{"id":635,"date":"2018-03-04T13:09:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T13:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/?p=635"},"modified":"2020-03-20T12:32:53","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T12:32:53","slug":"reaching-for-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/2018\/03\/04\/reaching-for-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching for the Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nMy friend Ginny was invited to a think-tank on how to popularize multi-wave astronomy<\/a> (no \u2013 don\u2019t run away, this blog is not about that – although it is really interesting stuff<\/em>) a few days ago, and had lunch with one of the other participants who happened to have a disability.<\/p>\n

Not wanting to offend the lady in the slightest she asked a bit hesitantly\u2026 \u2018Um, what is the politically correct way to describe somebody who cannot see?\u201d<\/p>\n

The lady promptly responded \u201cBlind!\u201d<\/p>\n

Thereafter a lovely conversation followed, with the lady, Wanda, giving some insights (excuse the pun<\/em>) into one of the challenges of being blind.
\nBut let\u2019s clarify something first. The lady is Dr Wanda<\/a>, and she\u2019s an astrophysicist, who, amongst other things, really enjoys developing interesting lesson plans to teach kids about astrophysics. She has not allowed being blind to restrict her in the slightest and continues to reach for the stars \u2013 literally. Except Wanda listens to them instead of looking at them!<\/p>\n

She reckons the most irritating thing is when somebody sends her a .pdf file to read. PDF stands for \u201cportable document format\u201d and it\u2019s a way of saving a document from any application into a format that most systems can read \u2013 unless you are blind.<\/p>\n

Wanda explained that her special software that \u201creads\u201d the document cannot comprehend a .pdf file. It just picks up random words and strings them together. Obviously this could lead to major confusion. She gave us a hysterical example that went something like the \u201cThe moon was in the bathroom exploding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The numbers at the table swelled with Alfred from Sci-Bono Discovery Centre<\/a> in Newtown (Jozi) joining the ranks. Wanda asked Alfred what his favourite exhibit was. His answer was the one that explained sound waves. Of course she did not leave it there \u2013 she had him explain to her just how he got the concept across to the people visiting Sci-Bono.<\/p>\n

Initially Alfred waved his hands around a lot, which Wanda could not see, but he quickly got the hang of it and used his words – very simply and effectively to explain how sound waves work.<\/p>\n

We all take many things for granted and our sight is one of them.<\/p>\n

By the way – how often do people check the toys that their young children play with for sharp bits they could potentially stick into their eye (or somebody else\u2019s) by mistake? Double check that toy box please, just to make sure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reach for the stars people – don\u2019t let anything hold you back.<\/p>\n

Sibo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Ginny was invited to a think-tank on how to popularize multi-wave astronomy (no \u2013 don\u2019t run away, this blog is not about that – although it is really interesting stuff) a few days ago, and had lunch with one of the other participants who happened to have a disability. Not wanting to offend … Continue reading “Reaching for the Stars”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69,31,80,33],"tags":[148,149,144,150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1017,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/1017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}