Greetings festive fellowship of the fediverse, it's the second day of the #SteamNextFest , and there are still many games to discover and discuss, let's share our mutual discoveries of today
@shiri@LALegault@fishidwardrobe no one is speaking for all autistic people. That includes both you and I. If you somehow manage to deduce the intention by the original post, congratulations. I didn't. Looking for clues, I saw her posts with jokes and sarcasm about a topic, which was later directed at autistic 'experts' to explain. Then I tried to explain the relevant hashtags. If that's insulting and needing to screw off, I don't need to engage further. More context: https://hachyderm.io/@gaveen/112507224443372355
@gaveen honestly the bulk of your responses were fine, you're biggest case of stepping in it was the phrase "asking for basic decency" as @LALegault put it implied they were not being decent.
Then @fishidwardrobe and hard escalated and you got roped in with that.
I apologize, I wouldn't have been as harsh if it had just been your responses especially as you ended on "use your own judgement" (honestly, probably wouldn't have said anything at all at that point), so it was unfair of me to position you as a problem there.
@usernamefactory@startrek I don't know if I agree with that premise. I've run into any number of people who became Trek fans in general by starting with Kelvin.
That said, I don't know that breaking the movies into more timelines is a great idea.
And I personally would be skeptical that anything from the proposed movies would ever turn into a TV series. They are really operating in separate spaces right now. And P+ is shedding series faster than they're adding them.
Now that I’ve thought about it some more, it’s unlikely the movies would be making any decisions based off of what’s best for the streaming shows. That would probably be seen as the tail wagging the dog.
That said, I’ve definitely encountered people who enjoyed the films but skipped the shows on account of not knowing where to start and finding the relationship too confusing. It would make sense to pair a successful “early days” movie with an “early days” spinoff series to lure some of that casual audience to streaming.
@mutualaid Posting on behalf of Sabi. She needs $706 this weekend for both hotel and phone bills. We've seen you come through for her, mom, and the bun every time and are counting on you to do the same. We really are all we've got. http://linktr.ee/sabilewsounds
Because, if not, then it means there are no Tucker Carlsons and no Jon Stewarts, and no John Olivers in that universe. Probably because nothing needs internal investigations in that society as a whole!
In Deep Space 9, Jake Sisko (the station commander’s son) is a journalist for the Federation News Service. There’s a good episode where he ends up in a war zone and the story covers cowardice and PTSD.
Hurrah... good sense breaks out in the #NorthWest as the 'Waitrose of the North', Booths begins to get rid of self-service check-outs.
Given the price premium at Booths, we (the customers) want the social interaction with staff at the checkouts, not be told to 'scan & bag'!
More importantly, not only do checkouts provide regular local employment, they are also for many semi-isolated shoppers a key bit of rare social interaction... so a welcome reverse!
@RolloTreadway@cvwillegen@dweebish@ChrisMayLA6@Greenseer@actuallyautistic
I have found a really great solution: I'm in a Co-op. That's a little community store that orders bulk for you and has basic items and produce right there. I pay a little monthly fee and get to shop in this friendly DIY environment. I can chat, I can hang out, or I can just collect my stuff and leave. I feel totally relaxed there. No annoying ads, lights, sounds or music. Just the things everyone needs in a tiny store, and my boxes on a shelf with my name on it, if I ordered bulk. And the atmo is so incredibly nice, that I often start a convo just for the fun of it.
In brief: I'm still not sure how much #AltText is optimal. And I tend to run into situations in which alt-text that describes everything in a picture will grow longer than any of you could possibly imagine in their wildest dreams.
Here's my situation:
I don't have a problem with writing a lot. Unlike most of you, I'm not on a phone. I'm on a desktop computer, and if I'm not, I'm on a laptop. I've always got a full-blown hardware keyboard, and I can touch-type with ten fingers. And I like to rant.
I'm on #Hubzilla. This means virtually no limit in post length and especially virtually no limit in alt-text length. The only limiting factor would be how much alt-text the instances where my posts are viewed can display. #Mastodon has a hard cap at 1,500 characters, for example.
I'm not the one to skimp on #accessibility rules unless they're technologically impossible for me to follow. I'd rather do too much than too little. This includes full transcriptions of all texts in a picture unless privacy issues speak against it, or unless I've got no way to source the original of a text anymore, and said text in the picture is ineligible even for me. Yes, I transcribe text that's one pixel high if I can get the original.
When I post pictures, I don't always post them Instagram/Pixelfed-style, i.e. posts that are about this particular picture. Instead, I often use pictures to illustrate the post. Hubzilla gives me all necessary means to write full-blown blog posts with all bells and whistles as regular posts. Describing a picture in the visible part of a post when the post isn't about the picture is horribly bad style. Doing so when there are multiple pictures in one post, regardless of whether Mastodon puts them in the right places (which it doesn't), is even worse.
I usually post pictures taken in #VirtualWorlds. In comparison with pictures taken in real-life, they have a much higher tendency to contain things that need to be described, often to both sighted and blind or visually-impaired users, because they simply don't know them, be it objects, be it locations. It's one thing if a picture was taken on Times Square, and it's something else if a picture was taken in a place of which maybe not even five people in the whole Fediverse even know that it exists. Thus, more text is needed.
Now there are two schools of thoughts when it comes to alt-text.
One: clear and concise alt-text. Only describe what's necessary in the context in which the picture is posted. Screen readers can't handle long alt-texts well. You can't navigate alt-text with most screen readers, i.e. you can't stop it somewhere, rewind it to a certain point and listen to parts of it once more. All you can do is let the screen reader rattle down the whole alt-text in one chunk. If you need to hear it again, you have to hear all of it again.
The obvious downside of this is that most of the content of the image is lost to everyone who isn't sighted, and some is lost to those who can't identify it even by looking at it in that particular picture.
Two: full description of absolutely everything in the picture plus explanation if necessary. Denying non-sighted people the chance to experience everything that's in a picture, and be it through words, can be considered ableist. Also, tiny details that are barely visible in the picture could be described so that sighted people can identify them.
And besides, there's the idea that alt-text can help everyone understand what that is that they see (or don't see) in that picture if they're unfamiliar with them.
As I've said, extensive image descriptions in the visible part of a post may be okay when the post is about the picture, but not when the picture illustrates the post and even less when there's more than one picture illustrating the post.
Yes, this is a thing. Just read what @Stormgren wrote earlier this month.
Alt-text doesn't just mean accessibility in terms of low -vision or no-vision end users.
Done right also means accessibility for people who might not know much about your image's subject matter either.
This is especially true for technical topic photos. By accurately describing what's in the picture, you give context to non-technical viewers, or newbies, as to exactly what they're looking at, and even describe how it works or why it matters.
#AltText is not just an alternate description to a visual medium, it's an enhancement for everyone if you do it right.
(So I can't find any prior post of mine on this, so if I've actually made this point before, well, you got to hear a version of it again.)
And I'm actually waiting for Mastodon users to refuse to boost posts that contain pictures with insufficient alt-text. Many refuse to boost posts that contain pictures without alt-text already now.
The obvious downside of it is: "DESCRIBE ALL THE THINGS" + lots and lots and lots of stuff in the picture + just about everything needs to be explained because nobody is familiar with any of it = alt-text the size of a rather long blog post.
I've tried that with this picture (no embedding although I could because reasons). I've written a detailed alt-text. I've spent more than three hours in-world in a preserved, static copy of this place, researching and transcribing text where probably none of you would even know that there's text otherwise. The picture alone wasn't enough of a source for an alt-text that I would have deemed sufficient.
Only description plus some transcriptions: 7,636 characters. Description plus everything transcribed, save for the big black panel in the middle background behind the tree which I couldn't transcribe because it no longer exists in-world, plus translations of everything that isn't English plus everything unfamiliar explained: 10,985 characters. If that panel had still existed in-world, and I could have transcribed it, I might have passed the 12,000-character mark. With an image description.
As I've said, Hubzilla doesn't have a hard cap for alt-text length. In theory, it could handle and probably display alt-texts much longer than this. I don't know how it'd display an alt-text of that size in practice, whether it'd be scrollable, whether it'd have a time-out before anyone could read it fully etc. Mastodon, in the meantime, has the hard cap I've mentioned above which probably also cuts alt-texts coming in from outside. That's where most of my audience is. And screen reader users might have no other choice than to sit through their screen readers rambling down alt-text for more than five minutes in one go, especially if they could get a hold of the original alt-text instead of one cropped at the 1,500-character mark.
Now, even though I'll probably kick off two separate threads, I'd like to read your thoughts about how detailed alt-text should be.
Alt-text doesn't just mean accessibility in terms of low -vision or no-vision end users.
Done right also means accessibility for people who might not know much about your image's subject matter either.
This is especially true for technical topic photos. By accurately describing what's in the picture, you give context to non-technical viewers, or newbies, as to exactly what they're looking at, and even describe how it works or why it matters.
#AltText is not just an alternate description to a visual medium, it's an enhancement for everyone if you do it right.
(So I can't find any prior post of mine on this, so if I've actually made this point before, well, you got to hear a version of it again.)
This means she asks for a) a full description and b) a full set of explanations where necessary, especially of technical content.
Besides, there might still be legally blind people who nonetheless want to know everything about everything that's in a picture, too.
I admit I skimmed it at first, because even for sighted people text might be too long. As I mentioned, trimming is a useful thing (and I don’t mean it snarky, even if it may seem that way).
However, I had given it a 2nd look and added an edit. Maybe the edit didn’t federate to Mastodon tho, so here it is:
Also, for uses other than vision impairment, I think text should be elsewhere than alt-text. Like just description text or image metadata. Alt-text is for when you can’t see the picture.
(Like on ye olde internet which you might have browsed with images disabled to speed up loading.)
@tobogganablaze My point is: How can you be so sure it has been dismissed? I just found about [1] from 2013.
It appears, the SM doesn't disagree with shrinkage at all.
But why does it seem your mind being blown by this idea? Maybe be because you didn't consider us being sucked in anywhere? If that's the case, here's why didn't you consider this yet: I didn't yet post my post despite the probability of not having a new thought.
That's how blocking path dependencies in science can be so strong.
"What instead of the universe expanding we’re just shrinking" is not what I posted because my brain didn't come up with it. If you want things simple and in your words, I suggest a solitary life.
Finally, you don't know my age or experience. Your unfriendliness could just have hurt a kid's interest into space. Remember that.
My point is: How can you be so sure it has been dismissed?
Models that don’t work should be dismissed. If you have a model for shrinkage that does work it should not be dismissed.
It appears, the SM doesn’t disagree with shrinkage at all.
Yup, pretty much.
But why does it seem your mind being blown by this idea? Maybe be because you didn’t consider us being sucked in anywhere? If that’s the case, here’s why didn’t you consider this yet: I didn’t yet post my post despite the probability of not having a new thought.
Sorry, I’m not following. My mind is definitly NOT blown and black holes don’t “suck in” things. That’s a common misconception. And I really don’t know what you’re trying to say with the sentences after that.
Your unfriendliness could just have hurt a kid’s interest into space. Remember that.
I’m sorry that you think I was unfriendly.
But this a community for people that smoked too much weed to saything dumb things that sound clever when you don’t think about them too much.
If there is actual kids around that are interested in space theneven more important that unscientific non-sense gets called out.
But the TL;DR here is that so far all “shrinking gravity” models had major flaws and didn’t work. And the last idea of perfeclty scaling atoms is unobservable, so really more of a thought expriment than an actual model.
Tonight I started a discovery course of Hebrew. Just for me
I checked the alphabet
Similar system of consonants and strong vowels on which you append unwritten short vowels
Then I went on with the words that are close to Arabic, which I started to learn 20 years ago (not seriously enough): I still remember though how to pronounce most of arabic letters, and remember some vocabulary
I post my "course", because I recognize many of the words: THREAD will be LONG