mastodon - Link to source
I do miss my IBMTTS on 64-bit NVDA. Sigh. Eloquence is good but I'll always stay in that minority of people who likes the 22K IBMTTS, so back to 2025.3 we go. I'll keep the alpha around as a portable copy though so I can still experiment and update it once in awhile. Can't believe magnification feature is already in the alphas though, a bit surprising that they're already working on 2026.2, wow, shocked there a bit.
This entry was edited (1 minute ago)

mastodon - Link to source
NVSpeechPlayer now works with 64-bit NVDA. This is great news, and the fix was very easy to do, not a lot of refactoring. I wish the same could be said for other synthesizers, but ah well. Let's just feel lucky and enjoy that feeling while we can. Download: eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay… (works on older 2025.3 NVDA too, no need to worry there.)
Also includes more Portuguese language rules. Includes the new settings for diphthongs transitions: autoTieDiphthongs, and autoDiphthongOffglideToSemivowel.
in reply to Alex Hall

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

oh, that's not a dumb question at all, and one I've been trying to figure out too.
I think the main difference, and I examined the DSP engine code in both and it looks the same, is that the Espeak SpeechPlayer gets fed through other layers of Espeak: The IPA is normalized in-engine, sample rate is up-converted a little I think to 22050 from 16000, and it has to go through another DSP that Espeak itself uses. It's really my best guess without like, tearing apart the entire massive sourcecode for Espeak and figuring out how they normalize the IPA to different formant sounds than the one done with the standalone frontend. We have to do the hard work ourselves with saying, "these IPA symbols make these sounds and here are the exact pronouncing rules for them for each language, and here's what Espeak fed us as the IPA for that word."
This entry was edited (12 minutes ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Happy Martin Luther King Jr day. He said so many profound things and taught us so many valuable lessons, but this is the quote that resonates strongest with me. To me, it’s even more important than ever when we all have the potential to be keyboard warriors and spread global disharmony with a few key presses. But in any aspect of life, they are words to keep in mind when we feel we have been wronged and the poison of vengeance is pulsing through our veins.

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction."

in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

This is a specific trekkie brain injury: the idea that Star Trek series are strongly bound by rules that can't ever change for economic reasons or narrative expedience, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You stare at Star Trek long enough and you start to believe that any deviation is caused by writers not understanding the lore, when it's just a case of people making a television show on Earth over the course of 60 years
This entry was edited (2 minutes ago)

mastodon - Link to source

I think that's a no-brainer right now that Europe should pursue digital sovereignty aggressively.

It's not about MS Office vs Libre Office, it's about banking apps, cloud services, your phone, your daily life. Which is a way bigger leverage #Trump has about your daily life. #FOSS is security.

#linux

#linux #foss #Trump
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

No spoilers, but I think the series started very well. The cast of adults is great, and the young characters are an interesting bunch. The series clearly has a lot of talent, both in front and behind the cameras. Shout out to Holly Hunter playing a chaos gremlin captain that sits on her bridge chair like a cat; Paul Giamatti for his scenery chewing; and Gina Yashere for her big Nigerian London Mom vibes
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

It's too early to tell, but what I've seen so far intrigues me enough to watch the rest of the show—of course I'm not going to subscribe to Paramount Plus because fuck David Ellison; just like with his dad, never fall into the trap of anthropomorphising an Ellison. I'll do what I've done with Disco and SNW: I'll buy the season pass when it's out, and get the BluRays for my collection.
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

As an Old School TNG Trekkie™, the "Starfleet Academy" spin off has been in the fan discourse for a long time; back in the late '90s/early '00s discourse typically took the shape of "let's go back to the TOS era character when they were young", because the Star Trek fandom always had this predictable reactionary/nostalgic streak, which was counterbalanced by the "get that prelapsarian fuckery away from me and give me new characters to love" progressive current…
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

I think the reason why the Starfleet Academy concept kinda works now, as opposed to then, is that the reactionary current that took over the fandom as a response to Discovery got hit by Strange New Worlds—a series that, at its best, takes nostalgia and turns it on its head. Instead of the Academy of Kirk/Spock/McCoy, we got the first five year mission with a different set of legends…
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

This freed up the part of the fandom that saw Discovery grow up from its grimdark season 1 and 2 into a series dedicated to building bridges and hope in the fact of trauma, picking up the pieces of a broken, divided, and confrontational world; the part that is now trying to seed the next generation of the fandom, teaching new (and old) folks how to deal with Star Trek again…
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

Instead of looking at the past as a way to retreat into the comfy socks of the future as imagined by our parents and grandparents, we get pushed into a future trying to rebuild itself—and that future doubles for both the Star Trek and general SF fandom. Instead of going further and further dark (both figuratively and literally, just look at how Picard was staged and lit), we got bright, airy sets…
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

mastodon - Link to source

Emmanuele Bassi

I don't know if this effort will pan out, and we're going to get a long running series with a rotating cast going farther into the future, like the showrunners seem to indicate. At this point, just like with Discovery, I value a lot more a valiant effort even if that may ultimately fall short, than a safe bet on whatever grimdark slop they'll give us next if things don't change.

#startrek #starfleetacademy

#startrek #starfleetacademy

mastodon - Link to source
🗣️ Welcome Mia and Mil, two new voices designed to read texts in Luxembourgish using screen readers. They are making progress, but sometimes still struggle a little with Dicks' language.
🔧 Would you like to help them? Come and test them out, and let us know what you think: gd.lu/15pM9q
Photo of a blind person using a smartphone with a screen reader

Be part of the Luxembourgish screen reader adventure

This is the latest development at the start of the year: Mia and Mil, two new voices to reproduce texts in Luxembourgish as faithfully as possible. Come and see how you can help us get to grips with them.
Digital accessibility portal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

mastodon - Link to source

RE: mas.to/@AccessibilityLU/115921…

Here's one of the projects that has kept us really busy these past six months: developing a Luxembourgish text-to-speech system for screen readers used by blind people.

We hope you like the result!

Many thanks to our partners Ministry for Digitalisation, Zenter fir d'Lëtzebuerger Sprooch, Centre pour le développement des compétences relatives à la vue, LouderPages and to all the contributors of the RHvoice project.


Accessibility Luxembourg (@AccessibilityLU@mas.to)

Attached: 1 image 🗣️ Welcome Mia and Mil, two new voices designed to read texts in Luxembourgish using screen readers. They are making progress, but sometimes still struggle a little with Dicks' language.
Accessibility Luxembourg (mas.to)
This entry was edited (2 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Dear everybody:

Everything is so much easier to understand, once you realize that the Gold-foil-King is a Mafioso, who only know mafioso methods, and only use mafioso methods.

The letter to the .no PM is classical mafia:

"Nice country you have there, pity if something happened to it. Better think careful about who gets those peace-prices, capisce ?"

EU needs to stop pussying around, and go full in and stand up to the bully.

If not now, when ?

This entry was edited (3 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source
A twenty-minute power failure has given me the opportunity to listen to and operate VHF and UHF amateur radio bands, and come to the conclusion that electrically operated devices are around 80% of my noise floor on weak signals. So my getting out of this place will probably do me better than getting a better antenna. A better antenna would likely amplify the noise, and make weak signals even more useless.
This entry was edited (1 hour ago)
in reply to Borris

mastodon - Link to source

Adam MacLeod

@BorrisInABox Wow! That's better than a Shari can do in the same room! LOL. This machine isn't that powerful enough for me, I doubt I could key it with no duck, and with no duck, its about S7 at the top of my building. Its on the fire station about three minutes by fire truck from here. But I'm sure it would do a lot better if I went up there with the power off. I used to live in the east end, and there was a 400 watt repeater with a four-bay sintclair litterally a three minute walk from me, and that, I could hear S9 with no duck, and key it up too.
@Borris
in reply to Adam MacLeod

mastodon - Link to source

Borris

I don't remember how much power this repeater put out, but it was near the top of a 1100 foot commercial tower. Man, that was a really nice repeater site. There were two repeaters up there. Unfortunately, time and bureaucracy have done what they do, and everything amateur radio was basically left to rot up there when things broke, and they couldn't get the very expensive climbers to go up there and fix stuff when the elevator broke, and the people who owned the tower wouldn't fix it. That happened fairly recently. One of the two repeaters up there was essentially running on a piece of coax for an antenna for a while. Still got out a few miles anyway just because of how high up it was compared to the surrounding terrain. Lol
⇧