akkoma - Link to source

So @lwn is currently under the heaviest scraper attack seen yet. It is a DDOS attack involving tens of thousands of addresses, and that is affecting the responsiveness of the site, unfortunately.

There are many things I would like to do with my time. Defending LWN from AI shitheads is rather far from the top of that list. I *really* don't want to put obstacles between LWN and its readers, but it may come to that.

(Another grumpy day, sorry)

@LWN.net

mastodon - Link to source

I use this all the time on the RNIB Talking Book site. It makes browsing tables of search results much easier and it's a service we use quite a lot. Quoting Freedom Scientific / Vispero: JAWS Feature Spotlight: Smart Navigation

Want a faster, more intuitive way to move through web pages, PDFs, and HTML content? Smart Navigation helps you browse more efficiently by letting you navigate by controls, tables, or both, so you can focus on the information that matters.

In this archived 20 Minute Tech Tips episode, you’ll learn what Smart Navigation is, why it matters, how to enable it, and how to switch modes on the fly.

Listen now: freedomscientifictraining.libs…
#JAWS #ScreenReader
image: JAWS Feature Spotlight, Smart Navigation. Dark blue shark fin with wavy line along the bottom of image. @freedomscientific


Freedom Scientific Training Podcast: 20 Minute Tech Tips: Unlocking JAWS Smart Navigation

In this episode, Freedom Scientific trainer Ron Miller dives deep into JAWS Smart Navigation, a powerful feature designed to make navigating web pages, PDFs, and HTML documents more intuitive.
freedomscientifictraining.libsyn.com
#screenreader #jaws @Freedom Scientific / Vispero

glitchsoc - Link to source

RE: climatejustice.social/@termina…

I’m now officially moving from “the cloud is just someone else’s computer“ to “the cloud is just a landlord for your data”

Very poignantly put @terminaltilt

Terminal Tilt

2026-01-15 03:05:37

mastodon - Link to source

Jeff Bezos is saying the quiet part out loud. They want to kill local computing.

You will own nothing and be happy. You will rent your computing power from the cloud. You pay a subscription for the privilege of using a computer.

AI demand is artificially spiking DRAM prices and Big Tech is pushing "AI PCs," the squeeze is on to force us into a rental model.

Reject this future. :NoAI:

Keep your hardware local.

Run #Linux. :tux:

Own your data.

The "cloud" is just a landlord for your data.

#NoAi #FOSS #OpenSource #Privacy #SelfHost #SelfHosting #BigTech #RightToRepair #RAM #Amazon #EatTheRich

windowscentral.com/artificial-…


@Terminal Tilt
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source
So now Techno DJs start remixing AI songs, as there was no other music? Ok tbf probably nothing new, but one of my favourite did, and it pisses me off because heck the quallity is bad. Like at least put effort into it rather than just taking the 1st result, slapping some base on it and calling it a day. I'm coming more and more to the opinion that AI music is just trash no matter what. I mean it's fascinating, like, the fact that's even possible. But I dislike it.

mastodon - Link to source
Hey! Guess what peoples? I almost have 12000 posts. That's a lot of posts! I've accumulated all of this in a little over 3 years. This means that, on average, I post a bit less than 4000 posts a year, provided I did the math right, which I probably did not. If someone wants to do more accurate math, I believe I joined this instance on October 30, 2022. Or something like that. So have fun with that if you like. Lol
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

It's really funny to me how the amount of autism and dry humor in our family means that we will get into a big group text conversation and someone says something and then one of us is like, "Wait, is he kidding?" And then the other autistic person is like, "I think so?" And the first autistic person: "Oh, I knew that?"

And I literally can't tell who is being sarcastic or what

(but it's okay because everyone is nice - unlike growing up, when missing sarcasm meant DOOOOM, heh)

mastodon - Link to source

Getting back on the #Mozilla topic (sorry): they did not release the state of mozilla 2025 report, as they usually do.

But we can find the 990 filing for the Mozilla foundation of year 2024 which was submitted in November 2025: projects.propublica.org/nonpro…

I wasn't a good year as investment revenue dropped, while expenses kept growing, resulting in a loss of $4 million.

In the expenses, almost $11 million were invested in advocating for "trustworthy AI".


Mozilla Foundation, Full Filing - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica

Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from over 1.8 million nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax filings going back as f…
ProPublica
#mozilla
in reply to Alex Hall

mastodon - Link to source

Jamie Teh

Thanks for the article. This is indeed intriguing. From what I've been able to dig up (hard to know how much of it is promises vs actual capability), you can write your own apps which run in the cloud. But the key point is that they all run in the cloud. That might mean you could run it on your own server, but something truly local, even running on your phone, just isn't possible. That rules out something like on-device OCR, which is sad. Still, it's nice to know there might be an option that doesn't involve sending data to companies like Meta where you have absolutely no control over their use of your data.

mastodon - Link to source

Any #GameDev folks have any experience working with both #playdate and #pico8 (and/or #tic80 fantasy console)? I’m curious if anyone has first-hand experience with trying to work on a project with shared #lua code that works in both environments but has each using its own resources for input handling, graphics, and sound.

Specifically looking for tips, best practices, learned experience, etc.

#gamedev #playdate #lua #pico8 #tic80
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/?radd=1… today brings you 7 updated and 4 added apps:

* CleanShare: Xposed module that removes Direct Share suggestions from Android's Share Sheet 🛡️
* Middor: mirror apps on your device (e.g. for HUD) 🛡️
* KashCal: Privacy-focused calendar with optional iCloud sync 🛡️
* Auto Off Bluetooth: monitors Bluetooth connection status and automatically turns it off 🛡️

RB status: 802 apps (62.1%)

Enjoy your #free #Android apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo :awesome:


IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

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
#android #free #AndroidAppRain #izzyondroid

pleroma - Link to source

If you haven't been able to see my posts for a while (I mean, you should consider that a blessing/feature, but I digress) it was because apparently my firewall was doing something strange with the Spamhaus DROP list and blocking connections it shouldn't have.

After receiving several reports that people couldn't connect to my services and I couldn't find them on the official list (didn't search my pf table, sadly) the problem went away after I disabled and re-enabled the list.

How did that fix it? Only the magic smoke inside the machine knows the answer

mastodon - Link to source

Really interesting how the Black Panther Party came out in opposition to the murder of Renee Good, and not a single “White Lives Matter” or “All Lives Matter” or Gadsen Flag etc. person has shown up. Really interesting.

#ICE #FuckICE #Philly #BlackPanther #BlackFedi #BlackMastodon #BlackTwitter

reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleofRedd…

#BlackTwitter #blackmastodon #BlackFedi #ice #fuckice #philly #blackpanther

mastodon - Link to source
Okay, so rant of the day: I think it's great that people develop apps and such to make things work better, IE mastodon, bluesky, etc, but for the love of it all, can't there be a place to actully find them without having to use the someone who knows someone who know someone else so you might, maybe, they'll consider, giving you the link? I mean, I got the mastodon one today with no problem, (thankfully I knew the right people), but now I'm googling a telegram one five ways to Sunday and getting nothing. I get that we as people who are blind are a small population, but damn, that doesn't mean we should have to play virtual hide and seek every time something new comes out.

mastodon - Link to source

Google: "We found that this gambling ad doesn't violate our policies against gambling ads, but you can personalise your ad experience to block the kinds of ads you don't want."

Me: "So, can I block gambling ads?"

Google: "No, we don't allow gambling ads so a toggle to block gambling ads doesn't make sense. What are you talking about?"

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source

ohhhh crying in the libraryyyyyyyy

A student in their final semester who has been checking out a laptop from us every week their whole time here just came up to return, not renew, one because they could finally afford their own and they wrote up a testimonial to talk about the positive impact it had for them.

There is a lot, way too much, bullshit at my institution, but these little moments where we get to really see what the library can do for a person is what keeps me in the fight.

mastodon - Link to source
Wow, this looks amazing and is something I've wanted for a very long time. Doubt it's accessible, but you never know. tonalic.com/#video-1-1 @chikim

Tonalic — a musician by your side

Tonalic adapts real studio performances from world-class musicians to your song’s chords, tempo and groove. No AI, no loops, no MIDI. Just living, musical performances powered by Celemony’s Tonalic Engine and always royalty-free.
www.tonalic.com
@Chi Kim

mastodon - Link to source
🤔 Nvidia released Music Flamingo model for music Q&A for genres, instrumentation, tempo, key, chords, lyric transcription, cultural context, etc. I wonder whether they are laying the groundwork to train their own music generation model. Music Flamingo could be an easy way to produce a huge labeled dataset. #LLM #AI #MusicGen musicflamingo-nv-umd.github.io…

Music Flamingo

musicflamingo-nv-umd.github.io
#AI #llm #musicgen

mastodon - Link to source
Schwuler "Tagesthemen"-Chef geht zu Axel Springer
Als ich die Überschrift gelesen habe, dachte ich zuerst es geht um den Herrn, dessen Namen man nicht nennen darf, weil man dann gleich mit Anzeigen überzogen wird :mastolol: queer.de/detail.php?article_id… #ARD #ÖRR #Tagesschau #Tagesthemen #gay #queer #lgbtQ

Schwuler "Tagesthemen"-Chef geht zu Axel Springer

Der bisherige Leiter der ARD-"Tagesthemen", Helge Fuhst, wechselt zum Medienkonzern Axel Springer. (Kunst & Kultur - Medien)
queer.de
#queer #LGBTQ #gay #ard #tagesschau #tagesthemen #orr

mastodon - Link to source

So this is really bad. I know. But y'all I feel better these days than I have in years. Why? Because LLM's not only make me feel like I'm doing things and making things, but they actually do make things. Slowly yes, with lots of answering questions and guiding it, but it really helps.

So now I have Emacs with Emacspeak on my Android phone, working on an MUD client, got accessible Lemuroid so I can get TalkBack descriptions of games, about every thing I could ever want besides some Braille stuff. And when I get tired of all the Emacs stuff, I'll try and rangle BRLTTY into accepting Contracted Braille input and try and get a Braille Access-like mode going. And then see if I can get BRLTTY to work as well in Termux as it does in Linux. Like no joke, LLM's have opened this up to being a possibility for me.

Now I get it. These are just nice-to-have things. But shoot y'all, it's freaking fun!

#accessibility #blind #ai

#Accessibility #blind #AI
in reply to Devin Prater :blind:

mastodon - Link to source

Tech Singer

I disagree that these are "nice to have things". They're important, we only don't think so because we, blind people in general, have been in such a serious mess and have been living in a constant battle to get the basics. These things are actually very important, and I say that as one who has never used Emacs and wouldn't know a MUD client if it came up and said hello. Because there has been so little done for blind users, and because every step has been like pulling teeth, and because of the constant low quality we're subjected to, we think if we have the basics, that's enough. It isn't. Tech is supposed to let us do things we couldn't do before. The opinions of others on how valuable those things are is of no importance or interest. Of course, I include my own opinion in that. If you find these things improve your life, then they are absolutely vital and there's no reason whatsoever to think they're unimportant/frivolous. This is one of the advantages of LLMs. I don't see many, but I do see this, the fact that they will get some work done without huge expense when that work simply wouldn't be done otherwise is a wonderful surprise. You feel better because you're rational. The life of a blind person consists, very often, in smashing one's head against walls. Now that smashing is both less painful and actually achieving results. Also, you're not using your head on the wall. Isn't feeling great about that the most reasonable thing anyone can do?
This entry was edited (3 days ago)
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