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Update Version 2.6 released for the Brailliant BI20X, Brailliant BI40X and the Mantis Q40. More information can be found here:
humanware.com/en-usa/news/prod…

New Update – Braille learning tables and a new recording application - HumanWare

We’re thrilled to announce the release of our latest firmware update for the Brailliant BI X and Mantis braille display! This update introduces learning braille tables, a recording application and support for the upcoming eBraille format.
Natacha (HumanWare)

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Hi y’all. I’m thinking about buying a laptop, I already have it picked out and it seems to have good specs for the price. Since around 2016, my phone has been my main computing device. I briefly got acquainted with windows 11 a few years ago when I was using a small windows tablet lightly and sporadically. I used to be a fairly proficient or at least mediocre windows user 10 years ago and more. I just need to get familiar with things enough to be efficient again. I also would like to get more in to gaming. I like playing games and I have friends and a partner who game, and I feel like I’m missing out by not having pursued this earlier. I intend to use NVDA unless or until there’s something I come across that it can’t do. I plan to read the windows screenreader primer, which I believe just came out with its 3rd edition. My question is, would anybody be interested in helping me get back up to speed? Or helping me learn about games I can play with no vision? No pressure either way, I’ll figure things out a little at a time. But back when I was new with computers and games, knowing people made a world of difference. So I appreciate anything people are willing to give, whether it’s time or resources or anything else.
in reply to Amber

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Amber

I went ahead and bought the laptop. I have started reading the Windows Screenreader Primer which is on its 4th edition, not 3rd. I’ve also gotten lots of input from here, Ramblio, and friends. My boyfriend even researched whether this particular laptop would be able to handle certain games. I’m a little intimidated by the prospect of getting as efficient with things as I used to be, but I know it just takes time. I went ahead and bought a gaming headset and a usb hub since this thing seems to have very few ports.

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Alright, I'm living up to the "vortex" that I used to use as a handle or part of a handle in various places.
While looking at something else, I noticed that the at-spi2-core docs were lying and saying that every single enum value has existed since the beginning of time. Hopefully I've just fixed that and not broken something else while mucking around, but it was like a vortex hitting the docs, so no guarantees.
Also just made a pyatspi maintenance release (and sent it to Tumbleweed).
And now I'm done with anything remotely productive for today.
I want some Thai food, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

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Ready for something that's going to blow your mind, especially my fellow folks with disabilities? Hold onto to your hats and other accessories because this one is wild. The other day, I got a text from an Orientation and Mobility instructor that I had worked with back in the day. For those who are confused, to put it simply, an Orientation and Mobility instructor is the person who teaches someone with a visual impairment how to get from point a to point b without getting killed. Anyway, said instructor asked for permission to use old pictures she had of me for a retirement party slideshow. I said yes. Nothing too out there, at least not yet. A friend of mine who also worked with her got the same text message, but then more. This instructor asked for a memory video to be recorded on a platform that's not accessible, which my friend explained to her. Instead of understanding, she straight up asked him if his sister could help him record the video. Okay fine, general populace deciding to be ignorant is one thing, but someone who teaches independence? This is a level of what the fuck I don't know if I can deal with.
in reply to Zach Bennoui

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MariahL

@ZBennoui @shefoof Nah, I know it was the instructor. My friend was having the same conversation with her, he had been in contact with her before me, and also this woman texted my mother of all people because she saved her cell number from the application to the job readiness summer program she was working with me at when I was 16. Nope, it was her.
@jade @Zach Bennoui
in reply to MariahL

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Joseph King

@ZBennoui @shefoof Oh oh. That's way less of an annoyance, but still. Oooof. I'm still freezing out over her asking if a family member or friend could help you shoot the video. There's nothing that says you had to use the site she gave you. Hell you probably could have shot it on your phone and sent it to her, and I imagine it would have been ok. VO tells you if you're in frame.
@jade @Zach Bennoui
This entry was edited (16 hours ago)
in reply to Joseph King

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MariahL

@jdking92 @ZBennoui @shefoof She didn't ask me, my friend got asked first and he messed with the platform or whatever and something was weird on the accessibility side of things. He told her that whatever she wanted done wasn't accessible, my guess was she wanted some sort of video recorded so it could be automatically added to a memory slideshow or something, one of those things where you can't just send a video you have to record through the site or whatever, I don't know, but I didn't see it, and honestly she's lucky she got told no by him and not me, I wish she would have asked if someone could help me, I wouldn't have been nice like my friend was. I'm already over stupid people.
@Joseph King @jade @Zach Bennoui
in reply to Joseph King

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MariahL

@jdking92 @ZBennoui @shefoof I don't care how well-meaning you are when you say some stupid shit like that to me, I don't have to be nice, I don't care if there's this expectation that as a person with a disability I should be kind all the time, I don't live by that expectation and it's not my job to educate the ignorant. It's 2026. The internet exists if you can get past the bullshit, these things aren't hard to find answers to.
@Joseph King @jade @Zach Bennoui
in reply to MariahL

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Joseph King

@ZBennoui @shefoof I definitely hear that loud and clear. Educating people really is exhausting and it's not our job to do that all the time. Like you said, the internet exists. If folks can't do web searches to get answers to their questions, they have bigger problems to worry about. I'll educate the people who clearly care about this sort of thing and are trying their hardest to be good folks, but the assholes of the world? Naa fuck them.
@jade @Zach Bennoui

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This song is currently included as a demo project in Apple's #LogicPro. I'm too young to have used Logic 9 when that was out so I'm not sure about those, but of all the demos that came with Logic Pro X and now 11, this one's my favorite by far. Wonder what Apple will do with Logic 12 coming out about two weeks from now. youtu.be/eTkFpdLogEg

Ellie Dixon - Swing!

SWING SWING! - https://EllieDixon.lnk.to/InCaseOfEmergencyIDTHE SWING MUSIC VIDEO IS HERE!! ⚾Hope you have a ball with this one ✨I wrote this song when I was...
YouTube
#LogicPro

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We now have a working SAPI5 version of the Speechify engine that was used on NOAA Weather Radio from 2003 to 2016. Installation and setup instructions are included in the archive. datajake.braillescreen.net/TTS….
The default voice is Tom, however you can also use Jill by editing the voice name in config/SWIttsConfig.xml.

reshared this

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I’m SO excited to have finished my first round of prototypes for my new keyboard clicker fidgets!!

Remember Apples legendary iMac G3 computers from circa 1998-2005(ish)?! You’ll love my new project!

Custom designed keyboard clicker fidgets (with real switches) - available in rainbow 🌈 colours, printed with translucent filaments, topped with textured keycaps.

I strive to create creative, unique and useful fidgets. Let me know what you think!! (Listing coming in a few days!) #BrittBuilds3D

Strawberry Ice, Tangerine Ice, Lemon Ice, Apple Ice, Blueberry Ice, and Grape Ice. — Names all borrowed from Apple’s iMac G3 naming scheme. 🖥️

Rainbow coloured keyboard fidget toy with wrist strap.
Example of the ‘ice’ style for these keyboard clickers. The base transitions from light translucent blue to ice white with blue keycaps with various textures.
Photo of all of the colours: Strawberry Ice, Tangerine Ice, Lemon Ice, Apple Ice, Blueberry Ice, and Grape Ice.
Throwback photo , overhead, of the Apple iMac G3 computers
#brittbuilds3d
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to feld

pleroma - Link to source

≠ HER PENIS ≠

westbend.com/collections/toast…

Looks promising


West Bend QuikServe Compact 2-Slice Toaster with Extra Wide Slots and Cool Touch Exterior, in Black (77224)

The West Bend QuikServe Toaster browns bread in less than two minutes, one of the fastest toasters on the market. Items are held to toast, then released to bottom serving tray. Toast, bagel, and gluten free settings.
West Bend

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The rise and fall of Stack Overflow is a case in point of the parasitic nature of LLMs. LLMs feed their models on places like Stack Overflow to be useful to users, so users flock to them to avoid the eternal snarky comments and just get an answer to their problem right away. But this is a dead end. No new answers will be generated if no one uses Stack Overflow or similar places.

What goes for Stack Overflow goes essentially for the whole internet. Like a mold growing on food, consuming it, and dying once the food is gone - LLMs will kill large parts of the 'old' internet before long.

Graph showing rise and fall of Stack Overflow usage between 2008 and 2026 in numbers of questions asked per month. There's a clear bell curve visible coming from 0 and going to 0.

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Well over lunch, I discovered something funny. ChatGPT has access to Espeak inside its own sandbox environment, so it can run Espeak and generate IPA forms for what Espeak would output. Huge help. So, we fixed US English, next up is patching other languages. Both UK and US English now sound like they should in NV Speech player. Add-on link: eurpod.com/nvSpeechPlayer-2025…
(or original link works too, always latest there if you have a nice Browser like Firefox that doesn't cache downloads.)
Oh, and it also adds a dummy normalizer for empty IPA phonemes (that have no mapping right now.) We send a dummy 10-frames of audio in that case so speech shouldn't stall during say-alls.
This entry was edited (18 hours ago)

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

in reply to Brandon Tyson

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Tamas G

@BTyson @maysoncabo nah, but I think introducing US English letters changed some of the British ones, so the IPA tokenizer also needs to know the nuance between letter types per language and how ESpeak represents that data. Bleh. Sadly that DLL change wasn't much, it did make S's a bit softer which is probably enoough of a downside to not keep it for now anyway. But yeah, really don't know what beyond the ends-of-pitches clipping they did different in their inflection logic, but the entire player itself changed and that may have been enough to offset inflection differences too.
@Brandon Tyson @maysoncabo
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