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Accessibility #

I wrote extensively about a desire to make an accessible, and modular base tumblr theme. Not surprisingly there’s more to accessibility than merely the way it looks. Here’s some readings from this week:

When I was younger (and by this I mean two years ago) I used to hate being pigeon holed as being disabled but now I see, the web design community needs more of us to speak louder. Anyway here’s a chance for me to rant about issues I’ve seen from the accessibility community. I’m not linking to specific people because that’s not what I’m about

  • Icons without descriptions being used as links in menus. I hate seeing random icons like a smiley face that’s supposed to be About, but you can’t know that unless you click.
  • Colorful shapes like circles or squares used as links. Dots are not intuitive. How am I supposed to know they are links?
  • Styling to the point of making a web site unreadable
  • Copy editing that’s used for SEO but otherwise is superfluous. You might be wondering how this is related to accessibility. It makes getting to pertinent information difficult.

On a positive note, I love seeing blogs use larger fonts and that more blogs are having the body text actually be contrasting. Also I love seeing non white back grounds. Jerry Jones’ light blue is very easy on the eyes.

Running and Reading #

I am currently obsessed with Julian Shapiro’s blog. I am working through his work out routine for building muscle so I may one day lift a cast iron pan without wimping out. Also, I’m reading his post on writing better. As an aside I love Michael Huemer’s writing although I rarely agree with his opinions (this is because I’m an arm chair philosopher-also known as a fake). I’d like to, in the same vain as Shapiro, write guides. More so as a means to get better at writing. What he stated is true:

Becoming a better writer makes you a better all-around thinker. You learn to communicate more clearly and more persuasively.

A digression: An aspect of Shapiro’s writings that I’m not a particular fan of is this need for power, prestige and fame. He mentions this in every single guide and that’s just not something I really care about. I don’t want to assess my friendships based on the values they bring to my future self.

Anyway, I want to write a short guide on how to run 3 miles (5 kilometers) if you are absolutely out of shape and also a guide on decreasing coffee consumption.

This Blog #

I need to get back on learning about 11ty. I currently write java notes on Tumblr but need to figure out how to make a specific tags collection page so I can migrate my note taking to here, my personal site.

You might be asking, why not leave it where it is? Well I probably will try to put the content on both blogs. But I’m also lazy so until I learn how to create a script that will automatically post to Tumblr from this blog, that probably won’t happen.

I want to add a comment section to this blog. All my Tumblr blogs used Disqus for comments and my blogs rarely get comments. Given that Github hosted blogging doesn’t have community sharing like Tumblr does, this would probably mean even less comments. Realistically my low volume blog doesn’t need a comment section, but I don’t know, is a blog a blog if it doesn’t have one?

I might use webmentions although it seems like it requires work.

Animorphs and Flatland #

I’ve started to read Animorphs again. I read Visser and The Andalite Chronicles . While the series is still good, it doesn’t hit the same way it did when I was 13. As an adult, I want more world building. This is something you can’t really do in 125 page books. The idea that wars cannot be won, they can only be lived through is reiterated constantly in these two books. Young me needed this and the ideas of conflict/resolution, of war, of upholding our sense of morality and constantly questioning the systems we’re in plus most importantly understanding how all systems are complex (there is no good vs evil, everything is on a multidimensional scale) lay the foundation of how I see the world today. Adult me found these thought experiments…repetitive and expected. But, what would you expect after reading 20+ books of the same series?

Flatland is a great book. How would you, a person in a 3d world, prove to a 2d person, that there exists a higher dimension? I love the part where the square yells at the sphere to see its inner guts.

Grant me but one glimpse of thine interior. […] I in Thought shall see the insides of all solid things

The first 40 pages is grueling but man, the last 15 pages are so fun!