a11y, art, music
The album is now live on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Amazon Music!
So the last thing I posted was about starting to make music. Well, not only did I start, but I finished my first EP. You can check out the whole album on my music page and pick up the album on CDBaby. iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, Pandora, and Spotify all to come soon!
I’ve been looking for different ways to handle my stress lately. I’ve really gotten into knitting as a zen method. But I’ve also started getting into making music. I’m trying to relearn guitar and piano (which is not stress reducing) and I’ve begun to play around with DJ setups.
The following post contains some traumatic and triggering scenarios. There is foul language and references to body parts.
North Carolina just made it a law that transgender people will no longer be able to use bathrooms in state owned buildings. It’s only slightly more nuanced than that, but the reality is that implementing this law means that colleagues, friends, members of my family, and likely me* will not be able to go to the bathroom when visiting anything from schools, to the capitol, to state parks. And this is bullshit.
The last two and half months have been quite an adventure. During this time I applied to work with over 50 companies. I conducted interviews with 28 of them. I went to multiple rounds of interviews with a dozen; and 8 went as far as doing whatever the company used as a technical gauge or code test. Discussions with four companies got to the point of discussing salary. I visited in companies on both the east coast and the west coast.
Continue reading “Joining a New Team of Accessibility Professionals”
Social media is a tool that can be used for great good (rallying rebellion and protests against tyranny), great evil (rallying mobs to harass people), or plain fun (cat gifs). Most of us using social media will surround ourselves with people we want to communicate with. A lot of times, these people have the same political, social, and economic views as us, but in some cases they don’t. We all have that one uncle or aunt that is our polar opposite, but because they’re family we try and tolerate their extreme ideas.
Over the last year or so, there have been a lot of people starting to take accessibility seriously, which I love. Accessibility is showing up in blog posts, Github repos, frameworks, and styleguides. But sometimes the way they write about it minimizes the impact that a disability can have on an individual trying to get by in the world.
Yesterday, Stewart Butterfield of Slack emailed his team letting them know that the San Francisco office would be closed in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I think this is brilliant. He makes a good case for why more companies should be closed and we need to continue the fight for civil rights.
These are people who have been beaten, and burned, and raped, and shot, and hanged because they stood up for their own basic dignity. Not people asking to take something from someone else. Not people threatening harm. People asking for an equal right to vote, to have freedom from violence, access to education and housing, and the right to make a living.
This probably isn’t the first time you’ve heard it. Somewhere along the line somebody asked you how well your site or application works for people that are blind. You probably mumbled something along, “They don’t use our stuff,” or maybe, “I don’t know, does it matter?” The short answer is, yes it matters. And you want to pay attention to why.
On October 13th, I posted on here about the fact that I’m genderfluid & non-binary. At the time that was all I was willing to post. However, over the last couple months I have realized that my birthname isn’t one I’m comfortable with. So I picked a new one.
This isn’t an easy post for me to write. I hadn’t planned on writing it yet, but then on October 2nd, 2015 I gave a talk and while I knew what is in my slides, I didn’t realize I was outing myself while I was speaking. I guess I was just in the zone. This is what happens when you don’t rehearse and know your lines verbatim. You wing it and say what works in the moment.