If you're helping people sign up on here, that's great! 👏

However, I'd strongly suggest not signing up on the mastodon.social server. It's way way too large and that's dangerous (here's why fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-ide…).

I know some find choice overwhelming, so if you just want one general long-established very busy server mas.to is a better option for example.

There are also lots of other good servers listed at fedi.garden and joinmastodon.org/servers

in reply to Fedi.Tips

FWIW I'm reasonably sure Facebook never supported XMPP federation. They supported logging in via XMPP with a regular XMPP client (c2s) but they didn't support s2s. Meaning you could only chat with other Facebook users.

GTalk had federation and it was somewhat bad when they shut that down. But I don't remember Facebook's XMPP access being very relevant for the larger ecosystem.

I just had to uninstall vipre advanced security because sometimes when I would reboot the computer, my whole internet on my desktop wasn't connected. I would reboot, and it would fix its self, and then if I had to reboot again, it would break my internet again. I don't have time to try to figure out why in the sam hell it would break my internet that bad. I did try turning the firewall off, checking for internet, and there was nothing, and turning it back on, and still nothing. sometimes when I would go check, it was already turned off, but I had no internet at all on my desktop. That was fun while it lasted, but I am not paying for something that decided to sometimes cause me to have absolutely no internet access when I reboot the computer. back to microsoft defender I go I guess.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Darrell Bowles

@vol4life8657 @lino_jr yeah avast is not a bad option actually. I think that the smart scan thing can also be disabled in it, and you do have a lot of control. Who knows, might switch, not like I don't have 30 days to cancel this one. Well now like 28. LOL. Still, I got tired of Defender's inability to customize scan schedule and what happens for so-called "catch-up scans." Like when a scan is interrupted in the background by a reboot and then what. I don't want it continuing then, I want it to restart the full scan. things like that I need perfect LOL

We are alarmed as well. If you are in Germany, write to your representatives. You'll find the email addresses here: 👉 tuta.com/blog/chat-control-cri…

Pitermach reshared this.

I've tried all the new-fangled web design apps, and I’ve decided to stick with building with raw JS, HTML, and (S)CSS. There's just no need in most cases for all the cruft those apps generate. These days you don't even need big JS/CSS libraries for most things. I can make the same page 1/10th (or less) of the size of what visual web dsign apps are going to make.

I don't want to sound curmudgeonly about it, but I think these apps are making the web a little worse. It's starting to feel like we're back in the Dreamweaver days.

So sorry to say this, but NVDA's new on-device image captioning (introduced in today’s alphas) is consistently unreliable and basically useless. I get the security concerns behind keeping it on-device, but the model has to be useful to be viable.
Here’s an example. I tested an image, and NVDA gave me this short, irrelevant description:
“A blue and white sign that is on a blue wall.”
Meanwhile, Be My Eyes AI gave me this:
“Two hikers standing on a rocky, mountainous trail with a dry and rugged landscape in the background. The person on the left is wearing a red and black jacket, green pants, sunglasses, and a grey backpack. The person on the right is wearing a blue long-sleeve shirt, dark pants, sunglasses, a patterned bandana, and is holding a hiking pole, also carrying a backpack. Both are standing next to a pink metal sign written in Persian (Farsi) script. The sky is partly cloudy, and the surrounding mountains stretch into the distance. It appears to be a sunny day.”
@NVAccess

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

in reply to Brandon

@serrebi I mean, you can't run something super powerful without including a bunch of runtimes like ONNX and all that, so perhaps in a way I feel for them, as well as NVDA used so widely across processors that you need to support from N100 low-powered Atom-class to high-class I9 and Rizen 9. For the latter a larger quantized model would not be a bad choice and would do way better in output but then you contend with it not working well if at all on low-CPUs. So glad this is still alpha though we have time to iron these things out. @amir @NVAccess
in reply to Tamas G

I agree. They should support a remote AI , for those of us not concerned as hard about privacy. Obviously don't scan really private stuff, that's a given. I think the main point of the feature is scanning UI, is it that bad at that? I dunno, if you were gonna implament AI at this level, you'd think it would be used for object labeling, etc. I'd look, but I don't want to live without IBMTTS. I'm also kind of concerned that this feature is too early: Like windows might have an official pipeline for using different AI models soon. Why not just use that when it comes out? Maybe that's prognostication, but I'd expect something like that from windows soon.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)

@Edent Hey! More then two years ago, I contacted you to setup an import tool to import all the benches from OpenBenches into OpenStreetMap, but I got stopped by a missing feature in an upstream dependency.

Well, two days ago, they added that feature. And as such, I got a test version out: dev.mapcomplete.org/benches?z=…

I used the database I found on your github, but it is slightly outdated. Can you please create a new dump?

in reply to Terence Eden

Great! I'll update the challenge in the coming days.

The import is setup to add the OpenBench-id into the OSM-object with `openbenches:id`, as described on our wiki: wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ke…

I've asked permission to the community (here community.openstreetmap.org/t/…) to already do an automated edit where all benches in OSM that already have a link to OB, will also receive the data (and images) that are in OB.

You can load+export all OSM-benches with an OB-id with overpass-turbo.eu/s/2cXZ

Mixxx 2.5.3 coming up on Haiku 64bit, we're in the process of finetuning the recipe, but so far things are pretty good.

mixxx.org/

Free and open source DJ software for Windows, macOS, and Linux (and now Haiku too!) :)

@mixxx

#HaikuOS #haikuports #Mixxx #DJ #opensource #software

PR and patch are online atm at: github.com/haikuports/haikupor…

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

There's nothing surprising about Apple removing ICEBlock from the App Store. Much as we might want companies to take moral stands, they're simply not designed to—that's the system we've built for ourselves. sixcolors.com/post/2025/10/app…

I was able to use an extended conversation with an AI chatgpt.com/share/68ded9b1-37d… to help answer a MathOverflow question mathoverflow.net/questions/501… . I had already conducted a theoretical analysis suggesting that the answer to this question was negative, but needed some numerical parameters verifying certain inequalities in order to conclusively build a counterexample. Initially I sought to ask AI to supply Python code to search for a counterexample that I could run and adjust myself, but found that the run time was infeasible and the initial choice of parameters would have made the search doomed to failure anyway. I then switched strategies and instead engaged in a step by step conversation with the AI where it would perform heuristic calculations to locate feasible choices of parameters. Eventually, the AI was able to produce parameters which I could then verify separately (admittedly using Python code supplied by the same AI, but this was a simple 29-line program that I could visually inspect to do what was asked, and also provided numerical values in line with previous heuristic predictions).

Here, the AI tool use was a significant time saver - doing the same task unassisted would likely have required multiple hours of manual code and debugging (the AI was able to use the provided context to spot several mathematical mistakes in my requests, and fix them before generating code). Indeed I would have been very unlikely to even attempt this numerical search without AI assistance (and would have sought a theoretical asymptotic analysis instead).

This entry was edited (1 week ago)

Scene: My typical day.

VIP Customer: Build our new office network/tech/CCTV/PACS/BMS infrastructure, possibly with some server capacity... never know if we need a couple AI rigs.

Me: Okay. It's weird how the building has 5 electrical meters but one tenant, and maybe we should add some EVSEs too.

Cx: Don't worry about the meters thing, and yes, EVSEs are a good idea.

Me to Elechicken: How much power (KVA) can we get out the existing panels? What voltage? What current? (So I can order UPSes & PDUs.)

Elechicken: (getting back to me) Uh, I have to call the electrical safety authority because the building isn't wired properly [no disconnects on 600->208 secondary, times 5]

Cx: MYKE!!! WHAT DID YOU DOOOOOOO?

Brits complaining that they can't engage in protests "against Israel" for one whole weekend after a synagogue was attacked and Jews were killed on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

These protests usually contain calls for violence, antisemitic tropes, antisemitic rhetoric, and many times "just happen" to be outside of Jewish schools, synagogues, inside secluded Jewish neighbourhoods or even Jewish restaurants- never outside the Israeli embassy.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)

lol - lol - lmao

at first I thought this was for the Alto HSR project

nope...it's for the hyperloop-type gadgetbahn thing that's supposedly going to be built between Calgary & Edmonton 😂

best demand payment up front, is all I'm saying

> Algoma Steel will help build high-speed transportation project
sootoday.com/local-news/algoma…

New bookmarklet: WCAG SCs Lookup tool
a11y-tools.com/blog/2025/08/ne…
#a11y #wcag #tools
by @lloydi

Friday.

We've spent days in hospital and the poor wife's had a lot of things going on, but not the things she wants to have going on. Baby is still firmly ensconced.

The house is coming together well though. The first of the sofas appeared yesterday, we put the curtains up this morning and the carpets are all down and lovely underfoot. The window sills have all been painted and varnished, the French doors are sealed and watertight (a good thing with a storm blowing in), and I've just finished re-seating all the electrical wall outlets and light switches now the paint's all dry.

The baby's changing unit remains to be assembled, but the crib and car seat are ready. We just need a baby now.
Daily CTG's are strong. Baby's moving well internally. Things just, have yet to go pop!

in reply to D.Hamlin.Music

@dhamlinmusic not typical, but they wanted to induce labour early due to diabetes. They tried, but before we got to the water-breaking stage there was a mad influx of emergency sections (they've had over 500 deliveries in September). On our second morning there they had 14 cases booked to come in for induction, and 10 of their 10 beds were already full from previous inductees who hadn't moved on.
We've just had the call up now to go in for the Amniotomy in a few hours.
in reply to André Polykanine

"thrice" догадывался, но не был уверен, в ассоциативном массиве нашлось "twice", хотел проверить, но ты опередил. Есть ещё "quintuple" кстати, в своё время услышал от североамериканских хоккейных комментаторов. Тоже наверное не самое часто встречающееся слово.

Inclusive Design 24 (#id24) 2025 was last week. Here's the playlist on YouTube: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn7…
#inclusiveDesign #webdesign #a11y #UIDesign #accessibility