Minecraft Access: A World of Blocks, Blindness, and Brilliance 🌍💎 #MinecraftAccess #InclusiveGaming

Seven years ago, I lost my sight—and with it, I thought I’d lost the chance to play Minecraft. Back in my sighted days, Minecraft was my escape hatch to infinite creativity. Build a castle? Sure. Survive the night? Done. Accidentally set your house on fire because you put lava in the wrong place? Look, we’ve all been there.

But when I lost my vision, Minecraft felt like a closed door. And while games might not be life’s top priority, let’s admit it—they’re a fantastic way to unwind. Losing that world stung.

That’s where Minecraft Access comes in. It’s a mod that makes the game accessible for blind players. Sounds amazing, right? When I first tried it four months ago, though, things didn’t go as planned. I wandered aimlessly, got hopelessly lost, and rage-quit before a creeper even had the chance to blow me up. But yesterday, armed with more patience (and probably less sanity), I decided to give it another go.

And you know what? This time, I crushed it. Well, not literally—I didn’t fall into lava, for once! I set up an underground base, complete with a wheat farm and an infinite water source. I mined iron, found diamonds (yes, diamonds! I’m rich!), and lit up my surroundings so mobs wouldn’t spawn. Because let’s be honest, nothing says “bad day” like being smacked by a zombie you can’t even see.

So how does this all work? Minecraft Access narrates the block in your crosshair, tells you its position, and makes inventory and crafting fully accessible. I navigate with ASDW keys, craft like a pro, and honestly, I feel like I’ve rediscovered a part of myself I thought was gone.

Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing. Navigating the terrain is like playing a guessing game where the prize is not falling into a ravine. And while I can build functional stuff, making it visually appealing? Let’s just say my creations won’t win any beauty contests. But hey, I can still mine, explore, and survive—and that feels like magic.

The real heroes here are the developers of Minecraft Access. Turning a game this visual into something a blind player can enjoy is a Herculean task. They’ve done something incredible, and they deserve all the praise (and maybe some pizza, because who doesn’t love pizza?).

If you’re curious or want to say thank you to these legends, check out their GitHub page or hop on their Discord. They’ve made Minecraft a world for everyone, and that’s worth celebrating.

github.com/khanshoaib3/minecra…

Minecraft has always been about endless possibilities. Thanks to this mod, those possibilities now extend to players like me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even build a castle someday... if I can figure out where the stairs go. 😅

#BlindGamer #GamingWithoutLimits #Accessibility #Minecraft

New year, new role @Mastodon!

Our core team is looking for a senior Front-end Developer to elevate the web UI/UX experience for our users.

Ideally:

1. You are highly skilled in accessible and semantic #HTML
2. Proficient in modern #CSS
3. Experienced with #Javascript, #Typescript and complex React/Redux applications

This remote full-time position requires a 4-hour overlap with the CET timezone.

For more info/to apply:
jobs.ashbyhq.com/mastodon/6a09…

#FediHire #GetFediHired #hiring #frontend

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#MutualAid
#MutualAidRequest
#FoodInsecurity

Please boost for reach.

So, the latest news: I started a new position today! Thanks to a certain amazingly wonderful person from Germany who I've never met in person, we were able to eat and pay bills throughout December, which is why you haven't had to see me begging like this. (Thank you sooooo much, sir!) Now we are down to the last $15 of those funds, and I've got to figure out a way to feed my family for the next 2 weeks, and then move to the bay area in California (without them :( ) on the money I get from my first paycheck. Way less than ideal, and yet waaaay better than what we've been facing for the last 11 months. This is the home stretch!

Please help us out with food money if you can. Boosts help, too! Many thanks to all of you.

paypal.me/AaronHosford
venmo.com/u/Aaron-Hosford-42

#MutualAid
#MutualAidRequest
#FoodInsecurity

Billy reshared this.

in reply to David Goldfield

I liked them too till long about 2013 when they had some sort of breach whereby one of their employees had taken customer information and was scam calling them. It was big news at the time and I was one who got those calls which even included prior tech support case numbers. They never acknowledged the incident at all that I ever heard any way. But I did like their machines.

#curl used in Korean iOS apps. TMAP MOBILITY, Naver and KakaoTalk.

I have no idea what the apps do. I love them anyway.

daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/10/03…

#curl

Warning: NVDA Alpha 34909 breaks TTS-oriented add-ons like the IBMTTS/ Eloquence driver. It even resets most NVDA and add-on settings to default. This seems to be behind the issue: github.com/nvaccess/nvda/pull/…
@NVAccess

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in reply to NV Access

Reproduced here too, issue already created by Joseph: github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issue…

This is the dumbest naming strategy I’ve ever seen in my life. Way to take the worst things from Apple and somehow make them even more confusing. This is not an improvement, Dell! via theverge.com/2025/1/6/24325799…

KDE Starts 2025 With Accessibility Improvements & Better Graphics Tablet Controls lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…

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#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today with 17 updated (10 of those RB) and 1 added apps:

* healthlog: log health tests, incl. Cholesterol/Sugar/BP/RFT 🛡️

At apt.izzysoft.de/magisk 1 #Magis module was added (and 2 were upated):

* DynamicSystemTweaks-arm64: Improves system performance without battery loss or overheating for arm64-v8a with 8 cpu core devices only (Android 10+)

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo :awesome:

in reply to IzzyOnDroid ✅

Update: Mastodon clarified (with proof) this is a "false positive", see github.com/mastodon/mastodon-a… – so no anti-feature with the next sync, and a proper "exception" added for the app (so the scanner does not pop it up again with the next run). Thanks @grishka

We're rolling out Matrix's next-generation authentication stack, in line with our Matrix 2.0 goals, allowing for more flexible auth journeys without requiring client devs to support all of them. Relatedly, due to resource constraints, guest account access on Matrix.org will be disabled on January 16th.

matrix.org/blog/2025/01/06/aut…

in reply to The Matrix.org Foundation

Just to confirm: Matrix.org is also going to deploy the legacy endpoint helpers right? (as in passing them to mas). Otherwise, this would break _all_ bots and _all_ moderation tooling as mas does _not_ support non-interactive authentication in any way currently, sadly.

If it does not deploy those, I fear there will be no other choice than banning matrix.org network wide as it would be unmoderated :(

On that note: Draupnir works with the legacy mas login endpoint.

Does Canada have some version of the accessibility discrimination act, and the US ADA?
Remember that video I made about Floatplane accessibility back in April 2024? No? Nor do I.

Well I fired off a support email at the time, never heard back. Sent a reminder in May, threaded, never heard back. Forgot about it for months, fired off another one sometime in December.
I don't believe that, as a paying customer, it's OK to have emails go ignored, it's ill-mannered. Maybe that's just me. Maybe I kind of expect a company to respond to emails about support requests, you know?

Anyway, this is the video in-question: Accessibility Issues With Floatplane (from a VoiceOver Perspective) youtu.be/2sZTsrek08M

🎉 Celebrate 200 years of Braille with us! This week on Double Tap, we’re diving into Braille’s past, present, and future with amazing guests, tech insights, and your feedback. Don’t miss it—daily on AMI-audio, podcast, and YouTube! 💬👩‍🏫📚 youtube.com/@DoubleTapVideo/vi… #BrailleAt200 #Accessibility #Tech

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Good to see Matrix getting traction with various organisations and governments as a replacement for big tech chat platforms.
element.io/blog/in-an-increasi…
#matrix #element #e2ee #cybersecurity #chat

#introduction I'm Garrett, a newly-minted math MS from Montana State. I'm interested in homotopy type theory & proof assistants (particularly on the "assistant" side, e.g. streamlining their use, implications on written proofs and math communication). Besides math, I've played viola for most of my life, and enjoy talking about movies, cooking/baking, playing board games and video games (especially Splatoon!), and hugging friends

You've got to be kidding me, Microsoft, what the actual fuck. When you search for "google" in Bing, it will display a Google like page, tricking you into thinking you are on Google. The amount of INNOVATION coming from the capitalist behemoths is simply astounding!

bleepingcomputer.com/news/micr…

#microsoft #google #searchengine #search #bing #antitrust

Welcome to the RB family, Flut Renamer 🥳

apt.izzysoft.de/packages/net.s…

Flut Renamer helps you to effortlessly manage and rename files and directories – with features including inserting text, inserting file metadata and Exif data, replacing text, deleting text, rearranging, and more.

Thanks to joint efforts with its developer, the app is now RB :awesome:

Current RB status at IoD: 391 apps (31.7%)

#IzzyOnDroid #reproducibleBuilds

How 3D Pedestrian Crossings Are Slowing Down Speeding Drivers in Iceland


In the small fishing town of Ísafjörður, Iceland, an exciting development in pedestrian crossing safety has just popped up – almost literally. Speed bumps has been painted that appears to be 3D by way of a cleverly-detailed optical illusion. Not only does

In the small fishing town of Ísafjörður, Iceland, an exciting development in pedestrian crossing safety has just popped up – almost literally.


Speed bumps has been painted that appears to be 3D by way of a cleverly-detailed optical illusion. Not only does the innovative design give foot-travelers the feeling of walking on air, but the 3D painting also gets the attention of drivers, who will be sure to slow down their speed once they spot the seemingly floating ‘zebra stripes.’

Icelandic environmental commissioner Ralf Trylla called for its placement in Ísafjörður after seeing a similar project being carried out in New Delhi, India. With the help of street painting company Vegmálun GÍH, his vision of pedestrian crossing signs became a reality.

More from Iceland: Discover Iceland’s Enchanting Huldufólk: The Hidden People and Their Tiny Houses



More from Iceland: Rainbow Street in Seydisfjordur (Seyðisfjörður)


What do you think about this Zebra Crosswalk?

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This study explores the accessibility of online courses at a Midwestern University. The results show that most faculty are not implementing accessibility features. Instead, they are taking a more reactive approach. When a student with an accommodation enrolls in a course then accessibility features are implemented. There is a need for universities to be more proactive and create accessible documents and video/audio materials. #accessibility eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1171774

FTC Order Requires accessiBe to Pay $1 Million for Deceptive Claims that its AI Product Could Make Websites Compliant with Accessibility Guidelines

ftc.gov/news-events/news/press…

#law #a11y #wcag #accessiBe #accessiBeNot #ftc

in reply to Web Axe

FTC Catches up to #accessiBe (by @aardrian) adrianroselli.com/2025/01/ftc-… #accessibility #a11y #wcag #accessiBe #accessiBeNot #ftc
This entry was edited (11 months ago)
in reply to Web Axe

Beware of AI Accessibility Promises: US Federal Agency Fines an Overlay Company One Million Dollars

Public can submit comments until February 5th in case against AccessiBe for misleading advertising

lflegal.com/2025/01/ftc-access…

by @LFLegal
#accessibility #a11y #wcag #accessiBe #accessiBeNot #ftc

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Our next major release is coming up in February! Help us to test #LibreOffice 25.2 – the first Release Candidate is now available: qa.blog.documentfoundation.org… #foss #OpenSource #freesoftware

LibreOffice reshared this.

I'm really happy we can finally announce some #lemmy#accessibility work myself, @MostlyBlindGamer, @dhamlinmusic, and the other Rblind admins have been working on for a while. We've just released two open-source themes, light and dark, for Lemmy that should be more accessible and usable for #blind and low vision folks. You can read the details, and please provide feedback, here: www.rblind.com/post/3476242#a11y#fediverse#opensource
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@Samuel Proulx @MostlyBlindGamer @D.Hamlin.Music Yes, what an achievement. I don't know how I have missed all your activities related to rblind.com. If you are looking for some inovative fediverse client for android to browse its contents I have started using Raccoon for Friendica recently which is also working fine with Mastodon and its forks. It has some nice accessibility related features like accessibility actions when browsing timeline, as few swipes in the timeline as possible, alt text for images, ability to play audio files attached to posts. And even more.
in reply to Winter blue tardis

@Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺 @MostlyBlindGamer @D.Hamlin.Music @Samuel Proulx #RaccoonForFriendica and the other sister project #RaccoonForLemmy are both free and open source. Goto social is not mentioned as such however if I were you I would just try it out. I guess the common features should work.
in reply to Winter blue tardis

@Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺 @MostlyBlindGamer @D.Hamlin.Music @Samuel Proulx Och, I apologize, most likelly it got lost in the joy of excitement.
I wrote it like this which may not be that easy to comprehend.

If you are looking for some inovative fediverse client for android to browse its contents I have started using Raccoon for Friendica recently

in reply to Peter Vágner

I use Tusky mainly, am less on the Lemmy, mainly I deal with the subreddit and Discord. I also post the link to our website whenever there's an opportunity to, so…

ourblind.com/

Před 9 lety jsem odeslal 226 USD do #Indiegogo kampaně na #router #Turris Omnia. Router stále úspěšně slouží, a věřím, že ještě dlouho sloužit bude – a bude stále aktualizovaný 💪

(Tehdy jsem ještě netušil, že se o pár let později stanu také součástí tohoto skvělého projektu 😁 @turris)

indiegogo.com/projects/turris-…