Muggle Tech for Blind (was: Re: Wizard Challenge Game)

[bohcoo]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "(Mrs.) Lee Storm (God Is The 
Healing Force)" <n2fgc at a...> wrote:
> 
> Hope this answers some of your questions and those of anyone else 
on the list.  Please dump me a note off list if you want to take this 
further, not only Bohcoo, but anyone.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Lee :-)


Bohcoo replies:
Thank you so very kindly, Lee, for your excellent explanation of your 
computer system for the visually impaired. Wow. I am sure that there 
are a lot of folks on this list who enjoyed your post as much as I 
did. 

Since most of the following relates to Harry Potter, I decided to 
leave this post on list for the time being.

I agree with you about formulating mental pictures about all the 
characters and settings of the Potter series -- and, every book, for 
that matter. That is the joy of reading -- going to places and doing 
things in our imagination that we've never experienced before.

In the Harry Potter series, however, I never could get my mental 
pictures to quite make sense -- hence, my question to you about the 
maps and so forth in the Lexicon. I was wondering what you do when 
that happens for you.

Those maps helped me make sense of the setting in a way that I 
couldn't from just reading the text. As an example, the ground of 
Hogwarts -- I could never quite place the Quidditch field, related to 
the castle and Whomping Willow and so on.

The thing that threw me the most was the lake. We're told that 
Hogwarts sits on top of a cliff overlooking a lake that continues 
UNDER the castle a short distance to a small harbor where the first 
years disembark from their little boats. The confusion for me, in 
just that one, of many, descriptions, is how, then, in later books, 
Harry and Hermoione were able to walk all the way around the lake. 
Bridges and footpaths?

Then, there are numerous descriptions of the students leaving through 
the castle front door to walk down the "sloping" lawns to the edge of 
the lake -- which,in MY imagination would at some point involve the 
descriptive need for "Awh-h-h-h-h-h-h-k" as they fell off the face of 
the cliff before landing at lake's edge.

It wasn't until I looked at some of the maps and things on sites like 
that Lexicon that I could finally get the setting to somewhat make 
sense. So, I was wondering if you have confusions like I did -- and, 
how you resolve them.

Bohcoo
(I would love to hear how your screen reader says the Awh-h-h-h-k 
part of my post. [Big kind-but-evil-grin] Also, just as a matter of 
curiosity, what does your screen reader do when it hits a misspelled 
word?)