This year marks the 200th anniversary of the invention of the Braille code. The International Council on English Braille, which has a General Assembly every four years, met this time in Auckland, New Zealand.
I was profoundly honoured to be invited to deliver the keynote address to mark the 200th anniversary of the code that gave blind people literacy. The address is called “Safeguarding the Legacy, Investing the Inheritance”.
Whether you’re blind or not, whether you read Braille or not, if you’re interested in the cultural impact and the history of a system that gave an uneducated minority literacy, I hope you find this address informative. You can read the text, or listen to the audio.
It is of course presumptuous of me to think I might be remembered at all when my life is over. But if I am, I would like to hope that this address might be a reason. I put months of work into it, because Louis Braille is my hero. I do not have the words to truly convey the impact his work, his genius, has had on my life.
I hope you enjoy it, and I thank with deep appreciation ICEB for the opportunity to deliver it.
mosen.org/iceb2024
My Address to the 2024 General Assembly of the International Council on English Braille
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the invention of the Braille code. The International Council on English Braille, which has a General Assembly every four years, met this time in Auckland, N…Mosen At Large
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For those interested in computer virtualization, this may be of interest here. VMWare Pro, not just the player, is now free for personal use. This also holds true for VMWare Fusion on the Mac.
This blog has some details.
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The next release will bring both Message Replies (XEP-0461) and Message Reactions (XEP-0444)! 🎉
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Are you blind? Have you heard of the commandline, but don't know what it means or how to use it? I recorded a tutorial that shows how to use a popular commandline utility called YT-DLP to download the audio version of a video with a screenreader, and how you can apply this to other commandline applications. This will accomplish jobs more quickly and bypass inaccessible graphical user interfaces. I hope you find it helpful!
#a11y #accessibility #screenreader
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Winamp is not going open source. Here's what it is doing - and why
To refresh its once iconic Windows media player, Winamp is kind of, sort of opening up the source code. See what that means for users and developers.Steven Vaughan-Nichols (ZDNET)
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New instance, new introduction. Hello, I am Adam from Ottawa Canada. I am a totally blind man, identifying as he/him.
My primary interests are technology and music. I was a former professional drummer, playing the bar stages of Ottawa and the ocasional out-of-town show.
I've always been rhythmical, annoying the heck out of my parents at the tendor age of four on up banging on pots, pans, spoons, and whatever else I could get my grubby little hands on.
I got my first drum kit when I was 12, back in 1999. I got a couple of upgrades over the years, and then switched to electronic kits in 2007 when I managed to save and purchase a Roland TD-12 kit with my own money. That was like buying a car for me, LOL.
I was professionally active from 2007 until 2019.
Some hearing issues with extended loudness causing anxiety and unease started my issues with playing live shows, and then COVID19 really finished that career.
I've been interested in technology from a young age as well, receiving my first electronic note taker for the blind, a Blazie Engineering Braille Lite in 1996 at the age of 9.
I then got my first computer in the summer of 1998, learned DOS, then eventually Windows 3.1, 95, and on up.
I've had many, many, many computers and other technological devices since those days, and I have done any serious compute work in Linux, where in I am mostly referring to running servers, hosting things, and distributed compute projects.
Professionally, I am currently a systems/server administrator, backend web developer, database administrator, and infrastructure administrator.
Other interests include animals, documentaries, listening to most kinds of music, having deep intellectual conversations, and pondering the meaning of life.
#Mastodon #Introduction #Ottawa #Canada #Blind #Music #Technology
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WhatsApp Messenger - Accessible Android
WhatsApp messenger is Simple. Reliable. Private, and accessible.WhatsApp from Meta is a FREE messaging and video calling app.Accessible Android
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Now we're wondering: might we find among you (or your network) two experienced UX/UI designers who are willing to engage in a 6-month volunteer project? We need to come up with a way to fit a bunch of new functionality into the already busy player screen. We're looking for two people (one for each role) to help us with this.
Interested? More info? Send a DM or email keunes@mailbox.org.
Boosts appreciated!
#UXdesign #UIdesign #OpenSource
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The day job, or whatever existing source of income contributors might have. We should probably have specified that, but that's the reason for it taking six months: it's only a few hours per week, a hobby thing for evenings. Just like all other AntennaPod contributions (including these very toots).
Modernizing #accessibility for @gnome and desktop #Linux was the subject of a recent talk by Matt Campbell, long-time a11y advocate and developer of screen reading technologies across multiple OSes.
Watch the talk about GNOME leading an effort to design & prototype a new accessibility architecture:
youtube.com/watch?v=w9psDfEFf9…
Modernizing Accessibility for Desktop Linux - Matt Campbell, GNOME Foundation
Modernizing Accessibility for Desktop Linux - Matt Campbell, GNOME FoundationThe desktop Linux ecosystem has changed dramatically since accessibility was fir...YouTube
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#Suno? #Udio? Who needs those? #ElevenLabs has just blown my actual mind and I am here for it! Cannot wait to get access to this.
I have not been so excited by AI-based music until now.
Don't skip anything, just listen.
Pay attention to the extremely fast Rap section too. It's up there with the best of them.
You've never heard AI music like this, trust me.
youtube.com/watch?v=GpYd8hU_EV…
Udio & Suno AI just got STOMPED on.. New AI Music is SCARY GOOD
Elevenlabs just announced EASILY the most insanely good AI music to date.▼ Link(s) From Today’s Video:Announcement: https://twitter.com/elevenlabsio/status/1...YouTube
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Small Dick Blues by Little Timmy & The Blue Balls (1952) #ai #aimusic #music
Small Dick Blues by Little Timmy & The Blue Balls (1952) - Who could forget the 'BIG" hit from the Summer of '52? #ai #aimusic #music #fun #comedy #funnysongsYouTube
In Europe, flying is cheaper than taking the train.
It's an embarrassment, and a major problem: we have to stop flying for silly short distances. Realise that the overheads of flying (reaching the airport, awaiting 2 hours, the flight, the unloading, reaching the destination) largely cancel out any time gains of flying. And the carbon costs are utterly untenable. Not to speak of the modern, dire conditions of the whole flying "experience".
Another embarrassment is that train connections can't be guaranteed when across countries or companies. They aren't even coordinated. As if those who commission and set the schedules didn't travel by train themselves, at least not internationally. In considering how tiny most European countries are, it's frankly bizarre.
There are so many destinations one could travel by train to, yet in practice, it's not sensible. A disgrace.
The upside is that it can be fixed.
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@miki
Cheap air travel IS NOT due the public/private split.
Cheap air travel is due to government subsidies. Why do *private* airlines get taxpayer subsidised fuel in the first place?
Germany has the best and cheapest train system I used in Europe - all public.
England trains are all private and their service is atrocious and crazy expensive.
Private companies think only about profit. Expensive crap services = profit for shareholders.
@miki
There is a prevailing belief in Poland that private is good, public is bad.
This has nothing to do with the reality and it stems from post communist attitudes.
If you want to see the true difference between private and public operations look at English vs Scottish Water companies.
Or German public trains vs English private trains.
Private companies have only one goal - to sell cheap products & services for as much money as possible.
@miki
Thatcher’s government privatised water in England 35 years ago. Scottish water remained fully public during this time.
I don’t think there has been a better case study to compare private vs public ownership.
🚇 Před 50 lety se poprvé rozjelo pražské metro i s cestujícími. Po slavnostním zahájení, které obstarala muzika a projevy komunistických potentátů, vyrazila souprava ze stanice Kačerov do stanice Sokolovská, což je dnešní Florenc.
irozhlas.cz/veda-technologie/h…
📷 Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy
Už ráno byla před stanicí fronta, vzpomíná na zahájení provozu metra před 50 lety vedoucí Kačerova
Otevřelo pouze pro pozvané hosty, kterých bylo podle Roberta Mary zhruba 50 tisíc a šlo z většiny o politicky exponované osoby nebo rodinné příslušníky zúčastněných na výstavbě.Ľubomír Smatana (iROZHLAS.cz)
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I have a huge amount of appreciation for the fact that Nautilus / #GNOMEFiles can seamlessly pattern-select, batch-rename and move files both from its treeview and from search results… all with keyboard shortcuts! *Extremely* useful to clean up filenames.
Today, in someone else's messy folders, I was able to cleanly rename everything and eliminate at least 40 duplicates in a directory that contained over 180 files, most of which were in the wrong locations.
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Sure, but if I'm already bringing a perfectly good phone along, then I will just use that and save myself $1500. The idea is to only need one device to take everywhere.
Certainly this adds cost, decreases battery life, and makes things more complicated. That's okay! I'm not suggesting it should come standard with all devices (though that would be awesome if they could!) What I am asking is if a modem can be installed after the fact, via a PCMICA slot or USB or whatever. Can the software take advantage of it? If the 10 grams of additional weight makes this totally impractical, I understand.
@pvagner @DavidGoldfield
@fireborn That said, I do have a second phone that I use for work, and it happens to be duel-SIM, and fi doesn't charge extra for hotspots. So for me that option is actually pretty viable since I kinda need to have it close by anyway. I am still curious though! I don't think most people would solve it that way. And it would sure be useful! I do understand why Blazie is not spending R&D on it though.
It appears Sonos is about to become less useable by screen reader users. The CEO should stop it now, but here’s how to protect your investment if he doesn’t
Revision History 7 May, added a new section to the top of the post describing dialogue I have had with Sonos and a statement they have issued. 7 May, added a section featuring responses from…Mosen At Large
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A mindset can be both strange and amazing. Allow me to illustrate:
Today, I wanted to insert index times of one cue file into another. I know at least 10-15 programming and scripting languages, so I very likely could have written something to accomplish this. I could have used shell programs like cut, sed, etc, to accomplish this.
First, asked both Gemini and Chat GPT if they can come up with something. They could not, even with different prompts and corrections.
Then, I looked around to see if someone had written something specifically for cue files. No dice.
Then, I've seen that awk has automatic field splitting as it steps through lines. Okay, let's do it. There's one problem: I've never used awk. No worries.
One hour later, I had the solution written in awk, took around 4 lines.
Looks like today I learned awk and no regrets. The reason? It was easier than everything else out there that I found. I think this is a sign of me getting old lol.
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Continuing a tradition #Conversations_im is available for free on the Google Play Store for the next 7 days.
play.google.com/store/apps/det…
Conversations (Jabber / XMPP) - Apps on Google Play
An encrypted, user friendly XMPP instant messaging client optimized for mobileplay.google.com
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doomworld.com/forum/topic/1342…
Toby Accessibility Mod - DOOM for the Blind [V7.0 RELEASED!]
Hey guys, as some of you may know, back in 2017, I had received an email from a gentleman who informed me about a documentary talking about his life as a blind gamer. His name is Toby and I had the pleasure of getting to know him since.alando1 (Doomworld)
Operation MDK Walk Through
This is a walk through of Operation MDK from start to finish. Thanks to MrAlanD1 for all the hard work on making Doom blind accessible, it is very much appreciated. If you are on Linux, and want to...PeerTube
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Quality that prevails. It's great that it still exists.
Thanks a million for developing the app, keeping it free and sharing it via F-Droid as well.
github.com/khanshoaib3/stardew…
#stardew_valley #smapi #blind #accessibility #a11y @mastoblind
GitHub - khanshoaib3/stardew-access: An accessibility mod for Stardew Valley with screen reader and keyboard only support!
An accessibility mod for Stardew Valley with screen reader and keyboard only support! - khanshoaib3/stardew-accessGitHub
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There's a mysterious new, undocumented model in the chat.lmsys.org/ arena chat tool called "gpt2-chatbot" - you can access it by selecting "Direct Chat" and then picking it from the big select menu there
It's providing responses that feel significantly more impressive than GPT-4, for both factual-knowledge lookup and logic puzzles. It's possible this is a stealth preview launch of something like GPT-4.5
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👋 Career change alert!
Looking to pivot into tech & leverage my 10+ years of programming experience
🐍 Python
🦀 Rust
</> Web Development
🌐 CMS: WordPress & Wagtail
✨ Machine Learning: Torch & Tensorflow
My passion for code shines through my open-source projects! Check them out:
github.com/mush42
github.com/blindpandas
#rust #python #machinelearning #careeradvice #opentowork
Blind Pandas
Upholding accessibility in words and action. Blind Pandas has 26 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.GitHub
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Boosting this. Best of luck to you in your job search. :)
PS: Your software is excellent.
A place and date for the Matrix Conference, a new release for Conduit and a fork, and a notification helper bot. That and more happened this week in Matrix!
matrix.org/blog/2024/04/26/thi…
This Week in Matrix 2024-04-26
Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communicationsThib (matrix.org)
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The Tech Doctor Blog and Podcast: BTSpeak Offers the Simplicity of a Braille ’n Speak and Adds the Power of a Modern Computer
dr-carter.com/?p=569
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Accrescent 0.20.0 is out with support for respecting other app stores, UI improvements, bug fixes and more!
Download Accrescent or view the changelog below for details.
github.com/accrescent/accresce…
#accrescent #android #security #privacy #appstore
Release 0.20.0 · accrescent/accrescent
A more substantial release this time around! Accrescent now respects other app stores and manual APK installations, no longer attempting to take over updates for apps you installed outside of Accre...GitHub
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New bookmark: ActivityPub on a (mostly) static website.
There have been other attempts to document the process of bringing ActivityPub to a (mostly) static site, but this is my favorite so far. I wonder if I should give it a go, if POSSE ever stops serving my needs.
Originally posted on seirdy.one: See Original (POSSE). #IndieWeb #Security #Web
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Screen reader tip:
If you often have long-running operations in your terminal, don't want your screen reader to talk constantly while they're going but want to be notified when they finish, define the following alias (works for ZSH and Bash):
beep() {
$@
echo -e '\a'
}
And then execute your commands like:
beep python long_running_script.py
You can set your screen reader to quiet, and your terminal will beep once the command is done.
I also have a more advanced version of this that sends any error output to my phone via Telegram in case of failure.
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Weakness in auth chain indexing allows DoS from remote room members through disk fill and high CPU usage
### Impact A remote Matrix user with malicious intent, sharing a room with Synapse instances before 1.105.1, can dispatch specially crafted events to exploit a weakness in how the auth chain cov...GitHub
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Writing an article with plans to paste into it a screenshot of a Numbers table. This multi-line, multi-column table would require a lengthy image description for screen readers. I realized I could just make it a Markdown table so everyone could read it, but that would be tedious. Then I thought, “I bet someone else has solved this!” I found the lovely John Franey’s site Table to Markdown, copied/pasted my spreadsheet & I’m done! Bought him a coffee using Apple Pay.
tabletomarkdown.com/convert-sp…
Convert Spreadsheet to Markdown · Table to Markdown
Table to Markdown makes it easy to convert Excel to Markdown and works with any spreadsheet application to convert cells into well-formatted Markdown tables.Table to Markdown
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If accessibility for the free desktop is on your mind - toot.cafe/@matt/11228673825226… is a good follow! Also a legally blind coder doing a11y is good news.
I'm curious to know @matt how your talk was received?
I'm giving my talk today at #OSSummit about my work on a new accessibility stack for GNOME and other free desktop environments: sched.co/1aBO1Modernizing Accessibility for Desktop Linux - Matt Campbell, GNOME Foundation
The desktop Linux ecosystem has changed dramatically since accessibility was first implemented in GNOME over 20 years ago, and even since the accessibility stack was migrated to D-Bus roughly 15 years ago.sched.co
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As a group(GNOME), we don't really do a lot of outreach at conferences and don't get that much visibility. Are you local to the northwest or coming from somewhere else?
If we get this sorted, we will have a fully accessible notification daemon for all wlroots based compositors, which will soon include XFCE. This could be the Wayland equivalent of notification-daemon for X11, but even better if the GTK notification centre list can be fixed up too. #Linux #accessibility #a11y
Regression in accessibility with the Orca screen reader · Issue #404 · ErikReider/SwayNotificationCenter
Please read through the README and the Man pages before submitting Please also make sure that there isn't any prior issue describing this bug Describe the bug The Orca screen reader is seeing group...GitHub
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Catima 2.29.0 is out!
This release adds support for finding barcodes in PDF files[1] and dealing with multiple barcodes. It also properly colours the status bar during usage now.
As always, it's available on #GitHub, will soon be available on #IzzyOnDroid and will slowly roll out to other app stores.
github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro…
[1] Not sandboxed yet, help welcome in github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Andro…
Sandbox PdfRenderer in a Service with android:isolatedProcess · Issue #1804 · CatimaLoyalty/Android
The Android documentation for PdfRenderer states: If the file is from an untrusted source it is recommended to run the renderer in a separate, isolated process with minimal permissions to limit the...GitHub
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That said, my thanks also goes to @obfusk who helps me a lot making #IzzyOnDroid safer. She caught several places in need of improvements, providing patches for some of them and giving advice (and proof-reading) for those I established myself. Some of the scripts used in that area also come from her.
So when thanking me for the repo, please everyone include Sylvia and her as well. Without them it wouldn't be the place it currently is! 😍
Hugs to both of you from me 🤗
uɐıʇsɐqǝs
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