go podcast()

Dominic: 00:01

Hello Gophers! I'm Dominique Saint Pierre and you're listening to GO Podcasts. Today I'm joined by Ivan Fitch and we talk about what it like to be a blind person in tech. Yeah, it will be a special episode, well for me at least, being a blind user using a screen reader and things like that. This will be split into two parts because, yes, we have a lot to cover and I think I think we, you know, deserve two episodes.

Dominic: 00:37

Just a quick reminder that the Slack channel is still there, Gopodcast in one word in the Gophers Slack community. So if you are there, I would appreciate if you can join. And on that, this is my interview with Ivan. Hello, Gophers. So today, I'm joined by Ivan Fetch.

Dominic: 01:00

Thank you very much, Ivan, for joining me today.

Ivan: 01:03

Absolutely. Thanks for the invite. It was great to get to chat with you.

Dominic: 01:07

Yeah. We will have a a super interesting talk today, especially since I started this podcast. Every time that I'm I'm telling a guest that I I am a blind person, that I'm using a screen reader, the reaction is is always the same. You know? Wow.

Dominic: 01:24

I want to I want to hear about that. I want to know more and things like that. And I know I I known you from the the Bitfield Slack community, you know, from John Arundel. So I thought, you know what? Could be could be interesting to invite Ivan.

Dominic: 01:44

So let's start by, you know, as we always do in here, I ask my guests to introduce themselves. So anything that you want to to say to the listeners, we will have a conversation about being blind, being, you know, programmers, and doing a lot of interesting and challenging stuff. So, I mean, anything that you want to to say to us, we will start from there.

Ivan: 02:10

Sure. I'll give kind of a high level, and we could dig into any any number of things that you that you like. As Dominic said, my name is Ivan. I happen to be completely blind. Basically, since birth, I was born prematurely and as a result of some complications, I've I've never had sight.

Ivan: 02:30

So that's a bit relevant because I didn't lose my sight later in life, although I'm, you know, as familiar as one can be through dialogue with friends and work that I used to do training folks who had lost their sight later in life in how to use Farias technology. So I've always been blind. And I've worked in technology basically my whole life as what I describe now as infrastructure engineering and and also, of course, go software development. So I happen to be a musician. I love music.

Ivan: 03:07

I played keyboard for almost my entire life And semi recently, I've taken up bass guitar. I spent a year horseback riding every week for a new a different fun thing to do as a way to get outside. And I once did a demo flight to to fly a helicopter, of course, with a copilot being the responsible person in the aircraft, because I have always been fascinated by how helicopters work, and would listen to YouTube videos of folks doing, you know, startup and shutdown procedures, etcetera. And so that was something that I was excited to get to do a few years ago. And for about six six or so years, not too long ago, my wife and I lived kind of a nomad life where we worked remotely and got to visit various places in The US, The US and Canada.

Ivan: 04:01

So there's some random sort of highlights, if you will, And happy to talk more about any of those things, or we can talk career stuff or or whatnot, but that's that's me.

Dominic: 04:14

Yeah. That that's very, very interesting. I think we'll have a lot to unpack. I I there's a lot of things that I I didn't know from you. So, yeah, it will be interesting.

Dominic: 04:24

So let's let's start by maybe why choosing a career in tech, for example. So let's let's return. So I'm I'm I'm legally blind from birth. I have retinitis pigmentosa, which is a degenerative disease that, you know, inevitably drive to probably no sight at all or, you know, not enough to to read anymore. And this is my state at the moment.

Dominic: 04:55

But you, it's different. I mean, why why have you have you chosen tech at some point? So I I imagine that you you had some option ahead of you. And and was that difficult to to decide to what you wanted to do for your entire career?

Ivan: 05:15

It didn't feel terribly difficult. A lot of this is, you know, how the how we were raised as children and and, you know, what support we had from our our parents and and who they were and so on. And so but when I was a little kid, I had some kind of aptitude for understanding things, you know, how things worked, natural curiosity for those kinds of things, solving problems, and also for explaining things to other people. I also had some aptitude for music. So I started playing piano around the age of four years old.

Ivan: 05:58

My My dad had got my mother a piano and I was just playing around with it. And rather than banging on it as a stereotypical kid, was playing individual notes, listening and observing and trying to figure it out in some way as it's explained to me. And so, I started piano lessons. And so, as I grew up and went through school and all that normal stuff, I seem to have these two possible paths of things that I had some kind of ability. And they were pretty equally interesting to me.

Ivan: 06:35

And to be brutally honest and capitalistic, you know, I I chose technology because everyone said, well, you'll make easier money doing that. And I also had a sense as I continued to assess this decision on my own as a, you know, young adult that my enjoyment from music could be ruined by me making it something that, you know, kept the lights on. So so essentially, that's my not too fascinating process into deciding, you know, what would I what would I do for my career. I was always, like I said, learning how things worked, technical or not, you know, interested in the sounds that things make. When I was a young young child, somebody would be mowing the lawn and I would hear how a lawn mower would do something different than other lawn mowers and I would wanna figure out, you know, what's up with that?

Ivan: 07:29

How come it does that? I would ask all kinds of questions of people that could see, what is this doing? You know, it makes this noise when the guy does such and such a thing. What's different? And, you know, some people are very observant and some people aren't and I would stumble onto somebody in my family or a friend who was particularly observant and they would maybe pick up on, oh, when they let go of this bar, the blade disengages, but the motor continues to run, for example, which was a difference in sound that I had picked out.

Ivan: 08:04

So I was always curious and I would start showing people how to do things, solving technical problems, like we all do as as technicians. Right? You become your family's kind of like technical support on some Right? And so that continued, and I would do work with we had when I was going to high school, we had an adult education group where seniors would come and learn things in the classroom after hours, and a lot of them had computer problems, and I would help them over the phone. And sometimes I didn't know at all what I was doing and I would figure it out with them because I had enough of an aptitude and they mostly didn't mind that and we would get things done.

Ivan: 08:47

So things progressed and I became, you know, what back in the nineties, '19 nineties was just called sysadmin or systems admin and running Linux servers and computer labs and all the normal kind of things, I think that's common for folks in this trade. And before long, they started renaming things and applications became distributed and software fanned out across servers and containers, and now I'm an SRE, and so on and so forth. But it started as a classic sysadmin, so. Nice. So I think it was handy as I sort of babble back to the to the core question and the core point.

Ivan: 09:33

I think it was handy that I had one aptitude that that translated into a pretty pretty decent career trajectory. And and, of course, you know, income you can't you can't shake a stick at generally. Right? Feel I feel lucky about that.

Dominic: 09:52

Pretty interesting. What was what was your your setup like at at that moment when you started? So I'm talking about so let's let's introduce some some concept to the listeners that might not be familiar. So I would imagine that you have learned braille fairly, you know, fairly early, and and I would I would also imagine that when you started to play with computer, you had a braille display device attached to your to your computer replacing a screen. Right?

Ivan: 10:23

I happened to not have a braille display. I'm not entirely sure why. I think in part because they were so expensive, you know, everything you know, I was I'm in my late forties, so I was born in in the the late seventies, early eighties. And so back then, anything that was going to be assistive technology for somebody that was visually impaired was a very specialized device. And I say it that way because today, for example, our computers can make sounds, any kind of sound, you know, playing a song or making a beep.

Ivan: 11:05

Just natively, there's audio built into the computer. But if you go back in time, you had to install a sound card in a computer for it to be able to make a noise, any kind of noise. But it still couldn't make noises in the right way to become synthesized speech. So so I I didn't have a braille display. I did read braille, and I used it for a lot of my coursework going, you know, through, you know, preschool, kindergarten, all the way through, you know, well, in k through 12 as as we call it.

Ivan: 11:38

But but as my years increased, I I used braille less and less. So it was a function of what format or the materials I needed available. So in the early years, that was braille. And so I learned braille and it's an important thing to have. And I don't know if it's feels as necessary now, to be honest.

Ivan: 12:04

Right? I'm sure there's some some diehard braille zealots that are like rolling over and but what I had eventually was a piece of hardware called an Echo PC. And it was a card that would go into the Apple two line of computers. So this isn't like Apple Macintosh, but Apple, you know, that ran basic as an operating system. And and it was a card that could basically be sent commands in software, and it would make very robotic sounding, especially to today's ears, speech.

Ivan: 12:41

And so, eventually, I was probably around seven years old or so when this was something that I was able to have in my life. Not without, you know, some dollars, right? Yeah. These things, I can't remember exactly, but they were they were expensive. I'm I'm gonna say like a thousand dollars plus or something, I don't know, to to back then to to get one of these devices.

Ivan: 13:09

And you had to have specialized software. So you didn't have a screen reader as we think of it today on a operating system or as a third party piece of software. You would have specialized software written, and I won't I won't go into tons of detail necessarily, but to suffice to say that I had a word processor called Braille Edit initially, and then something newer later on called Bex, b e x, that was written to interface with the speech card. And then there was also a thing you could run to to get a little bit of a speech in the basic command line prompt. And so, you know, I could I could run basic programs and and get essentially what amounted to terminal output.

Ivan: 13:53

And so that was my computer for quite a few years until I eventually switched to, you know, IBM PC with DOS and still specialized hardware for speech, but but now we now we had, the notion of a screen reader, and so, you you could use other software that wasn't necessarily written to be accessible, but but it it happened to be and you were happy about that. So now I can use like WordPerfect 5.1 as my thing to do schoolwork, etcetera, etcetera. And then Windows, screen readers, and then eventually Mac for me. For those who don't know, Apple for a while now has embedded a screen reader into both of their Apple Mac operating systems and their iOS for iPhones and iPads, etcetera. And and so I I switched, I don't know, maybe 20 in 02/2011 to Mac.

Dominic: 14:50

That yeah. That that is very, very interesting. So I was not aware of those devices and and be being someone that attended a blind, you know, school for blind since the fifth grade, You know, very very early, they gave us, like, you know, 8086 Texas instrument Mhmm. Laptop computers. Right.

Dominic: 15:16

But everyone had, you know, the the the people that were reading braille were having a a braille, you know, device attached under the laptop. So it was like, you know, Velcroed. I I don't know how to say that in English, but basically, it it it was like it was like jammed with the laptop. So so they were were reading that.

Ivan: 15:37

Yeah. There was all sorts of sort of, you know, cobbled together sort of specialized hardware combos, you know, that that I recall that were like that, where different different shops and groups You know, I remember someone that's kind of local to me here, at least used to make a laptop that, like, didn't have a a proper screen anymore geared for blind users. And this was already in the day when screen readers were a lot easier to come by as software and so on and so forth. But, yeah, there's always been a business for this more specialized hardware and but it's it's always been relatively expensive. And I'm really thankful that growing up in a time when books were braille or they were on tape, but it was a slower speed that you had to play the tape and also it was it was a four track tape recorder Yep.

Ivan: 16:36

Which they they used, you know, the the left and right stereo channels as a split to

Dominic: 16:41

Yeah.

Ivan: 16:41

Like get, you know, tons more audio on tapes and so on and so forth. Like, that was the only way you could really attain reading material, textbooks for school or or otherwise. And today, I can get a book and go to bookshare.org and, you know, get get something or I can, get it through other mainstream sources whether I want it in text or whether I wanna go to Audible or something and get an audiobook. And it's just a night and day, a huge difference in the ability to get get things and compared to before. So, you know, I on some level, I'm I'm happy I grew up with a different perspective.

Ivan: 17:26

I think the Yeah. I think the perspectives we gain are valuable. But I also sometimes think about how would it have been if I had grown up as a kid with, you know, an iPhone or something. So it's it's

Dominic: 17:37

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Totally. It's it's very funny that you mentioned this this recorder. So again, from my side, it was it was pretty different because yeah.

Dominic: 17:47

Like like I was saying, I basically attended regular school on on tenth fifth grade, and at some point, I was starting to have difficulties. And, you know, I I don't want to enter in into any politics, but in in Canada, we we we were lucky to to have, you know, the government chip in for every, you know, everything that that you were going to need. So not only we had a a school for blind in Quebec, but once you entered there, they, yeah, they they gave you this this General Electric, you know, four track recorder and a laptop a little a little later. At first, it was a typewriter, basically. Yep.

Dominic: 18:26

Yeah. Those so it was it was it was pretty dramatic for me because at some point, I was not being able to see the the board in regular school, and I was starting to to have some difficulties. I was not I was aware that I was having I I was legally blind since birth, but, you know, to be frank, I was having a, you know, from my point of view, a great vision when I was young. When I entered into that school, my teacher was completely blind. I was not someone that I I I was not knowing braille at all.

Dominic: 19:03

And we we were a couple of students that were still seeing to to write, you know, with with a pen and on paper. And she had this device that she was moving on our paper sheet and she was reading. It it was it was, yeah, like, optically converting what was written on on the on the paper from a relief point of view for for her using a finger. So it was not converting that into braille, but it was it was I don't know. I don't even know what what it was called.

Dominic: 19:41

But when I saw that the first time

Ivan: 19:42

It might have been called the Opticon. There was a bunch of potential other devices that could have done the same thing, but I remember seeing this as a, you know, a 10 year old or something. And you Yeah. Stick you would stick your finger like in hole that didn't give you a whole lot of wiggle room, and then you would feel a raised line or whatever of Exactly. Like you say, in relief.

Ivan: 20:07

And, you know, I I didn't know print, and so this wasn't helpful to me.

Dominic: 20:15

Print. Yeah.

Ivan: 20:16

But, yeah. Yeah. It was a it was a really cool

Dominic: 20:18

But it yeah. It's just to say that from a from yeah. Exactly. I I was also around 10 years old. And from a 10 years old point of view at that time, I I was, like, completely blown away.

Dominic: 20:29

And this is where accessibility started for me. But, unfortunately, I never never learned braille at that moment. So let's let's return a little bit to any challenges that that you face. Because from what I understand at the moment, you were always, you know, going towards servers and whatnot. So I'm I must assume a lot of lot of, you know, terminal work and things like that.

Dominic: 20:58

So I I would guess that your your device was kind of able to read the terminal like easily? Were you were you able because if if I recall my I was also in the MS DOS era and, you know, sometimes there were some comments that was outputting so many line at you. So how how how would you how would you do that at that time? Was was it able to return back into history and and reread, you know, line by line what what what went wrong or something like that?

Ivan: 21:34

Yeah. So when I first started touching, you know, Linux boxes, I there are screen readers for Linux and there have been for quite some time in both GUI screen readers for X Windows and also just what they call console based, which is sort of the terminal you'll get even if you have a Linux box that doesn't have any graph user interface. And so, but I never really I never wanted to add switching screen reader muscle memory. So the keyboard commands that you get used to using to hear auditory feedback about what's the line above the line I'm on or to review the screen. And for years, they've called this sort of alternate cursor, the review cursor.

Ivan: 22:33

Right? The ability to look around on the screen without moving the physical cursor that everyone associates with where I'm about to type letters. There's also a a review cursor. So I I I for one didn't wanna add, you know, I want to play with Linux and learn Linux and, you know, see what what happens with that stuff. I didn't wanna add and learn a new screen reader on top of that.

Ivan: 22:56

And also, when I had read accounts of screen readers for Linux, you know, no no no offense intended at all to the amazing people who have made and continue to make the screen readers. I just I I found it sort of a challenging thing that I could always avoid. And and and the other accounts from people that I knew who had used Linux screen readers back in the day were that, you know, it would there here's all these challenges, there's all these things that don't work. And so, I wanted to use my native DOS computer and so that's what I did. And I connected it over serial cable with an old modem adapter to a serial port of this other computer that I had Linux on and that's how I would get into the Linux box.

Ivan: 23:43

And so, to get more to your question of the kind of interaction experience, yeah, there was a review cursor even then, and I think I used like ProComm or something, you know, to because there's no terminal emulator built into like DOS. And so I was able to page up and look at previous stuff. I would type things into a pager as much as I could so that I wouldn't have to scroll a lot. I would just read and then hit space bar in advance. I also something that people wonder about a lot.

Ivan: 24:18

I I I don't tend to run a command and then let it just vomit into my ears all over the output. I usually know what I'm looking for, and so I might run a command and then press control to silence my speech, and then review, you know, move up a few lines and look for the things that I want. I also got really good at piping commands into cut and arc and said and Yeah. You know, chopping up the output text, or using output modifiers for the command that I was running to to limit the output to the thing that I knew that I wanted to see. And that's once you've been using some kind of Unix for a while and you you know what you want, right?

Ivan: 25:02

I'm not gonna look at the output of the PS command and read across all of the columns where you're kind of having to remember like, okay, the fourth column is the thing I care about. The fourth column, the fourth column, you know, then you're you're kind of ignoring like the first few words and there it is. There's the fourth column. That's the thing I wanted to know. So you do get good at picking those kinds of things out.

Ivan: 25:26

It's a little bit analogous to how people can look at a noisy wall of content and pick out the two things they need. You do get good at that auditorily, but also you get good at picking out the things you want. Yep. So

Dominic: 25:45

yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The the good old commands. I I I I'm I'm very impressed my myself when we we have talked a little bit earlier, and let's let's enter this this, you know, text editor land.

Dominic: 26:03

You you are using VIM, if I'm not mistaken.

Ivan: 26:06

Yep.

Dominic: 26:07

Yeah. This is great. I I I I was using Arch Linux at some point and was using VIM at when when I started to use a screen reader, I completely was I was lost, to be frank. And I'm still to this day, I I retried the Vim the other day, and I I I cannot understand how you are doing that. Because it's it to me, it's it feels I don't know.

Dominic: 26:36

It feels extremely difficult to to to be in in those two modes at some point, and now the screen reader is is is having difficulties. Pro you know, it it's it's certainly a user issue. I'm I'm not I'm not good at at doing that at the moment, but it's very impressive that that you are using using that. Were were you at all Have you tested at some point Emacs with Emacs Speak?

Ivan: 27:04

I played with it some. I I I used it for, I don't know, six months in in some capacity, not exclusively. I you know, Emacs and Emacs speak always felt like if you wanted it to, it could try to be like a complete operating environment. Like, you could just live in Emacs and do everything and there was like a ability to read your email and to look at the web and all these things that that were very cool. But again, even if that probably could have served me fine, I was also very stubborn and and and wanted to use the mainstream or the typical tools.

Ivan: 27:50

Right. And and that doesn't mean that people don't use Emacs as their typical tool to do things in the way that I just described because of course, a ton of people did back then and I'm sure do now. But but I I just could never really embrace it personally. So I did play with the MX Speak Some. Yes.

Ivan: 28:09

And I did like on the editor front, I used like Pico, which came with the Pine Mail software or Nano, which was kind of based on that somehow.

Dominic: 28:20

So Right.

Ivan: 28:21

Two editors with a very similar UI. I used that for a while at the beginning, because it was there was no command mode like you described that v v v v have. Right? So, you know, I used that for for a very long time. And to be to be honest, what motivated me to use v I was I was getting on too many servers for various work things, and needed to edit stuff, and VI was always there.

Dominic: 28:50

Yeah.

Ivan: 28:51

And so, I learned just enough to be able to edit a file and make a couple of changes and not worry about needing to do more. And it was the sort of calm gateway into, oh look, this isn't so bad. And then I would just keep using it for stuff and then and then using it on my own computer and and that was kind of the transition for me into into VIM. So And I'll say one quick thing about your sort of challenges to, you know, which mode am I in and all that kind of stuff. From a screen reader perspective, it it is it is kind of weird.

Ivan: 29:27

There there are times when, for example, you you are moving up and down in a file with the arrow keys or with j, you know, j and k, which is own muscle memory these days, but and the screen reader will miss that you are on the next line. Yeah. And that sounds like a horrible, like stupid thing to put up with in your life when I say it out loud, but I'm so used to it that I kind of look for it automatically. And when I'm arrowing down down down down down through some code just reading it, I will encounter this plenty and I kind of recognize when it's happened because I'm like, well, that line and I just heard it's obviously not That that line probably doesn't repeat and I will sometimes go down, and then I will go, you know, quickly left and right to to kind of make it realize that, hey, look, see see how the cursor is down here? You you wanna you wanna catch up and and and and realize.

Ivan: 30:34

So again, I know that me describing doing this automatically as a regular part of my existence feels horrible and, you know, I'm sure it sounds ridiculous. And there are some other ways that you can try to mitigate this. You can tell your screen reader to I'm sorry. I forget what the what the setting kind of is is called typically, but it's it essentially is is is like, be slower at assessing, you know, where where you are when you're in the terminal and that and that kind of sentiment. There is there is a setting for that.

Ivan: 31:15

I remember this from my Windows days and and there's something I think similar in in voice over. And I've used that setting and it sometimes works, but but then then there are times that you have to continue to readjust the setting, is why I've just done this workaround. So, this is sometimes better using native VIM that's not in the terminal. If you want to sort of give yourself a break and try like VIM for Windows instead of running VIM inside of like the terminal. So so the advantage there is is you're running a native app.

Ivan: 31:55

Well, how do I say this? The the UI is is a native UI Yeah. In your operating system. And, even though it's not like necessarily super graphical per se, you get a little bit of a different navigation experience. It's the same editor.

Ivan: 32:10

It's all the same, you know, command mode versus editing mode, etcetera. But I have found sometimes that's a better experience for the thing that you described. So Got it. Hopefully, that helps.

Dominic: 32:22

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm pretty yeah. I'm I'm using Windows basically for NVD.

Dominic: 32:28

NVD so let's let's let's try to have the listeners catch up a little bit. So what I was was what I was trying to to convey with my last question is that, well, what I've seen since using a screen reader full time is that well, I'm sorry, but you are kind of constantly fighting over almost anything that you are trying to do with a computer, and and that's that's just life.

Ivan: 32:53

It's very noisy and disruptive when it's new.

Dominic: 32:56

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And totally but but even well, yeah, even after two years, maybe maybe almost three. I don't I don't count anymore, but I mean, I don't know. I'm I'm still I'm still not I don't know.

Dominic: 33:10

It's still it's still it's still difficult at a lot of places. Yeah. But but yeah. So what I was trying to convey is that is that yeah. For for me, so Windows is is just is just a shell where I can have NVDA, which is my screen reader.

Dominic: 33:30

All of my time is is passed on on WSL, which is the Windows subsystem for Linux. And and I'm using Versus Code, which is installed on on on Windows, and that's it. That that that's my life, basically. I'm I'm always on the command line, but I had a not very good experience. Well, maybe maybe it will it might be time for me to to retry, but Orca is the screen reader on on Linux.

Dominic: 33:58

And, yeah, it it was it was very difficult. So maybe maybe it's just me when I when I learned how to use a screen reader full time, you know, picking something easier like voice over Mac or NVDA Windows or maybe JAWS could have been an an option. But today, I'm I'm pretty happy with my setup. VSCode is extremely nice in terms of accessibility. They have added a lot of of small sounds.

Dominic: 34:32

They started that almost two years ago, and and they they continue to improve that. That just help in the integration with with the language server is is is very, good. So things like when you know, just just things like when people are using a mouse to to mouse over a function, for example, and now you can see the function documentation and and things like that. You can do all of this with keyboard commands now. And and, yes, this this starts to be very difficult to not use that, if I can say that.

Dominic: 35:12

I'm I'm pretty I I think I think I'm I'm back where I was productivity wise when I started to use the screen reader just just because the accessibility efforts is is pretty good in Versus Code.

Ivan: 35:28

Yeah. And, I mean, not that you aren't, doing this or aware of it, but, you know, give yourself some credit for the amount of work and and the iterative process that it is to get to a point where you can say what you've just said, that you you feel like your ability or and productivity is is very close if not at a place that you were previously. Right? Except now you're using, speech feedback. That's a huge lift and it takes time.

Ivan: 35:55

You know, I remember when I switched to Mac and you have to do it in pieces. You have to take take chunks of your life and do the new thing. And then when you get tired or your day is long or you're doing work that itself is challenging, the overhead, which normally is is muscle memory and and feels like less effort, the the new overhead of, you know, I'm I'm using something new to get the feedback to know what I'm doing, is is, not for free. It's it's it's it's considerable. The analog I use sometimes with folks that are sighted are is, you know, it it would be like if I did something to your monitor so that you noticed it was different.

Ivan: 36:39

You turned it turned it at an angle sort of 45 degrees, not completely on its side, but you know, something disruptive where you could still kind of see the reflection of the work you're doing, but it's it's, you know, not your normal monitor. So anyway, congratulations for lack of some other better term there on reaching that point because it's it's considerable effort and

Dominic: 37:08

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. And and don't don't get me wrong. It's it's it's good on on some tools that I Mhmm.

Dominic: 37:15

I've, you know, quote unquote mastered, but it's pretty still difficult. You know, just take some web interface. I mean, Stripe is just you know, it's great company, but I mean, wow. There's a ton of things that it it is not accessible. There there's a lot of there's a lot of tools.

Dominic: 37:38

And and, you know, this this could be this could be our next segment. So how how do you deal with new new tools? So let's say your company decides to, I don't know, to force you on using Slack or Discord or whatever whatever new tools to communicate and you never really use that. So do you do you know, is it is it a is it a challenge for you or or

Ivan: 38:02

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So a few things I, you know, I I when I started a new job, I often will end up having some sort of presentation that I give where I'm showing some degree of how a screen reader does what it does and what it sounds like and and that slowed down speech and the normal rate of speech that I use and how, you know, how things kind of look. And I do mean that literally from a screen reader perspective.

Ivan: 38:37

So at least with voice over on the Mac, there's a caption panel that kind of hovers that like I can't see. It doesn't get in my way, you know. I can't I don't hear it at all. But people can see it visually and it shows what the screen reader is saying. And then they can also see if you have it enabled, could see the literal voice over cursor, which is the thing I referred to earlier as kind of the review cursor, the the way that I can move around and read the screen without necessarily moving the mouse pointer or the real cursor.

Ivan: 39:07

So that helps to kind of, you know, show literally what's happening in in screen reader land. And I also will show how a web page is considerably more linear. There is no like, oh, the thing you wanna click is at the upper left corner

Dominic: 39:26

Yeah.

Ivan: 39:27

Of the screen. Right? And so because there that that's just not how web pages layout to a screen reader necessarily. So anyhow, I I tend to give these sort of demonstrations of sorts and and and open for questions and so on and so forth. And part of that includes me, you know, being very social about sharing with various folks in the company, you know, that accessibility is is a range and not all software is accessible.

Ivan: 39:57

Some software appears to be literally an empty window with minimize, maximize and close buttons at the top and nothing inside of it Yeah. Depending on the UI framework that it was written in, etcetera. And so I I try to convey how it's very valuable to get to play with new tools when we can, when something is perhaps being assessed. Because mostly, onboarding a new tool in a company or in a group starts with some kind of test, you know, with with a subset of people. And so, I'm lucky if I can get in don't mean it doesn't happen often.

Ivan: 40:39

I mean, I consider myself lucky to be able to typically join those kind of groups. And so, that gives me a little bit of an opportunity to experience the tool before it's an emergency of some sort, like I have to use this thing and I I have no idea what its deal is. Tons of things are are perfectly accessible and it's just getting to know kind of, you know, the obstacles to ignore and, you know, if it's a web UI, even if it's an application, it maybe has a web view, you know, because it's written to b cross platform. And so you get to know, oh, I can use heading navigation to hop to the pieces of the UI that I want or, oh, when I click on something and a new modal dialog pops up, to my perspective, it's at the quote unquote bottom of the view that I'm looking And even though it's not visually, and so so okay, I'll go down to the bottom and look at it. So you get to know how how these apps work.

Ivan: 41:38

And like you said, your example about Stripe, apps change, there's things I've used for years that all of sudden become less and less accessible. I will often open a support ticket with that company and, you know, I'll be honest, I'm not always in the mood to do that, but the only way people will know that things are not working entirely well is is for you to tell them. And that doesn't mean that folks always have the time or the budget or whatever to fix accessibility. You know, sometimes things aren't accessible because some UI framework that was used uses UI controls that are a little bit less standard and the only real fix is to completely switch frameworks, which frankly, a lot of people aren't gonna do or

Dominic: 42:28

No, no, yeah.

Ivan: 42:29

They're gonna like defer it to next year's goals and while I might be sad about that, I also really understand. So in terms of your question, you know, how do I get to know new software? I mean, there's I've said a lot of words already. I guess that's a good high level answer, but there's I

Dominic: 42:50

think so.

Ivan: 42:51

There's of course, you know, tons of nuance to getting to know the things that we use kind of regularly. And there's always a challenge in terms of a visual user interface is gonna use visual cues to call out things that matter. Here's a banner across the top of the screen that's trying to tell you about a thing and you can dismiss it with this button and whatnot. And that's just not the perspective that we have looking at a user interface. The thing that is front and center visually might not be obvious or front and center from the perspective of looking at something with a screen reader.

Ivan: 43:33

And so, what that means is that your like onboarding experience as a user with that tool is almost always gonna be different. And sometimes what I'll do is I'll have even a fifteen minute call with someone where I'll get on a Zoom, I'll share my screen and I'll say, you know, I see these and these and these things on this part of the UI and I know I'm gonna have to use this tool in these three ways, let's kind of walk through this and, you know, it's it's a really good way of fast tracking visual feedback from someone who is just observant or even better knows the tool and you can help kind of map constructs a lot more quickly. It doesn't mean that we can't figure it out by ourselves, but I like efficiency. So let's let's fast track that. So that's another method that I'll use and, you know That's good.

Ivan: 44:26

It really helps.

Dominic: 44:27

So, you know, talking about, you know, meetings and things like that. So are are you doing any kind of collaboration or pair programming or or or maybe maybe infrastructure could be just just being with with someone else and trying to to solve an issue. Let's say a a YAML file that is, you know, miss missing some Mhmm. Some indentation at some point could could be could be pretty pretty hard with the screen reader. So how how are you dealing with with that aspect?

Ivan: 45:02

Yeah. So pair programming you mentioned, I I don't tend to do a ton of that. I find it a little bit of a lopsided experience for me. We were speaking about Versus Code earlier. I've heard Versus Code has a really nice like pair programming kind of facility and and I haven't I haven't tried that.

Ivan: 45:23

I Versus Code is something I I try to use every once in a while and it's I need to just dedicate more time to it. And by the way, I I've worked a few years ago with the Versus Code dev team on maybe four or five or six issues like how to how to reflect when something's indented with a tone and and some other bugs and that kind of stuff. Even though Nice. I don't use it regularly, I used it to help kind of test and validate and explain some of the issues and and work with with that team from from Microsoft and those folks are are amazing at what they do to make the user experience

Dominic: 46:03

Yes.

Ivan: 46:04

For us. So hats off hats off to you all. I only remember half of your names and so I'm not gonna but but I I really am impressed and and appreciate you all for for what you've done. So but at any rate, the the the pair programming stuff is is tricky because my experience is that even using something to share like a terminal session, like teammate is a good example, know, it's a kind of a wrapper around the TMUX screen multiplexer. And you can essentially get like a thing that somebody else can SSH into that is like your session.

Ivan: 46:42

And so then, I can run my editor and stuff on my computer, or they can run it on theirs, but we're working in the terminal. We're not working in like a GUI app. Right. And because I can't see a traditional screen share. Right?

Ivan: 46:55

It's it's it's a nothing Yeah. Picture for us. And so But the problem there is that typically, people that are typing or arrowing through a file that have vision are understandably just going to do it really, really fast. They're using their eyes separately to read or scan or skim that text or they're familiar with it and I might be familiar with it as well. But me tracking what they're doing because I have to say, okay, are you done arrowing and then let me read the line you're on.

Ivan: 47:30

And my speech is very fast, but you know, it's in some cases, it's not as fast as eyes because they're not reading the whole line, but I am because I want the context. So, you know, doesn't mean that the person I'm working with won't help to mitigate those problems, but but it's not a it's not a very great natural experience. So I have done pair programming this way and it and it can work, but it it feels a little a little bit forced. Yeah. Sometimes the way I'll do those kind of sessions is, I'm gonna drive anyway, I'll just share my screen, and then they can see what I'm doing, and then I'm still kind of driving.

Ivan: 48:07

Even if they say, you know, oh, wait, go up two lines and let's, you know, make this into a closure and blah blah blah, you know, it's not exactly paraprogramming. I might be driving more, and then they might be driving and I might not be attempting to real time track what they're doing, but we can also use our words, right? So if the person I'm pairing with is saying, okay, I'm gonna add a Terraform resource for this thing and, oh, there's this other parameter we can use called blah that does this. You know, this is a great substitute for seeing someone's screen. If they're a good communicator, it goes a long way.

Ivan: 48:52

But So

Dominic: 48:54

But yes. But how do you how do you deal with someone talking and now your screen reader is saying what you are also at and things like that? This to me is is where I'm failing at the moment. I I just I just cannot do that anymore. I cannot concentrate on someone speaking and concentrating on on what my screen reader is saying.

Ivan: 49:15

So it doesn't work all the time, like if if again, keep in mind if if someone's driving, they're typing, they're writing the code, and they're a good communicator about what they're doing, I'm not trying to track. I'm not I'm not using my screen reader to follow what they're doing. I'm just listening to them talk as a human. Mhmm. Yeah.

Ivan: 49:34

However, I do often look at something with a screen reader while someone else is talking and it doesn't always work, depends, you know, how hard is the conversation we're having? How hard is the problem we're solving? Does the person I'm working with communicate succinctly and well and clearly, or is it like all over the place? If I have to focus more on how a person talks and kind of, you know, extract their point, I'm not gonna be able to multitask. Right?

Ivan: 50:06

Right. Because So so it depends on a lot of factors, but it is a skill that you get used to with practice also. Keep in mind, you know, you're newer at this and Yeah. And and like, you might hate hearing that and I apologize, but also, it's real and and it you're you're taking on a whole different level of cognitive load because of how you're shifting and and you really you really gotta give yourself some grace and and remember that. And it will happen, it will keep you've already seen it, I think, and all these other things like your example about using Versus Code and so it does come with practice.

Ivan: 50:52

But it's also not a thing that I can do every time either. Don't want to pretend otherwise. There's plenty of time where exactly like you described, it's not it's not possible for me to do.

Dominic: 51:02

Yeah. Yeah. One thing yeah. Again, I I understand what you're saying and I I see that. I see that Even just having my my wife behind me now when I try to do something on on the computer screen is is making me frustrated.

Ivan: 51:19

I I

Dominic: 51:20

have difficulties having someone watching me doing things, And and this this this is not going away. This this is there. I don't know why. I don't know what it is, but it's a fact. When when I'm alone, I'm I'm I'm calm.

Dominic: 51:34

I I know, okay. You know what? I I will concentrate on my screen reader. But having someone else, wow, you you have no idea how it triggers me and and it never never done that before.

Ivan: 51:45

Well, I I won't pretend to have the answer exactly that applies to you, but I would imagine that, you know, something that's new and raw and feels uncomfortable and you know, you're dealing with a loss, right? Forget forget about what you're able to do today using other method methods and mechanisms. You're you're dealing with a loss. Right? You're mourning the considerable loss of a primary sense that you've had in even if it's in a diminished form that you've had for a really long time.

Ivan: 52:22

And that is a real heavy thing. And so, you know, that lives with you in the background kind of sitting on your shoulder while you're also trying to do this new thing that you can half do on your computer. And so, I would imagine that having someone watch you, you know, even though, you know, they're this is your wife and, you know, you love each other and you're you're safe and etcetera. Yeah.

Dominic: 52:49

Yeah.

Ivan: 52:49

It's it's highly vulnerable, right?

Dominic: 52:53

Yeah. And

Ivan: 52:55

you know, all kinds of other things in life where if I just move into a neighborhood and I'm kind of new to the neighbors and they're a little bit curious and like some of them have like know that I'm blind and some of them don't. And I'm gonna go outside in my front yard and do something that I'm a little bit unfamiliar with the task in and of itself. I don't know, I'm gonna sink a mailbox post into the ground that I'm not entirely

Dominic: 53:20

Right.

Ivan: 53:20

You know, I've only done that in Florida where I grew up, not in the soil of Colorado. And and I sort of feel self conscious about, everybody's gonna be watching me out their window and I can't even look over and see that they're watching me. Although sometimes you can feel it, you know, in the back of your neck. Yeah. But, so I think this is very real, and I think it it's very understandable to to feel this way.

Dominic: 53:43

Yeah. Yeah. Nice to hear, to be frank. I mean, I I I know that I have a long way to to go from here. And to to add some realism, I will now switch screen.

Dominic: 53:54

We we have a we have a quest we have some questions from from people, and I I I don't want to to take too much of your time. So so let me let let me try to get some questions, and we we will try to to reply to them quick quickly. So John Sherwood is asking if new AI is helping with with this.

Ivan: 54:21

I mean, it does for some things. So the biggest that comes to mind is around image recognition and that kind of thing. Yeah. You know, it's always something that you have to be careful trusting or the AI will focus on aspects of the image that, you know, might not be the thing that I that I care most about. And like all the disclaimers say, you know, you shouldn't use it for things that could kill you like crossing a street or Yeah.

Ivan: 54:53

You know. Does this electrical wire in this box look hot? You know, before or whatever. But it it does it does certainly help for that, whether it's just recognizing text, that's not necessarily, you know, AI, but recognizing text, but or also just describing images. I don't feel like it's necessarily helpful beyond that.

Ivan: 55:20

Know, the the image arena is is a big arena, right? There's there's things that I don't have today that I've, you know, heard of other people really valuing like various glasses that are integrated with AI and they can describe a scene or they can read text or or, answer questions. And I think there's a lot of promise in that stuff and I'm, interested in that. I'm keep kinda keeping my eye on it. But, I don't think it's at a place yet where No.

Ivan: 55:48

It would make my life super exciting. It feels cool and a little bit gimmicky, but still valuable in in bits and pieces. So yeah.

Dominic: 55:58

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you on that. So another question from John is, is there any any job that is that is fine or or or very hard that that we have we have experienced so far? Well,

Ivan: 56:16

I think if a job is like fine or not fine, you know, as as somebody who obviously be blind, I think whether that's, you know, ranks as surprising to me is it's probably gonna be less surprising to me than it might be from the perspective of someone who's cited and is, you know, from a different vantage point. There's always more challenging elements of a job that also make the same job harder or easier depending on that element. So a great example is, you know, like traveling or navigating a customer site. Let's say I'm

Dominic: 56:55

a Yeah.

Ivan: 56:56

You know, a sales solution engineer and I have to you know, see customers all the time on-site. You know, if I'm lucky, I can like travel with my AE or my other sales counterpart, and kind of, you know, literally walk with them, go sighted guide, you know, like take their take their arm or their shoulder and and and kind of mitigate some of that. But for me, especially, I've never been like a particularly adept like navigator as a blind person. I'm I'm way too zoomed in on my sort of perspective where I'm like learning how to get from from one place to another, and it's as though if if you imagine me seeing my surroundings in terms of how I recall, you know, the sidewalk that I'm walking on and the pitch of the pavement changes and there's a curb here, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I'm way too zoomed in to like what I'm observing and that makes it hard to deal with changes in your travel.

Ivan: 57:52

And so, I can get around, you know, I I never felt as good at it as as some people. If there's a job that I would really love that's like helping to sell product x and get it in the hands of customers, but there's travel, I can do the travel, but it's not worth it to me. Right? Which Right. A lot of people would also say that even if they could see depending on their preference.

Ivan: 58:18

So, yeah. And then, going in the other direction, Wood jobs are surprisingly fine being visually impaired. No, no, I don't know. Again, I think that's more in gonna be in the in the perspective of someone else. Hopefully, makes sense.

Ivan: 58:37

Essentially, it boils down to like, I know what I can do or what I'm probably capable of and so I'm not surprised, but somebody else might be because, you know, their perspective understandably is, you're missing this primary thing that I couldn't imagine missing. How can you possibly right? How can you possibly tie your shoes or shave your face or you know, how do you know when you're done shaving? Like there's a hundred thousand questions that are understandable and are natural for people to have. And I've always been very open about these things and I'm happy to have conversations about all that sort of stuff.

Ivan: 59:18

And one thing sort of a side tangent that this makes me think of is that, you know, if if you're respectfully curious about all these kinds of things, I would say always ask. Everyone's different. Some people don't like talking about their stuff, but but always ask, it's healthy. I used to go speak to elementary schools and talk to kids and show them all the things in braille and technology and the questions they ask are great because they're they're not like censored at all. Right?

Ivan: 59:51

They you know, they would be like, you know, how do you pee? How do you go to the bathroom? You know? Or so so yeah. They're they're great.

Ivan: 01:00:00

It's great to talk to kids about this stuff.

Dominic: 01:00:02

Oh, yeah. Totally. Totally. I mean, it's a it's a good way to break ice as If you if you meet a blind person, I I'd say, you know, ask a couple of question. For me, surprisingly, what what is very difficult when well, first of all, I have I have a huge hard time concentrating on someone that is speaking on a loud environment now.

Dominic: 01:00:23

Well, it's always been like that. It's it's even worse these days. So when when people started to to realize that, I I wasn't sure if they were talking to me or not. So just just having having someone touching touching my shoulder saying, you know what? I I'm talking to you now.

Dominic: 01:00:41

You know, those things you know, it's very hard for sighted people to imagine what it what it is. I mean,

Ivan: 01:00:49

Yeah. The the the one of the worst for that scenario is like, you're standing on the other side of a counter where you have to order food Yeah. At the counter

Dominic: 01:00:57

Yeah.

Ivan: 01:00:57

And like, the the folks behind the counter are sort of multitasking and they're making eye contact with people for the most part and being like, hey man, what do you want? Yeah. And Yeah. You don't really know if that is to you or there's been tons and tons of times where I've started saying, you know, oh, I'd like a blah or a blah, and literally, you know, this isn't about me at all. Yeah.

Ivan: 01:01:19

And then it's like super embarrassing. But so, yeah, those things are those things are tough to to navigate. I agree.

Dominic: 01:01:27

So again from John, so is is there anything that that they can do to help, you know, generally speaking? So

Ivan: 01:01:38

Help in what way? Or what?

Dominic: 01:01:40

Or in fact, let me rephrase. It's more like if if there's if there will be one accessibility thing that they can do, what what could it be to help? It's a it's a vague question.

Ivan: 01:01:57

Yeah. I mean

Dominic: 01:01:58

Let's focus that on on tech and and and and things like that. So how do you how do you you know, is there something that that your team is doing that you brought up maybe because you you you had a challenge and things like that, and and now they adopt that or I don't know.

Ivan: 01:02:17

So I think I've got some good, you know, I'll try to be quicker at some of these. I feel like all my answers are long because there's so much we could talk about here.

Dominic: 01:02:29

So Yeah.

Ivan: 01:02:30

So apologies for for that if

Dominic: 01:02:33

We should do a version two at some point.

Ivan: 01:02:35

Yeah. Yeah. Sure. But so I'll I'll throw a few things out there that I think kind of fit this category. It's it's sort of analogous to, you know, talking about some challenges, but but it it connects back to folks being aware and able to sort of do relatively straightforward things to help.

Ivan: 01:02:54

So I think it's a good fit. So, know, one thing that comes to mind is like architecture design network diagrams as as an example. So a lot of, you know, people will understandably use these or will have like an infographic that could be about their library or their package that they wrote in Go to like do a thing or it could be like, here's how these components and a distributed system come together, you know, whatever. But, obviously, those aren't those aren't accessible. Even trying to have AI describe some of those things, it's very subjective.

Ivan: 01:03:36

Right? So it's kind of like looking at a picture from a specific angle. And what I've heard from a lot of friends who are also technical professionals that are cited is everybody thinks their diagrams are great and make tons of sense, and they often don't anyway. So so it's not even like Yeah. You're missing out.

Ivan: 01:03:57

But but my point about these various diagrams is that, it's not the only way to convey the thing. And it takes you a lot of effort to put those diagrams together, and I know that it's your baby, maybe in some cases, but like you love it and it's, you know, your your labor of love and that's okay, but have alternate descriptions and I know it's gonna be verbose, that's okay. It's hard to write technical documentation, but having other descriptions of how components come together will really be beneficial and not just for people that are blind, you know, are people that are dyslexic, there are people who aren't visual learners, there's all these other categorical humans who can't slurp in a diagram mentally and understand your system. So that's one. Screen shares, we sort of mentioned earlier, know, somebody sharing their screen doesn't work.

Ivan: 01:04:57

I find it very successful that thankfully, most people also verbalize. So

Dominic: 01:05:05

Yeah.

Ivan: 01:05:06

No offense to anyone's slides, but often you can get away with without seeing the slides. But it is cool when you provide the slides in real time, give a link to your Google Slides doc or whatever. But I'm probably not gonna read it in real time either because like we talked about earlier, listening to the screen reader and listening to the person, usually there's valuable dialogue happening over top of the visuals and that dialogue is not gonna be here for me later, the slides are, so I'm gonna mostly listen to the person but also if you can provide, know, if you're gonna be doing a demo and you're gonna show me how you do a bunch of stuff in Terraform or whatever, if you can just give me a repo to look at or if you're gonna demo an app or some online thing and there's like a demo environment that I can also get into or a test environment that I can have access to and this is, know, assuming it's maybe something within a company, right, that you work for, that goes a long way. Another one is like on camera nods and thumbs up.

Ivan: 01:06:14

Sometimes you might say, hey, have this cool idea, we should do blah. What's everybody think? And then it's crickets, but it's Yeah. It's only because they're enthusiastically nodding and giving double thumbs up and like clapping, but everybody's muted. And so, you know, again that awareness of, you know, people speaking up even if it's like one person saying, you're getting you're getting tons of nods.

Ivan: 01:06:40

Oh, thank you very much. So that's that's another good example. Describing like memes or screenshots or whatnot in something like Slack, you know, workplace chat it's super helpful. These days, you know, I can pump it into some kind of tool to get a description, but to be honest, it's not super super automatic. It's getting better, but

Dominic: 01:07:06

Yeah.

Ivan: 01:07:06

It's not worth it for me to, you know, go grab the image and do a bunch of things and be like, oh, it's a meme about blah blah blah. Having humans describe it, you know, quickly goes a long way. And and it kind of it's kind of fun too, right? Like how so and so is gonna describe this meme, you know, is also gonna be different than how somebody else describes it. And so, it's also neat because you're getting a little bit of the perspective of the poster, which some people don't want, right?

Ivan: 01:07:34

Some people like I'm gonna hide behind this meme and let you interpret if I mean it in like an angry way or not, but but

Dominic: 01:07:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan: 01:07:42

But it's it's it's a it's really brings a group together for me to know all of the visual based things that you all are posting because it's a common even like emojis, right? Like if in Slack your emoji is named smile four, doesn't really tell me, you know, is it a smirky smile? Is it when might I use this smile? Should I use it as like a friendly, like sounds good, I appreciate you or should I use it as a like, know, I'm sick of your business. So

Dominic: 01:08:18

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah. For for me as as well on Slack, it's all about when, you know, when someone is is putting posting a a screenshot, maybe maybe there's some code there, maybe there you know, whatever that that is.

Dominic: 01:08:34

So I still need to save the file, open that into an image viewer, and use my screen reader, you know, it it detects text on an image and now it's turning turning that into into something that I I can read now. Yeah. It just take times. So I mean, it's

Ivan: 01:08:54

So often in those scenarios, I I will just, you know, unnecessarily apologize, know, I'm sorry, I happen to be completely blind and I can't see your screenshot. And I say that by the way because sometimes if I just say, can't see your screenshot, you know, they are under the impression, oh, you know, it it didn't upload right or Right. You know,

Dominic: 01:09:16

no, no, that's not what

Ivan: 01:09:16

I mean. I mean, like, literally, can't see it ever. And and I and I will just request, you know, would you mind just pasting the error message? I think providing this is my problem in screenshot form is a natural sort of muscle memory that humans have, which is understandable. Mhmm.

Ivan: 01:09:37

And, you know, they're visual people and that's their primary sense and everyone wants to sort of see what you are seeing and sometimes people don't know what the relevant text to provide is. And so they're just like, here's my screen, you figure it out. Right. It didn't work, that's all I know. And so sometimes you're walking them through, oh, well, does it say this or does it say that or would you mind pacing the error or and and 99% of the time, everyone's willing and and and friendly and and also sometimes people forget like there there's there's some people who like every other time I have to be like

Dominic: 01:10:14

Yeah.

Ivan: 01:10:14

Like they're a good friend of mine and they're pasting me screenshots all the time and I'm just like, dude, come on. So Yeah. Oh yeah. It's fine. But yeah, I think asking for what you need can be uncomfortable and is hugely important.

Ivan: 01:10:31

It's gonna really minimize that cognitive load. Just like these questions we've gotten, know, what can we do to help, etcetera, etcetera, you know. I realize this doesn't represent, you know, a % of the world, but I mean, by and large, people wanna know. And the thing that I'll also say is that, like is true about humans everywhere, everyone's different. Every blind person is Yeah.

Ivan: 01:10:56

You know, not gonna want the same thing. You know, just like two technology enthusiasts have different preferences and opinions, etcetera. You know, there's no one size fits all. That's why going back to that, you know, ask, have conversations, be curious, it's fine, is the most valuable because someone else might say, oh, I never want to ask for the error message, I always want to interpret the screenshot because it makes me feel like I'm not different or whatever and that might be important to that person. And but to me, I'd rather save the time and get what I need and it's not like hard for the other person to do that thing for the most part.

Ivan: 01:11:43

So yeah, it's important to, I think point out that, you know, the one blind person who you may have encountered in the world is of course, not like all others, it's not representative, you know, And it's an important kind of funny thing that I find I have to say a lot of the time because sometimes like, people will come up to me and there's all these pre assumptions and it's based on like, you know, some a blind character they saw in a movie. I'm like, woah. Okay. Well, that now I need to undo those things Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan: 01:12:19

In this conversation. So

Dominic: 01:12:21

Oh, yeah. Totally. You know what, Ivan? I I think we will we will stop there. But, yeah, unfortunately, we we we cannot go into all of the questions.

Dominic: 01:12:32

Maybe maybe we can do a a version two because I find it extremely extremely interesting. I think there's a lot to unpack still. So at some point, if you have some times, maybe maybe we can do a version two of that.

Ivan: 01:12:46

Sure. I'd love to. And I I I again, I appreciate getting to, you know, chat with you, and you and I have never really talked like this. And I hope, you know, we've covered a lot of ground and a lot of sort of tangents, and I hope that most of it has been interesting to folks. I I You and I are having this conversation and then a bunch of other people are listening, and so I've tried to sort of allow myself to go down some of these rabbit holes and Oh, totally.

Dominic: 01:13:14

Mean I mean, that that's why I think I think we we we we have we have enough material to to to continue this conversation, I think. Yeah. So let's let's see how people react to this, and thank you very much for your time today.

Ivan: 01:13:30

Yeah. Thank you. It's been great chatting with you.

Dominic: 01:13:33

Alright. Bye bye. Alright, that's it for this week. I would really appreciate if you can talk or share about this podcast. It's helpful.

Dominic: 01:13:47

Also another way to support the show is by purchasing my course. There's always a link in the show notes. So on that, see you next week.