Sunday surprise!

A friend of mine found an old email from me dated January 17 1997

Attached in this mail was the #httpget 0.2 source code. Previously believed to be lost, now the oldest httpget code I have.

165 lines long. 110 lines code, 30 lines comments, 25 blank lines.

This morning, #curl was 174,854 lines of code, not counting blank lines but comments.

1248 times larger over 28 years.

Peter Vágner reshared this.

borgmatic 1.9.11 has been released with Docker/Podman/KeePassXC secrets integration, more selective ZFS/Btrfs/LVM filesystem snapshotting, and encryption passphrase security improvements.

Release notes: projects.torsion.org/borgmatic…

#borgmatic #borgbackup #backup

Meta cancelling professional factchecking in favor of community notes is causing worry in West Africa, where online disinfo has led to community violence and death: globalvoices.org/2025/02/21/th… - Great Global Voices coverage. (Also I love that we can toggle between original quotes and translation - great for me as a French language learner.)

Here I am, sampling some Surge XT patches I've made in the past approximately eleven days. For each one, Eloquence announces the name, I play A above middle C (A440), play a little sample tune, then bang around on the keyboard. I'm using the on-screen keyboard since I don't have a real music keyboard hooked up. These aren't all perfect in terms of what their names claim them to be, but this thing is so fun to play with! The names of the patches I demo are:
Cheap Grandfather Clock
Federal Signal Thing
Filtered VL1 Thing
Muffled Piano Thing
NewTone Doorbell
NewTone LB55 Doorbell
Out of Tune VL1 Piano
Square Piano
Square Pops
Sustained Square
Vibe Thing
VL1 Thing

One thing I don't like about #Signal is that it only supports one mobile device per account. I know they want to make it easy for the average user. But for someone who has two phones, it's very limiting.

That's why I prefer #Matrix. Adding another device and decrypting all existing messages doesn't even feel so clunky anymore.

#InstantMessaging #SignalApp #MatrixChat

in reply to Jiří Eischmann

It's not like that, look at signal.org/blog/a-synchronized… I normally use 3 devices.
in reply to Andre Louis

@cachondo what I also liked on Mac OS is that if you were in a folder of audio files, you could press right arrow to preview the next one. (same with images, I'd guess.) Not sure if this Windows one supports that as exactly, but my other concern would probably be memory footprint (depending on what it uses to run in background.) Neat idea, though. You bet MS will copy it for Windows 12 and just say it's a new OS feature that came out of Mac (which they won't admit.)
in reply to Andre Louis

@cachondo Can't believe the Assets button now on the release page for GitHub just reads, "button expanded Collapse." Whoever had that bright idea there. It's great though, at first I thought this will be just only through the Windows store, but good to know there's an entire GitHub page for it: github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook/ (perhaps someone will be able to get in touch with the developer for any accessibility concerns)
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo @alexchapman lol yeah, I think winget does that for visual symbol statuses (it also may be that it's changing to show progress visually, we just can't tell with screen readers.) Super happy with this now, once I messed around with the view radio button controls I am able to get arrowing to work to play sequential audio files in a folder, not sure why that fixed it. It throws me off that no window is shown for the quick look panel, though.
in reply to Alex the Christmas Chap🎄🎅

ah darn. sadly, no right-arrowing through a file list to play them as you scroll one into view. Would be a nice addition to this, otherwise it's perfect. Looks like right now you have to pause what's playing (or stop it, I guess) and then hit space again to play that file. On Mac OS that's just a lot nicer when going through a large list.
This entry was edited (10 months ago)
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo There's so much interesting stuff like this that you could do with a blind-first file explorer tool. Audio icons for file extensions, maybe even super quiet audio thumbnails, previews for audio and text, keyboard shortcuts to quickly check modification dates and file sizes etc. With a bit of musically-inspired design, you could probably even do some compact audio representation of file attributes.

Been watching the latest podcast from The Linux Cast about Linux myths via the Pipeline app. Yeah, heard more than a few of those myths before, and all them were busted by the hosts. youtube.com/watch?v=rAQoCEn7d_… #TheLinuxCast #LinuxMyths #podcast
This entry was edited (10 months ago)

#Merz sagt, er "werde Politik für die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung machen, die gerade denke und 'alle Tassen im Schrank' habe".

Sag doch gleich "Deutschland, aber normal", wie es die Faschos sagen, mit denen Du regieren wirst, sobald die schwache Koalition bricht, die aus der heutigen Wahl entsteht.
spiegel.de/politik/spd-spitze-…

#merz

Apple ha affermato che "non può più" offrire la crittografia end-to-end di iCloud nel Regno Unito e ha disattivato l'opzione per abilitarla per i nuovi utenti nel Paese.

Questa mossa senza precedenti arriva dopo che il governo britannico ha richiesto un accesso secondario al servizio cloud di Apple.

Gli utenti che hanno già attivato il servizio, denominato Advanced Data Protection, dovranno disattivarlo a breve, ha affermato l'azienda.

techcrunch.com/2025/02/21/appl…

@Etica Digitale (Feddit)

Interview: "Federal workers are staging mass protests to Save Our Services"

“They’re trying to immiserate the working class, & they’re doing it through the federal workforce.

"It’s about gutting the services that create a safety net... because the more miserable we are, the easier it is for them to exploit us.

“The whole public sphere is at stake.”

~Chris Dols

democracynow.org/2025/2/20/dog…

#USPol #SaveOurServices #Trump #Musk #Oligarchy #GeneralStrikeNow #ResistFascism .

🔐 Vaultwarden – bezpečný správce hesel na OSCloud

🔹 Co to je?
Vaultwarden je open-source alternativa ke správci hesel Bitwarden. Umožňuje bezpečně ukládat, spravovat a sdílet hesla bez závislosti na komerčních službách. 🔑

🔹 Proč ho používat?
✅ End-to-end šifrování pro maximální bezpečnost 🔒
✅ Synchronizace hesel mezi zařízeními 📱💻

🚀 Více informací: docs.oscloud.cz/apps/vaultwarden/
#OSCloud #OpenSource #Privacy

The Critical Role of Born-Accessible Content in Academic Publishing inclusivepublishing.org/blog/t…

I recieved some interesting news today about the Blind Geek Zone website that I closed last year. Apparently Sam Tupy was able to retrieve most of the audio files and pages from the site before it's demise. He's offered to put the site up so that others can get to everything once again and I plan on letting him do that. I'm very happy that someone was able to recover things as unfortunately I was not. Basically it's of only historical value but I thought it was very nice of him to contact me.
This entry was edited (10 months ago)

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🤯 OMG! Someone just posted on Reddit bragging how he fed 13 MILLION records to Gemini to clean up. What records? "mostly dead scrambled data institutions, college, student records, course materials, research datasets. Used Gemini for cleaning, deduping, and organizing. Super useful for universities, EdTech, and students handling large study resources." #FERPA #Privacy #HigherEd #EdTech #Google #Gemini reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/commen…

Here's something @jaybird110127 will probably appreciate.

I recorded the alarm of my vintage Sharp CT-661G talking alarm clock with an EM pickup coil, and noticed that it has substantial aliasing.
I put a high pass filter at 12 kHz on the audio, so that only the aliasing is audible, then ran it through a band shifter effect in Reaper a couple of times. The result is rather interesting.

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I dunno what it is, but something about Dreamy Train makes it the perfect #cozy#audiogame. I wish it had an #English dub or official English translation from #Japanese, though Google Translate works fine. Yes, it's simple (you can play the entire thing with three buttons), but...I dunno. Something about driving my train through a continent obviously based on Japan with a vaguely Cute Japanese woman giving me instructions in a language I don't speak is really Zen. Transport World Simulator and Tube Sim just stress me out. But Dreamy Train has just enough to keep my attention, without getting my adrenaline up, and enough content not to feel too repetitive or grindy. mm-galabo.com/dreamytrain/#a11y

So, @micahflee has a great piece about how authors should leave Substack because it is "brologarchy garbage" and more expensive than alternative Ghost.

micahflee.com/2025/02/not-only…

And, got to wondering if authors knew how many potential subscribers they were losing by publishing on the much hated platform.

Here are the results of yesterday's poll on the subject. 81% of 472 people said they would never subscribe to someone's #Substack even if they really wanted to subscribe to their newsletter.

This entry was edited (10 months ago)

For #marchintosh and #globaltalk , I am running a RealAudio and RealVideo server. If you wanna remember and experience what streaming in the 90s was like, head on over to 68kradio.ddns.net ! The site has been tested on MacWeb 2.0 and NetScape 2.0, and yes, you can listen on a 68k Mac! A PowerPC is recommended for the best experience.
This entry was edited (10 months ago)

reshared this

A feature of the Apple ecosystem I don't think I could give up is universal clipboard. I frequently need to copy an image from my computer to my ipad for notes or a bit of text from my phone to my computer. It just works and it solves a real problem with using multiple devices these days. support.apple.com/en-lamr/1024…

Their phony “statistics” aren’t just an attempt to justify DOGE’s destruction of the government. Trump and Musk’s goal is even more duplicitous and shady.

Trump and Musk Keep Spouting Bogus Numbers to Hide Their Real Agenda
newrepublic.com/article/191667…

#ImpeachDonaldTrump #DonaldKrasnov #StopTrumpNow #TrumpDidThis #RepublicansDidThis #RepublicansOwnThis #GOPKakistocracy #GOPWeirdos #NoRepublicansEverAgain #USPol

x64 editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 don't have native audio in VMWare; you need a special driver for it. A 2006 forum thread linked to a drivers and tools page on the VMWare site which, of corse, doesn't work anymore since Customer Connect and the move to Broadcom. So I checked the wayback machine, and not only was the drivers and tools page up there, I was also able to download the audio driver and slipstream it into my Windows XP x64 ISO using NLite! Archives are precious things, people! Cherish them with all your heart; they might just disappear in an instant.

For those who want the driver, it is now up on my site at seedy.cc/files/vmaudio-5.10.0.…

This entry was edited (10 months ago)

I was pleased to sit down with Pam MacNeill of the Disability Disruptor’s Podcast for a New Zealand exit interview of sorts, discussing the serious problems that plague disability services, leadership and activism in New Zealand.
It was also a delight as always to discuss these issues with @graemeinnes, a fearless and tireless leader who continues to do impactful work, including with the United Blind Leaders group in Australia.
The issues we cover, including the necessity for blind people to control our own destinies and lead the agencies that provide services to us, are of vital importance. castro.fm/episode/uml6GE
in reply to Jonathan Mosen

Hey this is random, but I know you might have something to do with the NFB. What happened to their online store they used to have before 2020? I did order a folding cane from them once, but now apparently the only way to get a good carbon fiber cane from them is to call or email and hope for a reply. This is a far cry from the actual online shoppable marketplace they had in 2019, I'd expect them to take less than 6 years to put a new online market up. If I was the web master, I'd not have gotten rid of the old one. nfb.org/programs-services/inde…

Please boost and spread the word.
European alternatives for popular services from the USA. This page is far from perfect or complete but just an illustration that there are alternatives.
european-alternatives.eu/alter…

This is also an interesting page with alternatives,
privacyguides.org/en/tools/

#EU #digitalservices #ICT #IT

This entry was edited (10 months ago)

The fact that github even gives forks a main branch with the same UI affordances as the upstream by default seems like a design mistake but as long as they keep doing that, you should know that you should avoid using it. hynek.me/articles/pull-request…