REPLY AWL

Last week's issue of the online Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind contained part one of a three-part history of the Perkins brailler. I wouldn't be without mine. It's invaluable for things like phone messages and notes to myself. If I want to write down someone's phone number, I'm not going to boot up my computer, open a Microsoft Word document, write down seven digits, close the file, and shut the computer down.

There are only two cases where a Perkins braillewriter has been destroyed beyond recognition. Once one fell off the back of a truck, and another time one got run over by a train.

In the same issue there is an article about a judge ruling Netflicks has to provide closed captioning for the hearing impaired. The judge says the fact Netflicks is web-based and that video over the internet couldn't even have been dreamed of back in 1976 when the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) was passed has no baring on the issue.

I applaud this judge's decision. Except for cases of copyright, I think things done on the internet are the same as things done ofline. That means if you defraud someone through spam email, for instance, it is the same as if you had done it face to face, via the post, over the phone, or using any other means or technology.

There is an article in the July edition of Readers Digest which discusses all the Toronto locales shown in Sarah Polly's latest film "Take This Waltz." The writer makes reference to Frogger, a computer game from the nineties where players had to get a frog across a highway without it getting run over by a car. My sister loved that game!