Comment by SoftTalker
9 hours ago
It's a bit odd that the mint doesn't emboss the denomination in braille on each note. I'd think that there would be a way to do that and have it hold up pretty well in circulation?
9 hours ago
It's a bit odd that the mint doesn't emboss the denomination in braille on each note. I'd think that there would be a way to do that and have it hold up pretty well in circulation?
I think I've seen that blind people in the US have a little machine that they can use to add the braille themselves. Also from a quick google search there's also electronic bill readers that can be provided to blind people for free if they qualify.
In Canada the bills are embossed with braille by the mint. There may be other accommodations too, but I haven't looked it up.
> I think I've seen that blind people in the US have a little machine that they can use to add the braille themselves.
That solves half the problem, but you still don't know whether you're getting correct change.
Not braille; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45904000.
Braille does not help everyone. Most people with vision issues are not legally lind and do not know braille.
Anyone able to feel the dots could learn to distinguish bills this way without learning braille beyond that, regardless of their vision.
Anyone who didn't find the feature useful could ignore it.
In canada it's "one cluster of dots = $5, two clusters = $10, three = $20" and so on. You just feel the number of dot clusters & count, no braille involved.
It's wild to see you downvoted. Only about 10% of blind people know braille. There are many more people who have visual impairments but are not blind. Braille is not a universal solution (though I would rather have it than not have it).
Chiming in to complain that a good, working solution to a problem just doesn't happen to solve ALL PROBLEMS is just banality or perhaps pedantry. Unless it was also proposing an alternative that might do better...
Braille on money also doesn't help dyslexic quadrplegics with dysesthesia... Checkmate.
But you don't need to know braille to learn how the most common bills are marked.
Just like you don't need to know Japanese to count the exact amount of yen bills.
You need a week of low-key exposure to learn how each bill is marked.