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#accessibility

22 posts18 participants3 posts today
Continued thread

To be fair to my colleague, when I explained it to them, they got it.

It literally hadn't occurred to them. Why would it? Their job was to sell out a conference on renewable energy or whatever it was.

But in my experience, almost everyone gets it once you give them context.

Almost everyone knows someone with #accessibility needs, even if they currently have none themselves.

#Ableism is a silent assassin in our culture. It pervades our discourse.

We must hear the voices of the #disabled.

Continued thread

I remember once, a long time ago, a colleague asked me to publish some content on our website.

It was marketing material, for a conference. PDF, of course. With no consideration to #accessibility whatsoever.

I declined, and we had a meeting. I explained why I couldn't publish the material in its current state and they said "But there won't be any blind people at this conference!"

To which I replied, "No, there won't, because your marketing means they can't possibly even know it is on."

I'm thrilled to announce that I've been accepted as a student at #ColoradoChristianUniversityOnline! I'll be pursuing a B.S. in #ComputerScience. The school's class format seems much more manageable for me than other schools I've attended, and I'm feeling optimistic about this new chapter.

Now begins the challenging process of hunting for #scholarships. Unfortunately, I'm discovering just how inaccessible most scholarship websites are for screen reader users. If anyone knows of #accessible scholarship resources or platforms, I'd greatly appreciate your recommendations!

📣 Announcing Altbot 2.0: The Privacy & Green Update 🔒💚

Exciting news! After months of development, Altbot 2.0 is officially launching with major improvements to privacy, efficiency, and description quality.

What's new in Altbot 2.0:

  • 100% local AI processing for true privacy - unlike Google Gemini which saves data for training, Altbot 2.0 retains ZERO information about you or your images using the powerful Ovis2:8B model running on my custom AltTron server equipped with an A5500 GPU and expansion capacity for two additional GPUs
  • Full GDPR compliance with clear informed consent - I've implemented comprehensive privacy measures including transparent data handling policies, user rights protection, and minimal data collection practices that exceed GDPR requirements
  • Better quality descriptions across all 11 supported languages thanks to a newly developed translation layer specifically optimized for local LLM models
  • Significantly more energy efficient with a new feature that shows you exactly how much energy was used for each request! This efficiency comes from using a server-grade GPU optimized for lower power consumption, and 36% of the energy consumed is from clean sources mainly nuclear power (thanks to being based in Georgia)

The only data Altbot 2.0 records:

  • That a request happened
  • How long it took to complete
  • What type of media it was (image, video, or audio)
  • What language was used

No images, no content, no personal data saved - ever.

For those who don't know, Altbot has been helping make the Fediverse more accessible by automatically generating alt-text descriptions for images. The project has grown beyond anything I imagined, now serving thousands of users across the network.

Support Altbot's Future 💝

To bring these privacy and efficiency improvements to life, I had to invest in a more powerful server than initially planned. The server costs exceeded my budget by around $900, which I've covered out of pocket. Who woulda thought that competing with a $1.98 trillion dystopian mega corporation would be expensive? Shocking, I know.

I've set up a Ko-fi fundraising goal to help recover these costs and support ongoing development: Ko-fi.com/micr0byte

Your contributions will help ensure Altbot remains:

  • Free for everyone
  • Continuously improved
  • Sustainably maintained

Even small donations make a huge difference and motivate me to keep enhancing accessibility across the Fediverse!

This milestone represents a commitment to ensuring accessibility doesn't come at the cost of privacy or environmental impact. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together.

As Altbot continues to grow, I'm open to sharing more about this journey with anyone interested in accessibility, ethical AI, or Fediverse projects.

For press inquiries: inquiries@micr0.dev

Feel free to boost or reach out!

Ko-fiBuy Micr0byte a Coffee. ko-fi.com/micr0byteBecome a supporter of Micr0byte today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
You can’t say ”it’s not worth making it accessible for only 1% of our users”. That’s a logical fallacy. And reveals a lot about your understanding of the subject area, and your value system.

If you had made it accessible to begin with, people with disabilities could’ve been 20% of your user base.

And it would have been better for 100% of your users.

#a11y #accessibility

The Web #Accessibility Slack community attracts an unfortunate share of asks that go something like:

"I have an interview/have been tasked with giving a presentation/have been promoted to a role and need to become an expert in accessibility by tomorrow, but I know nothing. Can you please send me free resources?"

And like... it's up to every community member whether or not to respond to these, and I'm all for encouragement. But does accessibility really need people who aren't willing to pay for materials, have unrealistic expectations of how much there is to learn, and may have even lied their way into a position they clearly don't want?

I think not, personally.

Able to Play, a game repository that helps you find games that match your accessibility needs, just launched!

abletoplay.com

For gamedevs/game requests: Here's some info on how to make a game available on there:
help.abletoplay.com/docs/how-c

It's still a young platform, so please give them lots of feedback to help improve it!

@games

AbleToPlayAble To Play — The Easiest Way to Find Accessible GamesFind games that meet your personalized accessibility needs - quickly, easily, and for free!