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Most adorable : the conductor had a printed sign "Tickets please" they hold in my sight in the silent area of the train rather than loudly asking for it. They said that'd be more comfortable for everyone than shouting and half of the people in the train were wearing headphones anyway.

I really, really like that idea and their commitment to just print these tiny signs.

in reply to Braid in trains - solidarity with

Cool, but if you're blind or low vision, you're basically screwed. when a conductor does the old thing (i.e., speaking normally), I have time to slowly open my bag, grab my wallet, put my disability card and tickets, if needed, out of it, and be in time. If a seemingly random person comes to me in silence, I won't react.


#windows store important update. Greetings everyone. Just letting everyone know in the latest update to the microsoft store app on windows 11, they have changed where you now download store updates. You used to go to the library tab in the microsoft store app however, this has now changed so to check for app updates open the microsoft store app by searching for store on the start menu. Then tab over till you hear home. Then arrow down till you hear downloads and hit enter. Then tab till you hear get updates button. sometimes focus will not always land on this get updates button so if this happens, just shift tab back till you find this button. Hit the space bar on get updates and follow the instructions. I hope this helps. I was a little confused at first because I did not know this had changed.

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A friend of mine, also blind and a very advanced user, tried to send me a Zoom meeting invitation with a Mac. Here's what happened:
1. Instead of a meeting at 4 pm the meeting was set to last from 8 PM previous day to 4 PM next day;
2. the appointment location contained only this: "[Name Redacted] is inviting you to a Zoom meeting.";
3. The appointment body was totally empty, so no Zoom link was available.
That's all you need to know about #Accessibility and usability of a Mac with #VoiceOver.
To prevent a holy war of devoted Mac fans, I am not telling you this is completely impossible. I'm just telling you that on Windows it's a breeze for a blind user and I even don't know how to achieve such messy results here.
This entry was edited (16 hours ago)
in reply to André Polykanine

I've scheduled a bunch of Zoom meetings with Mac OS over the years, really wonder how this person went about it cause unless Zoom changed something recently it really shouldn’t be that hard with VO. I wonder if the crazy amount of hate VO on Mac gets is because of people coming from Windows expecting it to behave the same? Been using Mac OS for about 15 years at this point and just don’t have many of the problems I see a lot of people complaining about.
This entry was edited (16 hours ago)


Somehow I can no longer get my Braille display to talk to NVDA. I've no idea what I did, or if I pressed some random keystroke that disables it, in the same way you can turn off speech or something. Very confused.
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Orbit Reader 20+, and I fixed it by setting the tether mode to focus, not automatically. Maybe that breaks things. Must have lent on that key by mistake one day and didn't realise.
in reply to Andre Louis

I like the orbit. Despite the high repair rates mine's never had a problem, and from a cold start it's the quickest braille device I've used for taking a note, despite being the cheapest.
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Do you find it noisy? Also, is it fast enough to be used as a braille display on your smart phone? I've always been curious of the Orbit.
in reply to Scary Martin

@mcourcel I wouldn't want to read on it out loud in church, and 20 cells is a bit slow for fluent reading regardless of your display, really.
I should go record the canute for comparison purposes...
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo @mcourcel Well, they do at least have a 40 these days and it refreshes at the same speed as the 20 doesn't it? Not slower.
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo @mcourcel Yeah for me I go with the larger number of cells because I am fairly slow at reading Braille to be honest.
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Yeah unlike something like the Vario which uses Windows CE which takes just over a minute to start, and I think the Humanware devices use Android under the hood don't they? The Esys devices used to start up fairly snappy but I never used them as I wanted onboard translation.


TFW a discontinued digital camera is more expensive now used than its MSRP when released.



Die letzten Monate war es Social-Media-technisch hier eher ruhig, weil das Leben zu viel war. Ein enger Freund, mit dem ich seit 40 Jahren befreundet war, ist verstorben. Ich selbst hatte auch noch eine kleine OP. Dann die Arbeit und der ganze Rest. Hoffe, jetzt wird‘s mal wieder etwas aufgeräumter!


TekSavvy Fires Back at CRTC Over Internet Rates: This Isn’t Competition | iPhone in Canada

#cdnpoli

iphoneincanada.ca/2024/10/30/t…



Apple has announced its new MacBook Pro featuring the M4 family of chips and Apple Intelligence. The updated laptop promises improved performance and efficiency, along with new capabilities driven by Apple's custom silicon technology. The M4 MacBook Pro aims to provide users with a powerful and intelligent computing experience.

Link: apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/new…
Comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…



A case ruled that Google's terms of service do not eliminate a user's Fourth Amendment rights. The court found that Google is a government agent when collecting and analyzing data for the government.

Link: ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions…
Comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…



"SimpleQA is a new question-answering system developed by OpenAI that can rapidly retrieve answers from a wide range of text sources. It uses a simple, efficient architecture and achieves high accuracy on various benchmarks, making it an effective tool for information retrieval."

Link: openai.com/index/introducing-s…
Comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…



Neat book that will be on my bookshelf

Research Software Engineering :
A Guide to the Open Source Ecosystem

by Matthias Bannert

rse-book.github.io/




How to make me really, really, really not interested in using GitHub.
in reply to Hubert Figuière

But also on Windows! And with a chatbot! And with a new plagiarism-as-a-code-review service!


Aaagggh

Spending too long nursing my 7 year old MacBook Pro back to life

I’m all for maximising the life of tech. I’ll try to repair anything

But damn it’d be nice to earn enough money to be able to buy a new laptop when I need one

in reply to Jon Worth

oxfam and some companies refurbish older devices. Pro-specs for a low price, and only a few years old.
in reply to Pietervdvn

@pietervdvn Maybe. Either that or an entry level M4 Mac Mini I can just about afford.


A look at VMware one year after Broadcom's acquisition: some customers say costs have risen 300%, Broadcom stopped selling perpetual VMware licenses, and more (Scharon Harding/Ars Technica)

arstechnica.com/information-te…
techmeme.com/241031/p23#a24103…



#curl source code age

daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/10/31…

(what happened live here on mastodon converted into a blog post)

#curl



CRTC Approves Google’s $100 Million Online News Act Exemption Deal
michaelgeist.ca/2024/10/crtc-a…


Accessibility Courses from Teach Access! teachaccess.org/accessibility-… "These free, self-paced courses for educators provide an introduction to disability and the principles of accessible design across various disciplines" #a11y #webdev #webdevelopment #webdesign #accessibility


Dropbox is laying off 20% of its staff | TechCrunch techcrunch.com/2024/10/30/drop…


USPol

Sensitive content



Why isn't anybody talking about this tactile graphics braille display? I mean, it's half the price of the other one. Still expensive, but mman! Introducing the Dotpad: floridareading.com/products/do…


My wife saw Christmas tree cakes at the store and bought me 3 boxes.

This is true love, folks!

in reply to Jcrabapple 💙

Aww. This is adorable! I wish you many more moments like this one. Also a man's love goes through the stomach, say old people here. :D


shoutout to all the autistic ppl who got maliciously misunderstood as a kid and thought they could fix it by learning to speak with well-researched precision but ended up getting hated even more as a result because now people think you’re just using big words to try to show off


I need to find a new headset for my work. Mine is crapping out . What are some headsets out there with good a good microphone? I am not even looking for
in reply to Linda Coccovizzo

Are you looking for a good headset with a good microphone, or a good headset with an average one? I am sorry I kind of did not get the last bit.


Narnia...

  • Anachronic order, starting with *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe* (43%, 7 votes)
  • Chronological order, starting with *The Magician's Nephew* (25%, 4 votes)
  • Inverted order, starting with *The Last Battle* (0%, 0 votes)
  • WTF is Narnia? (31%, 5 votes)
16 voters. Poll end: 10 hours ago



Can anyone here help me find the sign-up page for #Amazon prime? I really do like the convenience.
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo The problem for me that I see is that they charge separately for services. I just want the full amazon prime, I don't want to have to pay for things in different packages.
in reply to Nick's world

well there are different packages, certainly in the UK. prime is your free delivery, some things to watch and listen to. prime music, Prime video, they're different things



Hello everyone!

I write my bachelor's thesis about Mastodon as an alternative social network and how its users perceive the platform.

I would be gratful if you would participate in my survey:
umfragen.uni-paderborn.de/inde…

It only takes 10-15 minutes and would help me a lot.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

In case you want to support me, you can repost the access link, which would also help me.

Thank you!

#MediaStudies #AlternativeMedia #Mastodon #Survey

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in reply to André Polykanine

@menelion Thank you for your participation and your remarks. I do not mainly focus on the migration process in my thesis, but I'll keep your suggestions in mind.
in reply to Paula

It's not about migration as such, it's more about marginalized groups, or, as I prefer the term more, discriminated minorities. When you-know-who bought Twitter, he eliminated the whole accessibility team and also especially prohibited using their API for building new third-party software clients for the network. That's why lots of blind and some sighted people instantly switched to Mastodon. I had my Mastodon account even before, but at the point where my third-party software of choice stopped working, I stopped using Twitter immediately.


New app added to the Accessible Android apps directory: note_x accessible accessibleandroid.com/app/note… #Android #App


The Amazon Echo graveyard theverge.com/24271840/amazon-a…

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had quite a full-on day recording video for work yesterday.
Today I'm on the sofa, slack gently pinging in the background, some folk music down low with snacks to hand.
I think I'm finally finding my feet with this job and realising I can make a go of it.



Product announcements need a 'Skip AI section' button like the 'Skip Intro' button on streaming platforms.


When you make a request and your autistic security engineers immediately say "Are you sure?”:

1) Stop
2) Repent.

in reply to Rabbit (VOTED)

a security engineer’s “are you sure?” and a D&D DM’s “are you sure?” are identical


So I hear that the Mozilla Foundation (the nonprofit parent to the Mozilla Corporation) is laying off 30% of its staff but I see no news stories about it.


Really seeing the work ethic today. Everything in my diary is being canceled apart from the fancy dress competitions
in reply to Sean Randall

Sounds like the Halloween ethic has kicked in today instead! (Smile).


I might make it my tradition to listen to the monthly series of #DoctorWho when I have my break and I am having lunch and coffee. I think that's a good idea. :) #DoctorWho #Monthlies #UnhealthilyObsessedWithTheDoctor 😉 💙 💖