days_unfolding

Let's begin with the understanding that many more people are using computing and the Internet than those who have able bodies. (And they're also trying to use public infrastructure as well.) So let's talk about what people think screen readers do, and what they actually do, and re-commit yourselves to building things that are accessible from the ground up, so that everyone can use a website, a document, or enjoy a picture that you have taken or created, even if they are not a sighted user.

Furthermore, Consumer Reports offers the easiest way to turn off LLM and other supposed "intelligence" features on your computers and devices, which we offer with the additional understanding that every time you update your device, you may have to repeat these steps, as many of the companies that have poured all this money into supposed intelligence are very put out when people turn them off, and will silently turn them back on every time you update.

As the population ages, the lack of information for people going through menopause means there's people to be exploited, according to plenty of companies that intend to do the exploiting. Because, after all, there's still a prevalent assumption that a woman loses all her value once she stops being able to breed the next generation. And an equally prevalent idea that you can just slap a purple color or the word menopause on anything, including a personal massager, and roll in the dough.

A plot of land purchased by the Cards Against Humanity game owners to stymie construction of a border wall was also used to obtain a settlement against SpaceX for trespassing and using the land without permission for their operations. For their troubles, those who contributed to the land purchase will receive a pack of CAH specifically about Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX and general blight upon humanity.

Thieves made off with several pieces of jewelry held by the Louvre museum, having used a truck-mounted ladder to climb the outside and then break into both windows and high-security cases to take the jewels.

A bunch of techbros put together a SlutCon, with the nominal idea of making sure that these bros would have practice at flirting and behaving acceptably toward women in potentially sexual or romantic situations. There were women there as "flirt girls" for the attendees to practice on. There were, of course, several tiers of VIP membership to get as well, which suggests, along with the article, that this may not have been so much about learning how to flirt and to treat women as people, but instead about treating romance and sex as a min-maxing experience and giving them more tools on how to do this. Which would make it more an enabling experience instead of an enlightening one.

Proving their willingness to commit to the bit, no matter how many obvious mistakes are being made nor how much harm it causes, A cisgender boy with a mistake on his birth certificate declaring him female is being barred from participating in boys' sports, boys' gym classes, and using the boys restroom, because the way the statute and policy have been written, they only count the original birth certificate as valid, even if the certificate has been amended since, or was issued in error, and the school says that genetic testing might help make the boy eligible for boys' sports, but it wouldn't be a guarantee. (And it would also be an expensive prospect for such things.) From the way the article is written, it sounds like the school is treating the boy like he's a trans boy and that they want him to be comfortable being the girl that his birth certificate says he is. So, in Arizona, the TERFs' greatest nightmare is coming to pass - there's a biological male allowed to play sports with females, share locker room facilities, and the school is actively facilitating it. Remarkable commitment to the bit over using any kind of common-sense measure, because they're so worried that someone else might use those same common-sense measures to make sure a child is playing in the correct sport for their gender.

The concept of the border as a religious object, because of the way that borders can exist in multiple spaces and frames at once, their liminality, and their way to delineate spaces.

( And now a lot of politics bits. At least you can be assured you'r3e a terrorist now. )

Last out for tonight, Gary Larsen, of The Far Side, has apparently taken up making some new things, with digital drawing tools. Including one for the recently departed Dr. Goodall, showing her as having a reserved seat at a chimpanzee club.

The argument for allowing children to go play in the streets and on the sidewalks in addition to the parks and playgrounds, because the streets are often closer to home, and because the presence of play in those places is a pushback against the idea that streets and sidewalks are only meant for those going from one place to another.

(Materials via adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)