mastodon - Link to source
Well well, another NVSpeech Player update, finally I can say, out of the V13 days.
Again, more settings to customize for language owners!
1) liquidDynamics
Adds real movement inside liquids/glides instead of treating them as static blobs. You can dial in:
• /l/ lateral onglide (a small “tongue tip” gesture)
• American /r/ with an F3 dip (less “flat r”)
• /w/ transitions with a proper start locus (more natural “w”)
2) lengthContrast
For languages where length matters (HU/FI/JP/IT, etc.):
• short vowel ceiling + long vowel floor (so long/short stays distinct at speed)
• geminates get closure lengthening (tt/kk actually feel doubled)
• optional compensatory vowel shortening before geminates
3) positionalAllophones
Systematic “position rules” without hand-writing a million exceptions:
• stop aspiration scaling by context (word-initial stressed vs intervocalic vs final)
• /l/ darkness by position (clear [l] vs dark [ɫ])
• optional glottal reinforcement for final stops
All are pack-configurable in settings: and default off unless enabled.
eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
This entry was edited (9 hours ago)

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flipboard - Link to source

Met Office issues warnings for heavy rain and flooding across parts of the UK
https://metro.co.uk/2026/01/25/met-office-issues-warnings-heavy-rain-flooding-across-parts-uk-26514856/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into News (UK Edition) @news-uk-edition-FlipboardUK


Met Office issues warnings for heavy rain across parts of the UK

Yellow warnings for heavy rain and flooding are in place from Monday and Tuesday across the UK.
Rory McKeown (Metro)
@News (UK Edition)

mastodon - Link to source
Like most of my mastodonian friends, or acquaintences, call yourselves what you will, i have recently tryed Fast SM. For a mastodon - Bluesky cliant that has just come out on the market it's pretty good. i've yet to discover a jaws with Leasy Key map in the list of Key Maps, but maybe that will be added down the road perhaps. having difficulties signing in to BlueSky with it, but i think it's more BlueSky than Fast SM. will deffenately follow developments with interest. excellent work. :)

mastodon - Link to source

RE: ravenation.club/@etherdiver/11…

So far today, I'm watching my football team struggle in the playoffs, learning a new synth, and doing laundry. All feel a lot better than endlessly looking for/at bad news!

Ether Diver (@etherdiver@ravenation.club)

I say this as a reminder to myself as much as anyone, but you probably did enough doomscrolling yesterday. Try to spend less of your day inflicting massive psychic damage on yourself.
Ether Diver (Mastodon)

mastodon - Link to source
When I learned Trump had won the election I feared violence. My biggest fear was that right-wing death squads would target liberals, and that law enforcement would turn a blind eye, or be forced to do so. It just hadn't occurred to me that it would be so-called "law-enforcement" that would be doing the killing directly, under the protection of the government. But of course that's what Trump would want. He feels powerful when he can be cruel without consequence. #8647
#8647

mastodon - Link to source

This is going to sound a bit weird, but it might be a good idea to purchase a shortwave radio if you haven't got one already. They're quite cheap and small, you can buy one and store it long term just in case.

Shortwave is the only way to receive news and information internationally without relying on the internet or satellite. It might be a useful fallback to receive news from the outside world if your country's media and internet are ever restricted or closed down.

If you've never used one, it's like a normal radio but the frequencies reach around the world. Every country used to have its own station.

#Radio #ShortwaveRadio

#radio #shortwaveradio

hometown - Link to source

At the start of my career, I translated a lot for Parks Canada. This website was so important and useful.

--

"Parks Canada shuttering Historic Places website, sparking heritage concerns

Shutdown leaves no alternative database to look up sites in Nova Scotia, expert says

The announcement has caused alarm in heritage circles across the country and in Nova Scotia in particular.

Launched in 2004, the register is a national searchable database of historic places recognized by federal, provincial, territorial and local governments. It contains about 13,500 listings.

When launched, the site described listings as "places that shape our lives, describe our history, and represent the diverse character of our country."

cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia…

This entry was edited (23 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source
I wish every Blind person could own these. They are two globes. The one on the right is a relief globe, with the land masses outlined with fabric paint to make them textured. The globe on the right is an Intelo-globe. The stylus allows you to choose a mode, geography, geology etc. then run the stylus over the globe and hear information spoken. They were game-changers for me, and I still like to explore them. Not entirely tangentially, I was startled to discover how close Greenland is to Canadian territory like Elsmere Island.
Be My AI: A corner of a room with shelves holding two globes and some boxes. On the lower black shelf, there are two world globes side by side. The left globe is larger and mounted in a black ring stand; it’s showing Africa prominently, with the Indian Ocean to the right and the South Atlantic to the left. The right globe is slightly smaller with a gold-colored stand and meridian ring; it’s showing the Atlantic Ocean between the Americas and Africa/Europe. On the left base of the larger globe is a stylus resting in a depression made to hold it.

mastodon - Link to source

A solo parent asked what they can do to resist ICE without putting themselves in the line of fire, knowing that their death would orphan their kid. Here are a few ideas.

#ice #alexpretti #reneenicolegood #minnesota #minneapolis #mpls #resistance #fascism #trump #gestapo

Facebook comment by Nat Oleander Smith Mutual aid. Support protesters, bail funds, immigrant defense funds, people buying groceries. Provide childcare for others in the movement. Wear a mask & practice pandemic precautions to stop the spread of illnesses harming immigrants in detention & causing chronic illness that weakens the resistance. Get to know your neighbors and coordinate networks of care and support. Ask what your POC friends need. Ask what your immigrant friends need. Take care of your own nervous system and co-regulate with your kids.
#Trump #fascism #ice #resistance #minneapolis #minnesota #reneenicolegood #alexpretti #gestapo #mpls

mastodon - Link to source
If you're new to Signal, it might feel a little overwhelming to get the hang of, but you can get it set up and working pretty quickly. ssd.eff.org/module/how-to-use-…

How to: Use Signal

Download location: Google Play Store, Apple App Store System requirements: Android 5 or later, iOS 13 or later Version used in this guide: Android: 7.38.6 iPhone: 7.5.
ssd.eff.org
in reply to Chad McCullough

akkoma - Link to source

flo

Please check out delta.chat and spread the use about this messenger.

Developed in Germany, end-to-end-encryption by design, using email-infrastructure (therfore cannot get turned off by an authoritarian state), including applets, like polls, todo-lists, calendar, collaborative work on documents, games, ...

I use it with several people and really can recommend it :)

#DeltaChat

#deltachat

mastodon - Link to source
Well, we could barely walk outside this morning, almost slipped on some melted ice. Only stayed out there for a few minutes. Holy shit it was cold. there is snow on the walkways on some trees and grass. we took some pictures, though not sure if this server will behave if we upload anything. It didn't, the last time we tried it, earlier this week.
-- Altheda/lillianna

mastodon - Link to source
@Bri Love seeing your hobbiest project, I am reminded of similar person with the same passion, not sure if you are aware of Jamal Mazrui, a great Blind programmer active in the late 2000's and early 2010's creating great tools, like edsharp, for text editing and file dir a feature rich file directory. He also open sourced many of his tools and frameworks that he played with, there are many Blind folks that still have ed sharp installed in their system.
github.com/jamalmazrui

jamalmazrui - Overview

jamalmazrui has 54 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.
GitHub
@Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source
Hey everyone. Tonight at 6 PM Eastern, Sonic Synergy goes live for another 3 hour tour: through the back roads of crazy conversation.
Tonight, we lay out some of our plans, hopes and dreams for the upcoming year, both for the show and all of our crazy endeavors that we hope to follow through with.
We want to hear from you. Whacha got planned for the year?
We are powered by your calls and texts to (833) 452-4452.
very NSFW and not for everyone.
Listen Live at
sonicsynergy.space/live

mastodon - Link to source

Pressure on Senators •is working•. Previously head-in-sand centrist Senators are actually coming out to vote against ICE funding. Their positions are still weak and insufficient, and more need to cave to pressure — but they are visibly buckling.

Again, we should not and must not wait on elected officials to save us — they will not — but we can and should deploy pressure on them as a strategic tool in moments when that can be useful.

Now is such a moment. KEEP IT UP.

1/

pleroma - Link to source

Can Walz discharge all the members of the MN National Guard and then immediately swear them all in as State Troopers?

If so, this would be a clever way to prevent them from being federalized and allow them to push out ICE. And then when it's all over just swear them all back in as Guard members again

Yeah it's a lot of paperwork but you gotta fight lawfare with lawfare

mastodon - Link to source

Friendly reminder of why #Google is just plain evil: they've taking down #IzzyOnDroid (a third party Open Source Android "app store" like #FDroid) *twice* in the past 30 days over false positive malware scanning.

See floss.social/@IzzyOnDroid/1158… and floss.social/@IzzyOnDroid/1159…

(More detailed history on gitlab.com/-/snippets/4909577#…)

#Android #OpenSource


Netcraft false positives, Google Safebrowsing shenanigans ($4909577) · Snippets · GitLab

GitLab.com
GitLab

IzzyOnDroid ✅

2025-12-30 01:35:27

mastodon - Link to source

We are receiving reports that Google flags our repo as "having dangerous apps" or being a "dangerous site" – texts being very vague, no proof given (nor did they inform us). They also link to a page they call "Transparency Report" – which is of the same vagueness, but definitely not transparent (transparencyreport.google.com/…)

We're not aware of any such dangerous content. All apps on our repo are properly scanned, see izzyondroid.org/about/security…

#IzzyOnDroid #serviceToot

Screenshot from Chrome browser, declaring IzzyOnDroid being a "Dangerous site"
screenshot from Chrome in the Android emulator (Pixel 6, API 34), claiming IzzyOnDroid containing "dangerous apps" "Attackers currently on apt.izzysoft.de could install dangerous apps…" 1) there are no attackers on that site, it's only us 2) we cannot install apps on your device, only you can 3) maybe we have some apps dangerous to Google's business model, but (to our knowledge) none dangerous to your device ;) 4) most of the apps here come from GitHub. I bet GitHub is flagged the same – not, because MS has lawyers we cannot afford…

Security - IzzyOnDroid

Security measures taken at IzzyOnDroid
izzyondroid.org

#android #google #opensource #fdroid #izzyondroid
This entry was edited (17 hours ago)

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in reply to Sylvia

mastodon - Link to source

Phantasus 🏳️‍🌈

it's things like this, which hinder the adoption of open source software. I today had an unproductive discussion online with someone who sells why Apple products are the best out there and I annoyed that guy by saying that Linux on a laptop could perform better, but the thing it's always an uphill battle.

Hardware companies not cooperating, laws, no funding, no market, etc.

in reply to Phantasus 🏳️‍🌈

mastodon - Link to source

Sylvia

@phantasus Yeah. Linux is great! But how is anyone ever going to find out when you can barely ever buy it preinstalled (at least not in any "normal" store)?

And then with all the extra fighting we have to do with smaller teams and less budget to not have our existence be censored by the big players, we are even expected to meet higher standards than them (nobody calls Google Play "scary" despite all the malware cases they've had while we had none...)

FOSS is never given a fair chance :(

@Phantasus 🏳️‍🌈

mastodon - Link to source
It's really nice now. Like, all I need to do for a new setting is:
1. Create passes/liquid_dynamics.cpp, or whatever rule I want.
2. Add my settings to LanguagePack
3. Register it in pass_pipeline.cpp
4. Done
The core engine stays clean. Each rule lives in its own file where you can tune it, break it, fix it, without touching anything else. Honestly this would be an old 1990s TTS engineer's dream and that's a good feeling.
This entry was edited (18 hours ago)

mastodon - Link to source

RE: mastodon.scot/@TOrynski/115956…

“Can we just stop equating success with short-term economic growth? What if we used usefulness and longevity? What if we gave more value to the fundamental technological infrastructure instead of the shiny new marketing gimmick used to empty naive wallets? Well, I guess that if we changed how we measure success, Europe would be incredibly successful.”

Worth reading.

Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski@mastodon.scot)

Czytaliście już? Bardzo dobre.. https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.html
Tomasz Oryński (mastodon.scot)

mastodon - Link to source
Y'all I want to get in the hot tub and not code for the day I hope that's acceptable. We added a lot of stuff today, now I hope languages can take advantage of these new settings. Only by adding good structured rules can we make this thing sound better. Now that the frontend is moduler. So I'm going to update packs from here on out probably, mainly English ones, make words like "good" and "book" sound less British, stuff like that, but I really want to lock the frontend down a bit with some more modularization like this and then worry about extending it as languages need it. It's now as easy as adding a new CPP in /frontend/passes for any extr things, that makes me very happy. I'm not going to keep bloating ipa_engine.cpp with more rules.

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

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