This afternoon, I learned that author Sir Terry Pratchett supports physician assisted suicide, and further, offers himself as a test case. Sir Pratchett has Alzheimer’s. His entire life flows from his imagination and his ability to think. I can well understand his fear, and even terror at the idea of losing it. If he wants to kill himself, that is, as far as I’m concerned, his right. But it is not sufficient to make it legal for physicians to help with killing people.
Disability
Accessibility And The Business Of Open Source
I will be doing a short presentation on accessibility during the Business of Open Source Miniconf at the linux.conf.au 2010 in Wellington. This presentation will run from 14h30 to 15h15 on Monday 18 January 2010.
Baen Books Offers Free eBooks For People With Disabilities
Sometimes the best ideas are somewhat let down by their implementation. This is what I think happened to me with a fantastic programme Baen Books is running: Baen Books offers free eBooks to disabled veterans and people with disabilities.
ACC Slashing Home And Vehicle Modification Funds – Unconscionable
Yesterday, I heard that ACC was planning to cut funding for home modifications (such as ramps, grab bar, widening doorways, etc) and vehicle modifications (like hand-controls, lifts, ramps, etc) for newly injured individuals. This is part of the wider cuts they are imposing on the system. Some of these cuts make sense (such as stopping payment when the injury is self-inflicted rather than an accident). Others are not so logical. But this particular cut has outraged me.
People Are Asking For Universal Web Accessibility, And They Don’t Know It!
As long as it is only web accessibility advocates that clamor for greater web accessibility, it is unlikely to happen. We will have more of a chance when other people start asking for sites to work on small devices, or sites that degrade gracefully on devices unable to handle technologies such as AJAX, or Javascript, etc.