Sixteen years, that is how long since I lost all of my hearing. Before that, I was hard of hearing and used hearing aids. For sixteen years I haven’t heard a single sound, am dependable on lipreading, text and captions. Years ago I used a speech-to-text software for the first tim … | Continue reading
It was the summer of 2018 and I had just finished undergoing nerve-wracking medical tests the last months. When I finally received the last result and good news I was so relieved and so deeply aware of how short life is, that I decided there was no more time to waste and time to … | Continue reading
On Wednesday I joined a group of about 15 people for a group photowalk in the city centre of The Hague. For me, this falls in the ‘make yourself uncomfortable’ category. I’m an introvert and groups can be exhausting. Being late deaf also plays a big role because I feel vulnerable … | Continue reading
Tea has always been ubiquitous in my life. I remember we had Yellow Lipton Tea as a kid, and I sometimes drank it in the evening with my sandwich. In the Netherlands, tea is more popular than in Aruba. I mean tea is not very popular on an island where every day it’s hot. Over […] | Continue reading
I have been following the fallout from Jakob Nielsen’s betrayal of accessibility. Yes, that is what I am choosing to label it. He’s giving people and companies an excuse not to do their best. I have read some opinions of others about it and the one that resonates closely with my … | Continue reading
I woke up late at 10:00, on Saturday, February 24, the day that Chinatown in The Hague celebrates Chinese New Year’s. Thinking I missed the dragon and lion dance as the program posted online only mentioned the dance in the morning during the event at City Hall. When I went out to … | Continue reading
After 6 years or so of maintaining my own droplet on Digital Ocean, I moved my site back to shared hosting. Not too long ago, I wrote about having to create a new droplet because the other one, the Ubuntu version became deprecated. The server kept having issues, one of them was t … | Continue reading
Op 15 januari heb ik meegedaan aan de ‘Inclusieve museumervaring’-co-creatiesessie in Kunsthal Rotterdam. Deze was georganiseerd door Michel Witter, docent aan de Avans Hogeschool en onderzoeker bij de Universiteit Tilburg, als onderdeel van zijn promotieonderzoek. Michel doet on … | Continue reading
Recently I finished reading Disability Visibility – edited by Alice Wong. I’m still processing my feelings and thoughts about it. It’s a collection of essays by a diverse selection of disabled people. It’s also US-based, so some things (laws, society) differ from The Netherlands … | Continue reading
Six years ago I got tired of running my blog on a shared hosting due to downtimes and I decided to move it to a Digital Ocean droplet. Back then a droplet was 5 dollars and a couple of cents for each Snapshot. For all those six years it ran smoothly and I had complete […] | Continue reading
It has been seven months since I bought my first Apple Watch, mainly for the accessibility aspect of it. I can confidently say that it has been an enormous help. I have 0 regrets about buying it. I haven’t even worn one of the analogue watches I own since then. I decided it was w … | Continue reading
It has been seven months since I bought my first Apple Watch, mainly for the accessibility aspect of it. I can confidently say that it has been an enormous help. I have 0 regrets about buying it. I haven’t even worn one of the analogue watches I own since then. I decided it was w … | Continue reading
I got my first e-reader 10 years ago almost on the date. The Kindle Keyboard. Back then Amazon was the best available and Kindle store had the most ebook options. I wasn’t completely sold on the e-reader and after a couple of months, I was back almost full to hardcopy books. Then … | Continue reading
I got my first e-reader 10 years ago almost on the date. The Kindle Keyboard. Back then Amazon was the best available and Kindle store had the most ebook options. I wasn’t completely sold on the e-reader and after a couple of months, I was back almost full to hardcopy books. Then … | Continue reading
If you have been following my blog, or social media or know me personally, you know I’m late deaf. I lost all my hearing 15 years ago and can’t hear even the loudest sound anymore. Before that, I was hard of hearing and getting by with hearing aids. But it was progressively getti … | Continue reading
If you have been following my blog, or social media or know me personally, you know I’m late deaf. I lost all my hearing 15 years ago and can’t hear even the loudest sound anymore. Before that, I was hard of hearing and getting by with hearing aids. But it was progressively getti … | Continue reading
Normally I don’t write end of year reviews, but I decided for this year, why not. This year has been a rollercoaster one. Most people are not aware that I’m chronically ill. I’ll keep the details personal but suffice to say, it means I work part-time, and am under the care of sev … | Continue reading
Normally I don’t write end of year reviews, but I decided for this year, why not. This year has been a rollercoaster one. Most people are not aware that I’m chronically ill. I’ll keep the details personal but suffice to say, it means I work part-time, and am under the care of sev … | Continue reading
When the first Apple Watch was released 7 years ago I wasn’t interested in getting one. Being deaf means I don’t want to spend money on stuff that I can’t get a lot of use of it. Apple Watch is also mostly marketed towards fitness. I’m also a huge fan of a wrist Watch as […] The … | Continue reading
When the first Apple Watch was released 7 years ago I wasn’t interested in getting one. Being deaf means I don’t want to spend money on stuff that I can’t get a lot of use of it. Apple Watch is also mostly marketed towards fitness. I’m also a huge fan of a wrist Watch as […] | Continue reading
17-9-2022 To my great disappointment Apple did not include Live Captions in the official iOS 16 release. So much for deaf accessibility progress. But there is a work around. It is still in beta version, hence not very reliable. When smartphones started to become mainstream my fir … | Continue reading
17-9-2022 To my great disappointment Apple did not include Live Captions in the official iOS 16 release. So much for deaf accessibility progress. But there is a work around. It is still in beta version, hence not very reliable. When smartphones started to become mainstream my fir … | Continue reading
For the past two years, I have given talks about transcripts at the Dutch Podcast Festival and I have coached students on creating podcast transcripts. Podcasts have been gaining popularity for several years, soaring high when the pandemic started. Unfortunately, less than half o … | Continue reading
For the past two years, I have given talks about transcripts at the Dutch Podcast Festival and I have coached students on creating podcast transcripts. Podcasts have been gaining popularity for several years, soaring high when the pandemic started. Unfortunately, less than half o … | Continue reading
For a website I have implemented Post Formats as a way to indicate how a post should be formatted on the homepage. It’s an easy way to assign class name and style it with CSS. This way an editor can easily appoint a post as featured or as a post without featured image, thus makin … | Continue reading
Years ago I set up a small users documentation using Jekyll. Till today that little setup runs flawlessly when I need to add, delete or update content. I only need VS Code and Transmit to get the job done. I currently run Jekyll version 4.2.0 with macOS native Ruby. I don’t like … | Continue reading
For the past two years thanks to being inside all the time (Netflixing) and the classes and talks I gave, I have thought a lot about captioning and transcripts. D/deaf people are not all the same and like and needs regarding captioning and transcription differ often. Before losin … | Continue reading
I must say I’m one of the people who were not happy when Gutenberg was first introduced. As someone who likes writing in classic editors and also with Markdown sometimes, Gutenberg felt inflexible. I like having total control of the contents of HTML. It’s also a lot of work to tr … | Continue reading
Last year, year two of the pandemic again consisted of emailing and asking online conferences I was interested in attending if they provide captions. Most don’t because “we don’t have money for it”. In my talk ‘Unmeasurable Accessibility: The Case for Inclusive Design’ inclusive … | Continue reading
Voor het Podcastfestival mocht ik dit jaar weer een presentatie geven over transcripties. Dit keer samen met Lisa Hinderks. Lisa nam het gedeelte toegankelijkheid voor zich en ik heb het deel transcripties maken voor mijn deel genomen. Sinds de pandemie zijn er meer mensen in Ned … | Continue reading
Before phone cameras became good enough to rival a mid-entry DSLR camera, I used to carry around my Nikon camera and a lens or two every time I took a trip. A day trip to Amsterdam or a weekend away to Paris or Antwerp. But the more improved phone cameras became, the more bogged … | Continue reading
I never saw myself as a teacher of any kind. But I do love to educate people about accessibility and inclusiveness. The more I immersed myself in the accessibility subject the more I noticed that many people think or focus on digital accessibility in relation to people with a vis … | Continue reading
When people talk about accessible and inclusive websites, they are mainly talking about the fact that a website is usable for (blind) visitors that use a screen reader and for people with a visual … | Continue reading