2024
- ✅ Shave
- ✅ Daily swim
- Provide tech support to someone
- 📅 Google IO!
- Hang with friends online.
- Accessibility
- Blindness-related topics
- Tech
- Games
- Music
- Books
- Movies
- TV
- Observations and humor
- Events I attend
- And anything else I want.
- Navigation: Lists all pages for the site.
- main: The area that displays the most recent posts.
- Footer: Has links to my other corners of the Internet.
- Fediverse: If you’re on Mastodon or any other service that support ActivityPub and The Fediverse, you can hit the reply button, compose your response and send it.
- micro.blog: If you are following me with your account, the reply link follows each post, as does a link to view an entire conversation.
- Reply by email: I renamed this link to “send an intergalactic transmission’. Click this, and your default email program prefilled with my email address and the post title or excerpt as the subject line. Compose your email, hit send and I’ll have your message.
- I’ll respond to you via the method you choose.
All Hopped Up
I finally figured out why this week has essentially been Hell Week for me and anyone who had to deal with me in any capacity: The new meds the doctor gave me can cause elevated hostile behavior and feelings of anger. it’s insidious, though, because it’s not something that just happens. In my case, it played on things i normally find irritating and boosted my response to those. It’s like how in Season 4 of Supernatural when Sam basically gives his brother 20 years of ass kickings because he’s all hopped up on Demon blood. Notice how this gets filed under The X Files because 🖕🏻 Andrew Dab. I don’t even care if I spelled his name right.
What We Worry About: A Repost of someone who is exercising their right to be disgusted
I don’t necessarily agree with the tone of this post, but I do the sentiment. Also, this is my way of reminding you living blind is not a case of God bless us, and we don’t all sit around eagerly awaiting some afterlife where we get back what we never had. This is what we worry about. Sit with that on your next long commute that takes significantly longer by bus, why don’t you. You should.
Something You Didn't Know About me 05/16/2024
Something you didn’t know about me…
The first experience I had that showed me I shouldn’t have to fight for accommodation was not actually by anyone in my office or in the field of blindness and low vision. It actually came from the LGBTQIA2S+ community. I used to be a mod for the Discord server for of Sounds Fake But Okay. Before that happened, though, I had occasion to request that they add alt text to their photos. Not only did they not argue, they added descriptions on every social media as well as their online store so I could support them by purchasing their products and know exactly what I was born. Regardless of where we all end up, it was a thing that happened, and will never unhappen.
People who dismiss Gen Z just for being Gen Z need to get off my lawn.
📗 Yes And
📗 Yes And
Definition
Pronunciation: Yes. AND!
Derived from the shorthand of the first rule of improv.
No questions. Always respond with Yes and… Before adding more detail to said improv.
Simplification for expression of the often complex state in which two conclusions are true at one time and are technically thought of and are not necessarily exclusively separate from each other, meaning these two conclusions can always be true at the same time, but many people cannot function in a way that allows for true validity of both conclusions, usually for reason of bias, inexperience, or yes and. Depending on the situation, there can be more than two valid conclusions. Bias, inexperience, pride, self-preservation, yes and.
Being able to function in a state of yes and is an indicator of emotional maturity if not good or gradually improving mental health.
Other examples not given as many yes and situations involve socially polarized statements and ideas typically found allover the place.
Then and Now: On blind social media users and their use/choice not to use profile pics, complete with much deeper message for readers who are a step ahead.
😎🧑🏼🦯 Since my newest frontier into the Fediverse, I’ve become aware of just how many blind and visually impaired folks are out there with no profile pics. I remember a time, it seems so not long ago when I remember it, when someone in the blind community would make an argument for why we all need to have profile pics. Then, a bunch of users (I won’t hurt anyone’s dignity by calling them people when they act this way) would dogpile on the person–enough said, okay? What’s important is it was not a random occurrence.
The trend I am seeing now is, it’s accepted that blind people may not always have profile pics. I hope so. If we can have a subtle shift like that, there’s still hope for other… Shifts.
Are you seeing this, too?
#😎 Something Most People Don’t Understand About Me
If I’m cursing, disagreeable as some might find it, you’re fine. If I start using formal words and saying things like “ma’am” or “sir”, run. It means i’m beginning to detach from you and view you as a threat/target.
Sonos: Pride cometh before the customer experience.
I’m willing to bet Apple will have similar functionality at their Keynote. All these companies are basically doing the same thing right now. beige.party/@Lottie/1…
📅 It’s time for Google IO2024!!! 🎰
The actual event doesn’t start until 13:00 Eastern for me, but watch this post as I’ll be replying to it with my impressions. You can also interact in real time if you’re registered on the Fediverse.
📢 Good morning, Internetians. Are you gorgeous?
on Today’s Menu…
The ultimate Intro Post
Welcome :)
Imagine a social media experience where you log into one place and get all your content from across the Internet. Imagine a social media experience where you can follow people who post about interesting things, but also repost a lot of nonsense, and you can enjoy the best of them without putting yourself or the other person out. Imagine a social media experience where the reactions are hidden and what you’re left with are people who take the time to have meaningful discussion with you about your content. This is The Starship Changeling.
My experience is The Starship Changeling. The developer of micro.blog doesn’t describe his content management system as social media, but he’s got one of the most accessible forms of the future of social media, I feel, so I switched.
My Name is Randy
My name is Randy and I often go by Changeling. If you’re wondering why a government name and fun name are being used at the same time, here’s what happened.I used to be an Assistive Technology instructor for people with visual impairments, CATIS certified and all. For reasons way beyond the scope of an introduction post, I am now an accessibility and inclusion specialist for the organization I used to teach for. At the same time I was an instructor, I began interacting with more online communities.
In these communities, I went and still go by Changeling. Wonderful, right? Nice separation of casual and official life, but here’s the deal. Because I’m blind and it is one of those disabilities that has wide-ranging impacts both subtle and explicit, there’s no way for me to get away from my circumstances by adopting a digital life like many people can and do. Ready Player one? I look forward to it. Player two, I dream about it. Rogue AI god aside.
Because of this, I still had to advocate to get my needs met. I began doing accessibility testing and checking for people, reviewing their social media posts, online stores, websites and, in one instance, a consultation about image descriptions for an envelope-book via Twitter DM. I always did this without asking for compensation. I wanted in those spaces, and I was the one who knew what I needed to be functional in them, so charging felt wrong to me.
Furthermore, I didn’t often have the opportunity to teach special topics I thought were awesome. I started writing guides for using online platforms. The ones I’m most known for are Changeling’s Guide to Mastodon and Discord for screen readers. (Note: If you’re wondering about the whereabouts of said guides, I am currently in the process of updating them and reworking them to reflect requests from people who found it useful and saw ways to make it more user friendly.) I was building an extensive though untraditional resume under this name. The Discord guide even made it into an issue of Top Tech Tidbits.
Then I became an accessibility and inclusion specialist as a day job, and I saw a personal choice for myself. I could do my job based on my traditional credentials alone, collecting credentials more specific to this role as I go, abandoning a resume of experience I came by honestly and fairly and honestly and that directly benefits my knowledge reputation in my day job, or I could spruce up my home on the Internet and turn it into a tool that displays valid though unorthodox credentials. For the record, I think it’s going to be a yes and situation, meaning both methods are going to be used, said method to be determined by the situation.
About Surface Me
I love roller coasters, horror novels and music. I am also the human partner in crime to a cat named Alex.
Content
Here are the things I talk about. You can also find this information on the the Archive or feeds pages.
You can also use the Feeds page and an RSS reader of your choice to subscribe to those topics that are of interest to you. Finally, visit the nurture your inner alien page to subscribe to the email newsletter. Be aware, however, this is only set to deliver a weekly digest of all posts. As you may be realizing, this email would be quite large.
Navigating
If you are a screen reader user, your best bet for consistent navigation around pages is to use the landmarks or regions feature. There are three main areas.
You can also use the articles feature of your screen reader to quickly move between posts in the main area.
Interacting
As mentioned before, my starship is now completely free of likes, reposts and followers counts. I’m not saying you can’t do those things, but I will remain unaware of them. Let’s look at how we can effectively interact with each other.
More info
See the about page for more information.
Thank you, and enjoy your ride on the Starship Changeling!🎢🎢🎢
🥂🥂 Hello everyone, and welcome aboard The Starship Changeling. Please continue to be patient as we work to onboard everyone as soon as possible. Thank you!