From 066a2f80fb038f1cce1259213ed6459031a558c1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: ryan-p-randall Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2024 19:04:03 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Add `aria-describedby` sections to `home.html`; Publish WA for 2024wk02. --- _layouts/home.html | 14 ++++---- _posts/2024-01-13-2024-week-02.md | 58 +++++++++++++++++++++++++------ 2 files changed, 55 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-) diff --git a/_layouts/home.html b/_layouts/home.html index 110c6b55..947a05a2 100644 --- a/_layouts/home.html +++ b/_layouts/home.html @@ -13,13 +13,13 @@

Hi, I'm Ryan.

Featured Sections

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Blog
Somewhat regular posts.
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Bookmarks
Annotated links.
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Notes
My digital garden.
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Reading
What I'm reading.
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Colophon
How I make this site.
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Links Rhizome
I am also here.
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+
Blog
Somewhat regular posts.
+
Bookmarks
Annotated links.
+
Notes
My digital garden.
+
Reading
What I'm reading.
+
Colophon
How I make this site.
+
Links Rhizome
I am also here.
+

Featured Posts

{% for post in site.tags.featured %} diff --git a/_posts/2024-01-13-2024-week-02.md b/_posts/2024-01-13-2024-week-02.md index 1c1cc55a..20dd94c1 100644 --- a/_posts/2024-01-13-2024-week-02.md +++ b/_posts/2024-01-13-2024-week-02.md @@ -2,28 +2,66 @@ title: Weekly Assemblage for 2024 Week WW modified: categories: [weekly-assemblage] -excerpt: ' .' -tags: [] +excerpt: 'RSS reading; _Author, Author_ and A.I.; and Site Refinements of the Week.' +tags: + - A.I. + - a11y + - rss + - Star Trek + - science fiction + - site refinements # header: # image: /assets/images/weekly-assemblage.png # caption: 'Photo credit: [**Unsplash**](https://unsplash.com)' -published: false +published: true toc: true comments: -date: 2024-01-13T08:20:03-6:00 +date: 2024-01-14T18:10:44-6:00 --- [Weekly Whaaa…?]({% post_url 2016-01-09-weekly-whaaa %}) {: .notice} - \ No newline at end of file +It probably helps that I'm following a large number of feeds, and a few people who post small updates throughout the day. (These folks often post to their own microblogging sites with [IndieWeb microformats](https://book.micro.blog/microformats/) or to IndieWeb-oriented services like [omg.lol](https://home.omg.lol/) and [micro.blog](https://micro.blog/).) + +This means that I'll usually see **something** new in my RSS reader, even if it's only 2 to 20 new things rather than the hundreds of new posts I'd encounter on Mastodon. + +Maybe I'll start doing more frequent, smaller posts as well? If you've got a site, consider this more encouragement to add an RSS feed and to make it prominent and easily discoverable! + +## "Author, Author" & AI + +We watched the "Author, Author" episode of _Star Trek: Voyager_ as part our of first viewing of **all** of _Star Trek_. (In homage to the [Memory Alpha wiki](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main), we're calling this our "#ViewingAlpha".) + +In this episode, the Doctor—an "Emergency Medical Holograph" who has grown far beyond his expected role as the ship Voyager's supplemental medical support—has become the author of a holonovel. (Yep, **holo**novel: an interactive work of fiction playable by any immersive holodeck.) + +As part of the Doctor's ongoing story arc—one that parallels many similar "not quite human" characters in the series—this episode revolves both around his relationship to his crew mates and his legal rights. Can he legally be granted copyright for the work he's clearly created? + +The episode immediately made me think of [Olaudah Equiano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano)'s excellent slave narrative/captivity narrative [_The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano_](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/olaudah-equiano/the-interesting-narrative-of-the-life-of-olaudah-equiano), as well as the ongoing copyright questions generative AI technology currently presents. + +Whether you're deeply familiar with _Star Trek_ or relatively ignorant of the series, I think it'd be an excellent stand-alone episode to dip into. (Full disclosure: I haven't rewatched it before writing thing. But I don't believe there's any necessary context that isn't explained within the episode, particularly as what Samuel Delany might call "a significant distortion of the present.") + +I'm still toying with the idea of having one or two seasons of _Star Trek: Voyager_ or _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ be part of my dissertation, and this is one of those episodes that's strong enough to be persuasive. + +## Site Refinements of the Week + +Looking over my site's [commit history](https://github.com/ryan-p-randall/ryan-p-randall.github.io/commits/develop/), I spruced up a few things this week! + +Most are accessibility-related things you might not immediately perceive. Which will probably be a running theme, whenever I post this sort of "site refinements of the week." + +First, I realized that the [Minimal Mistakes theme](https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/), which I use for my site, uses an `

` heading for the on-page table of contents. Maybe there's a reason for this—but in practice on my site, there's always a skip from the page title's `

` level to much lower `

` level. As [WebAIM explains](https://webaim.org/techniques/semanticstructure/#headings), it's best not to introduce this sort of jarring skip. So I fixed that pattern, at least for my own site! I might end up submitting a pull request as well. + +Less related to the theme overall is the introduction of `aria-describedby` attributes to the button-styled links on my home page. These mean that anyone using assistive technology will hear the descriptions associated with the buttons, just as someone would quickly perceive visually based on the layout. + +Although they haven't hit the live site yet, I'm also tinkering with switching my footnotes plugin from [Bigfoot](https://web.archive.org/web/20221127194150/http://www.bigfootjs.com/) to [Littlefoot](https://littlefoot.js.org/). + +I believe Littlefoot will have better support for screen readers, plus it seems easier for me to understand its CSS, which means it'll be that much easier to connect its CSS to the [theme switcher](https://fossheim.io/writing/posts/accessible-theme-picker-html-css-js/) I eventually plan to add. \ No newline at end of file