So apparently, someone is making some sort of, TTS engine port, that will port android TTS engines to sapi5. I myself, didn't expect that. Currently this is recieving beta testing. Which, I may decide to do for a bit.
I need to finish LiS: True Colors properly. Part of me also wants to try Double Exposure to see what the fuss is about, but between the poor reception and the journalism about what was going on behind the scenes, I'm not sure I want to give them my money.
If memory serves they’re something like 14 hours and 45 minutes off of Eastern. It was a strange adjustment too look at the world clock while I was there so I could see when was a good time to text home.
another group I haven’t previously really clicked with but I’m a complete sucker for hammond and rhodes and you can *bathe* in the quality of the recording thenecksau.bandcamp.com/album/…
BITS welcomes the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind @PACounciloftheBlind to Mastodon. Here's to a great 2026 for all of our friends in #Pennsylvania and beyond.
#HappyNewYear Bangladesh- Dhaka; Bhutan; British Indian Ocean Territory- Chagos- Diego Garcia, Kazakhstan- Astana, Kyrgystan. Myanmar, go back to your room and think about what you've done. Are you still in there from three years ago?
I always wanted to add push support to #Conversations_im. I think a federated instant messenger is a natural fit because you get the decentralization and the connection for free. And adding it to the messenger is also what Google did with gtalk.
So I was very happy that I found #UnifiedPush as a quasi standard when I finally got around to implement it. Thank you for your for work!
@daniel It would be great to have it working with NextPush. Arne once explained why it doesn't do it for his Monocles client. But I forgot what he said. /o\
@morph NextPush is just an alternative. Both are distributors. Both use different protocols to talk to their respective push server implementations. If you have Conversations you don't need NextPush. If you don't use Conversations you can use NextPush.
Lying here with a Godawful flu on new years eve, realizing this will be the first year in my adult life where I won't be staying up until midnight, and having that thing. You know, the grumpy #reader thing. Where you go "I want a good book to #read! Right now! That will make me happy and not sick!" But you're grumpy and sick and cranky, so every book on your TBR pile isn't good enough and you throw them out of the pram in a tantrum. Then you go through your Goodreads recommendations for a while, sniffling snot and muttering "Does nobody write any good books anymore? I just want a good book! I must have read all the good books already. All of these books are stupid. Why do they let stupid people write stupid books." So you look through your list of comfort books for a re-read, but it turns out all of those books are also either bad or boring and you hate them, and this must, somehow, be somebody else's fault. I guess I'll just put on some stupid YouTube videos if I can get the stupid app on my stupid phone to work and probably fall asleep between coughing and shivering with a fever. All because nobody writes any good books, anymore. I'd like you all to know that this is your fault. #bookstodon
@GuloGulo Já jsem si Garmin zaplatil na měsíc a upřímně – taky o ničem. Lidi si od nich kupují hodinky za 20 000+ Kč a nejsou schopní nabídnout ani rozumný celoroční souhrn.
Jsem rád, že jsem z toho systému vypadl. Kupte si Coros, Suunto, Polar, nebo cokoli jiného. Garmin krutě zneužívá svého postavení. (A taky jsem rád, že jsem vypadl ze sběru oznáčku, dost jsem tomu propadl.) @GuloGulo
@mireeek Pro mě nejhořší hodinky byly Apple watch, bez tlačítek spocené prsty, to bylo o nervy. Já už mám druhé Garminy a zase vím, že fakt vydrží. Jinak souhlas, Garmin krutě zneužívá svého postavení. @GuloGulo
Beru Stravu jen jako sociální síť na sdílení výkonů s přáteli. Ty segmenty jsou fajn, díval jsem se na ně často, ale teď s těmi mými výkony už mě ani nezajímají. 😁
@mireeek Já jsem tam deset let, mám to už fakt jen na sdílení a je tam dost uživatelů ze Sokolova. JAko deník se mi nejvíc líbí mytreneek.cz/ ale data buď ručně nebo ze Strava 😂
@cynik_obecny Já je měl a už bych do nich nešel. Jak nemají tlačítka, tak ukončit běh se zpocenýma rukama byla tragédie – lovit prstem po displeji, aby se aktivita zastavila.
@pavelkout Aha, to jsem nevěděl — už je to let. To snad byla druhá verze těch hodinek. Ještě jsem pro ně jel až do Apple Storu v Augsburgu 😄 @cynik_obecny
@cynik_obecny Jo, to už je v pohodě — automatické zastavení fungovalo dobře. Co mě ale fakt štvalo, byla výdrž. Přijel jsem z práce a hodinky šly skoro hned na nabíječku. Maraton bych v nich tehdy asi ani nedal.
Ale jak jsem psal, byla to druhá verze hodinek. Už je to minimálně 10 let 😄 @pavelkout
@pavelkout jo, klasické 6, 7, to byl děs. Ty Ultry 2 co mám vydrží běžného provozu skoro 3 dny, pokud trackuješ aktivitu tak 14-18h, podle vlastní zkušenosti a co trackuješ. Za dvě hodiny na kole bez mobilu, jen s GSM v hodinkách, track jízdy (GPS), stream hudby do sluchátek přes sim v hodinkách vzalo cca 15% baterky
doporučuju do toho rovnou zahrnout i iPad, protože na tom se skvěle sledují statistiky a aby to všechno šlapalo, tak Macbooka Pro, protože přece nezůstane komp mimo systém…
mám ultry, které tohle řeší. Ale jinak teda mám nastavenou automatiku a funguje skvěle. Zaznamenává od prvních sekund, když zastavíš na pauzu tak do 10s zapauzuje. Já už bych se asi nevrátil ke Garmjnu. Epix byly skvělé na sport, ale třeba platby, nebo běžné funkce byly tragédie. A když vezmu, že Gelarmin už bez předplatného stojí za pendrek…
Can someone explain why the announcement for Team Canada Owelympic Hockey roster is done in Minneapolis??????? Did I miss the memo about the new province of Minnesota?
Honestly, good riddance to 2025. Bad year for my country for sure, but also not a particularly good year for me personally for various reasons. Still, joy was had and gains were made. Got my first proper bank account, gained a bit more independence around the house, and best of all, I got all three of the Roland Sound Canvases I've been wanting for nearly three years.
@jstark Sound Canvases are old synth boxes made by Roland in the 90s that I'm particularly interested in. Basically they have a bunch of pre-loaded instrument samples and you connect a keyboard or similar to play them. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_S…
#HappyNewYear Thailand- Bangkok, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia- Java, Sumatra; Australia- Christmas Island, Antarctica- Davis Station, and the rest of Mongolia.
Думаю, счастливы безмерно, особенно те кто понимает что вообще происходит. Ещё большая потеря суверенитета, обеднение людей в пользу всякой элиты, крепкая посадка на иглу под названием ЕЦБ и прочие экономические весёлости в виде возрастающего госдолга.
О, пока я здесь, ща проведём один эксперимент. Мне одному гимн Камеруна что-то напоминает? Знаю что, но хочу сверить ощущения youtube.com/watch?v=VZH_GSIjRV…
The national anthem of the Republic of Cameroon (Bilingual).Lyrics in English:O Cameroon, Thou Cradle of our Fathers,Holy Shrine where in our midst they now ...
Дадада, значит совпадаем в ощущениях. Сколько раз слышал его, всё время такие ассоциации возникают. Вот и 20 минут назад перед футболом включили и вспомнил что хотел поставить такой опыт с кем-нибудь кто в теме.
As Bulgaria is joining the Eurozone tonight, the following changes have been applied in Liberapay.
- The Bulgarian lev (BGN) has disappeared from donation forms. - All existing donations and scheduled payments in that currency have been converted to the Euro. - All accounts which had the lev as their main currency have been switched to the Euro.
Congratulations to Bulgaria, and happy new year to everyone!
Aus meiner Sicht ist der #DIday von @marcuwekling eine sehr gute Gelegenheit, das #Fediverse für den Mainstream-Diskurs relevanter zu machen – und damit die Gesellschaft unabhängiger von X, Insta, TikTok etc.
Das ist aber kein Selbstläufer, sondern braucht Aktivismus. Ein sehr wichtiger Hebel sind naheliegenderweise Multiplikator:innen, z.B. Streamer oder Youtuber. Um diese fürs Fediverse zu gewinnen, könnte dedizierte Crowd-Lobby-Arbeit helfen, also z.B. Koordiniert Kommentare schreiben und hochvoten oder das Fediverse in den Commuity-Discord-Servern thematisieren.
Alleine macht das weder Sinn noch Spaß, darum habe ich mal eine Signal Gruppe gegründet. Wer mitmachen will ist herzlich willkommen.
The people who dislike The Algorithm™ are either consumers who basically just want an RSS feed reader (nothing wrong with that) or people who brought audiences over from other platforms.
If you’re trying to create something and find an audience for it on the #Fediverse, you need some sort of recommendation algorithm. Otherwise, you’re just posting into the void.
I'd be interested to know how fellow blind (especially blind-from-birth) cane users manage with independent travel. For my part, my spatial orientation/brain mapping abilities are shocking, and I can't walk in a straight line, so the immediate fear of my support network is I won't be safe. Does anyone else have this problem? If so how do you, or did you, get around it? Or is it something I'll just have to accept?
@menelion Navigating with a white cane is something that I’ve been doing since I was very young. I was fortunate to have extremely good instructors and I really was motivated to be as independent as possible. Walking a straight line is something I generally do quite well. I also rely a lot on audio cues. I live in Toronto, so there is a huge public transit system including buses, subway, street cars, etc. I think spatial awareness is something that can be learned. I also think that some people have it naturally. I’ve seen people that lost vision later in life really struggle with spatial awareness. I’ve also seen a few cases where people were fantastic at it. I’ve seen the same for people who were born blind.
@gtbray @menelion It is my intention too. I’m getting over a really nasty cold that I came down with just after Christmas so as long as that’s better than yes.
@TomGrant91 I too have a certain difficulty walking straight, but in practice, whenever I need to walk alone, there are always refferences such as building walls or the sidewalk edge.
@clv1 @TomGrant91 What happens if the edge turns away though? How do you know whether you've veered or whether it is in fact the edge turning a corner? And then if you're told when it turns you need to continue going straight?
@clv1 @TomGrant91 Yup. That's what I do. But then it turns and my instinct is to follow it, but the idea is not to follow it because that leads into the park, or into someone's drive.
@clv1 @TomGrant91 Yeah. The trickiest point right now isn't knowing where the turning leads, but knowing whether it is the path turning away or you. And if it's the path, and it's not an entry you want to turn into, you've somehow then got to walk in a straight line until you find the next shoreline. And that's the part where they're scratching their heads and thinking, "yeah, if we weren't with him right now he'd be as lost as a sheep."
@TomGrant91 This is a real risk, yes. I've myself run into it a few times many years ago. I haven't gone out to walk since some time, but I believe having a GPS on a smartphone in your pocket, or smart glasses as mentioned, can reduce a lot such risk.
I'll let my rehab officer know and we can try that next time I go out. Haven't got glasses yet, will definitely have to look into those, but I do have a phone so GPS could be really useful for now assuming I can actually get a decent signal from it. Again, worth a go.
I've always had support since day one, be that my mother or somebody I'm walking with. I had cane suppport at my primary school ages from year 5 onwards, and throughout the home I'm OK, but the outside world, I'll never ever be properly independent which sucks. As I have the epilepsy as well I need a carer 24/7 all year round. Looking after a dog? No way, I've got myself to look after as well, plus the dog, I'd probably forget to do something. I would hate forgetting to feed it or clean it etc. So always cane for me. Recently though I have got my meta smart glasses which are helping me along the way.
@TomGrant91 I do travel on my own, sometimes to quite far-flung places but I make sure I have assistance on the way, such as if I'm going by train, then I book via Passenger Assistance etc. If Uber, then I like to be met at the other end, usually because I have heavy equipment with me, that kind of thing. It's not always possible so it's very dependent on the situation I suppose.
@FreakyFwoof that's why I want to try it out, rather than going to London, say, then getting an Uber, then going back to Banbury. I am more interested in the driverless car stuff though
@FreakyFwoof @TomGrant91 I used to get taxis a lot myself. They took me to the wrong place once or twice though, so that kinda scared me away from them until I can be more independent at knowing where I am and where I'm going even in unknown scenarios, if that makes sense.
@FreakyFwoof @TomGrant91 Not sure where you are located but if something goes wrong then you can always ask someone for help. I tend to use Blindsquare a lot if I am in an Uber then I can work out which side of the road its likely to be and if the driver has dropped me off in relatively the right place.
@andrew @TomGrant91 BlindSquare has been my goto for years, yep. Partly because I did all the sounds for it, but also because I have a list of favourites with more than 300 places in it, I'm super-familiar with the interface and it's just hard to use something else.
Had pretty good spacial awareness and a lot of calm/confidence built up over years of learning firsthand that I always get to a place in the end even if I go a bit wiggly along the way. Post lockdowns, both were shot. The calm/confidence got hit harder than the awareness but that wasn't an immediately obvious ratio. Been restoring both gradually over the last little while, it took more practice than felt natural initially, but think I'm over the hump now. Still not back to where I used to be in terms of travel being just a thing I do without much thought though.
All that to ask, how often are you able to get out with the white whacker and how long are those walks at the moment?
@Scott Right now, only get out with rehab. And because I can't tell the difference between the path turning and me veering, and the fact that I need a shoreline to stay on a straight path, she doesn't think it will be easy to teach me so independent travel might not be possible. And then I'm thinking, surely others have this problem and know how to manage it safely... So yeah. Hence why I asked.
@Scott Well I do live on a road, so I actually thought there was quite a bit of traffic, but apparently that's mostly on another road that must be quite close by. The road I live on isn't actually that busy.
Have they tried describing what's coming up then you walk it? EG, there are 3 driveways, then a side road, then some railings, the turning you want is after those. This might seem like it's not making progress straight away because obviously rehab isn't gonna be around to audio describe your next 50 steps in advance all the time, but for now, it might help if you knew what the situation is each time the shoreline ends. You'll probably still drift around a bit, but knowing that you're goal is to get across the gap might help to resist the temptation to trace the shoreline no matter what.
@Scott I think my instinct is only that strong because I know without it I have that tendency to veer. So it's like, is this the path turning or is this me veering? And I never know unless they do describe it. And then when they say, don't turn here, I just can't seem to walk a straight line to the other side.
Yeah gotcha. The numbers exercise might still help with that. Like, it's one thing knowing you've got a tendency to veer, it's likely a more helpful thing to have some real-time data on how much that's happening and know when you're making corrections for it.
Another thing, try having them stand on the other side of a gap in the shoreline and assign numbers to your direction. IE, 5 could be straight, 4 to 1 is veering left, 6 to 10 is veering right. Get them saying a number every couple of steps. Retrace that a bunch of times if you need to, see whether it helps you to gauge what walking straighter feels like. Picked it up from running with newly blind kids when I was younger.
@Scott Oh wow, that's interesting. I was just thinking it would definitely be a good indicator of how much I veer, but wasn't sure how it would help me walk straighter. But then I realised if I know how much I veer then the more the numbers correct me the more fine training I get that might help me naturally compensate for it. That's a really good idea. Thanks.
Veering is natural, but self-correction is something that can be learned. I can't learn a route in one sitting, no matter how simple, so because I can't write conveniently, I ramble into an audio recorder and codify notes into actual usable instructions later, noting down especially what my tendencies are. Posture can really help for alignment, i.e., where your head, shoulders, hips, and feet are pointing. If you hearing it good, scanning before crossing the street can really help align.
Active echolocation also helps quite a bit, even if my mental-mapping skills aren't where I like them to be. It takes me longer to get where I need to be, but that can decrease with time and familiarity: tech.aph.org/eaf.epub
One other thing the O&M specialist said is to figure out what you're using to lead, i.e., head, hips, whatever, because you can then make sure that is straight and the rest of your body will follow. For example, because I rely quite a bit on passive echolocation, my head does the leading, so if I am aware of that, I need to make sure that's going straight before I move. I forget what they call it, but figuring out how long it takes you to get to a corner also helps you to turn into a +
driveway or know you're at a corner. Listen out for background noise, as you can hear the difference between you being at a corner or at a driveway too.
@clv1 @twynn Never even heard of it. It's only a relatively small market-town/villagey type place I live in and I can't even find a singing teacher here, so I doubt it. Probably have to travel out.
🎉 Happy New Year 2026! 🎊 To all our followers on the Fediverse: thank you for being here, for interacting with us, and for sharing our messages. You give us faith in decentralization and prove that it works! 🌐💪 […]
We hope all podcasters will keep on podcasting in 2026, and that many new creators will give it a try. Podcasting is one of the last social networks not entirely controlled by a big corporation. We need diversity, not algorithms! 📻 Thank you to all podcasters who trust us with hosting their creations on Castopod. It means the world to us! […]
In 2025, we reached 1,000 active podcasts on Castopod, with over 43,000 episodes published! Our community has grown to 800+ GitHub stars, 30+ language translations by 70+ volunteer translators, and 200+ contributors. […]
Web Performance Calendar day 31 article 2/5: Keerthana Krishnan on making friends with Chrome DevTools and transforming it into a powerful tool for deep understanding, debugging, and improving of real-world web performance
Most developers open Chrome DevTools, check a couple of network requests, maybe refresh the page once or twice — and that's it.
I used to do the same.
Over time, DevTools became something else entirely for me.
ja dneska dojel garmin vyzvy, ktere mi chybely. 10km kolo venku s juniorem na snehu, to byla sranda a 55km doma na trenazeru, to me bolelo o trochu vic :)
#HappyNewYear China, but it's not Chinese New Year, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia-Bali, Brunei Darussalam, Australia- Perth, and most of Mongolia.
As 2025 comes to a close, we’re proud to reflect on a remarkable year for the GNOME community, one defined by innovation, global collaboration, and meaningful contributions from around the world.
# Major Software Milestone:
Our releases represent six months of dedicated work by our vibrant community.
We also hosted and participated in key events this year that strengthened our global ties:
• GNOME Asia Summit 2025 in Tokyo, Japan: celebrating community growth and knowledge sharing across Asia.
• GUADEC 2025 in Brescia, Italy: our flagship annual conference that brought together contributors, maintainers, students, and partners from across the globe.
• GNOME LATAM 2025 Aguascalientes, Mexico: our LATAM community organised their annual conference. A space dedicated to collaboration, learning and discussion of Open Source in LATAM.
These gatherings fueled collaboration, nurtured new contributors, and helped shape the roadmap for future GNOME releases and initiatives.
None of this progress would be possible without our contributors, volunteers, organizers, and users, including developers, designers, translators, mentors, and advocates. Your passion and commitment to free software continue to drive GNOME forward.
Here’s to an even more innovative and inclusive 2026!
I tried to enable the #GNOME screen reader (aka orca) to test the #accessibility of some application.
I have little experience with screen readers, but the GNOME experience after enabling the screen reader appears to be super bad. I can barely understand the voice. The speech synthesis is horrible, I have heard better in the 90s.
Is this the expected state of free software screen readers? How can I get something usable?
Wel yeeeah, Linux is by far not the best thing to test something for accessibility. I mean, if you want something to be accessible for the blind, the vast majority of us blindies use Windows and smartphones.
@menelion it really sounds like that you need to use commercial systems if you have to rely on a screen reader. In all honesty I had expected the situation to be better in the free software world. Not necessarily great, but at least somewhat usable.
As it stands out of the box you are basically lost. At best you need someone with vision and a lot of Linux administration experience to set something workable up for you. At least that's the impression I got.
that's it. Nice to talk to you because you are asking adequate questions and take adequate outcomes. Unfortunately, most of the FOSS developers are like… "You need accessibility? Fix it on your own". If you have some time, read this article. This man, the author, is very knowledgeable and he's also on Mastodon @fireborn: fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-w…
@menelion Thanks for the nice words. The article was very interesting. It even seems things have gotten worse in some areas.
To be honest, I can understand how especially screen reader accessibility is rather difficult for developers not currently affected by accessibility issues.
I have some experience with it from years ago, but not much. But I try to learn and improve.
Yes, and I'm sincere because you are one of the very small amount of people who talk to me like this. I even once heard things like "Let's first ditch Windows, and then make Linux accessible". They simply don't understand that for us screen reader accessibility is the same as a display and a mouse for everyone else. If you want to improve something, ask Aaron, he's far more knowledgeable in Linux world than me (I'm a Windows-and-SSH-to-Linux guy). Also, there is Orca mailing list (I don't know the address but you might google for it). There you can find Joanmarie Diggs, an absolute gem of development, the main person who is behind Orca and continues the fight for years and years. Everyone will be grateful if people like you help her.
@menelion @fireborn This isn't true, please do not say this :( There's a lot of developers and contributors working on improving the situation, it's just very difficult, and it's even harder to do it in your spare, free time.
@tragivictoria @fireborn I sincerely apologize to all of you who really make change to accessibility. I'm just super tired about this ending year's pressure. so often I heard "ditch GAFAM!!! Right now!!11!!" and faced hostility or indeference when I was telling this is *impossible* for us, even if I wanted to do it.
@menelion The only reason we have any accessibility at all is because Sun invested in it for their Solaris decades ago. Sadly corpos arent eager to invest in this.
@menelion This year it was revolutionary for me to discover "Piper" voices that can be used with Orca (instead of the default espeak voice): mastodon.social/@nekohayo/1150…
Attached: 1 video
@joojmachine@ursal.zone
Oh my god, Pied JUST WORKS!
I can't believe my ears! :psyduck:
I just installed Pied's flatpak package, let it install Piper, then downloaded the best English voice I could find ("Lessac", the basis for mos…
For me, going from espeak's voice to the Pied "Lessac" voice for Orca, was like going from Earth to Mars. Sure I guess if you compare to what proprietary speech synthesis systems do nowadays it would be like going from Mars to Phobos, but that's a much smaller difference than Earth to Mars…
@André Polykanine @Jeff Fortin T. (風の庭園のNekohayo) @outsidecontext 🇺🇦🕊️ For sure linux screen reader accessibility has issues but people who are using it for years can be productive with it. For some languages eSpeak and RHvoice are standard TTS choices that serve the purpose. I better like these opensource voices rather than voices by microsoft or google.
Let's do the math. Experts estimate it takes 10,000 #AI queries to match the energy of one single car trip across town. I don't have a car. I don't drive. So, until you stop driving to the store, maybe don't lecture a #Blind woman about the 'environmental cost' of having a family photo or a cat picture described to her. My #Accessibility tool costs the planet less energy in a year than your car does in a week.
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Bri🥰
in reply to Mckensie parker • • •Mckensie parker
in reply to Bri🥰 • • •The Technological Genius
in reply to Mckensie parker • • •Let's hope it turns out to be very good.