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Gosh, learn about some #Google experiment or other every day. Here is one for you, #music enthusiassts, called Song Maker, (don't forget a MIDI keyboard to your CHrome setup): musiclab.chromeexperiments.com…
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Okay, let's try this, for the first time ever. I'm Quin, and I'm looking for a job over the summer, possibly longer as long as it's part time (I'm a college student with the summer off). I'm mostly interested in #remote work, due to my complete blindness traveling to a workplace is more difficult, all be it not impossible. I just prefer coding from my bedroom. I'm a software developer and hacker (in the oldest and best sense of the word) who loves nothing more than figuring out a good challenge. I prefer low-level coding in C, C++, Rust, etc., but things like Python and Lua have their place too. My resume is here: quinbox.xyz/resume.html
#FediHire #fediHired
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Hey everyone,

I hope you’re doing well! I’m reaching out to invite blind musicians, producers, and artists to join an **accessibility feedback group** for Sessionwire — a platform I’ve been using and really enjoying for a couple of years now.

**What is Sessionwire?**
Sessionwire is a remote music collaboration platform that allows musicians, producers, and audio professionals to work together in real time. It offers studio-quality audio, high-definition video, and seamless integration with popular DAWs, letting users collaborate on projects as if they were in the same room.

**Why am I reaching out?**
One of the developers at Sessionwire has asked me to bring together a group of blind users to help improve the platform’s accessibility. They already know which areas need work and are eager to collaborate with us to make Sessionwire better for everyone.

**Interested in participating?**
If you’re interested, **please reach out to me privately (one-on-one)** and send me the email address you’d like to use for communication. If you plan to use the same address to sign up for Sessionwire, let me know; otherwise, please also send the email you’ll use for your Sessionwire account.

If you have **any questions**, feel free to let me know!

Let’s work together to make Sessionwire more accessible for the blind community!

#BlindMusicians #AccessibilityMatters #MusicTechnology #RemoteCollaboration #Sessionwire #BlindProducers #InclusiveMusic #AccessibilityInTech #BlindArtists #AccessibilityFeedback

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Something probably stupid that I wish I could do as a blind music producer is look at the waveforms of my tracks/mixes in Reaper. like yeah your ears are the best and most reliable tool but they can be biased by headphones, how you slept, allergies like I'm experiencing today, etc. Plus there would just be something super satisfying about putting something together until it sounds good, then looking at the master's waveform and tweaking the frequencies until it fills out the entire frequency spectrum just right. I'm assuming the answer is no because I can't even begin to fathom how something like this would work, but is there an accessible tool to do this?

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in reply to Quin

Gotta say having been in many so-called professional studios is that waveform looking makes certain engineers lazy as all get-out and I hate it.
'Oh let me just drag this thing here, OK looks like it's lined up with the other tracks...'
Don't even bother to play it, bounce it, test it in the car (and yes this *has* happened)
only to find out it was off by a noticeable amount.
I wish I was lying to you.
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in reply to Quin

Ask yourself *why* you want a mix to fill out the frequency spectrum though?
Did it sound good *before* you did that? Did it sound any better *after* you did that?
Is it possible your track *might* be used as a bed for someone to talk over, and there's just no space for voice because you phattened it up like a mix pig for slaughter with your waveform frequency-spectrum-filling?
Did you watch some video on youtube that says 'OMGOMGOMG if you don't fill this mix right out nobody will ever listen, and you're a bad, bad evil bad person if you don't do these 15 steps to waveform filling right now!'

When I say 'You' by the way, I mean the general You, not You, Quinn.

My students sometimes come to me and say
'Why don't we do this particular compression trick in every mix?'
I have to ask them
'Do you need to? Is it important that you do?'

And so on.

This entry was edited (8 months ago)
in reply to Andre Louis

@FreakyFwoof EDM is full of that kind of thing, although I think it's more commonly ensuring that you don't have a bunch of instruments all crowded in one band, E.G> when this happens in the lows it becomes muddy, and filling is a sort of side effect. Totally understand though. It makes sense for some genres more than others. And that's still a spectrogram, not the actual waveform. All the *waveform* is good for, IMO, is aligning transients and carefully avoiding pops and clicks from joins. And maybe micro edits to clean up a sound, remove little pops etc.
in reply to x0

@x0 @FreakyFwoof I do think you can still achieve a similar mix, even at comparable loudness, without having access to tools like this. It would definitely be nice, but it is not a must. If you know the techniques and if you reference often, you can get there easily. It is a tool that won't automatically help you make your mixes sound great. You can check mono compatibility, frequency crowding, all of those things purely by sound as well using utility plugins. So I agree I'd love to have those kinds of plugins, but it's not what stops me from trying.
in reply to Quin

Filling out the frequency spectrum is not quite useful, white, pink and brown noise do that already with some changes to the lower frequencies for the two latter ones.

What you are looking for is an even distribution of the existing frequencies (Teote, Ozone, Hornet Thirty-one, WavesFactory Equalizer, Grand Finale, DSEQ3, Gullfoss, etc) do this, exciters and saturation to add new harmonic content, just to mention a few things. Ultimately, these tools, despite the aggressive marketing some of them have, can't replace your ears but they provide fast results if you don't want to focus on mixing and mastering. You still need to tweak things and it's very easy to overprocess your sound of course.

Several books could be written about how many things could influence your sound, both while mixing and mastering (from the headphones or monitors you use through the room you are in, to what your genre needs), not to mention when your final master reaches your listeners. Their hardware, environment, ears, etc, will color the sound as well. You could have a perfectly neutral master and someone could quite easily make it heavy on bass just by listening to it on gaming headphones, or better yet, listen to it in a car.

This is a very complex and overwhelming topic, but if you need advice and you really want to make your sound better, listen to the same genre as much as you can. That's how you train your ears to get accustomed to things that stick out (resonate) and over time you will learn what instrument is problematic in what specific frequency areas. Most importantly, less is more.

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Virtual machines need to be configured to get the best experience. So I wrote down the steps I use when I'm building a Windows virtual machine. And after 18 months of using Linux as my daily driver, I have added KVM specific steps!

How to get the best experience from Windows guests under Linux KVM
blog.pauby.com/post/howto-best…

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More and more I am looking through @Delta Chat apps and resources I believe this should become number one messenger of choice for screen reader users.
The developers are constantly improving its #a11y. It's secure from the start of using.
Additionally the desktop chat has under gone an #accessibility audit and accessibility issues are clearly documented in public.
I am not sure other messenger style app on the planet has such dedicated commitment to accessibility ever.

github.com/deltachat/deltachat…

in reply to Paweł Masarczyk

@Paweł Masarczyk While testing I have used gmail or my own classic email account. It worked but I have understood using #chatmail servers is what makes it most attractive. I think I have read a blogpost from someone a few months ago explaining this very well that inspired me, however I can't find that article in my browser history right now. CC @Cleverson @Delta Chat
in reply to Delta Chat

@Paweł Masarczyk @Cleverson I know you are looking for a way to stay in contact with people you are already connected to using traditional email. Still I would recommend creating a #chatmail account on your relay of choice just for testing so you can start with an empty profile and you'll get to experience the @Delta Chat the way it has been meant to. Then as an exercise continue with other more advanced scenarios such as classic email login.
The #chatmail based onboarding is really very simple, there is nothing to do wrong.
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At Your Fingertips: Fidget Tools, Fun Gadgets, and Braille Input Devices - Unmute unmute.show/at-your-fingertips…

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Whingy comment on my latest podcast episode:

'Not really a fan of this stuff. I miss the old keyboard and instrument reviews and the musical breakdowns. The problem with this podcast is that you're both too polite and soft spoken and all that. Try getting a bit angry and controversial. There is no such thing as bad language, so where is all the swearing? You can't make a good podcast episode without some swearing.'

Gonna keep posting weekly with my wife @MoonCat, so if you'd like to check it out (despite the no swearing) search for StroongeCast wherever you get your podcasts.
Also, our web page is here: onj.me/stroongecast

Let's boost for reach because comments like that just make me want to promote it even more.

If I have to spend my life catoring to everyone else, I'll never do anything for myself, and that's just boring. #StroongeCast

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Viewpoint is a Windows program that uses Gemini AI to make user interfaces that aren't accessible, pretty accessible! I was able to navigate the PPSSPP interface with it pretty well! So yeah, it's starting to happen, the use of AI for more than just image descriptions.

viewpoint.nibblenerds.com/

#accessibility #blind #ai #ViewPoint #GeminiAI #google

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Joseph Chen's Braille Vision Is a Portable, Raspberry Pi-Powered Text-to-Braille Converter
hackster.io/news/joseph-chen-s…

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Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Kelly Sapergia

@Bruce I had the BrailleMate when I was in school. At the time, it met my needs as a notetaker, but yeah, that single-cell display was awkward. One time, a teacher asked me to try reading a paragraph I had written using the display, but soon stopped me after a few words. I saw the Braille Lite 18 a few years later, and really wished the school had waited to get it instead. I could've read that paragraph on it with no problems.
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Every time I take self-driving car, the experience seems to get better and better. Today, for the first time, I was able to locate the car on my own. The phone would vibrate and VoiceOver would announce the distance and the derection of the car in relation to me. As you approach the car, you can press the button in the app to honk! :) Really cool! Hard to believe how far this tech has gone! :)
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Dnes jsem si byl prohlédnout Farinovu zatáčku, památný úsek Masarykova okruhu, kde v roce 1949 havaroval italský jezdec Farina a zemřeli přitom 2 mladíci. Mezi milovníky závodů a Masarykova okruhu asi známá informace.
Co se už ale moc neví, že jeden z těch kluků, Václav Hejtman, byl z mé vsi #Kobylnice, a byl úplně prvním pohřbeným na nově postaveném kobylnickém hřbitově. 2. října odpoledne se konalo otevření hřbitova a hned nato následoval pohřeb, kterého se zúčastnilo kolem 1500 osob.
#Farina
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in reply to Michal Špondr

U nás se pořádaly závody formule přímo ve městě. Než došlo k tragédii.
idnes.cz/karlovy-vary/zpravy/h…
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Did you know that movim was the first XMPP client to support Stories? ✨

From all your devices you can share your everyday moments with your contacts through photos that disappear after 24 hours. 😊

Everything is stored on your own XMPP account and the feature has been standardized as a protocol extension: xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0501.h… 🔒

It looks like a few other XMPP clients are looking to integrate it in the future 👀

#xmpp #stories #features #movim @joinjabber @xmpp

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When you’re scripting for a screen reader, then you’re scripting for the browser, with exactly the same level of JavaScript support.

However complications can arise with event handling, because screen readers intercept events and don't always pass them on to the browser, and even then, keyboard actions might fire mouse events.

tpgi.com/event-handling-in-jaw…

#accessibility #a11y #javascript

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Linux desktop experts, please help: discourse.gnome.org/t/gdm-trap…

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@osuosl has been around for 22 years. They kindly host our gitlab for 6 months now, and provide important services for more than 150 other free and open source software communities such as @alpinelinux, @chimera , @debian, @fdroidorg, @gentoo, @gnome, @LineageOS, #ReplicantOS, @torproject. Now their future is in jeopardy 😢

We usually don't ask this, but please boost for reach, this is important infrastructure for so many FLOSS projects! :boostRequest:

osuosl.org/blog/osl-future/

#osuosl

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Configuring #WirePlumber on embedded Linux systems can be somewhat confusing. Georgios Kiagiadakis takes a moment to demystify this process for a particular use case: collabora.com/news-and-blog/bl…

#OpenSource @pipewire

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Remember #Movuary, when I and @FreakyFwoof posted a track made with Ableton Move for every day in February?
Well, this is both of our birth months. I, in particular, don't have lots to celebrate, so instead, I've decided to give away all the Ableton bundles from that project, except one, because I accidentally deleted it.
So, for anyone who has Avleton Note or Ableton Move, you can play these just as they were created, modify them, study them, make them more interesting...
For those with Ableton Live, you can import them, but they may not come out sounding exactly the same, because Live converts it to it's own format, and there are differences in the libraries.
Anyway, have fun...
borris.me/audio/movuary2025/Ab…

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As it is the start of the month I shall do some shameless promoting of ourblind.com/ for all the #blind, #deafblind, #lowvision, and #visuallyimpaired people around. @main @mastoblind

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🇨🇿 #Czechia picks of the day:

(All in Czech unless otherwise noted)

➡️ @birdlifecz - Czech Ornithological Society, protecting birds

➡️ @UbuntuCZ - Czech & Slovak Ubuntu community

➡️ @gomeetupprague - Go programming language meetups in Prague (in English)

➡️ @jopenspace - Tech events for developers in Czechia

➡️ @ct24.ceskatelevize.cz - News feed from ČT24 public broadcaster

➡️ @www.ceskatelevize.cz.sport - ČT sport news feed

🧵 1/4

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Lots of good talks were given at this year's #LinuxAppSummit — but the 24 hours of livestream footage are a little messy to navigate. I've extracted the talks into individual videos, created branded thumbnails and posted them on the LAS YouTube channel for easy browsing and sharing. Enjoy:

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3s…

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Locked out of #Stocard? Considering switching to an app like #Catima? You may be able to still access your Stocard cards directly!

According to Italian video creator "IT Problem Solver", it seems Stocard's expiry is based on device time. So: change your phone's date, screenshot those barcodes, and add them to Catima! :) youtube.com/watch?v=hrsEiMjoQT…

Alternatively, if you have the patience and live in Europe, email support@stocardapp.com to ask for an export of your data and import it directly!

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in reply to Sylvia

Note: there are some small issues with the Stocard importer that may affect you. Look at github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro… and github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro… if you have issues, or ping me and I'll help fix up your export file for you :)
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Mixxx Stable 2.5.1 Released!

Thanks to your feedback, this release contains a lot of improvements, fixes, new and improved controller-mappings. We would like to emphasize the importance of testing new versions. You don't have to be a programmer to contribute to Mixxx. Translating, testing new features and checking for possible regression is just as important.

It is recommended that all users update to this new version.

mixxx.org/news/2025-04-27-mixx…

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Aww yeah, the Godot game engine 4.5 dev 3 snapshot is out.

For those of you to whom that's just alphabet soup, 4.5 dev 3 integrates AccessKit! This means that the editor UI, and any game UIs made with it, are screen reader accessible out of the box.

I just spun up an instance in a Fedora distrobox. Haven't gotten far, but the intro and project creation dialogs are certainly usable. Though the creation dialog seems to set its content as the label for all fields which is verbose. Filing that issue but still this is an amazing development!

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#WenkoffRetro No. 217 🎶❤️
#retromusic

25.4.1917 se narodila královna jazzu ELLA Jane FITZGERALD.

Její téměř 60letá pěvecká kariéra začala 17.11.1934 na soutěži mladých talentů v Harlemu a obratem byla přijata do orchestru Chicka Webba. Následovala spolupráce s největšími hvězdami jazzové scény (Ellington, Basie, Cole, Armstrong, Sinatra, Goodman...). Ella ve stovkách písní očarovala publikum nejen svým barvitým hlasem, ale i velkým citem pro jazz a improvizaci.

Užij si tři nádherné kousky. 😍

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If you heard about that hacking of the voices of traffic light crosswalks in the US recently, the root cause is the devices all had the password '1234' and an app to reprogram the devices was on the Apple app store.
theregister.com/2025/04/19/us_…

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I meant to try this out for a few days now, and I finally did it. I was able to view a Telemundo News report in Spanish and have Meta glasses translate it to me in real time using the Live Translate feature. There is about a 5-10-second delay, but over all it's quite impressive. I even tried watching trailers for some Spanish-speaking movies... Quite something!
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I didn't know

When I learned about the holocaust as teenager in Germany, many people from the Nazi era were still alive and lived all around me. Being the curious person I always was, I asked them about what happened and their role in it.

"I didn't know" was the boilerplate answer. And as they were relatives and friends, I believed them at first.

Then in 1981 we got a new teacher for history and he exposed the lie. Or more precise: he got us exposing those lies.

1/5

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in reply to Jachym Cepicky

Už několik let (odhadem dekádu) mám ve svém nekonečném seznamu startupideas tohle - byť je to asi související jen částečně…

„Mapy, které mají jako primární způsob dopravy MHD, kolo, pěší cesty. Mista s velkým provozem aut jsou umenšena a zobrazena jako něco jako brownfieldy. Železnice jde vidět, rozlišeny jsou lokální tratě a hlavní tratě.“

Ale možná je to use case pro jednu osobu na světě, která nemá auto.

This entry was edited (9 months ago)
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📱 Válí se mi doma Pixel 6a s GrapheneOS.
Mám tu plně funkční Google Pixel 6a s nainstalovaným GrapheneOS. Bezpečnostní aktualizace do července 2027. Perfektní pro někoho, kdo to myslí vážně se soukromím a chce bezpečný telefon bez Google sledovaček.

Telefon má známky běžného používání a trochu zlobí konektor na nabíjení, ale jinak šlape v pohodě.

Kdyby někomu udělal radost a využil ho naplno, dej vědět do zpráv. Rád ho pošlu dál – hlavně někomu, kdo ví, co má v rukou. 🙂

#GrapheneOS #Privacy #OpenSource #FediBazaar #androidbezgoogle

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Málokdy sdílím, málokdy takto přispívám, ale paní znám, často ji vidím na vozíku i s jejím psím doprovodem na cyklostezce v Trutnově kolem Úpy.
Je smutné, že postižení u nás mají tak malou podporu, ale vždy se najdou hodní lidé, kteří přispějí nějakou tou stovečkou.

Za sdílení děkuji

donio.cz/stastny-zivot-pro-ver…

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