#artificialintelligence #AI
Wow just wow. My daughters apartment complex switched over to an #AI telephone response system. Appalling is too kind of a word to use to express the horrible result. Nothing is working. Can't pay the rent, can't speak to a person, can't submit a maintenance request - nothing works. Calls go into a loop of offering assistance to find an apartment...and never offer anything other than offering to help - which it does not then provide any help or assistance. We are doomed as a society..

You don't use open source software because it's better (it usually isn't).

You don't use open source software because it's freer (it only sometimes is).

You don't use open source software because it's got better politics (it isn't always).

You use open source software because *it is the only option*. In the long run, if it isn't open source, it doesn't exist.

image source: keithstack.com

This entry was edited (7 hours ago)

there's a project called "JellyPlex-Watched" which is written in Python and is used to sync library watch status bidirectionally between one or more Plex/Jellyfin/Emby servers

it has its own minor shortcomings which I think are mostly due to API limitations, but it works.

anyway, I hate that they're requiring Python 3.13 so I vibe-coded a complete rewrite in Zig using libcurl and it is significantly faster

Unknown parent

pleroma - Link to source

feld

@sun I'm impressed with how well this little side project worked and how quick it was to do considering some of the complexity I threw at it. It compiles clean, no warnings, has a boatload of tests that pass, and it just... works.

Other than the fact that the Zig ecosystem needs a lot of libraries to be built yet, it's good. But you can of course just use C implementations of stuff and you're good to go.

#Joke #Humour

While walking down the street one day a politician is tragically hit by a truck and dies.

Her soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance. . “Welcome to Heaven,” says St. Peter. “Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.”

“No problem, just let me in,” says the lady.

“Well, I’d like to but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in Hell and one in Heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.”

“Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven,” says the head of state.

“I’m sorry but we have our rules.” And with that, St. Peter escorts her to the elevator and she goes down, down, down to Hell. The doors open and she finds herself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a club and standing in front of it are all her friends and other politicians who had worked with her, everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet her, hug her, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster and caviar.

Also present is the Devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that, before she realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives her a big hug and waves while the elevator rises.

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on Heaven where St. Peter is waiting for her. “Now it’s time to visit Heaven.” So 24 hours pass with the head of state joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing.

They have a good time and, before she realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns. “Well then, you’ve spent a day in Hell and another in Heaven. Now choose your eternity.”

She reflects for a minute, then the head of state answers: “Well, I would never have said it, I mean Heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in Hell.”

So Saint Peter escorts her to the elevator and she goes down, down, down to Hell. Now the doors of the elevator open and she is in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. She sees all her friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags.

The Devil comes over to her and lays his arm on her neck. “I don’t understand,” stammers the head of state. “Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and club and we ate lobster and caviar and danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable.

The Devil looks at her, smiles and says, “Yesterday we were campaigning. Today you voted for us!”

> Oh, we're out here. Proudly being the one person in the room saying, "Look, it's not just that these things are garbage generators but they are literally the _least_ ethical way possible to generate garbage and burn the planet at the same time."

Offices. We're talking about the waste of everyone's time, energy, commutes, and the abuse of precious real estate on offices, right?

RE: fosstodon.org/@arcanechat/1159…

thanks a lot to the people that gave a review! you rock! 💜


if you happen to have #GooglePlay on some device, please give #ArcaneChat a review so it gets more visibility in the main stream, your sacrifice getting your hands dirty with Google will not be in vain 🎖️

play.google.com/store/apps/det…

#boostswelcome #pleaseBoost #boost
#foss #openSource #privacy #encryption #messenger


I'm noticing how much what I want to be doing with my life can evolve over time based on my perception of the situation around me.
At one point in time, I didn't feel particularly attached to doing any kind of accessibility-related work. I ended up sliding into it because it was available to me, not that there was anything wrong with that, and, to be clear, I feel grateful towards people who gave me opportunities, but, if I had other options available to me, then I may well have done something different. But then I ended up getting involved with Linux, and now I see a lot of accessibility-related gaps, things that no one is working on right now, so ...

I could say something similar about wanting to work in order to have financial stability, manifest one's skills and talents in the world, and generally have options in life vs. wanting to retire or temporarily leave the work force in order to have more time to volunteer or handle family things, manifest one's skills and talents in the world, and generally have options in life.

Under normal circumstances, I would be at work this evening broadcasting an interview. But the guests canceled the show, so here I am playing around with NVDA Composer.
First, I created a basic melody in NVDA Composer – it’s a Slovak folk song. Then I imported it into Reaper, added some modern samples from Nexus, and this is the result.
You might ask why I didn’t do it directly in Reaper’s step sequencer. Because that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Hmm, seems that for some reason I can not upload mp3 dyrectly to this post, so here it is.
s.ondrosik.sk/f/b0cd4167954446…
#NVDAComposer #Composituary

On my way back from my parents' to Vienna and I was driving through the Czech Republic. In tribute to that fact, have my first NVDA Composer thing - Jozin z Bazin by Ivan Mladek, because we all need some more songs about swamp monsters called Joseph, or something... Could be better but given that it took most of the 4-hour ride to put it together, I don't think it's bad. Haven't found the special Nokia mode with the wav exports yet which could have saved it. Shall we call this #Composituary #NVDAComposer?

ondrosik reshared this.

Fucking Microsoft/Outlook sacks of goddamned SHIT!

My stuff (mail server), *again* cannot connect to their crap fucking mail hosts because ... why this time?

I have reverse DNS (IPv4 and IPv6) *Pristine* ... Google takes my mail, no sweat no strain.

Microsoft is a fucking hazard in EMail Space. They should not be Allowed (on the Internet, really ... ever) to run Internet EMail services and call it that.

connect to
outlook-com.olc.protection.out…[52.101.40.28]:25: Connection timed out

Es ist fast eine Woche her, dass sich hier mehrfach von sehr prominenten Menschen gegen, Inklusion auf Mastodon geschossen wurde. Bei einer der Personen ging es um Bildbeschreibungen. Hier haben die Argumente verfangen und das finde ich sehr gut!

Bei der anderen Person ging es um die Verwendung von Hashtags im Fließtext. Hier wurde erst versucht, sich mit einer vermeintlich veralteten Technik herauszureden und dann eine ausgewiesene Expertin auf dem Gebiet aufs übelste beleidigt. Statt einer Entschuldigung folgte, auch über die Grenzen von Mastodon hinaus das Begeben in eine Opferrolle. Jedes noch so ruhig und neutral formulierte Gesprächsangebot wurde ignoriert.

Ich glaube, dass die meisten Leute hier vollkommen fremd ist, wie es sich anfühlt, hunderte Beiträge darüber zu lesen, wie schön es sei, dass die Person sich nicht unterkriegen lässt, weil es sind ja alles nur Störenfriede, die sich nicht zu benehmen wissen. Hier spielt zum einen ein krasses Machtgefälle eine Rolle, denn diese Menschen stehen in der Öffentlichkeit und in Rollen, die mit einer gewissen Moralität aufgeladen sind.

Als Mensch mit Behinderung kann ich sagen, dass aber noch etwas Anderes eine Rolle spielt. Hier, dass keiner betroffenen Person auch nur eine Antwort gegeben wurde. Nichtbehinderte hingegen bekamen sofort eine Antwort. Was soll man daraus schließen? Zählt die Lebensrealität behinderter Menschen so wenig, dass sie nicht mal eine Reaktion würdig sind?

Um es drastisch zu sagen: Das ist das Aussortieren aus der öffentlichen Diskussion. Man hat ja genug Verbündete, die die anderen nur als störendes Beiwerk betrachten, das man wegblocken kann. Dabei bin ich mir sicher, dass ein Großteil dieser Unterstützenden ganz nette Menschen sind, würde man ihnen in anderem Kontext begegnen.

Aber kommt es nicht gerade hier, wo im relativ Kleinen Menschen nicht zugehört wird schon darauf an, sich ein differenziertes Bild zu machen? Muss man das nicht gerade von Menschen erwarten dürfen, die wissen, wie sich Angriffe anfühlen? (1/2)

Path A: Direct DSP Only (speechPlayer.dll)
You handle everything yourself:
Your App → [Your IPA parser] → [Your frame builder] → speechPlayer_queueFrame/Ex() → DSP → Audio
What you do:
• Parse IPA text into phonemes
• Look up formant values from your own phoneme table
• Build speechPlayer_frame_t structs (47 parameters)
• Build speechPlayer_frameEx_t structs (5 parameters) if you want voice quality
• Calculate timing/duration yourself
• Call speechPlayer_queueFrame() or speechPlayer_queueFrameEx() directly
• Mix per-phoneme FrameEx with user settings yourself (if desired)
Pros: Full control, no frontend dependency, smaller footprint Cons: You reimplement all the phoneme logic, coarticulation, prosody, etc.
Path B: Frontend + DSP (nvspFrontend.dll → speechPlayer.dll)
Frontend does the heavy lifting:
Your App → nvspFrontend_queueIPA[_Ex]() → [Frontend magic] → Your Callback → speechPlayer_queueFrame/Ex() → DSP → Audio
You might be thinking, but that's more layers!
The alternative would be pushing mixing into the DSP, but then:
• DSP needs phoneme awareness (wrong layer!)
• Or every driver reimplements mixing (inconsistency, bugs)
The "extra layer" is actually the frontend doing its job - keeping linguistic smarts out of the DSP and out of every driver.

Next NV Speech Player update: Sharable user profiles in the phoneme packs. I got it coded during lunch, not a bad AI sesh. It's coming. While NVDA driver settings need to be stored as .conf values, we will let you click a "save voice profile to phonemes" button in the NVSpeech panel, so you can upload your defined sliders and phoneme class overrides to ship a complete voice. Same will go for the phoneme editor: If you want deeper voice tuning, you can tune there and save it to file, no more storing voice information in just the .ini file. So yep, solid updates for next build already. The frontend now can do frame mixing, significantly reducing burden on drivers to communicate with the DSP layer directly, they just talk to the Frontend's two callback's and frame emission mixing happens there rather than needing to be done by the drivers or callers. This makes life a lot simpler and moves more things to slowly centralize in the frontend component.