Gregory Wild-Smith

Gregory Wild-Smith

@gregory.wild-smith.com

VW Bus owner, Ghostbuster, & Clio Award winner. Passionate about making things, UX, & A11y. A-CSM, A-CSD, & Agile Leadership certified Staff Software Engineer. Formerly Netflix, LinkedIn, & much more. 🇬🇧🇺🇸

327 followers93 following1K posts

Honestly? BlueSky has gone VERY downhill. They catered to the worst kind of shit posters & “content creators” (read: outrage baiters) for features & now we have just a less right wing version of shitty Twitter. Really sad. What it could have been—and was—has been destroyed chasing growth.

Gregory Wild-Smith reposted

I spent yesterday shocked and appalled by a group chat re: what’s happened to the VA here in western Washington; if any investigative journalists want the scoop, my email is in my bio. Employees are terrified to talk, but unhoused/impoverished vets who once received aid are now dying in the streets.

big nasty ☭@bignasty.bsky.social

Message from a friend. His mom is a park ranger in rural Alaska

“But the Dems aren’t doing anything!” Yes, they are, you’re just not paying attention.

Lauren Ashley Davis@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social

Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) barged into House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office unscheduled on Wednesday and challenged him about Elon Musk's team gaining access to a sensitive payment system at the Treasury Department. www.politico.com/live-updates...

Pretty much. Like… life goes on but this is existential hell for many people I know directly affected & a low grade version for the rest of us who are paying attention.

Ami Berger@amiberger.bsky.social

The cognitive dissonance of getting up every morning and making coffee and walking the dog and going to meetings and answering emails and wondering what to make for dinner while there is a real live actual coup d’etat happening is BONKERS

Gregory Wild-Smith reposted

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” Diary of Anne Frank January 13, 1943

Spending the weekend (plus a bit) in Lake Tahoe for the first time in FAR too long (plus showing wee man his first snow in his 3¾ years) and got to the car after tubing to see this majestic Red-Tailed Hawk just… chilling out. 10 feet from my head. Beautiful.

This is a great tool but, until it is part of WCAG it fundamentally will be nothing more than a useful sanity check. WCAG is often a corporate (and legal) requirement (as Adrian alludes to). I hope they can see fit to incorporate this.

Adrian Roselli@aardrian.bsky.social

This is doing rounds on Masto. I’ve no idea if so here, but better safe than sorry. mastodon.social/@marcedwards... APCA is no longer part of WCAG3. You can use it, but for conformance (legal, policy, etc.) reasons you will still need to follow WCAG2. It’s possible to satisfy both in most cases.

Anyone who thinks this is only *functionally* literate imo. Yikes.

Rebecca Fishbein@bfishbfish.bsky.social

Apparently folks think that writing that contains an em dash is a dead giveaway that it's from ChatGPT, which I guess is a sign that most people have never read anything in their lives.

Gregory Wild-Smith reposted

If sign language interpreters bother you, I have an easy solution, it’s called “shut the fuck up” If trans people existing bothers you, I have an easy solution, it’s called “shut the fuck up” If gay people getting married bothers you, I have an easy solution, it’s called “shut the fuck up”

“Tea, Earl Grey, hot!” Did you know you can just *buy* the tea cups that were used in Star Trek by Jean-Luc Picard?? They are Bodum Bistro cups, in black. Shown here with Earl Grey tea (naturally) and a guest appearance by the famous Utah Teapot.

I live at ~1050ft above sea level. On a hill behind another large hill. If a tsunami is actually a concern for me here there are MUCH larger problems about to happen. Like the asteroid that caused it wiping out life as we know it.

Anyone who has been involved in online forums (especially moderating or admin of one) knows this to be a simple, base, fact. The ban hammer needs to be strong & unyielding.

Daniel Malmer@malmer.com

Healthy online communities are those that make it clear "it's no fun to be a troll here" from the very beginning.

If anything was indicative of both the rapid mindshare growth of BlueSky & the freefall X/Twitter is in… it’s this.

Lisa Guerrero@lisaguerrero.bsky.social

So this is pretty cool: I think I’m the first national news correspondent to switch my chyron social handle from X to Bluesky. 💪🏽

Welcome to a new episode of… What Is This Bullshit In Gregory’s Garage?!? Today we have this 1964, limited edition, Jim Beam decanter! Why you ask? Because it was used to make the lamp in “I Dream of Jeanie”! I got decision paralysis on which design to go for, which is why it’s still untouched 😓

Not going to lie, the @bsky.app team (which is only about 20 people) has pulled off a minor miracle with the quality of the app. A lot of it comes down to holistically focusing on user experience. Not just UI design but how it feels to use & interact on the app.

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The focus on Accessibility here is great too. I’m a big proponent of the maxim “Accessibility is Job One”: making your app more accessible isn’t about catering to blind/disabled folk. Accessibility is for everyone. It’s about *making your app easier & richer to use*. The 🦋 team seem to get that.

You’re seeing these core principles come out in—and be reinforced by—the community. Block, Don’t Engage. No Quote Dunking. Enable Alt Text Always. No Doom-baiting. These have all emerged organically, partly as a response to The HellSite, but also because 🦋 *gives us the tools to do so*. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Not going to lie, the @bsky.app team (which is only about 20 people) has pulled off a minor miracle with the quality of the app. A lot of it comes down to holistically focusing on user experience. Not just UI design but how it feels to use & interact on the app.

User experience is key to so much here. THAT is why there is strong moderation. THAT is why Alt Text is so front & center. THAT is why moderation lists & starter packs exist. Strong moderation tools alone is a huge selling point. Not a surprise: it had been requested of Twitter for over a decade!

Any people who used to hang out on old-school forums—especially us poor sods who had to admin or mod them—know good moderation is key to a healthy community. I won’t belabor this point, I’ll just point to Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance to anyone who wonders why this is so.

Should I post about tech stuff here? Tech Twitter always feels very hustle/career focused & thats… not my jam on social media really. More tech? Weird stuff from my garage? Animation cels? Oddities? What do you think? Let me know!

Occasionally I like to play a game of What Is This Bullshit In Gregory’s Garage?!? This weeks contestant is a replica of The Map, from Time Bandits. Made by a Python, produced by a Beatle, starring a dwarven cast rivaled only by Williow, & one of its main stars was R2D2. My god I love that movie.

Kids TV made for the US: on this episode Tommy is ashamed about tooting in front of his friends. He’s embarrassed. Kids TV made for Korea: FARTS! WE ARE FARTING! ALL THE FART FART FARTY FARTS! FARRRRRRTS!! WE ALL FART TOGETHER! LET US FART A SONG! THE WORLDS. BIGGEST. FARRRRRRT!

If you live in the Bay Area & have younger kids, or want to feel like a kid again, I *highly* recommend The New Parkway’s Cereal Cinema on Saturday mornings. Kind friendly cartoons & tv plus an all you can eat cereal bar. It’s like your old mornings watching Saturday cartoons in your PJs… 😍

Gregory Wild-Smith reposted

Replying to @minamarkh.am

I’ve already seen a number of stories about building & manufacturing companies—who have to buy lots of imported materials obviously—gutting bonuses to pay for upfront buys or not honoring prices past January. Their Trump voting employees & clients are all: