Michael Porter @MichaelPorter@qoto.org

Sorry, @CHEO@twitter.com - we did all we could. Can’t do more as a Trustee. Can’t do more as a family doc. The children are not OK, and the grownups are reading from a “freedom” playbook. This is not a good time to be a person with disabilities, child, parent, senior, educator, HCW. #WeNotMe

OK #Mastodon. I've seen several toots on #accessibility for #screenreader users, however, I've not seen one from a screenreader user (as far as I know). I've used ZoomText, Outspoken, JAWS (AKA JFW), Supernova, NVDA (Windows), and VoiceOver (both on Macs and iPhone). I don't have experience with Windows Narrator or TalkBack. I would like to rectify and clarify a few small things.
First off, any awareness of accessibility issues, and endeavours to make things more accessible is great. Keep going!
But…
Blind/low-vision people have been using the internet as long as everyone else. We had to become used to the way people share things, and find workarounds or tell developers what we needed; this latter one has been the main drive to get us here and now. Over the past decade, screen readers have improved dramatically, including more tools, languages, and customisability. However, the basics were already firmly in place around 2000. Sadly, screen readers cost a lot of money at that time. Now, many are free; truly the biggest triumph for accessibility IMHO.
So, what you can do to help screen readers help their users is three simple things.
1. Write well: use punctuation, and avoid things like random capitalisation or * halfway through words.
2. Image description: screen readers with image recognition built-in will only provide a very short description, like: a plant, a painting, a person wearing a hat, etc. It can also deal with text included in the image, as long as the text isn't too creatively presented. So, by all means, go absolutely nuts with detail.
3. Hashtags: this is the most commonly boosted topic I've seen here, so #ThisIsWhatAnAccessibleHashtagLooksLike. The capitalisation ensures it's read correctly, and for some long hashtags without caps, I've known screen readers to give up and just start spelling the whole damn thing out, which is slow and painful.
That's really all. Thanks for reading! 😘

OH: "Nobody has spent more on a dead bird this Thanksgiving than Elon Musk."

Whenever I feel like the stupidest person on earth, it's reassuring to remember that Elon Musk exists.

Posted without further comment ...

The trope of young girls dreaming about walking down the aisle in a fairytale wedding dress really erases those of us who mostly dreamt of victoriously wading through the corpses of our enemies while wearing the pelts of men who have wronged us

Twin 3-year-old nieces have been at Thanksgiving for all of ten minutes and we’re already learning about molecular spectroscopy.

Everybody ready to pick up the continuation of the OCDSB school board meeting that is considering a mask requirement for schools? I’m loading the stream and might post here. #OCDSB #OttPoli #BringBackMasks #WeNotMe

#Introduction
We're a group of Physics teachers and those with an interest in physics teaching who see the value in discussions with other educators.
We don't always get the time to talk about #pedagogy , #demos , #hinterland in school time. Chat Physics gives us the chance to share great ideas.

#ChatPhysics #Physics #Teaching #Edutooter

50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR TWITTER

You just pin your last tweet, Pete,
Request your archive, Clive,
You don’t need a blue tick, Vic,
Just get yourself free.

Hop on the tusk, Gus,
You don’t need to delete much,
Except your DMs, Jen,
And get yourself free.

Use Debirdify, Di,
Provide some alt tags, Mags,
Add a content warning, Tim,
To post sensitively.

Remember to boost, Ruth
You don't need to deny truth,
Just drop off the perch, Dirk,
And get yourself free.
#VerseThurday #TwitterMigration #FediTips

Quick little tip: You don't need to use link shorteners on Mastodon.

All links on Mastodon count for 23 characters towards your limit, no matter how many characters they really are.

However, you need to include https:// at the beginning of links to make them clickable.

Serious 2001 vibes on the #Artemis live feed

#Astrodon
https://video.ibm.com/channel/b4dEcL3bJKW

So, don't tell anybody, but we're going to announce Palm Pilot emulation in the browser at Internet Archive in the next week or so. I've still got to get descriptions in for the hundreds of apps that are uploaded, and add a few more classics. But if you want to help with that, or just let me know how it's going, ping me here.

But don't tell anybody! It's a secret!

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_palm

#Introduction

I spent 20 years editing TV shows at all the networks (PBS, CBS, ABC, NBC, Discovery, Nat Geo, etc.) except Fox.

Shot docs about archaeology in Mexico. Then, with my wife Lyn, built a community center in the Lower East Side of NYC, with a planetarium, recording studio, maker shop.

Played Carl Sagan to neighborhood kids. Learned how to turn rectangular stories into hemispherical immersive stories.

Now I have a second chance to build a new planetarium in New York.

Caution #ottbike #ottwalk: there's a hole in one of the planks of the wood bridge in the arboretum.

I have a new hobby. I'm revisiting old articles and replacing Twitter with Fediverse links and examples. It's cleansing and therapeutic.

https://coywolf.pro/webmaster/how-to-use-iconography-to-inform-readers-about-external-links/