Transcript
Steve:
Well, Eric, welcome to the seventh Fireside Chat. Hopefully, you're feeling lucky, my friend.
Eric:
Yeah. I mean, spending time with you, how much more lucky could I be?
Steve:
Yeah, right.
Eric:
Thanks for the invitation.
Steve:
Of course. It's really an honor. Just you're one of the people, the interesting people that I interact with online mostly.
I was just saying, we have met, but once a long time ago.
Eric:
I think we met a couple of times.
Steve:
Oh, I think we met a couple. Have we met at CSUN as well?
Eric:
Yes, we met at CSUN, we met at TPEX, we met at all the different things, at Frontiers.
Steve:
Yes, yes, I remember Frontiers. That's where, yeah, I had to go live on a mountain after your comments, Frontiers. No, no, I totally understood.
Eric:
But do you remember where we met for the first time?
Steve:
Yeah, wasn't that in somewhere in Germany? Yes, yes, and Martin Klein, do you remember? Yes, exactly.
Yes, Martin Klein was there and Pat was there. It was the first time. I don't know if it was the first time I met Pat, one of the first times that he took some pictures of me.
Eric:
Yeah, and that was in 2008. F**k you, no. Incredible.
Steve:
Yeah, that is a long time ago. It is. So, yeah, so we met, but that's the time I remember me.
Don't take it personally that I don't remember me. Like, it's perfectly plausible, but I'm sort of, I get overwhelmed when I'm at these events and I tend to shut down, shut off and go and hide in my room for long periods. So I.
And when I do come out, I'm usually half sourced.
Eric:
So, no, I totally understand. And like, yeah, I mean, for me now, now it's like distant memory. But when I went to these or these events, it was also like, you know, always draining.
Like, basically you go to like three days of conference and then you go like two weeks of vacation because it takes it really out of you.
Steve:
Yeah, no, no. Yeah, yeah. I do.
I do find it does. How long did you work for the W3C for?
Eric:
This is a funnily more complex question, as you would think it is. So I started in December 2013 and then my first initial contract ended in March 2016. And then Knowbility sent me as a fellow until 2020, like halftime.
So, you know, you make your calculation how long I worked for the W3C.
Steve:
Well, yeah, I mean, LinkedIn claims that I've worked for the W3C for 20 odd years. Unfortunately, LinkedIn, you can't seem to, you can say that you're doing something there, but it assumes that you're. Yeah, it's just it's just crummy.
One of the crummy, another one of the crummy things about LinkedIn. For sure. So now you're working for Access Labs.
Eric:
Access Lab, yeah.
Steve:
Yeah, Access Lab. How long have you been there? What is it?
Who are the co-conspirators?
Eric:
Yeah, I mean, Access Lab is a Swedish accessibility company basically doing the usual, you know, audits and stuff.
Steve:
So who are the other guys? Yeah, because I'm pretty sure that I know them.
Eric:
So you probably know Daniel Goranson, who works for us.
Steve:
Yes, he worked for you, but no longer.
Eric:
No, he still works for us. Yes. His sister works for Access Lab.
And yeah, and I'm I'm working with them for three years now, four years almost.
Steve:
And yes, when I was at, I don't know if you can see this, you can't see it. No, but anyway, I've got this Access Lab bag that I got from, I went to the Amsterdam, I was going to say comedy club, but it's accessibility club. And yeah, it was 10 years of Access Lab.
So that was a couple of years back.
Eric:
Yeah.
Steve:
And you know, Daniel and somebody else as well.
Eric:
Yeah. Eric Gustafsson.
Steve:
Yes.
Eric:
We have we have a lot of Eric's.
Steve:
Yeah.
Eric:
So if you wanted to speak to the other Eric, you're wrong here.
Steve:
Which which other Eric? Oh, no, no, no, Eric Gustafsson. No, I don't.
He's yes, he's a very nice guy. And I'm sure I can speak to him at some point. That's the thing.
Once you start scratching the surface of people to speak to, it's just it keeps on great. Like I thought I'd just do a couple of these and then. But like, yeah, I've just got the list keeps on growing.
And so we're up to you. Let's move to the Rose Gallery, because this is something that I do. I won't ask you which chair you want to see, because they're obviously not real chairs and a perfectly comfortable chair of your own.
But I'll as we know, I will share this briefly. My screen. Yeah.
As you know, I don't know why I've got a we need some like elevator music in the background. Yeah, it's it's just me fucking about with the controls. Anyway, fireside chat sponsored by HTMLZ.
That's the etsy.com forward slash forward slash short for HTMLZ. If you use the code piggy Trump, you're going to get 20 percent off already low prices. So please do.
And what you've probably realized from listening to the others is that one of the many benefits of being on this podcast, Eric, is that you will you choose an item from the HTMLZ store and it will be sent to you.
Eric:
Wow. This is an incredible deal. I can only recommend people coming on your on your show.
Steve:
And yes, just just so that I mean, yeah, no, it's awesome.
Eric:
Like, really nice.
Steve:
And as I was explaining that we're oh, God. Oh, look, as I was explaining to the show. All right.
Can you see the Rose Gallery?
Eric:
Yes, I can.
Steve:
OK, so. Yeah, you you're you're fairly far as far as you know what you need to do here. Yeah.
Eric:
You want me to identify all those people? And I know some of them. So that's awesome.
Steve:
Yeah, well, some of them. And it's the journey of discovery is just the, you know, all the many people that that I've encountered over my time doing the website and stuff, you know, some people people know, some people don't. And hopefully I'll capture the few people that you do know.
Yeah. So I think so. OK, top left.
Eric:
The top left is very small. Yeah, I do the Adrian Rosselli thing where I lean in like really close, but it's difficult. So you can help me with with that person.
Steve:
It's doctors. Why does it even?
Eric:
Is it always Dr. Swallow on the top right?
Steve:
Yes, it's always Dr. Swallow. Then there he is. He's standing outside the shroomies store, which is a magic mushroom store in Toronto.
Every time I lost him, I looked around and there he was either coming or going or just walking by that store to open up.
Eric:
Why?
Steve:
Yeah. But that's Dr. Swallow.
Eric:
Awesome. And that's what it was always.
Steve:
Yes, always. And he well, apart from being a top notch access, you know, he's got a PhD in web accessibility. I mean, who has that?
Eric:
Well, I don't. But I don't have even one of these weird certificates that they hand out to people.
Steve:
So I don't know why. But he did his PhD in like human factors and stuff. But he's got his PhD in web accessibility.
That's where he did his PhD at the University of York. What a prestigious place. I mean, you know, he used to hang out with Prince Andrew, but we don't mention that anymore.
Eric:
We should not. Yeah.
Steve:
No, no. No, truthfully, truthfully, there is actually a newspaper clipping of the day that David met Prince Andrew. He came, Prince Andrew came to his school and there was David.
And, you know, he was doing some sort of experiment or something. Prince Andrew was looking on. So there is that.
There is some truth that scurrils for him. And that's what I was trying to say. Moving swiftly on.
Who do we have next?
Eric:
Yes, that's Judy Brewer from formerly W3C. Basically my boss at the time when I worked there.
Steve:
Yeah, she's a person that had a great effect on the culture and the success of the Web Accessibility Initiative in the W3C. She was there for many years.
Eric:
Yeah. She basically founded like the way the Web Accessibility Initiative and then led it until 2022 or something like that. I guess after I left W3C, you know, it was like that was not a fun place to work anymore.
So.
Steve:
No, well, after you left or during the time that you were there?
Eric:
Probably both.
Steve:
Yeah, but not due to you. I mean, who were you working with?
Eric:
That was the joke, but no.
Steve:
Yeah. Who were your peers? Like there was Michael Cooper.
Eric:
Yeah, Michael Cooper was in the WCAG contingency, but I worked with Education Outreach Working Group, which like if we skip Patrick really quickly, which we always should. Just kidding. You know, Sean Henry was my closest person I worked with for a long time.
And Shadi Abou-Zahra, of course. Yes, he comes. And then underneath.
Now we're going like off the script, like underneath Sean is Hidde de Vries, who I worked with like briefly for the last year or so at W3C. So that's where we crossed paths.
Steve:
I still work there as well. Yes. You know, what I would say of all of these people that, you know, I use the term rogue's gallery, but I really think that Hidde is an actual rogue.
He's... There's something going on with him. I don't know.
I will talk about this offline, but I'm pretty sure he's got some sort of schemes going on. Back to this. Who's the person next to Sean?
Eric:
Next to Sean is Marco Zier, a good friend of mine. I worked for Mozilla for a long time and then retired. But like before.
Steve:
I miss some of his participation. And I do remember seeing him at several CSUNs and TPACs. So yeah, it was always good to...
A fine mind and a fun guy.
Eric:
Super fun. Like I always enjoy hanging out with Marco. So he's really, really great.
Also a good follower on Mastodon, I have to say.
Steve:
Good follower?
Eric:
Pardon?
Steve:
Also for what?
Eric:
A good follower on Mastodon.
Steve:
Ah, yes, yes. Yeah, I follow him on Mastodon. Say hi to him for me when we need to talk to him next.
Eric:
I can do that. Then we have Chris Heilman.
Steve:
Yes, Chris Heilman. I mean, he's... Well, sorry, I picked him because, well, he was there from the other day with Bruce, but also because he's German, you know.
I mean, he's lazy on me, but I thought I'd get in some Europeans there.
Eric:
Yeah.
Steve:
So I mean, is he someone that you've interacted with?
Eric:
Yeah, I invited him when I organized... Like, you know, these are all these facets of what I did a long time ago. But in 2008 and 2009, I organized a conference in Austria, in Vienna, called ATAG.
And in one of them, or both, maybe, we invited him to speak. And yeah, a long, long time interaction. And, you know, being someone who, like, always tried to, like, walk that line of, like, how you communicate with developers and also bring in accessibility as, like, a fun thing, which, like, I don't know how that works.
But like, yeah, just to do that.
Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. Christian, one more can I say.
Do you know the person next to Christian? Not many people do, but...
Eric:
I think I do know both people next to Christian, I think. But I'm totally blanking on the names. And better place them.
Steve:
Next to Christian is my good friend Hans Hillen, who I worked with.
Eric:
Oh, yeah, of course.
Steve:
Hans and I started on the same day. He's always been very good at what he does, and, you know, accessibility-wise. And he did some real sort of stuff.
He was putting ARIA into the Yahoo mail interface back in the early 2000s. Nice. Well, yeah.
So, you know, yeah. But he doesn't have, you know, he doesn't have the big mouth that I have, and therefore he... Yeah, it's the same as, you know, I talked about Gez Lemon, and I talked about Gez with Bruce and the other night.
And what I was saying was that he didn't lose very large because when I first started off, he was the leading light, you know? Yeah. So he did shit.
And his shit was solid. But now, you know, people just don't know who he is. I know who he is because I continue to work with him, and I work with him at Tachylogical now, and he's still a very good accessibility practitioner.
He just doesn't write about it.
Eric:
Yeah, and his blog was, I think, which is Juicy Lemon, as we all know. But no, the young people among us don't know, of course. This is how this all goes.
But like, no, it's the fundamental on like, okay, what is accessibility? How does it work? Like, you know, I think there are a few like fundamental people where I say like, without those, I'd never been super interested in accessibility and just blog and work, you know, very high up there.
Steve:
Gez and I are approximately the same age. His birthday is five days before mine, and his birthday was Tuesday. So my birthday is on Saturday.
So yes, so we're very similar age. We work at the same companies for a good part of our work. It's a funny thing.
Yeah, and I really like this. Okay, so yes, there's Hans Hillen, who I don't work with anymore, still works at TPG, or whatever, with Sparrow, whatever they're called now. And the young, well, he's not so young anymore, but he always looks young to me, is Ian Lloyd.
Eric:
Oh, yeah, I think I've never met him.
Steve:
Oh, haven't you? Yeah, you're not missing much. No, no, I imagine he's a nice guy.
And he knows his stuff as well. And he's always tinkering with building stuff.
Eric:
I use his tools all the time. Like, it's really, really good. And I like that he's sharing so much.
Like, I really appreciate that.
Steve:
Well, I mean, I think that's always part of, well, my personal credo anyway, share information, share knowledge, share tools. And that's one of the things that I find difficult with just having a Trump moment and going off on a complete tangent. That's one of the things that I find, that there's all this talk about AI accessibility testing tooling, but I haven't actually seen any yet that's any good.
Nope.
Eric:
I mean, if it exists, then it's like super rare. Like, you know, I mean, it must be the rarest thing on the earth. They're talking it up.
And, you know, I'm like, if it exists, and if it works good, I have no problem to use any tool, right? That's like, I'm totally open for that. But I see so often like people going like, oh, this tool will in like an unspecified time will fix this specific issue.
And like, the first thing is like, we probably already have a tool that does that. And the other thing is like, but can you show me something? You know, I want to believe you, if you can show me like a concept or a prototype or something, that would be nice.
And then people go like, yeah, I will show it eventually. And then nothing comes out of it. And that I think is super exhausting.
Like, you know, either have something that is like good and show it and like, you know, be approachable or say like, yeah, I don't have something. And that's also okay. You know, but it just feels like more advertisement than anything else or like trying to be like in the zeitgeist of things.
And I don't think that's super useful like on a day-to-day basis, right?
Steve:
Yeah, no, no, I totally agree. Totally agree. I was just thinking about, cause this, yeah, there's this guy, Dave Fazio.
Do you know Dave Fazio?
Eric:
I heard of him.
Steve:
Yeah, well, I mean, I just know him from the W3C, but he's always pushing some AI accessibility testing software, but I just not, I didn't get a good feeling about the features functionality of it. So I haven't followed it up much more. But anyway, I don't know what I'm doing all the time.
Eric:
I also don't know what you're doing, but that's okay. That's part of the charm of this, right?
Steve:
Oh yeah, yeah, well.
Eric:
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Steve:
Yeah, okay, so you want to screen share? So I've got the screen share up, I think. Let's just get this through so then we can.
Eric:
Right, so I can tell you who I recognize. I recognize Christoph Strobl on the right.
Steve:
No, Christoph Strobl is not. That's Detlef Fischer, I think.
Eric:
Oh, it's Detlef Fischer. I always mix them up, so sorry, Detlef.
Steve:
Yeah, well, sorry, Christoph.
Eric:
Well, I apologize by the person I had like less in my head, I guess.
Steve:
Yeah, okay, I won't ask you any more questions on that. So then we've got Bruce. That's Bruce, yes.
Eric:
And then? I don't recognize.
Steve:
That's Lola Aldolola.
Eric:
Oh, right. That looks different than her like profile picture. So I don't know.
Steve:
Yeah, I just, I don't know where I found that one. I can't see who's in the middle there now. I'll try to look up, look here.
Who's next to Ria?
Eric:
I don't, what's the name? I'm bad with names.
Steve:
Let me have a look, let me have a look. Oh, it's Billy Gregory.
Eric:
Yeah, Billy Gregory. That's the name, totally blanked on it.
Steve:
Yeah, a lot of people blank on Billy's name. That's Billy from when I was at a11yTO last year. And that, see, he's, he's showing his, which I don't know if you can see, but he's showing his new, or his latest.
Tattoo. Yeah, which is a picture of his dad's. Oh, could you just maybe close that door?
Thanks. Yes. That, the tattoos, the picture of the plane that his dad, the first flight his dad flew or something.
Nice. Yeah. So it was, yeah, I fell asleep as well when he was telling me that story.
Ria, I don't know how to say her second name, so.
Eric:
I think it's Rietveld.
Steve:
Rietveld, yes.
Eric:
Easy for a German, it's like really easy to say those names sometimes. Yeah, I mean, she's also like really great. I really want to highlight her because like she's doing so much things and very like under the radar for most people.
Yeah. You know, a lot of WordPress and stuff like that, but also like with trainings and stuff like that.
Steve:
I know that she's here. Yeah, so I'd like to get around to talk about, I know I won't know her, you know, we know of each other, so I should be able to. But yeah, I've got a lot of respect for her.
Unlike the next person. Do you know who the next person is? I don't know who that is.
That's Matthew Atkinson.
Eric:
Oh, that's Matthew Atkinson.
Steve:
Doctor, that's another, he's another doctor.
Eric:
So you have basically like a rectangle of like from doctor to doctor and then all the like other people in between.
Steve:
Yeah, well, you're a doctor too.
Eric:
I'm not a doctor. Well, I'm just playing one on TV.
Steve:
Yeah, doctor, doctor who? I mean, come on. Yeah, so but Matthew used to work with Matt for many a year.
He now works at Samsung as a web standards lead or something. Right. And he's on the technical architecture group at W3C.
He's one of the boffins. And he also is chair of the Accessible Platform Architecture Working Group, along with Janina. And what they do is we, as you know, that they do horizontal spec reviews, a lot of stuff to look at the specs that are coming out, like the CSS stuff and make sure that they at least pay some service to accessibility.
Eric:
Yeah, I wish they had more power to like say, this is not good. Just do it again. Like, you know, I mean, we have the whole like CSS carousel stuff.
And I always thought when I worked at W3C, the APA horizontal review stuff is very unthankful work, because you get those specs and they are basically done. This is one thing I think people don't realize when they interact with W3C. So much at W3C is this trying to get to consensus.
And often, when you work as a staff in W3C, or when you are a chair or something like that, you want to minimize tension to get to consensus, right? Because that's like, if there's no consensus, there's no spec, there's no work, right? Then nothing happens.
And so for APA, you know, you get these specs, and they are basically done, and everyone in the group feels good about it. And then you come in and you say like, you know, you have to do something. And it's like, yeah, it's not the optimal way to do it.
You know, and so I think their stuff is limited from what they can say like in the process, but also from like, just better have something out than like being like, you know, blocking the process altogether, right?
Steve:
One of the things that I know they're trying to do is create a checklist for when new specs are started. So there's things to take into account because I remember when I was looking at it 10, 15 years ago, that some of the specs just don't have any because it's really user interfacial, you know. So if they don't have any user-facing parts, then you don't have to worry about that type of thing.
But if they do, then... So having, you know, getting into this like anything, you know, getting to think about it earlier in the development life cycle of the specification is important. Talking of development life cycles and specifications, let's talk a little bit about Wacom 3.
Eric:
Yeah, apparently it's happening. That's what I know about it. I know that they made a lot of progress over the last year or two.
I think I'm much more positive about it today than I was like, you know, a year ago or something like that.
Steve:
What has changed to make you feel more positive about it?
Eric:
I think they went much more concrete on certain things. Like it used to be like that it was all like, oh, we're going to do this and that and like, you know, high level things, which is normal when you start out with a new project. But I think now it feels like much more concrete, but it also feels still so early.
Like, you know, I mean, I know that they want to have a candidate recommendation in 2027 or something like that.
Steve:
Yeah, I got, yeah. Because when I was listening to the, what was it, the meeting the other day, it just, it's, my impression was that the candidate recommendation is going to be, you know, 2030. But then Alistair pointed out, like I knew about what the timeline was in the wiki, but, you know, it changes all the time.
Eric:
You cannot trust timelines and standards. It's just not, it's just impossible. Like, you know, it's like, it's just asking the impossible thing.
And like, you know, working, you know, in the team at W3C, like showed me that like really clearly, you know, people have lofty ambitions, but then when it goes into the nitty gritty, it can go like so, so long and complicated and get so cumbersome that you just, you know, it just drags out and you have to have consensus. So you can only stop and only finish when everyone feels good about something and feeling good about something, you can't like time box that, right? That's just not, that doesn't work.
Yeah, generally about W3C, like about WCAG 3, I think it's probably at this point too big of a project to complete in time. Like I'm, you know, like any, and I mean, really any reasonable timeframe, like they want to change everything, like how we test, how we score, you know, at like all these other disabilities to it, which I really welcome. It's like a great initiative, but like, it's like the scope is so big.
Yeah. I don't feel like positive about that. And even if they finish it, right, then you need, then the work only starts for us who actually do the work, like getting the tools, working out the kings, like finding the issues.
I mean, it will take a long time until we can productively do it. So I, yeah, I don't know. It feels like a really big project.
I wish them all the luck, but I still don't believe that it's going to happen. And that makes me a little sad.
Steve:
I mean, I don't know. I mean, to be honest, largely, I'm a fly on the wall there because there's a subset of people that are aging white men or aging men. That's enough, like myself, who just like to take up all the oxygen in the room.
And so I sit listening to the same people, saying the same stuff over and over again for hours and hours. So, I mean, I'm definitely interested, but I, for example, I think that the work that Pat and others are doing on the WCAG 2.2 subgroup is both important, challenging, and worthwhile. Because, you know, we all are touched by, or have to touch WCAG 2.2 in some way. So any improvement in the documentation, et cetera, is a win for us.
Eric:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, this is like, and I mean, that's, but this is also like the tension between, like in the working group, right? There's only one accessibility guidance working group.
So you have that mandate to create something new that needs to be, you know, not only like as good as WCAG 2.2, which is a phenomenal spec. I think people forget this, like people pick all the flaws, but these are flaws that exist since 2008. So we had a long time to find all the flaws in that specification.
But in the essence, it's a really great spec, and it's really working well, right? And I've seen, I think that was the same meeting that you were talking about. People were like, oh, and people are using WCAG to adapt it to mobile.
And we're complaining about that. And I'm like, yeah, it's that adaptive that you can apply it to mobile. And sure, you have to make some assumptions and it's not like a one-to-one fit, but like what a great specification that you can take it and you can use it in another context.
So I think this is a positive thing, not a negative thing.
Steve:
It's reliable and practical for it to be used in other contexts. And yeah, there are some gaps. That's one of the things that Greg Vander Heiden was saying, was that, well, if we, well, A, there was the implication that WCAG 2.2 wasn't supposed to be technology agnostic, when I thought it was. 2.2 now, not 3. That if they said, okay, if we said it can be used to test my native apps as well, then we'd have to increase the scope of it massively and bring in all these other things. I'm thinking, well, they're already doing it and they've already made their accommodations.
Just let them just continue. Don't, I mean, it seems like, sorry, I can't hear you now.
Eric:
I muted myself. That's how that goes. No, but WCAG 2 ICT exists, right?
Which basically takes WCAG and even more generalizes it. And I think that's a feature. And I think even if you say like, oh, the things that we're doing for 2.2 or 2.3, how we specify them in WCAG is web specific. It doesn't hurt anyone to not use them for mobile apps, right? Or for native desktop apps or whatever. Yeah, you can't test it.
So what? I don't know. I don't think it's a problem.
And then we have this complexity and you go with WCAG 3 and you say like, oh, but for WCAG 3, we either abandon it completely and we say like, this is only for web and you are not allowed to like apply it to other things, which would be bad. Or you could say like, no, it's like WCAG, it's like trying to be open and you can adapt it. And like, there are, these are the two options.
Like, I think people think there is like a third better option, but like, no, when people think it's useful, they will adapt it to their thing. And that's just how it goes.
Steve:
Well, exactly. I mean, yeah. I mean, I, you know, being in the business, the work that I do and what you do as well.
I mean, it's just day to day, you know, the WCAG is used. It's used in across, you know, countries, across regions to test native apps.
Eric:
And in the end, you know, put it basically in writing and how it goes. And now it's like, I always feel there's like push to have this like one true reading of like how WCAG should be used. You know, a lot of people are pushing for like purity, like doing a purity test on like, oh, this success criterion can only be used in this context and only this way.
And I like to be like much more practical with how I test, you know.
Steve:
Well, I think that one of the things that came up was the notifications, whatever the success criterion is. And it was originally scoped only to markup languages. So it was about, you know, users receiving notifications.
I mean, notifications are a big part of native apps. And so I know that well, it's not in WCAG, but it's been adapted to basically say, you know, it's not just markup languages that interfaces interfaces, which I think is a wise practical thing. I mean, yeah, it's true.
I do believe that the pushback is largely political and that, you know, it's sort of the clout of certain members of the organization that want to throw their weight about.
Eric:
But, yeah, well, we always had that, you know, I know the like the things and, you know, I've seen it behind the scenes and it wasn't pretty when WCAG 2.2 was like talked about and seeing like how the members like went after each other and like going like, oh, this can't do this and this can't do that. I don't want to go into specifics mostly because I don't know them anymore. I'm very good at forgetting stuff like that.
But it was like, I was like, come on, do you want to like move on and move along and get this done? Or do you want to like, you know, make fires here and like, you know, and people always say like W3C specs are technical documents. I mean, they're called technical reports, right?
But like they are deeply, deeply political documents. And I think people need to acknowledge that. And I think that's one of the things like when you read something and reads like, oh, in WCAG, you have like three exceptions and then like an exception of an exception and stuff like that.
That's all because political, there was no way to write this in an easy way. And this is the best thing we could have, you know, for consensus. And that's just how it is.
And we have to work around it and with it.
Steve:
Yeah, it's an interesting consensus, an interesting concept. That do you think that, because I heard the concept being mentioned in terms of the European, the EU, do they have a consensus process or is it?
Eric:
I think that depends. I think there are certain parts of the EU parliament that like can only make decisions for, so for trade, for example, I think it's majority based, but in others like human rights things, I think they need to be like unanimous. And so, yeah, there's this thing, but I think the like guiding principle is to be consensus based, right?
Because we try to share values and stuff.
Steve:
Yeah. So you work for Access Labs, you work remotely, I presume. Yes.
And you live in Germany. I'm not going to ask which part of Germany now, because.
Eric:
Just the most northern part of Rhineland-Palatinate. So nobody knows where that is anyway. So, you know.
Steve:
The most place where you live, like is it around surroundings?
Eric:
Yeah, it's super nice. Like it's one of these like mixed, hilly, but also a lot of rivers. We're not living in a big city.
So it's really like, it's basically the best between like living remote and living like somewhere where you can, you know, we have a train station and stuff like that. So it's, you know, it's really nice. I can only recommend it.
Steve:
Yeah, nice. Yeah, I mean. I don't know.
I enjoy working from home and I have worked from home since 2006, so 20 years now. But it can be isolating.
Eric:
Yeah, I mean, I have never worked in an, yeah, I want to say I've never worked in an office. I worked in an office like in 2006 one time. But apart from that, you know, all remote, all my own workspace, own things.
And that's how I like it. And that's what makes me productive. And yeah, I mean, it can be like alone, but I don't like as someone who is introverted, which like it's difficult to, some people have difficulty with like people who do like speaking and, you know, stuff like this.
And also being like super introverted. Like when this is over, I'm getting dinner and then I'm just lying down and I'm doing nothing for the rest of the day.
Steve:
Yeah, I know what you mean. I mean, when I, on the odd occasion I present, it just wipes me out.
Eric:
Yeah, it's so exhausting. And especially like I am not someone who can like really prepare for talks. Like I write my slides and then like the talk, even before I write the slides happens in my head all the time.
Like I always go through it. I always go like, oh, this is interesting. I could mention this and that.
And like it never ends. And then the talk really comes together only when I'm presenting. Like I can't do it.
Like I know that some people like learn all the lines of their talk and just like can recite it.
Steve:
I remember Lloydy's. Not for me. Like, you know, learning is, and like he had a recording that he listened to it two times.
Of the presentation. So I mean, I don't tend to write, you know, I write the slides and then I just get up there and wing it really. I mean, it only works because I know my topic.
Well, I don't go up and try to bullshit about, you know, something I know nothing about. But, you know, I'm usually, I'm usually just trying to talk about stuff that I know something about. And B, I don't tend to say the same thing over and over again.
Like, you know, I don't have a talk that then I take on the road. Lots of people do.
Eric:
Yeah, I did that for a time and it was really fun. But it was also the thing that I was like, you know, and that was probably my ARIA serious talk where I talked about like ARIA issues and like how people are misusing ARIA. Like also super fun talk.
So it was not like a drag to like do it over and over again. But I also wanted every time I tried to like, oh, I changed this slide or I'll do this differently just to also not only to improve it, but also to make it more interesting for me, right?
Steve:
Yeah, I've already used bits of things. But yeah, it's, things are so bespoke that I talk about and then write about that they're usually, yeah, that it's not as if it's something it's a retread of something. It's just, but at the same time, as I've got older, I started to, you know, like I go back and my back, but I wasn't going to say my back passage, but it's not.
My back, you know, the like earliest stuff I've done, like the, you know, I do tend to pick up those things. And also I see this, this discussion thing that I'm doing as a, I don't know, it sort of seems right to be doing this at this time in my life.
Eric:
Yeah, totally. And, you know, and I understand like there is time and space and I was like also like noticing when I stopped, you know, doing talks in 2023. And I noticed that like, oh, I think I have said enough.
Like this is enough talking to people on a stage or like through Zoom or whatever. I think this is something that is a lot of fun to me and I would like to do it at some point again. But it just felt like, oh, for this time, this has been enough.
And I did dabble a little bit with like doing YouTube videos in 2020 and stuff like that. You know, I've always been thinking about doing like a podcast as well. Like, you know, in 2006, I had like a podcast with like three episodes and it was very bad and in German.
But, you know, it's also like 20 years ago, so that's okay. And yeah, but like you just change and like it's different. And I was like, yeah, no, it's time for other people to say something, you know, and give that space to other people.
And that's totally fine, I think.
Steve:
Yeah, I mean, it's good. Yeah, I mean, I enjoy the opportunity to be able to get other people to talk about their lives. Talking about talking about one's life.
I mean, you're still a relatively young person. And that's what I tell me. Sorry?
Eric:
That's what I tell myself.
Steve:
Yeah, well, I mean, compared to me, I mean, I'll be 62, you know, so it only really struck me once I became 60 that I was old, you know, I still managed to pretend to myself that I was young, but it takes time. So I'm sure you've got many years to go before you get to my particular.
Eric:
Yeah, I mean, I just turned 42.
Steve:
So yeah, you're in the bloom of life. That's why I hang out with the swallow and Pat, you know, the young. Yes, the young people.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, we'll do. Sorry, I've got to finish because I've got to send some information to my daughter's girlfriend about screws that she needs.
They say when we're up in Birmingham, I was up in Birmingham about a month ago with over Christmas with with my daughters and Faith is Clara's girlfriend. And we were watching darts. I don't know if you've seen professional darts, but I have seen it, but it's not.
Eric:
It's not my forte.
Steve:
Well, no, it's not my forte either, but they just was on this on the TV at the hotel and they just become entranced with the darts. They bought so far and bought a soft dartboard and darts. And so they want to put the dartboard arrived today.
They want to put it up. I've got to attach it to a drywall, like, you know, so it's just going to be.
Eric:
Yeah. Make sure to have something behind the dartboard where the darts can go in. Otherwise it goes right through the drywall.
Steve:
I've been there. Exactly. So, yeah, so that's that's that's what I've got to go do.
So I will say, we've been speaking for almost an hour now. Yes. So I'd say.
Thank you, Eric. I didn't get to ask you many of the questions that that I want to ask you. So again, like everybody else, you may revisit the fireside chat at a later time.
Eric:
Yeah, you can just make like an invite appear in my calendar. And like if if something is in my calendar, I will just, you know, and that's all.
Steve:
If you have any any recommendations for people that you think would be good to talk to, because, you know, that, you know, people on the European landmass better than I do. And so there's all in general. I mean, there's lots of people that I don't know.
So please just. Yeah.
Eric:
I will send you people.
Steve:
Excellent.
Eric:
We'll just like stand outside your house.
Steve:
Why not? You can come and sit in here, sit in my cozy little office. Thank you.
And continue to do what you do. You're one of the people that I always enjoy your input into these various discussions that we have on web standards stuff because you're thoughtful, insightful, and clearly you have your some sanity.
Eric:
Oh, I hope so. Like I'm at least happy that it looks like that. But yeah, no, thanks for the invitation.
This has been great. And yeah, feel free to like invite me again.
Steve:
Have a look on the Etsy store. Tell me, just send me the details and I'll get it sorted for you.
Eric:
Sure.
Steve:
All right.
Eric:
Thank you, Eric.
Steve:
Take care. Bye.
