I am not sure about brain wave measures, but I do recall seeing places
for some of the other sensors. Maybe if you go to verniers website
and look. I think they have a whole sight with hardware sensors on
sale, and I would imagine that the ones that can be interfaced with
the mac should read ok.
but don't quote me on that.
Regards
Justin Harford
Into this wild abyss, the weary fiend stood on the brink of hell and
looked awhile, pondering his voyage
John Milton
Paradise Lost
On Mar 16, 2008, at 12:07 PM, Bejarano, Rafael P. wrote:
Very interesting. Do you know if the software can be used to take
physiological measurements, such as temperature, brain-wave
measures, or heart rate?
Rafael Bejarano
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Justin Harford
Sent: Sat 3/15/2008 11:15 PM
To: General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by theblind
Subject: experiences in the lab and the mac
Hello
There is a bunch of stuff in this email that I am not sure everyone
will understand off hand, but there were people talking about stuff
they do with their macs and I just felt like writing about something
people don't talk about much on the list with the purpose of drawing
peoples attention to a software medium that is not as widely known.
So this email is just a rant on how I do science with my mac. For
those of you who have followed the business with logger 3 under
windows, they don't have the monopoly on science access anymore.
A while back I posted to the list asking about the accessibility of a
program called logger pro 3, software used to interface lab pro
sensors with a computer to allow the person to take measurements in
the lab such as mass, temperature, PH etc. This program has other
capabilities too such as automatic collection of data and various
other functions that I have not used yet.
The company that makes the software, Vernier, has begun making logger
3 accessible. under OS X. They started with version 3.6 released
earlier this year and supposedly they tell me that for their next big
release they are testing it more for accessibility with voiceover.
At present I have successfully made it do measurements of temp and
mass. Earlier this week I did a lab on my own, measuring the heat
released in a reaction with magnesium and magnesium oxide metals using
a standard calorimeter, logger 3 temperature and mass sensors,
standard beakers, and a touch pipetter.
I am still unable to take a regression of several data points which I
had to do for a lab where we found the extinction coefficient $
\varepsilon$ (for the latex lovers of the list). That is at the
moment the thing that I have missed having in the software.
There are other sscientific applications that I have made use of for
my science and math classes at Berkeley. I use the LaTeX typesetting
language to write out all my lab reports. I have a homework package
that formats all my assignments with my name, the graders name, and
the assignment and the date in the headers of the page, and the work
itself in multicolumn text. I have recently been working also a lot
with a package for LaTeX called pstricks, which I suspect could be a
good way for blind folks to draw, basically saying this from the fact
that I have found different rules to remember when drawing pictures.
Thus far I have graphed exponential functions, as well as doing
reflections across the x and y axes, and translations. I have not yet
managed to find how to reflect across the line $y = x$ for inverse
functions. I have also managed to come up with a way for drawing
lewis dot structures for my chem class, illustrating double bonds, and
up to 4 bonding systems. I am sorry to say that I have not yet
figured out how to show more than 4 bonds to a center atom without it
looking goddy. Of corse LaTeX is great for all my math assignemnts.
My GSI can write up quizes for me in LaTeX which he emails and I do on
my mac.
I used to use the apple calculator but I have recently discovered a
scientific calculator that runs from the terminal called maxima.
Those of you with macports can acquire it by typing
port install maxima
In the terminal and waiting a number of hours. It provides a nice
easy way to do calculations, sort of like how you would do in the
braille note calculator, except much better. It is faster than apple
calc because there is no need to go searching for buttons.
I also use tables for finding outputs for functions. I also have a
spread sheet with element properties on it, in multiple sheets. One
sheet has the periodic table of elements in a spacial form showing the
element symbol and the number in a layout that a sighted person would
use. This is important in chemistry to know the locations of elements
to each other as there are periodic properties demonstrated as you
progress in different directions on the table. I also have a sheet
which has a bunch of other information on the elements like molar mass
(which I use alot), boiling and melting points, ionization energies
etc. I added a sheet that shows electronic and molecular geometries
of different bond systems. I have dictionary entries for each of the
element symbols so that VO will read the names when I am reading the
periodic table sheet. I have - following the symbols on the periodic
table and the entries include these - so that they are not reading as
element names everywhere else. For example,
- I
Will read as iodine. But I by itself will just read as I. That's
just something I set up on my computer.
I suppose I should note that I installed a windows virtual machine
thinking I was going to need to use the logger 3 software with the
jaws scripts, but I have not come around to actually using the virtual
machine for anything.
Regards
Justin Harford
Into this wild abyss, the weary fiend stood on the brink of hell and
looked awhile, pondering his voyage
John Milton
Paradise Lost
