Using a series of sensors, Dua’s bot detects when a person is about to run into something and beeps to
them. The project took her a total of four days to build. Her prize is every Marvel fan’s dream.
!!!!! Get this out there. Make sure she’s not shut down because existing industries are greedy.
I’ve asked this before and I’ll ask it again: did she actually interact with visually impaired people when coming up with this? Anyone with a guide dog? Because I don’t have a guide dog but I’ve worked with them a little, and I sure as hell am visually impaired, and let me tell you what this thing does and does not do:
according to the article, it detects things in front of it and beeps to warn its user
it also functions a little like a cane in that, pushing it ahead of you, you will clearly be warned of steps up or down
but you can’t move it sideways like a cane – good luck walking in a perfectly straight line, blind people!
it will be more of a hinderence than anything for going up stairs (unlike a cane, easy to lift, or a dog who moves themselves)
will it warn you of something like a protruding table, which sticks out about waist height to be run into but might not have much substance down where this little robot is?
a dog would warn you of a table like that
it will not, and this is key, tell you when it is safe or not to cross a street
you know who does that? a real guide dog
a real guide dog can also call for help if you fall, or even help you back to your feet (something medium-sized to lean on)
in general, a dog is intelligent enough to adapt to problems, which this machine clearly cannot do
please ask disabled people what challenges they face before you invent things to “help”, and before you laud the people who clearly didn’t bother
also, who describes guide dogs as a “greedy existing industry”, dude. I mean, I’m sure there are assholes, but it’s generally a lot of people who care about dogs and want to help people. Really. Not everyone is out to screw the poor and disabled.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court Case that ruled prohibitions on interracial marriages unconstitutional. The decision and the brave couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, who challenged the Virginia statute denying their union because he was deemed a white man and she, a black woman, deserve celebration. The couple had grown up together in a small rural town where racial tensions and segregation persisted, but were faded by familiarity. As adults, Richard and Mildred fell in love and chose to formalize their relationship. They took a trip to nearby Washington, DC. where they secured a marriage license. However, soon after returning to Virginia, one of 16 states, mostly in the American South, which held firm to its anti-miscegenation statute, an overly enthusiastic sheriff barged into the couple’s bedroom in the middle of the night and arrested them. After an uncomfortable stay in jail—a then-pregnant Mildred was detained longer than Richard—the couple were released. Ordered to depart the state for 25 years, the Lovings reluctantly relocated to Washington, DC where they would raise their children. Mildred, in particular, regretted city life and wished to return to rural Virginia. As much as their longing for home and family, the arguments and energy of the era’s black freedom struggle, and faith in the rightness of their course, persuaded the couple to seek the legal support of the ACLU and file a lawsuit. In 1967, a unanimous court ruled in favor of the Lovings, determining that anti-miscegenation statutes violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
The victory marked the end of anti-miscegenation statutes that had proliferated and persisted in the United States because Americans regularly romanced across color lines and those who depended upon those lines to protect their authority worked feverishly to reinforce them wherever and whenever possible.
–Allison Varzally, on Loving v. Virginia, which marks its 50th anniversary today.
Image credit: “Mildred Loving” by Freedom to Marry, CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.
And I read it and then read it again to make sure I understood what I read.
See what actually happened was Bernie Sander, a Jewish man, was making sure that the nominee was going to do his job for all the people and not just some.
You might wonder why Bernie Sanders was concerned here is why:
Sanders took issue with a piece Vought wrote in January 2016 about a fight at the nominee’s alma mater, Wheaton College. The Christian school had fired a political-science professor, Larycia Hawkins, for a Facebook post intended to express solidarity with Muslims. Vought disagreed with Hawkins’s post and defended the school in an article for the conservative website The Resurgent. During the hearing, Sanders repeatedly quoted one passage that he found particularly objectionable:
Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.
“In my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world,” Sanders told the committee during his introductory remarks. “This country, since its inception, has struggled, sometimes with great pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms … we must not go backwards.”
Yeah I am concerned too, Bernie.
Later, during the question-and-answer portion of the hearing, Sanders brought this up again. “Do you believe that statement is Islamophobic?” he asked Vought.
“Absolutely not, Senator,” Vought replied. “I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith.”
As Russell Moore, the head of the political arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said in a statement, “Even if one were to excuse Senator Sanders for not realizing that all Christians of every age have insisted that faith in Jesus Christ is the only pathway to salvation, it is inconceivable that Senator Sanders would cite religious beliefs as disqualifying an individual for public office.”
The exchange shows just how tense the political environment under Trump has become. But it’s also evidence of the danger of using religion to deem someone unfit to serve in government.
Bernie didn’t take issue with this guy being christian. Bernie was rightly concerned that the nominee may not do his job for all the citizens.
Sanders: I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America, I really don’t know, probably a couple million. Are you suggesting that all of those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?
Vought: Senator, I am a Christian—
Sanders: I understand that you are a Christian. But this country is made up of people who are not just—I understand that Christianity is the majority religion. But there are other people who have different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?
I don’t know I gotta agree with Bernie here.
I don’t agree with Vought here, and was at Wheaton College during the firing of Larycia Hawkins and part of the student movement to keep her, because she didn’t do anything wrong, and did exactly what Christians should be doing: showing solidarity and love an acceptance toward the vulnerable in our society.
However, Sanders is out of line here. Vought’s wording was intense, but you don’t need to be a universalist to hold a political office. Christians and Jews and Muslims believe that there are things you must be or do to be saved. That’s how the religion works.
But you don’t need to be believe everyone is going to heaven to think that all people are created in the image of God and deserving of respect and care. You don’t need to believe that to seek justice for the poor, vulnerable, and oppressed regardless of their faith, which is what Christians are called to do. If you honestly believe that only universalists are fit to hold public office, that is actually religious discrimination. Asking Vrought about who has salvation in the religion he’s part of is a theological question, and doesn’t really have place in a political hearing. There can’t be a religious test to hold political office.
“Jews believe there things you must to do to be saved” Uh. No we don’t. We don’t even believe in heaven or hell, that’s a Christian construct that came about completely separate of Jewish faith. Most of Jewish faith is not being “saved or damned” but communication and trying to live the best and most accepting life possible. The mitzvot we are commanded to do are not out of fear of Damnation, but out of striving to make ourselves and our communities better. I can not speak for Islam, but do not impose Christian “saved or damned” duality on Judaism.
Vought is hiding his bigotry behind religion, plan and simple. Saying all Muslims are condemned is bigoted. It’s not a religious test to expect someone to treat all people fairly and without judgment. In fact, we have this wonderful concept in our country called Separation of Church and State, Sanders is trying to make sure that Vought is enforcing law, not religion.
Our culture often sends the message that if you were abused as a child, you’ll inevitably abuse your children.
It’s not true. I know multiple people personally who grew up in violent homes who have chosen not to be abusive. They experienced violence as children; they do not commit acts of violence as adults. It is possible, it is happening, and people making that choice deserve more respect and recognition.
It’s easier to learn how to parent well from growing up with good parents. It’s also possible to learn from other people. I know this because I’ve seen people do it. To some extent, *everyone* learns from people other than their own parents. (Including their own children. Kids are born with minds of their own, and people who respect their children learn a lot from them about how parenting can and can’t work.)
It’s a matter of degree. Everyone needs some degree of help and support in learning how to parent; some people need more help and support. Abuse (among other things) may mean that someone needs more help learning parenting; it does not mean that someone will inevitably become an abuser.
I think we need to talk about this more. Abuse survivors should not be treated as broken monsters. Violence is a choice, and abuse survivors are capable of choosing nonviolence. Abuse survivors are full human beings who have the capacity to make choices, learn skills, and treat others well.
I was just reading a blog post by Will Creeley about the recent revocations of Harvard admission offers. I don’t care very much about the main subject of the post, but:
Having spent the last decade defending student and faculty rights, I’ve learned a couple of things about exactly what type of campus civil liberties violations receive the most media attention. It’s not always what one might expect.
For example, I remember feeling shocked that a student’s expulsion over a Facebook post protesting the construction of a parking garage didn’t warrant above-the-fold coverage. I was amazed that students blacklisted for complaining to administrators about being subjected to mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds, performed by their peers, somehow didn’t go viral and make its way onto every social media timeline in the country. And my colleague Samantha Harris just penned a powerful piece for Vox about the relative media silence regarding Princeton University Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, who has received death threats and been forced to cancel appearances following her Hampshire College commencement address last month.
All of that actually happened, and as far as I can tell, Creeley is not exaggerating or misrepresenting any of it. Yet I have never heard about the parking garage case or the transvaginal ultrasound case. What the fuck?
Admittedly, the parking garage expulsion happened in 2007, but the ensuing litigation went on until 2015.
They’re the bridge between us and the healthy life.
Are you studying medicine or science? Are you going to be a doctor, nurse or a researcher? You have friends/family/colleagues who are interested in it?
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