President Biden: Of course, the 2024 election is in full swing, and yes, age is an issue. I’m a grown man running against a 6 year old. But look, age is the only thing we have in common. My vice president actually endorses me.
La trabajadora ha sido sentenciada por revelación de datos y por injurias al pago de una sanción económica, que tiene dificultades para afrontar y para lo cual ha abierto una caja de solidaridad
This is not a software glitch, it's the Y1C problem: old mainframes were so storage-constrained that they only allocated two decimal digits for passenger age, and adding another digit would mean rewriting software that in some cases has been in use and constantly patched since the late 1950s. press.coop/@BBCNews/1123459963…
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Airline keeps mistaking 101-year-old woman for baby
An IT glitch leaves the cabin crew expecting to welcome a baby on board rather than a centenarian. #press
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wz7pvvjypo?utm_source=press.coop
As an ex-COBOL programmer who was knee-deep in the Y2K mess, one of the issues is that many of those old COBOL programs were compiled, but the source code was lost.
In some cases, corporations were worried COBOL vendors would disappear, so they created incompatible, in-house COBOL compilers, making the mess even worse!
Naturally, there were no tests to verify that the software functioned correctly ...
That reminds me of a story someone told me many years ago, so it's not first-hand but I can certainly see how it's true.
The company that the person who told me this worked for (or consulted for) was unable to run the program they had been using for ages. This happened after the machine was rebooted (or IPL'ed as it's called in the IBM mainframe world).
When they analysed the problem they realised the program itself was no longer on the disk. It had been deleted, and since it was already loaded, no one noticed until they had to reboot which cleared memory.
They didn't have any media for it, so eventually they had to contact the vendor. Turns out the had gone out of business years (10 or more?) prior. The application had been loaded by a representative of the vendor, and the machine hadn't been rebooted since then.
And only half of that is related to Rust! The rest are very good points about hype cycles, tech zealotry, search for silver bullets, being constantly sidetracked by shiny interesting tech instead of solving a problem, etc. etc. Very long, but also very good read.
Nach acht Jahren in beliebigen Städten in den Niederlanden ist es schmerzhaft schockierend in einem Stadtzentrum dieser Menge an versiegelter Fläche und so viel Abgas ausgesetzt zu sein. Hier stinkt es und das mit Sonntagsverkehr.
See link at end.Welp, the #Enshittification of #Mastodon starts! Why would you appoint board members like this, especially ones that are heavily involved in AI/Blockchain/other monetization things if you don’t plan to monetize/commercialize mastodon? This is why I started seeking other #Fediverse projects that are not soft forks of Mastodon that have a mission of designing for Disabled users. Found some fantastic options so will move after testing. Mastodon forms new U.S. non-profit - Mastodon Blog blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/…
As part of our commitment to supporting the growth and operational capabilities of Mastodon, we have established a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity in the United States aimed at facilitating our efforts, including being able to receive tax-deductible U.S.
That is just a part of it as you just stated. There is just no way that there are any switching costs regarding Mastodon. So how would enshitification take place here? Commercial interests of the board alone will not fulfill the criteria for enshitification.
A near-final draft of the #CRA #standards request has been published by the @EU_Commission and it includes a very encouraging requirement that the standards organisations consult with the #OpenSource community - and prove they've done so.
#Mastodon hat in Deutschland den Gemeinnützigkeitsstatus vom Finanzamt aberkannt bekommen und hat dann einfach prompt ne 501(c)(3) in den USA gegründet. Das #Gemeinnützigkeitsrecht in Deutschland lässt soviel zu wünschen übrig, dass es nicht mal in den wenigen Fällen funktioniert, in denen dieses Land ausnahmsweise mal weltweit führend ist mit einem Projekt zum digitalen Gemeinwohl. Es ist doch zum Verzweifeln.
As part of our commitment to supporting the growth and operational capabilities of Mastodon, we have established a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity in the United States aimed at facilitating our efforts, including being able to receive tax-deductible U.S.
At the skin doctor, first an assistant asks some questions and fills them into the computer, then says "wait for the doctor" and leaves me alone with the unlocked system. 5min, would have been enough to lookup data of other people.
@Bubu it used to be similar at my dentist, but some time ago the assistants started locking the PC when leaving me to wait. My GP doesn't even have a PC in the exam room, but only in his office next door.
But i had seen this very often, too. And I agree it tends to be the regular case...
Our Advisory Board has published a Draft Note for W3C's Vision
"Technology is not neutral; new technologies enable new actions and new possibilities, and we must take responsibility to address the actual impact of our work...
New podcast episode from Blind Abilities: By Popular Demand: Blind Piano Lessons: With nearly 20 years of teaching through distance learning, meet Mark Miller and begin playing today! blindabilities.com/?p=8244
Podcast Summary: Mark Miller has been teaching Blind and Visually Impaired students to play piano for nearly 20 years. Distance learning is nothing new to Mark Miller and his students as he began t…
I love when people don't think it's worth checking if translation is right
But most usually they don't care. There is a merchant builder around Glasgow I used to visit maybe a couple of times per year. I don't remember exactly but their Polish translation was equally stupid. I was pointing it out to them everytime I was there. The sign was there for years, until they printed a new one - identical to a previous one. I gave up at this point.
Let's state the obvious: there is an elephant in the room. Britons cannot into languages. Of course, there are many who speak more than just English, but in general, Britain is all about English.
@agturcz Anecdotal. My friend's brother is an Uber driver in Poland, and he speaks very little English. He once wanted to ask some British gentlemen where to drop them off, so he decided to put "gdzie was wysadzić" through a translation app. THe result? "where should I blow you up."
This was an accessibility feature request submitted by email. Adding to the forum for multi-user feedback. Use case or problem I have encountered significant accessibility issues as a blind user, particularly with the Android version of the app.
This was an accessibility feature request submitted by email. Adding to the forum for multi-user feedback. Use case or problem I have encountered significant accessibility issues as a blind user, particularly with the Android version of the app.
That, is a bit ableist don't you think? I usually do not put labels on anyone or anything, but dismissing people like that, invalidating their struggles, is a bit too much. Accessibility should be universal. And while a lot of things work, not having clearly labelled elements is not only inaccessible for blind folks but others as well. and yes, for apps like obsydian, there is always a market.
This was an accessibility feature request submitted by email. Adding to the forum for multi-user feedback. Use case or problem I have encountered significant accessibility issues as a blind user, particularly with the Android version of the app.
@tardis The forum is open to everyone with an Obsidian account. If you like note-taking software like Notion, One-Note or Milanote, I highly recommend Obsidian. Though, obviously, I don't recommend it to users of screen readers.
I use FS Notes for now. So yeah, screen reader using me, won't be happy then. I went and read the bugs. Quite. Well, not useable as a note taking app for us.
I've seen a lot of companies beclown themselves while presenting terms-of-service changes, but the e-mail Cash App sent me Friday might be the worst yet.
Messages from companies telling me that they’ve changed their terms of service are usually among the most forgettable of e-mails, but the one that Cash App sent me Friday was memorable for re…
On my way back from the grocery store and there were three adorable little girls and their mom running a lemonade stand. I had to pull over and back into a middle school parking driveway and walk across the street to get one, but I got a glass of lemonade!
As I was walking away, I hear a little girl yell “we got a dollar!“ 😂
When you see kids selling lemonade; you buy goddam lemonade!
The federally funded Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) has developed an 'AI Scene Description Tool' add-on to its video player to increase accessibility to video content for blind students and those with a low vision disability.
I don't know if anyone here remembers, but a couple years ago, my gander ran off with the ducks and didn't acknowledge the goose at all, and she got lonely and actually started giving me snuggles.
Apparently she still has feelings for me, I squatted down to check the waterer, and she came and snuggled!! But, not out of sight of the gander, so he was screaming bloody murder at me the entire time.
So when did the visitation rights for US and Canadian citizens visiting each other change? James and I seem to remember that visits to and from Canada could only be 90 days. Speaking of Canada, have you ever wondered how long you could stay in Europe as a US citizen? This handy dandy guide will tell you more about that. My friends Jess and Dan were talking about UK citizen visitation rights. And so, we ended up pulling up this article.
How long can you stay in Europe with a US passport? Most Americans take off to Europe for a week or two for a typical vacation. But sometimes that just isn’t enough time to really enjoy your stay. Spain, Italy, France… these are all places where you could spend months exploring and still need more time. But how long do the rules allow you stay? We have your answers below. Schengen countries (in blue) are among the most popular in Europe for tourists. (Yellow countries are members of the EU that have not yet joined Schengen.) Full article here: eurocheapo.com/blog/how-long-c…
Have you ever dreamed of taking an extended vacation to Europe? But how long can you stay in Europe with a US passport? It depends. Here are the rules.
Oh, that's an interesting one. Wonder if the UK and other non EU countries are different in that regard, but still on the continent because, Europe isn't only the EU. Does it explain that? Or, they really haven't figured that out yet.
@tardis The article implies that the UK has its own visitation allowances regardless of EU membership. Basically, they decided to do things differently because they are the UK. In the same way that the US has its own unique visitation policies.
@tardis US passport holders can stay up to six months. But, UK folks can only stay in the US for 90 days. I feel like this is pretty backward for US/UK dating couples.
It's standard for the US, we also can stay there for 90 days as far as I am not mistaken, 6months in all other EU countries, even the UK, although that might've changed but I don't think it did for EU citizens.
So, everyone's at a disadvantage when it comes to going to the US. Not to mention that, if I wanted to visit all friends I wanted to visit, I gotta be very rich, super rich, I don't have to care about money at all. And that's not possible, because the law here prevents me from working and it's something I can't talk about on the net.
@tardis Canadian citizens can stay in the US for up to six months. I don't think anyone else can. If I, or rather a US passport holder specifically, go to a country in Europe that is not within the UK, however, three month visitation is standard for places like France, The Republic of Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and other notable countries. But some countries in Europe will let us stay for less than three months. In other words, you get better visitation across the EU where you live. We in the US, however, get six months visitation in Canada. It's all so interesting. Six months seems to be above average. Three months seems to be average.
Yeah, 3months is average and it is good to count from the day you landed, so as not to find yourself quickly send back and with a hefty fine to pay for overstaying. I had to count from the time I left the states to two years later the same date until I could visit the states again. which, was terms of the visa, which was the dumbest thing ever for a student visa, but exchange programs or something.
Let's also consider though, that for the US citizens to come to the EU in general is cheaper, while to go to the US for us first, we pay for visas, then tickets, then we fly, and a lot of countries don't use the eur stil, so that complicates things further, like, the dollar being so expensive that my own currency is almost worthless.
I have plans to not travel that far though. I have figured out that my heart still belongs in Europe, both quite literally and physically, or mentally, etc. I would at most probably travel to the UK, but to sidesee, not live. I seem to like unique, non-standard places for living. Like, I could totally go live in China if, China weren't asholes in political ways for example, but central Europe is the goal here. At least that's something I can afford for a while, and if I leave, I can seak work in other countries easier than over here.
Introducing the nominees for our first ever Governing Board elections 🎉 We are grateful to everyone who has raised their hands, and are positively overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and vision expressed by our nominees: matrix.org/governing-board/ele…
Get to know the candidates, and get ready: voting begins on May 18th.
We also directly sponsor and contribute to other Matrix-coupled projects, such as fully-local LLM engines embeddable into applications like Robrix, allowing users to benefit from convenient AI features like chat summaries
As part of our commitment to supporting the growth and operational capabilities of Mastodon, we have established a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity in the United States aimed at facilitating our efforts, including being able to receive tax-deductible U.S.
It's not recent. And jet engines improve in efficiency by about 10% per decade. They're probably neck and neck with salmon by now in efficiency, and killing it in mass. Bicycle still leads, but machines do better than almost all animals. merveilles.town/@mikael/110922…
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“MAN ON A BICYCLE ranks first in efficiency among traveling animals and machines in terms of energy consumed in moving a certain distance as a function of body weight.”
#BikeTooter
I ran the numbers a few years ago and a widebody longhaul airliner like an A380, when 80% full of passengers, is a few times more efficient than an eco-diesel compact car with all seats occupied in terms of passenger-km travelled per unit fuel burned. (We're fooled into thinking they're inefficient because of the stupendous distances they travel—24 hours aboard that A380 equals a typical car's annual mileage.)
Who wants a bad messed up Votrax voice that adds random things at the end of sentences and clips its microphone when saying the letter X? Of course you do! (This is what happens when Whisper can't separate the voice accurately into timestamps, unlike with Keynote and Alex where the splits are very on point.) Here, there's a mis-alignment. And this is why aligning your transcripts to your files matters: eurpod.com/en_us-votrax_medium… (I won't replace the current copy of voice.)
Votrax will clearly take a weekend project of manually adjusting the output of the transcripts where some fragments of speech may be cut off. Since the voice pauses less silence gaps between words than Keynote, which tends to take a longer pause at a comma or period symbol. Combine that with a low-quality voice and it's a disaster.
@TomGrant91 the good news? I'm re-training Keynote and this time the beginning of words should no longer cut off. If you notice that's one thing this Votrax voice did get very right, so I'm hoping to be able to do the same for Keynote next.
Nice! And you'll be delighted I have my Votrax doubletalk crossover back lol. I had to install the standard as well it was weird, that one was still not right but all is good now.
@TomGrant91 oh yeah the weird one won't show up as RT true true because of the filename. It was just more uploaded as a fun test and if anyone wants to mess with a broken Votrax. What's even more crazy is, I have one that's worse broken than that, it can't even pronounce any words and slows down or speeds up halfway through speaking even, it's nuts.
Oh I wish I had a BNS you know. Never seen one, only heard one. Also the BrailleLite moddles with that chip. I actually thought the BNS had a display! But duh, hense the name, Braille, 'n', speak! haha.
Oh that broken broken one can be like that BNS youtube video when the unit completely reboots. Perhaps a BNS that decides to reboot, no, i'll change my mind. I'll stay on. lol
@FreakyFwoof @TomGrant91 loool I wish :) I would train one sometime but no samples from one as of yet, so maybe someone will eventually beat me to it later on.
@FreakyFwoof @TomGrant91 does that one only have a UK voice? I'vee make a model of it but less sure how well the UK-based Piper voices would do since some of them even feel worse than the US ones to me.
@FreakyFwoof @TomGrant91 but if you could get me an hour of text material read with it, zip that up, it would already be a huge help! It's a bit of multi-step process. Generally you need to get the voice data, use the Whisper-large model to transcribe it, and then I have a split.sh script which uses the VTT transcript Whisper generated to split at the timestamps and add 100MS of silence. Once it's hundreds of splices it's just a 10-hour collab wait xD
@TomGrant91 @fireborn hahaa what sucks is wasting like 10 hours of training on it. Ugh. Doing one voice is about $5. This is because 4000 epochs on the V100 GPU takes about 10-12 hours, and costs about 4.5 compute units per hour or so. I would say $5 per voice trained attempt, so it's not like, exactly cheap. If it really became popular enough and people pass me files to train on I could turn that into a business on its own for labor + training LOL
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