mastodon - Link to source

I am currently using Airpods Pro 2 as hearing aids, with everything cranked as much as it can be cranked. It's probably not the best thing for my particular condition, but it works, mostly, until I can do something better, which is not now.

I have a clock in this room, which chimes every hour through a speaker.

Something about that sound freaks them out a little, and, when I also have screen reader speech or something else going at the same time, I get an almost ghost vocoder effect, where certain frequencies get modulated by the chiming clock.

It makes it almost sound like the clock is speaking, or ghost aspects of it are, anyway.

It's a bit weird.

This entry was edited (13 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source
I bet a lot of my programmer friends are going, "why didn't you just use JSON and serialize settings that way?" Y'all, I did consider good ol JSON, because yes, it does have a faster compute time, but before the phoneme editor and NVDA driver settings, JSON would have been a lot less human-readable. YAML does suck for indents, I agree, but so does Python, if you are thinking on those lines, and good code indenting is honestly just good code hygiene if you think about it, why not keep that alive.
I read them on a Braille display a lot, I recognize not all people do, but poorly indented code in Braille VS well-indented is the difference from knowing quickly where functions begin VS trudging code as though it were a thick foggy swamp. And I don't like that feelin'.
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Alex Hall

I don't hate YAML entirely. What bugs me about it are:

* either my IDE defaults to two spaces, or that's the expected indent, because I can't use my normal tabs with it
* I still don't know when to put a hyphen before something
* I can't skip sections by using jump to matching symbol commands
* to me, it feels more fragile and harder to lint

I'm getting used to it, because Gitlab runners, Docker Compose, and other tools demand it. But I still don't really like it. JMO.

Jonathan reshared this.

in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Sina Bahram

IMHO enforced indention is bad. 1st, presentation and content must be decoupled. the web has truly proven the benefits therein. 2nd, this is ableist. Many folks need things to look a certain way for their disability, be it visual, processing, attention, what have you. Enforcing indention is harmful to those folks. 3rd, this removes choice. JSON can be indented, auto or otherwise, but YAML must be, which means no choice. Tech should work for us, not the other way around.
in reply to Sina Bahram

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@sinabahram but I will say: I do see where it could be seen as ablist, in the sense that someone might not have pitch perception, nor Braille, then what? But that's where I think we just need more alternatives for indicating that, haptics, ETC. Would be cool to see an IDE where it did use certain haptic bumps because that I think could even benefit everyone equally for quickly feeling a count of indent levels. I personally see it as a part of semantics, even for machines, because they can parse the number of indents and understand blocks of code better. Without it, chunking would become a lot harder for machines, too. So it benefits both worlds, it's just a matter of equally making it available to everyone.
@Sina Bahram
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Sina Bahram

I feel you're stating indention is needed. I fundamentally disagree. That is simply one way of conveying scope. Another is braces, another is fixed columns from back in the fortran days, and much more. Instead of baking inaccessibility in, let's simply not do that. Also the way it is done is itself inaccessible by enforcing spaces per Python's pep-8 instead of tabs. More importantly, nothing prevents indention being automatically added with all these other options.
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Sina Bahram

also, I don't mean to be all computer sciency, but it is 100% not semantics. It is syntax being conflated with semantics, which is my objection. Syntax should be syntax and semantics should be semantics. It's not about opinions, but rather about data. No peer-reviewed programming language literature to the best of my knowledge supports indention making a statistical difference for programmers. So, in the abscence of evidence, I always choose choice.

mastodon - Link to source

So apparently my personal combination of social security disability, retirement savings, and “desire to own a house” makes me too complex a client for your run-of-the-mill financial advisor. Striking out with all the household name firms.

Fedi friends, especially #PDX area #disabled pals: can anyone throw me a referral here?

#Disabled #PDX

mastodon - Link to source
Honestly the easiest first place to test any new language is the SAPI wrapper, you just drop the language-specific YAML in, and boom, you can have that language show up as one of the voices. That's what's nice about it, but anon-well-tuned language (with missing phonemes and such, or a tonal one not configured with tonal settings) would still probably sound like shit. But at least, people can really experiment and try any language just by copying default.yaml and renaming it to the language's YAML name, boom, poof, then adjusting from there.

mastodon - Link to source
#Bitwarden premium users, please be aware that they're doing an 100% price increase for no features of any proper value. I happily paid even 20€ a year for 2 vaults, but won't do 40 for features I never use. So thanks for the push to look into selfhosting again.
To clarify, the initial premium price was 10€, they're doubling for 20, adding random protection features you don't need if you have a brain.
bitwarden.com/blog/bitwarden-l…
reddit.com/r/Bitwarden/comment…

Bitwarden launches enhanced premium plan: Complete online security for everyone | Bitwarden

Bitwarden Premium and Families plans now have new capabilities to account for a modern cyber landscape needing to anticipate threats before they happen and allowing users to proactively safeguard their digital assets.
Bitwarden
#bitwarden
This entry was edited (13 hours ago)
in reply to LWorks

mastodon - Link to source

Jage

Journey completed in 9 days
Checkpoints visited: 6
Final health: 99
Experience earned: 16
Skills mastered: 1
Route completed for the first time!
New routes unlocked:
- Heartland Sprint
- Great Lakes Sprint
- Ohio Valley Passage
Achievements Unlocked:
🚶 First Steps - Complete your first route
⚡ Speed Demon - Complete a route in 10 days or less
😤 Restless - Complete a route without using rest action
☮️ Pacifist - Complete a route without killing anyone
in reply to ArcaneChat

mastodon - Link to source

brainwashed by lentils

»There isn't really another choice«
theverge.com/news/807147/signa…

‘There isn’t really another choice:’ Signal chief explains why the encrypted messenger relies on AWS

Signal head Meredith Whittaker has responded to concerns about the encrypted messaging app’s use of Amazon Web Services, saying “there isn’t really another choice.”
Emma Roth (The Verge)

mastodon - Link to source

Wieso wird im Rahmen der #DiDay Bewegung eigentlich ständig @signalapp empfohlen? Wo laufen denn die Server von denen? Laut Internet auch in den USA auf Amazon, Google und Co…

Oder habe ich etwas übersehen?

UPDATE: Weil mein Post offensichtlich von Fans als Kritik an Signal verstanden wird: meine Frage war, ob ich etwas übersehen habe im Sinn von „Signal Server sind nicht nur bei US-Anbietern gehostet“. Ich hätte gerne Digitale Souveränität mit Signal, nicht einem x-ten anderen System.

Meine Kritik richtet sich an diejenigen, die von digitaler Souveränität reden, und dann doch wieder etwas empfehlen, was dem Cloud Act oder der Kontrolle Trumps (Kill Switch) unterliegt.

#data #privacy #digitalesouveranitat #di_day #Diday #messenger #unplugTrump #fcktrump

#privacy #messenger #data #digitalesouveranitat #unplugtrump #diday #di_day #fcktrump @Signal
This entry was edited (7 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

RE: mastodon.social/@freedomscient…

This was excellent. Liz and Rachel do a great job.

Freedom Scientific / Vispero

2026-01-20 19:05:03

mastodon - Link to source

Curious about using Google’s NotebookLM with JAWS? This archived webinar shows how to use your own documents to get summaries, outlines, and answers, all in a keyboard-friendly way. Learn how to create a notebook, add sources, ask questions, filter results, and build reports.

Access the archive here: freedomscientific.com/webinars…

#JAWS #FreedomScientificTraining #AITraining

Opening slide for the Research Reimagined: Mastering Google’s NotebookLM with JAWS webinar. Presented by: Rachel and Elizabeth. Archive Available Now!

Research Reimagined: Mastering Google’s NotebookLM with JAWS – Freedom Scientific

www.freedomscientific.com

in reply to Ethin Probst

mastodon - Link to source

Bri🥰

I don't even think it used the docs lol. For the record, if you're curious: // Prism state
#ifdef USE_PRISM
static PrismContext* g_prismCtx = nullptr;
static PrismBackend* g_prismBackend = nullptr;
#endif

Then, // Screen reader output - uses async message to avoid blocking UI
#ifdef USE_PRISM
static std::string g_pendingSpeech;
static bool g_speechInterrupt = true;

void DoSpeak() {
if (g_prismBackend && !g_pendingSpeech.empty()) {
prism_backend_output(g_prismBackend, g_pendingSpeech.c_str(), g_speechInterrupt);
g_pendingSpeech.clear();
}
}

void Speak(const char* text, bool interrupt = true) {
if (g_prismBackend && g_hwnd) {
g_pendingSpeech = text;
g_speechInterrupt = interrupt;
PostMessage(g_hwnd, WM_SPEAK, 0, 0);
}
}

void Speak(const std::string& text, bool interrupt = true) {
Speak(text.c_str(), interrupt);
}
#else
void DoSpeak() {}
void Speak(const char*, bool = true) {}
void Speak(const std::string&, bool = true) {}
#endif

and in the init funcs: // Initialize Prism for screen reader support
#ifdef USE_PRISM
bool InitPrism(HWND hwnd) {
PrismConfig cfg = prism_config_init();
cfg.hwnd = hwnd;

g_prismCtx = prism_init(&cfg);
if (!g_prismCtx) {
return false;
}

g_prismBackend = prism_registry_acquire_best(g_prismCtx);
if (!g_prismBackend) {
return false;
}

PrismError err = prism_backend_initialize(g_prismBackend);
if (err != PRISM_OK) {
return false;
}

return true;
}

// Shutdown Prism
void FreePrism() {
if (g_prismBackend) {
prism_backend_free(g_prismBackend);
g_prismBackend = nullptr;
}
if (g_prismCtx) {
prism_shutdown(g_prismCtx);
g_prismCtx = nullptr;
}
}
#else
bool InitPrism(HWND) { return false; }
void FreePrism() {}
#endif

#ifdef #else #endif
in reply to Ethin Probst

mastodon - Link to source

Ethin Probst

@Bri The problem will even getting it to build for win 7. I don't have a toolchain capable of targetting it. I guess I could see if MS still offers the Windows XP compilers but Idk how to get MSVC's x64_x86 Cross Tools Command Prompt for VS to switch to those compilers. And then I need to figure out all the libraries onecore.lib replaces and test for onecore.lib or use the individual ones
@Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source
Well, Prism has gotten some great new functionality! I think the biggest is that Prism can now act in place for the NVDA controller client! It does not need the DLL present to communicate with NVDA since it performs the internal RPC binding automatically. The current downside to this is that there may only be one NVDA backend active at any given time, which is abnormal and inconsistent with all the other backends. If you currently try to do this, it will (safely) overwrite the existing one.
in reply to Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source

Ethin Probst

@Bri No, it doesn't. The controller client is (L)GPL license, and I have done everything I can to comply with it. Even if the (L)GPL code is combined into the larger prism.dll library, I don't see how I could possibly be violating it given that the project is entirely open source and so complying with the "allow people to modify/relink" thing is from what I know automatically satisfied. I'm not sure how else to comply other than what I've already done.
@Bri🥰
in reply to x0

mastodon - Link to source

Ethin Probst

@x0 @Bri I honestly don't know. Right now I force dynamic linking unless yoru building for Emscripten. For the problems that might create, I keep finding conflicting interpretations about those problems all over the place. Which for something like the LGPL is never a good sign. Some people say it's a problem, others say that that's just a widely misunderstood clause. I really don't like the ambiguity
@x0 @Bri🥰
in reply to Ethin Probst

mastodon - Link to source

miki

@x0 @Bri And to make this even more confusing, you're not really using executable code from NVDA, you're just implementing their interface. And the copyright situation of interfaces is even more unclear, especially with all the different countries involved.

The easiest thing to do would probably be to do a git blame on the ACF file and get an explicit okay from everybody involved in its implementation. There can't be that many of these people.

@x0 @Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source
Tomorrow's my big development talk y'all, I'm gonna stay real quiet and hunker down. Nervous as hell, I hate dev talks. So. No speech player updates, let's give language packs time to change a bit.
I already see a few improvements coming, can't say what, but yeah, this will keep evolving the more folks try it and are honest.
We now restored the UK English sound in this pack very close to the sound it had in the original IPA rules, which were much smaller and sparce in comparison, but I understand how we were contaminating phonemes with each other, which was the huge huge downside before I moved things into the frontend.
Honestly, building that frontend was the best decision I made early. AI would have kept on piling in Python code, specific language variables, and stich me a 300 kilobyte Python file by the end. No no. We are not doing that.
It's funny how real work changes you. I used to be a spaghetti-code type guy, all day I'd just throw my code in a single file. Today I shutter at the idea of zero abstraction. If it's not modularized well, it's not worth reading as code, period, unless it's clean small code. Yes I'm that much of a snob. Gosh. AI will happily spaghetti all day, unless you're Google Gemini, which can (sometimes) do better at helping you abstract it, but you are still the architect, if you don't know coding fundementals, it's hard to use AI to code something not considered "AI slop."

akkoma - Link to source
lewd, kink, d+s, denial, interaction bait

Sensitive content

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

mastodon - Link to source
momento terrivel da Catarina

Sensitive content

mastodon - Link to source

“Europe is a regulatory morass that is built on bureaucracy, and the layering and layering of rules that constrain economic activity.”

Scott Bessant, US Treasury Secretary

To which Europeans say:

Flint, Michigan
East Palestine, Ohio
Uniontown, Alabama

These places are global bywords for the poisoning of people and nature when you have no regulatory oversight of business and you prioritise ‘economic activity’ at all costs over health and safety.

#Davos

#davos

mastodon - Link to source
Everyone is going to Threads. My professional community - iOS developers, AI researchers, accessibility advocates - they're all there. I'm completely locked out, missing networking opportunities and professional conversations.
This is disability discrimination. I cannot access Threads without assistive technology, and their systems automatically suspend me for using it.
ADA compliance issue.

mastodon - Link to source

Remember "don't print this email" in signatures that was a bit cringe? It doesn't feel that cringe anymore in retrospect. I'm doing an experiment now with this new email signature :D Anyone doing something similar? Could it catch on?

edit: BTW please absolutely steal/modify this idea if you want!

Lucie L. Hartmann, CEO MNT Research GmbH https://mntre.com Did you know? Using AI wastes a lot of energy and contributes to climate change. I'm happy to just receive your raw bullet points instead of a formal email if you're short on time. Lets save some energy!
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

mastodon - Link to source
This is a test of using Fast-SM with our J-Say technology. This application is quite timely, because I would like to demonstrate to somebody how we can use the programme with bluesky. He has always wanted to use Bluesky and now he has an ideal opportunity of doing so. Dragon is working exceptionally well in this application, and I can easily correct errors such as the name of the social media network that I have just described. It treated the name of the social network as two separate words with no capital letter, so I had to put that right. There was absolutely no problem in doing so and there is no deterioration in terms of responsiveness on the computer while we are using Fast-SM with Dragon and JAWS. I am even able to proof read the post that I have just dictated with no difficulty. All good stuff!

mastodon - Link to source

#blind #accessibility

I'm writing a technical blog post and want to use a UML sequence diagram to explain something.

Only trouble is, I have no idea how to make such a diagram accessible to a screen reader.

I know I could just write up alt-text to describe it, but at that point I feel like I should just use the text _instead_ of the diagram.

Maybe that's the answer, but I'm hoping there's a way to get a screen reader to communicate the diagram in some way?

Any ideas appreciated!

#Accessibility #blind
in reply to André Polykanine

mastodon - Link to source

ragman

@menelion PlantUML looks neat!

I'm currently using js-sequence-diagrams[1], which looks like it has similar syntax as PlantUML.

Putting the code/text representation of the diagram feels like it'd be helpful for a small diagram, but maybe too much to keep in ones head for a larger one?

Better than nothing I reckon though!

1) bramp.github.io/js-sequence-di…

js-sequence-diagrams by bramp

bramp.github.io
@André Polykanine
in reply to ragman

mastodon - Link to source

André Polykanine

First of all, let me tell you something: we appreciate every move like this. You know, every blind person struggles. They may tell you it's fine, we're good, someone will even say "I'm proud to be blind" (sic!), but… we struggle. And if a person comes and tells like: "I'm posting a diagram, I want it to be seen by my blind readers" — woosh, like a wave of warm air in a cold winter street.
Why am I saying this? Because it's not even better than nothing, it's quite enough for a technically or scientifically inclined person to decipher what you're saying. I'm not proficient in this at all (JS-Sequence-Diagrams looks also good, also there's Mermaid supported by GitHub, I think) but if I need or want it, I'll read the docs and cope with it. Or… drop you a message and ask for help 😊
Anyway, thank you so much. It's really heartwarming.
in reply to André Polykanine

mastodon - Link to source

ragman

@menelion Aww thank you André. ❤️ I'm touched, and not really sure how to respond!

I guess I'll just say that I want to live in the world where we all look out for each other's needs, and where we can ask each other for accommodations or help when we need to. Where we all get those warm breezes when we're cold :)

Anyway, thank you again for the kind words!

@André Polykanine
in reply to André Polykanine

mastodon - Link to source

ragman

@menelion On the PlantUML front, I found this paper describing how it was used in a computer science class to help a blind student learn the content:

dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/354…

Some points I found interesting:

* the textual representation of the diagram was enough for, at least this one person, to be able to follow along in the course

(1/2)

@André Polykanine

mastodon - Link to source

I updated my "How to survive FOSDEM" article.

@fosdem organizers updated map so I updated it as well. The change was simple: there is no ATM at ULB (for quite a while).

So I added an info about it. And some minor edit.

marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2019…

#FOSDEM #FOSDEM26


How to survive FOSDEM – Marcin Juszkiewicz

FOSDEM is 2 weeks conference in 2 days. Can be tough to survive.
marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl
#fosdem #fosdem26 @FOSDEM

reshared this

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