From Out of the Blue @fromoutoftheblue - Tumblr Blog

Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Tim Cook Receives Standing Ovation at UN

Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc., was honored at the Auburn Lifetime Achievement Ceremony held at the United Nations in New York on December 10, 2013. His acceptance speech focussed on human rights and accessibility.

The challenge is to commit and to act. Human rights and dignity are great philosophical principles. But the hard work of executing on these principles depends on our individual acts everyday. - Tim Cook, December 10, 2013

Notice the Product RED encased iPad Tim used for his notes.

#Apple #Tim Cook #product (RED)

jxvalentine-deactivated20220626

This is why electronic publishing is so important, guys.

Ron McCallum's TED Talk

Years ago I worked with developmentally disabled individuals in a residential community. There were 900 residents and at least 10 per cent of them were blind. 10 per cent is my conservative estimate. It may have been closer to 20 per cent. Almost all of the blind people were blind due to Retrolental Fibroplasia, which was the result of a medical practice administered to babies born premature in the 1940's, 50's, and 60's. The cause was discovered in the 50's but it took another decade before the practice ceased completely. All of the blind people I worked with were diagnosed with either "profound mental retardation" or "severe mental retardation" - I doubt these terms are used today.

I was quite surprised when I heard Ron McCallum say that he was blind from Retrolental Fibroplasia in his TED Talk. His talk was about how technology gave him the opportunity to read. As a child his mother told him he would not be able to read or see the pictures by touching the pages of the book she was reading to him and his brother. But Ron did learn to read with Braille, and later with various text-to-speech apparatuses. And he became a law professor. Ron McCallum proves a long standing hypothesis I have had since working people with Retrolental Fibroplasia: That some of them had not a developmental disability, but an environmental disability.

Later in the talk Ron McCallum discusses obstacles that blind people have in obtaining reading material in a format that allows them access to the content. Some of the obstacles are legal, some are that material hasn't been made accessible. And that became a confluence of interest for me because I have lately become a proponent of the new EPUB 3 ebook format. Download the Ron McCallum’s TED Talk video or the plain text transcript.

adding the link to subscribe to the TED Talks video on iTunes: TEDTalks (video)

At first I embedded the narration into A Wizard’s Story Told for fun, to give people a little something extra, "lagniappe" as it is called in the American South. When it was done however I realized the possible benefits this could bring to ebooks. The potential benefits of the synchronization feature in EPUB3 are various - from entertaining to helping blind people read, helping children learn to read, helping dyslexic people focus, and giving people multiple ways to learn any subject.

There are different KINDS of books. Not all books will have a live recording of the text, but all books formatted in EPUB3 can have text-to-speech coded with the text. This is not the same as not coding the text and letting the screen reader read. The coding provides semantic context for the screen reader so that the content will be more intelligible for the listener, as well as options that can be turned on or off.

Going forward I will be updating everything I publish to EPUB3 format. I also want to produce an educational program teaching why this is important and how to do it. If you are working on a book and need help or if you are working on a similar project, get in touch.

#EPUB3 #Ron McCallum #Retrolental Fibroplasia #TED Talks #making of an epub #A Wizard's Story Told backstory

Disprove his assertion after it is made, yet its style remains. Darwin has no more destroyed the style of Job nor of Handel than Martin Luther destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions get disproved sooner or later; and so we find the world full of a magnificence of debris of artistic fossils, with the matter-of-fact credibility gone clean out of them, but the form still splendid.

George Bernard Shaw (1903)

Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inaugural Speech

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our Light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be? We are children of God.

Our playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around us.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And when we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from out own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

(Continued - Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest 2008 - 3/3)

#Tennessee Williams Literary Festival (2008)

The Signup, the crowd gathers 1/17

(Continued)

The Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest is where contestants shout up at a balcony performing their best impression of Stanley Kowalski as Marlon Brando did it in A Streetcar Named Desire. As it is New Orleans, cross-dressing is allowed as well as a reverse scenario in which Stellas shout to Stanley. Finalists perform again at the Festival closing ceremonies and winners are chosen there.

#Tennessee Williams Literary Festival (2008)#Stanley and Stella #cross-dressing

Each year at the end of March the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival takes place. For three years in a row I attended the Festival. Rather I should say some part of it because there are always several simultaneous events. In the other years I did not get to the Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest, but in 2008 I did. This is one of the contestents. Here are the other twenty-seven images from a series of photos I took at the gathering, the sign-up, and the balcony overlooking Jackson Square. The Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest is where contestants shout up at a balcony performing their best impression of Stanley Kowalski as Marlon Brando did it in A Streetcar Named Desire. As it is New Orleans, cross-dressing is allowed as well as a reverse scenario in which Stellas shout to Stanley. Finalists perform again at the Festival closing ceremonies and winners are chosen there.

I'll put the rest in 2 more gallery posts.

#Tennessee Williams Literary Festival (2008)

The original POKE application.

In light of recent developments on the internet, I am compelled to write this article. I am writing a book in which the first chapter contains a narrator (that's me) telling about getting his first computer, an Apple IIc. The book's cover is done, but I do not want to reveal the title just yet.

Once the narrator is comfortable with the computer he wonders who invented such a thing, this computer that he is so happy with now. The satisfaction of his wonder comes in the form of a magazine article in which he is introduced to the two Steves. It is a turning point in the story. This is several thousand words into the chapter.

The narrator, still curious, returns to the computer store to buy a book about the computer. A bit of trivia is used to transition from telling how the computer works to how it was used and what happens after.

The magazine is long gone and the narrator initially thinks he got the magazine and the book at the same time, but in fact the original hand-writtten receipt for the book is still within the book's pages.

Here is an excerpt from the work-in-progress:

I got a book called The Practical Guide to the Apple IIc. In spite of its title, the book is as much about the history and development of Apple, the company, as it is about the Apple IIc. Here we learn, for example, that Steve Wozniak invented the POKE, the term co-opted by one of the social media companies decades later. Members of the social media company didn't much like the poke until Betty White explained its meaning on Saturday Night Live. It meant in its original form the same as it does now, simply: Remember me.

Here is a page scan from the Apple IIc book:

#apple #POKE

I was walking home with groceries one day when I saw a little girl, maybe 10 or 11, building these snow sculptures. I made a mental note to come back with my camera. When I got back the afternoon sun had melted some of the sphinx' face - as in real life I guess, and this was before global warming. You can still see what it is. I thought it was cool for a child to create this in the snow.

And this is the Christmas Edition podcast 2012

#snow sphinx #Christmas #2012

#steve jobs #apple #movies about Steve

marisstella-art

david

Tim Walker: Story Teller

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

From Out of the Blue