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Celebrating 20 Years of Google Summer of Code opensource.googleblog.com/2024…


How to ruin your day:

  1. Try to turn on your Macbook and find it dead.
  2. Send it for replacement.
  3. Boot up the good old Macbook from the bottom of the wardrobe.
  4. Start the migration assistant
  5. Be happy that it found your time machine backup on NAS.
  6. Enter the encryption key for the backup
  7. Be happy you've done that on a first try as why would they support the password managers or at least the copy/paste...
  8. Begin the NW transfer and wait.... WAIT
  9. Find out it's deadly slow, do some googling and check whether you still support SMB1 on NAS
  10. Shit - you do - so stop the process, disable SMB1 and start over 4-6, because on 7 you get "Mount failed".
  11. Try the encryption key again, again and AGAIN, still "mount failed"

12-1024. Restarts, googling, backing out to SMB1, first friend on a phone, second, third... still F...ing "mount failed".

I'm out of reasons, the sparsbundle works, you can mount it, decrypt it, even get some data via time-machine itself, but that bloody migration assistant doesn't ever works correctly again.

#appleshit

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)


But wait, what about my money? 😭
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)


I have a genuine question; I promise that even though I have a view, this is being posted with an open mind.
With all the guide dog discrimination on Lyft and Uber, why haven't I seen much in the way of people advocating for, or companies moving towards, the implementation of a feature which would allow riders to disclose the service animal on their profile? I got into a debate with someone on Twitter a few years ago about this, and the best they could come up with is that they "don't want to have to wait longer than other people."
Animal alergies are real. Think whiping Mcdonald's crumbs out of your car is difficult? What about dog hair?
Animal phobias are also real. I work with someone whose sister is so afraid of cats that she won't work in someone's house that contains a cat. Seriously it's almost primal!
Dislike of dogs and things about them is real. I don't have a dog alergy, I don't have a fear of dogs, but I made it clear to my sister that I really preferred it if her dog didn't hop on my bed.
I saw in an article today that Lyft might be adding a way to disclose service animals. This, is fair. This, is what needs to happen. This, protects drivers and riders alike. At least from my point of view.
If you don't believe this, why? I genuinely want to know the prospectives of people who don't, because I'm trying to understand that and I've only heard from one guy.

modulux reshared this.

in reply to Juanjo

@modulux And with respect to the hair, it is true that they leave hair, but it is also true that there are people who vomit in the car, or who wear mink coats... and nothing happens. We already have enough discrimination without adding more labels to our profile.
in reply to Juanjo

I'm not sure that's comparable. Passengers will very rarely vomit in a car, and you can't tell in advance if they will. A dog will definitely leave hair behind. That said I'm not convinced the hair argument is good enough to put against someone's right to transport. For me, the allergies are a clear case; the fear is too; but I admit that lots of people could easily claim that to avoid doing it, and I don't know how to solve that.


We’re celebrating 20 years of Thunderbird this year! It’s been an incredible journey for our users, the dedicated team of contributors who have worked on it and of course our amazing open-source community who has been there every step of the way. 🎉 To mark this occasion, check out this beautiful video by @freehive and see how Thunderbird is ready for the next 20 years.

#Thunderbird #OpenSource

reshared this

in reply to David R

@houdave It must be some kind of codec issue. 🤔 It is published on YouTube if you want to watch it there: youtube.com/watch?v=S7_8BymJr-…


in reply to SuspiciousDuck

playlisty z YT proste vyzerajú tak ako vyzerajú, neviem čo stým mám urobiť..


Popular opinion: Every Adobe executive should be dissolved in acid


The worst AI scraper that doesn't even identify itself as such is still this user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:72.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/72.0

It's not even listed on darkvisitors(.)com

I see 5120 requests in the last 24 hrs alone, all for JPEG & WEBP files. I don't want to know how much bandwidth & energy it consumes, globally.

Easy to block via Cloudflare or .htaccess: Firefox/72 is ages old and no human visitor would use it.

Spread the word.

#AI #Webmaster



if this really happened, the employee who used generative AI to “expand” the photo should be immediately fired.

We can’t eliminate genAI anymore than we can eliminate plagiarism, but we can limit its normalization by making discovery so costly that people are too terrified to take the risk.

in reply to Adrian Randall

I strongly disagree about firing the employee. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should assume that she innocently believed, based on the hype, that generative AI is a legitimate tool, and that she was just under stress and trying to get this problem solved the quickest way she knew how so she could move onto the next thing, as we all do sometimes. She's not the one to punish for this.


Who called them subby environmentalists and not collared greens


NPR: Over 11 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry were recalled over listeria concerns, affecting salads, wraps, frozen meals and more from popular chains like Target, Trader Joe's and Walmart.#news #NPR npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-51548…
#News #NPR



Me: 'Siri, Enable noise canceling.'
Siri enables it then, in a snarky tone:
'Noise canceling is already on.'
Well duh!
Anything I ask it to do with airpods like that, it now responds as if the setting were already active first. This, since iOS 18.
in reply to Tamas G

@Tamasg @jakobrosin @BorrisInABox Google Gemini on my Samsung cannot play music to google speakers, so that's functionality I've lost because the assistant was upgraded... Sigh.
in reply to Andre Louis

@jakobrosin @BorrisInABox it's been interesting to see that play out, because Google's willing to be the bigger risk-taker as always and not offer any rollbacks, while Apple still has the old Voice Control code last time I checked in 17.X if you don't enable Siri at all and set it to use that instead, so on that compatibility factor Apple's got more in common with Microsoft oddly.


Apple’s App Stores can’t install new apps theverge.com/2024/10/16/242718…


What can I say. It's a super positive workday with people pulling their weight in getting things done, I know what I should prioritize and when, feeling motivated. Only downside is the sneezing 3 times in a row every half hour from fall allergies and this wind we had last night, but life's been worse. Enjoying the calm before the country erupts into election frenzy in 3 weeks, I plan to go early vote this weekend here and get that out of the way.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)


CBC: Man adrift in frigid Russian seas for 67 days survived by drinking rainwater cbc.ca/news/world/russian-resc… #adriftatsea



My very basic, personal Web site has reached the point at which I could write a blog post. I have now written a brief post documenting the decisions made in the site's development so far. I hope someone finds this information useful.
jasonjgw.net/blog/technology/w…
#WebDevelopment #accessibility
in reply to Matt Campbell

@matt The best way for me to detect such an issue as a screen reader user would presumably be to query font attributes (as long as I know what the defaults would be in the absence of the correct CSS). The slightly more interesting approach would be to submit a screenshot to an image-processing large language model and ask for a description of the styling.


We mock it, but it's a serious thing that the leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition has not obtained a national security clearance.

10 perfectly innocent explanations for why Pierre Poilievre won’t get national security clearance:

thebeaverton.com/2024/06/10-pe…

#cdnpoli #polcan



A useful (to me, anyway) Thunderbird tip!

I compose and reply in plain text, but once in a while, I want to reply using html, to preserve formatting in the original message.

Shift + click "Reply" on the interface means "reply as html".

I haven't found a keyboard shortcut for this yet though - if you know one, please share!

#Thunderbird #email

in reply to Neil Brown

We LOVE hearing Thunderbird tips, especially from our community! All our existing shortcuts can be found in this handy Mozilla Support article: support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/k…

We took a poke around our Add-ons and couldn't find anything that might an additional shortcut for this, but this could be a good suggestion for Mozilla Connect! connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/i…



si všímam že môj "biorytmus" je ten tam vtedy
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to SuspiciousDuck

a na miesto toho aby sa najem si skočím po Plzeň, jedlo tu mám od dvanástej
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)


Remember, from the APA (American Psychological Association)
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead.
The way I easily recall this for myself is, misinformation is something you can crawl out from under as a mistake. While disinformation can often lead the person down a path of a mental disease, where coming up with it becomes gamified and of little consequence to them and their future


Overcast. If you are a Overcast user, and you currently pay the subscription of $10 a year, please be aware that Marco Arment is planning on raising the subscription price. The new price has not yet been determined, but could increase to $15 a year. You should know that the $10 a year has been in effect since 2016, 8 years. He discussed this on his podcast Under the Radar, which you can check out here... relay.fm/radar/303
in reply to Chris C

@overcastfm I have no issue with Overcast raising the subscription price if that's what the developer feels is necessary in order to ensure its sustainability. However, I recently chose to let my subscription lapse due to the recent VoiceOver regressions. While in a playlist, finding two buttons announced as "dimmed, pop-up button" after some podcasts was the last straw, along with double-tapping a podcast, hearing "play button" and then having focus move to another button. If these two items are addressed and if show notes are spoken while focussing on a podcast, I will renew my subscription but I won't subscribe to an app that I can no longer effectively use.
As an aside, why not add "Play Podcast" as a rotor option while pointing to a podcast.
in reply to David Goldfield

@DavidGoldfield @overcastfm I switched away from overcast because I could not dismiss the now playing, so every time I wanted to watch something new, I had to uninstall and reinstall the app.


I feel like I'm probably the only one nostalgic for Office 2003 and earlier. Simpler to operate, didn't get in your way. And no Ribbon to contend with. Maybe I'm just grumpy, LOL.
in reply to Andy

nah, at least while Outlook was bloated back then, it wasn't nearly as bad even with the lower performance envelopes we had for that time, the moment ribbons and ML this and command bar got added it had way more of a side effect than extra UI cruft, I think.


Just received a bit of unusually honest job spam:

We are looking to enter the US software market and are
interested in working with experienced US professionals.
Given the salary gap between US developers and other
developers, I think this collaboration could be beneficial to
both of us.


Oh really? How's that? Do I in particular seem like someone who might be OK with a lower salary? Hard not to read something like this and see in it every instance of someone thinking I should be OK with less for some reason related to my disability. They probably didn't know that specifically and maybe I'm misreading, and also they claimed to have found my non-existent LinkedIn, but for everyone writing that I'm sure there are many who don't.

Job-searching as someone with a disability suuuuucks.

in reply to Nolan Darilek

This gives me low-key "North Korea hiring US-based hackers to evade sanctions" vibes.
in reply to ocdtrekkie

Yeah, I thought something similar. They picked some super unfortunate phrasing for recruiting me, though.


If given the choice, would you rather go to a movie or play? #Poll #polls

  • movie (0 votes)
  • play (0 votes)
  • either is good (0 votes)
  • neither is good (0 votes)
Poll end: 1 week ago



To #blind users, does anyone play #browser #games or open multiple tabs on #Firefox without the browser slowing to a crawl? I was thinking about switching from #Edge to Firefox, but games that run well in Edge or other Chrome-based browsers make Firefox extremely slow, and it's the same way if I open even a few tabs. My computer is a #BeeLink SER5Pro #miniPC with 32 Gb of RAM and #Windows11Pro.
#MozillaFirefox #MicrosoftEdge #incrementalGames #browserBasedGames #gaming #browsers #Windows #Windows11 #WindowsEleven #WindowsElevenPro #tech #technology
in reply to Lanie Carmelo

I'm running Firefox on a Windows 11 machine with only 16GB of RAM and an 13th gen Intel i5. I regularly have between 5 and 15 tabs open in Firefox 131.0.3 without issue.


Thunderbird for Android 8.0b3 is out! There are two things we'd really love help testing. One is the funding feature! (thunderbird.topicbox.com/group…). The other is the QR code sync between desktop and mobile (thunderbird.topicbox.com/group…). Thanks to everyone who has helped beta test and given feedback!

Release notes on our GitHub: github.com/thunderbird/thunder…

#ThunderbirdForAndroid #Thunderbird #OpenSource



I’d love it if just once an app redesign didn’t absolutely fuck up #accessibility and usability. Today’s big update to CleanMyMac is not that time. Most buttons say “enabled” before their name don’t respond to VO-space and need to be physically clicked, when a checkbox is unchecked it shows up as an unlabeled button, you have no way of telling whether a specific item when reviewing results is checked or not which is the difference between having the app delete something you don’t want it to or not, and some modules had some features removed in favor of supposed simplicity, the biggest one for being the large file module, now called clutter, no longer has a view where you can see the largest files in a hierarchical directory view. Now you can either look at every large file on the system no matter what directory it’s in or file duplicates. I have no energy to write a report of all this ugh. Also really disappointing to see Macaw slipping with their accessibility which used to be really good.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

Tamas G reshared this.



dobre hovorí

youtube.com/watch?v=jOOMoziHT5…

in reply to SuspiciousDuck

Bombic je z tej miniaturnej mensiny, pre ktoru sa podarilo naplnit tu cast programoveho vyhlasenia aktualnej vlady, ktora hovori o "bezpečnejšie žiť".

Lebo nackovia, fasisti, klamari, podvodnici, atd. a pod. sa tu teraz naozaj citia bezpecnejsie. (Volakedy by sli do basy.)

ref.: mastodon.social/@phanecak/1133…



I really feel sorry for the public sector employees working on meeting this #a11y deadline for PDFs.

"PDFs are where services go to die."

No doubt the people working on this will be super under-resourced, and actually meeting this deadline won't be seen as much of a win by anyone, but not meeting it has legal and dire consequences.

To be clear more #a11y is good! Under-resourcing teams is not!

deptcivicthings.substack.com/p…

#Government #PublicInterestTech #CivicTech

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Is there a better, more accessible #Matrix client for Windows than Element? Some of these reported issues have existed for years and I'm getting a bit tired of dealing with them. Tried Thunderbird but it's very slow. Once again disappointed that the open alternative to platforms like Discord can't seem to prioritize accessibility enough so I'm not perpetually tempted to just write my own client, which I'd do if I had 48 hours in a day and the patience of a saint.


Here in the United States, "I'm voting Green" is just a shorthand way of saying "I'm voting for the cheaper Putin lickspittle to help the more expensive Putin lickspittle get back into the White House."

To the Green supporters/Russian bots about to fume in the comments about how their vote is in fact something else than the above, here is my pre-emptive reply:



it is interesting how many contract or job hiring posts I see on Mastodon that explicitly state that a POC or LGBT applicant is preferred. What is glaringly unstated is that disabilities are not taken into account in the same way, despite the fact that we face many of the same barriers, or equivalent ones. If you're gunna do equality, people, you've gotta go all the way.


How to write good.
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5. One should never generalize.
6. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Sentence fragments? Eliminate.
9. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
10. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
11. Who needs rhetorical questions?


Wow. I didn't expect the amount of resonance my writeup is getting. Thank you very much.

I did a lot of changes, split the document. Hopefully providing alternative, practical strategies for synthesizing sounds in a size-coding context:

ronnypries.de/notes/music-prod…

May also be generally relevant for folks struggling/are bored with their bassdrums.

#demoscene #sizecoding #sounddesign #mixing #patchdesign #musicproduction



13 Best Free and Open Source Command-Line Python Application Development Tools lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…


@Friendica Support
Gehe ich recht in der Annahme, dass Spiegeln als meine eigenen Beiträge den jeweiligen Beitrag mit allen meinen Kontakten teilt, aber in meiner Timeline nicht angezeigt wird?

#beiträge #spiegeln #kontakte #timeline #anzeige

in reply to Gerhard Hallstein

@Michael Vogel Wenn Du die Funktion Natives Teilen nicht wieder herstellen kannst bzw. magst, fühle ich mich mit meinen Kenntnissen und Fähigkeiten außerstande, hin und her zu testen. Darum versuche ich zu akzeptieren, dass ich mich vom nativen Teilen verabschieden muss.

Die aktuelle Einstellung Spiegeln als meine eigenen Beiträge bewirkt, dass Blogeinträge und Kommentare auf dem Blog in meiner oldie-Instanz gespiegelt werden. Blogkommentare auf oldie werden jedoch nicht im Blog gespiegelt. Ich denke, damit werde ich leben können.

in reply to Gerhard Hallstein

Zum Testen wäre es gut, wenn Du auf Deinem anderen Friendica-Account auf dem anderen Server die gleichen Einstellungen bezüglich des Teilens einstellst und schaust, ob es da klappt. Das wäre ein wichtiger Test.
in reply to Gerhard Hallstein

Der andere Friendica-Account ist mein Feedreader, den ich ausschließlich als Feedreader nutzen möchte. Und nur zu diesem Zweck habe ich ihn eingerichtet.

Von weiteren Tests in dieser Sache möchte ich lieber Abstand nehmen, weil mich das nur wieder verwirren würde.

Die aktuelle Lösung (siehe oben) ist zwar nicht die Ideallösung, aber sie kommt von allen diesbezüglichen Funktionen dem nativen Teilen noch am nächsten.



"Idle thoughts for October"

baldurbjarnason.com/2024/idle-…

This week's post is short but manages to be a bit contemplative nonetheless.