TommyTorty10

february

@TommyTorty10

  • they/them

likes breaking electronics, fiddling with old computers, and making music
https://tommytorty10.gitlab.io/pages/

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TommyTorty10
@TommyTorty10
artemis
@artemis
Lunaphied
@Lunaphied

Technological Disability

We talk a lot about accessibility and disability. But what we don't often hear discussed is the concept of "technological disability". That is, disability primarily due to limited technology. So let's talk about it a bit.

lapisnev
@lapisnev

Tech companies don't care about poor people

Most of the issues you're describing as "technological disability" overlap with "being poor". I've thought about this problem from the point of view of trying to extend the life of your shit computers you had to hobble together from garbage parts, because that used to be me.

artemis
@artemis

i daily drive an 800MHz laptop, but it takes so much knowledge

i wrote this post awhile ago that got traction online about using a netbook with an 800MHz intel atom. I was using this as my primary laptop for awhile because it's one of the few things that's below 2 pounds, tiny, has a keyboard that doesnt hurt my hands- and that was all extremely important when I was in the depths of my physical atrophy that I've pulled myself out of.

but the thing about that post is that as cool as it is to a hobbyist, the undercurrent I could not stop thinking about is how much technical knowledge I had to pour into it.

  • Right from the start I had to use Linux. no way in hell anything else was going to work that could connect to the internet in a reasonable way.
  • I had to understand the signs of a web page throttling from disk IO starvation
  • I had to know how to move my browser's storage into a ramdisk to alleviate that starvation
  • I had to know how to turn on compressed memory so I still had RAM to run the browser
  • I had to know how to download videos from youtube
  • I had to know how to fine-tune a video player to be able to play those videos
  • I had to understand how to install an adblocker, disable JS on a site by site basis, disable extra CSS animations
  • I had to have the patience to wait for the worst of the websites to take 5 or 10 minutes to load instead of seconds
  • For some things I had to use a command line program because no GUI version was fast enough

This device, make no mistake, persists only because for as long as I can remember I have had a passion for computing under tight resources constraints as sort of a challenge to myself, something I do for fun even when I have other options. I have gotten good at this to a degree most people can't, because they have other shit going on in their life that they need to do.

And this is part of why I wrote that post. to show people that it's possible, show what it takes, show people how to do things that don't already know. but gods it is so hard.

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eladnarra
@eladnarra

This reminds me of a post I read a while back, "The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML." (I think it was originally shared here on Cohost, but I'm not sure by who.)

The author describes how someone was using a PSP to access UK.gov — I was already aware of the UK.gov efforts in general accessibility, but that led me down a fun research tangent into their philosophy and guidelines on progressive enhancement:

I agree it's definitely an issue that people should pay more attention to, especially for essential services. I don't really know how I feel about calling it "technological disability," though. As a disabled person who is working in accessibility somewhat... It doesn't feel quite right? Maybe it's a common term that I'm not familiar with, but I'm uncomfortable with it for some reason. I'm not sure I have an alternative, but I thought I'd mention it.

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Lunaphied
@Lunaphied

Huh, that's an interesting post. We appreciate your bringing it to our attention, it has a similar perspective.

We appreciate your feedback on the term and we're sorry it made you uncomfortable. Our thoughts as a disabled person here are mostly that we think disability comes in many forms and that as society changes, lack of access to technology itself becomes a type of disability.

Unfortunately, in the process of writing this, that point was squeezed out a bit more than we meant it to be, as we lacked concrete examples beyond limited personal experience. So the focus ended up on background establishment and a few tie-ins to how this is related to more traditional accessibility topics.

We hope that gives a bit of perspective to why we chose the term

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flybyte
@flybyte

Back in 2017 a coworker and I noticed that we both used an iPhone 3G. Browsing was near impossible, and I had access to very few apps. We were both disabled, and our poverty was a result of our disability and societal attitudes towards supporting disabled people (ie. as little as possible). I do feel like disability and exclusion often go hand in hand, but they aren't always the same thing.

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Fluffies
@Fluffies

We'd just like to share, as a matter of a fun example. Our smartphone died over a year ago, so we've been stuck with an iPhone 4. Most websites simply refuse to load, as a matter of expired certificates. The ones that do load, are barely functional, get stuck, crash the browser or don't display well. Surprisingly, Youtube works phenomenally well all things considered, and we don't get ads! Zero ads, no midrolls, no beginning or end ads.

We can't access any new apps either, so effectively we are left with a phone / alarm clock / youtube / single video game machine.

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lapisnev
@lapisnev

This is what I was talking about in my reply-share when I said it takes a lot of tech skill to keep older tech viable. :P

If you want to get more websites loading, you will need to find and install the updated ISRG Root X1 certificate. Most websites still won't work due to missing features in your outdated Safari but you can at least attempt to load them.

If you want to be able to install old versions of more apps (a handful still work without doing this by sheer luck), you will need to jailbreak and install the Checkmate Store! tweak. (Important detail if anyone actually tries this: DO NOT update everything in Cydia all at once right after jailbreaking very old iOS devices! You'll run out of RAM halfway through and brick the device. Update packages one or two at a time.)

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