mastodon - Link to source

Gosh, with all these tools we should already be so fsafe beyond safety's own limits. Why do we then need ICE and all these oso-called law enforcement agencies? I mean just put a guy in a cowboy hat and boots, show them how to use Tangles, and the rest of us can go party. What's wrong with this formula? @TexasObserver texasobserver.social/@TexasObs…

Texas Observer

2026-01-18 20:00:09

mastodon - Link to source

Thanks to a software program called "Tangles," #police—sheriffs, Texas state cops, and even #ICE—can follow the location of your smartphone without a warrant.

Yet, we know little about how it has been used. Here's what our investigation revealed: texasobserver.org/texas-police…

#privacy #tech #surveillance #Texas #politics #USpol #news



Texas Police Invested Millions in a Shadowy Phone-Tracking Software. They Won’t Say How They’ve Used It.

One sheriff who leads an anti-smuggling task force says the software helps “develop leads to eventually obtain probable cause.” Civil liberties experts say its use violates constitutional rights.
Francesca D’Annunzio (The Texas Observer)

@Texas Observer

mastodon - Link to source
Amazing news! NVSP Phoneme Editor V4 is here, and it brings much needed improvements.
For starters, we directly consume libespeak.dll, thanks to learnings from our SAPI5 wrapper. No more running Espeak in another process this way, but still side-loading the DLL into the process. The .exe is included so as to keep the distribution of Espeak intact.
This also allows us to get correct IPA mappings just like the NVDA driver gets, so letters should not be dropped during speech. Check it out! Wow!
Also, the spin controls can now use page up and page-down for movement by increments of 50. This should allow wider mapping but finer if you arrow. Wait, spin control? That's right, hitting "edit" on a phoneme will let you increment it using the arrow keys, or type in the value. Why not be flexible!
We solved an issue with loading: no matter where you unzip this, it will load both the DLL and Espeak NG folders, locating Espeak-NG.exe in it. There's still a bit of a bug here because we don't check for libespeak.dll but the executable, but this is a minor one for the next version to fix. If you point it at a dll, it will also load the packs if it exists in the same folder, which also means less hitting "open" and "set" everywhere.
Enjoy! eurpod.com/synths/NVSPPhonemeE…
And yes, I tested this with at least 4 KB of text thrown at it at once in the text-box, it didn't crash. I'm sure there's a limit, but still, impressive it only took like 7 seconds to generate the speech.
This entry was edited (18 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Thanks to a software program called "Tangles," #police—sheriffs, Texas state cops, and even #ICE—can follow the location of your smartphone without a warrant.

Yet, we know little about how it has been used. Here's what our investigation revealed: texasobserver.org/texas-police…

#privacy #tech #surveillance #Texas #politics #USpol #news


Texas Police Invested Millions in a Shadowy Phone-Tracking Software. They Won’t Say How They’ve Used It.

One sheriff who leads an anti-smuggling task force says the software helps “develop leads to eventually obtain probable cause.” Civil liberties experts say its use violates constitutional rights.
Francesca D’Annunzio (The Texas Observer)
#privacy #politics #News #tech #uspol #surveillance #police #texas #ice

mastodon - Link to source

One thing that's tough for people who just join the Fediverse, like most of the folks on #theforkiverse , is that there are self-appointed experts who reply to their public posts saying that "the Fediverse" doesn't like that kind of content.

This is untrue. They don't speak for all of us. Nobody does. You can't spell "Fediverse" without "diverse"; for good or ill, there are different viewpoints on almost any topic found here.

#theforkiverse

mastodon - Link to source

I'm helping an elderly person with a patient portal, and wow, there are about 4 different problems ranging from unclear instructions to pages that don't work well when the phone is zoomed in enough for an older person to actually read the text.

Plus, the iPhone keeps popping up unhelpful gunk.

This person isn't particularly afraid of technology either, but they literally can't do it.

I now think every web developer should be forced to walk through their processes with an 85-year-old.

in reply to Mignon Fogarty

mastodon - Link to source

André Polykanine

*Round of applause, some cheerful whistles and yelling can be heard* Welcome to the club of people needing accessibility! We struggle with such things every single day. I mean, "we" as in "blind people" even more, but still 😊 On a more serious point, try reporting the issues to the dev. As you are in the US, your strong words to mention are ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), Section 508 and WCAG.

mastodon - Link to source

Appeasement didn't work with Hitler.

Appeasement didn't work with Putin.

Appeasement isn't working with Trump.

When will Europe learn this most basic lesson about how to deal with imperialist bullies?

politico.eu/article/hit-back-d…


Hit back at Trump? Europe mulls unthinkable options as Greenland threats ramp up tensions

Senior politicians want the EU to deploy its trade bazooka against the United States over Trump’s Greenland claims. Capitals aren’t so sure.
Nicholas Vinocur (POLITICO)

mastodon - Link to source
Accessibility is not an excuse. For some backstory: I was at lunch with my parents when they told me I could do classes online but would most likely have to pay for it to which I said, "I would have to do some checking to make sure the platform was accessible." My dad then said one of the worst things anyone could ever say, family or not. "Oh, there's always an excuse." Accessibility. is. not. an excuse. It might seem like it to someone who might not have to think about something like that, but this attitude is disgusting. Accessibility comes in many forms, and having to think about whether something is going to be accessible or not is so goddamn tiring and I don't like that thought being the first thing I say, but also, that's a reality I have to accept. Again I'll say, accessibility, no matter what form you're thinking about is no excuse. After this interaction, I'm left with -1 spoons and a desire to do nothing else for the day.

mastodon - Link to source
Sometimes you just have to jump in, yes not everything might be the best decision to make, but honestly getting a Raspberry Pi and not waiting for the perfect moment to start selfhosting when, I had better hardware, or more money, or better internet, or lived in my own home etc, was one of my best decisions 2025. I love beeing able to spin up seriously useful docker containers in seconds, and only today, I added Beszel and linkding to the list of useful tools amongst gitea, audiobookshelf, joplin. Not only does it safe money (to host a joplin server instead of paying for joplin cloud, for example) it's fun, it's satesfying, it takes almost no resources. Just had to say it again, this is good.
This entry was edited (19 hours ago)

hometown - Link to source

Anybody have ideas about where to host a podcast (low traffic)?

One thousand years ago, I started a thing on a podcast service that got acquired by Spotify. The podcast is served from Spotify today. I’d like to change that.

I did figure out a story for hosting the podcast feed directly from my Ghost dot org site, but it’s a bit too fiddly for me to want to take that on right now, especially with a back catalog of episodes I’d want to keep online (ideally without migrating each item manually).

mastodon - Link to source
Hello everyone and welcome to the official #FastSM Mastodon account. Automated release announcements as well as tips and tricks and support will be posted here. I hope you enjoy FastSM! You can find the GitHub repo here: github.com/masonasons/FastSM

GitHub - masonasons/FastSM: A fast, accessible social media client supporting Mastodon and Bluesky

A fast, accessible social media client supporting Mastodon and Bluesky - masonasons/FastSM
GitHub
#fastsm

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source

RE: mastodon.social/@NouranKhaledG…

If you are still thinking of us, please donate and share to help my family overcome this tough time

chuffed.org/project/121561-urg…

Nouran 🍉

2026-01-14 19:11:22

mastodon - Link to source

I'm a human being. I have dreams. But the genocide changed my dreams. In the past I had big dreams. But now all my dreams are to live a normal life.

What normal life means for me?

A normal life is to sleep peacefully in the night. To have a home where my family gathers. To eat healthy food and drink clean water. To meet friends in the university. That's it! Unfortunately these basics became big dreams

Please donate to help my family overcome this tough time

chuffed.org/project/121561-urg…



Urgent help for Ahmed's family

"I’m tired, Mama. I’m thinking of the hours that I'll spend tomorrow in the water line." – says 9 year old Ahmed to his mother before going to sleep.
Chuffed

mastodon - Link to source

I'm a human being. I have dreams. But the genocide changed my dreams. In the past I had big dreams. But now all my dreams are to live a normal life.

What normal life means for me?

A normal life is to sleep peacefully in the night. To have a home where my family gathers. To eat healthy food and drink clean water. To meet friends in the university. That's it! Unfortunately these basics became big dreams

Please donate to help my family overcome this tough time

chuffed.org/project/121561-urg…


Urgent help for Ahmed's family

"I’m tired, Mama. I’m thinking of the hours that I'll spend tomorrow in the water line." – says 9 year old Ahmed to his mother before going to sleep.
Chuffed

mastodon - Link to source

Muslim mindset: “I’m fasting, don’t eat in front of me or I might be tempted.”
Christian: practices self-control and doesn’t make a public show of fasting.

Muslim man: sees a woman who isn’t fully covered and says, “Cover yourself or I’ll be tempted.”
Christian man: sees the same thing and says, “I need to guard my heart and discipline my eyes so I don’t sin.”

Christianity deals with the heart. We emphasise self-discipline and self-control. Islam, on the other hand, tries to control the environment instead, asking others to change because the individual hasn’t learned to master himself.

When the heart is truly transformed, temptation loses its power. Self-control means taking responsibility for your own desires, not placing the burden on others. A disciplined heart governs the flesh, not the other way around.

mastodon - Link to source

What are your pain points, folks? Stuff that you hate doing or dealing with, or problems you can't find a good solution to? Stuff that other people might be frustrated with, too.

I'm looking for a way to make myself valuable to other people, as a way to both help people and also earn an income to feed my family in the process.

One thing I can do *really well* is create reliable software to automate rote tasks, generate financial/statistical/other reports, or calculate difficult solutions. Think it can't be done without LLMs? I might surprise you!

Throw me a bone!

Please boost for reach!

#PainPoints
#WishList
#Automation
#Reporting
#ProblemSolving
#FediHire
#GetFediBHired
#FediJob

#FediHire #automation #wishlist #fedijob #painpoints #reporting #ProblemSolving #getfedibhired
in reply to Aaron

mastodon - Link to source

Zach Bennoui

@NicksWorld So I just downloaded this out of curiosity, and it seems like they definitely did some good work on accessibility. Unfortunately on macOS when used with VoiceOver, it doesn't really behave like a standard Mac app in terms of the UI and VoiceOver doesn't work how you would expect. This completely makes sense as it's open source and likely not developed using something like Swift UI, but for Mac users I would honestly stick to iWork.
@Nicks World

mastodon - Link to source

A good friend of mine needs a lot of help. Facing health challenges as well as eviction, she needs enough covered to keep her, her partner and their cats from becoming homeless. Payment is going to be due by February or they get evicted, and they need as much covered as possible. They've personally helped me out before in my time of need nearly 2 years ago; please help me boost and cover their costs, I'll be forever grateful!

gofund.me/d74ed73c7

#MutualAid #Seattle #Mutual #Aid #GoFundMe

#MutualAid #seattle #gofundme #aid #mutual

mastodon - Link to source

Python in 2026:

- New code doesn't work, misses dependency
- Dependency can't be installed with old PIP
- PIP can't update itself, since it is too old
- Delete PIP, download PIP installer
- PIP installer is too new for old Python
- download old-style new PIP installer
- install new PIP
- install dependency

Now I'm sitting there wondering what the new code was supposed to solve. Forgot why I ever tried to change that thing.

mastodon - Link to source
We're having a bit of a rough weekend. Had some things yesterday that locked the system out. Nobody could switch and the fronter had no connection to our headspace. We don't assume today will be that much better, but we're hoping tomorrow and the rest of the week will be less of a mess. How's everyone else's time? As always we hope everyone is well and taking care of themselves. - Samara

mastodon - Link to source
OK, so all I can trace from my minidumps is, my crashes are happening with how I'm calling LibEspeak.dll. hmm. This engine may not be ready for awhile. I'm going to have to break down both X86 and x64 calling conventions for Espeak. At least it's open-source so this isn't hard just more work.
OK, looks like The issue is with eSpeak initialization: calling FreeLibrary in the destructor may unload the module while leaving the static variable espeak_initialized true. Huh. Reference counters, here we come.
This entry was edited (21 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Just realized: Whenever I read outrageous news about politics, my outrage comes second. First, my brain makes an attempt to find a perspective in which it might make sense to act like these morons do.

That‘s not healthy for my brain. But I‘ve trained myself so well that I can’t seem to unlearn the reflex.

And this is the main reason why I have to avoid news these days. Of course it’s also because of the helplessness and all the bad emotions. But mainly because „understanding“ causes damage to my brain and soul.

#actuallyAutistic
@autistics

#actuallyautistic @Actually Autistics

mastodon - Link to source
Ok, @x0 will also be happy to know: I added two new language settings:
1) autoTieDiphthongs
When enabled, the frontend scans token sequences and if it sees: previous token is vowel/semivowel, current token is vowel/semivowel, current is NOT wordStart and NOT syllableStart (so we don’t smash hiatus) and not already tied, not lengthened, and the second vowel looks like a typical offglide candidate (high vowels like i, ɪ, u, ʊ, …)
…it marks them as tied internally (prev.tiedTo=true, cur.tiedFrom=true), so timing treats the second part as a short offglide.
The second setting is autoDiphthongOffglideToSemivowel. Optional, off by default. If enabled and autoTieDiphthongs is enabled, then when we auto-tie we also try to swap the offglide vowel to a semivowel: i/ɪ/ɨ -> j u/ʊ -> w - This is the “make the glide more obvious” switch. I hope these will help people.
@x0

mastodon - Link to source
Gosh though. People are really helping me add engine-level settings, that's exciting I guess. More settings, the better. The more we can expose through things people can tweak, great. I'll also be updating the phoneme editor later on because I like the idea of using a spin-edit box, and auto-defaulting paths, and a few things will be improved. It's also not considering rules when speaking text from language-specific data and that needs fixing. Bugs bugs.
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