A few weeks ago I gave a talk for Smashing Meets about Web3. Find the talk description below.| Laura Kalbag
In September I’ll be speaking at Design Matters in Copenhagen. Ahead of the event I was interviewed by Giorgia Lombardo about accessible and inclusive design.| Laura Kalbag
Unsurprisingly, it’s been a busy few months since I started working with Stately. My website is in a state of neglect, so I’m here with a quick remedy. In vaguely chronological order…| Laura Kalbag
35 and not doing too badly.| Laura Kalbag
My book, Accessibility for Everyone, is back in stock in paperback! Hooray! 💚📗 (And big thank you, A Book Apart.)| Laura Kalbag
Finally got my first jab! 🎉| Laura Kalbag
”Snyder and others argue these new arrivals, who drape themselves in the flag of competition, are really just concern trolls, capitalizing on fears about Big Tech’s power to cement the position of existing privacy-invasive technologies.”| Laura Kalbag
Folks who signed up for the mailing list, I’m really sorry I can’t email you about the skipped livestream tonight. I’ve managed to lock myself out of my| Laura Kalbag
“I am often asked if I will “return to cryptocurrency” or begin regularly sharing my thoughts on the topic again. My answer is a wholehearted “no”, but to avoid repeating myself I figure it might be worthwhile briefly explaining why here…”| Laura Kalbag
We’re skipping July’s Small is Beautiful this month as Aral is getting his second COVID vaccination the day before. We’ll be back in August!| Laura Kalbag
’Jim Thatcher, an urban studies professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, is skeptical. “If you give people this power to draw attention based around a dangerous event,” Thatcher says, “then they are actually encouraged to seek out, or at worst manufacture, these dangerous events,” noting the speed with which Citizen escalated the manhunt. Like many others, Thatcher downloaded Citizen during last year’s protests. He wondered whether it might be used as a tool for “sousv...| Laura Kalbag
“Every day, consumers are exposed to extensive commercial surveillance online. This leads to manipulation, fraud, discrimination and privacy violations. Information about what we like, our purchases, mental and physical health, sexual orientation, location and political views are collected, combined and used under the guise of targeting advertising.| Laura Kalbag
“Slaughter also argued that it’s important for regulators not to pile all the burden of avoiding data abuses on consumers themselves.| Laura Kalbag
Ooh, didn’t realise you could subscribe to an RSS feed by just entering the site’s url into Feedbin. That saves a lot of time hunting around for a hidden feed!| Laura Kalbag
“Because one reason why there is such a visceral ‘gotcha’ response to these posts, is down to the continued dismissal of marginalised communities who want justice for the discrimination they face. Whether it’s Black people speaking out about police brutality, women who have suffered sexual assault being let down by the criminal justice system or trans people who are harassed not only in the street but in supposedly professional spaces, the problems marginalised communities face remain...| Laura Kalbag
“Digiday reported this week that some major players in the adtech industry have started drawing up plans to turn FLoC into something just as invasive as the cookies it’s supposed to quash. In some cases, this means companies amalgamating any data scraps they can get from Google with their own catalogs of user info, turning FLoC from an ”anonymous” identifier into just another piece of personal data for shady companies to compile. Others have begun pitching FLoC as a great tool for fin...| Laura Kalbag
Missed this a couple of weeks ago, and it could make a huge difference to our browsing experiences (and compel sites to do better!)| Laura Kalbag
“I’m well aware that if you want your health data to remain private, smartwatches are certainly risky. But we’re way past that now. These devices can and have saved lives, and despite some early skepticism, wearables aren’t going anywhere. Why pick a smartwatch made by a company whose founder called early users ‘dumb fucks’ for trusting him? Why trust the company that had a full-page temper tantrum in several national newspapers because Apple introduced stronger privacy features? ...| Laura Kalbag
A very long read but a fascinating insight into how ethics research works (more specifically, doesn’t) inside Google, which I imagine can be extrapolated to other corporations.| Laura Kalbag
“The outage will likely draw attention to how centralized our ‘decentralized’ internet really is—a depressing reminder as ransomware attacks hit at critical infrastructure around the world.”| Laura Kalbag
“It is worth noting, however, that the new disclosure about biometric data collection follows a $92 million settlement in a class action lawsuit against TikTok, originally filed in May 2020, over the social media app’s violation of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The consolidated suit included more than 20 separate cases filed against TikTok over the platform’s collection and sharing of the personal and biometric information without user consent.| Laura Kalbag
“Owners of Amazon Echo assistants and Ring doorbells have until June 8 to avoid automatically opting into Sidewalk, the internet giant’s mesh network that taps into people’s broadband and may prove to be a privacy nightmare…| Laura Kalbag
“It does raise concerns about censorship, particularly given how we’ve seen social media platforms bungle moderating Palestinian voices in recent weeks amid the Israel conflict. Twitter’s algorithms have screwed up before, and there’s no arguing that mislabeling inconvenient truths as ‘fake news’ could have lasting repercussions.”| Laura Kalbag
New blocking rules! On 25th May 2021, I blocked three blocker blockers, fixed five sites and blocked four new trackers. In the battle of me vs blocker blockers, I have once again emerged victorious (x4) 💪| Laura Kalbag
Yesterday’s Small is Beautiful video is now up on our site with transcript, captions and links to all the cool sites we mentioned!| Laura Kalbag
Off to get his booster vaccs.| Laura Kalbag
Earlier this week a case study of Small Technology Foundation went up on the Scotland’s First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls website. I was asked to share our work as part of their digital Spotlight on Women and Girls in Digital Spaces and Industries.| Laura Kalbag
New rules out there for you Better Blocker friends. Lots of fixing this time, amazing how fragile big brand websites can be 😬| Laura Kalbag
“At the end of the day, they are not interested in seeing things in their work timeline that make them uncomfortable, or distracts them from what they’re interested in.” from What really happened at Basecamp| Laura Kalbag
Last night’s Small is Beautiful livestream is now up on our site with transcript, captions (and new for this week), links!| Laura Kalbag
On today’s livestream (5pm Irish time), we’re going to talk about @BetterBlocker, and its impact on both accessibility and privacy, inspired by the National Rail earlier in the week.| Laura Kalbag
Captions are now working on our latest Small is Beautiful video! My fault… detailing below in case anyone else comes across the same issue…| Laura Kalbag
And now the video for last week’s Small is Beautiful, introducing the Svelte Nano Donation component, is up on our site with a transcript.| Laura Kalbag
I’ve added a custom dictionary and yet the auto-transcription can’t ever transcribe mine and Aral’s names correctly.| Laura Kalbag
This week’s Small Is Beautiful livestream will be on “National Rail Fail: lessons to be learned on privacy and accessibility”| Laura Kalbag
Turns out when you’re blocking trackers, you end up blocking a lot of other nonsense. We just had a little look at why Better Blocker is blocking the “mourning” colour filter on the National Rail website.| Laura Kalbag
If you missed the live stream, you can watch our unscheduled Small Is Beautiful episode for the Svelte Nano Donation component release. Aral’s tweet.| Laura Kalbag
A bit close to the end of the month for my liking, but new blocking rules are now out!| Laura Kalbag
A couple of weeks ago, Aral asked me if I could write a user stylesheet for web browsers to make Twitter nothing but a compose box.| Laura Kalbag
Don’t mean to keep going on about Better Blocker App Store reviews, but these little bits of feedback have a big impact on my psyche. And if you are one of those people who left a 5 star review lately, you have actually made me a little bit (happy) tearful this morning.| Laura Kalbag
Transcript of a fascinating talk about labelling buttons by Sara Soueidan (via Rachel Andrew’s CSS Layout News newsletter):| Laura Kalbag
App Store review for Better saying “developer is with fake account promoting his own product.” I’ve had to point out that if I were doing that, we’d have more 5 star reviews 😂 (And trust me, my eyes rolled at that assumption of developer gender.)| Laura Kalbag
We covered so many topics! Including Small Tech (vs Big Tech), business models, ethical design, scaling organisations, and much more.| Laura Kalbag
Tomorrow! Aral and I are doing the Small is Beautiful livestream with guest David Heinemeier Hansson, and we’ll be talking all things Small Tech.| Laura Kalbag
“What the buyer is really getting is less tangible: bragging rights, clout, a collector’s item, or simply a nifty new form of money laundering. And because of the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies, just attaching words like “token” or “blockchain” or “proof of work” to random crap can make its value skyrocket.”| Laura Kalbag
“Like the majority of Google’s privacy pushes that we’ve seen until now, the FLoC proposal isn’t as user-friendly as you might think. For one thing, others have already pointed out that this proposal doesn’t necessarily stop people from being tracked across the web, it just ensures that Google’s the only one doing it.”| Laura Kalbag
“Critics also argue that the data-gathering and experimental predictive analytics incorporated into some tracking apps are bound to generate false positives that lead to arrests for technical violations of probation or parole conditions.”| Laura Kalbag
✨ checked the app store admin and Better has two new generous and kind reviews (and no new negative reviews!) ✨| Laura Kalbag
“Increasingly, companies are turning to these firms to review their algorithms, particularly when they’ve faced criticism for biased outcomes, but it’s not clear whether such audits are actually making algorithms less biased—or if they’re simply good PR.”| Laura Kalbag
Blocked some nasty little trackers today.| Laura Kalbag
Getting a blocking rule update together for Better. Got the feeling that today is going to be a big day for blocking blocker blockers… 😎| Laura Kalbag
An oddly specific lie for a site that sets a cookie as soon as you land on the page.| Laura Kalbag
Some really great insights from the fabulous Léonie Watson and Cassie Evans in a very concise format! (Also featuring me.)| Laura Kalbag
Last night’s Small is Beautiful live stream video is now up along with captions, or a transcript if that’s more your kind of thing. Thanks to Paul Frazee (and Kit) for being a fabulous guest and such an in-depth discussion of decentralised social networks.| Laura Kalbag
The new Mogwai album is exactly what I needed this morning.| Laura Kalbag
I can’t actually find any information regarding privacy in AccessiBe’s privacy policy. Suspect they might be a route for tracking and should probably be blocked with Better… 🤔| Laura Kalbag
My site hasn’t had an update in a while. I broke the local version in the autumn last year, and told myself I needed to fix it before I posted again… a few months later and here we are!| Laura Kalbag
I responded to this issue on GitHub in good faith, but I can’t stop emphasising YOU NEED TO PAY PEOPLE TO DO THE WORK RIGHT. If you want to do better at covering disability and accessibility, pay a disabled consultant to help you.| Laura Kalbag
Made my setup a little bit more awkward to improve my microphone sound quality this week (keyboard will be on my lap… arms not long enough to take selfie fitting it all in!)| Laura Kalbag
My not being able to sleep means there’s now a transcript and captions up on our latest Small Is Beautiful #4 video.| Laura Kalbag
And now we have the captions and transcript up on our site for the Small is Beautiful #3 livestream.| Laura Kalbag
Been testing Simon Says for transcripts/captions today and I think I might be in love with a web app that’s going to save me hours and hours.| Laura Kalbag
This afternoon’s live stream has some fantastic guests. Let’s hope last week’s surprise guest behaves himself this time…| Laura Kalbag
Just added captions and transcripts to both of our Small is Beautiful live stream videos.| Laura Kalbag
Ahead of the Small is Beautiful livestream this evening, I thought I’d share what I’ve been working on recently in text too.| Laura Kalbag
Snow Boy loves even the littlest dusting of snow. Lots of energy this morning.| Laura Kalbag
Apparently my site is one of only five sites reviewed by Terms of Service Didn’t Read that has been given a Privacy Grade A rating. (Because I don’t track anyone.) Strange/cool thing to wake up to on a Monday morning!| Laura Kalbag
Missing my family and friends this Christmas so I made a silly Osky card to send them.| Laura Kalbag
“After a brief search, we found one: just don’t use any non-essential cookies. Pretty simple, really.”| Laura Kalbag
Developers adding multiple third-party analytics to their pages like they really want to find out how much visitors hate slow websites.| Laura Kalbag
Today is the day you got your boss-friendly reason to remove Google third-party functionality from your website.| Laura Kalbag
Really? REALLY? From a tweet by Kelly Rose| Laura Kalbag
My setup isn’t as fancy as last time I did a livestreamed event 😂 but I’m looking forward to it!| Laura Kalbag
Me: Need to stop doing every task at 150%, got to learn to relax.| Laura Kalbag
Feels like it’s the right time of year to share this again…| Laura Kalbag
Getting back to his old imperious self. Two shortish walks a day doing us both good. And yes, I gave myself a bad lockdown haircut.| Laura Kalbag
The Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill has been passed unanimously by MSPs this evening.| Laura Kalbag
Looking for a bio for me? Help yourself to a third-person (she/her) short bio or long bio below. There’s also first-person bios just in case that’s your thing.| Laura Kalbag
Utterly unimpressed by a 15 minute on-lead walk after over a week of no walks. Convalescence be damned.| Laura Kalbag
This looks like it’ll be a top read…| Laura Kalbag
Wouldn’t say I’m particularly sensitive to motion, but I upgraded to Big Sur and had to turn on Reduce motion within 10 minutes.| Laura Kalbag
Desk buddy taking the term literally.| Laura Kalbag
IAB Europe’s ad tracking consent framework found to fail GDPR standard| Laura Kalbag
Keeping my office like this forever.| Laura Kalbag
Managed to have a stretched-out birthday week thanks to Aral spoiling me rotten, making up for being separated from my family by covid restrictions, 500km and the Irish sea. Topped the week off with a stinking cold. Just got to get through today to make it to new Discovery!| Laura Kalbag
I read this article yesterday. Coincidentally, this morning an Acast podcast played me an ad which listed three other Acast podcasts I listen to in order to promote its platform. Big old no thanks to that creepy nonsense.| Laura Kalbag
Incredibly clever, enlightening, fun and totally privacy-respecting.| Laura Kalbag
As a tracking nerd (as in I hate it, but know a fair bit about it), the subtitle on this article made me chuckle. This is a really great explainer about first party vs third-party tracking, focusing on Facebook:| Laura Kalbag
Tech boys… egos as fragile as their javascript-riddled websites.| Laura Kalbag
Blacklight| Laura Kalbag
Does selecting “Whatever” constitute consent? 🤔| Laura Kalbag
Pretty immense lineup for @id24conf, and it’s free with no registration required! Know what I’ll be doing this Thursday…| Laura Kalbag
My slides from yesterday’s talk at SmashingConf are now up on Notist, if you wanted to read any of the reference material or catch something you missed!| Laura Kalbag
Turns out that I still get nervous before an online conference talk! But I’m set up and ready to go for SmashingConf! (Thanks Aral for the photo)| Laura Kalbag
So much worthwhile reading.| Laura Kalbag
Lots of me talking about “data transparency” and how I don’t think transparency is enough:| Laura Kalbag
These two ❤️| Laura Kalbag
Giving this talk was fun. Got to enjoy so many fabulous talks and meet loads of lovely people that day, it gave me a lot of energy.| laurakalbag.com
From today, in addition to my work at Small Technology Foundation, I’ll be working with Stately on developer and designer relations as a contractor.| laurakalbag.com
There’s a lot of discussion on UK Twitter right now about women’s safety in public spaces. And of course, I’ve been afraid to walk after dark, and sometimes even during the daytime, in most places that I’ve lived and visited.| laurakalbag.com