You seem to know quite a bit about speech synthesis using LPC. How hard would it be to do a clean-room implementation of such an algorithm that could be legally released as open source? Or is your knowledge still too dependent on information gathered from BeSTspeech?
Not only the LPC synthesis part since that algorithm has been public domain for years at this point, but we now have open source speech engines like espeak that allow programmers to use its code for other projects without restriction such as its letter to sound engine.
Very close imitations can be made along with modern improvements such as better intonation contour tables. Hope that answers your question.
I'm thinking that if we took the letter-to-sound engine from flite (which unlike espeak is permissively licensed), plus an LPC-based synthesis algorithm similar to BeSTspeech, that could add up to a decent small-footprint TTS engine. I like espeak, but a permissively licensed small-footprint TTS engine could be useful in some cases.
This report addresses whether COVID-19 vaccination also reduces the risk and/or duration of a wide range of post-acute COVID-19 symptoms, commonly referred to as ‘long COVID’.
Here are my notes on putting the brand new Gemini 2.5 Pro through its paces - I'm very impressed: it did extremely well on image recognition, audio transcription and returning accurate bounding boxes for creatures in a complex photograph, plus it rendered a pretty solid SVG of a pelican on a bicycle simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/25/…
There’s a new release from Google Gemini this morning: the first in the Gemini 2.5 series. Google call it “a thinking model, designed to tackle increasingly complex problems”. It’s already …
President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping executive action to overhaul elections in the United States. Tuesday's order demands documentary proof of citizenship be added as a requirement for federal voter registration.
In case there was any doubt we're dealing with full-scale fascism, now the Speaker of the House is threatening to "eliminate" a federal court because he doesn't like a judge's ruling.
Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating federal courts.
Apply to vote by mail, Eligible electors can apply to vote by special ballot. With a special ballot, you can vote by mail from anywhere in the world, 2025.
The United Nations Open Source United community and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) today announced that the OSI has become the first organization to officially endorse the UN Open Source Principles.
Trump executive order increases federal supervision over states’ voter registration rolls and wil punish states that don’t comply. whitehouse.gov/presidential-ac…
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and
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A girlfriend of mine 20 years ago is the voice of a mobile network provider. I'm a customer of that provider. Every time I call my answering service I hear her voice telling me what to do and how I should go about it. It's like I never left her. And I adore the nostalgia.
Privacy is a human right that should be granted to everyone, no matter the reason. But for millions of people around the world, data privacy is also crucial for their physical safety. For people in extreme situations, privacy can literally mean life or death.
Privacy is a human right that should be granted to everyone, no matter the reason. That being said, it's also important to remember that for millions of people around the world, data privacy is crucial for physical safety.
I just had a genuinely visceral reaction to an article titled 'Switching to Microsoft Teams is getting a lot easier' I shouted allowed, 'No!!!' Just like that. You ever been on a plane when some little shittington brat is kicking the back of your seat and you turn around to the parent and just give them the look of... 'Sort it out?' That's how the title of that aarticle made me feel internally.
I could think of very few things I'd like to do do less honestly. Teams is a parasite on software society and should be canned last week. Dead. Gone. Buried more impressively than those Atari games in the desert.
@fastfinge What happens with zoom for you? At least on Mac, it doesn't ever cause me any problems. I can have 10 flawless zoom calls in a row and 0 flawless teams calls. It has never once happened to me. As in, literally never.
Access to stuff like in-meeting chat and files has been slowly getting more and more awkward on Zoom. The calendar synchronization sometimes just quits for no reason. Sometimes sending calendar invites aren't sent with the settings you configured for them. Sometimes pre-meeting notifications just don't happen. Raise hand and other interactions often don't get read out. Sometimes the recording and AI disclaimers don't get screen reader focus. The same happens to poles sometimes. Especially on mac, sometimes sharing audio from a screen share just breaks for no reason. Where I work, we use Zoom for everything (meetings, corporate chat, files, whiteboards, documents, notes, contact and calendar management, the phone system), so I'm often in five or six hours of Zoom meetings a day. The meeting quality itself has stayed excellent. But it's all the other things around it on Zoom that are slowly getting worse. And it's those same things that are slowly improving on Teams.
@fastfinge Aah, I confess I don't share audio like that, I do so via mixer, and never have used the calendar integrations etc. I just get my students to enable the original sound and stereo options, and I turn on the AI summaries which is actually most excellent. Much less than you use it I guess, though I do have several meetings a week.
Yes, AI summaries are amazing. We have Zoom's sales management thing, so I can actually get insights across multiple meetings. Wonderful when I'm meeting with two or three different teams about the same project.
@fastfinge ah yes. meeting summaries. A fantastic thing...until the client leaves the meeting and the remaining people bitch about how unreasonable and moronic the client is in the same call...only for a client to be emailed a beautifully presented summary of their thoughts. Yep yep...never seen that happen. no sir.
@fastfinge Someone should repeatedly tap Zoom on the shoulder for an accessibility audit until they submit. Though I, personally, haven't seen this behaviour so it may be a YMMV situation.
It is. Things work on one machine fine, and don't work on another one. And both machines are identical hardware created from a corporate image. I dunno. I think it's because Zoom created their own accessibility stack instead of using a library like AccessKit, so the way they implement the API's isn't battle-tested the way it is for other apps.
Zoom's accessibility seems to deteriorate little by little with every update. The awful web-based calendar, new controls cluttering up the tab order, focus getting lost, buttons losing context in their labels, having to tab to the "Entire screen" option when sharing instead of Enter triggering it as the default as it used to, the chat UI which was never very good but is now worse...
As yet, none of it is enough to take away from the fact that it just works for joining meetings. I never have significant issues actually joining or taking part, but there may come a day when the reliability of the underlying service doesn't matter because using the app is so slow.
@fastfinge @jscholes I'm starting to hate Zoom with a passion. I guess it's fine if you're just talking, but if you need to do anything else - text chat, reactions, breakout rooms, sharing, whatever - it's just deeply painful to use. Text chat is by far the worst though. It may be slightly better on Mac than it is on Windows. On Windows, they can't even be bothered implementing proper editable text accessibility, so I basically have to type my chat messages in the Run dialog and paste them into Zoom.
@jcsteh @fastfinge @jscholes The entire chat panel also lags for no good reason, to the point that hitting tab sometimes takes up to two seconds before NVDA reads what I focused on.
@TheQuinbox @jcsteh @fastfinge @jscholes We use teams at the agency I work at and it works well for the most part. Especially chat and calls. Is it easy to use? Hell no., but it is accessible and works
@jcsteh @ysotomayor @fastfinge @jscholes Not an unpopular opinion as far as I'm concerned, all of these platforms are basically shit sandwiches served to us on golden platters, but Google meet is the least painful.
@jcsteh @fastfinge @jscholes Same! And the lag in chat is incredibly obvious as well. I would ask how did this thing get to be so bloated, but I already know the answer
Zoom has its own email service (Zoom Mail) now, Zoom Docs (to compete with Google Docs), and a corporate wiki-like thing that competes with sharepoint/confluence. On the one hand, the idea of Zoom Mail makes me think "Oh no!" But on the other hand, I already have to use the New Outlook at work. So it's all much of a muchness.
OK, unfortunately for me I'm going to have to use this inflatable cesspit of shit again for some regular meetings, so I loaded it for the first time in several months and here's the cycle:
1. Load teams. 2. Press on my account to log in. 3. Get told there's an update. 4. Press update button. 5. It closes. 6. It reopens. (See step 2.) 7. Step 3. 8. Step 4. 9. Again, see step 2...
This puss-filled, god-forsaken piece of utter incompetent fuck-wiffery is taking up over 900 MB on my Mac. It is soiled, it is tainted, it is stinking up the place and it is a special kind of sickness that only a mother could love. Microsoft, you really, really have to do better. I'd rather eat deep-fried nipples than have to spend any more time on this shit-tastic leach-infested software from hell but I'm forced to use it. Why does it still live? why?
@desertstar84 a bit sad to know that since leaving Microsoft (end of 2021) that app still has not improved, it just recently got support for threads and some other stuff Slack has already had, ETC. Once I moved to a workplace that offered Slack, I just never looked back to Teams, not even for personal use. It's one of the first things I delete off any neww machine. Sadly not everyone is so fortunate so I still keep up with it (also in case we're talking to a vendor at work who uses it for their workspace) so I can't get too complacent, either.
U.S. Representative Mike Flood (R-NE) issued a public call on March 25, 2025, urging streaming giants YouTube TV and Hulu to add C-SPAN to their live TV lineups, spotlighting the network’s vital role in delivering non-partisan government coverage.
GovWayback: Access historical versions of U.S. government websites from before January 20, 2025 with a simple URL change. groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/89…
Someone here suggested WERO, we read about it and have just activated it in our bank. It was very simple and took 2 or 3 clicks.
An all-in-one digital wallet solution:
Wero is a new European payment system designed to modernize the way we handle transactions across the continent. Launched in 2024, it aims to unify various national payment solutions into a single platform.
Wero is the brainchild of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a consortium of 16 European banks. The initiative was born out of a need to create a sovereign and unified payment solution for Europe, reducing dependence on non-European payment systems like Visa & Mastercard.
With Wero, sending money to friends and family will be much easier because it allows you to send and receive $$ instantly using just an email address, phone number, or QR code. No more IBANS, 3 days of waiting to receive 💸 etc.
It's also a good alternative for Paypal 🇺🇸 and it is designed to replace several national payment solutions, including Giropay 🇩🇪, Paylib 🇫🇷, Payconiq 🇧🇪 🇱🇺 and iDEAL 🇳🇱 which not always work cross-borders.
The roadmap is full of features to be implemented like online and in-store payment.
For the moment, it's available only in Germany, France and Belgium.
That was the last oil leak. I'm tired of having a combustion engine car as a city car and I'm getting an electronic one. After discovering yet another problem with the car today, I went from "we'll get an EV in the distant future" to booking a car inspection.
Yeah, we bought first EV and when nobody wanted to drive the other, ICE, car we bought the second one 🙂It's not just faster, more comfortable and more reliable car but charging home instead of gas station is game changer.
I think the only area where ICE makes sense in context of personal vehicles are sport cars and even that area is getting covered by EVs like Hyundai IONIQ 5 N, performance versions of Teslas and the best for the end .. this little guy:
@bycx it is possible that I will not want to drive a diesel BMW 525d we have for long distances. But at the moment I don't see an affordable replacement. Alternatives are around 1.2M CZK which is just too much for a car that drives 10k km a year. One of the reasons why I finally decided for an EV is that the prices of used Q4 e-trons dropped to levels where it finally makes sense for us even from the economical perspective.
That reminds me myself one year ago 🙂 But we were forced a little. Our long distances car started to be unreliable and nobody was able to fix it so we replaced it for an EV first. Then it was simple math: driving the old city focused car costed twice more compared to EV and it didn't warm itself up every morning.
@ondra yes, for 1/2 year we will drive for 20 CZK/100 km (lost opportunity costs, we currently sell to the grid for 1.25 CZK/kWh). The current car costs 300 CZK/100 km, not counting oil, repairs etc. We're getting a used Audi Q4 e-tron 35. It only has 55kWh battery which gives it a 300km range. Not much, but more than enough for a city car. We rarely drive more than 30km with the current car. You can get it from Germany for prices starting at 550k CZK which is a price I'm comfortable paying for a city car. But the choice was my wife's. She will drive it primarily and she's always liked the model.
@ondra Yeah, that was my objection, too. I'd rather pick something like BMW i3. But it's her who will have to deal with it primarily and if she likes it... For me, the price is finally acceptable and I hope to have much fewer problems with maintenance.
｢ The Spanish bill, which needs to be approved by the lower house, classifies non-compliance with proper labelling of AI-generated content as a "serious offence" that can lead to fines of up to 35 million euros ($38.2 million) or 7% of their global annual turnover ｣
Elon Musk just raided America's doomsday seed vault.
Yes, you read that right. The vault meant to protect humanity’s last defense against agricultural collapse, stripped and sabotaged.
This isn't hyperbole. The seed bunker held our future. Our protection from famine, disease, climate disasters, destroyed by reckless arrogance.
Elon Musk fired critical scientists, placing centuries of agricultural heritage at immediate risk.
America relied on those seeds. America relied on those scientists. America relied on that bunker.
62,000 unique wheat strains, 600,000 genetic lines, our lifeline in a crisis, now endangered.
Without regular care, these seeds die. Without these seeds, we lose our ability to respond to threats.
Without that ability, we lose food security itself.
This is a direct assault on humanity's survival.
Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) treated our collective security as disposable, gambling with millions of lives. Farmers, families, and children. Everyone is harmed.
If you're thinking someone else will handle this, you're wrong. If you're assuming private industry will step in, you're wrong.
If you're comfortable waiting to act, you're complicit.
Apathy won't fix this, waiting won't reverse it.
You must immediately demand: - Full reinstatement of the fired scientists. - Secured federal funding protecting the seed vault permanently. - Legislative safeguards ensuring this can never happen again.
Call your representatives. Share this message. Demand accountability from Musk, DOGE, and our government.
Act now, because your future depends on it. Your children's survival, planet's stability, and the nation's integrity are at stake.
It is urgent, necessary, and morally essential.
Stand up, speak out, and fight for our shared future.
💕
Matt Campbell
in reply to ROMMIX • • •ROMMIX
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •@matt Very easy I think.
Not only the LPC synthesis part since that algorithm has been public domain for years at this point, but we now have open source speech engines like espeak that allow programmers to use its code for other projects without restriction such as its letter to sound engine.
Very close imitations can be made along with modern improvements such as better intonation contour tables. Hope that answers your question.
Matt Campbell
in reply to ROMMIX • • •ROMMIX
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •@matt That's a good point. I never really thought of that.
Since Flite is based on Festival, I'd have to do a deep dive to really figure out how its LTS engine works. It's quite extensive.