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Human Operating Systems
When I speak with people about my chronic illness, there is often confusion on it. Many people think, “your pain [or dizziness] is just in your head” and that I can just let it go or ignore it. Yes, my disabilities are invisible, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t very real. When we meet people…
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On Depression
Society has many ills. People are fallible and get themselves addicted to unhealthy things all the time. It may be overeating, under-eating, gambling, alcohol, or drugs, but each of these people is dealing with a pain that their particular addiction gives a little bit of relief from. We recognize that these addictions are diseases; we…
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Apple Watch Emergency Alerts?
I live with a person who has a very severe allergy to fish and shellfish. So much so that going out to dinner is extremely hard. She carries an epipen in case she is exposed, and it can be as little exposure as walking into a restaurant having a fish fry. I have malignant hyperthermia,…
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Imposter Syndrome Sucks
But we do it to ourselves. I battle imposter syndrome every day. In fact I made a distinct decision back in 2009 to “fake it until I make it”. I got fired for poor performance (I was severely depressed at the time which affected my work). While out of work in a down economy, I…
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I think I’ll call him Phil
It always starts at my cheek. It crawls behind my eyes and tugs on my nose. Unmonitored, it will push tears out then start chipping away at my teeth. It threads a needle through my left eye and pulls on the string making me lose focus and balance.
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CodePaLousa Accessibility Resources
Thanks to everyone who came out to my talk UX of Stairs this morning. It was a really great crowd. there were a number of great questions and I mentioned some really good tools and resources, but I didn’t have the URLs on slides. Here is a list mentioned in the talk as well as…
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Turning the Titanic
In 2013, I was working for a Fortune 500 financial firm. During my four years there I had been pushing to make mobile development a first level priority. At the time it was a forgotten step-child. I had the opportunity to present on my experience at CodePaLOUsa that year. Given Google’s new policy on mobile…
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9th Circuit Court Accessibility Ruling
The news just broke that the 9th Circuit court has ruled on two cases with major consequences to the internet, how it is built, and how people use it. The rulings are a huge mistake in interpretation of the law and should be appealed immediately. However, work is currently being done to improve the Americans…
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How to Negotiate
Negotiating is a tricky subject. Talking money seems to still be a taboo in polite society. Subsequently, we often over pay for things or get underpaid for the work we do. A friend asked about having a conference session on negotiating. I began working on a talk, but I’m not sure it is ready yet.…
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Optimizing Working Remote
For the last eighteen months, I have been working remotely from my home in Wisconsin for a startup located in San Francisco. This has been one of the greatest adventures I have had in my life; learning a tremendous amount about the world of startups, better coding practices, how to make a remote environment work,…