Weeknotes 24:08

February 27, 2024

Week of February 18–24

• I enjoyed a day off on Monday for President’s Day. I was able to finish up a post on remote work and privately posted another article for myself.
• I got to interact with a Craft CMS backend as I was doing some exploration for a client project. I built 10 different projects in Craft version 2 in 2015 and 2016. It was nice to revisit the interface and to see how some things had changed and how much of it is the same. It also jogged my memory about how Craft works which was helpful for my team in understanding some of the constraints we need to consider as we propose new solutions to our client.
• I enjoyed working on an accessibility project for one of our clients. I tested every page of the site in Lighthouse and then addressed the different issues that came up through that audit/testing. I adjusted several heading levels (changing h1 to h2). I added or removed aria labels. I added :focus styles for keyboard navigation. I refactored a modal to use the <dialog> element, which has a lot of accessibility baked into it. I updated an accordion component with aria labels. I also increased the size of the body text on the secondary pages to improve the readability.
• I built a prototype based on one of the design elements for a client project that will move into development later next week or the following week. It gave me the chance to learn and play with something new to me. It is nice to have these “sandbox” moments to explore and evaluate the things you are thinking about. It was helpful to be able to interact with the designer and realize that he was envisioning it a bit differently than I understood. Much nicer to have these conversations now and be able to keep iterating.

Articles I read

• How I Solved My Font Rendering Problem (Michelle Barker)
• Some Words on Webmentions
• Federation syndication (Jeremy Keith)
• People & Content #11: Dynamic Work
• 6 Ways to Find (and Protect) the Time You Need to Read Books
• The figure element can take multiple images
• New and Improved Green Web Hosting Directory from the Green Web Foundation (Michelle Barker)
• Rotten Apple (Jeremy Keith) – It is alarming to see how Apple is responding to the EU court decision.
• Can generative AI help write accessible code? – The prospects are not promising right now.
• Accessibility and Artificial Intelligence
• I worry our Copilot is leaving some passengers behind (Josh Collinsworth)
• 24 Ways to Love in 2024 (Paul Tripp)
• We need to talk about digital ownership
• A stable accessibility auditing environment is critical (Nic Steenhout)
• Future of White Boys’ Clubs Redux #fowaspeak (from 2009)
• Wherever He Leads, He’ll Go
• Desecration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (Carl Trueman)
• How artists are fighting generative AI
• Death, Lonely Death – An interesting post about Voyager 1 spacecraft. I remember when it sent back pictures of Jupiter and Saturn. And how it figured into the plot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I kept thinking about that as I read this article.
• The Adjunct Model of Teaching is Stupid and Broken (Geoff Graham)

Books I am reading

• In Good Time – I finished this one during the week.
• Digital Liturgies – I also finished this one during the week.
• Cherish
• The God of the Garden – I started this one on Saturday.

What I watched

• Somebody Feed Phil (Netflix)
• Project Runway Season 16 (Prime) – We finished out all these on Prime.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix – animated)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix – live-action) – We decided to wait off on watching more of these until we see the original animated series first.
• Break Point: Season 2 (Netflix)
• All Creatures Great & Small Season 4, Episode 4 (PBS on Prime)
• A Chef’s Life (PBS)
• The Franchise Episode 6 (YouTube)
• The Franchise Episode 7 (YouTube)
• The Franchise Episode 8 (YouTube)
• The Franchise Episode 9 (YouTube)
• The Franchise Episode 10 (YouTube)