Apple needs you to buy the new iPhone even though the old models still work just fine. Enter Apple Intelligence, Apple’s wrapper around ChatGPT, to abbreviate your messages for you! As an LLM, Appl…
Storm Dragon pushed changes to the testing branch of the audiogame-manager project Fixed a bug that would run sandbox on non existent wine if control+c was pressed.
Storm Dragon pushed changes to the master branch of the linux-game-manager project Add support for fex-emu to launch games. New install method tested and doesn't seem to break anything, so merged with master.
OpenStreetMap.org will shortly be available READ-ONLY. You will unfortunately NOT be able to save any map edits. We will be running on our backup infrastructure in Dublin.
OpenStreetMap.org and a number of related services are currently offline. 15 December 2024 starting approximagely 4:00AM (GMT/UTC). We have an ISP outage affecting our servers in Amsterdam. Our ISP has an engineer on-route to fix the issue.
Two Russian oil tankers have been badly damaged in the Black Sea, causing an oil spill, authorities in Russia have said.
Footage released by Russia's Southern Transport Prosecutor's Office showed the bow of one tanker completely broken off, with streaks of oil visible in the water.
Alright folks, if you miss SoftVoice, here's an updated add-on compatible with NVDA 2024.4: eurpod.com/softvoice2024.nvda-… - install this over your copy. What it fixed mainly was converting this to use Python3, and I had to fix some pretty nasty recursion issues caused by the set_variant property calling itself. To resolve, I had to make private and public properties for these variables and assign these more carefully there. Indexing is now handled by storing all indexes in speech_list along with the text. Also, When sv_EVENT_SPEECH_DONE (1001) occurs, we retrieve self.last_spoken_indexes and call synthIndexReached for each index. This should add proper indexing support, though testing is appreciated. Well darn. Say-all fully is still broken, so this is just basic indexing support.
@x0 wondered the same! I'm not sure, would make the tracking of last index if it did. I'm not sure if any good docs exist on that specific DLL but would be interesting to dig up.
Ah OK. So you do know what the functionality of indices is, that they're to be returned during the stream if possible to help it keep track of where in the stream it is?
@x0 yeah, there's definitely good demos of it for both the DECTalk and Eloquence synths I've read through. Those also support using the shift key to pause speech since the TTS has that functionality. Wish we could have that for both Bestpeech and softvoice but that may just be a pipedream
Yeah, if the synthesizer literally doesn't implement the functionality, usually done via callbacks or something like it, then you're basically out of luck
@x0 I'm used to working with stuff like Brailab before which never had it, so it's for sure a good reminder that if I do get my hands on anything related to how that internal DLL works to find out whether Softvoice has this or not. I may debug it later and try to look at the typedefs I can export to see what it returns and go from there, maybe if I can.
@jcsteh @x0 looks like softvoice was a bit more similar to Bestspeech in that you post the messages to a hidden window thread and trigger playback through it, unfortunately. Not sure if the DLL has any direct speaking functionality without it but it's how the previous version was made so I stuck with it.
Huh, it looks like every time I open speech settings, the pitch decreases to zero as a default, but it otherwise sounded fine before doing that. Solution is to change the variant, but then it takes the default pitch value of zero into account again the next time you open settings.
Also say-all is not working. STR: 1. Open the user guide. 2. Navigate to the Introduction heading and begin reading. 3. It stops after "Welcome to NVDA!"
@twynn yeah that's an odd one. I wonder if SoftVoice sends things in larger chunks. Basically, from what I can gather anyway, NVDA sends text to the synth in chunks and expects synthIndexReached notifications within or at the end of these chunks. If the synth only sends indexes at the very end of the entire text or not at all until the chunk completes, NVDA won't have intermediate landmarks to continue from, causing say-all to sstop like this. It's fascinating to me that this works in BestSpeech probably because for us we are having the ability to get these index notifications back after chunks there.
Storm Dragon pushed changes to the testing branch of the linux-game-manager project updated install games function. Inallations are now handled in files in the .install directory. This may be horribly broken, for stability, use the master branch.
They cover a lot of really interesting aspects of #ClimateChange, technology and #OpenSource. There are so many good innovators in the clean tech space, yet even with good motives, the incentives can drive towards #enshittification.
Today, we celebrate the 165th birthday of Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof, the visionary creator of Esperanto. His goal was to establish a language that would facilitate communication among people from different countries and cultures, thereby contributing to peace and cooperation among nations.
Esperanto is now the most successful planned language in the world, with millions of speakers in over 120 countries. It is utilized on the internet, in social media, and even in some universities and institutions. But Esperanto is not just a language—it's a movement. It represents a community of individuals united by the common goal of promoting peace, unity, cultural richness, understanding, and cooperation among all people. Esperanto is a language of hope, unity, and love.
Zamenhof's vision is more relevant than ever. In an era of increasing globalization and interconnectedness, Esperanto provides an opportunity for people from diverse cultures and countries to communicate and collaborate without language barriers.
Moreover, Esperanto serves as a valuable tool for inclusion and accessibility, thanks to its simplicity and regular structure. It not only eases communication between speakers of different native languages but also supports neurodiverse individuals who may struggle with learning natural languages or navigating irregular writing systems like English orthography. Thus, Esperanto can promote accessibility in education.
What makes Esperanto so special? Its simple, logical grammar and vocabulary derived from the most common European roots make it incredibly easy to learn. Its phonetic spelling features one sound per letter and one letter for every sound, unlike English or French. Beyond its practical benefits, Esperanto embodies the noble ideals of mutual understanding, cultural exchange, and the brotherhood of all people.
In our increasingly interconnected world, Esperanto has found new life on the internet, where online communities and resources allow learners to connect across borders. It is truly a language of the digital age, used for everything from casual conversation to academic discourse.
As we celebrate Zamenhof's 165th birthday, let us embrace his timeless vision of a more harmonious world, where Esperanto serves as a bridge between cultures. By learning this beautiful language, we honor the legacy of its creator and take a meaningful step toward a more peaceful and productive coexistence for all.
Happy birthday, Zamenhof! Your dream lives on. ✨ Thank you for your inexhaustible legacy and the inspiration you have given us all. Let us unite humanity and reach for the stars! ✨
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**Interesting Facts about Esperanto 🌎💚:**
* Esperanto is the 14th most used language on the internet, according to 2022 statistics. * The website "Duolingo" offers an Esperanto course, which is one of the most popular courses on the platform. * The University of Amsterdam includes an Esperanto course as part of its program in international communication.
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Of course you should do everything you can to prevent fires - and also, you should build fire exits, because no matter how hard to you try, stuff *burns*. That includes social media sites.
UnitedHealth Group is not an insurer, it's a platform. And it's in the crosshairs as Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley propose breaking it apart, severing its pharmacy arm from the rest of the business
Modal ads, ads that reorganize content, and autoplaying video ads were among the most disliked. Ads that are annoying on desktop become intolerable on mobile.
A German citizen abducted and tortured by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in 2004 should never have been detained, a US Senate report published on Tuesday showed.
A study finds that confessions are four times more likely when interrogators adopt a respectful stance toward detainees and build rapport, instead of torturing.
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Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: The GOP is not the party of workers; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/13/occupy-the-democrats/
#Pluralistic
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My latest nationally bestselling novel is "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench:
New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's The Bezzle is a high stakes thriller where the lives of the hundreds of thousands of inmates in California’s pris...
My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
Join ISSA-LA, AITP-LA – Association of Information Technology Professionals Los Angeles, CSA – The Cloud Security Alliance, ISC2 Los Angeles, and The Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu (WSC) as we gather for […]
Join ISSA-LA, AITP-LA – Association of Information Technology Professionals Los Angeles, CSA – The Cloud Security Alliance, ISC2 Los Angeles, and The Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu (WSC) as we gather for […]
Just finished reading Conclave by Robert Harris, more or less without stopping. The characters are well written, and the narrative is compelling without being obvious about it. Somewhat unexpectedly, the ending made me chortle to myself. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclave…(novel
Apple's eventual goal of producing its Apple Glass smart glasses is still a long way from reality, with the challenges of making light and useful eyewear posing a problem.
https://appleinsider.
/>I do my best to always buy accessible appliances and electronics, but sometimes it's not possible. I had a run-in with one of these inaccessible appliances t
I'm sorry y'all, think my work on the synthesizer will end here for now. It's already 1 in the afternoon, wow. Started around 9, but I think I've done all I could to make the add-on more thread-safe and use proper pointers. I'm leaving y'all with a 0.08 treat: Abbreviations check box. This is in the latest v0.08 copy of the add-on. Next to number processing, it should disable the setting and not use them when unchecked. (eurpod.com/BestSpeak.nvda-addo…)
I've downloaded two versions in under 20 minutes. I'm not complaining, by the way. Progress like this is fantastic to see. I wish I knew more and could help more instead of just being a user. Props to you for the work.
OO I can get the screaming noise to happen basically on-demand. I have the NVDA WhatsApp addon installed, so if I first do Alt+1, then tab, then do ALT+1 again, it makes odd yedda yedda noises almost every time.
yeah, not here oddly. What's interesting to me is how it appears as though the soundcard sampling set and latency can impact when and where people are hearing the weird artifact noise, the more this deepens the more misterious the issue actually gets :D I also wish we had multiple versions of the DLL to play around with, maybe there's a more stable later revision out there in some obscure package.
@BorrisInABox @FreakyFwoof huh yeah, could also be rate and other factors. Hmm. My hope is in the next few days we'll at least know the cause even if we won't have a fix (if that's an internal bug to the DLL we just can't solve for.)
Thanks so much for all your and everyone's work on this! If you decide to work on it again in the future, I can send you the command for phrase prediction disabling if you want, as it's not documented and I found it solely by experimentation.
Ok Y'all. I uploaded a new copy of the BeSTSpeak Add-on: This time we: - Re-init the engine from scratch before every chunk. - Shut down and unload the DLL after each chunk. - Use a background thread but with a lock around TtsWav. - On cancel, we try to shut up. If it doesn't stop mid-chunk, we still eventually finish and then re-init. - Indexes only if not canceled, doneSpeaking always fired. - We store the handle as self.handle, a POINTER(c_long), rather than a simple c_long. This matches the engine’s expected long* type, reducing the risk of memory access violations. - V0.7 hotfix: add "number processing" checkbox to voice settings. Please download and test from: eurpod.com/BestSpeak.nvda-addo…
I found a very large problem with this, and I'm not sure if it was done by something you recently did, or if the version I fired over to you originally did this too. I can test with the original .py file later, but if you have NVDA set to use indentation beeps, it queues the beeps until the very end of the speech.
@TheQuinbox oh interesting. Yeah, I swapped for the minimal version you had when we started out to see, and it still does them after the word. I noticed that it does it concurrently alongside speech in Eloquence, so maybe because it's using NVDA's wave the thread is locking the tone portion from executing until speech completes? Interesting indeed.
hahaha now I feel like someone's gotta throw it into Suno and make some weird Techno-sounding song from those noises :) I'm a bit afraid those sounds are internally cause by the DLL and there's little we can do if it's a bug in it in the first place.
@x0 @KaraLG84 that pointer corruption makes a lot of sense. It's also why I tried to align it to the long pointer types the typedefs exported, but it may be that we don't have all of them right for the DLL as well and are causing a corruption with the wrong pointer types in the thread. But also, it's just an old DLL. My hope is that dedicated speech synthesis enthusiasts can pour over old internet archive packages too and find a newer copy (latest might be from a bout 1996 or 97 before L&H purchased it?)
@KaraLG84 So strange! You know what it's doing right? It's playing back RAM. And there's some structured data in there, and the crash is it finally hitting a segfault I suspect. I've heard people do this with hardware by, say, fiddling with the batteries of a bop it to cause a voltage drop across the logic circuits so that it glitches and starts dumping ROM to the DAC.
@KaraLG84 So the pointer is getting corrupted somewhere internally and it's just very confused and now it's streaming all the RAM it, as a resident of your process, has got. Or maybe simply its length is wrong.
Important reminder, if you own a domain name and don't use it for sending email.
There is nothing to stop scammers from sending email claiming to be coming from your domain. And the older it gets, the more valuable it is for spoofing. It could eventually damage your domain's reputation and maybe get it blacklisted, unless you take the steps to notify email servers that any email received claiming to come from your domain should be trashed.
Just add these two TXT records to the DNS for your domain: TXT v=spf1 -all TXT v=DMARC1; p=reject;
The first says there is not a single SMTP server on earth authorized to send email on behalf of your domain. The second says that any email that says otherwise should be trashed.
If you do use your domain for sending email, be sure to add 3 records: SPF record to indicate which SMTP server(s) are allowed to send your email. DKIM records to add a digital signature to emails, allowing the receiving server to verify the sender and ensure message integrity. DMARC record that tells the receiving email server how to handle email that fails either check.
You cannot stop scammers from sending email claiming to be from your domain, any more than you can prevent people from using your home address as a return address on a mailed letter. But, you can protect both your domain and intended scam victims by adding appropriate DNS records.
UPDATE: The spf and the dmarc records need to be appropriately named. The spf record should be named "@", and the dmarc record name should be "_dmarc".
Here's what I have for one domain.
One difference that I have is that I'm requesting that email providers email me a weekly aggregated report when they encounter a spoof. gmail and Microsoft send them, but most providers won't, but since most email goes to Gmail, it's enlightening when they come.
@darakian I don't think it was good to do that thing in the first place. I think the ripple effects of that damage is still to come as news sites and databases will be slow to update.
Also, it was not a "mistake" they "discovered". It was done on purpose and we/I had to waste time and energy correcting it, for the sanity and safety of millions of curl users.
So Bluesky might have provided Jesse Singal with a user's information so that his lawyer could track them down and force them to issue an apology over things said on the platform?
Yeah... Kill your bridges, get people over here if you can.
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