Learning Log, Feb 2021
An Event Apart
During my weekend project time in February I’ve mostly been working away at my talk for An Event Apart’s Spring Summit! It’s my first time speaking with them and I’m very excited to nerd out on accessibility with this audience. My talk, “Semantics to Screen Readers” will focus on how markup becomes something that assistive technologies can understand and interact with on behalf of the user. There will be a lot of nitty gritty details on how this all works, and how that impacts web devs who want to create accessible content…and chase down the source of bugs! I’m currently having way too much fun giving my slides 90s flair…
Fiber crafts
I started a blog for my fiber crafts earlier this year and wrote a bit about it, including which direction I went in for JAMstack comments. Most recently in my craft projects I’ve been using up leftover cotton yarn and sewing up a bunch of small things. I also recently sewed up a pouf ottoman (saving a surprising amount of money) and will probably blog about that once I’ve made a matching quilted pillow case.
にほんご (Japanese)
Steadily working on kanji/vocab study through WaniKani, and I’ve just finished with level 2. At my current pace I’m currently getting through ~1 level per month, which means I’ll finish all the levels in…roughly 5 years. I could stand to get a little more consistent about study, and maybe increase the number of terms I’m learning at a time. But it is nice to chip away at something at a relaxed but consistency pace. No reason to rush right now!
Some favorite kanji from this level: 火 for fire, because it sort looks like a little guy running around screaming “help! I’m on fire!”; 月 (moon) is pretty cute; and 本 (book) because…books! I also love very literal combinations of kanji. For example, 子犬 = child-dog = puppy. These are fun to collect in any language. I enjoy the term paraguas in Spanish: literally it translates to stop-water. It means “umbrella”.
On the Internet
Tickled by this vintage new-folder naming schema on Korean computers, especially given the current trend in the ads privacy space to name new standards proposals after birds. 🐦
Reading
Web design and development
- Bulletproof flag components
- Useful DevTools Tips And Shortcuts (Chrome, Firefox, Edge): found it really interesting to read how Smashing Mag uses browser profiles in testing.
- Building Your Own Personal Learning Curriculum
Work, productivity, and creativity
- Everyone Has Imposter Syndrome Except For You
- Remember: What You Do Is Not Who You Are
- Obvious to you, amazing to others
- Pointing at things