mastodon - Link to source
Effort To Roll Back Federal Disability Rights Protections Alarms Advocates disabilityscoop.com/2025/06/09… #a11y

Effort To Roll Back Federal Disability Rights Protections Alarms Advocates - Disability Scoop

The Trump administration is quietly working to fast-track changes to a key disability rights law by circumventing typical procedures, advocates are warning.
Michelle Diament (Disability Scoop)
#a11y

mastodon - Link to source

This is a VERY BAD mistake for #Google to make: AI Overviews hallucinates that Airbus, not Boeing, involved in fatal Air India
crash

Sometimes it says Airbus. Sometimes it says Boeing. Sometimes it seems to say BOTH. Google #AI Overviews are GARBAGE. -L

arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/goo…

Google AI Overviews are garbage.

AI Overviews hallucinates that Airbus, not Boeing, involved in fatal Air India crash

Google’s disclaimer says AI “may include mistakes,” which is an understatement.
Ryan Whitwam (Ars Technica)
#google #AI

mastodon - Link to source

If a user’s expectations about how a tool functions don’t match reality, you’ve got yourself a huge user experience and security problem.
Humans have built a schema around AI chat bots and do not expect their AI chat bot prompts to show up in a social media style Discover feed — it’s not how other tools function.
Because of this, users are inadvertently posting sensitive info to a public feed with their identity linked, including prompts with:
- exact medical issues
- federal crimes committed
- tax evasion
- home address
- interest in extramarital affairs
- sensitive court details
- private photos of unclothed children
- audio asking personal questions
- private upcoming travel plans
- questions about the legality of actions
- challenges in personal relationships
- feeling shame with disabilities

What do I recommend as next steps for Meta and other orgs considering a public AI chat bot prompt feed?
1. Pause the public Discover feed. Your users clearly don’t understand that their AI chat bot prompts have been made public.
2. Ensure all AI chat bot prompts are private by default. This goes for all future AI chat bots as well. Don’t wait for users to accidentally post their secrets publicly. Notice that humans interact with AI chatbots with an expectation of privacy, and meet them where they are at.
3. Alert users who have posted their prompts publicly and that their prompts have been removed for them from the feed to protect their privacy.

If I’m able to watch users inadvertently admitting to federal crimes and posting unclothed pictures of their children to the Meta AI Discover Prompt feed, they clearly don’t understand how it works!
Meta: Pause the product, bake in clear strong privacy, and help users fix their accidental prompt posts.
It’s time to make it right.

Here is a redacted user asking Meta AI about how to ask a judge to not sentence them to death for the murder of 2 people.
Clearly Meta users do not believe their Meta AI prompts are publicly available. This one is tied to the user’s identity with elements of their username which I’ve redacted.

If your family, friends, and coworkers aren’t aware that Meta AI chat bot prompts can be easily and accidentally posted to a social media-like feed, please inform them so they can keep their sensitive questions private.
Imagine if Google searches were surprisingly showing up on a new social media feed, this would devastate folks.

mastodon - Link to source

Hey y'all, I'm starting an "ALT After Dark" account, inspired by the wonderful @alttexthalloffame! The goal would be to encourage good alt-text on NSFW image posts, as well as showcasing shining examples of spicy alt-text.

Why? Because #AccessibilityIsHotAF, that's why.

What are our goals?
- Promote quality adult content that focuses on consent, community, and accessibility (great alt-text, proper CWs & hashtags) ❤️‍🔥
- Reduce the prevalence of porn-bot and repost accounts that post without subject consent, without alt-text or CWs, engage in hashtag spam, and lower the safety / enjoyment of folx on Fedi 🚫
- Engage positively with the community and generally be wholesome-ish 😉

How will we do it?
- With well-vetted human volunteers.
- By leading by example.
- With the help if the community.

What do we need?
- An ideal instance to host us.
- An effort to make the Fediverse a better place.
- Volunteers (of which we already have several).

Thoughts on all of this?

Update: It's Alive!!! @AltAfterDark

#NSFW #AltText #HallOfFame #AskFedi

A bisexually lit neon profile pic, sporting the text "Alt After Dark" in a sexy script. The "A" in "ALT" has little horns and a wavy tail.
A dark purple-black banner image with the text "Accessibility is Hot AF". "Accessibility" is in blue neon block lettering with red horns above the "AC", while the rest of the text is in reddish-pink neon script. There's a little devil tail underlining the "AF", and a purple kiss to the right of it.
#askfedi #nsfw #AltText #accessibilityishotaf #halloffame @Alt Text Hall of Fame @AltAfterDark
This entry was edited (6 months ago)

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#AudioMo Day 12 (because I haven't been bothering to actually label these with the day, for some reason:

On the late afternoon of August 5, 2010, we had quite a thunderstorm, during which, an ice cream van was driving around the neighborhood playing Christmas tunes. Someone didn't get the memo, I guess.

When it played 'Silent Night' during this very not silent thunderstorm, I kind of lost it. I can even be heard in this recording attempting to suppress my having lost it, before running away and closing the door, so I could bust out laughing somewhere else, and not mess up the recording.

This was produced with an Olympus DM-520 connected to an Audio Technica AT-822 single-point stereo microphone hanging out of a bathroom window. As I recall, the positioning of the microphone was not optimal, so I did some re-processing of the stereo image.


#audiomo

mastodon - Link to source
So, for Lexi's Audio Shit Fest, part6, i have decided to relive a moment of my childhood! Hear goes nothing! For sum context, i used Talking Typer from the American Printing House For The Blind, growing up as a kid, and going into my early teenage years! This peace of software did really have an impact on my life, dispite me at the time as a middle schooler, not thinking that. I detested this program, and it took me over five years, to realize how important it is for people, no matter what disability they had, at least have typing skills, especially in today's society. I need to say, i made the first few errors on accident, as i did not realize my capslock was on. Sorry guies. Anyways, thanks for enjoying Lexi's Audio Shit Fest!

in reply to Devin Prater :blind:

mastodon - Link to source

Zach Bennoui

It’s funny, was just talking with @gallagher123123 about this the other day. I know several years back, like macOS lion, mountain lion, etc, Apple did have midi playback capability in QuickTime and they used a very similar synth. It’s originally from Roland, and I think they licensed it to both Microsoft and Apple, but they each sound a little different. It’s still in macOS today, but playing back midi files isn’t natively supported anymore.
@Cullen Gallagher
in reply to Zach Bennoui

mastodon - Link to source

Mohamed Al-Hajamy 💾

It's a Sound Canvas sound set. Mostly low quality samples from the SC-55, but it also includes SC-88 and 88Pro samples for some instruments. Roland licensed that particular sound set to a lot of companies in the 90s, including Microsoft and Apple, and Roland's old Virtual Sound Canvas is essentially an updated version of it. From what I remember of Apple's gm.dls, it's smaller than Microsoft's copy by about 2 mb, and also didn't work properly with GS Wavetable for some reason.
This entry was edited (6 months ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Join us for our next webinar this coming Tuesday, June 17 at 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Learn about the newest BT Speak update and interact with the Blazie Technologies team to ask questions and provide feedback.
The webinar will be recorded and made available on our Web site.

Join Zoom Meeting
us02web.zoom.us/j/88169545278?…

Meeting ID: 881 6954 5278
Passcode: 344260

One tap mobile
+13017158592,,88169545278#,,,,*344260# US (Washington DC)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

Join Zoom Meeting
us02web.zoom.us/j/88169545278?…

Meeting ID: 881 6954 5278
Passcode: 344260

One tap mobile
+13017158592,,88169545278#,,,,*344260# US (Washington DC)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
#BTSpeak
DG


Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.
Zoom
#btspeak

mastodon - Link to source
The biggest scandal in AI energy usage right now deserves to be the xAI data center running on 35 methane gas turbines that don't need air permits because they are "temporary" and don't have catalytic reduction pollution controls installed because... they just didn't bother?
simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/12/…

‘How come I can’t breathe?’: Musk’s data company draws a backlash in Memphis

The biggest environmental scandal in AI right now should be the xAI data center in Memphis, which has been running for nearly a year on 35 methane gas turbines under …
Simon Willison’s Weblog

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#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today with 15 updated and 1 added apps:

* Alternate: a privacy-focused app that helps you identify unknown callers without cluttering your device's main contact list 🛡️

16 builds passed RB today, which matches that number 🤩 Current RB status: 620 apps (47.3%)

Enjoy your #free #android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo :awesome:


IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).
IzzyOnDroid App Repo
#android #free #apps #AndroidAppRain #izzyondroid

mastodon - Link to source
Po dotazech na nějaké možnosti předplatného na @oscloud jsme s @archos otevřeli možnost si udělat předplatné na naše super-hyper služby (web.oscloud.cz).
Samozřejmě jsme si oba hned předplatili.
A já se ptám, nejsme vemena, že si sami sobě platíme předplatné každý z vlastní karty na PayPal účet? 🤣

OSCLOUD – opensource komunita sobě – Vítejte ve světě OpenSource

web.oscloud.cz
@Archos @Oscloud

hometown - Link to source

"After decades as the world’s largest oil importer, the United States has emerged as its leading exporter of oil and gas. Since then, the country has begun to behave less like a liberal hegemon and more like a classic petrostate."

foreignaffairs.com/united-stat…


Petrostate America: The Downsides of Energy Independence

The downsides of energy independence.
Michael L. Ross and Erik Voeten (Foreign Affairs Magazine)

mastodon - Link to source
a new thing we're about to launch: a self-service support center where you can get step-by-step interactive troubleshooting guides to solve common problems, or enter the required data for common support issues in a structured way. the engine for this was custom developed by @ailurux. some illustrations by @holo_memory
@ailurux @holo//memory

sharkey - Link to source
I think one of the reasons that Windows phones didn't catch on is just the lack of apps. They introduced it too late; everyone was developing for iOS or Android. I remember liking some features of my Windows phone, mainly the launcher itself. It was nice being able to have what was essentially the Windows 8 start menu and picking what size icons I wanted for each app. The UI was kinda a gimmick. I have a love and hate relationship with the metro style. For some apps it absolutely makes sense... for others though? It just felt kinda square and clunky.

internal code name of a typography-based design language

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)

mastodon - Link to source

#deltachat is secure against server-side group membership changes but for a very different reason than #signal which keeps encrypted group membership data in a central store.

Delta Chat has _no_ central store but implements a rigidly tested #p2p group membership model where servers play no role github.com/chatmail/models/tre…

Both signal and delta chat are safe against recently published attacks against #whatsapp that can add members to chats, breaking end to end encryption. arstechnica.com/security/2025/…


WhatsApp provides no cryptographic management for group messages

The weakness creates the possibility of an insider or hacker adding rogue members.
Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)
#signal #whatsapp #p2p #deltachat

mastodon - Link to source

We’ve just released our take on some of the new features presented during the WWDC 2025 Keynote. In addition, we dive into many features not covered in the keynote—things you can expect with the upcoming OS 26 release this fall, including extra accessibility improvements that weren’t mentioned during the GAAD announcements.

We wanted to offer our listeners something fresh since there are so many podcasts already covering WWDC 2025. We hope you enjoy this format, as we explore a lot more than just the keynote highlights.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this approach and whether you’d like to see it continued for future Apple Keynote coverage.

applevis.com/podcasts/applevis…

AppleVis Extra 108: Recapping WWDC 2025 and Exploring OS 26 & Apple Intelligence | AppleVis

In this episode of the AppleVis Extra podcast, host David Mason is joined by Thomas Domville, Tyler Stephen, and newcomer Levi Gobin to unpack everything announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
applevis.com
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You can now download an accessible PDF version of our latest BT Speak users' manual which provides full heading navigation.
It’s available on our Web site’s Guides and Media page.
blazietech.com/guides-and-medi…

Guides & Media | Blazie Technologies

Blazie Technologies engineers premium computers for the Blind. Check out our latest media, podcasts, and demos of the BT Speak pocket computer.
Blazie Technologies

wordpress - Link to source

První měsíce s elektroautem: Dojezd, reálné náklady a nabíjení z fotovoltaiky v praxi

Jsou to už dva měsíce, co jsem dovezl naše první elektroauto z Německa. Obligátní test v podobě cesty od Chorvatska jsem s ním neabsolvoval, ale i tak jsem za tu dobu načerpal docela dost poznatků. Jaký je reálný dojezd a stačí v praxi? Jak funguje nabíjení na veřejných nabíječkách a jak naopak doma v kombinaci s fotovoltaikou? Jak se s elektroautem jezdí a jaké jsou jeho skutečné náklady? Na to se pokusím v článku odpovědět.

#Audi #elektroauto #fotovoltaika

blog.eischmann.cz/2025/06/12/p…
(reakce na tento příspěvek se může zobrazit jako komentář pod článkem)

První měsíce s elektroautem: Dojezd, reálné náklady a nabíjení z fotovoltaiky v praxi

Sesivany's blog
#audi #fotovoltaika #elektroauto

mastodon - Link to source
Turns out I was on the right track all along, but it was just *one line* that needed modification, and not many as I of course did by overthinking it. Go figure. nevertheless, Dectalk for NVDA 2025.1 is ready. wormhole.app/z9jkdy#R2DrSeeMIG…

Wormhole - Simple, private file sharing

Wormhole lets you share files with end-to-end encryption and a link that automatically expires.
Wormhole

mastodon - Link to source
How was the wheel invented? Computer simulations reveal the unlikely birth of a world-changing technology nearly 6,000 years ago
"...To begin our investigation, we created a computer program designed to simulate the evolution from a roller to a wheel. "
theconversation.com/how-was-th…

How was the wheel invented? Computer simulations reveal the unlikely birth of a world-changing technology nearly 6,000 years ago

People have long assumed that wheels evolved from simple wooden rollers. But how? And why? A new model focused on mechanical advantage and structural strength suggests some answers.
The Conversation

mastodon - Link to source

Steven Bonk: “When Canadians provide their personal information to political parties, whether signing up for a newsletter, attending a town hall or simply expressing support, they are placing trust in us. They expect that information to be treated with care, confidentiality and respect. When that expectation is not met, the harm is not just legal or administrative. It is democratic.”
#canpoli #privacy

michaelgeist.ca/2025/06/govern…


Government Remains Silent as it Eviscerates Political Party Privacy in Canada By Fast Tracking Bill C-4 - Michael Geist

The government is moving to eviscerate political party privacy in Canada as it fast tracks Bill C-4, proposed legislation framed as implementing affordability measures, but which also exempts political parties from the application of privacy protecti…
Michael Geist
#privacy #canpoli

mastodon - Link to source

Ever received an email with hundreds addresses in CC, including yours?

Send them this guide so they learn why they should use BCC! 😎 #privacy

👉 tuta.com/blog/what-is-cc-and-b…

Screenshot of Tuta Mail on a phones with CC and BCC fields highlighted

What is CC and BCC in email? The basics of mail explained. | Tuta

We all know who the To recipient is, but what do CC and BCC in email really mean? And who can see the email recipients in these fields? Find out in this part of our series on the basics of email.
Tuta
#privacy

mastodon - Link to source

🗓️ There are 4 days left to contribute to the crowdfunding campaign for the #PeerTube mobile app and help us to reach the next goal!

Every contribution helps us build a world where everyone can use PeerTube from anywhere!

👉 support.joinpeertube.org

#crowdfunding #mobile #app #FLOSS #FOSS #FreeSoftware #OpenSource


Soutenir PeerTube

Popularisons les vidéos partagées par les humain⋅es pour les humain⋅es !
support.joinpeertube.org
#FreeSoftware #foss #app #opensource #mobile #floss #peertube #crowdfunding

mastodon - Link to source

"The future we want needs to be invented; otherwise we will get one we don't want."​ — Joseph Beuys

Who protects the commons? Who shapes the future? Who acts in the service of life - for people, the planet and the public interest?

These are important challenges from - nextlearning.eu/

Inspire. Support. Enable. - nextlearning e. V.

nextlearning e. V. is a non-profit organization that creates learning spaces for transformation. We combine education, innovation, and cooperation in the spirit of the common good.
www.nextlearning.eu

mastodon - Link to source
Government Remains Silent as it Eviscerates Political Party Privacy in Canada By Fast Tracking Bill C-4
michaelgeist.ca/2025/06/govern…

Government Remains Silent as it Eviscerates Political Party Privacy in Canada By Fast Tracking Bill C-4 - Michael Geist

The government is moving to eviscerate political party privacy in Canada as it fast tracks Bill C-4, proposed legislation framed as implementing affordability measures, but which also exempts political parties from the application of privacy protecti…
Michael Geist
in reply to Jakob Rosin

mastodon - Link to source

Zach Bennoui

@cachondo @kevinrj @FreakyFwoof Oh really, that’s interesting. Just a bit about how this is working under the hood for people that might be curious. I believe it’s using a language model to synthesize the speech rather than the older neural approaches used by personal voice up until recently. This is the same technology 11 labs, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are using. That’s why it sounds so good and you don’t need to provide as much training data. To my knowledge, this is the first time an LM based TTS system has been deployed for screen reader use, and I’m wondering if later on in the beta cycle they will add the newer Siri voices that are based on the same technology. It sounds really good, and you didn’t mention this during the demonstration, but the voice breathes as well at punctuation marks.
@Kevin R Jones @Sean Randall @Andre Louis

mastodon - Link to source
Včera jsem si v HA všiml, že teplota střídače okolo poledne a vyšší dodávce leze celkem vysoko. Večer jsem vytisknul držák a namontoval do něj zkusmo dva 80 mm ventilátory. Ráno jsem to zapnul a rozdíl dnešní teploty oproti včerejší je celkem markantní. Spotřeba hodně podobná, jen ještě víc svítí. Takže to aktivní chlazení dodělám napořád, jen to musím zautomatizovat podle teploty, termostat objednán, zítra budeme bastlit 😋
in reply to Armin Ronacher

mastodon - Link to source

Matt Campbell

Even if I didn't share @glyph's ethical concerns, reading your latest follow-up (lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/6/12/age…), plus your post here about generating 12K lines of code in 2 days, is enough to convince me not to jump on the "agentic coding" bandwagon. I still want to do more with less code, through powerful languages and libraries, not use an inscrutable tool to crank out large amounts of rote code, which means more to review and more places for bugs to hide.

Agentic Coding Recommendations

Current recommendations of agentic coding.
Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
@Glyph

mastodon - Link to source

London-bound passenger plane carrying 242 people crashes after take-off in India

bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z9…

—A heavily loaded 787-9 with full fuel tanks crashed into a residential area in Ahmedabad. Looking at the photos, the death toll will almost certainly include people on the ground—a 787-9 carries up to 126,000 litres of fuel (over 100 tonnes), and this one was scheduled to fly over half its maximum range, so had at least 50 tonnes of fuel on board.


Air India crash latest: London-bound passenger plane carrying 242 people crashes after take-off in India

Air India says 169 Indian nationals and 53 Britons were among those on board the flight bound for Gatwick.
BBC News
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