Dispatches From The Internets




Opportunities for AI in Accessibility

A child’s drawing of a cute red robot whose hands are hammers. The robot is centered.

In reading through Joe Dolson’s recent piece on the intersection of AI and accessibility, I absolutely appreciated the skepticism he has for AI in general as well as the ways in which many have been using it. In fact, I am very skeptical of AI myself, despite my role at Microsoft being that of an Accessibility Innovation Strategist helping run the AI for Accessibility grant program. As with any tool, AI can be used in very constructive, inclusive, and accessible ways and it can used in destructive, exclusive, and harmful ones. And there are a ton of uses somewhere in the mediocre middle as well.


Considering content warnings in HTML

A photo of a cute stuffed animal monkey with its hands over its eyes. Camera is tightly framing its head. Its eyes are not visible as they are completely covered by its hands.

One of the features I really love about Mastodon is their first-class Content Warning feature. With one additional step, you can add any warning of your choice to your post and it will be hidden by default, showing only the content warning text. It’s a super-simple idea, but so powerful when it comes to reducing potential the likelihood of causing our readers to experience the kinds of trauma that could have severe consequences.




Rebuilding a PHP App using Isomorphic JavaScript with Eleventy & Netlify

Painting of a cute red robot looking at itself in a full-body mirror.

Back in the early days of the iPhone, I created Tipr, a tip calculator that always produces a palindrome total. This is an overview of the minimal work I did to make it a modern web app that can run without a traditional back-end.


303 Creative LLC v. Elenis is Incredibly Problematic

Pop art style illustration of a white woman holding her hand up to say stop.

Before I get into this, let me start with this preface: I am not a legal expert by any means. I never even watched Law & Order. That said, I am keenly interested in the law and how it relates to bias and discrimination, particularly if that intersects with technology, especially the web. Which brings me to the subject at hand: 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. I tweeted about this case, which is currently before the Supreme Court of the United States, the other day, but felt like I owed it a lengthier—and perhaps more enduring—discussion. So here goes…