mastodon - Link to source
Updated page: Piper voices, and other retro NVDA speech synthesizers
Added: BraiLab 2025.
Added: Eloquence 3.3 2025.
Added: Eloquence 4.7 2025.
Added: SMPSoft 2025.
Added: MindMaker FlexVoice 2025.
Happy Friday!
eurpod.com/piper-voices-of-ret…

Piper voices, and other retro NVDA speech synthesizers - Eurpod

Welcome to the post everyone has asked for over time! The one where you can find download links for various Piper (link to repo) voices.
Tamas Geczy (Eurpod)

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Minidisc or cassette might be cooler, but honestly CDs are probably the easiest “retro” format to get into.

Used players are still relatively easy to come by and you can get a drive for your computer to burn audio CDs very easily; and there’s plenty of dirt cheap used CDs. (This CD Walkman is from Goodwill!)

Audio quality is top-notch, too.

Modern Bose headphones next to an early 2000s Sony CD Walkman.

mastodon - Link to source
@Tutanota What is the long term plan for the tuta server (email, calendar, contacts)? Will tuta publish an open-source reference implementation (maybe headless) such that the community can start self-hosting, and such that other email provides can start adopting tuta's new standard in a decentralized way?
@Tuta

gotosocial - Link to source

Sensitive content

#selfhost #selfhosting #deltachat #chatmail #self_hosting

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“‘AI’ is not your friend. Nor is it an intelligent tutor, an empathetic ear, or a helpful assistant. It can not ‘make up’ facts, and it does not make ‘mistakes’. It does not actually answer your questions.”

techpolicy.press/we-need-to-ta…


We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'

We share a responsibility to create and use empowering metaphors rather than misleading language, write Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie.
Emily M. Bender (Tech Policy Press)

mastodon - Link to source
I present for all interested, my annual HKC Radio megapack as I'm now calling it. This is a collection of various shows and special events from the current era of HKC Radio, from July 2021 to now. It includes official archives where possible, but also unofficial archives of events and shows no longer on the station from former broadcasters that did awesome shows during their time on the station. Missed a birthday bash or want to relive a Weakest link game? You'll likely find it here. This year's megapack comes in at an impressive 263 GB! Enjoy, and for fans of Digital Domain, I'll be working on putting together a separate package or set of packages, that'll allow you to enjoy all domains from 2006 to present. But for now, enjoy this year's HKC Radio Megapack. sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/kd…

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Slack is having a weird field day Friday where even though I'm messaging a person, her conversation shows as unread in the control+T "jump to conversation" dialog. It's as though it's not marking unread things as read. Maybe Slack decided to get lazy for the Friday, said fuck it, I'm done marking people's messages as read now, they've read too much. Ha.
in reply to Stralau

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Stralau

Zu der Kartoffelaktion: mögliche Verteilstellen (z.B. Schulen, Kitas, Kirchgemeinden) sollen sich bis übermorgen melden, Lieferung ist dann nächste Woche Donnerstag oder Freitag. Die Verteilstellen geben sie dann an die Bevölkerung weiter.

Anmeldung: 4000-tonnen.de/

4000 Tonnen – Kartoffeln für Berlin

Kartoffeln kostenlos für Berlin. Eine Aktion von Berliner Morgenpost, Ecosia und Osterland Agrar GmbH.
www.4000-tonnen.de

mastodon - Link to source

Quebec public servants push back against return to office mandate

ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/qu…


Quebec public servants push back against return to office mandate

Beginning Jan. 26, Quebec government employees will be required to work three days a week in the office instead of two, a move that is drawing pushback from one of the province’s largest independent unions.
Swidda Rassy (CTVNews)

mastodon - Link to source

This was a fun read. I burst out laughing at this statement from Bosch after criticism of their products from @pluralistic

‘Worst in Show’ CES products include AI refrigerators, AI companions and AI doorbells

"earning and keeping trust with our consumers, especially in the areas of privacy and cybersecurity, is at the core of our company’s values.

#enshitification

apnews.com/article/ces-worst-s…

#enshitification @Cory Doctorow
in reply to an interesting bean

hometown - Link to source

an interesting bean

according to coffee geography magazine:

> Prior to Alexa Plus, issuing a voice command for a pre-programmed coffee routine via standard Alexa was a relatively reliable affair. Now, the more advanced assistant has shown moments of confusion, failing to consistently execute a basic coffee order. This hiccup underscores a broader industry challenge: while next-gen AI assistants boast vast potential for complex, conversational interaction, they can ironically stumble over the straightforward, programmed commands that defined earlier smart home tech.

in reply to an interesting bean

mastodon - Link to source

Marius

When I was young, we even had coffee makers without Alexa functionality.

They were rather ingenious, they had 'buttons', little surfaces connected to mechnical levers and an electronic switch.

As user, you would touch the 'button', and the coffee machine would then execute the associated command.

I dont know how it worked internally. I suppose they had a little speaker inside next to the Alexa microphone, and it would sound out the command at inaudible volume

in reply to Zauberlehrling

friendica - Link to source

Martijn Vos

@Zauberlehrling @Cory Doctorow

the fridge that also uses computer vision to track when food items are running low and can advertise replacements.


"Advertise"!? That's not how this was supposed to go. The smart fridge is supposed to remind you, maybe add your preferred product to your shopping list or next groceries order, not take this as an opportunity to spam you with ads.

@Cory Doctorow @Zauberlehrling
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

We are very well aware of the fact that X for Grok is now offering a spicy mode showing explicit sexual content with some output generated with childlike images:

📌 A detailed request for information on Grok has been sent to X, and we are reviewing the company’s responses.

📌 X has been ordered to retain all internal documents and data concerning Grok’s features until the end of 2026.

The Digital Services Act is very clear:

In the EU, all platforms have to get their own house in order.

mastodon - Link to source
The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind @libreoffice, has an updated Conflict of Interest Policy for its Board of Directors: blog.documentfoundation.org/bl…
LibreOffice logo and words "Updated Conflict of Interest Policy"

Updated Conflict of Interest Policy for TDF's Board of Directors - TDF Community Blog

The Document Foundation (TDF) is the non-profit entity behind the LibreOffice project. It collects donations from users, and employs a small team to support and coordinate the worldwide community that makes the software.
Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
@LibreOffice

mastodon - Link to source

Here's to all the open source developers who put hours and hours of their lives into a project they built, put it out into the world, and now it sits with approximately zero users.

Thank you for putting labor into the world to try and help others, even if it's never been recognized.

Brag about your project here if you'd like!

Edit: if you saw this earlier, come back and check out all the cool projects people have shown off since!

This entry was edited (4 days ago)

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Audiobookshelf is on the way to getting my favorite selfhosting service. Deployment with docker was more than simple, accessibility is taken care of, questions on the Discord are answered fast, friendly and understandable, and it made me start enjoying audiobooks again, well since it made me start listening to them again. Big like, can absolutely recommend to check it out.
in reply to Felix Steindorff

mastodon - Link to source

Jonathan

@felixule Oh interesting, will check this out as I'm also using IOS more frequently again. Also yeah, there is a good option. No TalkBack actions or so, though I don't really feel they're needed either, but everything is labeled. github.com/shane9b3/LitLyric--…

GitHub - shane9b3/LitLyric---Beta: Beta page for LitLyric an Android AudioBookServer client

Beta page for LitLyric an Android AudioBookServer client - shane9b3/LitLyric---Beta
GitHub
@Felix Steindorff

gotosocial - Link to source

One of my favorite new productivity hacks is building little bespoke Nix environments for various things I'm working on. They can be packaged in a single flake.nix and easily moved between projects, are automatically activated when entering a directory with direnv and a 1-line .envrc, can package shell scripts and automatically install any commands those scripts run as package dependencies just by calling them in the script with the ${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/sleep} syntax, can build and install custom git repos into your system, etc. Some examples:

I have a Godot dev environment which automatically builds and installs my heavily patched Godot tree while I merge PRs upstream. It also has a couple shell scripts for working with audio--normalize converts audio to wav if needed and normalizes it, while loop lets me specify a start/duration/fade duration and either previews or saves loopable audio with the configured duration cut from the end and faded in at the beginning. This is most of what I would have used Reaper for before, but packaged in a setup I can drop into any Godot project. And if I need more sox simplifications, I can make scripts for those as well.

Today's hack: an open source plain text business stack. I absolutely detest how just about every business app out there doesn't care about accessibility, because why would a blind person run a business? Now we have recutils for plain text data manipulation (likely CRM), HLedger for accounting, Himalaya for injesting email into and updating the recutils CRM, etc. Now if I work with an accountant, I'm done managing my own stuff in the inaccessible QBO--just figure out what they need, write a shell or Python script to do the conversions, and package it in the environment. As of now the whole thing is in one flake.nix, along with Pandoc and a few other nice-to-haves. I can clone the repo in any Linux/mac environment running Nix and Direnv and the whole reproduceable setup gets installed automatically. Wish I'd found this years ago.

mastodon - Link to source

Look, this is really simple. Any politician who still uses Twitter is telling their constituents that they are OK with child sexual abuse.

Any voters who disapprove of child sexual abuse may wish to take note when they next get the chance to vote.

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99kn5…

#Twitter #Grok #CSAM


Changes to Elon Musk's AI Grok 'insulting' to victims, says No 10

It comes after government urged Ofcom to use all its powers – up to and including an effective ban – against X.
Liv McMahon (BBC News)
#twitter #csam #grok

mastodon - Link to source
Ok interesting. This is the 1st time I'm noticing that navigating straight by element, like pressing B in browse mode with #NVDASR will firstly announce the label, and then the element, button in this case. But when arrowing through stuff in browse mode it says the element first and then the label, so button "something" rather than "something" button. About time this get's customisable, though not beeing super important.
#nvdasr

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This could change a lot with splitting audio. github.com/facebookresearch/sa…

GitHub - facebookresearch/sam-audio: The repository provides code for running inference with the Meta Segment Anything Audio Model (SAM-Audio), links for downloading the trained model checkpoints, and example notebooks that show how to use the model.

The repository provides code for running inference with the Meta Segment Anything Audio Model (SAM-Audio), links for downloading the trained model checkpoints, and example notebooks that show how t...
GitHub

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#XSF Announcement

Join the 28th #XMPP #Summit taking place in #Brussels, #Belgium from 29th January.

xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-summit-2…

And visit the #FOSDEM 2026 were you can find the #Realtime Lounge, too!

#jabber #chat #interoperability #rtc #opensource #decentralization #federation #messaging

The XSF Announcement Banner

XMPP Summit 28 | XMPP - The universal messaging standard

The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is exited to announce the 28th XMPP Summit taking place in Brussels, Belgium next year - just before FOSDEM 2026. The XSF invites everyone interested in development of the XMPP protocol to attend, and discuss all …
xmpp.org
#xmpp #opensource #Jabber #federation #fosdem #chat #interoperability #decentralization #messaging #belgium #xsf #realtime #brussels #rtc #summit

mastodon - Link to source

In the new season of Autocracy in America, I will ask how the Trump White House is rewriting the rules of US politics.
First episode: How ICE and the National Guard are being used not just to enforce immigration, but to project power

open.spotify.com/episode/4Baji…


ICE and the National Guard Are Acting with Impunity

Autocracy in America · Episode
ICE and the National Guard Are Acting with Impunity (Spotify)
in reply to The Verge

mastodon - Link to source

David Hembrow

They are not "open sourcing" anything. All they are doing is publishing an API which should have been public forever. They are doing nothing to help people maintain these devices when they fail.

It's a huge contrast with how hifi manufacturers used to behave. My Quad amplifier from the 1970s came with a user manual which included the circuit diagram. As a result, it's easy to repair and still works exactly as well as it did when it was new. It is extremely rare that present day companies support their customers so well, and while what Bose is doing with these speakers is welcome, it is certainly is not helping customers so well as was common 50 years ago.

mastodon - Link to source

In other news, Twitter has turned off the image generator for the Grok AI system to all except paid subscribers.

theguardian.com/technology/202…

This follows the headlines and investigations by multiple national regulatory bodies about Grok stripping clothing off in images of women and children.

So in other words, Twitter has said it will only allow their AI service to make CSA images and revenge porn, if you agree to pay them.

It's overdue now. Ban Twitter.


Grok turns off image generator for most users after outcry over sexualised AI imagery

Editing function to be limited to paying subscribers after X threatened with fines and regulatory action
Helena Horton (The Guardian)
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