What a curiously dispassionate post on The Verge about their parent company signing a deal with OpenAI. It’s interesting that they posted about it in a way that lumps it together with the other deals and there’s no statement from The Verge’s famously opinionated leadership about what this deal means for publishing, journalism, and the open web.
Any tips for consoling a four year old who is suddenly very very upset about the idea of death and dying?
We're making it clear he's got a long long long time to be alive yet, as have we, while trying to be real and not tell any fairy stories - but he's very young of course and can't imagine ever being sort of "done" and really really doesn't want to ever die 😭
(Please nothing about climate change etc. in this situation - I'm well aware I've brought a child into a period of change that sucks.)
I've been reading "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" (thank you @dletorey for the tip), and I'm really (really) enjoying it - no spoilers please (about 75% through).
But it's giving me an extremely strong desire to MAKE. I really want to make a thing, but first - work, but also - where to start (too many (stupid) ideas).
Still, excellent book, definitely recommend (so long as it doesn't bork it in the last 1/4th)
Men that can dish it out but not take it can kiss my fat white ass, zero apologies. Fuck you and anyone like you. Lecture me about a sense of humor? I’m not the right sense of humor? Lol. Go fuck yourself.
I always want to start conversations about WCAG/guidance changes that I would like to see in the A11y Slack, but I feel like most folks want to talk about compliance instead.
For example: I want a link element to respond to the same keyboard keys as a button element does.
Another example: I think if you have alt="" and role="none" it is an acceptable demonstration of author intent and should not fail validators.
Another topic and probably controversial: I wish browsers would stop trying to low-key fix author issues behind the scenes. It gives authors the incorrect impression that the code they wrote was valid when it absolutely was not. It hurts everyone in the long run.
@patrick_h_lauke and I agree with priority of constituents but idk, this pretzel twisting we do is how we’ve locked ourselves into never being able to really agree on things or move it forward.
“Ok so we all agree that this thing is good for a11y?”
“Wait what if developers do this one weird thing?”
“Fml who wants to work this out”
The problem stays a problem for too long because we are unable? unwilling? to call it what it is— an author error.
So these Boeing whistleblowers dying brings back the harsh reminder of the realities of whistleblowing.
My husband was just about to wrap up his PhD — a novel method for imaging that would have applications like detecting arthritis early enough…to reverse it. 🧵
All the years of graduate study student loans, all the years of me supporting us so he can do this really significant thing for science and the health of humans, all of it comes to nothing.
He gets managed out and the research hospital re-orgs so it all just goes away and donors will never know.
Oh and the person who made millions throughout a career of faking research turns out to have been bullying most of the graduate and post-doc researchers in their lab, threatening to send them back to China if they don’t do what they are told to do.
So my husband is forced out because his job isn’t forensic whistleblowing it’s research and he’s failing to produce but ffs of course he is, he had this amazing idea and this fuckwad was incredibly blatant about stealing his very specific work and calling it their own.
And he absolutely did the right thing because FFS we are fucked forever as humans if we cannot trust and verify scientific research that impacts human health. I mean really.
Then COVID hits and thankfully I’m a reasonable breadwinner and over the course of us all being locked up inside, I teach him what I know about building accessible things for the web and also as a classically trained engineer he picks it up so fast.
Now today he understands web fundamentals (esp accessibility), frameworks, and even teaches ME stuff about TypeScript.
I hate the world on days when I have to remember what happened to him. I hate that I have to be grateful that he is still alive despite doing the ethical thing. That’s not a sentence that anyone should have to say.
I feel like he should have been at least comped for his student loans. Like “lol no whistleblowers go down sorry but we will erase the financial burden of your past so you can just quietly go do something else with your life.”
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he’d told more people his story.
I have to imagine there would have been some outrage even if it’s just the UNC student newspaper 🤷♀️
