Blog

I’ve never hid the fact I try to make my ‘stuff’ accessible for folks. It’s A Thing for me and I’ve spent considerable time working on this blog to maximize it’s utility and accessibility.

I should be in generally good shape overall and I wanted to share a few links for how I pulled this off.

I ran ARC Toolkit (link) as my first pass with WAVE (link) as a second pass. I also looked at axe (link) but have not run it locally yet. These tools seem to give good results on the whole and will cover the core needs from what I can figure out so far.

Big Tweaks

Compact UI

https://userstyles.world/style/7065/compact-er-mastodon

Larger UI

https://userstyles.world/style/4743/spacious-mastodon

Blackout Theme

https://userstyles.world/style/4511/hackers-black-out-beta

Changelog

2023-01-02

Add time to font adjustments

2022-12-11

Add way to hide images without alt-text / descriptions

2022-12-10

Added way to hide boosts via css

2022-11-24

Initial Post

Preface

I’ve not hidden the fact I find the latest Mastodon 4.0.x UI a lesson in terrible UX and reduced accessibility. This post is everything I’ve managed to put together to make the latest Mastodon UI more usable. Please borrow whatever you need from the below.

Forward

The idea that you could have a Digital BuJo still makes my brain hurt a bit.

Especially given organizers still universally stink (link), I still have an analog EDC (link) and I’m still using my bujo riff (link) at the core of my now digital organizer.

Yes: I switched my analog BuJo to digital and I still use an analog notebook daily. I still write in the rain (link), use some odd discoveries (link) and broke a habit or two using the anti-bad habit notebook (link).

Forward

I was recently reminded of the analog life I lead and how that’s evolved over the years since I first wrote about the topic. After some review and reading I can safely say: that’s a different topic. What I did notice is that I’ve never discussed just how I manage inflows of information and manage things I want to retain long term.

This is the inagural video [test] of video, I was grinding the Excavation Site XIX in Destiny 2 and this is one my best runs while farming.

Video description: A very fast, flawless run of the Destiny 2 Excavation Site XIX lost sector on Legendary difficulty

Sexy

I used to sleep without a pillow for many years. I hate foam pillows that much. I’d rather sleep with my head in the dirt than use a foam pillow.

Down pillows changed things. I started using a pillow again.

Feathers!

Almost 2 decades ago I was visting a “camp” (a cabin with fire, walls, a roof and basic plumbing) with a friend and was given a down pillow to sleep upon. That pillow changed everything. I bought it from my friend and used it for years before it finally was worn out completely.

My Concern

It’s not well known but I have a speech processing issue. I have a really hard time decyphering audio for voice communication. It’s so bad I rely on sub titles to watch video content with speech as well as read lips in meat space when with others.

My problem works like this: my hearing is good (I hear noises just fine) but I cannot hear people speak in terms of words. That seems odd, correct. I know a human is talking at me but all I hear is the sound of their voice, not words. It’s like hearing a guitar in a song, it’s noise but not words (speech).

Changelog

2023-02-18

Add note about device swaps and Android 13 upgrade issues

Update 2023-02-18

As of 2023-02-18 I no longer use a OnePlus 8T or Microsoft Surface Duo, both of which are described below. The OnePlus 8T received an Android 13 update that was so buggy for desktop mode, it was unusable. The Surface Duo received an Android 13 update that forced desktop mode to only allow using Remote Desktop for some kind of ‘convergence mode’ that isn’t officially announced or released as of this writing.

TLDR

I was recently whining to a friend about how my Honeybush Tea always ends up cold and I end up always going back to warm it up over the course of a day. They mentioned they were gifted an Ember Mug (link) recently and suggested it is actually worth looking into. Despite my initial hesitations, I’m not upset by the purchase. When the nerds that avoid smart tech admit they were wrong, it’s something worth looking at closer.

How I came to have a cyber deck that gets out of my way and allows me to focus on creation, not consumption

Prelude

For years I have seen posts about cyber decks and always wondered why people build them. I think I finally “Get It” while also not at all understanding why people build the decks I see posted online.