Sighted help

[Kyle]

I never have needed to change my boot order on this machine, as it has
an option to press f8 to bring up the boot menu, from which I can use
the arrow keys to select the device to boot, the USB drive usually
being at the bottom of the list, and the CD/DVD drive usually being
second from the top. As the list is not circular, I am able to find the
correct device to boot without seeing anything.

On the other hand, there was a time when I needed to activate
virtualization so that I could run KVM. I use it to run things like the
latest TalkingArch iso for testing in a virtual environment as well as
for testing and building Sonar. In order to change my virtualization
settings, I would have probably needed someone with eyeballs to make
things go more quickly, but no one was available, and I usually don't
have easy access to eyeballs. So the obvious solution was to use Google
Goggles on my Android phone. It took a bit of time, but I did get the
virtualization turned on with only assistive technology to help me, no
functional eyeballs whatsoever.

I also don't ask anyone to read my mail for me. I also use the free
Goggles app on my phone to do that. Sure, Google is probably collecting
some information, but it's actually easier than trying to find someone
with eyeballs every time I get a letter in my mailbox. The latest
example of such usage of Google Goggles was my perfectly flat Google
Wallet card, which I had Google read to me. I figured since it's a
Google product anyway, they already have the information they
need/want, so there appeared to be no additional risk in getting Google
to read their own product. In any case, I have decent enough access to
most things that people normally have to find eyeballs for these days
with a single free Android app, and there are others as well for
detecting things like money. Having said this, there is certainly a
need for accomodations to be made so that I am able to do the same
things without needing either eyeballs or a camera, so I still do as
little business as possible using paper, and I push to get electronic
or phone-based correspondence as much as possible, to the point that I
even left my state's chapter of the Council of the blind, because they
had no way of registering for their convention using an online payment
system or any other method I was able to use on my own, and this was
after PayPal came to rule the online payment market and anyone with an
e-mail address could take PayPal payments. Imagine that. An
organization that makes a big deal about advertising the idea that they
are supposed to be dedicated to making it easier for blind and visually
impaired people to do things for ourselves telling me that I needed to
get someone to help me write a check or fill in a money order and mail
it to them, and refusing to even take a PayPal payment. So yeah, I quit
the organization, because I knew by their deeds that they weren't
really doing what they said they were doing.
Sent from my punch bowl