Yes. Actually because of weird circumstances, I ended up sleeping in a room next door to him in a house in North Carolina for a few days. He was even more interesting when he was off the job.
Is the small market justification for the cost of #AssistiveTechnology still valid in 2025, or is it an easy copout for companies to continue charging high prices? #Accessibility #A11y
Yes, it's still valid (50%, 1 vote)
No, this argument is no longer valid. We have found ways to make these tools more affordable. (50%, 1 vote)
Two reasons why I think it's unwise to move from Firefox.
First, browser engine diversity matters. If all browsers become chromium skins, this gives Google a very unfortunate amount of power. It can affect web standards, de facto web use, all kinds of things; and there's no guarantee chromium will keep being freely released.
Second, pretty much any other possible alternative is worse across a set of metrics that involve accessibility, access to source code, privacy, and safety.
Servo is promising, but a11y isn't there; so it may as well not exist for me.
Hehehe lolol. I don't know, the interface and stuff. Yes, I should give it another chance, it's been a few years. I only use it these days when all else fails. And oddly enough, it always works, so I should see that as an advantage.
Which is your favourite browser, out of curiosity? I have to use Edge at work and it's ok, but I think I still prefer Firefox, at least Firefox has normal menus instead of ribbon abominations.
Edge talks too much for me. I like Chrome or Brave; which, I know, are both using the Chromium engine. Duck.com also has their own browser version. If I wanted to run Firefox at work, there are many hoops to jump through for that to happen.
Right, at work Firefox is recommended. However, someone decided it would be a great idea to turn off accessibility from the group policy system. So I can't use it at work myself. I haven't tried Brave and it bothers me for a number of reasons, but I also haven't used Chrome or chromium skins much. So I maybe don't have a lot of standards for comparison there.
Apparently, according to them, accessibility on the specific version of Firefox we run (which is some old ESR version) plays badly with the internationalisation in the regional language (Galician). So they turned it off. I haven't managed to get them to turn it back on, I should try to push on it again.
so far there are a few things I miss in other browsers. ctrl+m will mute a tab, which is great for unexpectedly loud audio. f9 loads reader view, which I find useful. the addressbar isn't greedy: with Chrome, pressing b defaults to bbc NEWS. with Firefox, it defaults to the bbc and then lets me refine.
I'm a Blind tech educator but this is my first game design! If you support Blind or low-vision learners, please consider sharing the retro audio Space Invaders game i built with Gemini and @Marconius — you can play with any screen reader, right in the browser. I wanted to build something with a simple interface and a progressively hard game mechanic so it would be fun for tech novices and for me. The game is free and open-source and we welcome your feedback. marconius.com/fun/audioInvader…
@Scott right now it automatically announces when speech is on. I understand that most of us are turning speech off so no, not yet. We could build in periodic announcements or a self voicing keyboard shortcut. What would be preferred?
I like shortcuts. Isn't energy separate from points though? With speech on I hear the points being reported automatically, but related to energy, I only hear 15 boost or kaboom energy loss, not the actual amount I have left.
@Scott Not at the moment unless you navigate up and focus on the gameplay HUD. I need to group those together into single focus elements, and was considering adding a key shortcut for an energy announcement, plus am working on adding a danger noise so you know when you are about to lose. Also realizing that I should make the high scores list inert during gameplay to clean up the interface for us screen reader users. :)
I've just made a MR to document the remaining AT-SPI DBus interfaces. I'll wait a while before I merge it in case anyone wants to look it over (and it would probably be good if it is looked over by people who are not me). gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2…
Somebody save us from vibe coded #NVDA add-ons. The latest has a global shortcut layer that can only be activated once, and then needs NVDA to be restarted for it to work again. 🤦♂️
@Bri I wish I didn't have to agree with your last sentence, but I do. The thing with Spotify is that you can actually use it, but it's such a pain that nobody would want to. I had cancelled for a few years before this add-on came around, and only subscribed a few years ago because of Blindspot. If this add-on were to disappear, I would cancel again and wouldn't bother. Maybe people who like music more than I do would put up with the annoyances, they're not for me.
@Bri We could do that. I'm not convinced running two copies of NVDA would be better than running one, though. Particularly as that separate app wouldn't need such deep keyboard hooking, and wouldn't be able to as easily output braille, for example.
I agree with you that there are certain tools that simply don't belong in a screen reader. In this case, it's close enough to making a shitty program (Spotify) more accessible that it doesn't cross the line for me personally.
Having just installed the latest version of the add-on (1.6.0), the new global keyboard layer only works once for me and then can no longer be invoked until NVDA is restarted or plug-ins are reload...
@Bri I don't fully agree with you on this one. The add-on is legitimately useful when it works, and the alternative would be a separate (probably huge) app with global keyboard input, gesture remapping, speech output, etc. needing to be rebuilt.
That said, it does a lot of add-on stuff wrong, like implementing its own autoupdate mechanism for some reason. And the whole not currently working thing.
With that multi hour (scheduled) service interruption on the mastodon instance I use, I wonder how the timeline will catch up. Seems that I didn't get a lot of posts in that time.
My issue with firefox soft forks is that even in their most ideal form, they can only be reactive harm-reduction, and any reasonable fork necessitates compromises that introduce some amount of risk (delayed security updates, compromised trust anchors etc.)
Perhaps that is the best anyone can do within reasonable costs.
Perhaps the only affordable proactive actions we can take is to reinforce that front against future inevitable assaults.
Perhaps that must be enough. I wish it were not so.
I've spent time this year gaming out other possible strategies with people. Because the question of "no seriously how do we move forward in a world where every single mainstream browser engine is aligned towards making the web worse?" is one of the important ones.
The only viable path I can see requires that a collection of organizations/soft-forks commit to co-maintaining a shared base browser fork of firefox (something like the base browser used by Tor for TB and Mullvad)
Musím upřímně říct, že Linux Desktop Migration Tool od @sesivany je asi nejužitečnější nástroj, jaký jsem za poslední dobu viděl. Pro přechod na nový HW není nic lepšího. Skvělá práce chlape! #linux
díky, jsem rád, že to pomohlo. Skromně dodám, že to je nejlepší hlavně proto, že nic jiného neexistuje. Proto jsem to začal dělat. 🙂 Jinak ve formě desktopové aplikace je to určitě pohodlnější. Ale ještě bude potřeba do UI doladit. Doteď jsem řešil jen to, aby to dělalo to samé, co ten původní skript a v UI to šlo naklikat.
Calendrier de l'avent de Rouky, jour 7 : Rouky et le monde perdu. (note pour plus tard : ce chien est trop beau pour la mauvaise qualité de mon smartphone, c'est plus joli avec mon petit appareil photo quand même)
Calendrier de l'avent de Rouky, jour 12 : un véritable gentledog Edit : je l'ai mis dans le alt mais je le mets pour tout le monde : en anglais ça fait un jeu de mot car "to throw a ball" c'est à la fois "lancer UNE balle" et "donner UN bal". Voilà. Léchouilles, Rouky
Need to send someone their favourite animal, butt only the backside? Want to learn various animal names in Bernese Swiss German? Just want silly stickers?
I am a fan of the mikroUši microphones, but they're hand-made by this one guy in Slovakia, and he only has stock a few times a year. They're not super hot, which is good for the Essential series recorders, because they do best with mics that aren't super sensitive. The H Essential series headroom isn't all that. They are easily overloaded in a way that 32-bit FP recording won't help. I'd definitely use these over the Sound Professionals Master Series that so many people seem to love, at least with the Essential stuff.
Matched pair of Clippy XLR EM272Z1 microphones Perfect for Stereo Recording High sensitivity omni-directional low noise Balanced XLR output Requires Phantom power 12-48 volts Also available as a Mono Mic and set of Four Matched Mics Recordi…
@BorrisInABox Ah great, you received your pair then yes? You didn't mention them again in the usual places, what do you think of them yet, apart from the things you already pointed out here?
@ToniBarth Yes, they showed up pretty fast. I did have to pay a $40 something import on top of the $25 shipping (Thanks, president Tariff).
I haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to use them too much, but so far, even with the H1 Essential, they work out a lot better than the Sound Professionals master series. They roll off a bit more than the MS-BMC3's I have on the extreme lows, which is not at all a bad thing.
I also got the wind bubbles for them. They do a reasonable job.
@BorrisInABox Yeah, the bubbles do a good job here, I recorded one or two outside events with them and the recordings turned out pretty fine. I do have to say that I've heard worse mics which got exposed to wind without protection too, the wind noise is pretty nasty, but not too loud, so its quite a good compromise if you want to still get an idea of what is going on, even without bubbles.
@x0 @BorrisInABox it's the h6. the accessible one that can be soundcard, interface, four inputs, not counting the potential to plug mics in, at least that's what it looks like. Got it as a gift from a friend. this thing is for sure a big boy recorder. I wasn't prepared lol.
@x0 Note that you'll need microphones with XLR outputs, or an adapter from XLR to 3.5mm that can handle plugin power if you want to use mics with the H6 Essential. It doesn't have a 3.5mm input.
@x0 The H6 Essential inputs are kind of awkward. If you want to use a stereo pair, channels 1 and 3 are on one side, while 2 and 4 are on the other. I'd have rather they put 1/2 vertical on the left and 3/4 vertical on the right like they did with the original H6 in 2013.
Bird2 BGP Management Networking Daemon is all configured with the Vultr private ASN, as well as the private ASN they assigned me. So that should get traffic from the global Internet to a Vultr gateway router, then to my router runnning on Vultr, then to where I am able to route it from there. The only thing missing is a subnet. But considering Servarica took nine days to assign me a /27, I expect it'll be a few more days for this restricted /24, if I get approved at all.
Skew v2 from @Sinevibes - a unique, multi-curved, reverse delay effect - adds new features like feedback and sound improvements. And one *major* new feature: now it's free.
Santa Sinevibes has rolled into town this week, unexpectedly. Skew, a unique "non-linear" reverse delay effect from Sinevibes, is now available for free with v2, bringing the effect's wide world of warping and multiple curves to everyone -- Mac, Wind…
A family member took my BrailleNote battery to Batteries Plus, where they can make custom made batteries, however, they said that the BrailleNote battery was too complicated to make. Does anyone else have thoughts on how I can get this taken care of? Thanks! #BrailleNote
I feel really inept sometimes. I was trying to create a merge request on gitlab.gnome.org, and, for the life of me, I couldn't find the button to create a new merge request. I suspect that the UI has changed since I last did this. It's supposedly on the upper right corner of the merge requests page, but knowing that doesn't do anything to help me. So I started googling and found that gitlab has a CLI, which I didn't know existed, so of course I want it. Now I'm looking at the README to figure out if I can use it on GNOME's instance. htps://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli.git htps://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli.git
Edit: My issue was that I wasn't signed in, but I'm still really glad that I found the CLI tool.
Claims surrounding a "Pluribus" ad on a smart fridge sending a woman to the psychiatric hospital fell apart, after the internet traced the origins of the story back to an online joke. appleinsider.com/articles/25/1…
@lerven OH holy shit I didn't know that! That's awesome. For me it's stardew valley, and maybe crazy party one day but I like to appeal to a sighted audience also :)
I built my YouTube channel mainly for blind folks. But it is nice to be able to play mainstream stuff as well. Back in yee old day sit was very hard to set up OBS. now it is less difficult.
If you wonder about those "bugs", here's an excerpt:
* descriptions (short/full) too long and thus being truncated * same for changelogs
But the checker also finds where fastlane has been established now, so we can add it; where a repo was renamed/moved – or where it was archived/deleted. Or where the license changed. These are things we then adjust at our end…
I put "Balance", but it depends. For example, if there is a joke or a hidden mention of, say, a clothes color in the text, this detail becomes mandatory. but usually concise yet detailed.
Accessibility poll for people who use screen readers for daily use. I’m writing a guide about alt text.
🧵 Poll 2 of 2:
I’d like your opinion about long description methods for complex images. What is your preferred approach? (Feel free to comment if you want to elaborate.)
Slavné časy bych pod stromeček pořídila někomu, koho na knihách baví jazyková stránka a má, stejně jako já, slabost pro nejapné slovní hříčky. Politická satira inspirovaná Farmou zvířat a vyprávěná sborem zvířecích hlasů je to jen zčásti, zbytek je příběh mladé ženy o vyrovnání se s generačním traumatem. Slibuju ale, že to není jenom k pláči. Autorka používá k boji s marastem tzv. humor a jde jí to moc dobře. Zimbabwského kulturního prostředí se nebojte, vláda nekompetentních egocentriků odtržených od reality podle mě není něco, co bychom si u nás nedokázali vůbec ani představit. :) - Shortlist International Booker Prize 2022
@menelion Accessible-MD is a custom Hugo theme that I’ve designed myself with the help of Gemini three pro. It’s based on material design three. I haven’t quite determined if I’m going to release it to the public yet.
Sweeeeeeet! PlutoTV has audio description for movies and TV shows that offer it. PlutoTV is a free streaming service with accessible IOS apps. 😁🙌🏻 #PlutoTV #AudioDescription #Accessibility
REAPER Made Easy's end of year wrap up/live listening party will be happening on Saturday December 27th, 8PM UK, 3PM Eastern. We'll be checking out a bunch of the productions people have done with REAPER and OSARA throughout the year. If you've got something you'd like to share, we're all ears! Send it in here: dropbox.com/request/mB2KhxVunz…
Anything you've made this year, anywhere in the world, in any language, with any amount of experience is welcome. The only limitations are one production per person so we can play as many as possible, and the majority of what we're listening to needs to have been done with REAPER and OSARA.
Feel free to post questions in this thread or via DM if there's anything you're not sure of.
Looking forward to hearing what everyone's been cookin'!
You no those smoke detectors where the battery gets low and it loudly chirp-screaches at you? Those should be banned. Every time I hear it at my house it's like a shock to my nervous system. Every minute or so and it feels like an electric shock around my arms and shoulders.
It started beepinga little on Saturday, but I thought maybe some bug was messing around with the door bell outside to make it beep for a moment, and it didn't happen that often. I told the person over the place that the batteries need replacing in it yesterday morning, because it started beeping a lot Sunday night, and I came home yesterday and thought for a good 30 minutes that it was fixed, and then...
*beep!* right when I definitely wasn't expecting it. So last night I closed the thin, sliding door to my bedroom, put on my gaming headphones, connected them to my phone through my game controller, put on a book, and got a bit of sleep. At least with that amount of mass between me and the detector, I could pretend it's at some one else's house. I still didn't sleep good last night. Probably from wearing big headphones.
I woke up to a headache and the detector still going off. The headache is gone now but I still feel like I haven't slept well for days.
It's the last Development Digest for 2025! We're celebrating our Exchange success (but not resting on our labors), sharing our Calendar UI milestones, and grateful for a community contribution to fix a 19-year-old bug!
really thrilled about the revamped Accounts Hub and new Calendar UI!
The account setup and calendar are the cruftiest parts of Thunderbird for me. The team brought fantastic changes to the mail view. I’m excited to see what you’re cooking for the Calendar view!
@thibaultamartin Thanks! Yeah, it's definitely time for the Calendar and Account Setup to get some of the UI magic from the past few years. Be sure to sign up for thunderbird.topicbox.com/group… for all our UI updates and calls for testing/feedback!
@denzilferreira We're getting ready to head out for the year, but please see this article and SUMO in general for any help. We'll all be back and ready to go on January 5! support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/t…
Thunderbird can be set up to work seamlessly with Microsoft's email services. Messages will be synchronized between your Thunderbird and Microsoft's servers.
after reading this I am hyped for the calendar UI update. I manage three parallel calendars (work, family, personal) and keeping an overview is challenging sometimes with many appointments happening in parallel.
Borris
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