Category Archives: Current Events

Experts should help the layman, not say leave it to us

Web celebs have created confusion when the answer was already agreed upon by most web accessibility professionals. So, I won’t write about NodeJS and Spring if you other experts stick with your area of expertise. Many times, we should leave accessibility to the experts please. Agreed?

via Leave Accessibility to the Experts Please | Web Axe.

The problem with this is what I would term “I’ll give you a fish” syndrome. Instead of focusing on educating and helping people who make mistakes, it says “If you’re not as smart or as knowledgable as me, stay out of my clubhouse”. It’s a great way to build a clubhouse for limited members. It’s not a great way to build a knowledgable and sustainable community. If you read this, make sure to check out the comments.  Some really insightful stuff.

The Situation in Mali as it relates to Behavioral Change Design

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It was the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), flush with weapons scattered across the region following Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall in Libya, that launched a broad military offensive in January 2012.

via Mali president will talk to Tuaregs only | The Australian.

With Mali inching towards peace, it’s good to start looking at the root causes in the hopes of solving them to bring a lasting peace. In this instance, I see three major causes:

  1. After the Libyan Civil War, there was a large amount of weapons in the region in the hands of a lot of different groups. How you wind down a war torn region is never an easy challenge, but this demonstrates the importance of it.
  2. The Tuaregs are a people without a home. They are the minority group in every country they inhabit. When minority groups feel threatened and without power, they often rise up
  3. The military coup in Mali created an opportunity. Whenever a non-electoral change of government happens, there is an opportunity for others to try to do the same.

If you look at BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model, you’ll see that behaviors change when there is Motivation, Ability, and Trigger. I think you’ll see all three here. The Tuaregs had the motivation to have there own land, the weapons gave them the ability, and the military coup was the trigger.

If you’re unfamiliar with the situation in Mali, I wrote background information about the conflict in Mali last weekend.

An Updated Theme (aaron.jorb.in 5.1)

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It wasn’t that long ago that I updated my site to a child of 2012. I got tired of the white with grey text that I was seeing everywhere. Sure, it was clean and simple and did a good job of showing my pictures and was generally easy to read (though not as easy to read on windows as I would have hoped for), so I decided to go a bit more colorful. Using Colour Lovers, I constructed a palate based on a picture I took at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.

This is the sixth theme that I’ve used for my site. The first two were constructed from scratch, and I learned a lot from making them. My third theme was a thematic child theme and featured me taking the posts off the landing page for the first time. Theme four was a Twenty Ten child theme that I built for my presentation at WordCamp Portland in 2010. Theme five was a Twenty Twelve child theme that I launched just about six months ago.

I’m calling this version 5.1 because it really is a continuation of the code I started in 5.0. I have the same header (though I’ve simplified the menu and updated the colors) and the same footer. I also kept my fonts (though I’ve changed the weight and size).

I haven’t tested my site extensively for accessibility. I did do a keyboard nav check and also I included a fix for webkit browsers related to the skip nav links. All of my colors have a pretty large contrast (generally over 7:1 and if not, they are pretty large) and I used Twenty Twelve as my base which is pretty good (though not great) to begin with.

I’ve tested my site more for accessibility then for Internet Explorer.

What do you think?

The Situation in Mali

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The Situation in Mali continues with little end in sight. The already fractured conflict added another group this last week.

The new group, which calls itself the Islamic Movement for the Azawad and is led by Alghabass Ag Intalla, a prominent leader of the Tuareg ethnic group, becomes at least the sixth group to be fighting in an increasingly complex battle to control northern Mali.

via Faction Splits From Ansar Dine in Northern Mali – NYTimes.com.

Mali, perhaps known best for the city of Timbuktu, has been in conflict since last year when a group of Tuareg declared independence for the region of Azawad(which does contain the only city in Mali most of us have heard of). The Tuareg are a seminomadic people that live in the Saharan Desert as a minority in a number of nations.

Since then, the conflict has splintered. On one side, the government of Mali with support from multiple area countries incide Economic Community of West African States and France with some US support. The government of Mali is a small bit of a misnomer though, since they have had two military coups in the last year. Essentially the government of Mali is the military of Mali.

On another side is the Tuaregs. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) is the group that started the chage. Inside this group are people who fought on both sides of the Libyan civil war. While originally in opposition to the Mali Government, they have now realigned due to the rise of the third (and most fractured) side.

This side is largely composed of Ansar Dine are largely Tuareg, while others such as Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa include a number of foreign fighters.

This is the conflict that is part of what lead to the Hostage situation in an Algerian natural gas complex. If left unresolved, it will continue to cause instability throughout Northern and Western Africa.