Trench Warfare

I have to say that lately I've been seeing a disturbing trend effecting our Deaf community. It's probably not all that new however it's taken on a new life due to the popularity of Vlogs. I'm gonna express what I feel is just my opinion as I refuse to take sides on because I feel it's a cultural equivalent of Deaf on Deaf violence.

With the onset of HR 3101 bill being pushed to pass, the formation of Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) and the National Association for the Deaf's (NAD) strive to reach new and youthful audiences. it has created a type of warfare much like gangs. Everyone wants a piece of the streets.Everyone wants to be the next leader in a movement they compare the the Gallaudet University "Deaf President Now" movement.

Enough already people! We have a chance in front of us to catch up where we're 10 years behind! How many people still have TTY/TTD ? I'm guessing maybe 5 of my readers still actively use it (according to Deafread I get about 100+ per post). How many of you surf Youtube? I bet nearly ALL OF YOU used it from one point or another. Thankfully Google is working on technology to eventually caption all Youtube videos. Now that's a national recognized brand. Your local news station has 100's of video's posted on-line at any given moment. With all certainty not one of them is captioned!

Why am I ranting? Well a certain Vlogger DeafASLVlogs whom's page I frequent just egged herself. Literally to make a point towards NAD including the words "I am a person with a disability"  She made some good points and even had me thinking, This was until Jeff Rosen from SNAP!VRS who serves as general council and is deeply regarded in the Deaf community got into a bit of a flaming war on her website over he comments towards NAD.

Stop the train! let me off!
Here we are, two important people who are making an impact in our community wasting their time fighting over the words of NAD which yes clearly could have chosen better lingo to use. Meanwhile we're struggling to get Republicans in favor of HR 3101. We all need to make a concious effort to put down our cultural guns and get this bill passed. If we don't we're gonna continue to be set back 10 years.

Taxi!

Joey

Die Hard: with a Venegance!

Call me paranoid, but the timing of my virus couldn't have been worse. I finally hitting my stride on the HR-3101 issue and suddenly I'm shut off from the net. They can't silence me!

All kidding aside, let's get serious for a moment
 Mr Szoka of the Los Angeles Times! I salute you not only did you story here show you delved into a topic your probably not qualified to write about. Your own newspaper proved our point! on the front page of the January 27th online edition there was a video of a bomb scare  

In this day an age of technology and terrorism, this is an absolute vital piece of information to a citizen, especially late breaking and up to the minute. Now Mr Szoka please proceed to turn off the volume or cover your ears and watch the video and then report how much information you successfully obtained from it.

Information is worthless if it cannot be conveyed across channels. We Deaf citizens simply lack audio channels. Our point is not to force companies to foot the bill or to drag down business. I gave huge compliments to Google Auto-Captioning of youtube videos on my twitter feed. Interestingly enough if you did your homework, Ken Harrenstien the lead engineer behind Google's Auto-Caption is in fact Deaf himself. I wonder how long we would have had to wait for this technology if we had not taking matters into our own hands?

I don't mean to sound militant. but here's another cold hard fact!

Netflix!
According to Tech Crunch blog post

Netflix ended the fourth quarter with approximately 12,268,000 total subscribers, a 10 percent jump compared to end of the third quarter of 2009. Net subscriber change in the quarter was an increase of 510,000 for the third quarter of 2009.
The company earned $30.9 million, or 56 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009. That compared to $22.7 million, 38 cents per share, in the same period of 2008.

The title of the post? "Nearly Half Of Netflix Subscribers Now Watch Streams Online"

That's super, cool,  awesome if your hearing! You see, Netflix doesn't provide captioning and or subtitles that are actually already on the commonly rented DVD. They claim it's difficult to produce, furthermore it's due out this year after much protest from the Deaf community.

This is what HR 3101 wants to guarantee us the creaters of the original ADA act of 1990 probably never imagined 6 million people watching movies on their computers.

Requires every provider of Internet access service and every manufacturer of Internet access equipment, unless it would be an undue burden, to make user interfaces accessible to individuals with disabilities. Requires that apparatus that receives or plays back video programming and has a picture screen of any size be capable of decoding closed captioning, transmitting and delivering video description, and conveying emergency information.  (Source)

Earning 30 million dollars in one quarter, does adding closed captioning or subtitles to their streaming content qualify as an undue burden? 

Now Mr Szoka, Like you I can type a long winded rant. Unlike you I make sure my facts (if any!) makes sense and are not just industry centered!


Have a good one you all !

Joey

Proof of Democracy! Re: HR3101

I got something wonderful in my inbox today.. You may recall my blog post titled HR3101 Help the cause posted a few weeks ago. Well after a frustrating day dealing with a computer virus (look for a post on this subject soon) I received an email from the Honorable Barney Frank. I'm excited to share this with you as proof that if you contact your representives and share what you beleive in to them. They do take your concerns seriously. Now hopefully my readers will take similar actions I had with your representives in congress to get HR3101 passed and ensure future technology not ancient ones are accessable to all

January 25, 2010

Joseph Ponte

(address witheld)



Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting me in support of H.R. 3101, the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009, introduced by my colleague from Massachusetts Congressman Markey. I very much agree with you that the government should ensure all Americans are offered equal access to new communications and video technologies regardless of disability status. I have therefore contacted Congressman Markey's office in order have myself added as a cosponsor of this legislation, and you can be sure that as such I will be strongly supportive of its enactment by Congress.

Barney Frank