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The internet connection here has been somewhat flaky the last couple of days, possibly weather-related, so I've been pretty much exclusively using AT&T mobile data, as it's more reliable than the fiber ISP. Go figure.

With two bars of signal, I'm getting around 450 Mb/sec down, anywhere between 7 and 22 Mb/sec up.

Tonight, I connected my iPhone 16 Pro to one of the USB-C ports of my Mac to use my phone as a wired hotspot, and I noticed lots of jitter, packet loss, and very high latency that I wasn't seeing either on the device itself, or when using it as a WiFi hotspot.
I'd think a direct connection would be better, but apparently not.

This entry was edited (10 hours ago)

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Good morning. Starting my trip to #FOSDEM at this ungodly hour. Local traffic to Helsinki Central, train to Turku, ship to Stockholm, night train to Malmƶ, and so on. Will stay a couple of nights on the way in a city where I havenā€™t been before: DĆ¼sseldorf, and from there take a bus to Brussels because of the Belgian train strike this week. Or, if the ICE trains from Cologne to Brussels seem to be running reliably anyway, go by train. Using #Interrail .
#fosdem #interrail
This entry was edited (12 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source
It is pretty annoying to spend time formatting code with a screen reader. I switched to automatic code formatters and stopped thinking about it. There is one for basically every popular language: Black for Python, clang-format for C and C++, swift-format for Swift, Prettier for JS, etc. For example, you just run `swift-format -rip .` before commiting, or I think you can even make Git do it for you via setting up a pre-commit hook. I think it's an easy quality of life upgrade! lol

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The student organizers who mobilized Friday's massive action are now calling for a National Shutdown this Friday, January 30.

instagram.com/p/DT9ULZQjFUU/


Somali Student Association on Instagram: "JUSTICE FOR ALEX PRETTI & RENEE NICOLE GOOD ā€” NATIONWIDE SHUTDOWN We witnessed a historic general strike on Friday in Minneapolis. Just yesterday, ICE killed yet another community member, Alex Pretti. This ICE te

15K likes, 253 comments - ssa.umn on January 25, 2026: "JUSTICE FOR ALEX PRETTI & RENEE NICOLE GOOD ā€” NATIONWIDE SHUTDOWN We witnessed a historic general strike on Friday in Minneapolis.
Instagram

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Mahmoud Khalil and his legal team vowed to fight Trump administration plans to deport the Palestinian activist to Algeria, calling the move "extreme punishment" for his pro-Palestinian speech.

mondoweiss.net/2026/01/mahmoudā€¦

#Palestine #Israel #Gaza


Mahmoud Khalil vows to oppose Trump efforts to deport him to Algeria over pro-Palestine speech

Mahmoud Khalil and his legal team vowed to fight Trump administration plans to deport the Palestinian activist to Algeria, calling the move ā€œextreme punishmentā€ for his pro-Palestinian speech.
Michael Arria (Mondoweiss)
#israel #palestine #Gaza

mastodon - Link to source

Hey!!

Is anyone on here a Black birth worker or know one?

For my research, I am seeking to interview as many Black midwives (and other Blk birth workers, but midwifery is the central focus) as possible and get connected to birthing centers employing Black birth workers, esp. in the US South.

If you are/someone you know is interested, pls DM me! Thanks for reading!

*pls boost!!*

#BlackStudies #ReproductiveJustice #BlackWomen #BlackBirthingPeople #Midwifery #Doulas #BirthWork #MedicalAnthro

#blackwomen #ReproductiveJustice #medicalanthro #birthwork #doulas #midwifery #blackbirthingpeople #BlackStudies

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Ok so hey #Canada #GenX especially people from #Winnipeg who spent time in Eaton Place downtown in the early 80s, because that is the specific instance of what I'm certain was in many government offices and such.

Ok. It is maybe 1980 I'm late single digits and I go downtown with my gramma a lot, and we spend a fair amount of time in Eaton Place, her doing whatever she did, and me doing a circuit of Petland, a record store on the second floor, the arcade, and near the North entrance of the South building, there was a government office of some kind.

In that government office, there was a computer. Not one that #retro heads would recognize, it was large, did simple colour graphics, and had a weird nonstandard keyboard about the size of a gigantic TV remote, on a curly cable. Possibly some sort of Unix thing and I think it was networked, presumably on the Internet.

It mostly did very boring stuff and I was just a kid, I didn't care about whatever its main functions were, but I had learned that if I entered f518, there was a graphical mystery house game of some kind.

I remember that office had a fair amount of techy stuff, like, there was a kind of pushbutton video jukebox where you could watch various promotional videos, I remember one of the things it played was a Folklorama ad with the "la-lalala-la-lalalaaa" earworm, which my older California chick cousin and I laughed at one summer day that we were all downtown.

I would really love to find out what was the deal with that computer system, though.

#canada #retro #genx #winnipeg

reshared this

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ā€œThis will result in the largest ever accumulation of power and wealth in the hands of a diminishing few, while the legitimate needs of the people, from healthcare to education, are met with ā€˜let them eat chatbotsā€™. That *is* the intent and why AI is a project of class domination.ā€ ā€” disjunctionsmag.com/articles/wā€¦

Why I'm Leaving Big Tech

A tech worker's reflections
Disjunctions

reshared this

in reply to Ethan Marcotte

mastodon - Link to source

Zach Bennoui

Great article, I agree with all of this. I worry about older people especially, my mom is a good example of this, who rely too much on LLMs to get information or conduct research. At the same time, they definitely have their uses, but I'm sick and tired of the hype. These things are not magic boxes, they are not some new species. They can do amazing things absolutely, but they're not the be all end all solution.

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Pretty stoked that the feds completely misunderstand actual Americans. They especially miscalculated the willingness of white folk to stand up for marginalized members of our communities.

As with any group, we are not a monolith. They assumed it would be so and that was a bad assumption on their part.

Minneapolis showed us the way.

Let's get this done.

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I would not be here except for the countless hours spent at my bedside as I grew up in and out of hospitals. They noticed infection when others missed it. They would sit in my room as I laid awake in pain as they charted. There is nothing or no way I can say thank you to my unsung heroes, my nurses, who worked with my doctors to heal me and save my leg from amputation. Think about nurses that have blessed you. Thank you nurses!

reshared this

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So, I'm now on Delta Chat and very curious to try it out. I actually read the entire help file and it's got me thinking about how nice it is to have an E2E messaging option that's fairly straightforward unlike Matrix, Session and SimpleX. All 3 of those have some technical hurdle you have to jump over while it feels like Delta Chat (going to continue assuming it's 2 words until someone corrects me) is a breath of fresh air. That was a rather frictionless sign-up process, while Signal demands you fork over your phone number. If you would like to say hello, just send me a direct message to start the process and I'll invite you to chat with me. #Privacy #E2EMessaging #deltaChat
#privacy #deltachat #e2emessaging
This entry was edited (13 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

May be hard for some to watch but is not extreme:

The killing of Alex Pretti: minute-by-minute analysis of video & stills from five different verified videos.

The videos show that Pretti "did not walk up to anybody from CBP in a threatening manner."

"There's nothing in the video evidence that we've seen thus far that would support" DHS's version of Pretti's intent.

~John Cohen, fmr DHS official & police trainer

abcnews.go.com/Politics/minuteā€¦

#USPol #Europol #AlexPretti #BorderPatrol #fascism .


A minute-by-minute timeline of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti involving federal agents

ABC News compiled a timeline based on six verified videos of the incident.
Gaby Vinick (ABC News)
#uspol #fascism #europol #alexpretti #borderpatrol

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Again, stupid question time, sorry. Gemini has the --screen-reader switch which seems to remove the symbols announcing themselves as "box drawings". Open-codex doesn't let me do this. I want these symbols gone. the punctuation setting doesn't seem to change the situation at all. Does anyone know the way to get rid of these? I'm using windows ten powershell 5.1. I have tried CMD without any change. I am happy to upgrade powershell if it will do anything, I am also happy to get WSL 2 running if that will help, or set something up over SSH. I just want to know if any of these will kill these symbols.

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"Neil Young Trashes Amazon, Gives His Complete Musical Catalog to Greenland for Free
"Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire backer of the president," Young writes to fans. "My music will never be available on Amazon, as long as it is owned by Bezos""

rollingstone.com/music/music-nā€¦


Neil Young Trashes Amazon, Gives His Catalog to Greenland For Free

Neil Young has escalated his way against Amazon due to Jeff Bezos' support of Trump, and is giving his music to the people of Greenland.
Andy Greene (Rolling Stone)

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The woman who survived
five gunshots from a Border Patrol agent in Chicago last fall,
-- only to be criminally charged and then cleared,
now wants a judgeā€™s permission to share records that
show how the feds respond when ā€œtheir agents use deadly force against U.S. citizens.ā€

#Marimar #Martinezā€™s lawyer argued Monday that
top Trump administration officials continue to smear her name,
and that the White Houseā€™s false narrative about her arrest
has even seeped into writings by
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

All the while, a standard court order bars Martinez from sharing records in her case.

Designed to protect against the improper disclosure of evidence,
attorney Chris Parente says the order has
instead become
ā€œa prophylactic to countering a pernicious misinformation campaign mounted by the United States.ā€

ā€œThey are forcing the public,
and Supreme Court justices,
to have to rely solely on the governmentā€™s
inaccurate version of events,ā€
Parente wrote.

ā€œThis court has the power to shed light on the truth of what happened on October 4.ā€

chicago.suntimes.com/immigratiā€¦


Woman shot by Border Patrol in Chicago asks judge to let her release evidence

Marimar Martinez is blocked from releasing evidence in her case by what's known as a "protective order." Though standard, her attorney says it's ā€œbecome an albatrossā€ around her neck and ā€œkeeps the entire country in the dark."
Jon Seidel (Chicago Sun-Times)
#marimar #Martinez
in reply to adison verlice

mastodon - Link to source

NV Access

The Neural voice included in recent versions of Narrator are currently only available to Narrator. We'd be happy to make them available but that is up to Microsoft to open them up at this point.

With other "neural" voices, there are a couple like Sonata and Hear 2 Read on our extra voices page, depending on what you are after: github.com/nvaccess/nvda/wiki/ā€¦.

I also came across this add-on the other day: github.com/TigreGotico/phoonnxā€¦ (it's not on the add-on store yet)


GitHub - TigreGotico/phoonnx-AddonNVDA

Contribute to TigreGotico/phoonnx-AddonNVDA development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub

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Condo boards suck! If you ever get asked, or told to join such boards, run far far away! The currently elected board just accused the previous board for not attending the meetings, when it was the president that wouldn't sign anything, or miss many meetings. I have evidence, so I will share the minutes with the Facebook group... and then walk away. Because, I never missed a meeting... ever. It's so petty, considering what is happening in the world, but it still makes me sad.

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OK, I'll make this promise: If I can't fix that darn "when" issue by the end of the evening, I'll re-upload the V16 add-on with the older pack's phonemes and upload the new ones as an packs-tuned.zip file people can try. I mostly got positive feedback, but I must handle this carefully without changing the sound of sounds too much. It's mostly good but we have some outlyers.
This entry was edited (13 hours ago)

pleroma - Link to source

I haven't seen this copypasta on fedi yet. tbh it sounds like if he was in school this century he'd have been a school shooter, yikes

ā„ļøā„ļøā„ļø

I live in Minneapolis but grew up in the quiet mountain town of Boone, NC, with a pathetic squat toad named Gregory Bovino. Heā€™s grown up to be the pathetic Nazi toad in charge of ICE, and has come to my beautiful city to terrorize, torture, and murder my friends and neighbors. He is personally going door to door, so hereā€™s some background on him and some things you can say if you see him to get under his skin.

His father used to run a bar called The Library Club in neighboring Blowing Rock. While driving drunk one night, his dad hit and killed a woman with his car. The ensuing financial problems forced him to sell his bar and ultimately caused his parentsā€™ divorce. Greg will be sensitive about that so be sure to name drop ā€œThe Library Club.ā€

ā€œYou're the reason your dad got loaded and killed JANIE MAE MITCHELL with his car, resulting in your parentā€™s divorce. You're the reason they split up!ā€

"Your history teacher, GI Jones, thinks you're a pathetic Nazi punk. No wonder you failed all his classes!ā€

ā€œRemember when Mast General Store banned you for sniffing shoes after people tried them on?ā€

"Remember when Mr. Combs found you jerking off in the Watauga High bathroom?ā€

"Remember eating the Pioneer wrestling team's soggy biscuit? Is it gay to eat semen off a Bojangles biscuit or was that just an 80s thing?"

"Remember when your swimsuit fell off at Trash Can falls and everyone laughed at your micro penis?ā€

ā€œDoes your democrat Mom say sheā€™s ashamed of or just disappointed in you at Thanksgiving?ā€

in reply to James Scholes

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@jscholes haha, guess the only good thing about Speechplayer too is that it doesn't slur at high speech rates quite like Fred. Maybe that's why I like it though, not everyone does especially Fred, but it sort of reminds me of the time before they really broke Fred, in the Mac OS Tiger days. I've wanted to run an emulator of Tiger with sound just to have it, maybe now I won't really have to once I tune this further xD
@James Scholes

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So it's clear to me that a lot of sharpness on consonants came from the original phoneme tuning table, once I made the tools that identify spikes and corners inside phonemes it was a lot easier to target one and reduce it or spread the bandwidths out without really altering the sound's identity, just softening it. It's just countless moments of "oh no, words like fishing now sound like shishing gosh what happened."
ā‡§