@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

objectinspace

@objectinspace@freeradical.zone

Welcome to my tiny corner of the internet! I'm an accessibility specialist for WhatsApp, which is about the least exciting thing about me. I also play video games--while blind! I hosted a politics podcast with Matt Cooper called The Game Is Rigged from 2017-2018. I've produced and acted in the Worm full-cast Audiobook project. I host a weekly show called Thoughtfood on Venom.FM from 12 to 3 PM PST on Sundays. I also sing and play drums. I'm even a snappy dresser--though this is disputed!

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

objectinspace, (edited ) to accessibility
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Super excited to announce that you can now use WhatsApp for web without using a QRCode to sign in! Simply select "link with phone number" from web.whatsapp.com and enter your number. You will then see an 8-digit alphanumeric code. Enter this code on the phone under linked devices > add a device > link with phone number and WhatsApp will do the rest!

https://faq.whatsapp.com/1324084875126592?helpref=faq_content

So grateful to everyone who came together across teams to make this happen!

objectinspace, (edited ) to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Here's a #screenreader tip if you are using a smart TV: turn off image processing!

Default settings apply a ton of effects to your picture. These are not only pointless if you are blind, but also make the device perform slower, including queuing of screenreader audio!

Go into your picture settings and change the mode to cinema/movie/director/game mode, and enable any available low latency options. Disable features like noise reduction, motion smoothing, sharpening, and so on.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Where does this trend come from where people describe their physical appearence during presentations? Who asked for this? I personally am rarely curious what anyone looks like or what they are wearing. If I am, I'll ask. It feels more like a narcecistic desire of theirs, to tell us how they look and what they are wearing. Which is okay, I guess, but I thought we were supposed to not judge based on appearence? And also, it puts pressure on everyone else to do likewise. Nothnx!

simon, to random

I want a "Wall of Shame" webpage that displays a real time view of Mastodon accounts with the highest number of followers and the lowest percentage of alt text. It sometimes seems like people with a large following feel like they're too good for image descriptions. I noticed this on Twitter, but it sticks out like a sore thumb on Mastodon. I'm sure this is sometimes caused by accounts that crosspost to Mastodon and don't really know their audience, and I'm also sure there are plenty of accounts with lots of followers and lots of alt text. I only really check the follower count when I have a good reason. But that's why the wall of shame would be useful. With a wall of fame mode, because people genuinely deserve recognition for tirelessly describing their images. For the most part, I love browsing Mastodon because it genuinely feels like an equal experience. But when I'm suddenly yanked out of that equal experience by an image someone posted to their five-digit number of followers without considering that maybe at least one of them might find a description useful, it feels that much less excusable. If you're posting to 20 or 200 people, I don't care if images are described—either they are and I'll follow you, or they're not and I won't. No hard feelings. And in case this needs saying, this isn't aimed at anyone, just a trend I noticed throughout Mastodon's explosion in popularity.

objectinspace,
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

@simon It seems that certain instances are much better about alt text than others. It has been noted, for instance, that journa.host has a particularly low ratio of images with alt text when compared with the total number of images there.

I think that is where we can have the most impact. The folks who run instances are responsible for ensuring their places are run in accordence with their desires. If your instance gets a rep for being blind-unfriendly, that's a bad rep for your instance.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

I consider myself pretty eager to early adopt a brain-computer interface, but I gotta say--y'all cheerleading on the neuralink are freaking nuts. You couldn't pay me to try that thing. It is a Ray Bradbury horror novel come to life.

(Spoiler alert, for those of you who haven't read Ray Bradbury: things rarely work out for the POV character.)

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Have you ever had the list of email messages in your inbox just not focus for no reason? You haven't? Congratulations: you're not using the new Microsoft Outlook!

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

an AI product launched and claimed to generate “production ready” code. But it also generates code with accessibility problems, which contradicts “production ready”. When someone called this out publicly, a community showed itself from its worst side. What can we learn? https://hidde.blog/interactions-about-accessibility/

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

ACCESSIBILITY IN STRAY GODS: THE ROLEPLAYING MUSICAL https://www.summerfallstudios.com/accessibility

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Psst!

No one tell Trump about the National Presidential Alert system.

Imagine if he ever figured out there's basically a twitter that only he could use baked into every cell phone.

Literally every day "BRRAAAAP! BRRRRRAAAAP! This is a presidential alert! The failing New York times will be doing a totally made up fake news story about my perfect and legitimate businesses. Letitia James is a phony left-wing prosecutor who has never been fair. Joe Biden is old. Keep America great again again!"

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

My favorite thing is asking users of a particular software if they are experiencing a certain bug, and rather than saying "yes" or "no" they go "well actually, you could just..." like it's a fucking skill issue on my part rather than an obvious defect that should be fixed.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

So I've figured out that Mastodon, Misskey, and Pleroma are three similar but different microblogging services. I also know that Glitch, Hometown, Iceshrimp, Firefish, Soapbox/Rebased, Akkona et al. are popular forks of these.

But what are the differences? Why use one over the other?

Is there a full writeup? I have seen a few guides that compare some of them, but most are old and none of them show the full picture.

If not, could someone smart write one please?

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

BTW the WebAim survey closes today, if you use a screenreader and haven't filled it out please do so! Your participation helps all of us make the web a slightly less awful place. https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey10/

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

So I've been practicing a bit with my Mortal Kombat 1 character and I'm thinking I'm good enough to go online. I go through all the options. What seems like the least commitment? I try versus. Pick my character, get connected with someone.

Before we've even started the match properly:

"Hey, can you hear me? Well. I wanted you to know, you're a black, homosexual, gay, nigger." End of match.

Kid couldn't have been more than 12 years old.

Some things never change, I guess.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

The nerve of us blind people, expecting people to caption their images so we can engage on their content.

If you think that's offensive, check this out! https://www.ada.gov

We are so powerful, we make you leave parking space unoccupied! in fact, we have too much influence. Let's give some back, as an olive branch to the ableds. Maybe we let them design doors that are less than 32 inches wide? In exchange for which, you describe your f*cking images.

Something like that? Open to ideas!

objectinspace, (edited ) to windows
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

sideload for ! Rather than sending you to our page on the MS store, The download link on https://www.whatsapp.com/download/ now provides an executable that will download and install the app for you.

Edit: changed wording to clarify that this is not an offline installer.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

So this is neat: if you are using a front-end to access Mastodon like Enafore, you can use https://skybridge.fly.dev/ to post from your Bluesky account using the same interface! Just go to settings > instances and add the previous URL as an instance, then log in with your bluesky username and password. (You will want to create an app password in Bluesky so as to not leak your account password) Tried it and seems to work well! Thanks to @tjolsen for the tip.

objectinspace, to random
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Accessibility, where "please provide us with a list of issues so we can fix them" is the wrong fuckin' answer.

objectinspace, (edited ) to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Telegram should make their app Voiceover accessible. I doubt they will. But if you wish to sign a petition to make your voice heard, here it is!

Meanwhile, thanks for using WhatsApp.

https://chng.it/xfWHSKxwGS

simon, to random

The YouTube app on iOS is getting so bad that I'm seriously considering canceling YouTube premium. The number of swipes required for a single video listing is increasing, not decreasing; and there's a swipe trap in the title section of the video player now, so you have to explore by touch to get past a certain point. Anyone know the best way to give accessibility feedback on Google apps? I can't imagine they are somehow unaware of how stunningly awful this app has become, but I can at least write to them and say I did my part.

objectinspace,
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

@simon Follow these easy steps to give accessibility feedback to Google!

Step 1: contact Google's Disability support center.
Step 2: explain the issue to the agent, in terms that can be understood by a sighted, non-screenreader user.
Step 3: Hope that your information gets forwarded to the right Google team.
Step 4: hope that the right Google team also understood and took action.
Step 5: wait. Forever.
Step 6: Ambush someone who works for the app in question at a tech conference.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

NIST removed all password-complexity requirements from their guidelines 3 years ago. Turns out they are bad for security! Who noticed? https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63-3.html

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Mastodon: The fediverse is great because anyone can use it and no one can control who posts what.

Other people: Wow, amazing! Let's connect it to other popular emerging social networks, like Threads--

Mastodon: NO.

Other people: Oh! Well, uh, okay. Well how about Bluesk--

Mastodon: you are blocked. Get behind me, Satan.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Hi @protonmail Received an email asking me to upgrade the bridge. Since you are continuing to work on it, any plans to support your users with disabilities? Or will you continue to treat us like yesterday's garbage?

How many more years will we have to wait for basic access?

objectinspace,
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

@protonmail Typical gaslighting.

In order to bypass your disaster of a web interface, I use Thunderbird. However the bridge app does not have any labels. In particular, the field containing the password is not readable. This makes the app useless, I can't set up my email and can't access the service I am paying for.

Sent multiple reports of this, including to this Mastodon account. nothing gets done.
@progressivecat @weirdwriter

objectinspace, (edited ) to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

The impact of reputable accessibility vendors embracing overlays in the short-to-medium term will be less disabled people working in tech. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you the Brooklyn bridge.

objectinspace, (edited )
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

I rarely come across overlays, so conceptually I am pretty neutral on them. If they solve problems in the future, great--let's then talk about how best to use them.

What astounds me is how many people have taken crazy pills that make them say things like, "The problem with overlays is that they don't work. But..." No but! They don't work, so encouraging their use is bad for us. End of sentence.

Tech bro millions and "AI" will not change this.

There are no saviors. Stop looking for them.

objectinspace, to accessibility
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

LOLOL

Yet another mandatory upgrade of the Proton mail bridge, yet they still can't get the thumb out of the sphincter to add even a modicum of .

Like, I don't know, labeling their controls. Or, making the password field, the entire point of the app, focusable so that I can f*cking read it and use my email.

Oh well!

And yes, I've sent them emails. Dozens, actually. As have several others. They do not care.

objectinspace,
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

Proton Mail does not care about blind people. Straight up.

Which does not make them all that unusual, but it is striking. Especially given their posture on the importance of everyone using <strike>their</strike> private, secure email.

Almost as if it's all a gasp! marketing ploy.

objectinspace, to random
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

The findings from WebAim's tenth screenreader user survey have been posted! https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey10/

objectinspace,
@objectinspace@freeradical.zone avatar

BTW I'd just like to point out that, overwhelmingly, 68% of respondents said they did not want people to describe themselves during a virtual meeting or webinar.

In other words: I was right, the haters were wrong, NEENER NEENER NEENER!

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