Downtime: On the fragility of self-hosting
From December 13th to December 22nd, the VPS I primarily use for self-hosting various services was unreachable. It was a grueling lesson in single points of failure, tech support and flimsy automation.
Tim Böttcher online
Insights and ramblings of a deafblind programmer.
Latest posts
Yet another Ptacek rebuke
Let us not forget how privileged senior developers are.
Once more, with feeling: Video games are not accessible!
The fact more and more game studios are mindful of the blind when creating video games is great; calling them accessible not so much.
Almost Senseless Reading List #1: Empire of AI
Reading "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" by Karen Hao makes the current AI hype more palpable, comprehensible and terrifying.
Which screen reader is the most Braille-display friendly?
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the most Braille display-friendly screen reader of all? The answer to that question may surprise you.
The surprising complexity of adding accessible links in JetPack Compose
Links are part of almost every mobile app. They offer access to the terms of service and privacy policy of the app, link to the documentation and occasionally enable navigation within the app. Creating links in JetPack Compose is surprisingly complex, though, and making those links accessible is even harder.
On reporting accessibility issues
TalkBack has some serious issues with braille display support. How hard can reporting these issues be? Very hard, it turns out.
Many CAPTCHAs are discriminatory
Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs) are the digital equivalent of bouncers, lording over who shall and who shall not pass to whatever it is the CAPTCHA guards. Unfortunately, the assumptions many CAPTCHAs make about what it means to be human are deeply discriminatory and the challenges themselves ineffectual.
Why Grok may be particularly dangerous
In spite of his own warnings about the threat artificial intelligence may pose to society and civilisation, Elon Musk recently unveiled Grok. Here is why I think this generative AI model may be particularly dangerous…
How to set up Zola to blog from anywhere
Using a static site generator for blogging has many perks. There is one major downside, however: Previewing and publishing blog posts on different platforms does not work out of the box. This article aims to show you how you can configure different platforms to comfortably blog from anywhere.… …
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Privacy policy of Tim Böttcher online.
Of red hearts and expressionless faces
Emoji spread everywhere, but for a deafblind person they are far from intuitive. I attempt to illustrate why.
About me
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Should artificial intelligence be unaligned?
As generative artificial intelligence (AI) proliferates rapidly, a fundamental question arises: Who gets to decide the AI's alignment? In this post I will explore the underlying problems, what alignment means in this context and the implications of different proposed solutions.
Why I switched to a static site generator for blogging
Over the years I attempted several times to get into a habit of blogging, using various content management systems (CMS). In this post I will explain why these projects failed and why I switched to a static site generator instead.
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