Sunday reading: The Right Wants a Reichstag Fire

I wrote about the murder of Charlie Kirk, political violence in the United States, and the Trumpists’ desire to find a pretext for purges and mass arrests.

This week’s piece:

thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/th…

Deshalb nehme ich jedes Semester den Stress auf mich, mir mein #Semesterticket als Plastikkarte zu erkämpfen 🤷🏻‍♀️ (ok, nicht nur deshalb, aber auch).

rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2025…

Es ist wirklich ein Trauerspiel, was sich #BVG und #SBahn da erlauben. Aber ist in Zeiten von #Digitalisierungswahn ja nicht neues, dass #Digitalisierung (v.a. in Kombination mit #Digitalisierungszwang) meist nichts anderes heißt, als Arbeit und Verantwortung auf Nutzer_innen/Kund_innen/Patient_innen etc. abzuwälzen.
Und das "Argument" mit der unzumutbaren Ausweiskontrolle für Kontros ist an Lächerlichkeit kaum zu überbieten. Fast 2 Jahrzehnte lang wurden Semestertickets genau so kontrolliert, Papier/Plastikkarte + Lichtbildausweis.

Das alles ließe sich vermeiden (und unterm Strich vermutlich auch 'ne Menge Kosten und Folgekosten sparen), wenn wir den #ÖPNV endlich Schritt für Schritt zu einer kostenfreien echten Alternative aus- und umbauen würden, echte #Daseinsvorsorge halt.

New germinating idea: Accessibility Excellence. Now, I'm sure people like @JonathanMosen have made approximately 9001 podcast episodes about this, but in the wake of Google's own AI gallery app, which lets people use AI models offline on their phone including image description and audio transcription, released with no accessibility, I think we need to converge as a community on an idea of accessibility excellence. We need to dismiss ads of a company that seeks to prop us up to show how their stuff is accessible, even though there is clearly a systemic issue of inaccessibility in the company. Gemini on iOS is more accessible than Gemini on Android. TalkBack still doesn't have basic screen reader features like a pronunciation dictionary and support for all features on even older Braille displays like the Braille Edge. Google Play Books does not automatically scroll pages while reading a book, like Apple Books, Kindle, and many other book reading apps on iOS do. Even Kindle on Android does this, but Google's own app doesn't. Gmail on Android has no way to navigate between messages in a conversation or thread, while Apple's Mail app can, making reading threads of email on iOS fast and easy. There is no way on Android to have TalkBack suspend touch interaction in apps, so gamers still have to turn off the screen reader to play accessible games. Apple users haven't had to do that in years. Even though there are tags on the Play Store for apps accessible with TalkBack, the idea has fallen by the wayside like so many other accessibility ideas that Google forgot and Apple has just embarked upon with accessibility labels. These aren't vibes, or subjective feelings. Like I said in my most recent Accessible Android article, how can we expect small companies or indie developers to make their apps accessible, when we can't get Google to listen to us and take us seriously? We need to take each others' accessibility concerns seriously, especially for Braille. Many people who are blind use Android, yes. Many people like it. And that's okay. But it could, and should, be so much better. There should be competition between these company's accessibility departments, not a kind of sluggish, aimless ambling around in concentric circles by one while the other presses ahead. Yes, TalkBack's Gemini AI descriptions are great, and when I use my Android phone, it's a very attractive feature. Perhaps next year VoiceOver will get something like it.

We shouldn't give any of these huge corporations an inch of duct tape accessibility, because once it's done, they'll build upon that poor foundation, and the whole structure will be so much less effective than it needs to be. Accessibility should be solid, no matter what company does it. But if a screen reader comes with a device, and is made by the company that makes the OS, there's no excuse for rickety accessibility.

Ai Edge Gallery Accessibility Bug Report: github.com/google-ai-edge/gall…

Google's Pixel 10 Accessibility Article: store.google.com/intl/en/ideas…

#accessibility #blind #google #technology #tech #android

As #ChatControl marches on, we already know what the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in a similar case against RUSSIA: "The Court concludes that in the present case the [..] obligation to decrypt end-to-end encrypted communications risks amounting to a requirement that providers of such services weaken the encryption mechanism for all users; it is accordingly not proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued". Yet we continue to try just that... For shame. hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-2…

one of the worst ever "comprehensive security audits" ...

hackerone.com/reports/3337561

daniel:// stenberg:// reshared this.

[Blog Post] What's New in iOS 26 Accessibility for Blind and DeafBlind Users applevis.com/blog/whats-new-io…

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ChatGPT added MCP support on Wednesday.

ChatGPT leaked private Gmail data to attackers by Friday. 🤦‍♂️

Because #promptinjection is not a problem these "PhD level" AI assistants have solved.

Look at that calendar invite. That text is all it took for taking over someone's #ChatGPT connected data. Allowing the attacker to use the same #MCP enabled tools that are supposed to make AI useful at work.

It really is as stupid as @davidgerard keeps telling in Pivot to AI.

in reply to Jiří Eischmann

Nice one! Will probably buy one too when Pixel 11 will come out (I'm buying older Pixels when the new ones come out as there are usually good deals on them). Tbh, I'm interested in the desktop mode a lot - it seems it's really close to the official release now - and Pixel 10 may be a good device to run a Linux VM smoothly enough to be useful in the desktop mode.
in reply to Stefan Eissing

I think it's reasonable to declare that pthread_cancel() is effectively broken for any nontrivial use on contemporary OSes and it is unlikely to be fixed any time soon.

(I suspect it would actually be easier to cajole libc maintainers into adding an async friendly version of GAI() than to make GAI() cancellation safe.)

If you want a cancellable thing from which you can make blocking calls, the only near-universal option is subprocesses. Unfortunately there are reasons why in some ecosystems it is impolite for a library to start a subprocess.

It’s hard to communicate sometimes just how legacy and niche the concept of a desktop workstation has become. The idea of sitting down at a dedicated space to do computer things is outdated. If we—desktop Linux I mean—are building solely for that experience we’ll die out. If you’re not building towards notebook, tablet, and mobile workflows you’re building for the past
cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog…

fediblock for racism and slurs - mastodon.arch-linux.cz

Sensitive content

This entry was edited (4 months ago)
in reply to Domo 🦇

fediblock for racism and slurs - mastodon.arch-linux.cz

Sensitive content

In world political news that went under the radar over the past few days: the government of #Nepal has been overthrown by youths following a governmental move to block social media, and accusations of corruption.

A new PM was elected over #Discord, and has been accepted by the military. They aim to hold elections within 6 months.

I repeat:

THEY ELECTED A NEW GOVERNMENT

OVER

DISCORD.

And no second ammendment was needed to rise up against against tyranny.

gizmodo.com/nepal-currently-be…

#worldPol

@adam You might be interested to know that I completely replaced the Bell Gigahub modem without any issues this morning. The process is perfectly accessible, other than needing someone to read the ONT ID off the back of your bell modem. You need a router or switch with an SFP+ port. You also need a fan or other active cooling for the fiber module; they run at about 90 degrees. Then I purchased my x-onu-sfpp from fibermall. Once you have these things, you can use these instructions: pon.wiki/guides/masquerade-as-the-bce-inc-giga-hub-with-the-was-110/#purchase-a-was-110-or-x-onu-sfpp
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

Cool stuff. Glad you're off that garbage modem. You should notice a huge increase in connection stability. I have two WAS-110 SFP+ modules, so when i upgrade the 8311 firmware, I just pull the fiber, plug it into the second one, connection comes right back up, then I do the firmware upgrade, and then swap the fiber back when its done.
This entry was edited (4 months ago)
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

Seems to have slowed down, star its GitHub repo for updates.
github.com/djGrrr/8311-was-110…
Although I'm not sure if that is what's running on your device. But its the custom firmware I'm running.
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

Oh yeah, they really do get warm. The chassis is the heatsink, essentially. Some have come up with air cooling solutions, but mine have run without fail for years without active cooling.
As for benefits over PPPoE passthrough, you'll probably notice a bit of a reduction in latency, perhaps 1 MS better. Minor, but a perk.
Certainly the fact that you're in control of everything up to the fiber connector, you can choose when firmware updaes happen, and not Bell. No more modem reboots over night, and even randomly during the day. Oh yeah, and no more incidents of pushing bad configs to a million modems causing them to be down for 8 plus hours, LOL.
I was enjoying the net all through that incident.
Also, may be a good reason to revisit some VLAN snooping to see if IPv6 can be found anywhere.
in reply to Mister Krabs

No worries. Glad to do my best attempt at describing the process. To be specific, I am describing attaching and detaching an SC-APC connector on the end of an ISP-provided singlemode 125NM fiber line.
So you will note that the connector is square, and if you feel along the sides of the square that naturally face your fingers as you grip the connector, you will feel narrow slits, that should feel like they're for finger usage to loosen or unlock the connector. And this is what happens. You squeeze these tabs inward, and the lock is released. You then pull very gently, very slowly, and very straight with your entire hand, and the connector should slide off the SFP+ module, or out of the modem. The modem will likely be a bit trickier in handling, and may require some effort to unplug the connector. Do your best in gaging if you think you're overdoing something, but at the same time, the modem connector may be stubborn. Most of all, always pull or push connectors straight.
Also, never, under any circumstances that you can control, touch or point the end of the fiber connector at your face or any one elses. Touch should be absolutely limited to necessities, or purposefully destroying a connector. To plug the connector back in, ensure it is aligned with the square receptical, and push gently. If aligned, it will slide a short distance, then lock into place with a bump and a slight click.
Hope this helps some.
in reply to Adam MacLeod

No worries! If I wanted it to be private, I’d have sent a dm. What Adam says aligns with my experience. The plug on the modem was extremely stubborn; I had to tug on it harder than I like pulling on any connector, and I had nearly resigned myself to giving up before it finally came out. Even then I was scared I had broken it. As for touching the connector, I was cowardly and had the rubber cover in my hand and ready to go. I put the cover on until I was ready to plug it into the new module.

"Apple is about to drop Accessibility Nutrition labels on the App Store, offering users transparency about which accessibility features apps support."

gerireid.com/blog/how-to-add-a…

#apple #a11y #apps #accessibility #appstore