I've just published a blog post listing exciting new features in Debian 13, focusing on practical changes that can improve your workflow for better performance and productivity.

This is also useful for users of other distributions, as most of the features come from projects also packaged outside of Debian.

samueloph.dev/blog/debian-13-m…

News: Full text of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's speech at news conference on reported Trump military plan for Chicago

cbsnews.com/chicago/news/illin…

#Pritzker

in reply to Mastodon Migration

Video: Governor JB Pritzker | Full speech responding to Trump administration’s suggestion of sending the National Guard to Chicago | 14 min

youtu.be/rRfHOJrx0aM?si=aQ2MG4…

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

When the Washington Post asked 604 DC residents about Trump’s takeover, Post editors didn’t like what they said, so they took it out of the headline.

fair.org/home/wapo-editors-doi…

One of the benefits of eSpeak-NG is that it doesn't make assumptions like reading "CUP" is Cuban Pesos (hello US OneCore voices) - but the flip side is that eSpeak will read the year 1987 as "nineteen hundred eighty seven". If you'd like it to read that as "nineteen eighty seven" & learn a little #regex on the way, then @fastfinge has you covered with the "Correcting Years With NVDA and Espeak" blog post: stuff.interfree.ca/2025/08/28/…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #Tips #Accessibility

reshared this

in reply to NV Access

I can't resist the temptation to discuss more OneCore oddities, we also can't forget the OneCore bug with reading ernesto, or have you been using applications where unchecking check boxes was necessary? Also fun fact. Microsoft David always uses its OneCore data even in SAPI5. Zira uses OneCore data in OneCore, but its older data in SAPI5. What this means, is that David will always exhibit these problems, but Zira will only if using OneCore and not SAPI.

Thanks to everyone at #SomethingDigital in Brisbane for a fantastic time this week!

Did you catch Mick Curran discussing "From voice interfaces to micro-interactions: The innovations powering digital accessibility" on Tuesday? He was joined by Allison Ravenhall from the Commonwealth Bank, Jim Hogan from Griffith University and moderator Vivienne Neilan from NIISQ.

To find out more about Something Digital, see somethingdigital.com.au/

#SD25 #SomethingDigitalBrisbane #SomethingFest2025

Deloitte Australia writes government report with AI — and fake references

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/28/del…

No fucking surprise that these consultants would cheat their way into using b.s. machine. After all producing b.s. is their trade.

in reply to Hubert Figuière

some time ago my company paid a consultant for a 2-hour webinar on "how to become more productive with Copilot" and in the middle of it the guy proudly told us that a few weeks earlier he forgot he had to do a presentation for a client so before the meeting he "just pointed Copilot to the SharePoint folder and then used the result and everybody was happy," and in my mind I was like "we are the people that pay you for that crap, are you sure you should be telling us this 🤨"
in reply to Jamie Teh

I try to make sure I document how to do something useful in most of our blog posts purely so when someone asks how to do that, I don't need to write it out (again), I can just point them to that already existing resource. The ones which annoy me are when someone asserts that something isn't possible when actually, it's very possible and well documented, and please stop telling other users that...

And it is at this point that I discover that FreeBSD's nuageinit (a fancy Lua script) that handles cloud-init shit is missing the following in FreeBSD-14.3-RELEASE:

- write_files
- runcmd
- packages
- package_update
- package_upgrade
- final_message

This makes it almost entirely useless. It can bootstrap users with their SSH keys and network config, but that's it.

I'm glad we have something, but this is just ridiculous. (these features are already committed, but now I gotta wait for the next release which will be a long time...)

Has anyone started a set of #NVDA dictionaries for the #blastbay#TTS voices yet? Now that the SAPI bugs in #NVDA are fixed, I'm trying them out for a while. Problems I'm noticing: number reading is...weird. And change pitch for capitals doesn't work. Also, a set of NVDA dictionaries will be really badly needed. It's not as bad as eloquence, but I've got five entries after just a few minutes use. But these on Windows and the Siri voices on IOS could maybe, finally, perhaps, get me off eloquence.

From Winaero: Microsoft has introduced super wideband stereo support for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio on Windows 11. The feature enables high-quality stereo audio during voice calls and in-game chat on compatible devices. It uses the Bluetooth LE Audio standard with a new compression algorithm that maintains stereo sound even when the microphone is active.

Previous Bluetooth Classic Audio systems switched to mono playback during voice use, limiting audio quality to 16kHz wideband. The new implementation supports a 32kHz sample rate, delivering clearer and more detailed sound.

Spatial Audio in Microsoft Teams is now available over Bluetooth LE Audio, allowing participant voices to align with their on-screen video positions. This enhances audio clarity in multi-speaker calls.

Users require a Windows 11 device with LE Audio support, a compatible headset or hearing device, updated Bluetooth drivers, and Windows 11 version 24H2. Driver updates will extend support to select existing PCs. Most new mobile PCs from late 2025 onward will include factory support for the feature.

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

"#Anthropic Settles Major AI Copyright Suit Brought by Authors"

Precedent set?
Both of my #Scarfolk books were downloaded and pirated from the LibGen 'shadow library'.
Compensation would be nice.
Anyone aware of other class-action lawsuits I can join, or have any other legal pointers?

news.bloomberglaw.com/class-ac…

#AI

in reply to Richard Littler

"AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry."

Win win.
I just registered my name & book details with the appropriate law firm.

Check if your book/article/paper is on the list here:
theatlantic.com/technology/arc…

If it is, go here:
lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au…

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

#authors #books #AI

Ladies and Gentlemen, It goes without saying that we are gathered here today for reasons that are, quite frankly, neither here nor there. At the end
of the day, it is what it is, and that’s something we can all agree on in any way, shape, or form. Now, when we look at the big picture, we have to remember
that the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, but by the same token, you can’t put the cart before the horse.
That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Be that as it may, we must keep in mind that, for all intents and purposes, the fact of the matter remains to
be seen. If you will, let’s not beat around the bush, but at the same time, let’s not jump the gun. After all, when push comes to shove, we’re all in the
same boat. So, as we move forward, let’s take it one day at a time, because at this point in time, it’s anyone’s guess. Suffice it to say, we’ll cross
that bridge when we come to it. Until then, let’s just keep doing what we’re doing, because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Thank you, and remember:
it is what it is.

The EU needs a corporate “open source contribution tax” to fund open source maintainers

Open source, the thing that drives the world, the thing Harvard says has an economic value of 8.8 trillion dollars (also a big number). Most of it is one person. And I can promise you not one of those single person projects have the proper amount of resource

osnews.com/story/143211/the-eu…

#OpenSource

Cyklista s upaženou rukou, co to asi znamená?👉️🤔
Tady už jsme se fakt málem střetli. 🚲️🚗Kdyby mi nebylo divné to vrčení hned za zády a neotočil bych se, normálně by mě sejmul. Jak jsem se otočil, ucuknul volantem. Nee, ani pak nezačal brzdit, aby mi umožnil odbočení. Šlápnul na plyn. Všimněte si, že jsem přejel svou odbočku. 🤦
peertube.skorpil.cz/w/uscVMDx5…

Played a bit more with #fruitstand (github.com/BasementCat/fruitst…) from @Wren this evening, now my ePaper display (seeedstudio.com/XIAO-7-5-ePape…) came in.

I've never been so excited seeing an "Internal Server Error" displayed on the screen, because it comes from the server!

In just an evening I got my CI-built container properly tested, reported some bugs, fixed an issue and got the ESP32 properly linked to the Fruitstand webserver with #esphome.

Been a while since I enjoyed hacking on stuff this much :)

in reply to Wren 🐁

I'm not seeing the DB migration in the README but yeah that was one of the issues I ran into (I'm thinking the Docker container should probably just auto-migrate on launch), but sadly that's not this issue: github.com/BasementCat/fruitst…

I'm starting to feel it may be some config issue, like, maybe there is no default config for plugins until you explicitly save. And maybe they're not saving on my side for some reason. I'll debug more later, I'm already glad about the progress of yesterday :)

in reply to Sylvia

You were right about the database migration being documented in the README, my bad!

I'm not sure which exact action got stuff working eventually, but well, Fruitstand is working for me now, which is lovely :)

I'd like to document how to make seeedstudio.com/XIAO-7-5-ePape… work with Fruitstand somewhere. Do you have any preference? A new page under github.com/BasementCat/fruitst…? Something else?

in reply to Sylvia

@aks Just noticed your progress on Queerminal (scalie.zone/@aks/1151257995352…), very cool! Given we both seem to really want a non-queerphobic TRMNL alternative, I just figured I'd ping you here to show you Fruitstand running on similar hardware in the hope it might interest you. If you'd rather I not bother you with this let me know! :)
in reply to Wren 🐁

GitHub wikis do get their own semi-hidden repo (URL visible on the bottom, see github.com/TheLastProject/frui…) but the wiki format is kinda... GitHub-specific. If your goal is to have less vendor lock-in I would personally suggest GitHub Pages instead as you can mostly move that as-in to GitLab Pages or (sadly in maintenance mode) Codeberg Pages. Or build it with a third party tool like Netlify. Of course, you should put that behind an own domain to not be stuck with a github.io domain.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Sylvia

"Mostly" as in, whatever is in the "pages" branch gets published as HTML, so you will have to modify your build scripts for the CI system you switch to. But given the commands will stay the same that would be fairly minimal amounts of work.

Then we get to the level of multiple repositories though, so you may want to move Fruitstand to a GitHub organisation for clarity (though not required).

Could also just put markdown files in the current Fruitstand repo but that is more limiting.

in reply to Wren 🐁

Understandable! It seems I have permission to edit the Wiki (it might be set to public), so it accidentally published the moment I hit save. I hope that's okay anyway :)

I might tweak this if more stuff comes up, but for now, I'm considering github.com/BasementCat/fruitst… to be "correct documentation". Feel free to change/ask as you see fit :)

Part 3 of the GNOME Shell gestures work by @verdre has landed in Mutter/GNOME Shell main. This is one of the main dependencies for upstreaming the rest of GNOME Shell mobile 🙌

Huge thanks to everyone involved in review, especially @fmuellner, Carlos Garnacho, @jadahl, Bilal Elmoussaoui, @rmader, and @swick!

gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/…

gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-s…

in reply to feld

I stopped taking "blind libertarian" pills 20 years ago, kid. That's like 20% of the cause. There is a very real and very immediate inflation effect when one shuts down industry, shipping, and retail for a prolonged period, and artificially creates scarcity. That's easily 80% of Biden's inflation. That and giving kickbacks to other crooks at the expense of honest business practices.