Lets talk batteries for a moment. I kinda like that everything got built-in batteries that can be charged via USB (preferably USB-C) nowadays, but then again, batteries die and most of them cannot be replaced easily. I thus do like to have battery-powered devices with rechargeable batteries that can easily be replaced whenever necessary. However, just a few of the battery types do have rechargeable options. 1/X
in reply to Toni Barth

I currently require the following kinds of batteries in my flat:

AA, AAA, LR44, 4LR44, CR2032, 9V block, CR2025.

Of those, only AA, AAA and the 9V blocks got rechargeable options. I do get that batteries got different sizes and voltages, depending on what is required, but I feel like we could have been able to just decide on fewer battery types and size options. That is all.

Oh and, just give me replaceable and rechargeable batteries in devices, and I won't have to buy batteries anymore. Thx.

The People Struggle Against Tyranny

Another execution of an American citizen. A regime that has no strategy but to lash out. The struggle against Trumpist authoritarianism is only going to get bloodier.

My new piece. And for this one, I allowed myself to write angry:

steady.page/en/democracyameric…

I finally mounted my wireless ZigBee-based IR sender in my livingroom yesterday to send IR commands to TV and soundbar, since my TV is half-smart, as in it can be turned off via ethernet when its on, but it cannot be turned on when its off and needs IR for that (dunno, its weird). Anyway, I was also able to bridge the accessibility gap of the Unfolded Circle Remote 3 with the help of Home Assistant, since the integration can launch every activity on the remote.
#smarthome #homeassistant

Was kotzen mich meine Berufskollegen regelmäßig an. "Noch nie hat der deutsche Staat so viel #Kindergeld ausgezahlt wie 2025", schreibt Zeit Online über einen Anstieg um 800 Mio. auf 55 Mrd.. Das sind weniger als 1,5% bei einer Inflation von 2,2%, also effektiv ein gesunkener Wert. Einordnung bitte! Als Lautsprecher für interessengeleitete Pressemitteilungen braucht man uns Journalisten wirklich nicht.

The Trump administration right now:

🤔 Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist!

🤨 No, he was a nurse.

🤔 Well… but he brandished a weapon!

🤨 No, he never drew the gun he carried.

🤔 Well… but he was armed.

🤨 No, ICE removed his weapon, before they shot him.

🤔 Well… But he was impeding ICE!

🤨 No, not a single video show him doing that.

🤔 You do not know any of this, because there has not been an independent investigation.

🤨 Will there be an independent investigation?

🤔 No!

reshared this

Wellp, I tried to fix "google" "poodle" and "fable" and "able" to sound good, as well as "good" and "book", but probably will need more tuning. Just too tired to tune it, but the rules are there for those who are now wanting to and don't like how they sound. eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
I went back all the way to the 2025-v3 add-on to compare it too, and aside from "player" having that "ay" sound now in the newer version, things sound quite identical. Words like same, faded too. None of these will contaminate other languages as phonetic variations are mapped for each language too.
I also had people point out how pause mode short and long were not nuanced enough. Well, now they really are, but I made sure to not make "short" very different, it's mostly "long" that's longer now. I'm sure now people will say "short is too long!" but it was melding words together in some languages being that short, so now it's at a reasonable length, "short" is about the pauses that Eloquence has when pauses is set to "shorten all pauses" and "long" is when you have it on "do not shorten." At least, that was more of the approximation used.

Canadians, time to #BoycottPattison. Jim Pattison, BC grocer billionaire, owns a US warehouse that will soon be an ICE facility. Let’s crank up the boycott pressure on Pattison and organize for a real #wealthtax on these ghouls. This is a stark reminder of how the billionaire class aids and abets fascist forces.

404 Sight not Found for January 25, 2026 – Take a Look, it’s in a Book lerven.me/podcast/404-sight-no…

reshared this

Just so exhausted. Feel like I ran a marathon again. 7 Am work meeting tomorrow. I'll likely work on more Speech Player things, but maybe can't until after work since it's a packed day with meetings until 10 AM and then I'm sure all the Slacks and everything else after. As much as it's easy to make it a full-time project, it wouldn't pay the bills.

Sixty-five members of the University of Minnesota Law School have signed an open letter ā€œto address the federal government's ongoing campaign of fear, intimidation, and violence against Minnesotans.ā€ docs.google.com/document/d/1bJ…

Just ran into this on a technical article I was reading. This is what MAGA has done to us: Taken a nation that was doing quite well, and finally trying to grow out of and atone for its wrongs, and turned it into one where our citizens qualify for "relief pricing" because we are under the malignantly cancerous rule of a fascist regime intent on destroying everything of value here.

Asking again if someone happens to have contacts inside Harvard University or Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory who feel responsible for open source software licensing. Please get in touch. :)

Note: Please do not copy and paste the contacts for their legal departments, etc. #harvard #ucb #berkeley

"Signal doesn't log metadata" -- does that really matter in practice? If the government wants to prove you sent a message at a specific time all they have to do is go after your mobile carrier or ISP and get their netflow logs associated with your IP address

They can even prove you have an account as well because when you activated the service you received an SMS... and they can prove this happened too

So even if you try to disavow any ownership of a message they find on someone's phone, they'll still nail you to the wall. They'll even be able to tell where you were when you sent it.

None of this actually protects you when it matters most. Don't for a second believe that a passive monitoring dragnet by the NSA is within your threat model. You're being gaslit by people who are still addicted to the state of technology and the world during the Snowden revelations

Clawdbot - open source personal AI assistant

Link: github.com/clawdbot/clawdbot
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

A lesson I have to keep learning over and over again, most people aren't out to get you. I'm often fearful of interacting with people, especially those I don't know, always scared of saying the wrong thing or offending someone. 99% of the time it goes well, and I end up telling myself "hey, it wasn't so bad man, calm down." No idea where this came from but it's always been something I've struggled with.

Wow I finally used Codex enough to where I have 20 percent usage left and it doesn't reset until Wednesday.
Thinking of either buying credits, trying some Gemini CLI or Claude, or looking at other tools. Not ready to spend $100/200 a month yet.
There are also some tasks that I could start doing with Codex 5.1 Mini to save credits, and some things I was admittedly lazy on that I could do without AI entirely.
Curious what others in the space are using. Not looking for the anti AI answers here :)

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

in reply to Doug

@Doug73 Coding anything fun?
Aside from the games and TeamTalk stuff I've been on, I want to return to doing some Shopify things as well, though like a lot of things, it needs to use current practices and not knowledge it learned in 2020.
It also seems to really get stuck on complex NVDA add-ons, I wonder if there are things to add to the developer guide to help it do better.
@Doug
in reply to Jonathan

@jonathan859 @Bri @MariahL online, freesubtitles.ai command line, github.com/Softcatala/whisper-… for GUI, github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz I'm lazy so, unless it's a really long file or it's private, I use freesubtitles. Their free service is great for fast and reasonable transcripts. The only reason I don't use the other stuff more often is that I don't have a GPU.
in reply to Bri🄰

@Bri @munchkinbear @GamingWithEars @MariahL That would be fun. A lot of earlier eps were in multiple parts. Ideally, as for A T History, a searchable database of podcasts and shows with guests and products that are featured as tags. I want to do a simlar thing with the BBQast, though at least those are all still online and @Ranger1138 did amazing show notes for just about every episode since 2015.
in reply to Jage

if that question was directed at me, what I'm pulling down from google drive is @sclower's original work, reorganized by I presume @gallagher123123, into each year's folder from 2000 through 2008, for ease of locating stuff, and it looks like some stuff was replaced with higher quality files, and multipart stuff merged into one file, as the file count is significantly smaller than the original stuff, but the size is larger, so again, I think quality was replaced with a lot of these. What I've been given by @Bri is what looks like the rest of 2008 then everything through 2011 of main menu's stuff. Now if I'm giving incorrect credit, those folks can happily correct me, because I believe in giving credit where credit is due. @GamingWithEars @MariahL
This entry was edited (12 hours ago)
⇧