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From Clawdbot to Moltbot: How a C&D, Crypto Scammers, and 10 Seconds of Chaos Took Down the Internet's Hottest AI Project
dev.to/sivarampg/from-clawdbot…
dev.to/sivarampg/from-clawdbot…
From Clawdbot to Moltbot: How a C&D, Crypto Scammers, and 10 Seconds of Chaos Took Down the Internet's Hottest AI Project
The 72-Hour Unraveling of Open Source's Fastest-Growing Star Three days ago, Clawdbot was...Sivaram (DEV Community)
I wish I wasn't so irrationally irritated with the folks who pick out my github username from gods know where and ping me in random issues or pull requests for random "Fix this!" or "Merge that!" reasons.
It's often not even my own project. Used to happen with Godot for a while, at a point when I hadn't merged any PRs in like 5-6 years. Often I don't even have merge rights on the project.
It's wrong, sure, but idiots gonna idiot whether or not my blood pressure spikes about it.
Just seems so entitled, though. "Hey random person! Do my thing now!" Fuck off.
For These Women, Grok's Sexualized Images Are Personal
rollingstone.com/culture/cultu…
But our ( 
) Minister of Chatbots say there is nothing they can do.
Apple and Google can't remove the app from their appstore because it is allowed to break the policies in place. (that would leave the website, but the point stands)
VISA and Mastercard still accept the payments because they have a double standard in censorship. One is about puritanistm, the other one is about allowing to break the law.
For These Women, Grok's Sexualized Images Are Personal
Elon Musk’s AI image generator has been used to create non-consensual intimate images on X. Meet some of the women affected by it.Ella Chakarian (Rolling Stone)
We’ll be out in force at @fosdem '26 at the end of this week, with eight talks on a wide variety of topics—the latest on @servo, GStreamer work, graphics stacks, MathML interop, WebAssembly runtimes, handing out Servo stickers, and more! #FOSDEM2026 igalia.com/2026/01/26/Igalia-a…
Igalia at FOSDEM ’26 | Igalia
Igalia is an open source consultancy specialised in the development of innovative projects and solutions.Igalia
This entry was edited (5 hours ago)
RE: social.vivaldi.net/@LonM/11596…
UK PEOPLE: this is REALLY IMPORTANT. If the government bans under-16s from using VPNs, then logically they must intend to REQUIRE AGE VERIFICATION FOR ALL VPN USE. Which will affect adults too!
*Your* privacy and right to anonymous web browsing is at risk!
LonM (@LonM@vivaldi.net)
@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social You might be interested in giving this petition opposing the motion a signal boost: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/754408LonM (Vivaldi Social)
André Polykanine reshared this.
I've read this quote multiple times, over the years:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
It turns out it's from a comment on a blog post moaning about liberals: crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/l…
The rest of the comment is a lot more interesting than the pithy quote, because it cuts through a lot of the usual noise in leftist discourse.
I never saw the full comment either! This is great, and I appreciate you sharing it. It's going to go into my resources for further pondering.
Nice find! I have come to understand the quote as a concise and potent theory of justice. The question still remains of how to build an anti-conservative world. "Starting fresh" is not much to go on but I would argue that any society which aims to apply this understanding of justice will necessarily need to be anti-capitalist as well.
Как говориться, быстро зарелизил — быстро и багфикс готовь!
Fun fact, there are 120 settings to tweak which are language related in NV Speech Player. Yeah, no more settings for sure. We're done. Let's either (A) tweak the settings we have, or (B) actually use them well in language packs. LOL. This is a bit insane to find out. 120 settings.
This entry was edited (4 hours ago)
Hey when I'm finished with the formant stuff from praat, how would I send em to you to ad into nvspeechplayer?
@GoemonIshikawa would be very curious. Is this a data containing CF1 to CF6 values (and Parallel formants too) or just like, here's the frequency and sound for a specific IPA symbol? Either way, some kind of file, even if it's JSON or text works, it doesn't have to be the same format as my current data is but I can pull useful info out of it both manually and probably AI to see how it helps.
In our journey to #DigitalSovereignty, here's where we are:
- Domain registration: TransIP and Prolocation 🇳🇱
- Email, calendar, collaborative writing, and more: mailbox.org 🇩🇪
- Document store: Tresorit 🇨🇭
- Critical infra hosting: Hetzner 🇩🇪
- Discourse hosting: Communiteq 🇳🇱
- Security: 1Password.eu 🇨🇦/🇪🇺 and Yubico 🇸🇪
Next up: GitHub —> Codeberg 🇩🇪
To-do: Slack —> Zulip, Matrix, Mattermost?
#OpenSource #DNS #BGP
Wondering. Ice and border patrol don't wear uniforms / show their faces apparently because of doxing. Why do police show their faces, have badges with their names on them, etc., and don't worry about doxing? Is it mostly that police actually being reasonable people? I just figure that Ice might be respected more if they acted human. Did Ice have badges in the past? I know masking is new. Doesn't make sense at all.
Les pubs vont arriver dans Whatsapp cette année en Europe.
Il est temps de passer à la version Premium qui:
- n’a pas de pub
- n’a pas d’IA intégrée obligatoire
- ne vous espionne pas et ne récolte pas vos données
- améliore grandement votre sécurité et votre vie privée.
- permet de discuter exclusivement avec les autres utilisateurs Premium.
Et le meilleur c’est que cette version Premium est pour le moment gratuite (le paiement est facultatif).
Alors installez-la !
Elle s’appelle : "Signal"
just a test from FastSM.
@theblindgamer50 I'm getting a failed to set voice error when I use my custom voice with the Macintalk speak window.
Badly formatted voice file, or if you're using a wave file, not the right format. Should be 11025 kHz 8-bit mono.
Das "Heizungsgesetz" habe eine "enorme Unsicherheit in den Markt gebracht", sagte Katherina Reiche heute beim Handelsblatt-Energiegipfel.
Zumindest für den Wärmepumpen-Markt scheint diese aber überwunden zu sein: Dort wurde mit 299.000 verkauften Geräten 2025 das bisher zweitbeste Ergebnis erzielt, wie der Branchenverband heute mitteilte. (1/4)
Ich darf korrigieren: Die orchestrierte Kampagne und Verunglimpfung der Wärmepumpentechnologie, die Verzerrung der Historie und Inhalts des Gesetzentwurfs, persönliche Angriffe auf #habeck durch die #niemehrcducsu und #springer sowie das Durchstechen einer Vorabversion des Gesetzes durch die #fdp haben enorme Unsicherheit in den Markt gebracht.
Und ich darf ergänzen: Und die Inkompetenz und Fossil-Industrienähe von #gaskathie, die offensichtlich die Erneuerbaren ausbremsen will, bringt nun auch weiterhin Unsicherheit in den Markt.
Augenscheinlich ist sie jedoch glücklicherweise auch darin wenig erfolgreich. Es lebe die Inkompetenz!
This entry was edited (5 hours ago)
No TVL, to je fakt bizár.
Tahle Babišova čtyřletá schovávačka před spravedlností bude stát celou zemi ostudu, která ČR posune mezi země třetího světa
seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-…
„Naprosto neakceptovatelné.“ Petr Pavel obvinil ministra Macinku z vydírání
Prezident Petr Pavel na mimořádné tiskové konferenci obvinil ministra zahraničí Petra Macinku z vydírání.Barbora Kučerová (Seznam Zprávy)
Equipment failure slows REM service between Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse
montreal.citynews.ca/2026/01/2…
The heavy rail that was on that line, that was barely 25 year old when it was taken down, didn't have these issues
Equipment failure slows REM service between Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse
REM service is running at reduced speed in both directions between the Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse stations due to an equipment failure.Jessica Barile (CityNews Montreal)
it should be noted that to get notified one has to subscribe to the CSAM generator that used to be known as Twitter.
Milí spoluobčané, co ste si to tam dosadili za burany?
hrad.cz/cs/pro-media/tiskove-z…
hrad.cz/cs/pro-media/tiskove-z…
We'd like to invite you to our #BoF session at #FOSDEM It's on Saturday at 13.00 in room K4.401. This is a meet-and-greet for everyone who is part of, or interested in, the #NGIZero ecosystem. We'll bring drinks and snacks :).
Preceding us at 12.00 in the same room is the BoF about the Open Internet Stack calls from @EUCommission the follow-up programme to #NGI.
For these and many more NGI Zero related talks and events at FOSDEM see: nlnet.nl/events/20260131/FOSDE…
Preceding us at 12.00 in the same room is the BoF about the Open Internet Stack calls from @EUCommission the follow-up programme to #NGI.
For these and many more NGI Zero related talks and events at FOSDEM see: nlnet.nl/events/20260131/FOSDE…
Why are all the talks/events I'd like to attend at the same time (just in different locations) – including the talk I give myself? 😢 4 events relevant for our project, but only 3 of us are at FOSDEM, and we need to keep our stand covered as well…
Nevertheless, looking forward to meet you again! 🤗
hmm. I wonder if releasing on GitHub might be easier for folks, rather than Eurpod. I am considering doing this and keeping one file there. This might break my old posts, but GitHub releases are more trackable, the repo is frozen at that tag, ETC. There's just clear benefits to release them always as a pair (editor + Add-on) whenever I make a change. From here on out, I think that's going to happen.
This entry was edited (5 hours ago)
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 likes this.
Saw a reference to Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’ this morning, which was funny because just yesterday I was explaining to someone it’s where one of my key prioritizing heuristics comes from.
There’s a proverb in the book that goes something like “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”
Of course, logically this makes no sense—everything that happened twice is a thing that also happened once.
But I take it to mean “Once something goes wrong twice, it’s time to pay attention.” Once could be a fluke. Twice means there’s something going on. The second time it happens is where the phase change from noise to signal begins.
This entry was edited (2 hours ago)
Winter storm thankfully produced sleet instead of ice. Sidewalks & steps are still a mess. Neighbors were clearing sidewalks yesterday but stopped short of our section. Sweet.
I submitted a proposal for a lightning talk for #FOSDEM . It's about .... from street-level hack to open cultural production.
pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026…
#openart #foss #creativecommons
./make art: A Creative Commons Theater Experiment FOSDEM 2026
It began as a small patch for a real-world bug: holes in the road. A few hackers chose action over complaints and the result was a Creative Commons theater play, performed in Sofia, Bulgaria.pretalx.fosdem.org
I knew there was another reason I went back to Windows 10. Seriously, how the fuck do people still trust this shit? youtube.com/watch?v=sx8fA8zAoQ…
Windows 11 January Update Can Stop Your PC From Booting
🚨 Windows 11 January Update Can Stop Your PC From Booting 🚨In this video, we break down a serious issue caused by the January Windows 11 update that can pr...YouTube
I have no idea what any of that means, but I enrolled my PC into another year of updates just via settings, and thus it still works fine.
Do you like nonsense?
Today, for the second time in my life, I have been asked to convert a "pirate" copy of an old (50y+) movie into the DCP format, for a cinephile club. Not because they do not want to pay the copyright holders, they actually did. But that did not give them access to any copy of the movie, they are on their own.
The previous time, the distributor would only send them a French-dubbed version, which was a no-no for them.
They are not even obscure unknown movies, but classics. 🤦♀️
Today, for the second time in my life, I have been asked to convert a "pirate" copy of an old (50y+) movie into the DCP format, for a cinephile club. Not because they do not want to pay the copyright holders, they actually did. But that did not give them access to any copy of the movie, they are on their own.
The previous time, the distributor would only send them a French-dubbed version, which was a no-no for them.
They are not even obscure unknown movies, but classics. 🤦♀️
Convert flv (Flash Video files) to MP4?
Is it possible? Safely? (I'm not keen on clicking on some of the links on a search. Are there downsides? Does anyone know?
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.
If you can provide one video I can try it with my ffmpeg script. No idea if it will even see it or not but worth a try.
OK, do you still have *a* file you want to try and convert? I'm happy to try anyway if so. If not I can give you a direct command to enter into ffmpeg that should work.
Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency.
Not remotely what you want to see. Will keep tabs on this one in a tough time. Details:
Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency - CDM Create Digital Music
According to insolvency documents, Berlin-based Native Instruments GmbH (also parent to iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx) is in preliminary insolvency proceedings.Peter Kirn (CDM Create Digital Music)
reshared this
@the_spc Linked here. Thanks as always sir. universeodon.com/@FreakyFwoof/…
Native Instruments did a 14-minute video on the accessibility features of their MK3 keyboards, barely enough time to even cover what the thing does, let alone the keyboard functions, not to mention it wasn't done by a blind user, the target audience.
I wasn't a fan, so I made my own video and I *still* didn't get through everything to do with it.
Anyway, here's a more than three times longer video at 48 minutes instead.#InspiredBySound - Native Instruments Kontrol MK3 Accessibility Demonstration youtu.be/cMkm51Utijs
Audio download: onj.me/media/%23InspiredBySoun…
#InspiredBySound - Native Instruments Kontrol MK3 Accessibility Demonstration
In this video we take a tour of the Native Instruments Komplete MK3 keyboard.It's packed full of features and functions that were never accessible to blind u...YouTube
@FreakyFwoof Sweeet, you saved me the trip back to your timeline. I thought I'd favorited the damn thing. Have now.
High‑pass RMS (a good proxy for “sharp edge”):
d͡z alone:
HP RMS > 2kHz: 0.0201 → 0.0150 (≈ 25% less)
“words” (ending only):
HP RMS > 2kHz: 0.01337 → 0.01048 (≈ 22% less)
And the overall RMS stayed basically the same, so it shouldn’t sound “weak”, just less prickly.
d͡z alone:
HP RMS > 2kHz: 0.0201 → 0.0150 (≈ 25% less)
“words” (ending only):
HP RMS > 2kHz: 0.01337 → 0.01048 (≈ 22% less)
And the overall RMS stayed basically the same, so it shouldn’t sound “weak”, just less prickly.
Canada should deny entry to anyone associated with ICE or CPB. Wearing masks to commit murders, it could be any of them, how do we know?
The d͡z version showed sharper energy around high frequencies (3–8kHz). To fix this, I redistributed the energy by adjusting various parameters, including pa6 and pa5. Next update. Words like " words" and "sounds" have less sharpness already but it didn't lose its sound.
I once again have built up a number of posts I thought were too mad to post but made me laugh so I didn't delete them. They lay festering in my drafts. It feels wrong to delete them for some reason. So I'm going to amnesty post those babies here now so I can be free of the responsibility of them.
Sorry I didn't boost that banger you tooted but I was taking stock of my life. I'm back now and promise never to leave again. X
For anyone new who's wondering - if you boost and fave at the same time it means you love me and you can't take it back
My book, Accessibility For Everyone, is now free and online as a website.
The book was first published by A Book Apart in 2017 but it holds up! It covers web accessibility for designers, developers, content folks, and really everyone who works in tech.
Accessibility For Everyone by Laura Kalbag
Read the book online for free.accessibilityforeveryone.site
Alright, work meetings. No SpeechPlayer updates for a bit. Someone's asking for Russian, really can't promise that'd be ready by next driver with how complex it is of a language. If I add Russian I'd also be tempted with Ukranian, Belarusian, and Serbian. so it would come in with similar languages, just as we have all the Germanic ones, and then each would get their own tuning treatments. But large work. The initial scaffolding I can make, native speakers I can't just birth out of my stomach.
This entry was edited (6 hours ago)
Working on another vibe-coded text game. I need to find a place to put these. Should they go up on LWorks or somewhere else?
Today's Web Design Update: groups.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/…
Featuring @Ted_drake, @onsman, @matuzo, @wilco,
@ozewai, @SteveFaulkner, @brucelawson, @aardrian, @schalkneethling, @mgifford, and more.
Subscribe info: d.umn.edu/itss/training/online…
#Accessibility #A11y #WebDesign
Web Design References: Webdev Newsletter
Web Design References: News and info about web design and development. The site advocates accessibility, usability, web standards and many related topics.www.d.umn.edu
RE: mastodon.social/@laura_carlson…
great work by @mgifford highlighted in this issue.
Laura Carlson (@laura_carlson@mastodon.social)
Today's Web Design Update: https://groups.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/g/webdev/c/piHu9SEO8P8 Featuring @Ted_drake, @onsman@aus.social, @matuzo, @wilco@mastodon.nl, @ozewai, @SteveFaulkner, @brucelawson@vivaldi.net, @aardrian@toot.Laura Carlson (Mastodon)
I don't know. My partner (Jess) asked if I'm building this for other people or myself. I feel like I'm building it for other people but I really should be happy with it for myself at least. My only goal was to get this thing working in modern NVDA. Then US English lead us to other languages, people asked if they can have theirs, and then it turned into this big sad project. But maybe I shouldn't feel so sad over it. For myself, it sounds nearly there. Yes some words are off, and some things still stick out a bit sharp, like the word words, ironically. But I can understand and use it, probably 80% of the time I am instead of Eloquence. In that way, mission accomplished, and we have a big robust frontend to tune, so I probably should feel less sad about it.
The key is to realize this can't be only your project. Think of it like you're founding an organization that needs to persist over the years. You're already doing that work, by documenting everything really well, and giving lots of people other features they can use. As well as creating tools. But your goal should be getting it into a state you, personally, like, and then in moving towards having other people in charge of different things. So all you do is final tests and sign off on releases.
@fastfinge I just made a massive tools update, formant_trajectory.py and the frame inspector use lang_pack.py and a simple_yaml.py to parse it in a less strict way. So now it's really solid on tooling. People can do tests against them, and build languages easier. I think you're right, hopefully it can get to a point where I'm sitting back and accepting PRs from people tuning phonemes, and carefully weighing bigger changes to anything with the community, liaison for improving it. But this is so so far away from that, although interest is definitely picking up and the more I can simplify tools and add them in many ways I'm hoping the flexibility will make it shine for it. Whether you use the phoneme editor, the frame inspector / trajectory tool, now you really have a way to dig into the rules.
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 likes this.
What I've been playing with, and why you haven't heard much from me, is trying to create some good way to extract formants from existing sounds, in an accessible way. Thus far, though, nothing has worked, or been as accessible as I want it to be. It involves matlab and other terrible things. But what I really really want is something where I can put in a second of sound and get an estimate of all the formants and transitions, and then use the tools you created to compare them. But I haven't gotten close enough to have anything to share.
But what has been helpful is using your tool to show me just how wrong everything I have tried for formant estimation actually is. So it's been useful in that I can generate audio with known values, give it to my formant estimation attempt, and know that my estimated data is incorrect.
So one thing to think about: If people change settings in the NVDA addon, then you release an update, it looks like there settings aren't always updated. And it's really, really easy to break subtle things. If I were you I might consider adding a reset to defaults button in the addon. Because otherwise you're going to get feedback from people who toggled a checkbox like co-articulation without thinking about any of the associated settings and now wonder why everything sounds bad.
@fastfinge I think we can. If we shipped a .defaults folder with the untouched language files, then the person just hits "reset to defaults" in the NV Speech Player panel, and boom. We just copy over the files from .defaults and they have unchanged settings. But sadly it can't live in the voice panel, because you cannot put buttons there. So it has to live in the NV Speech Player settings area near the top.
This blogpost makes an astoundingly good case about LLMs I hadn't considered before. The collapse of public forums (like Stack Overflow) for programming answers coincides directly with the rise of programmers asking for answers from chatbots *directly*. Those debugging sessions become part of a training set that now *only private LLM corporations have access to*. This is something that "open models" seemingly can't easily fight. michiel.buddingh.eu/enclosure-…
The Enclosure feedback loop
speculation about the way (paid) software development will become LLM-onlymichiel.buddingh.eu
This goes much, much wider than programming and LLMs.
In general, the open source world looks with disdain at all kinds of automated feedback collection mechanisms, which the Silicon Valley Venture Capital tech ecosystem has wholeheartedly embraced. OSS is still stuck in the 1990s mindset of "if there's a problem, somebody will report this to us", and That... just isn't true.
What we're stuck with is OSS solutions with inferrior user experiences which nobody wants to use, instead of a compromise where OSS software collects more data than some people would have liked, but that software actually has some users and makes a difference in the world.
To be fair, there are some good arguments against this (it's much easier to protect user privacy if the only contributors to your code are employees with background checks), but that doesn't make this less of a problem.
Yeah, not a bad idea to release the add-on and editor together on GitHub. Link updated. If people want they can use the packs folder from the add-on included to tweak phonemes now too, so that really solves that problem. Appreciate that suggestion. Technically it's still not bundling libespeak or linking directly to it so I'm able to do that fairly.
github.com/tgeczy/NVSpeechPlay…
Remember, the driver file is like 70 KB because it has so much code for settings, compatibility with older NVDA back to 2023.2, voice keys, all of it adds lines. I think we're good on frontend passes for now, too many settings and people can now build proper languages with this set of them.
github.com/tgeczy/NVSpeechPlay…
Remember, the driver file is like 70 KB because it has so much code for settings, compatibility with older NVDA back to 2023.2, voice keys, all of it adds lines. I think we're good on frontend passes for now, too many settings and people can now build proper languages with this set of them.
Release NVSpeech Player with phoneme editor and NVDA Addon version 1.7 · tgeczy/NVSpeechPlayer
Many changes, and first one with the NVDA add-on bundled as this uses built-in Espeak, not code-linked: Adds proper focus management for the editor, so alt tabbing away and back, or opening the wi...GitHub
This entry was edited (7 hours ago)
I didn't put in the new phonemes into the editor yet. Going to give it a bit of time to be in the driver first, then yeah if people aren't overly upset, we'll move them into Master. For now it's a bit experimental. Maybe this afternoon. I'll move them into the master branch now, so people can see and mess with them, compare the diffs if they want, and then we'll roll it into the editor version later.
Fonant
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •It's impossible to restrict access to VPNs.
They could perhaps persuade some of the big providers to add access controls, but that would only result in more people using smaller or even self-hosted VPN services.
You can't un-invent encryption algorithms.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to Fonant • • •Self-hosted VPNs already have age verification. I know 100% of the people who use my own WireGuard tunnel (i.e. me) and all of them are over 18.
The same is true of corporate VPNs: credentials are given only to employees and they are over 18 for various existing legal reasons.
Fonant
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •But it's almost impossible for a government to detect a VPN service that doesn't have age restrictions. Unless it's one of the big well-known ones.
A foreign entity could set them up, or someone aged less than 16 for themselves (and perhaps also their mates).
You need:
1. A cheap server, anywhere in the world, connected to the internet.
2. VPN server software, available for free from lots of places.
3. Some instructions, easily available.
Charlie Stross
in reply to Fonant • • •David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Unless I misunderstood the proposed law, it's the VPN operator that would be prosecuted in this case. They may lose their ability to take money from people in the UK.
If I'm over 18, it is not illegal for me to use the VPN, so someone would have to prove that I am using it but no one checked that I was over 18. If I am under 18, then the provider is at more legal risk but they could claim that they did age verification and this user managed to bypass it somehow.
The simplest way of doing age verification is to require a payment from a credit card in your name. The easiest way of bypassing this is to use a parent's credit card. If a company takes payment for VPN use via credit card, and makes a minimal effort to not accept debit cards or pre-paid cards for folks in the UK, they're probably okay.
Which doesn't mean that this is in any way a sensible law.
Fonant
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •The government has to discover that there is an illegal VPN being used in the first place.
It is quite possible for millions of VPNs to be made available to UK children, hosted all over the world. Perhaps hosted by children, sharing the small monthly server costs. Quite secret, extremely difficult to find.
The proposed law could only ever hope to apply to a few big VPN companies. Which just moves the VPN usage by children underground, where other dangers lurk.
HighlandLawyer
in reply to Fonant • • •History has proven both are always true until they aren't.