It's almost past the holiday season and I hope you've had one that you were dreaming of all year. I realized, I haven't ever repeated my advent calendar event which many of you seemed to have liked. That does not mean I have stopped researching good practice examples of accessibility implementations around the world. As a way of making up for it, I wanted to share a story that I digged up by following a thread of references from a podcast I was listening to, through somebody's personal website like it was done 30 years ago, through an anonymous FTP to the main site of the Braillnet project. I found the story really inspiring. It's 1993 in then Czechoslovakia. and the Internet is slowly becoming a thing alongside some, often locally produced, ways of making DOS and Windows 95 PC’s talk, at least with the most common software. It is apparent to the employees of the local blindness organization that the net will be a game-changer in access to information for blind and partially sighted users, some of whom own notetakers like the Eureka or even PCs. By cooperating with the IT centre of a university they set up a BBS under a phone number in Prague and offer, for the first time, access to digitalized books and magazines, an e-mail account, a Telnet and FTP client. Public transport schedules might have been a thing too but I'm not 100% sure about that. The network develops but the limitations are apparent: access mostly to internal information and only through a number in one city. Four years later, an idea is born to give all persons with disabilities access to regular, dial-up internet with prominence of locally sourced material but not excluding the entire world wide web. They manage to secure state funds and support of local ISP's and set up numbers for all major numerical zones in already then Czech Republic, giving unlimited access to the Internet to any person with a disability for the fixed price of around 4 USD per month. #Accessibility #RetroTech #Blind
The Braillnet project exists to this day, although the BBS and phone numbers are down, users can still access their e-mail, the personal websites the users could create under the Braillnet domain are still up serving software, literature and music created by the community and the FTP with anonymous access is a treasure trove of early notetaker goodies, DOS and early Windows software and useful information in txt files that would have been of great use to the community back then. Always worth exploring it with a translation service of your choice. braillnet.cz/sons/bplus.htm
Thanks for everything you do, seriously. Just so you know, the Braillnet project is still pretty well known in Czechia these days, mostly because a lot of blind people here still use their mailing lists pretty actively :)
@Tissman Thank you for the kind words and the follow up information. Yes, I'm subscribed to a couple but haven't got much time to browse them these days. Keep rocking it. Diky moc!
@Paweł Masarczyk Just out of interest I have started with my computers jjourney a few years later approx in 1998 and at that time BBS has already been transformed into an FTP site I think. Some university students tried to rip it off and burned it to multiple DVD discs they were then able to use as a gift for other people who have no internet access at that time.
@Paweł Masarczyk I don't know really. I had no computer access on my own at that time. I'll try asking some friends that I believe might know and will reply back later.
We revisit Shopping, To Do, and Other Lists you can create on your Alexa Devices. There's some advanced features here, that I've never covered before, including two different ways to share your list with others! Have a listen to this episode of the Echo Tips Podcast. creators.spotify.com/pod/show/… #Alexa #NewYearResolutions #Resolutions
I heard this in a podcast and wanted to see the study: apparently, speaking a tonal language has a relationship with having an ear for perfect pitch
I grew up speaking several tonal languages alongside English and it was always easy for me to pick up music, and all tonal languages. I can perfectly mimic Vietnamese even if I don’t speak it, to the extent that Vietnamese aunties scold me for being a foreign born Vietnamese person with a poor vocabulary
Could it be that cellist Yo-Yo Ma owes his perfect musical pitch to his Chinese parents? While we may never know the definitive answer, new research from the University of California, San Diego has found a strong link between speaking a tone language…
. I wonder if it also works the other way. I already have perfect pitch, but have never learned a tonal language. I wonder if it would be easier for me to learn a tonal language than for other adult learners.
Catholic Answers is offering discounts on their digital products,, including mp3 files and their eBooks. MP3 files are unprotected, so they'll play in or on anything that supports that format. The last time I purchased their eBooks, they were available in epub and mobi formats. shop.catholic.com/ #Catholic
Shop now for all the best Catholic books from Catholic Answers. Search our catalog of apologetics books and media. We have everything you need to defend and explain the Faith.
This year was all about preservation for the Internet Archive. This year, libraries have faced unprecedented attacks both from large corporations and malicious actors.
Despite these challenges, the Internet Archive is more committed than ever to fighting for access to public information for all those who seek it.
100 Geiseln verbringen bereits ihr zweites Channukkah in Gefangenschaft in der Hand der Hamas-Mörder. Wir brauchen ein neues Channukkah-Wunder: #LetThemGoNow🎗️ #BringThemHome 🎗️ #BringThemHomeNow 🎗️
Doctor Who fans in Bristol knit a giant scarf longer than a bridge in honor of the iconic scarf worn by the fourth Doctor. At 267 meters (875 ft) long it was longer than Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge. What a fun way to use up all your scrap yarn! bbc.com/news/articles/c89zzw3l… #DoctorWho #knitting
Hey... did you know? At midnight on March 31st, the Internet will be temporarily shut down for the annual Spring Cyber Cleaning? Read on to get the scoop on this, Abraham Lincoln's opinion on fake news, and other dubious “facts” about computers and …
I’m not recommending that you mix #fountainpen inks. But if you want to take a chance, this might help. I just spent the better part of the day pretending that three Herbin inks are C, M, and Y, and I mixed them in different ratios to make custom colours in the future.
I don't know if y'all can access this story, but @404mediaco has a piece that I helped with. It is:
"AI Comes for a Centuries-Old Craft" and the proliferation of #AIslop beginner books. Preying on beginners who don't know what's real or not is loathsome, and underway.
With help from a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, a project to Enhance Lace Content in Wikipedia is underway. This video is an overview of that project, ...
Did a loved one receive a new computer under the tree? Our #RemoteIncidentManager can allow you to connect to their computer from wherever you are. Configure it to their liking, install software, and fix any problems that arise, all as if you were right in front of the machine! RIM's new AI Tools capability is ready to assist you with any questions you may have along the way. Free, unlimited access will run through January 2nd, 2025! getrim.app #accessibility #inclusivity
Managing the volume on an Android device is a fundamental aspect that every user should understand. Android organizes audio into several distinct channels,
We're demystifying the reasons meatballs at a restaurant somehow taste better than homemade. And with these tricks up your sleeve, yours will be just as tasty.
For the cover of my next book, I would like to illustrate software compartmentalisation with a montage of cats in boxes. I probably need at least 16 pictures of cats in boxes, ideally views from directly above. If you have such pictures that you took or otherwise own the rights to and you would be happy for me to use them, please can you post them in this thread along with how you’d like to be attributed? No ‘AI’ pictures please.
Thank you in advance!
Edit: I've added a very rough cut of what I actually want.
Edit 2: Slightly better version. I'm mostly happy with this one. Not as good a professionally designed one, but the correct number of cats.
Super random poll for everyone today, would there be any interest in an accessible, cross-platform software suite containing things like a calculator, editor, file manager, book reader, reminder app, to-do list, etc? I know that for me a huge draw of note takers and similar is the specialized and incredibly efficient and optimized software that comes with them, and hardly ever the hardware, I don't need Braille sells. I think that if I had had software like this on a Windows computer instead of HumanWare note takers in school I would've been better off, and honestly I can see myself using something like this today. The only thing I knew that was sort of like this was KeySoft for DOS, and all full copies of that are lost to time sadly.
If we're going to talk about what would make blind kids better off, would it not be better to teach them to use mainstream tools for all those tasks, so they can be more fully integrated into the mainstream world?
@matt I don't think custom solutions are necessarily bad, *as long as they interoperate with the mainstream*.
I feel like the experiment that is screen readers has failed us in many respects. A sighted 5-year-old can pick up a phone, and, with 0 understanding of technology, find their favorite cartoons on the internet, with little to no guidance from their parents, and sometimes explicitly against their wishes. Blind people are nowhere near that, and I don't think our current approach of badly trying to adapt a vision-first interface to an audio-first world is ever going to get us there. There are good arguments to be made for the current paradigm, being able to use any existing app with 0 extra work is definitely one, but I just don't think we'll ever get to sighted levels of ergonomics, speed and ease of use if we don't make something for ourselves.
The 21st-century world of software security, locked down APIs and proprietary solutions doesn't make doing it well neither easy nor chea, though.
@matt What I mean there is that e.g. there is no point in a notetaking app for school if it doesn't let you collaborate with Google-docs-using groupmates, and writing a custom Google Docs frontend is... very, very far from trivial.
@matt So I have incredibly mixed feelings on this, and my argument is that a Windows computer is a much more mainstream tool than a note taker, so the blind kids would already be ahead. I definitely take your point about using mainstream software, though, although I will also point out that there isn't even mainstream software for everything I needed to do in school. We used the GSuite a lot and I used my regular web browser for that, but there were also loads of PDF's and other file formats I would've had no way of reading without QRead, a propriotary blindness-specific tool. It's a tricky line to walk for sure, but personally I'm not against specialized tools if they let me get my work done 10 times faster.
@matt there was this thing from Brasil called Dosvox. It even had a couple games, besides many productivity apps. People that started with it struggled a lot when transitioning to screen readers and mainstream tools. Anyway many people used thaat for education andd work.
@masonasons BT speak kinda does this I suppose? I've not used one to know how it functions for the advanced user. I think Orbit Speak uses android as a platform and I know it is both loud (in terms of physical keypresses), and quite sluggish to respond. So is Braillenote, much of the time.
@Sean Randall @Mew✨🥰 @Quin I think BT speak does it all on CLI. It would be nice to try packaging it for popular linux distros like debian, arch linux and similar, then ensure it is not isolated and supports standard protocols i.e. IMAP / SMTP for email, caldav for calendar, carddav for contacts, even webdav for files and make it sync with nextcloud or different backend of everyones choice. Then consider XMPP or matrix for instant messaging, radio-browser for radio stations, UPnP / DLNA for discovering local music / movie / multimedia libraries and multiroom audio This would be a productivity booster since you can use this suite of apps to do it when in front a computer, but you could also integrate a different apps when using different platforms. I know my dreams are somewhat unrealistic, however what I would like to say from the start integrations and avoid vendor locks are the key points.
@pvagner @masonasons This is my real bugbear with much of the blindy equipment. It's all locked-in. My Braille display has wifi, yet I can't put files on it wirelessly. It supports online services, but only if you're a lucky american. Things like RSS really lend themselves to reading in Braille, caldav is lightweight, but there's just no thought into the conveniences.
@cachondo @pvagner @masonasons The problem with IMAP/CalDAV is that realistically, the majority of the world uses Google and you need to interoperate with them, which Google won't let you do unless you pass a proper security audit, which you won't be able to afford unless you want to make good money off of the thing.
@Mikołaj Hołysz @Sean Randall @Mew✨🥰 @Quin Then during second or third or whatever stage expand it to privacy respecting blindness specific online services. Similar what some nation specific agencies for the blind are doing e.g. in czech republic there are email lists, web servers, access to ordinari news papers and magazines, TV programme and other goodies operated like this. I'd prefer federation over google or any other brand specific support. Google, Microsoft, apple, soho, whatever other popular service lets you import from caldav / carddav, colaborating is a different story though.
if you're interested in actually overthrowing Big Android (rather than living off Googles scraps) be sure to come by the #LinuxMobile assembly this congress. There's a revolution brewing :3
LINMOB.net is a blog about LINux on MOBile devices. With the PinePhone (Pro) and Librem 5 shipping it is back to report on GNU+Linux on mobile devices.
We would like to ask you again to test yourself every day for Covid before you come to the CCH. We also encourage you to wear masks - #CovidIsNotOver and other nasty things also go around.
Masks will be available at the entrance of the venue. #38C3
Did you know, there are many completely free sample libraries out there these days, some could help you end up in writing for your next film or TV show, genuinely?
I wrote this piece of music for my podcast using purely *free* libraries and nothing else.
This piece of music is for the podcast 'StroongeCast' I co-created with my wife Kirsten. Every podcast needs a musical intro (or at least I believe so) and t...
@RaccoonForFriendica do you want to try the new "Card" layout for posts? All you have to do is downloading version 0.4.0-beta02 and try it out! Using Compose Multiplatform, customizing UI is as easy as eating a piece of cake.
This version also contains a fix for the search text field which was not scrollable horizontally when its content exceeded the available width, plus some localization updates.
We're reaching towards the 0.4.0 milestone, just another feature (audio playback) and then it'll be ready to go!
When I spent a year with the DotPad and now 6 months and going with the Monarch, besides the fact that the Monarch is the only Multi Line Tactile display still available in Australia, here are some of my advantage points for the Monarch over the DotPad.
Can be used as a stand alone device, 20 hours battery life, On/off, USBC, USBA, HDMI, 3.5MM ear phone jack, and volume up/down buttons, Users used to the Braille Note, Brailliant, and Mantis will pick up same concepts used on the Monarch (its KeySoft), Plug in a QWERTY keyboard and/or portable HDMI display, Braille input keyboard, 10 line by 32 cell tactile display,
Removable metal template to replace membrane over the pins,
Speech output, Navigation and Zoom keys, Point and click to move cursor or Zoom tactile graphics, Button to refresh tactile array at any time, Tactile horizontal and vertical scroll bars to let user know where they can scroll, Easily jump around tactile graphic with keyboard short cuts,
increase line spacing when reading Braille, Easy to identify cursor in menus, and place focussed line that contains cursor to the top of the display, Access various file formats, Various applications including web Browser (beta), email (beta), Tactile Library (APH), Maths graphing calculator, Word Processer, Braille Editor, Book Reader (victor Reader), 2025 WingIT app for iOS drawing, and Terminal screen reader support.
Ukrainians Do Not Want to Defend Incumbent Gov’t, Calling Country ‘Prison’ - Reports sputnikglobe.com/20241226/ukra… Ukrainian men are fleeing the country because they don't want to defend the corrupt government, German broadcaster n-tv reported, citing Ukrainian migrants. #news #press
Una curiosidad que he aprendido estas fiestas, por contradicción:
No existe obligación legal de que las bebidas espirituosas vengan con tapón irrelenable. Así se deduce, contrario sensu, del artículo 10 del RD 164/2014, de 14 de marzo: boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A…
When he was a puppy, Bertie dog decided his preferred occupation was to be a trip hazard. It's a job he's embraced ever since. (September 2017 / yesterday).
„Demokracia nie je divácky šport, že sa naň môžeme pozerať a nezapájať sa. To, že sa občania angažujú, vyjadrujú, je prejavom slobody, občianskej uvedomelosti.“
Zuzana Čaputová strávila posledné tri mesiace na Stanfordovej univerzite v Spojených štátoch. Hneď po návrate prišla na diskusiu so šéfredaktorom českého týždenníka Respekt Erikom Taberym.
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