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@mikedoise hi. I enjoyed listening to the Unmute show yesterday where you were helping to answer questions. You said something which I found absolutely fascinating that I have observed as a technology instructor and friend. Some of my friends and students struggle with mobility skills and technology. You mentioned there was a correlation. I would love to chat more with you about this because I have noticed it too. I do not struggle with mobility and absolutely love technology which is quite the opposite of some of my friends' situations. Any chance you could give me more information if there is any, about this correlation? again, great job on the show yesterday!
in reply to Chris Cooke

I too find this interesting because I know some who are good with tech but not so good with mobility or rather more specifically spatial relationships. Still others I know do ok with mobility within the defined parameters of buildings but not as good with out-door travel but are still good with technology. This is a fascinating topic indeed. Do share what you discover with all of us please.
in reply to Chris Cooke

I can imagine a plausible connection between the skills associated with navigating physical spaces and navigating graphical user interfaces, although it's still a conceptual stretch. I would expect understanding command line syntax to be unrelated to either, though, as it would seem more strongly connected with language and reasoning skills.


So there's talk of possible snow on Monday. Too soon in my opinion. At worse, the commute will be a slushy mess, but nothing more
in reply to Amy

And oof to that slushy commute, since drivers often cancel, take almost 30 minutes to show, or the prices surge beyond acceptability, which makes getting wto work timely challenging
in reply to David Dunphy

Yes. I do not miss having a commute. There are a few things good about going into work but I lived in the Carolina’s aka slushy country when I commuted to work and I did not miss it at all when I started working from home.


Monarquía o República?

  • Monarquia (20%, 2 votes)
  • República (80%, 8 votes)
10 voters. Poll end: 1 week ago



The concern here is that old search engines can give you links and you can go into them to verify the content. AI taking over our search engines hides the sources of information, forcing us to blindly trust the AI and wherever it got its information from.

#AI

#AI
This entry was edited (1 week ago)


Pes krvavý průjem, takže dieta. Blbec by byl schopný zdechnout hladem vedle misky s rýží, takže nežere.

Veterina, rozbor krve, kapačka, 3385 Kč, pokračování zítra. Jakou máte neděli vy?

Je to drahoušek.

in reply to Richard

Tak ať je brzo v pořádku 🍀🤞🏼
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Archos

@archos Díky. Nemá to poprvé, tak věřím, že bude. 👍


Preventing enshittificatiom with the "Ulysses pact" from @pluralistic pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/uly…

We consider our efforts aligned: #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc implement "right to exit" on all levels of our decentralized messaging project.

- deploy your own servers permission free and interoperable with all e-mail servers ("federation mast")
- all apps and libraries and server components are 100% Foss
- interactive chat-shared web-apps can be used in other messengers

#righttoexit



While porting 'Space Travel' to the PDP-7, Ken Thompson developed an operating system that became the foundation of Unix. It played a crucial role in the development of Unix.

Happy 53rd birthday, Unix! 🥳

#unix #opensource



Anyone know how to get in touch with Royal Mail?

The #HCaptcha is throwing that usual 'An error has occured' message and I can't get anywhere trying to have a package delivered.

This inaccessible HCaptcha plague is now a serious issue to blind people.



🔓 Odemykám → Respekt: Ticho na konci každé písně

Kapela The Cure hraje největší koncerty své kariéry a nikdy nebyla více v oblibě. Nyní po 16 letech přichází i s novým albem

respekt.cz/tydenik/2024/45/tic…



Tak když mám konečně po dlouhé době volno a chci vyrazit na kolo, tak mě chytnou záda. #wtf
#wtf
in reply to Archos

tak to je čas dnes sednout na kolo s cruiser řídítky a jet o 10 kmh pomalejc 🙂 ale to silnička člověk asi slyšet nechce :D
in reply to cozechcescelo

@cozechcescelo
Já mám jen silničku, v plánu ještě jedno kolo je, ale musím chvíli vydržet.
in reply to Archos

ja, prave proto, aby me nechytly venku zada, jsem jel indoor. Sice me ted nebolej zada, zato me boli neco uplne jinyho.


X is deprecated, migrate to

  • Mastodon (40%, 8 votes)
  • Wayland (60%, 12 votes)
20 voters. Poll end: in 2 weeks

in reply to Sylvia

Heh! Needed to read that 3 times to get it 🤣 Migrated many years ago already :awesome:


I got my new Ableton Move yesterday. The other one gets returned on Monday. So, for the short time I can do it, I put both of them on the floor, linked them together using Ableton Link, made a crappy complimentary sequence on both of them, and recorded this silly thing.
in reply to Patrick Perdue

lol, considered getting one of those for my partner but wasn't sure how accessible the tools were particularly if you're on Mac but Windows. Very nifty though
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Tamas G

It doesn't matter too much, since the screen reader is currently web-based. It does work a little better out-of-the-box with Voiceover on either Mac or iOS compared to NVDA, but thanks to some code from @tspivey that makes interrupting of regions way, way nicer, I prefer using it with NVDA now. No idea how Jaws does it.
I tried it with Talkback/Google Chrome, and it's much less nice there.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Tamas G

@Tamasg I don't think it matters? The screen reader output is done via webpage ARIA Live Regions, so if you can get Mac to do that in a timely fashion, you're good to go as far as I know.
in reply to Timothy Wynn

@twynn oooh yeah, I heard the 34-minute overview Onj did on it, quite impressive but also a bit steep from say, a standard stylophone or something much more simple like a synth/looping device as such. Although the flexibility of pads and track layouts being so easy to make are both tempting upsides so for sure considering them the more I hear of it, like that production too.
in reply to Tamas G

Speaking of the Stylophone:
I got one of those for Christmas a few years ago, and was disappointed to discover that it is not a true synth anymore like the originals. It now plays tiny little samples and has aliasing. BOOOOOO!
This entry was edited (1 week ago)


Jak dostat na Mastodon jiné uživatele, než programátory? #anketa #ankety

  • geneticky modifikované catgirls (30%, 11 votes)
  • programátorky? (19%, 7 votes)
  • zrovnoprávníme umělou inteligenci! (2%, 1 vote)
  • je potřeba efektivněji kazit mládež (27%, 10 votes)
  • vytvořit spekulativní .social bublinu (5%, 2 votes)
  • propagace Mastodonu na Tiktoku (25%, 9 votes)
  • samolepky v hospodách na WC (47%, 17 votes)
  • je to marný (22%, 8 votes)
  • mě to takhle vyhovuje (36%, 13 votes)
36 voters. Poll end: 1 week ago

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to spráFce

@xChaos Já, diagnostikovaný jakožto coder, se počítám mezi programátory taky?


Almost done preparing the @loops Android APK!

While we'll target the Google Play Store for Android users, I would love to also support F-Droid with the goal to get into @IzzyOnDroid

That means I'll have to open source the mobile app, but that is already a goal

Laugh all you want, there are few open source TikTok alternatives because few see beyond monetization and when removed, you are left with pure creativity and community-driven content.

Excited to see what we'll build together!

#loops

in reply to IzzyOnDroid ✅

The APK is currently 34MB, but I can slim that down further.

It was over 160MB earlier this evening 😅

in reply to dansup

160 MB 🙈 Yeah, those 34 MB are more like it. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm confident now that the size won't be a show-stopper, thanks!


Grass is pretty amazing.

I was out at the farm, doing the regular fall chores and prepping beds for garlic, when my glasses lens fell out. The screw is, of course, gone. But I need my glasses to drive. Enter a natural material that's abundant, strong, flexible and able to hold a knot.

It got me home. Thanks, grass.
#grass #nature #AnyLandingYouWalkAwayFrom

in reply to Ian Rose

#eyegrasses Day 4 update

(To be read in the voice of German filmmaker Werner Hertzog)

At first, I found the blade of grass to be a simple solution to a problem. A satisfying answer to a question asked by circumstance. Then it became, I admit, something of an amusement. That was a fool's error. Now it is not me who laughs at the grass, but the grass which laughs cruelly at me. It sees me, and by extension all of humanity, stripped of our modern contrivances, naked before it, and it mocks us.

in reply to Ian Rose

The end of an era. On September 24, I used a blade of fresh grass to temporarily mend my glasses after one of the screws fell out in a hay field. I just hoped it would last the day.

Today, 39 days later, it finally started to slip, and I put a metal screw back into the hole. Thank you, blade of grass. You served me incredibly well. Amazing stuff, grass.

#eyegrasses #AllGoodThings



"ChatGPT-5 won’t be coming in 2025, according to Sam Altman – but superintelligence is ‘achievable’ with today’s hardware"

let's make Skynet finally 😎💀

in reply to Fred Brooker

SA mi príde ešte väčšia sľubotechna než Melón a to už je dosť čo povedať.


in reply to David Goldfield

I tried to subscribe to the podcast, but Pocket Casts wouldn't let me. It said that the file I importedwas invalid. I used the feed provided on the page linked in your post. Are you subscribed to it?
in reply to Jessica Dail

@KE8UPE I'm not subscribed to that podcast. I would reach out to the original provider since I just distribute the posts as they are written.



Welcome to the RB family, Soul Searching 🥳

apt.izzysoft.de/packages/com.g…

Soul Searching is an offline music application for Android 8 and above. It's a rework of the native mobile application Sweet Music using Jetpack Compose.

This was quite a journey fighting compression algorithms (Fedora using zlib-ng instead of zlib), but thanks to joint efforts and hard work of the author (thanks entername74!), it was finally made RB :awesome:

Btw: 313 apps / 26% now 😉

#reproducibleBuilds #IzzyOnDroid



Is My Smartphone or Smart Device Listening In on Me? askleo.com/is-my-smartphone-or…


Save on Litter-Robot Bundles for Cyber Monday and the Rest of December cnet.com/deals/save-on-litter-…


Blind Fedi, do you know of any accessible platform for hosting realtime trivia/quizzes? I was asked by someone who wants to organize trivia nights mainly for blind people over Zoom and have no experience with such services. The participation process is more important in terms of having to be accessible because the organizer will be sighted. Boosts appreciated #a11y #accessibility

reshared this

in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Huh I didn’t think of that, but the simplest solutions are the best. It wouldn’t be super flashy but worst case I’m pretty sure it would do what they want. :)
in reply to Pitermach

If they want something more substantial let me know and I can see about modifying a shared whiteboard I have kicking around






When you visit somewhere exotic, is there a standard souvenir that you try to buy, to remind you of that place? Stickers, lapel pins, spoons, beer mats, tea towels, postcard books?

For me it's dictionaries. This turned out to be not so wise a choice when I visited six European countries in 2015.

in reply to Cat Lady Kydia Music

It’s surprising and disappointing how many souvenir shops have Xmas ornaments that are themed to the location, but then I check the label and it’s made in China. 😑
in reply to Cat Lady Kydia Music

@KydiaMusic I always try to buy from someone that is actively making what they are selling. It’s more authentic and supporting people that need the money.


Today I am at #OpenAlt. Listening @marcel_kolaja speaking about technologies and regulations
This entry was edited (1 week ago)



Published some notes on Docling, a rather nice MIT licensed Python PDF document / table extraction library from IBM simonwillison.net/2024/Nov/3/d…
in reply to Simon Willison

How does the Markdown output from Docling compare with the HTML that you've gotten out of Gemini for PDF documents? Does Docling do a good job of recognizing headings, lists, etc.?
in reply to Matt Campbell

@matt I tried it on two documents so far and it looked reasonable, but I've not done a remotely robust comparison of it yet


—¡Todos los políticos son iguales!
—Vale, pues vamos a votar a los comunistas.
—No, a esos no.

in reply to David Kredba

Moc hezká fotka, sice taková pražská klasika, ale to se neokouká a s mlhou to je ještě větší paráda.



I must not trust polls.
Polls are the mind-killer.
Polls are the little-deaths that bring both false hope and false doom.
I will ignore the polls.
I will permit them to pass over me and through me.
And when they have gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see their path.
Where the polls have gone there will be nothing.
Only votes will remain.

Or something.
#uspol



My mom's workaholic tendencies are rubbing off on me :(


Wouldn't it be great if screen reader vendors like @freedomscientific or @NVAccess could somehow offer ElevenLabs voices for their products, even if it meant users paying for an optional subscription. That would be truly amazing. Would something like this require an AI PC?
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to David Goldfield

I'd love this possibility, provided the voices could be responsive enough. I use Vocalizer Nathan for JAWS and all of my iToys; enjoy having that consistency across all of my devices. Nathan is one of the better options available for both windows and Apple stuff, at least to my ears, but he's definitely got some pronunciation quirks that seemingly can't be fixed by pronunciation editors. So yes, if something more realistic and pleasant became available, I'd be interested for sure.



I am blown away by the ElevenLabs reader. It lacks many of the capabilities of Voice Dream Reader but for reading text files it's absolutely amazing. There are definite ways in which this app could be improved but as a basic text reader it's phenomenal.
in reply to David Goldfield

Yes, this applies to other languages as well, like for Portuguese here in Brazil.


For any of you lucky devils who got to play with Windows 3.1 what was it like? I wanna play with it but the last time I tried to install a virtual machine I couldn’t get speech working.
in reply to The Evil Chocolate Cookie

You'll definitely need a very early screen reader version to use Win3.1. For JAWS, I believe you'll need v1.0 or v2.0 as I think V3 dropped support for Win3.1. It was usable but I didn't really enjoy using it. It wasn't until Windows 95 came out when I really began enjoying using Windows.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to David Goldfield

@DavidGoldfield I don’t intend on using it for anything serious, mainly because it just flat up probably couldn’t do it. I’m just a nerd and I want something to poke around with. I was thinking virtual machine that way if I blow it up. I just blow it up and I can rebuild it in like three clicks.