For the sake of the patients, I hope there's a better long-term service plan than Second Sight Medical Products had:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_retinal_prosthesis

The way I would solve that is by requiring that any software / documentation required for the operation, maintenance and repair of medical implants must be stored with some appropriate government body. If the company becomes unwilling or unable to service the product the information is made public.

I've seen (commercial) software put in 'Escrow' before when a client uses it; effectively a lawyer (or similar) holds onto a copy so that if the original company goes under, then the buyer can get hold of it.

There's a long, detailed article on the lives of patients after Second Sight started downsizing:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete

Came here to post this in case it hadn't been.

This case is very infamous in the disability & tech academic research community -- kind of their version of the Therac-25 in terms of ethics, damage to people, etc.

Free software is more important than ever

Accessibility of free software is more important than ever.

The freedom of users of accessibility software is more important than ever.

Blind people in my family rely on proprietary software for dealing with visual impairments. It's painful and offensive how exploitative these tools often are. The thought of installing something by a similar company into one's body is frankly dystopian.

The problem right now is that there's a financial incentive for software to remain proprietary. As a user, you get to pick between "no help" or "proprietary help".

I would gladly pay big money for proprietary tools if it means regaining some of my sight until libre options exist. Looking at the rather sorry state of accessibility on libre software, I'll be dead and buried before the first digital eyeball with free software comes out.

As is regulation of medical devices.

Free healthcare as well

As a citizen of a country with free healthcare, Sweden, I wonder how we deal with these issues. We dont exactly have a stellar record when it comes to software procurement in the health sector.

Swedish healthcare is pretty cheap, but not free.

It's typically $10-$50 per visit. Maxes out at $130 per year.

This probably weeds out a lot of frivolous visits and keeps the system healthy.

Neither do we in the UK.

The most expensive IT failure in our governments history was healthcare related.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Connecting_for_Health

The only "almost messed up" thing I could find about the service, was this:

> Second Sight merged with Nano Precision Medical in August 2023 with a commitment to provide technical support for the Argus II

Maybe you're alluding to something more than is mentioned in that article, did they not fulfill their commitment to provide the technical support in the end?

I can’t imagine going through all that, having your sight somewhat restored, and then quickly losing it because of lack of support by a private company. It reads like a sob story/sidequest from cyberpunk 2077

For some people, good news is always bad news.

Well, yes. Capitalism is why the product could even be developed in the first place, and also why it ended the way it did.

It's not the only imaginable way, but it is the society we (in the vast majority of the world) live in, and I agree it doesn't really make sense to bash something not continuing to exist unprofitably when it was developed for profit.

It's annoying when software support ends for anything, phones, Nest Protect, (any Google product!), but I think best to bear it in mind in buying anything that it's a possibility, who are you relying on for what and what's their incentive to keep going.

The problem is that companies are deliberately kneecapping their products by making cloud subscriptions mandatory and third-party repairs impossible. Refusing out-of-warranty repairs or discontinuing cloud services for obsolete products because it is no longer profitable wouldn't be such a big deal if third-party providers were able to replace OEM support.

Traditionally, if I buy a $500 dishwasher, the OEM is responsible for repairs under warranty. When the warranty lapses it'll still keep working perfectly fine, and if something breaks I can go to one of a dozen repair shops in my local area. Same if the manufacturer goes bankrupt: it'll keep working, and I can still get it repaired.

These days, if I buy a $500 tech product, it can turn into an expensive brick literally the next day, and there's nothing I could do about it. Even worse, it can happen because the OEM feels like it, not just because they went bankrupt! The fact that I own and possess the product has become completely meaningless, its fate is permanently in the hands of the manufacturer.

Somehow we've ended up with all the downsides of renting/leasing, and all the costs of purchasing. It'll only get worse unless we start punishing companies for behaving like this.

All of which should be dealt with by governments.

As an old post on usenix I liked (paraphrased) went “of course they shit on the floor, it’s a corporation, it’s what they do, the job of government is to be the rolled up newspaper applied to their nose when they do”.

That’s the fundamental problem, our governments don’t stand up to businesses enough when they should and roll over too easily when they shouldn’t.

The relationship is far too cosy at the top levels as well.

Except when these guys pays millions in marketing to make you believe you can rely on them. If at least they would just say nothing instead of propagating their distorted vision.

The mixed market economy is how most of the productive world operates, with varying degrees of mixed. Laissez-faire capitalism has led to disaster time and time again, but even the US is not that system (far from it - arguably China is closer by many metrics).

It is a reasonable argument for the regulatory state though - which is to say, delays to market from regulation could have reasonable origins - like requiring sustainment plans when you're going to do human implants which aren't removable. With the obvious counter-balance that the government and by extension the taxpayer should take on some of the risk if they truly want "rapid to market" development.

I’d agree that China is more of a laissez-faire system than the US with one proviso, the CCCP mostly stays out of it until it doesn’t and then they descend like the wrath of an angry and vengeful god.

If you avoid that you have more freedom to operate as a corporation in China than in the US, of course in the US the corporations just buy sorry lobby the politicians.

It used to be much more understated than it has been recently though, that they’ve pulled the mask off more over time suggests they think they can get away it.

Interesting times.

It’s not often that an ophthalmology study makes it into the New England journal of medicine. This is pretty neat technology, but subretinal surgery is a skill mostly forgotten by retina surgeons. It will be interesting to see who will end up offering this kind of surgery.

They didn’t really demonstrate that patients without the implant had worse vision. You could argue that with the magnifying glasses themselves that patients could improve their vision without surgery. So it will be up to a future study to determine this.

They should call it Kiroshi. ;) For real though: The cyberpunk dystopia of hackable [1] eye gear is something to think and talk about.

[1]: In both senses of the word.

Yup, I thought the same. Cyborgs!

A bit of a tengent, but... For those worrying about their eyesight when getting older... If you are into FLOSS, one last defense against your eyes failing when you get older is actually to contribute to accessibility before you (hopefully never) end up needing it.

Disclaimer: I am blind myself.

Just out of curiosity, do you have thoughts on what some of the most useful projects are to those in your position, that one could contribute to?

I’d argue that a plain-English reading is actually the other way around. A “person with a car” is a normal descriptor, a “car person” is somebody for whom cars are a major life fixture. So accordingly I feel that “blind person” makes it more… conclusive? all encompassing? than “person with blindness”.

You make a completely false equvilance.

A car person would be some kind of car person hybrid if you read it literally. Car person is acting as a short hand for "Car obsessed person." Car is a noun, blind is an adjective, etc...

In TFA it could be as simple as trying to differentiate between fully "blind" people vs people with MACD (or other severe visual impairments as indicated at the end)

i.e, people with a condition that leads to blindness, full or partial.

"blind" isn't a noun though. "a noun person" is what you mentioned, but "an adjective person" is different. A tall person isn't all about their height, they're just way above average in height. "A person with tallness" would emphasize the height aspect in a strange way.

To tag onto this, how do you feel about using "blind" in the figurative sense? Like "People born with various kinds of privilege are often blind to the ways they subtly benefit from that privilege on a daily basis"

Well, it's not always nice to realize that your condition is casually used as a negative conotation in everyday language. OTOH, there are worse things in life, so I mostly blink and move on... There are other hills to die on.

I actually thought you were just saying you were tired of reading about blind people and software made for them everywhere (perhaps as if to say there weren't actually that many blind people and you were feeling they were overrepresented). The exact wording didn't even hit me until I read the child comments to yours.

The homeless/houseless stuff usually sticks out to me, but I guess "people with blindness" didn't sound that weird. It also sounds less strict, like saying you're blind makes me think so sight at all, "legally blind" as I sometimes hear would make me think hardly any sight. Being "with blindness" to me could mean something more partial, more of a spectrum. It also sounds more like we might say someone has IBS or diabetes, not that they are those things.

Perhaps blind/deaf/dumb and the like are archaic terms because even with very primitive medical technology you could diagnose these things, so we've got much older records about them. I am not bothered by any of these terms, but I'm also not blind, nor a person with blindness, heh.

It's a remnant of the woke era, and I expect and hope it will go the way of Latinx.

The (foolish) idea was that the word "blind" has a negative charge, so if we replace it with another word the stigma will go away, and blind people can feel better.

But of course, any stigma comes from the blindness itself. Any replacement term will get the same stigma, and will then need to be replaced.

Stephen Pinker called it "The Euphemism Treadmill" in 1994, and that term has never been replaced: https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03_newyo...

> What do you think about the recent "People with blindness" obsession, as evidenced in the title?

Is there really an "obsession"? Also, while I don't deny there's some discussion here, I think you really have to squint to read the title in such a way.

In any case, I ... really don't care. As another commenter says, there are other, bigger, more important hills to die on than getting worked up about people trying to be more inclusive with their language.

Does it take anything away from me or minimize my disability when I'm referred to as a "blind person" vs a "person with blindness"? Not at all. So why does it matter?

And to be honest, I've never once met a blind person (or autistic person) who actually cares about this type of wording. I think this is one of those battles being fought by the extremes on either side, and it's frustrating and exhausting for everyone else, because it's a distraction from the real issues. And you can see this right in this comment!

> I am not blind nor deaf etc., but I am frankly fed up with it.

You're "frankly fed up" with something that barely affects you at all. Why?

> Is there really an "obsession"?

Not sure that specific phrase is an obsession, but I hear a lot of language-police-type people who try to shame others into changing some phrases like this. The one I hear most often where I live is to use "person experiencing homelessness" rather than "homeless person", the idea being to not to consider "homeless" as a part of their identity, but to acknowledge that it's a (hopefully) temporary situation they have found themselves in.

I get what people are trying to do here, but I think it's unnecessary, and just increases people's cognitive load and adds verbosity to expression. And gives disingenuous people more ammunition to derail discussions. And as you say, it seems like most of the people pushing for things like this haven't even talked to a blind/disabled/homeless person to ask what language offends them. I don't know any blind people, but the people I've talked to with various disabilities had no issues with being called "disabled".

> You're "frankly fed up" with something that barely affects you at all. Why?

Not the person you're replying to, but I assume the problem is that other people often shame or "correct" them when they use the "wrong" terminology, which is not only annoying, but can even cause real-world problems (e.g.: use the "wrong" term at work and maybe your career prospects get worse).

Since you ask... I am find as long as blind is actually used. I dont particular care about the order of words. However, what I absolutely despise and truely hate is this "visually challenged" nonesense from the leftist language police.

Isn’t “visually challenged” (or similar) a useful term for people who have visual impairments, but aren’t technically blind?

Do you have the same objection to, say, “visually impaired” if a person is trying to talk about all people with various vision problems, up to being fully blind?

If those are unacceptable, what would you use in that case?

It's an attempt to whitewash the issues, and not use words which imply real problems. I prefer visually impared, however, in the US, legally blind basically says the same thing.

My gf (blind herself) recently met a teacher on a train, who told her she is working with her class to find a new word to replace "disabled". IMO, just so that she doesn't have to deal with reality. And, mind you, no disabled person around... It is just sad what some people are doing on "behalf of us", just so they don't have to grapple with the fact that some people have a harsh life.

It is hard to explain the sadness, as I also have a language barrier, english being my second language. However, believe me, I virtually know no disabled person who likes these language games. If we are amongst each other, we all agree this patronising is sad and should stop.

> It is just sad what some people are doing on "behalf of us"

I find this very frustrating. Most of the time it seems that people who do this sort of thing haven't even talked to a disabled person and asked what language offends them or makes them feel bad.

> just so they don't have to grapple with the fact that some people have a harsh life.

The cynical part of me thinks that often it's not even this; it's just virtue signaling.

It's similar with black people. The ones I know are not fragile and enjoy frank language.

With certain white people though, you really need to watch your words.

Nah, its only perceived as a slur by language police people with little stakes in the actual game. And, the slur thing is definitely not an US only phenomenon. In the german speaking area where I dwell, the youth use "spast" as a general derogatory term for everyone they dont like or perceive as "below" them. That is definitely a slur that went rogue.

Ahh, and to the language police people who downvote my POV: You are the problem. Stop patronising us.

It shortcuts the American tendency to turn all disability-related nouns into slurs. (I found out a few weeks ago that "deaf-mute" is a slur in the States.) That's the major advantage, as far as I can tell.

Deaf-mute is not a slur in the US

Wikipedia says it is, citing the National Association of the Deaf's Community and Culture FAQ (among others). If you have sources that say otherwise, that suggests a NPOV issue with the "Deaf-mute" Wikipedia article.

Wikipedia is dead wrong. I have never, ever, even in the most obscure context, heard it used as a slur.

Neither have I – but Wikipedia also cites the OED (paywalled, so I can't confirm this). If the OED really says that deaf-mute is used as a slur, then I believe it. Again, if you have positive evidence that deaf-mute is not used as a slur, then please correct the Wikipedia article.

As a us person, I don't even know what deaf-mute means? (Is it deaf and mute? Like Helen Keller?) I've literally never heard the word used in my life.

But I'm sure basically any word has been used as an insult in some context, that doesn't mean it's useful to consider all such usage as such.

Helen Keller was deaf-blind but not mute: she gave many of the speeches she wrote, although she never got her speech as clear as she would've liked. (See e.g. https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=8ch_H8pt9M8&t=124) Despite what the National Association of the Deaf's Community and Culture FAQ claims, deaf people can learn to speak: it's just a lot harder, since they have to approach it as an applied articulatory phonetics exercise. (Helen Keller used the Tadoma method to get information that a sighted deaf person might get visually: https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=GzlriQv16gg)

If you're neither a bigot nor a member of a minority group, you're unlikely to be familiar with the slurs used against members of that group. And, of course, different cultures have different slurs. The fact we've never observed these words being used as slurs doesn't mean they aren't predominately used that way, in certain cultures.

You are just making things up and asking people to prove otherwise it seems like.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf-mute

you have

> Some consider it to be a derogatory term if used outside its historical context; the preferred term today is simply deaf.[2]

which refers to

Moore, Matthew S. & Levitan, Linda (2003). For Hearing People Only, Answers to Some of the Most Commonly Asked Questions About the Deaf Community, its Culture, and the "Deaf Reality", Rochester, New York: Deaf Life Press

and I am not reading that or considering it authoritative.

From 2nd ed OED you have,

deaf-mute, a., n. [After F. sourd-muet.] a. Deaf and dumb. b. One who is deaf and dumb.

1837 Penny Cycl. VIII. 322/2 s.v. Deaf and Dumb, In all these conditions of deafness, the person is consequently mute, or dumb. Hence the expression Deaf-Mute, as used in the continental languages, and Deaf and Dumb, as used in England and America. 1865 New Syd. Soc. Year-Bk. for 1864. 479 A deaf-mute child. 1881 H. James Portr. Lady xxv, He might as well address her in the deaf-mute's alphabet.

Hence ˈdeaf-ˈmuteness, ˈdeaf-ˈmutism, the condition of a deaf-mute.

1874 H. R. Reynolds John Bapt, ii. 109 The deaf-muteness of Zacharias. 1865 New Syd. Soc. Year-Bk. for 1864. 318 Congenital deaf-mutism. 1874 Roosa Dis. Ear 515 Deaf-muteism is caused by diseases of the middle and internal ears. 1884 A. J. Ellis in Athenæum 12 Jan. 55/2 This art [of lip-reading], the keystone of the modern bridge from deaf-mutism to deaf sociality.

which doesn’t indicate derogatory.

Plus I have never heard it used in a derogatory manner. Also from an argument or debate perspective, when stating something improbable, you should not be asking people to prove improbable things wrong and instead should be showing the proof of improbable things yourself

From that article, you also have:

> In informal American English the term dumb is sometimes used to refer to other hearing people in jest, to chide, or to invoke an image of someone who refuses to employ common sense or who is unreliable.[9] In the past deaf-mute was used to describe deaf people who used sign language, but in modern times, the term is frequently viewed today as offensive and inaccurate.[10]

I have shown all of the evidence available to me. “I am not reading that or considering it authoritative.” is not a counterargument.

> From 2nd ed OED you have,

The 2nd edition of the OED is not paywalled. (It also has several methodological issues: https://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/oed-editions/oed2/) The Wikipedia article references the paywalled online edition, which is probably the 3rd edition entry. All of this information was available to you. Please do not accuse me of "just making things up" without at least checking.

That’s cute and it may be convenient for their advocacy to assert so but nobody actually says this ever

There’s a few nut-jobs in the deaf community that cause a lot of trouble. The same people that are against “curing deafness” because to them deafness isn’t disability to be cured and any work towards that is an insult to them.

Not worth listening (ha!) to them and things like Wikipedia are just an outcome of their pressure campaigns.

This sounds like a NPOV issue. If you have any citations to support this, please edit Wikipedia.

The one thing I maybe missed, is there anything that can be done to reduce the risk of developing Age-Related Macular Degeneration?

I don't know, probably not. My dad has wet macular degeneration, and it's treated with injections into the eyeball every few months. The treatment works well, but timing the injections is tricky. Too often and the side-effects become significant. Not often enough and you can get a retinal bleed, which my dad did. Fortunately he regained most of the vision lost in the bleed, and now they've increased the frequency of the injections. He'd probably be blind by now without them. Not to mention the cataract surgery and the glaucoma...

It isn't carrots.

Wearing sunglasses apparently helps. You just need to make sure they have a proper UV rating, a lot of the cheap ones you get online don't do a good job of blocking UV.

Years ago I saw on TV a report where people bought several sunglasses sold in the street in Brazil and compared to the expensive brands and they all cut UV quite effectively.

Not that I would trust national TV test methodologies and risk my vision but it was a curious result.

Off topic but in the same vein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)

Those that fail to block uv can leave your eyes exposed to more UV than if you were not wearing any sun glasses.

My layperson understanding is this happens because the mechanism that dilates the pupil responds to visible light so glasses cause it to open wider, but if they don’t block UV then you end up with more UV exposure than if you didn’t wear anything

I find that surprising since most plastics you would make glasses from should block uv.

Most plastics are transparent to UVA, which is like 90% of UV that reaches earth's surface. They only start absorbing at higher UV frequencies. That's why sunglasses have dedicated UV ratings. You can bring your sunglasses to basically any optometrist and test how well they block UV. It takes 20 seconds and they'll probably do it for free.

That makes sense, thanks.

Glass protects from UV bellow 350nm, which leaves 350nm-400nm band open. So additional coating is required. I might be wrong but such factors as glass thickness and the radiation intensity should be also accounted for. Every physical object is mostly an empty space ...

Visual range goes to 380. I'm skeptical that light at 350 is really doing much damage to my eyes.

I believe fish oil / omega 3 helps.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11888/

Lutein may prevent or slow it. It's the best general eye supplement I've found too.

I was prescribed vit a palmitate, lutein, and DHA. The vit prescribed was a high dose, like 10k iu per day. I cut back on that dose, I'm going blind but I also need to consider my general health. I have ushers syndrome, not md, but it's a retinal disease (retinitis pigmentosa).

To be clear, this is prescribed as a "we can't do anything else for you" thing, since there is no cure for RP. This may or may not actually help.

Sorry to hear that. Given that it's genetic only something like Crispr could perhaps one day help.

Sadly I think this may be a worldwide tendency. Source: was a child in the 90s in Eastern Europe.

Eat astaxanthin, lycopene, lutein or similar yellow, orange and red pigments that plants use to protect themselves from sunlight.

Stop producing AGE's. Stop eating sugar.

Advanced glycation end-product proteins or lipids that become glycated as a result of exposure to sugars

Don't smoke.

Just like Geordi La Forge!

Star Trek TNG is here!

I am in disbelief that on such a nerd focused forum, I could only find a single comment pointing out that they are wearing what I will forever call "Geordis"

Pretty cool

And here I was happy that we had a thread free of mentioning LLM’s, until you came along

Microsoft’s Seeing AI, a decade ago. https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/seeing-ai/