Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for Windows now use generative AI to generate alt text for images. This new feature provides higher-quality, context-rich descriptions and gives users more control over when and how alt text is added. The update is available to Microsoft 365 users with Version 2510 or later.

Reflections on my time leading Mastodon and what's to come next.

PHP 8.5, releasing on November 20, 2025, introduces several new features. These include the pipe operator for easier function chaining, the ability to assign new values to cloned objects, and the #[NoDiscard] attribute to indicate required function return values. Other notable additions are closure improvements, backtraces for fatal errors, and built-in array_first() and array_last() functions.

Chase, a developer, accidentally left a box unchecked while updating an Amazon Machine Image, causing hundreds of 100 GB storage volumes to persist after instances terminated. This mistake resulted in a $40,000 AWS bill, which was partially forgiven. Chase advises setting alarms for unexpected cost increases.

Baidu unveiled ERNIE 5.0, a proprietary multimodal foundation model designed to process and generate content across text, images, audio, and video. The model, positioned as a global contender in the enterprise AI market, boasts competitive performance against OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, particularly in structured document understanding and visual chart reasoning. Alongside ERNIE 5.0, Baidu introduced major updates to its digital human platform, no-code tools, and general-purpose AI agents, aiming to expand its AI footprint beyond China.

Edit ~/.ssh/config and add “ConnectionAttempts 120” to automatically retry SSH connections for two minutes after a reboot.

UK charity launches new digital archive that champions the legacy of disability arts and activism for public access

Julia Evans offers programming zines, including free black and white ones and purchasable colour ones. The Wizard Zines Collection, featuring 15 zines, is available for $145, and the Secret Rules of the Terminal zine is new. Free resources include experiments, playgrounds, and posters.

The author reflects on their journey with Ruby, from discovering it in university to building a career around Ruby on Rails. They highlight the vibrant Ruby community, the influence of key figures like Matz and _why, and the impact of Rails on web development. The author emphasizes how Rails’ ease of use and rich ecosystem made it a game-changer, allowing for rapid prototyping and experimentation.

The Ruby on Rails community, once a welcoming space, has become increasingly hostile. The author, a trans woman, reflects on the community’s decline, highlighting the negative impact of David Hamburger Helper, a figure who embodies the community’s shift towards toxicity. The author also discusses the broader societal issues impacting the trans community, emphasizing the need for awareness and action.

The author expresses concern about the influence of wealthy individuals and corporations on the Ruby community, specifically highlighting Shopify’s financial influence on Rubygems. The author also criticizes David Hamburger Helper, a prominent Ruby community leader, for his controversial and divisive statements, particularly those targeting the transgender community. The author argues that such behaviour is harmful and contributes to a toxic environment within the community.

The author reflects on the negative impact of David’s actions on the Ruby and Rails communities, highlighting his domineering behaviour and the resulting decline of Ruby’s popularity. The author expresses disappointment in the current state of the tech industry, where creativity and programmer happiness are overshadowed by efficiency and conformity. They hope to influence those in David’s orbit to reconsider their support for him and to encourage the Ruby community to prioritize its core values.

The author criticizes the toxic behaviour of David Hamburger Helper, arguing that it is harming the Ruby community and pushing out marginalized groups. They call on Ruby maintainers to take action, suggesting a fork of the project if necessary, and urge the broader community to stand up against abuse and support a more inclusive future for Ruby. The author also highlights the importance of democratic governance in open-source projects, citing the Python Software Foundation’s recent decision to prioritize their values over funding.

The author reflects on their experience with the Ruby on Rails community, highlighting its fun and inclusive culture, while acknowledging its flaws and the presence of bad actors. They express disappointment with Ruby Central’s handling of a recent situation and criticize the far-right movement’s influence on trans rights. The author also shares their personal journey of growth and change, emphasizing the importance of kindness and vulnerability.

The non-alcoholic beverage market in Canada is growing, but prices remain high. This is due to the complex and costly production process, similar to alcoholic beverages, and the need to maintain a premium price point to ensure perceived quality. As the market matures, prices may decrease slightly, but non-alcoholic drinks are likely to remain premium products.

Cognixion is using Apple Vision Pro in a clinical study to explore how people with conditions like ALS and spinal cord injuries can communicate using brain signals, eye tracking, and AI. The study, which runs through April 2026, leverages Vision Pro’s high-resolution video passthrough and accessibility features like Eye Tracking and AssistiveTouch. This collaboration highlights how Apple’s accessibility framework, while not designed for medical use, is enabling significant advancements in healthcare technology.

A study of over 130,000 adults with insomnia found that long-term melatonin use (over a year) was associated with a higher risk of heart failure, hospitalization, and death. The study, presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2025, raises concerns about the safety of melatonin, a widely used sleep aid. Researchers emphasize the need for further research to assess melatonin’s cardiovascular safety.

A study of 130,828 adults with insomnia found a potential link between melatonin use and heart failure. The study, using data from the TriNetX network, compared 65,414 participants prescribed melatonin for at least a year to a control group. While the study raises safety concerns, it cannot prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship, highlighting the need for further research.

Contact 1-800-AHA-USA1 for public inquiries.

A government website rejected a strong, randomly generated password, requiring a manually selected one instead. The website’s password guidelines have since changed, but the author finds the situation ironic and concerning.

In the mid-1990s, a Unix administrator named Mason worked for a newspaper that started a dial-up ISP. He shared a prank email about “Internet Cleaning Day” with the ISP help desk manager, who believed it and planned to notify customers. Mason quickly clarified the joke, averting a potential customer service disaster.

A study assessed an LLM’s ability to generate accessible HTML code, revealing concerning shortcomings. The model demonstrated a superficial understanding of accessibility, often including unnecessary ARIA attributes and failing to address fundamental issues like form labelling and keyboard navigation. The findings underscore the need to improve training data to ensure AI-generated code adheres to accessibility best practices.

The text discusses the limitations of AI-generated code in terms of accessibility, highlighting issues like improper use of HTML elements, lack of error state management, and unnecessary JavaScript. It suggests that these limitations can be addressed by improving training data, fine-tuning models for accessibility, and integrating accessibility considerations into prompt engineering and IDE integrations. The author emphasizes the importance of prioritizing accessibility in AI-generated code to ensure a more inclusive web.

If you follow me on social media, one of the themes you’ll find I talk about fairly often related to accessibility is how text that isn’t shown visually needs to have better verificatio…

Stay sharp, and know the exits

Interac logo displayed in Toronto on August 23, 2023.

CBC News will provide live coverage of the Remembrance Day ceremony from Ottawa on Tuesday, including a moment of silence and the laying of a wreath by the Silver Cross Mother.

Meta’s smart glasses now feature a “quick connect” option, allowing users to create one-touch shortcuts for frequently used communication actions, reducing reliance on voice commands. This feature, similar to the Oakley Meta Vanguard’s “action button,” enables users to quickly message, call, or share media with a designated contact.

Fable’s new pay-per-project model provides quick feedback from disabled people using assistive technology. The service offers valuable insights into usability and accessibility, helping to improve the design and development process. The author received actionable feedback from seven participants, highlighting the importance of direct representation from disabled users.

Fable’s pay-per-project service provides valuable insights into how digital experiences work for disabled users. The service offers dedicated tools to communicate findings and improve accessibility. While the service is a gift, there are concerns about how organizations will interpret and act on the feedback, especially those without specialized training in inclusive user research.

On Monday, a notice went out that any Canadian who purchased Keurig pods, machines or brewing system sold in Canada from June 8, 2016 to now could be eligible for a payout in a settlement from a lawsuit claiming the company misrepresented the ability to recycle its pods.

: FOSS feud re-ignites with massive counter-claim

Back in the antediluvian times, when I was in college, people still used floppy disks to work on their papers. This was a pretty untenable arrangement, because floppy disks lost data all the time, and few students had the wherewithal to make multiple copies. Half my time spent working helldesk was breaking out Norton Diskutils to try and rescue people's term papers. To avoid this, the IT department offered network shares where students could store documents. The network share was backed up, tracked versions, and could be accessed from any computer on campus, including the VAX system (in fact, it was stored on the VAX).
I bring this up because we have known for quite some time that companies and governments need to store documents in centrally accessible locations so that you're not reliant on end users correctly managing their files. And if you are a national government, you have to make a choice: either you contract out to a private sector company, or you do it yourself.

Who, Me?: Four back-to-back weekends of work – and disastrously bad documentation – will do that do a techie

On Call: Techie summoned at 02:00 AM to sort things out sent another 2 billion trying to fix it

It’s a start.

10 reasons why this would be great

An in-depth look at the currently trending Arch Linux configuration that is Omarchy.

Who, Me?: Oh … you mean we shouldn’t press that button?

Dear Third-Party API Support,

You're probably wondering how and why your authorization server has been getting hammered every single day for more than 4 years. It was me. It was us—the company I work for, I mean. Let me explain.

Who, Me?: Illicit colo cleanup seemed like a good way to get out of the house during Covid

Henrik spent too many hours, staring at the bug, trying to understand why the 3rd party service they were interacting with wasn't behaving the way he expected. Henrik would send updates, and then try and read back the results, and the changes didn't happen. Except sometimes they did. Reads would be inconsistent. It'd work fine for weeks, and then suddenly things would go off the rails, showing values that no one from Henrik's company had put in the database.
The vendor said, "This is a problem on your side, clearly." Henrik disagreed.

The lawyer who threw the shoe was reportedly suspended before the day was out.

Not the “short and plain statement” Rule 8 requires, and also irritating.

Who, Me?: Big Blue turned the air blue

Target launches a first-of-its-kind accessible self-checkout experience, created with and for people with disabilities. Rolling out in stores now through early 2026.

Innovation, research and user insight are creating more inclusive ways to pay.

In this edition: “I’m an AG” fails to impress, some shady deals, another thing not to use AI for, and other stuff.

On Call: Contractor sneakily fired after pointing out odious ignorance

Why LLMs should not be integrated with screen readers

Who, Me?: Student thought she had the hang of this 'Linux' thing and its kooky CLI

Opinion: There's more than warm power supplies and wonky capacitors

On Call: Traceroute was also a mystery to this mountebank

This may be the only thing that Texas and Canada have in common.

Canadians with vision loss are adapting AI-powered glasses for daily life, finding freedom in the technology — and challenges in its risks.

Chops was a developer for Initrode. Early on a Monday, they were summoned to their manager Gary's office before the caffeine had even hit their brain.

Gary glowered up from his office chair as Chops entered. This wasn't looking good. "We need to talk about the latest commit for Taskmaster."

UK study findings may challenge assumptions about who benefits most from AI tools.

Who, Me?: You're out, forever!

Unity is updating its game engine so developers can leverage the built-in screen reading software in desktop operating systems.

People show no signs of stopping, even though these show no signs of working.

The root cause behind why Windows 11 24H2 appeared to be breaking NVMe SSDs may have finally been found.

Explaining git exclude and how it differs from git ignore.

About accessibility, flawed arguments and assumptions

Who, Me?: At last, enough hours in the day to RTFM

On Call: Network Time Protocol sometimes needs help from a temporal cops