Some "innovations" really are gimmicks after all.https://good.store/products/dishwasher-powder2nd channel video:https://youtu.be/WnBb3DLlVPwOther stuff:Techn...
Async is powerful — but are we overdoing it? @veeso_dev explores the async trap in Rust, how it hurts library APIs, and how tools like maybe-fut can help. ⏳ We Can’t Live Without Async — and That’s a Problem #rustlang #rustlab2025
Apparently, it is expensive to peek into C structures from Python via pygobject, so better to cache the result in Python if it is going to be reused. My function is now more than 3x faster now that I'm doing this. gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2…
The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is exited to announce the 28th XMPP Summit taking place in Brussels, Belgium next year - just before FOSDEM 2026. The XSF invites everyone interested in development of the XMPP protocol to attend, and discuss all …
Just read this in a CNet article. "The preview comes amid a larger push from Microsoft to bolster its Bluetooth audio offerings. Part of that included a super-wideband stereo profile for gamers, which uses better audio compression and a higher sample rate to improve audio quality over Bluetooth LE while allowing users to keep using their microphones." So does this mean the whole loss of audio when selecting a microphone with a regular bluetooth headset might finally be fixed now? My wife has an older Jabra she'd love to use. Or god forbid does a headset have to support this separate gaming profile?
My first pick from this month’s Appt News newsletter: Using native components is one of the best ways to keep your apps accessible. But when you need custom ones, @jordanmorgan reminds us to make them learnable, memorable, and of course… accessible!
Hey y'all,
In this edition, we have a special guest bringing you the latest in accessibility news! Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats is an iOS engineer and native accessibility expert.
Very interesting NVDA add-on. MW Word Lexicon is a powerful tool designed to integrate a comprehensive dictionary and thesaurus directly into NVDA. Its main goal is to allow you to look up word definitions, synonyms, and antonyms instantly from any application without interrupting your work and having to open a dedicated page in your web browser to access different dictionaries. This add-on uses the Merriam-Webster Dictionary API because it offers a generous free plan of 1,000 requests per day. This ensures the add-on can remain free and reliable for all users. As a non-profit project, using a service that does not require payment was a key consideration during the add-on's design phases. github.com/Abdullahashraf32/MW… @NVAccess
Word of the Day Plugin for NVDA brings the power of Merriam-Webster's dictionary to your fingertips by providing the "Word of the Day" feature for NVDA screen reader users. Additional...
I don't have an exact byte count, but rough calculations indicate that iOS 26.1 for an iPhone 16 Pro would fit on about 9,114 3.5 inch 1.44 mb floppy disks, give or take 100.
The fact that we're rounding *download* sizes so much that you could be off by a hundred floppy disks is probably the craziest part. That also implies you could be off by several hours of 56K modem download time.
I remember my whole OS, and a productivity suite (long before MS Office, PFS: First Choice) with database, word processor, and spreadsheet, fit on a High Density 5.25" floppy.
Now I'm all, should I get the 2TB nvram or can I still get by with 1TB? And I run Linux.
De Vlaamse overheid is aan #ArcelorMittal gebonden via het raadselachtige vehikel Finocas, onder andere opgericht om de Gentse staalfabriek te vergroenen. De multinationale staalreus is het enige bedrijf waarvoor dit soort constructie op maat bestaat. Van de beloofde, eerlijk in twee te verdelen 1,2 miljard euro hadden de Vlaamse overheid en ArcelorMittal in april elk 162,5 miljoen euro ingebracht. Zonder garantie op “groene” staalproductie.
Windows 11 ate my RAM y'all, in 12 hours of not perging it somehow at idle I'm now sitting at 5.51 GB RAM used? Youch, Windows 11, are you chewing on that RAM like a cow chews on grass and recycling the same piece of it among your various stomachs? I swear that's what is going on. Oh, you open action center? 100 MB of ram pops up that never perges when you close it. Oh, you open a file explorer window for a folder? Another 100 MB ram adds, with each one freeing about 50 MB when you close it. This is the thing. We coders have gotten lazy with garbage collection and proper cleaning up after ourselves. It's totally cool, because people have the memory anyway, so why worry when our process can tripple its size and be runnable? In 1995, 1998, you got memory leaks that would crash the entire system if a process tried to do this. Today, that doesn't happen ever, unless you're stuck with 4 GB Ram or something low like that, so we just, shrug it off. So then, maybe this is a case of "too much of a good thing can be bad" - sure, we have that memory to run our fancy shiny AI models in, but if our OS and apps cannot stay out of the way to keep that pressure light, you also won't fit as large of models into that shiny RAM, so ha.
I could only afford 32gb on my framework and I have no problems so far. But I don't pay attention to ram usage that much unless I notice things slowing down. I want to eventually get at least 64gb.
I'm sorry for you. Now I wonder what I'm going to do because I need to replace this computer soon. It's fine, but I can't afford to have my computer break so I have to replace before it does.
Recently, I discovered Mynoise.net by @Stéphane (Dr. P). Sometimes, when I cant sleep or need background noise for boring work, I use various background soundscapes. Here is my article about Mynoise from the blind users experience. Long post follows:
Activate, for example, the link windSeaRainNoiseGenerator (wind, sea, and rain noise generator).
Since browsers block autoplay by default, enable focus mode and press the letter p twice. The first press pauses playback, and the second resumes it. At this point, you should already hear the sound of the sea and wind noise.
Here you can also try other soundscapes, such as Rain on a Tent or Fireworks. I recommend opening the Full List. The soundscapes are organized under headings.
Playback Control
At this point, the possibilities of Mynoise are just beginning. Each player can be customized. Although the ambiance differs, the controls are always the same. Let’s take another look at the previously mentioned Wind, Sea, and Rain Noise.
Presets
Under the heading Presets, you’ll find buttons with various predefined settings. Activating them changes the sound’s characteristics. For instance, you can choose Breaking Waves or Irish Summer.
Under User Stories, you’ll find user comments. By activating a comment, the sound’s parameters adjust to the same configuration used by that commenter.
How to Create Your Own Background
Let’s say you want to manually adjust the balance between wind, waves, rain, and so on. Each player consists of ten sliders whose volume you can control. Here’s how:
Enable focus mode in your screenreader.
Press Enter to deselect all sliders.
Choose one of the sliders using numbers 0–9.
Adjust the volume with the + or – keys.
Press Enter twice to deselect all sliders.
Choose another slider (0–9).
Adjust the volume again with + or –.
If you’re satisfied but find the overall sound too loud, you can lower the volume with J and raise it with K.
You can also generate a random setting by pressing the ? (question mark)key.
I Created a Beautiful Ambience—How Can I Return to It?
The author thought of that, too. Press B to find the Save as URL button. After pressing it, a URL containing your custom parameters will appear in an edit field. You can copy this link to your clipboard and save it as a bookmark. That’s how it works in Firefox. Chrome, on the other hand, will automatically reload the page with the new URL. You can share this URL as usual—for this article, I created This Noise as an example.
Can I Combine “Rain on a Tent” and a “Crackling Fireplace”?
Yes, and there are two ways to do it. If you’ve been experimenting with the site for a while, you might have opened one soundscape in one browser tab and another in a second tab. However, this setup is difficult to save or share. Fortunately, you can create a single page that combines multiple generators—up to ten soundscapes in one! This way, you can really make something like a Campfire in the Rain. Here’s how:
Reset the sliders to zero and adjust them as you wish, as described earlier.
Press C to save your current setting. – In another tab, open the main Mynoise page and find your second soundscape. – Open a new generator, for example Fireplace. – Adjust everything again as you like. – Press C again to save it. – Use Shift+C to save all settings together. – The page will ask for a name. – Enter a name and confirm. – You can now save the page as a bookmark or copy and share the URL.
Mobile App
Unfortunately, Mobile app is not accessible for blind users yet. You can still use Mynoise in your smartphone’s web browser. The easiest way is to share the custom links you prepared on your computer. That way, you’ll always have your favorite sounds at hand—for example, to help you sleep.
The author also offers online radios featuring some of the sounds. You can find them in the RadioBrowser database by searching for Mynoise. Additionally, there’s a podcast called Pomodoro Sessions, so you can enjoy your favorite soundscapes right in your podcast app.
Conclusion
The author is open to discussing accessibility. Thanks to this, button labels have already been added to the player pages. To celebrate finishing this article—and your reading it all the way through—you can listen to Fireworks.
Podcast · myNoise · No ads, no talking. This podcast provides a wide range of background noises and music formatted for the Pomodoro technique: stop procrastinating and get the job done, 25 minutes at a time! These sounds won’t interfere with your fo…
My 7 year old daughter doing her homework (thinking): 9 × 4. What is 9 × 4?
Me, the very helpful parent: Ah, there's an easy way to work that out. Remember that 9 is 3 squared and 4 is 2 squared. So all you have to do is multiply 3 by 2 and get the square of the product.
9's are the funnest numbers. Every number divisible by 9, adds up to 9. 9+0? 9. 9 +9? 18. 1+8? 9. 18 +9? 27. 2+7? 9.
Also, what's 10*4? well 10's are easy right? you do 10, add 10 is 20, then 30, then 40. How do you get to 9 from 10? You minus 1. OK so what happens when you do that 4 times? You've got 10 + 10 +10 +10 = 40, we know that. Minus 4, for each of the 10's you just had, 36. And what did we learn earlier? 6 +3 is? 9. That's how you know you've got the right answer.
Hey remember how mad you got about Disney firing Jimmy Kimmel for a few days? Well here's your chance to show another corporate media overlord that you're pissed at them firing someone for political speech, and to let them know why you did it.
So many New Yorkers have vowed to flee NYC if Mamdani wins that that would solve the housing shortage there overnight. (I suspect it would lower the white-collar crime rate, too.)
Tom Hanks was photographed wearing a mask on the NY subway this week. He was on the Late Show and was asked about it. He said he wasn't trying to go incognito. In fact, he's doing a play and cannot get sick, and he added, “I’ve had #COVID19 enough. I don’t want to do that again.”
At some point, before more of us have chronic impairments from repeated reinfections, I hope more of you will have had COVID enough and may wear a mask when you can, particularly during surges of infections.
Ever heard of MiniFlux? It’s a lightweight, privacy-friendly feed reader that supports RSS, podcasts, YouTube & more; all via a clean web UI and solid API. We’ve been testing it in the Tweesecake rewrite, and it’s working great so far. Check out our hosted MiniFlux instance: feeds.tweesecake.app
Context for new followers: I took this photo in September during the salmon run on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This bear was keeping an eye on salmon going up a stream, hoping to catch a few of them. As you can judge from its body shape, it is very successful. 😁
Note that I do not approach bears, I use a telephoto lens. I practice ethical photography.
Ethical photography means that I respect wildlife and apply these principles:
- I do not bait, call, feed, trap, manipulate or harass wildlife. - I avoid disturbing their routine. - I don't destroy their environment to ''get a better photo''. - I keep a respectful and safe distance. - I don't overstay. - I arrive quietly and leave quietly. - If I feel that an animal is stressed by my presence, I leave immediately. - I study the animal at home to understand their behaviour & life.
"We're getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year. You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry."
Sorry end-users, this is a very boring release for you, not a single new feature or visible change.
However, it does modernize the codebase a bit: a lot of Java code was rewritten to Kotlin to more closely follow modern Android guidelines. Catima is now almost 20% Kotlin :)
A lot of the Kotlin rewriting was done by #Hacktoberfest contributors (and some by students) and I'm very grateful for those who spent their time trying to make Catima better.
I'm still undecided if Catima will join Hacktoberfest next year. Hacktoberfest was extra stressful this year, especially due to LLM contributions ("AI slop"), which cost me a lot of time to try to review only to lead nowhere. However, these Kotlin rewrites were definitely long overdue and useful.
I'll take this moment for a personal plea: please don't contribute LLM ("AI") code. Not to me and not to other projects.
The problem with LLMs is that writing code is the easy part, *understanding* the code and existing codebase and structuring it for long-term maintenance is the real challenge, and LLMs can't do that for you.
I know some people genuinely try to help using LLMs. And I appreciate the thought. But please be aware that trying to help is not always helping, sadly.
Before you contribute code, make sure you can explain the code and explain your reasoning for going down a certain path. Please don't trust a computer to be able to think better than you.
And please just type your messages yourself, I don't mind bad grammar, I still find it easier to understand humans than LLMs.
We're all here to try to help each other, make the world a better place. Let me talk to you please, let me try to understand you, so we solve a human problem, not a machine one :)
The company I work for (Nextcloud) is looking for C++/Javascript developers to work on our office suite.
Here is the link with more information: nextcloud.com/jobs/#senior-sof… and feel free to ask me on DM if you want more information about how it is to work at Nextcloud :)
We are a modern, distributed, open source company whose mission is to provide our users and customers with the means for data storage, access and communication under their control
I'm thrilled that Laurenz Stampfl, a student at ETH Zurich, has completed his Masters degree, and has published the thesis: ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/speci…
The work is based on prototypes I did in the last few months, but is a complete reimplementation with lots of optimizations, including portable SIMD. I believe it's the fastest pure Rust CPU renderer, and also shares a lot of logic with vello_hybrid.
Oh wow. Some companies have a way to let their mail servers tell me they no longer want to work with me it seems 🙈 Was just sending out my updated profile to a list, and from one I got this:
450 4.7.1 The reputation filter deemed your email unworthy
F*CK AI, I guess? 🙊
OK, I'll have to accept that. If someone out there thinks I _might_ be worthy: after being in a project for almost 5 years, I'm available again for new projects – be it as Oracle DBA, or as coach in the Android section 😉
@pvagner So i#ll get some more of those "delivery failed" notifications, yeah. I also wondered about 4.7.1 – isn't that usually 5.7.1, when the mail filter rejected something? The rules do not change that frequent, so what use is it to retry? Max is usually something around 4..7 days. But well, let's see…
@IzzyOnDroid ✅ Yes 4.x.x codes are for temporary errors such as message filtering issues including grey listing, user quota being full and similar. 5.x.x should include rejecting the message.
@pvagner I know, I'm running a mail server myself. My toot was rather about the message text, not the code 😉 But thanks for the explanation, appreciate your being helpful! 🤗
For other readers:
* 5xx: permanent error * 4xx: temporary error (try again) * 3xx: further action required (by the client, not the human; like, "send the next package", or "go there to continue") * 2xx: all fine
@libreoffice Do you know if odfdom-java is maintained? It has a bunch of outdated dependencies, but there seems to be at least some activity in the source repository.
There is also something odd with the versioning, where there is a 1.0.0-beta from 2019, but the latest release is from 2023 is 0.12.0. This causes dependency check tools to be somewhat confused.
Or is there perhaps an alternative library I should be using instead to connect to a running instance of Libreoffice?
David Goldfield
in reply to evacide • • •