Partially cloudy
Blog
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Aside
I think I may have found a bug with iOS 13.3 which prevents you from adding things to your doc.
I attempted to add Quill to my doc, so I can post on the go, but once I switch to editing mode I’m unable to move it by the usual hold and drag. Once iOS goes back to non-editing mode, I can’t get back to editing mode.
So, hive mind, is this a known issue or should I report it, and if so, what’s the proper channel for reporting a bug like this?
201 McCormick Ave, State College, PA 16801(1106ft)Light Snow and Fog/Mist
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I’m using <a href="http://quill.p3k.io">Quill</a> as my primary posting interface for notes, and am eperimenting with using other clients for different kinds of content, and I’ve realized that Bridgy is still configured for my site and that I can control syndication from Quill, so I’m running a quick experiment to see if I can selectively syndicate things to Twitter.
I’m continuing the switch to social readers, and I’m not sure if I want all my likes and favorites to go to Twitter.
I want to be able to like things ETC. without flooding people’s timelines.
So, let’s see if this works.
921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801(1106ft)Light Snow and Fog/Mist
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We’ve finally reached the point of the year where things start to slow down, and I’m glad for it.
Well, at least that’s the case if you don’t celebrate Christmas.
Data Recovery 2019 has begun in earnest, and there’s a new 2TB external hard drive to help with the effort.
This is good, because the old computer is finally complaining about hard drive failure and urging me to hurry up.
We watched the Ohio State Michigan game yesterday and I at least was pleased with the way it turned out.
We also finished the Dark Tower series. I’m not going to spoil it other than to say if you like Oy the seventh book is going to piss you off in a couple of ways. We’ve started the Alex Cross series by James Patterson because I think we’re both still sore over the treatment of Oy in the seventh Dark Tower book. It’ll still end up on the reread list because of the middle books but the seventh book I think was just King doing his best to destroy the dreams of every fantasy fan on the planet.
I’m putting in some extra work today so that I can hopefully have a three-day weekend later in the week. I have several project hand-offs this week so assuming all goes well after this week things will start to taper off for the rest of the year and I can hit the ground running in January.
921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801(1106ft)Unknown Precipitation
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Initially I subscribed to someone else’s Harry Potter film scores playlist on Spotify, but today I decided to make my own.
I did this because I wanted to include the bonus tracks from the original scores as well as the scores for Cursed child and the two Fantastic Beasts movies.
I haven’t seen these yet, and I’m still researching which streaming service they’re on, (probably Amazon), but eventually I’ll watch them.
The chili turned out very well and we’re still grazing on it, although it’s almost gone. We’re definitely doing that again. It was really good with some tostitos scoops.
There’s also still some pie left and I might get into that in a little bit.
921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801(1106ft)36 °F Cloudy
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Aside
Shoutout to all the people who are working today, especially all those working as Uber Eats and Doordash drivers, since they’re running "Tired of Turkey" and other similar promotions.
I can only imagine the kind of cajoling, enticement, or maybe even veiled threats that went into getting drivers to work Thanksgiving.
Shoutout to all those doing geek duty for your families. Be sure to block Facebook at the router level if you can, and at the computer level if you can’t.
Shoutout to everyone who’s spent all day cooking. Take advantage of the turkey-induced nap as soon as possible.
Shoutout to all those who had to go in early to your retail job because Black Friday couldn’t wait until Friday.
And finally, shoutout to all those who work the truly essential jobs, even on Thanksgiving, without which society would grind to a hault: Hospital staff, paramedics, fire and police, and the IT professionals making sure everyone’s internet is up and running as soon as possible should it go down. Oh and the people who had to handle Facebook maintenance this morning.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801(1106ft)36 °F Cloudy
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We’ve decided not to do a traditional Thanksgiving and are doing chili instead, along with general snacking on other good things throughout the day.
We’re rereading the new Atlee Pine book since I fell asleep for several hours during the middle which means I missed some key parts.
Otherwise we’re just chilling.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who’s celebrating.
I hope those of you who are spending it by yourselves are doing so because you want to, and for those of you who are having a hard time, I hope you find some solace.
And for those of you who are with your biological family, and are nonetheless finding the day difficult because of all the pretend love and affection, I hope you get some time alone to reflect in your own way and to rest from the stress.
921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801(1106ft)39 °F Cloudy
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Read: “My thoughts on Gutenberg accessibility” by @MarcoInEnglish and offered some thoughts of my own
Marco’s being pretty modest in his description of his abilities and what he does for a living, and I’ll save you the time of reading a multi-page biography which would probably border on hagiography (I have a ton of personal and professional respect for Marco) by saying he knows what he’s talking about and should be listened to.
And this is probably as positive as continued critiques are going to get.
There’s so much worth quoting from this post that I had difficulty picking the best excerpt, so I’ll add my thoughts on the other options below, in a slightly different order than they appear in the original post.
… what I see here is a repetitive pattern seen in many other projects, too. Treating accessibility as a bolt-on step at the end of any given cycle never works, will never pay off, and never lead to good inclusive results.
That statement holds true no matter how many slogans or how much positivity you pile on top of it. And I keep bringing up the positivity thing because it’s particularly galling when WordPress leadership preaches inclusion, everyone, and the like, only to have the bits that are inconvenient ignored or dismissed as mere negativity when it comes down to brass tacks.
The fact that a bunch of currently fully able-bodied people have actively decided to not be inclusive from the start means that a lot of decisions requiring a certain amount of both empathy and expertise need to be made at lower levels, and pushed into the product via grass root methods, which are often long and cumbersome and only lead to slow results. These can be very tiring.
This whole situation is crap. The fact that a bunch of us essentially have to stick around because if we don’t the accessibility won’t happen and we have to fight against the laziness of leadership, (and let me be clear here, by leadership I mean the decisionmakers, which doesn’t include most of the people working on Gutenberg, even the designers and developers who carry the title of lead), is demonstration all by itself that accessibility/inclusion isn’t a priority.
I don’t know why other accessibility advocates stick around despite this, I can only speak for myself.
I stick around although with more built-in intermittent breaks out of (1) pure stubbornness and (2) the desire to ensure that people with disabilities are just as able to have an open, independent home on the web just like everyone else and (3) the self-interest I started with.
People with disabilities shouldn’t have to be stuck with Facebook or Twitter, with all their problems, because the benevolent dictator of one of the largest free software projects makes promises, implied or otherwise, about inclusion and “everyone” which he then finds inconvenient to keep.
I once kept a job for two years after the software I needed to do that job became inaccessible because I refused to accept termination and a severence package in lieu of the accessibility issues being resolved. I used that time to hack on WordPress and learn my way around it, and I have benefited greatly from that initial learning and the assistance and friendship or even family of the WordPress community.
If I could manage to keep that job until I could leave on my terms, I will figure out how to stick with WordPress either until things get better or I leave on my terms.
I’m definitely not walking away while that piece paraphrasing my original HeroPress essay is still up on WordPress.org. I still stand by a lot of what’s there, especially the bits about the community, but if I go along to get along, or don’t speak up about this stuff when I think it’s warranted, then essentially I provide an easy way for that piece to be used as promotional material or evidence of a claim that is more like an ideal to be striven for as long as the circumstances are just right.
I don’t have any intention of serving as a token.
I realize all of the above probably sounds like I’m being an arrogant jerk, although I don’t intend arrogance at all, and I hope the people who know me and who have interacted with me also realize that.
I’m thankful for the rest of the accessibility advocates in this community especially, and the rest of the accessibility team who work so hard on a daily basis and never complain when surely they could be doing other things with their free time.
And I’m thankful to the accessibility advocates outside the WordPress community who have spoken up on these issues.
Finally, I’m thankful for Marco joining the discussion.
Yes, I’m tired. But if I can manage to keep a job for two years and leave on my own terms and only on my own terms, I can stick around and help everyone who has spoken up and sacrificed their free time win this. We’ll do it eventually.