Suit to Add Handicapped-Accessible Cabs Unfar?

An even louder Bronx cheer, wetter raspberries and razzing, and an even smellier fart are directed in Bloomberg's general direction. I posted about this earlier in NYC Taxis Inaccessible! Shame on you, Bloomberg!.

Bloomberg says suit to add handicapped-accessible cabs unfair to 'average' riders, wastes gas, money

You have GOT to be kidding me, Mr. Mayor B! Unfair to average riders, wastes gas and money, and...

Disabled-friendly cabs are a health hazard, would cause injuries & spark lawsuits, mayor says

...a hazard? Hazard to WHO? Yourself? You have more to worry about hubcaps coming off other cars and them spraying water on you than a wheelchair user lobbing a golf ball-sized water balloon at you using a rubber band slingshot. YOU yourself can be a rider of the subways, as many officials, even mayors and related public officials, have been known to do.

Have you even ridden in one of those wheelchair-friendly cabs? Have you even spent time in the DC area seeing how the paratransit system and accessible cabs work? Have you even talked to the owners of those cabs to see if they really are hazardous? Have you been in a modified wheelchair-accessible van driven by a wheelchair user? I DON'T THINK SO. YOU can try riding these things not just once, but multiple times. I've been there, done that.

How about making the ENTIRE NYC subway system accessible, adding elevators and escalators? Adding newer accessible vans would be much cheaper than the huge bill of retrofitting the entire NYC subway system. But yep, looks like they're doing some accessibility work here and there, with 89 out of 468 accessible stations.

MTA Guide to Accessible Transit

Funny Moment 9: Silly String

When I attended NTID, there were a few times I'd heard about and seen Silly Stringed hallways in the dorms. It gets even more impressive when you cover someone else with the stuff.

A friend and I were talking a bit and I had a can of the stuff in my hand, talking in the doorway of the dorm room. One girl walks by, and I give her a short burst of String spray. Next thing we know, she's screaming her head off, trying to brush the stuff off her while running down the hallway. Needless to say, my friend and I were nearly on the floor laughing til her boyfriend comes up and close to me. "Don't you ever do that again" he said.

It could have been worse, but we were too far gone laughing. I was only able to stop briefly til he left before we just fell over laughing again.

Last time we laughed like that, we were watching Brewster's Millions. The baseball game scene where John Candy's catcher character was insulting the batter put us on the floor for the next 5-10 minutes. We had to stop the movie til then.

Growing Up Deaf Update 5

Something else came to mind when I was talking with someone about their school years, related to the Growing Up Deaf Part 19 and Part 20 posts. Back when I attended the School From Hell, there were a number of times some kids angrily asked me why I was a year older than them. I told them maybe due to my birthdate being so early in the school year? Maybe something else. Or I just plain said I didn't know.

The truth was that I attended kindergarten not for the normal one year, but two years. Remember I said I lost my hearing around age 5 in Growing Up Deaf Part 5?

Had I told them, who knows what they would have done?

Bringing Down the House 3: Classroom presentations

This was shortly after what happened in the Bringing Down the House 2: Panels post, about a semester or two later. I had to do a presentation as a class requirement. It was based on the Internet's Request for Comments, known as RFCs. They're technical papers that propose protocol changes or other events like that to the Internet. In some places, there's humor, and I decided to include that.

So, come presentation time, I mentioned some of the things mentioned in there, the more common stuff. Then I added in some of the more unusual stuff including the more hilarious ones. By the time I nearly get to the end of the presentation, everyone's laughing some.

All I had to do was show the final slide and step back:

"RFC #3999: The Henny Youngman Proposal
Take My Professor, Please!"

The entire classroom was rolling including the teacher. I got an A for it.

Recipe: Chicken mushroom casserole

4 lbs chicken
2-3 cans cream of mushroom
3 green peppers
2 large onions
2 potato

Heat up the oven to 400 degrees.

You may want to add more or less cream of mushroom, though the general ratio seems to be for every two pounds of chicken, use one can cream of mushroom. We used three cans, and it still came out nicely. A large casserole dish works nicely for this.

Chop up the green pepper, onion, and potato. Add to the chicken and cream of mushroom in the casserole dish. Other veggies like zucchini, celery, and carrots can be used as long as they're not too wet, like tomatoes. Add more veggies to balance out the meat.

Bake for 45-60 minutes. Adjust cooking times if you use more or less chicken.

Serves four hungry people.

Thanks to a friend for passing it on to me.

Peter Falk/Columbo Passes Away

I know I'm late in mentioning that Peter Falk passed away.

Peter Falk, TV's rumpled Columbo, has died

Many TV viewers enjoyed his Columbo character, what with his way of playing the somewhat bumbling character. He was kind of a combination of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clousau in the Pink Panther movies and Monk on TV, but without Clouseau's accident-prone or slapstick behaviors or Monk's obsessive-compulsiveness.

Thanks for being the character, Mr. Falk.

*fake exit*

And another thing... I don't think anyone can easily replace him.

Hearing Aids STILL Cost Too Much

The Why Hearing Aids Cost So Much blog post on the SayWhatClub blog pretty much has nailed the question and issue right there. Then they follow up with The Cost of Hearing Aids–Why It May NOT Be About Supply and Demand.

I've always wondered why the prices of analog hearing aids have stayed sky-high over the years, despite many being made and sold? By now, we should have, for example, an Oticon 380P for less than $150. Have you looked inside? Many of the parts can be easily found off the shelf, thus making the total cost cheap, from most good electronics houses. There may be a few parts that may be hard to get. It helps if you have the skills to deal with the very fine wires, tiny parts, and even smaller solder points.

With the right skills and equipment, the hearing aids can be repaired. One website says you can build them for about $300, but it's possible to do for far less than this. You can make a hearing aid that costs less, has AGC, and has the abilities of other hearing aids.

Why do hearing aids cost so much? (Michigan news station)
Hearing Aid Cost
Bluetooth Headsets & Hearing Aids - also has a discussion list/forum
Hearing Aids - Too Expensive?

The slight drawback is you'll look a bit like a Borg if you don't make the circuits small enough and use too many flashing lights. Then again, we're starting to look like them anyway.

As for the marketing angle, marketers tend to make us want to spend more when we really don't need to do so.

Greed at its best.

Funny Moment 8: Make Me Laugh

Before we had to have passports to get back into the States from Canada, we used our drivers licenses. Today, you can't get back into the States without the passport.

I was at a Canada/US border crossing gate being interviewed by the guard, ID out.

Guard: "Got anything to declare?"
Me: (I'm in a Geo Metro hatchback) "Nothing to declare, but I got a bag of M&Ms if you want some (I hold it up), and a broken water gun in back if you want it (clearly seen in the back)."
Guard: (laughs) "You may go."

That's probably the only time I've gotten a guard like that to laugh. These days, it could easily get you in trouble.

Post-surgery Knees - Part 6

Been having some improvements here and there. I've been able to go on short walks here and there. That'll improve in time. I also had a couple milestones.

First was my being able to walk into the local grocery store without the wheelchair, just using the cart to help move around. I can do short quick stops there, but not longer shopping times, yet.

Second was my walking to the store from home before dinner at a friend's place. I was never able to walk that far til now. Then while Jamie went into the store, I sat on a bench outside, then we both walked to the friend's place.

Heading to an ASL dinner via the local metro/subway, I managed to walk around a bit more, going to a bookstore to look around some before dinner.

I still can't quite effectively use the elliptical/stepper machine, though I can use a leg press.

I've doing some gardening here and there. I can't quite do it all day, but it'll happen sometime.

How many rows can I mow this summer?

Got A Wireless Router? Password It!

Over the years, I've seen how people have gone from wired to wireless. I can understand the appeal, but the issues of security remain. Even though encryption is used, it takes time for the password to be cracked and the victim's service to be used and abused.

NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers

Not passwording a wireless router is asking for trouble, and quite a bit of it. If you can't seem to set the password, then TURN OFF the wireless part or ask for help from someone who has done it. That plus change the password of the router. The major reason an open access point is found is due to those who wardrive. Meaning, they look for access points, whether encrypted or not, by way of walking around, driving, or using a bike using something like Netstumbler. When I last wardrove about 2007 for a report for class, there were around 1700 access points. A little over HALF were encrypted!

The second reason is that there are websites that list default passwords for every router made. So if the router password isn't changed despite the wireless being turned on and encrypted, trouble can still happen.

In short, when a wireless router is used, either turn off wireless or set a password, and a good strong one, including the login password. Wired is still quite secure.