mastodon - Link to source

GNOME 50.alpha is released

Officially X11 free.

discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-50…

#linux #gnome #wayland

Screenshot of GNOME 50.alpha built with GNOME tour open.

GNOME 50.alpha released

Hello, GNOME 50.alpha is now available. This is the first unstable release leading to the 50 series. Review the list of updated modules and changes. Use the official BuildStream project snapshot to compile GNOME 50.alpha.
GNOME Discourse
#linux #gnome #Wayland

mastodon - Link to source

Pete Hoesktra, everyone — #PuttingTheAssInAmbassador yet again. This guy cannot be declared *persona non grata* soon enough.

#CanPoli #USPoli #ElbowsUp #Never51

ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/we…


‘We do not need Canada,’ says U.S. Ambassador during Montreal visit

The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Peter Hoekstra, repeated during his stop in Montreal on Wednesday, President Donald Trump's claim that the United States doesn't need Canada.
CTVNewsMontreal.ca Staff (CTVNews)
#canpoli #uspoli #elbowsup #puttingtheassinambassador #never51
in reply to Hubert Figuière

mastodon - Link to source

Hubert Figuière

Relevant (not by me):

I Can Say Goodbye To Star Trek Because Star Trek Raised Me

aftermath.site/star-trek-skyda…


I Can Say Goodbye To Star Trek Because Star Trek Raised Me

Star Trek instilled in me many of the same values that are taught in houses of worship across the world, but in my faith, there is no God to judge or punish me—I learned how to rely on my own moral compass and inner strength.
Dylan Roth (Aftermath)

mastodon - Link to source
I really miss using a MacBook Air. My 2020 MacBook Air is not able to upgrade to Tahoe. I feel like it is really showing its age. I am interested as to how much better voiceover would perform on a new MacBook using the latest operating system. I usually mostly use it for work. I use the Messages app a lot because I text members of my team. I find that Google Chrome actually works better than Safari for most things that I do on the MacBook. Right now, I am bringing my windows computer back-and-forth from home to work. It works, but I don’t like the form factor of my PC as much as I did the MacBook Air. I don’t have the money to spend on it right now, but I am wondering if I should start saving and see what’s out there by the time the money comes in. If I had a nice new computer, and if VoiceOver was in better shape, I would love using the Mack.

mastodon - Link to source

“…the answer to so many of the issues that are raised isn’t just switching to a new streaming app. The point is to encourage people to be more active participants in local music communities and DIY cultural production, and to support independent music media, buy music directly from artists, and reject the idea that it’s a one-click solution.”

hearingthings.co/liz-pelly-on-…

#Spotify #Streaming #Music


Liz Pelly on the Impact of Her Anti-Spotify Book ‘Mood Machine’ and Where We Go From Here

“The point is to encourage people to reject the idea that it’s a one-click solution.”
Ryan Dombal (Hearing Things)
#music #spotify #streaming
in reply to Reilly Spitzfaden (they/them)

mastodon - Link to source

miki

People want to be able to click play and just listen to music. People want the ability to click a genre and listen to music in that genre, without having to actively choose what they listen to (kind of like what radio used to do in the old days, but without the useless banter, annoying commercials and the news, which they can get in other places). We can't change what people want. We can try giving it to them in a way that respects artists more. I think many people would pay 2x for their streaming service if they knew that the extra money was coming straight to artists, just as some people pay extra for vegan or locally-sourced or whatever. Trying to shift consumer behavior is futile, the market has spoken.

mastodon - Link to source
In a weird roundabout way, NOAA Weather Radio used Eloquence for its TTS from 2003 to 2016.
I've been playing with the recently discovered SAPI 5 version of Speechify, and it's basically a concatenative version of Eloquence. The speech rules and pronunciations are quite similar, and some of the files include references to the Delta programming language which Eloquence was originally written in.
in reply to Noah T. Carver 👨🏼‍🦯🇺🇦

mastodon - Link to source

Mohamed Al-Hajamy 💾

@NoahCarver Largely, yes. Though tags begin with \! instead of ` and some of them are modified from the originals, for example ts3, the radio pronunciation command, becoming tsR, the overall speech tag system is quite similar to Eloquence's, and it also accepts the same phonemes.
@NoahCarver
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@clv1 haha sadly it's not just "applying Espeak's pronunciations" - it's literarly writing the shape, openness, sustainance, ETC for each sound from scratch. Even if ESpeak gives us how it says something, the actual sound-wave generation still takes place by the IPA tokenizer, so ipa.py feeds the frames to the wave player to synthesize based on those formant variables. As such it's possible to go into data.py and modify yourself if you look up the exact symbol for that sound in the table, but it's a lot of tweaking work because there's about 15-20 parameters per sound and right now about 140 sounds mapped.
@Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

RE: stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/1…

Both Wikipedia and Drupal began on 15 January 2001. What an amazing day for the open web.

Stefan Bohacek

2026-01-15 14:07:05

mastodon - Link to source

"Today is also about helping others make sense of this moment by reminding the world of what we already know: that Wikipedia is the backbone of information online, and that humans are at the center of it."

diff.wikimedia.org/2026/01/15/…

#wikipedia #wikipedia25



Wikimania 2026

Wikimania is the annual conference celebrating all the free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation – Wikimedia Commons, MediaWiki, Meta-Wiki,Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikinews, Wikipedia , […]\n
Diff

mastodon - Link to source
I gave Pocket TTS a shot. It's a local AI voice that claims to run well on the CPU, so it's faster to generate output and doesn't require a GPU. The main problem with it is the same as with so many voices these days, AI or otherwise: punctuation. Periods and commas sound the same, and question marks aren't always noticeable. Parenthetical phrases sound odd, and the double dash isn't handled at all. I love seeing this field continue to move forward, but I have yet to meet an AI voice I like.

mastodon - Link to source
**UPDATE-very grateful that volunteer has been procured!
I'm looking for someone in #Canada (preferably #Alberta ) who would be willing to receive (by mail) TWO different Apple 6.08 800k boot disks to see if you can boot your Mac Plus or SE from them. They simply get immediately ejected on my Mac Plus and this would help me troubleshoot the drive (which i've recently replaced). I will of course pay for shipping both ways. I live in Canmore, Alberta #retrocomputing
Picture of two 800k boot floppies for Mac OS 6.0.8 ... one blue, one cream coloured
#canada #retrocomputing #Alberta
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
I’m having a bad ear day today. It happens to me sometimes, I get a day or three where one ear is basically useless.
I am very thankful for Braille, because I proofed an important report using speech to the best of my current ability, and it all sounded fine and the spell checker reported no errors. But when I did a final check with Braille, I found I had written “paradigm shit” instead of “paradigm shift”. Oops, that would have been more than mildly embarrassing if I’d sent that off.

mastodon - Link to source

Stop the spread of AI Slop. Support your fellow human beings by investing your valuable time in their efforts. Not everything has to be a financial transaction. In this case, all it costs is a little time, which you’re clearly wasting right this very minute.

I invite you to come look around. Authentic stories, artfully told, and always 100% human. Sign up for free alerts to new stories. No spam. Just fantastic tales.

davidtoddmccarty.com

#Writing #Stories #Philosophy #Human #Creativity

100% GENUINE I tell stories. Most of them are true. Authentic tales of the human experience, as told by a nut. DAVID TODD MACARTY

David Todd McCarty | Raconteur | Writer | I tell stories.

I tell stories. Most of them are true. A catalog of my many thoughts, rants, essays, and letters. I care little for your outrage, but I do feel your pain.
David Todd McCarty
#philosophy #writing #creativity #human #stories

mastodon - Link to source
Today I learned about a particularly vile piece of shit corp, Bright Data. Web scraping as a service. They boast about having 150 million IP addresses from residential IPs and "real user devices" (I can't imagine that it's with the user's consent) and being able to scrape petabytes. They brag about their ability to defeat captchas, turning websites into AI data. Like every possible gross thing you can think of all wrapped up in a package with a shiny website bow.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

At Vivaldi we continue to make choices that are different from our competitors. We have chosen to not integrate AI or crypto, but instead we integrate a wealth of other features, based on the wishes of our users.

We are a European company with most of the team based in Norway and Iceland, a few around Europe and a couple in the US.

Our servers are based in Iceland.

If you want to get away from Big Tech, maybe give us a try? If you are already using Vivaldi, maybe introduce your friends?

Have a nice day!

vivaldi.com

#Vivaldi #Browser #Windows #Macos #Linux #AI #Europa #Technology #EU #UK #Germany #France #Poland #Denmark #Norway #Iceland #Greenland


Vivaldi Browser | Powerful, Personal and Private web browser

It’s a web browser. But fun. It comes with a bunch of clever features built-in. It’s super flexible and does not track you. Get the Vivaldi browser for desktop, mobile, and your car!
Vivaldi Technologies
#linux #technology #browser #Windows #Poland #AI #EU #uk #Germany #france #MACOS #vivaldi #denmark #Europa #norway #iceland #greenland

pleroma - Link to source
Wondering if the end game here will be Trump saying "Fine you can keep Greenland but only if you keep a ton of NATO troops here" and then he can go "I made made NATO do their jobs, now we're safer than ever"
RT: med-mastodon.com/users/cbarber…

Carolyn Barber, MD (@cbarbermd@med-mastodon.com)

Attached: 1 image Troops from France, Germany, Norway, Sweden & other NATO allies are arriving in Greenland amid tensions over Trump’s repeated push for U.S. control of the island.
Carolyn Barber, MD (Med-Mastodon)

mastodon - Link to source

"WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA WITH A BUILD-IN CHILD ABUSE TOOL? Delete Your X Account"

(ps. Big thumbs up to people putting those ads up in London bus shelters!!)

(photo from: pbs.org/newshour/world/grok-bl… )

#grok #ai #protests #musk

Bus shelter in London, shows an ad with Elon Musk on it and says "WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA WITH A BUILD-IN CHILD ABUSE TOOL?"

Grok blocked from undressing images with AI in places where it's illegal, X says

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok won’t be able to edit photos to portray real people in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal, according to a statement posted on X.
PBS News
#AI #musk #protests #grok
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
Saying goodbye

Sensitive content

#cats #catsofmastodon #torties
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
Update Version 2.6 released for the Brailliant BI20X, Brailliant BI40X and the Mantis Q40. More information can be found here:
humanware.com/en-usa/news/prod…

New Update – Braille learning tables and a new recording application - HumanWare

We’re thrilled to announce the release of our latest firmware update for the Brailliant BI X and Mantis braille display! This update introduces learning braille tables, a recording application and support for the upcoming eBraille format.
Natacha (HumanWare)

mastodon - Link to source
Hi y’all. I’m thinking about buying a laptop, I already have it picked out and it seems to have good specs for the price. Since around 2016, my phone has been my main computing device. I briefly got acquainted with windows 11 a few years ago when I was using a small windows tablet lightly and sporadically. I used to be a fairly proficient or at least mediocre windows user 10 years ago and more. I just need to get familiar with things enough to be efficient again. I also would like to get more in to gaming. I like playing games and I have friends and a partner who game, and I feel like I’m missing out by not having pursued this earlier. I intend to use NVDA unless or until there’s something I come across that it can’t do. I plan to read the windows screenreader primer, which I believe just came out with its 3rd edition. My question is, would anybody be interested in helping me get back up to speed? Or helping me learn about games I can play with no vision? No pressure either way, I’ll figure things out a little at a time. But back when I was new with computers and games, knowing people made a world of difference. So I appreciate anything people are willing to give, whether it’s time or resources or anything else.
in reply to Amber

mastodon - Link to source

Amber

I went ahead and bought the laptop. I have started reading the Windows Screenreader Primer which is on its 4th edition, not 3rd. I’ve also gotten lots of input from here, Ramblio, and friends. My boyfriend even researched whether this particular laptop would be able to handle certain games. I’m a little intimidated by the prospect of getting as efficient with things as I used to be, but I know it just takes time. I went ahead and bought a gaming headset and a usb hub since this thing seems to have very few ports.

mastodon - Link to source
Alright, I'm living up to the "vortex" that I used to use as a handle or part of a handle in various places.
While looking at something else, I noticed that the at-spi2-core docs were lying and saying that every single enum value has existed since the beginning of time. Hopefully I've just fixed that and not broken something else while mucking around, but it was like a vortex hitting the docs, so no guarantees.
Also just made a pyatspi maintenance release (and sent it to Tumbleweed).
And now I'm done with anything remotely productive for today.
I want some Thai food, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.
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