Genuinely saddened by the death of Patrick Stewart who seems to have been an all round decent human.

I was especially taken by him taking his home life experience + using his fame and old white manhood to speak out against violence towards women and children and calling on men to fix it.

I never got to see him in a play but I always liked how he portrayed different characters on the screen and was openly supportive of LGBTQ people.

A role model for positive masculinity.

Survived Friday despite sinuses/migraine fail fairly early on. I'm officially training at least 2 if not 3 colleagues on Stuff at work.

I will shoot the next twit who refers to listening assistance systems as a 'loop system' when they are NOT a telecoil "loop" system but some Infra Red bullshit which on paper looks great and for 6 years and counting they've been ignoring me say "don't buy this, stop doing this". Shit might hit a fan hard enough to actually make people LISTEN to me... Maybe.

Boggling at the Green Part of England and Wales voting for the "anti-Zionism is racism" motion, which is really a hot mess of a motion.

I'm pretty anti-Zionist, not a fan of the Israeli government/state/settlers now or historically including some recent reading about fuckery by Zionists in the 30s/40s and so on...

But this motion is conflating several things and basically making it so a practicing Jew who participates in Synagogue activity is "racist" due to how it's framed/party policy...

Does anyone know how to make the web version of Mastodon display ALT text as mouseover which it used to do?

It now (since an update, probably last year) makes me click on the little ALT and then the ALT text is in an annoying hovery box which is less good at displaying long text and requires a click. Some update seems to have changed it ages ago and i really want to revert it.

Is it a server specific thing? Any advice appreciated.

RE: https://mstdn.social/@junesim63/117234999271531401

The far right doxxing of Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers is gross. RNLI is 90% funded by donations, 10% by financial investment. There is no state funding (and should be). Volunteers give up their time for extensive training to help rescue people in difficulty in sea and rivers etc.

Our government should be clamping down on social media platforms that enable this widespread doxxing and risk to happen to individuals.

I hope the RNLI folk are safe now.

Also, don't do what a former boss of mine did with two separate blind colleagues: which was to SCREAM and whitter loudly every time they went near steps (that they otherwise traversed 2 to 4 times each working day for months). The screaming and whittering about steps was a bigger danger than the damned steps, and it was embarrassing for the blind colleagues and honestly cringeworthy to witness.

If you want to be helpful, ask the blind person discreetly and listen (I mean listen) to the reply.

RE: https://mastodon.online/@bermudianbrit/117230621559321958

Dear sighted people.

On the whole, steps are not dangerous to blind people. Blind people are not oldschool Daleks, they can climb steps using handrails, guide dogs and or canes for guidance. Steps are generally quite predictable, as most steps have a consistent height, width and depth to them.

Steps are not a "make the blind person not be in your space", I'd consider that dubiously legal and you'd deserve to be sued. Don't be a dick. If legit worried e.g. no handrail, offer human guiding.

Today the courts told me the reason they are not responding to my pre-legal letter is:
"We have responded to your Pre-Action Letter through the HMCTS complaints procedure in an effort to avoid the need for litigation in a cost-efficient way and ensure limited public resources are used in a responsible way."

This is 100% not a legitimate reason not to respond to a pre-action letter.

So I spent this evening wanging a full blown disability discrim claim. 3rd time I've sued the courts! 🖕🏻

For those who want UK emergency alerts without the phone-badness, someone on the fediverse has taken the government output and created a fediverse bot at https://social.chatty.monster/@ukgov_emergency_alerts@social.chatty.monster

The profile rightly warns not to rely on this entirely, but may be better than no receipt.

I love people who fix things and make stuff work slightly better.

For anyone in the UK who got the wildfires emergency alert but can't find it after hitting OK (to make it STOP etc), the GOV.UK English language version is at https://www.gov.uk/alerts/14-aug-2026-2 and both languages are belatedly at https://www.gov.uk/alerts/current-alerts (that originally only had Welsh for 15+ mins).

Android phone users may have history: Settings > Emergency Alerts > Alerts History. Apple apparently doesn't store them but have a play.

You can get RSS of the Emergency Alerts at https://www.gov.uk/alerts/feed.atom

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@astronomerritt/116725755802287858

I'm very much trying to push attention to Northern Irish people about the NI Belfast rioting as so many keep pointing out critical things that non-NI folk are just missing or misunderstanding.

Ugh, just seen an article about Tony Blair's thinktank (lobbying group) pushing for certain conditions (anxiety, depression, ADHD) to be blanket excluded from Personal Independence Payment (PIP) a not-employment-linked disability benefit to cover extra costs of living while disabled.

It's all promoting this idea PIP is easy to get, doesn't require evidence and is based on condition not specific criteria of "having difficulty with things".

I'm getting tired of Labour kicking disabled folk.

RE: https://mastodon.scot/@ShredderLivesOn/116483064979510651

I find it astonishing that MPs are allowed to drink while on the job.

That's not been NORMAL since at least the 2000s. I remember a work placement where people were allowed "one unit of booze at lunch". All my workplaces have always had a zero drinking while at work policy which is very strict.

Gone are the days of boozy academic afternoons in the Junior Common Room bar.

I've realised that one of the few downsides of the ubiquitousness of screenreaders and other assistive tech on smartphones and tablets is that my students now don't know how to use the higher end assistive tech packages like JAWS.

Which is fine until they hit a work placement or similar where they can't use a smartphone/tablet and have to use some org's Windows, Office, intranet, web training and records systems...

Do any of my blind contacts here know of any writing comparing JAWS to NVDA?

RE: https://mas.to/@kityates/116424277653313917

Reducing hospitalisations for babies with RSV by 80% due to a maternal vaccination during pregnancy is amazing.

I hope more vaccine trust building can up the rate of vaccination and reduce suffering for babies and their families as well as reducing demand on the NHS.

RE: https://furry.engineer/@soatok/116321104173678252

A BiCon in 2017 invited a local sexual health clinic to do testing and advice one afternoon. It was a great idea and if I'm ever stupid enough to run a convention again I will try and make this happen.

Sex is not a bad thing.

Safer sex is awesome and making it easy, safe, socially acceptable and positive to access safer sex advice can only be a good thing.

Hostile seating is often not accessible.

A seat that requires me to bear weight through my legs isn't a good seat for me. I'm trying to take weight OFF my legs. Something that requires balancing isn't good as my balance is poor.

RE: https://social.v.st/@quixoticgeek/116318158240045573

Thread discussing how benches are essential inclusive architecture. Many people can drive, cycle or walk but can't stand for longer periods.

It takes a lot more leg strength and complex muscle working arrangements to stand than to walk.

I have limited walking AND standing stamina. My nearest shops are in my max good-day walking distance but no benches mean I can't rest part or half way so it's a painful trip when it needn't be.

Stations never have enough seating and it's often hostile.

RE: https://mastodon.me.uk/@slowe/116289390757597782

I don't think UKGov should be allowed to require commercial software for the submission of data and information to government.

They should be required to use open standards and allow open source tools. Or provide one.

Day 5 of the latest migraine/vertigo/sinus badness. My migraine spreadsheet is far too full. I have taken too many NSAIDs, antihistamines, opiates, triptans and CGRP blockers.

I also can't coordinate properly, proprioception is off so I'm dropping things, can't type properly and my wordfinding is rubbish.

Great state to be in during a working day.

Sinus washouts are vile and I'm really not convinced but that's the GP's last idea before resending me back to ENT (which I don't think'll help).