Richard Stallman came to talk with us on the 26th June 2012, about his view of Digital Inclusion; and that it is not always good. This seems especially the case if the software you are using is proprietary, on a device, or SaaS. You can make your own decision as I audio recorded the talk (in ogg - as per his request). While it’s 1h18m long, I transcribed just the first 10m in an attempt to see if any volunteers thought it important enough to transcribe the rest in 10m chunks.

“I recently blogged about a EU CARDIAC meeting in San Sebastian, discussing low income - ‘Identify human factors barriers to health, education, and participation of low income groups.’ stating that ‘There are significant and untapped opportunities to use technology better on behalf of citizens, communities, and digitally disenfranchised groups.’” I actually said that the opportunities created by digital technologies are not enjoyed by the whole of society, indeed, there is a strong correlation between digital exclusion and social exclusion.

I can hear the gentle swooshing of the the Rhône and Saône rivers because W4A 2012 is ready to go and situated in Lyon, France. With a theme dedicated (but not exclusively1) to ‘The Web of Data and Accessibility’ I’d expect some interesting papers this year! I see that the The W4A is ready to go with it’s 2012 offering in it’s 9th incarnation. The International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A) is the main conference on Web Accessibility bringing together computer scientists, psychologists, accessibility experts and technologists from academia and industry.

“It seems to me we have got into a habit of using ageing as a proxy term for combinatorial disability, its inaccurate and we should stop it.” So a few weeks ago I listened to this book, ‘The Warmth of the Heart Prevents Your Body from Rusting’, being read as ‘Book of the Week’ on BBC Radio 4. In brief, A psychotherapist, de Hennezel came to her subject - ageing- largely through her own resentment at feeling washed up at 60.