So what is development like for the BTSpeak?

Are you limited to making apps that only work with desktop mode, or can you do things that also integrate with the non-desktop experience? (Not up on my BTSpeak terminology so maybe there's a better description for "non-desktop-mode experience" but hopefully what I mean is clear)

What is development like? I know there are Python tutorials but is it limited to Python? Or can you build a TUI-style app and adapt it to work with specific keycodes/conventions?

Are there any developer docs?

I've had an idea for something that would likely be great for the BTSpeak and other notetakers for a while now, and my assumption is that the BTSpeak is probably the most open/easy to develop for. If that's correct, I'm curious what that process looks like.

On this day, forty years ago: 28 January 1986.

I was working on my astronomy PhD in the terminal room at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.

Someone came in & told us the awful news. After so many launches & astronauts, we’d grown blasé & didn’t pay much attention anymore.

That changed in 73 seconds on that cold day & we learned again that space is hard.

I still remember their names:

Onizuka, Smith, McAuliffe, Scobee, Jarvis, Resnick, & McNair.

Ad astra, STS-51L Challenger crew ✨

#space

Most hashtags are pretty obvious, you just put # in front of a topic. For example if a post is about coffee it might have the tag #Coffee

However, many popular hashtags have difficult-to-guess names, so I've started a list to help people discover them:

➡️ fedi.tips/fun-and-useful-hasht…

Copy-paste a hashtag into the search box in Mastodon if you want to browse or follow it.

If you have suggestions for non-obvious hashtags that should be added to the list, let me know in the replies 🙂

#FediTips

Fun and useful hashtags to follow on Mastodon and the wider Fediverse | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

^fedi.tips

If you would like to help financially support the development of a new Wayland compositor for Xfce, you can do so by contributing funds via our #OpenCollective accounts.

For US contributions:
opencollective.com/xfce

For EU contributions:
opencollective.com/xfce-eu

These contributions will help pay for the funding of longtime Xfce core developer Brian Tarricone to create xfwl4, a brand-new Wayland compositor for Xfce.

Thank you for your support!

#Xfce #Wayland #Rust #FOSS #Linux

Xfce - Open Collective

Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.

^{opencollective.com}

From the Slint email list:

Dear all.

I am very sad to inform everyone that our friend Didier died last week.

Early 2015, I asked on the slackware list if brltty could be added in the
installer ; Didier answered promptly that he could do it on
slint. Afterwards, he worked hard so that slint became as accessible as
possible for visually impaired people.

You all know that all these years, he tried and succeeded to answer as
quickly as possible to our issues and questions.

He will be irreplaceable.

@Friendica Support

There is a fork of Mastodon available, called "Glitch Edition", that has some special features implemented. My new instance at social.defocn42.net is running this fork.

I came upon an interesting error when trying to connect to the instance. Adding the user "m1rk0@social.defcon42.net" failed because of an unknown network. Then i tried it the other way around from the Mastodon instance and could follow myself on Friendica. The connection is now mutual and the Mastodon instance is recognized as "glitchsoc".

Are there known issues with glitchsoc and Friendica? It's weird, that the connection can be established only from one side and is working normally afterwards.

Looks like the UK does not have our back:

"Keir Starmer rejected his Canadian counterpart’s call for mid-sized countries to band together in the face of unpredictable global powers — and insisted his “common sense” British approach will do just fine."

Like I said, we'll find out who our friends are.
politico.eu/article/keir-starm…

Starmer to Carney: No new world order please, we’re British

U.K. leader says he’s ‘a British pragmatist applying common sense’ after Canadian counterpart called for mid-sized countries to team up in the era of Trump.

^{Dan Bloom (POLITICO)}

#CSS `@custom-media` available behind a flag in Firefox Nightly

Lovely syntax, just lovely.
nerdy.dev/custom-media

Ich hätte ja gern ein erwachsenes, partnerschaftliches Verhältnis in meinem Betrieb.

Aber ich kriege es nicht hin.

Es vergeht kein Tag, an dem ich nicht gesagt bekomme, dass ich ja die Chefin bin.

#selforganized #NewWork

The tech industry is weird at the moment.
So, I'm looking for a frontend focused position.
EM or Staff engineer. Remote or Berlin area.

#mastohire #FediHire

I didn’t realise just how US centric all of package management was until I made these tables 😅

The Dependency Layer in Digital Sovereignty: nesbitt.io/2026/01/28/the-depe…

The Dependency Layer in Digital Sovereignty

Where package management fits in the digital sovereignty discussion.

^{Andrew Nesbitt}

Ich brauche eine Empfehlung für einen Rechtsanwalt für NRW-Schulrecht.
Lage oder Örtlichkeit ist ist egal, wenn es telefonische Beratung gibt.

Ich bitte um persönliche Erfahrungswerte, gerne auch per DN.

Danke!

#FediEltern

It was interesting to read up on the AI assisted code review at lesswrong.com/posts/7aJwgbMEiK…

For context: I'm personally responsible for at least 29 curl CVEs. Out of the recent 6 CVEs mentioned in the blog post I found two. This gives me some perspective, I think.

I do not utilise AI tools in my vulnerability research. I am also fiercely critical of harmful proliferation of AI. This is due to the unsustainable way it is currently pushed, and use of as marketing ploy and gimmick rather than producing measurable benefit to users. This leads to negative impacts on economy, education & learning, not to mention impacts to nature due to wasteful use of energy.

This doesn't mean I am against AI. I have written by own AI tooling (fully local RAG with support for arbitrary number of models running on local nodes, implemented in python). I found the usefulness of such tool to be limited at best. It is somewhat useful in mass analysis of large document bases, but the level of analysis is superficial at best. These AI models are after all just language models, and do not have any true understanding or intelligence.

And here is the gist of it: The current tools are not intelligent. Understanding this limitation is the key of successful deployment and utilisation of AI tools. The tools can be useful in certain tasks, but they do not replace true intelligence.

The AI tooling AISLE are developing certainly is one of the better uses of AI, and definitely surpasses all my personal dabbling around it. It is clear that the tool does find vulnerabilities. The key question is how much hallucinations and false positives it produces: If the tool generates thousands of FPs and the true findings are hidden among them this limits the value and usefulness of the tool (of course it doesn't entirely negate it, many tools produce false positives). In short: The quality of the findings is key, and poor signal-to-noise ratio is highly undesirable.

Either way, I think there is a future for AI tools and they definitely will be helpful in vulnerability research.

I personally will keep exercising my wetware for this work, however.

#cybersecurity #infosec #vulnerabilityresearch #thoughtoftheday