2015.08.23 01:00 - Accessibility

The Guardian for this meeting was Wol.

Qt Core: Hi Wol
Wol Euler: buongiorno, Qt
Qt Core: i think nature is trying to give me a message, both today and yesterday i woke up cold... maybe summer is ending ? ;-)
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: very likely. The days are already getting perceptibly shorter
Qt Core: in a months night and day will be equal lenght
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: *month
Qt Core: i sometimes find funny to realize that winter is the season where days become longer
Wol Euler: hmmmm
Wol Euler: you're right, and yes it is counterintuitive
Qt Core: i think that we often thing that autumn is only a september/october thing and not that it ends in december
Qt Core: *think

Wol Euler: interesting, I see that differently (and know that I am out of line with the rest of the world)
Wol Euler: to me winter begins around November and ends around February, the New Year is roughly the middle of it
Wol Euler: winter begins for me with coldness and ends with increasing warmth, not on a date
Qt Core: on a practical level yes, i agree
Qt Core: i may end up using the dates that state when cars have to have winter tires or "snow chains", 15 october 15 April
Wol Euler: those are more useful dates

--BELL--

Qt Core: (even if i think mid april is a little late and usually almost to warm for winter tires, at least where i live)
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: I was wondering about that during hte pause
Wol Euler: whether that was a local or a general rule
Wol Euler: it seems very late for much of Italy as I know it
Qt Core: i think the dates are region based
Qt Core: but Lombardy goes from the top of the Alps to the plains
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: to not incur in any tickets i keep at all times snow chains in my car (that i have no idea how to use) but mount winter tires in winter
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: using winter tires during actual winter is just common sense
Qt Core: up to a decade ago only winter mountain addicts knew they existed around here, five years ago they became mandatory
Qt Core: (only on main roads, you can probably go and come back from the nearest mall without them)
Wol Euler: I'm not sure whether they are legally necessary here, but if youu are in an accident in winter without them, you risk finding yourself uninsured.
Wol Euler: insurance companies creating de-facto laws without review or responsibility

Qt Core: we love laws here, we have even one that say that you get a ticket if you have winter tires on a month after they stopped to be compulsory...
Wol Euler: heheheheh
Qt Core: and that is because you are allowed (and everybody does it as it is cheaper) to mount winter tires certified for one speed class lower than the effective class of your car
Wol Euler: well that makes sense, because they don't work as well on hot pavement as summer tires
Wol Euler: oh, so it's a law to compensate for anohter bad law?
Qt Core: that would be common sense something laws often don't know
Qt Core: someone going at his/her car maximum speed in winter is asking for trouble

--BELL--

Wol Euler: yup
Qt Core: whichever tires mounts
Wol Euler: common sense is so far from law ...
Wol Euler: my favourite infuriating example is the provision of washroom facilities in public plac3es
Wol Euler: everyone who has ever been to a cinema or theatre knows that there are always lineups outside of the women
Wol Euler: women's toilets and seldom outside of the men's
Qt Core: the law state they have to be the same numbers ?
Wol Euler: this is because the law says that no man would ever pee in a toilet, so men's washrooms need toilets and urinals in full amount
Wol Euler: worse than that, Qt
Qt Core: ahh
Qt Core: wonder why there are no urinals in private homes... ;-)
Wol Euler: exactly
Wol Euler: the men who make that rule live in a house with only a toilet, which they pee in every day
Wol Euler: but they know while peeing in a toilet that men do not pee in toilets
Wol Euler: I despair.
Wol Euler: and the worst of it is that many woman architects agree with this!
Wol Euler: they refuse to put extra toilets in the women'
Wol Euler: women's washrooms because the law must be right
Wol Euler: mind you, architects are notoriously ignorant about the existing physical world
Qt Core: the law just prescribe the minimum ?
Wol Euler: in theory yes but in practice that is treated as a maximum
Qt Core: that is often the rules, laws on one end costs on the other, minimum=maximum
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: users crushed in between
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: because users are usually seen as walking wallets
Wol Euler: and a wallet has no needs except to be emptied out efficiently
Qt Core: and if the users ends uo not being the one paying but just "public" even worse for them
Wol Euler nods.

Qt Core: (on a nice side note i've found the "support" structures of expo great, even when there were more than 100,000 person around)
Wol Euler: ah good, glad that it does sometimes work out properly
Qt Core: all very accessible to wheelchairs too... even if there are a little to much steps, the one kind you stumble on
-
-BELL--

Qt Core: i like when wheelchairs paths are integrated in the architectire of a place (or even when the only path is good for both wheels and feet) sadly with the amount of old/ancient buildings in italy it is often an added, clumsy solution that make it often for a sad humiliating experience
Wol Euler: agreed
Wol Euler: it's the same in most of the world

Wol Euler: I think of Venice, for example, and the fuss about the new bridge between bus and train station
Wol Euler: there are more than 400 bridges there, one (1) of them is wheelchair-suitable
Wol Euler: what practical difference does it make if there is a second or not?
Wol Euler: especially as both of those places are joined by a Vaporetto which IS wheelchair-suitable
Qt Core: i really hate it when it happen in hospitals and such where many will have walking issues
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: I sometimes wonder what the world looked like a hundred years ago, when those places were built
Wol Euler: were there no disabled people then?
Wol Euler: or were they just permanently housebound and nobody cared?
Wol Euler: were hospitals only for people who could walk to them?
Qt Core: the second ones, especially if disabled since birth
Qt Core: people disabled by incidents were just dead at those times
Wol Euler: true, as there was no workman's compensation then
Wol Euler: if you lost your legs in a accident at work, that was just your bad luck. Boss only said "go away."
Qt Core: yes, but more probably you would not survive it, not for the leg loss but for blood loss or gangrene
Qt Core: just in the last ten/twenty years i noticed a huge increase in people in wheelchairs, most of which seemed from car incidents, i think most of them would have died not an hundred years ago but just fifty
Wol Euler nods.

--BELL--

Qt Core: and if they survived yes, they would be house.hospice bound
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: some freedom is much better than none
Wol Euler: but more is always welcome :)
Qt Core: yes
Qt Core: (thinking about someone i know, had an incident ar 3yo bound on a wheelchair since then, probably more free than me)
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: horrible to say this but the earlier it happen the easier is to rebound
Wol Euler: I'm sure that is true
Wol Euler: humans are very good at accepting what we experience :)
Wol Euler: your friend probably cannot remember walking, so has no memory of missing it
Qt Core: any other (useful) choice ?
Wol Euler: heheheh
Qt Core: we went to highschool together for a couple years... our class weas at 6th floor
Wol Euler raises an eyebrow.
Qt Core: he had to use the teacher lift as the student one was usually shut down... as the stundents on the first two floors loved to break it
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: that school was thought as a residential building, but when the arrived at the 7th floor they were stopped as they had no (or not the right ones) permits, it was taken by the state and converted to a school as one was needed
Qt Core: we love simple things around here ;-)
Wol Euler grins.

--BELL--

Qt Core: as there were two separated high school there there were students that would have to go up to 5th floor with lifts (when working) and then go down to the 4th by the external emergency stair... as it was inconceivable that students under different bureaucratic responsibilities would mingle
Wol Euler laughs.
Qt Core: there was a cabinets wall separating the two areas in 4th floor
Wol Euler: "Every bureaucracy serves itself in the end, not the people for whose benefit it was ostensibly created."
Qt Core: the only shared responsibility authority was the building manager (the guy that kept the lift shut down as "students were vandals")
Wol Euler: heh
Qt Core: luckily that building is no more a school and there is a much nicer one now very big two or three floor only and surrounded by one of the biggest park around: https://www.google.it/maps/@45.53818.../data=!3m1!1e3
Wol Euler: amazing landscaping, the forested area looks like the remnant of an aristocratic park/garden
Qt Core: not really, before the late '70 there were nothing there, i remember those trees in late '80 being 5 cm wide
Wol Euler: oh, what a surprise. I am used to thinking of large-scale gardening like that as remainders of older designs
Wol Euler: cute little airport, too :)
Qt Core: yes, many just hope it would close and be enclosed in the park (it has its use as it is the base of some ER elicopters)

--BELL--

Qt Core: (Expo is just a full screen on WSW ;-) that is why i thought i could go there by bicycle but haven't done my homework and have no endurance to go there and come back home alive
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: i better start lunch (and let windows 10 reboot for some upgrades, it is bothering me since a couple days ago)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Wol Euler: enjoy the day, Qt
Qt Core: you too, bye!