Switching playlists and quitting early. This has been yet another long week, and I need to disconnect from everything for probably a couple of days. I will spend some time over Facetime with two of the best people in the world, Wil and Denise, and other than that I think I’m going to stay offline as much as possible. Browser’s closed after this, email client’s closed, phone is on “Do Not Disturb”, and Twitter client on the desktop is closed. There’s a Valentine’s Day party over at the other building later today and I think I’m going to skip it because I think if I have to endure commercialized love I’ll need someone to hold my hair back while I puke. I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day anyway and if I really want to eat candy I can get it on sale afterwords.

First, I do not feel any empathy at all for Jeff Bezos, and my eyes are stuck in the rolled position at his sudden treatment as a hero and martyr. The man cheated on his wife, and, now that he has an opportunity to do so, is more than willing to play the victim. The only reason he now cares about anyone being blackmailed is because it’s happening to him. Otherwise, he couldn’t, and hasn’t, cared less. The National enquirer is hosted by Amazon and their money was just as green as anyone else’s, so he can stab himself in the heart with a spoon for all I care. Second, I am also not going to feel any empathy for the National Enquirer when Jeff Bezos gets done fucking them up the ass and then publicly humiliating them. Fucking with the owner of the company which hosts your web properties is a monumentally stupid decision and I am perfectly OK with NE reaping what they’ve sown. I’m just going to make sure I have plenty of popcorn ready and watch the whole thing play out.

Today’s work playlist is: “Tired of Stupid”. Overwhelmingly metal, plus some alternative and hard rock from the 80’s, and some other stuff to leaven it. I didn’t attend last night’s virtual Homebrew Website Club because I was tired after work and was in bed by 8 or so. I am going to try to attend Indiewebcamp Online though if there’s nothing between now and then that’s virtual. I still have to look up the dates though. I am still wrestling with emotions I would rather not wrestle with, but as days pass and I reassemble the pieces with more than just figurative duct tape, this will become easier to deal with.

Duplicating this as a separate note since I forgot that Twitter doesn’t accept RSVP posts. There’s a virtual Homebrew Website Club tonight, and I think I’m going to attend. There’s stuff that’s been on the back burner for my websites, (finishing the import of my Facebook archive, for example), and I need to occupy my free time with something. #indieweb

Spotify is apparently gobbling up podcast platforms, and Anchor is among them. Not that Anchor was particularly open before, but it definitely won’t be open now. given the way Spotify already handles podcasts, this will likely be yet another example of a site death. So, one more time for the folks in the back: Own your content! No, seriously, own your content. It’s one thing to syndicate to Spotify from your own site, because you still have control of the files. Using it as your primary platform, however, (as you will be if you primarily upload to Anchor), is still not a good idea if you care about your content being yours, available for as long as you decide, all of that. Plus there’s a really nasty long-standing bug with Spotify which keeps your feed from being updated if you have to update your original feed for any reason, like you accidentally uploaded the wrong version of a file. So yeah, own your content, because that one’s been around for two years at least and there’s no sign of them fixing it.

Well WordPress, it seems as though you and I have outlasted a second romantic relationship. I suppose I should be grateful that this one was just under a year while the other was twelve years, but right now it hurts to think and I’m not in the headspace to considere things like that right now. I will get there eventually, but it won’t be today. The unreturned calls and emails and texts after a year of talking nearly every day is just too much. It’s not that I’m angry. It’s worse than that. I wish I could just be angry because that would be a lot easier to take. Right now I’m just crushed.

Underlines Are Beautiful by Adrian Roselli (Adrian Roselli)
Underlines, the standard, built-in signifier of hyperlinks, the core feature of the web, are beautiful. This is objectively true. They are aesthetically one of the most delightful visual design elements ever created. They represent the ideal of a democratized information system. They are a frail monument to the worldwide reach…

This is probably the most poetic take on link underlines I’ve ever read.

Dear M-Enabling Summit: seriously, why do accessibility pros have to keep passive-aggressively adding alt text to your images for you? It’s not like this is new or anything. This is, after all, 2019 and not 1995. It’s not even new by Twitter standards, and there are a metric ton of guides out there, some of them even written by accessibility pros, to show you how to use the feature. How is this not in the instructions you provide to your social media manager, assuming you have one? If you don’t, not adding it is even worse. If you can’t manage to do something as simple as adding alt text to your images, why on earth should anyone trust you to create a conference that provides valuable, accurate accessibility information?