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Hello everyone, I’m Maartje De Meulder. After spending years on X, I’ve decided to give Mastodon a try.

I’m a senior researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and I split my time mainly between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway.

I’ll be mostly posting about all things language, disability, and technologies, and how they intersect, along with navigating academia. 



#introduction #deaf #disability #academia

#introduction #Disability #academia #deaf

Department of Justice Adopts Access Board’s Minimum Standards for Accessible Medical Diagnostic Equipment equipmentlink.org/blog/?p=5643

Protect your future today with Quantum Safe Communication. Quantum-proof your data before it's too late. #Purism #CyberSecurity
puri.sm/posts/quantum-safe-com…
#purism #cybersecurity

@Sharkey@shonk.social
Thanx for your work on #Sharkey!

Is there a #Matrix space for questions and support?

#matrix #sharkey @Sharkey - Official Account
in reply to Kari'boka

FediVerseExplorer
FediVerseExplorer
• •
Yeah, I'm using XMPP long before Matrix entered the stage and it's good. But for more advanced work, Matrix is providing features, that XMPP dosn't have, like formatting code and text markdown like or organizations for multiple rooms and so on....

Some Kaspersky customers receive surprise forced-update to new antivirus software

techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/some…

Security software indistinguishable from malware.

Yesterday I discovered that the new Sonos app requires you to physically scroll through every part of the terms screen before you can press the accept button. On iOS, VoiceOver's scrolling method skips through most of it, so you just have to go to the top and manually pass through a bunch of one-finger scrolls. The whole thing is one block of text, so you can't tell how far it's scrolled until you get to the bottom. I have no Sonos products and was just trying to troubleshoot this with a friend, but I am suitably horrified. This is the first thing the app presents after downloading it for the first time, and most VO users wouldn't be able to do it, leaving the rest of the app (and possibly your devices) unusable. I'm not sure what could convince me to buy a Sonos product at this point. I used to just find them too expensive to justify—now I don't think I'd buy them if they were all 75% off. #Accessibility
#Accessibility

You know you're getting old when it requires three people to find someone with good enough vision to read the tiny little bolt code at Home Depot 👓
in reply to AI6YR Ben

KanaMauna
KanaMauna
• •
Same with cooking instructions on food containers. Guys, don’t use white font size 3 text on a gray background. Don’t know how many times I’ve not purchased something because I can’t figure out what the brilliant marketing team has rendered unreadable.

Food, meat, beer

Sensitive content

Honored to have had a chance to speak at (the very well-attended very well-run) #matrixconf this year. Great (and livestreamed!) talks, a good audience, a proper indoor masking policy and CO2 monitors on every floor live-updated, exactly what a modern conf should be in every respect.
#matrixconf

“I’m going to buy him a copy of the Mythical Man Month. Actually I’m going to buy him two copies so he can read it twice as fast.”

— Unknown

#Q4TD #Quote #Quotes q4td.blogspot.com/2024/09/im-g…

#quotes #quote #q4td

Disingenuous rule making:

If China can do these evil things with their proprietary cars, then so can U.S. and Japanese cars.

Make the rule fair: ban proprietary cars.

(But it's not about being fair, it's about the U.S. wanting to preserve the ability to use domestic cars for spying, while preventing other countries from having that ability.)

tech.slashdot.org/story/24/09/…

Dayum!
Black female protestor holds sign that reads: Dear Police, we know you are not all bad, but as you love to say to us, "you fit the description."

My super secret hobby project is now public. It's a CI engine that let's me run CI on untrusted code without having to worry.

blog.liw.fi/posts/2024/ambient…

#continuousIntegration #CI #Ambient

#ambient #ci #continuousintegration

Finally this journey begins! And with a surprise twist, too: Amsterdam’s number 1 tram.
A white and blue comes towards us as we are waiting on a very narrow island platform in the middle of the road. There’s a bridge in the distance, and trees and houses on both sides.
in reply to Martin Hoffmann

Martin Hoffmann
Martin Hoffmann
• •
But back to walking. I’m only down to 42nd street – it’s a long way to the tip of Manhattan at South Ferry. Well more than 42 blocks, in fact. There are plenty more streets south of 1st street but they are older than the grid and have names.
in reply to Martin Hoffmann

Martin Hoffmann
Martin Hoffmann
• •
Turkey is promoting itself as a partner in sustainable development by driving gas-powered trucks with LED billboards through the already grid-locked streets of Manhattan. You can’t make this stuff up.
A box truck with its sides covered in large LED displays. The one on the side reads: “Türkiye: A Partner in Humanitarian Aid and Sustainable Development.”

Ah, so US is going to ban connected cars. A good measure actually, and the rationale is conclusive. But why stop at those from China? Connected cars are a security and privacy nightmare, regardless of the country.

arstechnica.com/?p=2051655

NGI Assure, the program aimed at improving trust in our digital society, successfully concluded after its 4 year run.

[1]152 teams contributed to a more trustworthy & secure internet with their Free and Open Source projects. Thank you all!

We've made a book showcasing all the projects which you can download from the link below. There are also paper copies, so ask for those when you see us IRL.

[2][1] nlnet.nl/news/2024/20240919-NG…
[2] nlnet.nl/media/NGIAssure-bookl…
(1/2)

#FOSS #NGI #NGI0 #Trust #Security

#foss #security #ngi0 #ngi #trust

choose your fighter:

#irc vs #discord vs #matrix

screenshot of libera irc on python channel. no message issues. got reply in 5 minutes
screenshot of discord. no message problems but noone replies even after asking twice
screenshot of non-encrypted room in element matrix client. people exist and reply but i can't even send or remove message due to bug
#matrix #discord #irc
in reply to hacknorris

Linux in a Bit
Linux in a Bit
• •

XMPP because Discord is evil, IRC doesn't do what I need, and Matrix is slow and buggy.
All XMPP needs is a good client, and because I'm on Linux, I can use @dino (wish it was cross-platform, but that feels like asking for too much)

Of course I also use Matrix because that's what everyone else uses, but that doesn't mean I can't be annoyed with it :blobcatupsidedown:

@Dino

Of the currently available XMPP clients, @gajim stands out as the most feature rich. I did a round of trying out other xmpp software this week, and gajim still provides the most painless experience.
@Gajim

iOS 18 Edition Coming Soon – iOS Access for All iosaccessbook.com/ios-18-editi…

I didn't see this mentioned in my timeline. Today's Google Doodle honours Oskar Picht, who invented the brailler I used when learning Braille. What a nice surprise, as nowadays, I only see Perkins braillers mentioned in English texts.
Here is the text from Google: (1/2)

reshared this

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Up a Wi-Fi Network howtogeek.com/mistakes-to-avoi…
in reply to David Goldfield

Rebecca Legowski
Rebecca Legowski
• •
thanks, nice tips! Just sent them to @daygar, and he finds them useful too. Cheers!
@Day Garwood

20 years of Canonical #Ubuntu #Linux ubuntu.com/20years Long-time Linux user here, currently on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Daily driver for managing VMs, K8S, Docker, etc. on AWS and other providers. Ubuntu is a great intro to Linux, with a rich dev experience. Congrats to Canonical. Keep it up the good work.
#linux #ubuntu
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to nixCraft 🐧

Ľuboš Moščovič
Ľuboš Moščovič
• •

I remember when my university mate told me about weird Debian based distro which should be delivered to him for free, via post, on a CD...

We, Debian folks, tended to look from above, but started to accept it over time as viable alternative, especially if we wanted to get some newbie on board.

20 years... damn, seems like yesterday!
👍

Protip: if you don't know your email address, don't use mine to order your shit. Or maybe I shall cancel them all?
in reply to Hubert Figuière

Pomax
Pomax
• •
I usually request a password reset and just close their account with a parting note along the lines of "some idiot used my email address and you blindly believed them instead of sending an confirmation link to the email address they gave you". Both parties failed, maybe they'll learn something. Even if probably not.
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

Some hot takes on APIs and protocols (and in particular #ActivityPub). Just summarizing some thoughts I've had

1. JSON-LD is completely unsuitable for a social networking protocol. Full stop.

2. The extension mechanism used by JSON-LD is neither necessary nor sufficient for dealing with the so-called "open world assumption"

3. The "open world assumption," as discussed, is not something that is desirable to support in practice

4. Your average person should not know or care about protocols

1/

#activitypub
in reply to Hrefna (DHC)

Hrefna (DHC)
Hrefna (DHC)
• •

7. A resistance to non-AP protocols holds back fediverse development

8. The concept of "breaking changes" is essentially meaningless to AP today because mutually incompatible—such that not only that they can't communicate, but that there is no way to make them communicate—protocols can both be 100% AP "compliant"

9. The fact that no one implements AP correctly should be taken as a danger sign and as something that needs to be fixed, but the problem isn't with the implementers

3/

#ActivityPub

#activitypub
in reply to Hrefna (DHC)

Hrefna (DHC)
Hrefna (DHC)
• •

10. The lack of good libraries or toolkits should be viewed as a significant and serious danger sign. The lack of ability to _create_ these libraries should further be viewed as a danger sign.

11. We should view any attempt to "refresh" AP in a way that is not backwards incompatible and that does not address the extension problem with suspicion (not as in it shouldn't be done, but in that we should not think that it will solve anything).

12. We need to ask "what is next"

4/4

#ActivityPub

#activitypub

Leasey Update On Its Way groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/78…

From Hadley: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Wearables: Tuesday, September 24, 2:00 PM Eastern Time groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/78…

From Envision: MetaConnect Event. groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/78…

Many Faces Of BARD: NLS Bard on the Smart Speaker: Thursday, October 10, 7:00 PM Eastern Time groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/78…

Tak mi dnes prišlo vyrozumenie, že som úspešne absolvoval certifikačnú skúšku a vyhovel ostatným požiadavkám a môžu mi udeliť certifikát manažéra kybernetickej bezpečnosti... Asi mám povedať, že juhú, či?

No Thunderbird live streaming session for this Friday unfortunately, as some small renovation is happening in my apartment and the timing is terrible

Reminded today that "daemonization" and "PID files" are two extremely bad ideas that it is really surprising persisted for so long and were accepted so broadly by so many people (including me)
in reply to Glyph

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •
I was lucky enough to be exposed to a better way, specifically djb's daemontools, in late 2001. Ever since then, I always used daemontools, or later runit, for services that I wrote myself. So I don't think I ever used twistd's daemonization. It's too bad that starting services without daemonization or pid files took so long to go mainstream, with the rise of systemd and then containers.
in reply to Matt Campbell

Glyph
Glyph
• •
@matt The conversation was in fact about Twisted shifting focus from `twistd` (which daemonizes by default) to `twist` / `python -m twisted`, neither of which *can* daemonize.
@Matt Campbell

v EduPage ide zaujímavá konverzácia, konečne :kekw:

I made two podcasts from the files of the MMORPG I play, Mist World, with the new Google Overview tool of NotebookLM. Listen to them:
eurpod.com/mist_podcast.mp3
eurpod.com/mist_podcast2.mp3
Both are a bit different. In my opinion, the second is worse, the more technical data and help I fed it.
Oh and that stuff about gender mentioned in the first podcast? It's an AI halucination since nothing about it it gets mentioned in the docs. Kind of funny as it's a classic bias almost.
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

Erinnert ihr euch an die @correctiv_org -Recherche zum Geheimtreffen von Potsdam? Sie wurde nur durch die Unterstützung von tausenden Spenderinnen und Spendern möglich. CORRECTIV ist weiter auf Unterstützung angewiesen um noch effektiver rechtsextreme Netzwerke zu enthüllen. Wer kann, spendet hier:
startnext.com/correctiv
@CORRECTIV

My husband manages digital collections for the state historical society, and he's just had to rush in to honor a takedown request related to an immigrant oral history collection.

[EDIT: removing incident specifics, but we can all guess the specifics in this moment anyway.]

He's busy putting out fires and ensuring safety, so I'll say it:

This is horrifying. Fearmongering is middle-school bully nonsense. Stop being shitty to immigrants. Stand up for immigrants.

This entry was edited (1 month ago)

Succinct summary.
no__ugh When you enslave black people but they gain liberty so you go to war but you lose so you segregate black people but they don't disappear so you lynch black people but they form self defense squads so you declare those terrorist organizations but their calls for equality gain popularity so you shoot their leader but they don't disappear so you settle them in houses full of toxic lead but they don't all die so you train cops to kill them instead but they protest it so you ask why they keep complaining View Insights BB Liked by quaalitty and 810 others no ugh Thisisit. This is THE post

Kapesní nůž

Zlatá rybka; český kapesní nůž Mikov

To the #FOSS / #FLOSS folks out there:

#FLOSS maintainers often maintain an archive of old, sometimes *really* old source releases (source tarballs, typically).

In this day and age, especially with existing git and readily available repositories with appropriate tags, one might wonder if maintaining an old archive is still useful, and why.

Anyone want to share their perspective on this?

(I have no particular opinion in the matter, so am all ears)

#foss #floss
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Richard Levitte

daniel:// stenberg://
daniel:// stenberg://
• •
I expect my stuff to survive the current hosting plus that my releases often contain generated files not present in git that might be tricky to reproduce twenty years later

john mulaney was at the salesforce conference and the transcript of him reading the attendees to filth is so cathartic sfstandard.com/2024/09/19/come…
"If Al is truly smarter than us and tells us that [humans] should die, then I think we should die," he said, looking out to the crowd from center stage. "So many of you feel imminently replaceable." He added, "Can Al sit there in a fleece vest? Can Al not go to events and spend all day at a bar?"
"Let me get this straight," John Mulaney said. "You're hosting a 'future of Al' event in a city that has failed humanity so miserably?" Everyone inside the auditorium at the Moscone Center groaned. Any notion that the award-winning comedian would play the corporate gig safe (and clean) were thrown out the window Thursday, when Mulaney, closing the Dreamforce festivities, started roasting his host, Salesforce, and the audience sitting right in front of him. "You look like a group who looked at the self-checkout counters at CVS and thought, 'This is the future," Mulaney said.
"What's important here is that we're looking for solutions," he said sarcastically. "And in looking for solutions, what we're really after is insights, which then lead to success. Now, start prepping the humans for robots. "Some of the vaguest language ever devised has been used here in the last three days," he continued. "The fact that there are 45,000 'trailblazers' here couldn't devalue the title any more."
The comedian rounded out his Dreamforce appearance by thanking attendees "for the world you're creating for my son ... where he will never talk to an actual human again. Instead, a little cartoon Einstein will pop up and give him a sort of good answer and probably refer him to another chatbot." Mulaney then shared an anecdote about how he and his son, who is nearly 3, like to play baseball in their front yard. "We're just two guys hitting Wiffle balls badly and yelling 'Good job' at each other," he said. "It's sort of the same energy here at Dreamforce."
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