Pet Peeve of the Week

On this side of the pond all new build, pre wire jobs are at like that. It has to do with wheelchair accessibility. I would often have to program a panel on my hands and knees

It's dumb though,,,you can always move the keypad for the ocassional accessibiliity issue (Im talking residential) - I have 3000 clients and only

2 with accessibility issues.

This leads me to pet-peeve #2; Home Depot parking lot...has room for maybe

500 cars right? 30 are handicapped parking! WHEN would there ever be 30 handicapped users in Home Depot at the same time? The rest of us poor folks with bad knees (and not dishonest enough to apply for handicapped tags) have to walk past 30 EMPTY handicapped parking spots in 126F heat to get to the store.

Sorry...it's ANOTHER pissy day in paradise.

It's based on a formula in ADA. The law does not take into consideration the type of merchandise being sold or who the customer base is. For its part, Home Depot has a strong history of hiring handicapped workers. In the larger stores I've been in there are almost always several employees using wheelchairs, hearing aids or other AT devices. Regardless what some contractors may feel about them, HD is a pretty decent company.

The one I can't figure out is why they put Braille keypads on drive-up ATM machines. :^)

How about a Dodge Viper with handicapped plates & manual transmission?

| Bass Home Electronics | 4883 Fallcrest Circle | Sarasota · Florida · 34233 | 941-866-1100 Sales & Tech Support |

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I once watched some character park one of those jacked up pickup trucks with the huge tires and the suspension taller than an inverted 737 in a handicap spot at the local Publix market. The guy hopped out and strolled inside the store with no apparent difficulty. His tag was a handicap plate and there was one of those signs hanging from the rear view mirror. One wonders what moron doctor signed his application. :(

be advised you brought up the inverted 737 ... here we go

| Bass Home Electronics | 4883 Fallcrest Circle | Sarasota · Florida · 34233 | 941-866-1100 Sales & Tech Support |

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People abuse the hell out of the handicap parking privilege. Family members use the handicapped person's vehicle and think the license plate entitles them to park in handicapped spots, too. And those temporary permits that hang from the mirror, well, some valet parking guys have several of those on hand to use when they're short on parking places.

On the other hand, some disabilities are not obvious, such as heart disease. A person can be legitimately handicapped without needing a wheelchair.

- badenov

Heh. Right. "Here we go."

Right on Crash!

(sigh) ........ right .....on!

I get even by parking in the valet space. :^)

| On the other hand, some disabilities are not obvious, such as heart | disease. A person can be legitimately handicapped without needing a | wheelchair.

Well, of course that's true. I know, I'm brain damaged, but for the life of me I've never been able to convince the cop giving me a ticket for parking in a handicapped zone that I qualify!...even when doing my best imatition of tourette's syndrome.

You can't win, I tell ya!

:-)

So the blind person will know which keys are what when they are driven to the ATM, but how can they read the instructions displayed on the screen to know which buttons need pushing?

Robert L Bass wrote:

That's true. As to knowing which keys to press, I guess if one always uses the same kind of ATM the order of key presses should remain the same.

Speaking of access for the blind, have you had opportunity to design systems for blind users yet? I've done it several times and it presents some interesting challenges. Years ago, before there were talking keypad devices such as the Napco EVA-1, I had to design a system to allow a blind couple to not only know if the system was ready to arm but which window was open. There were nearly 32 zones in the house. One of my techs built a custom circuit board and I designed an interface for it that would allow the client to turn two 8-position, rotary switches to quickly learn which, if any, zones were not ready.

The system worked like a charm and even won us recognition in a national Braille magazine. A few years later the Apex 6100 came along and obviated the custom board. The new ELK-M1G (makes the Apex look like a horse and buggy) can handle this type of requirement even better with programmable voice messaging, etc.

I've always wondered about that one myself.

A friend of mine used to tell a joke... about a restaurant that had a sign in the window that read, "WE HAVE MENUS IN BRAILLE". In BIG BOLD RED LETTERS... so blind people ACROSS THE STREET could read it!

Years ago a read a Dear Abby letter... the writer related to Abby how she was walking through the parking lot in a mall when a fur-clad woman in a new Jaguar pulled into the handicap parking spot and got out to head into the mall. She admonished the perfectly healthy culprit, whose response was a display of the California state 'bird'. So after the woman went into the mall, the writer took it upon herself to run her key down the length of the Jag.

Her exact words were "I know it was wrong, but Abby, it felt so good!"

That reminds me of a story about a homeless guy in Georgia someone once told me. It seems the fellow walked up to the front door of a wealthy farmhouse and rang the bell. When the woman of the house answered he asked, "Ma'am, Ah'm hungry but Ah'm too proud to go a-beggin'. Do y'all got some work Ah kin do and earn me some dinner from y'all?"

The haughty farmer's wife said, "You get off my porch. Go around back of the house. Maybe my husband will give you something to do." With that she slammed the door.

The fellow walked around to the back and asked the same thing of the husband. Looking down his nose at the hobo, he said, "Oh, alright! Take this bucket of green paint, go to the front of the house paint my porch. Come back here when you finish and I'll have the maid give you a sandwich."

The hobo did as he was told. After about fifteen minutes he came back and reported he was done, but "Mistuh, that ain't no porch. That there's a jaguar!" :^)

How about movies with subtitles in Braille? I tried to patent the idea but my attorney just couldn't see it catching on.

Don't see why not - someone's gotta use those seats right at the bottom of the screen!