I'm stumbling my way through GNOME and Orca. This is most definitely not the windows desktop. I'm digging the whole minimal thing though
I seem to have picked up a few follows by talking about how much the music industry sucks, and I'm guessing that means that at least some of you would be interested in alternative methods of finding & hearing cool stuff:
@TIBtv - brand-new independent live stream of indie music videos and animation
@indiebeat - kinda the same as above, but radio
@audiointerface - moar awesome radio
@etherdiver - does a weekly review thing called Other People's Music, also makes cool music
RE: ravenation.club/@etherdiver/11…
If you have Pigments, and have ever given me a dollar, or helped share my work, go grab these! If you have Pigments and HAVEN'T ever offered any support, well, drop a dollar or five in the can and get it!
Ether Diver (@etherdiver@ravenation.club)
Okay, just a day late for Christmas, here is my gift to the #Pigments community, especially the friends who hung out on stream with me while I made these 51 Pigments patches. Free/pay-what-you-want to supporters via Ko-Fi. https://ko-fi.Ether Diver (Mastodon)
The best audiobooks of 2025
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/23/nx-s1-5645996/the-best-audiobooks-of-2025?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Arts & Life @arts-life-npr
Sometimes, the word CUNT is insufficient.
I wanna read Muppet Christmas fanfiction. Anyone know any good stories? #Muppets #Christmas #Fanfiction
So, apparently, more azure voices are getting added to the neural voices addon, voices that are not available in narrator or the store. This makes me wonder, are people retraining azure voices to add more?
is there a newer version of it? For me the lag is still not low enough to be a daily usable synthesizer, but I see a lot of promise in this. I don't think you can train your own public voice, perhaps to enterprises that's offered but that would mean sharing a private API key which I don't see happening either. So SMH.
Soon we'll start seeing posts of all the things people are proud of accomplishing in 2025, and what they're hoping to do in 2026.
I'm here to tell you, if all you did was survive 2025, that's an accomplishment worth celebrating. Life is hard, and getting through a year is tough. I'm proud of you.
NO PARENT LEFT BEHIND
I promise you cannot read these and not laugh out loud. These are REAL
notes written by PARENTS in a school district. (Spellings have been left intact.) Most of them are funny, but some are just sad.
1-- MY SON IS UNDER A DOCTOR'S CARE AND SHOULD NOT TAKE PE TODAY. PLEASE EXECUTE HIM.
2-- PLEASE EXKUCE LISA FOR BEING ABSENT SHE WAS SICK AND I HAD HER SHOT
3-- DEAR SCHOOL: PLEASE ECSC's JOHN BEING ABSENT ON JAN. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 AND ALSO 33.
4-- PLEASE EXCUSE GLORIA FROM JIM TODAY. SHE IS ADMINISTRATING.
5-- PLEASE EXCUSE ROLAND FROM P.E. FOR A FEW DAYS. YESTERDAY HE FELL OUT OF A TREE AND MISPLACED HIS HIP.
6-- JOHN HAS BEEN ABSENT BECAUSE HE HAD TWO TEETH TAKEN OUT OF HIS FACE.
7-- CARLOS WAS ABSENT YESTERDAY BECAUSE HE WAS PLAYING FOOTBALL. HE WAS HURT IN THE GROWING PART.
8-- MEGAN COULD NOT COME TO SCHOOL TODAY BECAUSE SHE HAS BEEN BOTHERED BY VERY CLOSE VEINS.
9-- CHRIS WILL NOT BE IN SCHOOL CUS HE HAS AN ACRE IN HIS SIDE.
10-- PLEASE EXCUSE RAY FRIDAY FROM SCHOOL. HE HAS VERY LOOSE VOWELS.
11-- PLEASE EXCUSE PEDRO FROM BEING ABSENT YESTERDAY. HE HAD (DIAHRE, DYREA, DIREATHE), THE SH**S.
NOTE: [WORDS IN (** )'s WERE CROSSED OUT.
12-- PLEASE EXCUSE TOMMY FOR BEING ABSENT YESTERDAY. HE HAD DIARRHEA, AND HIS BOOTS LEAK.
13-- IRVING WAS ABSENT YESTERDAY BECAUSE HE MISSED HIS BUST.
14-- PLEASE EXCUSE JIMMY FOR BEING. IT WAS HIS FATHER'S FAULT.
15-- I KEPT BILLIE HOME BECAUSE SHE HAD TO GO CHRISTMAS SHOPPING BECAUSE DON'T KNOW WHAT SIZE SHE WEAR.
16-- PLEASE EXCUSE JENNIFER FOR MISSING SCHOOL YESTERDAY. WE FORGOT TO GET THE SUNDAY PAPER OFF THE PORCH, AND WHEN WE FOUND IT MONDAY. WE THOUGHT IT
WAS SUNDAY.
17-- MY DAUGHTER WAS ABSENT YESTERDAY BECAUSE SHE WAS TIRED. SHE SPENT A WEEKEND WITH THE MARINES.
18-- PLEASE EXCUSE JASON FOR BEING ABSENT YESTERDAY. HE HAD A COLD AND COULD NOT BREED WELL.
19-- PLEASE EXCUSE MARY FOR BEING ABSENT YESTERDAY. SHE WAS IN BED WITH GRAMPS.
20-- GLORIA WAS ABSENT YESTERDAY AS SHE WAS HAVING A GANGOVER.
21-- PLEASE EXCUSE BRENDA. SHE HAS BEEN SICK AND UNDER THE DOCTOR.
22-- MARYANN WAS ABSENT DECEMBER 11-16, BECAUSE SHE HAD A FEVER, SORETHROAT, HEADACHE AND UPSET STOMACH. HER SISTER WAS ALSO SICK, FEVER AN SORE THROAT, HER BROTHER HAD A LOW GRADE FEVER AND ACHED ALL OVER. I WASN'T THE BEST EITHER SORE THROAT AND FEVER. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING GOING AROUND, HER FATHER EVEN GOT HOT LAST NIGHT.
I wish we could distribute our own iOS apps. I absolutely hate waiting on Apple to decide if my app is good enough for them or not
Test test. Is this thing on?
I can't wait to share with you my next project. Just gotta get through test flight app review first...
My next project or mission is to look into whether we can remove silences from speech ourselves somehow, if the engine doesn't provide a pauses setting itself. Since we get the direct audio stream, it may be possible but anything would need to carefully be assessed in performance penalty and whether it causes audio overlaps if the work isn't done right. For now at least V1.1 is a lot more stable and performant wrapper.
This entry was edited (15 hours ago)
Updated: FlexVoice 1.1. the native wrapper was doing redundant normalization work (literally normalizing twice), which can add extra stalls between chunks. Do not sync() inside _runWrapperTextSegment(). If we still want “accurate doneSpeaking” for non-indexed one-shot speech, only sync() once at the end of the utterance. Remove the second normalization in workerLoop and just move the already-normalized string into the prepared list. Also a small micro-opt: normalizeFragileTokens was scanning alpha tokens twice (once to find token end, again to detect ALL-CAPS). I changed it to detect “allCaps” during the first scan.
eurpod.com/flexvoice.nvda-addo…
eurpod.com/flexvoice.nvda-addo…
Interesting. unfortuantely, i don't know if I can use this as a daily driver at the minute, because it refuses to read most mastodon posts, which I see as a problem. however, I know this is actively being worked on, so I will get it time. It also skips a few words. Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon, however, I'm not too sure about a daily driver as of right now, as again, some things it refuses to read.
@mckensie that's so odd, since it's reading everything for me here. But I also have my system locale set to Hungary, which means some unicode characters get interpreted a bit different. So far scrolling through my timeline with posts that have emojis and such, it all reads. So I just haven't been able to repro it at all
I wonder what I should do to fix this issue. Restarting NVDA didn't fix it. I'm wondering if running NVDA as admin or perhaps even restarting might do it? I don't know
@mckensie @mcourcel well it's been some people who get it with Masto posts, whereas others don't. for sure one of those illusive bugs. but if you can do a "view post" on the ones that don't read, then perhaps it's possible to find where it falls silent, like which sentence or set of words it stops reading at. Once we have a text piece that does that it's a lot easier to make a new rule inside the normalizer against it and patch.
“what’s your favorite work of speculative fiction? the universal declaration of human rights”
Sensitive content
@WestphalDenn "We only ship the open source version of the display driver, we know it limits your output to 340P but shut the fuck up and deal with it" -- something no company would ever say in a million years.
So in today's edition of #screenreader problems: reading a book with a #Japanese character named Mami is deeply disconcerting, because my screen reader pronounces it "mommy". I just thought...the character was weirdly being called mom by everyone until I finally stopped to check the spelling. Screen readers of the time are also why I thought "anime" rimed with "time" until I was like 14. Uselessly, looking it up online gives me four different examples of how to pronounce Mami, all with different emphasis and "a" sounds. Including one joker who really is pronouncing it exactly like "mommy". So I dunno.
I'm gonna go with "may-me". Just so I don't have to hear about someone flirting with "mommy". I have no evidence that it's the most correct of my four options, but it's the one I like best. So meh.
I'm gonna go with "may-me". Just so I don't have to hear about someone flirting with "mommy". I have no evidence that it's the most correct of my four options, but it's the one I like best. So meh.
What's the current state of XMPP and OpenID Connect? My web search returned that ejabberd is still considering if and how to implement and Prosody has experimental alpha-stage support via a module. I couldn't find anything conclusive in regards to XMPP clients. What's with Gajim(?) and Conversations? Or other clients? Are there any web clients supporting OIDC?
#jabber #xmpp #oidc #openidconnect
@daniel I have Keycloak running and ponder if I want to go for Prosody again but authenticating against Keycloak this time. This means, users are created and managed in Keycloak. My previous projects with Keycloak used OIDC for authentication. But the clients should be able to authenticate via OIDC otherwise this would be futile 🙂.
Authenticating with oauth with a third party is not currently available. @mattj probably has the most insights into what steps we made into that direction yet.
Part of the problem is that we loose nice security features like channel binding by using web stuff.
@mattj Channel Binding ensures that client and server are in the same TLS session by mixing in unique stuff from the session into the password handshake. This is basically MITM protection for the TLS layer.
For more information the search keywords would be: SASL, SCRAM and Channel binding. The XEP is just negotiation and boring wrt the security aspects.
@mattj there is also this talk in German that explains my motivation behind my push towards channel binding:
gultsch.video/w/qzRh2nLk7EXdmq…
Der Angriff auf jabber.ru (und was wir dagegen tun können)
Vortrag über den MITM Angriff auf jabber.ru den @daniel@gultsch.social im Rahmen des Berlin XMPP Meetups am 13. Dezember 2023 gehalten hat.Slides: codeberg.org/iNPUTmice/talks/s…
Video Production: @xHain_hackspace@chaos.social
@daniel @mattj Ach, das war das Meetup, wo ich kommen wollte, aber leider krank war. 😄
Back to English: For a few years now I want to get some contact again to XMPP because the IM landscape is too dependent on Big Tech, and Matrix … well, it has its use-case, I guess. I'd rather onboard non-tech people to XMPP than to Matrix.
I understand your intention re channel binding. I heard of the jabber.ru case. I'm still not entirely sure, though, OIDC would block channel binding. AFAIU it's the SCRAM part that might get disrupted because there's no password involved in authentication anymore, just a token (or two?). The connection between client and server would be untouched, though.
@daniel @mattj Sure but if someone already uses external auth, being able to add xmpp to the stack would bring extra security features like global 2FA.
Here is my use case. I use LDAP for authentication and currently in the process of adding keycloak for oidc. XMPP at this point needs to stay with LDAP only, while it would be an added feature for me if it would support openid
@muppeth @mattj Sticking with LDAP would at least on paper leave the door open for channel binding.
2FA could be added to XMPP w/o involving web stack stuff.
I'm not fundamentally opposed to oauth. I'm just pointing out that the use case of oauth is convenience rather than added security. If we implement it wrong me might even loose security (channel binding).
I had people asking, so here's the first level of Armadillo Army. Think pacman just. not pacman. The main objective is to clear the maze of goodies without getting wrecked by the armadillos. Yes you can shoot them which I do, but every shot costs ten points whether you hit or not. If you do hit an armadillo you get 30 points. Armadillos are represented by a really fast spoken directional cue. You'll know, I'm sure. As the levels progress things get harder, there are more goodies, and a tornado that can eat the things you're after. The second thing in this level that I encounter is the pepper. Once eaten your character tex goes "loco." This means arrows are reversed and your laser for armadillo shooting doesn't work right. this last for fifteen seconds, I think.
New weather statement... right after those 12 hours of ice storm, we'll get wind gusts to up to 70 km/h. RIP trees
I have that scale. It has multiple units, including `ml`. WHAT?
And why is the Node.JS Setup status Trumping me? Please wait while the Setup Wizard installs Node.js.
Installing Node.js
Status: Progress bar
-2147483648% complete.
Installing Node.js
Status: Progress bar
-2147483648% complete.
"Software engineers should be a little bit cynical" by Sean Goedecke seangoedecke.com/a-little-bit-…
I agree with just about everything Sean Goedecke writes, but I'm also glad I don't work in big tech anymore. I was okay at playing politics but I just didn't like it.
The "big tech companies are evil/stupid" framing is not only wrong but unhelpful. It's like calling a bear evil/stupid and then getting mad at him when he devours you for following his nature. The bear has internal logic that makes sense in his bear-brain, just like big companies do. Although it's more around promotion-seeking, risk-minimizing, legibility, etc. than around honey.
Tonight at 6 PM Eastern, sonic synergy goes live for our year in review.
We unpack all the cool stuff we were involved in throughout 2025 and send the year off in our irreverent yet thoughtful way.
So join us for our unique brand of crazy conversation and say 1 last hurrah for 2025.
Extremely NSFW, and not for everyone.
Proudly powered by your calls and messages to (833) 452-4452.
„Jeden ersten Sonntag auf die gute Seite wechseln!“ am militärisch klingenden „di.day“, aber die „gute Seite“ hat die digitale Barrierefreiheit vergessen und eine für viele Menschen unbenutzbare Website hingestellt. Ohne Überschriftenauszeichnung, ohne Navigationsbeschriftunng, ohne Alternativtexte.
Nur einmal dazugehören und mitmachen können… is‘ das so schwierig? #39c3
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Spiegelt leider die OpenSourceCommunity im allgemeinen. Ich mach schon so viel ich kann, aber vieles geht eben nicht, weil nicht barrierefrei.
Hi everyone, I wanna tell you about a really cool #trans person I’ve learned about recently - Wendy Carlos. (Thread: 1/3)
Carlos was born in 1939 and is currently 86 years old. She helped develop the first ever commercial #synthesizer, Moog, in 1964. She created the scores for iconic movies including A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980), and Tron (1982). She even won three #Grammy awards in 1970 for her album Switched-On Bach. (First trans woman to ever win one!)
She was also one of the first public figures to disclose that she underwent a feminizing gender-affirming surgery (she got the procedure in 1972, went public in 1979).
#transHistory #transgender #history #music #musicHistory #funFacts
History of trans musician Wendy Carlos (2/3)
I learned about this incredible woman after coming across an old video with her on YouTube the other week (see part 3 of the thread for link).
And I thought it’s important to share given that trans history is being actively erased from public consciousness these days, and right-wing politicians / pundits are trying to claim that trans people are invading and ruining culture. In reality, people like Carlos have been here this whole time, creating the very culture that these jerks claim is being ruined by “woke”.
This is also telling. Carlos said about the public’s reaction to her transition, back in the 80s:
"The public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish, indifferent ... There had never been any need of this charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of years of my life."
#trans #synthesizer #Grammy #transHistory #transgender #history #music #musicHistory #funFacts
History of trans musician Wendy Carlos (3/3)
And here is the video where I first came across Carlos.
Two bits of context here:
1. This is one of the most impressive explainers of how electronic music works and the different wavelengths that go into turning electric signals into sound that I’ve ever seen (and I studied physics for 2 years in university, so I had at least some background on this.) youtu.be/4SBDH5uhs4Q?si=kll8Uv…
2. At this point, Carlos had started hormone therapy but was not public about her transition. So she’d put on fake sideburns, a wig, and try to appear more masculine.
#trans #synthesizer #Grammy #transHistory #transgender #history #music #musicHistory #funFacts
Wendy Carlos demonstrates her Moog Synthesizer in 1970
Wendy Carlos interview on PBS' NOVA in 1989: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EtH5E1N91YNote: the BBC has posted a longer version available here: https://www...YouTube
*Seven* new hackerone reports the last 36 hours.
Deep breaths and go slow and gentle one by one asking questions. It's important to not waste time on the weirdos while not ignoring the good ones. And to not break in the process.
four of them are still in triage. At least one is valid, and we're looking into impact now.
Closed this "critical" one. Only three to go...
curl disclosed on HackerOne: Cross‑Layer State Confusion in...
## Summary: This report describes a state‑level security invariant violation in libcurl where credential‑ or key‑related state may persist or be re‑applied across logical trust boundaries...HackerOne
This entry was edited (18 hours ago)
I legitimately don’t understand why people do this. I guess the same reason people pot rage bait stuff on the internet?
Yeesh.
![Steps To Reproduce:
[add details for how we can reproduce the issue]](https://fedi.ml/photo/preview/640/742280 "Steps To Reproduce:
[add details for how we can reproduce the issue]")
I stop after I read the python script that is supposed to reproduce the issue. It is in fact expecting two different results for the exact same function call (that compute hash) 🤦♂️
The amount of slop is unbelievable.
The amount of slop is unbelievable.
Ever notice how people who spit bigotry and racism immediately turn around and say they have friends who are of the race that they claim to hate? For example. The guy who says I hate black folks and drops the end bomb like it's going out of style. But in the next breath he's all like, I hate black folks, but I have black friends. What exactly is the point in that? I find that very confusing. If it's true that you really are racist, would you not avoid friendships or any kind of interaction with the people you claim to hate?
These are people who hate for the simple reason they can,, and for the simple reason that they don't know what they want, and are confused forever until they are aware of their own idiocy.
That is to add that, there are people who are assholes of any colour, race, group, disability, etc. because they are also unaware of their own idiotic actions. We are all people at the end of the day, and if we can't tolerate each other, then we gotta fix something in ourselves and realise that humanity is humanity, and to not invalidate the struggles of others, too. But the first step is to realise, and some people never pay attention to it, or want to, even if their mind screams it at them. They are too busy with their hate for no reason what soever.
Hey #support guys who work in a #NOC or #datacenter or provide support for #vps hosting: if I open a support ticket about an issue, and the issue is resolved an hour later without a response to my ticket, what's the Etiquette here? Should I close the ticket as resolved without waiting for an answer? Or does that mess up your quotas or workflows or whatever? Is it impolite to close my own ticket when I notice the problem is fixed without waiting for your response? Am I taking away the satisfaction you get from closing a ticket? Or am I just making your life easier by saving you from dealing with yet one more customer.
I just notice this fabulous message from my #Linux desktop machine:
Message from syslogd@scotland at Dec 28 09:44:22 ...
kernel:[250578.582144] Dazed and confused, but trying to continue
I know how it feels.
“This is totally the World Juniors” says woman trying to trick her boyfriend into watching Heated Rivalry
thebeaverton.com/2025/12/this-…
“This is totally the World Juniors” says woman trying to trick her boyfriend into watching Heated Rivalry - The Beaverton
SUDBURY, ON - Local girlfriend Ashlynn Timbers is currently monitoring her boyfriend as he watches the program she told him was the World Juniors Hockey Tournament, but is in fact the steamy gay romance sensation Heated Rivalry.Ian MacIntyre (The Beaverton)
When Big Tech clouds fail, are censored, or collude with the (US) government, which would you choose for private messaging?
#privacy #security #decentralization #securemessaging #matrix #xmpp #simplex #deltachat #signal #poll #polls #askfedi
- Matrix (10%, 8 votes)
- XMPP/Jabber (24%, 18 votes)
- SimpleX (2%, 2 votes)
- DeltaChat (62%, 47 votes)
Well, we finally opened our Christmas gifts today now that we're not feeling so awful. And there's a particularly useful one I got I want to highlight here. As a blind person with not a lot of training I've always struggled with keeping my fingernails trimmed independently. I'd cut them too short, or uneven, or have difficulty getting the nail to cut at all, or sometimes really hurt my finger. The clippers in this house also aren't the best. Now that's changed! One of our Christmas gifts this year was the Edjy fingernail cutter, a clipper which is loads easier to use and comes with blade guards so you physically can't cut it so short the nail bed is overly exposed. It makes clean, precise cuts without near the amount of fiddling traditional clippers require, and it even stores the clippings in a little basin inside it that can then be dumped into a garbage can or whatever instead of just launching them anywhere immediately. The only thing I'd say is that depending on the curvature of your nails, you potentially can't clip the entire nail at once, I have to do mine in three pieces. Best is one side, the middle, then the other side. Used it this morning and got a perfectly rounded and even cut on all of my fingernails including my thumbs, which the normal clippers have trouble getting at sometimes.
edjy.com/products/edjy-fingern…
#blind @mastoblind
edjy.com/products/edjy-fingern…
#blind @mastoblind
EDJY Fingernail Cutter
Experience perfectly smooth nails with the EDJY Fingernail Cutter. Crafted with a precision single blade, EDJY provides effortless cutting and a built-in collection system for easy cleanup.EDJY
reshared this
Boost if you will never, ever, use AI in your writing.
reshared this
Love the production on this, and a great message as well. youtu.be/4-YwUaCSUBA
Debbii Dawson - Downer (Lyric Video)
The official lyric video for Debbii Dawson's 'Downer'.Stream Debbii's new single 'Too Strange for the Circus' now: https://found.ee/Debbii_TooStrangeForTheCi...YouTube
In a world that appears ever more divided, ever more angry, ever more willing to embrace the obvious annihilistic option we refuse to give up on the premise that most #people are #decent. That most people #care deeply.
Maybe we can #unite over #bees.
Do the right thing for once.
Make the good choice.
Maybe?
Please share this thread far and wide.
#repost
We know you care.
Show us.
Show one another.
Show the bees you care.
It’s okay to care.
It’s more fulfilling than hate.
14/14 Part 1/2
More natural than vitriol
More infectious than Covid.
More godly than prayer.
More active than hope.
More powerful than greed.
Don’t be afraid to care.
Deeply.
You’ll find you’re not alone.
Promise.
Thanks for your time.
I’ll shut up now…
14/14 Part 2/2
This entry was edited (19 hours ago)
Cory's rousing #enshitification talk mentioned how capital always imagined the web as a kind of interactive cableTV, a series of walled gardens, reminded me of this text of mine from 2013, one of many on how the internet cam to be centralized. #39c3
public.monster/~dmytri/scratch…
1/3
The September that never ends
Scratch-off the Facebook logo, and you’ll find the CompuServ logo underneath.Dmytri Kleiner
A more in-depth look at the forces of counterantidisintermediation, not nearly as catchy a term as enshitification, but key to understanding it underlying logic
public.monster/~dmytri/mr-peel…
#enshitification #39c3
2/3
Mr. Peel Goes to Cyberspace
An essay on platform capitalism, anti-disintermediation, and the colonization of cyberspace by Dmytri Kleiner.~dmytri
And the underlying Penny Bags vulnerability of why federated alternatives struggle to displace platform monopolies.
#enshitification #39c3
3/3
I hate when people are in a bad mood and take it out on you for no reason.
Bri🥰
in reply to PepperTheVixen ΘΔ • • •PepperTheVixen ΘΔ
in reply to Bri🥰 • • •Bri🥰
in reply to PepperTheVixen ΘΔ • • •