O gosh, there will be prayers too? O no!

President-elect Trump says he "ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches," to be moved to the Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985. journa.host/@w7voa/11384478460…

Wow, I really like how different reverbs and delays are used at different points of the song. Didn't catch much of it when listening to the full mix.

Freddie Mercury & David Bowie’s Isolated Vocals for Queen’s “Under Pressure” (1981)

openculture.com/2025/01/listen… toot.community/@openculture/11…

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

An '#AI-emulation' of Anne Frank made for use in schools.

Who the fuck thought this is appropriate?
Who in the everloving fuck coded this? Who approved it?
Who didn't stop them?

@histodons #histodons

This needs to be luddited 🔥🔥🔥
Spoken as a (digital) historian, who uses #LLMs as tools.

I'm not one quick to anger, but I'm fuming 😤🤬🤬🤬
(Those kind of 'chats' are not new, but I hadn't seen this one until this morning in a post by @ct_bergstrom)

This entry was edited (11 months ago)
in reply to Henrik Schönemann

Agree 100% except for the use of Luddited -- that movement isn't what we've always thought it was. They were protesting for better pay and more hours, not against technology. Elite-owned media and businesses controlled the narrative then and now.
smithsonianmag.com/history/wha…

Je viens de faire mon #eXit! L’exode de X est massif. Ne perdez pas un seul de vos abonnés. Grâce à #HelloQuitX j’ai inscrit 1003 nouveaux passagers pour partir vers #BlueSky & #Mastodon. Retrouvez automatiquement vos communautés le #20Janvier via app.helloquitx.com !

I've now found two separate instances where NVDA sees radio buttons in Chrome but they only show as clickable items in Firefox.
I think they're screen-reader-specific radio buttons; NVDA detects them as off-screen, but this is becoming a pattern.
One instance is on the beta deploy page for Vultr. Me and the frontend dev are stumped about this.
Another is on this free personality test. I haven't done a code review yet because it's probably something CSS-related but I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what's going on here. @NVAccess humanmetrics.com/personality/t…
This entry was edited (11 months ago)
in reply to Simon Jaeger

That is quite the personality text - the navbar is half links & half nav buttons, the "clickable" buttons for the answers are visually presented as "YES", "yes", "uncertain", "no", "NO", but read as "Strongly agree" through "strongly disagree" (which is much clearer, especially with negatives in questions like "You are almost never late for your appointments"). I also don't like green for agree, red for disagree - they're options, neither is right or wrong as the colours seem to indicate
in reply to NV Access

My strong suspicion is it's some quirk with the way the page has been coded and I would strongly recommend they talk to a web accessibility professional for guidance. If anyone wants to trawl through the code and work out what is going on and believes there is an NVDA bug, we'll happily take an issue though: github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issue…
in reply to Simon Jaeger

There are some weird cases of off-screen radio buttons where Chrome exposes a width and height which aren't 0, but Firefox exposes 0 for one or both. I don't quite understand why, though we do have a bug on file for it. While I'm not suggesting there isn't a Firefox bug here, I do think this is yet another a good reason NVDA should stop ignoring 0 width/height things in browse mode. I'd prefer to argue that this off-screen radio button hack is poor authoring that should die in a fire, but I'm not going to win that in the wild.
in reply to Jamie Teh

Thoughts on this? Should I have created an issue instead? github.com/nvaccess/nvda/discu…
This entry was edited (10 months ago)
in reply to Simon Jaeger

Only looked briefly - on holiday - but unless you already did and I missed it, I'd note two things: 1. No other screen reader has this 0 width and height check as far as I am aware. 2. The Firefox behapiour with off-screen controls only seems to affect some off-screen content techniques. I'm not exactly sure what specific styling causes the different behaviour in Chrome vs Firefox, which is one reason it's a bit tricky to diagnose and fix/work around.
in reply to Simon Jaeger

If it is something which is becoming common in the wild, then it could potentially be something we'd consider looking at. Part of the problem is that if they are using things in a way in which they weren't intended, then there's no guarantee to how browsers will interpret it. If you can put together some examples like those and feel inclined to create an issue, we can certainly look into it - github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issue…

“Time-Shifting” Triumphs: Supreme Court Legalizes Home VCR Recording 41 Years Ago Today Leading the Way to DVRs Today cordcuttersnews.com/time-shift…

Alexa, should voice assistants have a gender? techxplore.com/news/2025-01-al…

Zen in the Art of Archery #review library.hrmtc.com/2025/01/17/z…
in reply to Winter blue tardis

it is not exactly what I want, but it has some good ideas. I might build my stuff in it in the end.

But! I think random experiments are still worth it, even if they end up shortlived. They help me figure out what I want, and how, and might learn a trick or two in the process, too.

The way I function is that I bang out some proof of concept, and then look if someone did it better. This way I have something quick, without spending weeks exploring options. If there is, I can then spend weeks exploring, but I will have the PoC running too!

I did need to learn to fail fast and let go. That was (and tbh, still is) hard.

Benetech Launches Groundbreaking AI Initiative to Revolutionize STEM Education for Neurodivergent and Visually Impaired Students | Newswire newswire.com/news/benetech-lau…

If any of you use headphones/speakers with standard headphone jacks, and want to adjust the bass/midrange/treble you can do so with this device for less than $30. I got mine last night, and like it. It has an aux input, and an output. Goes in between your device and headphones, so if you don't have an aux cord you'll need one. USB powered.
7 Band Sound Equalizer 2 Channel... amazon.com/dp/B0D5RDG8B3?ref=p…

The time has come for a new #deltachat_desktop Test Release: 1.51.0 !

Besides many bug fixes we added a New App Picker 🚀 which allows to browse and attach #webxdc apps directly from attachment menu.

Help us find the most
annoying bugs so we can make sure this update is ready to be released on
the website and in stores:

support.delta.chat/t/help-test…

#deltachat

in reply to David

@Davidsm @pvagner If it works well, then feel free to make an pr to the website repo: github.com/deltachat/deltachat…

I personally think people should use the official arch package instead, though the maintainer didn't have time to update it yet: archlinux.org/packages/extra/a…

Come work with me!
Target is looking to hire a Senior Accessibility Consultant.
target.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/t…

reshared this

It's happening again!

If you have interest, passion or need around the diverse range of topics collectively described as “sustainability of free and open source software”, we invite you to join us for the SustainOSS Virtual Forum, taking place on Thursday 13 March 2025.

At the SustainOSS Virtual Forum, we will survey the challenges, evolution, and surprises that are recurrently navigated but rarely documented or collectively validated in the process of running open source projects, program offices, or policy networks populated by researchers, developers, and policymakers. Above all, we invite you to share your experiences, ideas and concerns around sustainability across a range of scales, engage in respectful discussion, and envision goals and partnerships we can collectively embrace in order to sustain our open source ecosystems.

The interactive agenda will be co-designed in collaboration with confirmed participants in the time leading up to the event.

We encourage you to join us as we explore the who, the what and the how of realizing a sustainable present and future for open source. And we thank you for helping us spread the word!

opencollective.com/sustainoss/…

RT for awareness if you could!

I leader della tecnologia hanno un piano per proteggere Bluesky da Elon Musk

Free our Feeds, un collettivo di leader della tecnologia tra cui il fondatore di Wikipedia Jimmy Wales e il presidente della Mozilla Foundation Mark Surman, vuole raccogliere 30 milioni di dollari per proteggere Bluesky

thelogic.co/news/quebec-ink/bl…

@informatica

Well this is a piano I didn't expect the Sound Canvas to pull off.
This is a cover of Two Sugars, a short piano piece, from Little Busters! a visual novel by Key.
Composed by PMMK, arranged by Kamoto.
MIDI: web.archive.org/web/2018100503….
Original: youtube.com/watch?v=jHLrUhAxVs….
This entry was edited (11 months ago)

Draupnir 2.0 is finally out 🎉
github.com/the-draupnir-projec…
github.com/the-draupnir-projec…
the-draupnir-project.github.io…
hub.docker.com/r/gnuxie/draupn…

#Matrix #Moderation

Draupnir moderation bot turns 2.0, Fractal 10.rc is out with next-gen authentication, FOSDEM is just around the corner, and we've got security fixes released for matrix-media-repo and Dendrite. This and more happened this week in Matrix! matrix.org/blog/2025/01/17/thi…

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today with 16 updated and 1 added apps:

* IPTV Mine: Watch 500+ live india TV channels 🛡️

3 #Magisk #modules were updated at apt.izzysoft.de/magisk

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid rep :awesome:

VO/desktop bug via @elly:
adrianroselli.com/2017/12/twea…

Using this pen:
cdpn.io/aardrian/debug/rNRxZmP

We both experience VO ignoring the start of most sentences when using read-all.

Is this a known issue?

#accessibility #a11y #Safari

#catima 2.34.4 is out!

This reverts Catima to targetSdk 34 (Android 14) for now, to fix the UI regressions introduced in Catima 2.34.3.

It also includes the fixes in 2.34.3 and a new little feature to sort your cards by the "valid from" date, useful for things like train tickets.

Coming soon to an app store near you!

github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro…

#IzzyOnDroid #GitHub #FDroid #GooglePlay

This is an interesting twist to the Romania TikTok mess: snoop.ro/anaf-a-descoperit-ca-…

Copilot AI Added to Microsoft 365 Apps Alongside $3-Per-Month Price Hike
https://www.pcmag.com/news/copilot-ai-added-to-microsoft-365-apps-alongside-3-per-month-price-hike?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into PCMag's Top Stories @pcmag-s-top-stories-PCMag

Here's the new 2025 reset.css:

h1 { margin-block: 0.67em; font-size: 2em; }

Thank you for adopting this on all your sites!

See github.com/whatwg/html/issues/…

A cassette containing the radio edit of Subways of your Mind was found recently. The vocals have more of a stereo feel to them, and there were two drum beats at the beginning that were missing from Darius S's original recording. The master tape still hasn't been found, though. youtube.com/watch?v=vUAldzxk_5…
This entry was edited (11 months ago)

Tuta Mail revoluciona la organización del correo electrónico con su nueva función de etiquetas

La eficiencia y la privacidad son prioridades, Tuta sigue marcando la diferencia. Esta reconocida plataforma, famosa por sus servicios centrados en la seguridad como Tuta Mail y Tuta Calendar, ha dado un paso más hacia la excelencia con una innovación que promete transformar la experiencia de sus usuarios: las etiquetas. @Tutanota

computekni.com/2025/01/tuta-ma…

@Tuta

Okay, so Cory Doctorow published his take on the #freeourfeeds thingy, all about "billionaire-proofing" the Internet (or more accurately, billionaire-proofing social media), and I have some thoughts...

pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/con…

His main argument is this --> yeah, Bluesky isn't perfect, but it's what's fun and popular right now, and if we can billionaire-proof it, then we should, rather than getting people to adopt the existing, already proven, billionaire-proofed Fediverse ecosystem.

Okay, that's fair I think. I have no objection to this on its face. The "Fediverse" has been around for a while and though it has never been more popular than it is now, it has struggled to really gain mainstream appeal. (Perhaps that will change more drastically this year as fedi platforms like #Pixelfed gain more attention though). So though he admits that Mastodon/Fediverse is ideal, would be perfect for what they're trying to do ("Free our Feeds"), it's just not the clearest solution because the difficulty of getting people to adopt it en-masse seems somewhat insurmountable at this time.

Fine.

He goes on to say that the answer is, as he puts it, "installing our own fire-exits in Bluesky", or in other words, standing up a second Bluesky relay/infrastructure that "federates" or otherwise interoperates with the main Bluesky infrastructure - similar to how distinct Fediverse instances can communicate with each other. This too makes sense. If the main Bluesky enshittifies, or goes down, or is subject to hostile/billionaire takeover, than people have the choice to switch over to the other relay, the "good" one. Now here is where his argument starts to fall apart...

First, "FreeOurFeeds" is asking for 30 million dollars to do this. Wow. That's a lot, and doesn't speak well to how easy it is to stand up and maintain a second instance of the entire bluesky infra. Second, the FreeOurFeeds website speaks nothing of how they will keep that infra alive, i.e. pay for ongoing operating costs. Even the main Bluesky company doesn't have a realistic monetization strategy, they are kept alive by VC money alone pretty much.

Finally, what Cory fails to address, and in my mind, the biggest issue with his whole argument is that having just ONE single other relay/instance of Bsky as a whole is not the robust "fire exit" he thinks it is. Let's say FreeOurFeeds succeeds and they stand up a fully interoperable, yet fully isolated instance of Bluesky, and they manage to get a sizable portion of the existing Bluesky userbase to move over there. Like, 5 million of Blueskys ~30 mil or w/e. Let's say then that Bluesky sells out to Elon Musk or Bezos or whomever. This triggers another mass migration of 5 million, or 10 million or even everyone over to the FreeOurFeeds relay. (Though we all know that they'd be lucky to get half of regular people to figure out how to "Switch" relay providers). Now they are RIGHT BACK to where they were to begin with. A single provider, just as vulnerable to hostile takeover or enshittification as the original Bluesky was.

So you might say, okay? well then stand up ANOTHER relay. Crowdfund another 30 million. Right? ... What?!? Bags of 30 million dollars don't just grow on trees ya know? It's hard enough to get people to pay for these types of services, and I just don't think having one, or two or even 5 other relays is enough redundancy, enough resiliency to combat the billionaires and the governments of the world that want to control what we see, what we talk about, and who's allowed to speak.

That's why the Fediverse works. It's made up of literally thousands of servers, of all different sizes, some Mastodon, some GoToSocial, some Lemmy, some I mean w/e. Theres tons of different platforms that all interoperate, and they don't cost 30 million to run. I'm typing this out on a GoToSocial instance that literally costs $3.75/mo. You heard that right. Less than $4/mo. To put that in perspective, I could run 8 million GoToSocial instances at this price if I was given 30 million dollars. I'd like to see Musk try to buy all those out 😄.

I'll try to put it another way here. I'm in cybersecurity, and one thing we're taught is that attackers, with enough time and resources can literally get into anything. So our jobs as defenders, on top of all the usual stuff (e.g. defense in depth, blah blah), is to just slow them down. Make it impractical (from a time-spent perspective) to achieve a reasonable return on (time) investment. It wouldn't be hard for a billionaire or a hostile government to take down one, two, three or maybe even 10 Bluesky relays. But it seems wholly impractical for a billionaire, or a team of billionaires to snuff out thousands of Fediverse instances. And hell, these are just instances that exist now, in a very fledgling model where Fedi only has like a couple million MAU. Imagine a timeline where Fediverse got REAL world-wide adoption, and we went from a few thousand instances, to hundreds of thousands, or millions of instances. Taking that down would be like taking down the Internet itself, and if that could happen, we might have bigger issues.

Oh and I forgot to mention, that FreeOurFeeds can't even stand up another relay. Bsky devs have already stated that's impossible at the moment (shellsharks.com/notes/2024/11/…). Though theoretically this will be addressed in time...

Alrighty, let's wrap this up. I get it. Bluesky is hot. It's popular. It's got steam. It's got gobs of cursed VC money. It's got some admittedly cool tech behind it. But it just isn't it. Not unless it can find a way to solve for the whole it's-insanely-expensive-to-run-another-relay issue. If FreeOurFeeds succeeds, stands up another instance and figures out a way to run it on the cheap, then I'll be the first to say "congrats" and "I was wrong". Until then, I will remain skeptical, and I'll keep saying that this sort of money would be better thrown at building out the proven solution, the Fediverse.