And all this research made me realize why building a female voice for SpeechPlayer would be tricky. It's not just like, "multiply" this by that. It can work, but would sound artificial because vowels and consonants don't all need a constant multiplier of a band to "sound female", they need specific tuning dependent on the vowel itself to shift to another formant frequency. What I'm saying is, to get a female voice, we would need a separatly tuned phonemes-female.yaml. This is why ESpeak's female voices also sound very much like a man is pitchshifted and too much on some sounds. Eloquence, ETC probably built this through multipliers too but very specific rules on how various formants get scaled.
Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees to prioritize AI, which will bring innovative changes such as:
-Automatically purchase item if user looks at screen for more than 5 seconds. -Make device loudly screech if user closes the app. -Delivery drones will stalk user if they cancel Prime membership.
The senate votes on #DHS funding tomorrow and way too many of these fucks want to help fund #ICE in return for some magic beans of promises that the Gestapo will start following laws. Please call your senators and yell at them.
Sick of being told to call your senators? Get plastered drunk and swear at them. It's more fun, and they deserve it.
# error getting refs for yosida95/uritemplate: apis.get api.github.com/repos/yosida95/…: 429, body: { "documentation_url": "https://developer.github.com/v3/#abuse-rate-limits", "message": "You have triggered an abuse detection mechanism. Please wait a few minutes before you try again."
all I was trying to do was fetch the distfiles to package this Go program for FreeBSD...
I told GPT Pro mode that zombies ate the GitHub servers and it needs to rebuild me an entirely new set of phonemes in phonemes.yaml because I've lost all copies and only have the language packs. I told it that if this doesn't get done in the next hour, the zombies will come for the language pack files and eat them too. Let's see what comes of it while we reply to Slack messages.
So I left for the weekend to visit family, came back -- avoided contact with sick people the whole time -- only to find my wife was sick with a cold and she didn't tell me and now I have it
Just pisses me off because I've been able to go a couple years without getting anything and now this. It always ruins my week. I can't get shit done because it's a constant nuisance disrupting my concentration
People who are coming to the #FOSDEM this week-end : please do not forget to wear a facial mask to protect yourself and others. Flu this year is pretty agressive and the orange code for respiratory infections has been raised by the Risk Management Group.
Gladys Mae West was born in rural Virginia in 1930, grew up working on a tobacco farm, and died earlier this month a celebrated mathematician whose work made possible the GPS technology most of us use each and every day.
FYI, I reviewed my account on dragonscave again: @jonathan859@dragonscave.space, this is not an advertisement, but as I'm feeling rather emotional again I'm shifting the kind of personal ranting posts and also other stuff that's not my typical tech timeline to there. Also to filter who sees what, in terms of post privacy etc. I'll probably share more occasional stuff like music I like or other stuff I don't wanna spam to uninterested people as well. Looking forward to nice interactions. This won't change a whole lot for this account over all.
Hey @FastSM, can we get post language related information and settings, e.g. seeing which language a post is written in, as well as beeing able to specify the language when writing a post?
Habe beim "Entrümpeln" noch einige DVD´s und Blu-ray´s gefunden, die ich gegen Übernahme der Portokosten abgeben möchte. Wer mag darf gerne eine kleine Spende dazulegen, aber das bleibt euch überlassen.
Die DVD´s und Blu-ray´s werden als ein Paket abgegeben. Der Aufwand ist mir zu hoch sie pro Stück zu versenden.
In 2026, it'd be nice if we could scrap euphemistic terms like 'special needs' 'Additional needs' 'different abilities' 'very special kids' or anything 'inspo-p0rnish such as 'Autism is a superpower!'. Instead, use the words 'Disabled' 'Disability' ... it's not an offensive term. In fact, many disabled people find these sugarcoated terms actually offensive. And let Autistic and other neurodivergent people decide if they have exceptional powers, or are disabled by societal structures. Or both at once. Thanks :) 🙏💪 ❤ #disability #neurodivergence #ableism
I've been thinking about how we approach accessibility in web development. Particularly about trusting the browser to implement things in an accessible way.
On my Samsung phone, that never happens. Besides more general issues discussed elsewhere on this site, TalkBack's hardware Braille display support works fine.
Are you limited to making apps that only work with desktop mode, or can you do things that also integrate with the non-desktop experience? (Not up on my BTSpeak terminology so maybe there's a better description for "non-desktop-mode experience" but hopefully what I mean is clear)
What is development like? I know there are Python tutorials but is it limited to Python? Or can you build a TUI-style app and adapt it to work with specific keycodes/conventions?
Are there any developer docs?
I've had an idea for something that would likely be great for the BTSpeak and other notetakers for a while now, and my assumption is that the BTSpeak is probably the most open/easy to develop for. If that's correct, I'm curious what that process looks like.
As far as I know, the main barrier to shipping a third-party app for traditional mode on the BT Speak is that the menus for that mode can be clobbered with any update; there isn't an official way for third-party apps to plug into those menus as there is with desktop mode.
As for keyboard commands, in both modes, keyboard input is handled by brltty, so the mapping of Braille keystrokes to QWERTY keystrokes is determined by the brltty configuration, which, presumably can also be clobbered on any software update.
Interesting, I'm guessing there are standard conventions mapping chords to keycodes so you can at least hook into those? Also, can you run commands in traditional mode so you don't necessarily need to use the menus? Is there any sort of meaningful distinction between traditional and desktop modes other than that one uses the menu system?
You can get to a shell in traditional mode, through the system administration menu or something like that.
The traditional mode is literally the Linux text console with BRLTTY configured for speech output and Braille keyboard input. The desktop mode is MATE with Orca, again using BRLTTY for keyboard input.
Got it, so sounds like the main difference is text console vs. GUI, and that a TUI app mapping to whatever keybindings brltty exposes plus maybe being smart about what's displayed to cut down on speech chatter would probably work, adding to menus not withstanding. Interesting, thanks.
If you get a BT Speak, then all the code, including C source for the bits that are written in C, is right there in /BTSpeak on the device, unless they've closed it down recently.
The use of a conventional mutable distro, with their own stuff added on top, is a double-edged sword. Last I checked, there was no comprehensive factory reset. This was a topic of fairly frequent discussion on the user mailing list when I was there.
Amazon’s head of AI, who is leading Project Dawn (to replace staff with AI) has accidentally emailed everybody about staff leaving.. before they’ve been informed they have been fired. They’ve had to try to recall the messages and meetings. reuters.com/business/world-at-…
NVSpeechPlayer for Linux (experimental) Pre-release An early attempt to build both Speech Player for Linux and a Speech dispatcher module. Please use the install script and read the readme in the package for usage. ▾ github.com/tgeczy/NVSpeechPlay…
I went to delete @Tutanota email. Got this: "The email address specified as the take over target account does not belong to a paid account." Never saw nothing like this. I wish it's the last time i see such thing 😂
Sure, Tim Cook is throwing Apple under the bus and kissing Trump’s ring this week, but don’t forget that a few months ago Apple also removed the ICEblock app
If you would like to help financially support the development of a new Wayland compositor for Xfce, you can do so by contributing funds via our #OpenCollective accounts.
These contributions will help pay for the funding of longtime Xfce core developer Brian Tarricone to create xfwl4, a brand-new Wayland compositor for Xfce.
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.
That was less of a disaster than I thought, and it did it in 58 minutes. Ahahahaha. It also built a speech-dispatcher module for me. Any Linux nerds ready to experience a disaster? Gosh I need to set up my Linux box again for this :D
I find these days it is better at doing modules, functions, etc. instead of one main block. It did that more when we were coding using the websites instead of the agents.
I am very sad to inform everyone that our friend Didier died last week.
Early 2015, I asked on the slackware list if brltty could be added in the installer ; Didier answered promptly that he could do it on slint. Afterwards, he worked hard so that slint became as accessible as possible for visually impaired people.
You all know that all these years, he tried and succeeded to answer as quickly as possible to our issues and questions.
There is a fork of Mastodon available, called "Glitch Edition", that has some special features implemented. My new instance at social.defocn42.net is running this fork.
I came upon an interesting error when trying to connect to the instance. Adding the user "m1rk0@social.defcon42.net" failed because of an unknown network. Then i tried it the other way around from the Mastodon instance and could follow myself on Friendica. The connection is now mutual and the Mastodon instance is recognized as "glitchsoc".
Are there known issues with glitchsoc and Friendica? It's weird, that the connection can be established only from one side and is working normally afterwards.
"Keir Starmer rejected his Canadian counterpart’s call for mid-sized countries to band together in the face of unpredictable global powers — and insisted his “common sense” British approach will do just fine."
U.K. leader says he’s ‘a British pragmatist applying common sense’ after Canadian counterpart called for mid-sized countries to team up in the era of Trump.
IMO liegt es in deiner Verantwortung, deine Kollegen an deinem Geschäft so viel wie möglich teilhaben zu lassen und ihnen Entfaltungsmöglichkeiten zu schaffen, ihre Meinung in deine Prozesse mit einfließen zu lassen. Aber was du nicht absprechen kannst ist, dass in jedem Fall die Meinung/Entscheidung desjenigen das letzte Wort hat, der/die auf dem Papier als Firmeneigentümer eingetragen ist. Der/die steht mit seinem Namen für Erfolge und Fehler und ist der Chef.
Alles Andere ist Verweigerung von Verantwortung und ebenso unfair den Angestellten gegenüber. Irgendjemand muss den Hut aufhaben, sofern man keine GbR o.Ä. ist und alle auch auf dem Papier gleichberechtigt sind. Sollte das bei euch so sein, nunja... dann bist du tatsächlich nicht der Chef.
Das glaube ich, dass ist immer schwierig. Ist leider ein recht bekanntes Problem von Selbstständigkeit, die Balance aus Verdienst, damit man sich Angestellte leisten kann, die einen entlasten. Meistens hat man zu viel Arbeit, sodass man Leute braucht, verdient aber nicht genug, um sie sich leisten zu können, und arbeitet dann selbst mehr. Da sieht man oft schon den Burnout winken.
Hm, woran denn dann? Normalerweise würde ich ja davon ausgehen, dass, wenn du überladen bist, du Aufgaben abgibst. Und wenn neimand sonst Kapazitäten hat, würde man sich dafür neues Personal ranholen. Gibt es keines, oder ist dafür kein Geld da, ist das ja so das übliche Szenario, in dem Überlastung entsteht.
Aber das ist doch das Personalproblem, oder nicht? Entweder zu wenig Mitarbeiter, oder für die Aufgaben nicht geeignete Mitarbeiter. In jedem Fall bräuchte es mehr Personen, um die Aufgaben zu stämmen, wenn man die bereits Vorhandenen nicht weiter auslasten kann.
Nicht geeignet heißt ja nicht unbedingt, dass die Ausbildung nicht stimmt. Wenn ich als Telefonist arbeiten wollte, könnte ich das allein schon deshalb nicht, weil ich einfach total ungern telefoniere. Manche Leute können oder wollen einfach manche Aufgaben nicht übernehmen, und das ist IMO auch in Ordnung so. Ob diese Person dann mit einer anderen Aufgabe für dich eine Unterstützung sein kann kann man ja schauen, und wenn nicht, dann eben nicht.
Das kann ich gut nachvollziehen, es wäre ja generell immer am Schönsten, wenn alle glücklich sind und einfach alles rund läuft. Und wenn man Menschen lieb gewonnen hat möchte man ja keine möglicherweise negativen Entscheidungen treffen. Ich wünsche dir auf jeden Fall viel Erfolg und Kraft dafür. Hoffentlich kannst du danach etwas der Last abgeben.
Hahahaha. What if I asked an AI to rewrite the SpeechPlayer repo to work on Linux. Good dear God. I bet it would be a disaster full of bugs. I'm tempted though, just make it a new branch first and go from there. Also building a speech-dispatcher module for you Linux nerds. Really, really don't know how that will go. Now that's vibe coding to the max, I have zero familiarity with Linux argtypes and such when avoiding Windows headers. Like, zilch.
Honestly, what I think might be more interesting would be to ask an agent to port the core to safe Rust. Then that would probably be automatically pretty portable.
@matt oooh yeah, but that's even a bigger refactor, moving away from C++ to it, but it's also a less mess for cross-compiling. I also have no idea if there's a different UI toolkit I'd need to use for things like the phoneme tool, as it's written in basic win32 for now, something I had familiarity with from college and high school days, but also like, locks me into C++ for it pretty bad, so a cross-platform UI solution would be needed before it got too many more dialogs and settings. I could have used Python / WX, but then of course you're including all the precompiled Python runtime and can't make it as lean.
@matt I think I could do the Rust migration in layers. First, get Linux cross-compiled for the frontend and player, maybe editor, + speech dispatcher module that's simple. Then it can be re-written so the SpeechPlayer and Frontend go Rust first, then the other parts. UI development feels like the worst place to start learning how Rust is. Rust has a very different mental model (ownership, borrowing, lifetimes).
Yeah, Rust takes getting used to. But once you get over that hump, as long as you stick to safe Rust wherever possible (and you can very often do cross-platform code in 100% safe Rust), I've found that it provides a safety net that I would never want to do without again.
If you're sure that English is pleasant enough to please most people in general, then I would try your strategy to try porting it to Linux, then send a message to some Linux-related discussion list asking for testers.
Wish they'd do a pair where I could send audio over USB to these. I spend a horrible amount of time under headphones nowadays. Open ear seems excellent but I couldn't deal with Bluetooth lag.
NV Speech Sapi does not have an official distributed release and probably will not until it breaks out of ESpeak's phonemizer. Sorry y'all. But because we link against libespeak, it's technically a big no-no to even have it around. Perhaps that could be an experimental project, to rebuild NVSpeech Sapi with Gruut, but damn, a 700 megabyte SAPI engine? people would cry.
@pixelate yeah, but they were also like, concatenated and better sounding too, haha. We'd get a serious improvement on things like stress in words with Gruut as the phonemizer, so quality would go up, but not to the level of a 700 MB voice xD
I'm gonna need help to find the exact setting to tweak for two issues. First, when a word start in l plus a vowel, I year a click on the word start, e.g. "lado, lobo". the same click doesn't occur when l plus a vowel is in the middle, e.g. "pelado". Can we strip that click? Second issue later.
@clv1 hmm. this is where the new settings might help you. Mess with these settings and see if they can help in your YAML: settings: # Smooth big formant jumps at boundaries (good for word-initial L+vowel clicks) trajectoryLimit: enabled: true applyTo: [cf2, cf3] maxHzPerMs: cf2: 16 cf3: 20 windowMs: 30 applyAcrossWordBoundary: true
# Give /l/ a soft onglide (reduces the “snap” at the start of a word) liquidDynamics: enabled: true lateralOnglide: f1Delta: -50 f2Delta: 200 durationPct: 0.35
@clv1 oh, this is a good catch. The bug was that settings() in yaml_edit.cpp only extracted scalar values, skipping nested maps like trajectoryLimit and liquidDynamics. If you combine them into one it might show up, but I'll fix this in the editor so it's consistent.
Another issue is in words where there is the sequence vowel semivowel r, e.g. "primeiro, beira, aura, Europa, loiro, ouro". the slide from the semivowel to r isn't quite good. It seems a gap is inserted between the semivowel and r, or maybe it's just the slide to be improved.
@clv1 hmm. Try to lower: semivowelOffglideScale by a bit to see if that improves it. If it’s inside one word (like beira, loiro, ouro), start with semivowelOffglideScale. A tiny "syllable break" can happen when a semivowel is followed by a vowel, or a liquid/tap/trill, and this setting shortens the semivowel only in that pattern. If it happens across NVDA “chunks” (label/role/value stitching), then it’s a seam, not a glide problem. In that case flip segmentBoundarySkipVowelToLiquid so the engine doesn’t insert the segment-boundary gap when a chunk ends with a vowel/semivowel and the next begins with a liquid/tap/trill. And even when timing is right, /r/ can feel like a hard wall unless it has motion, so enabling liquid dynamics (rhotic F3 dip) often makes the landing smoother.
activate Nordic EasyList for Danish, Finnish, Icelandic and Swedish rather than only Norwegian (both variants) and Greenlandic (this change has been included since Vanadium Config version 150)
add EasyList Adblock Warning Removal List (this change has been included since Vanadium Config version 151)
This update is available to GrapheneOS users via our app repository and will also be bundled into the next OS release. Vanadium isn't yet officially available for users outside GrapheneOS, although we plan to do that eventually. It won't be able to provide the WebView outside GrapheneOS and will have missing hardening and other features.
Privacy and security enhanced releases of Chromium for GrapheneOS. Vanadium provides the WebView and standard user-facing browser on GrapheneOS. It depends on hardening in other GrapheneOS reposito...
Borris
in reply to NoiseBox • • •