Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the IA cast. All right, we're back this week with Marty SoBo.

Hey, all.

Angie Fisher.

Hello, everybody.

And lyn Snyder.

Hey, everybody.

All right, well, let's first start off. If you kind of noticed, angie sounds a little different today. She's on an Android phone, right?

I am, yes.

So you've kind of made a partial switch over to Android. What are your initial thoughts?

Android has always appealed to me because it lets me tinker and be a geek. So I've always enjoyed that part of it. So I'm just having fun with that aspect of it. The improvements to Talk Back have been pretty immense over the last four years that I've been absent absence. Yeah, I'm enjoying it. It's fun.

One of the interesting things about Android is it actually had a lot more customization. Google, from what I've read, took out a lot of things. It was one of the different versions. I don't remember which one. But a lot of things were actually removed about as far as configuring how your lock screen and your home screen looked. As far as color and themes, I know that doesn't affect a lot of people that are totally blind, but it's interesting that they built their new Material U theme and they removed a lot of the customizations that a lot of people liked.

It feels almost like they're trying to it's coming more from kind of an abilesque place. I think with 14, they're going to be adding shortcuts, at least back on the lock screen.

Oh, that's cool. That's good.

So that you get like, two spaces. You can add stuff to it's.

Kind of like the lock screen widgets on iOS.

Yes.

Yeah. Neat. Well, we've got a pretty packed episode. Again. We're going to try to keep it at an hour this time. We promise. We keep saying it. We keep saying it, but we're going to try. So we have two topics to talk about today, and the first one is really important to me, and I feel like we need to really kind of spread awareness and let people know what is going on. And that's with a reddit. And I know that's been coming up, and a lot of the subreddits have been down for a week that have been or for several days, and several subreddits have said they're not coming back up. They're just going to stay private. And they were huge subreddits. And the CEO and different people at Reddit have said, well, it's not making an impact on Reddit. The users are still using it. But then they are saying if people do not make their subreddits public, then the moderators that run that subreddit, like, I believe, R slash apple, the moderators who moderate that subreddit will be removed, replaced, and they'll be replaced by hand picked moderators from Reddit. And I feel like that's kind of bullying to say, well, we need this to be up. Even though this is a community driven site, we're going to drive the community. And I kind of feel like that goes against what Reddit stands for because it was always organic. You go here as an organic experience and the community decides how things are done. And that's not the case with how Reddit is being ran now. So what are your thoughts on this?

It's a rather totalitarian approach. It's rather heavy handed and I don't like it.

So a couple of things. The first thing is the owners of Reddit or whoever is in charge has gotten a ton of lash back from all of this. So do you think a lot of this is he just wants to stand his ground, he doesn't care what anybody says, he's not going to be bullied and he's going to just follow through with whatever he thinks he wants to do, no matter what the fallout is? Or do you think there's something else completely? Because why would you tell a community that you'll just be removed and we're going to put our own people there and we're going to run your community for you. We'll just take it over.

The biggest thing is they're always trying to drive revenue to Reddit. If you've been on the inaccessible junk heap, which is Reddit, there's so many ads, there's so many like sometimes I'm looking on Reddit and I can't tell the difference between what I'm reading in a thread and what is being advertised to me as far as other things to go look at. Right. So I feel like they are just saying we need this content to be there, so we're just going to make sure it's there. And that way when people come to Reddit, that stuff will just be available. And other people have said Rblind is a way for a lot of people that have lost their vision to come and learn about blindness.

I think we should step back, though for 1 second because there's two different things here that are going on. And I'm not sure we're being real clear. I'll let you do the explainer on this, but this whole thing started because of the lashback from the developers and the people who support the developers. So do you want to explain what's going on with all that, Michael?

Right.

What's going on there? Because I think that is important to understand because that's sort of coming around to what they're doing with all of these other groups and stuff.

Right. So Reddit has stated that they are going to make their API, which is the application programming interface, not free anymore for third party apps to use, similar to what Twitter did. And it's all really basically the same thing, right? So because they're doing that, people like the Apollo app and others are going to have to pay money per API call. So anytime, say you're in Apollo or Dystopia or other apps and you do any action that goes out to Reddit, you're making an API call.

And let me just say right here, when Reddit is saying you're going to have to pay money to use the API, we're not talking about like a few hundred bucks or a few thousand bucks or anything like that. We're talking about crazy money. That pretty much unless you're a massive organization organization, huge. You could not afford to use the API, so you end up just having to go out of business, which is what's happening to Apollo.

I think it's like 30.3 cents or like $0.03 or whatever. It's a very small number per 1000 calls to the API. But think about this. If you're making 1000 calls a second, right? You have 1000 users making 1000 calls a second of every second of every day for a month. How much money is that?

That's quite a bit for Apollo, I think it came out to around 20 million a year.

A year? Yes. So it's not a cheap thing. Now, the worst that has come out of this is Reddit has said accessibility apps will be able to use the API for free. But who is to say what an accessibility app is? Apollo was fully accessible, as my understanding.

Goes, and I I would like to know what Reddit is saying about what their guidelines are for accessibility quotes. Kind of well, that's what I two hands up quotes.

Have any of you guys used Reddit over the years?

I have a little bit, but I never really got into Reddit that much, to be honest with you.

What about you, Angie? Have you used it?

Yeah, this is Lynn. I had used it for a while, and I think it's an awesome resource to have the opportunity to use. I found that other things were easier for me to use, so I ended up kind of not using it. But it is a very popular social media site, and I think that the Reddit management is going to sort of hurt itself by sort of not taking into account its users feelings about things. I remember apparently I read somewhere, where was it the CEO that basically sent a memo out to the employees that said basically, well, this will blow over, just don't worry about it.

Right? That's what was said.

Somebody got wind of that memo. And it's like, to me, that's like a slap in the face to your users. Like, oh, we don't really care what you think. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, they wanted to take that company public. I think that was one of the things they wanted to do.

Right.

And I think that is why a lot of these changes happen.

I think they misjudge their audience, though, because the audience is very supportive of a lot of the third party apps that they use. With Reddit, for example, we keep going back to the same example, but it's only because they're so big and they're kind of in the forefront of this. But again, Apollo has a huge following. People love Apollo, and to just shut them down like that is going to be a lot of lashback. I mean, I think that they were not expecting the kind of lashback both from developers, other developers that support Apollo and their fellow developer, and also their audience. There's a lot of people in the audience that use third party apps and especially Apollo. So I think that they misguided what they thought their audience was going to how their audience was going to act.

Right, yeah.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Sorry, go ahead.

I use Reddit when I can't find something on Google. A lot of times if you did a Google search, you would be linked to Reddit results. And that's kind of how I discovered it. And then, yeah, it's a good place to find information, pretty comprehensive information and information from real people rather than generated search results. So, yeah, I'm familiar with it and I enjoyed using it. So this is disappointing.

And a lot of these platforms that rely on their users to actually generate the content, if you took away the users, you took the users out of the picture, the people that are actually generating content, what would happen to that platform? YouTube is the same way. They all rely on the people that actually engage in the conversation, that make the posts and everything like that. And if you tick them off, it's sort of not, in my opinion, a good business decision.

Well, if you think about it, so is Twitter, right? They are all about their users. The user is the product. And if there's no users and I think that's one thing that we need to really understand is we are these companies products. We are not Apple's products. We are their customers. But Microsoft, Google, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, all these, we are their product. We are not these companies customers. We buy things from them, sure, but we are not the focus of these companies sales pitches. They are more business to business, b to b, and that's Reddit, too. And they don't want to look bad in front of their advertisers, and they are. And one of the things that I really want to stress here on the podcast is it's not the big companies that have the power, it's us, the creators, the people that talk, the ones that go out there and make the content. Because without us, they are nothing. And if you're not happy, you say, I'm not happy, and you let these companies know you're not happy because others aren't happy as well. And don't be afraid to say, we had a good thing. Why are you breaking a good thing? There's other ways for you to make money that is not doing something that we don't want. Right, so and that goes with Twitter, that goes with, you know, all of these CEOs are only as big as the people that have made them, and they're only as big as the people that continue to make them be big. It doesn't matter if you're Jeff Bezos Elon Musk. It doesn't matter if you're over Reddit. It doesn't matter you are made off of the customers and the people you work with and the products that you sell. If you make a bad product and you keep it around and you don't apologize long enough, okay, let's go. Bring it back down a step now. I think it's still probably just a marketing thing that this is being happening, but even accessibility is apologizing. How do you stay in business if you build something that's not doing what it's advertised to build community? And that's with Reddit, how do you have a platform that is not building community and that is just creating negativity by locking people out. And that's what they're doing, is they're not letting people have the voice that they want. And there are alternatives out there in the Fediverse, there's Lemme that you can use, and it has up voting and down voting, but a lot of subreddits guys are going over Discord.

There's an article that was posted on David Goldfield's list this morning, and it was saying that they're going to create a Lemme instance, but they're trying to wait for the blind subreddit that used to be on Reddit, and it's in Alpha right now. Apparently, there are some accessibility issues around Lemme, but they're waiting and they're working with Lemme to actually deal with those issues. And then in the next release of Lemme, there are a whole bunch of promised accessibility fixes.

Fantastic.

So we're sort of waiting on that. And then apparently they're going to start a Lemme instance, and that's for blind, for blind and visually impaired folks. So there you go.

You know what? I might research Lemme and play with it because it'd be neat to have, like, a technology focused Lemme instance. That'd be fun.

That would be awesome.

Yeah, we can play around with that. Kind of cool.

Well, if I hadn't had enough work already this weekend, I have another project I'm going to do. All right, with that being said, I think that we just need to speak up. We need to make our voices heard. And I'm not talking about, like, go forth and protest. I'm saying be creators. Be who we need to be and say we're going to be heard. Whether it's on Discord, whether it's on Reddit, whether it's on Twitter. We're going to be who we want to be, where we're going to be, and don't be afraid to just be yourself and get out there and let these companies know, like, hey, I would use your service if you would do these things, because now you've basically locked a lot of blind people out of Reddit.

Yeah, and I think that we can have it's great that they allow accessible apps to continue to use the API, but that doesn't really solve the problem for us as blind folks. We are part of the greater community, right. We don't want to be sort of in a silo. We are a part of the wider community. So what happens to the wider community affects us.

Exactly.

And so the moderators of the blind subreddit, they're the ones that are putting together this Lemme instance now because I think they don't want to be on the platform and have access to peace, accessible API. They don't want necessarily to be part of that. They want to be a part of the wider user community.

Exactly. So I think our next topic we're going to discuss is a lot more positive, right? And I'm kind of excited about this one. Basically, we're going to talk about travel. Marty, why don't you kind of give folks a taste of what they can expect by talking about what you guys talked about on Unmute on Thursday with the episode about the go bags.

All right, so we were talking about our go bags and what we carry when we travel. So it varies a little bit depending on whether you're just going out for the day or whether you're going for a trip. So I'm going to be heading out here for a couple of weeks. So I'm going to bring more stuff than I would if I was just going out for the day, obviously. But I am able to carry all the tech I'm going to need on the go. So I'll take my MacBook Pro. I have a 16 inch MacBook Pro, which obviously I'll need that to be able to do work and stuff like that on the move. I take a microphone. I have skinny down. What I take now from what I used to take. I have a microphone that has everything all encompassed around the microphone and just a computer. I don't need to bring an interface and a bunch of other stuff to go along with it that makes my load much lighter. The sound will be a little bit different, but still really good. But it definitely lightens the load. I bring some extra cables, put all my clothes, everything. So one suitcase, basically for all of that stuff. And then I carry a backpack, which goes with me everywhere. Now, when I'm traveling and I'm flying, which is what I'm doing in this case, I do take a couple of different batteries just in case I run out of power. I want to be able to keep my phone charged, my earbuds charged, stuff like that, while I'm on the go, if I have any downtime anywhere, I want to be able to charge things up. I want to be able to have a snack. So I carry some food in there, I carry some water in there and a few other necessities. Now, the one thing I will say, and a lot of people don't realize this but I have learned this from traveling as much as I have. I do not bring my laptop or my iPad or anything like that with me on the plane. Because when you get to security, if you have an iPad, you have a laptop, you have all those things. They want you to take it all out, out of its cases, flip it all open. I mean, you're there, it becomes a real pain. So I basically run with my phone, and that's really good enough for me on the plane. I mean, I have music on there. I have my podcast on there. I make sure to download everything before ahead of time so that I have it actually on my phone. And I have earbuds or headphones with me so I can listen to music. I'm able to charge that stuff up on the go if I need to, and that's good for me. I could still have some munchies, have some coffee or whatever the case may be. Kind of like my go bag in a nutshell.

I may have missed this, but do you take your laptops in your suitcase?

Yes, I do. And actually, here's a really good tip. When I purchase a new computer, I save the box, because when I travel, I put my laptop in its box that I bought it in, and then I put the box in the suitcase. And that's going to be the absolute best protection for your computer while you're traveling with it in a suitcase.

Now and you're putting that underneath the plane, is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. We don't have an intervention right here on the podcast, folks. We're going to have an intervention right here on the podcast. And the reason why I say that is I think that that may be technically very much against policy and because now they're asking, when you fly, do you have any lithium batteries in your bag? And of course, laptops very much have lithium batteries. And what I was reading and saw is that the pressure differentials underneath the plane, because it's not pressurized, can cause lithium batteries to catch fire or explode. So if they open your bag because of suspecting something, they could take your laptops out and then you would be having a world of hurt. I will get to some tips to get around that in a little bit, but I would love to hear, lynn, do you travel much? And if you do, how do you pack your tech?

I don't travel a whole lot, but I usually just bring my iPhone. I'm fortunate I've never had to travel and do production work. So essentially, I just bring my iPhone with me.

Okay.

And I hold on to it as tightly as I possibly can at all times.

Now, do you pack like a regular lightning cable or do you bring like a wireless charger? Sure.

Wireless charger is a great thing to have and a nice sturdy case. Got it because they do get things get thrown around and bumped around and stuff like that. But yeah, when I travel, I try to use my iPhone and keep it with me as much as I possibly can. I know where it is at all times.

So, Angie, how about you? What is your techniques or not techniques? What is your travel method, like backpack, or what do you bring with you?

I'm a person as well, huge backpack. And I just carry my laptop in there. And I usually carry my iPhone in a separate little pouch that it's like a phone pouch that I wear around my neck. Or if I don't put it there, it's in my purse or some kind of other bag. I don't usually carry purses, so I carry that with those go on the plane with me. And the back, the huge backpack has all my cables and the Mac and sorry, my voice is leaving. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm similar to, I guess, maybe to you, Michael, with regard to that, yes. All my stuff goes into a huge backpack, and it's a huge, heavy backpack, and nobody wants to slip it around. They're like, oh, you take this thing, it's heavy.

Yeah, my backpack is like 30 pounds.

Even people at the airport are like, yeah, just know, which is fine. That's what I want, actually.

And you want to travel your braille display in your backpack as well and things like that. What I do is I have a backpack that's a Swiss gear, and the brand now that makes them is called Windger, W-E-N-W. Let me try that again. Winder Wenger. And it's called the IBEX IBEX 17 inch laptop backpack. It can hold 217 inch laptops. I fit my 17 inch gaming laptop, which is larger than 17 inches because of the exhaust fans on the back. It goes in the main compartment. With that, I put my 16 inch laptop in a sleeve, which goes in the same compartment. So I pay a lot for that 16 inch laptop. I want it protected, so I put it in there, and I don't even take it out of that sleeve when I go through security either. And so you don't have to open the lids of the laptops, you just throw them in individual bins. And the rules are now anything bigger than a cell phone, so whether it's even an iPad mini has to come out. I still travel with all that because I use it for development work. But what I do is for microphones, like my I'm going to be traveling with my Sennheiser profile. That's going to be going in my suitcase. The laptop charger that goes for the gaming laptop is 220 watts. It's a brick. I mean, I think it's actually bigger than some bricks. And it goes in the suitcase. Now my Mac charger goes in the backpack because it's much smaller. And I have some other chargers that go in there as well. But most the only thing I put in the suitcase is bigger things that can't really fit well in the backpack. But I have two iPads, two iPads, two Macs, a Windows machine, and cables, and any odds and ends, like weight tags that I will fit in my backpack. And of course, this backpack can get up to 30, 40 pounds. And it's funny because they say your backpack is about as heavy as your luggage, so it's pretty funny just to see the reactions. And I've even cut down on what I carry because I don't want to have to take all of that out of security. And they even say, do you have lithium batteries in your backpack in your suitcase? Like cell phones, laptops or anything like that? I always can say no. The only thing I carry is, like, an electric razor. But I don't think that's going to hurt anything. But they're very strict on that at certain airports, so I would be careful, and there is a way around that, and that's kind of what I want to move to next, is talking about some techniques. So I'll start with some, and I'm kind of curious what others will recommend past this. But the one thing I did sign up for this year, and I'm so glad I did, is TSA pre check. And that is where they do a background check on you. You pay $80 for five years. It's so worth it. $80. And you have a known traveler identification number. And you just put that when you book your tickets. And they don't take anything out of your bag? Nothing. They run it through, you're done.

Wow.

You don't have to take off your shoes. You don't have to do any of those things.

So how did they check security then, just because you have this pass?

Yes, they do a background check on you now. They do random checks and they'll just go through your backpack.

It's interesting to me because every time I fly and when I get to security, they always pull me over to the side on a different area. They make me go through the metal detector. Then they pull me aside and they have two people that always want to frisk me from head to toe. Then they want to check my hands to make sure I haven't been playing with anything with bombs or anything like that. What do I look like?

You look like somebody on the no fly list. Or the FBI's Most Wanted list.

Marty the terrorist.

It's really weird, though. Every time, without a doubt. And it's funny.

Your friends do you yeah.

I always have assistance going through that blind guy.

That blind guy is a bomb.

I know. It's just ridiculous.

He looks like somebody that would carry an explosive on the plane.

One time I did carry a Braille display through and I didn't take it out because I didn't.

What was plays set them off every single time.

What is that? We found a suspicious object in your bag. Oh, that's a vario ultra. You're good. And that really helps. The TSA PreCheck is going to really help anybody that's traveling. Okay, I know $80 sounds like a lot, but it's really not over five years.

No, it's not.

It also, I guess, depends on how much you fly and how much technology you carry with you. But when you basically are like me, an app developer, or you have braille displays and you have laptops and phones and all these other things, it's good to just have. And partly it's peace of mind, too, right, guys? It's what will get you through the airport with the least amount of stress. Now, another TSA trick that I learned about, and I learned about this last week, and I had no clue. And I don't know if this is at every airport, but apparently maybe you don't want to get help going through the entire airport. Like, for me, security is the biggest stress point of an airport, right? So wouldn't it be neat if there was a service that could just you can meet somebody and they get you through security, then you can figure out the rest of your way that exists. Apparently. It's called TSA cares.

That sounds so sweet.

I know, right? And basically you make an appointment the day before or the day before, week before, whatever it is. And then they get a hold of you the day of, and they say, Let us know when you get here. And then they will walk with you through security, get everything done. And then they say, have a great day. And you can walk onto your gate, find food. Because sometimes when you get a meet and assist, it's great. They're very helpful, but sometimes it's just drudgery. They bring you to the gate and they sit you down. Right? So, like in Austin, I typically know the Austin airport. I know the terminal. Right? I may not need a meet and assist there, but I will need help through security. Right, so, like, your home airport, maybe you know it really well, maybe you don't. Or maybe the airport is like where I grew up, southeast Texas, where there's two gates in the whole airport. I mean, you can almost look back when you're sitting about to board the plane. You could look back and just see all the way back through security.

You're landing on the tarmac, guys, right?

Or there's like a small terminal in Austin that's off the main airport. I call it the Greyhound station of airport terminals. So maybe you know these places really well and you just need help through security. Those are options. Right? So a meeting, assist. What's that?

Prop plane.

Right. I used to fly though. Okay. I have flown one. So before I correct myself, I have flown one with pilot's help. That's a story for another day. Landed on a closed runway too. So that's another whole story. It was at the space camp as a kid. Very funny story. I'll have to tell that to the podcast some other time. But what I'm getting at is there are ways. There's IRA. There's so many other ways. So I'd be curious if there's any techniques that you guys use that you find helpful getting through the airports or getting checked in, that kind of thing.

Well, for me, I can't obviously go through the airport by myself. I need assistance. Being visually impaired, not being able to see, that's obviously an issue. So what I do is I prearrange everything ahead of time. So when I purchase my tickets, I give them all the information. I let them know at that time, and they put all that stuff on my record so that anytime it gets pulled up, they can see, oh, he needs assistance, and whatever. So I get to the airport, I get to the gate, and that's about as far as I have to go on my own. And then after that, they have someone come meet me, and then they take me through the whole entire process all the way through security. And then once you get through security, if we need to stop and get food or drinks or whatever, they'll help me with that. And then all the way to the gate and then onto the plane. And then when I land at my destination or if I have to make a change of planes, then they help you off the plane. They get you to your next flight and on and on. So it's basically door to door for me.

Yeah, I'm sort of the same way. This is lyn I tend to be a nervous traveler. I don't travel a lot, so when I do, my main goal is to get through the airport without trying to reduce as much stress as I possibly can. So I do exactly what Marty does. When I set up my travel arrangements, I will just let people know that I need assistance, and I take as much assistance as I can to get me where I need to go. And then I can relax and just enjoy everything rather than for a lot of blind people. It's an adventure, right? It's like, yeah, I can do this by myself. I don't need any help. And that's great for them, but for me, no. I'm a nervous Nelly, and all I want to do is have a good time on vacation. I tend to ask for assistance until I get on the plane, so and.

Yeah, I do the same thing, only because I have a guide dog. And that's what they tell you to do. Like, the the objective in an airport situation is to have your dog be able to travel as through it as stress free as possible. So my thinking is more about my pup than even me and making sure that he's comfortable and stress free or as much as possible. Travel is rarely a stress free situation. Go ahead.

I was going to say, are any of you guys using air tags or anything like that?

I have air tags.

Yeah, I do also.

Absolutely.

I put one in my backpack, which I carry with me, and I put one in my suitcase.

Luggage. Same. Yeah.

I'm kind of glad you reminded me because I need to check to make sure mine are still powered.

Go to Best Buy, go get some batteries.

And that actually works out really good. It hasn't happened to me, but I know it has for a lot of people where they go, oh, we lost your suitcase, and we don't know where it's at. We'll have to let you know once we come across it. And you go, no, look, it's right here, and you could show them where it is exactly.

Well, whenever I traveled over the holidays, my suitcase, I was heading down to see family, and it was two flights, and my suitcase did not make it on the second flight. So it got there like 8 hours later, and we picked it up like 12:00 at night. But it was just funny because it's like, I know exactly where it is. I was watching it on the map. Obviously not while it was in the airheaded to me, but it's like, oh, it landed at the airport near us, so we can go get it pretty soon. But air tags are very useful for playing a sound, and even the locate feature, where it will tell you how many feet away it is, is very useful for finding your luggage.

It's very accessible with voiceover as well. The whole thing is just a good process.

And what I do is I've gotten to the point where I used to put my backpack at my feet. And I know, Angie, for you, you can't really put anything at your feet because you already have.

Furry luggage.

Yes, you have furry luggage. That's the episode title. Furry luggage.

Furry luggage. Oh, yeah.

You're welcome.

Thank you, puppy.

That's the episode title, furry Luggage. I love it.

He's the IA cast mascot. He's like, I'm sleeping now. He's looking at me like, what's wrong with you?

I like that.

Yeah, because you put them under the seat in front of you and you face them toward you. And nothing else is going on here, including my feet. So if you have a long flight, it's not very comfortable, right?

Yeah. How do you keep your guide dogs comfortable? How do you keep them? I mean, the stuff that you have to do with them when traveling, do you have any?

So this guy, the first time he flew was on the way back from training, and he's so chill. All he did was look up at me, like when we started to taxi to take off, he popped his head up like, what are we doing? And looked around and then went to sleep. He's really easy. And that's not always the case. I really don't have to do much. I mean, I give him ice so he can pop his ears. Or I'll give him a treat, like, I'll bring him smallest treats, like training treats, something small that he can consume if I feel like he needs it. But mostly I just use ice because he loves ice and I don't give it to him right away. I wait until we've been in the, you know, until we're actually at cruising altitude. Altitude. And then I'll, you know, you know, make sure that I feed him about half of his usual amount on the day of travel. Pack your essentials. Like pack some kind of little not to put too kind of point on it, but you just never know. It hasn't happened to me, but it can, it could. Methods of cleaning up things if you need to. Yeah, he's easy. He's really easy to travel with too.

Yeah, that's good.

I don't need to give him any people's. Dogs are just really anxious on planes. That definitely isn't this guy.

That's good. You're lucky that way. Really?

Yeah, totally.

So when you're on a plane, is there any entertainment that you use, like listening to books or music or how do you pass the time?

I'm an audible junkie. I do Audible and I catch up on podcasts.

Same. I do podcasts and music.

You just want to make sure, folks, when you're doing that, that you download the episodes first. Because obviously, unless you buy the plane WiFi, you will not be getting the plane.

WiFi is super freaking slow. It might as well be dial up sometimes. Most of the time it's pretty bad.

So keep that in mind.

So even if you think you're going to stream stuff, I tried it before, right.

And if you're traveling and your flight is going to be a while, make sure that you at least have some kind of a backup battery so you can keep your devices charged up.

So I know you guys on Unmute talked a lot about the at guys batteries, but one I want to recommend anchor makes, I believe it's the Anchor power core, 26,800 milliamp hour battery. And it's not the most accessible, but they do have a version that has USB power delivery, I think can charge a laptop now, like a MacBook. And it is right, that 2006 800 is, I believe, at the threshold for being allowed on an airplane. So anything much like, I think 30,000 and up is not allowed. So it's the biggest battery pack you can get. It has two USBA ports, one USB C, and I believe it will charge a computer. And you can plug in your iPhone, your computer, all of those things to it. It's heavy, so it's going to take up a good portion of your backpack or whatever you bring. But it's funny because I have one of those. I haven't charged it in a year, and I was like, we were out bowling, and I was like, oh, my phone's low on battery. I got this battery pack that's totally full, and so I just plugged my phone, and I haven't plugged that battery pack back in. Over the last three months, I've been charging my phone whenever I go bowling, and I haven't charged that battery pack back up, so very nice battery. So you might want to look into that one. I think it's like $100 to $130.

Another guide dog tip. I'm sorry, Michael. If you get stuck flying in bulkheads or somewhere where you're and you happen to be like, southwest is kind of sit wherever you want.

That's why I fly them.

Yes. Same. I love them. If you get a seat next to you and you have the space to do it, get some kind of seatbelt tether for your dog and attach it to their harness. Or if you got a flat collar, try to avoid putting it on their neck, though, just in case. You just never know. But I attach it to his harness. I attach it to the drings on his harness or one of the drings. So, basically what it is is a nylon elastic size belt, and one end of it goes into the seatbelt apparatus, and the other end attaches to him. So it's just an extra layer of security. I also use it on paratransit, and.

I bet you could come up with some kind of rig that if you don't have a seat next to you, that you could still use that. Yeah, but that's a cool tip. I never thought about that.

I just thought because a lot of people are talking about their dogs being traumatized by pair of transit accidents and stuff, he's secured. I keep him between my feet anyway, but if they slam on the brakes or or have an accident outright, at least he'll be he'll be secured.

So, okay, so once you, you know, back to, you know, you're you're flying and then you land, what do you do? Do you get a meet and assist at the where you land to transfer planes, or do you just go to the baggage claim and get your luggage or what is your techniques there?

So, either way, if I'm landing at my destination or I'm doing a transfer. So, for example, when I go on this next trip, I'll be leaving. I do have one transfer I have to do. So they meet me literally on the plane. They come, and they get me. They take me off the plane. They take me all the way to wherever the next boarding for the next plane is, make sure I get on the plane, make sure I'm in my seat and all that. And then when I get to my actual destination again. They come back on the plane. They get me they get me off the plane and they take me to luggage. They help me get my luggage, and then they take me out of the airport and right to the vehicle who's meeting me?

Yes.

I usually walk off familiar to me. I usually walk off the plane. Personally, I'm like, no, I'm getting off. I'll meet whoever's. There you go.

The terminal or on the terminal. Yeah, that's me, too. I'll work him off a plane and then meet them out there and go to baggage or go to the next flight or whatever.

Because if I wait for them to come on the plane, then they're going to want to bring the dreaded wheelchair.

Yeah.

All right.

I actually had someone tell me once that they were going to get in trouble if I didn't sit. I'm like, I have a guide dog. I don't need to sit, just use it for my luggage or whatever.

Then they always ask me, do you need a wheelchair or not? And I just say no. And then we just walk off. But I will tell you some of the places I've been getting off or on the ramps, go zigzag back and forth and all around. I mean, sometimes it's kind of a real pain for people who have a wheelchair. I can definitely see that even just walking. It's kind of amazed sometimes.

I guess the main thing that I would say is each person's situation is different, and I think it's important to know your rights, but I think it's also important to get the amount and type of help that you need in your own personal situation. And don't be ashamed of that.

Let me ask you all this. Do you tip your meat and assist?

Yes.

Although I have had them say the airport workers, they won't take a tip.

Yeah, I've had them refuse it.

Yeah. And so what I did one time, I said, well, can I make a donation to an organization in your name?

Okay. And this is just me being crimudgeonly, I guess. I think that because a lot of the airports hire these guys to do this as their job, right? They are hired to transport passengers and make sure they get from place to place as a job. Now, if somebody does an exceptional job and are very nice and like, okay, do you want to go and just being like, would you like to go get food?

I tip the guys, especially who do that, like, they'll offer you to go get coffee or get breakfast that are.

Very I don't have an issue with that. But I had a guy on my last trip in March, I was landing in Dallas, and he first demanded that I get in a wheelchair. I refused because I'm just not going to do that. And then he was kind of rude the whole time, and I was meeting my boss at the airport and we were going to go on from there and we get down there, we get my luggage, and then we meet up with my ride and he says, oh, glad I could help you. How about a tip?

Oh, my God.

I have never been asked by an airport staff to tip.

Wow.

Unfortunately, I did have some cash with me, but it was just so like you what?

Oh, my gosh.

That's pretty bad.

Yeah. And it's like I have a hard time tipping when it's not deserved. And I feel like a lot of these guys, I'm not asking them to do anything special, but just to walk with me. Now, if I was having them lift a bunch of things, put a bunch on a cart, do all these other okay. Yes. But I just literally am having them walk beside me so I make sure I get where I'm going. So getting long story short, I think if you are getting a meet and assist and you feel like that they are not doing the adequate enough job to tip, don'tip these folks guys, use your discretion. Again, these people would not be employed if they didn't have people to walk.

Right.

We are the customers. The Southwest Airlines folks, they have their own people that walk with you. And they've always been fantastic to me.

Yeah. Same.

Say what you will about Southwest, they've had some problems this year, but they've always been very nice.

I've always had good experiences with them.

Same.

And one more thing I just have to say for you guys going to the conventions, make sure you wash your hands. It seems like a lot of people come back from convention with some kind of illness.

Well.

Make sure you're washing your hands. Make sure you're doing other hygiene things. You're being shoved into a hotel with tons of people.

Yes, you should wash your hands.

And there are other forms of protection that you might want to be carrying as well, which we won't go into.

Yes.

Painting season.

Yeah.

Sorry about that. I think Marty should have let me.

Stay asleep.

But either way, I went to NFB last year and I was masked the entire time I was there. If I was around people, I was masked. Right. I washed my hands in the restrooms. I did all of the things. Still got COVID. So it really just depends on who you're around, how long you're around that person and what surfaces. Like because you have control over what you do. Right. But you have no control over what other people do. And what always got me is NFP had very strict rules about how they did COVID tests and all that before the convention and that's great and everything because you can control everybody that's at your convention and make sure they don't have COVID when they come in. But the problem is, what about all the guests at the hotel that are not part of your convention.

Right, exactly. So the whole hotel is like teeming with germs and bacteria for those people who are dermaphobes.

Right. So that's all things to consider. And do you guys have any final tips and tricks that you want to share before we wrap up the conversation today?

I will say don't be scared to advocate for yourself. Speak up and let people know what you need. That is going to be your best tool so that you can have the best travel experience. So that's what I would say.

Yeah.

A big one for me would be make sure that you double check because when you check in, you don't always get someone who puts your necessary information into the system. So when you get to your gate, they may not even know that you need assistance. So I would double check your stuff. Once you get there with an agent at the gate you're going to be departing from just to make sure you're yeah.

And you have to pack your patience, I guess. Take slow, deep breaths and I don't know.

Traveling is stressful and there are it brings out the nasty in people for sure.

Yeah, so sure does.

Especially around the holidays. Oh my God. I've seen some of the nastiest people on the planet, I think airports around Christmas. And it shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Yeah. I don't understand it, but does anybody know how you supposed to use your seat cushion as a flotation device? I always thought that was so funny when they would do that. There was a George Carlin thing that he did on planes.

I always enjoy the southwest staff that are always hilarious whenever they do their I've heard of some that sing. There are some that it's good when you can have a flight attendant that is humorous and can really make it less stressful. I think that's always a few things I want to go over before we wrap up is if you're doing bus travel, just make sure you pack well. Make sure you stay safe, aware of your surroundings because a lot of bus stations are not the best.

Keep your stuff close.

Yes. And make sure that you get where you're trying to go quickly. If you are taking a train, there's some great ways to do that. I'd love Amtrak. Really cool. Just if it'll get there on time.

On time. Give yourself like a twelve hour buffer just in case.

I think it'd be neat to just get a sleeper car one time.

Cross country.

Yeah. Do a cross country trip. So much fun.

It would be. I love trains anyway.

They're just a casual I like the sound, the sound of the engine and the tracks and the motion.

Right. It's relaxing.

So all those things to keep in mind if you're at a hotel, make sure when you check in that you go to the right room. There are keys that can be wiped if you put your phone or certain things near them. So just be careful of that and just make sure that you are where you think you are and not opening some random person's room.

I've been known to do that.

And just be civil. Don't play loud music. Don't be partying too much. And the important thing is, when you leave the hotel, don't check once, don't check twice, triple check, quadruple check, however many times you need to check. And make sure that you've gotten all of your items, even if you're a low vision. Those Apple Cables are white, which can blend in with a lot of different things. I've left I don't know how many things in hotel rooms on accident because I totally missed that they were there. So make sure that you check everywhere and anywhere before you leave a hotel to make sure you didn't miss any items. I'm infamous for that.

And, guys, don't be one of those nasty guide dog people. Like, traveling is hard enough. Make sure you have all your documentation in place. And that means making the necessary phone calls, letting people know that you're traveling with a guide. Just make sure that you do your part and don't behave like an app. Don't be confrontational if you get there and people are like, I didn't know you had a guide dog, or I didn't know you were traveling with a guide, or if you're stuck dealing with people. I really have to bring this one in because I'm sick feeling passionate about who have their ESAs, their emotional support ferret or parents. Right, yeah.

That'S a good point. And just make sure technically, you don't have to let people know that you're coming with a guide. But I think it's just good courtesy if you do that, because it lets people know to expect you. Right, yes.

That way, if you get there and they try to put you on, like, a pet floor, you can refuse it because that's not what this is.

And just keep in mind that your object here is to get from point A to point B and have a good time.

Right, exactly.

So whatever you need to do to make that happen within the legal limits.

Exactly.

And if you're traveling with your pup, make sure he or she is groomed. That's huge.

All right, well, as we typically do, let's go ahead and wrap this thing up with our picks in where people can find us. So, Marty, you want to start us off?

Sure. So my pick this time is an app called News Explorer. It's an RSS reader, it works great with voiceover, and it is on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. And you can find me on Macedon Marty at Unmute Community.

All right, and Lynn.

My new favorite game in the App Store is called Palabra Cadabra. P-A-L-A-B as in boy R-A-C-A-D as in dog. A B as in beth. R A polabra cadabra. It is an anagram scheme.

Oh, my gosh, I want this. I love anagrams.

60 seconds to discover you get an anagram word. I highly recommend that you play this with a Bluetooth keyboard because you'll be able to unless you can type really fast on the iPhone keyboard. It is so much fun and it's addictive like crazy. They give you a word and you have to see how many words you can make with the letters of that word. And there's a time limit. So you really go into the text box and you press space to let it know that you're going to start. It is accessible, and I'm trying to find the price that I paid, but I think it was like $2 or something. And it's not a subscription or anything, it's just a one time purchase. It's just so much fun. I just love it so much. And you hit the space bar instead of Enter, so that's the one thing you have to remember. Okay, but I think there's been an update that says that you can use Enter. See what happens when you use Enter? Of course, that takes you out of.

The text box.

But it's accessible. And the developer also has one called Accessible Hangman, which is awesome as well. I love it. And they have a couple other.

I.

Think if you sort of forget, if you look up Accessible Hangman, it's the developer, the same developer that does the Polabra Cadabra. And yeah, it's anagram game and it's addictive and it's super fun. So there you go. My email right now is [email protected].

Okay.

And Angie. What about you?

My peg is going to be a strange one this time. It's just my whole Google experience. Not even necessarily the Android phone, but just the fun I'm having with Google, generally, the products and Android and the whole overview. I've been doing this for about the last week or so, and it's been a fun experience to hit. The accessibility highlights, like I said earlier, talkback has improved quite a bit. There is now a Braille keyboard built into Android, kind of like BSI for the iPhone. I like it. It's snappy. It makes text entry a breeze. That was one of my sticking points before, when I was dabbling with Android or when I was trying to switch writing and being productive. Like that wasn't terribly possible. So I'm loving my experience. It's fun, it's a lot more productive, and it's just a work in progress. You can find me online at tech enthusiast dragonscave. Space.

Excellent.

Okay, can I just say one thing just before we mac Whisper has an update.

Yes, it does.

Yeah.

I just thought I would let you guys know.

So, my pick this week is an app that Marty recommended to me yesterday. Super excited about this app, and I even got a notification from it during the podcast to complete one of my tasks for the day. And the app is called Streaks. S-T-R-E-A-K-S-I believe it's about $5 in the App Store for iOS. I don't know if it's on Android or not, but it integrates with the health app. So there is even a if you brushed your teeth and it can get that from the health app. So if you have a toothbrush, they do make those that work with the health app and things like that. If you've closed your activity rings, it can track that and complete a task and it can show you, like in the Streaks app, how often you've done that. I created one called Write Code, and it even formatted the icon to be of code, which was fantastic. I have a take photo, like take a photo every day, which I want to get in the habit of doing. And it keeps track of how many days in a row you've done that task, or how many weeks in a row if you do it weekly. So it has a very simple interface, very color coded, very easy to see for low vision and high contrast. It's just a fantastic experience. I've always had problems with to do list apps because they're so busy, right? They're very complicated, very busy. This is not, this is a very simple, graphical based app that works completely with Voiceover. I have not found anything that doesn't work with Voiceover in this app. So I'm very happy with it. You have to see it. You have to try it to experience why I think it's so cool. So streaks. Very neat app. So thank you, Marty, for that recommendation. That's going to probably be my new to do list app for getting things done.

Yeah, enjoy.

Thank you. As for people can find me online, I'mike Doey's in pretty much every place. Mike Doey's on Twitter. Yes, I'm still there. Mike Doey's at Techopolis social. And you can email me at mike Doey's at icloud.com. You can email the show by emailing [email protected]. And we're all over the Internet. So thank you everyone for being here. It's been a great show. So we will do this all again next week. Next week will be our last week before conference. And we're bringing back the legend. We're bringing back the IA cast Outtake show while we're at conventions. So you will have content viewer discretions advised. Because some Outtakes may be a little more punchy than our regular show content, so just be aware of that. But we will have an Outtake show. They are funny, they are great. So keep that in mind. And I may throw in you know what, I think I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to throw in some old Iacast Outtakes that are hilarious just for kind of a filler bit in there. So it's going to be great. It's going to be a great episode. While we're out and we'll come back once we're not at convention. So I want to thank everybody for being here. Marty, Lynn, Angie, you all have been great. We had a great discussion. I feel like we've gone through a lot with that. So again, we'll be back next week for a new episode and we'll see you then.

See ya.

Bye everyone.

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