Reminder: today (June 16) is the last day to submit comments opposing the federal government's attempt to axe accessibility requirements for public buildings: regulations.gov/commenton/DOE-…
Listen up Mastodonians, because this is important:
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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled ... was convincing internet communities to switch from email lists / IRC / another open standard to Slack / Discord. The latest example of a “it's only free while we say it's free" is CNCF’s / Kubernetes's Slack - github.com/kubernetes/communit… - who it appears have *4 days* to backup their history (for a server with 100,000s of users)
Neither Slack nor Discord are reasonable, serious, professional, options for open community discussion. They are either too expensive, and/or involve inappropriate advertising. And who knows when Discord will start pulling this kind of behaviour, too, requiring large communities to pay?
The problem is today when anyone says "can't we just use an email list?" they are pooh-pooh'ed as being horribly out of touch. Hence why even the linked FAQ describes Discord as the only likely exit plan for Kubernetes. What a mess.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing FOSS project owners that they need no stinkin' product managers or UX designers.
People choose Discord / Slack for a reason. Until we understand and address that reason, it's just going to be an endless string of such platforms, one after another.
If we had a single, cross-platform app for group messaging that was super reliable, had all the same features and was just as easy to use, this wouldn't be a problem.
the mods are still part of a hivemind and they'll give you temp bans for things that don't break the rules but they just disagree with, at least that's what I experienced before I deleted my account around 2018 or whatever
@feld hacker news has stupid-ish moderation too but they try to be evenhanded, its main weakness is that you can't respond appropriately harshly to someone who acts terrible to you but they say it eruditely
David Chisnall made a really great points about copyleft licenses and how Google's recent actions with Android are the inevitable result:
> It’s deeply unfortunate that so many developers still believe in the magical powers of copyleft licenses in spite of decades of evidence of their failure. They have somehow missed the fact that a company that pays the majority of developers who understand a non-trivial codebase can exercise control and that forking is rarely feasible unless those developers choose to join the fork (AGPLv3 is increasingly the go-to license for companies that want to exert control over their ecosystem). They have missed the fact that complex legal documents favour people with expensive lawyers and so big companies can routinely get away with things that small companies wouldn’t do because they can’t afford the legal fees, so copyleft favours monopolies. They have missed the fact that contracts don’t ever enforce behaviour, they codify agreed behaviour. If you try to enforce behaviour via contracts then humans immediately start looking for loopholes and you cannot write a loophole-free contract.
and later:
> A true free software system is one that empowers users. This means that it will expose every aspect of the system to end-user modification (this is my main motivator for CHERI: to provide the lowest-level building block for doing this safely and securely). In such a world, users will extend things naturally and will want to share some of their extensions for interoperability. In a proprietary software world, you have three categories of thing:
> Programs, which are siloed worlds. Plugins, which have access to some low-level details of the program and may extend it, but only in ways blessed by the owners of the program. Documents, which are created by users. They may embed scripts to extend the program, but in a very narrow way. In a Free Software system, there is no such distinction. An end user can create a document that extends the system in arbitrary ways. But in a GPL’d world, that is hard because a document is, due to the fact everything in the program is exposed, a derived work of the program. Any document that extends a program is covered by the terms of the GPL. You can’t share it under an NDA and end users have a bunch of other legal restrictions that they must abide by. Rather than creating incentives that encourage people to extend the system and share their improvements, you’ve created legal liability for them if they do.
> We had problems with QEMU being GPL’d because we couldn’t share QEMU implementations of unreleased Arm specs where the spec was under NDA without violating the GPL. If those limitations applied to everything created by a normal user, it would be a disaster. And you can’t say ‘documents are different, they are outputs of the program and so not covered by the GPL’ without also saying ‘documents do not have the ability to arbitrarily extend the underlying system’, which means you are throwing away the thing that should be the key selling point of Free Software: it works for you, it is easy to modify it to make it do what you want, not what some corporation thinks they can use to best extract rent from you.
> Things like the LGPL create a two worlds problem. If you write code in a program under the GPL, it’s extended and refactored by other people, and then after a while it’s generic enough that it belongs in a library, you need everyone to agree to change the license. And this mindset comes from internalising software development models that came from proprietary software.
> Conway’s Law talks about systems reflecting the structure of the org chart, but it goes deeper. Program structures reflect the socioeconomic system that is developing them. Free Software will always struggle as an idea as long as it is building systems that reflect the COTS proprietary software models of how software works because those models are explicitly designed to empower the owners at the expense of the users. Telling users ‘we grant you freedom to give up control to this priesthood of programmers instead of to this corporation’ is not a selling point for most users (it can be for governments and big companies, who can afford to employ the priests).
> If you really want Free Software to be the dominant model for how computers work (I do) then you need to build the kinds of things that cannot be done in the proprietary world because they give away too much control and are hard to monetise via rent extraction. This means modular systems where each module is understandable by a single person, end-user programming systems that allow real changes to the underlying systems, an easy flow of code between things users write and the underlying system (in both directions), and so on.
Matrix is open source company chat aaand it's no longer a viable alternative
"the fact that Matrix was accompanied by a for-profit entity, funded by venture capital was the biggest mistake that Matrix as a project has ever made.
Hartgen Consultancy is very glad to support the below initiative. As part of the ACB Convention, BITS are offering a groundbreaking AI Training Course, designed to empower blind and low vision individuals with the tools, knowledge, and hands-on practice to confidently navigate and leverage artificial intelligence in everyday life, work, and beyond. This course is designed for all skill levels and will cover the practical use of AI tools including ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Zoom AI, and more. Whether you're attending virtually or in person at the ACB National Convention, you’ll gain access to real-world training tailored for accessibility and productivity.
BITS Members (Virtual): Just $50 for full access, including daily recordings from the live sessions and support throughout the week Non-Members (Virtual): $70 for full access, including recordings and ongoing support In-Person at ACB Convention: $75 flat rate — open to all, regardless of BITS membership Not yet a member? Apply today at: www.joinbits.org/join If you're attending the ACB convention in person, log in to the ACB Members Portal at members.acb.org and be sure to add the BITS AI Training Course to your registration. Note for In-Person Participants: You must bring your own laptop to fully participate in the course. Accessibility tools and software will be used throughout the training.
What You’ll Learn How to use ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Zoom AI for work and life Ways AI can support independent living, writing, communication, navigation, and creativity AI productivity with screen readers, voice assistants, and mobile apps Use cases tailored for blind and low vision users—no experience required
Special Note: We are honored to welcome Microsoft staff, who will join us to help facilitate in-depth discussions on Microsoft Copilot and showcase how their AI innovations are opening new doors to independence, productivity, and possibility.
Optional Developer Track – Wednesday Evening For students interested in creating their own tools and exploring the development side of AI, a special optional developer track will be offered on Wednesday evening at convention. This session will jump start your journey into building with AI, focusing on Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot, and other development tools. It’s a hands-on, empowering opportunity to discover how AI can amplify your coding and innovation potential.
Bonus for JAWS Users – Register by June 17 All students who register by June 17 and who are JAWS users will receive access to an extended LEASEY trial, generously provided by its developer, Brian Hartgen. For those registering through the ACB Members Portal ( members.acb.org ), we will reach out to collect your JAWS serial number after your registration is confirmed to ensure your LEASEY trial is activated.
A Heartfelt Thank You We are sincerely honored that Brian Hartgen, the visionary behind LEASEY and other accessibility tools, is partnering with BITS for this innovative course. Brian’s support brings unmatched value and inspiration to our learning journey. Thank you, Brian, for continuing to lead the way in making advanced technology accessible to all.
Podle mě je prasárna, že někdo schválí takhle ouzkej chodník. Kdyby byl širší, tak ty auta budou parkovat stejně ale zároveň chodec i s (dvou)kočárkem projde
@schmaker Na šířku chodníků se v Praze nehledí. Ještě víc totiž nadávám tady na ten chodník. Tady bejval úzkej železniční most. Při reknostrukci tratě most zbourali, postavili mnohem delší, ale chodník pod ním vyasfaltovali v původní stopě. A ten zbytek vysypali kamením tak velkým, že se po něm nedá chodit. Chodník, kde se dva chodci proti sobě nevyhnou. 🤦♂️ Nadávám tu několikrát týdně cestou do Lidlu. Na druhý straně je chodník širší, ale zas tu dál není kde přejít tu rušnou silnici.
Uf to mě to sejří... To jsem zas pustil páru na socky, sorry...
My @igalia colleague Luís Henriques has just published a very interesting post about the work he has been doing lately in the Linux #kernel about #FUSE over #io_uring.
A spectacular win by Dan Evans to kick off the winning British streak men's at the Queen's Club today. all eyes on our second Brit of the afternoon. Come on Cam!
Beyerdynamic wird an chinesische Investoren verkauft 😢
Wer noch keinen dt770 pro hat: Jetzt noch zuschlagen - besser wird's nicht mehr.
Und es schadet vielleicht auch nicht, sich ein paar Ersatzteile auf Lager zu bestellen. Irgendwie kann ich mir nicht vorstellen, dass die Versorgung mit Ersatzteilen so weitergehen wird...
#younggiftedblack #ninasimone"To Be Young, Gifted & Black" performed by @NinaSimoneMusic (includes interview)Recording session: Live at @MorehouseCollege in...
Join us in Budapest and tell us what you’re doing with LibreOffice! The Document Foundation invites all members and contributors to submit talks, presentations and workshops for this year’s LibreOffice conference in Budapest at ELTE’s Faculty of Info…
Excuse me, please. Why in #hungary, #budapest? Why is this conference happening in a country thats the lease FREE country within #europe? This is not right! …
We're proud to announce a new stable release of Mixxx: version 2.5.2! This version contains updates and fixes for some issues reported by users. We'd like to thank all users for giving feedback as we would like to emphasize once again the importance of testing. Please join our testing-force. This update also contains updates to controller-mappings and improvements in the building procedures. Have a nice #Mixxx.
Download the most advanced FREE DJ software available, featuring iTunes integration, MIDI controller support, internet broadcasting, and integrated music library.
I switched from FireFox to LibreWolf and I've been recommending it to friends. It's a custom fork of FireFox, but with the most important privacy and security settings already built-in / enabled. It's got uBlockOrigin already installed and by default uses a privacy-focused search engine.
I think this kind of setup makes for a better browser experience, as it immediately protects the user while still giving the user the option to disable things to better tailor to their security and privacy posture. Other browsers tend to do this the other way around.
It's probably wise to note here some caution before using LibreWolf as one's default browser. Some sites don't function well with the "Enhanced Tracking Protection" (ETP) feature enabled for them. Issues surrounding this may appear as login pages that don't load or timestamps on webpages that are in UTC instead of your local timezone. This has only appeared on a handful of websites, but they do tend to be popular sites. Generally a quick-fix is to just add the site to the exception list for ETP, but a safer but more time-intensive way might be to try to figure out whether the data the site needs can be spoofed or specifically allowed instead.
I was curious if you checked out Vivaldi at all? I"ve been using it for a while on both windows and linux. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it seems secure. There are some bits that are not open source, but other then FireFox, most privacy browsers have a bit of hidden code. I'd value your input on this.
android's dominance may not be declining. and recent events suggest, google is locking android further. basically closing pixel's hardware related code.
I actually appreciate Google's services, especially YouTube and Google Docs, and I have a Pixel phone. But the search has become shallow, lazy and over-commodified, and Chrome has lost whatever luster it once had, by pushing AI too hard among other trends towards enshittification. But they kissed the least of DJT's ass of all the major tech corporations (though they did kiss some). Really, it's independent media on YouTube that keeps me on team Google.
#VivaldiBrowser Has a good #privacypolicy, is #European, and is 95% #FOSS. It removes the #googlecrap from the #Chromium code before using it in their #browser Also, it lets adding blocking sources and tweaking them, which is a must-have since their ad blocking is no the greatest, THB.
It has an overall good balance between privacy and functionality, and this is why I believe it should be added in the list.
Correct me if i am wrong. I think those stats only count search APIs. So DuckDuckGo, for example, that uses both Google and Bing would count as Google and Bing searches. That's the case for many of those alternatives, cos they don't have the resources to make their own real search engine. Apparently Qwant and Ecosia are working on a new search API, so that's great news.
I've been using #DuckDuckGo for the past decade, only relying on Google during work related situations. Recently found #Ecosia as well. A pretty good 1-2 punch.
@Tutanota, for me the best is Vivaldi as main Browser, apart of the most feature rich one out there by far, it has a great company ethic respect the user, good privacy and a great helpfull community, and it is an Browser from the EU which is on eye level to the US browsers.
I think in the current situation it is very recommended to promote EU products and services to gain sovereignity against the US hegemony, and same as using Tuta or Proton, also in browsers it gains importance.
Sadly, apart of Vivaldi, there are only two other Browsers from the EU, Mullvad, very private but somewhat basic in other features and Konqueror by KDE which is for Linux only.
I post this just to show how I wanted to reply to the last post in the conversation from the screenshot, but I couldn't because @Azarilh blocked me.
“I admit this If this would happen (which I really hope will not) I will stay with #VivaldiBrowser for as much as it would be able to survive, and then move to a #GeckoBrowserEngine-based #browser. After all, #Chromium doesn't invade my #privacy, as #Bing, #Google, #Yahoo etc. do.”
Important reminder! If you plan to participate in the 2025 ACB Conference and Convention, the deadline to register is Tuesday, June 17, at 11:59 PM Central time. Register online at members.acb.org or by phone at 651-428-5059. For more information about this year’s event, visit acbconvention.org.
@podfeet interviews Celeste D’Costa from Imaginable Solutions about their Guided Hands assistive device that enables anyone with limited fine motor skills to write, paint, draw, and access technology. #a11y #CSUN2025podfeet.com/blog/2025/06/csun-…
Allison interviews Celeste D’Costa from Imaginable Solutions about their Guided Hands assistive device for people with limited hand mobility. The device enables anyone with limited fine motor skills to write, paint, draw, and access technology.
About the Open Source Accessibility Summit The Open Source Accessibility Summit will be a one-day in-person event that brings together members of the disability, accessibility, and open source communities to define a roadmap for improving the accessi…
LibreOffice isn't just an app – it's a worldwide community of people who work on code, documentation, QA, design, marketing and more. Meet us at local events, like recently in northern Italy: blog.documentfoundation.org/bl… #foss #OpenSource
Marco Marega writes: Hi, I’m Marco, an Italian translator and Member of The Document Foundation. Twice a year I take part in an event in Pordenone to promote LibreOffice within the stand “Linux Arena” of the PNLUG Linux User Group.
Yeah, but most people just want productivity software that lets them get their work done with the minimum of fuss or interruptions/notifications, or doesn't apply weird, idiosyncratic formatting that gets scrambled when you copy & paste it to somewhere, e.g. web page text editor.
LibreOffice is my favourite for making my life easier.
@lindarosesmit Hi! Without any details (such as your operating system) it's hard for us to say. Please let us know details about your setup, and then we can help!
@lindarosesmit On the Download page, please make sure you are choosing the right version for your Mac -- Intel or Apple Silicon. The latter is the default, but if you have an Intel Mac, you will need to choose the Intel version.
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.
#AudioMo Day 16: In December of 2013 I visited #Estonia to go and visit @jakobrosin for the first time. I decided to record as much of the plane-flight from the baggage hold as I could manage, so I set my Olympus LS-100 going, attached some mics to the suitcase straps internally and sent it on it's way. Here, we have 9 minutes of what I like to call 'Ethereal Suitcase Music' as it wends it's merry way from baggage check-in to the plane. Listen for the really strange and as yet unidentified noises the recorder captured at points along it's journey. If you have any ideas what these might be, I'd be very curious. I've been waiting for over 11 years to find out.
The various frequencies of the various motors or whatever are just wild. A couple of times, I genuinely wondered whether you'd mixed in some eerie new-age music just to screw with us, haha.
So, this time, i caught NVDA crashing, the same way it did yesterday, and it played an eror sound. I was curious to see if it would do it again, and right be for i hit record, it did. That time, it had no problem recovering, but i decided to leave Vertual Recorder open, to see if i can capture erors. I was in the interface of my Mastodon clyant, TWBlue browsing threw my home timeline as i usually do. About three minutes in, i heard an eror sound, and it stoped speaking intirely! It took me time to get Narrator up, so i can at least restart NVDA threw Task Manager. @NVAccess, hears what happened on my end. And guies, please don't take this as an attack, i just want this issue to be fixed. Thank you, for trying to help me yesterday, and i hope this can help bring foard a solution. Aside from this, i really do like NVDA's new features, and i support the project.
an audio recording is not of much use for debugging. You really want to send someone your NVDA Log to see what's going on. :) If you know where a crash is going to happen you can press NVDA+control+shift+f1 to mark the start of the log to capture, then press it when NVDA recovers to copy that part of your log to the clipboard.
@cachondo I have no idea how to retreave the loggs. Right now, i'm kind of asking myself, what was i thinking, trying that again. I was yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs, because, i couldn't go upstairs, to grabb my USB, that has 2024.1 on it. I think i'm just gonna pretend this never happened, and delete the portable coppy. That was not pleasant at all.
I explained how to get part of a log on your clipboard in my previous post. You can read about the NVDA log viewer in the user guide though, if you want to know more (it's section 15.1), or simply just send someone a copy of the log at %temp%\nvda.log That file is re-written each time you restart NVDA. If you need to send someone a copy of the previous log, that is, the one that was generated by the version of NVDA that started before the one you're currently using, you'll want to send %temp%\nvda-old.log instead.
If NVDA hangs but doesn't crash, it'll be the active log you need. if NVDA dies completely and you have to restart it, it'd be the older log.
I find I have to pres ctrl+alt+n to restart on very rare occasions but, when I do, it always pops up fresh and happy. Sometimes I need a system reboot, particularly when explorer or shell extensions go wrong. I guess you might expect a few more stability issues with SAPI rather than an addon, where the synthesis logic is all internal to the screen reader rather than hooking outside sources. Very fast event-driven text to speech will result in a lot of very quick communication between the processes, after all.
When it recovered, it was back on my main coppy. I had to kill the process in Task Manager. I would have never been able to get the logg, if i had to force kill it, and the main coppy started up. I couldn't even use the screenreader, making things a lot harder than they should have been. In retrospect, maybe trying that was not such a good idea. BTW, i had to use Narrator to get to task manager, and kill the process.
Thanks for helping investigate and troubleshoot - can you please send us your nvda.log & nvda-old.log files to us at info@nvaccess.org? They will include whatever that error was which was logged.
there's a big problem with that. To put it lightly, the screen reader was unusable. I had to use narrator to get to the task manager, kill that NVDA process. Unfortunately, there is probably no Logg at all, and if there is if you can tell me where it is in a directory, I can see if I can find it. Whatever this is seems to be dependent on the severity. Sometimes, it can recover easily, but this time for some reason it took me over 10 minutes to figure out how to kill the bad process, and restart on my main copy. Thankfully, I never installed the update for my main copy, because, I don't know how much worse the crash would have been.
Since i'm on my laptop, let me correct my bad phone'serrors.
If you press windows+e to open explorer, then alt+d to go to the address bar. Type %temp% (note the percent signs either side of the word temp) and press enter. In THAT directory are the nvda log files - nvda.log for the currently running or most recently running instance, nvda-old.log for the one before that, and also nvda_crash.dmp if NVDA itself has crashed. Please email those to us.
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![[top image] an eu07 loco looking like it's licking a lemon
[bottom image] a photo of eu07 after a recent crash, with its eyes going inwards](https://fedi.ml/photo/preview/640/677666 "[top image] an eu07 loco looking like it's licking a lemon
[bottom image] a photo of eu07 after a recent crash, with its eyes going inwards")
miki
in reply to Mike Roberts • • •The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing FOSS project owners that they need no stinkin' product managers or UX designers.
People choose Discord / Slack for a reason. Until we understand and address that reason, it's just going to be an endless string of such platforms, one after another.
If we had a single, cross-platform app for group messaging that was super reliable, had all the same features and was just as easy to use, this wouldn't be a problem.
feld
in reply to Mike Roberts • • •