mastodon - Link to source

I've read this quote multiple times, over the years:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

It turns out it's from a comment on a blog post moaning about liberals: crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/l…

The rest of the comment is a lot more interesting than the pithy quote, because it cuts through a lot of the usual noise in leftist discourse.

The travesty of liberalism — Crooked Timber

crookedtimber.org
in reply to Goemon Ishikawa

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@GoemonIshikawa would be very curious. Is this a data containing CF1 to CF6 values (and Parallel formants too) or just like, here's the frequency and sound for a specific IPA symbol? Either way, some kind of file, even if it's JSON or text works, it doesn't have to be the same format as my current data is but I can pull useful info out of it both manually and probably AI to see how it helps.
@Goemon Ishikawa
in reply to Goemon Ishikawa

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@GoemonIshikawa Lol, or an application that just lets you load / choose which wrapper, and engine, then you could have a Speak / convert to wav window the universally covered a bunch of these old synths. Haha. How fun of an idea but totally illegal too. Well, making the app itself is totally legal, because it's just reusing wrappers that talk to the engines which makes that a bit ironic. What's more in a gray area are the wrappers themselves, since they technically do link against comercial products, but I'm not worried with how extinct the companies behind those synths are these days.
@Goemon Ishikawa

mastodon - Link to source

In our journey to #DigitalSovereignty, here's where we are:

- Domain registration: TransIP and Prolocation 🇳🇱
- Email, calendar, collaborative writing, and more: mailbox.org 🇩🇪
- Document store: Tresorit 🇨🇭
- Critical infra hosting: Hetzner 🇩🇪
- Discourse hosting: Communiteq 🇳🇱
- Security: 1Password.eu 🇨🇦/🇪🇺 and Yubico 🇸🇪

Next up: GitHub —> Codeberg 🇩🇪

To-do: Slack —> Zulip, Matrix, Mattermost?

#OpenSource #DNS #BGP

#opensource #dns #digitalsovereignty #bgp

mastodon - Link to source
Wondering. Ice and border patrol don't wear uniforms / show their faces apparently because of doxing. Why do police show their faces, have badges with their names on them, etc., and don't worry about doxing? Is it mostly that police actually being reasonable people? I just figure that Ice might be respected more if they acted human. Did Ice have badges in the past? I know masking is new. Doesn't make sense at all.

mastodon - Link to source

Les pubs vont arriver dans Whatsapp cette année en Europe.

Il est temps de passer à la version Premium qui:
- n’a pas de pub
- n’a pas d’IA intégrée obligatoire
- ne vous espionne pas et ne récolte pas vos données
- améliore grandement votre sécurité et votre vie privée.
- permet de discuter exclusivement avec les autres utilisateurs Premium.

Et le meilleur c’est que cette version Premium est pour le moment gratuite (le paiement est facultatif).

Alors installez-la !

Elle s’appelle : "Signal"

in reply to ploum

mastodon - Link to source

Nicoco

Les migrations de gens pas passionnés par l'informatique étant compliquées, je préfère éviter de recommander un silo duquel on devra encore s'échapper quand il se merdifiera, soit parce qu'il devra devenir rentable, soit pour se plier à la législation du pays qui l'héberge et se fascise à vitesse grand V. En plus, j'aime bien les trucs qu'on peut bidouiller et s'approprier, plutôt que ce qu'on me donne à utiliser sans possibilité de participer à sa gouvernance.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Nicoco

mastodon - Link to source

poulpomancien

je suppose que la seule raison qui fait que sur signal on est encore "tranquilles" c'est que, pour l'instant, ça reste petit (comparé aux whatsapp et compagnie) et du coup ça passe encore un peu sous les radars. Mais pour l'instant je vois pas mieux que ça. J'ai beau utiliser DeltaChat et Matrix dans des cercles d'initiés, je vois pas trop comment ça pourrait être étendu autant que signal aujourd'hui @ploum
@ploum
in reply to poulpomancien

mastodon - Link to source

Nicoco

je suis OK que c'est compliqué, mais je trouve justement intéressant de profiter d'occasions pour montrer que tout n'est pas "app", mais qu'il existe un truc qui peut être utilisé par plusieurs apps, proposé par plusieurs fournisseurs, et que tout marche ensemble, même si les couleurs sont différentes, bref parler d'interopérabilité et de déminitelisation de nos vies numériques. Je suis ambitieux je sais, mais j'aime pas le capitalisme c'est plus fort que moi !
in reply to tivasyk

mastodon - Link to source

Nicoco

@tivasyk Je suis d'une autre paroisse, mais deltachat ça m'excite déjà un peu plus que signal, oui. Décentralisation, protocole ouvert, pas d'hostilité aux clients alternatifs, autohebergeable, pas de nécessité d'avoir un smartphone avec OS mainstream... Je punk-valide, du haut de mon autorité de wannabe-punk (en fait je suis plutôt un quinoa-bobolchevique, mais c'est un secret ne me balance pas).
@tivasyk
in reply to Malte Kreutzfeldt

glitchsoc - Link to source

Andreas Bulling

Ich darf korrigieren: Die orchestrierte Kampagne und Verunglimpfung der Wärmepumpentechnologie, die Verzerrung der Historie und Inhalts des Gesetzentwurfs, persönliche Angriffe auf #habeck durch die #niemehrcducsu und #springer sowie das Durchstechen einer Vorabversion des Gesetzes durch die #fdp haben enorme Unsicherheit in den Markt gebracht.

Und ich darf ergänzen: Und die Inkompetenz und Fossil-Industrienähe von #gaskathie, die offensichtlich die Erneuerbaren ausbremsen will, bringt nun auch weiterhin Unsicherheit in den Markt.

Augenscheinlich ist sie jedoch glücklicherweise auch darin wenig erfolgreich. Es lebe die Inkompetenz!

#fdp #habeck #niemehrcducsu #springer #gaskathie
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

No TVL, to je fakt bizár.
Tahle Babišova čtyřletá schovávačka před spravedlností bude stát celou zemi ostudu, která ČR posune mezi země třetího světa

seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-…


„Naprosto neakceptovatelné.“ Petr Pavel obvinil ministra Macinku z vydírání

Prezident Petr Pavel na mimořádné tiskové konferenci obvinil ministra zahraničí Petra Macinku z vydírání.
Barbora Kučerová (Seznam Zprávy)

mastodon - Link to source

Equipment failure slows REM service between Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse

montreal.citynews.ca/2026/01/2…

The heavy rail that was on that line, that was barely 25 year old when it was taken down, didn't have these issues


Equipment failure slows REM service between Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse

REM service is running at reduced speed in both directions between the Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse stations due to an equipment failure.
Jessica Barile (CityNews Montreal)

mastodon - Link to source
We'd like to invite you to our #BoF session at #FOSDEM It's on Saturday at 13.00 in room K4.401. This is a meet-and-greet for everyone who is part of, or interested in, the #NGIZero ecosystem. We'll bring drinks and snacks :).
Preceding us at 12.00 in the same room is the BoF about the Open Internet Stack calls from @EUCommission the follow-up programme to #NGI.
For these and many more NGI Zero related talks and events at FOSDEM see: nlnet.nl/events/20260131/FOSDE…

NLnet; Let's meet at FOSDEM 2026!

nlnet.nl
#fosdem #ngi #bof #ngizero @European Commission

mastodon - Link to source
hmm. I wonder if releasing on GitHub might be easier for folks, rather than Eurpod. I am considering doing this and keeping one file there. This might break my old posts, but GitHub releases are more trackable, the repo is frozen at that tag, ETC. There's just clear benefits to release them always as a pair (editor + Add-on) whenever I make a change. From here on out, I think that's going to happen.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Saw a reference to Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’ this morning, which was funny because just yesterday I was explaining to someone it’s where one of my key prioritizing heuristics comes from.

There’s a proverb in the book that goes something like “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

Of course, logically this makes no sense—everything that happened twice is a thing that also happened once.

But I take it to mean “Once something goes wrong twice, it’s time to pay attention.” Once could be a fluke. Twice means there’s something going on. The second time it happens is where the phase change from noise to signal begins.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

I submitted a proposal for a lightning talk for #FOSDEM . It's about .... from street-level hack to open cultural production.

pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026…

#openart #foss #creativecommons

./make art: A Creative Commons Theater Experiment FOSDEM 2026

It began as a small patch for a real-world bug: holes in the road. A few hackers chose action over complaints and the result was a Creative Commons theater play, performed in Sofia, Bulgaria.
pretalx.fosdem.org
#foss #fosdem #creativecommons #openart

mastodon - Link to source
Do you like nonsense?
Today, for the second time in my life, I have been asked to convert a "pirate" copy of an old (50y+) movie into the DCP format, for a cinephile club. Not because they do not want to pay the copyright holders, they actually did. But that did not give them access to any copy of the movie, they are on their own.
The previous time, the distributor would only send them a French-dubbed version, which was a no-no for them.
They are not even obscure unknown movies, but classics. 🤦‍♀️

mastodon - Link to source

Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency.

Not remotely what you want to see. Will keep tabs on this one in a tough time. Details:

cdm.link/ni-insolvency/

Native Instruments logo against a blue background, NI abstract logo on the left.

Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency - CDM Create Digital Music

According to insolvency documents, Berlin-based Native Instruments GmbH (also parent to iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx) is in preliminary insolvency proceedings.
Peter Kirn (CDM Create Digital Music)

reshared this

in reply to peter KIRN

mastodon - Link to source

Scarlet Phoenix Collective

@FreakyFwoof And whatever happens I hope to all hell their incredible work to keep their products accessible to everyone including their BVI (Blind and Visually Impaired) users remains. I hate insolvancies like this because there's no guarantee that the folks who get broken up will land in good hands for those of us who use products on the daily. :(
@Andre Louis
in reply to peter KIRN

mastodon - Link to source

Andre Louis

@the_spc Linked here. Thanks as always sir. universeodon.com/@FreakyFwoof/…

Andre Louis

2026-01-19 16:08:56

mastodon - Link to source

Native Instruments did a 14-minute video on the accessibility features of their MK3 keyboards, barely enough time to even cover what the thing does, let alone the keyboard functions, not to mention it wasn't done by a blind user, the target audience.
I wasn't a fan, so I made my own video and I *still* didn't get through everything to do with it.
Anyway, here's a more than three times longer video at 48 minutes instead.

#InspiredBySound - Native Instruments Kontrol MK3 Accessibility Demonstration youtu.be/cMkm51Utijs

Audio download: onj.me/media/%23InspiredBySoun…



#InspiredBySound - Native Instruments Kontrol MK3 Accessibility Demonstration

In this video we take a tour of the Native Instruments Komplete MK3 keyboard.It's packed full of features and functions that were never accessible to blind u...
YouTube

@Scarlet Phoenix Collective
in reply to Andre Louis

mastodon - Link to source

peter KIRN

@FreakyFwoof @the_spc Here's the unusual situation: because *so much* is owed to creditors, the future of these products is really secured. You have to sell it to pay the debts, and the insolvency process makes that happen.

I'm happy to remind would-be future owners of how important accessibility is to that value proposition.

@Andre Louis @Scarlet Phoenix Collective

Andre Louis reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

My book, Accessibility For Everyone, is now free and online as a website.

accessibilityforeveryone.site

The book was first published by A Book Apart in 2017 but it holds up! It covers web accessibility for designers, developers, content folks, and really everyone who works in tech.


Accessibility For Everyone by Laura Kalbag

Read the book online for free.
accessibilityforeveryone.site

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
Alright, work meetings. No SpeechPlayer updates for a bit. Someone's asking for Russian, really can't promise that'd be ready by next driver with how complex it is of a language. If I add Russian I'd also be tempted with Ukranian, Belarusian, and Serbian. so it would come in with similar languages, just as we have all the Germanic ones, and then each would get their own tuning treatments. But large work. The initial scaffolding I can make, native speakers I can't just birth out of my stomach.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

Today's Web Design Update: groups.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/…

Featuring @Ted_drake, @onsman, @matuzo, @wilco,
@ozewai, @SteveFaulkner, @brucelawson, @aardrian, @schalkneethling, @mgifford, and more.

Subscribe info: d.umn.edu/itss/training/online…

#Accessibility #A11y #WebDesign

Web Design References: Webdev Newsletter

Web Design References: News and info about web design and development. The site advocates accessibility, usability, web standards and many related topics.
www.d.umn.edu
#a11y #Accessibility #webdesign @Adrian Roselli, pH0 @Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM @Steve Faulkner @Manuel Matuzović @Ricky Onsman @Wilco @Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊ @OZeWAI @Schalk Neethling @Ted Drake

mastodon - Link to source

RE: mastodon.social/@laura_carlson…

great work by @mgifford highlighted in this issue.

Laura Carlson (@laura_carlson@mastodon.social)

Today's Web Design Update: https://groups.google.com/a/d.umn.edu/g/webdev/c/piHu9SEO8P8 Featuring @Ted_drake, @onsman@aus.social, @matuzo, @wilco@mastodon.nl, @ozewai, @SteveFaulkner, @brucelawson@vivaldi.net, @aardrian@toot.
Laura Carlson (Mastodon)
@Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM

mastodon - Link to source
I don't know. My partner (Jess) asked if I'm building this for other people or myself. I feel like I'm building it for other people but I really should be happy with it for myself at least. My only goal was to get this thing working in modern NVDA. Then US English lead us to other languages, people asked if they can have theirs, and then it turned into this big sad project. But maybe I shouldn't feel so sad over it. For myself, it sounds nearly there. Yes some words are off, and some things still stick out a bit sharp, like the word words, ironically. But I can understand and use it, probably 80% of the time I am instead of Eloquence. In that way, mission accomplished, and we have a big robust frontend to tune, so I probably should feel less sad about it.
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@ppatel @fastfinge so what do y'all think. Give up on project until we know a better phonemizer path (or multiple if we needed that for multilingual coverage, but that gets dicey and bloated fast.) Haha. Phoneme table tuning works up to a point, and rules will help make words like "you" on their own not be cut off as fast, sure. But I don't think it will change how words get stressed and where, and besides the "classic" pitch mode that tries to really override intonation we can't create a different shape on how things are pronounced without creating a million word-specific rules Espeak might sound odd on (which En-us.YAML already has a lot of, it would just need even more sadly.) Thing is though, all those rules could no longer apply when you switch phonemizers, so I really am stuck on progress until this is unblocked there.
@Pratik Patel @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Pratik Patel

@fastfinge You can only take it so far. With your current set of tools, there's enough to make improvements to how ESpeak operates. I've been watching to see if your project would come close enough to Eloquence, hoping that we wouldn't have to write a completely new speech engine. I was considering starting a one from scratch. I'll have more time starting next month. With good community input and contributions, I think we can have something in a year or so.
@🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

mastodon - Link to source
This blogpost makes an astoundingly good case about LLMs I hadn't considered before. The collapse of public forums (like Stack Overflow) for programming answers coincides directly with the rise of programmers asking for answers from chatbots *directly*. Those debugging sessions become part of a training set that now *only private LLM corporations have access to*. This is something that "open models" seemingly can't easily fight. michiel.buddingh.eu/enclosure-…

The Enclosure feedback loop

speculation about the way (paid) software development will become LLM-only
michiel.buddingh.eu
in reply to Christine Lemmer-Webber

mastodon - Link to source

miki

This goes much, much wider than programming and LLMs.

In general, the open source world looks with disdain at all kinds of automated feedback collection mechanisms, which the Silicon Valley Venture Capital tech ecosystem has wholeheartedly embraced. OSS is still stuck in the 1990s mindset of "if there's a problem, somebody will report this to us", and That... just isn't true.

What we're stuck with is OSS solutions with inferrior user experiences which nobody wants to use, instead of a compromise where OSS software collects more data than some people would have liked, but that software actually has some users and makes a difference in the world.

To be fair, there are some good arguments against this (it's much easier to protect user privacy if the only contributors to your code are employees with background checks), but that doesn't make this less of a problem.

mastodon - Link to source
Yeah, not a bad idea to release the add-on and editor together on GitHub. Link updated. If people want they can use the packs folder from the add-on included to tweak phonemes now too, so that really solves that problem. Appreciate that suggestion. Technically it's still not bundling libespeak or linking directly to it so I'm able to do that fairly.
github.com/tgeczy/NVSpeechPlay…
Remember, the driver file is like 70 KB because it has so much code for settings, compatibility with older NVDA back to 2023.2, voice keys, all of it adds lines. I think we're good on frontend passes for now, too many settings and people can now build proper languages with this set of them.

Release NVSpeech Player with phoneme editor and NVDA Addon version 1.7 · tgeczy/NVSpeechPlayer

Many changes, and first one with the NVDA add-on bundled as this uses built-in Espeak, not code-linked: Adds proper focus management for the editor, so alt tabbing away and back, or opening the wi...
GitHub
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
I didn't put in the new phonemes into the editor yet. Going to give it a bit of time to be in the driver first, then yeah if people aren't overly upset, we'll move them into Master. For now it's a bit experimental. Maybe this afternoon. I'll move them into the master branch now, so people can see and mess with them, compare the diffs if they want, and then we'll roll it into the editor version later.

mastodon - Link to source
New NVSpeech Player build for NVDA:
Mostly language tuning. Words like "square", "fair", "bear" get proper US and UK pronunciations. Protein, Fourteen get a slight tweak, though not perfect. Some of this is just on Espeak being used for IPA and phonemizing. We also fixed it so that the "google / able" rule doesn't bleed into words like real. Overall, no phoneme changes from last night. People were not super overly mad at them getting a slight softening. At 16000, it sounds really good to me, and less sharp. At 22050, that's your own damn problem. Formant synthesizers lose their bandwidths at higher sample rates because they simply cannot fill it all in and compress their voice in an equally filling way across all frequencies. It's a thing with all of them. Eloquence at 22K? I'm realizing, not the greatest. So if you're using it at that and think, "oh now it's too soft", at least it also doesn't sound like it does at 44100 when it's at 22050, so you should really be thankful instead. Just saying. Besides, we only really changed like 17 phonemes to get this effect, it's not like all of them got a rewrite.
eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
in reply to Charlie Stross

mastodon - Link to source

JdeBP

Not the specific claim, but there is news coverage claiming that opposition to U.S.A. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is being suppressed on #TikTok.

Standard caution about question headlines applies, of course.

forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2…

cosmopolitan.com/politics/a701…

But let's put it this way: the notion has reached Forbes and Cosmo, and isn't just some anonymous poster on Twitter stirring the pot.

#USPolitics #fascism


Is TikTok Censoring Anti-ICE Content?

Many users are raising concerns about the platform's content moderation with its new ownership.
Annabel Iwegbue (Cosmopolitan)
#tiktok #fascism #uspolitics
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

2021: OpenAI is the most expensive loss-making startup in human history, and their only product is a chatbot.

2022: OpenAI is the most expensive loss-making startup in human history, and their only product is a chatbot.

2023: OpenAI is the most expensive loss-making startup in human history, and their only product is a chatbot.

2024: OpenAI is the most expensive loss-making startup in human history, and their only product is a chatbot.

2025: OpenAI is the most expensive loss-making startup in human history, and their only product is a chatbot.

2026: OpenAI is the most expensive loss-making startup in human history, and their only product is a chatbot.

Much innovation. Very business.

mastodon - Link to source

Data control = identity control. 😨

Nubus by Nextcloud partner Univention is an identity management system that puts IT departments back in charge of storage locations, access rights, security policies, and integrations.

Discover more👇 biometricupdate.com/202601/uni…


Univention’s Nubus promises data sovereignty at fraught moment: Nextcloud

Nextcloud questions the wisdom of relying on major cloud platforms like Microsoft Entra ID to manage user accounts, access and authentication.
Joel R. McConvey (BiometricUpdate.com)

mastodon - Link to source
NVSpeech Player with phoneme editor version 1.7
• Adds proper focus management for the editor, so alt tabbing away and back, or opening the window, will land you on the first field in the window.
• adds keyboard shortcuts for commands available in the main area, so you're not left tabbing through.
• Adds new settings available in the frontend for the passes.
• YAML now gets ordered correctly as the NVDA driver writes it, so the phoneme editor will create a structurally sound form that's consistent.
Still using ESpeak as a non-linked, separate phonemizer, or you can specify your own if it runs through STDIN / CLI, as always. Enjoy!
github.com/tgeczy/NVSpeechPlay…

Release NVSpeech Player with phoneme editor and NVDA Addon version 1.7 · tgeczy/NVSpeechPlayer

Many changes, and first one with the NVDA add-on bundled as this uses built-in Espeak, not code-linked: Adds proper focus management for the editor, so alt tabbing away and back, or opening the wi...
GitHub
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Alex Chapman

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@alexchapman there it is, I updated the release. github.com/tgeczy/NVSpeechPlay…

Release NVSpeech Player with phoneme editor and NVDA Addon version 1.7 · tgeczy/NVSpeechPlayer

Many changes, and first one with the NVDA add-on bundled as this uses built-in Espeak, not code-linked: Adds proper focus management for the editor, so alt tabbing away and back, or opening the wi...
GitHub
@Alex Chapman
⇧