Yesterday I bothered to look it up, and apparently the conference pear is named for the National British Pear Conference of 1885 where it won first prize.
OK, but.
I haven't heard of this conference ever happening again (no Wikipedia article for the event itself), and there aren't any better pears as far as I know, so is it possible humanity achieved a fairly satisfactory pear 140 years ago and then lost interest?
Ok, so this is another of those weird questions which I post because people here use their brains more than most. I want to have one NVDA Remote client control two machines at the same time. That is, I want my laptop to control my desktop and my second desktop, but I want both desktop1 and desktop2 to have their NVDA heard through the laptop at the same time. I also want to switch back and forth between the two machines, as well as to and from the laptop itself, with a keystroke. There are two solutions I've found for this, but both are a bit of a mess. I can use thenvdaremote:// URLs to disconnect from desktop1 and connect to desktop2 with one keystroke, and have another keystroke to do the reverse. The problem there is that I can't hear both machines' NVDA at the same time. Also, and this isn't as big a deal, I'm just a perfectionist, switching takes a few seconds. Secondly, I can run a virtual machine and have that connected to desktop2, with the host machine connected to desktop1. That allows easy switching of the keyboard, just alt+tab to the VM window and hit ctrl+g when I want to control desktop2. It also allows both desktops to have their NVDA run through the speaker at the same time and also, which is very nice, allows braille to swap with any display which supports channels. The problem there is the latency of the VM audio, which I can't seem to shrink. It seems a bit overkill, I may say, to run an entire windows OS just for NVDA remote in a VM. Does anyone have any better solutions. Can anyone think of something which would get all three things running, fast switching, simultaneous NVDA, and no latency? Ideas would be very gratefully received and boosts would be appreciated. #NVDA #blind #a11y #screenreader #remote #nvdaremote
Hmm, Would Tele NVDA and NVDA Remote, or perhaps even just the NVDA Remote Add-On, and the now core NVDA Remote, run separate connections or mess up each other somehow? Provided you change keystroke and maybe port?
@jonathan859 You know, this is why I post this stuff. I just didn't think of that at all. Completely missed the boat on it. Thank you. I'm going to try this and see what happens. I know that the remote add-on and teleNVDA didn't work together, but as I said, I went mentally blank on using the core remote plus teleNVDA. My version with the core remote is on the other machine, but I'm going to try this and will report back. Again, this is what happens when you get another pair of eyes on the thing. I really appreciate it, and have no clue how I could have overlooked that possibility
We no longer have any active servers in France and are continuing the process of leaving OVH. We'll be rotating our TLS keys and Let's Encrypt account keys pinned via accounturi. DNSSEC keys may also be rotated. Our backups are encrypted and can remain on OVH for now.
Our App Store verifies the app store metadata with a cryptographic signature and downgrade protection along with verification of the packages. Android's package manager also has another layer of signature verification and downgrade protection.
Our System Updater verifies updates with a cryptographic signature and downgrade protection along with another layer of both in update_engine and a third layer of both via verified boot. Signing channel release channel names is planned too.
Our update mirrors are currently hosted on sponsored servers from ReliableSite (Los Angeles, Miami) and Tempest (London). London is a temporary location due to an emergency move from a provider which left the dedicated server business and will move. More sponsored update mirrors are coming.
Our ns1 anycast network is on Vultr and our ns2 anycast network is on BuyVM since both support BGP for announcing our own IP space. We're moving our main website/network servers used for default OS connections to a mix of Vultr+BuyVM locations.
We have 5 servers in Canada with OVH with more than static content and basic network services: email, Matrix, discussion forum, Mastodon and attestation. Our plan is to move these to Netcup root servers or a similar provider short term and then colocated servers in Toronto long term.
France isn't a safe country for open source privacy projects. They expect backdoors in encryption and for device access too. Secure devices and services are not going to be allowed. We don't feel safe using OVH for even a static website with servers in Canada/US via their Canada/US subsidiaries.
Telegram, the cloud-based freemium chat, has now implemented strict rate limiting for users of alternative clients, VPNs and virtual phone numbers. Clients like Nekogram, Nagram, Cherrygram and Unigram may show transmission delays or errors. If your client had recently become slower, disable the VPN and use a real number.
Auszug aus: »Warum das Argument, man müsse in sozialen Netzwerken bleiben, um Opposition zu leisten, völliger Unsinn ist«
Die Vorstellung, dass Opposition auf X oder TikTok unverzichtbar sei, beruht auf einem grundlegenden Missverständnis dieser Plattformen. Viele erkennen nicht, dass sie unbewusst Teil des Systems sind. Sie glauben, ihre Präsenz sei nötig, um Desinformation zu bekämpfen oder ihre Meinung zu verbreiten – ohne zu merken, dass sie damit genau das tun, was Algorithmus und Tech-Bros wollen. Durch Kommentieren und Teilen stärken sie das System, das sie ablehnen. Dieser Teufelskreis lässt sich nur durch Rückzug und den Entzug von Aufmerksamkeit durchbrechen. Doch solange viele ihre Aktivität dort für »wichtig« halten, bleibt das System am Laufen. 👇
Der Mythos der »notwendigen Opposition« auf Plattformen wie X und TikTok ist eine Illusion: Auseinandersetzungen verstärken Desinformation und fördern das Geschäftsmodell.
INDIAN FOOD MEETS METAL! Pre-save our upcoming album NU DELHI if you like what you hear!: https://found.ee/nudelhi 2025 Return of the Singh Tour (EU/UK/Japa...
I'm looking into the Zig programming language, and I found this on the language designer's blog. I always appreciate seeing other people being as cranky as I am about rent-seeking and the aggressive push for LLM coding:
“In this case it's even more suspicious because the company that bills you not only counts how much you owe them, it also controls the agent's behavior in terms of how many requests it tries to make. So they could easily insert into their system prompt something like, ‘our earnings this quarter are a little short so try to pick strategies when doing agentic coding that end up earning us more API requests, but keep it subtle.’ There's no oversight. They could even make it target specific companies.”
Nobody who seriously uses LLM agents does that through API keys any more. What you do instead is take out a monthly subscription, which gives you some amount of credits, which usually renew every couple hours. Companies can adjust the limits as they see fit (and they have done so), but for economics reasons, it's generally best to keep GPU utilization as high as possible.
Just a quick reminder that @yubico is offering 30% off the #Yubikey 5 NFC and 5C NFC (for Czechs: in #Alza it's even 36% off) until Dec 1, so now is the perfect time to make your life more secure.
Yubico.com is the source for top-rated secure element two factor authentication security keys and HSMs. Buy YubiKey 5, Security Key with FIDO2 & U2F, and YubiHSM 2. Made in the USA and Sweden.
The latest round of tech working mobilization inspired by Cory's "enshitification" framing is amazing to see, tho I can't help bracing myself for the inevitable wasted energy as people rush forward without understanding counterantidisintermediation
In today's Double Tap podcast, a few minutes in, there is an interview with Humanware about their upcoming 2026 notetaking device, the BrailleNote Evolve: a combination of Keysoft and Windows. This is initially powered by an adapted release of NVDA, however it is stated you can install another screen-reader if desired. I am sure we will hear a great deal more about this. Various models coming: 32 cell, 20 cell, both Braille input, and QWERTY quite a bit later. Initial price of 32 cell approx £5500.
I'm so happy that this is now public news. It's been hard not to say anything for a while. And also, this is very important, I don't have to change anything in Microsoft Word to make sure I can spellcheck a document when I'm talking products. Lol
@Ranger1138 I'm always interested in blindness products and am definitely curious about this in particular. At the same time, pick up a framework 13 DIY laptop for $2000 or so, get at least 4TB storage, 32GB ram minimum or whatever you can afford and a 20 cell braille display for a little more and you are set. You can even play some modern accessible games on it. It definitely is a double edge sword here though.
@jpellis2008 @Ranger1138 That's not the target market though is it? You could apply that thought to any similar product, Windows or not, such as the BrailleSense. The advantages here are that, A. there's Keysoft included to provide a basic interface for those starting out. B. it's one single device. You don't need to think about having two devices and ensuring they are both connected. There are plenty of benefits if, and only if, they've carefully thought out the Windows navigation.
@jpellis2008 @Ranger1138 It is regretable that the Optima has been delayed as the fact that it's modular makes it very attractive but it's hardly Orbit's fault.
@DavidGoldfield @jpellis2008 @Ranger1138 Yes, we regret it ourselves very much, but it's definitely not our fault. And no, we didn't give up Optima, no no.
@menelion @jpellis2008 @Ranger1138 oh, I know it isn't the fault of you or Ati. It's kind of hard to do any work when you're trying to survive because there are people trying to destroy your country.
@DavidGoldfield @jpellis2008 @Ranger1138 Exactly. Not only destroy, but boycott and make it the greatest evil in the world which it is not, by far. but we keep doing our best, believe me. I won't give any release dates, but hopefully you'll hear about us rather sooner than later. Now the competition became even harder, but this HumanWare device has some weak points, in our opinion, that we will not have in Optima.
This isn’t targeted at anyone in specific - I have had the conversation like 6 times this week, Americans - You need a work visa to work in another country, -even remote- unless they allow digital nomad You can’t just go to most countries on a tourist visa and start looking for a visa sponsor & job
@SuspiciousDuck a visa sponsor in this scenario is typically a company that's willing and ready to hire you, often including testifying to immigration authorities that "person X that we're sponsoring has skills and abilities that we need but are not able to hire locally."
@SuspiciousDuck It depends on the type of visa. Most often, the sponsor is an employer who says "I want and need to hire that person (because ...), and I couldn't find a local (here's proof), and I will pay suchmuch salary and any costs that person may cause the gov & health system, etc etc". It's usually complex, expensive, and success is not guaranteed.
In other cases, a sponsor may be a family member, and there are other categories, depending on the country.
We no longer have any active servers in France and are continuing the process of leaving OVH. We'll be rotating our TLS keys and Let's Encrypt account keys pinned via accounturi. DNSSEC keys may also be rotated. Our backups are encrypted and can remain on OVH for now.
Our App Store verifies the app store metadata with a cryptographic signature and downgrade protection along with verification of the packages. Android's package manager also has another layer of signature verification and downgrade protection.
Our System Updater verifies updates with a cryptographic signature and downgrade protection along with another layer of both in update_engine and a third layer of both via verified boot. Signing channel release channel names is planned too.
Our update mirrors are currently hosted on sponsored servers from ReliableSite (Los Angeles, Miami) and Tempest (London). London is a temporary location due to an emergency move from a provider which left the dedicated server business and will move. More sponsored update mirrors are coming.
Our ns1 anycast network is on Vultr and our ns2 anycast network is on BuyVM since both support BGP for announcing our own IP space. We're moving our main website/network servers used for default OS connections to a mix of Vultr+BuyVM locations.
We have 5 servers in Canada with OVH with more than static content and basic network services: email, Matrix, discussion forum, Mastodon and attestation. Our plan is to move these to Netcup root servers or a similar provider short term and then colocated servers in Toronto long term.
France isn't a safe country for open source privacy projects. They expect backdoors in encryption and for device access too. Secure devices and services are not going to be allowed. We don't feel safe using OVH for even a static website with servers in Canada/US via their Canada/US subsidiaries.
We were likely going to be able to release experimental Pixel 10 support very soon and it's getting disrupted. The attacks on our team with ongoing libel and harassment have escalated, raids on our chat rooms have escalated and more. It's rough right now and support is appreciated.
It's not possible for GrapheneOS to produce an update for French law enforcement to bypass brute force protection since it's implemented via the secure element (SE). SE also only accepts correctly signed firmware with a greater version AFTER the Owner user unlocks successfully.
We would have zero legal obligation to do it but it's not even possible. We have a list our official hardware requirements including secure element throttling for disk encryption key derivation (Weaver) combined with insider attack resistance. Why aren't they blaming Google?
In Canada and the US, refusing to provide a PIN/password is protected as part of the right to avoid incriminating yourself. In France, they've criminalized this part of the right to remain silent. Since they're criminalized not providing a PIN, why do they need anything from us?
Personally, I’d feel safer if the longer-term place were in Europe.
For example, in the Netherlands, which quickly and clearly was against ChatControl. (I'm partially repeating myself from the previous post here. I don't intend to copy-paste my opinion, it's just relevant to both news, while the topic is still fresh and actively being discussed.)
GrapheneOS Server Infrastructure Changes Involving New ASN, DNS and New Servers Away From France
We host our own authoritative DNS servers to provide DNS resolution for our services. Authoritative DNS are the servers queried by DNS resolvers run by your ISP, VPN or an explicitly user chosen one such as Cloudflare or Quad9 DNS. We now have our own AS and IP space for this.
You can see information about our AS and IP space here:
We received a free ASN, IPv6 /40 and IPv4 /24 from ARIN. We use one IPv6 /48 for our ns1 anycast DNS network and one for our anycast ns2 network. We're using the IPv4 /24 for ns2 and need another.
Our ns1 network currently has 10 locations: New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Seattle, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Mumbai, Tokyo and Sydney. We're considering moving London to Amsterdam. We plan to add a South American location and perhaps Warsaw. ns2 isn't as scaled out yet.
Our ns2 network currently has New York City, Miami, Las Vegas and Bern.
We plan to add more locations to ns2 via another provider.
When we begin a reboot of a server, the change propagates across all internet backbone routers within a few seconds. This provides high availability for server downtime too. We have 2 networks so routing/transit issues or a malfunctioning server don't break using our services.
For ns1, there's a mix of different upstream transit providers. We've done traffic engineering with BGP communities configuration to get traffic routed to the right places. We prioritize Arelion and NTT since nearly all locations have both and we can configure their routing well.
We make the routes announced by our servers deprioritized when propagated into other continents for Arelion, Cogent and NTT. We deprioritize transit ruining global routing (GTT, Lumen) and block some peering (RETN, Bharti). We deprioritize Cogent since only 3 locations have it.
Our authoritative DNS server setup is largely in a public Git repository:
We're in the process of our website and OS network services away from OVH due to the threats from French law enforcement. We're going to add nodes in South America, India, Japan and Australia as part of this. We also have 5 non-static-content servers in Canada to move off OVH.
The servers with more than static content are our discussion forum and attestation service for our users along with our email, Matrix and Mastodon servers for our project. These will move to colocated servers in Toronto long term but short term we'll just switch providers for it.
this whole thing gets even more bizarre when you consider that the eu has been pushing for more automony from american tech. mix that in with chat control and it makes it seem that that the europeans don't know what the want.
From my understanding, there is the "enforcement" branch of the justice system, and there is the "judiciary" / "legal" branch. Police belongs to "enforcement", and they tend to want more control, less privacy, tighter regulation... for obvious reasons. So they will of course want Chat Control to make their job easy, American Tech or not. Policing everything is also easier to "explain" to people than diversity, so right-wing populism naturally uses that as well (also as means to tighten control and move the country towards authoritarianism). So all of these things aren't exclusively American. They are just societal.
BTW, I also believe it's off-topic, as I'm merely saying that I'd prefer Europe-based servers for security, such as in the Netherlands. This country is not perfect, but it's pretty good with respecting privacy. And it's less prone to US influence.
Time for the BSDs to update their marketing to mention it has these "powerful network discovery and remote access tools like Tcpdump and Netcat." RT: infosec.exchange/users/briankr…
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New, by me: Is your Android TV streaming box part of a botnet?
"On the surface, the Superbox media streaming devices for sale at retailers like BestBuy and Walmart may seem like a steal: They offer unlimited access to more than 2,…
thinking about how ocaml has this convention where functions that convert values from one type to another are named b_of_a instead of a_to_b (so to convert a string to an int, you use int_of_string). and this has become so significant to the community that it frequently shows up in project names - for instance, the name of the compiler that converts ocaml bytecode to javascript is js_of_ocaml. i wonder how this convention originated?
> Valve coder confirms the Steam Machine will be priced like a PC, albeit at a 'good deal': 'If you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at'
Oh they let random developers making hardware pricing decisions now?
That OCaml PR is textbook open source in the era of vibe coding...
It's got everything:
- PR submitted without the author acknowledging they didn't write it and don't understand it. - Copyright laundering. - "I just wanted to get it done!" versus maintainers who know they have to live with code contributions for years. - Zero-effort pasting LLM output as reply to real people's thoughtful questions. (At least the author acknowledged what they were doing that time.) - It doesn't matter that it's hard to review because "AI has a very deep understanding of how this code works." - "Beats me. AI decided to do so and I didn't question it."
If this is our new world then it's going to turbocharge maintainer burnout.
(If you don't want to read a quite long often depressing thread, would still recommend reading this well reasoned comment by one of the maintainers: github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/14… )
DWARF v5 Debugging Support for OCaml Native Compiler
This PR adds DWARF v5 debug information to the OCaml native compiler, allowing proper source-level debugging in GDB and LLDB.
What's Impleme...
DWARF v5 Debugging Support for OCaml Native Compiler
This PR adds DWARF v5 debug information to the OCaml native compiler, allowing proper source-level debugging in GDB and LLDB.
What's Impleme...
Frauen mit Behinderungen sind häufiger von Gewalt betroffen als Frauen im Bevölkerungsschnitt. Wie setzt Deutschland die UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention um?
Any Star Wars fan will tell you that it is absurdly difficult to watch the original Star Wars trilogy as it was when it first ran in theaters. When George Lucas released re-edited "Special Editions" of the films in the late '90s, he moved aggressively to drive the original versions out of the market. If you bought Star Wars on home video anytime after the LaserDisc/VHS era, your only choice was the edited Special Edition, not the original.
Nothing's been officially announced yet, but it sure sounds like that is about to change.
An update to the #Flatpak packages in #Forgejo: I have now a working basic UI together with an flatpak+https link. I will probably open a PR today or tomorrow.
The Link is currently only working in #GNOME Software. It looks like #KDE Discover is just bugged and spits out meaningless errors. The flatpakref works with the official flatpak cli, so it's valid. If I get something easy reproducible, I will open a KDE bug.
If we had a nickel for every time an Irish musician wrote a song titled "Take Me To Church" that was an extended metaphor for forbidden love we'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's interesting that it happened twice.
OK so, I have a question for my fellow orbit reader 20 users. When my OR20 is turned off or in standby mode, it’ll keep showing charger connected on the display every 10-30 seconds or so when plugged in. Is this an indication that the device is broken or something? #blind #Braille
A federal judge halted an IRS–ICE data-sharing plan that would’ve exposed taxpayer addresses to immigration agents. Privacy advocates say the ruling protects immigrant communities already facing heightened enforcement.
This article is based on Irina Morozova’s talk at A11yNYC. Irina emphasized the importance of designing digital content that’s accessible to people with limited English proficiency.
Oh my goodness, #Youtube is such a tranquilizer! I just wasted the whole bloody morning just bringing up mindless video after mindless video. Thankfully I’m out ofit now and I’ve got coffee going #GoodMorning
@kl1964 It's interesting to me that people do that; it's just not something I've ever gotten myself into the habit of doing. I'll go to youtube if someone sends me a link, or I might look for a song and use yt-dlp, but I just don't think of it as a place where I'd go to browse videos, and I don't even know if I'd know how to do it. I guess I could open the app and start there. To be clear, I'm not saying that I don't do my own things to waste time (playing certain games, for instance).
@MikeGorse It’s a bad habit I’ve had going back a long time. Almost certainly it tracks with my level of overall depression. And of course the algorithm knows exactly what to show me.
So, it turns out that my printer is no longer eligible for frimware upgrades. The current firmware can no longer phone home (uses outdated TLS). Since it cannot phone home, it cannot use my subscription-based (DRM) cartridges.
My choices to stay in the same ecosystem are: - Buy new DRM-free cartridges - Buy a new printer with newer firmware
Jonathan
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