I used to think of braille like it's a digital text encoding scheme (if you know a little bit about how braille works and a lot about how computers store text, it feels "obvious" that braille dot patters are six-bit binary encodings of characters) but the more I've learned about it the more I've understood how wrong that is.
for one, braille is not an encoding of the latin alphabet. you can transliterate between the latin alphabet and braille the same way as you can transliterate between any two writing systems, but they really are completely separate scripts that follow completely different rules. converting to and from braille is a hard problem that depends on the specific orthography of the language being used, and within individual languages still is often very context sensitive.
for example, english braille (in some standards) spells the word "a" differently from the letter "a": they both use the same character that's used when the vowel appears within longer words, but when the letter "a" is used as a letter and not as the word, it (in some standards) requires an additional character to specify that you mean the letter.
also, braille isn't digital at all. it's designed for people, not computers. the earliest version of braille is from 1824, decades before the earliest machines you could reasonably describe as computers. braille was designed for humans, and it follows conventions that are reasonable for people but make no sense for computers. it's rare for two related dot patterns to be differentiated by "flipping one of the bits" like you'd do with a binary text encoding; instead you get things like rotating flipping or moving the pattern, which certainly feels a lot more like a writing system than an encoding of a writing system.
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The only big difference I've seen is in colors. Where the regular text reads 'press red button', the braille reads 'press two-inch button'.
Braille [Explained]
Transcript Under the Cut
I learned to read braille a while back, and I've noticed that the messages on signs don't always match the regular text.
[A sign reads "Third Floor Office" with braille print underneath. Cueball is reading the braille.]
Cueball (thinking): s-i-g-h-t-e-d-p-e-o-p-l-e-s-u-c-k ... Hey!
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~ Helen Keller ~
Helen Keller (colorized)
Miss Helen Keller - Portrait US Library of Congress
Helen Keller was an author, lecturer, suffragists and crusader for the handicapped. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, She lost her sight and hearing at the age of nineteen months to an illness now believed to have been scarlet fever. Five years later, on the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, her parents applied to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston for a teacher, and from that school hired Anne Mansfield Sullivan.
Keller (left) with Anne Sullivan vacationing on Cape Cod in July 1888
Through Sullivan’s extraordinary instruction, the little girl learned to understand and communicate with the world around her. She went on to acquire an excellent education and to become an important influence on the treatment of the blind and deaf.
Helen Keller in 1899 with lifelong companion and teacher Anne Sullivan. Photo taken by Alexander Graham Bell at his School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech.
Her unprecedented accomplishments in overcoming her disabilities made her a celebrity at an early age; at twelve she published an autobiographical sketch in the Youth’s Companion, and during her junior year at Radcliffe, she produced her first book, The Story of My Life, still in print in over fifty languages.
Helen Keller — Groundbreaking Girls
Painting of Keller's colorized portrait by Wayne Pascall
Her friendship with Mark Twain
"Helen Keller, Miss Sullivan, Mark Twain and Laurence Hutton."
“From that day until his death we were friends,” Keller recalled later. She was already a fan of his work and thrilled to his deep voice and his many hand gestures, which she followed with her own fingertips. She wrote of him:
"He entered into my limited world with enthusiasm just as he might have explored Mars. Blindness was an adventure that kindled his curiosity. He treated me not as a freak, but as a handicapped woman seeking a way to circumvent extraordinary difficulties. There was something of divine apprehension in this rare naturalness towards those who differ from others in external circumstances."
Helen Keller with Mark Twain - Twain came to Keller’s defense, after reading in her book about a plagiarism scandal that occurred in 1892 when, at only twelve years old, she was accused of lifting her short story “The Frost King” from Margaret Canby’s “Frost Fairies.” Though a tribunal acquitted Keller of the charges, the incident still pissed off Twain. The letter is attached to the photo above
Letters between Mark Twain and Helen Keller.
Though Helen hailed from a respectable Southern family, 19th-century America was flummoxed by the prospect of teaching a deaf-blind girl to talk, read, and learn. Helen’s tutor and governess, Annie Sullivan, fought for her admission to various schools that offered special education. But the cost of educating someone like Helen was high. Clemens wrote to a rich friend on her behalf:
"It won’t do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special illness she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages…lay siege to your husband & get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William Rockefeller & the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen’s case; get them to subscribe an annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a thousand dollars- & agree to continue this for three or four years, until she has completed her college course…."
Thanks to his intervention, the support of his friend Henry Rogers and Standard Oil, Helen was able to complete her education and graduate cum laude from Harvard’s Radcliffe College. Clemens and Keller remained friends for the rest of his life. They shared an interest in radical politics and a love for life despite their different temperaments. Helen, an avowed optimist, often made fun of Clemens for his avowed pessimism, telling him she didn’t believe a word of his sardonic jokes. As for Clemens, Chambliss writes that he felt she was one of the most important historical figures of all time, “the most wondrous person of her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc.”
Keller, Sullivan, Twain, & Sullivan’s husband John Macy above at Twain’s home
We also have Twain—not playwright William Gibson—to thank for the “miracle worker” title given to Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan. As a tribute to Sullivan for her tireless work with Keller, he presented her with a postcard that read, “To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy with warm regard & with limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a ‘miracle-worker.’” In his 1903 letter to Keller, he called Sullivan “your other half… for it took the pair of you to make complete and perfect whole.”
Twain was especially impressed by Keller’s autobiography, writing to her, “I am charmed with your book—enchanted.” (See his endorsement in a 1903 advertisement, above.)
Keller & Clemens also shared a love of dogs
Helen Keller with her dog Sir Thomas.
Helen Keller seated on a window bench with an arm around her dog Sieglinde.
Helen Keller seated on a bench indoors, possibly in the photographer's studio wth a dog seated on the ground beside her.
Helen Keller seated on a slatted bench in front of a Farm House in 1935 with her dogs Dileas, on her lap, Maida beside her & Golden.
Helen Keller teaching a girl sign language.
Widely honored throughout the world and invited to the White House by every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson, Keller altered the world’s perception of the capacities of the handicapped. More than any act in her long life, her courage, intelligence, and dedication combined to make her a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.
Helen Keller - 1880-1968
Helen Keller Archive
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