[blindza] Fw: What is a sightling?
- From: "Jacob Kruger" <jacobk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "NAPSA Blind" <blind@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:33:17 +0200
---original message---
Friday, July 29, 2011.
What is a sightling?
This is not a question to a Jeopardy quiz show answer. It is an edited
version
of an email I sent some months ago in an attempt to explain part of the
reality
in which I find myself. I will post it here before launching into an
explanation
of my experiments with vision synthesis. Warning: This is not a politically
correct post and is likely an unpopular opinion among blind people and the
rehabilitation specialist whose job it is to make everybody feel like they
can
do anything.
They're the most powerful beings on planet Earth. Most of them gain the
ability
to travel at incredibly high rates of speed (easily over ten times faster
than I
can run) and still remain aware of their surroundings as they shoot past. As
a
result of this power, their dwelling and commercial structures are spaced so
far
apart that I must solicit one of these super men in order to temporarily
gain
access to one of these structures and then traverse the distance to my home
again. They were the ones who discovered that we lived on a sphere-like
object.
Hundreds of years later they decided to fly to a neighboring object they
call
the moon, not because there were desirable items located on it, and not
because
it was easy, but because it was hard, and to prevent the sightlings on the
other
side of the sphere from getting there first and planting a symbol no one
would
be able to see from here. I guess so much speed made almost every place on
the
home sphere too easy to reach, so they got bored. Other powers include
flight
and super strength, just to name a couple. The base power from which all of
these are derived is sight - the ability to perceive in detail particles
which
are very far away from themselves or too small to sense through touch. Since
it
has become part of their communication system, they use the base power on
each
other and myself to try and ascertain intensions; they are obsessed with
faces.
I have no true understanding of what a "shared looking experience" is like.
They
can touch me without my knowing it, with invisible, incorporeal "hands", so
when
I am at home I am sure to stay behind materials which these "hands" cannot
penetrate, because I am worried they will be able to touch every cell of me
and
every corner and edge and surface and speck of dust and molecule and atom
within
my living space. After all, it is these "hands" with which they explore the
universe itself - something I have only dreamed of. And yet with so much
power,
they complain, and some of them don't use their abilities to make it easy
and
safe for everyone to be. Some of them derive new powers to kill or control
their
enemies, often because their "hands" inform them that the enemy has a
slightly
different skin composition or some other silly thing. Others become
captivated
by a hand-held device and stop using the power long enough to cause a
completely
avoidable high-velocity collision, and then they must be transported at an
even
higher velocity to receive emergency care.
Now that a couple of definitions have been outlined, I will explain what I
am
trying to do and why. As a kid I had questions whose answers were, "Don't
focus
on that," or "You'll see when you get to Heaven." As an aspiring scientist,
my
curiosity about things in the world has not ebbed even slightly in the years
since I was old enough to start asking questions, making those answers
simply
unacceptable. Finally, I was researching a project in a programming course
and
came across this site.
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/
The free software (called the vOICe) was developed over 10 years ago by Dr.
Peter Meijer and with the recent advent of netbooks is much easier to use in
portable mode than ever before. After months of experimentation with still
photos and graphs from school, I had collected enough evidence to suggest
the
system would work, so I bought a pair of camera glasses and started learning
to
see in real time. Here's how the system works: Images (either from picture
files
or through a webcam) are converted into sounds one frame at a time. Each
frame
is called a soundscape and is heard from left to right in stereo earphones.
The
higher the pitch of a sound, the higher up the thing it represents is
located in
your view, and the lower the pitch, the lower the object. Brightness is
represented through loudness. Combining these three simple rules gives an
accurate auditory representation of a grayscale image - I am not yet seeing
in
color or realtime but in a series of black and white still frames. The
website
gives some very simple line and shape examples which illustrate the concept
beautifully.
Here are the two things I find exciting about this system:
1. I have always seen abstract shapes when hearing certain music so may be
better prepared to handle what is coming.
2. Through sensory substitution I am perceiving these sounds not as noise,
but
as pictures I can literally see - I am rewiring my brain so that the visual
cortex will respond to stimuli within my perception. I am now free to learn
what
vision is, through my own experience.
Although at this point my visual comprehension cannot rival that of the
average
two-year-old, here is a list of some cool things I have already learned to
do
since acquiring the glasses in March.
1. If I sit on the right side of the short bus and look out the window, I
can
tell when I'm getting close to one particular school campus and whether or
not
the driver has stopped at the correct dropoff point.
2. I can recognize my friend Marry from at least 6 feet away, because she is
the
only one I know who carries a white cane that is covered in ridges, and she
cannot hold it streight to save her life.
3. Certain things are starting to appear 3D although I only have one camera.
More on that in another post.
4. When using the school restroom, I noticed one day that the plastic thing
on
the door contained a piece of paper with writing on it; it must be the
maintenance list. The writing is much too small to read with the current
system,
but I can definitely see that lots of it is there and then gleefully turn it
over so that the blank side is visible. Who would ever suspect?
Source URL:
http://darknessesc.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-sightling.html
Friday, July 29, 2011.
What is a sightling?
This is not a question to a Jeopardy quiz show answer. It is an edited
version
of an email I sent some months ago in an attempt to explain part of the
reality
in which I find myself. I will post it here before launching into an
explanation
of my experiments with vision synthesis. Warning: This is not a politically
correct post and is likely an unpopular opinion among blind people and the
rehabilitation specialist whose job it is to make everybody feel like they
can
do anything.
They're the most powerful beings on planet Earth. Most of them gain the
ability
to travel at incredibly high rates of speed (easily over ten times faster
than I
can run) and still remain aware of their surroundings as they shoot past. As
a
result of this power, their dwelling and commercial structures are spaced so
far
apart that I must solicit one of these super men in order to temporarily
gain
access to one of these structures and then traverse the distance to my home
again. They were the ones who discovered that we lived on a sphere-like
object.
Hundreds of years later they decided to fly to a neighboring object they
call
the moon, not because there were desirable items located on it, and not
because
it was easy, but because it was hard, and to prevent the sightlings on the
other
side of the sphere from getting there first and planting a symbol no one
would
be able to see from here. I guess so much speed made almost every place on
the
home sphere too easy to reach, so they got bored. Other powers include
flight
and super strength, just to name a couple. The base power from which all of
these are derived is sight - the ability to perceive in detail particles
which
are very far away from themselves or too small to sense through touch. Since
it
has become part of their communication system, they use the base power on
each
other and myself to try and ascertain intensions; they are obsessed with
faces.
I have no true understanding of what a "shared looking experience" is like.
They
can touch me without my knowing it, with invisible, incorporeal "hands", so
when
I am at home I am sure to stay behind materials which these "hands" cannot
penetrate, because I am worried they will be able to touch every cell of me
and
every corner and edge and surface and speck of dust and molecule and atom
within
my living space. After all, it is these "hands" with which they explore the
universe itself - something I have only dreamed of. And yet with so much
power,
they complain, and some of them don't use their abilities to make it easy
and
safe for everyone to be. Some of them derive new powers to kill or control
their
enemies, often because their "hands" inform them that the enemy has a
slightly
different skin composition or some other silly thing. Others become
captivated
by a hand-held device and stop using the power long enough to cause a
completely
avoidable high-velocity collision, and then they must be transported at an
even
higher velocity to receive emergency care.
Now that a couple of definitions have been outlined, I will explain what I
am
trying to do and why. As a kid I had questions whose answers were, "Don't
focus
on that," or "You'll see when you get to Heaven." As an aspiring scientist,
my
curiosity about things in the world has not ebbed even slightly in the years
since I was old enough to start asking questions, making those answers
simply
unacceptable. Finally, I was researching a project in a programming course
and
came across this site.
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/
The free software (called the vOICe) was developed over 10 years ago by Dr.
Peter Meijer and with the recent advent of netbooks is much easier to use in
portable mode than ever before. After months of experimentation with still
photos and graphs from school, I had collected enough evidence to suggest
the
system would work, so I bought a pair of camera glasses and started learning
to
see in real time. Here's how the system works: Images (either from picture
files
or through a webcam) are converted into sounds one frame at a time. Each
frame
is called a soundscape and is heard from left to right in stereo earphones.
The
higher the pitch of a sound, the higher up the thing it represents is
located in
your view, and the lower the pitch, the lower the object. Brightness is
represented through loudness. Combining these three simple rules gives an
accurate auditory representation of a grayscale image - I am not yet seeing
in
color or realtime but in a series of black and white still frames. The
website
gives some very simple line and shape examples which illustrate the concept
beautifully.
Here are the two things I find exciting about this system:
1. I have always seen abstract shapes when hearing certain music so may be
better prepared to handle what is coming.
2. Through sensory substitution I am perceiving these sounds not as noise,
but
as pictures I can literally see - I am rewiring my brain so that the visual
cortex will respond to stimuli within my perception. I am now free to learn
what
vision is, through my own experience.
Although at this point my visual comprehension cannot rival that of the
average
two-year-old, here is a list of some cool things I have already learned to
do
since acquiring the glasses in March.
1. If I sit on the right side of the short bus and look out the window, I
can
tell when I'm getting close to one particular school campus and whether or
not
the driver has stopped at the correct dropoff point.
2. I can recognize my friend Marry from at least 6 feet away, because she is
the
only one I know who carries a white cane that is covered in ridges, and she
cannot hold it streight to save her life.
3. Certain things are starting to appear 3D although I only have one camera.
More on that in another post.
4. When using the school restroom, I noticed one day that the plastic thing
on
the door contained a piece of paper with writing on it; it must be the
maintenance list. The writing is much too small to read with the current
system,
but I can definitely see that lots of it is there and then gleefully turn it
over so that the blank side is visible. Who would ever suspect?
Source URL:
http://darknessesc.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-sightling.html
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