Dr Yusuf Ali Osman doing great strategic disability discrimination litigation again https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwp93d9r034xo
There is no excuse for such a high profile exhibition as the Bayeaux Tapestry not being set up with inclusive and adaptive access options. There's some fantastic accessible museuming work out there.
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.
@JonathanMosen I'm generally not an AI fan, but Jonathan is persuasive and not in a "pretending there's no bad stuff or risk" but in a more thoughtful way.
I would have liked more recognition of the political risk of techbros as I think they're a bigger risk than is mentioned but that's me being picky. The blogpost was long enough! I worry we as societies won't help people losing work from AI changes or we'll end up in hock to the techbros if we are not careful. Or it'll get v v messy (violent)
I'm months late to the party on reading the excellent @JonathanMosen's long but thoughtful and clear post on AI, where he not only explains how blind people can use it, but discusses the downsides, the need-to-verify, security and environmental risks but talks in context of history of doing something ethically constrained like the 2014 Marrakesh Treaty that allowed legal adapting of copyright works for print-disabled people without permissions needed.
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.
Jason Arday, the young Black high-profile academic tokenised by Cambridge University has been found dead.
So many academics of colour were WARNING that Arday's life was at risk with the media and social-media onslaught against him, EDI, Black academia/rights and more.
Will anyone? Media, socials, Cambridge be held accountable?
Will we learn the next time a marginalised person is MONSTERED and targeted for what white men get away with daily?
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