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Sweet! The Supreme court is going to hear Google V. Oracle, in which Oracle is trying to claim they can copyright the Java APIs which are necessary for Android among other things to run. Hoping the nerds win this one because FFS can we have at least one thing that Oracle doesn’t ruin upon contact?

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Assistive technology testing on any site is important. I know that.

But effectively being demoted from someone who contributes content to a site to someone who simply tests the final product with assistive tech because Gutenberg required when Gutenberg is part of the project I’ve invested years in and accessibility is an afterthought for the top dog of said project is a thing I am never going to get used to.

I’ll get over this particular instance and steal myself for the next one but if I ever get the opportunity it’s no-mouse plus no-monitor plus screen reader plus Gutenberg challenge for said top dog.

For the entire next possible WordCamp US.

This is crap and while yeah we should all be professional bla bla bla this is personal and I’m not apologizing for it or even here for putting a positive spin on this.

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These days I don’t usually drink coffee past noon, but I’m going to make an exception for today because it’s cold outside.

Plus, the embargo has finally been lifted on my favorite peppermint mocha creamer and I haven’t had any of that today.

Right now I’m incredibly thankful for the radiator heat, and at the same time I think I totally get why people up here will open all the windows once it reaches 50. Compared to today, 50/55 was absolutely balmy yesterday.

We got our first flurries last Thursday and we’re supposed to get more today. That counts as the first technical snow if not the first impactful one.

And yeah, I can’t wait for the first one that sticks because there will be pictures of snowmen this year. I haven’t made a snowman since I was a kid and I’m really looking forward to it.

162 McCormick Ave, State College, PA 16801

Cloudy

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Current status: Hangry.

Really, really hangry.

We are having tacos, and they will be in my belly, but I’m thinking I might end up literally inhaling them because I am that hangry.

We started a new book, and this is book 149 of 150 in my challenge. After this one I’m not going to up the challenge any more this year so we can read slower or read less, mostly so we can read slower though.

I’ll talk more about books when I’m no longer hangry.

921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801

46 °F Clear

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I agree with a lot of the posts I’m seeing from the Unfiltered Blind Tweets twitter account.

That said, I can’t get behind a single individual claiming to represent the views of every blind person.

It’s no different than the NFB claiming to be the voice of the nations blind, or anti-NFB people claiming to represent the views of blind people in opposition to the NFB.

And you’d never see this on Jewish Twitter, for example.

Any single individual claiming to post unfiltered Jewish tweets would be ratioed with a quickness because we’re all comfortable with the fact that there are a range of opinions and views on just about every issue, and we have a serious problem when someone else, (especially someone outside the community), attempts to speak for us or divide the community into good and bad Jews based on expressed opinions or actions of particular Jews.

See, for example, the frequent “What about Israel!” replies from the left any time a high-profile Jew expresses an opinion about any political subject, or Donald Trump’s label of “very disloyal” for Jews who don’t vote for him, which happens to be most of us.

We should be careful about who we allow to represent us, and the best representative we can have is ourselves, not someone whose primary goal is to acquire clicks, whether that’s the NFB, anti-NFB, or someone who’s using their voice to talk about what may be controversial topics they view as important.

117 McCormick Ave, State College, PA 16801

32 °F Mostly Cloudy

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We had salisbury steak with noodles and green beans for dinner, and, wow.

Those were the thickest slices of salisbury steak I’ve ever eaten

It never occurred to me that someone would make it from scratch. I mean, obviously it’s possible, because you can homemake anything, but the only salisbury steak I’ve eaten before this came from a box, since I was a kid.

So yeah, I wasn’t expecting super-thick slices with homemade gravy.

And it’s not even that I don’t like salisbury steak from a box. It’s good enough over some rice or potatoes. But I’m going to have to get a recipe for that because it would be great for sandwitches with onion.

117 McCormick Ave, State College, PA 16801

36 °F Cloudy

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OK, very late MicroMonday recommendation, but my friend Monica Plumlipstick has joined Micro.blog and she likes cooking and books and all sorts of fun things so give here a followo if you like meeting new people.

She’s made all the posts I’ve been putting out on Facebook regarding Micro.blog worth it.

Welcome Monica!

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Current status: Banging on the Twentytwenty theme with all the screen readers and helping @whiskeydragon1 set up his .org account because he’s also testing. #ScreenReaderTagTeam #AllTheProps #5FTF and we haz some patches coming.

It’s very nice to have someone in real time and not remote or chat-based to bounce ideas off of.

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It’s cold up here, and the cold happened a lot earlier in the year than I’m used to, so I think it’s time to start listening to the Harry Potter film scores while I work.

I could do this in the summer but it’s just not the same.

Luckily there’s already a playlist for this, so I can just hit play and let it go.

I don’t shuffle them, I just let them play all the way through in order.

Best way to listen to film scores.

Other favorites: Star Wars, (originals, not remasters), Labyrinth, (original, not remake), Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, (all of them, in order of Hobbit movies and then Lord of the Rings movies).

I should put together a list of all the film scores I like and stick them on a page.

162 McCormick Ave, State College, PA 16801

41 °F Clear

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#WCUS I’m glad that @RianKinney asked that question regarding accessibility and other policies.

It would be so cool if we could treat #a11y as an “everything-is-awesome” moment and not as a must-do.

Problem with that approach was aptly illustrated by Gutenberg being released in an inaccessible state.

I’d like to say I’m surprised we’re apparently still doing this despite $31,000 worth of audit, but I’m not.

Yes, it would be totally awesome if we didn’t have to say “you must” with regard to accessibility, but unfortunately the makers of the web have consistently demonstrated that that is literally the only way anything gets done.

For the first few years of my career as an accessibility practitioner, I worked on a series of projects whose final reports heavily focused on only the positive, including asking testers with disabilities to talk about what they liked, even on seriously inaccessible sites.

That approach wasn’t just partially ineffective, it was one hundred percent ineffective.

Absolutely none of the sites reported on were fixed, or even improved.

Those sites are still broken.

That’s what happens when you spend your time objecting to accessibility must-dos because they’re must-dos instead of realizing that, yes Matt, there really are things that developers and designers have consistently demonstrated they will not do unless you basically force them to do those things.

All of this also goes for privacy and codes of conduct.

Why do we have to keep saying this?

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#WCUS #sOTW @photomatt didn’t mention this, but as of WordPress 5.2 the widgets screen got a metric ton of #a11y improvements, which means I get to update the WordPress with a Screen Reader widgets tutorial and you get to use the same widgets screen as everyone else, including when plugin developers explicitly disable widgeet accessibility mode.

Huge hugs and shoutout to everyone who worked on that.

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#WCUS Question: Do you find it easier to read websites/pages that are multicolumn or single-column?

It doesn’t matter to me as a screen reader user, because everything is always a single column, but I’m thinking that if a page is one column, never-ending scrolling can become an issue.

On the other hand, there could be a reason that multiple columns could also be an issue for people who use their vision to read.

Thoughts?

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Everybody’s new #WCUS selfies and headshots were making me jealous and agrevating the fomo, so I decided to bite the bullet and put some work into customerservant.com

I’m just focusing on a few simple things today because, well, I need some easy wins.

Right now it’s just a picture and some text on the website, cleaning up things that aren’t being used, and then later on after the State of the Word, some things I need to have my host handle.

I’ll do some more complicated work tomorrow during the contributor day.

But, starting is much better than planning and not doing, so I’m taking the easy wins for now.

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OK, this book and Hummus. First, if your hummus tastes like baby shit, then it’s really bad hummus. Second, if your tahini isn’t spicy, it’s not tahini. You mix the tahini with the hummus and then you dip your meat or pita bread or veggies (cucumbers or tomatoes or artichokes work best but zuccini is workable) in the mix. People who eat hummus eat meat all the time, you dip lamb in hummus if you don’t like mint jelly. This author usually does good research and it could be that this character is meant to be an ignoramus, but yeah hummus plus tahini plus meat is absolutely a thing, and you can do it with lamb or steak or chicken or goat. Trying to decide if this will effect the rating I give this book.