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The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

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Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#151

Post by 8note »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #26
nancyminusone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite enjoy playing with robots, but I'd rather coordinate the design and installation of 1000 ramps than be involved with one walking liability sedan chair. If you care about results and reliability, no shit a competent engineer will be picking the one that has no moving parts and a 10,000 year track record.

The fact that this is or isn't happening is basically unrelated to inventing new stuff. It's almost entirely a political issue, not one of engineering.

land use and design issue more than anything.

ramps have been around for a long time, and are well known to take up a ton of space. especially if every propery gets its own ramp rather than all the properties on a block sharing the same ramp system and having a common porch

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#152

Post by mhurron »

why_at wrote: post #114
TulliusCicero wrote: post #6

While I can understand the frustration and the author makes some good points, a lot of the anger feels oddly misplaced. Yes, engineer types want to solve problems with inventions rather than overhauling the entire nation's infrastructure. Maybe, just maybe, that's because inventing something is actually within their grasp, whereas wholesale replacing every civil engineer and architect in the country isn't? Or replaci…

I think their anger is justified. Yes there's not a lot that individual engineers can do to help, but a big part of the problem is that they don't even understand the people they're "helping". These tech gadgets are the annoying experience we've all had of someone taking a look at a problem from the outside and proposing unhelpful "solutions" that won't work because they don't fully understand it. It reminds me of co…

> Yes they're just trying to be helpful

Experience says they're not, they're being dismissive.

They don't understand because they don't care to and it's beneath them to learn, because the solution is to 'just' do this simple thing everyone knows to do. It now becomes the sufferers fault they continue to suffer and it's not longer required for anyone else to care.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#153

Post by 8note »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #21
watwut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many "engineer types" will gladly care about doorknobs and infrastructure details. There is ideological opposition against from business types and some other tech types. > it's not the tech companies' fault that it's perennially underfunded, it's politicians and the voters who put them there. Tech companies pushed for exactly that outcome and spent a lot on lobbying and convincing. We totally can blame them for it.

> Many "engineer types" will gladly care about doorknobs and infrastructure details. Some will, and that's great, but as the blog post accurately points out, the invention of these things isn't the primary issue, it's the lack of implementation. And that isn't the fault of the engineers designing better doorknobs or ramps. > Tech companies pushed for exactly that outcome and spent a lot on lobbying and convincing. We…

the car companies at the time were tech companies that paid the government to kick people off of roads and build communities that require cars to get to.

the car obsession didnt quite happen naturally

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#154

Post by 8note »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #85
bluefirebrand wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trying to blame this on tech companies is a lame excuse. Depends. Do car manufacturers count as tech companies? The obsession with cars and car infrastructure isn't accidental either, it's been manufactured and pushed heavily by car companies over decades. Same with the opposition to public transit. None of this stuff is happening 100% organically, it's being pushed by corporate interests via lobbying with governme…

If someone watched a press video for the RAV4, and responded by saying "Toyota Motor Corporation Hates Me and You" and demanding that Toyota fix the bus routes in their city, I would think that's pretty silly. Everything's interrelated, and no consumer demand is 100% organic, but the linkage is just too remote to make sense.

toyota is a late comer though.

"jaywalking" is a term made up by car companies because they hate you, as a better example

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#155

Post by 8note »

toast0 wrote: post #137
capitainenemo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why it's either/or. There are a lot more legacy doors and stairs especially around the world, than there are people who could be helped with a climbing wheelchair or exoskeleton frame. And there's some infrastructure that might not be possible to upgrade, for historical preservation reasons. Maybe the tech will always be too bulky, but it could also be rented out on location when traveling.

Accessibility ramps and accessible doorknobs are easy to empathize with. Most everybody is going to be in a situation where those are necessary or at least helpful at some point in their life. Exoskeletons and climbing wheelchairs can help the people who need them on a regular basis. But when you hurt yourself so climbing stairs is an ordeal and need temporary accommodations, universal accessible design means those a…

on the other hand, the vibes are off when everything is so standardized, such that maybe the affordances exist for the building, but there's nobody inside. youve avoided the problem as a whole by removing the building as a destination

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#156

Post by my123 »

inigyou wrote: post #146
s1artibartfast wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on the counterfactual. Could the money solve the problem, if the issues with transportation arent funding? It seems like an institutionally made black hole that will simply consume anything put into it. I dont think flooding it with more money will fix that problem. Investors have poured about 10 billion into waymo prior to 2026. That could only have paid for about 5 to 7 miles of urban light rail give…

What if investors poured 9 billion into making light rail cheaper, and then 1 billion into light rail? Where would we be then? Other countries don't spend 2 billion dollars a mile. Hire the best engineers from Europe and Asia.

A big chunk of the problem is planning/political:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_(Maryland)

> A March 2025 report by the Maryland comptroller's office found that permitting and legal fees for the project, originally budgeted at $6 million, had actually consumed roughly $800 million, thanks to two lawsuits and the contract renegotiations

Better tech cannot solve that on its own, the problem is not even there.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#157

Post by throawayonthe »

Henchman21 wrote: post #124

Could you make the text bigger on mobile? At present I get about one word a line. But clearly we can do better… see if you can get it to just one letter!

(the text seems to be about the same size (physically on a screen) across resolutions)

now, why might a blind person design their site this way? hmmmmm

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#158

Post by [deleted] »

8note wrote: post #154
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone watched a press video for the RAV4, and responded by saying "Toyota Motor Corporation Hates Me and You" and demanding that Toyota fix the bus routes in their city, I would think that's pretty silly. Everything's interrelated, and no consumer demand is 100% organic, but the linkage is just too remote to make sense.

toyota is a late comer though. "jaywalking" is a term made up by car companies because they hate you, as a better example

[deleted]

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#159

Post by Dylan16807 »

throawayonthe wrote: post #157
Henchman21 wrote: post #124

Could you make the text bigger on mobile? At present I get about one word a line. But clearly we can do better… see if you can get it to just one letter!

(the text seems to be about the same size (physically on a screen) across resolutions) now, why might a blind person design their site this way? hmmmmm

Do they view their desktop from the same distance?

And it's to the point that it's becoming an accessibility issue in the other direction.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#160

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

8note wrote: post #147
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But don't you see how the fact that many cases are individual makes it harder? You mention doorknobs, and it's easy to declare (which is why the US government has declared) that lever style door handles are more accessible and should be preferred. It's hard, impossibly so, to construct a world where nobody with wrist mobility problems will ever encounter a round doorknob they'd like to open.

> it's hard, impossibly so, to construct a world where nobody with wrist mobility problems will ever encounter a round doorknob they'd like to open. its not that hard to get to 99.999% though. stop selling door knobs, or doors that accept round knobs. add incentives to swap or return round knobs. include checks for round knobs both for building inspections and insurance. you wont wont get the last couple people that…

You can't talk about things from a social model perspective without modeling the political realities of the policies you're proposing. A national ban on the sale of round doorknobs would not pass, and local bans would create an enormous backlash which might well ruin the longstanding consensus that ADA compliance requires levers.
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