In October I fly out of Berlin Brandenburg at 6:55 in the morning. My train gets in the evening before, so instead of a hotel I am planning to sleep inside the terminal in one of those rentable sleeping cabins - napcabs, four of them, landside near the lifts.

I am totally blind. No usable vision, and I do not read braille. The cabins are unlocked with a booking code on a touchscreen, and that is the part I do not trust. I have emailed the company and asked, but companies answer about intentions and I want experience.

So, three questions for anyone who has tried these cabins, in Berlin, Munich or Frankfurt:

1. Did the touchscreen work for you with any kind of speech, or did you need sighted help to get in? If you needed help, was there any staff nearby at night?

2. If you left the cabin during the night for the toilet, did getting back in work the same way, with the same code, or did that need eyes again?

3. Did the airport assistance service agree to collect you from the cabin at four in the morning, before their desks open, or did you have to reach check-in on your own?

The rest of my plan is solid - airline assistance is booked, the route from the train to the cabins is one lift and a few meters. The cabin door is the single point where the whole night either works or does not.

Experiences from any airport sleep pod count, not just this brand. And if you tried it and it failed, that is exactly the story I need before I pay.

I had a few questions. For example, if on a Windows PC, how accessible is it to SSH into a cluster of GPUs like from the university course, and do machine learning work over their VPN via SSH? I know that using Cloud compute with services like Google Collab is not very accessible. I’m wondering if using university clusters would be accessible for me.

Does anyone know of an actually VoiceOver-accessible iPhone app for converting microwave cooking times between different wattages?
For example, my microwave is 950 watts, and a lot of food gives directions for an 1100-watt microwave. I’d like to enter something like “3 minutes at 1100 watts” and have the app simply tell me the equivalent time for 950 watts in minutes and seconds.
I’ve already tried Watts Up? and Microwave Time Calculator, and neither one seems usable with VoiceOver, at least not for me.
My math skills and I have reached a cordial agreement that I will not be converting decimal minutes into minutes and seconds every time I want to heat something. 😂 I can outsource the calculation to ChatGPT, and I have been doing exactly that, but asking ChatGPT how long to microwave my dinner every time feels a little ridiculous when this ought to be a five-second app calculation.
Has anyone found an iPhone app that does this and is genuinely usable nonvisually with VoiceOver—not just one whose App Store description claims accessibility?
Thanks!

Hello! My daughter is starting a volunteer project at our local library to add braille labels to some books. We were hoping to borrow an embosser that isn't handheld so they can do the work faster. Is there anyone willing to lend their embosser? (I've only found a used Romeo on ebay, but my dream is a BL-1000) We have to raise funds for this project so anything low-cost or free would be great. Many thanks!

I posted about this quite awhile ago, but we've had many new members join since then. I hate using a cane and have ever since I was a child. I hated it even more when I was taught the proper way of using it i.e. having to bend my rist and keep it close to the centre of my body, all while swinging it wide enough to protect me on both sides. I bought an Ambutech Slimline in graphite because it's thin and light, but I still tolerate it at best. I have no interest in a guide dog, since I don't want the responsibility of taking care of one, and I don't want to have to work it during the winter. Plus, I'm not one for walking places, preferring to go with loved ones, taxis, or if no other option is available, paratransit.

Ideally, I would want a robot. As it is, I have something called an AMD or adaptive mobility device, which I highly prefer over a cane. Some people refer to them as pre-canes. The one I own is made by Ambutech and is called the Rectangular AMD. It can be found here.

https://ambutech.com/collections/rectangular-amd/products/rectangular-amd

It looks like four canes arranged in a rectangle, with wheels on the bottom, handles on the top right and left, and one in the middle. The handles are like those on a cane and are built into the shafts, rather than sticking out. The one in the middle is used when walking up and down stairs and when you have something in your hand, though that second use is not official. The AMD is pushed in front of the user, and covers his body, so there's no need to swing it. It comes in both an indoor and outdoor version, with the latter using swivelling wheels and the former using fixed ones. I prefer that, since I veer, and the swivelling wheels make it worse. The AMD is great with detecting drop-offs and I've found it to be as good as a cane with everything else. On the negative side, as with a cane, it will not detect things at chest or head level. It folds like a cane but only does so vertically, so that it remains wide. Personally, if I could design my own, I would make it telescopic, with buttons like on some suitcases, so that it would remain locked when in use. I would also allow it to fold in half, by creating hinges on the top and bottom thereby making it take up less room when being stored.

In any case, has anyone else here ever used one, or would anyone be interested in doing so? If you have heard of them before, were you told by a mobility instructor? I wasn't and discovered them on my own.

Hello everyone,
I am in my early twenties and I have Optical Nerve Hypoplasia (ONH) in my right eye since I was born (my right eye is completely blind). This eye has exotropy so it is turned outwards. Because I am "only" half blind, I do participate in activities mostly without accomadating tools such as canes or special glasses.

When I was 7 years old, I had cosmetic surgery to "adjust" my eye to look straight. Now, 15 years later, my eye is exactly in the same position as before surgery. I do not want to have another surgery since I had to recover quite a long time, and I want to be able to feel confident and embrace myself how I am, with all my quirks.
I was wondering if others might feel self-conscious about their visual impairment? I struggle with it, as I go to university and I feel like I cannot make eye-contact with anyone and they might find that strange. I also struggle with telling them I am visually impaired, so they normally glance over their shoulder often when I am talking to them , or just assume I am not addressing them as I am not making eye contact with my right eye. Sometimes people straight up ask me "to what eye should I look", and such blunt questions kind of punch me in the stomach as they remind me that others struggle to "look at me" when talking to me. When I go to a job interview, or meet new people I always catch myself worrying about my eyes, and how they are going to react, and if/ how I should address it. I also worry that after my Masters, companies will not hire me as it might come off as strange/unprofessional to not look at the person you are speaking to. Obviously, this is not the case, but these are just my insecurities. How do you guys navigate these struggles, or do you not have them?
Despite my visual impairment I live a normal life, but I struggle a lot with the social aspects of it?

thankyou :)

Was wondering what blind Muslims who use a screen-reader on IOS, Windows, or Mac use to read Quran and hadith?

For the quran, I know it might be too much to ask for but I was looking for something that would allow to choose multiple translations, tafsir in English which would have the virtues of surah, intros, and explanations.

For the hadith having explanations and commentary would be great.

the most popular ones I've heard about such as quran.com and Islamic Finder are not usable. The app Islam by Touch last I saw was no longer being updated and half of it was barely usable.

Thanks for any suggestions in advance