RustyTelephone.net

About

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Trophy Case

A narrow alcove just inside the front door. Most of the shelf is dust, but a few things have been kept polished enough to read.

This terminal is a small corner of the network maintained by David Sexton.

David has been blind since birth, which is most of why this whole place is built out of plain text and a blinking cursor rather than pictures of a white house. He works as an accessibility specialist, currently at Thomson Reuters, arguing with screen readers for a living and occasionally for fun.

There is a small business card propped against the glass.

> read business card

A door to the side leads to a workshop, tools still humming from last use.

> enter workshop

Contact

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Projects

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Workshop

A cluttered back room behind the trophy case. Workbenches line every wall, half-finished gadgets balanced on top of one another.

On the largest workbench sits a trading terminal, screen reader chattering quietly to itself.

AccessTrader is an accessible stock trading platform — FastAPI backend, React frontend, deployed across Firebase and Google Cloud Run, with a custom screen-reader announcement system built instead of bolted-on ARIA. David is the technical co-founder, building the frontend, backend, and Google Cloud infrastructure; the original concept and product vision are Sucheta Narang's.

> trade with accesstrader

Beside it, a small tactile display blinks rows of raised dots.

DotPad Control drives refreshable braille displays over Web Bluetooth — draw shapes, mazes, and turtle-graphics patterns straight onto the hardware. You'll need an actual DotPad and Chrome or Edge for the dots to do anything.

> tap dotpad

A toolbox in the corner holds smaller, finished things:

> examine edway2

A non-destructive multitrack audio editor that lives entirely in the terminal.

> listen to rusty_tts

A FastAPI server that turns text into MP3s via a handful of text-to-speech backends.

> boot windows-xp-nvda-docker

Windows XP, NVDA, and NVDA Remote, packed into a Docker container, for testing screen readers on hardware you don't own anymore.

> burn a cd

A web-based retro audio CD burner — drag, drop, paste a URL, and watch the burn progress over SSE.

A linux pizza

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It was only a few short days ago that I was happily galumphing along on my Windows Vista-enabled PC-compatible laptop when I got the brilliant idea that I should update my soundcard drivers...

To make a short story long, I broke windows horribly and installed linux. I just ordered my first pizza using a text browser called lynx.

The sock Conspiracy

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I am convinced there is a sock conspiracy. When looking for a black sock, you'll find a white one. When looking for a match, you'll find many socks that don't match at all. The trick is to look for black socks when you want white ones.

Come to think of it, it may be clothes in general. Try this: when you want to find a perfect pair of socks, simply look for your underwear.

What does this suggest for the way the universe works? This is most likely a subset of a universal function of the natural order of things. Whatever that means.

A brave bug

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I was reading lj when a giant bug decided to make the grand and treacherous journey across the Daiverd. Its point of entry? Right across the back of the left hand of the Daiverd. It was creeping along, hoping not to be noticed by the Daiverd. Unfortunately, the Daiverd noticed the creeping and tried to smack the invader. Luckily for mister bug, he missed and only succeeded in delivering a quite painful slap upon the arm of the Daiverd. Crack! The hand struck mister bug a glancing blow upon the thorax. Dazed and confused mister bug fell upon the wide expanse of stomach of the Daiverd. Fearing mister bug would never rise again his little bug life flashed before his eyes. There was the time he'd stolen the crumb of delicious apple pie crust to bring to his sister who was ill. The first time he'd ran from the giant snuffling nose of the dog. The time... Ah! The fingers of the Daiverd came to investigate the body of mister bug. I must run away cried mister bug. Creeping as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast, mister bug ran with his injured thorax across the other arm of the Daiverd. The Daiverd commenced to shake frightfully and mister bug fell to the floor. He was glad to be off the Daiverd and to escape with his life and vowed never to attempt the human crossing alone again.