As someone who prays regularly, I’d just like to put this out there. Prayer is not a substitute for action, when you are capable of acting. To attempt to substitute prayer for action when you are capable of acting, especially on behalf of someone in need or someone who is coping with overwhelming loss, is a slap in the face, and we would all be better served if you kept your thoughts and prayers to yourself.
54 °F Mostly Cloudy
I’m glad to see popular voices in the web space reflecting on how the web is seriously broken as a whole with regard to accessibility, but then there’s a part of me that’s screaming “Hey, accessibility advocates have been screaming at the top of our lungs about this for decades.” Not only have we rewarded the wrong things on the web, (aesthetics over everything else and at the expense of everything else, for example), but I think in a lot of ways we’ve rewarded the wrong voices. So many times it’s the not-so-popular voices who have been telling us what we really should be hearing, and because we think it’s too hard or not enough of a priority, (see internationalization and localization, or security, or accessibility, or translation), we put it off until we have something like the recent WebAIM survey of how abysmal the state of accessibility with regard to websites is to publicly shame us into doing the right thing. Maybe one day we’ll learn.
Dear fellow screen reader users. If you’re tempted to declare something accessible because you can use it, please keep this in mind before you make said declaration. “Works with my favorite screen reader” or “works with all screen readers” or “works with a particular screen reader as long as you use object navigation or route your Jaws cursor to your PC cursor” are not measurrable accessibility indicators. Accessibility is not just about screen reader users. Accessibility is about all people with disabilities. And the gold standard, inclusive design, is about everyone, including people with disabilities.
Happy thirtieth birthday World Wide Web. You may be held together by peanut butter and goblins, but you’ve provided so much joy and prosperity for all of us who have careers thanks to you. I promise to promote your health through the standards that make you great and enjoyable for everyone on this earth, and to encourage everyone who builds things on your foundation to do the same.
That time you start your chosen work playlist, which is one you didn’t create, sit down away from the device to start working, and a song that you hate even when it doesn’t involve Kenny G. comes on, and then it’s the version with Kenny G. which makes it worse. Thank god it’s relatively short. I need a way to block artists on Spotify. When I become Supreme Ruler of the universe, adding Kenny G. to a jazz playlist is going to become a finable offense.
34 °F Partly Cloudy
Today will be an incredibly light work day I think. I’m getting a very late start this morning and I’m still getting used to the drastic weather and elevation changes. I went to bed at around 10:30 last night and didn’t wake up for the day until close to 8 this morning. I’ll need to have my ass more in gear tomorrow but I’m not worried about today.
34 °F Partly Cloudy
The trend under discussion in this long read is very real and results in all sorts of problems, including metric tons of technical debt and support costs. this is what happens when what I’ll call Shiny Object Syndrome takes the place of good decision-making.
Clickable email addresses which allow your site’s visitors to send you email, (otherwise known as mailto links), can be quite handy, and they’re easy to generate if you type HTML as if it’s your first spoken language. If you don’t do that, they can seem like the hardest thing to create, and you have a couple of options for creating them: Google what you need and then save that information in a place you’ll hopefully remember, or just use this mailto link generator. Simply fill out the form appropriately, generate the HTML you need, and copy and paste. Note that if you’re doing this using a WordPress installation, you’ll want to switch your editor to the code view if you’re using the Classic Editor, or use the custom HTML block if you’re using the editor as of WordPress 5.0. You can also insert your generated mailto links in the custom HTML widget for use in any widgetized area your theme provides. See this post for a complete guide to WordPress widgets, which includes a section on the custom HTML widget.
It’s a couple of hours before I have to leave for the airport, so it’s time to disassemble the electronics and double and tripple check that all chargers are where they need to be. The suitcase is strategically packed, which I have no idea why I bother about since TSA is just going to mess it all up anyway. Anyway, this will be a long day but totally worth it.
38 °F Clear
Current status: Waiting on the last bit of the laundry to finish in the washer so I can switch it over to the drier, packing, and of course anxious about my flight tomorrow. Also, testing geolocation service.
41 °F Clear