Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

[ETA 1: Changed the subject line]


So (as I may have mentioned here before) I've stopped using a mouse with my computer, and use what's called "MouseKeys" (at least, in Windows), where you can make the number pad on your keyboard work as a substitute cursor-control.

I suspect Macs probably have something similar, but I don't know what Apple has named it, or how you turn it on. But on a Windows Machine, at any rate, you turn on your MouseKeys by pressing CRTL+Shift+NumLock at the same time (and after you have it set as your default, you just toggle it on/off by clicking NumLock).

I use this because, no matter how cheap mouses are now, when they fall on the floor they are almost un-retrievable -- they're very hard to pick up with one of those reacher-grabber-things. And at even just $10 a pop, that gets expensive with every one I run over in my wheelchair, between dropping and retrieving...

Anyway -- onto the "Dimmer Switch Moment"

The thing is: MouseKeys are a lot, lot, slower than conventional mouses; they move across the screen one pixel at a time, and even at their fastest setting, it can take them several seconds to go from one corner of the screen diagonally to the other. You can speed up the acceleration, but you lose some control in the trade. Also, you have to click the different keys in combination in order to get your cursor to specific points on the screen. And every time you stop and change direction, your cursor slows down a bit before getting back up to whatever top speed you're comfortable with.

[ETA 2: I just timed it by counting "One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee...," starting the mouse in the upper left corner of my wide screen monitor to the bottom edge, then changing direction to get to the bottom right corner. I have my mouse keys set up at top speed and slow-medium acceleration. It took fifteen 'Chimpanzees' to get from one corner to another]

My realization?

Use MouseKeys and an online Flash puzzle or skill game as a point of "Sensitivity training" about why kids with "Severe" C.P. are so often labeled as "intellectually Disabled," and how unfair, inaccurate and frustrating that is simply because they have trouble responding to questions as quickly as their mobility-normative peers.

Don't even try this experiment on those timed puzzle games where the game ends when the timer runs out, 'cause you will never get out of Level One. But here are a couple of games that I actually enjoy playing, even though, because of my technology, my highest scores are far below average -- I won't give you links, 'cause the pages are full of ads. But if you put these names in a search engine of your choice, you'll get lots of hits:

"Magic Towers Solitaire" (very pretty to look at, and the sound effects are pleasing, too), which, if it were classified as and I.Q. testing game, would be a number logic / number pattern recognition test; and "Magic Words" (Again, with the pretty visuals and music), which is a scrambled-word vocabulary test. ... If you decide to do this sensitivity-test for yourself with this latter game, be sure to do it in "puzzle mode."

The fact that these games continue even after the clock runs down is analogous to the "Special Accommodations" that educators and psychologists insist they give "Special Needs Students" to be (air quotes) completely fair. But both of these games award bonus points that are time sensitive -- and that you will never get awarded without a normal-speed mouse.

Okay, yes. I am daring you to try this. See what it feels like when you know the answer ten times faster than you can tell the "game master" that you know the answer. Then imagine that the computer is a human being, who's already prejudiced against you, and is demanding proof of your intelligence before she or he lets you into a mainstreamed kindergarten class.

You may get an idea why the statistic "Between 30% and 50% of all children with cerebral palsy have some level of mental retardation." makes my blood ... simmer, and at the very least, sets off my ORLY?!! alarms.

Also, as a side note: see how removing the ability to play these games quickly changes their feel, psychologically.

...Just a thought.

Five reasons I've become addicted to Peekaboom in less than twenty-four hourss:

1. You're playing with someone, rather than against them.



2. You're playing with an actual, living person; even if you're completely annonymous to each other, it does make a difference.



3. The challenge is all about communication, and that warms the cockles of my wee little heart.



4. The challenge is to get the other person to type a specific word by clicking on picture, and revealing it bit by bit. So you have to figure out how much to focus on the specifics, and how much to focus on the surrounding context. You can also give hints, and have to decide what kind of hints are the best to give (and or decide if it is even possible to make a certain idea clear with a particular image -- a few times, it hasn't been). I am certain that, in the long run, this will help me become a better writer.



5. I am being assured that just playing the game is helping computer geeks build better A.I.. And knowing that I am helping also warms the cockles of my geeky little heart.

{Eta: I was playing the game, just now, and the last image popped up: And it was Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor :::Glees::: But the word I was supposed to get from my partner was "Movie," which was kind of sad, because I had to pass. There was nothing about "movie" in the image itself. It was probably an image from a fanpage, and was illustrating a fanvid, or something. If the word were "Bowtie" or "recorder" or "smile" or "clock," or something, I could have clicked away happily, and gotten the right answer (probably)}