What is Sightling?
1.
A somewhat derogatory name for someone who can see well, used by blind people. This term implies that the person so named takes his vision, and the activities that it enables him to do, for granted.
A sightling thinks nothing of hopping in his car on a Saturday morning and taking a quick trip to the grocery store to buy some milk. The same task, for a blind person, takes at least a day of advanced planning, and possibly involves a long bus ride, hours of waiting, or a large cab fair.
A sightling thinks nothing of jogging across the middle of a street during a lull in traffic to get to the Wallgreens on the other side. A blind person must wait at the intersection, listening for a favorable traffic flow pattern for him to cross. This waiting and listening may take as long as an hour at a single corner, and may involve several light cycles before paralell traffic is heavy enough to ensure the person safe passage.
A sightling can drive less than two minutes to a salon or barber shop for a haircut. A blind person, assuming they know the location of a salon or barber shop, must hike the three miles to get their.
A sightling can drive his car to pick up a bag of dog food for his lazy, overfed, understimulated dog. A blind person must walk a mile to the pet store, and pick up a 10 kg bag of dog food, and carry it back to his house for his hard working dog guide, which he couldn't take along to the pet store because he couldn't carry the food in one hand and handle the dog in the other.
The sightlings at Apple won't spend an hour programming a simple screen reader for the iPod.
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