Kind: Reposts

This may be nothing (other than a clear need for ethics reform for SCotUS and a sign of how little we trust Thomas), but it certainly *feels* like there is a problem.

“Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/12/clarence-thomas-aide-venmo-payments-lawyers-supreme-court

—@aardrian

Apparently the Orcas are recruiting allies.
#orcas #seaotters #nature

Authorities issue warning after aggressive sea otter seen going after surfers in Santa Cruz https://abc7news.com/sea-otter-steals-surfboard-santa-cruz-west-cliff-drive-paddleboard/13490929/

—@WarnerCrocker

I have four invites to make your own web site, if anyone wants one.

—@zachleat

‘Hooray, the planet’s overheated so now you can sleep outside in the northern regions! While enjoying Instagrammabley pretty orange skies! Walk this way! Let us book your fossil fuel flights for you!”

It’s a meme come true. It’s this @jonesycartoons cartoon come true.

#ClimateDiary

—@CiaraNi

I wish we could make it mandatory that web developers use their very obtuse web design choices instead of using whatever tool works for them. I just, I just don’t know how web developers make some silly choices they make without using their own creation? Like, if you’re a #WebDev does it annoy you that you can’t copy and paste from your own website, for example? If it annoys you, why do it? I really wanna know. How do you deal with your own creation? Doesn’t it frustrate you when you can’t just copy and paste a password into your own password field you created? I genuinely wanna know!

—@weirdwriter

One day I would like to understand what kind of technical debt makes it necessary for Windows to restart three times during an update.

—@kianga

I am not sure if Nick Sousanis is here on Mastodon (I don’t think so) but his latest work around how to create comics accessible for blind and low vision readers is fascinating and an intriguing look at how to extend a visual literacy (comics) into the audio/text reader world.
More: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/28/1074341/comics-beyond-sight/
And: https://spinweaveandcut.com/mitcomic/

—@dogtrax

“We fucked up, and conflated adding overhyped technology with community management. We’re also going to wait until the heat dies down to re-launch this, regardless of your concerns.” https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/ai-explain-postmortem/

—@eric

New Low in the Accessibility “Industry:” Overlay Company Sues Globally-Recognized Accessibility Expert https://www.lflegal.com/2023/07/adrian-roselli-slapp-lawsuit/

—@Lynessence

NEW: A seven-month congressional probe finds tax-prep companies spent years sharing taxpayer data with Meta and Google in potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted ads. Legal experts are calling it a “five-alarm fire” for taxpayer privacy: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/tech/tax-prep-companies-taxpayer-data-google-meta/index.html

—@b_fung

📣 As a blind person, I’m deeply concerned about the proposed closure of ticket offices and reduction of station personnel in England’s train stations. This move would leave us with limited assistance and inaccessible services. Let’s voice our opinions and participate in the consultation to ensure our needs are taken into account. #AccessibleTransport #InclusiveServices

https://act.guidedogs.org.uk/page/131432/action/1?locale=en-GB

—@BlindGirlVlogs83

Accessibility companies should not be filing SLAPP lawsuits against accessibility advocates. (SLAPP = Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). But in my opinion that is what is happening in AudioEye’s lawsuit against Adrian Roselli @aardrian for his writings and talks about the harms of accessibility overlays. I wrote about it here: https://www.lflegal.com/2023/07/adrian-roselli-slapp-lawsuit/ #Accessibility #a11y #SLAPP

—@LFLegal

It’s fascinating to watch people here uncritically buying into the narratives around recent legislative efforts to make tech giants start paying news agencies for the news stories they scrape, narratives that begin by assuming that “News” is all dirty corrupt billionaires but Silicon Valley Tech Giants are our friendly underdogs who desperately need defending.

Like. We all know the big businesses in both industries are rotten and corrupt, why are we so stupid as to picks sides when we should be looking at the actual issues here.

Like, for example, the way google et all are trying to eat EVERYBODYs lunch – they want to scrape everybody’s content and serve it as their own. They want your audience to look at them instead of you. And it doesn’t really matter whether you’re a Big Evil Media Baron or a small recipe blogger who pays their rent from the merch bought by a few thousand fans who (used to) find them through a google search, it’s wrong either way.

—@uastronomer

vmWare Fusion 13 Pro for Mac supports Windows 11 for ARM. Fusion requires a Windows 11 ISO to install Windows 11. Microsoft provides install ISOs of every OS, except the ARM version of Windows 11, providing VHDX files instead. “Remember, now, downloading ISOs from anywhere except Microsoft could result in hacking and other bad things, but we won’t give you an ISO, because fuck you.”

—@bryansmart

Thinking about how much heat Mastodon gets for being “confusing” when most of the people saying that use Discord on a regular basis. Discord is a UX nightmare. I’ve been on it for several years and still struggle to figure things out. Twitch, too, is confusing as hell. Why do Discord and Twitch get a free pass while Mastodon gets berated 24/7? I’m not saying that the fact that Discord and Twitch have awful user interfaces excuses Mastodon’s problems with onboarding etc., but it’s weird that it seems to be held to a very different standard than other popular platforms.

—@Rachel_Thorn

@bigidea A message to anyone using non-standard font/display characters — for forced cursive, italic, gothic, bold, monotype effects; or flipped, reversed order, &/or rotated/upside-down letters — in usernames, or, worse, in posts: DON’T.

Assistive tech will either announce each character in exhaustive, excruciating technical detail — because each is a glyph with a specific meaning, not the stylized letters they sometimes appear — or simply ignore them, creating an informational black hole. Either way it’s frustrating & annoying as hell.

Most sighted users hate them, too.

They don’t make you look original or different — they instead signal you don’t care about those who use assistive technology.

—@oedipusnj

How long until we start buying greeting cards for Amazon Prime Day — calling parents, holding cookouts to celebrate this most American of annual holidays?

—@pilhofer

Facebook hasn’t done anything to support the open web. All they’ve done is put it in a press release and post an email to a mail list. It’s a long road from there to being on the open web. More likely they’re going to use the open web and leave it a toxic waste site after they leave.

—@davew

This is exactly the kind of society the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court wants: Every business in the country gets to claim they are engaging in expressive behavior and then discriminate against whatever protected group they don’t like – because “free speech.”

https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article277196783.html

—@tzimmer_history