mastodon - Link to source

Reminder: tomorrow we're back in the saddle, with premium REAPER prattle.

Join Scott and Jenny K for I'm Perplexed, what's next? Saturday at 3PM Eastern, 8PM UK. It's a Q&A session covering all things REAPER, OSARA and accessible production. As usual, we'll be making sure questions from newcomers slip to the front of the queue.

Details are at reaperteacher.com.

If you're able to help cover the time we put in to running these meet-ups, here is where to top up the kitty.
paypal.me/TGVTraining

See ya there,

Scott


Zaplaťte uživateli Scott Chesworth pomocí služby PayPal.Me

Přejděte na adresu paypal.me/TGVTraining a zadejte částku. Protože jde o PayPal, je to jednoduché a bezpečné. Nemáte účet PayPal? Nevadí.
PayPal.Me

mastodon - Link to source

I got into an almost-argument and I need advice and/or guidance from you dorks (affectionate).

Some doop on Reddit says he rips his CDs into flac files. I said the only thing that flacs increase in this regard is file size; not quality. He insists they sound better as flacs.

So, I ripped two CDs on my l33t h8xor Linux PC. 192kbps mp3s, and flacs. I genuinely could not tell the difference on any of my headphones, including the planar magnetic supernerd audiogasm cans. And I mean it: Zero difference.

Have I fallen into confirmation bias, or is there a real difference?

#AskFedi #Audiophile #FileFormats

#askfedi #audiophile #fileformats
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

mastodon - Link to source

This is a damning article from the Wikipedia editors on GenAI articles written for Wikipedia: wikiedu.org/blog/2026/01/29/ge…

#ai

Far more insidious, however, was something else we discovered: More than two-thirds of these articles failed verification. That means the article contained a plausible-sounding sentence, cited to a real, relevant-sounding source. But when you read the source it’s cited to, the information on Wikipedia does not exist in that specific source. When a claim fails verification, it’s impossible to tell whether the information is true or not. For most of the articles Pangram flagged as written by GenAI, nearly every cited sentence in the article failed verification.

Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

Like many organizations, Wiki Education has grappled with generative AI, its impacts, opportunities, and threats, for several years. As an organization that runs large-scale programs to bring new e…
Wiki Education
#AI

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source

Question for my audio people:

I have an analog mixer. It sounds big and awesome when I listen to the main outputs connected directly to my monitors. But when I run my second set of main outputs into my computer via Ferrofish converters and an RMI ADAT-->USB interface (the Digiface), everything sounds...flat and lame. And I definitely lose significant amounts of bass response.

Is this expected?

1/x

#audio #GearSquad

#audio #gearsquad
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

mastodon - Link to source
Für alle interessierten, heute wurde ein Beitrag zum Thema @letsenvision #Ally #Solos glasses auf sightviews.de veröffentlicht, indem unsere Erfahrungen mit dem Zoll und dem mangelhaften Support auch diskutiert werden.

Sightviews

Sightviews ist der unabhängige Podcast rund um Hilfsmittel und Technik für blinde und sehbehinderte Menschen – verständlich, praxisnah und ohne Werbe-Blabla.
Sightviews
#ally #solos @Envision
in reply to feld

mastodon - Link to source

Alyx Woodward (she/her)

@feld I will be blunt: "efficient" really doesn't mean much coming from the typical high-tech person. In practice, it seems to mean only that if the high-tech person is doing something *faster*, they pretend to themselves that it's also better and more "efficient".

So the slop machine does a design faster. How do you know it's not also garbage? LLMs can't tell the difference between garbage and good information. How would you know the PCB layouts produced by an LLM trash machine are actually any good?

@feld

mastodon - Link to source
1. Open Google
2. Search "fuck ICE"
3. Close Google
4. Open YouTube
5. Search "fuck ICE"
6. Close YouTube
7. Open Spotify
8. Search "fuck ICE"
9. Close Spotify
10. Open Amazon
11. Search "fuck ICE"
12. Close Amazon
13. Open Walmart
14. Search "fuck ICE".
15. Close Walmart
16. BUY NOTHING
17. BUY NOTHING
18. BUY NOTHING
19. JUST KEEP SEARCHING THE TERM
20. MAKE IT TREND
21. MAKE IT TREND EVERYWHERE
22. FUCK. ICE.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to annaecook

mastodon - Link to source

annaecook

Today is a day of a national shutdown. Many working in tech are likely afraid of losing their jobs, a reasonable fear.

If you can’t take today off, consider alternative actions you might take to show solidarity for those in this country under persecution

techcrunch.com/2026/01/26/t...
techcrunch.com/2026/01/26/tech…


Tech workers call for CEOs to speak up against ICE after the killing of Alex Pretti | TechCrunch

More than 450 tech workers from companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Salesforce have signed a letter urging their CEOs to call the White House and demand ICE leave our cities. 
Rebecca Bellan (TechCrunch)
in reply to annaecook

mastodon - Link to source

annaecook

If you can’t show solidarity, give it.

If you’re a tech worker with the means, help families who have been stuck in their homes for weeks unable to work or live their lives who need help with food or rent

www.standwithminnesota.com
standwithminnesota.com/


Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory

Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.
Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory

akkoma - Link to source

Yet another day of screaming at digital enshitiffication:

1. My coworkers and I are in a car driving to FOSDEM.
2. We pull up to charge the car.
3. Charging station REQUIRES you to use an app, no option to just pay with a card.
4. We try to install the stupid app. We carry phones running:
- GrapheneOS
- GrapheneOS
- GrapheneOS
- LineageOS, postmarketOS, iOS
5. Neither of our phones meet requirements to install the stupid app (Play Integrity API).
6. My iPhone can't install the app, because it's "Not available in your country".
7. We give up and drive to another charging station.

This is NOT how you introduce applications, "Circle K" :akko_scream:

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source

We're now using our own autonomous system and IP space for 3 of our networks. We run 2 entirely separate anycast DNS networks for our authoritative DNS and have a simpler unicast setup on a bare metal server at Xenyth which we'll be using for more soon.

bgp.tools/as/40806

AS40806 GrapheneOS Foundation - bgp.tools

GrapheneOS Foundation (AS40806) is a BGP network that is peering with 14 other networks and has 2 upstream carriers
bgp.tools
in reply to Demi Marie Obenour

mastodon - Link to source

GrapheneOS

@alwayscurious It's theoretically an issue but not one we expect to be a problem for us in practice especially on a provider like Xenyth. The same theoretical issue would exist buying used server hardware too. None of that hardware has good security in practice even if it's brand new. The CPUs might have reasonable security but the motherboards from ASRock, Supermicro, etc. definitely lack it. We plan to do colocation in the future but we're not ready to deal with that yet.
@Demi Marie Obenour

mastodon - Link to source

Catherine O’Hara died today.

With her death, the character Kevin McCallister from the original two 'Home Alone' movies, played by Macaulay Culkin, is now an orphan.
Wait, is that even a thing?

Kevin's father, Peter, played by John Heard, died in 2017, at the age of 71, coincidentally, the same age as Catherine O’Hara.

R.I.P.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

johann reshared this.

in reply to feld

pleroma - Link to source

feld

oh my god are you kidding me, i just took a fresh look at this

the problem started when I migrated the Registry from being just filesystem backed to being database backed so it can properly garbage collect and we don't have 500GB of crap that we can't safely clean up

The normal Postgres database used by Rails is set to 'host' => nil so it knows to not use TCP but use the unix socket

The Registry database config default to 'host' => 'localhost' and then throws errors specifically during database migrations, not during normal operations

changing that value to 'host' => nil fixes it...

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

pleroma - Link to source

It's really heartbreaking to see a technically superior OS (MacOS/iOS) turn into complete dogshit because the people running the show are clueless.

They had the best implementations of almost everything but decided to just keep making the user experience worse every release and letting the craziest bugs manifest and go unaddressed for years

I guess with Cook being so focused on making Apple a services-focused company it was bound to happen, but damn... they really ruined a technical masterpiece.

And worse, every release they make it even harder for a competent engineer to actually debug these kind of issues. What good is having Dtrace if you can't even use it because of SIP, etc?

in reply to Haelwenn /элвэн/ @ fosdem

pleroma - Link to source

feld

@lanodan @hj they used to have Radar, a public web bug tracker but now you have to use Feedback Assistant which is less than ideal

developer.apple.com/bug-report…


Bug Reporting - Apple Developer

Now with Feedback Assistant available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web, it’s easier to submit effective bug reports and request enhancements to APIs and tools.
Apple Developer
@Haelwenn /элвэн/ @ fosdem @Gay, loud and annoying !

mastodon - Link to source
Eloquence uses a modified Klatt synthesizer with:
• KLGLOTT88-style source (at² - bt³ polynomial)
• Spectral tilt (TL): ~8-12 dB for normal voice, ~20-24 dB for breathy
• Flutter (FL): ~25% for naturalness (sums of three sine waves at 12.7, 7.1, 4.7 Hz)
• Open quotient (OQ): ~50% default, varies for voice quality
Eloquence has very specific formant transition patterns:
• Non-steady-state targets (0ms duration) as inflection points
• F2 "locus" frequencies for consonants that drive coarticulation
• 5ms frame rate for smooth interpolation

friendica - Link to source

Just a friendly reminder that it's the #FOSDEM week :)

7 rooms will be streamed over #PeerTube from VHSky.cz and MakerTube.net instances. Playlists here.

=====
Přátelská připomínka, že nás tento týden čeká #FOSDEM :)

7 místností bude streamováno i na #PeerTube z instancí VHSky.cz a MakerTube.net. Playlisty zde.

#VHSky

#peertube #fosdem #vhsky
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
I don’t really get the benefit of doing a national shutdown like this. Reaper took their website offline until tomorrow to protest ICE, and while the issue clearly matters to them, shutting down access to the software just ends up affecting normal people who have nothing to do with anything.
It doesn’t really persuade anyone who’s just trying to download or check out the program. Instead, it mostly creates frustration and shifts attention away from the actual issue.
I was planning to download and try Reaper today, but now I can’t. That alone makes me less likely to come back later, especially since the protest doesn’t have anything to do with the software or audio work itself.

mastodon - Link to source
Remember: It's okay for your F/OSS project to be finished. You don't have shareholders who need you to grow every year. You don't have customers who need to be persuaded to buy a subscription or a new version every year by marketing-driven features. If it solves the problem that you created it to solve, you have won. You now have some software that solves the problem that you had. You are allowed to stop now.

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
@marcozehe kann ich dich für eine neue Behandlungsleitlinie bei Narkolepsie interessieren? Da ist heute ein Podcast von Apotheken-Umschau erschienen nedosiswissen.podigee.io/995-a… vielleicht kann das ja jemand in deiner Umgebung brauchen 😉

’ne Dosis Wissen | Der Medizin-Podcast für Menschen im Gesundheitswesen

Was gibt es Neues im Gesundheitswesen? In diesem Podcast bieten Dr. Laura Weisenburger und Dr. Dennis Ballwieser werktägliche Updates.
Apotheken Umschau
@Marco Zehe

mastodon - Link to source

#XMPP Summit

After two great days focusing on the XMPP ecosystem and its future we are closing the 28th XMPP Summit. Many thanks to all 35+ participants!
xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-summit-2…

Meet us tomorrow at #FOSDEM 2026! #ULB, AW Building, Level 1

#jabber #chat #opensource #messaging #federation #Brussels

The XMPP Logo

XMPP Summit 28 | XMPP - The universal messaging standard

The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is exited to announce the 28th XMPP Summit taking place in Brussels, Belgium next year - just before FOSDEM 2026. The XSF invites everyone interested in development of the XMPP protocol to attend, and discuss all …
xmpp.org
#xmpp #opensource #Jabber #federation #fosdem #chat #messaging #brussels #ulb

mastodon - Link to source

Hey, you guys. I'm testing out a keyboard for iOS, PC, and Mac called Wispr Flow. You get 1,000 free words a week on mobile and 2,000 free words a week on PC and Mac.

I like it because I don't have to dictate punctuation. It auto-formats and inserts punctuation for me, which means that I'm typing faster or rather more productively on iOS with less of a need for editing. It also lets you specify punctuation style. In messaging apps, I have casual punctuation, but in email and other apps I have it set to formal punctuation.

You get a two-week free trial. After that, the app is $15 a month or $143 a year. Either way, I think I'm going to subscribe to this. ChatGPT estimates that I generate about 12,000 words of content a week right now, so I think this is a really good fit for me personally.

mastodon - Link to source

RE: mastodon.world/@somecanuckchic…

It's treason, plain and simple. This kinda shite needs to be nipped in the bud... #cdnpoli #polcan

somecanuckchick

2026-01-29 21:00:37

mastodon - Link to source

The US administration have held meetings with members of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a separatist group that is pushing for the western province to become independent.

The group is openly seeking a $500B US line of credit from the US Treasury to help bankroll the new country, if they come out victorious in a referendum.

DO WE NOT HAVE LAWS PREVENTING THIS AND/OR PUNISH THIS?!?!? cbc.ca/news/politics/eby-alber… #cdnpoli #polcan #treason


#cdnpoli #polcan
⇧