Sorry to prolong this thread, but I had comments I tried to send which were bounced because apparently the listserve
forgot the e-mail address I've been using for several years now...  The owner kindly attended to the problem
immediately--which I deeply appreciate.  So here's my contribution to the tempest in a teapot...  (grin)
Nick
And if frogs had wings they wouldn't have to bump their little butts against the ground.  As individuals and as a
community, we've got to grow up and accept evolving reality just as does everybody else in society.  I remember not too
many years ago when Laser printers were only printing 600DPI.  Many of we early adopters were thrilled, knowing our
documents would look more professional than those generated on daisy-wheel or Dot-Matrix printers.  Yet, there were
those who complained bitterly that "real" typeset materials had a dot density of 2400 or 3600DPI.  Don't remember
exactly which, but they contended that was very important for photos Etc...  So, they kept using printing shops if that
was what they could afford, and the rest of us got along quite nicely--thank you with the technology that was available
and were glad of the improvements...

My point is, there's never anything as perfect as an aestheete might want.  I liked working in the analog audio world, but
I have much more processing power, as I learn to use the available digital tools.  It is a completely different way of
dealing with audio, and some things are gained, and perhaps to my "golden ears" something in some fine nuance is lost,
but I'm doing projects I could never have tried.

Similarly, the tendency for human readers to cop out, and the balancing of relationship management versus getting the
job accomplished no matter what the time envolved makes me extremely glad for the availability of synthesized speech,
and scanning technologies.  One thing to be said to those who cavil about the efficacy of the recognition
available--you're living in a world where having that technology let's you take a look at the spelling of individual words,
and notice errors.  If your human reader makes a pronunciation error, you just write it off--I don't know many people who
can, for the sake of daily work or education grunt reading, take the time effort and expense necessary to do punch-in
recordings to make the material perfect.  Whereas, with the computer-based technology, perfection can be attained if
one is willing to surrender the time and effort necessary to make it so.  I've seen character recognition improved markedly
from 1985 when I started.

What I think is lacking here is a sense of perspective.  Really, I think that some people need/want the social contact
available through the use of human readers, and justify it on aesthetic grounds, versus looking at the volume of material
that has to be read to maintain parity and/or competitively  excede in any field of endeavor requiring reading.  Certainly,
I've gone from a feeling of despair at the lack of diversity of materials available to me to a sense of happiness at the fact
that I scan, and have available through electronic texts, far more materials than I could ever have time to peruse.

The reality is, are there the tools that will enable us to be competitive academically and professionally, and the answer
must be a qualified, "yes".  Can they be made better--most assuredly.  After all, haven't we all heard of proofreading
errors in materials prepared by sighted individuals which have gone out for publication and been released?  Of course.
Humans are better editors than creators, one of my programmer friends one opined, and I think he's correct.

So rather than mourn for what isn't, why not get down and use what is to accomplish personal and professional goals
which magnify one's capabilities as an individual rather than get hung up on the defficiencies  of blindness prosthetics?

The Optacon let us directly access printed and other visual materials directly--allbeit in a somewhat "binary"
"monochrome" manner--the dot making up the image was there or not--as in the model of braille.  Problem was, it took
time to garner expertice and speed, the human part of the interface physically limited the speed of information access
tactually, and, some whined about the noise and feeling of the tactual array.  Frankly, a good reader varied the intensity
of the array to avoid or moderate tactual fatigue, and sometimes took breaks.  So do sighted people using a visual
display.  And, so do those of us using speech efficiently, fiddle speed or pitch, know enough to keep base pitch low to
reduce auditory fatigue, know enough to keep rates fast to gloss over pronunciation errors and enable text to come into
our ears and brains by phrases rather than by discreete words.

Before condeming technologies available, perhaps some would be best advised to rethink their priorities, or learn to use
what they have efficiently and not blame the technology as an excuse for not buckling down and being productive.