This has been my work jam the past week. Hard to argue with an hour-long track from Monstercat. Especially if it increases productivity!
The Year of the WordPress Accessibility Team
This year has seen a lot of positive change in the WordPress contributor community, especially in the area of accessibility.
Take for instance, the appearance this year of two new faces on the credits screen as of WordPress 4.3:
Andrea Fercia (@afercia) has made serious waves during the WordPress 4.2 and 4.3 cycles as an accessibility team liaison to the core team. In his time contributing to WordPress, he’s injected a considerable amount of valuable feedback and experience – in addition to development chops – to helping make WordPress accessible all-around. I’m excited to see how WordPress will change for the better with Andrea leading the charge.
Rian Rietveld (@rianrietveld) more recently has taken a leadership role in helping to wrangle an accessibility testing team that has already pointed out some pretty big problems with both new and existing core features. We only benefit from having more people examining these experiences, and the accessibility testing team is worth their weight in gold on that front.
Of course, we can’t forget the contributions of accessibility team member Joe Dolson (@joedolson) either, seeing as he was featured as a recent rockstar in WordPress 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2. Joe has been a valued contributor for a long time and I look forward to seeing what he’s working on next.
I think as we progress in further asserting accessibility in WordPress as a priority, we’ll see even more new faces make appearances in future releases. It’s a testament to the quality of work coming out of this team that makes, for me, 2015 the year of accessibility in WordPress.
If you’re interested in getting involved with the accessibility team, check out the accessibility site on the WordPress.org “Make” network, or drop into the #accessibility channel on Slack and say hello. They meet weekly on Mondays at 18:00 UTC.
Amazon downtime tweets are gold
Amazon prime video servers experienced some downtime tonight, and as expected, the masses emerged from the woodwork to discuss it with the utmost maturity … on Twitter. Here are some stand-out reactions:
The nipple clamps guy:
@amazon why won't you let me check out? I'm just drunk enough to buy nipple clamps and if you let me sober up it might not happen.
— nick gunther (@HaroldAtTheGym) July 29, 2015
Unscheduled down time? That’s onpossible:
Hey @amazon, it would have been nice to have a heads up that the system was going to be down.
— Vanessa Thomas (@tvldiva) July 29, 2015
Can’t live with out it, apparently:
@amazon prime instant video isn't working… #pleasefix #likenow #pleaseandthankyou
— Timothy Jay Brown (@TimothyJayBrown) July 29, 2015
Guerrilla marketing?
@Amazon is down, and suddenly, all I want to do is buy things.
— Jamie Beckland (@Beckland) July 29, 2015
This is a very good question:
Of course my sofa recliner handle breaks on the night @amazon Prime is down. Where did I buy stuff before Amazon?
— DLDex (@DLDex) July 29, 2015
My money’s on a Drone Army:
'@Amazon I see that Prime Instant Video isnt working at the moment. Should I expect an attack from the Drone Army or is it an evil spell?
— Kelly (@thecommonmasses) July 29, 2015
And finally … yes, that’s exactly what happened:
@amazon stole my money
— THE BITCH TFU GOD ? (@BlakeDorian) July 29, 2015