mastodon - Link to source
In today's world of autocorrect, why do so many places where people write from their phones always include contractions with missing apostrophes? You'd think any modern operating system would see "isnt" and immediately correct it to "isn't". Same for "ive", "dont", and so on. I can understand the apostrophe being multiple taps away, and so not getting added manually, but why wouldn't software put it back in?

mastodon - Link to source
#TimeToTehOn...Good morning. I like FastSM rather more than tc, only probably because it loads faster, and takes up less RAM space. However, I won't be running it networkly like I can TC, for the simple reason that I cannot localise user data, or not that I know of. I don't use Telegram that much on the pc anyway, because most who have my details there, also follow me on mastodon, so no use boring people on telepaw if I already posted here anyway. BlueSky I don't have, and probably will never have either...Between my facebook/mastodon.africa/fluffy.family accounts I already have 3 social media related accounts, and that seems to be enough for now. However, knowing me, I may just fall for Bluesky, like I fell for the Seika Mini2 Smart Braille Notetaker...so I'll never say never, simply because I know myself well enough to know that curiosity might indeed push me to get bluesky regardless of the current reluctance. Anyway, have a nice day on this humpday.
#timetotehon

mastodon - Link to source
It occurs to me that I haven't yet tested FastSM's ability to upload media to Mastodon. So I hereby present something which I call, "Girl, You Know it's False." I take the intro to the Milli Vanilli song "Girl, You Know it's True," where a man and a woman are talking to each other on opposite stereo channels, then I deliberately use and normalize the channel where each person is *not* talking. What you hear is a really echoy conversation, with almost certainly tape hiss and even some 50 Hz hum in the background. Then at the end the two orchestra hit type things also sound weird. Anyway here goes.

mastodon - Link to source
Well, I got GPT5 Pro mode again, asked it to help refactor my driver because I don't do a good enough job myself of that, and now it's been thinking for 88 minutes. Either it's going to give me a big disaster pile, or I somehow got it stuck. Longest time I've seen it think was like 65 minutes haha. But what the heck can you do for 88 minutes! This better be good. I feel like I'm asking a real coder to do the work, but worse, because it's not an actual real coder but a program, so it's more disappointing.
in reply to Brandon

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@serrebi @FreakyFwoof @stormproductions @xogium oh interesting! May give it a try at work, we have access to both. I have Google One plan which I share with my partner so we both get Gemini, they prefer it and honestly OpenAI has never allowed for family sharing like that, quite unfortunate. I feel like I need both in my toolbox. OpenAI (pro for now, we'll see if I make enough use of it this month to count) for those "think through and patch files direct inside container for you" moments, Gemini for the "review my code I wrote and that it's not trash and passable to an AI to work on", and they both look at different areas of the code. GPT will get it done even if you give it a bad idea to get done, Gemini's for sure a lot more cautious. So I can't decide on either these days, usually my workflow is augmenting one's response with the answer of the other, which makes me wonder what a powerful tool could be built if it just passed your prompt between the 2 AIs to solve, I'm sure someone's thought of that by now.
@Brandon @Andre Louis @Casey Reeves @Storm
in reply to Brandon

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@serrebi @stormproductions @FreakyFwoof @xogium yeah, even in the "AI pro" plan :) + the 2 TB Gmail is nice, well, that's why I was initially subbed to it but they migrated people over with a slight price bump. economically speaking I think if I wanted to get the most use out of AI, Gemini does win by a longshot, even if GPT's now trying to compete with their $8 "go" plan LOL
@Brandon @Andre Louis @Casey Reeves @Storm
in reply to Brandon

mastodon - Link to source

Storm

@serrebi @FreakyFwoof @xogium I have installed Gemini's CLI, but I'm either too stupid with CLI's in general, or I don't even know how to navigate with NVDA. I tried typing /settings so I can see what settings I can tweak, and I couldn't even see the darn list of settings with NVDA. Any tips? I mean, any shortcuts for either NVDA or Gemini's CLI that I have to learn to start using it properly? Where do I actually pass the screen reader flag? My questions probably sound sily and stupid for somebody used to CLI's, but I truelly can't get the hang of it.
@Brandon @Andre Louis @Casey Reeves
in reply to Storm

glitchsoc - Link to source

Casey Reeves

@stormproductions If they are still up after all the crap they go through right now, that is...

Trials for the death of several people that trusted gpt with things, claims that chatgpt can even be trusted with health advices now when it clearly can't -- I'm not joking! I saw an ad about it!

Then also the Musk case. Oh dear oh dear. Now I don't like Musk at all but truth is, he's apparently got 60% chance of winning his case against OpenAI. And he asked for a jaw dropping $134b iirc.

I think OpenAI will sink sooner than later.

@Storm
in reply to Casey Reeves

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@xogium @stormproductions I do use Gemini, quite often to double-check code GPT wrote, because it will scan through it a lot faster. But (at least on web) it's horrible at pasting back code you gave it exactly 1 to 1 still, like it'll omit sections that it's pasting back of the code I gave it, and I'm yelling at it "give me full pieces! No omissions!" Haha. It's gotten better but GPT having an entire container inside to access and run Linux commands, not to mention I've uploaded a 30-40 MB zip file to it with my entire Gitub repo and Gemini just yells at me, "file is too large." LOL.
@Casey Reeves @Storm

bridgy-fed - Link to source

Pravidelné kombinování různých druhů fyzické aktivity může být nejlepší pro prodloužení délky života, ale souvislosti nejsou lineární, což naznačuje možný optimální prahový efekt www.news-medical.net/news/2026012...

Diverse exercise routines asso...


Diverse exercise routines associated with reduced risk of death

Regularly doing a mix of different types of physical activity may be best for prolonging the lifespan, but the associations aren't linear, pointing to a possible optimal threshold effect, suggests research published in the open access journal BMJ Med…
News-Medical

mastodon - Link to source
God, Mac OS is really awful these days! A notification comes in, no VO focus on it, so hit VO+F1 twice, notifications menu has "go to Notification Center" and..."No items in Notification center!" Also, "Go to Notification Center" doesn't actually do anything! If something this basic doesn't work, it's no wonder VO is so bad. Case in point, every time my Mac restarts now, it comes up saying "Installer has no Windows." I have to use VO+Shift+Space to click the mouse because it's hanging out in the Login Window, while Vo's focus refuses to move from this blank Installer Window no matter what. Pressing VO+F1 just says, "Authentication required." Shit, maybe I just need to blow the OS away and start over.

mastodon - Link to source
New: NV Speech Player finally gets a "pause mode" setting, like Eloquence has. This should not chew into lines with say-all, but rather does clause-based punctuation pause detection. And, it does appear to work. You can choose between "off," "short," and "long." This should solve a lot of complaints around words "merging together" after punctuation. I also began my first pass at abstracting parts of the driver out: _frontend.py and _dll_loader.py. Logging was also improved, I cleaned up over 40 try/catch exceptions, We're not trying to play Pokemon here.
download: eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
Oh! and for those wondering "where's classic pitch?" It's located in the Voice settings dialog, you'll find it as a checkbox.
This entry was edited (12 hours ago)
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Cleverson

thanks for the last corrections concerning m/n between vowel and consonant for pt-br. Now, I've just added a phoneme which I've called "brã", for Brazilian ã, which consisted of a single change: take ã and change cf4 from 3300 to 2600. then I added to pt-br.yaml:
- from: "ã"
to: "brã"
Now, when I command it to speak a word like "região", the new phoneme appears to be used, but it's much less stressed and somewhat shortened, or at least de-emphasised. Can you give a look please?
in reply to Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@clv1 hmm. try and replace your packs folder at eurpod.com/synths/packs-ptUpda… - I'm experimenting on this one. What you’re hearing isn’t really “less stress,” it’s that the new vowel is darker, so it feels less punchy even if the timing didn’t change. In our latest pack we kept your approach, but made the change in a more balanced way so the synth doesn’t “half use” the old sound: we added a dedicated Brazilian ã variant and mapped pt-br to use it, making sure the vowel stays consistent across the voice filters. If you still want it to pop more, the best next tweak is a tiny loudness bump on that new ã variant rather than changing stress/timing.
@Cleverson
in reply to Zvonimir Stanecic

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@asael @clv1 haha not sure. Depends on how well base pairs are defined right now. You could always add it inside the driver, here we have the list of languages, if you formatted it the same way as that string and used HR for Croatian it would speak today but with perhaps missing sounds. Then we map those missing sounds to specific phoneme pairs in hr.yaml. Generally many sounds can be reused across languages but there's definitely edge cases especially with glides, fronted sounds, ETC.
@Zvonimir Stanecic @Cleverson
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Cleverson

Now to another issue: I need the distinction to be more noticeable when there is an r between consonant and vowel, i.e. in syllables like bra, cra, fra, tra, the consonants probably need to be more separate from each other. I have added some settings to pt-br.yaml, namely those concerning stop gaps, but I don't know yet how to deal with them... What is the correct setting for this case?

mastodon - Link to source
Our parliament holds 101 members + bunch of officers in the parliament + a ministry which deals with finances. They recently passed a law, which, apparently by error, made all gambling websites except from paying taxes in Estonia. Loss in tens of millions of euros, which in Estonias view is a considerable sum. Now, to avoid this situation in the future, they are talking about implementing AI in law making and in the process. What could possibly go wrong.
This entry was edited (12 hours ago)
in reply to Jakob Rosin

mastodon - Link to source

Noel Romey

Whatever the AI says is right. Yours is probably better than mine since your AI is the best AI the world has ever seen. Therefore you are the best person, with the best skills. Just an FYI, I'd like to purchase Estonia because why not? I could make Estonia a big data center. I need it because @BorrisInABox and @FreakyFwoof are all running AIS on their Macs which might be bigger than mine and yours combined. So gimme. Gimme gimme gimme ... urp.
@Andre Louis @Borris

mastodon - Link to source
My partner and I visited Norway and hiked (a surprisingly short hike) to a place called Litlefjellet -This was the view!
Litlefjellet, Norwegian for ‘Little Mountain’, is the name of the center mountain. Plus, we found the iconic pond that perfectly reflects the whole scene.
I loved it so much that I decided to make it into wood art! I hope you love it, too
#woodart #artandairplanes #art #woodworking #wood #norway #mountains #hiking #sun
Circular wooden artwork depicting a mountain range in Norway featuring a sunburst sky and a reflection scene.
#art #hiking #woodworking #mountains #norway #sun #wood #woodart #artandairplanes
in reply to Blind Bargains

glitchsoc - Link to source

Casey Reeves

Working on a real beauty currently with the extensive help of gemini 3 pro and a sighted friend to help fix up the UI. It's not ready for release yet, but I reckon I'll post the link for when it is ready in your thread, if you'd like.

SonarIRC is the first 100% accessibility first irc client ever made for windows. No more of this horrible half hacked together accessibility support via scripts in mIRC or others of the same. It is also up to modern irc standards and has a ton of irc v3 capabilities supported. Compatibility also with all screen readers that uses UIA.

mastodon - Link to source
My wife and I are fortunate to be in Iceland at the moment, and we managed to capture a timelapse of last night’s aurora. It was one of those moments in my life when I could hardly believe my own eyes. Enjoy!
#aurora #iceland #timelapse
#iceland #timelapse #aurora

reshared this

in reply to Haven of Dreams

gotosocial - Link to source

Winter blue tardis

Relatable. And I'm sorry. Here it's either everyone distressed, physical body pain, or daydreaming exessively, like, can't stop even if I want to. It'll all get normal, but I advice to usually checkin with everyone, to see if something is bothering one of you and to just provide each other comfort. Safety in numbers, and unity makes system stronger etc. I hope you figure out the headspace stuff soon. And you all get a little virtual hug.

mastodon - Link to source
If you run a mastodon instance, it's time to upgrade. There are some security issues fixed in the version released today: github.com/mastodon/mastodon/r…

Release v4.5.5 · mastodon/mastodon

Upgrade overview This release contains upgrade notes that deviate from the norm: ℹ️ Requires assets recompilation For more information, view the complete release notes and scroll down to the upgrad...
GitHub

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
Oh goodness, the internet is saying that the new Trek show that just came out is super cringey. Why oh why do they keep pulling this garbage? I'm all for DEI stuff, but can't it be done without making it so cringey that people just check out? Honestly, as a person who is both blind and gay, it's kind of insulting that something this aweful is supposed to help people like me feel more excepted and whatnot in society. #GetALife
#getalife

mastodon - Link to source
The applyVoiceToFrame function loops through all frame fields (47) for each frame, which is heavy. Since only a handful of fields are modified by voices, precomputing the operations for each voice once could significantly boost performance. By mapping the voice operations to a precomputed list, I can reduce the 94 lookups per frame. That will help things out here a lot I think.

mastodon - Link to source
Thank goodness. I already fixed that language switching bug. No new link because it's so close to V4's release that V4's link was updated. If you really want it, grab the V4 link with another browser. This one also updates it so notification doesn't have a slight W sound in it, so yeah. That's fixed too. Now I can really work on refactoring and not adding updates for next version. Oh yay.
in reply to Angle🖇

pleroma - Link to source

feld

re: Discourse: America, Civil War
we also have to consider whether or not people are willing to lower their standard of living/safety by that much. You're going to have to give up a lot to wage a real war. Systems will break down, supply lines will dry up, suddenly you're wondering where to even get food from as the store shelves go empty and people start to panic AND PROBABLY TURN ON YOU FOR CREATING THIS PROBLEM

mastodon - Link to source
I type really fast. Too fast for eSpeakup apparently, because I was installing Debian 13 in VMWare Workstation 25H2 just now, got to the part where I enter my full name for my user account, started quickly typing my name, got as far as typing "Stu H" before eSpeakup just fell over and died. No problem, I'll restart the VM and try again. The exact same thing happened at the exact same point in setup. This is the state of Linux accessibility in 2026.

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
Deal Alert! Visible Drops Its Price to $19 a Month for 26 Months — Here’s How You Can Save on a Mobile Plan Today cordcuttersnews.com/deal-alert…

Deal Alert! Visible Drops Its Price to $19 a Month for 26 Months — Here's How You Can Save on a Mobile Plan Today | Cord Cutters News

Visible is making 2026 the year to switch with one of its best long-term offers yet. For a limited time, new customers can get Visible’s base plan for just $19 per month for 26 months when they use the promo code SWITCH26 at signup.
Raymond McCain (Cord Cutters News)

mastodon - Link to source

Okay y'all, first public, alpha, version of Elmud! Basically, the install script should handle everything for you, if you're on Termux for Android, Linux, or Mac. Hopefully. If not, just load-file elmud.el and it'll load emacspeak-elmud.el too. If you need a screen reader, set up and use Emacspeak. For soundpacks, we have one automatically load for Erion MUD and Cosmic Rage. Those are the two I've found easily downloadable. So the client just downloads the sounds for you when you choose those two MUD's. You can also make your own gag or sound triggers. I'll put it up on Github soon but for now:

dropbox.com/scl/fi/6cqp28s6zqp…

3elmud #emacs #emacspeak #foss #mud

#foss #emacs #emacspeak #MUD

reshared this

in reply to Khronos

mastodon - Link to source

Devin Prater :blind:

@khronos You'll need the Emacs package, so do pkg i emacs, then git clone github.com/tvraman/emacspeak, and then make inside the emacspeak directory, then get a speech engine working, I recommend just going with Espeak when starting out, make Espeak. If it doesn't work have AI fix it up. Then git clone ElMud, run the install script, and in Emacs, M-x ElMud.

GitHub - tvraman/emacspeak: Emacspeak --- The Complete Audio Desktop

Emacspeak --- The Complete Audio Desktop. Contribute to tvraman/emacspeak development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
@Khronos

Khronos reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
Today was nice; didn't have any new things demanding my attention, so just pushed a few existing things forward. Also managed to get back to looking at bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?i…. Found that, with my test, some text doesn't show up in the AT-SPI hierarchy if I just remove the conditionals mentioned in the bug. I'd really need access to the WebKit slack, since there is apparently some discussion there, but, when I try to join (from the Getting Started link on webkit.org), I get a message saying that the invite has expired. I wonder if the link works for other people. I emailed someone at Apple the other day; hoping that he gets back to me.

282117 – AX: USE(ATSPI) ports should consider walking the DOM to the build accessibility tree like non-ATSPI ports after bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=281749

WebKit Bugzilla

Peter Vágner reshared this.

in reply to Peter Vágner

mastodon - Link to source

Mike Gorse

@pvagner What I was describing is similar to that, but I was only seeing it with a patched local version. I was hoping that it might fix this evolution crash that I'm seeing when I try to authenticate a gmail account--that was really the thing that I'm most interested in trying to fix right now--but it seems not to make any difference. Anyway, is what you're describing something that you're seeing with an unpatched WebKit? If so, is there a bug open for it?
@Peter Vágner

mastodon - Link to source
Oohaohaohaoaha I already see a bug comin' But it's so tricky to solve: When you change to another language, say, from the one current, it doesn't reload the configuration data for that language from the new pack. Gosh darn. It's good at updating it when the synth reloads, as it syncs the settings with the ones in config, but not so good upon a language change. Fixing that one now. Then it really is modularization time, this driver is horrendous in size and a lot of it is frontend and DLL loading stuff that will need splitting out now that we support both X64 and x86 too. (the driver itself should work on NVDA 2023.2 and above though)
This entry was edited (15 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source
NVSpeechPlayer update: dedicated settings panel with editable language pack data. This allows you to also edit a language pack in notepad and reload the synthesizer, then reapply the pack configuration - that part was tricky, but it will read them when reloading the driver.
Voice settings panel: Anything with "lang:" starting before it are new comboboxes you can also tune. This applies realtime as you change, whereas the settings page helps you edit a language not currently in use.
New settings added: spellingDiphthongMode, stressedVowelHiatusGapMs, stressedVowelHiatusFadeMs.
Next update will mainly be a driver cleanup, as we can use getters/setters more efficiently for the new YAML parsing. The goal was to first get a stable settings panel and pack reloading so people can mess with settings realtime.
eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
This entry was edited (15 hours ago)
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