At the moment, for instance, I’m working on a service to accept audio contributions from occupants and make them available to content reviewers. Note that the project will change URLs when I come up with or am provided a more clever name, so don’t expect that URL to last. Do expect an announcement when it changes, though.

Currently it accepts audio in a number of common formats (thus far I’ve thrown WAV and 3GP at it without issue) and transcodes them into MP3 files. While the core concept isn’t that exciting, some of the deeper technologies are.

I’ve been thrilled at the team’s acceptance of my use of non-conventional languages and tools. We’re currently using Scala and Lift for this particular app, and are considering scaling some of the core concepts out to heavier deployment scenarios. We have over a rack of fairly impressive servers with which to play, and are probably fairly well-stocked for an occupation.

There’s no reason that the transcoding code can’t be broken out into a separate library and service. Using Akka would allow its use in everything from simple deployments within the same JVM, to standalone servers specifically set aside for transcoding media, or even load-balanced services for distributing transcoding workloads. And given our current heavy dependence on inaccessible Flash-based technologies, I’m very eager to move us to open standards. A server-side and scalable transcoding solution would be the perfect tool for that.

Anyway, I’m excited. I get to play with lots of powerful metal. I’m working with a group interested in building the best apps, not just in using the most common or easiest tools for the job. And there’s no shortage of ideas to build out.

And, yeah, I’m putting all this Occupy Austin stuff on my resume. If an employer doesn’t like that, well, that’s why I’m striving for self-employment, so they don’t get to dictate my politics or values. There’s even more in the pipeline, but I’m saving that for another day.

Maybe it’s that my bank insists on charging me for the use of my own money from an account that doesn’t have a whole lot to begin with (while they’ve gone back on that, it’s hard to trust that they won’t try again later.) Maybe it is the ridiculous institution of charging overdraft fees instead of simply blocking a transaction entirely which, while overdraft fees without consent were prohibited by law in 2009, simply inspires these institutions to seek out new ways of gouging their consumers for the use of what belongs to them.

Maybe it is health care. A dislocated shoulder costs $3923 to fix, and given that I dislocate mine regularly and in stupid ways (such as, for instance, getting off of buses and closing doors) I don’t like losing a significant amount of money to go back to a life without significant pain and restriction.

Maybe it is that, on October 30, 38 people in Austin got arrested. According to consistent first-hand accounts, many of them were not read their rights, were told that they watched too much TV when they asked about them. Maybe it’s that many were singled out and mistreated by police. Women were stripped to their bras and underwear and were baited by male officers to insight accusations of disorderly conduct. Maybe it’s that this happened while people with significant amounts of money and influence walk free for doing a whole lot worse than exercising their first amendment rights.

Regardless of which among the above was the straw, on the Sunday before last I did something I never have before. I wrote an email to Art Acevedo, Austin’s police chief. Taking a different tack than many, I thanked him for what he did. It was because of what happened on October 30 that I woke up. I saw that this could happen in my city, a city I believed to be safe from this kind of abuse. I saw that this did affect me, because while I have no intentions of playing the financial game any more than I absolutely must, money gives those who have it powers and immunities which those of us without it lack. I closed by stating that this move by APD did not intimidate me. In fact, it has encouraged me to take up the cause and join with the occupants.

Wonder of wonders, I got a response within a few hours. It looked mostly form letterish, explaining that the occupants had been having public sex, urinating in the plaza, leaving the bathrooms a mess and doing other things that supposedly justified the police action. Leaving aside my questions as to why the arrests were against the group as a whole rather than the individuals whose actions Art seemed fairly certain of, and of whether or not these actions by individuals justified mistreating the group, that I got a response within a few hours showed me that we all have it within us to spark change. Perhaps mine was one of many emails received that day. But if we hadn’t sent them, then Art wouldn’t have had to sit down and draft a response.

But there was one paragraph in the email that stood out, one that made me feel like my email had truly been read and that, even if most of my response was form, part of it had either been written personally, or had been targeted to a small enough group that he felt compelled to add it:

“In closing, I am happy to see that you intend to start participating in OA since I know that OA truly wants to recapture the participation of a cross section of our society like we experienced on day one. Your participation will be a good outcome. Regardless of the public statements that may be expressed by OA, I know the truth to be that the environment we are creating in terms health and safety, is one that many OA participants have been longing for. Their hope is that a better environment will recapture the participants and spirit of Day One of OA.”

So, partially with Mr. Acevedo’s encouragement, I’m joining the occupation and helping where I can. I’ve joined the IT team. Thus far I’ve submitted a patch to the Sneakermesh Android app that improves accessibility. I’ve been watching the livestream in search of ways to help, and am working on an app that provides an unsecure, unreliable but cooperative means of communication between occupants at remote and fixed locations (so, for instance, someone can text or call a phone number and speak messages that get relayed to public computers at basecamp, then basecamp occupants can either type responses back which get texted or spoken or they can perform some needed task.) More on that when I have a release to share, which I hope will be in a few days.

Am I still looking for work? Yes, though I’m also putting myself in a more financially tenable position so I can start my own businesses. I don’t want my livelihood to depend on someone’s good will any longer, or on one other person’s willingness to keep me employed. Am I still keeping my money in a financial institution? Of course, but recently I joined a credit union and will be moving my money ASAP. They have their share of accessibility issues, but I called and spoke with those in a position to implement solutions–something I doubt I could have gotten from Bank of America.

But I do plan on finding ways to help with the occupation in person. This weekend I’m taking chair massage training and will need people on whom to practice. Who better than a bunch of tired occupants? I can wash a mean plate, cook a decent meal and do a number of other things that might help. And I can code, too. I’m nervous on my own in large groups, which is why I’m not there already, but I’m working on connecting up with people beforehand to mitigate that some.

For years I’ve avoided news and current events because they depress me. I have a low tolerance for human stupidity, and it bothers me to see people doing the same things again and again while expecting different results. Are these occupations more of the same? Perhaps, but they seem to be capturing people’s imaginations in a way that I personally have never experienced. Even if this comes to nothing, when people ask where I was during a movement that stood for many of the values I do, I don’t want to sheepishly explain that I was just sitting around watching the stream in my bathrobe. I want to be there, and even if I don’t have the balls to get arrested, I’d like to give my sleep and efforts to support those who do.

I was laid off last week. I wish the National Braille Press luck with their currently unnamed Braille notetaker/phone/PDA project.

The good news is that I’m now contracting for Serotek, and am assured that there’s no shortage of work. I am of course under NDA so can’t talk about anything upcoming, but one might reasonably conclude from this that there will be many new Android developments following my initial efforts at creating iBlink for Android.

Since NBP is no longer funding Spiel development directly or indirectly, I’ll be adding a donate button to its site in the coming days. I’m still OK financially, but if you’ve used or are interested in my various other projects, then now might be a great opportunity to express that with a donation.

Meanwhile, I welcome my new Serotek overlords…I mean, look forward to working more with them in the future. I haven’t been this excited about my work in a long while, and we’re definitely breaking some new and exciting ground both for me personally and in our industry at large.

As a brief update, I’m back from LA, and Flash Sonar definitely works. I have over a dozen hours of raw audio, and as soon as I have the mental energy, I’ll be sitting down to work that into a couple hours of entertaining/informative podcasts.

There are good reasons for all of these things. At some point I should probably blog about the release of Touchtype, though I suspect that everyone who would find such things useful already knows about it.

What has me excited these days, though, is this article about a man in California named Daniel Kish. His non-profit, World Access for the Blind, trains blind people in a technique called flash sonar.

I’ve wished that I could relearn how to ride a bike for some time now–relearn because I did cycle when I was younger and thought I’d live forever. The Blind Driver Challenge is certainly an awesome effort, but there are plenty of bureaucratic and accessibility barriers to be overcome before blind people will ever be behind the wheel–assuming, of course, that the technology proves viable and safe in actual road conditions. I’m rather surprised that they didn’t try tackling a simpler goal first, such as bike riding.

Not only are there fewer perceptual barriers between cyclists and the road, but licenses aren’t necessary. Neither are accessible gas pumps, or any of the other many little things that would need to change before this can possibly transition from cool demo to practicality. I’ve been pondering a technological solution to the cycling problem that uses an array of ultrasonic sensors connected to haptic feedback equipment, translating nearby obstacles and upcoming turns in a way that is hopefully both intuitive and safe. It never occurred to me that there was a non-technological solution.

According to the article, blind cyclists are able to mountain bike solo through rugged terrain. If cycling in such conditions is possible, I reasoned, then surely city streets shouldn’t pose much challenge. I was partly right.

I’ve been corresponding with Daniel Kish for the last week or so, and he states that residential streets aren’t a problem. Heavy traffic is, not because of the obstacles, but because the volume of traffic noise interferes with the echo characteristics of flash sonar.

Learning to cycle will be my next big adventure, or perhaps my first big adventure when viewed in a certain light. Even if I can’t cycle down heavily-traveled streets, anyone who knows where I live also knows that I have lots of residential streets in most directions. The busier streets can easily be crossed on foot, and I can certainly learn ways to travel parallel to them when necessary. When that isn’t possible, biking for 30 blocks and walking for 5 beats the hell out of walking the full 35, and certainly frees me from the constraints of public transit.

I’m also still planning on pursuing the technological solution. My biggest weakness in that area is that I have no concept of traveling in streets as a vehicle rather than as a pedestrian. Do most streets have bike lanes, and if so, how wide are they? How are cyclists like pedestrians, and how do they differ? How much time/space do cyclists need in order to react to obstacles, make turns, etc.? Learning these metrics for myself will help with the technological augmentations.

Unless something vastly changes in the next few days, my plans are to fly to California for three days of flash sonar training–two to grasp the basic technique, and a third specifically targeted at using it to cycle. I plan to document both my experiences learning the technique, as well as the adventures I have after when learning to cycle.

I’d also like to produce a podcast–have in fact wanted to for years–but only if I felt that I had something worthwhile to say. Tentatively titled Raising the Bar, the show will challenge people’s perceptions of blindness, my own included. Consider it my frustrated but diplomatic response to thirty years of being condescendingly congratulated for crossing streets, told to be careful, and avoided by those who fear my disability second only to death, or more than a major condition that causes death. It won’t be regular, but I hope to keep it interesting.

I don’t write Spiel, Hermes and Touchtype for others. I write them for myself, because I want my life to be an interesting one, full of adventure. When those adventures happen, I want the best tools to support me, and no one is better positioned to provide the best solutions for me than am I. I’m grateful to have finally found what seems to be a sound next adventure.

First, know that I am by no means hurting financially. That said, if you want to buy me the occasional beer or dinner for my efforts then I won't say no.

For Spiel, I'd like to ask that you donate to the National Braille Press instead of to me. These folks are generously paying my salary which, for the moment, funds Spiel development. Since they can use the money more than can I, please send it to them instead. I do have one request, though. If you are allowed to do so, please note that your donation is because of their help with the Braille Wizard and because of their funding of Spiel. If you support the idea of me being paid to continue its development then it would be good for the ones funding it to know that.

Hermes, on the other hand, is entirely my project at the moment, though I do eventually wish to monetize it. There is now a donation button carelessly plonked on the page, but for added convenience I'm linking to it below.

Note again that I don't need the money. I can state from personal experience, though, that getting a donation for a project is a big ego boost. Anyone can pat you on the back and say “nice job,” and that most certainly has meaning, but when someone buys me a six-pack of stout or a yummy Chinese dinner, well, that means they're much more invested in the project and are rooting all the more for my success. Such ego boosts make me more likely to continue past frustrations, or to work on features I might not care about as much, so it's a nice perpetuating cycle of benefit to everyone involved.

For one thing, it is cross-platform and self-contained. One single binary is all that is needed, and pre-built versions are available for 32 and 64-bit Linux, OS X and Windows.

The author is also quite responsive to bug reports and feature suggestions. Yesterday, for instance, I identified a bug and provided a repository that exhibited it, and within an hour the fix was available in trunk. Very nice.

The biggest win for Hermes, though, is that cloning the repository gives you everything, not just the code, but the entire website including wiki, documentation and tickets. I can't think of a better tool for a project designed to increase mobility and adventure than one that makes project management possible from anywhere and by anyone.

In semi-related news, Hermes continues improving daily. My four-year-old Trekker didn't turn off recently despite the fact that I pressed and held its power button, so it has once again lost its onboard software which I can't install under Linux. It would appear that Hermes is now my only GPS solution until I can find someone with a Windows PC to help with the re-installation. That isn't the huge deal it may seem to be, though, because way and intersection detection and description have become far more accurate of late.

Also, yesterday I needed to navigate to my leasing office to drop off rent. Finding the office is a PITA for two reasons. First, it is just one suite in a larger building of apartments. Furthermore, if you turn too late then there's a nice flight of stairs, the underside of which faces the street. I've whacked my head on the undersides of those many times because there's simply no way to notice them using a cane on ground level. I'd marked a point in Trekker, but despite doing so at the location, it never seemed to be all that accurate.

Hermes itself doesn't yet support routing, but Google Nav does. Not only did Nav have a point for my leasing office (Trekker didn't), but it happily ran in the background and provided turn-by-turn directions while Hermes provided intersection and way updates. When Nav noted that the location was on my left, well, it pretty much was. No painful collisions with stair risers, just a left turn to the office.

I'm sure that not every experience will be quite so smooth, but I doubt that I'll be rushing to re-install Trekker's software anytime soon either.

There's a certain group of app developers who have been doing lots for Android accessibility in the last few months. The work they've done is commendable, and I'm glad that someone else is developing in the Android accessibility space. But while I generally like their results, I take serious issue with their methods.

In July they released an accessible email client based on an existing open source solution, K9. The app they forked is itself a fork of Android's stock email app, adding lots of features for power users and others wishing that the stock client would be as featureful as the Gmail one. The problems? Two-fold.

First, they didn't actually work with the open source K9 community. Instead, they created their own ivory tower, worked in private then released their work as a separate product. While it was open source, there was no version control system, no issue tracker… Basically, contributing to their separate walled garden was about as painful as it could have been short of them simply not making the source available at all.

Then, when I did contact them privately, pointing out a usability issue that existed both in their own fork and in the initial K9 upstream, I was met with utter silence. No information on where to send my patch or even if it was welcome.

I wasn't whining about something not working like I thought it should. I was pointing out what I believed to be a fairly serious usability issue and providing a solution. But no one seemed to care…

No one from the forked project, that is. I next submitted the patch upstream to the K9 client itself, thinking that the patches would eventually work their way into a future “K9 for the blind” version. By way of contrast, the K9 developers were happy to accept my patches, seeming quite enthusiastic for their client to be as accessible to blind users as possible. I was promptly emailed by one of the project's leads expressing concerns about the use of the trademark symbol for K9 on “my” website…because, you know, if I was contacting him about these changes then this new version of K9 had to be my own project, right? I promptly replied, stating that this wasn't in fact the case. I was not responsible for the fork, but was simply contributing to people who welcomed my help and valued my work. I also urged him to try reconciling the forks so that there didn't need to be yet another separate but equal app for the blind, and unlike with me, he apparently did get a response (though it shouldn't have been his responsibility to advocate for this outcome.) The accessibility changes now reside in K9's trunk, but to my knowledge there was never an announcement that soon the official K9 app would be accessible if it isn't already.

This isn't the only time I've had this experience. Another app was recently released, an accessible web browser. I was excited to contribute to this, as I develop lots of web apps and wanted a way to use them on my phone. Once again, however, I was met with silence when I offered to submit a patch. Yet when I pointed out a fairly major bug, a fix was pushed a few hours later. So it clearly isn't that they aren't listening, just that they don't seem to want others to actually make their products better.

Sure, I can fork. But I really don't have the time to maintain yet another project that will by and large play catch-up with someone else's work. What would be far better is for them to capitalize on the advantages of open source and work with the communities they wish to help.

Compare this to just about every other open source project out there. Thus far I've contributed accessibility improvements to several open source projects. Everyone seems quite enthusiastic about accepting most of my patches, appearing grateful that someone is doing this accessibility work for them rather than simply telling them what they must do.

My tangentially-related gripe is with Google themselves. Their open source accessibility development is mostly done in secret. Upgrades to their apps aren't usually accompanied with changelogs unless someone requests to know what's new, and sometimes even that isn't enough. Their Subversion repository, while more or less up-to-date, rarely gives indications of what is new, instead consisting of lobs of unrelated changes. Obviously work is happening behind closed doors, but even the normal Android open source project produces more granular changesets. It's like the accessibility team has decided to cloister themselves in an ivory tower. And don't bother asking what's new and upcoming, because you won't get an answer, and all you can do is hope that there actually is something going on behind those walls.

So how is this secrecy different from Android? We don't know for sure what is coming in the next version, other than a few teaser blog posts made around the time of Google I/O. Simply this. Accessibility should not be your killer feature in the way that tethering, JIT or anything else is. When an able-bodied user upgrades to a newer Android, they take it for granted that they're able to read their screen. Imagine how silly it would be if release notes touted that as a feature? “Version 3.0. Now you can actually read webpages!” When Apple's iPhone dropped calls, Antennagate made them a huge joke when everyone expected their phones to, you know, actually make calls, and there was a fix made available rather quickly. Yet we're silently hanging on hoping that a feature almost as essential will be made available to us, but because there aren't millions of blind people asking for answers, we'll be treated like second class citizens while hoping that our web access will eventually become usable.

Accessibility is not a feature, just as a functional phone antenna isn't a feature. It is a design element, and being secretive about it makes no sense. Even one of Google's accessibility engineers agrees that accessibility shouldn't be a secret, but I guess that only applies to others and not to Google itself.

So I've described the situation for long enough. Why does it bother me?

First, it's wasteful and inefficient. I'm writing an Android screen reader and an accessible navigation app. These apps are each rapidly evolving, and not because they don't meet the specifications spelled out in some requirements document somewhere. If you're stuck developing apps to the bullet points collected in a requirements gathering phase then I pity you and empathize, but I gather requirements every time I leave my front door, running Spiel and guided by Hermes. I'm gathering requirements when I arrive back home and recall just how each worked well and fell short while I was out and about. And generally I'm working to fix those bugs as soon as I can. For instance, yesterday I discovered a bug or two while heading out to meet a friend for lunch–actually using something rather than sitting behind closed doors and filtering through focus groups–and the fixes to said bugs were tested and committed mere hours later. If you're stuck behind the need to develop code in a less agile manner, then why wouldn't you want contributions from those actually using your work in real situations? Hell, I wish more people contributed to Spiel or Hermes development, and even if their code wasn't quite where I wanted it, I'd happily work with them in the hopes that they'd be future contributors.

Second, it just feels like a slap in the face. I'll grant that this is my own interpretation of things, but when my contributions to other open source projects are accepted but aren't when said projects are accessibility related, I can't help but feel that I'm “just” a user and not worth considering, even though I'm taking time to learn someone's work, use it in real settings and put valuable time into improving it. It's as if I'm not a part of their focus group or engineering team, or I'm not part of their study subjects, and because of that, I'm lesser. Or it's as if I'm one of the charity cases they're out to help, and because of that, I can't possibly help back.

So let's tear down this fucking accessibility ivory tower. You don't have to throw the gates wide and accept everyone's contribution, but don't treat those of us who care enough about your work to strive at improving it as if we're second class citizens. Android is at least nominally open source, so start capitalizing on its advantages to make a better accessibility experience rather than simply discouraging contributions with silence and closed process. If I wanted that then I'd just switch to the iPhone and take what Apple gave me.

I do want to close on a positive note. While I've pounded various groups for doing it wrong, there is one group that I feel truly gets it, and that is the University of Washington. They've developed a number of accessibility apps, some of which I've played with, and when I found that their OCR app didn't work with my phone's multi-stage camera button, I spent an hour or two putting together a patch that made it work. Emailing the contact address on their site, I expected that once again I'd not get a response, but was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I get one, but my email was forwarded to the student working on the project, and my patch was greeted with enthusiasm. He even wondered if I could help with future development. Unfortunately I really don't have the time to take on other projects, which is why I'm not forking those that don't want my contributions, but he also answered my technical questions about the project's direction and choice of back-end technologies. The whole experience felt vastly more welcoming, and if I have time to contribute to others' projects in the future, I likely will invest that time where I've been made to feel welcome rather than where I haven't.

So if you're working on the next big thing in accessibility, and are planning to open source it, read The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Even if you don't agree with everything, release early and often. There was a version of Spiel available mere weeks after I started working on it, even though it was highly unusable, in the theory that anyone who cared enough about such an effort could download it and help make it better. If you remain in your ivory tower building your cathedral, then you're engaged in inefficient processes that will just hurt everyone who is striving for practical accessibility solutions rather than theoretical and brittle ones.

If you're one of the groups or individuals about whom I've ranted, note that I only do so because I'm passionate enough about your work to advocate for its improvement. I could be outside enjoying a nice, sunny day, but instead I'm giving an hour or so of my time toward writing something that I hope will make some difference. And considering Austin is in the midst of monsoon season, that I'm not out enjoying the first sunshine we've had in days right now is pretty huge. If you'd like to improve but don't quite know how, I highly recommend this free book. It's given me lots of things to ponder when launching my own projects, and while I don't necessarily excel at them all, I do try to follow its guidance.

I acted back in '03, when many of the same people were running Haunted Trails, and it's interesting to note that a few folks remember me from then. Granted, my station was a memorable one (cross-dressing belly dancers really scare the conservatives) but I was surprised nonetheless. This year I decided not to act, but to instead assist with sound design. After meeting with the audio team, I'm that much more excited about what we're doing this year.

I'm not used to crafting. While I've done my share of acting, music and more spontaneous art, the process of producing a concrete product from little more than a vague concept is a new and interesting one. Also, sitting in a room with lots of folks just as interested in good sound design as I am was an inspiration.

The timing on this couldn't have been better. Having just started my new job, I've got a bit of disposable income to drop on audio gear upgrades, along with the justification to do so. Now I need to learn about control surfaces, studio headphones, USB audio devices and how well all three play with Linux.

Bring on the power-ups…

I think this will be a great fit for me. It's part-time, leaving me ample time and energy for other projects and business ideas. Hours are flexible as well. Also, I'm working on things about which I'm passionate, and may even manage to swing funding for Spiel development. Unfortunately, there's nothing to which I'm ready to link just yet, but creating that is on the agenda for early next week.

My only concern is that I really need a better life outside of work. I acknowledge that this arrangement is quite sweet and that I'm lucky to have it, but having more money is sort of useless if you don't have an active life on which to spend it. Certainly there's something to be said for financial responsibility and saving, but beyond a certain threshold, such measures stop being responsible and start being score-keeping. And, well, just as I never could get into games like Space Invaders, whose goal was simply to earn more and more points in the face of increasing challenges, the game of have the biggest bank balance isn't much more exciting, though admittedly the power-ups and unlockable items are a bit cooler.