Steven Aquino (he/him)
@steven_aquino
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Disabled person. Freelance technology reporter covering accessibility and assistive tech. Bylines at Forbes, TechCrunch, The Verge, and elsewhere.
San Francisco, CA
Joined June 2010
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Last Seen Profiles
I don’t know if anyone’s brought it up (maybe
@staceyabrams
?) but it’s worth noting GA’s oppressive new voting law is particularly hurtful to disabled residents. Absentee ballots play a huge part in making voting literally more accessible. Not everyone can get to the polls.
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@AOC
So I’m not in your district... I live in San Francisco. I’m sure this isn’t under your control, but for what it’s worth, the CAPTCHA for constituents to email you is inaccessible for the blind and visually impaired. Maybe your IT people can find another security method.
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I hope people realize thumbing your nose at Amazon or Google over business ethics or privacy is one thing. But to just flippantly say “boycott Amazon” reeks of privilege and ableism when it comes to, you know, surviving.
A lot of disabled people rely on Prime services.
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iPhone 14 accessibility tidbit: Apple has added a Mac-like startup chime when you boot the phone. My understanding is a lot of Blind and low vision people, even inside the company, wished for a concrete way to tell whether their phone restarted.
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Subscribed to
@MotherJones
because journalism.
@ClaraJeffery
& team do outstanding work that I've admired for a while.
#PressOn
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Good on The Rock, but I mean, how about casting directors get ACTUAL DISABLED PEOPLE to play… disabled people in films.
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Our piglet, Pablo, insists on sleeping in the bed with us every night, and my girlfriend caught this great shot of him waking up today. cc:
@darth
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I feel these sentiments so much.
My Forbes column doesn’t let it show, but I’m struggling mightily with my mental health these days. I don’t say a lot of what I feel or think out of fear of negative feedback.
1. Sharing as much as I have about this episode and passive suicidal ideation as it's happening has made me even more empathetic when it comes to mental health stigmas.
The number of people making assumptions about what triggered this is shocking but not surprising
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Also worth adding that Georgia’s voting law is not *only* bad for people of color, as many (rightfully!) focus on. It illustrates, as does other issues, the lives of disabled people are *also* disproportionately affected.
Diversity inclusion also means disability inclusion.
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Steve Jobs isn’t here to keep saying so, but Apple TV continues to feel like a hobby to Apple. tvOS could be so much more than it is.
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One cool tidbit about Voice Control: It uses the TrueDepth camera on iOS/iPadOS to tell if you’re looking at the computer. If someone walks over and you turn your head, Voice Control will stop listening until you go back to your computer.
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We started watching “Deaf U” on Netflix last night. I highly recommend it—exec produced by
@NyleDiMarco
, it’s a great look into deaf culture and Gallaudet.
I’m obviously not deaf, but my parents were and ASL is my first language. I love how DU brings me back to my roots.
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“[After] a full term of Trump fully displaying immense ineptitude and unabashed malice, he gained support among Americans. That shows the deep hole the nation has fallen into…”
Great, must-read
@DavidCornDC
piece.
We are a morally depraved nation.
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As a lifelong person with disabilities on Medicare, good on you for this
@AndrewYang
. We need better access and better services.
Yang unveils plan to address care for children and adults with disabilities
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Pablo hanging out on our bed while the housekeepers are here.
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@katienotopoulos
My 12th grade English teacher was fired, arrested a year after I graduated (2000) for having sex with one of her students on the regular during her prep period.
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Given Apple’s audio prowess in HomePods, AirPods max, et al, I kinda wish they’d build a soundbar. Put tvOS in it.
I’d snap that up in a heartbeat.
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This
@ceodonovan
story is really good. She focuses on helping a senior, who’d need help pandemic or not. The piece goes to show how vital these services are. Many w/ disabilities are “shut-ins” too, and grocery delivery is essential.
See also: Uber, Lyft.
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Apple confirmed to me Accessibility, the menu, has been moved to front page of Settings. Also, selecting acccessibility features is now part of first-run “setup buddy” process. I’m told goal of both moves was to increase visibility of accessibility feature set as a whole.
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Fellow tech journalists at big outlets: Do not, under any circumstances, refer to accessibility features like this.
It reeks of privilege, even unintentionally. 👎🏼
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This is such a better variation on the classic Windows XP wallpaper.
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This tweet is cutthroat.
The home of Neil Young.
Listen to his entire catalog on Apple Music:
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Fascinating
@DavidCornDC
story from 2011 on Ronald's Reagan's senility that was never made public. Unlike Trump, Reagan's mental state wasn't such that he put the country at risk.
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@darth
Look at my new piglet darth. We got him last week. His name is Pablo. He’s 8 weeks old and weighs 2 ½ pounds.
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A must-read thread.
Get vaccinated. Wear a mask.
COVID Update: In most countries, the greatest threat are variants & the lack of vaccines.
In the US it’s different. Very different. 1/
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For absolute clarity: I’m NOT saying Big Tech shouldn’t be regulated and held accountable re: ethics and privacy. They should, even Apple!
My point is it’s incredibly shortsighted to unilaterally damn a service that has very real benefit to disabled people, myself included.
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Accessibility should *never* be something you’re not working on—especially in the pursuit of “letting everyone in.” Do you know how that sounds?
This is mealy-mouthed founder bullshit from
@noam
.
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The loss of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain this week are harrowing reminders of my own struggle with anxiety and depression. The topic of suicide hits close to home.
#MyStory
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Speaking as a disabled person, it’s hard to overstate the significance of Apple’s accessibility emoji proposal. They aren’t a bunch of cute pictures. These are going on hundreds of millions of devices. People *will* notice them. The awareness meter will go up exponentially.
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Some personal news: At long last, happy to announce I’m joining
@ForbesTech
as a freelance contributor to their diversity and inclusion coverage, writing about accessibility in tech. My blog is still being set up, but I expect to start posting there soon.
Hope you’ll read me.
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Elon’s screwing with Twitter may seem funny to people and all, but communities like
#DisabilityTwitter
depend on this place to connect, etc.
There are Twitter alternatives, but what we have here isn’t easily replicated elsewhere.
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My latest is a big one: I sat down earlier this month with tech YouTube extraordinaire
@ijustine
to talk about her battle with thrombosis last year, embracing accessibility and assistive technologies, and being the best advocate for your own health.
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“Now, dumber then ever, Carlson stands up for the far-right by acting like a frat boy who just smelled a fart.”
I love
@laurenduca
so much.
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Biden opens the State of the Union by saying “if you can stand, stand.” First time in my life (I’m 40) watching the SOTU a president has given a nod to disabled Americans.
As I just quipped to
@ClaraJeffery
in a reply, it’s about damn time.
#SOTU
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The people who are saying “don’t use Amazon, use other company X, Y, and Z” do not get my stance.
You don’t like Amazon? Great, use Walmart+ or whatever. My point is Amazon Prime DOES A LOT OF GOOD AND YES THEY SHOULD PAY MORE TAXES AND WHATNOT AND I NEVER SAID OTHERWISE.
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@jemelehill
I know you probably don’t know me, but as one journalist to another, I’m a huge fan of yours and stand with you all on this CT thing. For what it’s worth to you. 🙂
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For a company so rightfully revered for their accessibility work, the color-tinting thing in Safari 15 is criminally bad for visual contrast.
I could disable it, but the point is this shit ships by default.
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@AndrewYang
I wish the DNC would give you more of a fair shake at the debates. I like a lot of your ideas.
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Scoop from me: AirPods are getting the Made for iPhone hearing aid feature, Live Listen, in iOS 12.
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The battery gains in the M1 MacBook Air are even more significant in an accessibility context. Lots of visually impaired people, myself included, *need* their devices at full brightness to see well. More battery helps.
Another example of aforementioned tradeoffs.
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As a stutterer, I fancy myself a kind of authority on this issue. I listen to Biden talk and it is extremely obvious—again, to a fellow stutterer—that Biden has speech processing delays. It is downright ableist that Tucker, Hannity, et al, call him senile.
Re a different kind of disability/difference, as you note that Biden bobbles a few words and phrases, and in anticipation of the "he's senile" attacks from far-right, recall this very important piece on his stutter:
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If you’re an Uber and/or Lyft driver who refuses to pick up a disabled person and their service dog, you are an asshole.
Not only is this illegal, it’s fucking immoral as all hell.
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What’s frustrating personally is these “screw Big Tech” arguments are from smart people with whom I agree on most things. So it’s disappointing to see the disregard for how, say, Amazon helps people.
In other words: nuance.
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The
@Recode
transcript of
@karaswisher
and
@chrislhayes
‘s interview with Tim Cook is fantastic. Transcripts are helpful to everyone, but they’re especially so for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. They benefit from this interview too.
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One other new macOS Catalina feature is Zoom Display. What this does is enable users to use Zoom on your device, but keep normal resolution on external display. Imagine giving a presentation—your text is zoomed for you but audience gets regular size.
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I’m disabled and high-risk. I’ve been vaccinated and boosted (once), yet in no way do I feel “invincible.” The way the disabled community has been treated over the last 2+ years, I’m pretty sure no one else does either.
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It’s the bleach.
WATCH: Trump was caught on camera — blurry eyed and slurring his words — saying forlornly “I love everybody.” Any idea what drug he’s on?
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This piece is well worth a read.
I get my second vax dose in 2 weeks. I’m fortunate to have my name finally called. As an at-risk disabled person, though, I’m still irrationally angry people like me had to wait SO LONG to get vaccinated. It’s so damn ableist.
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My latest is an exclusive deep dive into
@AbleGamers
and how the nonprofit org pushes to make video games accessible to and inclusive of disabled people. I spoke with
@stevenspohn
and
@markbarlet
to talk AbleGamers’ origins and the state of gaming.
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So
@viticci
emailed me in June to see if I’d be up for writing about Voice Control. Weeks and almost 5000 words later, here it is. With everything going on in my personal life, I am so incredibly proud of this story. It means more than usual.
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I have been a fan of Soledad since watching her on KRON here in the Bay Area as a kid.
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Seeing lots of 👍🏼 for
@gruber
's plea that Safari show favicons in tabs. It's helpful, they say.
You know what that is? Accessibility.
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It’s October 1st, so a reminder from your friendly neighborhood Blind person (me) that your Halloween-themed spooky Twitter name may be festive, but it breaks screen readers like VoiceOver. Try not to indulge if you can; otherwise someone won’t know who you are for a month.
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3/ Live Titles is super cool. Captioning should be great for the deaf and H/H. Dark horse accessibility win.
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So, on mouse support... Apple made clear to me it is an ACCESSIBILITY FEATURE first and foremost. Meant for users who literally cannot access their devices without a mouse, joystick, whatnot. As
@stroughtonsmith
found, it’s in AssistiveTouch menu.
Thread…
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This is a helluva
@yashar
story on Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti. Kudos to Yashar on the reporting.
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I realize accessibility isn’t something most tech watchers pay attention to, but like, if you’re ham-fisting the idea Apple can’t innovate, you’re not paying close enough attention.
Year after year, product after product, Apple does it for disabled people—and it’s critical.
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I don’t dunk often because I’m too nice, but this piece has such a bad framing of a relationship.
The issue itself is important to cover, but what the hell is interabled? I’m disabled, Melanie isn’t. But we’re people—I’m a PERSON. We’re in a relationship.
(h/t
@SFdirewolf
)
#Interabled
relationships aren’t discussed enough. Thousands of women cannot earn a salary simply because they are married. They feel punished for loving someone with a disability.
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If you’re a huge Linkin Park/Fort Minor fan like I am, the new
@mikeshinoda
album is pretty great.
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Twitter pro tip: While us baseball fans wait for the lockout to end, it’s a good time to mention
@Katiejwoo
is an A+ follow if you’re looking for new baseball content. Katie is the Cardinals beat writer for The Athletic, and I can’t recommend her work highly enough.
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@sdw
I still say the Apple/tech community gave it (some) undue shit because everyone thinks all people are touch typists.
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I’m late to this—it has been a long-ass week over here—but this
@TaylorLorenz
story is a helluva read. I’m proud to call her a good friend of mine.
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Disabled people—myself included—need to be given higher priority for Covid vaccinations. It’s a spectrum of course, but many like myself + other people with disabilities have health conditions for which Covid would mean a ventilator or worse.
Yet again, we are forgotten.
It’s 10 pm Pacific & there are a million other things I need to do right now but I feel like stirring up a hornets nest at what
@CAgovernor
has done.
For every group no longer a priority on the tier system, share your story with the tag
#HighRiskCA
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Apple took me inside WWDC to show me how important accessibility is to the company & devs. My story for
@TechCrunch
.
http://t.co/kgg4GhnQcj
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Some news: Apple has posted four new accessibility-centric how-to videos to its Apple Support YouTube channel:
•AssistiveTouch:
•VoiceOver:
•Invert Colors:
•Magnifier:
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@chrissyteigen
This is a good technique, but I’d be scared shitless of that hotter-than-Hades oil.
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The Face ID Apple Watch unlock feature in the iOS 14.5 beta is not only useful when wearing a mask. There are still many blind and visually impaired people, myself included, who still struggle with Face ID recognizing them for myriad reasons. This’ll alleviate that friction.
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💯. You don't need to have disabilities to appalled by this, but as someone who does, this is deeply offending.
I don't mean shit to him.
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Please read this interview with
@NyleDiMarco
on DEAF U. I’m a CODA and have always identified as living between two worlds, Deaf and hearing. Also note Nyle’s views on disability representation in Hollywood. It’s why SEE, LITTLE VOICE matter.
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The big, old media outlets like The Times should be doing this stuff *while the person is still alive*. And they should be doing so with a *full-tine reporter* whose beat is disability—not some fellowship shit.
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A bit of personal news.
Today is a landmark day. I’ve been working in tech journalism for a full 10 years now! It’s been a helluva journey, the things I’ve done and the people I’ve befriended in this industry.
Not bad for a freelancer from a marginalized community.
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This month marked 8 years I’ve been in tech journalism.
So far, I’ve interviewed execs at:
•Apple (incl. Tim Cook)
•Amazon
•Airbnb
•TV+ show runners (Little Voice)
•Microsoft
•Adobe
•PBS Kids
•Comcast
•An ex-congressman
All as a freelancer. Not a bad run. 😎
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I emailed
@tim_cook
to share my excitement re: L. Jackson spearheading accessibility, and I get this in my inbox.
http://t.co/tsUdBS86OI
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I just finished a job application for something at
@washingtonpost
. They asked me which language I speak, but ASL wasn’t one of the (many) choices. Seems logical they’d like to know it’s my first language and I’m fluent in it, but the omission is disappointingly ableist.
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My latest, for
@TechCrunch
, is one of the most deeply personal things I’ve written in a while, maybe ever. I wrote about how the MrBeast “let’s cure blindness” video is more ableist than altruistic, and emblematic of society’s issue with people like me.
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No snark, purely observational: This is essentially Google’s version of Voice Control, which Apple announced to much fanfare at last year’s WWDC. Unlike VC, apparently you don’t need grids with Google’s version. (See also: Action Blocks :: Shortcuts.)
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A sleeper iOS accessibility hit.
Apple’s platforms (all of them) are chock-full of these assistive tech bits that most people consider convenient yet truly are de-facto accessibility features masquerading as mainstream system software.
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Brownie points for you if you spot the cool nod to the disability community in the WWDC21 art.
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4/ Apple’s dictation game has gotten much stronger. Only a couple times did it incorrectly parse my stutter. I’m impressed.
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I jokingly mentioned in my iPhone 11 review that Portrait Mode was made for pigs. So, I decided to write a short blog post about it with my pet mini pig, Pablo. He’s been a great test subject while I’ve tested the new cameras.
cc:
@JohnPaczkowski
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This will sound incredibly self-serving given the opportunity, but I hope the NYT realizes the *only* people who truly understand disability issues are actual, you know, disabled people.
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This
@gruber
piece is so good. John talks about delight being sapped from iOS post-iOS 7, which is true in many ways. But the tap down state he calls out here is an accessibility issue too. iOS 6 blue was better—more visually concrete and contrasting. …
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I’m 40 years old today.
As someone who never thought I’d make it to 20 or 30, this is truly a momentous day. A reminder of all I’ve overcome that has nothing to do with my disabilities. Thanks to everyone (you know who you are) for the unwavering love and support.
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2/ UI is nice, very polished. Apple’s definitely using some private APIs here. Love the high contrast, large buttons and emoji.
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I was mocked for my stutter by a server last night when we went out to dinner. I was wearing my mask while ordering, and she repeatedly asked if I was “slow” and I was raking too long.
I was so angry, I was shaking. Ableism rums rampant.
If you really know me, you get it.
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I just had a career-first experience: In the quietest interview I’ve ever done ten years deep into tech journalism, I talked to a Deaf woman for an upcoming story completely in ASL over Zoom.
She was thrilled I was a CODA and agreed to sign with her.
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