mastodon - Link to source

Today's #FreeSoftwareAdvent appreciation is for some of the Free Software languages that bring me both joy and income: Python & Golang

I've used Python at $DAYJOB since version 2.3 (it got woefully stuck at 2.4 for WAAAAY too long, and finally switched to 3.x some time in the last 2–3 years) and it simplified so many automation tasks there. I've used dozens of programming languages in my life for various tasks, and the hard part is rarely *writing* the code, but rather *reading* the code. And I find it a LOT easier to come back and read old Python code than just about any other language.

Meanwhile, Golang saved my bacon on a short-term contracting project where TB of (simple) CSV files needed to be processed, cross-referenced. Being able to spin up a pool of multithreading Go processes, have built in locking and hash-map structures, and operate on raw input buffers of bytes shaved a 3-day manual process down to about an hour involving running a single command. I find it pretty readable too, feeling a bit like C while ditching some of the most cumbersome aspects.

#freesoftwareadvent
in reply to André Polykanine

mastodon - Link to source

Adam MacLeod

Totally agreed. And everytime #MushroomFM blows up, which is every year at this time, I keep wondering where the new Tweesecake is at, hopefully with functioning filters and mutes. Good on them for doing their thing, but I want nothing to do with it, so therefore, it truly is spam to me. And we need a way to block it on a popular client, if only for ourselves.
#mushroomfm

mastodon - Link to source

В России заблокировали приложение для слепых Be My Eyes

Все, что оно делало — помогало незрячим ориентироваться в пространстве.

В нем можно было связываться с волонтерами через видеосвязь или просить ИИ описывать происходящее вокруг — видеозвонки внутри сервиса как раз и могли стать причиной блокировки.

Официально в реестр оно пока не внесено, но в Be My Eyes подтвердили, что доступ из России ограничен
hi-tech.mail.ru/news/139605-v-…


В России заблокировали приложение для помощи незрячим людям Be My Eyes

Пользователи Be My Eyes столкнулись с блокировкой в России. Узнайте, как сервис помогал незрячим людям, и какие альтернативы доступны.
Никита Лактюшин (Hi-Tech Mail)
in reply to Игорь Минхерц

mastodon - Link to source

André Polykanine

Подтверждаю, сейчас стон и вой стоит в слепецком сообществе по этому поводу. Собственно, предположение одно: если ты оператор связи (а BeMyEyes позволяет контактировать с волонтёрами), то нужно регистрироваться в каком-то российском реестре (сорри, я не в РФ, не знаю точно, как это называется). Потому и заблочили.

mastodon - Link to source

Just helped someone on Be My Eyes, he was walking from his house to a shop about 10 minutes away.

Helped him navigate the streets and cross the road and so on. Luckily he lived in the UK so I knew what I was seeing 😅

He was wearing Meta’s AI glasses, which help him a lot but don’t currently describe things like lamp posts/scaffolding etc, which was where I was needed.

He made the call from the glasses also, and it was great that I could see what he could see also.

One of my favourite things is helping people on Be My Eyes 😍

Such a great app.

#blind #blindness

#blind #blindness
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

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in reply to Bill Dengler

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@bill oh that's interesting! I'll have to look into that new one then. Could be worth it. I think the $200 is web only, unlimited to chat in pro mode (or at least, I haven't seen usage restrictions at all on web search / conversations.) So it could be worthwhile if your token use ondemand for the pro models exceed that amount, perhaps, but the API per-cost option is more flexible with letting you use it in projects and such.
@Bill Dengler

mastodon - Link to source

On Dec 27th at 3PM Eastern, one week from today, REAPER Made Easy's end of year wrap up/live listening party will be happening. This is where we hang out on a live stream and listen to a bunch of the productions people have done with REAPER and OSARA throughout the year.
If you've got something you'd like to share, we're all ears! Send it in here:
dropbox.com/request/mB2KhxVunz…

Anything you've made this year, anywhere in the world, in any language, with any amount of experience is welcome. The only limitations are one production per person so we can play as many of them as possible, and the majority of what we're listening to needs to have been made using REAPER/OSARA.

Feel free to post questions in this thread or via DM if there's anything you're not sure of. Boosts for reach appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone's been cookin'!

Scott and Jen

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

mastodon - Link to source

As an Open Source developer in Germany, I'd greatly benefit if our work was officially recognized as voluntary service (Ehrenamt).

If you are located in Germany, please help by signing this petition: openpetition.de/petition/blog/…

Thank you for your support! (Please do not sign if you are not living in Germany.)

#opensource #germany

#opensource #Germany

mastodon - Link to source

Zwischen den Jahren ist es oft etwas ruhiger – genau dann lässt sich gut anfangen. IT-Sicherheit ist für mich kein Zustand, sondern ein Prozess über Jahre. Kein großer Umbruch, sondern viele kleine Schritte: Passwörter, E-Mail, Smartphone, Heimnetz, Backups. Wichtig ist nicht Perfektion, sondern überhaupt zu beginnen. 👇

kuketz-blog.de/it-sicherheit-i…


IT-Sicherheit ist nie fertig – Ein persönlicher Weg über viele Jahre

Von »wird schon nichts passieren« zu echter Kontrolle: Mein persönlicher Weg zu mehr IT-Sicherheit, Datenschutz und digitaler Selbstbestimmung.
www.kuketz-blog.de

mastodon - Link to source
🌞✨ Happy Sol Invictus! Today, we celebrate the "Unconquered Sun" and the return of light! While we enjoy this festive occasion, let’s also take a moment to appreciate the winter solstice, the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a time for reflection and renewal as we look forward to brighter days ahead! 🌌 #Solstice #solinvictus
#solstice #solinvictus

mastodon - Link to source
I found something interesting. If you visit the Balabolka page and scroll to “Download installers for Microsoft natural voices that work without Internet access”, you can download high-quality Microsoft voices for around 30 different languages.
Voices are available even for Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Hebrew, Finnish, Dutch, European Portuguese, and more. Each language has its own separate installer, and since most languages include multiple voices, you can choose which ones to install during setup.
These voices work very well with drivers like Natural Voice SAPI Adapter.
Just a heads-up: the Balabolka page has no headings or landmarks, so you’ll need to manually search the page for “Download installers for Microsoft natural voices that work without Internet access.”
cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm

Balabolka

Balabolka is a text-to-speech application (freeware)
Balabolka: text-to-speech software

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

When it comes to @Delta Chat (39c3) do you know it features 1 to 1 audio / video calls since v2.22?
It has a very lightweight client side app built with web technologies and a minimalist server side component turn server called chatmail-turn.

I am wondering, am I alone running that turnserver behind a nat?

github.com/chatmail/chatmail-t…


Added commandline arguments and functionality usefull to run behind a NAT by pvagner · Pull Request #7 · chatmail/chatmail-turn

This turn server enumerates all the interfaces found on the system, identifies globally addressable addresses and creates an UDP listen socket on the default port. Relay connections for this scenar...
GitHub
@Delta Chat (39c3)

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Dear #QT toolkit, recently I'm again looking into your #screenreader #a11y into #QML in particular.
I'm trying to make one of my favorite apps @Mixxx DJ Software a bit more accessible.
Last night I have managed to turn the menu with items such as 4 decks, Library, Effects and more into aria toolbar pattern in terms of keyboard navigation. It only consumes single tab stop when navigating through it and other buttons can be reached using the arrow keys.
Of course there is much more to do and I've started a forum topic documenting my attempts.

mixxx.discourse.group/t/new-qm…

#a11y #screenreader #qt #qml @Mixxx DJ Software

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ghost - Link to source

Apple nuking a customer's account over a bad gift card is a warning for everyone


 One long-time Apple customer was left with no recourse after a bad gift card triggered a full account and device lock-out.

Paris Buttfield-Addison with an absolute horror story:

A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse.


The full blog post is chilling. Buttfield-Addison only got his Apple account reinstated after blogging about his experience, and otherhigh-profileblogs re-shared his ordeal, which caught the attention of an actual human in Apple's executive relations team who restored his account a week later.

Buttfield-Addison is the latest public example of a company revoking access to a person's digital life, probably due to some automated decision, but where affected customers have no means or grounds to appeal. In reality, this happens all the time and most people's stories never hear the light of day. Even companies like Apple, which sell physical electronics for a living, hold too much power and control over their customers' digital lives in perpetuity, and customers generally don't have the means to fight back or hold the companies accountable when things go wrong.

It's also a warning to everyone — not just Apple customers and especially this time of year — that gift cards are prone to scams and are increasingly difficult to detect. If one bad gift card can result in nuking access to someone's account, then gift cards aren't worth the risk to begin with.

More at Tidbits.

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Apple blocks dev from all accounts after he tries to redeem bad gift card

: Paris Buttfield-Addison literally wrote books on Swift
Brandon Vigliarolo (The Register)
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

I don't think I'll stop using Firefox anytime soon.
Yes, their management are fucking idiots and it's annoying that I'll have to disable new AI features whenever they release them..

But the alternative is to use something Chromium-based, which would make Google's domination of web technology absolute - and Google is 100x more evil than Mozilla ever could be.

I hope this fucking bubble pops before Mozilla fucks up Firefox so badly that it becomes completely unusable

This entry was edited (4 days ago)

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mastodon - Link to source

My slides and a video of my talk "Grow your [engineering] brand while putting privacy first" are available on my blog: talkweb.eu/openweb/4500/

If you want a funny, but useful talk on that topic, reach out!

#mastodon #fediverse #privacy #engineering #human #foss

Grow your [engineering] brand while putting privacy first – Bogomil Shopov – Бого

talkweb.eu
#foss #privacy #fediverse #Mastodon #engineering #human
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

Peter Vágner reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

I have a lot of respect for #DeltaChat (@delta); By all accounts they provide a good looking client and a homogenize experience across platforms. Users absolutely don’t need to care about the underlying protocol!

However there is no way, shape or form in that IMAP+Submission is a more suitable stack for instant messaging than #XMPP.

#xmpp #deltachat @Delta Chat (39c3)

Peter Vágner reshared this.

in reply to Radasbona

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Peter Vágner

@Radasbona I am not sure it's dismissed all together. @Delta Chat (39c3) #chatmail relays already support google / apple push messaging and adding @UnifiedPush support might be just matter of finding a motivated developer.
Still with imap idle in place the battery and network impact is minimal so it's not seen as very high priority thing. For example there is an email client called #fairEmail which does the same thing, keeping the imap idle connections open whenever it's able to and it's working fine. Within email app it's difficult if not impossible to add push messaging support unless you have control of the server side provider or you wish to trade your privacy.
#fairemail #chatmail @UnifiedPush @Delta Chat (39c3) @Radasbona
in reply to Peter Vágner

mastodon - Link to source

Radasbona

imap idle unfortunately works very unreliably if you only use the app every 1-2 weeks.

I'm not a developer, but wouldn't that be the solution for the chatmail servers?
ietf.org/archive/id/draft-goug…

The IMAP WEBPUSH extension

This document defines a WEBPUSH extension of the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) that permits IMAP servers to send WebPush notifications.
www.ietf.org
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
As a community, we often ask ourselves how to attract more users to #XMPP. Yet the real tragedy is that people would rather build something entirely new (loosely based on email or #ActivityPub) than consider XMPP. Need end-to-end encryption by default? If compatibility with existing XMPP clients is a secondary concern, you can implement it in your own solution while still benefiting from our two decades of experience in instant messaging.
#xmpp #activitypub

mastodon - Link to source

Olen pari edellistä päivää nurissut e-kirjoista ja siitä, kuinka piloilla se maailma on, vaikka tekniikka itsessään on 20 vuotta vanhaa.

Nurinoista huolimatta jatkoin ongelman ratkomista ja lupasin kirjoittaa, jos löydän itseäni miellyttävän ratkaisun. Parin päivän testailun perusteella luulen löytäneeni sen.

Ratkaisun nimi on Booklore. Se on itse hostattava palvelu, joka tarjoaa omaan digitaaliseen kirjastoon Spotifyn tai Netflixin kaltaisen käyttökokemuksen. Pääsen siihen käsiksi suoraan omasta lukulaitteesta, eikä minun tarvitse leikkiä kaapeleiden kanssa. Sen lisäksi siinä on monen käyttäjän tuki, joten nyt minulla ja puolisollani on yhteinen digitaalinen kirjahylly.

Sovelluksesta lisää blogissa: saaste.net/blogi/2025/oma-e-ki…

Muokkaus: kirjoitusvirheitä korjailtu

#lukeminen #kirjat #KirjaMastodon


Oma e-kirjasto

Avauduin toissapäivänä siitä, kuinka retuperällä e-kirjamaailma on. Avautumisesta huolimatta jatkoin ongelman ratkomista ja luulen löytäneeni itseäni miellyttävän ratkaisun.
saaste.net
#kirjamastodon #lukeminen #kirjat
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
#AmazingWorld
In #Alaska, nature sculpted this lone tree into a frozen wave at sunrise.
Relentless wind, drifting snow, and rime ice stacked layer by layer until the branches looked like feathers made of frost.
That soft golden glow is the sun catching every icy strand, turning the whole scene into a winter sculpture for a few brief moments.
Bent by the storm, but still standing. Still reaching.
#alaska #amazingworld
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

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