Blind vs. Deaf, or Technolo-Gee Whiz

Question: would you rather be deaf or blind, if you had to choose one or the other? J and I have been having this conversation for the past few weeks, she preferring to see, and I preferring to hear. We go back and forth, naming the pro's and con's of each, but eventually our discussion degrades, Godwin-like, into an contest of who can name more famous blind or deaf people, and whether "Ray Charles + Stevie Wonder + Andrea Botticelli > Beethoven". (Helen Keller tends to cancel herself out.) So far, everyone we've brought this discussion to has sided with J. They are all wrong.

I should add a disclaimer at this point, stating that I mean no offense to anyone who suffers from either of these disabilities, and that I highly respect anyone who has to overcome such obstacles in life. I just happen to think that for a deaf person, there are more obstacles.

Anyways, this brings me to the second point of this post: over the weekend I came across two new technologies that give sight and sound to your computer.

sight
Behold! Delicious Library!
This is a Mac-only program that uses your computer webcam as a barcode reader to scan, organize, and index your books, music, dvds, and video games. The software costs $40, but there's a free version that we've been playing with. Very addicting. The free version has a limit of 25 items, but J doesn't read and I don't listen to music, watch movies, or play video games, so we're good for now. One of the more interesting features of the software is that it has a nice library-like checkout system. That way you can tell who still has your copy of, say, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! (sorry Cheryl).

sound
Hark! Midomi!
This nice piece of online software has you sing or hum part of a song into your computer's mic, and performs a search to find that song. Finally, a way to get that annoying song that you can't find the name of and then when you try to sing it to other people your singing sucks and they have no idea what you're talking about cause you're off-key and even if you were on-key the part of the song that you actually know could be any song ever. Try it out. Example, my boss at work decided to sing "Like a Virgin" into my coworkers laptop, and seconds later "Like a Surgeon" (Weird Al) showed up as the top hit. Pretty good!