[nfb-talk] Cash

[John Heim]

Come on! Should the government make all coins the same size?  Do you 
remember the furer over the dollar coin a few years back? Sighted people 
were furious because they said it looked too much like a quarter.

It's just ridiculous to say that bills of different sizes would make it 
harder for blind people to handle them.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Cash


> Josh:
>
> No, I don't think bills of different sizes and/or shapes would make it
> easier. In fact, I think it would be much more awkward as I wouldn't be 
> able
> to manipulate bills of various denominations in my hand without risk of
> dropping some in that I would be preoccupied trying to handle the various
> sizes or shapes. Moreover, I think it would be quite awkward to carry 
> around
> a template, trying to match each bill against it to determine its value.
> Talk about slow!
>
> And it's easy to avoid the change problem: I *tell* the clerk which
> denominations to hand me and in what order. And I can honestly say that I
> have never encountered a cashier who deliberately short-changed me. In 
> fact,
> what hapepns more often is that I tell them theyve given me too much! And
> the till must balance at the end of the day and I certainly know where I
> went and at what time so I can easily rectify the situation if things go
> awry.
>
> The one time I ever had a problem with a transaction had nothing to do 
> with
> cash -- I returned a two-meter HT to a Radio Shak because it hadn't been
> repaired properly and the store didn't show I had done it so accused me of
> trying to steal a radio when I demanded after several months that I be 
> given
> a new radio. Turns out the management caught an assistant store manager 
> who
> had taken the radio I had returned for his own use. One manager gone.
>
> In other words, the increased independence one would supposedly get from
> differently-sized or shaped currency is, in my opinion, largely illusory.
> And the American public will never go for currencies with difffering
> shape -- to awkward to handle.
>
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Josh" <jkenn337 at gmail.com>
> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 6:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Cash
>
>
>> But european countries already have their money in different sizes. I
>> personally would like my dollars to be different sizes so I could tell
>> what
>> they are. Don't you think it would be faster and more convenient if you
>> knew
>> that a five was smaller than a ten? or that a five was shaped like a
>> triangle and that a ten was shaped like a circle? It's a lot better than
>> going up to the counter to pay for your groceries and asking, what bills
>> do
>> i have in my hand? and then the person working there responds, you have a
>> 1,
>> a 5, two tens, and a 20. ok, I'll put away the 20 and give you two fives.
>> no, I'll give you the ten. ok, I put the two fives away. Now the person
>> gives you back change and has to tell you what bills he/she is giving 
>> you.
>> Now let's take a look at Europe. They don't have this problem because
>> their
>> money is already different sizes. So europe is better as far as money is
>> concerned.
>>
>> Josh
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
>> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:05 PM
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Cash
>>
>>
>>> In a perfect world, you'd be absolutely correct. And, in fact, at one
>>> time,
>>> NFB's R&D Committee was, in fact, looking at the possibilities of
>>> constructing a hardware device that would intercept video signals and
>>> would
>>> do all the interpretation. Unfortunately, this is the real world and not
>>> the
>>> perfect one and the R&D Committee found that AI software wasn't at the
>>> point
>>> that it could be introduced as firmware in a hardware gizmo. Hence, we
>>> live
>>> with screen-readers which, like it or not, *require* web pages to 
>>> conform
>>> to
>>> some guidelines to present information intelligibly to us. You know this
>>> already but I present it to set the stage for what I shall say next.
>>>
>>> In a perfect world, you'd be absolutely correct; there would be a
>>> contradiction in philosophy between NFB's opposition to changes in the
>>> currency for the sake of the blind and NFB's Target lawsuit. But again,
>>> this
>>> isn't a perfect world. So in addition to philosophical purity, some
>>> pragmatic considerations come into play. NFB has judged that in the 
>>> world
>>> of
>>> cyberspace wherein more and more marketplace transactions are taking
>>> place,
>>> it is becoming increasingly important that the blind have access to
>>> commercial and financial websites since there is or may well soon be no
>>> way
>>> for the blind to participate in the cybereconomy without it. Hence, the
>>> Target lawsuit.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, with respect to cash transactions, the blind handle
>>> their
>>> currency and have always done so with very little difficulty. So we of
>>> NFB
>>> feel that the ACB lawsuit is asking the world to be modified in an area
>>> which we feel doesn't need modification and is positing a problem that,
>>> for
>>> the most part, doesn't exist. Oh yes, theoretically, the blind could be
>>> cheated. But, anecdotally, the instances of being bilked in the *real*
>>> world
>>> are few and far between and are, I suspect, no more prevalent than they
>>> are
>>> for the sighted public.
>>>
>>> I would not object were currency changes made that would benefit
>>> everyone.
>>> But I believe that we, the blind, don't need currency changes to live 
>>> our
>>> lives and engage in commerce in society. The ACB lawsuit sends the
>>> opposite
>>> message -- that we live in constant fear of being short-changed and
>>> cannot
>>> make everyday financial transactions. This is obviously false.
>>>
>>> Yes, I have a money identifier. But I think I've used it three times 
>>> this
>>> year and could have gotten along perfectly well without it. It certainly
>>> makes me bristle at the "poor, defenseless blind person" image 
>>> propounded
>>> by
>>> the lawsuit.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "John Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
>>> To: <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:22 AM
>>> Subject: [nfb-talk] Cash
>>>
>>>
>>>> Can someone please explain an apparent contradiction in NFB policies to
>>>> me?
>>>>
>>>> The NFB says that making the government change bills so that blind
>>>> people
>>>> can tell them apart implies that "the blind are not capable of looking
>>>> out
>>>> for our own best interests and that the whole world must be modified 
>>>> for
>>>> our
>>>> protection."
>>>>
>>>> Doesn't the suit against Target do the same thing? Doesn't it imply 
>>>> that
>>>> the
>>>> worl must be modified for us? If the NFB is to be consistent, shouldn't
>>>> they
>>>> be working on a screen reader that will work with the Target site 
>>>> rather
>>>> than trying to make Target change their site?
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
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