That Real Blind Tech Show

A podcast about the good and the bad of assistive technology for blind and low vision people. Over 200 episodes. Brian hosts it, produces it, and edits every single one.

VoiceOver, JAWS, Narrator, VoiceView, audio description, smart glasses, AI, and basically anything that talks to you. It is not NPR. It is an entertainment technology show, which means the tech gets covered properly and the conversation goes wherever it goes.

Listen on Apple Podcasts blindtechshow.com

The difference

Why this one and not the others

Partly the humor. Partly Brian’s elephant brain for any movie quote from before 2009. Many a person has challenged him to an eighties movie quote-off, and like a gunslinger from the Old West he has walked away from every one of them, leaving the losers dead in the street. Had this been the 1800s we are fairly sure Brian would have been a blind cowboy, and on a steel horse he would ride.

Then there is the pop culture, the euphemisms, the AI, and Brian’s beloved and reviled off-key singing. He is such a bad singer that his shower took out a restraining order against him, leaving the podcast as his only remaining venue.

He is also credited with writing and performing the greatest and worst rap song ever to appear on a blind tech show, The Real Mr. F. The recording appears to be lost. The reputation survives.

Latest

Recent episodes

Every episode

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Wherever you listen

Episodes can also be downloaded directly from blindtechshow.com for a Victor Reader Stream or a Trak.

For newcomers

Running gags, explained

First, a point of law. If you are blind, you are federally required to have a podcast. Look it up.

Fahrvergnugen

How does a blind tech show know it has arrived? When it needs an edit to avoid an adult rating so the kids can listen in. It is in the name — That Real Blind Tech Show, what you hear is what you get — except when somebody drops an F bomb. Rather than bleep it, Brian started editing in the greatest word in the English language: Fahrvergnugen. For anyone under forty, it comes from a cheesy 1980s Volkswagen commercial. We were never sure whether it was a car or a state of mind.

You know you have arrived when someone recognizes you at a blind tech conference and opens with “how the Fahrvergnugen are you?” When you are part of the vernacular, people are listening.

The interns

Brian fires all the interns every Christmas. Full disclosure: the interns exist only in Brian’s mind, along with a good deal else, including all the voices in there.

A standing disclaimer

Just because you heard it on That Real Blind Tech Show does not make it true. We cannot be held responsible for getting every detail right. They do not pay us enough.

Original music

The theme and the jingles

Brian wrote the show’s theme and the jingles for its segments. Lyrics by Brian, built with AI, assembled and mixed by hand.

The theme song

Critics say it is the greatest rock song released in the past twenty years. The critics in question are the interns, who no longer work here.

Lyrics — the theme song

Welcome in, turn it loud, yeah you know the deal — That Real Blind Tech Show
The chaos is real, no fake hype, no filters, no corporate glow
What you hear is what you get on this Fahrvergnugen show

Brian in Queens going zero to nuclear
Ed’s on Long Island asleep mid-segment with the mic still live and clear
Jeanine in Columbus spewing out an “Ew!”
David up in Philly got his Muppet hands dropping every device
Allison out on Old Farm Road sending back gadgets overnight

Two hundred episodes down, what could go wrong
Other podcasts thinking we’ve been nuts all along
We’re the best blind tech podcast, everybody knows
Crushing all the copycats, that’s just how it goes

Real talk, real laughs, real tech
No fluff — other podcasts play polite, we’re dangerously rough
Strong outline on paper till the whole thing explodes

It’s Allison and David, Jeanine, Brian and Ed
In That Real Blind Tech Show mode
Fahrvergnugen forever, still the realest show in blind tech

Blind Feud

A newer segment. Brian leaves certain topics off the outline circulated before recording, so he can put Ed, Allison, Jeanine and David on the spot. He asks a question with only one or two correct answers. Nobody has yet found the number one answer on the board, though a co-host once landed the number two answer — at a point when there was only one answer on the board to begin with. Losers must kiss Richard Dawson on the lips.

Lyrics — Blind Feud

Blind Feud, Blind Feud
Let’s see what you say
You’re never ever getting this right anyway

Blind Feud tonight
Now give it your best
Wrong answers only, just like all the rest

You think you know it, confidence so bright
Then somehow get every answer wrong tonight

Survey says — ah, absolutely not
How’d you miss a question that easy on the spot

What’s Pissing Off Brian Now

Introduced early on. As a blind guy there is a great deal that annoys Brian, and rather than rant at his family about it he started a podcast where he could complain about the good and the bad of accessibility and assistive technology instead. It has since expanded to cover everything in life that has annoyed him between episodes. His co-hosts are welcome to contribute, though in Brian’s view they do not take nearly enough advantage of it.

Transcript — What’s Pissing Off Brian Now

[Loud scream]

“Tension breaker — had to be done.” Sampled from Summer School, 1987

“That makes me mad.” Droopy

Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading

The closer, and around almost since the beginning. With Brian’s love of movies, and audio description now available on very nearly everything, the gang finish each episode on what they have been watching and reading. In six years of the show Brian has completed two books. The over/under on books read by Brian is therefore set at one per year, and he has hit the under more than once.

Transcript — Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading

“Watcha watching, watcha reading, watcha streaming”

“It’s called a vocabulary. Do you read much?”

“My subscription to Jugs Magazine just ran out.” Last two lines sampled from The Last Boy Scout, 1991

Clauding

The newest segment, born out of hearing about other blind technologists building their own apps and products with AI. Billion dollar corporations in 2026 still find ways to overlook accessible design, and the excuses are genuinely baffling. So Allison, Jeanine and eventually Brian went down the rabbit hole to see what they could build themselves.

Being That Real Blind Tech Show, calling it “working with Claude” was never going to survive. VibeCoding is a misleading name, since you are not coding at all — you are building through natural language. If you can follow step-by-step directions, have some patience and some imagination, and are sick of waiting for companies to fix their broken products, you can build it yourself.

Brian has fallen so hard for Claude that he decided it needed a surname. Say hello to his new best friend: Claude Van Damme.

What Brian is currently building.

Lyrics — Clauding

Twenty years of unlabeled buttons
Designers ship me a whole lot of nothing
Every app, every site, every “coming soon”
Screw it boys, I’ll build my own room

No more waiting on a fix that never came
No more begging you to label the same dang frame

I’m Clauding, Clauding
Coding what you couldn’t code for me
I’m Clauding
Accessible from A to Z
Blind guy, big plans, one command
Say hello to my new best friend — Claude Van Damme!

The craft

The editing

Every episode is edited by Brian, and that is not a formality.

A show that sounds like five people in a room talking in real time is usually nothing of the sort. That Real Blind Tech Show is recorded multitrack, and what you hear has been assembled — clips, drop-ins, sound effects, timing tightened — so cleanly that nobody hears the joins. Every burp, cough, snort, sneeze, fart and vomit that is not funny comes out. Deep breaths do not make the show. Leave those for the bedroom.

An hour-long episode takes two to three hours to edit, depending on how rough the source audio is and how much repair it needs. He works in Reaper on the Mac with OSARA and SWS, the extensions that make a professional editing suite genuinely usable by a blind engineer.

Blind listeners are sound quality snobs, Brian very much included. Garbage in, garbage out — or as he puts it, if it sounds like shit we ain’t going to give it a listen. So it doesn’t.

Where it came from

He learned during the pandemic. New York City was locked down tighter than Alcatraz, so Brian spent it eating industrial quantities of Doritos and hiring a teacher to show him how to edit. Time well spent.

Available

Editing for hire

Brian takes on outside editing work. This is not a bargain service and it is not aimed at first-time podcasters finding their feet.

What you are paying for is fast turnaround, multitrack repair, and an ear that has spent more than two hundred episodes deciding what stays and what goes. What you pay is what you get.

To inquire about rates, email Brian with the type of project, the hours you expect, and any other relevant details.

Brian@LaughForSight.com

Out now

The app

The That Real Blind Tech Show iOS app is out, free on the App Store. Every episode, a player built VoiceOver-first, offline downloads, and articles from the hosts.

Download on the App Store What is in the app

The gang

Who you’ll hear

  • Brian Fischler — host, producer, editor
  • Ed Plumacher
  • Allison Meloy
  • Jeanine Stanley
  • David Goldstein

Critical acclaim

What the listeners are saying

  • I find listening to That Real Blind Tech Show between learning how to pronounce words like water can be quite relaxing!

    — Helen Keller

  • I used to juggle grenades for entertainment. Thank goodness I discovered That Real Blind Tech Show, as listening to it provides me a much safer hobby between dancing the tango, driving Ferraris, and stocking my bar with plenty of John Daniels. Whooah!

    — Lt. Colonel Frank Slade

  • I demanded to be buried with an iPhone, hardwired to the internet, so I never ever miss a new episode of That Real Blind Tech Show.

    — Ray Charles

  • Even though I was only briefly blind from hibernation sickness, it was That Real Blind Tech Show that got me through the tough times before I could get back to battling the Empire!

    — Han Solo

  • When I was Blinded by the Light, I was able to make it through the night by listening to That Real Blind Tech Show!

    — Bruce Springsteen

  • In space, on those long flights between galaxies, there is nothing better than kicking back with a six pack and listening to That Real Blind Tech Show. You would be amazed how many species actually subscribe.

    — Geordi La Forge

Full disclosure: none of these people said any of this. Some of them are not people. All of them were written by Brian.

How it started

Three shows deep

Brian’s first podcast was iAccessVO, about iOS accessibility, with guests from around the world who worked in assistive technology.

He then partnered with Blind Abilities to launch That Blind Tech Show, covering the successes and the frustrations of assistive technology for blind users.

Both are now finished. That Real Blind Tech Show came next, and this one Brian owns outright — hosting, producing and editing every episode. Over two hundred of them so far, and it has become one of the more trusted voices in the assistive technology community, in between the nonsense.

Get in touch

Guests, feedback, sponsorship

For the show: thatrealblindtechshow@gmail.com. For everything else: Brian@LaughForSight.com.