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Just shipped RestreamA11y: a free, open-source desktop app that makes Restream actually usable with a screen reader.

Keyboard-first, and it reads your cross-platform chat aloud with neural text-to-speech. Manage channels, titles, and stream status without touching a mouse. Built accessibility-first, because streaming tools rarely are.

github.com/tonygeb23/restream-…

#Accessibility #A11y #ScreenReader #BlindTech #Streaming #OpenSource

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From the BBC's Wimbledon page:
"BBC iPlayer will have a new inclusive feed for Centre Court matches for fans who are blind or visually impaired. It has been co-designed by members of the blind and partially-sighted community and can be found on the Audio Described category page on iPlayer."
I'm looking forward to checking this out. I wonder if it's the Action Audio system or something else. Any ideas @cachondo?

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in reply to Kara Goldfinch
See that's fine. But only like a few people will benefit from this because they're all in the UK. Perfectly fine that the UK doesn't allow anyone else to use their services because we're not paying the license fee, but seriously couldn't they just let us pay the license fee so we can use BBC for the year? I figure American dollars are about the same as pounds anyway.
This entry was edited (Monday, June 29, 2026, 4:52 AM)
in reply to Rooktallon
@Rooktallon I'm not allowed to pay NLS for access to your library over there. Hell we can't even get your home JAWS pricing. The BBC could probably make a small bit of extra pulling in interested yanks, but the administration and logistical costs would almost certainly make it a losing proposition in the long term. Then panorama couldn't use the "it wasn't broadcast in America" defence to avoid your presiden's lawsuit over his hurt feelings either. I daresay that right there is a big reason Auntie Beeb will keep far away from Uncle Sam. In terms of the feed though, It's probably a case of who you know sending you a nice underground link to a repeater.
in reply to Kara Goldfinch

it's not just action audio by the sounds of this page.
The solution brings together two breakthrough technologies, Action Audio (AKQA) and HawkAR (Hawk-Eye Innovations), for the first time.
Every point played on Wimbledon’s Centre Court during all singles matches this year will be broadcast with synchronised spatial audio cues and augmented visual overlays, designed to make live tennis fully immersive for fans who are blind or have low vision.

svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/h…

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'Long Wave radio era end with LW Radio 4 switch-off (UK) 27/Jun/2026' youtu.be/idlEiWRnSd0?is=iiWo54…
This entry was edited (Monday, June 29, 2026, 7:50 AM)

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@GrapheneOS Android 17 introduces a new permission ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK and when my phone upgraded to it, FairEmail lost the ability to connect to my email server at home. Google in their infinite wisdom won't allow apps in the Play Store to request that permission yet, nor F-Droid, so I have to sideload from their Git repo. I think this is going to be a sufficient problem it's worth mentioning widely in the release notes and your other channels like Mastodon.

m66b.github.io/FairEmail/#:~:t…

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in reply to Fazal Majid
Android 17 added a local network access permission which is granted by default for apps not yet targeting Android 17. If this app wasn't ready for Android 17 to be released as a stable release yet, it shouldn't have started targeting Android 17 yet. Apps get around a whole year to start targeting Android 17 before it's mandatory for the Play Store. It's good practice to do it sooner, but not prematurely. Apps in the Play Store can certainly request local network access.
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I'm building an extension for chrome for audible. It will allow quick easy navigation and controls whilst in the player and also include remappable global hotkeys. please send me your ideas for this and let me know if you'd be up for testing before its released. Please boost this so we can get it to a wide group of people.

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I’m live streaming the beta of my Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 #accessibility mod! This game was distributed in a cereal box and was a big part of my childhood! Let’s see how things run!

twitch.tv/RossMinor

#Blind #Simulation #OpenRCT

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The HTML cat is out of the Web Audio bag. I've finally released HYPERBLAM.

It’s my system for sampling, processing, and sequencing sound and music directly in HTML.

hyperblam.how

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in reply to Large Heydon Collider

this is a piece-of-resistance! I've had great fun playing with the demos on my phone, all working nicely. Will have an extended play later tonight!

You should be very proud of this!

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A technology blast from the past that came to mind for some reason earlier today. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I used a service called X*PRESS Exchange or Information Service I believe. It was amazing for the time. You connected a box to your cable TV wiring and to a computer via a serial port and received text streams of all kinds of news. They even distributed software overnight. For the time it was really great! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X*Press_…

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Tonight, I feel the need to rant a little.
Many people keep saying that AI has destroyed everything, including music production, songwriting and singing. But sometimes I wonder whether AI is really the only thing to blame.
In 1994, when I was thirteen years old, I wrote my song For a Missing Girl. I recorded it using two cassette tapes, a Casio keyboard and my own voice. It was primitive, imperfect and homemade, but it was mine. The melody, the lyrics, the emotion and the voice were all mine.
Recently, I asked a musician I know in Cyprus whether he could help me record it properly. I hoped he might rearrange the music while still preserving my melody, my style and my own voice.
His answer was basically: “That is too much work. Why don’t you let Suno do everything for you?”
Honestly, I felt furious and deeply disappointed.
Yes, Suno created a beautiful and polished version of the song. I even uploaded it to YouTube. But it sounds very different from the song I originally wrote. It does not have my voice. It does not fully carry the fragile, personal feeling of that thirteen-year-old girl recording herself with two tapes and a keyboard in 1994.
So how am I supposed to make my own song sound the way I hear it in my mind, with my own voice, when I do not have access to a musician or producer willing to help me?
People condemn AI for taking work away from musicians. But what happens when a musician is given the opportunity to help a real person bring her own music to life and simply says, “Too much work. Let AI do it”?
AI can be incredibly helpful and valuable, especially for people who do not have money, professional equipment, industry connections or access to a recording studio. But AI did not refuse to help me because it was bored. A human being did.
And yes, that is what I find truly disgusting. You can listen to the Suno version of my song here: youtube.com/watch?v=HCPdT9N8aO… #OriginalSong #OriginalComposition #IndependentCreator #AIMusic #SunoAI #ForAMissingGirl

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in reply to Eleni Christodoulou
I like this. I think if you used a newer model of suno it'd sound even better? Also I'd love to hear hte original. If you'd be willing I could try and, both run it through suno, and see if I could find a few people to help you arrange it. I know a fare few musicians :) I like to consider myself a pretty good suno prompter, I know you did it yourself, but I would like I said love to hear the original I'd love to hear the 2 casette players and a casio version.
in reply to Xantastic
I also am a farely good musician but I'm not always the best at playing full songs, but oh boy I'd give it a go, I can play most of these chords. I'm hearing 1990s walter afanasief, ala beauty and the beast etc.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 21, 2026, 11:03 PM)
in reply to Eleni Christodoulou
This is a good point. I'm coming at this from the perspective of a musician / producer who's been at this for nearly 20 years, and I have a love hate relationship with Suno and products like it. On the one hand, I think the tech itself is really cool and the fact a computer can produce music that honestly isn't all that bad in the grand scheme of things is impressive, however I also feel somewhat threatened as a person who's made music my life. I spent years getting good at piano, production, mixing, etc. Suno can make a hole song in seconds. of course musicians are going to be angry about this, it's a natural and justified reaction to something so disruptive. At the same time, if people find that it helps them express themselves, that's great. At the end of the day, Suno and tools like it are here to stay, and it falls on musicians to level up and make music that can surpass it. Ultimately, I don't think that's a bad thing at all.
Damn, spent a few hours trying to scrape a website using python requests to find out error 104 connection reset by peer is caused by their server software only speaking ancient TLS ciphers. Ended up writing custom SSL adapter accepting all the protocols.
It's a pity it took me so long to figure it out.
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Bobby Prince, who composed music for #DOOM & #Wolfenstein3D & #DukeNukem 3D and more has sadly passed away

𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺

Sad news for those who know and love the history of #RetroGaming and #gaming in general

legacy.com/legacy/robert-bobby…

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Midi To Move

Sensitive content

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"I Left Port 22 Open on the Internet for 54 Days. Here's Who Showed Up." arman-bd.hashnode.dev/i-left-p… via @MonniauxD

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in reply to Arthur Charpentier ⏚ 🇨🇦

I did something similar for a while with a client response that was designed to kill the ssh client attempting to login. Just a genetic algorithm sending a malformed response. At the time the bots would try 5 to 10 different PWs and then stop. So my fitness test was whether or not the attempts stopped early. Once it had evolved a response that would kill packets it would get one request and no more.

@MonniauxD

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Normálně se za opakované násilné znásilnění dává vězení. V katolické církvi dostanete odměnu 2 nebo až 3,5 milionu. Stačí se přihlásit. Heslo je "Graubnerboys". :( V akci je momentálně i španělský apartmán zdarma. seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-…

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From Jamal Mazrui: Introducing DbDo: The most Productive Database Manager for Screen Reader Users groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/11…

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We're very happy to see that WebDAV Push (github.com/bitfireAT/webdav-pu…) is being implemented in more software improving the open-source ecosystem around CalDAV and CardDAV 🎉 🎉

Rustical is a lightweight and very fast calendar 📆 server

github.com/lennart-k/rustical/

Chiri is a cross-platform ✅ Tasks management app for Linux, MacOS and Windows (supporting VTODO tasks)

github.com/chiriapp/chiri

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An update: Found this a bit ago. Made by a blind user for blind people. why hadn't I heard of it before? Ultra Creative Suite

github.com/demirajvazi10-max/U…

"The world's first professional video editor that is fully accessible to blind, low-vision, and sighted users — without compromise.

Built by a blind developer. Tested daily with JAWS for Windows."

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Poláci říkají bicyklu “rower”. Ne, není to divné, vlastně je to logické. Podobně jako xeroxovat nebo googlovat. Kolo v dnešní podobě totiž roku 1885 vynalezla firma Rover z Coventry…

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I recently learned about a new TTS model, originally created by Nvidia, called mixer TTS. It's extremely small, multiple sizes are available with the smallest being only 1 million parameters. This makes it very fast, and could be really good for screen reader use. Here's a link to some training code along with pre-trained models. github.com/nipponjo/mixer-tts-…
@Derek @chikim @Leowyatt88

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Looking back on the Queensland Gives awards, got us all nostalgic for another anniversary from the same time. Today in 2023, ABC television in Australia aired a special episode of "Australian Story" - the first with Audio Description - featuring NV Access founders Mick Curran and Jamie Teh. You can still watch the episode here: abc.net.au/news/2023-06-05/mic…

Come and watch it again with us! (Links to the episode at the bottom of that article).

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ABC #ABCTV #AustralianStory #TV

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Hello everyone!
A new update to bootswap is here.
For those who don't know, bootswap is a utility that lets you reorder or remove the boot entries on your device, without the need of going into the bios.
Its not a large update, but i've been meening to release this for a while because i don't really have anything else to add to this project.
This update Adds an option to mark an entry as next boot. Marking an entry for next boot will cause your device to boot into the selected entry the next time it boots up but will not permanently alter the boot Sequence.
here is the direct download link: github.com/aryanchoudharypro/b…

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Lolol, just got it! Talk Forward, instead of Talkback? Clever! This new screen reader kicks arse. If you're coming from an iPhone, you'll feel at home. If you're an Android person, it sort of feels like Talkback, but with more bells and whistles. They've even implemented the rotor gesture. There's a braille keyboard and braille display support. Yay! So cool! You can find it here: app-suite.eu/talkforward

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@FreakyFwoof Have you scene this? It's a much better extension for playing sounds on browser nav. Way more sounds, way more configurable, etc. I would love an Andre theme for this. Some of the authors picks seem a tad long, to me: chromewebstore.google.com/detail/finch/oibdifnhdjolmckhjlcifnelbonfccfa

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in reply to x0
@x0@FreakyFwoof Also the way some of these sounds are mono and some are not is making me cringe. Pick one or the other! Either is fine! But not both. Especially when the stereo use doesn't seem to mean anything. Like the way the page loaded sound kind of seems to point from left to right but that doesn't mean anything because it's not a percent or something it's just a loaded finished sound! And the start sound is just the mono windows default thing so they don't match at all. And closing a tab is a weird stereo sound but switching tabs is mono. Although I really do like that tab switch sound. I'm not really an audio guy; it's actually quite rare for me to be so annoyed by sound design. Am I getting cranky in my middle-age, or is this especially bad?
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
I did hear about it, but that's too much even for me. I just use the UI soudns addon someone made for me ages ago. Simple, to the point, same as my old 44.1K scheme. I don't need anymore than that personally. chrome.google.com/webstore/det….
in reply to Andre Louis
A few years ago a few friends and I were working on a similar extension with a completely custom sound set to match our windows and triggrd themes. The extension never came out because chrome killed manifest 2, but I still have the sounds and intend to send them in as a pool request. I love the extension, but agreed that the default sounds are kind of annoying. I can say that the sounds we made are a few decibels quieter and more cohesive.
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#IEM #AudioDriver #audiophile
"The question is simple. Does the driver type actually change how the IEM sounds? And the honest answer is: yes, meaningfully — but not in the way most guides suggest."

IEM Driver Types Explained: DD, BA, Planar, EST, MEMS

"DD, BA, planar, EST, MEMS — each IEM driver type has sonic trade-offs. This guide explains what you actually hear, based on listening."
mobileaudiophile.com/guide/iem…

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Of course, I'm late starting my posts for #AudioMo, and it's already midnight at the start of Day 3. Oh well, I'll share the audio anyway, because why not?
Here's what I intended to post on Monday, June 1.
First, a bit of an introduction. On June 1, 2011, I officially became fascinated by the Emergency Alert System when I heard it activate for a tornado warning in western Massachusetts. While the alert was scary and I was concerned for the people affected, I couldn't help but be fascinated by hearing the system in action, along with the ScanSoft Tom voice that I knew so well.
Prior to that, I had only heard the system used for tests and didn't fully understand its purpose. Hearing that tornado warning sent me down a rabbit hole. I spent countless hours watching videos of the system in action, from weather alerts and AMBER Alerts to various tests and everything in between. About a month later, that interest also led me to NOAA Weather Radio.
Now, back to the present day and this piece of audio.
I was sitting in the living room watching an old episode of Card Sharks on Buzzr when it was suddenly interrupted by the EAS. At first, I assumed it was just a standard test and didn't think much of it. Then the message began with, "The Civil Authorities have issued a Required Weekly Test." That immediately caught my attention, because I had never heard one start that way before.
The message went on to list a large number of states, and I later realized they were all in the Eastern Time Zone. It was voiced using the Loquendo Dave voice.
Fortunately, I was watching through our Comcast cable box and was able to rewind it. I knew I had to capture it because I had never heard anything quite like it before.
After doing some research, it appears that this may have been an IPAWS test, some type of federal alert. I'm still not entirely sure whether the public was intended to hear it or whether the station made an error when transmitting it. If anyone knows more about this, I'd love to learn more.
What made it even more fascinating to me was that I happened to hear it on the 15th anniversary of the event that sparked my interest in the EAS in the first place.
Enjoy this recording, captured on my iPhone 15 Pro Max.

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Game score
Final score: 92141
Run time: 15:51
Statistics
Average speed: 114 mph.
Obstacles avoided: 131.
Near misses: 8.
Crashes: 1.
Gas tanks collected: 10.
Wrenches collected: 0.
Total power-ups collected: 34.
Power-up breakdown: Shield 8.8%, Rocket 67.6%, Horn ball 23.5%.
Fired 115 horn balls, hitting 48 and missing 66, for an accuracy of 42.1%.
Obstacles blocked by shield: 3.
Sink holes traversed: 1.
Hit 15 ramps and missed 9, for an accuracy of 62.5%.
Total air time: 155.0 seconds.
Coins collected: 164.
From files.jonathan859.com/tools/BO… by @bscross32. This is a great time waster, should really add a score board somehow.

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A Husband takes his wife to play her first game of golf.
Of course, the wife promptly hacked her first shot right through the window of the biggest house adjacent to the course.
The husband cringed, 'I warned you to be careful! Now we'll have to go up there, find the owner, apologize and see how much your lousy drive is going to cost us.'
So the couple walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
A warm voice said, 'Come on in.'
When they opened the door they saw the damage that was done: glass was all over the place, and a broken antique bottle was lying on
its side near the pieces of window glass.
A man reclining on the couch asked, 'Are you the people that broke my window?'
'Uh...yeah! , sir. We're sure sorry about that,' the husband replied.
'Oh, no apology is necessary. Actually I want to thank you.. You see, I'm a genie, and I've been trapped in that bottle for a thousand years.
Now that you've released me, I'm allowed to grant three wishes. I'll give you each one wish, but if you don't mind, I'll keep the last one for myself.'
Wow, that's great!' the husband said. He pondered a moment and blurted out, 'I'd like a million dollars a year for the rest of my life.'
'No problem,' said the genie 'You've got it, it's the least I can do. And I'll guarantee you a long, healthy life!'
'And now you, young lady, what do you want?' the genie asked.
'I'd like to own a gorgeous home in every country in the world complete with servants,' she said.
'Consider it done,' the genie said. 'And your homes will always be safe from fire, burglary, and natural disasters
'And now,' the couple asked in unison, 'what's your wish, genie?'
'Well, since I've been trapped in that bottle, and haven't been with a woman in more than a thousand years, my wish is to have sex with your wife.'
The husband looked at his wife and said, 'Gee, honey, you know we both now have a fortune and all those houses. What do you think?'
She mulled it over for a few moments and said, 'You know, you're right. Considering our good fortune, I guess I wouldn't mind, but what about you, honey?'
You know I love you, sweetheart,' said the husband. I'd do the same for you!'
So the genie and the woman went upstairs where they spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying each other. The genie was insatiable.
After about three hours of non-stop sex, the genie rolled over and looked directly into her eyes, and asked, How old are you and your husband?'
'Why we're both 35,' she responded breathlessly.
'No Kidding,' he said.
'Thirty-five years old and you both still believe in genies?'

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Accessible Music announcement: I vibe coded a web midi interface / editor to a bunch of rust codecs and tools I had around to access some of my midi hardware. If this interests you you can access it able-midi.ruiandrebatista.com/

Yep, most stuff AI assisted, UI shamefully vibecoded and clearly done because of hardware or editors not accessible. Use at your own risk. #a11y #blind #music #midi "webmidi

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in reply to Rui Batista
Supported devices are boss Re202 spaceecho and morningstar ml10x, using their sysex internal implementation to access every feature possible. Very alfa and the hardest thing this has the rolland gr55 guitar synth (still need a device to test properly). Also generic controller for cc / pc with some device mappings for stuff I have around.
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If you are #blind and still use #irc there's a new adispeak release for you! This one includes the latest adiirc beta, with the fixed and fully accessible settings and server list. It also includes sounds thanks to @FreakyFwoof. If you've never heard of adispeak, it's a script to make adiirc read out IRC messages, in the spirit of sjams or mircspeech, but supporting #NVDA, and based on a more modern IRC client. Get it at: github.com/fastfinge/adispeak/releases/tag/v_0.4#a11y#accessibility#screenreader

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in reply to Matthew J
@bermudianbrit@FreakyFwoof Mostly it's full of me and Tyler. Actually, IRCV3 now fully supports push notifications, and resuming mobile connections, plus message history and connections from multiple devices to one nickname. So with Discord's recent age verification nonsense it has, in fact, had a bit of a renaissance.
in reply to Matthew J
@bermudianbrit@FreakyFwoof Also, modern IRC servers are super cheap to run. Like a raspberry pi can support around 10,000 clients. So there's no more point in multi-server networks and netsplits and all that nonsense. Anyone who wants to can just run a server for there community. And IRC fully supports SSL/TLS these days. Goguma is the best IOS client if you want that. I've tested, and at least on irc.rblind.com, push notifications are fully working.
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
@bermudianbrit@FreakyFwoof The only thing missing is fully E2E private messages. The server owner could still, in theory, read your private messages. But the IRCV3 people are working on an encryption standard based on Signal to fix that. But IRCV3 even has full unicode and utf-8 support these days. And message reactions. And multiline messages. And typing indicators. IMHO IRC has a bright future if discord keeps shooting itself in the face.
in reply to Matthew J
@bermudianbrit@FreakyFwoof The other big thing IRC is missing is a decent interface for moderators. Like you still have to use slash commands and k-lines and stuff. There's no missing functionality, just missing interfaces. The server I use (called ergo) even supports requiring email verification if I want that. So no more getting around a ban with a VPN or whatever. It's just a pain in the ass for ops who have to learn the commands. But I'm sure that'll eventually get fixed.
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After enough years in software, you learn that LGTM doesn't actually stand for "Looks Good To Me".

Only the pros know its real meaning:

"Looked. Got tired. Merged."

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I just discovered Device Orchestra on YouTube, and let's say I'm quite entertained. youtube.com/watch?v=CrHKQz-yok…

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BorrisInABox V4.2 is now available. In fact, BorrisInABox was auto-updated without prior permission, much like Windows 11.

What's changed since V4.1:

•Increased likelyhood of making life, the universe and everything references for the next 365 days
•further decreased over-all stability
•Added new bugs and improved existing ones for better buggy bugness
•updated the GetOffMyLawn libraries and associated dependencies to latest current release available for this platform
•Slower response times with greater resource consumption
•Decreased auditory sensitivity
•Decreased retention of important facts and events, while increasing the number of useless ones which can't be removed through normal methods
•Altered elfactory emissions
•Included contingency plans that will hopefully never be used
•Added new discriminating algorithms for input processing
•includes more random, obscure references that most people won't care about, so we won't bother to list them in the changelog, not even the internal one. SURPRISE!

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GNOME Calendar 51 will be able to recognize Microsoft Teams meetings links in events, surfacing them with a convenient "Join" button (instead of gibberish) like other videoconferencing systems known to us: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-c…

Daily-drive the nightly flatpak like all the cool kids and you'll be able to immediately hop onto calls to circle back and synergize with your clients or colleagues who use this… thing :blobmiou:

#GNOMECalendar #GNOME #productivity #meetings #Teams #MicrosoftTeams

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