heydon fireside 2 – can’t shut the fucker up

Steve:
Well, welcome, Hayden, for your second foray into the fireside, and I'm glad to have you back. Yeah, glad to be here. It's been about a month now or something, isn't it, since I last talked to you?

Heydon:
Yeah, we were going to do, like, we were going to do them sort of one a week for two weeks running, but yeah, we never managed to do that, did we, for various reasons.

Steve:
Maybe you blew me off, man, that's probably... Yeah. Too busy globetrotting and et cetera, et cetera.

No, it was absolutely fine.

Heydon:
Since I last spoke to you... You had a... your internet was down when we tried to do it last time.

Steve:
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Now I've just got this... Hopefully this microphone is directional enough that you won't hear it, but there's a fire alarm that just keeps going on night and day, and it'll go on...

Really? ...for about 20 minutes. Yeah, and the windows here are really thin, because they're...

Yeah. Yeah.

Heydon:
So... Whereabouts are you? You're in...

Steve:
Kingston. Kingston. Yeah, Kingston, that's right, yeah.

I'm actually on the site of the... It used to be a... It used to be the Sopwith aircraft factory.

No, Sopwith. As in Sopwith Camel. Yeah.

Heydon:
Ah.

Steve:
So it used to be made here. The whole block, or the whole square, Sigrist Square, used to be a big factory, and this used to be the offices. And then later...

Heydon:
I don't know why, I think.

Steve:
It got taken over by Kingston College at one point. Funny story. I was looking out the window, because I heard there's someone...

We were on the second floor. I looked out the window, and I saw this guy, and he dropped all this stuff all over the ground. And I said to him, I'll throw a bag down for you.

Right. He said, thanks. And then he started to say, do you live here?

I said, yeah. He said, I used to go and see bands here in the 70s. And he was like...

And he reeled off these names, like... Ian Dury played here, and the Stranglers played here. Oh, wow.

Yeah. That's cool. So it's got an interesting history, the building where I live in.

Heydon:
Yeah, I mean, it's... I suppose that's the sort of stages of urban renewal, isn't it? It's something...

Yeah. A factory, it's shut down, then it becomes like a music venue slash dive, then it gets converted into housing. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm really interested in the history of venues. My band played recently in a place in London called The Hope and Anchor. 

Steve:
Oh, yeah, I've heard of The Hope and Anchor.

Heydon:
And it was the weirdest thing, because I looked it up before we left, and the first link that comes up is a little documentary about The Damned. And The Damned films their music video for New Rose... Oh, yeah.

..on that little stage. Oh, yeah. It's really cool to be on the same stage that they were on.

And you could see where everything still was. It hasn't changed that much, really.

Steve:
Folks, so you mentioned your band. What's the name of your band? And I see different incarnations of your musical self and others.

Yeah. Yeah. I haven't caught up with them for a while.

Heydon:
Yeah, so we're called Ravenous Hounds. And so this is a band that's been going for a while with a group of friends who... They were in various other bands before that, and that was the sort of latest incarnation.

But we got to know each other not that long ago, really, given that we're all, you know, sort of early middle age. And somehow we'd all been living in Norfolk at the same time and interested in the same kind of music, but we'd never met, partly because I didn't tend to go to that many gigs, because at the time, sort of in my 20s, when I would have been going out and getting pissed and going to gigs and that sort of thing, I had a bit of, like, social anxiety slash agoraphobia. So I wasn't out and about as much, so I wouldn't have met them.

But I met them a few years back, and, yeah, it turns out we're into the same kind of music. And, like, all of my friends that I went to school with and everything, they weren't into the kind of garage punk and psychedelic rock stuff that I was into. They were much more into, and I was as well for a time, but they were much more into, like, extreme heavy metal stuff and that kind of thing.

And I discovered kind of, like, more rock and roll and garage rock stuff when I was probably sort of 17, 18, and never turned back, really. I was looking for something which was messier and less kind of, like, clinical and precise. Less orchestrated, yeah.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. I wanted something which was just sort of dangerously nasty and sort of shambolic, I suppose. And so it's weird, actually, because when I write music, it's always the challenge is to try and make stuff, because I write stuff digitally.

And I do play parts, but it's in Logic and everything. It's using modern tech, if you see what I mean. Yeah.

And the challenge is to make it sound like it wasn't recorded that way, I suppose, to make it sound kind of off-kilter and grimy and stuff. And, yeah, so my sort of musical projects, which I started up in during the pandemic, because I hadn't picked my guitar up for a while. I was just really obsessed with web-related stuff and design and things.

But during the pandemic, I decided that I wanted to actually try and finish some demos that I'd done and release something. And I put together this thing called Death Garage, because it was like the combination of those two influences, the death metal stuff that my friends got me into and the sort of garage rock stuff that I discovered myself. Or sort of garage punk, I suppose is a better term for it.

And that was through that that I met these, well, it was a coincidence, but they liked the stuff that I'd made, the Death Garage stuff, which wasn't that far away from the Raven of Town stuff. And then they had a member who left. And so there was an opportunity for me to have a couple of jams with them.

Although we don't call them jams, we call them jets. And there's a specific bit of history for that. They used to play a lot in Great Yarmouth.

Some of them are actually from in and around Great Yarmouth on the coast. And they played in this one pub and there was a guy there who was just that bloke in the pub who is just sort of a bit strange and probably done a lot of drugs in his life. And he would just sort of hang about, but he'd really get into the music.

And if he was into it and he was sort of moving around and doing this sort of weird dancing and stuff, then that was an indication that they were on to something because there was no pretense to it. You know, like if he didn't like stuff, then he wouldn't. He wouldn't.

He wouldn't try and try and force himself to.

Steve:
So you released stuff with this band or is it just. Yeah. Yeah.

So. So if I go on my favorite music distributor, yeah, there's stuff on.

Heydon:
Yeah, it's in all of the digital places, but we actually recently put together a 12 inch as well. Just just just a short run of like, I think we put in 200. We collaborated with with a promoter and a little record label in.

No, no, no, no. We've we've sold we've sold a fair amount. We've sold dozens, but we have.

Yeah, we've got a fair way to go to sell them all.

Steve:
Keep one for me and I'll.
But I mean, I'll pay for it. It's just that. Yeah.

Heydon:

One song. Yeah, grand. I mean, I'll be happy to send you one.

Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I think you'd like it because it's it's in terms of the songwriting, but also in terms of the production, it's very. It's very just you can tell that it's come out of an environment of let's just play the stuff that we want to play and around and come up with weird shit, you know.

And I know that you're into some weird shit when it comes to music and also stuff which is aesthetically quite like the sort of things we do as well, I think. Yeah.

Steve:
And you did an accessibility, sort of raise money like a like a cassette cassette or some form of of sort of collection, didn't you?

Heydon:
Yeah. Yeah.

Like like a compilation. Yeah. I mean, I make these things.

Is that knickknack? No, there are. What's it?

Steve:
wotsit Crunchy. I can't. But they, you know, I'm from Australia, as I always say.

And there's these things called twisties. And this is like the reincarnation of them. So.

Heydon:
Okay. So this is nostalgic for you to have.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

Taste of something familiar.

Heydon:
So, you know, I really, really, really cheesy because it looks like it's covered in like that cheese powder stuff. Yeah. They're like watsons, but they're hard.

You know what? They're like knickknack. In the UK, we have something called knickknack like N-I-K-N-A-K-S.

When I was in school, that's what I do is used to get out of the vending machine. They had like a really, like very, very cheesy thing, which looked almost like that. And then they had, um, like scampi and chips flavor or something.

And then they, and some like hot thing, like some sort of barbecue, barbecue rib, um, spicy, something or other. Yeah.

Steve:
I had to swallow, swallow landed. And, um, you have to do it. He has a rider, you know, like he, you have to get into certain things.

And what he demanded was Skips unlimited amount of Skips. And, uh, Dr. Pepper. 

Steve:
Wait, who's this Dave swallow?

Yeah. he's a very demanding house guest.

Steve:
It's like at a11yTO or something where he had a rider.

Steve:
This was my house, you know, I had to have these gifts, you know, and also because, oh, you can't see it, but I'm sorry, but it's a, um, it's a documentary about Michael Flynn. I think what's it's a, it's got extended interviews with Tucker Carlson, Devin means, and yeah, it is my click and it's got a little picture of, um, anyway, it's a documentary that I've said, I don't know. You know, it's one of these things that, uh, you get randomly.

Heydon:
I don't think it was supposed to be a documentary that said, these, these are all, these are all Fox news or they're like Republican related people.

Steve:
Flynn was, was like one of the, he was high up in the intelligence community.

Heydon:
Oh, that's right. Wasn't he the one who started the whole lock her up job?

Steve:
It was generally actually president Donald Trump said, this must be the old, you know, the 2016 version. I want to thank general for being a very brave man who was absolutely tortured. He's stronger now than he ever was.

And he took me, he took somebody very special. Well, it sounds like me. It sounds like you.

It sounds like all of us.

Heydon:
Oh yeah.

Steve:
I never thought I'd be able to say that I relate to general Flynn or anyway, the point was that I, you know, the, the, the gift sharing and I gave it to her, but I said, take this with you along. Oh, you can't see the salt and I've got a photo of them. Um, ah, there, look, yours, yours, yours, yours, yours.

Oh, no, he just left these, you know, I feel like it was a slap in the face. That's all I'll say.

Heydon:
You, he got like a documentary. He got, he got the opportunity to be edified about, about exactly. And you got some air, some free airplane.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
And he got a load of Dr. Pepper and stuff.

Steve:
And skips. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway. So, going back to, um, going back to, uh, your interest in music and Oh, the album.

Heydon:
Yeah. a11y Rocks. It was cool.

Um, or a one, one a11y rocks. And yeah, there was, there was, it would, the, the idea is it would raise money for like a good cause within, um, related to accessibility, but it was, the whole idea came from, I think I was in Brighton at the time. I was at one of Jeremy Keith's conferences in Brighton.

The idea came from, uh, I suddenly realized how many people I knew who were working in accessibility, who were also like musicians, massive on music, either recorded their own music or, you know, were music fans. And it may, it sort of made sense to bring those two things together. And, um, we were talking a little bit the other day about, um, brother cake, right.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's, uh, that's, uh, so, um, it's James Edwards, right?

Steve:
Yeah. So yeah. Oh, well that's reminds me I wanted to get back to the Rogues gallery.

Cause we only got halfway through last time. So what you'll notice also is that it's become a lot smoother here than it used to be. Um, my professionalism, yeah, well that's the thing.

It's the magic of, of you won't notice. Uh, there we go. All right.

So we're back to the fireside. Yeah. Can you see it?

But it's very strange.

Heydon:
I believe is in the middle there.

Steve:
Yeah. Can you see it? Is it big enough?

Heydon:
Yeah. So that's so, so James, um, reached like, so I did a sort of a call for papers as it were, but for tracks. Yeah.

Uh, and, um, yeah. So James submitted this, uh, track called tour de force. And it was a sort of play on words because it was, it was like a, it's like a dance track.

Um, and all the, all of the, the sort of the, the embellishments, all of the samples on top of like the basic rhythm where, where sounds from, from, uh, Star Wars. Oh, really? And yeah.

And it's really good. Like I really enjoyed it. It really took me back to the sort of a time in the nineties when I was first getting into music before the heavy metal and everything.

I would, I, I had a friend, a friend who used to record, like when we used to have pirate radio stations in and around London, I had a friend who lived in Letchworth and he could pick up some of those stations where they did like drum and bass and like hardcore and that sort of stuff. Like UK hardcore. You say hardcore in the States, of course they think you mean punk.

So yeah. You are.

Steve:
Or porn, not to be confused with punk. Or porn, yeah, exactly.

Heydon:
You can see where my mind goes. It's a zesty. If you're looking for some porn and you get an American punk band, it's a deeply disappointing.

That's what Karl used to be, the hardcore fan.

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Always remember seeing this picture of him and he looked like he was, you know, would nut you before you'd say anything to him.

Heydon:
Yeah. I mean, he was, I've talked to Karl about this. I mean, he was, he was very much in a, in an anti-fascist punk band, but then he just looked hard.

So, you know, it's difficult to tell the good ones apart from the bad ones.

Steve:
I was talking the other day, I had him on the, I haven't published it yet, but I remember the first time I met him at CSUN, this was like 2014. And he just started working for the TPG. And I saw him and I thought he had tats all over his body.

I thought he was bloody fascist.

Heydon:
But yeah, I suppose it's all right. You know?

Steve:
Yeah. I didn't know. Once I talked to him, you know, it was him and Billy.

There was all that tattoo. Well, I was going to say tattooed lady, but they were the tattooed Billy and the tattooed Karl. But yeah.

So sorry.

Heydon:
No, no, you're right. No. So yeah.

So this, this track James did was great. There was a lot of really good. Is it still available?

I was trying to work that out. I found a post on my website about it. So if you type in like Haydenworks.com, an album for accessibility, or I can't remember what I titled it, something like that. Album accessibility. Then it comes up and it's got the track listing on it, but it's it's just the track names. It doesn't link anywhere.

So I think, I think it was, I can't think where I was selling it from now. It was probably a platform called sells SELZ.com. And that went under cause I had to move like my book stuff off that as well.

Steve:
Yeah. I'm pretty sure that I bought a copy at the time, but I can't remember what format it was or it's just probably MP3, but I can't remember.

Heydon:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I don't think I did.

Yeah. I didn't do any physical stuff cause that would have, that would have eaten into the money that I would have been able to donate to the charity. I think I donated it to NVDA in the end.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so too.

I'm not, I won't be careful to say that I'm not a hundred percent about that, but that was, there was a bit of a vote about where it should go and NVDA was one of the, one of the people that, As long as you didn't trouser it yourself. Actually, it might've gone to a Parkinson's. I think some of it at least went to a Parkinson's charity because I have a, there's a close family friend who was part of that.

They have Parkinson's and they were campaigning for it. And my grandfather had Parkinson's as well. So I think some of it went to that and it's really difficult to explain to them.

Like I've made some, made some money for your charity and this is how I've done it. Like I got some friends who work in this field who are musicians and yeah, they were like, well, you know, money's money, I suppose.

Steve:
Yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure it was a, you know, a vast seller.

Wasn't, uh, uh, David McDonald, you have the WCAG song on there as well. Yes.

Heydon:
Yes, I did. Yeah. That's, um, that is something else that track and the music video as well.

Steve:
I don't know. It's just the, it's productive. Yeah.

Heydon:
It's so over the top. It's so funny.

Steve:
Like, uh, yeah, it is, it is, but it's just, yeah, it's kitsch, but it's, it's just, yeah. It's just a fucking great song. It's really rock and roll.

It's really like, it's got to be cliche, but it's somehow manages to make it fresh.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
I got into, uh, listening to parts of it at half speed. This is, this is how desperate my life is. But it actually, yeah.

Cause there's this band called Vanilla Fudge. Oh yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
And that's what they, they did songs. So they really slowed everything down and they had big massive organ stuff, but it just reminded me of that.

Heydon:
Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. And I'm just thinking that there was a, there was another track on there, which cause that was one of two tracks, which actually had like a synthetic voice output on it.

And then the other one was, Oh, what's his name? Um, that the track was called man with small T or something like that. And it was because it was basically they'd taken the output from a screenreader reading a page that was badly formatted or badly marked and was producing nonsense, but then just set it to music.

Um, and that was, that was the genius idea I thought. And it was that again, surprisingly works well as a track and it's really fun to listen to. You can't remember who it was.

Oh, it begins with a T. I can find out on my website.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Cause I've got the list of all the tracks, but all the tracks at a certain point that came in anyway.

Steve:
So just to, um, get back to James a little bit. So James has been someone been around forever. I remember when I was, back when I was, well, I wasn't young, but I was, you know, younger.

Um, and I was publishing, uh, my first, uh, article we, um, on Gez lemons site juicy studio, which was, we're talking about 2002, 2003. And I co-wrote an article about Ajax and screen readers, which was a hot topic at the time. And I just remember just saying, we've got to get this out before James does because James was very hot on, you know, similar subjects at the time.

And then he disappeared for a while. Then he turned back up. I know he worked for Karl Groves for a while.

And then he came and worked as, um, I managed it. I was managing for like three or four years along with, uh, and, uh, Hans Hillen. And, uh, they, he was just technically, he was writing articles and, and working on the TPG knowledge base.

Um, but yeah, I've just always been, and will always be, uh, uh, highly impressed by his technical ability. It's also he explains these in plain language and, and that's the hard bit.

Heydon:
That's that's much harder than actually having the technical know-how, you know, it's, it's very frustrating when you know, someone, a developer who's, you know, that they've got very high aptitudes, but then they're very difficult to work with because, their way of communicating is I've got, I find quite often that there'll be people who they'll, they'll assume, they'll assume that you implicitly already understand them, that they don't have to make the effort to actually kind of. And that's really annoying.

Unravel thing like unwrapping. Um, yeah. And that can be really annoying.

And, um, but yeah, so when, when you have somebody who has the, has the know-how, but they're also able to kind of like break it down into simple terms, then that's, that's rare. And it's really good. Yeah.

Steve:
I'm going to, uh, do a collection of James's, uh, articles that he published on the TPG because it's some really good stuff.

Heydon:
And I really, I really love, um, I really love James's web website. Anyway, I'm just looking it up again now. 


Steve:
I didn't know he had a website.

I'll have to have a look.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
It's, um, it's like a, it's a personal.

Steve:
Yeah. Cause I know that he writes as well. He writes music.

As he's made music, he writes books, he does games. Like he's just a real, you know, brainiac, unlike myself. He's similar to you.

He's multi-talented, you know? Um, anyway, uh, moving, uh, swiftly on from James, um, do you have a person next to James? You don't?

No, I don't actually.

Heydon:
That's Lola O'Delola. Oh, okay.

Steve:
Where does they work? Um, I don't know. Lola's done it.

She's got her own, uh, or they have their own, uh, Wikipedia page. This is quite, she, she did this thing called black doors code or some, something. But now she's, um, well, we, uh, technological who, you know, my company, we, uh, support, um, Lola, cause she's on the technical architecture group at the W3C, which is the boffin, the people that, you know, that, uh, make, uh, arguments and, and advise on the strategy of the, the building of the world wide web.

Lots of interesting people. I'm actually, there's a, um, meet the technical architecture group meet tag at, um, Samsung in town on Wednesday. So it's, you know, question and answer thing.

I'm going to go along.

Heydon:
I don't know if I can go to these things, but, uh, the technical architecture is like, that's like the sort of the real super technical kind of like underpinning.

Steve:
The underpinning. Yeah. I mean, put it this way.

It was, it was originally, um, by, uh, Tim Berners-Lee and it was those, yeah, you know, this, the sort of people that there's Tess O'Connor. There's yeah. There's some really people Lola's on the TAG.

So it's, um, Matthew Atkinson. Yeah. Dan, Dan Applequist, I think is the, uh, or Applequist.

Um, I always think whenever I think of his name, I always think of, uh, Renquist, um, which is a totally different name, but anyway, uh, so yeah, so, so I'm going to go there and Lola's doing lots of good work. She's also spearheading the accessibility, compatibility data sort of development. So what she's trying to do is, you know, you've got, you know, can I use stuff and the, and the, uh, web platform tests, have lots of data trying to, um, get, uh, accessibility related information, uh, included.

So as you know, property stuff. So I've been attending meetings about that. Yeah.

At the moment. Um, and Cynthia Shelley's also involved and Eric, um, I was going to say that, uh, you haven't seen, you haven't seen Chopper. Incredible Hulk.

No, no, no. He's, he plays Chopper Hedden. The, the, uh, the, the mad, um, Australian, uh, I know you mean Chopper.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. He cut his own ears off to get out.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
That's Chopper. He's Chopper Reed to me.

Steve:
Did he change?

Heydon:
Yes.

Steve:
That's his name or Chopper.

Heydon:
Okay. Okay.

Steve:
Sorry. Sorry. Yeah.

Heydon:
But anyway, if Eric, he calls himself in the, in the, in the, in the film play with, yeah, he's played by Eric. Yeah. Eric Banner.

Steve:
Yeah. That's right. I really, I really want to chop chop.

I, um, he, uh, he's dead now, but, uh, he did this piece of artworks. It was like a re-imagination of the Ned Kelly type. Um, you know, sort of Ned Kelly with the bucket on his head, but he did some artwork and I should have bought, I was in Melbourne at the time that he was, that he was selling them.

Um, I should have bought one, but I didn't. Of course, it's an hour. Yeah.

The memory of it. Um, anyway, let's move on from, from Lola. Lola's cool.

I caught up with her at, uh, at the state of the browser, as many other people, but that was really nice to see.

Heydon:
It's good to have someone who's involved with the TAG. Um, that's the browser. Yeah.

Yeah. That's really cool. There were three or four of them, but I actually, before we move on to the next person, it's probably worth me saying, just since this is sort of, uh, it's sort of loosely around accessibility, but also the web and everything, uh, in general, I sometimes think to myself about how maybe I might want to be involved more in doing like standards related stuff, you know, I'm doing stuff with W3C and it occurs to me that most people doing that work are doing it on a voluntary basis. And then, and then a very few people are actually elected to have a sort of a certain position where it's a work for the W3C or what have you.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, I'm not, I'm, I'm not sure if there's much I can offer in many ways, but there, but it's, it feels like a pretty low hanging.

Steve:
I mean, you know, there's, there's issues on GitHub and you just, um, respond to an issue. I mean, it gets sucked in, but there's some really interesting discussions that occur.

Heydon:
Uh, and, uh, so you're saying that it just snowballs from, you start by just commenting on stuff on GitHub or whatever.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
And then eventually you, you'll end up going to a meeting or being invited to a meeting or whatever. And that sort of thing. Yeah.

I've never quite understood. To an occupation. Yeah.

Steve:
I don't think it's very few people actually involved in an occupation. Some people that I've talked to on here, um, have, uh, worked at W3C. I was going to say, yeah, they no longer work.

Heydon:
They work with Mozilla now, do they?

Steve:
I think. Eric works for Access Lab. Oh, right.

Okay. I've got that completely wrong. Yeah.

Heydon:
And also with the W3C before that. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. So, um, what do you say? But yeah, but I mean, I encourage anyone to at least, you know, get their toes in.

Yeah. You've got to be careful that you don't, because it can be all consuming after many years. Yeah.

I tend to hang back a lot because there's just people that just want to, you know, soak up all the oxygen in the room.

Heydon:
And yeah, this is, this is part of the reason why I find it really difficult. I think, I mean, I've seen, I've seen how, how, how, like arduous it can be for folks like, um, like Patrick, but because Patrick's involved quite heavily, right? Yeah.

They, they, they want to bring their expertise in and, and, and influence things the right way. And I think that's all, you know, very, very noble, but it's, it takes its toll, I think, doesn't it? Because it's, there are a lot of the people involved.

Steve:
They're just people who just want to, you know, put their personal mark on something or, you've got to choose your working groups carefully and make judicious use of your time. I mean, I, I was, there was a backlog WCAGbacklog meeting every Friday afternoon where they go through triage. You know, there's if anybody raised an issue on one of the standards documents or whatever, the way he did, it gets triaged and sometimes change the mic.

Patrick has essentially been working away with others. Obviously there was like thousands of issues. Now it's down to about 400 on the way.

And what I was impressed by was that the, it's a smallish group that work on the backlog, really good, good, high quality people involved. And the amount of oxygen eaters is minimal.

Heydon:
Okay. Yeah. So it is the question of just like, choose your friends wisely.

So I think, yeah, yeah. I mean, they've just evolved into a more toxic state than others.

Steve:
Yeah. Well, you know, the, I mean, why can't three, the, this, except you got a lot of working group. I wouldn't say it's toxic, but it's just, I applaud the chairs because you've got to have the patience of whoever that who's got a lot of patience, who they, you know, there's some sort of saying, yeah, you've got to be saying like, yeah, but also you've got to, in order to actually get positive moving forward movement in the process, you've got to, you know, put your finger, put your foot down at times and work with people.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
It's all about this, but the concept of consensus is, is hazy for some people. They think that means that unless they get their way and it's not that it doesn't work like that.

Heydon:
So yeah, I mean, I've been in meetings with socialist political parties, which suffer from the same problem, right? You know, like in, it is a very good thing to have like radically democratic institutions like that, but, but they are really hard to manage as well. So yeah, get reaching consensus by making sure that everyone is enfranchised and that everyone gets their say, but then, but don't don't have the opportunity to become a demagogue and kind of override everyone else.

The whole process takes up so much of the energy, right? And managing the process, no matter what it's heading towards. So yeah, I've always found that quite difficult.

Steve:
It's a, yeah, it's a hard task, but I mean, if, if, yeah, for example, one of the things that I do is that, you know, I observe and listen to the arguments in the AGWG and the, and the WAI. And then I see issues come up on GitHub, that are related to work. And I just, you know, sort of, you know, sort of share them around and then that gets people like Eric, who doesn't normally get involved that much in the, he, he will, you know, make a comment on that and the, on, on an issue.

So you get positive input from people. And yeah, like, you know, it needs to have as wide a range of input as possible. And usually, you know, the people like Eric have, you know, they have strong opinions, but also they have, they have good positive input to provide.

So I would do the same. I mean, yeah, yeah, cool.

Heydon:
I was going to say there was one thing that I was asked to be involved. Well, the, the, the one, one thing that I did contribute via you was the, was the illustration of the croco duck, of course. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. I don't think that's there anymore.

Probably.

Steve:
Well, it is still there. It's still in the visual, but see, if you go to the HTML5 spec, it automatically directs you to the what WG spec, which is fine because I understand why. But if you actually, there is a URL for the, the original publication of the HTML5 spec and 5.2, 5.1, and you can still access W3C versions, but also, I'm pretty sure that I, I recreated the, the, the old advice that was in the, the, you know, updated it and just made it into a blog post. And I'm pretty sure I've got the croco duck in that as well.

Heydon:
It's actually one of the few drawings, like I semi hand drew that. I'm actually not much of a, an artist in that sense. But I, I sat some time and actually, actually kind of drew it from scratch, which yeah, as I say, it's something that I don't often do.

So it's, it's a very unusual little artifact for a number of reasons.

Steve:
It's nice to have someone, something preserved in, you know, in the gallery.

Heydon:
I think that that's kind of, that's sort of my approach to things in a lot of ways. I mean, there's sort of mainstays in my life, like the music and stuff like that. But, but generally if it's like, I can, I can do this once or do this one thing, which is in that world, then that's enough for me.

Like I'll move on and I want to try something else. In a way it's like after that I thought, Oh, that's cool. That means there's something I've contributed to, to do this.

Steve:
I'll putthe link on the, on this when I publish it. So you can, yeah, you can find it, but it's definitely there. It's definitely, it's, it's preserved.

Heydon:
Composite images, isn't it? That's why it was the Croco ducks because you'd have all texts for the, for the Croco part.

Steve:
Yeah. It was like ticklies, ticklies, you know, feathers or something like that. Yeah.

Yes, that's right.

Heydon:
Yeah. The only other involvement I've had very recently is, um, I believe it's Alex Russell reached out to me because they were doing this ARIA notify thing.

Steve:
Oh yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. Yeah. And they were looking for people to, to, you know, weigh in from, uh, from around the accessibility world, I suppose.

And, um, my suggestion that I made was that it, that this, so this would be a declarative or like a, how would you say it? Like a procedural way of, of using live region. So you'd be able to use a like live region kind of stuff, but directly in JavaScript to say, say something now sort of thing.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Um, and yeah, my suggestion, which they did, they did, um, include in the, not as part of the, like how it would be programmed, but in the, in the kind of guidance, the normative stuff, um, was, was about how I think this thing should, it should allow for, um, being able to re-listen to notification.

Steve:
Right.

Heydon:
Because the problem with live. Yeah. It's one shot.

It's gone. Yeah. You, you hear it.

You might not even realize it from a live region. You might think it was something else going on. You wouldn't know where it's coming from.

You wouldn't need to necessarily know where to go and find the message if it was still visibly on screen. So the idea that it was, yeah. So I think what they wrote into it was to, was to say to vendors, like the manufacturers of the, of the screen readers that, um, it's recommended that you provide shortcuts or provide functionality that allows you to replay, um, uh, past notifications.

Go back through old ones. Um, and yeah, I think that would be a worthwhile addition because otherwise you've got to try and sort of discover it in the markup somewhere. And if it's a pure JavaScript notification, then that that problem is exacerbated because not necessarily in the markup at all.

Is it?

Steve:
So is that, I already know aria-notify is in the process of being implemented as I understand it. Um, so moving swiftly on from Lola, do you know who the person is next to Lola?

Heydon:
I'd like to say that the, let's say Mr. Clown, the minimal clown makeup is putting me off. I have a feeling I do, but I, I wouldn't be able to.

Steve:
Well, it's Mr. Tumble from, from CBBs. That's who it is. Dr. Swallow asked me to put it on. He says he loves this. I don't have young children. Well, yeah, if you do, you know, you'd know Mr. Tumble.

Heydon:
Yeah. He's annoying. Um, the next person along is also from CBBs, right?

Steve:
The cartoon Bruce is on CPT. It could be. He's got a very, he's got a wonderful charisma for it.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
I saw Bruce at state of the browser. It was good to see him. He was in fine form.

Um, yeah. state of the browser. Your one must say a few words about it.

It was a, it's a great community conference. It's good that it's one day. So it's, you don't have to be hanging around there.

The speakers were great this year and there was a really good vibe. And had Jake Archibald doing the, the MC and he was good. Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. Like Dave normally does it himself, doesn't he?

Steve:
Yeah. I mean, he does it fine.

Heydon:
I'm not saying it's just, he must've made a conscious decision to change it up then.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
He got just to help out. I mean, doing other things, but, um, yeah, Dave was definitely present. He was just that he got, uh, Jake, but they, you know, the, the, um, the speakers they had were like quite a few browser engineers and it was really good to actually have, um, front end developers and browser developers all being in the same place and talking.

I think that should happen more often.

Heydon:
Yeah. I think CSS days become a bit like that.

Steve:
I've never been. Hey, that's what I wanted to ask you about. Um, you did a, uh, a talk in, um, in, uh, Netherlands last year for this.

Heydon:
It was NCDT.

Steve:
Yes.

Heydon:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. That was lovely. It was, I mean, I always loved going to the Netherlands anyway.

Like, yeah. I is, is Amsterdam based. They weren't in Amsterdam.

They were in, uh, or somewhere like that. No, no, it was, it was, it was, it was a little place I'd not been to before. It was beautiful.

Um, and we stayed in this hotel that looked like something out of like a David Lynch film or something.

Steve:
I've been invited to speak this year through, through Hiddie.

Heydon:
Um, they're, they're really, they are really nice. They really good. They look after you well.

Um, and great, really responsive audience as well. I did, I did a talk, but they also got me to do like some, a couple of like workshops in the afternoon, which was, it was like a workshopping around my talk, if you saw what I mean. I've not done anything like that.

And I, I had no time to really prepare anything, but everyone was just very engaged. And, and it was, it was really good. It sort of, um, re-enthused me a little bit about the work, you know, the work generally, um, doing stuff in the field of, uh, of digital accessibility.

Um, yeah, it was one of those kinds of conferences where you walk away from it feeling kind of energized. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve:
I think, yeah, I think that, that similar sort of effect that, um, state of the browser had on quite a few people, which is great.

Heydon:
State of the browser is, is, is, is one of my definitely like top three conferences that I've ever spoken at or been to. Um, but I also delivered the favorite, my favorite talk that I've ever delivered there. Um, which is there's a video of it somewhere and it's, um, Oh, I can't remember the name of the talk now.

Oh yeah. So the talk was about how, uh, I did that thing on my website, which you probably saw where I did the reversal of how, when you turn off JavaScript, it breaks your website. I had it say that you can read the content on my website, but only if you have JavaScript turned off.

If you visit it with JavaScript on, there's a little message at the top of the screen that says, um, that says, uh, please turn off JavaScript to do this site. Right. And it was the talk was just all about, um, the responses that I got to this and how angry it made people and how, and how well people didn't seem to understand that this was a sort of satirizing the, the, the reverse set of circumstances.

Steve:
Doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

Heydon:
Yeah. I mean, we live in a world where people didn't seem to understand kind of like artistic, like performed, uh, kind of messages where, where the idea is that there's an, there's some degree of irony or there's some sort of nuance or whatever. And, uh, yeah.

So lots of people were saying, well, what you, what you've done is just as bad as what people do when you can't access the website when you turn JavaScript off. And I was like, yes, I know. That's what I'm doing.

Right. That's the point of it. Right.

Um, yeah. And so I, I anonymized all of these people as pokeemon, there's different Pokemon and have their, like the Twitter messages they'd um, and it was, it, it, it, the, this whole thing became this huge thing on the front page of, um, Hacker News as well. 

steve: 
Oh really?

heydon:

Or whatever. Yeah. It got to the top of how can you, someone, someone posted it just, you know, here's a website is kind of interesting that you can't view it unless you, and then the, it's still there somewhere, but if you look it up on Hacker News, um, just the discourse, if you can call it that in that stream is, is extraordinary.

There's a lot of people who are, who are, they're just trying to reverse engineer it. So they're spending a lot of time trying as hard as they can to view my content without turning JavaScript off.

steve: 
Oh really?

heydon:

They're trying to like, they're trying to get around my, my little like, thing. And, um, and then there's lots of, um, there's lots of people who are, who are accusing me of being a fascist and stuff, which is, you know, the standard thing that happens. It became this joke about how someone called me a, um, a micro totality, a micro totalitarian, which is not a, not a, um, an expression I'd heard before.

So I guess a totalitarian, but in small ways, which to me seems like, it's sort of a contradiction in terms, but that was quite serious that they, they were, you know, what you're doing here, you think it's, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're doing like good trouble or whatever, but you're, you're just really just an asshole. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Standard sort of a Hacker News conversation.

Steve:
I'm going to have to move you along because we're not going to get, we've already been an hour and there's still a few questions I wanted to pose to you or things, topics. So after Bruce Campbell, you know, what, what more can you be said about Bruce? Uh, he likes to hog the limelight.

hog the limelight. Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. I think he'd be the first person to say he's a diva, but he does, he does fantastic conference talks and I've always really enjoyed hanging out with Bruce when we've, when we've, um, when we've been at the same, you know, in the same place, which is usually a conference. We're, we're in Hong Kong together at one point.

Oh, really? Um, yeah. Cause, uh, Caris Ruder, um, she moved to Hong Kong and then she put on, um, this web, web comp dot Asia.

Bruce and I, Bruce and I were invited to speak there and it worked out for me because of course my wife is Chinese. So we flew into Hong Kong and then we moved up into mainland China to visit her parents and stuff. But I have very fond memories of hanging out with Bruce there.

Um, we had a really good time. Um, yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah.

Heydon:
I, I, he's an original, he's a very unique person in, and I mean that in the most possible way.

Steve:
Oh yeah. I, I, uh, went, um, in 2010, he and I, uh, we did a tour of Australia. It was organized by some Australian thing, uh, Australian way, way standards thing.

And it was, uh, I think Ricky had a hand in it and also a guy called, uh, Roger. I can't remember his name. Accessibility guy, Roger something (Hudson).

Yeah. Probably enough. He, he, he lives in Erskineville.

No, not in Erskineville, in Marickville, in Sydney. And on the same street as a good friends of mine. So yeah.

Heydon:
I mean, it's such a big place. That's actually quite unexpected, isn't it?

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Things happen. Um, so anyway, so yeah, Bruce, uh, who we got there next?

Heydon:
Eric Bailey. Eric Bailey.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
I know Eric.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. Eric's a really nice guy. He's very sincere.

He's one of the nicest people I've ever met, I think. But also just, he's a good combination of being extremely nice, but like he's so, he's so intelligent and passionate and so good at it.

Steve:
Yes. Yes.

Heydon:
Very, very thoughtful and kind of can sit like really thinks about how he communicates things. Another person is a great communicator. Yeah.

Steve:
He's good looking too. That's why I hate him.

Heydon:
Yeah. Yeah. I know.

Yeah. I actually met Eric in, in real life in, um, in Toronto when you were there. Well, it was for the, uh, you know, so everyone, you know, Karl and Billy and everyone were there too.

And I think that was the only time we actually spoke face to face that we've, you know, we've, we've sort of messaged back and forth a lot back in the day. Yeah.

Steve:
He's very active in, you know, he's got his finger in many pies. And obviously he's currently working with, uh, GitHub is doing a great job there. And, um, so.

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. He he is at GitHub, uh, Dennis Lembree is at GitHub as well. And, um, uh, Carrie Fisher and some other.

Yeah. Yeah. They've, they've, they've got a good team, but, uh, you know, as always big corporations, uh, big accessibility troubles.

Heydon:
Well, that'd be, yeah, that'll be up against it.

Steve:
But, but yeah. Um, so talking about, oh yeah. Yeah.

Talking about, uh, somebody else who's not so handsome, but is, um, very good looking. Uh, sorry. Talking about Adrian.

Yeah. Yeah. Adrian Roselli.

Yeah. And he was there at state of the browser was really nice because I had the opportunity to catch her when we have breakfast on Sunday and, uh, yeah, he's one of, you know, people I feel close to in this world.

Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. I, I mean, I think Adrian in many ways, I think of him in a similar way as Eric in that they're both kind of relentlessly committed to, to, to, um, to themselves, you know, help helping him. Oh yeah.

I mean, in Adrian's case, especially like Adrian's blog is, it just covers so much of, uh, of, of everything, accessibility or everything web accessibility. And, uh, you know, it's one of those places where I, I find myself more frequently than probably any other independent blog.

Steve:
Um, the LLM harvesting machines, I'm sure. Um, he's wearing a loserway t-shirt and we've talked about this before. Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
The arms, the arms of the swallow. Yes. He asked me to make that for him, which I did.

So, um, next up is, I, I don't know.

Heydon:
Very stylish. Look, I have to say. Yes.

Steve:
Um, hold on. I'm really, I'm really bad because now I've forgotten, um, who that person, the name of the, like, so I'm just going to go and check my, uh, uh, crystal preston Watson.

Heydon:
I should have known. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. Sorry. That was it.

My brain just freezes and suddenly I, I, I can't, uh, talk. I can't remember anybody. Just after I've been telling you how, how, uh, professional and slick I am these days.

So yeah, so we, we had a, um, she was on the, uh, they were on the, uh, um, plus I chat and, uh, I, I just noticed that they'd been doing, cause they doing some sort of, um, uh, online conference. It was just there, uh, crystal magic or something. I can't remember what it's called.

Check, check it out. Uh, and, um, next up lastly, but not leastly Makoto Makoto. So yeah.

So Makoto, was it because of the, he was pictured in the last, in the last episode that he, that he said, no, no, it was with Matt May. I said, anyway, he, you know, he was thinking me and some other person or something. Oh, Oh yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. No, no. I was, I was, I didn't mention Makoto because then they did me a real solid with, so the, the principles of accessibility thing that I released that I stuck on GitHub.

Yeah. Um, that, that was the reason I was then invited to speak at the NCDT and do like a talk about it.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Um, Makoto, um, they actually went and translated those principles into Japanese. Oh really? But, but not only did they, um, translate them into Japanese, but they, they actually pulled together a whole team of people who contributed to the translation.

So there was like seven or eight people. Um, there's, I, I, I, I showed like, cause they, they released it. Uh, they like announced that they'd done this translation on, um, on Twitter and I'm not really on Twitter anymore, but, but I think we spoke about it on LinkedIn or somewhere like that.

Um, but yeah, there's, there's a list of names and I do include that in the talk so that people get, you know, get the proper credit and everything, but I'd be able to remember them now, unfortunately. But, um, but yeah, I mean, just said, would you like a Japanese translation and went away and, and just, yeah, just, just nailed it, you know? Um, but yeah, it's in.

Steve:
He's been there for some accessibility since like he, he, um, translated Mike Paciello's Seminal Tome, which is called something.

Heydon:
Oh, okay.

Steve:
Uh, into, into, uh, Japanese, you know, 20 odd years ago. So I'm like, yeah, I've known, uh, yeah. He's a great guy.

Heydon:
He's one of those people where he's, he's very, I don't know how he's very naturally kind of droll. Like he's very, very funny, you know, like just very, just makes me laugh all the time.

Steve:
You know, photos of him, like, uh, I've got him and Billy and him and his, his wife Junko. Um, and, but they're always doing this sort of, you know, that sort of, uh, sort of style stuff. But yeah, he's always, he's always really nice.

I actually, uh, this is, he gave it to the, let's see. Oh, is it like a, out of a photo booth? Yeah.

Yeah. He gave it to me. Um, uh, last time I saw him in, in, uh, Tokyo, but it was from, uh, 2013.

It was from the, it was from a, uh, photo booth in the bad old days. So it was, yeah, it was really nice of him to give me, give me this, uh, cause I didn't have any pictures or I had a picture of me and Ritz work where I go, but I didn't have any with them. Yeah.

Heydon:
I was just thinking that Makoto was, was that, that, that Alley Toronto conference as well. Yeah. So you, you, me, Eric, Makoto, obviously like Billy and Johnny and everyone.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Was that the same one that the Pat was that as well? Pat was there one.

Heydon:
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

No, Patrick would have been there.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
I believe so.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
It was a real, uh, Patrick went a couple of times. Monsters of accessibility type, uh, previously to do the kind of meetup thing or like, so fan and I were going to go, we wanted to, we wanted to sort of visit Canada anyway. Um, and, but then, yeah, there was this, it was, it was a meetup version, but then a couple of years later it was then the full conference.

Yeah. I went, I spoke at the meetup and then I liked it.

Steve:
You should make, make the journey this year. I try to go every year. I want to go this year.

I just like, like it's a great place. It's not America. Yeah.

Um, Toronto is a great town and there's, there's usually some really good speakers. I mean, last year, uh, for me, uh, Eric, uh, buddy was a highlight. I really enjoyed it.

It's like, I tend to get really bored really quickly and sort of like, so I'm shuffling around and doing things. I just leave. Um, but, uh, I actually sat through all of his, uh, his presentation because it was really well done.

Heydon:
I mean, when a conference is, when they're like 40 or 45 minute length talks, that's actually a lot of time. I usually need to get up and have a pee. So, um, yeah, that is it.

That is, I quite like conferences when they, they, they, they take the, um, the length down a little bit and squeeze a few more people in.

Steve:
That's what I liked about state of the browser was like, it was someone that was 20, 30, 40 was the longest, but yeah. It, it works because you know, if someone's an interesting person, then, you know, you can have back again, but you know, they picked the talks really well. If it's dull, then you don't have to sit through, you know, hours or a lot of breaks that way then.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
You've got plenty of breaks. And that's another good thing about it. So TV is that they have, you know, the break room, which is a really cool area.

It's like a hanging garden or something. I mean, yes, I know. Yeah.

The barbican is just a, is an amazing building. Yeah. It's like being inside a living organism.

Um, yeah. So we did finally get through all of the, uh, roads.

Heydon:
Yeah.

Steve:
Now, so what I wanted to touch upon was, well, we talked about your music, talked about, we've talked about, um, the thing is with you, Hayden is so multi-talented. You just do all this shit. You know, like your web brief videos.

I'll show, I'll show one of the web brief videos to my daughters the other day.  It's the one about being binary or non-binary.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. And that sort of segues to my other question for you is that you mentioned previously, uh, in our previous conversation that you were, came out as non-binary. Is that the right term?

Yeah. What does it mean to you? I mean, it's, it's interesting to me because you know, you're Hayden and that's who you are.

And well that, that, I mean, I think you've, uh, that really is the best.

Heydon:
I mean, I don't think I could explain it any better than that. I, I, I came to realize after, I suppose that after it had been sort of in the back of my mind for years, um, that I just wanted to be seen as being an individual, as being me, just being Hayden, like you just said, right. Yeah.

Um, and I didn't really want to have to conform to other, other people's manufactured ideas of how you should behave if you're born, you know, physically male, you know, um, how does that actually affect your behavior?

Steve:
Do you think, does it, you know, what do you do differently because you feel, you know, you don't feel constrained by the gender norms?

Heydon:
Well, I suppose that's the thing is that I, I never did that much. If you see what I mean, like I'm not, I wasn't like a performatively masculine person. I never was that person.

But, um, so it wasn't, it wasn't a huge transition in that sense, but it was more just like coming to terms with this idea that I'm allowed to just say, actually, I'm not, I'm, I'm just be vocal about, I'm not interested in any of that shit basically. And, and I, and I suppose part of it was part of the reason I hadn't done that sooner is because I suppose I had a, uh, an idea of being non-binary. I think a lot of people make the same mistake, which is you think of non-binary as being somewhere between like a man and a woman, right?

Like that's more androgynous. Like that's a specific, a different thing. But the umbrella for non-binary is huge.

And it involves people who are sort of kind of feel a bit like maybe like you have like a Demi boys, which is like where you're, you kind of feel like you're, you're, you're masculine but only some of the time and only a bit or only in a small way or, um, and then you have, um, so what I discovered that I am, I think the best way of describing what I am is, is a gender, which is, so I'm not, I'm not sort of somewhere, I'm not non-binary in the sense that I, I don't, I'm somewhere in between on the scale. I literally just, I'm opting out like, uh, and the person actually who invented the, um, the flag, which is like a black, gray, white, but it's got black and gray and white and green in it, which is great because I like black and white. And if I, if I was going to choose a color I liked, it would be green.

So, I mean, I think a lot of people, like I know at least one person who's like, well, they're trans and they just wish that they didn't have to have that fucking stupid looking flag. It's like baby blue and pink. Like I didn't want that.

Yeah. You know, you get what you get, but, um, but, uh, but yeah, the, the person who actually created the flag, they, um, they described their sense of being a gender as being like a gender atheist. Like it's, it is a, it is a manufactured or it is a, it is a performed, creative thing.

Yeah, exactly. And so you can just say, well, I don't believe in this. I don't, because I suppose I, I always thought that it had to be one of the reasons I thought, well, I guess I'm just, I'm cis, but I'm just a reluctant, I suppose was my position before I didn't realize how, just how cognitive it could be.

Like it could just be, you could just decide this isn't for me. Um, rather than it happened to be something you sort of feel in your bones, if you know what I mean? Cause I think, I think I felt like, um, it was only legitimate for me if there was some sort of form of dysphoria or something, which was something that was very physical physiological.

Yeah. I know you can, I mean, your brain is part of your body anyway, and there's that relationship anyway. But, uh, but yeah, it just, it just occurred to me that I'd never really, um, I've never drawn a sense of identity.

Not a sense of belonging from masculinity, from, from manishness or whatever you want to call it. Um, and so I, I just wanted to be like open and vocal about that because I think, you know, the more people who talk about it, the more opportunity there is for other people to go, Oh, Hey, actually, I think that's me too. And, you know, um, so yeah, I haven't, I haven't been that engaged in sort of being, uh, like talking from the rooftops or anything like that, but it has, it has given me this extra sense of just, well, at least I'm, I've now, I now, um, I'm open about who I actually am and how I feel, um, which has made me feel a bit better about things.

I also just like, it's, it's this, I have this superpower now, which is like, if someone says to me, you know, like when you get, you get, um, guys will, will have this expectation of you being as like very guy-like and very bloke-ish. They'll sort of intimate sexist jokes at you and stuff like that. Um, because that's their way of pallying around.

And it's like, I've never identified with wanting to be part of any of that, but now it's like, Oh, you know, if someone says to me, you'd be like, Oh, be a man about it or something like that. And I'll say, well, I wouldn't know how because I'm non-binary. Yeah.

That's just insulting. It's been a bit, but it's, it is funny though, that like in my experience anyway, like when I was growing up, I was always considered kind of like not so much effeminate, but just like not one of the guys, I suppose. It was never, not like a typical guy blokey thing.

Like a lot of girls thought that I was gay because I wasn't acting the way that they expect guys to, I didn't know how to. Um, and it's funny that thinking back around those little times, there was always this expectation or this demand, like you, you should be more of a man or you should be more like this. But then when you actually raise your hand up and go, actually, the reason I'm not like that is because I'm, I'm non-binary.

I'm not, I'm not a man. That's not how I see myself. Uh, then, then they'll turn around and go, Oh no, you are a man.

You can't do that. That's not a thing being said. They try and have it both ways.

So, but yeah, I'm not interested. I'm not.

Steve:
It's not something that I've, well, I've, I've, I've never been in one, like, you know, somebody, a guy will come, you will sit, we'll come to you and they'll say, Oh, maybe you start talking about football or something, you know, Australian, they talk about cricket and I just, I always feel a bit uncomfortable with it. But I always say, you know, I've got no interest in football or cricket.

Heydon:
No, I never have either. Yeah.

Steve:
I mean, I did have for a while because both my daughters played football.

Heydon:
So I love to go on one day, but beyond that, Then you have like a vicarious interest. If you know someone who's excited by it, then you're sort of excited for them. And I'm a bit, I'm a bit like that with, um, I'm a bit, funnily enough, I'm a bit like that with trans folks, right?

Because they're, they're still excited about the idea of gender and wanting to transition, literally go from one place to the other. And I'm here for that. I'm totally here for that.

But it's still, it's, it can only ever be like a vicarious thing because I just don't understand it myself. Like I don't.

Steve:
So you don't feel a desire to physically transform your body?

Heydon:
No, no, exactly. Yeah. I'm, uh, it's enough for me to just think, well, I don't necessarily always, like I don't come across particularly masculine or anything.

And I like that because, because that sort of fits with me a little bit, but I'll keep wearing, I'm going to keep wearing clothes made for boys because that's my body shape, you know, um, for the most part.

Steve:
Well, I mean, you know, you're bloke-ish to me, to, you know, for your, like you present as a bloke, but I don't, yeah, yeah, there's Hayden who's a bloke. I just think, oh, there's Hayden. Yeah.

Yeah.

Heydon:
Well, I think, yeah, your first inclination is just like you think of me just being me. And I think that's wonderful. I love that.

I love that. Yeah. But yeah, but at the same time, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to be affronted by the idea that you see me as being one way or another, a bloke or like male.

That's how I've chosen to present myself, you know.

Steve:
Yeah. It's not, it's, yeah. It's not that important, is it really?

I mean, it's not that your, you know, what my view of you is is not the most important thing. I mean, is the way I treat you and the way we interact is the important thing.

Heydon:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
I think, yeah, I just think that, yeah, there's this sort of weird, I think a lot of people expect that there's this demand on you, if you, if you're non-binary, that you have to, you kind of have to look like you're non-binary.

Steve:
I think that partially Hayden is that that's due to, like when you're young and a lot of people, you know, they're exploring their gender and sexuality, et cetera, are young, that you, it's very, you know, you wear it on your surface.

Heydon:
Like, you know, you, you sort of, you are what you is to an extent, whereas, which is quite zapper, but yeah, but to actually, I can think of a good example of, of, of like a good way of like framing it to me, I think is that like, whilst I wouldn't intentionally go out to, to find clothes, which feminized me more. Sometimes I will find that a certain kind of shoes or a certain kind of jacket, which is made for women. So trans or cis women, I suppose, just looks better on me.

And what makes me agender and non-binary in the way that I personally am is the fact that it doesn't bother me. Do you sort of mean like that? I don't like that.

If I was a real blokey bloke, I'd be like, Oh, but that's girls clothing. I can't wear that because I'm not that. The other end of the, that's the other, that's the zero to my one or whatever it is.

To me, it's just like, well, that fits that. I've got a pair of Doc Martin boots and they look like any other Doc Martin boots, but they happen to be actually a pair that would, would, they were in the women's section. And I just thought, well, they're nicer ones.

I want that. And like, it's not like they look feminine, but it's just, yeah. That's the difference for me is that it doesn't bother me.

The idea that I would, I would be crossing over or whatever. It's like still arbitrary really.

Steve:
Yeah. Oh, just like, yeah. What I was trying to explain before, which I didn't explain very well is what I meant is when you're younger, that it's a lot more about what you project as you get older, you know, you just, it's more, well for me anyway, it's more about feeling comfortable in your own skin.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a big part of it.

You know, not having to, you know, I don't have to prove it to anyone. I just, and so yeah, I can't hear you now. Can't hear you.

You, you, you muted, you muted yourself. Oh, listen, we're going to have to end it anyway. Because we've been on for ages for an hour, another hour and a half and we, yeah, we could still continue to talk.

I'm sure I'll invite you on again. Thank you. Yeah.

It's not muted now, but you still can't hear you. Who knows why? Look after yourself and hopefully we'll see each other soon.

Heydon:
Oh yeah. Hang on. I think I'm back on, right?

Steve:
Yes, you are.

Heydon:
Yes. Send me the record. I've done an hour and a half.

I think that's probably as much as anyone could bear. Oh yeah. I need a week.

I appreciate it. It was really nice in particular to talk about the, the non-binary-ness. I like to talk about it being like, you know, like you have quantum computing, it's supposed to be like a more powerful kind of computing.

Yeah. It's quantum-ness because it's non-binary, right? So non-binary computing, quantum computing is non-binary computing.

Anyway.

Steve:
Yeah. I get you. Yeah.

It's been great to talk to you. I'm glad you're back in Norfolk without any broken bones. Without incident.

Heydon:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. But send me some links to the various, your various music and where your gigs are and stuff like that. Not, I'm not saying that people will, well, you might get one person to come along.

Heydon:
Do you want links for when you publish?

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Heydon:
I'll do that. Yeah. And if I don't, do remind me.

Steve:
Yeah. Yeah. It'll be a couple of weeks.

Yeah. Before I put this in the second one out because I've just got to go through the process of doing it.

Heydon:
I think I'm going to go and have a quick pint of beer before dinner. I'll sit with my phone and find, find links to stuff whilst I'm doing that.

Steve:
Coolio. Thanks again, Hayden.

Heydon:
Really, just really nice to talk to you, Steve. Honestly.

Steve:
Yeah. And it's good to talk to you. It's just, it's blown me away how positive it has been for me to talk to, because people, you know, like not you in particular, but other people that I've known for years that I just haven't ever spoken to and I, and I'm really, I've like harboured some sort of mistrust or dislike for them because I don't know them well enough.

And once I get them on the show and start talking to them, I just feel really comfortable and I really like them.

Heydon:
So yeah.

Steve:
I'm really liking a lot more people than I am.

Heydon:
You make people feel very comfortable. I know you joke about, about how you've got everything running very smoothly and everything, but you're a deceptively very good interviewer because you're, because you're, you know, you're very laid back about it, you know, so yeah.

Steve:
That's it. I'm an old Aussie, mate. That's the way we are.

Look after yourself and hopefully I'll see you in person soon. Oh, that's what I wanted to mention was that I bumped into Amy Hupe and she said you'd mentioned to her and she's going to come on the show at some point.

Heydon:
Oh, fantastic. Yeah. After we spoke about it, I messaged her and said, you know, would, how do you fancy talking to Steve?

And I described the format to her and she's like, yeah, that sounds good.

Steve:
Yeah. She seemed to be really up for it.

Heydon:
So I'm going to talk to her. Because she's another person who's just naturally very, very funny. So yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, I didn't want it to be wall to wall blokes, put it that way.

Heydon:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Steve:
Because when I was talking to Natalie about was that one of the things that I do like about the accessibility community is that there's a fair, well it's not a balance, but there's, you know, there's more women involved in the accessibility work than, than, you know, other areas of tech. Yeah. And it's, it's really good thing too.

I mean, I just appreciate, not just women, but you know, obviously safe people and people, just people, just people with different perspectives and stuff.

Heydon:
It's more diverse, certainly.

Steve:
Yeah.

Heydon:
Yeah. I mean, I haven't had a lot of disabled people. That increases the diversity automatically, but yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a good, a good mix of people.

Definitely.

Steve:
All right. Cool. Talk to you later.

Yeah. Cheers, Steve. Hey, and remember that you, you need to tell me what shirt you want.

Oh, whatever you, you know, you might want a mug or a bunch of stickers. Just have a look on the site, just tell me. So then that way I'll, I'll send it off to you.

Heydon:
Yeah, sweet. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll get on the shop and have a look.

Steve:
And you may even want to have a look at Pat's because Pat's been doing some really nice shirts.

Heydon:
Are they on the same site on your site?

Steve:
Well, some of his shirts are on my site, but then he, he created his own, and he's been doing, he's been making more shirts since then. Not necessarily, not necessarily with the same, you know, the same focus on wave standards, but just some really nice shirts. He bought me one from my, for my birthday, which he bought up to Birmingham recently.

And it's like the smoking sign. It's like, it's just cigarette. Like he saw the smoking sign somewhere.

And it's just, it's a really nice shirt.

Heydon:
It's just sort of like, it's a shirt which has something on it, but there's no real explanation. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. Well, it's just, it's just an icon for us. I wore it when I went to, uh, to get my lungs, uh, the CT scan of a lung.

So.

Heydon:
Oh, right. Blimey. Yeah.

Okay.

Steve:
It was the age related thing. And, uh, yeah, it always, always, well, but I was like, probably put the wind up in because they contact, like they said, Oh, we'll contact you in six weeks. If everything's okay, we'll contact you in a week.

If there's any problems or, you know, if there's any, and they got back to you in a week. Yeah. They got back.

What was worse was that they rang and they tried to get in contact one day and I missed the call. So I was like, sweet.

Heydon:
I was thinking, Oh no. I mean, honest, like that, that sort of thing bothers me so much when people say they're going to do something specific, right. They do.

They contradict themselves. Like don't tell me you're going to do it that way.

Steve:
Then just don't say, but you know, long story short, it was my lungs. So I'm quite happy about that. Good.

Heydon:
Good.

Steve:
Anyway, uh, enough of my, uh, my aging Christ, uh, your senescence. Yeah. Love you Hayden.

See you, man.

Heydon:
Yeah. Love you too. Cheers.

Bye.