I'd like to be wrong about this but I think that the combination of this:
distrowatch.com/dwres.php?reso…
and this earlier announcement:
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
... effectively means that Android is now no longer an open source project in any way that matters, at least for anyone who's not an OEM.
Google says this change will simplify things for developers and OEMs.Ryan Whitwam (Ars Technica)
"By passing on my knowledge of using NVDA to new users of the NVDA screen reader, my aim was to help people in the same boat as me; as well as sighted people in the community to learn ways that they could help us out in the #community."
Like NV Access, Gene recognises the importance of #empowering people to identify needed change, and enact it! Full #interview with Gene at: nvaccess.org/post/gene_empower…
#NVDA #NVDAsr #Power #ScreenReader #Accessibility
Tailscale is built to make secure access seamless — but too often, security tools get in your way instead. One common offender? Frequent login prompts. They interrupt your work, frustrate users, and paradoxically, can weaken your security posture.Avery Pennarun (tailscale.com)
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PianoGuitar Prototype
Soldering together a neat experiment for a keyboard instrument. Think as if a Guitar and a Piano had a child. : }
Row Tuning: (B, E, A, D, G)
#music #instruments #piano #guitar #midi
Accessibility Overlays
In this episode, Desiree and I discuss those terrible accessibility overlays that promise to make websites more accessible while actually doing little to improve accessibility. As Desiree's demonstration shows, these overlays are hard to use, don't behave consistently, and provide little in the way of greater access.
demandouraccess.com/accessibil…
In this episode, Desiree and I discuss those terrible accessibility overlays that promise to make websites more accessible while actually doing little to improve accessibility. As Desiree’s d…Demand Our Access
I was just reading about Gnome dropping x support entirely in Gnome 49. Did they ever get the accessibility issues fixed with Wayland?
discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-…
cc @aral
With Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka,” we are taking a significant step forward in the evolution of the Ubuntu Desktop by removing the Xorg-based Ubuntu session. Starting with this release the “Ubuntu” session in GDM will run exclusively on Wayland.Ubuntu Community Hub
🔥 Texas Governor signs law allowing fracking wastewater to be used to water crops.
That is utterly chopsicks up one's nostrils, underwear on one's head, insane.
⚠️ AVOID TEXAS-GROWN PRODUCE.
I didn't realize this, but the water (called Produced Water) is highly saline so they'll either struggle to treat it or destroy the soil from salt alone.
Wheeeeeee
This is bad, folks. Very bad.James Pero (Gizmodo)
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"'Secretary Noem, you should resign,’ Cortez Masto said in a post on X. ‘You're head of Homeland Security and you can't take a question from a sitting U.S. Senator at a press conference? This level of abuse of power is shameful, outrageous, and is not doing anything to keep our homeland safe.’”
cbsnews.com/news/alex-padilla-…
Lawmakers are calling for answers after Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday.Caitlin Yilek (CBS News)
Senator Padilla: "If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country."
latintimes.com/democratic-sena…
Democratic Senator Alex Padilla reacted after being shoved to the floor and handcuffed as he tried to ask DHS Secretary Noem a question: "We will hold this administration accountable"Demian Bio (Latin Times)
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“It's hard to overstate the seriousness of this.”
@jbouie has a good quick reaction video to Noem's goons hauling a US Senator away for trying to ask questions, at a press conference, about regime actions on matters well within his remit.
It's well worth a listen.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdUsHB-…
Some immediate reactions to a genuinely unprecedented event in American political history, as well as a few more considered thoughts on what appears to be th...YouTube
Honestly the fact that they are activating the Guard in several states in response to the No Kings protests makes me want to go even more. It's building them up to be a huge event, and well, why let them down? www.stripes.com/branches/arm...
Really cool article by @kellylford Worth remembering that as blind people we should verify twice, thrice, or however many times it takes. My principle: if I am not sure, I discard or do not post! What’s yours?
theideaplace.net/i-just-want-t…
The work of editorial cartoonists and their ability to capture the essence of an idea in a picture or two must be quite the talent to have and job to hold. That phrase “a picture is worth a thousan…The Idea Place
Demystifying Magick: A Guide to Spellcasting (without woo).
In this blog post, I’ve laid out an easy-to-follow formula for composing your own spells, along with an example ‘love’ spell. I’ve attempted to strip away the aesthetic of magick and get down to the bare structure of the process.
greatlakespagan.wordpress.com/…
(If you need a little help writing your own spell, my DMs are always open for witchcraft questions!)
This guide summarizes how I was taught magick works when I was in the Wicca-flavored circles of the nineties. It’s also combined with my lifelong trials and failures. This is my own personal view o…Great Lakes Pagan
The work of editorial cartoonists and their ability to capture the essence of an idea in a picture or two must be quite the talent to have and job to hold. That phrase “a picture is worth a thousan…The Idea Place
Meta does not indicate to users what their privacy settings are as they post, or where they are even posting to. So, if you log into Meta AI with Instagram, and your Instagram account is public, then so too are your searches.Amanda Silberling (TechCrunch)
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Sensitive content
You can watch this happen almost in real time with Kristy Noam herself. When asked at the press conference, her tone is fairly consiliatory: what we saw was inappropriate, we’ve been trying to meet with him, but I’ll meet with him after this meeting and see waht his concerns are.
That was before she got her marching orders. Her tone on Fox news is much different:
youtube.com/watch?v=9XgL76jnFJ…
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., did not identify himself as he interrupted the event on 'The Story.' #foxnews #news...YouTube
This man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podeum, interrupting me and elevating his voice and was stopped, did not identify himself, and was removed from the room. As soon as he identified himself, appropriate actions were taken.
Suddenly she is spinning with multiple falsehoods, to create the impression she was in danger somehow, possibly fearing for her life. It is the only play in Trump’s playbook: never back down. Because it works.
Hypothetically, if, rather than putting the cuffs on him, one of the agents just pulled their side arm and shot him in the back of the head. The talking points from Republicans would be exactly the same. Because they do not care about what’s true. It’s all about what they can get away with. Right now, they’re getting away with a lot.
The Trump administration is quietly working to fast-track changes to a key disability rights law by circumventing typical procedures, advocates are warning.Michelle Diament (Disability Scoop)
This is a VERY BAD mistake for #Google to make: AI Overviews hallucinates that Airbus, not Boeing, involved in fatal Air India
crash
Sometimes it says Airbus. Sometimes it says Boeing. Sometimes it seems to say BOTH. Google #AI Overviews are GARBAGE. -L
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/goo…
Google’s disclaimer says AI “may include mistakes,” which is an understatement.Ryan Whitwam (Ars Technica)
If a user’s expectations about how a tool functions don’t match reality, you’ve got yourself a huge user experience and security problem.
Humans have built a schema around AI chat bots and do not expect their AI chat bot prompts to show up in a social media style Discover feed — it’s not how other tools function.
Because of this, users are inadvertently posting sensitive info to a public feed with their identity linked, including prompts with:
- exact medical issues
- federal crimes committed
- tax evasion
- home address
- interest in extramarital affairs
- sensitive court details
- private photos of unclothed children
- audio asking personal questions
- private upcoming travel plans
- questions about the legality of actions
- challenges in personal relationships
- feeling shame with disabilities
What do I recommend as next steps for Meta and other orgs considering a public AI chat bot prompt feed?
1. Pause the public Discover feed. Your users clearly don’t understand that their AI chat bot prompts have been made public.
2. Ensure all AI chat bot prompts are private by default. This goes for all future AI chat bots as well. Don’t wait for users to accidentally post their secrets publicly. Notice that humans interact with AI chatbots with an expectation of privacy, and meet them where they are at.
3. Alert users who have posted their prompts publicly and that their prompts have been removed for them from the feed to protect their privacy.
If I’m able to watch users inadvertently admitting to federal crimes and posting unclothed pictures of their children to the Meta AI Discover Prompt feed, they clearly don’t understand how it works!
Meta: Pause the product, bake in clear strong privacy, and help users fix their accidental prompt posts.
It’s time to make it right.
Here is a redacted user asking Meta AI about how to ask a judge to not sentence them to death for the murder of 2 people.
Clearly Meta users do not believe their Meta AI prompts are publicly available. This one is tied to the user’s identity with elements of their username which I’ve redacted.
If your family, friends, and coworkers aren’t aware that Meta AI chat bot prompts can be easily and accidentally posted to a social media-like feed, please inform them so they can keep their sensitive questions private.
Imagine if Google searches were surprisingly showing up on a new social media feed, this would devastate folks.
Hey y'all, I'm starting an "ALT After Dark" account, inspired by the wonderful @alttexthalloffame! The goal would be to encourage good alt-text on NSFW image posts, as well as showcasing shining examples of spicy alt-text.
Why? Because #AccessibilityIsHotAF, that's why.
What are our goals?
- Promote quality adult content that focuses on consent, community, and accessibility (great alt-text, proper CWs & hashtags) ❤️🔥
- Reduce the prevalence of porn-bot and repost accounts that post without subject consent, without alt-text or CWs, engage in hashtag spam, and lower the safety / enjoyment of folx on Fedi 🚫
- Engage positively with the community and generally be wholesome-ish 😉
How will we do it?
- With well-vetted human volunteers.
- By leading by example.
- With the help if the community.
What do we need?
- An ideal instance to host us.
- An effort to make the Fediverse a better place.
- Volunteers (of which we already have several).
Thoughts on all of this?
Update: It's Alive!!! @AltAfterDark
#NSFW #AltText #HallOfFame #AskFedi
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#AudioMo Day 12 (because I haven't been bothering to actually label these with the day, for some reason:
On the late afternoon of August 5, 2010, we had quite a thunderstorm, during which, an ice cream van was driving around the neighborhood playing Christmas tunes. Someone didn't get the memo, I guess.
When it played 'Silent Night' during this very not silent thunderstorm, I kind of lost it. I can even be heard in this recording attempting to suppress my having lost it, before running away and closing the door, so I could bust out laughing somewhere else, and not mess up the recording.
This was produced with an Olympus DM-520 connected to an Audio Technica AT-822 single-point stereo microphone hanging out of a bathroom window. As I recall, the positioning of the microphone was not optimal, so I did some re-processing of the stereo image.
I don’t know if any of you have used the app, jacket.FM. But I hear that people are having trouble getting into it today. I have also been hearing that the developer plans to close it down and make a different app.www.applevis.com
Join us for our next webinar this coming Tuesday, June 17 at 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Learn about the newest BT Speak update and interact with the Blazie Technologies team to ask questions and provide feedback.
The webinar will be recorded and made available on our Web site.
Join Zoom Meeting
us02web.zoom.us/j/88169545278?…
Meeting ID: 881 6954 5278
Passcode: 344260
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,88169545278#,,,,*344260# US (Washington DC)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
Join Zoom Meeting
us02web.zoom.us/j/88169545278?…
Meeting ID: 881 6954 5278
Passcode: 344260
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,88169545278#,,,,*344260# US (Washington DC)
• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
#BTSpeak
DG
The biggest environmental scandal in AI right now should be the xAI data center in Memphis, which has been running for nearly a year on 35 methane gas turbines under …Simon Willison’s Weblog
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#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today with 15 updated and 1 added apps:
* Alternate: a privacy-focused app that helps you identify unknown callers without cluttering your device's main contact list 🛡️
16 builds passed RB today, which matches that number 🤩 Current RB status: 620 apps (47.3%)
Enjoy your #free #android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo 
This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).IzzyOnDroid App Repo
Schach: ChatGPT verliert gegen Atari 2600 - DER SPIEGEL
🤣
spiegel.de/netzwelt/games/scha…
Der gute alte Atari, er kann es noch: In einem Experiment hat das alte Computersystem eine neue KI besiegt. ChatGPT suchte derweil wohl nach Ausreden.DER SPIEGEL
"After decades as the world’s largest oil importer, the United States has emerged as its leading exporter of oil and gas. Since then, the country has begun to behave less like a liberal hegemon and more like a classic petrostate."
foreignaffairs.com/united-stat…
The downsides of energy independence.Michael L. Ross and Erik Voeten (Foreign Affairs Magazine)
Hubert Figuière
in reply to mhoye • • •