Tuesday Topics

Tuesday Topics will explore seasonal issues on ACB Media One and live on zoom. We are hearing a lot about the heat! How is that affecting people who are blind! Does climate change have special issues that apply ! people who are blind or have low vision? What are the issues and what should ACB be doing about them? Hotels are more expensive; plane fares appear to be higher; Covid has impacted the wa...

It is really crucial that many of you join us because we are going to explore an issue that will become increasingly important over the next few years. During the ACB convention just completed the Braille Revival League sponsored a session that allowed those who were there to at least get to touch a new device that is being developed by the American Printing House for the Blind and Humanware. The...

Last week Tuesday Topics took a look at the convention as a whole. We think there is more to cover from ACB 2023 and propose considering three specific concerns surrounding this event. First, what was the new tech that was shown at the exhibit hall. What should folks look for in the future from some of our more established companies? We will review some of the new stuff and look ahead to a couple...

After a period away, Tuesday Topics is overjoyed to be back. You can probably guess what our topic will be. Every year we utilize our first presentation after the convention to provide our sense of how the convention went. While our opinions are important, your views as our listeners are even more important. Brian, Maryann, Larry, Rick and Paul all attended the convention in person. We want partic...

In around 2004 a new phenomenon arrived that was to alter the technology scene. As with so many developments, there was a question of whether the idea would catch on. Now, twenty years after their first appearance, podcasts have become hugely popular, amazingly diverse and immensely entertaining. We think there are a lot of people who are blind who do not listen to podcasts. We want to tell you ab...

On this show we are going to explore some of the impacts both negative and positive of the end of the COVID era. What happened to people who are blind during Covid? We isolated; we used technology to survive; we virtually stopped traveling; we used technology to create our new communities. What impact did all those elements have? Are we less comfortable going out now? How have stores and businesse...

Yes, Janet Dickelman, our irreplaceable convention coordinator, will be our guest tomorrow on Tuesday Topics. Illinois is getting close! Registration is open! Many tours are filling up fast! It may even be a little tricky to get rooms if you are staying before or after the convention. Janet has the knowledge and experience to guide us through all the convention variables. There will be lots of tim...

Tuesday Topics has been planning for quite a long time to do a whole show on cruising and that will happen before the end of the Summer. For now, though, we thought it might be fun to do a show about traveling as a person who is blind. We hope that old hands will talk about getting ready for convention travel. We hope that guide dog users will tell folks what preparations they make before conventi...

Isolation, technology and COVID are discussed. The impact of the way our lives have changed because of technology is the central concern of this week's Tuesday Topics. And it may well be that the problem we discuss have gone on for a much longer time than the point that the covid pandemic arrived. Technology has allowed us to get to lots of information on the internet. It has allowed us to make &q...

As often seems to happen with our program, we only got one of our two major issues covered this time. So our next program will look at how the various notions of information affect the field of blindness! It is a little frightening to suggest that that the field of blindness and visual impairment is rife with misinformation. But why should we expect anything else? ACB and NFB have their own versio...

We are going to explore a question that may seem beyond the scope of our program. Over the past few months we have spent quite a lot of time discussing chat bots. Recently we have seen lots of evidence that they can get things amazingly wrong in terms of information. Our friend Jonathan Mosen reported that he and his partner Bonnie were described as having been married for the past thirty years. T...

How well did voting work last year at ACB? What changes, if any, can we look forward to this year? How did people vote who were at the convention? Did many need assistance? How did affiliate voting work? Are there going to be any changes in how affiliates vote this year? What do we know about who voted? Everybody voted digitally. We know that but what proportion of the vote was done by folks who w...

Don't miss a chance to choose from three issues! Several weeks ago Tuesday Topics asked all of you to come up with subjects for us. However, we indicated that we would put together a series of topics in case our listeners did not come up with discussion issues. We did not have to use those ideas then so we will now offer three of them for this week's Tuesday Topics. What piece of technology would...

Remember to join us when David Trott is our guest on Tuesday Topics! During that period, we will invite David Trott to share with us a notion of where ACB is financially and in terms of membership. During the in-person segment of ACB'S recent meetings in Alexandria Virginia those present were invited to talk about membership and money. That element was moderated (David Trott. We will explore what...

Ever since he was a student at university, Eric Bridges has been active in ACB. For much of his career he has worked for ACB. For the last several years Eric has been ACB'S Executive Director. Virtually all the members of ACB are almost certainly aware that Mr. Bridges has been chosen to become the Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind. His last day at ACB will be March 21, a...

Some of our Tuesday Topics people have been in Washington over the last week. There were programs that were on in DC last Tuesday so we decided to step aside for one week. We are back and feel like there are a number of topics which may be a part of our Tuesday. We have had a request from ACB'S Employment Committee to invite them to report on some of their activities. We now know they will join us...

As often seems to happen, our program last week intended to cover two topics but only got to one. That left the accessibility of large appliances as essentially undiscussed. On the last day of February, then, that will be our topic. Where are we with this issue? Historically, how did we handle access. How has the "internet of things" changed our situation. Does having an appliance that c...

Last week we discussed new devices that are expected this year and, after that, barely scratched the surface with a discussion of phones. As a result, we will begin this edition with a discussion of the three main groups of phones used by people who are blind or have low vision. We will talk about the iPhone and will explore how it has morphed into so much more than just a device for making calls....

Once more Tuesday Topics will depend on you for our success. We are once more going to try for a double feature. Those of you who have been a part of Tuesday Topics for a while know that this means we are going to choose two topics which we will discuss. The idea is that we will find one that encourages folks to call in and participate. We are competing with Valentine's Day so we probably have no...

February is a month full of significant events. The Grammies will happen before our next Tuesday Topics. The Superbowl, number 57, is on February 12. Valentine's Day is on February 14. Later in the month are the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln. We will look at all of these elements and other February phenomena. What do the two Presidents represent and what should we be celebrating with both? W...

Though it may seem a long time ago to some, we looked at a lot of the advantages of the newly emerging artificial intelligence (AI) capacity that we can access today. We also looked ahead at developments that we believed were inevitable and, potentially, beneficial. We certainly talked about some of the pitfalls that the new technology might involve but, at the end of our first show, we decided it...

During our program of January 3, Brian talked about a new app he has been looking at that allows him to make some requests that go a good deal beyond just asking for information. A little while ago my daughter indicated that her new electric car had asked her whether she wanted it to park itself. In considering how life is likely to change this year, Brian indicated that artificial intelligence wo...

Over the past few years Tuesday Topics generally uses our first meeting of the year to look ahead. What can we expect from 2023? Are there things we expect in our world this year? Are there ACB issues? What about expectations about new books or new music or new movies? What can we expect from ACB or, perhaps, what should we expect? Are there things state affiliates and local chapters should think...

It is something of a conundrum to try to predict how topics will be regarded by our listeners and participants. Topics we at Tuesday Topics think will be popular do not attract much attention. Topics we are not confident about attract lots of people. Efforts to encourage our participants to come up with topics have, for the most part, been unsuccessful. And then there are other factors that impact...

We typically, at the end of each year, look back at the last twelve months and explore what conclusions, if any, we can draw about the nature of 2022. What kind of developments have there been in the field of blindness. Can we point to new elements of cooperation? Are there tangible things we can look at that have changed? What about technology? Should we care about Mastodon? We have seen a few ne...