MostlyBlindGamer

I switched to macOS pretty for all my day-to-day, development and work uses, but still have a Ryzem+RTX (I do use Ray tracing features) desktop that I only ever use for gaming anymore.

I play games from Steam, GoG, Epic, and occasionally Xbox Game Pass.

The big problem here is I’m visually impaired and need a desktop environment that will let me consistently use a lime green mouse cursor and zoom in full screen via keyboard and scroll shortcuts.

At the risk of 1) nobody having actual experience and 2) the current Linux distro/DE ecosystem being hopelessly broken, what should I try?

I also only have some 2 hours a week for videogames. I can’t afford the time to tinker, after the transition and setup period.

I’m perfectly happy with “you’re outta luck, buddy, just suffer through Windows,” but I figure it can’t hurt to ask…

Life is hard - for everybody, but in many ways more so for blind and visually impaired folks. It’s also awesome though, so let’s talk about that.

What did you recently succeed in and want to talk about? Work, relationships, travel… something else?

Blind On The Move was incredibly useful to me, when I couldn’t get O&M training during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Besides that convenience, video resources like this are also very interesting for family and friends, and for dipping your toe into rehab, when you’re still coming to grips with blindness or low vision.

I’m excited for this series!

I use full screen zoom/magnification on all my computers. That works fine on laptop displays or on a single desktop monitor, but if you use more than one monitor, the computer zooms in both as if they were a single display and it all becomes a huge mess.

I know ZoomText supports zooming in on a single monitor and I know ZoomIt can be coaxed into working the same way on Windows, but, until a little while ago, there were no acceptable options on macOS.

So what changed?

Well, the other day I left my work laptop open at the office after plugging it in to the dock and accidentally zoomed in on the internal display and… it zoomed in on that alone. Nothing funky happened with the other display.

I’ve tested this at home with my own MacBook Pro and it worked the same. I guess it was a macOS update? There was no mention of any of this on any release notes I read.

There you go: rational multi-monitor zoom on macOS. Enjoy!

Have you noticed this at all? Who else had my use case? I really like using macOS with magnification, compared to Windows, so I image a few other people will get good use out of this feature.

I have a huge backlog of free giveaway games, because I have less time for playing than I think I do and because I never know if I'll be able to play a game or if it'll be too visually challenging - my username is both literal and relevant.

I finally got around to trying Prey (2017) and, so far, I'm really enjoying it. The visual style is manageable, text is usually large and clear enough, and the "Story" difficulty setting means I can enjoy the game in a way that's balanced between relaxed and challenging. I'm still always on edge, but I'm not as pushed for my poor aim and lack of situational awareness.

Accessibility aside, I love the BioShock (I'd say System Shock, but I wasn't playing video games then) vibes. The gameplay, the concept and setting, the aesthetics... it's all there and I'm here for it. I for one am excited to poke myself with dystopian technology McMuffins in a city consumed by its own hubris.

How are folks here liking the game? Am I late to this particular party? Do any Something Shock players have an opinion to share?

As the holidays are warming up, let's share our suggestions and idea requests for gifts for our blind and VI family and friends.

When requesting or offering suggestions, please include:

• Budget (free, just about free, rough Dollar, Pound or Euro range)

• Relevant recipient characteristics (level of vision, age, interests, devices owned, etc.)

• Time constraints, if any (something that goes on sale for a short period of time or your favorite event that only takes place for a few months every 17 years)

Let's use this thread to avoid clutter, to make searching easier and to have a nice reference to build upon, for the future.--

I've been having issues getting decent photos of sea life at aquariums. I went to two different ones recently. I used a Canon R10 at both: for the first I took a 24 f/2.8 pancake lens and felt like the maximum aperture wasn't providing enough light to autofocus fast enough. For the second trip, I used a 50 f/1.8 and that did address that problem, but I'm still left with blurry photos and massive blue-yellow chromatic aberration.

It's a challenging environment to begin with with how dark it is and how fast and unpredictability some fish and other animals move. The best - still pretty bad - results I got were at f/4, 1/300 or faster and moderate ISO speeds.

Part of the issue is that, with my username being very literal, I can't really adjust my settings in response to image quality, on the spot. Reviewing images in the EVF with magnification is awesome and helpful, but I still end up getting disappointed when I open the photos up on my 32 inch monitor...

So... any tips? Is there a secret for this, something like a Watery 16 rule I don't know about?

For what it's worth, one of these places is pretty close by. I could get an annual pass and head there every weekend and try something new. I don't want to, but I could. Hehe.

I usually make doubles, but often split them to make a milk drink for my partner and have a single for myself. For some reason, those split singles tend to taste better. Same weight in, same time, same yield, just half the coffee.

Do I just like less coffee? Is it a temperature thing? Am I missing something here? Does anybody have a similar experience?

This is actually surprisingly good. The ophthalmologist goes into some very common and relevant topics, like the difference between an ophthalmologist, optometrist and optician, what “legally blind” means, different causes of blindness…

I can see myself recommending this video for a lot of general questions.

I figured I should share some of my thoughts on this. Think what you will about my perspective or decisions and formulate your own - we should all get to act on our values.

Pro tip: set your home instance, so links open there directly and you can subscribe from the sidebar. It’s possible to run into errors if the server doesn’t know the other one, but those should be resolved by refreshing.