#blind tooled

[upennmanuscripts]

Today's #ToolingTuesday is LJS 264. It was written in France, ca. 1400, and the binding is 16th-century calf over boards, blind-stamped and -tooled, center armorial medallion of Benoît de Court (3 5-pointed stars on a shield enclosed by a wreath).

Online:

[raindropsyndrome]

Is he pointing? Is he giving the bird? You decide

[gowendrawing]

Fanart

I love the games

[wayward-wren]

I am thinking about. Jamie and the Second Doctor.

Because out of all the incarnations of the Doctor, Two is arguably the one who uses manipulation and disguises the most. He thrives on using people's intelligence against them, on tricking people, on bluffing and his bluffs working. He has a different disguise every story pretty much and is constantly playing some kind of role.

And then you look at Jamie, and some of Jamie's most front and center traits are his loyalty and his honesty (and protectiveness, but less applicable). Jamie is loyal to a fault and extremely trusting of the Doctor. He's honest and straightforward and deeply caring.

And Jamie is the one who sticks by the Second Doctor for as long as he physically can--and you'd look at those two characters, one who is manipulative and cunning, and one who is loyal to a fault, and you'd think the Doctor would easily be able to take advantage of Jamie, that Jamie would just be a tool for him but he's not, they're on equal footing. Jamie pulls the Doctor down and reminds him what being human is all about.

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

I follow tons of disability/chronic illness/mental health tags and I keep seeing memes or infographics without alt text or image IDs. This is not okay for content of any subject matter, but its beyond ridiculous for these spaces in particular. You can’t call yourself an advocate if you are declining to use accessibility tools like this. There are absolutely no excuses, especially with the technologies we have now. Most devices can read and copy the text out of any image, for example.

Basically if it’s not worth including everyone, it’s not worth posting. Make it accessible or don’t post it. Thank you

[asteraws]

from todays 8path aggie session <333

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

Some more 2000s nostalgia. This is my room in 2005 when I was in high school . I wish I could find a chair like that again. Look at my old TV! The picture frames on top of it were from Claire's.

Note the Spongebob rug and Patrick and Spongebob sitting by my chair. Also the Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Maynard from Tool, RHCP, and Blind Melon pictures/posters. I also see a picture I printed out of Jimmy Page playing with the brow string.

It's fun to share not only beauty products from the 2000s, but life as well since I was there for it.

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week!

Susan Estelle Kwas is a Milwaukee artist known for her vibrant illustrations and whimsical artist books. Her 2015 publication, A Collaborative Drawing Book is no exception as it invites readers into a visual conversation between Milwaukeean Fred Foss (1898) and Kwas (2015) over one hundred years in the making.

Kwas found Foss’ copy book in an antique shop and was so delighted by his graphite drawings that she decided to pair them with her own. Sometimes tucking characters into Foss’ scenery, other times superimposing them, Kwas’ colored pencil and watercolor contributions are nothing short of charming.  

Kwas rebound the book in montage sur onglets form (with pages sewn on stubs to release them from the confines of the gutter) in buffalo leather, preserving the original orientation of each page. The cover decoration was created by blind tooling inset leather strips and is complimented by marbled endpapers.  

View other staff picks here.

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[rav3nston3]

due to Reasons™ i got to Dress Up and hang out with a friend at an arcade recently!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was great and i looked amazing and i didn't even get any rude comments or dirty looks >:) didn't get any compliments either but that's to be expected

so yea i did a portrait of the outfit! specifically based on the pictures i took at the arcade in the big wall mirror they had

[albino-parakeet]

Decided to screenshot the two drawings I did in the Magma/Aggie hosted by @ejsuperstar

(I am so sorry I draw so big)

The second one I did like hours after everyone left. rip.

[upennmanuscripts]

Today's #ToolingTuesday is LJS 48, original blind-tooled Veronese calf over wooden boards. It has 4 catches, but no clasps. The collection of notarial copies of documents was mostly written by imperial notary Francesco di Andrea Ruffo in 1504

Online:

[seriousturd]

Some very stupid recent doodles hehe

[razzek]

Top 5 MOST useful tools for blind people just starting out

Top 5 most fave tools for the blind overall

Top 5 least useful

Top 5 fucking weirdest and/or funniest

This is a big ask and I will do my best to answer, with the caveat that I am just a single blind person with memory issues who doesn't remember everything my blind friends have told me. XD I am counting other people as tools in this list because a person with eyes sometimes is a handy tool for us. XD

Top 5 MOST useful tools for blind people just starting out 1. White cane 2. Blindness skills training through centers, government programs like Vocational Rehabilitation, Orientation & Mobility specialists, and anywhere you can find it 3. Membership with the National Talking Book Library aka NLS in your state (US); I think the UK is RNIB and Canada has one, not sure about other countries 4. Supportive family and friends and other blind people if you can find them 5. Screen reader (NVDA is free for Windows, iPhone has VoiceOver, Android uses TalkBack)

Top 5 most fave tools for the blind overall 1. White cane and/or guide dog 2. Text to speech, screen readers, audio books, audio described movies and tv 3. Accessible smart phones (often iPhone but Android is catching up) 4. Bump dots (stick-on tactile dots you put around your home) 5. Braille and refreshable braille displays/notetakers

Top 5 least useful 1. Sighted people inventing crap without talking to any blind people ("smart" canes, "smart" shoes, dangerous devices you hold in your only free hand that claim to tell you what's in front of you but actually don't, screen reader breaking "accessibility" overlays, etc...) 2. That ring which only shows one braille cell at a time (that's not how anyone reads) 3. Strangers giving/yelling vague directions ("It's right over there!", "Oh my god watch out for the stairs (that you are halfway down)!", giving directions to the guide dog who doesn't speak English or any language because they are a dog...) 4. Hot liquid measuring devices (always broken, the noise they make is so fucking loud it's caused me a lot more injury than just sticking my finger in the hot liquid, will wake up the neighbors) 5. All but one use case of AI claiming to be for the blind, at least as far as I've seen

Top 5 fucking weirdest and/or funniest 1. Ping pong balls (good for measuring hot liquids) 2. Funnels (really helpful for pouring liquids) 3. The lanyard strap that sticks to the back of your phone so you can wear it around your neck (looks silly, is incredibly useful) 4. White cane holster (yes it's a thing, I have at least three XD) 5. Things being organized Very Specifically (close your eyes and YOU try to find the remote after someone put it in a random place! XD)

[twilit-creature]

You can get Keening at Level 1, all you need is:

2 Standard Potions of Rising Force

1 Apprentice Lockpick

[themoonofblueside]

ACOK Sansa II my beloved. In her chambers, sees an unsigned note, goes into panic mode thinking it's a trap, tries to keep herself calm and ignore the note but her need for home, for Winterfell is so strong that she just can't help but go to the godswood.

She has no one to trust, if she gets caught she's probably going to get beaten again, but for even the slim chance of getting to go home she'd rather risk everything against her instincts then stay and lose the chance.

She goes and instead of meeting a gallant knight, someone brave and strong to save her or hell, joffrey's man to trick amd trap her, it's Dontos. A scared, drunken fool, who nearly died a just a while ago. Who is only alive because of Sansa, and the fact that an 11 year old girl was brave enough to try to save him opens his eyes to the truth of his job and his life so much that he's willing to risk his life to bring her to safety. This is, perhaps, the first time Dontos decides to act like a true knight.

Sansa does not understand it yet, but her sincere intentions for people to be safe and happy inspires morally grey characters to protect her to their limited ability. She's frustrated that Dontos is a drunken fool, and she quite literally gets threatened day and night by Sandor, but they are the only ones who make her life just a little bit easier.

We also see that from Ned's death onwards, Sansa is forced to abide the rules, trust no one, and get better at lying. Sandor and Sansa's dialogues are always a delight, the last sentence of Sansa II summarizes King's Landing the best: "Everyone is a liar, and all better than you."

[mimzy-writing-online]

Hi there, i have a story where 1 MC is blind. I dont want to fall into any bad tropes so I was looking at your blog and I wanted to ask your opinion. my character went blind young but she sees a shifting mix of color, it cant imply distance or details however, at the start of the story she is gifted a tool that helps shape them into rough outlines, my plan is for her to stop using it as her character grows more confident (use it as a plot point for her development). Do you have any thoughts?

It sounds like this might be a possible accessibility tool, so I don't think she would abandon it completely. She might become less reliant on it as she develops her other senses to be more helpful, but in situations where she needs a little extra help, maybe she'd dig out that tool. New environments, meeting important people where she has to make a good impression, moments where she's in danger, those would all be useful and relatable reasons to use additional accessibility devices.

The goal of orientation & mobility and life-skills classes isn't to become Daredevil-levels of confident in your remaining senses. The goal is to make you an expert in all the accessibility devices at your disposal.

A personal weakness of mine is that I am not proficient at screen reader with my phone. I would be much more powerful if I would take the time to master it because I'd be able to use my phone in any situation without trouble. As it is, I struggle to use it in my low-vision settings and it takes me a lot longer to finish tasks (texting, google search, opening/navigating apps) and a lot more eye-spoons.

If I got good at it, I would probably use a combination of screen readers and my remaining vision to get things done.

I'm going to open the comments to all disabled readers and ask: is there an accessibility tool you used for a while and then phased out of your tool-kit?