Posts from Laura Kalbag
A few weeks ago I gave a talk for Smashing Meets about Web3. Find the talk description below. You can watch the video of ‘Web3: creating problems where we need solutions’ on Smashing Magazine’s Vimeo . Web3 is one of Silicon Valley’s latest buzzwords, hoping to become a movement. Blockchains, cryptocurrencies, the metaverse, and NFTs may paint themselves as futuristic solutions to tech and…
In September I’ll be speaking at Design Matters in Copenhagen . Ahead of the event I was interviewed by Giorgia Lombardo about accessible and inclusive design. Read the interview, ‘Get on the Path to Accessible and Inclusive Design with Laura Kalbag’ . Read the original post, ‘Get on the Path to Accessible and Inclusive Design’ .
Unsurprisingly, it’s been a busy few months since I started working with Stately . My website is in a state of neglect, so I’m here with a quick remedy. In vaguely chronological order… Remove Trackers (on CSS Tricks). I wrote a response to “What is one thing people can do to make their website better?” on CSS-Tricks . Of course, I chose “remove trackers.” In related news… Sadly, Better Blocker is…
35 and not doing too badly. Read the original post, ‘14 October 2021 08:57 UTC’ .
My book, Accessibility for Everyone, is back in stock in paperback ! Hooray! 💚📗 (And big thank you, A Book Apart.) Preorder yours now and it’ll be with you in 6-8 weeks. Read the original post, ‘20 September 2021 15:26 UTC’ .
Finally got my first jab! 🎉 Read the original post, ‘21 July 2021 10:55 IST’ .
”Snyder and others argue these new arrivals, who drape themselves in the flag of competition, are really just concern trolls, capitalizing on fears about Big Tech’s power to cement the position of existing privacy-invasive technologies.” … ”If the privacy advocates inside the W3C have been put off by Rosewell’s approach, he hasn’t exactly been charmed by theirs either… From his…
Folks who signed up for the mailing list, I’m really sorry I can’t email you about the skipped livestream tonight. I’ve managed to lock myself out of my Buttondown account 😞 Promise that I’ll get it fixed and get emails out to you in time for next month’s stream! Read the original post, ‘15 July 2021 16:03 IST’ .
Read this whole thread , articulated so well from someone who really knows cryptocurrency. “I am often asked if I will “return to cryptocurrency” or begin regularly sharing my thoughts on the topic again. My answer is a wholehearted “no”, but to avoid repeating myself I figure it might be worthwhile briefly explaining why here…” Read the original post, ‘15 July 2021 11:17 IST’ .
We’re skipping July’s Small is Beautiful this month as Aral is getting his second COVID vaccination the day before. We’ll be back in August! You can get live stream reminders for next month’s stream via email or RSS. Read the original post, ‘13 July 2021 16:11 IST’ .
From today, in addition to my work at Small Technology Foundation, I’ll be working with Stately on developer and designer relations as a contractor. The pandemic has made finances tighter at Small Technology Foundation as we’d usually support our work with in-person conference talks which would pay speaking fees. We were already thrifty with our income, but we’ve still got a way to go before the…
’Jim Thatcher, an urban studies professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, is skeptical. “If you give people this power to draw attention based around a dangerous event,” Thatcher says, “then they are actually encouraged to seek out, or at worst manufacture, these dangerous events,” noting the speed with which Citizen escalated the manhunt. Like many others, Thatcher downloaded Citizen…
“Every day, consumers are exposed to extensive commercial surveillance online. This leads to manipulation, fraud, discrimination and privacy violations. Information about what we like, our purchases, mental and physical health, sexual orientation, location and political views are collected, combined and used under the guise of targeting advertising. … The collection and combination of information…
“Slaughter also argued that it’s important for regulators not to pile all the burden of avoiding data abuses on consumers themselves. ‘I want to sound a note of caution around approaches that are centered around user control,’ she said. ’I think transparency and control are important. I think it is really problematic to put the burden on consumers to work through the markets and the use of data,…
Ooh, didn’t realise you could subscribe to an RSS feed by just entering the site’s url into Feedbin . That saves a lot of time hunting around for a hidden feed! Read the original post, ‘16 June 2021 13:39 IST’ .
“Because one reason why there is such a visceral ‘gotcha’ response to these posts, is down to the continued dismissal of marginalised communities who want justice for the discrimination they face. Whether it’s Black people speaking out about police brutality, women who have suffered sexual assault being let down by the criminal justice system or trans people who are harassed not only in the street…
“Digiday reported this week that some major players in the adtech industry have started drawing up plans to turn FLoC into something just as invasive as the cookies it’s supposed to quash. In some cases, this means companies amalgamating any data scraps they can get from Google with their own catalogs of user info, turning FLoC from an ”anonymous” identifier into just another piece of personal…
Missed this a couple of weeks ago, and it could make a huge difference to our browsing experiences (and compel sites to do better!) Note: the misuse and overuse of “crazy” is unfortunate in the linked site. Self Defined dictionary recommends more appropriate, and less ableist, alternative words . “Today, noyb.eu sent over 500 draft complaints to companies who use unlawful cookie banners - making…
“I’m well aware that if you want your health data to remain private, smartwatches are certainly risky. But we’re way past that now. These devices can and have saved lives, and despite some early skepticism, wearables aren’t going anywhere. Why pick a smartwatch made by a company whose founder called early users ‘dumb fucks’ for trusting him? Why trust the company that had a full-page temper…
A very long read but a fascinating insight into how ethics research works (more specifically, doesn’t) inside Google, which I imagine can be extrapolated to other corporations. “Gebru’s career mirrored the rapid rise of AI fairness research, and also some of its paradoxes. Almost as soon as the field sprang up, it quickly attracted eager support from giants like Google, which sponsored…
“The outage will likely draw attention to how centralized our ‘decentralized’ internet really is—a depressing reminder as ransomware attacks hit at critical infrastructure around the world.” Read the original post, ‘Huge Chunk of the Internet Goes Offline Thanks to One Company’ .
“It is worth noting, however, that the new disclosure about biometric data collection follows a $92 million settlement in a class action lawsuit against TikTok, originally filed in May 2020, over the social media app’s violation of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The consolidated suit included more than 20 separate cases filed against TikTok over the platform’s collection and sharing…
“Owners of Amazon Echo assistants and Ring doorbells have until June 8 to avoid automatically opting into Sidewalk, the internet giant’s mesh network that taps into people’s broadband and may prove to be a privacy nightmare… ‘A stalker can abuse it to stalk people better. There are no mitigations mentioned’…” Read the original post, ‘Deadline draws near to avoid auto-joining Amazon's…
“It does raise concerns about censorship, particularly given how we’ve seen social media platforms bungle moderating Palestinian voices in recent weeks amid the Israel conflict. Twitter’s algorithms have screwed up before, and there’s no arguing that mislabeling inconvenient truths as ‘fake news’ could have lasting repercussions.” Read the original post, ‘Twitter May Start Labeling Your Tweets…
New blocking rules! On 25th May 2021, I blocked three blocker blockers, fixed five sites and blocked four new trackers. In the battle of me vs blocker blockers, I have once again emerged victorious (x4) 💪 Better Blocker update news . The rules will auto-update if the app is running. If it’s not, you can get the new rules by opening the app and choosing ‘Update rules’ or ‘Check again now’ from…
Yesterday’s Small is Beautiful video is now up on our site with transcript, captions and links to all the cool sites we mentioned! Thanks to fun guests, Heydon Pickering and Gabe Kangas, and to the lovely folks who stayed for the studio afterparty 😉 If you enjoy this livestream, please help support out work at Small Technology Foundation with a patronage or donation , or share our videos with…
Off to get his booster vaccs. Read the original post, ‘12 May 2021 13:28 IST’ .
Earlier this week a case study of Small Technology Foundation went up on the Scotland’s First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls website. I was asked to share our work as part of their digital Spotlight on Women and Girls in Digital Spaces and Industries. The audience for their site, and the case study structure, made me really think about how to communicate what we do at…
New rules out there for you Better Blocker friends. Lots of fixing this time, amazing how fragile big brand websites can be 😬 Read the original post, ‘29 April 2021 12:43 IST’ .
“At the end of the day, they are not interested in seeing things in their work timeline that make them uncomfortable, or distracts them from what they’re interested in.” from What really happened at Basecamp This attitude is endemic in the tech industry. Read the original post, ‘28 April 2021 12:17 IST’ .
Last night’s Small is Beautiful livestream is now up on our site with transcript, captions (and new for this week), links! We started discussing the National Rail greyscale “mourning” accessibility issues and so much more. Now I’m off to sleep for the whole weekend 😴 Read the original post, ‘16 April 2021 16:22 IST’ .
On today’s livestream (5pm Irish time), we’re going to talk about @BetterBlocker, and its impact on both accessibility and privacy, inspired by the National Rail earlier in the week. You can join in with us (with headphones and mic!) in the studio too: https://small-tech.org/events/small-is-beautiful/ Aral has also got something very cool and new to share 😊 If you miss the livestream, never fear!…
Captions are now working on our latest Small is Beautiful video ! My fault… detailing below in case anyone else comes across the same issue… Why my Vimeo captions weren’t working: I’d generated the captions from the edited automated transcript (using Simon Says ) as usual, and exported them in .srt format. When I tried to upload them to the Vimeo distribution section, the usual upload interface…
And now the video for last week’s Small is Beautiful , introducing the Svelte Nano Donation component, is up on our site with a transcript. Captions coming shortly, just trying to work out why Vimeo isn’t showing them correctly… Read the original post, ‘12 April 2021 17:42 IST’ .
I’ve added a custom dictionary and yet the auto-transcription can’t ever transcribe mine and Aral’s names correctly. Why could that possibly be? 🤔 (I do actually know, it’s because our non-English names are too “foreign.” And clearly my non-American accent doesn’t help.) Read the original post, ‘12 April 2021 17:15 IST’ .
This week’s Small Is Beautiful livestream will be on “National Rail Fail: lessons to be learned on privacy and accessibility” How come Better Blocker fixes the National Rail site? What are the wider implications? Thursday 15th April, 5pm (Irish time) on the Small Tech website . It’ll be me and Aral this week. Back in separate rooms, I suspect. Read the original post, ‘12 April 2021 10:34 IST’ .
Turns out when you’re blocking trackers, you end up blocking a lot of other nonsense . We just had a little look at why Better Blocker is blocking the “mourning” colour filter on the National Rail website. It’s devastatingly on brand for UK marketing folks to throw usability and accessibility out the window in favour of a bit of royal deference. Not just the greyscale filter, but also this…
If you missed the live stream, you can watch our unscheduled Small Is Beautiful episode for the Svelte Nano Donation component release. Aral’s tweet . Much fun was had, being in the same room, messing with the camera focus, and most importantly, talking about Nano (and why we don’t like most cryptocurrencies) and the design and development decisions behind the component. Also the first “outing”…
A bit close to the end of the month for my liking, but new blocking rules are now out ! If you use Better and find any unblocked trackers or issues with sites, please let me know and I’ll use those reports to make Better better for everyone 😊 Read the original post, ‘31 March 2021 14:01 IST’ .
A couple of weeks ago, Aral asked me if I could write a user stylesheet for web browsers to make Twitter nothing but a compose box. Jump straight to how it works I totally get it. Twitter sucks your time and soul . But sometimes you need to use it to share what you’re working on, or promote events. Essentially, you want to use Twitter but you don’t want it to use you. The way to do this is to hide…
Don’t mean to keep going on about Better Blocker App Store reviews, but these little bits of feedback have a big impact on my psyche. And if you are one of those people who left a 5 star review lately, you have actually made me a little bit (happy) tearful this morning. Read the original post, ‘24 March 2021 09:47 UTC’ .
Transcript of a fascinating talk about labelling buttons by Sara Soueidan (via Rachel Andrew’s CSS Layout News newsletter ): Accessible Text Labels For All Read the original post, ‘24 March 2021 09:12 UTC’ .
App Store review for Better saying “developer is with fake account promoting his own product.” I’ve had to point out that if I were doing that, we’d have more 5 star reviews 😂 (And trust me, my eyes rolled at that assumption of developer gender.) Read the original post, ‘22 March 2021 11:06 UTC’ .
You can now watch yesterday’s Small is Beautiful livestream with guest David Heinemeier Hansson, with captions, or read the transcript at on the Small Tech site . We covered so many topics! Including Small Tech (vs Big Tech), business models, ethical design, scaling organisations, and much more. Read the original post, ‘19 March 2021 13:32 UTC’ .
Tomorrow! Aral and I are doing the Small is Beautiful livestream with guest David Heinemeier Hansson , and we’ll be talking all things Small Tech. The stream is earlier than usual (midday here in Cork) so make sure you don’t miss it. Especially if you want to join us live in the studio! Read the original post, ‘17 March 2021 18:34 UTC’ .
“What the buyer is really getting is less tangible: bragging rights, clout, a collector’s item, or simply a nifty new form of money laundering. And because of the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies, just attaching words like “token” or “blockchain” or “proof of work” to random crap can make its value skyrocket.” … ”According to CryptoArt.wtf, the Larry transaction used the equivalent of about 11…
There’s a lot of discussion on UK Twitter right now about women’s safety in public spaces. And of course, I’ve been afraid to walk after dark, and sometimes even during the daytime, in most places that I’ve lived and visited. Since I was a young teenager, our friends would always make sure nobody walked home alone at night. That’s why it astonishes me to hear from cis men who don’t understand how…
“Like the majority of Google’s privacy pushes that we’ve seen until now, the FLoC proposal isn’t as user-friendly as you might think. For one thing, others have already pointed out that this proposal doesn’t necessarily stop people from being tracked across the web, it just ensures that Google’s the only one doing it.” Read the original post, ‘Stop Letting Google Get Away With It’ .
“Critics also argue that the data-gathering and experimental predictive analytics incorporated into some tracking apps are bound to generate false positives that lead to arrests for technical violations of probation or parole conditions.” … ”Often it’s people of colour who are having their data extracted from them. This valuable commodity is literally the body of black individuals” -Prof Chaz…
✨ checked the app store admin and Better has two new generous and kind reviews (and no new negative reviews!) ✨ I need to bottle this feeling. If those reviewers read this, please know you’ve made my day! Read the original post, ‘05 March 2021 10:40 UTC’ .