Skip to main content

if this really happened, the employee who used generative AI to “expand” the photo should be immediately fired.

We can’t eliminate genAI anymore than we can eliminate plagiarism, but we can limit its normalization by making discovery so costly that people are too terrified to take the risk.

Elizabeth Laraki v 4 @elizlaraki ... I'm talking at a conference later this year (on UX+Al). I just saw an ad for the conference with my photo and was like, wait, that doesn't look right. Is my bra showing in my profile pic and l've never noticed..? That's weird. I open my original photo. No bra showing. I put the two photos side by side and I'm like WTF... Someone edited my photo to unbutton my blouse and reveal a made-up hint of a bra or something else underneath. Immediately, I email the conference host. (FYI he is a great, respectable guy with 5 kids at home.)
side-by-side comparison of original image and artificially “extended” version with unbuttoned blouse and hint of underclothing
He is super apologetic and immediately looks into the issue. He quickly reports back that the woman running their social media used a cropped square image from their website. She needed it to be more vertical, so she used an Al expand image tool to make the photo taller. Al invented the bottom part of the image (in which it believed that women's shirts should be unbuttoned further, with some tension around the buttons, and revealing a little hint of something underneath). FYI the conference organizers were super apologetic and took down all of the content with that photo.
in reply to Adrian Randall

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •
I strongly disagree about firing the employee. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should assume that she innocently believed, based on the hype, that generative AI is a legitimate tool, and that she was just under stress and trying to get this problem solved the quickest way she knew how so she could move onto the next thing, as we all do sometimes. She's not the one to punish for this.

Who called them subby environmentalists and not collared greens

NPR: Over 11 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry were recalled over listeria concerns, affecting salads, wraps, frozen meals and more from popular chains like Target, Trader Joe's and Walmart.#news #NPR npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-51548…
NPR: Over 11 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry were recalled over listeria concerns, affecting salads, wraps, frozen meals and more from popular chains like Target, Trader Joe's and Walmart.#news #NPR https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5154865/recall-listeria-meat-chicken-brucepak-list
#News #NPR

Which country is across the ocean?
A map shows North and South America. The latitudes from the coastlines are shown as coloured stripes. Each stripe also lists the name of the country that would be reached on the other side of the ocean.
A map shows Europe, Africa and Asia. The latitudes from the coastlines are shown as coloured stripes. Each stripe also lists the name of the country that would be reached on the other side of the ocean.

Me: 'Siri, Enable noise canceling.'
Siri enables it then, in a snarky tone:
'Noise canceling is already on.'
Well duh!
Anything I ask it to do with airpods like that, it now responds as if the setting were already active first. This, since iOS 18.
in reply to Tamas G

Andre Louis
Andre Louis
• •
@Tamasg @jakobrosin @BorrisInABox Google Gemini on my Samsung cannot play music to google speakers, so that's functionality I've lost because the assistant was upgraded... Sigh.
@Patrick Perdue @Tamas G @Jakob Rosin
in reply to Andre Louis

Tamas G
Tamas G
• •
@jakobrosin @BorrisInABox it's been interesting to see that play out, because Google's willing to be the bigger risk-taker as always and not offer any rollbacks, while Apple still has the old Voice Control code last time I checked in 17.X if you don't enable Siri at all and set it to use that instead, so on that compatibility factor Apple's got more in common with Microsoft oddly.
@Patrick Perdue @Jakob Rosin

Apple’s App Stores can’t install new apps theverge.com/2024/10/16/242718…

Apple’s App Stores can’t install new apps

Apple’s App Stores across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac are down, leaving users unable to install new apps.
Emma Roth (The Verge)

What can I say. It's a super positive workday with people pulling their weight in getting things done, I know what I should prioritize and when, feeling motivated. Only downside is the sneezing 3 times in a row every half hour from fall allergies and this wind we had last night, but life's been worse. Enjoying the calm before the country erupts into election frenzy in 3 weeks, I plan to go early vote this weekend here and get that out of the way.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

CBC: Man adrift in frigid Russian seas for 67 days survived by drinking rainwater cbc.ca/news/world/russian-resc… #adriftatsea
#adriftatsea

JAWS, ZoomText and Fusion 2025 Public Beta 2 is now available. Go to support.freedomscientific.com/…

JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion Public Beta

support.freedomscientific.com

My very basic, personal Web site has reached the point at which I could write a blog post. I have now written a brief post documenting the decisions made in the site's development so far. I hope someone finds this information useful.
jasonjgw.net/blog/technology/w…
#WebDevelopment #accessibility

Developing a Web Site Nonvisually in a Linux Environment

jasonjgw.net
#Accessibility #webdevelopment
in reply to Matt Campbell

Jason J.G. White
Jason J.G. White
• •
@matt The best way for me to detect such an issue as a screen reader user would presumably be to query font attributes (as long as I know what the defaults would be in the absence of the correct CSS). The slightly more interesting approach would be to submit a screenshot to an image-processing large language model and ask for a description of the styling.
@Matt Campbell

We mock it, but it's a serious thing that the leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition has not obtained a national security clearance.

10 perfectly innocent explanations for why Pierre Poilievre won’t get national security clearance:

thebeaverton.com/2024/06/10-pe…

#cdnpoli #polcan


10 perfectly innocent explanations for why Pierre Poilievre won't get national security clearance - The Beaverton

Pierre Poilievre’s refusal to get a national security clearance so he can read the report on foreign interference in Canada’s elections is raising eyebrows, with many suggesting that maybe he can’t get a security clearance because he poses a security…
Luke Gordon Field (The Beaverton)
#cdnpoli #polcan

A useful (to me, anyway) Thunderbird tip!

I compose and reply in plain text, but once in a while, I want to reply using html, to preserve formatting in the original message.

Shift + click "Reply" on the interface means "reply as html".

I haven't found a keyboard shortcut for this yet though - if you know one, please share!

#Thunderbird #email

#email #thunderbird
in reply to Neil Brown

Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox
Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox
• •

We LOVE hearing Thunderbird tips, especially from our community! All our existing shortcuts can be found in this handy Mozilla Support article: support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/k…

We took a poke around our Add-ons and couldn't find anything that might an additional shortcut for this, but this could be a good suggestion for Mozilla Connect! connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/i…


Ideas

Submit and vote for ideas
connect.mozilla.org

si všímam že môj "biorytmus" je ten tam vtedy
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to SuspiciousDuck

SuspiciousDuck
SuspiciousDuck
• •
a na miesto toho aby sa najem si skočím po Plzeň, jedlo tu mám od dvanástej
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

Remember, from the APA (American Psychological Association)
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead.
The way I easily recall this for myself is, misinformation is something you can crawl out from under as a mistake. While disinformation can often lead the person down a path of a mental disease, where coming up with it becomes gamified and of little consequence to them and their future

Overcast. If you are a Overcast user, and you currently pay the subscription of $10 a year, please be aware that Marco Arment is planning on raising the subscription price. The new price has not yet been determined, but could increase to $15 a year. You should know that the $10 a year has been in effect since 2016, 8 years. He discussed this on his podcast Under the Radar, which you can check out here... relay.fm/radar/303

Under the Radar #303: Raising Prices - Relay FM

Looking around the App Store, it's clear that we're not charging enough.
Relay FM
in reply to Chris C

David Goldfield
David Goldfield
• •
@overcastfm I have no issue with Overcast raising the subscription price if that's what the developer feels is necessary in order to ensure its sustainability. However, I recently chose to let my subscription lapse due to the recent VoiceOver regressions. While in a playlist, finding two buttons announced as "dimmed, pop-up button" after some podcasts was the last straw, along with double-tapping a podcast, hearing "play button" and then having focus move to another button. If these two items are addressed and if show notes are spoken while focussing on a podcast, I will renew my subscription but I won't subscribe to an app that I can no longer effectively use.
As an aside, why not add "Play Podcast" as a rotor option while pointing to a podcast.
@Overcast
in reply to David Goldfield

Brandon
Brandon
• •
@DavidGoldfield @overcastfm I switched away from overcast because I could not dismiss the now playing, so every time I wanted to watch something new, I had to uninstall and reinstall the app.
@Overcast @David Goldfield

I feel like I'm probably the only one nostalgic for Office 2003 and earlier. Simpler to operate, didn't get in your way. And no Ribbon to contend with. Maybe I'm just grumpy, LOL.
in reply to Andy

Tamas G
Tamas G
• •
nah, at least while Outlook was bloated back then, it wasn't nearly as bad even with the lower performance envelopes we had for that time, the moment ribbons and ML this and command bar got added it had way more of a side effect than extra UI cruft, I think.

Just received a bit of unusually honest job spam:

We are looking to enter the US software market and are
interested in working with experienced US professionals.
Given the salary gap between US developers and other
developers, I think this collaboration could be beneficial to
both of us.


Oh really? How's that? Do I in particular seem like someone who might be OK with a lower salary? Hard not to read something like this and see in it every instance of someone thinking I should be OK with less for some reason related to my disability. They probably didn't know that specifically and maybe I'm misreading, and also they claimed to have found my non-existent LinkedIn, but for everyone writing that I'm sure there are many who don't.

Job-searching as someone with a disability suuuuucks.

in reply to Nolan Darilek

ocdtrekkie
ocdtrekkie
• •
This gives me low-key "North Korea hiring US-based hackers to evade sanctions" vibes.
in reply to ocdtrekkie

Nolan Darilek
Nolan Darilek
• •
Yeah, I thought something similar. They picked some super unfortunate phrasing for recruiting me, though.

If given the choice, would you rather go to a movie or play? #Poll #polls

  • movie (0 votes)
  • play (0 votes)
  • either is good (0 votes)
  • neither is good (0 votes)
Poll end: 1 week ago

#poll #polls

To #blind users, does anyone play #browser #games or open multiple tabs on #Firefox without the browser slowing to a crawl? I was thinking about switching from #Edge to Firefox, but games that run well in Edge or other Chrome-based browsers make Firefox extremely slow, and it's the same way if I open even a few tabs. My computer is a #BeeLink SER5Pro #miniPC with 32 Gb of RAM and #Windows11Pro.
#MozillaFirefox #MicrosoftEdge #incrementalGames #browserBasedGames #gaming #browsers #Windows #Windows11 #WindowsEleven #WindowsElevenPro #tech #technology
#firefox #blind #technology #browser #Windows #gaming #Windows11 #tech #games #browsers #edge #minipc #mozillafirefox #microsoftedge #beelink #windows11pro #incrementalgames #browserbasedgames #windowseleven #windowselevenpro
in reply to Lanie Carmelo

Sean Randall
Sean Randall
• •
I'm running Firefox on a Windows 11 machine with only 16GB of RAM and an 13th gen Intel i5. I regularly have between 5 and 15 tabs open in Firefox 131.0.3 without issue.

Thunderbird for Android 8.0b3 is out! There are two things we'd really love help testing. One is the funding feature! (thunderbird.topicbox.com/group…). The other is the QR code sync between desktop and mobile (thunderbird.topicbox.com/group…). Thanks to everyone who has helped beta test and given feedback!

Release notes on our GitHub: github.com/thunderbird/thunder…

#ThunderbirdForAndroid #Thunderbird #OpenSource


Releases · thunderbird/thunderbird-android

Thunderbird for Android – Open Source Email App for Android (fka K-9 Mail) - thunderbird/thunderbird-android
GitHub
#opensource #thunderbird #thunderbirdforandroid

I’d love it if just once an app redesign didn’t absolutely fuck up #accessibility and usability. Today’s big update to CleanMyMac is not that time. Most buttons say “enabled” before their name don’t respond to VO-space and need to be physically clicked, when a checkbox is unchecked it shows up as an unlabeled button, you have no way of telling whether a specific item when reviewing results is checked or not which is the difference between having the app delete something you don’t want it to or not, and some modules had some features removed in favor of supposed simplicity, the biggest one for being the large file module, now called clutter, no longer has a view where you can see the largest files in a hierarchical directory view. Now you can either look at every large file on the system no matter what directory it’s in or file duplicates. I have no energy to write a report of all this ugh. Also really disappointing to see Macaw slipping with their accessibility which used to be really good.
#Accessibility
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

Tamas G reshared this.

dobre hovorí

youtube.com/watch?v=jOOMoziHT5…


Hamran v Aréne: Zavolali ma vypovedať k atentátu na Fica. Sedel som tam krútiac hlavou

„Som výsluhový dôchodca a venujem sa mame.“ Bývalý policajný prezident Štefan Hamran je takmer rok v civile a už absolvoval niekoľko policajných výsluchov. J...
YouTube
in reply to SuspiciousDuck

Peter Hanecak
Peter Hanecak
• •

Bombic je z tej miniaturnej mensiny, pre ktoru sa podarilo naplnit tu cast programoveho vyhlasenia aktualnej vlady, ktora hovori o "bezpečnejšie žiť".

Lebo nackovia, fasisti, klamari, podvodnici, atd. a pod. sa tu teraz naozaj citia bezpecnejsie. (Volakedy by sli do basy.)

ref.: mastodon.social/@phanecak/1133…

Peter Hanecak (@phanecak@mastodon.social)

Este k tomu programovemu vyhlaseniu vlady: - "Lepšie": urcite nie, aj ked to zuzime iba na ekonomiku, lebo konsokidacia zdvihne naklady vsetkym¹ - "pokojnejšie": to tiez nie, lebo "furt nieco"² - "bezpečne žiť": nuz, ani to, o.i.
Mastodon

I really feel sorry for the public sector employees working on meeting this #a11y deadline for PDFs.

"PDFs are where services go to die."

No doubt the people working on this will be super under-resourced, and actually meeting this deadline won't be seen as much of a win by anyone, but not meeting it has legal and dire consequences.

To be clear more #a11y is good! Under-resourcing teams is not!

deptcivicthings.substack.com/p…

#Government #PublicInterestTech #CivicTech


The elephant in the new accessibility law: PDFs

If your government agency is typical, you have a lot of PDFs. Probably thousands. They are probably not accessible.
Rebecca Woodbury (Department of Civic Things newsletter)
#a11y #government #civictech #publicinteresttech
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)

Is there a better, more accessible #Matrix client for Windows than Element? Some of these reported issues have existed for years and I'm getting a bit tired of dealing with them. Tried Thunderbird but it's very slow. Once again disappointed that the open alternative to platforms like Discord can't seem to prioritize accessibility enough so I'm not perpetually tempted to just write my own client, which I'd do if I had 48 hours in a day and the patience of a saint.
#matrix

Here in the United States, "I'm voting Green" is just a shorthand way of saying "I'm voting for the cheaper Putin lickspittle to help the more expensive Putin lickspittle get back into the White House."

To the Green supporters/Russian bots about to fume in the comments about how their vote is in fact something else than the above, here is my pre-emptive reply:

it is interesting how many contract or job hiring posts I see on Mastodon that explicitly state that a POC or LGBT applicant is preferred. What is glaringly unstated is that disabilities are not taken into account in the same way, despite the fact that we face many of the same barriers, or equivalent ones. If you're gunna do equality, people, you've gotta go all the way.

How to write good.
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5. One should never generalize.
6. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Sentence fragments? Eliminate.
9. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
10. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
11. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Wow. I didn't expect the amount of resonance my writeup is getting. Thank you very much.

I did a lot of changes, split the document. Hopefully providing alternative, practical strategies for synthesizing sounds in a size-coding context:

ronnypries.de/notes/music-prod…

May also be generally relevant for folks struggling/are bored with their bassdrums.

#demoscene #sizecoding #sounddesign #mixing #patchdesign #musicproduction


Synthesis for coders - rktic's working notes

Hopefully actionable patch-programming insights for size-coders, who also make their own music.
ronnypries.de
#musicproduction #sounddesign #demoscene #mixing #sizecoding #patchdesign

13 Best Free and Open Source Command-Line Python Application Development Tools lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…

13 Best Free and Open Source Command-Line Python Application Development Tools - LinuxLinks

Python comes with several different libraries that allow you to write a command line interface for your scripts.
Steve Emms (LinuxLinks)

@Friendica Support
Gehe ich recht in der Annahme, dass Spiegeln als meine eigenen Beiträge den jeweiligen Beitrag mit allen meinen Kontakten teilt, aber in meiner Timeline nicht angezeigt wird?

#beiträge #spiegeln #kontakte #timeline #anzeige

#Beiträge #Kontakte #timeline #Anzeige #spiegeln @Friendica Support
in reply to Gerhard Hallstein

Gerhard Hallstein
Gerhard Hallstein
• •

@Michael Vogel Wenn Du die Funktion Natives Teilen nicht wieder herstellen kannst bzw. magst, fühle ich mich mit meinen Kenntnissen und Fähigkeiten außerstande, hin und her zu testen. Darum versuche ich zu akzeptieren, dass ich mich vom nativen Teilen verabschieden muss.

Die aktuelle Einstellung Spiegeln als meine eigenen Beiträge bewirkt, dass Blogeinträge und Kommentare auf dem Blog in meiner oldie-Instanz gespiegelt werden. Blogkommentare auf oldie werden jedoch nicht im Blog gespiegelt. Ich denke, damit werde ich leben können.

@Michael Vogel
in reply to Gerhard Hallstein

Michael Vogel
Michael Vogel
• •
Zum Testen wäre es gut, wenn Du auf Deinem anderen Friendica-Account auf dem anderen Server die gleichen Einstellungen bezüglich des Teilens einstellst und schaust, ob es da klappt. Das wäre ein wichtiger Test.
in reply to Gerhard Hallstein

Gerhard Hallstein
Gerhard Hallstein
• •

Der andere Friendica-Account ist mein Feedreader, den ich ausschließlich als Feedreader nutzen möchte. Und nur zu diesem Zweck habe ich ihn eingerichtet.

Von weiteren Tests in dieser Sache möchte ich lieber Abstand nehmen, weil mich das nur wieder verwirren würde.

Die aktuelle Lösung (siehe oben) ist zwar nicht die Ideallösung, aber sie kommt von allen diesbezüglichen Funktionen dem nativen Teilen noch am nächsten.

"Idle thoughts for October"

baldurbjarnason.com/2024/idle-…

This week's post is short but manages to be a bit contemplative nonetheless.


Idle thoughts for October

I decided to take a bit of a writing break after last week’s mammoth essay. Not because writing these things takes so much of my time.
www.baldurbjarnason.com
in reply to Baldur Bjarnason

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
• •
I'd like to read that new look at frameworks, and why you disagree with what most of them are trying to do.

Und es flattert gleich ein Beispiel in meine Timeline, warum es Mist ist, wenn Posts keine Bildbeschreibung haben.

Es wäre toll, wenn ALLE, auch Leute, die auf Screenreader angewiesen sind und zum Beispiel als Sehbehinderte oder Blinde die Buchmesse besuchen, wüssten, dass in Halle 3.1 B101 beim Gedenkprojekt zu den Bücherverbrennungen der Nazis Sticker und Buttons der Leseratten Antifa zu haben sind.

weremember.social/@VerbrannteO…

#FBM24 #Barrierefreiheit #Lesen #LeiderOhneAltText

#lesen #barrierefreiheit #fbm24 #leiderohnealttext
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)

Eine Polizei, die auch für Autos die Regeln tatsächlich durchsetzt (z.B. signifikant mehr Blitzer). #WasWirWollen
#waswirwollen

¡Y aún dicen que el pescado es caro!
Obra de Sorolla, hoy es su centenario.
Que maravilla de pintura. Me fascina.
Todo.
Es como los niños correteando por la playa años después.
Entre distintas artes de pesca en lo que supongo que es la bodega de un pequeño barco pesquero dos hombres atienden a otro más joven que parece haber sufrido algún tipo de accidente laboral.

Ando con un constipado de los de camponato.
Es ya el tercer día y esto que no se pasa.
Sé que me queda sólo un día que sufrir, por lo general, pero ahora mismo me quiero morir.
Y para colmo, el termómetro parlante que tengo me dice: "su temperatura es 38,1 grados. ¡usted es la fieeeeebre e e e!", a sí, con una voz cavernosa.

ach ten Fico

Hey Tuta Fans! Want to know how Tuta's new visual universe is improving our growing range of products? 🎨

Read Tuta's rebranding story told by our talented in-house designer Daniel 👉tuta.com/blog/tuta-new-creativ…

#TurnonPrivacy #Rebrand #Tuta
#MadeinGermany #Design

Tuta

Rebrand Tuta: Opening the source of our new visual universe | Tuta

Turn ON privacy. That's what we offer since day 1 of Tuta(nota). Now our brand architecture reflects this in a new app ecosystem.
Tuta
#design #tuta #madeingermany #turnonprivacy #rebrand
in reply to Tuta

Alex
Alex
• •
Really nice looking logo, I like the rebrand! The old one made me think of the Cyprian petrol station Eko eko.com.cy/en/

EKO

EKO

“Under [Stallman’s] ideological leadership, the free software movement is unsafe, particularly for women. Women represent just 3% of the free software community, compared to 23% of industry programmers generally. This is no accident.”

This, 100%. Thank you for saying out in the open what we have all lived, survived, observed, and known to be true for decades. Now that F/OSS can’t look away, what will we do about it? The fish rots from the head, after all…

stallman-report.org/

@glyph

The Stallman report

October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project.
The Stallman report

👁️ @w3c AGWG (Accessibility Guidelines Working Group) Teleconference
15 Oct 2024 - draft minutes

"RESOLUTION: We will explore having a set of required provisions that is somewhat comparable to WCAG 2.2 A & AA and a set of provisions and assertions that can be used to build upon that through points, percentages, or predefined sets of provisions (modules)."

#WCAG3 #WCAG #accessibility #WebStandards

w3.org/2024/10/15-ag-minutes.h…

AGWG Teleconference -- 15 Oct 2024

www.w3.org
#Accessibility #wcag #webstandards #WCAG3 @World Wide Web Consortium

A question to people who attended schools for the blind. When I was mainstreamed, I loved the science experiments, except for the fact that so many of them were very visual in nature. What kind of experiments did they have you do in a curriculum designed for blind people?
⇧