Your lack of objectivity is startling. You're assuming a priori that machines should be worse than teachers. As such you're not in a position to gauge the merits of the study.

Also, comparing to Fermi is silly. Even in Fermi's day most teachers were not as good at instruction as he may have been. The study isn't trying to show that machine guided instruction outperforms the best teachers, but that they outperform most.

Definitely disagree. A Linux geek is one who knows a lot about Linux, and likes it.

I never said he didn't like Linux. I said he hates the available screen readers.

You make it too easy - let me point out a simple flaw in your defintion. According to you, one can only be a geek in one OS (or language, or whatever). Because if you use one OS more than another, you can only be a geek in the one you use more. Hence you can't be, say, a Linux geek and a MacOS geek.

I simply can't see how using Windows more prevents someone from being a geek in another OS. You're invoking false partitioning.

It's a pathetic definition.

Defensive, aren't we?

1. I didn't say my friend demands that someone should donate their time to make a better OS screen reader. He's merely pointing out that it sucks. You can be a programmer, a Linux geek, and an OS fan and still point out flaws in the system.

2. Really, all it takes to write a decent screen reader is to be a programmer and a Linux geek? So I take it the reason Gimp doesn't come close to a lot of Photoshop's features is that there are few Linux programmers who like photography? And the reason OS OCR software sucks is that people who like scanning stuff are not the ones who care for Open Source? So the people who work on Orca are either not Linux geeks or are not programmers, as according to your claim any one who is both can make a better one?

He uses Linux from the command line. It's not like he has much of an option.

He paid roughly $700 for Jaws. His Braille terminal cost in the thousands (although I think a lot of it was paid for by grants, etc). If someone has to pay out of pocket, Jaws is probably a lot cheaper.

Well, let me clarify that: He bought his Braille terminal a long time ago - perhaps they're cheaper now. However, given how sturdy it's been all these years, the money may have been worth it.

Nevertheless, although he uses his Braille terminal a lot (even in Windows), his experience with Jaws has been much better than using a terminal. I'm guessing it's faster to listen to high speed Jaws than reading by fingers (although I don't recall asking him if that's the case).

I can't speak for the other programs, but I did ask him about Lynx, as I have a soft spot for it. He said he used it before going blind, but that it was awful to use afterwords. The reason was that while you can visually differentiate the web page from, say, the commands at the bottom of the screen, a Braille terminal cannot. Good screen readers can, but to an extent the software needs to give cues, and Lynx doesn't. I suggested he try Elinks. I think he did and said it was better, but still, Jaws + Firefox/IE is far more productive for him.

I have to say it's disconcerting to see that most of the replies to my comment disregard his experience. Most of the commenters are not blind. Few (except perhaps you) have interacted with one who's tried both Jaws and Orca. So it's ultimately my friend's word against the author of the article (and the comparison isn't even fair as he's not completely blind - screen magnification is useless for my friend). Why support the author and discount my friend? To me it seems like a clear case of wishful thinking. People over here want the open source solution to be better, so they'll disregard claims to the contrary.

So, you're saying that if I'm a Linux geek today, go blind tomorrow and can use Linux only with great difficulty afterwards, I need to relinquish my title as geek?

Extremist much?

I used to work with a blind programmer. He is a Linux geek. Every year or two he tries the screen readers in Linux, and says they all suck compared to Jaws in Windows (including Orca).

So he does all his email, web browsing, etc in Windows, as well as as much programming as he can get away with. For him Linux has been relegated to a toy he plays with once in a while.

I'm not sure if you meant it as a joke, but exhaustive search can still be used for problems like these. An example would be to categorize all the integers into, say, 10000 groups and then write a program to prove each of those groups...

Thank goodness.

Whenever this comes up, what really irritates me is people pretending that everyone wants single window mode, despite numerous comments in any such discussion stating that their like for multi-windwo mode.

We're talking about Lebanon, not most Arab states.

Not sure what your point in providing the Wikipedia link is. It doesn't indicate that most Christians in Lebanon are non-Arabs. More importantly, it doesn't indicate that the % of non-Arab Christians differs significantly from the % of non-Arab Muslims in Lebanon.

What you say is true, but a few decades ago women enterpreneurs often faced similar exclusion in the US in the business world. Thankfully, that didn't stop people from investing in the US. And thankfully, it won't stop them from doing so in the Middle East.