Today in 1991, 35 years ago: the United Nations unanimously votes to condemn Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.

#OnThisDay

The last three days have been a hell of a year.

Sigh. I just saw two posts here pushing the "real authors don't use em dashes, that's an AI thing" myth and I am tired. 😣

Hi. Hello. "Real author" here. I have never used AI in any part of my writing or process, ever. I use em dashes all the time. So do other real authors. In fact, there'd be a fight to the death if you tried to take our em dashes away from us. Sometimes, a semicolon just won't do, and you *need* that em dash. Other times, you *must* use an em dash (when a character gets interrupted mid-sentence or mid-word, for example).

The *reason* you see em dashes in AI slop is because those LLMs were literally built on the stolen works of real authors. Who use em dashes. All the time.

#author #writing #writingCommunity #amwriting

Today's #Muppets GIF of the Day is...

Drunk CSS

A decade ago, I was writing about how you should test your user interface on drunk people. It was a semi-serious idea. Some of your users will be drunk when using your app or website. If it is easy for them to use, then it should be easy for sober people to use.

Of course, necking a few shots every time you update your website isn't great for your health - so is there another way?

Click the "🥴 Drunk" button at the top of the page and see what happens!

These are a relatively simple set of CSS rules which you can apply to any site in order to simulate inebriation.

(I may have changed these since writing the post. Check the source for the latest version.)

First, monkey around with the fonts. This sets all the lower-case vowels to be rendered in a different font - as discussed in "targetting specific characters with CSS rules":

 CSS
/* Drunk */
@font-face {
    font-family: "Drunk";
    src: url("/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/assets/fonts/CommitMonoV143-Edent.woff2") format("woff2");
    /* Lower-Case Vowels */
    unicode-range: U+61, U+65, U+69, U+6F, U+75 ;
    size-adjust: 105%;
}

The rest of the characters will be rendered in the system's default Cursive font. Characters will also be slanted. The first character of every paragraph will be shrunk:

 CSS
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) * {
    font-family: "Drunk", cursive;
    font-style: oblique -12deg;
    text-align: end;
}
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) p::first-letter {
    font-size: .5em;
}

Next, use the child selectors to rotate and skew various elements. While we wait for CSS randomness to come to all browsers this is a simple way to select various elements:

 CSS
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) *:nth-child(3n) {
    transform: rotate(2deg);
}
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) *:nth-child(5n) {
    transform: skew(5deg, 5deg);
}
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) *:nth-child(7n) {
    transform: rotate(-3deg);
}

Make the entire page blurred and saturate the colours:

 CSS
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) body {
    filter: blur(1px) saturate(2.5);
}

Make any hyperlink harder to click by having it gently bounce up and down:

 CSS
:root:has(input#drunk:checked) a  {
    animation-name: bounce;
    animation-duration: 4s;
    animation-direction: alternate;
    animation-timing-function: ease-in-out;
    animation-iteration-count: infinite;
}
@keyframes bounce {
    0%   { margin-top:  0px; }
    25%  { margin-top:-10px; }
    50%  { margin-top:  0px; }
    75%  { margin-top: 10px; }
    100% { margin-top:  0px; }
}

Does this really simulate drunkenness? No. It is a pale simulacrum. What it is, however, is deliberately inaccessible to the majority of people.

How does it make you feel using the site in Drunk-Mode? Does it frustrate you? Do your eyes hurt due to the garish colour scheme? Do you keep missing the thing that you try and click on? Are the words so hard to read that it takes you extra time to do anything useful? Will you recommend this experience to your friends and family?

I've written before about cosplaying as being disabled. Strapping on a pair of Glaucoma Goggles will give you an idea of what a visual impairment is like. But it won't give you the experience of living that way for months or years.

You should test your stuff with people who have cognitive impairments or physical disabilities. Find out how usable your site is for someone lacking fine motor control or for those with learning disabilities. Pay disable people to take part in usability studies. Integrate their feedback.

Faffing around with CSS will only get you so far.

Evergreen: No Blood For Oil vs. Exactly How Much Oil Are We Talking About? https://theonion.com/no-blood-for-oil-vs-exactly-how-much-oil-are-we-talkin-1819594284/

Variety has a list of 50 great movies from 2025 that are now streaming, incl. One Battle After Another (HBO), Bugonia (Peacock), Black Bag (Prime), Frankenstein (Netflix), Sinners (HBO & Prime), Weapons (HBO), and Train Dreams (Netflix). https://variety.com/lists/best-movies-2025-streaming/

As there seems to have been recent confusion about this, just a quick "official" toot to then pin: we haven't and won't support "generative AI" related stuff in LibreWolf. If you see some features like that (like Perplexity search recently, or the link preview feature now) it is solely because it "slipped through". As soon as we become aware of something like this / it gets reported to us, we will remove/disable it ASAP.

🥳 Welcome to the Public Domain: creative works from 1930 & sound recordings published in 1925! Duke Law's video highlights some of the most anticipated works entering the #publicdomain in 2026!

Learn more ➡️ https://blog.archive.org/public-domain-day-2026/

#PublicDomainDay

On this New Year's Eve, 2025, I would like to wish everybody an uneventful New Year. May 2026 be boring, predictable, safe, and gentle. And may you experience many, many precedented events.

WHOO-HOO! Tickets for New Year's Eve acquired!
(Source unknown)

If you begin #StarTrek Voyager episode Spirit Folk at exactly 11:49:35 on New Year's Eve, Ensign Harry Kim will kiss a cow as the clock strikes midnight. Join in our very dumb annual tradition and start 2026 off on the right hoof.

Welp ... I was just informed through a Slack DM that I will no longer be working at the place I'm working at in two weeks' time. That is, evidently, how we handle that now. Not entirely unexpected as the writing on the wall was evident, but still not loving that approach for reasons I haven't quite worked out yet.
If anyone needs help with their #accessibility from someone with both native #screenReader experience and a coding background, keep me in mind I guess :)
Located in the eastern Netherlands, primarily interested in remote opportunities.
#fediHired #layoffs

How do you feel about the coming year?

#NewYear #poll #twentytwentysix #future

The Internet Archive has a playable version of the NY Times Crossword Puzzle app from 1992. It ran on Windows 3.1 and included a few hundred puzzles. (Click on Game/Open to select a puzzle.) https://archive.org/details/the-new-york-times-crossword-puzzles-1992

Shel Silverstein’s short poem Homework Machine (1981) was prescient about the limitations of LLMs. “I guess it’s not as perfect / As I thought it would be.” https://kottke.org/25/12/the-imperfect-homework-machine