Special World Braille Day observance on ACB Media 8 starting at 1 pm Eastern time Saturday January 4

 January 4 is #WorldBrailleDay, Louis Braille's birthday. In honor of the occasion, American Council of the Blind affiliate the Braille revival League presents the following program.

Subject: [brl-talk] Mark your calendars for Louis Braille's birthday and "Why Braille Matters"

You matter because you know braille matters!!
January 4 is Louis Braille's birthday. He was born in 1809 which would mean that in 1825 he would have been sixteen. Many folks think this is about the time that the braille system came into existence. This would mean that this year the braille system is 200 years old. We have tried to be sure through our announcements that everybody knew that the Braille Revival League, a special interest affiliate of the American Council of the Blind is, for the second year in a row, celebrating Louis Braille's birthday with a major zoom event.At 1 PM eastern time on Saturday January 4th we will begin a presentation that will last for four hours. It is divided into three segments, each of which we think will help accentuate just "why Braille matters" which is the name of our presentation.

The first section will explore braille around the world. We will look at things happening in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, a Pacific island country and elsewhere. We want to explore the diversity of braille and how important it is in countries large and small.
Our second segment deals with the United States. We will look at a company in Kansas that is using braille graphics to create tactile American flags. We will hear from the American Printing House for the Blind, one of the oldest and most important braille institutions in our country. Native American Braille is something most of us have probably not thought about. We will hear from the Navaho nation about how they have worked to develop braille for that language.
Our third segment will explore our organization! What is it? What does it do? How can you help? We will also look at the state of braille today! We think with Charles Dickens that these are the best of times and the worst of times! Join us to find out why!
We will be on ACB Media 8!

Download the ACB media app from your favorite app store or find ACB media online.    

Here is the zoom information. Remember this is a webinar so it will behave a little differently from what happens with the Braille Buzz!.

You are invited to a Zoom webinar!

When: Jan 4, 2025 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topic:  Why Braille Matters



Join from PC, Mac, iPad, or Android:

https://acb-org.zoom.us/j/84398583214





One Tap Mobile:

+13126266799,,84398583214#



Phone:

+1 312 626 6799

Webinar ID: 843 9858 3214



  BRAILLE MATTERS! Show you know it by joining us at 1 PM Eastern time Saturday January 4!

Malaysia: not what this creator expected

RantWoman is posting this item for the following reasons:

There is a whole genre of young exiled Russian social media creators out experiencing the world while they work very hard not to get fed into the Russian meat grinder in Ukraine. Leave the meat grinder to North Korea?

There are some great comments about public transit in Kampala Lumpor

Finally, RantWoman is a bit of a foodie, as in RantWoman currently uses videos involving food to help relax even when the intentions either to make the food presented or to journey to places where the food is common are on RantWoman's long "mean to do maybe someday." 

Enjoy.

Plonkers, Parsnips, and pedestrian nightmare. Oh My

Pomegranates from
the party before the party

This post is about Christmas dinner, the day after the Christmas Eve party with pomegranates.

So there RantWoman was, feasting with RantMom and some of her neighbors.

(Feast highlights: the vegetables. Carrot rutabaga soup flavored with rosemary, squash parsnip mash rich in sage, baked cauliflower with capers. Other items.)

Anyway, conversation with one neighbor turned to bus connections. Neighbor is a senior who uses a mobility cane and has a hearing loss. Neighbor's car is apparently out of commission. 

Neighbor: tell me about bus connections.

RantWoman to herself "Oh honey." 

To neighbor: "What kind of phone do you have?"

"A land line."

"You need the number for Metro Flex 206.253.7739."

The exact reason a senior who uses a cane and wants to use transit needs the phone number for MetroFlex:

The nearest bus stop to 11440 Rainier Avenue S is on the route 107, at 87th Ave S and S 115th street. The stop is up an extremely steep street with no reasonable pedestrian infrastructure on either side of the street and a stoplight at Rainier Avenue just to ensure that there are cars turning up the steep hill at arbitrary intervals.  RantWoman tried this stop exactly twice and then opted for plan B, described below.

Neither the Google trip planner nor the MetroFlex route picker knows this and RantWoman has realized that she needs to speak up, and preferably more politely than "No that is not an ideal routing you plonkers," That was rantWoman's thought bubble after the MetroFlex app said "We found you an ideal routing."

RantWoman has discovered another stop on Route 107 at 87th Ave. S and South 118th.  There are a couple different combinations of streets between S 118th and S 116th and cross streets that will get one to Rainier with about a block to walk before the stoplight to cross Rainier at S 115th. Sidewalks are spotty and intermittent but the streets are walkable at least for RantWoman, but NOT recommended for RantMom's neighbor. Traffic is sparse enough to be reasonably safe. That is the walk RantWoman did for holiday feasting in the rain, after multiple Uber screwups and recommendation from the MetroFlex app to take the bus. RantWoman did not tell RantMom's neighbor all of this. RantWoman just encouraged RantMom's neighbor to call MetroFlex.

RantWoman spared her dining companion her long litany of vexations with Metro Flex.

The first time RantWoman tried to use it, she just tried the phone number and had not set up the app with complete information about her own traveler characteristics. The person on the line just hung up and did not respond when RantWoman tried to call again. RantWoman thinks that time she opted for a short Uber ride, but that was STILL more than her Regional Reduced Fare Permit fare.

Then RantWoman tried to look up some point A to Point B routings to see whether they fell within one of the MetroFlex services areas. Turns out the MetroFlex app will not answer such questions unless one is already within one of the service areas. BOO!

Another day, RantWoman was travelling at dinner time with a dying cellphone battery. There were MetroFlex vehicles swarming around the Renton Transit center, but without a working phone RantWoman in her trademark yellow raincoat with white cane could not even flag down a vehicle to see about a ride to RantMom's.

Somewhere in here RantWoman finished setting up her rider profile which CLEARLY SAYS RantWoman is a white cane user with a Regional Reduced Fare Permit. WHERE on planet earth is it reasonable to expect that a white cane user will be able to navigate a pedestrian routing that is insane on pedestrian amenetiy grounds in the first place???

Anyway, next RantWoman did use the app but the promised response time was over an hour. RantWoman opted to pay for a short-distance Uber ride.

So then comes Christmas day. RAIN. Some kind of hiccup about connecting with Uber vehicles. Try MetroFlex. "Please wait while we find you the ideal routing."

No! No! No!

RantWoman decided to cope with the walk in the rain, with one final hiccup. 

Ring, Ring. RantWoman has regular old fashioned gloves with no modern flap on the index finger. The rain makes it hard to take gloves off. And...it's RantMom wanted to know where RantWoman is.

ETA 5 ,minutes, in plenty of time for dinner.

RantWoman will now share this rant and if necessary harangue relevant people....

Happy Christmas, Kwanzaa, Passover, Festivus....

Eagle S Seized by Finland for Severing Cables Between Finland & Estonia

For readers who are not total shipping nerds, some key points:

--The Baltic sea is full of undersea power and communications cables as well as pipelines.

--There have been a series of anchor drags and other ways to damage these vital pieces of infrastructure.

--The cable drags can be partially explained by vessel age and poor maintenance, but geopolitics also enters the picture.

This YouTube channel is a massive resource for shipping and maritime vocabulary.

Lloyd's list article about spy equipment found on board the Eagle S with links about other cable drags

AI Writes a Lines on Maps Video: Why Russia and Finland Will Go to War

Wherein one of RantWoman's go to resources about war and #Russia asks ChatGPT to write a video discussing a potential war between Russia and #Finland

A 911 call and then....

The following compilation of videos and commentary is dedicated to:

--Everyone who knew Shawn Kim, everyone who helped nab his killer, and everyone remembering what a great guy he must have been.

--All the transit drivers who will be working through the holiday season, especially the ones who deliberately choose routes that come with different difficulties

--Everyone whose holidays include transit and especially when holiday dramas spill over on the ride to or from festivities (count a couple mildly memorable moments from the RantFamily.)

--Everyone who, like RantWoman, thanks our drivers when we get off the bus. This social point is one reason RantWoman is not necessarily eager to consign bus driving to some kind of robot overlords.

Happy Holidays!

Drivers who choose to drive the night runs.

Like everyone else whose lives are entwined with transit, RantWoman was outraged to wake up last week to news of the stabbing of Shawn Kim.

RantWoman has seen plenty of times when drivers were able to deescalate all kinds of extremely stressful situations. People sleeping on buses also often do not react well when drivers waken them at the ends of routes. Murder is horrifying.

The stream of details becomes more heartbreaking with every new media account.

Rant: the murder occurred in the U district. Were there no University police anywhere in the area? Transit police are from the King County Sheriff Office, but do local police routinely respond if a 911 call comes from a specific jurisdiction?

RantWoman is really grateful for comments from people who knew Mr. Kim. RantWoman totally sympathizes with grieving relatives who really might have no mental space for media figures sticking microphones in their faces. At the same time, at this point, enough images of the suspect. How about more images of the murdered public servant?

Bananas did not go to the vigil

RantWoman apologizes if the heading above sounds flip.

RantWoman is very glad there was a vigil. RantWoman expressed interest in finishing off her day of errands with a stop at the vigil, more or less on RantWoman's way home anyway. 

But RantWoman scored bananas at a very cool new supermarket she will celebrate separately. 

And, completely unsurprisingly, there was a Metro alert advising riders to expect delays on every bus route that travels through the crime scene. So, RantWoman picked a different route home; the video will have to be enough for now, and not enough of course for all the events every day on Metro.

Description!

RantWoman, like a lot of armchair experts on social media would not have minded more of a description of the suspect sooner. Too much of the social media RantWoman saw was certain the killer must be Black. Like every transit driver in the area, RantWoman was glad to have enough of a description to rule out a lot of the riding public. 6'5" and white comes with a pretty definite body characteristic more useful to RantWoman than brown hair and brown eyes as well as some expectations about voice.

RantWoman is very thankful not to have encountered the killer.

RantWoman is very glad drivers had the description!

Arrest: a secure place to sleep.

RantWoman comment: this is pretty much a picture-perfect arrest from the police perspective. Completely cooperative suspect. No altercation of any kind. RantWoman also only sees white faces.

We are all grateful that this guy will have a secure place to sleep for a long time, without even any bus drivers to wake him up at the end of every run he lands on.

Comedian Reacts to Luigi Terror Charge

Aside from the topic, this item has a whole raft of Gen-Z vocabulary.