"Braille" Discussion

[Cabhan]

Alt Text: The only big difference I've seen is in colors. Where the regular text reads "press red button", the braille reads "press two-inch button".

Link: http://www.xkcd.com/315/

Y'know, I've always wondered...I mean, the Spanish always reads differently, why not the braille?

Edit: Now that the title text is fixed on the comic, fixed the title text here.

[Bakemaster]

My tooltip ends after "red button" and it's not cached and it doesn't continue in the source. Weird.

[Cabhan]

Look at the href in the source. I guess he misplaced it.

[Plamo]

My tooltip ends after "red button" and it's not cached and it doesn't continue in the source. Weird.

The same thing happened to me. Quirky that Cabhan caught it and not us.

This comic makes me think about minority groups, such as blind people, who have a different way from communicating from us, secretly make fun of us behind our backs all the time.

[skeptical scientist]

Ah, I see now. I assume he'll fix it shortly.

[Bakemaster]

Ah, so he did. I didn't notice.

[phlip]

I'm guessing the script Randall uses to set up the HTML uses CSV somewhere, and there's a comma after "red button" (which there should be, grammatically) which made everything explode. The part after the tooltip in the CSV must be a link URL, since that's where it's put the rest of the message... and then the quotes in that part make it blow up even further, making the page fail to validate, and the comic link to http://xkcd.com/%20the%20braille%20reads%20.

I've been meaning to learn braille... I can recognise most of the letters on sight, and I know some of the abbreviations... but I'm still hopeless at doing it by feel

[Nyarlathotep]

... I'm living in Japan at the moment (JUST got here) so I'm amused by this. Though I can't read Japanese, I'm 99.9% sure that many of the English signs do NOT match the Japanese text.

I'm also sure I dont' need to explain further.

[Iluvatar]

My school, RIT, has a large deaf population (houses the National Technical institute for the Deaf). I hear about this sort of thing all the time, where interpreters will make fun of the professor they're interpreting or similar fun.

[Murgatroyd]

Shouldn't the text read "S-I-G-H-T-ED[...]"?

(I'm glad I did a bit of research before posting here. I almost posted about a "mistake" that wasn't.)

[totalnerduk]

Meh. Bring on the subculture jokes that only 1 of 1000 people get. I much prefer those.

Edit: Re: the alt-text, there appear to be problems with the alt-text on all the comics ATM.

[Nyarlathotep]

My school, RIT, has a large deaf population (houses the National Technical institute for the Deaf). I hear about this sort of thing all the time, where interpreters will make fun of the professor they're interpreting or similar fun.

Ooh, my school, McDaniel college, has a similar thing. The deaf students also tend to REALLY isolate themselves. Like, I'm AWARE that we have a very strong deaf studies programme, but you'll almost NEVER see the deaf students in the cafeteria or in most public spaces. Indeed, I don't think I've ever seen one/been able to pick one out in a crowd.

[38B]

Has anyone seen that picture of a color blindness test that reads, "Colorblind people suck."? I'll post it if I can find a picture, unless someone beats me to it.

[bitwiseshiftleft]

Shouldn't the text read "S-I-G-H-T-ED[...]"?

(I'm glad I did a bit of research before posting here. I almost posted about a "mistake" that wasn't.)

There's a contraction for GH too, I think. Heck, there might be more... Braille has a lot of contractions.

[rhalleys5th]

Has anyone seen that picture of a color blindness test that reads, "Colorblind people suck."? I'll post it if I can find a picture, unless someone beats me to it.

It's not just a test -- it's been marketed.

[Benevolent Lion]

In my school, I noticed that the braille are chipped off at different places. I'm 80% sure its another minority group, the hoodlums (hoodlum is a funny word). Those guys must be bored, if they get a kick out of screwing with a blind person.

The blind population is rather secluded as well. I imagine if the majority of my school wasn't filled with rude, and obnoxious people there would be more blind people walking around. So far I've only seen one brave young lady walking around school with her cane.

[38B]

Thanks, I couldn't find it.

[Euanthes]

I've been slowly learning braile (not very well at all), but I've seen somthing on threadless similar to the colorblind shirt.

[skeptical scientist]

Shouldn't the text read "S-I-G-H-T-ED[...]"?

(I'm glad I did a bit of research before posting here. I almost posted about a "mistake" that wasn't.)

There's a contraction for GH too, I think. Heck, there might be more... Braille has a lot of contractions.

But the braille in the comic uses the ED contraction but not any others.

[Unforgiven]

... I'm living in Japan at the moment (JUST got here) so I'm amused by this. Though I can't read Japanese, I'm 99.9% sure that many of the English signs do NOT match the Japanese text.

Hi, welcome to Japan? Where in Japan are you, might I ask?

In any case you are probably right. But usually the English signs are identical in intent and meaning, though wildly different in number of grammar and spelling errors.

For instance, I've been walking around carrying a door with me everywhere I go just because it had a sign on it saying "keep the door close".

[Peripatetic]

Has anyone seen that picture of a color blindness test that reads, "Colorblind people suck."? I'll post it if I can find a picture, unless someone beats me to it.

It's not just a test -- it's been marketed.

I'm actually red-green colorblind and I could read that just fine. Maybe I don't suck enough...

[phlip]

The alt text has been fixed... it's now:

The only big difference I've seen is in colors. Where the regular text reads "press red button", the braille reads "press two-inch button".

[Surgery]

My school, RIT, has a large deaf population (houses the National Technical institute for the Deaf). I hear about this sort of thing all the time, where interpreters will make fun of the professor they're interpreting or similar fun.

but it balances out pretty well, because we (the hearing) make fun of them a lot too .

also, RIT for both the win and the lose! haha.

edited to add something relevant to the comic:
i've always wondered if it said something different, just because there seem to be a different number of characters in the braille than in the english. and now i know.

[Ozone]

I've always wanted to know how a truly blind person where to put there finger to read braille. I've seen braille ten feet off the ground and in other places blind wouldn't randomly decide to put their finger.

[schumi_girl]

Kinda on topic..

When I'm waiting at the traffic lights, I love putting my finger on the blind people's button thing that's there, above the big silver button. It's so cool. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Maybe it's only in Oz?

[xandah]

Kinda on topic..

When I'm waiting at the traffic lights, I love putting my finger on the blind people's button thing that's there, above the big silver button. It's so cool. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Maybe it's only in Oz?

I know what you mean. Some of those buttons also have braille on them that I assume are to tell you what street you're at.

About 3 years ago, I saw a lot of those signs had the brialle defaced in the same manner on each sign. Perhaps a form of brialle graffitti?

[dantebot]

@Cabhan: Did you type the Alt text ? You're missing some quotes.
@phlip: No, it doesn't work here because of the unescaped quotes (feed only: Google Reader, Opera browser)

The General forum seemed a good place to post about the problem: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=11943

[EvanED]

Y'know, I've always wondered...I mean, the Spanish always reads differently, why not the braille?

Because the Braille, AFAIK, is just a different representation of the English text.

It's not like Spanish, which is just a whole other language with different grammar rules and such and different ways of wording things. ("Food pleases me" instead of "I like food" for instance.) ASL would also fall into this category.

BTW, if you have a spare semester, I highly recommend taking ASL. I took one class (and almost the second) and it was highly interesting. We had times when the instructor wouldn't speak for about 10 minutes, and would just put up an overhead projection of some pictures and point at them, or other similar things to try to get us to figure out what was being signed. There were times when my brain felt like it does after staring at a chess position for 10 minutes and trying to figure out the right move. (Long periods of intense concentration.) The other bit was that you had to watch... most classes you can listen and look up at the board, down at your notes, around at the people sitting next to you, etc., but not this; you had to watch. Definitely a highlight of my undergrad curriculum, even if I forget most of it and never actually used it.

[spacedman]

Kinda on topic..

When I'm waiting at the traffic lights, I love putting my finger on the blind people's button thing that's there, above the big silver button. It's so cool. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Maybe it's only in Oz?

Does it do something when its safe to cross?

Over here in the UK most pedestrian traffic lights beep when its safe to cross, but in some places near residences that would annoy people too much, so underneath the button box there's a little knurled 'twirler', that spins when its safe to cross.

[CorranH]

Has anyone seen that picture of a color blindness test that reads, "Colorblind people suck."? I'll post it if I can find a picture, unless someone beats me to it.

It's not just a test -- it's been marketed.

I'm actually red-green colorblind and I could read that just fine. Maybe I don't suck enough...

This is the one I'd seen:



I think I'm just the tiniest bit colorblind; I have a bit of a hard time making out what that says (though I can do it), and I often find my friends disagreeing with me about exactly what color something is. Mostly stuff like red vs pink, or subtleties of that nature.

[le_sacre]

I've always wanted to know how a truly blind person where to put there finger to read braille. I've seen braille ten feet off the ground and in other places blind wouldn't randomly decide to put their finger.

yeah, that kind of cracks me up too. i've seen "no smoking" signs like that. it always produces a funny mental image where a blind person walks into a room, wonders whether it's ok to light up, and promptly does a perimeter sweep of the walls.

[le_sacre]

I think I'm just the tiniest bit colorblind; I have a bit of a hard time making out what that says (though I can do it), and I often find my friends disagreeing with me about exactly what color something is. Mostly stuff like red vs pink, or subtleties of that nature.

i'm curious about what colorblind people actually perceive... if you're really red-green colorblind, do both those colors appear gray, or do they appear to have a color? and would you tend to call that color "red" or "green" or something else?

[thesleepless]

Kinda on topic..

When I'm waiting at the traffic lights, I love putting my finger on the blind people's button thing that's there, above the big silver button. It's so cool. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Maybe it's only in Oz?

yep i know what you mean, you can feel it pulse under your finger, and if you vary the pressure upon it you can make it stop or make different pitched beeps, sounds great when it goes green (at least the ones in sydney), it's my musical talent!

[phlip]

@Cabhan: Did you type the Alt text ? You're missing some quotes.
@phlip: No, it doesn't work here because of the unescaped quotes (feed only: Google Reader, Opera browser)

The first set of quotes (around "press red button") were missing originally, when everything was broken. So that's what Cabhan copy/pasted.

The RSS feed is, indeed, still broken... but the HTML on the real page is fine, the quotes are " there.

Does it do something when its safe to cross?

Australian pedestrian crossings at traffic lights have two bits... a button at the bottom, which has the obvious effect, and a panel at the top which has an arrow pointing to the crossing itself (usually pointing up, indicating that the crossing's in front of you... but sometimes the layout of the intersection means that it points to one side. The arrow is in relief, so blind people can use it).
[edit] Here's a picture, for those that don't understand the above rambling.

Now, when the pedestrians have a red light, the contraption gives off a medium-high pitched beep every couple of seconds. When the light turns green, it chirps, and then plays a lower pitched note repeatedly, several times a second, until the light turns red again. The sound is actually caused by something mechanical hitting the arrow panel on the inside... so if you rest your fingers on the middle of the panel, you can feel a hit every few seconds until the light turns green, when you can feel lots of hits. Pressing hard on the panel can dampen the sound, and change the timbre, which is what thesleepless is talking about. I guess it's for pedestrians who are both blind and deaf... though it can be convenient to know when the lights have changed without actually looking at them... especially if you're in a conversation.

[NeoThermic]

i'm curious about what colorblind people actually perceive... if you're really red-green colorblind, do both those colors appear gray, or do they appear to have a color? and would you tend to call that color "red" or "green" or something else?

Consider 6 basic colours together on an image; red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

Anyone with deuteranopia would see those 6 colours as something close to dark yellow, medium yellow, yellow, medium yellow, blue and light blue. Protanopia gives something similar, but slightly different hue on the colours.

Tritanopia gives the most obscure. From the original 6, someone with tritanopia will see bright pink, light pink, white, light teal, teal, and a sort of light purple colour.

Deuteranomaly is the most common known colour blindness, affecting about 6% of males. They would see the 6 as a dull red, dull orange, dull yellow, dull green, blue and then dark blue.

How I know all of this? I did work on a captcha, where I had to take into account the fact that it might be seen by millions of people, of which quite a few might be colour blind.

NeoThermic

[phlip]

I cracked open my braille shorthand cheatsheet, and this is what I think the braille should read:

I might have missed something though... I'm surprised there isn't a "ck" ligature...

[wildcat]

/ Sorry

[Peripatetic]

Has anyone seen that picture of a color blindness test that reads, "Colorblind people suck."? I'll post it if I can find a picture, unless someone beats me to it.

It's not just a test -- it's been marketed.

I'm actually red-green colorblind and I could read that just fine. Maybe I don't suck enough...

This is the one I'd seen:

[img]Bunch%20of%20dots[/img]

*Loads CorranH's picture into GIMP*
*Isolates red component of image*
*Ponders*
*Uses fingers to count to four in binary and shows CorranH the result*



To le sacre: For the most part I don't notice anything. I can tell the difference between a red and green stop light and I can correctly grab a Sprite amongst a bunch of Cokes. The only time red-green colorblindness comes into play is with juxtapositions of dull reds and dull greens. If my grandfather (from whom I inherited this trait) used a red tee during a round of golf, he would not be able to find it after his drive because the dull red of the tee would blend in with the dull green of the grass. In my experience, I won't notice that a tree has dark red berries until I see that some of the smaller leaves are strangely circular. Overall, red and green simply appear duller, closer to brown, than other colors.

In CorranH's image, most of the dots have similar red and green components in their color with just a littel blue. The words (*bites thumb*, *spits*) are formed by increasing the red component and decreasing the green component of the relevant dots. Apparently, the message, such as it is (*burns CorranH's screen name in effigy*), is hidden from some because it exploits an insensitivity to varying colors in the red-green-yellow range.

As it turns out, I can also see the "real image" (*shakes fist menacingly across Internet*) by looking through either lens of a pair of 3-D glasses.

[macronencer]

I learned the Braille alphabet a few years back (though I never learned the contractions).

I was looking at the elevator buttons in a shopping centre at one point, and one of them said "!P". "What's that?" I wondered, "Parking level? Why the exclamation mark?" Eventually I realised that someone had stuck the "0" on upside down. I wonder how often that happens?

[madjo]

Adds item to 'todo list': learn braille.