Although technology often improves the lives of the disabled, other times it complicates it.
Yesterday I spent three hours rehearsing positions. No, I'm not bragging about my Kama Sutra skills (I do that on Only Fans). It is the Micro Usb connector of a Samsung J2 smartphone that I use because its camera has a better resolution than my current device.
That is why in this post I'm going to catharsis my misadventures in the world of technology, because despite what my brilliant articles lead you to think otherwise, sometimes I mess up or things happen to me.
My misadventures in the world of technology
my clumsiness
Of course, everything on this list is debatable, and it is possible that in more than one case the problem is me.. More than once I've reinstalled an operating system because I couldn't log in without realizing that the caps lock key wasn't in the position I thought it was when I generated the password, so when I logged in, the system didn't work. I recognized what he wrote.
A few years ago I bought an external drive that for some reason had two USB connectors to connect to the computer. I never knew which one it was because the manual was printed in garbled font. I plugged one in thinking the other was a spare. Of course it didn't work until I connected the two.
The third story in this section is not entirely my fault.
We had purchased a new clothes washer. For some reason, the people who built my house thought we wouldn't need an outlet near a sink. That is why we connected it to the electrical network with an extension cord.
Following (for once) the instruction manual, I put the soap, the clothes, I connect the hose to the faucet and turn on the machine. I go quietly to do something else and when I finish I go back to see how it went. It was off.
I unplug the machine, plug it back in, unplug and plug in the faucet and machine. Confident that everything was fine, I'm going to eat. When I finish lunch I look again. It was off. I consult the manual, repeat the procedure and turn it on again. I leave it on and find it off.
Finally, staying by the side of the machine, I discover the fault. The extension cord was a few inches from the floor. Just high enough for my two turtles to push it hard enough to loosen the plug from the outlet, but not to pull it all the way out.
Note for ecologists: The turtles in question have been with my family since 1977 when there was not so much environmental awareness and they prefer to spend the winter next to the heater than hibernating.
Mr Magoo and technology
For the visually impaired, at least for this one, computer technology meant a great improvement in the quality of life. Boring waits in poorly lit rooms are over thanks to Caliber and its ability to convert between formats and change ebook style sheets. Or, to suffer trying to study in math books printed in lowercase fonts since tesseract got Linux to have quality OCR technology. Nor do I need to ask anyone else which bus is arriving or where we are traveling, he takes care of that OpenStreetMap. And, what about the amount of strawberry and lemon ice creams eaten for not being able to see the list of flavors? the zoom of Open Room shorten all distances.
But not all is perfect. Let's look at some drawbacks:
- Biometric identification: Many financial apps ask you to verify your identity by taking a selfie. For this you have to put the camera at a certain distance and read the instructions. In my case it is one or the other. And, since it has to be a selfie, you can't ask another person. I have to test if the android screen reader works in these cases.
- The photo of the document or credit card: This is another form of identification. The problem is that not all mobiles have a good camera and, if I bring the phone close enough to check that the data is read correctly, the device is too close for a complete photo. In many cases I fixed the issue by recording a video by zooming in and out. Then I pass the video to the computer and with the screen capture function of VLC I select a sharp image.
- MicroSD/MicroSim: microSD cards go head to head with the micro USB connector among the worst inventions. They are to be placed in their slot and left there until they disintegrate. Because, as soon as you take them out, you run out of them. As for the Micro Sim, it shares with the MicroSD the problem of size, if they fall on the floor there is no chance that I will find them again.
The mobile keyboard
Phones without keyboards are very elegant, but not suitable for thick fingers. Even putting the device on its side to enlarge the size of the virtual keys, I am not able to type without having to go back. And, let's not talk about the days with some humidity in which the screen does not respond well. Fortunately, with scrcpy I can use the PC keyboard to type on the smartphone.
Sun worshipers sect
The archaeologists of the future will speak of a sect that worshiped the Sun south of the Tropic of Capricorn. To honor it, they built totems aligned with its rays. The parishioners entered their requests and received the gifts that they exchanged with others of the tribe.
As far as I know, this seems to be the only logical explanation why the banking architects of Buenos Aires they place the ATMs in such a way that the sun's ray hits the screen just at the time when there are the greatest number of users. If we add to this that, to see the screen I have to put myself in a position that forces a part of my body to protrude, one of these days I'm going to have an upset (Or, a joy, until it happens I can't know )
why i wrote this article
I am not so vain to think that my life could be of interest to someone. But if I think free and open source software is better spread by explaining why its principles are important with case studies than by copying and pasting them without adding anything else. If financial application developers were forced to use public APIs for biometric identification or document capture, it would be easier for independent developers to create solutions for the visually impaired. If central banks forced ATM manufacturers to use open accessibility standards in their graphical interface, I would have to stop going to the ATM at times when I know there will be no other people waiting. I clarify that it is because of the time it takes, not because of fear of my physical integrity.
The inclusion of the story of the turtles has no justification. I just wanted to tell it.
The point is not that banking institutions and services should be *forced* to use free or open source software in all of their financial systems, because just as they could be forced to do so, they could also be forced to keep a watchful eye on all movements and report to the Treasury what each citizen does with their money and then exploit them in taxes and accuse them of evasion. Imagine for a moment that the first patent in the world had never been created during the renaissance, any company that wanted to keep their designs top secret (including software developers), would have to be ingenious when drawing up their schemes like Da Vinci did that purposely sabotaged them, in the case of software developers they would have to compile the code and use different models like DRM for their products.
Of course, it would not be safe forever because with reverse engineering someone with sufficient knowledge would be able to decipher it or others with the same knowledge could alternatively reproduce the same good on their own. In such a world, banking technologies would be much more standardized and each bank would stand out for the level of services that it can offer, and this would be so because banking technologies would eventually level off and because with the rise of global telecommunications such as the Internet, community efforts would emerge for the development of software, as well as operating systems and distributions, both multipurpose and for different specific purposes. Likewise, not only the money in the accounts of each banking agent and intermediary would be safer, but also the confidence of the users, since the largest amount of software for its operation would be available, likewise, there would be a greater interest in the development of these projects. by parts of companies because it would lower costs, on the other hand, companies would not be so supercharged in economic benefits either, maintaining a practically oligopolistic or monopolistic status quo (depending on the case) but on the contrary, in said world they would be more modest but at the same time more numerous and distributed. The current problems come from *forcing* to do, the greatest solutions have come from the hand of Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même ("Let do and let pass, the world goes alone"); the latter is precisely the development of free and open source software, solutions that did not come by *forcing* people to do something.