Meta glasses might be useful, but then Meta goes and reminds us all why they're such a terrible, untrustworthy, scummy company. This isn't even the first user privacy violation this year. theregister.com/2025/06/03/met…
I'd still buy them as there is no viable alternative for blind people. I measn… I grew to have this colclusion that #Accessibility is the most important thing to me. I've been telling it to open-source warriors, against-Google, against-Microsoft, against-Meta varriors and so on: if you are abled, you have choice. I'm disabled, I need to work and live my life as fully as I can. So yeah, privacy and all this stuff is good, but to me accessibility is far more vital and important.
@menelion I definitely get it. I'm not judging or condemning anyone for using Meta products. For some it's accessibility, for some it's the only way their friends and family communicate, for some it's for neighborhood watch groups or buying used products. It's sad that nearly all of us are involved with Meta in some way, but it's reality. Plenty of us have no choice.
@menelion I, too, am totally blind. I also agree with you. However, in this case, there are alternatives. I own the ARx Vision glasses. At $599, they are far cheaper than any other glasses for the blind. They also give you the option of whether or not to allow them to use your data for training.
@menelion You can't call someone from them, but they can read text (either quickly/live or after scanning it/document mode), answer questions about it, read bar codes, and tell you what's around you. They can work with the ARx app, as well as Seeing AI, and another app for reading labels whose name I forget at the moment. The page can be found here. Note: I am not affiliated with them. I'm just a user of their product.
The ARx AI Headset: An AI-powered talking camera for the blind and visually impaired. ARx connects to Android, translating the world into clear audio descriptions.
@dandylover1 Yes, no pressure, it's even more valuable for me that you're just a user. Do you know about multilingual capabilities, like can they read French or German or, say, Hebrew or Ukrainian?
I do believe it's multilingual, but I'm not sure. I also don't know which languages it supports. It might also depend on your synthesizer settings. that is, if you have it set to English and try to read French, it will probably read incorrectly.
Help me out here, I want to start a rumor that Asus' new 3000-watt power supply with the 240 volt plug for running four NVidia RTX5090s is a sign that in 2026 you'll only be able to play AAA games in Europe because the American power grid can't handle it.
ASUS Pro WS 3000W supports four RTX 5090 cards at once ASUS Pro WS Platinum power supply is not designed for gamers. Officially, it is meant for “pros”, in fact, that’s exactly what the label on the PSU says.
An extremely expensive, extremely slow motion reenactment of the conclusion of War Games, with open software orgs migrating from one closed-source proprietary service to another over and over again instead of zero-player tic-tac-toe, and me hammering the table saying, come on, learn, god damn it, learn.
The CNCF Slack workspace will be converted from an enterprise plan to a free plan on Friday, June 20, 2025. This will have implications for how Slack works for…
I mean... if the Cloud Native Computing Foundation can't figure out how to self-host a discussion forum for their membership, if the Cloud Native Computing Foundation's membership isn't willing, and able, to learn and support a new shared cloud-based communication system... what the hell are we even doing here? Why does this organization even exist?
I would really appreciate it if you could boost this message. I have created a French version of my Fedi promo video - and a French landing page – that I hope can spread far and wide in the Francophone world:
Cette vidéo explique ce qu'est le fédivers en 4 minutes. N'hésitez pas à partager cette page avec vos amis et vos proches qui ne sont pas ici... J'espère que cette vidéo éveillera leur curiosité 💙🤍❤️
Découvrez un tout nouvel univers des réseaux sociaux, où la vie privée est respectée, les utilisateurs détiennent le pouvoir et les GAFAM n'ont pas leur mot à dire.
doufám, že zítra to bude pěkný. Včera jen ubohých 11km, abych zjistil stav toho kolene. A protože to vypadalo dobře, tak to zítra risknu znovu a uvidíme. Buď to půjde, nebo je i s Alpama konec, protože bych to nedal.
Miroslav Kalousek🇨🇿🇺🇦🇮🇱 𝕏📝💬 @enkocz@twitter.com:
Pravidlo přežití: Nikdy nesmíte přiznat, že se ničíte sami. Vždycky vás ničí zlé a nepřející okolí, nejčastěji novináři.
https://twitter.com/enkocz/status/1935437072564642213
Les précommandes du prochain hors-série Jeux de plateau sont ouvertes ! Pour un numéro 1€ moins cher, et livré dans votre boîte aux lettres : boutique.canardpc.com/common/p…
Blastbay Studios has released two SAPI 5 speech voices. This Web site offers two U.S. English voices, one maile and one female, with each voice costing $19.95. A short audio demo is available for each voice. These voices should work with any program which supports SAPI 5 TTS speech engines, including NVDA, JAWS and Narrator. Please also note that I have not yet purchased these voices so this post should not be taken as an endorsement or recommendation.
I've just downloaded the Libby voice and I am using it now. As with a number of these more human sounding voices, there is a little resistance when navigating at speed even on a high spec PC, and there are some pronunciation issues. But it might be good to have for demos etc as the speech is easy on the ear, particularly for people who are not used to listening to synthetic speech.
I tried out the trial and they're pretty great even with high speeds and very responsive for voices of such high quality. Don't know how he managed to do it but he definitely did.
I have purchased the Richard voice. Screen Reader users should be aware that in order to have it proceed to the PayPal step, you need to press the unlabeled button just passed the "Continue Shopping" button. If you add an item but then press "Continue Shopping" and want to get back to your purchase, press the unlabeled button and it will take you back to your cart with the item in it. This was my experience so wanted to get it out there in case some have trouble purchasing.
Vítejte na mastodonní instanci Mamutovo!
Instance Mamutovo byla vytvořena pro běžné uživatele, kteří touží po klidném prostředí, ve kterém mohou svobodně sdílet své myšlenky.
We expect the #CRTC to release a major Internet competition decision on Friday morning: We think this will be their decision in the various appeals ("review & varies" in CRTC lingo) of their August wholesale competition decision.
Okay, there's a lot going on there, so I'll break it down: 🧵👇🏼 1/8
Well, to make sure we don't have telecom monopolies, the CRTC has long forced the largest carriers to sell wholesale services to smaller competitors like TekSavvy, so we can offer competitive services. That's the basis for Internet competition in Canada. 2/8
From 2015 to 2021, they had ongoing proceedings and appeals over rates and terms. You might remember that because the decision kept going back and forth, and finally ended in 2021 with very inflated rates: crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2021/20… 3/8
Attached: 1 image
Update: The Supreme Court dismissed TekSavvy's application for leave to appeal. That means we can't appeal, and the 2021 decision stands, where the CRTC froze the inflated wholesale rates.
Meanwhile, in 2023, the CRTC kicked off a new consultation process about the issues—like they're doing 5-year reviews and each one takes 8 years: mstdn.ca/@andykm/1099882494489…
With new CRTC leadership, this process finally gave us FTTP competition, but there were concerns: mstdn.ca/@andykm/1129566405704… 5/8
The major issue is this: Since the purpose of wholesale competition is to allow small providers like TekSavvy to compete and discipline the market power of telecom giants, should Bell, Rogers, and TELUS be allowed to buy regulated wholesale services? If so, they will use it to further dominate. 7/8
We appealed based on other aspects of the decision too, but they're even more in the weeds (if you can imagine that). The big issue, the one that will shape how internet competition develops, is over BRT's use of wholesale. Stay tuned—the CRTC will publish it here at 9am: crtc.gc.ca/eng/whatsnew.htm 8/8
The #CRTC decision in their own review of last year's wholesale decision is out: The CRTC is not changing the decision. In short, they say the evidence in the appeals did not convince them that they got the decision last year wrong. crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2025/20…
Attached: 1 image
We expect the #CRTC to release a major Internet competition decision on Friday morning: We think this will be their decision in the various appeals ("review & varies" in CRTC lingo) of their August wholesale competition decision.
The #CRTC decision in their own review of last year's wholesale decision is out: The CRTC is not changing the decision. In short, they say the evidence in the appeals did not convince them that they got the decision last year wrong. crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2025/20…
Attached: 1 image
We expect the #CRTC to release a major Internet competition decision on Friday morning: We think this will be their decision in the various appeals ("review & varies" in CRTC lingo) of their August wholesale competition decision.
The main effect of this decision is to allow Bell and TELUS to misuse this regulatory wholesale framework—a framework that was intended to carve out a sustainable market for small competitors like TekSavvy—to instead dominate those markets and squeeze out independent competitors.
Google Tightens Android Sideloading—At What Cost to Digital Freedom?
Google has begun blocking sideloaded Android apps in Singapore, citing security concerns over apps requesting sensitive permissions like SMS and accessibility services.
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.
Lachtan je v sudetske zoo oblibene zvire. Na papire. Triky uz nejaky patek nedela. Ale kdyz se na vratnici proda dvousta vstupenka, tak je proste potreba vyrazit do prace a neco predvest.
Nacez nadseni divaci cekaji dlouhe minuty s pripravenym telefonem. A lachtan to mezitim zalomil na skluzavce. 🤷
Lawful Access on Steroids: Why Bill C-2’s Big Brother Tactics Combine Expansive Warrantless Disclosure with Unprecedented Secrecy michaelgeist.ca/2025/06/lawful…
Earlier this week, I wrote about how the government’s inclusion of warrantless information demand powers in Bill C-2 may make this the most dangerous lawful access proposal yet, exceeding even the 2010 bill led by Conservative Public Safety Minister …
Oops! AI did it again... you're not that innocent.
Nectar, a 'crime-predicting' system developed with #Palantir, could be rolled out nationally after a pilot with Bedfordshire police (UK).
Data such as race, sex life, trade union membership, philosophical beliefs and health are used to 'predict' criminality so people can be targeted for #surveillance.
Senior MPs and privacy campaigners have expressed alarm at the deployment of Palantir’s AI-powered crime-fighting software with access to sensitive personal information
@matt I use Orca to make a Linux desktop environment accessible. As of GNOME 48, thanks to excellent development work, I’m running a Wayland session without noticing any substantive differences from the accessibility I used to have in an X11 session. I appreciate there are still some missing features to be worked out, but nothing that I personally rely on under normal circumstances is missing at this stage of development. I hope the work continues and that other desktop environments take it up.
The “missing features” refer to the Wayland transition. I happen to disagree with you regarding Orca in general, but that isn’t the question presently under discussion. The main missing feature I am aware of is that simulated pointer events (i.e., simulated mouse clicks) aren’t available in Orca under Wayland sessions, but are supported by X11. Corrections are welcome if this limitation no longer holds, as I haven’t kept up with all of the discussions taking place. As a more general comment, and as an observer of Orca development for many years, I note that most of the bugs turn out not to be in Orca, but instead reside in GUI libraries, desktop environments or applications. Orca itself is well maintained and has undergone worthwhile development recently. The problem is that bugs and regressions in desktop environments and applications are either not addressed or not resolved quickly enough. We need more development effort in accessibility across those components.
It's currently Arch Linux, but I also used Debian for many years before installing Arch to keep up to date with the latest packages more reliably than by running Debian Unstable.
We let Olympic champion Tom Pidcock cut loose on one of the most scenic mountain roads in Europe as he descends the breathtaking Rossfeld Panoramastrasse on ...
In popular culture, menopause is typically associated with hot flushes. In our Menopause: What's Changed? exhibition, we invite visitors to drop a pebble if they experience any of these symptoms. And it turns out, hot flushes are much less common than brain fog or mood symptoms!
Around menopause (known as perimenopause), your brain is doing some interesting things. First of all, the brain is reactive to hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Changing levels of these hormones around menopause affects how your brain processes information and emotions.
The other thing that's going on in your brain around menopause is that it is literally rewiring itself! There are differences between a pre- and post-menopausal brain!
One main difference between pre- and post-menopausal brains is that after menopause, you have weaker reactions to negative stimuli. Things that might have strongly upset you before are less upsetting after menopause.
In other words, there's a biological basis to "not giving a shit" which lots of people report feeling after menopause!
Koukli jsme po 25ti letech na Soumarský most. Poprvé jsme tady čuchli k pádlu. Nepoznali jsme to tady. 😔 Tak jsme se aspoň prošli po Soumarském rašeliništi a dám vám sem jednu fotku, kde jsem i já. Zase dlouho nebudou. Nerada se fotím. 😁 #hobitciasumava
The Wayback Machine managed to capture a Linux Journal article about the Arch Linux distribution's plan to switch to "rye-init" before whatever human intelligence remains there figured out that "rye-init" does not actually exist.
The Linux Journal predates LWN by some years and was, for a long time, the definitive read for Linux users. The Don Marti ( @dmarti ) years were especially noteworthy. It is sad to see where it has ended up now.
Long before the internet, some phone networks were hackable by playing a single tone at 2600Hz.
Whistled into a phone, it could grant you unrestricted access. Do you have the vocal chops to be an old-school phone phreak?
I built a web app to test your ability to produce the legendary frequency. You won't get free long distance calls but you will get some honor in the knowledge that you could have been a cool hacker. 😎
I am sad to say that I can only whistle up to 1100Hz... But my wife (a long time woodwind player) is able to consistently get it.
#AudioMo Day 20: I've heard a few other chiming clock recordings posted, so here's mine from September of 2006. I put two small diaphragm mics inside my wall-clock and we get a very boxy inside recording of it striking 12. HQ download: dropbox.com/scl/fi/hkww04sq4ji…
I managed to locate my Giant Squid Audio Lab binaural microphones and the same pair of sunglasses to which I normally clipped them, and did a test recording with my Zoom H1 Essential. In it, I perform the usual stupid tasks like sticking my head in the freezer, opening and closing doors, and later take the dog outside for a brief walk and demonstrate our windchimes out back.
Some normalization was added which squished the louder dynamics a bit.
33C here, I could do with a lot of cold, thank you. I could do with, winter cold. Yeah, stick your head in the fridge, get your nose frozen, LOL. And don't bang your head on the top because that's sure to make all the ice there fall, or you know, it's going to hurt and you're going to be icicle man.
The Open Document Format (ODF) is an open standard format for office documents, which offers a vendor-independent, royalty-free way to encode text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more.
"Bridgy Fed, the bridging software that connects ActivityPub with ATProto, has gotten an update where server admins can opt-in to the bridge for their entire server."
Developers of the WordPress ActivityPub talks about how they plan to make WordPress websites a full member of the fediverse, videos of FediForum available, and bridging to Bluesky op a per-server basis.
Linux is 2nd class citizen in ZFS world. No ZFS Boot Environments - no GRUB for modern ZFS pools - no distro with installer support for ZFS on root and BE setup.
Why then #FreeBSD would downgrade to Linux level on ANY level?
Linux sets relatime on mount by default for any file system,
but relatime=off in ZFS disables it explicitly.
Let's be consistent with other file systems on Linux.
Reviewed-by: Brian Behl...
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Brodie Robertson
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