Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, Seeks to Disenfranchise the Visually Impaired

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, Seeks to Disenfranchise the Visually Impaired

How else can we take this column?

I've used this column in the past as a means of issuing impassioned pleas to product designers. Now it's time for another, at least as heartfelt as the ones in the past: Please, keep things quiet. Or at least give me the option of doing so.

I've noticed that over the past few years, more and more of my appliances want to tell me things, whether I want to hear them or not, something they accomplish via a variety of beeps and buzzes.

He then tells manufacturers to knock it off. For his own comfort, he would deprive the visually impaired of the ability to know when their dishes are done, when their laundry is done, or when their power to their televisions has gone out. Or he would give pranksters the ability to deprive the visually impaired of those same abilities.

Friends, I know the world we're living in and its march to a cacophonous new world where silence must be broken to better serve the minority amongst us who cannot see or cannot see well. At a nearby intersection, the crosswalk now blares "Wait!" or "Walk sign is now on to cross" along with an incessant beeping to draw the infrequent visually impaired person to the push-to-cross button. It never stops, and it insists upon making its noise all the time for the benefit of the few.

Much like the occasional news story about visually impaired people who are endangered by the silence of hybrid vehicles. When they get their way, all hybrids will be outfitted with internal combustion engine sound simulators so that the minority is not endangered. Meanwhile, other minorities will continue to agitate for sound abatement expenditures to counter internal combustion engine sounds and the eventual loud safety mechanisms.

Me, I am preparing for the beeping, blaring future by buying ear-plug stock and turning up the music in my headphones so I can deaden my ear nerve endings.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:21 AM