š±Ā digital breadcrumbs.
on the agenda this week: accessibility, digital breadcrumbs & the notebook.
š reading time: 6m 29s.
fig. 1.
celebrating another trip around the sun.
š hi - happy monday. i hope youāre well.
i turned 24 on saturday. iām feeling oldā¦er.
on the agenda this week:
Ā accessibility, digital breadcrumbs & the notebook.
ā”ļø tag me onĀ instagramĀ or follow me onĀ twitterĀ if you enjoy this week's brain drain!
as always, feel free to skip any section that doesnāt interest you or reply directly to this email. & a special thank you to myĀ paid subscribersĀ ā i really appreciate the support.
š a note on: accessibility.
fig. 2.
this mode turns the main characters blue and enemies red to help visually impaired players.
just this past week i came across two separate stories relating broadly to software design & accessibility.
the first of which was a video reaction from steve saylor, a blind gamer. heās an editor at ācan i play that?ā ā a game writing publication for disabled gamers, by disabled gamers. in the video below, saylor records and shares his reaction upon seeing the accessibility settings menu in a new action-adventure game, āthe last of us part iiā.
just seconds into the video, the canadian streamer suddenly bursts into tears.
this is what myself and others in the accessibility community have been advocating for so long. thereās so much here. this is why i do what i do. this is why i work so hard to promote accessibility. this is why, because this is important.
-Ā steve saylor
this overview from pushsquare of the included features captures the incredible work that has gone into this game from the ground up. when a product is built from the ground up with accessibility in mind, people can achieve some amazing results.
you can play practically the entire game using sound. naughty dog has implemented a range of audio triggers which will allow blind players to survey their surroundings, discover items, and eliminate their enemies. an incredible text-to-speech option means that any collectibles or interface items will be read aloud by the title.
for those with partial blindness, or other sight impairment issues, thereās a high contrast mode that colour codes the world, making the geometry grey while enemies are shown in red and allies in blue. you can also use the touchpad to zoom in on particular elements on the screen, similar to how you would on a smartphone.
the other accessibility related topic that caught my attention was the release of twitterās new āaudio tweetsā. this new feature immediately caught the headlines as having overlooked members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
when accessibility is viewed as an additional feature and not something inherent to the design of a product, itās unsurprising that the end product could overlook those with disabilities.
twitter have quickly addressed this:
we're sorry about testing voice tweets without support for people who are visually impaired, deaf, or hard of hearing. it was a miss to introduce this experiment without this support.
accessibility should not be an afterthought.
weāve fixed several issues related to vision accessibility, including making voice tweets identifiable on the timeline and making accessibility improvements to the voice tweet experience. these updates will be available in a forthcoming ios release.
weāre already exploring ideas for how we could support manual and auto transcriptions.
weāre also looking at how we can build a dedicated group to focus on accessibility, tooling, and advocacy across all products.
š¤Ŗ mildly humorous:
outtakes from the twitter-sphere.
š§ brain candy:
š±Ā
digital breadcrumbs
.
this image allegedly showing lore elisabeth blumenthal throwing a molotov cocktail into a police sedan during a protest in philadelphia on may 30th.
it took an etsy review, a linkedin profile, a handful of instagram videos, and a few google searches for fbi agents to identify the masked woman. this story gives an intimate look into how law enforcement followed the intricate trail of bread crumbs she left through her social media history and online shopping patterns over the years.
fbi agents only had access to helicopter footage from a local news station. this showed a woman wearing a bandana throwing flaming debris into the smashed window of a police sedan.
by searching for videos of the protests uploaded to instagram and vimeo, the agents were able to find additional footage of the incident, and spotted a peace sign tattoo on the womanās right forearm. after finding a set of 500 pictures of the protests shared by an amateur photographer, they were able to clearly see what the woman was wearing, including a t-shirt with the slogan: ākeep the immigrants. deport the racists.ā
the only place to buy this exact t-shirt was an etsy store, where a user calling themselves āalleycatloreā had left a five-star review for the seller just few days before the protest. using google to search for this username, agents then found a matching profile at the online fashion marketplace poshmark which listed the userās name as ālore-elisabeth.ā
a search for ālore-elisabethā led to a linkedin profile for one lore elisabeth blumenthal, employed as a massage therapist at a philadelphia massage studio. videos hosted by the studio showed an individual with the same distinctive peace tattoo on their arm. a phone number listed for blumenthal led to an address. as reported by nbc philadelphia, a subpoena served to the etsy seller showed a ākeep the immigrants. deport the racists.ā t-shirt had recently been delivered to that same address.
šĀ read moreĀ viaĀ the verge.
šĀ
the notebook
.
steven levy met mark zuckerberg in 2006. a few weeks later, zuckerberg started writing down his vision for facebook, detailing his unfiltered hopes and dreams for the company. levy takes a look at what's in those pages.
i got ahold of a 17-page chunk from what might be the most significant of his journals in terms of facebook's evolution. he named it ābook of change.ā
dated may 28, 2006, the first page has his address and phone number, with a promise to pay a $1,000 reward for return of the book if lost. he even scrawled an epigram, a message to himself: ābe the change you want to see in this world.ā mahatma gandhi.
the writing reveals an author with focus and discipline. he dated nearly every page. some of the entries seem to have been created in a single burst of energy. they cover three or four pages of detailed road maps with neat sketches of sample screens. nothing is crossed out. this is the work of someone in a maximum state of flow.
the book of change outlines the two projects that would transform facebook from college-and-high-school network into internet colossus. on may 29, he began a page called open registration. up until that point, facebook had been limited to students, a gated community where only classmates could browse your profile. zuckerberg's plan was to open facebook to everyĀone. he diagrammed how someone could create an account. people would be asked whether they were in college, high school, or āin the world.ā he mused about privacy. could you see profiles of āsecond-Ādegreeā friends in your geographical region? or anywhere? āmaybe this should be anywhere, as opposed to just your geo,ā he wrote. āthat would really make the site open but probably not a good idea just yet.ā
šĀ read moreĀ viaĀ wired.
š earworm:Ā amber mark.
ātheā
time has come,ā
in this land
when the lion mustā
lay down with the lamb
brothers and sisters, lay side by side
hold on to love, let its light be your guideā
stream now:
amber mark has shared āmy people,ā her cover of āmy people...hold onā by the temptations co-founder eddie kendricks. inspired by international black lives matter protests, the artwork features the names of black americans killed by police or racist violence.
āitās so amazing to see the world learning, growing and most importantly helping one another. we cannot let go of this feeling or this moment,ā mark said in a statement. āwe should use this positive mentality as the everlasting force driving humankind as a whole to greatness not just for the future of yourself but for the future of everyone around you.ā watch markās self-directed video for āmy peopleā below.
all profits from āmy peopleā will go to organizations dedicated to developing black agricultural land ownership. āin my opinion what we need as a human race to truly thrive is good quality education and good quality land & food,ā mark explained. āthe only way we can accomplish such is by giving our black communities access to land and the tools to use it.ā
-Ā pitchfork.
listen toĀ amber markĀ onĀ spotifyĀ or onĀ apple music.
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