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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

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📣 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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@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

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The intersection of data-hungry private social media networks and misogynist government policy that criminalizes ethical conduct.

Nebraska Mom Pleads Guilty to Giving Abortion Pills to Her Teen Daughter

Both the mother and the now-adult daughter face prison time; the latter could face up to two years in prison.

Evidence came from private FB messages turned over by Meta in response to a warrant.

https://jezebel.com/nebraska-mom-pleads-guilty-to-giving-abortion-pills-to-1850621217

—@jbe

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How to eject an SMB share from the iOS files app: press eject from the rotor. Then try from the context menu. Kill the app, restart the app, restart the phone because the app won’t come up, try again. Repeat 3 times. Turn on airplane mode. Go back into the ejected folder and hit the more button. It’s finally gone.

—@tspivey