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I don't understand why I sometimes see people's closed laptops on tables in the office, upside down, with their little protective feet helplessly sticking up into the air.


Why do I doubt that statement somehow? Elon did it on purpose to achieve people talking about him, which is what we are doing now! :) Elon Musk Says He's Learned a Lesson - Business Insider businessinsider.com/elon-musk-…


My dad's on a business trip, and just sent me a picture of the view out of his hotel room's window. I ran it through Be My AI, and got a description that was later confirmed to be completely accurate. This is where this research needs to keep going, it unlocks an entire other layer of the world for blind people.


It seems there's still no way to get to the transcript of a voicemail without also playing it. The whole point of transcripts is so I don't have to play the actual voicemail. This has been the case ever since iOS introduced the feature. Please tell me I'm just missing something obvious...
in reply to Alex Hall

Yeah, I’d love to meet a product manager responsible for this feature. My suspicion is that there’s got to be some privacy / policy / security / whatever legislation that they had to comply with. Otherwise, It simply does not make any sense…


Yeah, #Boeing employees are on strike in union plants (non-union ones are still working).

However, what is interesting is that Boeing’s quality issues started around 1997 after an acquisition/merger with a problematic company. Great article by @NPR!

👉🏾 The Boeing Strike: 4 moments the company fractured its bond with workers npr.org/2024/09/16/nx-s1-51116…


in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion Yeah, the Arm varient of the XPS 13. I don't get it, as laptops are frequently used in music production and audiophile uses.
in reply to mohaneds

I mean, built-in audio, especially on Dells, is crap anyways, but stay without an audio jack in a trip… no, thanks.
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion We can always use a USB dongle, but I don't want to take up a USB port for just audio.
in reply to mohaneds

given that in those modern laptops you have so few USB ports, yes.
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion If you have to get a laptop, I suggest getting a mobile workstation if you can afford it. I mean a real, half-inch thick workstation, not an ultrabook pretending to be a workstation. I have the Lenovo Thinkpad P16 Gen 2. As a general rule, if it weighs less than four pounds, it's probably not worth owning.
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion Also: I hate Dell laptops. Their audio has high latency even on headphones, due to extensive processing in the driver itself.
in reply to mohaneds

Me too. You probably read my complaints about it, the thing that really puts me off is that they "improve" (in big quotes) even sound coming from USB! I mean, it's none of your Dell business what I connect as an external audio source! Sorry, just irritates me too much.
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion I wasn't aware that they try to improve the sound via USB and I didn't even know that was possible. What do they do, replace the Microsoft USB audio driver with their own?
in reply to mohaneds

I have no idea, but it corrupts my Samson Q2U sound. Also, this particular machine has a nasty bug that causes sound to change sides very often (like, often you hear from the right what you should hear from the left and vice versa). It's my work machine, and if I decide what to buy next, it won't be a Dell, no way.
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion That's fascinating, and it swaps channels? Honestly that sounds like a bad electrical implementation of the USB spec, which wouldn't surprise me in the least, because Dell. Like either something is up with power delivery or the clock, or there is just too much interference
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion I suggest not getting an HP. I have a female friend who owns one, and her JAWS constantly drops in volume as it speaks. I tried fixing it by switching Windows to the generic Realtek driver, but it keeps switching back to the HP driver
in reply to mohaneds

My wife has an HP EliteBook 640 as a work machine, and it's a lovely piece of hardware, I must tell. Not fancy-schmancy characteristics, but good enough for heavy Visual Studio use, for example.
in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion Oh I haven't seen an Elitebook in years. The last one I saw had a pretty nice laptop keyboard, on par with Lenovo.
in reply to mohaneds

As home laptops (i.e., chosen and bought by myself) we both have Asus VivoBook. they are five years old and still rock, in my opinion.


As I have abandoned Android and am now daily-driving Gnome mobile / PostmarketOS on my OnePlus 6, I feel the urge to contribute to filling the app gap. Nobody seems to have asked for an app to record push ups and track progress, but that's what I want to accomplish now. Here are some first impressions of my Libadwaita app, which I call "Pushup Sessions":

#Oneplus6 #linuxmobile #PostmarketOS #GnomeMobile

This entry was edited (2 months ago)


Anarchism is just the way people act when they are free to do as they choose, and when they deal with others who are equally free.
-- David Graeber

#anarchism #quote #bot

in reply to Anarchist Quotes

A billionaire dumping waste in the river: "This is just the way I act when I'm free to do as I choose. Others are free not to drink from the river or to get into a shoot out with my private army."

An all white town lynching the only black family: "This is just the way we act when we're free to do as we choose. They're free to buy more guns to defend themselves against us."

A small town refusing service to the only trans person: "They're free to move somewhere else."

in reply to raccoona_nongrata

“A billionaire dumping waste in the river” is enabled by the coercive state.

“An all white town lynching the only black family” is enabled by the coercive state.

“A small town refusing service to the only trans person” is enabled by the coercive state.

It’s easy to imagine people already powerful in our society acting with impunity, because they already do right now, under the status quo of the coercive state. This is the antithesis of what anarchists are talking about when we discuss and advocate for freedom, which includes the freedom to resist these depredations.


in reply to Hubert Figuière

There have been some effort. This may present an excellent opportunity.
in reply to Ian McKellar

@ian and lot of busting. but that what's I'm getting at. I think it applies also to other big tech. The RTO policies ARE a good reason.


¡El llamado a charlas para GNOME Latam 2024 está abierto!

¿Tienes algo que compartir sobre el ecosistema #GNOME o el software libre? ¡Esta es tu oportunidad! Envía tu propuesta y únete a nosotros en Medellín, Colombia, o en línea.

events.gnome.org/e/latam2024



@bagder what are your thoughts on providing dedicated `curl_easy_setopt` method for the value types it supports?

Languages like Swift don't support the macro, so folks have started writing shim files to work around this. Wonder if maybe this would be better to be a part of the API itself.



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It appears that Mozilla's recruiting marketing is finally acknowledging the demographic that really runs the internet.

The jobs in question, in case anyone feels, ahem, senior enough (sadly, US only): mozilla.org/en-US/careers/posi… mozilla.org/en-US/careers/posi…

#job #GetFediHired #mozilla

in reply to Chris 🌱

@brainblasted The only thing that looks off to me is the index finger. Is that a fingernail or a toepad?

What makes it so clear to you?



Having the wedding at #Chříč brewery was a good opportunity for proper survey for #OpenStreetMap
Yes, I am turning more and more into a #nerd...


📣 Join us Tomorrow! Explorer Town Hall: Meta Ray Bans Integration

Tuesday, September 17th | 5:00 PM PDT
Where: In-app, Zoom, Youtube

Join Aira's Meta Ray-Bans Glasses Town Hall to get the latest updates on our integration progress, upcoming beta launch, and Aira's continued commitment to exploring innovative smart glasses solutions. All explorers are invited to attend and will have access to this event through the Aira Explorer app (“more,” “events”) or directly via zoom.

Zoom link: aira.zoom.us/j/88931260595#suc…

*Event recording to be posted on our YouTube channel*

Read more at our blog: aira.io/explorer-town-hall-lau…

Facebook Event: facebook.com/share/cS2zC9W4kxk…




By popular request, #Voiceover no longer reads phone numbers of #WhatsApp group participants who aren’t in your contacts, and just reads the push name. You can still read the phone number on their contact info page, or by swiping up to the “message <phone number>” option in the actions rotor. This should make catching up with your groups much faster and more efficient! Thanks so much for your feedback, please keep sending it.

#accessibility #screenreader

This entry was edited (2 months ago)

reshared this

in reply to Drew Mochak

Wo! So happy to read this has finally been implemented. Thanks to the team for getting this launched!
in reply to Drew Mochak

I'm not trying to criticize, just asking, but... why didn't this happen earlier?

What was the actual reasoning behind keeping it the way it was for so long? What were the blockers for this change?

I usually don't believe in the "people are stupid and don't know what they're doing" excuse, so there had to be something to it, right?



[Blog Post] iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 Accessibility: A Summary of VoiceOver and braille issues and improvements applevis.com/blog/ios-18-ipado…

in reply to Daring Fireball

"[...]it turns out, we want computers that go with us everywhere. That’s the iPhone, [...]"

Not it's not. Because the iPhone can't be used as a computer. It's just an app runner where the applications are "curated".

(Android isn't better either).



Come to the @igalia booth at OSSEU to see @servo running in Android and OpenHarmony.


After chatting with @keithamus and @Lukew I thought I'd have a look into CustomStateSet, where you can add states to your #WebComponents that don't manipulate DOM but can be selected in CSS with `my-component:state(statename) {}`. Pretty cool!
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/do…


Shout out to AccessNow folks and @Xeniax who helped to convince Meta to unblock #deltachat invite URLs in Facebook. Previously delta invite-links on Facebook were marked as "dangerous" and didn't work.

sidenote: if you send someone an invite-link, they can click it directly after they installed Delta Chat because they will be guided through the "create-profile" flow automatically and then be dropped into a chat with the inviter.

This entry was edited (2 months ago)


Oh look, it's your regular AMDGPU crash.

While opening a new Firefox tab. Again.



Some of the best advice I've gotten in recent years: "Don't wait to feel confident to do something new/scary. Instead, prepare. And then strive to be PRESENT when you do the new thing. And by doing that, you will build confidence."

For me this has been so true. I don't feel confident when I'm outside of my comfort zone; I earn confidence by going there. And I have the best experience outside of my comfort zone by being present and not worrying about how it's going.

Khronos reshared this.

in reply to Sommer Panage

I couldn’t agree more. From my own experience: once you are present outside of your comfort zone and in observation mode, stick your comment once in a while and see how experts react. You may be surprised to find out that your opinion actually counts! :)

in reply to WestphalDenn

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in reply to WestphalDenn

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THe whole idea of varchar types with a max length in SQL has always been really uncomfortable to me.

I get why we're doing this, but is it really the right thing to do for user-supplied data like real names, addresses, usernames or emails?

in reply to Mikołaj Hołysz

This is actually one of the reasons I'm thinking of using sqlite for my game server, despite the scalability badness this can apparently cause according to one of my partners. I just cannot deal with limits like that without way overdoing them, I might be storing map data even! Or messages! And will it always allocate the whole size, for varchar and BLOB, even if I don't use it? Waste. I brought this up and someone was like you can just chunk it, I'm like how in the world do you design a schema that can easily handle something like that?
in reply to x0

@x0 I think the idea that for smallish fields like usernames, email addresses, asset URLs, uuids and such, you're supposed to use varchar with a defined length, and anything of a potentially unbounded size, like user messages or map data, should go into a text / blob / BSON field.
@x0
in reply to Mikołaj Hołysz

No, but there's nothing stopping you from using a very long limit in your own apps (like 32768). Or just using a text type, although some database UIs and web framework integrations will render those as multiline inputs by default.

Note that in SQLite, the max length is required, but ignored. And in Postgres, omitting the length gets you a text field, which may fool your web framework of choice into treating it like a char field even though it isn't one.



Which would you rather do if you could go back to the past? #Poll #Polls #MastoMonday

  • meet a famous figure from history (0 votes)
  • witness the Big Bang (0 votes)
Poll end: 2 months ago

in reply to Poll Bot

I mean… you cannot technically witness the Big Bang because there was no time before it apparently, and the space was condensed into a tiniest dot, so you wouldn't survive. Unless you believe in the Wheel of the Time, which is a hepothesis not worse than others.


The push for an "age verification" requirement on the Internet is 1% aimed at protecting children and 99% aimed at controlling speech. It effectively bans anonymity, for starters.

It is a license to speak, and read.

edri.org/our-work/open-letter-…

Hubert Figuière reshared this.



If you are affected by the bug where #Tusky drops your draft when you switch to another app while composing you may want to switch to the nightly build, it will be fixed there today.


I wonder why macOS is still using names for its versions, not just internally but publicly. They kind of suck. I mean, it's obvious that macOS 15 is newer than macOS 14. But you just have to know that Sequoia is newer than Sonoma.
in reply to Matt Campbell

Because the names are more notable than the version numbers. It's the same reason that Ubuntu does this.
in reply to Neal Gompa (ニール・ゴンパ)

@Conan_Kudo Yeah. The Ubuntu names are in ascending alphabetical order, though, until they have to wrap around. The macOS names are just random.


Any company that claim to be "the best employer" and/or "committed to the environment" and have policies that require you to be in an office for no reason are just liars.

Strangely (NOT) this include among the biggest....



@Tutanota needs to do something with the ugly icon that stands out now more than ever with iOS 18 dark icons 🤦🏻‍♂️
@Tuta
in reply to taigo

@taigo Well, strangely the *tinted* version is working fine with the icon 😅 but I hate to use tinted icons (all with the same color)


Pokud by vás zajímalo jak se opravuje 47 let stará sonda Voyager 1, která je více jak 15 miliard kilometrů vzdálená od Země, mrkněte na přednášku Bruce Waggonera. 🚀

youtube.com/watch?v=dF_9YcehCZ…

This entry was edited (2 months ago)


@Tutanota where suitable, I try to offer my self hosted services, but @nextcloud is the only one of them that other people really find useful. Ah, maybe @bookstack as well.
And then for the non-self-hosted stuff, there is
- search: @MetaGer
- browser: Librewolf (or Firefox) with Ublock
- phone OS: @e_mydata
- photos: @ente
- mail: @Tutanota from now on since I started using it two days ago :)
Unknown parent

Tuta
Thanks for your feedback, that's nice to read! :) We're considering enabling you to store other email providers' emails in Tuta via IMAP - but that's a bit longer into the future.


J’ai besoin d’avis extérieurs. Quelqu’un qui a fait une variante propriétaire (freeware) d’un projet libre se justifie comme ça :

« Le problème avec tout ça c'est que l'on fait passer le “tout” libre comme étant le meilleur. Dans le sens radical du terme il favorise l'exploitation des plus faibles par les plus forts. »

À votre avis, c’est :

  • pertinent (0 votes)
  • débattable (0 votes)
  • fractalement con (0 votes)
  • honteux (0 votes)
Poll end: 2 months ago

in reply to kazé

sachant que passer propriétaire du truc qui était libre EST de l’exploitation….
in reply to Hubert Figuière

@hub ben oui c’est pour ça que je trouve que c’est totalement éclaté au sol comme justification. Mais pourtant, ça passe crème sur le salon de discussion du projet libre qui a été forké. Je ne comprends pas.
in reply to kazé

@hub Le seul moment ou ça me semble débattable c'est quand le logiciel est utilisé par un GAFAM qui va vouloir pousser l'équipe mais ne rien payer. Le cas de microsoft et ffmpeg est un bon exemple mais ça reste une exception
in reply to Bastien Quelen

@banux @hub
OK, ce point est valide, en effet. Le financement des logiciels libres utilisés par les gros groupes reste un sujet.
in reply to kazé

@hub Mais dans ton contexte c'est du foutage de gueule je vois même pas comment leur argumentaire s'articule.
in reply to Bastien Quelen

@banux @hub
Ben voilà. Et pourtant, les modos du projet exploité laissent faire. Ça me dépasse totalement, c’est surréaliste pour moi. Perturbant.
in reply to kazé

@banux @hub Je ne connais pas le projet ni la license qui le régit, mais si le projet par exemple est sous licence MIT on peut difficilement reprocher à des gens de forker et d’en faire une version propriétaire. C’est honteux et d’une malhonnêteté intellectuelle crasse, certes, mais c’est possible et c’est le jeu. S’en offusquer parait davantage défendable si la licence est par exemple une licence libre type GPL.
in reply to Pierre-Yves Lapersonne

@pylapp @banux @hub C’est bien un projet GPL / CC-by-SA qui a été forké avec l’ajout d’une clause NC. Ils ne distribuent aucune source, et ils font disparaitre les mentions expliquant l’historique.

Et pour eux, parce qu’ils diffusent sans demander rétribution (mais sous restriction NC quand mème), c’est « suffisamment libre » pour que seuls des « libristes radicaux » puissent y trouver à redire.

Le problème c’est donc moi et pas eux. Même les responsables du projet d’origine laissent faire.

in reply to Hubert Figuière

@hub @pylapp @banux Non, bien sûr. Ça n’est pas tant pour l’aspect légal que je m’interroge (n’ayant aucun doute à ce sujet), mais sur l’aspect moral : comment peut-on défendre ce point de vue, et comment cela peut-li être accepté par les modos restants du projet initial.

Je finis par me dire que le projet initial est complètement mort, et qu’il ne reste plus personne n’ayant une quelconque culture libriste dans l’équipe, et donc que tout le monde s’en fout.



How dare Taylor Swift, a celebrity (!), wade into politics...

...said the people who made Trump and Reagan into the god-heads of their party.

#uspol

This entry was edited (2 months ago)


What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time.

We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them that these things are vitally important.

Then we sit them in rows and make them write about the things they can remember for an intense few hours. We compare what they have written down with everyone else of the same age, and then we rank them.

We make them wait a couple of months and then we tell some that they are the successes, and others that they are the failures. We encourage them to hang their self-worth on how they performed. Newspapers publish pictures of the delighted, whilst the disappointed hide their heads in shame.

We tell them that these results will determine the rest of their lives – and then we set up systems that make this true. We provide fewer opportunities for those who did not succeed. Those who did well can take their pick of courses, whilst those who did not are made to take the same tests again and again, just to hammer it home.

We make sure that young people spend the majority of their adolescence focused on exams and under pressure. Every summer, they sit in rows and try to remember. Each year, they’re told that their whole future rests on this.

Many of them inevitably cave in under the pressure. They become anxious and depressed. They show signs of burnout by the age of 16. They lose their spark, and just go through the motions. Some of them retreat altogether.

Then we pathologise them, say that they need mental health treatment or to become more resilient. We send them for therapy or give them medication. We say that they are the problem, whilst the system carries on unchanged.

What if instead we stopped to think about what we are doing to our young people?

Adolescence is a time of opportunity and vulnerability. It’s a one-off stage of life. What if we asked ourselves, should our young people really spend these years on a conveyor belt of high stakes exams?

Imagine we allowed ourselves to look beyond this time and place, and to see just how strange this really is. What would we do then? Dr Naomi Fisher



This is your daily reminder that ad blockers and not clicking Google and other search ads are a good way to reduce your attack surface to some of the latest malware distribution methods. I'm currently putting together research on a couple of different malware / initial access tool delivery channels that use malvertising as their main method of distribution, using... *shocked face* compromised WordPress blogs as repositories.