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Alright I have to admit, modern Java actually isn't all that bad.
in reply to Chris 🌱

Yeah, it did get better.

Same for C#; we finally got to upgrade some projects on my current teams to .NET 8 and the linter prompts to make things nicer are routinely making me feel a bit better about life 😁

Still often find myself wishing I was working in something else. The languages improve but the ecosystem still drags it all down.



The next version of EN 301 549 (4.1.1, to be released next year) is nearing mature draft stage. It will include reqs of WCAG 2.2 and support the European Accessibility Act.

Anyone can comment in GitLab (but note it will close for comments on this draft on 15 Dec) labs.etsi.org/rep/HF/en301549/…



After applying to 4 universities, I received 3 offers—RMIT, CSU, and ECU. I’ve decided to go with CSU as their honours and masters programs are fully online. Since I’m also interested in sociology, I’ll be starting with the Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology). The best part? I only need to study for just over 12 months because I received credit for several subjects from my previous studies.

I start next week with Foundations of Psychology 1 and 2. I already have access to the materials, and it looks absolutely amazing. Many of the concepts feel familiar since they align closely with neuroscience. Thank you all for your well wishes as I explore this new direction!

#Psychology #Neuroscience #SocialScience #LifelongLearning #OnlineEducation #HigherEd



Tom Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC—probably the piece of software that has meant the most to me—has died at age 96. When it turned 50 ten years ago, I wrote a VERY long article about why it was so important, and I’m very grateful that he helped with it. RIP. time.com/69316/basic/

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Sice mám dnes do 17 h, ale celý následující týden mám dovolenou. ❤️


Bluesky is the Microsoft Word of social media, which I mean in the derogatory sense, as the fediverse is the LaTeX of social media, which I also mean in the derogatory sense

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in reply to Liam

Do we still need the Markdown or AsciiDoc of social media, then?



To all my writer friends that use MS Word - Microsoft has turned their AI bits and bots on to automatically go through anything done via Word.

Here's how to turn it off.

> Programs > Programs and Features > Uninstall Microsoft Office > Open browser > go to libreoffice.org > download @libreoffice

Then install LibreOffice on your computer and use Writer instead of Word.

#OpenSource #libreoffice #MicrosoftOffice #MicrosoftWord



Another eight videos from the recent #LibreOffice Conference 2024! These ones covering C++, the LibreOffice WebAssembly port from Allotropia, and Collabora Online: youtube.com/watch?v=hSFNw56Fqs…

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in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

“What is a man? Is he defined by things like morphology or longevity? If form alters content—that is, if the shape of the container fundamentally influences what it contains—what will it mean to society if a man no longer resembles a man? If those things which have always driven us—birth, aging and death—are altered or eliminated, will it make us into something new? If a man need not fear death, will that make us more human than our ancestors, or less?"



so @pooch754 and I have been thinking about something that has us curious. I know they have all these glasses out there that can supposedly make your life easier, because they have cameras on them, and in some cases, you can talk to them. Our question is, what can these glasses do that your phone can't do? It just seems like it's just one more peace of equipment that you would have to cary with you to get what you want done, when you have your phone right with you, that seems to be able to do the same things. Can someone explain this to us?
in reply to RaineyDay

your phone is in your hand, your glasses are on your head. SO many blind people struggle with the concept of lining up a camera to read print, I foresee it being far more sensible to say 'point your face at what you want read'.
There's also the aspect of needing to hear your phone whilst you're operating it, which can require a wired setup or introduce wireless lag.
And then there's the idea of timing, if you want to capture something in motion or quickly. Screen reader users are typically slower at unlocking their devices, opening an app and triggering a capture.
in reply to RaineyDay

They are not meant to replace a phone, similarly to a watch. They are convenient and discrete, and you can use them hands free. Also if you record a video it's from a first person perspective, whatever you are supposed to see it records. Same way with scanning, money recognition, etc.


Hit sci-fi series Silo returns for season two today 9to5mac.com/2024/11/15/hit-sci…


In-Process is out, featuring news on:

- NVDA 2024.4.1 which has recently been released
- NVDA Contributor Documentation Survey
- We head out and about with NV Access
- NV Access board member Emma a Change Making Finalist!
- And a deep dive into the Add-on Compatibility Process

All this and more, now available: nvaccess.org/post/in-process-1…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Blog #News #Newsletter #Survey #CurrentEvents

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After upgrading to #Android 15 I was tracking down this bug in #Conversations_im where the color of the text in the status bar sometimes doesn't change with the app theme. Occasionally I would get white status bar text on top of a light theme.
Then I noticed that other apps - including the clock app! - have the same issue.
I'm absolutely convinced that the engineers working on Android are all using iPhones. I mean how does one not notice issues like that?
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Since Android 12, my Firefox has a similar problem. I always thought it was because of it not getting the switch from light to dark theme or vice versa because one force close and restart later it's fine again. But that's not the whole story as the chrome inside the app follows the system theme. It's just the status bar. I can only imagine that that's only set at app startup once and never touched again. Or not runtime changeable at all.
in reply to Daniel Gultsch

I just wanted to let you know I just updated my CalyxOS install to the Android 15 base and I'm not experiencing any problems like this. Is there anything in particular you've noticed that triggers it, or can you just not read your status bar sometimes?


I like how I can press alt+1 to read the last message in slack. But sometimes the latest message isn't visually obvious, i.e. someone replies to a thread.
so then you end up with,
Me: Do you have an example of that?
my boss: perhaps next year.

her reply was to a question that isn't even visible on my screen.
#BlindMusings.

in reply to Sean Randall

hm, is that now part of JAWS scripts or something to read messages this way? Will need to check this one out if so.
in reply to Tamas G

@Tamasg nope, pure slack behaviour as far as I know. I'm using NVDA and haven't put in an addon or anything.



It's #JukeboxFridayNight in the Southern Hemisphere, with a theme of #BendBreakBurn

I'd like to offer you this

Zeal & Ardor - Church Burns / Götterdämmerung (Live in Budapest)
youtube.com/A12ionuASK0



@Friendica Support
Ich würde es gut finden, wenn in den Beiträgen neben dem Hashtag auch der Text stehen würde, der aktuell sichtbar ist, wenn man mit der Maus drüber fährt.
Dies würde schneller ersichtlich machen, warum ich diesen Beitrag erhalte.


If you are a composer, musician or sound engineer, Panagement is amazing for sound positioning. The binaural delay is amazing, the reverb is immersive and everyone needs chipmods now and then. Everything is automatable.

This is a small company, no registration codes, just fully working plugins once you buy the full version which is currently on sale. The free version has everything but the delay and the chipmod and there are audio demos on the site as well. Check it out at auburnsounds.com/products/Pana…

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Gondolom, ez valami gugli-fordítós csoda lesz. ⬇️

Egy netes bútoráruház egyik oldalán olvasható, egy tárolós ülőbútorral kapcsolatban:

"Szállítási terjedelem: 1 x ülés mellkas"

"Megjegyzés: Ne helyezzen túl nagy tárgyakat az ülés mellkasába."



📱 AI apps like Be My Eyes or Seeing AI are game-changers! Tasks like reading labels, navigating spaces, or describing objects no longer always need sighted help. AI offers reliability, privacy, and convenience—something human helpers can't always guarantee. 🛠️
#AI #Blind #AssistiveTech #AccessibilityTools
in reply to The Blind AI

sure. I also remember the first time it could identify a face by name. pointing my phone camera at the door of my office meant I knew who walked in without them speaking (or even me hearing them), thanks to a Braille display. it was all done without today's interpretation of AI.

I'm not trying to rain on the usefulness of it, just keep perspective.



🧠 Having lived with reliance on human assistance, many blind people are ready to delegate to AI. It’s not perfect, but it’s consistent, unbiased, and scalable. The trade-off? Independence outweighs the occasional AI mistake. 👏
#Blind #AIForGood #InclusionMatters
in reply to The Blind AI

it is none of those things.
AI is not consistent. Share an image and you'll get a different interpretation every time.
AI is not unbiased. The type of responses are based on data and that data is often Human and loaded with bias. More worrying is the self-imposed bias brought in to try and either keep things safe, "sorry, I can't read you that card number for security", or to cater to other agendas than the asker, "I can't comment on people's visual appearance as it would be insensetive" or "I can't name or identify a real world figure from this image" etc.
And finally AI is far from scalable at present, the gigantic amount of electricity and water being used is going to be a big problem.

Happily, all of these things are addressable. I am blind, of course, and the benefits of AI have been making themselves felt in my own life for months now.
Just wanted to address your specific points earlier up the thread.

in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo But don’t you see that’s consistent? It’s consistently good enough but not perfect consistently for information purposes but you can’t take action on it. I can get a good enough description of a cat image 24 hours a day seven days a week without asking anybody else!
in reply to The Blind AI

Oh it's certainly good enough for 9 out of the 10 things I ask of it.
But it's also very confidently wrong about so many things that consistent isn't a term I'm comfortable applying yet.
in reply to The Blind AI

@cachondo But in your own words, that’s one out of 10 things! I use access AI and have the option to verify with the human. So what do you think we should say about AI that it has no impact at all on the blind community?
in reply to The Blind AI

I think it has already had a tremendous impact and will have an even bigger one yet. It's not in the hands of the technofobe, and those are potentially the thousands of people who could really use it.

But if just 1 of those 10 questions is medically significant or physically dangerous, we risk pushing technology that could give advice that hurt people. Not accidentally, like a GPS system not being updated to reflect the real world, but with full consciousness and awareness of the fact that the system fabricates things.

LLM's are brilliant, I use them daily. But I also know their limits.

i've seen firsthand what happens when you upsell.
I've literally watched a sales pitch for a Braille notetaker to a desperate and bereaved parent, now expecting that this one box will give their newly blinded child full access to the modern web.
And that's total nonsense, as even the salespeople know.
Let's not be those pedalers.
Let's be prudent in our language, careful in our promises. Hopeful with our expectations, but cautious because of reality.

in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo I have to agree with you about the sales pitch. Remember, I’m selling nothing. I’m just trying to use AI to make my life a little easier and to combat some of the AI arrangement syndrome that is prevalence especially mastodon!
in reply to The Blind AI

Yeah, I dig.
Mastodon is full of people who see the problems cause dby big tech, and the current appeetite for both water and electricity make AI a big target


Ready to become a Legend?

Check out our best #BlackFriday deal ever! 🎉

👉 tuta.com/black-friday

Tuta reshared this.

in reply to Tuta

Did you forget or change your values? I remember a blog post some years ago that made clear that you have Black Friday everyday. I loved that one. 😚
This entry was edited (1 week ago)


By IRONY in Kingston Upon Thames, UK for The Royal Borough Of Street Art.

43 Purrfect Street Art Pieces: A Tribute to Our Cats: streetartutopia.com/2024/08/10…

See all of the mural 🔽

This entry was edited (1 week ago)


🇵🇱🤔🇺🇦 Ukrainians have a "short memory", because during the first months of the invasion, Poland transferred equipment and humanitarian aid, and Zelensky is trying to "draw other countries into direct participation in the conflict" against Russia, - Polish MoD

❗️He added that Zelensky's words "sounded a note that Poland is not doing everything it can. Poland has done and continues to do everything possible. But there is a line that I will never cross, it is a question of Poland's security."

in reply to MAKS 24 👀🇺🇦

I don't want to be a mean person, but if he really said that, this is really ungrateful and shows how much appreciation he actually has about other countries helping when help was needed. Compassion goes so far, but threatening a nation's security in the name of war allies, wellp. Nope. If only everyone could go for peace. Just for a year, or like 20... Often people have short memories about help. Humans just cannot appreciate today. I am not going to talk about the other end, where ukrainians here live better than us in my own country, but okay. Unfortunately it happens a lot these days that someone else lives better in someone else's country. People need to learn how to appreciate, and how to have compassion. Because we're all connected, want it or not. Even on a human level we're the same, we do the same things. So a bit of respect won't go unnoticed. and saying so and so isn't doing enough but you know they can more is just, greed. I am sorry.

in reply to iamdtms

Wow. FB is used by old people here, say the young ones. But insta is also part of meta, so lol. It's kind of disturbing how powers throw money around like that...


Don't use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity.


HER salary is 13% less than HIS.

On #EqualPayDay, we symbolically mark the date when women stop earning compared to men. For every €1 a man earns, a woman earns only €0.87.

So, from today until 31 December, it is as if women in the EU effectively work for free.

Our message is clear: Equal work deserves equal pay.

We are committed to tackling pay inequality with legislation on:

🔹 pay transparency
🔹 gender balance on boards
🔹 minimum wages
🔹 work-life balance

More → europa.eu/!TBqJj8



Time for my yearly Desert Bus 2024 art thread!

To start out with, some work I did for @DB_VST ! From left to right, paintings for call-ins, a representation of ORB and string-worms, and a new Beer O'Clock icon!

Illustrations in watercolour, text in ink, on 160gsm wood-pulp watercolour paper.

(Note: The bottom text is digitally composited from 2 attempts, because I messed up the first time =V )

@desertbus #desertbus #DB2024 #calligraphy #watercolor #watercolour #aquarelle #art

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Laurabunny

Desert Bus 2024, Day 5. Carrie cares about the lives of tabs, and so do I. Twinsies?

Italic script. India ink and watercolour on wood paper.

@desertbus

#DB2024 #DesertBus #calligraphy #ItalicScript #art #watercolour #watercolor #aquarelle #poetry #poem #PlayFrame

in reply to Laurabunny

Desert Bus 2024, Day 7. (Yes, I did skip Day 6.)

A Night Watch Art Challenge for their Beyblades slogan, "If you love something, let it rip!"

In Japanese, the Beyblades anime uses "Go shoot!", so I translated this as「何かを好きならGO SHOOT」.

Sumi ink, watercolour, Japanese calligraphy brushes, watercolour brushes, Western broad nib pens, cold-press watercolour paper.

@desertbus

#db2024 #desertbus #art #calligraphy #japanesecalligraphy #書道 #ItalicScript #watercolour #watercolor #wordArt #slogan



If you are on a good Mastodon instance remember to support the person who keeps that instance going, like with money if you can. For the spot on Mastodon that I hang out in you can toss some coins at ko-fi.com/kindsocial


Mastodon has introduced me to the joy of reading descriptive #alttext. I take in the image then read the text as icing on the cake. It can really add extra personality to images.

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4 reasons you shouldn't use an SSD for long-term backups
xda-developers.com/reasons-you…
in reply to iamdtms

And here we were thinking of buying an SSD the worth of a house. Oh well, I guess that dream got broken. LOL. Also, there are a million reasons for not doing what we do every day, but yeah.
in reply to Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺

Sensitive content

in reply to iamdtms

Oof, how did that happen? Also I am fan of hard drives, not SSds, mainly because they spin, and because the sound is kind of soothing if the hard drive is well-made. SSD is just like, nothing, silent. I have a 500Gb one, and it works, it's okay, but only if I need to use it for a VM from time to time. I won't deny the faster speeds though, also there should be some care of these ssds and whatever. I am not sure and I don't understand so I can't say much on it.
in reply to iamdtms

Also, that's not how you should write price tags, haha. Hey, that's also a lot of money here, like multiply by 2.15 and wow. I am not buying one any time soon. Goes way over my sallary.


When a website is technically accessible, but in reality, the login menu item reads as follows:

banner landmark Top Header navigation landmark Header Menu Right Navigation menu menu item subMenu My Freedom

Tamas G reshared this.

in reply to Simon Jaeger (Procrastodon)

Yikes. That's broken, but if that's its only bug, I'd be glad. I bet you I can find at least one or two more. LOL.


It was the best of #DoctorWho, or it was the worst of Doctor Who - but can a story be both things simultaneously? Find out as we discuss The Web Planet:

strangersinspace.libsyn.com/wh…



Question:

'On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this to a friend or colleague in your industry?'
The radio buttons go from 0 to 9... Well that's not 1 to 10 is it you fools!

in reply to Andre Louis

LOL. Someone doesn't know how to do math, apparently, unless we count the 0 as the tenth number, but that's not from one to ten. LOL, now matter how you try it. Give them a 0 just for that mistake. I am evil enough, I'd do it actually. I mean, first grade mistake, no, baby mistake, even first graders know that 0 is not ten, and that, you need two digits to make every number after 9 LOL
in reply to Andre Louis

I saw a meme yesterday where you give feedback in decibels for how loud you would shout about their services. Made me chuckle.


OK, I just discovered that the output from “writing tools” in Mac OS 15.1 is not accessible with VoiceOver. I just tried rewriting a post in Mona for Mastodon, but I cannot see where the proposed text is. If 15.2 didn’t fix it, gotta report this soon! :)
in reply to victor tsaran

if it comes up with the popover with the writing tools, press VO J. That should show you the edited text.
in reply to Jakob Rosin

@jakobrosin That’s a great one, thank you! Still, why do I have to press VO+j and how would I know to do it if you didn’t tell me? LOL


I don’t know what it is, but I just love listening to the artifacts produced by stem splitting. Say, when you load a track in Logic, then split it, then mute vocals (or any other instrument). There oftentimes some beautiful defects coming out, especially where frequency bands cross over. So cool!


Today is a new day, so let's see, #meditation completed, totally awake ✅, Coffee✅, A perfect start of the day. I wish you to all be safe, happy, and take care of yourselves.😊 I also wish you all the good luck, love and compassion, as well as kindness.😁☯️🕉️💙☸️☮️💖


Since coming back from Bristol on Tuesday I've been labouring under a cold. This morning when I cough it's as if there were shards of glass in my throat. Lovely stuff.
in reply to Andre Louis

Ouch! I hope you get better soon. Rest and take care of you. :) Also, don't make the kids sick. Haha. This stuff sucks, but my sister's experiencing the same thing and I am so glad she isn't around right now.
in reply to Andre Louis

Awww. I am sorry. Well, could be yeah, so the poor girls have the times of their lives having to deal with you two sick boys, eh?
in reply to Andre Louis

Aww, this is awesome. Well, no I did not hear it, but then I am not much of a podcast listener. These days I guess I am more of the silent type who just works, then kind of spends the day in more silence. Haha. But when I stop being all burned out from music, sounds, podcasts and reading, I'll definitely give it a listen. :)
in reply to Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺

@tardis Lots of people say they're not podcast listeners, but they hear ours and really enjoy it. Maybe we can make you another convert 😊
in reply to Andre Louis

Haha. Well, I used to listen to podcasts before. I guess I am just going through a faze haha.
in reply to Andre Louis

Yeah, I like the audio drama type ones, like, who hasn't listened to we're alive, and quite a few others.
in reply to Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺

@tardis Well if you get bored, here's mine, and you can read all the descriptions of each ep to see if any of them sound interesting or not.
onj.me/media/stroongecast
in reply to Winter blue tardis🇧🇬🇭🇺

Oops, I can type, yep. :D I stayed a whole week without power 9years ago and I didn't even say a thing so, it's kind of hard and not hard at the same time to get bored.