Earlier this week, Pepsi released a promotional line of throwback sodas. These throwback sodas are sweetend with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I believe they will only be available until June. I was able to pick some up at Cub foods and I would highly recommed trying some!
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Section 508 absurdity!
August 28, 2008**SEE The Addendum below for a correction to this post**
The Rehabilitation Act and specifically section 508 is one of the most ridiculous laws that only Washington bureaucrats who have absolutely no understanding of technology or web development could conceive.
The purpose of the law is to allow disabled people to browse the internet, especially those that are blind, or vision impaired.
To accomplish this, there are screen readers that attempt to verbally interpret what is being displayed visually.
In order for the screen reader to properly interpret the page, the HTML markup must be formatted in a manner that allows the user to understand the screen reader.
I think this technology is very cool, and I think it is absolutely great to help disabled people use the internet.
I commend any developer or business that cares enough about its disabled customers to accommodate their needs on the internet.
In addition, many of the requirements in section 508 are good web development practices.
The reason I think this law is ridiculous is that these practices are no longer voluntary, but mandated.
In many cases, it is very hard adhere to all of the mandates when a developer is attempting to offer a richer experience to non-impaired users. For instance drag-and-drop functionality, pop-ups, or any other visual experience such as animations, are very difficult (if not impossible) to convey to a visually impaired user.
Aside from the technical challenge this law presents. I am completely opposed to its premise: Viewing a web page and using the internet should be a voluntary interaction between the user and the developer/business. Nobody is forcing the user to view the web page, and consequently, the user can not force the developer/business to display the web page. It’s a violation of property rights, voluntary exchange, and freedom of expression to mandate a law such as 508 compliance.
A developer/business is now faced with one option. Either make it 508 compliant….or don’t make it at all.
My current company is spending countless man-hours and lots of money trying to make our websites 508 compliant. The Target corporation just settled a 6 million dollar lawsuit for violating 508 compliance.
Big companies can afford to make their sites 508 compliant. Small businesses and fledgling entrepreneurs will have a much more difficult time garnering the resources to adhere to 508 compliance. In many cases, a visually impaired person is not even in the customer base, or represents such a small portion its simply not financially viable to accommodate those customers.
In addition, amateur developers will have a much more difficult time entering the market. It takes a certain level of expertise and knowledge to make a site 508 compliant, and those that are learning to develop will have the added difficulty of learning 508 compliance.
This law, with admirable goals, looks harmless and beneficial to the community, but really its a violation of individual rights. It creates a barrier to market entry that aides big businesses and diverts resources from more productive endeavors.
Addendum **IMPORTANT**
After writing this post, I had a training session on section 508 compliance, that clarified a large misunderstanding that I had regarding 508 compliance. In short, section 508 only applies to government websites, and contracts the government makes with private companies. My company is concerned about 508 compliance because we seek government contracts which require compliance.
The Target lawsuit led me to believe section 508 required all websites to be compliant, but that is not the case. In reality the The National Federation of the Blind had very tenuous legal standing, and were suing under discrimination covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and not specifically under 508 compliance.
Some law makers, however, are trying to expand the Americans with Disabilities Act to specifically cover private web based technologies and internet sites, in which case this post becomes vitally relavant.
“The most destructive and damning social policy since slavery”
August 16, 2008
Parasitic memes and terrorism
July 14, 2008
The last couple years, I’ve had a hard timing believing the common reasoning for terrorism: “They hate us for our freedom…” Or in general, I find it hard to believe that a group could hate American culture so much they would kill themselves to kill us. I think our foriegn policy of sanctions, bombings, and supporting oppressive regimes is a much stronger motivation for terrorism; however, I found Dan Dennet’s analysis very interesting in the video above…
5 dangerous things you should let your kids do
April 5, 20085 Dangerous things you should let your kids do
I saw this video on Digg, and thought it was pretty cool…I like the idea of not sheltering your kids and letting them be free to learn….I don’t like parental controls on tv and video games for similar reasoning….I feel like it shelters a kid from learning about the world, and I feel that making something taboo for kids only makes them more curious and more likely to engage in the behavior out of curiosity or rebellion….
Ron Paul is going to debate the Democrats tonight!
February 2, 2008MTV and MySpace are hosting a debate between Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton tonight at 5pm central.
Part of me is excited for this since I think Ron could kill both democrats on foreign policy, civil liberties, and the economy; however, another part of me figures the media will manipulate it and make Ron look like some crazy man.
DSC kicks ass
February 2, 2008I’ve really been digging Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code Podshow for the past month or two. I first listened to it for his interview with Ron Paul.
Here’s the
Ron Paul interview
and here is a
fubar Friday from two weeks ago. I dig the chick with the sexy voice (about halfway through the show) asking for the promo on this episode, and Curry asking for naked pictures around his wife.
The cool thing about DSC is that it has a CC license, and usually features music from the podsafe music network which allows podcasters to play the songs for free.
RSS syndication
October 14, 2007So RSS is awesome! Especially when it comes to blogs. I really like the integrated Live Bookmarks RSS reader in Firefox.
For anyone unfamiliar with RSS, it simply lets you see when content gets updated or new content is added.
For instance, I subscribe to the Red Hot Chili Peppers rss feed. Since I’m using firefox, there is an icon on my toolbar that I can check to see if there has been any updates to the site. Right now I have 8 feeds I monitor on my firefox toolbar, which means I can check 8 different sites in about 10 seconds to see if anything has been added. Podcasts are also rss feeds, and I have a bunch of them in iTunes that I check daily.
But anyways, the purpose of this post isn’t really to explain RSS….its to test the rss feed I’m using through feedburner which you should be able to see over at the right. Currently, it seems to take a little while for the feed to update, You can use the Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS) links at the very bottom of the page to subscribe to this blog until feedburner gets up and running at full speed; however, I don’t think the “readers” counter from feedburner will be updated.
