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.

It is the stereotype. Please educate yourself on the meaning of the word. Being a stereotype does not mean that it's a misconception.

And let's not pretend that the article is suggesting that it's OK for women not to drive, vote, etc. Your comment is essentially the same as responding to any positive aspect of the US with "Yes, but let's not pretend it makes it OK for them to invade other countries."

And oh, BTW, name one Arab country that bans women from showing their face in public (with citation). I happen to have lived in Saudi Arabia, and most women don't cover their face in public. And not all of them had male escorts.
 

Your statement is a textbook example of ignorance related to the Middle East. Arab's aren't Muslims. They're Arabs. Most of those Christians are Arabs.

And to the person who commented that they're a mix of ethnicities: That's equally true about the Muslims in Beirut.

I actually switched from mutt to the notmuch interface in Emacs last year. I had planned to drop mutt altogether for 2 years prior to that.

Mutt is fairly good, but it just became ridiculously stagnant. Long standing requests were not addressed.

Does it still not allow you to Fcc to more than one file? If so: Pathetic.

I forget what my second major gripe against it was...

Of course, notmuch in Emacs has its own warts as well, but somehow I think I can fix them using Elisp more easily than fixing mutt using C.

In some ways, I'm glad it took a while for notmuch support in mutt to come out. Had it been there a year ago, I may still have been stuck with mutt.

Yes, but they can still shut down the department. What that usually means is that the faculty will get absorbed into another department, where they'll have less weight to do the research they want (e.g. lab space, etc). That causes some faculty to look for another position.

I don't think he was saying that they fired him - just that he got the message that he wasn't welcome.

Yes, until they step on the toes of people who have more political power in the university - even if those people don't bring in as much money. That's why it's called politics. This is a reality I saw a lot of when I was there. There are many ways other faculty members can make life difficult for you.

Everything he says is something I have witnessed as a grad student.

What you're saying is equivalent to requiring the religion be reported of any criminal. We won't know that there isn't something common in the religion of most people who deal drugs unless we collect that information. Or the religion of most people who violate copyright laws.

While we're at it, why not also report their income levels? It often plays a bigger role than religion in many crimes.

And perhaps how many kids they have.

And on and on.

Citation needed.

AKA the "If you've got nothing to hide, you should allow us to search your vehicle" argument. When various studies have pointed out it's not a Muslim issue, and have pointed out it's a cultural issue in a few geographical regions (or by people from those regions), the need to show this is lacking.

You know what's a big problem? Guns and Christianity. Why is it that most gun related homicides in the US involve Christians? I think that the religion of the perpetrator should be reported whenever there's a gun related homicide. Only that way can we dispel the notion that it's not a Christian problem.

Of course, you could point out that a lot of countries with large Christian populations don't have much gun related homicides, but I'll conveniently ignore that just as you would ignore predominantly Muslim areas where honor killing is not an issue.

Going off on a tangent below:

And, you know, it's a fairly pointless discussion until you state what you mean by "honor killing". Many examples given often involve jealousy or simply "looking bad in the society" (boyfriend feels he is being made fun of) - that's not particularly rare in the US (or often in Latin American countries) amongst non-Muslims - yet they're not defined as honor killings.

It's also fairly silly to make honor killings seem like a crime worse than your usual run of the mill homicide, which far outnumbers honor killings. When the US has a significantly higher homicide rate than many countries where honor killings are "common", why is it that the focus is always on the latter? Shouldn't we, according to you, report the religion of anyone who commits homicide in the US? Reducing the homicide rate in the US to that of Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon would be a greater feat than if any of those countries eliminated honor killings. So why does the latter warrant special treatment - even when such a crime occurs in the US or Canada?

If it happens in the US or Canada, at the end of the day, the only relevant issue is whether the justice system found them guilty - just as it is for all homicides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaswinder_Kaur_Sidhu

Not Hindu, but Sikh.

This article gives more examples:

http://www.chakranews.com/honour-killings-in-canada-an-undeniable-reality/2035

Another report points out that 16% of honor killings in North America are not by Muslims:

http://www.meforum.org/2646/worldwide-trends-in-honor-killings

I couldn't quickly find cases of Christian immigrants to the US/Canada, but it's much easier to find Christian honor killings in their home countries in the Middle East. In Jordan, for example, on a per capita basis, honor killings are more common among Christians than among Muslims.

I'd love to hear the logic behind that, given that the correlation with geography is much greater than that with religion. Parts of the Muslim/Chrisitian world do not have honor killings, and there isn't anything in their texts in support of it.

And I'm still trying to figure out why, given that their being Afghan had more to do with it than their being Muslim.

Are you suggesting that when Hindu women in Canada/US get "honor killed", we should be outraged that they're not mentioning that they are Muslim?

Or that when Christian Arab women in Europe get "honor killed" we should be outraged that they're not being labeled Muslim?

I mean, if it's an honor killing, it has to have something to do with Muslims, right? Even if the perpetrators are Hindus or Christians?

So...I take it you watch a lot of Fox News?