This week I finally figured out how to do something in #Django that had frustrated me before. I am still fighting my way through discovering how to compose things out of Django's constituent parts. trainedmonkey.com/2025/07/26/u…
The GUADEC 2025 core days ended, and now it's the time of workshops and "birds of a feather" sessions.
Join my colleague Martín Abente Lahaye in his workshop on Gameeky, a learning tool designed for teaching programming, arts, and other skills, on Sunday, July 27, at 12:00
Welcome to GUADEC 2025 GUADEC is the GNOME community’s largest conference, bringing together hundreds of users, contributors, community members, and enthusiastic supporters for a week of talks and workshops.
ladies and gentalmen. I just found out something. don't take video of of a very busy street, or you might end up with something like this in the audio descrption! lol! I was waiting for my lyft ride, and well, you can hear the result.
I think it's hilarious that the blind people have all been moaning about AI slop for the last 9 months and literally everything out of this, omni-describer is it? Is like this. There's ironic for you.
@cachondo When I'm on the cruise taking all sorts of videos around the ship and wanting to insert descriptions into my tour, this may help very nicely indeed.
@FreakyFwoof oh yes, it's a good tool if managed well, just as all the LLM stuff is generally. But you need to know its limitations. That video is a shining example! Gave me a good laugh that.
@cachondo There's a checkbox to stop new speech interrupting the old stuff, it's worth him checking that. I'm trying that right now with a video of mine on a busy street.
@cachondo We can arrange that. It's just a boom arm with a big old camera on the end and you bash and smash your way into the cellar to point at the bottle you want. Then another arm comes in with a claw and you have to manipulate it to get what you want. Easy, right?
@Scott @cachondo Ivona Brian. I purchased it years and years ago and even though you can't buy it any longer, mine still seems to work (until it doesn't.)
@Scott @cachondo I haven't had a single video that didn't complain. I don't get the play buttons, only a volume control and empty edit fields, but I do at least get the export to text, srt and mp3, so I can listen outside of the app.
@FreakyFwoof @cachondo Ah thanks, didn't think to try that. Now just gotta figure out why the video player thingy doesn't work here, I want to try the ask more button.
@ToniBarth @FreakyFwoof @Scott @cachondo So for processing the video and then saving out the mp3 it internally uses ffmpeg, which is probably why it has no problem with .mov. For playback, I’m not sure what the video player control uses, could be something ancient built-into Windows. It's giving a lot of people trouble, the dev said on the audiogames forum the next version will have a new video player which should be more compatible. For some people what helped is installing the kLite codec pack so you can try that, though it didn't help me on my ARM Windows VM even though the codecs themselves appear to work in the MPCHC that got installed with it, while my physical Windows PC just worked first try.
Also, regarding Brian, you can still purchase him as well as the other Ivona voices here harposoftware.com/en/
@FreakyFwoof @pitermach @ToniBarth @Scott @cachondo I didn't know that about the ivona voices either. I baught the sally and brian voices back in 2014, and heard that the voices were no more, so I just haven't looked anymore.
@FreakyFwoof @ToniBarth @Scott @cachondo Yeah around the time Ivona was bought out by Amazon Harpo was able to get the distribution rights to them for accessibility. They also sell modern Vocalizer voices ala carte on the same page. Nice thing about these is the activation system is a simple offline key, no internet DRM of any kind. I think they might also be more responsive than the official Ivona packages were
@pitermach Do you know whether the Nuance ones will let me switch to the compact variant? I dig compact Karen, prefer her to the high quality one at faster speeds. @FreakyFwoof @JamminJerry @ToniBarth @cachondo
@Scott @FreakyFwoof @ToniBarth @cachondo It's just the premium ones afaik. Maybe you can do something with swapping the voice data around but it's not something I tried to do.
@pitermach If you can get the compact variant that works, e.g., from Freedom Scientific since it's an older version, you just need to paste in the its installation folder and replace the values in the registry to point to the the compact variant. Values can be found in the HDR file. I did that for Vietnamese because its compact variant is not as buggy. I can write up actual instructions when not going off memory if wanted. @Scott @FreakyFwoof @JamminJerry @ToniBarth @cachondo
@pitermach @FreakyFwoof @ToniBarth @Scott @cachondo so the original ones I have require an internet connection? I didn't think they did, but I don't know. yeah, I don't like the old installers as they install other programs even though I don't want them. I have tried unchecking them, and they still install anyway. they were pretty expensive voices back in 2014. I paid 45 dollars per voice, hents why I only baught two of them.
@pitermach @ToniBarth @FreakyFwoof @Scott @cachondo are you serious? I am looking at this harpo software thing, and I am looking at voices, and they are saying that the ivona voices are a sail? they want 55 euros for a voice, which converts to I think google said either 64, or 65 dollars. well it looks like it is the voice, plus something called speach to go, for what it looks like. not only that, the vocalizer voices are the same price just for one voice. I know a lot of the vocalizer things you could get you got all the vocalizer voices for I think around 100 US dollars, not 65 for just one voice. ouch! now the ivona ones used to be 45 US dollars for just one voice so that doesn't surprise me, well it does when they call a sail 65 dollars for just one voice. smile.
Krásné dobré ráno mastodoní bando! 🙋♀️🐈🐶 Dneska se mi zdálo, že je mi šedesát šest let. Proč právě tolik nevím. Jen jsem se zoufale ptala, kam to všechno tak rychle uteklo. Asi pro mě trošku zdvižený prst. Něco jako ty, ty, ty. Jsou i jiné věci než práce. A jiní lidé, než v práci. Tak na to taky myslete. Venku je ošklivo. Budu se snažit lenošit a hrát si. Čestné slovo. 😁 Vy si taky jděte hrát. Teda, jestli jste nezapomněli, jak se to dělá. 😊 #dobre_rano #dobréRáno
For those of you who use the #unspoken#NVDA addon, I pushed fixes to it for the latest version of NVDA. I also filed an issue documenting the current state of the addon, and why it's going to continue to suck well into the future, unless we can find a #Python developer who's comfortable with #HRTF and other audio techniques, or get Python bindings to steamaudio or something similar and modern. github.com/masonasons/Unspoken/issues/16
The existing release of unspoken (probably 0.9.10 when you're reading this) has a vast number of serious issues: synthizer bugs, especially the squealing that happens every couple of hours unless y...
* SpeakThat!: turn your notifications into speech 🛡️
This toot was delayed as 5 apps had their RBs fail, requiring ~3h of fixing work. Devs: please take a little care with your releases, like having the APK built from the tagged commit, and do not always rename the APKs, for example 🙈
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).
Listen to 'Dive' ft Asha Banks here: https://HollyHumberstone.lnk.to/DiveAshaIDSign up to my mailing list ‘bored, ignored & out of my mind’: https://www.holl...
Rod Stewart isn’t a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump or his threats against Canada, and recently used a Toronto concert to amplify his sentiment on the matter.
Hello! It's my first post here (#newhere) and I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm a musician from Eastern France, playing medieval instruments and recording pagan folk / neo folk music. I've released two albums so far: Leaves Are Falling (full length, in 2020, feat. among others Michalina Malisz, ex-Eluveitie) and Prelude to Farewell (EP, 2024). I'll upload some music videos here soon. 👋
When adding a description to an image of text, please say exactly what the text says. There's OCR tools to do that if necessary. Saying that it's a "humorous metaphor" doesn't tell me anything.
@scottishwildcat I’m feeling old as fuck in the middle of a group of people saying that this is their first GUADEC, when my first one was 20 years ago, so I understand that feeling
More blind cubers?! YES PLEASE! I just bought the new book that is a guide on how to solve the Rubik's cube that is TEXT based. I am beyond excited!!! My current time using beginner method is under 5 minutes solving completely non-visually. I need to learn more algorithms & methods! tactilecuber.com/
Christina Marie Chapman, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison for aiding a North Korean remote IT worker scheme, details her time as a "laptop farmer" (Evan Ratliff/Bloomberg)
Thousands of undercover agents feed Kim Jong Un’s rocket program with millions from the likes of Google and Amazon. In a Bloomberg Businessweek exclusive, one of the regime’s US pawns tells all.
A US judge sentences an Arizona woman to 8.5 years in prison for running a "laptop farm" that enabled North Korean workers to secure IT jobs at 309 US companies (Jonathan Greig/The Record)
Prosecutors said Chapman helped the North Korean IT workers obtain jobs at 309 companies, including a major television network, a car maker, a media company, a Silicon Valley technology company and more.
Provided to YouTube by OpusRozpačité blues · Jaroslav FilipS vetrom opreteky℗ 1982 OPUS a.s.Composer: Jaroslav FilipLyricist: Milan LasicaAuto-generated by Y...
I wanted to post this yesterday, but @chergert did a blog post of the talk he would have given if he'd been able to attend #guadec. It's a great read — and a great idea. I'd love to see more gnome folks do this on the future.
AGM continues: Steven gives an update on the state of the foundation. Then the board then gets on stage to field questions from the community. Notice robo-@cassidy makes an appearance in the second spot.
#Guadec continues after lunch. Alireza talks about the benefits of joining gnome circle — and the prices of taking his app through the gnome circle process.
@n8 gives a talk about using TUI's that integrate with #GNOME.
Really old-timers might appreciate the appearance of Midnight Commander in this talk. Created by #gnome founder @Migueldeicaza , this was the basis of our first file manager and vfs system.
(1/2) Last talk of the day — and last formal talk of #guadec. Lightning talks part two:
- yours truly talking about the great work by some GSoC students in gnome crossword - @zeenix talking about zlink -- a dbus replacement - Tobias, Andreas, and Julian continued yesterday's talk about Local First. Curse of the real time demo struck. But having seen it work yesterday, it's pretty cool. - Neil's presenting gnurd. Wild talk about tracking 💩. Very entertaining, but serious point at the end.
Lightning talks (2/2): - @jimmac gave us a trip down memory lane of icons over the years - @ramcq talked about what @EndlessAccess is working on. Apparently adorable games that teach kids. - Jordan covered all the great CI improvements - Aryan talked about using extensions as a way to start contributing to #gnome - Syazwan talked about open source from Malaysia. he helps run the gnome YouTube streams - Pietro (age 12) talked about the programs he's written. Very cool, very inspirational.
![Bluesky post by Gwen C. Katz (gwenckatz.bsky.social), reposted by Sarah Z.
text of post:
Itch's new content policy is:
1. We can't tell you what violates the rules.
2. If you violate the rules, we take all your money. Not just the money from that work, ALL your money from EVERYTHING you've ever made.
I don't care how much of a smol bean Itch is, this is not a viable platform.
screenshot of communication from itch.io:
"It's almost impossible to come up with an exhaustive list of unacceptable products to sell, so often we have to take content reviews one at a time. if an issue arises with your account that isn't already covered by our policy, then we will contact you and share what options you may have. If you've collected money while in violation of terms, we may be forced to refund or freeze all pending transactions, as [bold]accounts that are in violation of our terms are not eligible for payouts.[/bold]"](https://fedi.ml/photo/preview/640/689840 "Bluesky post by Gwen C. Katz (gwenckatz.bsky.social), reposted by Sarah Z.
text of post:
Itch's new content policy is:
1. We can't tell you what violates the rules.
2. If you violate the rules, we take all your money. Not just the money from that work, ALL your money from EVERYTHING you've ever made.
I don't care how much of a smol bean Itch is, this is not a viable platform.
screenshot of communication from itch.io:
\"It's almost impossible to come up with an exhaustive list of unacceptable products to sell, so often we have to take content reviews one at a time. if an issue arises with your account that isn't already covered by our policy, then we will contact you and share what options you may have. If you've collected money while in violation of terms, we may be forced to refund or freeze all pending transactions, as [bold]accounts that are in violation of our terms are not eligible for payouts.[/bold]\"")
Valentino Gagliardi
in reply to Jim Winstead • • •