education. The idea of education as the major civil rights issue for many in the blind community. The education of blind students should be a continuum of educational services. Schools should be prepared to give the same educational services for all students, sighted and blind. For more information to go mabvi.org/resources/dangerous-vision/

This week's Dangerous Vision is part one of a two-part conversation with Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind. As President Mark leads the nation's oldest and largest blindness consumer organization. Part watchdog and part entrepreneur, Mark shares with Randy Cohen how growing up in Milwaukee Wisconsin shaped his sense of community and social justice. For more information visiotn www.mabvi.org

Special Wednesday episode of the program all about TV. Our guests: Jackie Hernandez, former Telemundo executive and president of Combate Americas, the Spanish-language mixed martial arts venture, and Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation Of The Blind.

Interview with NFB president Mark Riccobono and Holman Prize winner Stacy Cervenka.

Meet Kristen Steele: Advocate, Massage Therapist, Aira Explorer and Braille Enthusiast #NFB18   Kristen Steele is a Massage Therapist, an Aira Explorer and an advocate who believes in fighting for what she wants and making sure others benefit as well in the long run. Her experiences are readily available as she shares her journey through gaining employment, advocating for accommodations and giving us a glimpse into the accessible tools she employs on a daily basis.   Kristen is an Aira Explorer and has utilized the Aira service in the job application process and as a daily tool to gain instant access to information when she needs it. She also fought the education system when she insisted on taking her test with Braille instead of the choice the school offered. She stuck it out and with the help of the NFB and encouragement from others, Kristen has opened the doors for others that will come behind her. She realizes that advocacy is not just for the self and that the time is well spent when the changes one is making will impact the future for others.   Join Kristen Steele as she talks about her journey, her job and the challenges she has overcome. From school to the workplace, from legal battles to success, Kristen hopes all of you can learn from her experiences and her successes.   If you have any questions for Kristen, you can contact her by email.   If you want to know more about Aira and the services they provide, check them out on the web and become an Aira Explorer today! www.Aira.io [caption id="attachment_2435" align="aligncenter" width="200"]Image of the Aira Logo[/caption] Your Life, Your Schedule, Right Now. Using augmented reality, Aira connects people who are blind or low vision to a trained professional agent who is dedicated to further enhancing their everyday experience – completely hands-free assistance at the touch of a button.   You can learn more about the National Federation of the Blind on the web at www.NFB.org   Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Get the Free blind Abilities App on the Google Play Store   Full Transcript: Meet Kristen Steele: Advocate, Massage Therapist, Aira Explorer and Braille Enthusiast #NFB18     Christen Steele: So, I had a resume that I had done a few months back, but it wasn't as up-to-date as I would like it and I wanted to find a way that I could have it formatted and centered with all the headings in bold. I decided to use Aira, which is a service that will be a visual interpreter. Jeff Thompson: Meet Christen Steele, massage therapist, Aira explorer, advocate for the blind.   Christen Steele: And I talked to Mark Riccobono, who is the current president of the National Federation of the Blind. We were on the phone for about an hour one morning and he really turned me and told me to wait. He said, "It's not just for you, it's for other people." There's so many things that are best to look at in braille. Your bank statements. I just wouldn't have the peace of mind, the confidence, going around this hotel this week. The room numbers, it's accessible if you know braille. Jeff Thompson: Christen talks about the accessible tools that she used to succeed on the job.   Christen Steele: There's pictures and I type it in to my Braille Note and then I disconnect with the agent and go grab the client. Jeff Thompson: And how she built relationships with her instructors to receive the best accommodations possible.   Christen Steele: So, he was already thinking of ways to type up picture descriptions of the muscles or have me feel a skeleton hands-on. Jeff Thompson: You can find more podcasts with the blindness perspective on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com, on Twitter at Blind Abilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store and the Google Play Store. That's two words, Bling Abilities. You can also follow Job Insights, where we talk about the challenges and the successes of transitioning from high school to college to the work place and you can find Job Insights on the Blind Abilities network, www.BlindAbilities.com and on Twitter at Job Insights VIP.   Christen Steele: And he was asking me what format to convert his Power Points into and I left that day and I'm like, "He just got it." Jeff Thompson: And now let's meet Christen Steele. Jeff Thompson: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I'm Jeff Thompson. Today with National Federation of the Blind Convention in Orlando, Florida 2018, and we are talking to Christen Steele. Christen, how are you doing?   Christen Steele: Good. How are you? Jeff Thompson: I'm doing good. Christen, why don't you tell our listeners a little about yourself.   Christen Steele: Okay. Thanks, Jeff, for the invitation to be on this podcast. My name is Christen Steele and I'm a licensed massage therapist. I currently work at Synergy Advanced Massage Therapy in Ralston, Nebraska. I started there in May of 2018. So, it took me a little while to find what I would consider more of a perfect job. The kind you are looking for that you intend to stay for a couple of years or maybe 10 years down the road and it adds a few extra barriers when you live with a visual impairment when you go through the application process, the interview, the decision of acceptance. So, I just wanted to share my story to maybe give other bling listeners an idea of how the process works and to connect with others who have been in the same circumstances. Jeff Thompson: So, Christen, when your job research start?   Christen Steele: I was working at a couple of massage places, a physical therapy clinic was one in Council Bluffs, and it was okay, but I wasn't very happy with the hours they were giving me and the pay, so I kept looking on Indeed, which is a job sharing website. I was just glancing around for any openings in the area and one day when I wasn't looking, I was just scrolling through my Facebook feed in the morning, I saw a post on this group, Massage Professionals Omaha, it was someone from Synergy looking for another therapist to join their team. Jeff Thompson: And so you went on about that. How did you work your application?   Christen Steele: Well, the interview ad for the job application requested a resume. So, I had a resume that I had done a few months back, but it wasn't as up-to-date as I would like it and I wanted to find a way that I could have it formatted and centered with all the headings in bold so that they wouldn't know I'm blind until I come in to the interview and I can be judged equally. I had decided to use Aira, which is a service that will be a visual interpreter for the blind. They call themselves the description of life and as a monthly plan, when you're an Aira explorer, you pay a straight fee once a month for the number of minutes you receive with an agent and they will do anything for you from navigating to reading mail to formatting documents.   Christen Steele: So I sent an agent who picked up my resume by email and told them how I'd like to format it and it took her about 20 minutes and she was very thorough asking me everything from, "What would you like bolded?" or, "Would you like it on two pages?" "How do you want your references listed?" And by the time I was finished I was confident that I had a perfect resume. So I sent it off at about 11:00 a.m. in the morning and by 12:00, an hour later, I received a callback. Jeff Thompson: Congratulations.   Christen Steele: Thank you. I was shocked. I looked at the number and it looked like the one that was on the bottom of their job ad. Like, "They can't have received it already." But I went ahead and took the call and they wanted to schedule an interview with me. Jeff Thompson: Was that by phone, by in person?   Christen Steele: They scheduled the interview over the phone. They wanted to meet in person and they asked if I could come. The next available time slot was a couple of days later and they said they were in search of someone rather quickly because it was a busy clinic. Jeff Thompson: Disclosure, obviously, when you would go your guide dog spelled it out right to them when you arrived and all that. Were you apprehensive? Were you ... Any anxiety or anything? I suppose, it's a job interview too.   Christen Steele: Yeah, anxiety comes anyway. But I had met the owner several months back. I took a CEU on hot and cold stone therapy, so she had met me a couple of days for a short class, but I didn't know if she remembered me and by the sound of that phone call I didn't think she did, so I figured I would just go in. And the day of the interview happened to be the day after my guide dog had surgery, so I was even more nervous because I had to take my cane, which I hadn't used in a few months, and find this suite number inside a building and then find a place to sit down and not be awkward about it so she wouldn't know I hadn't used it in a while. But I entered the suite, found it after asking a couple of people and she automatically said, "Oh, where's Corvette today?" So, she remembered and I think that just lessened it a little bit, making me feel like she knew me and it was okay because she was willing to consider me anyway.   Christen Steele: But normally, disclosure's kind of a large issue for going into an interview blind because there's this whole debate. Do you disclose on the phone if it's a phone interview? Do you disclose in person when you meet them? I typically do it in person because I always think that if you have the chance to get an interview, why not let them judge you equally and consider your qualifications and then decide, once they meet you after you can, in a sense, prove yourself and demonstrate your skills and what technology we use to make it accessible. Jeff Thompson: Plus that gives you a great opportunity to put them at ease if they have any questions that come up at the time.   Christen Steele: Exactly. And then you can show them how I do things in braille. And one of the things I showed her during the interview, she was asking, how will you take a client back and do the intake, and we're all independent contractors, so she said no one's going to be here all day every day. And I pulled out Aira, which has a phone and then a set of glasses that connects via Bluetooth to a hotspot and called an agent just to demonstrate during the interview process what that would be like. And at first she was very concerned about HIPPA and privacy. How will these clients not have their information placed all over on the internet? And she didn't realize the quality of the company.   Christen Steele: I think in her mind she thought it was some volunteer driving down the road looking at this out the corner of their eye, but once I emailed Amy Bernal, the Vice President of Customer Experience at Aira, she's excellent and I've worked with her a lot in the past, she sent me a PDF of their confidentiality contract and the background checks that the agents go through and that really put the employer at ease. Jeff Thompson: Well, that's really great that Aira would do that to help support your initiative for working.   Christen Steele: They're awesome about supporting and they even offered to get on a conference call with my employer to describe their agents and describe some of their qualifications, but after I sent that PDF it wasn't really necessary and I still use them for reading forms to this day. Jeff Thompson: Can you describe what it's like to put on the glasses and all of a sudden have instant access to information?   Christen Steele: So, it's pretty quick and instant. What happens when I'm getting ready for a client, say I have a massage at 4:00 p.m., about five minutes til, I kind of wait til they walk in, grab the intake form and hand it to them and I go back in the room and just check to make sure everything's on and ready and then connect to an agent. So, you wear a pair of glasses and they're updating these right now, but the current version I have has a camera on the right side of your right lens and then that connects to a MiFi hotspot from Verizon and then you manage the app through your iPhone.   Christen Steele: So, I call an agent from the glass and they can basically see, I would say, from 45 degrees to your left and 45 degrees to your right and then a straight on view. If you have something like a printed paper with handwriting where people write on the lines, think when you go to the doctor, you're filling out this form with your personal information, your medications, and all of your health records, they take a picture of that and then I flip it over, they take a picture of the other side and it's immediately, I would say, within about 30 seconds, they're reading off both those pictures and I type it into my Braille Note and they I disconnect with the agent and go grab the client.   Christen Steele: And it's so freeing to think about in a profession where we have so many visual aspects such as knowing if the client is there, where are they sitting, and where were the intake forms placed by the last massage therapist and what they all say in handwriting. It's amazing to think that technology these days can make that all streamlined and accessible. Jeff Thompson: Well, that's great. Hey, are there any other accessibility tools or alternative techniques that you use on the job?   Christen Steele: I use, there's an app called Seeing AI and there's another one that I also like called Envision AI, it's a little better, but it's paid. But Seeing AI will tell me things like if the table warmer is on or they can read a bottle of oil and it's really not a live person, it's artificial intelligence, so you can hold your phone over a piece of paper and as long as it's not handwritten, they're not the best with that, but if it's print or if it's a digital display like a table warmer, it will read off instantly what is on that display and give me access to anything such as currency for checking a tip before someone walks out the door and then it will read things like the microwave sometimes or if I have gel or lotion. So, it's just some simple things that make it worth it to have apps on hand and your phone in your pocket. Jeff Thompson: That's great. So, let's go back a little bit. Coming out of high school and transitioning into getting your certification, what was that process like for you?   Christen Steele: I graduated high school mid-term, so I had enough credits and they decided with my AIP team that since my grade-point average was where I wanted it, 4.0, I graduated mid-term and then starting in the fall of 2015, I had plans to go to University of Nebraska at Omaha. I wanted to originally pursue education. I was thinking of becoming a middle school English teacher, and I did a semester of coursework there. One of my assignments for a public speaking class, which really turned my thought process and my career path, was a speech where you had to interview someone from the career field you're entering.   Christen Steele: So I did a lot of research and I was determined to find a blind teacher, there aren't many, and I found a blind English teach in Indiana. She actually won teacher of the year. Her name is Kathy Nemmer and I interviewed her. She just talked about how it was accessible to a point, but she's in her 40s, I can't remember, somewhere like 48, and said that she spends most of her days on a computer whether it's lesson planning, grading, getting back to parents. She's not married. She doesn't have any real hobbies outside of work. And she estimated about 16 hours spent on the computer and in the classroom.   Christen Steele: I just thought back a little bit. I wanted more of a lifestyle and a balance between my life and my work. There's a point where you can accommodate and you can spend extra time reading braille because it takes about double the time, but do you want to spend 16 hours a day fighting for something? So, after I shifted my career path from teaching, I was trying to decide what I would be interested in as well as I wanted to be right in the front lines with people, helping others to do some kind of service for anyone in need of any maybe attention, help, some kind of comforting. I didn't know at the time. I was thinking possibly nursing, something in the medical field. My dad and my uncle are both pharmacists, so any kind of medical jobs always interest me.   Christen Steele: When I was little I would go back, even before I could walk, I would sit on the pharmacy counter and crawl over the back and be in the pharmacy and count pills. He had this little board that looked like a cutting board and you had a spatula, basically, that would move the pills off the board into this container on the side and then you would dump them in the pill bottle and my dad would put me to work. Even sometimes in the summers I'll still go there. But I just wanted something to where I would have a niche and possibly something that would be medically oriented or along the same field as some of my family members.   Christen Steele: I had a blind friend who is a licensed massage therapist. I started calling her and talking to her a little more. I even came to her house for a massage once and then I was looking into school. She recommended a couple in Omaha, but one stood out to me. It was Midwest School of Massage. I did a lot of research and spent late nights on the computer and Midwest School of Massage looked to be the most accommodating in part because it was taught by two instructors. One was the anatomy, physiology, and pathology instructor and one did more of the outer modalities like reflexology and hot stone.   Christen Steele: So I toured that school and it was just exceptional to walk in to a place where someone gets it. You go to some interviews and they ask questions where you can tell they're not understanding completely what it's like to be a braille reader or what it's like to not be able to look at the board during class. So, he was already thinking of ways to type up picture descriptions of the muscles or have me feel a skeleton hands-on and he was asking me what format to convert his Power Points into. And I left that day and I'm like, "He just got it."   Christen Steele: So I applied to Midwest School of Massage. It's about a year program and it's 200 clinical hours in addition to that curriculum. And it was the best educational experience I've had to this day. The instructor was off on Fridays and he came in several times just to give me one-on-one instruction. He always gave me his cell phone number and said, "If you're not understanding a concept or if you want me to re-explain a technique, just give me a call and we'll meet here on Friday." I've never had an instructor in my life do that. You're always tracking them down and trying to find when can we meet.   Christen Steele: But after I graduated with 4.0 in massage therapy, I took the Massage and Bodywork Licensing Examination called the MBLEx and that took a lot of advocacy. It had never been in braille before, so when I applied, the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards wanted me to take it with a human reader. I started thinking and stressing and getting all this anxiety about readers. I've had so many in college who cannot speak English well, do not know the terminology in the field. It's just not worth basing my score on other people's perceptions of the content or other people's human errors.   Christen Steele: So we did litigation against the Federation of State Massage Therapy Board. I had Disability Rights Iowa and Brown, Goldstein, and Levy working for me funded by the NFB and after about seven or eight months, we passed a settlement agreement and I was the first person to advocate for the MBLEx in braille and still, several people are trying to achieve the same settlement and I think they will. It's now possible for the first time ever to pass the exam in braille. And I give them all the credit for my score. I don't think I would have passed it with a reader. It was so long, four hours, a hundred questions, all multiple choice, and the questions were so similar that it's one of those things you have to look at it. Jeff Thompson: And you were able to do that independently.   Christen Steele: Yes. I took it on a Focus 40 with JAWS. I had a human reader there just in case something crashed or if it wasn't loading correctly, but it all worked out and I did request from the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards that the human reader be from a medical profession. She was an occupational therapist and she was very patient about double checking what I had clicked or telling me how many questions I had remaining and it honestly couldn't have gone any better if I tried. Jeff Thompson: That's awesome for you to use advocacy and to get what you wanted that you knew you could do best if you had it in braille format and what you're doing for everyone else that come into the field behind you.   Christen Steele: Yeah. I really struggled with the decision on waiting because I'd finished my clinical hours in February 2017 and at that point the litigation was still underway and we were deciding whether we wanted a hearing so we were kind of in the middle, wavering out the options and I was working with Ty Tomasse from Iowa. I had several phone calls with her and I asked her if it was her exam for law school would she wait. And I talked to Mark Riccobono, who is the current president of the National Federation of the Blind. We were on the phone for about an hour one morning and he really turned me and told me to wait. He said, "It's not just for you, it's for other people," and it was courageous that I was taking the time to wait for braille literacy who, anyone could benefit, any massage therapist 20 years down the road. So, it was a huge change, but I'm glad we waited and made it possible. Jeff Thompson: What advice would you have for someone who is debating between using books on tape or learning braille, because some people aren't encouraged and it's not their fault they didn't decide to do it. Sometimes TBI, sometimes other people who are supposed to be influencing their success in some way may not say that braille is the best choice if you can kind of see or something. So, what would you suggest to them?   Christen Steele: I've seen this question a lot. I'm in this Facebook group called Parents of Blind Children and so many parents who have these kids in their elementary or middle school years debate on this topic. But I would say it's definitely worth the time to learn braille and the best thing you can do to learn braille is continue reading it whether it's children's books or a novel or your favorite short story, just get something in front of you and the more you read it and practice and say the words after you've read it and just immerse yourself, the more you will increase your speed, increase your accuracy.   Christen Steele: And the main thing, I remember I told my mom I was glad I learned braille when I did. I received an email a couple of months back. It was someone wanting an editor and I think it was spam, I don't know how they got my email, but I had edited for a creative writing publication in the past so I opened it on my phone and just listened with voiceover. I'm like, "Oh, this sounds interesting." And I got my Braille Note out to look at it further and they spelled writing R-I-G-H-T-I-N-G. I'm like, "This is a scam." Delete. Delete. T-O-O they had tried to write, it was T-O. I'm like, "Okay, a voiceover user wouldn't know that." And you could be scammed.   Christen Steele: There's so many things that are best to look at in braille. Your bank statements. I just wouldn't have the peace of mind, the confidence. Going around this hotel this week, the room numbers, it's accessible if you know braille. Anything from labeling items around the house just at your fingertips. If you want to jot down a note, it's accuracy and it brings you a lot more independence. Jeff Thompson: Christen, what advice would you give to someone who is in high school and looking for their future in employment?   Christen Steele: Be creative, but be realistic. I know a couple of people, one of them is blind and he wants to be a sportscaster. It's his dream job, but maybe he will do it someday, maybe he won't, but in my mind I'm just thinking, he can't see the game himself, how is he going to broadcast and there's so many places that are going to wonder that when you interview. So, think realistically. It doesn't have to be just a career for blind people, but something to the point where you can find your calling that you're interested in whether it's the medical field, English, any kind of degree that you would go on, associates, bachelors, even higher if you wish, but think of something that will bring you excitement and pride and be happy at the end of the day, but then be realistic that you can make this successful. Jeff Thompson: That's great advice. Now, being a fluent braille user, what kind of tools in braille do you use?   Christen Steele: I mainly use a Braille Note Touch and that has a braille display and a keyboard, but it also has a screen that you can flip up, which is nice for some of the apps. But I loved having the apps in braille from Google Play, so I have my bank account on there, I have all my Word documents, which is equivalent to a sighted person with a spiral bound notebook. I even have Amazon Kindle, BARD, Braille Terminal. I can connect it to my iPhone. I do all my massage scheduling, I have my app for that on here. And I just try to read braille every day whether it's a recipe or reading a book for leisure. It's something I look forward to when I sit down and relax for the night. Jeff Thompson: And that's a Humanware product.   Christen Steele: Yeah, that's by Humanware and sometimes I'll connect it to my iPhone just to have either Facebook or some website that's not very accessible at my fingertips. Jeff Thompson: Oh, that's really neat. Christen, you mentioned earlier that you're a JAWS user so obviously you're using a PC.   Christen Steele: I have for certain exams. I don't really like screen readers to be honest and a lot of blind people swear by them, but I just like the accuracy and fluency of braille and it kind of drives me insane to listen to audio all day, so I do it if I have to and I know the basics of it, but if it was my choice I wouldn't do JAWS. Jeff Thompson: So, what kind of hobbies do you have?   Christen Steele: So, in my free time I enjoy swimming, I do a lot of tandem biking. We have an organization in Omaha called Outlook Nebraska and they do various activities for people with any kind of vision loss from bowling to bike rides even golf tournaments. I haven't tried that yet but I still want to. I like to do baking, shopping, any kind of reading. I go for a daily walk in the morning, that always wakes me up. But, yeah, even hanging out with friends and family. Jeff Thompson: Christen, is there anything else you would to say to the listeners? Christen Steele: I'd like to say to anyone out there just a little piece of advice. If you're thinking of advocating for something and you have a career path that you want to do or some college exam that's not currently accessible and you would like it to be in braille or you would like it be screen reader accessible, whatever method you prefer, go for it. Don't hold back because you're not only helping your grades and your life in the future, but you're doing it for all these other blind people. And when something doesn't work for one person or the MBLEx, for example, that I was taking, there's other people who have tried to take it and there will be other people 10 years down the road. So, you're not just alone, you're never alone. Fight for it and keep advocating. Jeff Thompson: Christen, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy convention time you've scheduled at the convention here and thanks for all that you're doing for Aira and everybody else that ... You did volunteer time, you're down there doing popcorn, you're all over the place here and I think you're making a great impact. So, thank you very much.   Christen Steele: Thank you for invite. It was my pleasure. Jeff Thompson: Coverage of the 2018 National Federation of the Blind Convention is sponsored by Aira. And you can find Aira on the web at A-I-R-A dot I-O. Follow them on Twitter at A-I-R-A I-O. And thank you Chee Chau for the beautiful music. Follow Chee Chau on Twitter at El Cheechau. I want to thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed. Until next time, bye bye.   [Music]  [Transition noise]  -   When we share What we see through each other's eyes...   [Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]   ...We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.   Jeff Thompson: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective: Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities Download our app from the App store: 'Blind Abilities'; that's two words. Or send us an e-mail at: info@blindabilities.com Thanks for listening.  

Presidential Release #470: March 2018 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases. Items covered in the March 2018 release include: 2018 National Federation of the Blind Annual Convention July 3-8 (Orlando, Florida) Success in working with Delta Air Lines to change its policy related to service animals Special pricing exclusively for Federation members on a service plan from Aira Discussion of the organization's Code of Conduct. Federation family notes An interesting perspective related to fire on the roof Customary endings Resources: 2018 NFB National Convention Delta Air Lines press release Exclusive AIRA pricing Federation Code of Conduct

Presidential Release #470: March 2018 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases. Items covered in the March 2018 release include: 2018 National Federation of the Blind Annual Convention July 3-8 (Orlando, Florida) Success in working with Delta Air Lines to change its policy related to service animals Special pricing exclusively for Federation members on a service plan from Aira Discussion of the organization's Code of Conduct. Federation family notes An interesting perspective related to fire on the roof Customary endings Resources: 2018 NFB National Convention Delta Air Lines press release Exclusive AIRA pricing Federation Code of Conduct

Presidential Release #468: January 2018 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Presidential Release #468: January 2018 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Presidential Release #467: December 2017 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Presidential Release #467: December 2017 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Presidential Release #466: November 2017 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Presidential Release #466: November 2017 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Presidential Release #465: October 2017 Show Notes Every month, President Mark Riccobono provides a brief audio report on the current activities of the National Federation of the Blind. Listen now or share at your upcoming meeting or event. Learn more about the National Federation of the Blind at nfb.org or listen to archived episodes at nfb.org/archives-presidential-releases.

Chris Danielsen Talks About the Blind Californians and the NFB Suing  Greyhound Public Relations Director for the National Federation of the Blind, Chris Danielsen, joins Jeff Thompson of the Blind Abilities Team to talk about the recent lawsuit filed in California regarding the accessibility of the Greyhound Bus web site and the Greyhound Application for the smart phone. This is new territory to include the App in the mix as previous cases involved access only to the web site.  Today, as technology keeps moving forward and our shopping habits adjust towards the convenience afforded to us by companies insisting we get their app, maybe this lawsuit will set a precedence for accessibility to be considered in apps so everybody can have the same opportunities in the same space as everyone else.  Here is Chris’s contact info: Chris Danielsen Director of Public Relations National Federation of the Blind (410) 659-9314, extension 2330 email Chris   Here is the news release from the NFB.org web site: Blind Californians and Advocates Sue Greyhound Lawsuit Alleges Blind People Cannot Use Greyhound Website or Mobile App San Francisco (June 12, 2017): In February of 2015 Tina Thomas, who is blind, was planning a trip from her home in Los Angeles to Las Vegas to visit family and friends. She tried to book the trip on Greyhound.com, but her text-to-speech software couldn't interpret Greyhound's website. She called Greyhound to book her trip, explaining that she could not use the website, but Greyhound still charged her a "convenience fee" for booking by phone. She tried to use the website again earlier this year, but the experience had not improved. Ms. Thomas and four other blind Californians, along with the National Federation of the Blind, have now sued Greyhound in federal district court. The lawsuit alleges that Greyhound has designed its website and app so that they cannot be used by the blind. This violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and state laws, the lawsuit says. Blind people use screen reader software that converts the content of websites or apps into speech or Braille. This software can easily read text, but it cannot interpret pictures, graphics, and elements like forms and menus if they are not coded properly. The Worldwide Web Consortium has published in-depth guidelines on how to make websites compatible with screen readers, known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0, Level AA). Apple and Google have also published accessibility guidelines for apps designed for the iPhone and Android smart phones, respectively. Other major transportation providers, such as Southwest Airlines, Amtrak, and the ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft, have websites or apps that blind people can use to book travel. But Greyhound has not made the needed changes to its website or app, despite several requests from blind people and advocates. The lawsuit may be certified as a class action if the court approves. The suit seeks an injunction requiring Greyhound to make the needed changes to its website and mobile app. The case is National Federation of the Blind et al v. Greyhound Lines, Inc. et al, case number 3:17-cv-03368. The plaintiffs are represented by Timothy Elder of the TRE Legal Practice, www.trelegal.com, and by Lisa Ells and Michael Nunez of Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld, www.rbgg.com. Attorneys for the plaintiffs are interested in speaking with any blind individuals who have been unable to use the Greyhound mobile app or website with their screen-reader or who have been charged convenience fees for booking tickets over the telephone.  "Without the ability to drive, blind people need travel alternatives like Greyhound," said Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the blind. "It's mystifying, not to mention unlawful, that Greyhound makes it impossible for us to book trips in the same ways everyone else can. Worse yet, Greyhound charges us extra for the convenience of using the only booking methods that work for us, the phone or the ticket counter at the bus station. Paying for Greyhound’s discrimination against us is offensive and this unequal treatment will not be left unchallenged. " Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

1703 Blind Driver Challenge (Jan. 11, 2017) Show Notes Attitudes about what the blind can and cannot do have been challenged by the work of the National Federation of the Blind’s Jernigan Institute and their efforts to create a car that the blind can drive independently. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Mark Riccobono, … Continue reading 1703 Blind Driver Challenge (Jan. 11, 2017) →

Find Your Fit™ Episode #25 Special Guest Marc Riccobono (President of the National Federation of the Blind) President of the National Federation of the Blind, Mark Riccobono, joins the Find Your Fit Podcast Team for the first episode of 2017 Jessica and Kevan talk about the upcoming year. Kevan started the year with a 5k ... [Read more...]

In this Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind to discuss: The purpose and history of the federation. Accessible voting. Self-driving technology. Equal access to education. Future technologies. Braille and literacy. The Marrakesh treaty. How to join the NFB. Follow Mark Riccobono and the NFB on Twitter, and visit the NFB’s website.

In this Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind to discuss: The purpose and history of the federation. Accessible voting. Self-driving technology. Equal access to education. Future technologies. Braille and literacy. The Marrakesh treaty. How to join the NFB. Follow Mark Riccobono and the NFB on Twitter, and visit the NFB’s website.

In this Spotlight interview, James Oates sits down with Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind to discuss: The purpose and history of the federation. Accessible voting. Self-driving technology. Equal access to education. Future technologies. Braille and literacy. The Marrakesh treaty. How to join the NFB. Follow Mark Riccobono and the NFB on Twitter, and visit the NFB’s website.

As we prepare for the blindness convention season in the US, we unveil some very special pricing we'll be offering at the NFB Convention to celebrate its 75th birthday. Jonathan Mosen speaks with Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, about his recent visit to Freedom Scientific's headquarters and a range of other topics. And we hear from Robin Drodge, a Canadian JAWS® user who is such a fan of Freedom Scientific products, he scheduled a visit to our headquarters as part of his family holiday. Show Host: Jonathan Mosen Episode 108 - Special pricing at NFB convention, Jonathan Mosen Speaks with Mark Riccobono, President of National Federation of the Blind, Robin Drodge - a Canadian JAWS user who put Freedom Scientific on his family holiday plans.

Guest: Mark Riccobono, Executive Director, National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute "The Cane Event," Fundraiser on April 4, 2009 www.nfb.org - Visit us at 21stcenturyradio.com