Posts by jscholes@dragonscave.space
(DIR) Post #AXTW4Bfy1yYieDAYGO by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2023-07-08T05:47:58Z
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@FreakyFwoof I don't know about you, but I know a whole lot of mubble fubblers.
(DIR) Post #Ab76y4DIkRRUuyQFmq by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2023-10-25T01:45:18Z
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Quote: "This page is outdated. #Accessibility support is not complete and therefore disabled".I think this is missing a sentence ending. Something like:* "#disabled people are shit out of luck."* "disabled users are excluded from the product."* "Disabled individuals do not have a place at our table."Source: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/docs/Accessibility-and-Text-to-Speech #SumatraPDF
(DIR) Post #Ab8jCK3Ke6TjVqwa4e by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2023-10-25T00:19:37Z
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@jcsteh The bugs affecting time/activities with loved ones are particularly devastating to me. My partner and I make daily use of the feature to share audio between two sets of AirPods. It's very special to us, but it would be difficult for me to concisely articulate the extent to which it is broken in iOS 17.
(DIR) Post #AbkasfwhGsaDPjegF6 by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2023-11-13T03:00:15Z
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@tante @danmcquillan Out of curiosity, have you asked any blind people about this? I'd like to share my opinion as someone who can only detect light and shadows, and see nothing else.One of the models that can provide detailed, useful visual descriptions at the moment is GPT4. For me, it has quickly gained a place as one of the most liberating, empowering technological inventions of my lifetime. Never before have I been able to gain an understanding of what an image shows, and ask targeted questions to independently expand that understanding.I've used it to identify products, in a fraction of the time it would've taken to locate and scan barcodes or labels. It's taught me things about my environment that would be unlikely to come up in conversation, helped me learn about the appearance of friends and family as we share time together, provided guidance about devices and software that I would've otherwise needed help with, and the list goes on. Yes, I've used it to fill in the gaps when people don't write sufficient alt text too.Putting specific examples aside, there are now fewer occasions on which I need to rely on someone else for their input. You may not think I should feel like a burden in the first place, and that's fine. I have many people in my life who are happy to facilitate support, but focusing on my relationships (or lac thereof) would be missing the point. I now have a choice. If waiting four hours for a friend to finish work is inconvenient for me, if it's the middle of the night, or if I'm just not in the mood for social interaction, I have options. Options that have never existed to this degree in the multiple decades that I've been unable to see.Sometimes it's wrong. I am always aware of the need to fact check, and not make critical decisions based on, what is conveyed. But here's the thing: part of my professional life involves teaching people to write alt text. It is too hard, and takes too long, to do it right. It represents a dead end to the person reading it, because that's all they get. Frankly, the descriptions people are getting back from these tools blow the majority of alt text written by humans out of the water.So, by all means use it as a starting point, to create descriptions that can be massaged and improved. Question and ridicule all claims of a completely hands-off, human-free pipeline, which are ableist and unrealistic. Castigate those tools and models which provide useless descriptions, as well as the people who rely on them. But please don't outright dismiss something which is giving some human beings such a sense of joy and freedom as they've never experienced before. And if/when you receive responses from other blind people saying they don't care about these tools for whatever reason, please try to remember that everybody is unique in their circumstances, and that one set doesn't invalidate another. CC @weirdwriter
(DIR) Post #AcIRyDRKPwu9xhms4W by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2023-11-28T04:28:46Z
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#Reviews of open, not-in-ear #earbuds are always so badly done:"They don't support active noise cancellation!" the reviewer shouts, gesticulating wildly.No, because there is no seal with your ear canal, rendering such a feature pointless. This is physics, not a poor product choice."Okay, but they don't have as much bass as my favourite thing that I have to screw deep into my lugholes."That's just physics again."Okay, but these are expensive, so I should recommend an alternative. How about... some other thing that you'll have to dig into your scull."No.Some people (myself included) don't like their hearing being completely blocked off, reliance on a transparency mode that is probably terrible, the physical discomfort of something penetrating in towards their eardrum, having to try several sets of first-and-third-party tips, and the endless fiddling to get a good fit. Stop trying to sell #AirPods Pro to those people. However rare a more open design might be, it is a legitimate product category in its own right. Comparing it to something it isn't aiming to be, every single time, is not helpful.
(DIR) Post #AcIRyFQL2bIk7DL6o4 by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2023-11-28T04:34:38Z
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Related: I just bought the #Shokz #OpenFit, on my endless quest to find #headphones that sit nicely about my person without requiring invasive surgery or flattened hair. I'll possibly hate them, as I've hated every set of such headphones that isn't the non-Pro #AirPods.
(DIR) Post #AhsKEXak6WDhzgTon2 by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2024-05-06T03:13:33Z
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Needed to run a couple of quick commands over SSH from my phone. I wanted to copy the input for one of them from another app. But each time I backgrounded the SSH client, it disconnected from the server. When I reconnected, VoiceOver's edit rotor was empty of options; no paste. I went back to the original app to try again, at which point VoiceOver decided to simply stop allowing me to read forwards by character within text fields (which it's still doing as I write this). In the end, I memorised it and typed it out by hand. The entire exercise took about 10 minutes instead of the 20 seconds it would've on Windows, and I'm so happy to have this computer in my pocket that is mediocre at everything.
(DIR) Post #AhsKEYScsBK0gngqmG by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2024-05-06T03:19:28Z
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Also, if you're at all tempted to reply to this with something about Android or otherwise using the right equipment for the job: I highly recommend writing out that response so that it's no longer rattling around inside your head, and then pressing cancel.
(DIR) Post #AhsKEZEpyvt16KFLvM by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2024-05-06T03:24:19Z
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Imagine spending 1,200 dollars on a computer that can't keep a TCP socket open for 45 seconds and doesn't consistently let screen reader users paste from the clipboard. If you're struggling to imagine it, ask a blind person who bought an iPhone.
(DIR) Post #AhsKEa3sv8ifee87UW by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2024-05-06T03:35:16Z
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Other hits from today's iPhone parade: setting my volume to 0 percent each time I connected a second set of AirPods, despite me needing audio to use my phone at all times. And the ever present favourite, not remembering the directory I was in when choosing a file two minutes ago.
(DIR) Post #AhsKEcEwoyl0PXJz0q by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2024-05-06T03:41:09Z
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I feel like my neighbour's dog has the right idea: barking at the moon. I'd probably need screen recognition, a subscription, and to report some unlabelled buttons to do that myself. At which point I'd be asked for a screen recording to demonstrate the issue.
(DIR) Post #AsaaXD5bgQhYvwq8X2 by jscholes@dragonscave.space
2025-03-30T18:47:46Z
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@xot I still have a strong (but sad) reason to use something else: CryptPad is extremely inaccessible.I'm not talking about a level of inaccessibility where I could go file a few issues and they could fix them. Rather, it's demonstrably unusable with keyboard only, screen readers, and other accessibility tech. 0 out of 10, if you sent me a document I couldn't read it sort of accessibility.Worth keeping in mind if you're not just using it for yourself, and you want a diverse audience of readers and collaborators.@neil