Piotr Machacz @pitermach@mastodon.social

When you're reading a project's documentation, finally get to the part you're looking for, and ...

So, because I do care about making the world around me slightly more accessible, and because this is the best solution we've found so far, I'll have to install Google Chrome and and reconcile myself to everything I say being sent to Google, which I've so far attempted to avoid.
This is what most proponents of #Privacy miss, as well as most people promoting #OpenSource, #FreeSoftware, #FOSS, #FLOSS, -- whatever the hecking heck you want it called.
Privacy and accessibility rarely mix. Open source and accessibility rarely mix.
That's why my friends who do bother to mess around with #Linux and #Orca post so many rants about most desktop environments not being accessible. That's why #Apple gets constant praise for #VoiceOver, where as all the solutions on #Android lag behind.
I wish I could just ... go back to not caring.
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#FuckGoogle
I suggested that we should have #LiveCaptions on the stream I'm on, Sword and Quill. The solution we arrived on was WebCaptioner.com, since there's multiple people on the stream and WebCaptioner would separate them. So far so good.
But that service uses Web Speech API. And only #Google #Chrome has that API. Even other Chromium browsers, like #Brave, do not, as seen in this issue:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/3725
Basically, there's two reasons why Brave doesn't have this. 1. Because they would have to pay for the right to use that API, and it is quite expensive. And 2. Because what this API does is send the audio to GOOGLE'S SERVERS where a transcript is created.
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@accessibility #Accessibility #A11y

Whoever is responsible for fediverse.network has either made a hilarious typo or a hilarious pun as the main page displays an error: "timeout/bad gateway — fediverse.notwork."

Back in 2009, at the dawn of Minecraft, I wrote the first-ever custom Minecraft server software, using a small proxy to reverse-engineer the simple and unencrypted networking format. Before that, there was only creative mode client hacks (noclip, fly, superspeed) and simplistic console wrappers ("if !kick appears in chat, send /kick to the server" kinda crap).

My custom server's initial features included the first custom world generation, anti-cheats (no flying! no superspeed! no standing inside solid blocks!), the ability for server mods to turn invisible (to "spectate" new players), red player names for admins, and the ability to save/load multiple maps on the fly, (hopefully) without disconnecting anyone.

Initially everyone was thrilled and I was heralded as the "Minecraft Hacking God", but when I planned to release the software publicly for free and open-source, the community forum moderator suddenly did a 180 and threatened to ban me, taking issue with the fact that users would be able to program their own minigames before the official survival multiplayer came out.

"You're stealing money from Notch", they claimed, thinking that a quick 'n dirty Counter-Strike style "Zombies" game mode would be somehow equivocal to the premium "official" mobs that would soon follow, which included zombies as a staple, and therefore nobody would have a reason to buy the full version of the game anymore.

So instead of releasing the software for free, publicly, on the Minecraft forums... I just left my email address and told everyone to send me $10 if they want it.

A few people eagerly bought it. They didn't know how to mod it, so they sent it to the first person they encountered who claimed to be able to program. Then those people, perhaps not realizing this was paid software, would run it themselves and also freely give it away to literally anyone who joins their server and asks.

Thus, it spread like wildfire, and I only made like 10 sales total, which I almost entirely re-invested buying the game for myself and a few friends.

This is the event that started the entire modding trend for Minecraft, in general. My original server software was succeeded by a Python script, and then eventually Bukkit.

Later, Notch hired the entire Bukkit dev team to form his "Mojang" company, when he finally decided to stop working as a solo developer. Then he made a cool 2 billion dollars selling the company.

I did the opposite of steal money from Notch. Fuck.