Notices by Alex Hall (alexhall@mastodon.social)

I still find bit.ly links in posts every so often. With all the social networks no longer counting the actual length of a URL against a post's character count, and with all the security implications of URL shorteners, why is this still a thing? Yes, there are a few other shorteners, too, but bit.ly seems to be the most common.

@anna They probably didn't, especially since the phone number was wrong. I don't doubt they were fake, I just don't get the scam if all the links were correct.

My mom got 2 emails from Paypal. One was a purchase update, the other was something about an invoice. Both were unrelated to her account and didn't use her name, so she thought they were fake. I looked through them, and they had only links to paypal.com. Even the links to view the transactions or report a scam went to paypal.com. She called Paypal, and they said the emails were phishing. How were they phishing if the links went to the official website? The phone number was fake, but that was it.

Request Tracker, an open-source issue tracker we use at work, has had almost completely inaccessible dropdowns ever since 5.0. In the last couple days, I've been poking around, trying to work out why. They use Bootstrap 4.6, which is way behind, and even Bootstrap 5.x seems to have accessibility problems. They take an unordered list, a text input, and a hidden input, and try to simulate a select element. You know what's fully accessible? A SELECT ELEMENT! Just use what's already there, people!

I have a question for any Irish or British followers I might have. I just checked out on a website, and it automatically made an account for me. The email I received said I should follow the link to "nominate my password." Is "nominate a password" a phrase? I'm fairly sure the company, McNeela Music, is based in Ireland, though I could be assuming that because of the instruments they focus on.

I never realized how wide a picture taken on iPhone is. It captures what I want, but there's also a bunch of stuff on the sides I don't want. If I want a picture of just something with minimal background, how do I do it? Is that what zooming is for?

I've never been a big braille reader, at least not for pleasure reading. I read many books and assignments during school in hard copy braille. But when reading, I prefer human narrators, then synthesized speech, then braille. I sometimes wonder if it's worth getting a copy of a book from NLS or Bookshare and putting it on my Orbit, reading only in braille. It's not convenient, the ergonomics aren't great, and it's slower. Still, I wonder if I'd enjoy it more than I expect.

I recently found a bakery that has perfect pecan pie squares. The crust is good, the filling has the right amount of sweetness and a great texture, and the nuts are good. It's what I want pecan pie to be. Both sadly and thankfully, this place isn't within walking distance.

In iPadOS 18, I'm liking BSI the more I use it. The command mode is cool, and I can see the appeal. But the text review stuff is almost nicer. I can move around, select, and edit, all in braille. Honestly, I prefer this to the rotor. Activating with the default gesture is easier the more I do it, and it doesn't seem possible to hit dots in such a way that exiting BSI accidentally is a problem. I kind of want this on my phone.

If you use a standard American English keyboard, do you use your right pinky to hit hyphen, equas, or backspace? I find I miss the first two more often than not, no matter how I work on it, so I often reach up with my right index finger instead. Backspace is easier to hit, being bigger and at the end of the row, but I still find myself using my right index or middle finger. I don't know why those three keys give me so much trouble.

My laptop is connected to a USB-C dock. The power just went out for about 20 seconds as the power company replaced our meter. The laptop, despite having a healthy, fully-charged battery, shut down. When it booted back up, it didn't start my startup apps, and all my stuff from before the shutdown was closed. All I can think is a power spike hit the dock, and then the laptop, so it panicked and turned itself off. It doesn't make sense, but I don't know how else to explain it.

@GreenSkyOverMe Nothing I or my coworker could think of, no.

My Lyft home from work is usually $15-$20 before tip. Today, it was almost $37, and I don't know why. Same pickup spot and destination, same Lyft type, same everything. I last took this ride two weeks ago. I can't find a way to message Lyft about this in the app. I guess I'll be trying Uber from now on.

I recently discovered something about the paper towel dispensors at work. I have no idea if it's universal or not. If you don't need the full towel they dispense by default, you can gently tug the towel at any time during the dispensing process. The dispensor will immediately stop. Now I want to test other dispensors to see how common this is.

@jcsteh Wasn't Semaphor abandoned or something? Or was that a different web-based Mastodon client?

@TheQuinbox Thanks, that explains a lot. I wish it were a system-level thing like on the Mac. Ctrl-backspace for word, win-backspace for line.

In Windows, does ctrl-backspace erase by word everywhere, or do apps have to implement that? One thing I love in macOS is deleting by character, word, or line, and I know deleting by word sometimes works in Windows. I also feel like it's randomly not worked. Did I imagine that, or are there places it just isn't supported?

Not to be a downer, but it's World Braille Day in 2024. We have artificial intelligence that can describe images, pocket super computers, cheap monitors... and $700 for 20 very loud cells is still the best braille displays can do. Want quiet cells, or multiple lines of braille? Pick one, because you can't have both. In either case, start applying for loans or hope your credit card has good financing.

I was just told about this software. It mimics most of what I love about QMK: homerow modifiers, layers, remapping keys, and more, but it does so at the OS level. This lets it work on any keyboard, such as a laptop. I'm guessing the configuration is accessible, as it's a LISP-style file you load from the command line. I'm going to try this. GitHub - kmonad/kmonad: An advanced keyboard manager https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad

A dream last night involved a freezer with an SD slot in the bottom, alongside some physical controls. Insert a card with music on it, and the freezer would play the music in a random order. Use the buttons to control the volume and playback. Honestly, I'm surprised no company tried to market something like this ten or fifteen years ago.