[received at a show/film festival, link to the site]
The Blind Leading the Blind
In the world of internet building, one of the biggest issues you end up dealing with is web accessibility, an aspect of web standards and design that deals with the necessity of developing web content that can be clearly understood by those with dissabilities. Example: Images used for navigation (links) that aren’t properly labelled (with a tag of text for when the image isn’t shown) mean that a blind person is unable to get where they’re going within your site, and text that is too rigidly sized cannot be made bigger for the hard of seeing.
Thing is, the whole concept of designing whole chunks of code for the disabled is that they always seem more like a concept than a reality, like they are just these ghosts that the W3(a standards consortium) uses to scare us into behaving properly. But the other day I met a blind guy in my Presocratics class who’s JOB is going from website to website (public/government sites only) and evaluating their usability with a screenreader (software that reads the text out loud a la Stephen Hawking).
He said that a lot of them were awful. And this was only sites that are REQUIRED to comply to accessibility standards, let alone the whole internet.
Obviously most people reading this are not web designers, but anyone who is should definitely take a look at that page and try to be as accomodating as possible to those less web-fortunate when you’re coding. It seems that the handicapped have even more to gain from electronic media than the sighted/well do (as newspapers don’t come in brail in the morning), so why not give them the best chance possible?
(image credit: The Blind Leading the Blind – Seamus McKinlay)
I’ll tell you something – new design
Finally finished the design for Alyssa’s fancy new blog, thought I’d share.
The Interesting Part: This is the first blog I’ve created using WordPress instead of MovableType for the publishing aspects. This is important because WordPress, like Linux, and unlike MovableType is a distributed open-source project, which means it is free (both as in beer, and as in speech), and is created by volunteers in their spare time. Deliciously ethical and utopian.
This blog, and all the underblogs, will probably be migrating as well in the near future. Maybe some of you have noticed that the site has been particularly gimpy lately, and it will be easier to migrate the site to a new server with WordPress blogs than MT.
(note: there is still a kind of open invitation to anyone who wants to blog onto my site (i.e. simianuprising.com/you), you can do it with Blogger or with wordpress if you wanted. Really it’s no better than the free services in any serious ways, only ridiculous ones. E-mail me jer at simianuprising dot com if you are interested.)
beauty v. the internet
This website for Zephyr Consulting is almost certainly the most amazing and beautiful piece of web art I have ever seen. It creates an atmosphere thick enough to taste, and even seems to tell a story about what the company stands for and believes before you’re even sure what it is they do. The animation is flawless, and the imagery alone radiates an aura of awesomeness.
Normally I’m turned off by the clunkyness of a flash interface (not to mention the nightmare it constitutes in terms of accesibility, interoperability and reverse compatibility) but this piece is just so well done that I can’t help wanting the whole internet to be just like it. Where’s the movie this thing should be becomming? How can I get a job with these guys? (yes, I realize they offer courses, if only I lived in Chicago)
(via. warren)
booze and copyright.
Lately I’ve been noticing that more and more people are aware of the problems with and discussion about copyright than even six months ago. At this one party I met three different people who had to some degree read Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture (one of whom I had the day before convinced to buy it, though it is available at that link in dozens of formats for free) and were excited about it and the ideas it represents.
Whether catching the interest of university students constitutes an actual change, especially concerning the mass public, is obviously up for debate, but increased awareness is always the first step, right?
[for anyone interested in the things happening: Deep Links (blog of the EFF), Copyfight, Lessig Blog]
Quote of the day: John Perry Barlow
“TV in America created the most coherent reality distortion field that I’ve ever seen. Therein is the problem: People who vote watch TV, and they are hallucinating like a sonofabitch. Basically, what we have in this country is government by hallucinating mob.”
-Found in an interview with Reason magazine (via boingboing). Barlow was a writer for the Grateful Dead before becomming active in the politics of cyberspace and was the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a technological freedom advocacy organisation. Also of interest by Barlow : A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, a delicious and intense peice of cyber-philosophy if there ever was one.
-Also, tricked into watching CNN because it was playing in the pizza place, I couldn’t help wondering what value can be derived from watching constant coverage of a hurricane that cannot be helped. Are the viewers at home gaining any knowledge because of it? Will it improve their lives somehow? How is this pointless data being sold as news at all? Isn’t there a corrupt and stupid politician they could expose or something? (also, why does CNN have to constantly assert that they are the most trusted source for news? Does the station worry that the public will forget how much they trust them?)
Simian Update: Celebrity photographer (of, not is) attempts soul-theft of various primates.
(via BoingBoing)
server problems and a good ten days.
Apologies for any weirdness that may have been noticed in the last couple of days, namely dissappearing posts. The problem seems to have been fixed (damn sketchy server).
Just so we’re clear I am back, and I did have an amazing time. Halifax is a tiny and delicious city with just enough girth to satisfy one’s need for serious techno-penetration, but is small enough to walk across in half an hour. Also, it is said that people there are nicer than on the mainland, but I’d say that the difference is even more pronounced in their cats, who roll over to have their bellies scratched by strangers on downtown streets. Now that’s service.
note: a certain mr. comeau wrote a couple of posts about our adventures.
(photocredit: Sarah Tracy, a beautiful soul who let me into her heart and home, but tried to trick me with buddhism.)
heads sticking out of windows, large bodies of water and a sixteen hour bus ride.
This city, job and space-time location as a whole are driving me insane. Thus I am retiring to do very little and enjoy the ocean in Halifax for the next week or so.
If I can get near a computer that will accept my memory card reader I will do my best to post something within that time frame. Otherwise you can all be confident that I am dead, and start mourning.
If you are in Halifax and want to hang out e-mail me ( jer at simianuprising dot com )with whatever information you want to give me. I won’t be doing much so my schedule is pretty open.
You should all do something fun while I’m gone. Seriously, go to the pool.
p.s. My brother, Brian, made it through the operation and is A O K. He is still pretty messed up, but I hear from reliable sources that The Morphine is helping keep that fire under control. You know it.
fluffy little satan-spawn
Catching up on my Wired news and found this mind-boggling story about a company that has actually cloned two kittens (Baba Ganoush and Tabouli) from it’s CEO’s bengal (Tahini), and is offering the service to the public for 50,000$ each.
“the company says it’s less interested in the scientific questions and medical promise of cloning and more interested in its business model – helping people make copies of their beloved pets.”