newsonaut

Turning inner space into outer space

Musings category

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

That time I accessed a11y

This is my submission for the June 2026 IndieWeb Carnival. The theme is “No way!?”, hosted by Alex Hsu.

I saw “a11y” recently and it reminded me of my “No way!?” moment when I finally figured out, after years of puzzlement, what it meant.

For the longest time, I thought it was a fanciful way of spelling “ally,” but that didn’t make sense in context so I just moved on.

I can’t remember how I learned that it is short for “accessibility” — the “11” standing in for the 11 letters between the “a” and the “y.” It might have been around the same I figured out that “i18n” stands for “internationalization.”

While researching this post, I learned that these are known as numeronyms, and that there are plenty of others.

l10n = localization
k8s = kubernetes
m17n = multilingualization
c14n = canonicalization
p13n = personalization

I can’t say I’ve run into any of these in the wild, likely because they are mainly used by developers within their communities.

Getting back to my “No way!?” moment with a11y, my first reaction was that it seemed clever, and I could understand why you wouldn’t want to write out that many letters every time. This numeronym is also handy for web design. You can make it nice and big, but not take up a lot of space.

But I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people have for years missed out on some good information about accessibility because the title went over their heads. In a way, it can ironically make this important guidance less accessible.

Still, I don’t want to sound critical. Good people are doing their best to make the web accessible, and a11y is — once you know what it means — an ingenious way of reaching out.


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Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Apple goes round the bend

Apparently, Apple likes those big-ass round corners so much that they have decided to go all-in with what they’re calling “circular” design. Here’s an example I found for TextEdit.

circular TextEdit


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Friday, January 2, 2026

Another year, another seven billion kilometres

We humans place a lot of importance on the time it takes for Earth to revolve around the sun. It takes one year, and we wind up in more or less the same place — relative to the sun — each time. A time for celebration!

But since the sun itself is orbiting around the centre of the galaxy, Earth moves along with it. With the sun moving at 220 kilometres per second, and Earth along for the ride, we end up seven billion kilometres away from where we were a year ago.

That seems like a lot, but in the vast emptiness of space, it’s hardly anything — just 0.0007 light-years per year. To put that into perspective, the nearest stars, in the Alpha Centauri system, are over four light-years away.

Which brings me to a pet peeve — why is so much science fiction based on conflict, even outright war, between beings from different parts of the galaxy? The time and expense would be unimaginable if it weren’t for the fertile imaginations of science fiction writers.

To get an idea of the vastness of space, think of the stars as specks of sand. If the sun was speck lying at your feet, you would have to travel to the other side of the world to find the closest other speck.

I just finished slogging through an epic novel where an entire “league” of planets orbiting various stars was at war with two sets of alien beings from other planets. What a colossal waste of resources.

I think the reason we can imagine it is because so many wars here on Earth have wasted millions of lives and billions of dollars. So why not scale up to the stars?


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Wednesday, October 7, 2020

When were the good old days? It depends on who you ask

When people talk about the good old days, they are often referring to when they were children, or maybe in their teens or early 20s.

In other words, the reason the old days were good was because they were young.

In our culture generally, it’s the 1950s that are often thought of as the good old days. Life was simpler, there was post-war prosperity.

If you went back in time to the ’50s, though, you might get a different story. People who lived in that time didn’t necessarily think those were the best of times.

For example, an episode of the Twilight Zone that came out in 1959 featured a man who was desperately tired of the rat race, work pressure and the demands of urban life.

He wound up going back in time to what he imaged to be the good old days — the 1920s. Yes, even the Depression era seemed better than the ’50s. You could sit back on the front porch with your extended family and enjoy a cool drink. You worked for yourself on a tidy little farm.

A lot of our ideas about the ’50s come from TV and the movies. They often portray an idyllic life back then: mom, dad, two or three kids, a dog, a house with a white picket fence. Only dad had to work, and his job was well-paying with regular hours. Mom stayed home to look after the kids.

This portrayal was indeed accurate for some people. If you were a white middle-class male, the world was your oyster.

Recently, TV and the movies have been showing the ’50s for what they really were: an era ruled by bigots, bullies, sexists, racists and homophobes. One show that comes to mind is HBO’s Watchmen. Another that just came out is Ratched on Netflix. Also on Netflix is Hollywood. On Apple TV+, there is For All Mankind.

Watch any of those shows, and you’ll realize that the ’50s, and even the 1940s or 1960s, were absolutely not the good old days for most people.

What were the good old days for me? Sometimes I like to recall funny things that happened in the past, but mostly I prefer to get the most out of the present.


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Sunday, September 6, 2015

Seven points to ponder on a lazy Sunday

All the news organizations in B.C., or maybe Canada, should get together and create a company called NewsFlix. For $10 a month you would get access to beautiful, ad-free versions of their news sites.

I bet a lot of people would sign up. Something better happen soon — this expert says newspapers in Canada will be pretty much extinct in 10 years.

• • •

Google’s new logo is terrible. If you haven’t seen it, go to their website and be horrified.

Google is a whimsical name from a company that brought a semblance of order to the Internet. Now it’s gone for a bland corporate look. But it still has the whimsical name.

These things just don’t go together.

• • •

The best reply I’ve seen to this is Hope vs. No Hope.

My response: If you gave politicians truth serums, wouldn’t they all sound like Trump?

• • •

I wish I was smart enough to make kitty emoji toggles like this:

See what happens if you click on yes.

• • •

Facebook reached a milestone on Aug. 24. One billion people logged in during a single day.

Regardless of your feelings toward it, this is truly an amazing achievement.

• • •

So someone actually did a study and discovered that almost one quarter of all the verified users on Twitter are journalists and media.

That shouldn’t be surprising. Most of them think of Twitter as a customizable, interactive version of the wire services they’re used to.

• • •

Here’s a fun fact: Solitaire was originally included with every computer because it was considered a good way of getting people accustomed to using a mouse. Yes, kids, a mouse was once considered to be a novelty.


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Friday, January 2, 2015

When did "bae" become a word, and why wasn't I informed?

At some point when I wasn’t looking, people started using the word “bae” as a term of affection. In fact, this word is now used so often that both Lake Superior State University and Time magazine have suggested that it be banned.

Apparently, it’s got to the point where people use the word (it stands for “before anyone else”) to describe their ramen noodles.

My first reaction was wonderment that I could be so out of touch with popular culture that I had never before encountered a word that has been abused to the point of becoming a candidate for banishment. And anyway, it doesn’t really sound that bad. If Sonny and Cher had sung “I got you, bae,” the tune would still have been a hit.

Another one on the LSSU list that puzzled me was “cra-cra” — as in crazy. Again, I’d never heard of it, but is it really any worse that “coo-coo”? That’s one that could do with a comeback, along with the accompanying circling of an ear with a finger while pointing with the other hand at the supposedly crazy person.

The Time list, which came out in November, comes with an editor’s note apologizing for inclusion of the word “feminist.” Apparently, irate readers failed to see the nuance in this description:

feminist: You have nothing against feminism itself, but when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let’s stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade.

“Feminism” is one of those words that make us think. For that reason, its clumsy misuse is no reason to ban it. There seems to be an idea that certain issues, such as equality for women, can be dealt with and then we can all move on.

What we really need is for Time and other news sites to discuss these ideas in a more responsible way. Of course, we’re going to get fed up with a word if it’s used mainly in connection with celebrity bumpf.

That said, I do have my own candidate for banishment that didn’t make either list. That would be “awesome.” This word is used so commonly that it has lost all meaning. Generally, it’s meant to be positive and encouraging, but it can also can be lazy. If you want to say something good, but don’t want to actually put thought into what you’re saying, just throw out an “awesome.”

When it comes down to it, though, this word is harmless and will eventually go away by itself.

A phrase that really needs to be terminated, because it actually has a bearing on how we treat our fellow human beings, is “enhanced interrogation.” As noted in a comment on the LSSU site, this is “a shameful euphemism for torture.” Stop it now.


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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

News of the future past

As a newsonaut, my dream would be to travel into the retro-future and produce an amazing news publication. Since I can’t (yet), the PULP-O-MIZER is the next best thing. Give it a try. It’s lots of fun.


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Sunday, November 4, 2012

Let's get real — really real

Skeuomorph: an object or feature which imitates the design of a similar artefact in another material.

The much hated (by some) skeumorphism found on Macs is the Calendar app. It looks a lot like an old-fashioned desk calendar with a leather-like bar across the top. The calendar pages are reminiscent of paper with a torn edge. Lines at the bottom make it appear as if the calendar is made up of a stack of pages, one for each month.

There’s no doubt it’s hokey, but what if that skeumorphism were cranked up a notch? Wouldn’t it be cool, for example, if the number of “pages” changed through the year. You’d start off with 12 in January and gradually work your way down to one in December. As it stands, there are three regardless of how much time has passed.

You could add to the effect by showing an increased amount of torn paper across the top as the months go by. Each time you rip off a page there should be more remnants.

The predecessor to Calendar — iCal — used to show the same date all the time in its icon. Now it’s skeumorphed into showing the correct date. That was cool — and it just goes to show that if you’re going to do skeumorphism, you shouldn’t be half-hearted about it.


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Thursday, November 1, 2012

That Google app may be too smart for its own good

A colleague recently asked me: “What’s another word for ‘performance’?” My first instinct was to try to think of a few myself, but he ruled them all out — he needed yet another word.

Then a light bulb went on — I fired up the Google app on my iPhone and used my voice to ask the exact same question. Within about two seconds, Google gave me both a definition, which it read out loud, and four synonyms. And that was just for starters. Scrolling down, I found an entry from thesaurus.com, which had more synonyms than you could shake a stick at.

What a performance indeed — by the Google app.

Of course, I had to try the same question with Siri just to see how it compares. Siri had to “think about that” for awhile, and finally came up with an entry from WolframAlpha with many synonyms. Siri was a few seconds slower on the uptake and less polished in presentation.

Google is so fast that it might actually be too fast. As you speak, you can see the words forming on the screen. Sometimes they’re wrong, but as you keep speaking, Google figures out what you mean and shows the correct words. But woe be to you if you pause.

For example, if you ask: “What’s another word for . . .” you’re whisked to thesaurus.com without the benefit of stating the word you were looking for. Siri, on the other hand, doesn’t penalize you for pausing. So slow can be good sometimes.


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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

iBooks 3 minds its Hs and Js

Kindle’s inability to hyphenate has alway been a deal breaker for me. The unsightly gaps this creates in the justified text it insists on presenting is unprofessional and inexcusable.

iBooks 3 just came out, so downloaded it out of curiosity. When I saw that it defaulted to rag-right text, I assumed this was Apple’s way of making a lack of hyphenation less apparent and chalked it up as at least some progress. But then I noticed that there is indeed hyphenation — and that it works even with justified text.

As you can see from the iPhone screenshots above, justified text with hyphenation looks fine — as long as it isn’t all caps. Still, this places iBooks miles ahead of the Kindle.

The terrible job iBooks does with all caps is not exactly endearing, but at least there is the consolation of knowing that these situations are rare.


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