Today's random throwback: in the 80's, the Polish TV broadcast programme which explained different scientific phenomena and technological advancements, often using imported TV material from abroad, e.g. the UK. Turns out there was an episode from the beginning of 1983 on blindness tech at the time. The whole thing is in Polish but contains sounds of the first electronic Braille typewriter manufactured in Poland, an experimental speech synthesizer, a system to read punchcards, a calculator beeping numbers in a Morse-like system and others. Would be fun to have an English translation and audiodescription for it some day. youtu.be/HQyFfMpWvRk #Blind #Accessiblity #Retro #Tech
Alfabet Braille'a, syntezator mowy, elektroniczny analizator obrazu i inne urządzenia pomocne niewidomymNr odcinka : 253Nr odcinka dostępnego: 134Data premie...
You could re-upload the video, and check the dub option. I watch Russian based videos of tourist going to North Korea, because they are the most breakthrough rules ability.
BlueZ profiles aren’t hot-potatoes you can toss around without planning. Since I had such a huge Pipewire headache this weekend, I wrote my findings into a Linux script. Please check it out and run it if you find it safe. It does everything: Installs pipewire, writes an espeakup override if you have it it'll be useful, stops LightDM from spawning its own socket and using the shared /tmp/pulse.soc instead, and just, works to move Bluetooth syncs from HFP to A2DP. Again, verify verify. I had GPT help me write it so I cannot give it 100% trust. eurpod.com/setup-pipewire-a11y… Looping in @fireborn and @storm, other Linux geeks, love you all, PLEASE weigh in. :D
this isn't totally in my field of knowledge, e.g. I use USB headset and nodm as my display manager, but it looks mostly fine. If it works, and you have sound on boot, this may not be helpful.
I noticed that you enable the user services for pipewire:
But unless I missed it linger isn't enabled for $TUSER so sound may not start at boot. If you have problems with no sound, try adding the following around where those services get enabled:
I updated the script. It is now 8 KB. It has a --h flag for help text, but essentially: You can choose to enable lingering or not, and if Espeakup as a service is not found, it's enabled for you. This is because the Espeakup.service does expect pipewire to be loaded by the user in that override, so it's sort of like, fake lingering, but per service. It's still not great for multi-user setups, which is why I didn't make lingering explicit, but it's still good for single users. In all cases, the shared socket will mean audio works anyway, hats off for that nice socket script.
ah, argh. you wanna know today? Upgrading pipewire from 1.2.X to 1.4.X for the LEAudio Bluetooth bits I wanted. Well well. Turns out, the Stormux script sets WirePlumber 0.4-style Lua tweaks. On WirePlumber 0.5 those are ignored, so BlueZ endpoints don’t come up until your full user session finishes and policy loads. O, M, G. Also disable seat monitoring so WirePlumber registers BlueZ endpoints without a logged-in seat. (This is the key for pre-login use.) But it's really not about the shared pulse socket. You would just need to move your “no suspend” ALSA tweak to wireplumber.conf.d rules. Oh, and the Bluetooth tweak. so: "cat > "$xdgPath/wireplumber/bluetooth.conf.d/50-autoconnect.conf" <<'EOF' # WirePlumber 0.5 bluez5.auto-connect = [ a2dp_sink hfp_hf hsp_hs ] bluez5.default.profile = "a2dp-sink" EOF
I updated this script: new commandline options appear! --no-linger Do not enable systemd lingering for the target user. --mask-lightdm-audio Mask LightDM's PipeWire/WirePlumber/Pulse bridges so the greeter *only* uses the shared /tmp/pulse.sock (use if you see BlueZ conflicts). Beyond this, some bug fixes! • Now, we check better whether ESpeakUp is installed. systemctl status returns non-zero if the unit isn’t active, which made the script print “not installed” even when the unit exists (or is momentarily restarting). We now go based on LoadState. • Use curl if present, fall back to wget. (Some minimal installs don’t have wget.) • Don’t hard-code X/Wayland display ":0" - (Broaden the espeakup override so it skips any display, not just :0.) • Keep the "prefer A2DP" restart tidy, the unit file is reloaded before restart and we don't yank out existing profiles or connections like in the first script. Enjoy! Link again: eurpod.com/setup-pipewire-a11y…
“There is indeed such a thing as a dumb question, and learning to ask the right questions may be the most valuable fruit of a good education.
Many essays on ChatGPT pose various questions to the software, but I want to pose one to the engineers developing these Large Language Models (LLMs) and to the enthusiastic adopters of this technology: What is the problem for which LLMs are the solution?”
I so wish I could write accessible desktop apps in Rust. I'm tired of debugging C++-specific bullshit, like a use after free in the wxFrame destructor. Where's the compiler that'll warn me about dangling pointers? I miss it!
@modulux And then you're locked to Windows, and that crate hasn't been touched in a couple years. I really really wish we had something like wxWidgets for Rust, but that'll likely never happen, so I'm just waiting for the day that Slint has perfect access kit integration.
Right, exactly. There's no good cross-platform solution. In theory, one day, Qt or gtk might work as well. So far I never managed to get anything working properly though. wx would be ideal, I agree.
If I remember correctly, gtk doesn't (yet) provide a11y information on windows. At least that seemed to be the conclusion when I tried to build against it and got nothing to work.
I recently saw somebody ask Is Fedora accessible now ? To which I want to say: yes! But this question does not really have a simple yes-or-no answer. There is lots of nuance to it. A better...
"Accessible recruitment is more than a policy - it’s a way to ensure that every candidate can perform at their best, and each role is filled by the person most capable of doing it." tetralogical.com/blog/2025/08/…
Accessible recruitment is more than a policy - it’s a way to ensure that every candidate can perform at their best, and each role is filled by the person most capable of doing it.
Les normes culturelles afghanes, qui interdisent tout contact physique entre les hommes et les femmes qui n'appartiennent pas à la même famille, ont poussé les secouristes majoritairement masculins à ne pas venir en aide aux femmes.
Jeden z umelcu si na Unreleased hodil lekce kytary. Bez meho pricineni. Coz me tesi zaprve proto, ze nase samoobsluha funguje a za druhe, ze ten nastroj lidi vyuzivaji kreativne.
Sem se kouknul borcovi na IG a tam toto. Jako wtf.
Loudly shouting at #Microsoft to stop forcing "AI" on #GitHub users might lead to some sort of success. Until the next shiny thing comes along.
I took stock, understood what is really happening, that you are accepting to be locked in to a walled garden that you do not control.
So I silently packed up my stuff a while ago and moved to a place and community that accepts, respects and defends my freedom. My repos have moved to #codeberg, I am running my own #forgejo instance and build runners.
I also moved to @Codeberg. But I was really shocked when I saw that Github has 97% of the public git forge market. It thought it'd be like 80%. 97% is total dominance. We have a lot of work to do.
@sesivany I think the main problem is that it is not easy to get code into GitHub, or actually any Git hosting platform/software, unless you have an account there.
The first thing I'd do is build bridges between the platforms to make it easy to pull code from any git hosting to any other git hosting.
Okay, I'm unsure of what to do. I have been unhappy about the way masto is managed, and how people flud local with replies. Poll: Should we merge this account with our plural, or not, or should we keep them separate? We just need some help, lovely people, and we'll appreciate you even more. That is not to say we don't appreciate you, but we will do even more of it. I love fedi, and go to social will be hard to host, hence the poll.
Dneska máme poslední den dovolené. Vyrazili jsme na vrch Hochwurzen, nahoru lanovkou a dolu tříkolkami 😎 Výhled z 1820 metrů je pořád krásný. S @hana #Dovolena #Hochwurzen #Alps #Nature #Mountains
Morning all, well, that’s one human drain of a person got rid of and they won’t be let back in this time! I’m up, had my breakfast and a good cup of tea, listened to some great music. I hope you have a lovely day!
Oof, that sounds like bleh. Seriously, sometimes people can be real big idiots, unaware of their actions. I'm here if you need someone to listen, or you know just a person you can always reach out too. And a hug for you. :)
Try Codeberg — it's Git, but based in Germany (Europe), without all of Microsoft's nonsense. They're also on the Fediverse: @Codeberg.
But wait — it gets better!
Codeberg is open source, and you can even host your own instance. The software is called Forgejo, built by the same folks behind Codeberg, and they're on the Fediverse too: @forgejo.
Unfollowing, blocking, all that stuff is so hard on Mona. If you have another mastodon client on a computer such as tweescake or TWBlue, it is much easier to do. I think Mona respects the ones you block on another client.
OK, so in Mona, if you use your rotor and swipe down to view links, it will bring up their profile as one of the options. Tap on that, then go to the area where it says "following" or "you follow each other" and where it shows their profile and follower count. Tap on that. There is where you find block/unfollow. Good luck
I'm one of three finalists for an award next Friday together with @engstromjimmy and @bagder (I'm obviously going to lose), and the dress code is "gala". Does that mean I need to get a smoking or something, or should I just wing it like I usually do, yolo/hobo style?
Massive Angriffe auf Ukraine - Regierungsgebäude in Kiew brennt
Nach schweren Angriffen ist eines der wichtigsten Regierungsgebäude in Kiew in Brand geraten. Noch ist unklar, ob der Kreml gezielt den Sitz des Ministerkabinetts ins Visier genommen hat. Mindestens drei Menschen wurden getötet.
I've been told ESA, the European Space Agency, spends 250 million euros a year on Amazon cloud services. Today, I received an administrative email from ESA, and it featured an embedded **1.6 megabyte** image as a footer celebrating their 50th birthday, in 4137x953 pixels resolution. Perhaps that's why their cloud bill is so tremendous. A scaled version:
⛏️ Včera byl v Sokolově Den horníků. Na kolotočích narváno už od pátku, všichni statečně bojují s drahotou – trdelník za 150, klobása za 200 a pivko za kilo 🍺. Horníci pochodují v uniformě, mezi tím projede dodávka ANO s heslem, že „bude líp“ asi s Vildumetzovou nebo s kým 🤷 A večer hulákání pod okny až do půlnoci.
A fakt si nedovedu představit, jak by to vypadalo, kdyby nebyla ta „Fialova drahota“… 😅
@mkyral@mastodonczech.czAle prd – jsou jen nenažraný a chtěli by ještě víc. Sestra létá třikrát ročně do Egypta, ale nejvíc jí vadí, že zrušili slevu na autobus 🤦🏻♂️
Na poslední chvíli to nestojí tolik– kolikrát vezmou pro dva za 20 000 . Ale mě by to hlavně ani nebavilo, pořád dokola Egypt. Jsou sami dva, děti už velký… vůbec nechápu to jejich uvažování 🤷♂️.
Ať si lítají kolikrát chtějí, to je mi jedno. Ale jak pořád nadávají… no radši se nebudu rozčilovat
@mkyral Dřív jsem tyhle lidi, co jezdí pořád na stejný místo nechápal. Jenže pak jsem to začal dělat taky a už to chápu. Amsterdam jsem si zamiloval. Pokaždé je to trochu jiné, pokaždé najdu něco nového. A taky střídám roční období, ale na jaře a v zimě jsem tam tam ale ještě nebyl. Pořád jsem ani nestihl navštívit všechno - některá muzea, tulipánový park Keukenhof, zúčastnit se Dne krále, zažít Amsterdam Pride ... taky bruslení na kanálech nebo oslavit Silvestr v Amsterdamu…
#audiopub Just gained a big update! We finally now have a notifications system, so you’ll know imediately when something’s happening on audios you're interested in! You automatically get notifications for events related to your own uploads, but if there is an audio by someone else you're interested in, click the follow notifications button for that audio. Notification badges will appear in the title and the notifications link if you have unread notifications. It will automatically update as you get more notifications, without the need to refresh the page! So if you just keep the site open you could just glance at it every now and then and stay completely up to date. Go check it out, and enjoy the peace of mind of not having to chase down your own comment threads anymore ❤️
I have a question about the NLS DA2 player regarding the order of items on the NLS wish list, as presented by the player. Is there an Email discussion list for DA2 users, preferably with some NLS staff or people knowledgeable about the firmware? Please boost for reach. Thanks.
Tech accessibility question: do you know of a resource to help an adult use an ipad and browse the Internet safely for the very first time? Something pitched at an absolute first time computer toucher, like we used to see all the time in the 80s: instructions that assume you have never seen a home use computer before.
This person has had almost no exposure to any kind of computer, not even an ATM or a smart phone (think long term incarcerated, but not). They have never been on the Internet.
They need to use the basic functionality of a new ipad and generally stay safe online. They need to learn this very fast because they need to do urgent practical things online. They live overseas.
Edit: they are not able to leave their house at the moment. So a visit to a local library is not possible, but we're exploring local library resources.
My wife accidentally left a tote bag with her laptop in it in the middle of a crowded park in Manhattan yesterday evening for 2.5 hours, then went back and found it untouched exactly where she left it. I don’t know how we’re gonna make it if the National Guard doesn’t get here soon
@jfayre@mstdn.ca I play through the New York Times Games app, NYTGames. Either that, or through their web site. There are tons of Wordle games available, and the NYT one is the official one.
@jfayre@mstdn.ca I doesn't say the color of the tiles, but it should be telling you which letters are correct, in the wrong place, or not part of the word.
Want to create a direct download link to a Google Drive file? It's a bit more involved than Dropbox's change dl=0 to dl=1, but it's possible. Most Google Drive links take the form of "drive.google.com/file/d/a-bunc…," though "/view?usp=sharing" isn't always present. To make a direct link to a Google Drive file, change "/file/d/" to "/uc?id=" without the quotes, and remove the "/view?usp=sharing" at the end if it exists. For example, if you want to get a direct link to this test file, located at drive.google.com/file/d/1SqDH0…, you would change the link to drive.google.com/uc?id=1SqDH0T…. Note that on large files, you will still have to click the download anyway button when Google tells you it can't scan the file for viruses, but it's much more direct than the Google Drive interface.
Re: last boost (mindly.social/@Tamasg/11515970…), yes, it's a rant, but I'm amplifying it because if desktop Linux is going to be reliably accessible to blind people, there needs to be a solution to the kinds of problems reported in this post. To all of my followers from the free desktop community, please don't be defensive in your replies. This is an experience that a user had. We should figure out what to do about it.
This Linux "what session owns what process" crap is, I swear, its biggest downfall. Oh, lightDM now owns your pipewire server socket because it started it first? Oh! No Orca for you then, sorry, it can't be started on a Bluetooth device, because then that Pipewire session grabbed the BlueZ service and poof it's now the one connecting to your headphones and its audio socket. Fuck Linux. Fuck it with a big, giant, wide, sharp cactus today.
This Linux "what session owns what process" crap is, I swear, its biggest downfall. Oh, lightDM now owns your pipewire server socket because it started it first? Oh! No Orca for you then, sorry, it can't be started on a Bluetooth device, because then that Pipewire session grabbed the BlueZ service and poof it's now the one connecting to your headphones and its audio socket. Fuck Linux. Fuck it with a big, giant, wide, sharp cactus today.
Volvo (and Polestar) are in crisis mode as their flagship cars are plagued by software problems.
It’s said that car companies don’t “understand” software, but the larger issue is that they don’t *appreciate* software.
I mean, they don’t understand leather tanning or high-end speaker design either, but that doesn’t stop them from sourcing premium materials and great sound systems. But software is always bought from the lowest bidder (Infosys in the Volvo/Polestar case)
Volvo's EVs, including its flagship EX90, are riddled with software bugs. Its CEO says the automakers is focusing on fixing these as quickly as possible.
This is in no way limited to the automotive industry, of course. Hardly anyone appreciates software. Software companies usually don’t either! That’s why we have shit like the Coinbase CEO mandating that by October 50% of their software must be written by AI.
Haha, I remember reading an interview with somebody from the software side in Nokia, Symbian 40 days. They said that the company venerated their hardware designers but didn’t care at all about their software. The example they gave was that they were informed 1 week before new models’ launch that the RAM had been halved :D
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in reply to DonBahno 👨🏻💻🥦🍀🇪🇺🏴☠️ • • •