mastodon - Link to source
OK #Blind #Linux people, is it really worthwhile to consider dual booting @elementary or at least testing it out in a VM? I’m probably not going to be able to give up windows completely, correct? What can I do natively under Lennox and what can’t I do? How is word processing, spreadsheets, making presentations? How about editing music notation? what works, what doesn’t, and what am I going to be giving up in terms of time and efficiency? Boosts appreciated and input very much welcome. #BlindMasto #BlindMastodon #BlindFedi @mastoblind @blind #OpenSource #ElementaryOS #ScreenReader #Accessibility #A11Y
#a11y #Accessibility #linux #opensource #blind #screenreader #elementaryos #blindmasto #blindmastodon #BlindFedi @elementary @blind η»„ @Group 4 Blind & VI people
This entry was edited (17 hours ago)
in reply to Noah T. Carver πŸ‘¨πŸΌβ€πŸ¦―πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦

mastodon - Link to source

Khronos

You have a couple of options that are accessible. #slint linux, #fedora. If you go the Fedora route install 41 then upgrade to 42 after it is installed. Use the #mate version.
If you try #slint things should work out of the bo, but it is #slackware based so the package install process will be different than most systems if you need to install something that isn't there yet.
#fedora #slackware #MATE #slint

mastodon - Link to source

NVDA 2025.3.1 Release Candidate is now available for testing.

This is a patch release to fix a security issue & a bug.

- Fixed a vulnerability which could prevent access to secure screens via Remote Access.

- Remote Access now returns control to the local computer if it locks while controlling the remote computer.

#NVDA #NVDAsr #PreRelease #News #NewVersion #Update #ScreenReader #Security

#security #screenreader #nvdasr #News #update #nvda #newversion #prerelease
in reply to the esoteric programmer

mastodon - Link to source

NV Access

@esoteric_programmer Touch typing as in being able to type on a regular physical qwerty keyboard with both full hands without looking at the keys - it's not a skill everyone has - so if you need to learn, the easiest way is generally with a program which goes through asdf then jkl; then g and h, then expanding outwards from there. Re the touch screen keyboard - I think it is accessible, though really even if it is, I wouldn't recommend it generally.
@the esoteric programmer

mastodon - Link to source

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.
---

Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars β€” and the end of public schools as we know them.
propublica.org/article/educati…

#News #Education #Public #Schools #Teaching #Family #Children


Trump’s Education Department Is Working to Erode the Public School System

ProPublica
#News #education #Children #public #schools #teaching #family

mastodon - Link to source
I decided to write a post where I talk about my experiences finding work as a blind person and attempt to give some general advice to blind people who are either looking for work or looking for a position that better aligns with their goals or values. I'm not sure why the strange URL; hopefully it doesn't cause problems. mikegorse.substack.com/p/4834h…

Me, the disabled employee

For various reasons, finding gainful employment as a disabled person tends to be difficult for most people, so I wanted to write down my experiences.
Mike Gorse (Chronicles from an unstable era)

Peter Vágner reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
This is one of those places where Linux accessibility drops off a cliff. The MOK screen isn’t accessible because it runs before the kernel (so no espeakup, no console, no Orca). Debian upstream knows about the issue, but it’s been considered β€œlow priority” for years because most users just press the keys once and never touch it again. Unfortunately, for blind users, that makes Secure Boot basically unusable without sighted help.

André Polykanine reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
Well I have done it. as of November 4, or 5 my JFW will no longer work. it is still on the laptop, but I will get that removed as soon as I am done reading the fan fic I am reading. So basically, I am now on #NVDA for the fore seeable future. there is a reactivate button, if I choose to do this before the fifth. the fifth of next month is when I would be charged for it, so there you go. If something doesn't work with NVDA, I just won't use it I guess.
#nvda
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to NV Access

mastodon - Link to source

JamminJerry

@NVAccess I will say the one thing I really like ab out the program I use are two things. one is that I have it set up so that it shows up in my system gray, and if the CPU usage is over 2 percent, I not only see what it is, but what is using the most, so for example, it might say something like CPU usage: 10 percent, NVDA.exe 5 percent. the other thing I like, is another option I can have it show me in the system tray is how much ram I am using.
@NV Access

mastodon - Link to source
Someone just sent me something to review for feedback. It's a PDF, but it's the kind that have absolutely no text. I'm guessing it's an image or scan. Paperback doesn't yet have OCR, so I'm kind of stuck. I want to reply to the sender (someone I've known for years), but I honestly don't want to try to explain the problem. To sighted people, if they can read the text, that's readable. People who aren't good with computers can't understand why some PDFs work and some are useless. I hate this stuff

mastodon - Link to source

xAI to Raise $20 Billion After Nvidia and Others Boost Round

> Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is raising more financing than initially planned, tapping backers including Nvidia Corp. to lift its ongoing funding round to $20 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
archive.is/2025.10.08-081137/b…

raymondpert.wordpress.com/2025…

#ElonMusk #NVDA #sticks #Nvidia #xAI #finance

XAI and Nvidia logos side by side

Elon Musk’s xAI Secures $20 Billion in Massive NVIDIA-Backed Funding Round

This asset-backed financing model could serve as a template for other tech firms looking to manage high debt exposure while building expensive AI infrastructure. Published:Β October 8, 2025 Elo…
raymondpert
#nvidia #elonmusk #nvda #finance #xai #sticks
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

If every country starts requiring that people provide official ID in order to "verify their age" to use social media, there will be no way to use any social media without associating the account with a legal identity.

This is horrible for democracy,
and should terrify everyone.

It doesn't matter if platforms use third-parties or not. It doesn't matter if they use some special encrypted code, the result is the same. This gatekeeps open discussions and government criticisms free from reprisals.

This is bad.
This is China "free-speech" bad.

#Democracy #AgeVerification #Privacy

#privacy #democracy #ageverification
This entry was edited (16 hours ago)
in reply to Em

mastodon - Link to source

MikoΕ‚aj HoΕ‚ysz

This is not true, there are cryptographic protocols that let you verify some assertion about your identity without revealing anything else about yourself.

The simplest, low-tech solution would be to require a single-use scratch card to sign up for any website. Stores could then be required to verify ID before such a scratchcard could be sold, just like they do now for alcohol and cigarettes.

in reply to feld

mastodon - Link to source

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

@feld
Back when OSS was designed, keeping an output buffer filled to avoid stuttering or reading from a microscope input source before the ring buffer looped and you lost samples was hard. You basically wanted to read or write whenever you had cycles because otherwise you couldn’t keep up.

Since then, computers have become a lot faster and now sound is a very low data rate device. Rather than hammering the sound device as often as you can, you want to be told the microphone buffer has passed some watermark level (so you can process a reasonable number of samples at once) or the sound output buffer is below a watermark level (so you can give it a few ms more samples to write for interactive things, or a few seconds for things like music playback).

Things like music are great for this because you can decode a few tens of second and then sleep in a kevent loop just passing a new chunk to the device whenever it has a decent amount of space.

@feld
in reply to feld

mastodon - Link to source

JdeBP

@feld @david_chisnall
More generally: #kqueue still has several ragged edges, compared to poll/select.

tty0.social/@JdeBP/11457405478…

tty0.social/@JdeBP/11457514245…

Every little helps in order to fill in all of these gaps.

#FreeBSD

JdeBP (@JdeBP@tty0.social)

@meka@bsd.network It is always welcome to see more kevent(), if only because it lets other people share my pain, in the hope that that increases the push for kevent() to be fully completed and as good as select().
tty0.social
#freebsd #kqueue @David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) @feld

mastodon - Link to source

πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ#Chatkontrolle jetzt offiziell von der Tagesordnung fΓΌr den 14.10. gestrichenπŸ₯³: data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/d…

⚠️Bundesregierung arbeitet aber weiter an eigenem Vorschlag.
πŸ—“οΈNΓ€chstes EU-Innenministertreffen ist am 6./7.12.

πŸš«πŸ“‘πŸ”Mission: Keine Massenscans, keine HintertΓΌren!

#Chatkontrolle
in reply to Patrick Breyer

mastodon - Link to source

Patrick Breyer

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί#ChatControl now officially removed from the agenda for Oct. 14thπŸ₯³: data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/d…

⚠️However, EU governments continue to work on the proposal.
πŸ—“οΈThe next meeting of EU interior ministers is on Dec. 6/7.

πŸš«πŸ“‘πŸ”Mission: No mass scanning, no backdoors!

#chatcontrol
This entry was edited (21 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Periodic self-repetition: As a data librarian I can say that "AI" is not a matter of personal preference -- whether you like it or not, or whether you have found some use that you think is useful. It actively destroys organized knowledge, and therefore it actively destroys civilization.

Whenever someone looks for a human written text and can't find it because statistical near variants have been created and indexed, whenever "AI" "hallucinates" a reference, knowledge has been destroyed.

mastodon - Link to source

I think background music in public places -- stores, hair salons, dentist's offices, etc. -- might be generally a bad idea. It's impossible to pick music that pleases everyone, we can listen to music as much as we want in private, and background music tends to just add to the noise (on that last point I'm reminded of this song: youtube.com/watch?v=yzEncLnmUe…).

Was thinking about this as my mother and I were at Great Clips waiting to get our hair cut. I'm guessing she didn't like the music.


Adding to the Noise

Provided to YouTube by ColumbiaAdding to the Noise Β· SwitchfootThe Beautiful Letdown (Deluxe Version)β„— 2003 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENTReleased on: 2007-12-...
YouTube
in reply to Matt Campbell

mastodon - Link to source

MikoΕ‚aj HoΕ‚ysz

It's a coordination / discrimination problem. It ultimately adds more profits than it takes away, hence why business owners won't stop doing it on their own. While the positive impact is spread through society, the negative impact is mostly concentrated in a few particularly sensitive individuals. This makes it an ideal target for regulation, and one of a few situations where I actually think regulation makes sense.

mastodon - Link to source
**Tears of joy alert!!! "On Alaska's frozen shoreline, oil rig workers made a discovery that stopped them coldβ€”a walrus calf, alone and wailing, separated from his mother in waters over 50 miles away. Most walrus pups don't survive 24 hours without maternal contact. This one had already been crying for days.
The Alaska SeaLife Center team didn't hesitate. They designed something unprecedented: round-the-clock "cuddle therapy." Staff members now work in rotating shifts, bottle-feeding every three hours while cradling the 85-pound infant against their chests, mimicking the constant warmth he'd know from his mother. They hum. They rock. They never leave him alone. The transformation has been miraculous. Within weeks, the calfβ€”who arrives limp and dehydratedβ€”now nuzzles into his caregivers' arms, makes happy chirping sounds, and has gained 12 pounds. He recognizes voices. He reaches for familiar faces. Sometimes survival is just about showing up with love."
#Alaska #AlaskaSeaLifeCenter #WalrusPup #Love
Picture of three handlers at Alaska SeaLife Center cuddling with and feeding a walrus pup that was found stranded on the beach near the Slope in northern Alaska. They work in shifts of 3 hours, 24 hours a day.
#love #alaska #alaskasealifecenter #walruspup

mastodon - Link to source

"Canada Post exists to serve people, not shareholders, just like other many essential services that 'cost' Canadians millions per day. Think about it: Long-term care and personal support workers cost Canadian taxpayers millions a day. Should we close the old folks’ homes and put our seniors on the street? Public transit costs millions a day. Should we fire the bus drivers and make everyone walk? Public school support staff β€” crossing guards, lunch monitors, custodians β€” cost us millions a day. Do we fire them all and make those lazy teachers do everything?"

Maybe we'd finally be 'productive,' or 'ambitious,' or 'competitive' enough, then.

I’m a letter carrier. Canada Post exists to serve people, not shareholders, just like other essential services
thestar.com/opinion/letters-to…

archive.is/cchRs


I’m a letter carrier. Canada Post exists to serve people, not shareholders, just like other essential services

How the Liberals changed course on Canada Post,Β Oct. 6
Unknown (Toronto Star)

mastodon - Link to source

Bored this Sunday? Use your downtime to learn How to Synth! Dive into the wonderful world of making weird synthesizer noises with my simple, hands-on guide. Still a work in progress, but there's plenty there to get you started!

etherdiver.com/how-to-synth-a-…

#synthesizer #SoundDesign

How To Synth: A Guide to Programming Synthesizers – Ether Diver

www.etherdiver.com
#sounddesign #synthesizer

mastodon - Link to source

ΠŸΠ°Π³Π»ΡΠ΄Π·Ρ–Ρ†Π΅ Π΄Π°ΠΊΡƒΠΌΠ΅Π½Ρ‚Π°Π»ΠΊΡƒ ΠΏΡ€Π° НРМ.

youtu.be/e49klkZZHXw?si=NE1GHO…


NRM Ρ– трагСдыя ΠΊΡƒΠ»ΡŒΡ‚Π°Π²Π°Π³Π° Ρ€ΠΎΠΊ-Π³ΡƒΡ€Ρ‚Π°. Π’ΠžΠ›Π¬Π‘ΠšΠ† Ρ– ΠŸΠΠŽΠ›ΠΠŽ ΠΏΡ€Π° ΠΏΠ°Ρ€Ρ‚Ρ‹Π·Π°Π½ΡˆΡ‡Ρ‹Π½Ρƒ, Π·Π°Π±Π°Ρ€ΠΎΠ½Ρ‹ Ρ– Π³Π°Π»ΠΎΡžΠ½Ρ‹ ΠΊΠ°Π½Ρ„Π»Ρ–ΠΊΡ‚

Гэта ΡΠ°ΠΏΡ€Π°ΡžΠ΄Π½Π°Π΅ ΠΊΡ–Π½ΠΎ ΠΏΡ€Π° ΠΊΡƒΠ»ΡŒΡ‚Π°Π²Ρ‹ бСларускі Π³ΡƒΡ€Ρ‚ NRM. Π―Π½Ρ‹ ΠΏΠ°Ρ‡Ρ‹Π½Π°Π»Ρ– Π½Π° аскСпках свабоды Ρ– ΠœΡ€ΠΎΡ–, вялі ΠΏΠ°Ρ€Ρ‚Ρ‹Π·Π°Π½ΡˆΡ‡Ρ‹Π½Ρƒ Ρ– запісвалі Π½Π°ΠΉΠ²ΡΠ΄ΠΎΠΌΠ΅ΠΉΡˆΡ‹Ρ пСсні ў гісторыі ...
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