Avatar

i feel better

@ifeelbetterer / ifeelbetterer.tumblr.com

Ace, mid-30s, teacher, she/hers pronouns. Find me on twitter (@bessiebetterer), AO3 (@ifeelbetter), Goodreads (Bessie). (Especially check out my bookmarks on AO3 for fic recs, I have EXTENSIVE bookmarks)

for a while there i was sympathetic to tumblr because of how much they’re in debt; i was kind of like “well of course they’re absolutely desperate for new users, they literally need the money or else tumblr goes down forever”. and then suddenly today it hit me that there’s actually no fucking reason for that debt to be causing these ui changes? the userbase has been INCREDIBLY clear about what they want from tumblr over the years, not to mention clear about the fact that even twitter people don’t need this place to look like twitter. it actually would be very… EASY? for them to just make changes in a direction people would actually be HAPPY with?

for fuck’s sake there were people trying to organize a “crab day” for tumblr despite tumblr doing nothing but telling us to go fuck ourselves for months on end. there were people spending hundreds of dollars on check marks just for the glee of MAKING FUN of twitter. can you IMAGINE how much money this userbase would donate to tumblr if they actually made ui updates geared toward what people have been asking for?

if tumblr actually crowdsourced ideas or even just LISTENED to their userbase it may have been possible for them to make way more money than they’re begging for now, they just insist on trying to drive their actual demographic and loyal userbase out for literally no reason

They are doing surveys that are really hard to find because their survey blog has reblogs disabled for some reason.

Log survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2V3MQTP

Short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HS5LP3W

Blog: https://www.tumblr.com/benevolenthellsite

why would you even drop acid? people are gonna slip on it and hurt themselves!

only drop the acid if you can neutralize it by dropping the base

Avatar

I finally understand dubstep

Very Silly Concept: a show called "Accessibility Nightmares" but it's structured exactly like Kitchen Nightmares. An accessibility specialist goes to different establishments and helps them make their businesses more accessible.

The accessibility specialist asks why the door at the top of the small set of stairs has a wheelchair symbol on it. The owner replies that's the accessible bathroom. The camera zooms in on the specialist as they process this information.

A customer with a service dog comes in to a restaurant. The hostess tells them they don't allow dogs. The accessibly specialist looks over at the hostess like

And there are web accessibility episodes too. The accessibility specialist stares at the white text on the light pink background of the home page like

The specialist asks why not a single product picture has alt text, and the business owner says "Well I mean, it's makeup, why would a blind person be shopping for makeup?" The specialist just

The specialist asks the web designer how a screen reader user is supposed to complete the captcha portion of the password reset process when there is no audio alternative. The designer admits they don't know.

this, but only if we get to yell at them like Gordon does.

Oh, 100%. In my head the accessibility specialist is actually still just inexplicably Gordon Ramsay. I was having a delightful time the other day imagining "your videos have auto-generated captions?" being said in the exact same way Gordon says "you're serving them frozen fish???"

But having the specialist be Ramsay-esque would be crucial, I think. On all accounts; just as Gordon is always patient and polite with the waiters and waitresses, the specialist would be patient and polite with the store staff answering questions about the accessibility options they do not control. But on the flip side, if the person who is in charge is being unnecessarily difficult or just straight up ableist, there is likely to be some yelling and dramatic background music involved.

we hunt the mighty pasta BEAST

and breadsticks are its BONES

ALFREDO FLOWS inside its veins

its organs are CALZONES

LASAGNA plates its armored hide

and should the hero dare

you'll find the noisome Jaws are strung

with garlic angel hair

The poem is written in common hymn meter (alternating lines of 8 and 6 syllables, usually iambs), so there are many possible tunes you can use to sing it:

  • Amazing Grace
  • Pokemon theme song
  • Gilligan's Island theme
  • House of the Rising Sun
  • O Little Town of Bethlehem
  • Joy to the World

Feel free to add any favorites!

  • Ode to Joy
  • I Dreamed A Dream
  • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
  • How Can I Keep From Singing
"There was an exchange on Twitter a while back where someone said, ‘What is artificial intelligence?' And someone else said, 'A poor choice of words in 1954'," he says. "And, you know, they’re right. I think that if we had chosen a different phrase for it, back in the '50s, we might have avoided a lot of the confusion that we're having now." So if he had to invent a term, what would it be? His answer is instant: applied statistics. "It's genuinely amazing that...these sorts of things can be extracted from a statistical analysis of a large body of text," he says. But, in his view, that doesn't make the tools intelligent. Applied statistics is a far more precise descriptor, "but no one wants to use that term, because it's not as sexy".

'The machines we have now are not conscious', Lunch with the FT, Ted Chiang, by Madhumita Murgia, 3 June/4 June 2023