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

9 days ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49183665

We all get old. The simple things that will benefit people go undone because of complexity bias or some other excuse. Every day, it seems, I need a powerful magnifying glass to read date codes on food items.

No risk in eating expired food, eh? Or how about origin codes on lettuce? I carry a 40mm f/1.8 graphic raptar lens bought from surplus for this task.

When these "youngsters" get old, they'll bitch that the simple things went undone while talking shoes don't really do any good, and THEY were the ones inventing the talking shoes.

The irony is we all will need aids of some kind at some point, so better infrastructure (the built environment not just digital) is good for everyone. Excluding disabled people from participating in society is a huge disservice to all of us.

Also - if you think you’ve invented tech for disabled people and you haven’t talked to a single person who has the disability you are addressing, BEFORE building anything stop, talk to lots and lots of people then decide what’s next. They may not want what you have and inspiration porn is shitty.