#Web Accessibility Development experts

[accessiblemindstech]

Accessibility is not a privilege but a right remarked Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. Do You Love Our Reads Then Click Here:https://rb.gy/iej903 Click Here To Visit:https://rb.gy/uoyxqq

[sdettechnologies]

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination based on disability, and this extends to the digital realm. But this is where digital accessibility services come in to play a crucial role in ensuring digital accessibility. Click Here: https://rb.gy/lzuuh5

[adasitecompliance]

Create Accessible PDFs

The Ultimate Guide To PDF Accessibility: How To Make Your Documents Inclusive And Compliant

In today’s digital age, Portable Document Format (PDF) files have become an integral part of our information-sharing process. Whether educational materials, corporate reports, or government publications, PDF files with Accessibility maintain the original formatting and allow users to access information consistently across various devices. However, for PDFs to be truly effective, they must be accessible to all, including those with disabilities. Besides, as about 61 million adult Americans have some disability, you risk their not being able to access the ADA-compliant PDFs and content you create. And it’s not just those with visual impairments that are affected. Even people with a mobile or hearing disability may face problems accessing your web content or PDF.

This is why the ADA and Section 508 focus on making life for those people with disabilities much easier. They require that places of accommodation be accessible to users with disabilities. As PDFs are commonly used on the web, they also have to comply with these laws based on the criteria set by the WCAG. While web compliance is important, creating accessible web content can be challenging. PDFs are especially difficult to manage as they are complex files inaccessible out of the box. It’s only experts who know WCAG and ADA standards well who can take care of the task. We have provided some tips about PDF accessibility features in this article. However, don’t worry if the information overwhelms you. We at ADA Site Compliance can help if you don’t know how to ensure your website or PDF is accessible. Our team of accessibility experts will not only check your PDFs and website content for accessibility but also constantly monitor and update your website and PDFs based on the latest accessibility updates.

Overview of Portable Document Format (PDF)

PDFs, developed by Adobe, have transformed how we share electronic documents. The format was created to maintain document integrity while allowing easy sharing. PDFs are based on an image model that differs from the typical PostScript language commonly used. It is to improve interaction and accessibility that PDFs are structured differently.

What makes an accessible PDF?

As the name suggests, an accessible PDF is a PDF anyone with any disability can easily read and navigate through. And it can mean different things for users with different disabilities. For example, for those with visual impairments, an accessible PDF can mean any of these three. It can mean:

They can easily zoom into the texts if need be

The content has high contrast, making it easy to read

They can easily read the PDF using the help of screen readers

In the case of users with physical disabilities, it means ensuring users can easily navigate through the entire document with the help of a keyboard. These readers find managing a mouse for navigation difficult, so being able to use a keyboard is a welcome move for them. For users with hearing impairments, creating an accessible PDF will mean having captioned audio and video content. In short, the main aim of creating web-compliant PDFs is to provide them with an alternative means of accessing content. Most PDFs have some of these options as default, like zooming and keyboard navigation. However, it doesn’t mean that these PDFs are necessarily accessible. They can, however, be made accessible just by implementing some additional steps.

Characteristics of Accessible PDF Files

Accessible PDFs are a must to ensure inclusivity. Most importantly, they feature searchable text, which, in the process, makes content available to screen readers. Besides, unlike scanned images of text, accessible PDFs can be selected, copied, and edited. This can prove helpful to everyone requiring more clarity about the PDF. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology also plays a crucial role in making content searchable and thus accessible to all.

Navigating PDF Accessibility

Ensuring that your PDF documents are fully accessible can be a complex task, but it’s an essential one. This is especially required with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) having set the standards for digital accessibility. These guidelines encompass various aspects, including alternative text alternatives, navigation, and readability. Adhering to these guidelines is crucial to creating PDFs that are both legally compliant and user-friendly. Besides, ensuring that your website and the content you provide, including PDFs, are accessible is not just a legal obligation; it’s a moral imperative. By embracing accessibility, you not only comply with the law but also open doors for a more inclusive and diverse audience.

Accessible PDFs: A Key to Digital Inclusion

The importance of accessible PDFs cannot be overstated. They open up a world of information and opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Accessible PDFs offer text-to-speech capabilities, allowing screen readers to convey the content to visually impaired users. Moreover, they allow users to navigate the document efficiently, providing screen reader users with a seamless reading experience. When your documents are accessible, you broaden your reach and cater to a broader audience. This inclusivity can increase website traffic and customer engagement, benefiting your business or organization.

How to Remediate an Inaccessible PDF?

Making an inaccessible PDF accessible isn’t about perfection; it’s about improving and providing access for all. Whether you have the original source document or just a PDF, here is a rundown of the best ways to enhance existing PDF documents for accessibility with the help of the right tools and processes. Contact ADA Siite Compliance today so we can make ALL your PDF documents fully accessible.

1. Determining the Accessibility Path for Each PDF Document

As PDFs can be generated in various ways, there is no cookie-cutter accessibility solution. Each document has and needs a unique solution.  The good news is there are some tools like Adobe Acrobat Pro with multiple accessibility features, making the remediation process more manageable.

2. Starting with an Accessible Document

The journey to accessible PDFs begins with the source document. Whenever possible, it is always better to start the remediation process with the document title in native file formats. The reason is that any and all documents created in Word or desktop publishing software can be later easily exported as PDFs. This is a useful feature as it allows for adding additional text, headings, data table structures, other document structure tags, language definitions, and more.

3. Preventing Security Settings from Interfering with Screen Readers

Ensuring that screen readers can navigate your PDFs smoothly is an important step in remediating inaccessible PDFs in the form fields in the proper PDF format. It is always better to avoid copying, printing, extracting comments, or editing PDFs. The reason is that these actions can hinder accessibility. There are tools that can help you ensure that access permissions do not interfere with screen reading.

How to Make a PDF Compliant with Accessibility?

Achieving document accessibility in your PDFs is essential. It ensures that users with difficulties can at least use the help of assistive technologies like screen readers to interpret your whole document structure’s structure correctly. Besides, as mentioned earlier, compliance with ADA standards helps make your digital landscape more inclusive to reach out to more of your target audience and, in the process, generate more web traffic.

How do you make accessible PDF documents?

There are a few optimal practices to adhere to within reading order to make a PDF accessible documents, and they are to:

Make things simple; in other words, use simple language in the PDF

Ensure you include as many relevant headings and subheadings as possible

Including meaningful alt-text for all the images and graphics you have in your PDF

Ensuring the text in the PDF is not only readable but has sufficient contrast with the background for better readability

Not depending much on colors to convey information as it can be intimidating to users with color blindness

Always make more use of accessible tables and lists in PDF documents

Adding bookmarks where possible

Using a catchy and interesting title, and of course, specifying the language used in the PDF

Correctly tagging the different elements

Setting titles and metadata as and where appropriate

Adding captions to videos and other non-text content accessible

It is undoubtedly time-consuming to create accessible PDFs. However, the end result of a compliant, accessible PDF file, which increases your reach and reduces the chances of facing a legal lawsuit, makes the item invested well worth it. Besides, you can always use the help of PDF accessibility checkers for PDF document audits and verifications as per the latest accessibility standards. And if that’s too cumbersome, you can always have the experts take care of your PDF compliance while you focus on what you do the best!

Web Accessibility Provider

Ensuring web compliance is a multifaceted endeavor. It may seem to take lots of time and be confusing to many. It’s where web accessibility providers, like ADA Site Compliance, play a crucial role in ensuring your website and PDFs meet ADA standards. We have a team of accessibility experts who can help make web compliance so much easier and less time-consuming for you. With our expertise, we can ensure your site and all your PDFs are easily accessible to all, including individuals with disabilities.

In conclusion, the world of PDF accessibility and web compliance is multifaceted, but it’s a journey worth embarking on. By ensuring that your PDFs are accessible, you not only meet legal standards but also contribute to a more inclusive and diverse digital landscape. Together, we can make the Internet a place where everyone can access information and opportunities. Contact ADA Site Compliance for all your website accessibility needs today!

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[kafus]

beginner’s guide to the indie web

“i miss the old internet” “we’ll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever again” “i’m tired of social media but there’s nowhere to go”

HOLD ON!

personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someone’s personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! here’s how:

use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)

need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.

there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if that’s your sort of thing!

stack overflow is every programmer’s hub for asking questions and getting help, so if you’re struggling with getting something to look how you want or can’t fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no one’s asked the same question before.

websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.

want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google won’t show you!

you can also use directory sites like yesterweb’s link section to find websites in all sorts of places.

if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)

if you are making your own site:

get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heart’s content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you can’t do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.

don’t overwhelm yourself! if you’ve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesn’t look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! you’re learning a skill that most people don’t have or care to have, and that’s pretty cool.

keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and don’t just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.

you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website you’re currently viewing. it’ll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. don’t use this to steal other people’s code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, don’t steal.

don’t hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource you’re taking from says it’s okay! it’s common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone else’s site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, you’re taking up someone else’s bandwidth.

if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your website’s content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, don’t sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.

visit other people’s sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.

if you are browsing sites:

if the page you’re viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say “love your site” in their guestbook.

that being said, if there’s something on a website you don’t like, simply move on to something else and don’t leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. it’s not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.

take your time! indie web doesn’t prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. you’ll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read what’s in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someone’s art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.

explore! by clicking links on a website, it’s easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.

seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someone’s site about a topic you’ve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.

i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3

[cfiesler]

Elon Musk did not create an AI trained on your fanfiction.

Hi, AI ethicist + fanfiction expert here. (This is one of those times where I feel uniquely qualified to comment on something...)

I’m seeing this weird game of telephone about the Sudowrite AI that I think started out pretty accurate, but now has become “Elon Musk created an AI that is stealing your fanfiction” (which frankly gives him far too much credit). I can probably say more about this, but here are a few things that I want to clarify for folks, which can be boiled down to “Elon Musk has nothing to do with this” and “this is nothing new”: Elon Musk is not involved in any way with Sudowrite, as far as I can tell. Sudowrite does, however, use GPT-3, the widely-used large language model created by OpenAI, which Elon Musk co-founded. He resigned in 2018, citing a conflict of interest due to Tesla’s AI development. It wasn’t until after he left that OpenAI went from being a non-profit to a capped for-profit. Elon Musk doesn’t have anything to do with OpenAI currently (and in fact just cut off their access to Twitter data), though I can’t find anything that confirms whether or not he might have shares in the company. I would also be shocked if Elon actually contributed anything but money to the development of GPT-3.

Based on Sudowrite’s description on their FAQ, they are not collecting any training data themselves - they’re just using GPT-3 paired with their own proprietary narrative model.  And GPT-3 is trained on datasets like common crawl and webtext, which can simplistically be described as “scraping the whole internet.” Same as their DALL-E art generator. So it’s not surprising that AO3 would be in that dataset, along with everything else (e.g., Tumblr posts, blogs, news articles, all the words people write online) that doesn’t use technical means to prohibit scraping. 

OpenAI does make money now, including from companies like Sudowrite paying for access to GPT-3. And Sudowrite itself is a paid service. So yes, someone is profiting from its use (though OpenAI is capped at no more than 100% return on investment) and I think that the conversations about art (whether visual or text) being used to train these models without consent of the artist are important conversations to be having.

I think it’s possible that what OpenAI is doing is legal (i.e., not copyright infringement) for some of the same reasons that fanfiction is legal (or perhaps more accurately, for reasons that many for-profit remixes are found to be fair use), but I think whether it’s ETHICAL is a completely different question, and I’ve seen a huge amount of disagreement on this.

But the last thing I will say is that this is nothing new. GPT-3 has been around for years and it’s not even the first OpenAI product to have used content scraped from the web.

[mariacallous]

In March 2007, Google’s then senior executive in charge of acquisitions, David Drummond, emailed the company’s board of directors a case for buying DoubleClick. It was an obscure software developer that helped websites sell ads. But it had about 60 percent market share and could accelerate Google’s growth while keeping rivals at bay. A “Microsoft-owned DoubleClick represents a major competitive threat,” court papers show Drummond writing.

Three weeks later, on Friday the 13th, Google announced the acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. The US Department of Justice and 17 states including California and Colorado now allege that the day marked the beginning of Google’s unchecked dominance in online ads—and all the trouble that comes with it.

The government contends that controlling DoubleClick enabled Google to corner websites into doing business with its other services. That has resulted in Google allegedly monopolizing three big links of a vital digital advertising supply chain, which funnels over $12 billion in annual revenue to websites and apps in the US alone.

It’s a big amount. But a government expert estimates in court filings that if Google were not allegedly destroying its competition illegally, those publishers would be receiving up to an additional hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Starved of that potential funding, “publishers are pushed to put more ads on their websites, to put more content behind costly paywalls, or to cease business altogether,” the government alleges. It all adds up to a subpar experience on the web for consumers, Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser says.

“Google is able to extract hiked-up costs, and those are passed on to consumers,” he alleges. “The overall outcome we want is for consumers to have more access to content supported by advertising revenue and for people who are seeking advertising not to have to pay inflated costs.”

Google disputes the accusations.

Starting today, both sides’ arguments will be put to the test in what’s expected to be a weekslong trial before US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia. The government wants her to find that Google has violated federal antitrust law and then issue orders that restore competition. In a best-case scenario, according to several Google critics and experts in online ads who spoke with WIRED, internet users could find themselves more pleasantly informed and entertained.

It could take years for the ad market to shake out, says Adam Heimlich, a longtime digital ad executive who’s extensively researched Google. But over time, fresh competition could lower supply chain fees and increase innovation. That would drive “better monetization of websites and better quality of websites,” says Heimlich, who now runs AI software developer Chalice Custom Algorithms.

Tim Vanderhook, CEO of ad-buying software developer Viant Technology, which both competes and partners with Google, believes that consumers would encounter a greater variety of ads, fewer creepy ads, and pages less cluttered with ads. “A substantially improved browsing experience,” he says.

Of course, all depends on the outcome of the case. Over the past year, Google lost its two other antitrust trials—concerning illegal search and mobile app store monopolies. Though the verdicts are under appeal, they’ve made the company’s critics optimistic about the ad tech trial.

Google argues that it faces fierce competition from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. It further contends that customers benefited from each of the acquisitions, contracts, and features that the government is challenging. “Google has designed a set of products that work efficiently with each other and attract a valuable customer base,” the company’s attorneys wrote in a 359-page rebuttal.

For years, Google publicly has maintained that its ad tech projects wouldn’t harm clients or competition. “We will be able to help publishers and advertisers generate more revenue, which will fuel the creation of even more rich and diverse content on the internet,” Drummond testified in 2007 to US senators concerned about the DoubleClick deal’s impact on competition and privacy. US antitrust regulators at the time cleared the purchase. But at least one of them, in hindsight, has said he should have blocked it.

Deep Control

The Justice Department alleges that acquiring DoubleClick gave Google “a pool of captive publishers that now had fewer alternatives and faced substantial switching costs associated with changing to another publisher ad server.” The global market share of Google’s tool for publishers is now 91 percent, according to court papers. The company holds similar control over ad exchanges that broker deals (around 70 percent) and tools used by advertisers (85 percent), the court filings say.

Google’s dominance, the government argues, has “impaired the ability of publishers and advertisers to choose the ad tech tools they would prefer to use and diminished the number and quality of viable options available to them.”

The government alleges that Google staff spoke internally about how they have been earning an unfair portion of what advertisers spend on advertising, to the tune of over a third of every $1 spent in some cases.

Some of Google’s competitors want the tech giant to be broken up into multiple independent companies, so each of its advertising services competes on its own merits without the benefit of one pumping up another. The rivals also support rules that would bar Google from preferencing its own services. “What all in the industry are looking for is fair competition,” Viant’s Vanderhook says.

If Google ad tech alternatives win more business, not everyone is so sure that the users will notice a difference. “We’re talking about moving from the NYSE to Nasdaq,” Ari Paparo, a former DoubleClick and Google executive who now runs the media company Marketecture, tells WIRED. The technology behind the scenes may shift, but the experience for investors—or in this case, internet surfers—doesn’t.

Some advertising experts predict that if Google is broken up, users’ experiences would get even worse. Andrey Meshkov, chief technology officer of ad-block developer AdGuard, expects increasingly invasive tracking as competition intensifies. Products also may cost more because companies need to not only hire additional help to run ads but also buy more ads to achieve the same goals. “So the ad clutter is going to get worse,” Beth Egan, an ad executive turned Syracuse University associate professor, told reporters in a recent call arranged by a Google-funded advocacy group.

But Dina Srinivasan, a former ad executive who as an antitrust scholar wrote a Stanford Technology Law Review paper on Google’s dominance, says advertisers would end up paying lower fees, and the savings would be passed on to their customers. That future would mark an end to the spell Google allegedly cast with its DoubleClick deal. And it could happen even if Google wins in Virginia. A trial in a similar lawsuit filed by Texas, 15 other states, and Puerto Rico is scheduled for March.

[bliow]

AGARTHA Aİ - DEVASA+ (2)

In today’s digital landscape, a captivating and functional website is crucial for any business looking to thrive online. Full service web design encompasses a comprehensive approach, ensuring every aspect of your site is tailored to meet your unique needs. From the initial concept to the final launch, this service provides an array of offerings, including website service, responsive web design, and custom design services. Whether you’re a startup seeking to establish your brand or an established enterprise aiming to enhance your online presence, understanding the elements of full service web design is essential. 

Full service web design

Full service web design encompasses all aspects of creating a website, from initial conceptualization to ongoing maintenance. This approach ensures that every detail is carefully considered to meet the specific needs of a business or individual. With a team of experienced designers and developers, full service web design offers a seamless experience that integrates aesthetics, functionality, and user experience.

One of the key advantages of opting for a full service web design is the cohesion of the website elements. Since all parts of the project are managed by a single team, there is less chance for miscommunication or inconsistency in design. This results in a more polished final product that reflects the brand’s identity while providing an engaging experience for visitors.

Additionally, full service web design allows for customized solutions tailored to unique requirements. Whether you need an e-commerce platform, a portfolio site, or a blog, a full service provider will offer dedicated support and expert advice throughout the entire process, ensuring your vision comes to life exactly as you imagined.

Website service

In today's digital landscape, website service is essential for businesses to thrive and maintain an online presence. A well-structured website serves as a powerful tool that encourages customer engagement and drives sales. By investing in a comprehensive website service, businesses can ensure that their website not only looks great but also functions seamlessly across all devices.

A key aspect of website service is the ability to optimize for search engines. By implementing SEO best practices, businesses can enhance their visibility and attract more organic traffic. This is where a reliable website service provider plays a crucial role, as they possess the expertise and techniques necessary to elevate your search engine rankings.

Furthermore, ongoing support and maintenance are vital components of a reliable website service. As technology evolves and user needs change, having a team that can promptly address issues or updates will keep your website relevant and effective in reaching target audiences. This ongoing relationship is instrumental in achieving long-term success in the digital realm.

Responsive web design

Responsive web design is an essential aspect of modern web development that ensures a seamless user experience across a variety of devices. With the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, having a website that adapts to different screen sizes is not just a luxury but a necessity.

The core principle of responsive web design is fluidity. This means that the layout of your website adjusts dynamically based on the screen width, ensuring that content remains accessible and visually appealing regardless of the device used. This approach improves usability and can significantly boost conversion rates.

Incorporating responsive web design techniques involves using flexible grids, images, and CSS media queries. These elements work together to create a layout that responds gracefully to changes in screen size, making your website not only functional but also competitive in the digital marketplace.

Custom design services

In today's digital landscape, custom design services have emerged as a vital component of creating a strong online presence. Businesses understand that a one-size-fits-all approach does not cater to their unique needs and branding. Therefore, opting for custom design services allows them to differentiate themselves in a crowded market.

These services offer tailored solutions that resonate with a company's specifics, from colors to typography and layout. By leveraging custom design services, businesses can ensure that their websites not only reflect their brand identity but also provide an intuitive user experience. This is crucial for keeping visitors engaged and encouraging them to take the desired actions.

Investing in custom design services ultimately contributes to better customer satisfaction and improved conversion rates. With a website designed specifically for their target audience, businesses can more effectively communicate their message and achieve their goals. This bespoke approach is invaluable in today's competitive environment.

[inlovewithquestionablecharacters]

Milo X Reader: Eternal

This was a request @davrosfan23

Warnings: stealing, drinking blood, description of puncture wounds, death, dead people, blood.

Word Count: 2,2K

You feared a lot of things but death frightened you the most. You dealt with death on a daily basis. It was an unfortunate consequence of your profession. Nurses helped save lives but they also had to witness a lot of deaths during their careers. Your fear had been the reason you’d started researching vampirism in the first place. It had started out as a joke, something to help you pass the time. Something to give you hope. But soon enough it turned into a hobby. And then it became an obsession. You’d read every single literature that had been published. You’d exhausted every single web source and had even published some papers about the subject. It was safe to say you’d become an expert on vampirism. So when you flipped on the news and heard the words “the bodies were drained of their blood” you knew exactly what was going on. 

You’d stumbled into work that day, your body shaking in excitement while your mind tried to compute that this was actually real. You managed to sneak into the morgue of the hospital and find the body of the victim.

“Sorry about this.”

The corpse hardly seemed to mind your presence but you still felt like you should apologize for the intrusion. You leaned down, eyes glancing at the puncture wounds on the victims neck. There were two small holes, just like you’d imagined there would be. You placed the body back to its original position and went back to work like nothing had happened. That night you poured over the news, searching for every smidge of information you would find on the culprit. If there was really a vampire on the loose you needed to find them. 

Days passed and you heard nothing about any new victims. The people who arrived at the hospital were all suffering from normal injuries. Well, as normal as you could expect at a hospital. You had started to think your vampire had gone into hiding or perhaps they’d gotten control of their hunger. Both of those options didn’t benefit you in any manner. It would be much easier to get a starved monster to turn you than it would be to convince one who had already developed some sort of control. You were about to give up when there was another attack. You cursed yourself for having the day shift on the day it happened. But despite not being there when it occurred the attack had given you a clue about the culprit. They had access to the lower levels of the hospital. Which didn’t narrow it down all that much but it helped. You also knew that Dr. Micheal had been on the ship where the first bodies had been found and despite people thinking he was responsible for this more recent attack, something told you he wasn’t guilty. 

You’b been analyzing possible culprits for hours now. Your brain was starting to hurt and your eyes were growing tired.

“Okay break time.”

You walked to the nearest bar deciding that maybe getting some alcohol in your system might help you relax and get your brain back up and running. You were sitting on a stool of the bar, sipping your beverage absentmindedly, when the commotion started. You heard the raised voices to your left causing you to turn your head in that direction. There was a group of men surrounding a young woman. You observed the men, not recognizing them until your eyes fell on a particular one. You recognized Milo due to his visits to Micheals lab from time to time. You remembered him walking past the nurses station. Your eyes trailed down to where you were used to seeing his cane but it wasn’t there. You glanced up again, your eyes finally focusing on the way Milo looked. He seemed much stronger than the last time you’d seen him. You continued to watch the conversation, eyes glued to Milo's features. And boy were you glad you’d decided to focus on his face because the moment his features shifted before your eyes you knew you were looking at your vampire. You nearly fell out of your chair as the realization hit you. Once you'd managed to climb off the stool and make your way through the crowd you’d already lost sight of him. You let out a defeated sigh returning to the bar and ordering another drink. 

You spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how you’d get Milo to come to you. Eventually you got sick of the bar and decided to call it a night. You almost made it to your apartment when a scream cut through the silent street. Your body perked up at the noise. Before you could even realize what you were doing your feet were already on the move. You raced in the direction of the sound, eyes moving to look up at the sky in search of any movement. You wouldn’t have noticed the bodies if it weren’t for the smell of blood. You stared at the three corpses slumped in front of the bar you had just been at. A sudden gust of wind made you look up just in time to see Milo jump from one roof to the other. This was it. This was your moment.

You raced back to your apartment fumbling with the keys in desperation as you tried to open the door. You went directly to the small fridge hidden in the closet. You grabbed two bags of blood before rushing back out into the street. For the last few days you’d started stealing blood bags from the hospital. You never took too much, not wanting to draw attention to yourself. You just grabbed enough to have in case your plan worked. You didn’t want to be caught unprepared if you somehow managed to get yourself turned. You’d never been more glad for your overthinking. 

Climbing up the fire escape proved to be more complicated than you had anticipated. For some reason the landlord of the building had never taken care of the stairs which meant they cracked and clanged with every move. Still you managed to get to the roof in one piece and without spilling any of the blood. You stood in the middle of the roof, your eyes searching for any movement before grabbing the switchblade you’d put into your pocket. You cut open one of the bags, dipping your hand in the substance and smearing it against your neck. You applied a generous amount of blood to your body before spreading the rest in a circle around you.  

Now all you had to do was wait. 

The smell of blood was overpowering but you knew that was a good thing. If you wanted to draw Milos attention he had to be able to smell it from far away. You glanced at your watch impatiently.

“What the hell is taking him so long.”

“Well that's a first.”

Your head snapped at the sound of his voice. Goosebumps covered your body as you stared at him. You watched Milo make his way to you slowly. His features weren’t the way they normally were. There was a slightly monstrous look to them.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I can see that.”

 Milo looked you up and down letting out a small hum of approval.

“The question is why?”

Your breath caught in your throat as Milo came closer to you, his face inches from yours.  Gosh he was handsome. 

“This isn’t yours.”

You knew he was referring to the blood. 

“No it’s not.”

“You must be crazy then.”

“I consider myself more of an admirer actually.”

“Is that so?”

There was actual surprise in Milo's face. Was he not used to people wanting him?

“I’ve been searching for you.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

Why had you been searching for him? Had it only been about becoming immortal? Or was there more to it? Could it have been because the thought of spending eternity with someone excited you? You hadn’t been opposed to the idea once you realized who the vampire was. Milo was a very attractive man and something about him made butterflies appear in your stomach. 

“I’m waiting.”

“Sorry. I want to be like you.”

The hand that had wrapped itself around your arm withdrew for a moment. You almost screamed at the lack of contact. Milo looked at you in silence. You could tell there were a million thoughts running through his head.

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“It's okay. I do.”

“What are you? Some sort of fanatic?”

“I’d like to consider myself more of an enthusiast.”

Milo laughed at your words, his hand going back to where he’d placed before. 

“Well alrighty then. I’ll turn you. On one condition.”

“Anything.”

“Leave me alone.”

You gave him a puzzled look. 

“I can’t be stuck babysitting you. I’ve got my own shit to deal with.”

You felt like someone had just plunged a blade into your heart. Was he really that revolted by you? Milo watched your face change from sadness to anger then to acceptance. 

“Fine.”

“Great.”

Milo leaned down, his tongue lapping at the half dried blood that clung onto your skin. You closed your eyes, allowing him to do as he wished. Your hands found their way onto Milo's shoulders as he continued to lick at your skin. Once he seemed satisfied with his work his lips moved to the vein in your neck. You felt the tips of his fangs puncture your skin, a small groan leaving your lips. You could feel the blood leaving your body. Milo's grip on you became even harsher than it had been before. It was then that you realized you’d just given a starved lion a juicy steak.  Getting him off wasn’t going to be easy but you were up for the challenge. You let Milo drink your blood for a while before grasping his hair in your hands. Once you’d started to feel faint you tugged at Milos' hair with all your strength. Despite being much stronger than you, Milo unlatched from your neck when you tugged at his hair. You eyes met his crazed ones for a moment before leaning forward and capturing his lips in yours. You felt Milo's body stiffen. Before he managed to push you away you bit into his lip as strong as you could. You felt the metallic taste of blood fill your lips. You could only hope that it was enough. Milo pushed you off him, his hand going to the gash on his lips.

“What the hell man!”

“I’m sorry it was the only way for me to-”

“You're crazy.”

With that Milo raced to the edge of the roof and jumped.

“Milo wait!”

You went after him. Your body felt strange and your legs wobbled as you tried to run but you managed to get to the edge. You hopped up on the ledge.

“Don’t leave me!”

Your body felt as light as a feather and your vision was starting to get blurry. Before you knew it your body sagged forward. You were falling. You closed your eyes as death came to greet you. The irony of the situation didn’t go missed by you. The last thing you felt before your demise was the feeling of cold metal beneath you. And then you were gone.

Darkness surrounded you. Was this what happened after death? Just a pool of nothingness? Kind of disappointing. You glanced around, searching for something other than pitch black. You’d almost given up when you heard something. The sound was far away but you could still hear it. 

“Mister?”

You blinked your eyes as the harsh light of the street lamp came into view. You groaned, trying to get up.

“Hey mister you should probably stay still. The ambulance will be here any second.”

You glanced at the person talking to you. Your eyes widened as you realized you could hear their heartbeat. Your throat felt raw. It was like you hadn't had anything to drink in years. And your stomach. Good lord. Your stomach ached in a way you’d never felt before. You took a deep breath in as you managed to sit up.

“It’s a miracle you survived the fall.”

You could hear the person talking to you but you couldn’t focus on the words. Your nose had gotten a whiff of blood and your mouth had started to salivate. You turned to look at the person beside you.

“And don’t even worry about the car. I’m just glad you’re alright. 

You felt the muscles in your face shift as you watched the person's eyes widen. 

“What the he-”

Before they’d even managed to get the rest out you pounced. Your fangs grew as you opened your mouth. You sank your teeth into the person's neck, cutting off their scream as you finally got a taste of what your body so desperately craved.  You felt their body sag into the ground as you drank them dry. Once there wasn’t any more blood you unlatched yourself from their corpse. You looked up at the moon and grinned. Your body had never felt stronger. You felt invincible. No. You were invincible. A strangled laugh made its way out of your lips.

“Eternal at last.”

[accessiblemindstech]

Accessibility is not just a trend but it’s a fundamental necessity in today’s digital era. With over 1.3 billion people worldwide living with some form of disability, ensuring that your website is accessible to all users is both a moral and business imperative. Do You Love Our Reads Then Click Here:https://rb.gy/vwu7qb Click Here To Visit:https://rb.gy/uoyxqq

[sdettechnologies]

“Unlocking digital doors for everyone leads to inclusive growth and unmatched opportunities.” The significance of an inclusive online presence cannot be overstated in today’s competitive digital landscape. As e-commerce continues to dominate, ensuring that your website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, is not just a legal obligation but a strategic business advantage. Accessibility testing services play a pivotal role in this regard, helping businesses optimize their websites to cater to a broader audience, thereby driving growth and enhancing customer loyalty. Click Here: https://rb.gy/hutkjh

[pridepoisoned]

CHARACTER NOTES: JUPITER/ERIS EVANS

[I've been meaning to do this for a while and I have it on the brain right now, so why not? With the information below, I'm hoping to open new doors for interaction while also clarifying some of Eris's motives and the core influences behind the character. She deserves a deep dive. 😊]

Pokemon Platinum is my favorite main series game, I love my supporting characters, and I wanted to try a villain, which is why I initially picked up roleplaying JUPITER around 2017 in a closed Tumblr group. However, the experience left me feeling bitter--the Cyrus player at the time was very possessive, and Jupiter and I couldn't escape his shadow (or the community's view that Jupiter was a mere Galactic lackey, victim of the 10,000th spacesuit joke.)

ERIS EVANS was born from the ashes of that blog when I went indie in 2020, inspired by the questions: what would a post-Galactic Jupiter do, fully independent and freed from Cyrus's influence? What if she was 'worse'? and what would today's unethical sciences, corrupt politics, and greedy corporate behaviors look like within the Pokemon world?

Four main themes inform Eris's portrayal: (excess) hunger/greed, masks, poison, and resilience/survival.

More than anything, Eris Evans has an insatiable appetite for knowledge, willing to cross almost any unethical lines to satisfy her rampant curiosity. This hunger has been present all her life--from when she was gazing at the distant stars, entranced by Cyrus's fantastical vision for a new world, searching for her father, and even more so now. (Her hunger for knowledge is all-consuming and spills in every direction. If you have something cool, she'll want to figure out how it works. Take it apart. Tinker and probe.)

Importantly, Eris does not want to usurp any existing leaders or organizations...

The spotlight is stifling, and she is most at home working away in the background shadows. Above all, power, influence and control are things Eris craves because they allow her the time/resources to experiment as she pleases. While she's currently under Devon's employ right now, Eris will happily work with/under anybody who can provide her with freedom, resources, and a lofty goal to work towards.

With this being said, Eris's appetite is designed to lead her into trouble. She's woven an intricate web thus far (which I am pumped about), flitting back and forth between various conflicting organizations--a day will come when her multilayered façade all comes crashing down.

So, how does Eris manage to survive under the spotlight, juggling all her connections? She's an expert mask-wearer, ultimate deceiver, interchanging her personality to best fit the mood and get what she wants. She can't help herself. With her disarming looks and unmatched charisma, Eris excels in the world of big business, concealing her darker side underneath. A total wolf in sheep's clothing.

I made Eris a poison-developing expert because it fits in with her curiosity and the idea of soft power, an advisor whispering shadily into a leader's ear. Poison corrodes, corrupts, and is often used in deception, which makes it Eris's perfect symbol of choice. She uses poison in many forms--ranging from the sadistic physicality of her 'enforcer' Seviper, Anje to the gentle suggestion of her mind-warping Kirlia, Felisa. Eris and poison are all about damage over time, infecting and collapsing bigger foes from the inside...

All of this being said, Eris's endgame is unclear right now, even to her. Galactic gave her an ambition to sink her claws into, and Devon is currently satisfying her with full access to Pokemon bioenergy development, but she's always on the lookout for the next big step, always working, worrying about her legacy. Survival.

She helped leash Dialga and Palkia atop the Spear Pillar, spat at them. Soon after, Cyrus disappeared, just like her father had aboard the Sea Mauville all those years ago. That fateful encounter (and abandonment) helped her realize that time and influence are fleeting. In order to thrive in this new, post-Galactic life, she must fill the void with as much knowledge as possible, as many answers as possible. Rules are restraints. Above all, she must survive, no matter how terrifying/twisted she may become. Mortality hangs over her head like a hungry serpent, always demanding tribute.

Always demanding more.

TIDBITS

ERIS is the second (not first) largest dwarf planet in the solar system, maintaining Galactic's cute planetary roots. Eris is also the goddess of discontent and discord (not that Discord.) EVANS was chosen because I wanted an unassuming last name for her to blend in to society following her expulsion from Sinnoh. Also, alliteration always goes hard.

I chose DEVON as Eris's landing spot because they are very similar. Smiling exteriors, shady interiors. I view Devon as the consummate too big to fail company of the Pokemon world, doing whatever it can to maintain PR and get ahead of the competition. (Once again, Eris is looking out for herself and isn't beholden to Devon, though the corp does spoil her...)

[apptechbuilders]

The Rise of Native Mobile App Development Agencies: Meeting the Growing Demand

In today's digital age, mobile apps have become an integral part of our lives. From ordering food and booking a ride to managing finances and staying connected with friends, we rely on mobile applications for numerous tasks. As a result, the demand for high-quality and user-friendly mobile apps has skyrocketed, giving rise to a thriving industry of native mobile app development agencies.

A native mobile app is designed specifically for a particular operating system, such as iOS or Android. Unlike hybrid or web apps, native apps provide a seamless user experience by utilizing the native features and capabilities of the targeted platform. This level of optimization and integration allows native apps to deliver superior performance, faster loading times, and access to device-specific functionalities, ultimately resulting in a more engaging user experience.

Native mobile app development is a complex and specialized field that requires expertise in various programming languages, frameworks, and development tools. Recognizing this, businesses and organizations increasingly turn to professional agencies to develop their mobile apps. These agencies specialize in native app development and employ skilled teams of designers, developers, and quality assurance experts who work together to create cutting-edge mobile experiences.

The Benefits of Working with Native Mobile App Development Agencies

Partnering with a native mobile app development agency offers numerous benefits for businesses looking to enter the mobile app market or enhance their existing app presence:

1. Specialized Knowledge and Expertise:

Native mobile app development agencies have a deep understanding of the intricacies of different platforms and their respective programming languages. Their expertise allows them to leverage the full potential of each operating system, ensuring that the app is optimized for performance, security, and user experience.

2. Customized Solutions:

Native app development agencies work closely with their clients to understand their unique business needs, target audience, and objectives. This collaboration enables them to create tailor-made solutions that align with the client's branding, functionality requirements, and long-term goals.

3. User-Centric Design:

Agencies specializing in native app development place a strong emphasis on user-centric design principles. They focus on creating intuitive and visually appealing interfaces that enhance user engagement and make the app easy to navigate, resulting in higher user satisfaction and retention rates.

4. Quality Assurance and Testing:

Ensuring the stability, performance, and security of a mobile app is paramount. Native mobile app development agencies have dedicated quality assurance teams that conduct rigorous testing across various devices, screen sizes, and operating system versions. This comprehensive testing process minimizes the likelihood of bugs and ensures a smooth user experience.

5. Ongoing Support and Maintenance:

The journey of a mobile app does not end with its launch. Native mobile app development agencies provide ongoing support and maintenance services to address any issues, implement updates, and incorporate new features. This continuous support ensures that the app remains up-to-date, secure, and compatible with the latest platform updates.

The Future of Native Mobile App Development Agencies

The future looks promising for native mobile app development agencies as the demand for mobile apps continues to grow across industries. With advancements in technology, such as augmented reality, machine learning, and Internet of Things (IoT), there are endless possibilities for creating innovative and immersive mobile experiences.

As businesses increasingly recognize the importance of mobile apps in driving customer engagement and revenue growth, the role of native mobile app development agencies becomes even more crucial. These agencies will play a pivotal role in helping businesses leverage the power of mobile technology and deliver exceptional user experiences.

In conclusion, the rise of native mobile app development agencies reflects the ever-increasing demand for high-quality mobile applications. By partnering with specialized agencies, businesses can harness the expertise of skilled professionals who excel in native app development. With their knowledge, experience, and commitment to user-centric design, these agencies are poised to shape the future of mobile app experiences.

Source

[mariacallous]

For more than three weeks, Gaza has faced an almost total internet blackout. The cables, cell towers, and infrastructure needed to keep people online have been damaged or destroyed as Israel launched thousands of missiles in response to Hamas attacking Israel and taking hundreds of hostages on October 7. Then, this evening, amid reports of heavy bombing in Gaza, some of the last remaining connectivity disappeared.

In the days after October 7, people living in Gaza have been unable to communicate with family or friends, leaving them unsure whether loved ones are alive. Finding reliable news about events has become harder. Rescue workers have not been able to connect to mobile networks, hampering recovery efforts. And information flowing out of Gaza, showing the conditions on the ground, has been stymied.

As the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding its ground operations in Gaza this evening, internet connectivity fell further. Paltel, the main Palestinian communications company, has been able to keep some of its services online during Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack. However, at around 7:30 pm local time today, internet monitoring firm NetBlocks confirmed a “collapse” in connectivity in the Gaza Strip, mostly impacting remaining Paltel services.

“We regret to announce a complete interruption of all communications and internet services within the Gaza Strip,” Paltel posted in a post on its Facebook page. The company claimed that bombing had “caused the destruction of all remaining international routes.” An identical post was made on the Facebook page of Jawwal, the region’s biggest mobile provider, which is owned by Paltel. Separately, Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian organization, said on X (formerly Twitter) that it had lost contact with its operation room in Gaza and is “deeply concerned” about its ability to keep caring for people, with landline, cell, and internet connections being inaccessible.

“This is a terrifying development,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy manager focusing on the Middle East and North Africa at the digital rights group Access Now, tells WIRED. “Taking Gaza completely off the grid while launching an unprecedented bombardment campaign only means something atrocious is about to happen.”

A WIRED review of internet analysis data, social media posts, and Palestinian internet and telecom company statements shows how connectivity in the Gaza Strip drastically plummeted after October 7 and how some buildings linked to internet firms have been damaged in attacks. Photos and videos show sites that house various internet and telecom firms have been damaged, while reports from official organizations, including the United Nations, describe the impact of people being offline.

Damaged Lines

Around the world, the internet and telecoms networks that typically give web users access to international video calls, online banking, and endless social media are a complicated, sprawling mix of hardware and software. Networks of networks, combining data centers, servers, switches, and reams of cables, communicate with each other and send data globally. Local internet access is provided by a mix of companies with no clear public documentation of their infrastructure, making it difficult to monitor the overall status of the system as a whole. In Gaza, experts say, internet connectivity is heavily reliant on Israeli infrastructure to connect to the outside world.

Amid Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza, physical systems powering the internet have been destroyed. On October 10, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which oversees emergency responses, said air strikes “targeted several telecommunication installations” and had destroyed two of the three main lines of communications going into Gaza.

Prior to tonight’s blackout, internet connectivity remained but was “extremely slow and limited,” Access Now’s Fatafta says. People she has spoken to from Gaza say it could take a day to upload and send a few photos. “They have to send like 20 messages in order for one to go through,” Fatafta says. “They are desperately—especially for Gazans that live outside—trying to get through to their families.”

“Every time I try to call someone from family or friends, I try to call between seven to 10 times,” says Ramadan Al-Agha, a digital marketer who lives in Khan Yunis, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip. “The call may be cut off two or three times,” he told WIRED in a WhatsApp message before the latest outages. “We cannot access news quickly and clearly.” People in the region have simultaneously faced electricity blackouts, dwindling supplies of fuel used to power generators, and a lack of clean water, food, and medical supplies. “It is a humanitarian disaster,” Al-Agha says.

Connectivity in Gaza started to drop not long after Israel responded to the October 7 Hamas attack. Rene Wilhelm, a senior R&D engineer at the nonprofit internet infrastructure organization Ripe Network Coordination Center, says based on an analysis of internet routing data it collects that 11 Palestinian networks, which may operate both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, began to experience disruption after October 7. Eight of the networks were no longer visible to the global internet as of October 23, Wilhelm says. Ahead of this evening’s blackout, there was around 15 percent of normal connectivity, according to data from Georgia Tech’s Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project. That dropped to around 7 percent as reports of the blackout circulated.

One office belonging to Paltel in the Al Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City has been destroyed in the attacks, photos and videos show. Floors have been destroyed and windows blown away in the multistory building, and piles of rubble surround the entrances. (It is unclear what equipment the building housed or how many floors Paltel occupied.) Another internet provider, AlfaNet, is listed as being based in the Al-Watan Tower. The company posted to its Facebook page on October 8 that the tower had been destroyed and its services have stopped, with other online posts also saying the tower has been destroyed.

Multiple Palestinian internet and telecoms firms have said their services have been disrupted during the war, mostly posting to social media. Internet provider Fusion initially said its engineers were trying to repair its infrastructure, although it has since said this is not continuing. “The network was destroyed, and the cables and poles were badly damaged by the bombing,” it wrote on Facebook. JetNet said there had been a “sudden disruption” to access points. SpeedClick posted that the situation was out of its control. And HiNet posted that it has “no more to offer to ensure” people could stay online following “the attacks and destruction our internet servers have suffered.”

Across Paltel’s network on October 19, according to an update shared by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 83 percent of fixed line users had been disconnected, with 53 percent of sites providing fixed line connections also being offline. Half of the company’s fiber optic internet lines in Gaza weren’t operational, the update says. The connectivity disappeared this evening, according to Paltel’s Facebook post, which says there has been a “complete interruption” of all its services. Paltel, AlfaNet, Fusion, and SpeedClick could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment.

Lost Connections

In recent years, governments and authoritarian regimes have frequently turned to shutting down the internet for millions of people in attempts to suppress protests and curtail free speech. Targeting the communications networks is common during conflicts. During Russia's war in Ukraine, its forces have decimated communications networks, tried to take over the internet, and set up new mobile companies to control information flows. When Hamas first attacked Israel on October 7, it used drones to bomb communications equipment at surveillance posts along the borders of the Gaza Strip.

Monika Gehner, the head of corporate communications at the International Telecommunication Union, says the body is always “alarmed” by damage inflicted on any telecommunications infrastructure during conflicts. The ITU, the United Nations’ primary internet governance body, believes “efficient telecommunication services” are crucial to peace and international cooperation, and its secretary-general has called for respecting infrastructure in the Middle East, Gehner says.

Officials in Israel have consistently claimed they are targeting Hamas militants within Gaza, not civilians, while responding to the Hamas attacks, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry within Gaza has said more than 7,000 people have been killed there and released a list of names. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces did not respond to WIRED’s questions about internet disruptions within Gaza.

Hanna Kreitem, a senior adviser for internet technology and development in the Middle East and North Africa at the Internet Society, an open internet advocacy nonprofit, says Palestinian firms have a “big reliance” on Israeli internet firms. “Palestinians are not controlling any of the ICT infrastructure,” says Mona Shtaya, a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. Mobile networks in the Gaza Strip rely on 2G technologies. Al-Agha, the digital marketer, shared a screenshot showing mobile internet speeds of 7.18 kilobytes per second; average mobile speeds in the US in 2022 were 24 megabits per second, according to mobile analytics firm Statista.

“The internet is vital in times of war in crises,” says Fatafta, the Access Now policy manager, who adds that there can be “terrible consequences” linked to connectivity blackouts. The UN’s OCHA said rescue workers have had a harder time “carrying out their mission” partly due to the “limited or no connection to mobile networks.” Al-Agha says he has lost some clients due to the disruptions. The lack of connectivity can obscure events that are happening on the ground, Fatafta says. News crews have told WIRED they have footage from the ground but are “losing the story because of the internet.”

Kreitem says that a lack of electricity and access to the equipment will have made an impact on top of any physical damage to communications networks. “We don't know how many of the people that actually operate these networks are still alive,” Kreitem says. “The network operators are part of the world there, there's no place for them to run. They are as affected as any other person.”

[digital-craft]

Unlocking the Future of Digital Presence: Why a Top Web Design Company in Newton is Your Best Bet

In the bustling digital landscape, the right web design can make or break a business. For companies in Newton, standing out online is more crucial than ever. A well-crafted website is not just a digital storefront but a powerful marketing tool that can drive engagement, boost sales, and enhance your brand’s reputation. Whether you’re launching a new business or revamping an existing site, partnering with a top-notch web design company in Newton can be a game-changer.

One such company leading the charge is Aarna Digital. Renowned for their innovative approaches and customer-centric solutions, Aarna Digital has established itself as a premier web design company in Newton. Their team of experts specializes in creating visually stunning, user-friendly websites that not only capture attention but also drive results. By focusing on your unique business needs and goals, they ensure that every design element contributes to a cohesive and compelling user experience.

Why Your Business Needs a Professional Web Design Company

In today’s competitive market, a professional website design is essential. Here’s why investing in a top web design company in Newton is crucial for your business:

1. Enhanced User Experience

A well-designed website isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about creating an intuitive and engaging user experience. Professional web designers understand how to structure content, design navigation, and implement features that keep visitors engaged and satisfied. This leads to lower bounce rates and higher chances of conversion.

2. Mobile Responsiveness

With a growing number of users accessing websites from mobile devices, having a mobile-responsive design is non-negotiable. A professional web design company ensures that your website looks and functions flawlessly across all devices, providing a seamless experience for your visitors.

3. SEO Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for driving organic traffic to your website. A top web design company will integrate SEO best practices into your site’s design, improving your search engine rankings and increasing visibility.

4. Branding Consistency

Your website serves as a digital representation of your brand. A professional design ensures that your branding is consistent across all pages, reinforcing your brand identity and building trust with your audience.

5. Technical Expertise

Building a website involves more than just design. It requires technical skills to ensure that everything functions correctly, from backend coding to database management. A professional web design company has the expertise to handle these technical aspects, ensuring your site operates smoothly and efficiently.

How to Choose the Right Web Design Company in Newton

Selecting the right web design company can be daunting, but here are some key factors to consider:

1. Portfolio and Experience

Review the company’s portfolio to assess their design style and capabilities. Look for examples of work that align with your vision and industry. Experience in your specific niche can also be a significant advantage.

2. Client Reviews and Testimonials

Check client reviews and testimonials to gauge the company’s reputation and reliability. Positive feedback and successful case studies are indicators of a company’s ability to deliver quality results.

3. Services Offered

Ensure that the company offers a comprehensive range of services, including design, development, SEO, and ongoing support. A full-service agency can handle all aspects of your website, from initial design to long-term maintenance.

4. Communication and Collaboration

Effective communication is crucial for a successful project. Choose a company that values collaboration and is responsive to your needs and feedback. A transparent and communicative team will help ensure that your vision is brought to life.

5. Pricing and Budget

While cost shouldn’t be the sole factor in your decision, it’s essential to find a company that offers good value for your investment. Obtain quotes from multiple companies and compare their offerings to find a balance between quality and cost.

Final Thoughts

Investing in a professional web design company in Newton is an investment in your business’s future. A well-designed website can enhance your online presence, attract more visitors, and ultimately drive growth. By partnering with a leading company like Aarna Digital, you can ensure that your website not only meets but exceeds your expectations.

Aarna Digital’s expertise and innovative approach make them a standout choice for businesses looking to make a significant impact online. With their support, you can transform your digital presence and position your business for success.