Some Pseudoscientific Sleep Solutions
Insomnia has been a struggle for me all of my life; ever since I was young, I've struggled with shifting sleep schedules and white nights. I'm far from alone. Studies show that as many as eighty percent of blind people struggle with chronic insomnia and conditions like Non-24 hour sleep disorder. Far too often, the problem is "treated" by Zolpidem or other powerful prescription sleeping pills. Unfortunately, these pills can be addictive, require ever increasing dosages, and have side effects. After years of trying countless solutions, I've finally got a collection of strategies that keep me sleeping on schedule about three quarters of the time without prescriptions.
Canadians: vote!
They’re not joking: Long lines at polling stations as Canadians turn up for advance voting | CBC News. I arrived at 8:55 AM, five minutes before voting even opened, and the line was already out the door. It moved fairly quickly, but the entire process still took over an hour. And the line kept growing as people continued to arrive. If you’re hoping to vote, be ready for that! Also: vote anyway! As for accessibility, I chose to go with a family member to assist me this time. While the Braille version was available and offered, my riding is one where a protest group has chosen to make the printed version over a meter long. I dread to think what the Braille template would be like! I also didn’t want to hold up the long line by figuring it out. The person helping me unfortunately had to complete a lengthy form, so I’m not sure that process was any faster. But the workers were well trained, and knew what needed to happen; glad to see the training continue to improve!
Can AI help me read scans of golden-age science fiction magazines?
I've always loved golden-age pulp science fiction. Unfortunately, the scans of magazines like astounding are generally of poor enough quality that standard OCR struggles with them.
the three AI tools in my accessibility toolbox
Whenever any cutting-edge technology hits the mainstream, there's an explosion of creativity as people experiment with designs, try to find solutions for old problems, and create new solutions looking for a problem. This is especially true in the accessibility industry. It happened with the internet, web 2.0, the blockchain, and now it's AI's turn. Three quarters of these products disappear without ever gaining adoption. But the ones that survive change the world forever.
AI and the Sound of Disability
Note: the sounds in this entry do not contain actual words, and often are not identifiable sounds. This post is inaccessible to the Deaf or Hard of Hearing. I have done my best to describe the sounds in the entry itself, however I recognize that any level of inaccessibility to any person for any reason is unacceptable. In an attempt to offset this, I have donated $75 to the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf. I strongly encourage anyone who listens to any of the sounds on this page to do the same.
My Accessible Self-hosting Tech Stack
I've been hosting services for myself and others for over 25 years now: starting on IIS6, moving to Windows Server, eventually to Debian, and now to an entirely dockerized stack. Self-hosting allows me to control my destiny in a way that using cloud services run by others doesn't. If an update causes screenreader issues, I can just not apply it. If I don't like the default themes, I can change them. In most cases, the projects I host are open-source, meaning I can contribute fixes myself, or write plugins to meet my specific accessibility needs. In this article, I'll go over the tech choices I've currently made, why I made those choices, and how they're working out for me. As it can be disappointing to set up and configure an app for hosting, only to find out it doesn't work with your screenreader, I thought it would be a good idea to document what I'm currently using. If you're interested in taking the same control yourself, or just curious about the accessibility of the self-hosting landscape, I hope you'll find this post useful and informative.
Open Protocols and APIs: The Overlooked Key to Accessibility
Note! the following are my personal opinions, and should not necessarily be taken as the opinion of my employer.