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Just gonna leave this here.
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Just gonna leave this here.
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I should really go to bed but first have this thing I spent the last few hours making in Ableton. It's a remix of "Be Like You" by Taylor Acorn and it's probably one of my favorite songs of the last few years. Here's the original: youtu.be/Cys2K0rx2T0
Taylor Acorn - Be Like You (Official Audio)
Taylor Acorn - Be Like You (Official Audio)Stream Survival in Motion: https://onerpm.link/survivalinmotionFollow Taylor:▶ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/a...YouTube
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RE: gultsch.social/@daniel/1135490…
#Signal isn’t just AWS. It also has a hard dependency on Google’s push notification system (FCM) if you don’t want your battery to catch fire.
Signal’s attitude towards #UnifiedPush and #FDroid speaks volumes.
I installed #Signal and #Conversations_im on a clean install of #GrapheneOS on my Pixel 4a and measured the battery impact. The results are shocking!Both messengers had only one contact: my regular phone.
I used my regular phone to send messages to the Pixel 4a (which was not used for anything else over the course of the experiment).
I always sent the same message via Signal and #XMPP (mixing up which app went first). In total I sent ~32 messages in intervals of 10mins to a few hours.
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Great! All the best with the project. I've dropped you a follow so I can keep up with progress. 👊🏼
but it's a big step for most of the people!
However the problem is that most people don't even think about switching from WA to Signal - and NEVER heard about conversations #XMPP
#Schools could / MUST do more! Instead they are pushing students into digital dependencies. School leaders avoid the hassle to think, they appreciate conformity.
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I’m extremely happy this is being developed. I worked with QLog and it’s self voicing interface for about half an hour yesterday and realized very quickly that using it on a regular basis would drive me completely insane!
I work as an audiobook quality controller. My employer uses ClickUp to manage tasks. Unfortunately, the web interface is unintuitive and inaccessible. It contains unnamed elements, menus that expand in all kinds of ways, and similar issues. I wrote to their developers, but even after years nothing has been fixed. Fortunately, ClickUp has an open API. So I used vibecoding and now I have my own minimalist HTML application that displays my tasks, start and end dates, comments, and attachments, and allows me to post comments. I still can’t change task statuses yet—we’ll see if I manage to solve that with the help of GPT. Of course, this is not how a blind person should function in an ideal world, but it is still a way we can help ourselves. That said, I still need a server where my PHP scripts run; it could probably be done with Python as well, but PHP seemed simpler to me since it’s already running on my server. BTW it would be ideal if Clickup api documentation is one simple document which I can throw to gpt but it seems that chatgpt already know how to use it.
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An accidentally discovered workaround that probably shouldn't even be mentioned as an actual one but got me through an hour-long webinar recording today: when an ad comes up on Youtube and your video is a part of a playlist, navigating to the next video skips it and loads the next one. As a result, if you skip to the next video when it's time to skip the ad and then return back to your video, the playback resumes. This obviously works also with remote controls on headphones.
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@MariahL I now use an ad blocker, but in Safari, if you encounter an ad, especially at the beginning of a video, refreshing the page seems to skip the ad. Almost every time I've tried it, this has worked for me without fail. I have no idea how nobody at google has fixed this. Unless somehow they can't.
good to know.Πs. if ayou have any vpn, try to connect with Birma and it will solve your problem too.
I recently had a need for a recursive C++ lambda that captures variables. This isn't possible in the intuitive way; you get:
error: variable 'someVar' declared with deduced type 'auto' cannot appear in its own initializer.
It turns out you can achieve this (albeit a bit horribly) by passing the lambda to itself! See this article for details: artificial-mind.net/blog/2020/…
error: variable 'someVar' declared with deduced type 'auto' cannot appear in its own initializer.
It turns out you can achieve this (albeit a bit horribly) by passing the lambda to itself! See this article for details: artificial-mind.net/blog/2020/…
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If you can use C++23, deducing-this makes it easier: dev0notes.com/intermediate/rec…
Recursive lambdas from C++14 to C++23 - Notes from /dev/null
There are algorithms that have natural recursive representation and are very cumbersome or painful to write iteratively. With the advent of lambda expression...www.dev0notes.com
Lol, I think this post encapsolates my distaste for C++ in a single go. Still fond of it, since it was my first programming language, but also, just ick :). Good luck, sir.
Victory adds Braille to its amps at no extra charge for blind players like @bermudianbrit thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/…
Victory adds Braille to its amps at no extra charge for blind players like myself - Amps Discussions on theFretBoard
For those that haven't seen this initiative: https://mixdownmag.com.au/news/victory-amplification-reveals-world-first-braille-guitar-amp/theFretBoard
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AI Brailab Hungarian text-to-speech system Voice generator. That's right. I'm not done.
It's up on Jammable. Here's a cover of Brailab doing Dial Drunk, with Eloquence Reed. Enjoy.
jammable.com/brailab-hungarian…
an you tell Brailab from Eloquence in the song? I sure can. Poor Brailab. All squished because it only goes up to 10000HZ of audio quality. Aww awe, I almost feel sorry for it.
Brailab Hungarian text-to-speech system AI Voice Generator | Jammable AI Covers
Brailab Hungarian text-to-speech system AI voice & song generator. Create Brailab Hungarian text-to-speech system AI voice covers with advanced AI voice technology and 50,000+ AI voices.Jammable AI
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@tardis so on that page there's a "create" button, you press it and a dialog opens. There you click on the select song button, then you can upload from your computer. I think free accounts don't really exist anymore, or they might but they only let you preview. Otherwise it's $1.99 for the first month (unlimited cover credits) then $8.99 after.
I had some free time today so I created this... audiopub.site/listen/13c92d44-…
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I've just open-sourced a native macOS @matrix client that I've been working on! github.com/viktorstrate/mactri…
It is built with #swiftui and #MatrixRustSDK
GitHub - viktorstrate/mactrix: Native Matrix client for macOS
Native Matrix client for macOS . Contribute to viktorstrate/mactrix development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
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The #blog post "A year of work on the ALPM project" has been released:
devblog.archlinux.page/2026/a-…
#ArchLinux #OpenPGP #RustLang #SovereignTechFund #STF #VOA #devblog
A year of work on the ALPM project
An overview of the work done on the ALPM project in 2024 and 2025.Arch Linux Dev Blog
This entry was edited (Sunday, January 11, 2026, 9:28 AM)
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Friends, this is the coolest thing I have ever seen and you should see it too. A guitar amp labelled entirely in braille. #accessibility #blind #blindness #braille
This entry was edited (Friday, January 9, 2026, 10:44 PM)
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The production on this track is insanely good. Love all the interesting ear candy and little details. On top of that it's just a really well written song. Jess Humphries - Spite
This entry was edited (Friday, January 9, 2026, 6:13 AM)
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Hey so Claude Code got DecTalk working in Termux on Android and got Emacspeak working with it. Very little lag. Emacs. Android. Org-mode. Bluetooth keyboard. Nov.el. Markdown-mode. Org-export. Calendar. Emacs. Mind blown.
#emacs #accessibility #android #blind #termux
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Android users, are you ready?
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I have been notified about this #accessible text editor written in rust with a lot of interesting features.
GitHub - Ambro86/Novapad: Modern Notepad in Rust: read PDF/EPUB/DOCX, play MP3 audiobooks, create audiobooks with high-quality TTS, and manage bookmarks.
Modern Notepad in Rust: read PDF/EPUB/DOCX, play MP3 audiobooks, create audiobooks with high-quality TTS, and manage bookmarks. - Ambro86/NovapadGitHub
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A friend of mine, Beqa Gozalishvili, a very talented developer from Georgia the country, announced an early stage of his #SAPI5 wrapper for the popular #ESpeakNG #TTS engine. bug reports and feature requests are welcome, he says in his Telegram channel. He does speak English. github.com/gozaltech/espeak-ng… #Accessibility #ScreenReader #Windows #JAWS #NVDA
GitHub - gozaltech/espeak-ng-sapi: Sapi5 interface for espeak-ng text-to-speech synthesizer
Sapi5 interface for espeak-ng text-to-speech synthesizer - gozaltech/espeak-ng-sapiGitHub
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The State of Modern AI Text To Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users: The past year has seen an explosion in new text to speech engines based on neural networks, large language models, and machine learning. But has any of this advancement offered anything to those using screen readers? stuff.interfree.ca/2026/01/05/ai-tts-for-screenreaders.html#ai#tts#llm#accessibility#a11y#screenreaders
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.
github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice
GitHub - RHVoice/RHVoice: a free and open source speech synthesizer for Russian and other languages
a free and open source speech synthesizer for Russian and other languages - RHVoice/RHVoiceGitHub
@shortwavesurfer2009 The problem with RHVoice is that it's concatinative (with some hidden markov model tricks for phoneme selection). So it will never be as easy to understand at extremely high rates of speed as eloquence.
For World Braille Day, I compiled a list of free braille art and tactile image libraries that I used for a project in one of my graduate school classes. This is by no means a complete list of all available resources for tactile graphics, rather it is a list of sources that were explored for this project. veroniiiica.com/free-braille-a…
Free Braille Art And Tactile Image Libraries | Veroniiiica
Free online resources for braille art and tactile graphics for blind and low vision students, with an emphasis on STEM content. Written for World Braille DayVeronica Lewis (Veroniiiica)
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A new day, and a new accessible Telegram client for Windows, TAccess.
TAccess is a custom Telegram client built with Python and wxPython, specifically designed to be fully accessible for screen reader users (NVDA, JAWS, Narrator) on Windows.
github.com/mlapps88/t-access-a…
TAccess is a custom Telegram client built with Python and wxPython, specifically designed to be fully accessible for screen reader users (NVDA, JAWS, Narrator) on Windows.
github.com/mlapps88/t-access-a…
Release T-Access 1.0 · mlapps88/t-access-accessible-telegram-client
TAccess v1.0.0 - First Public Release We are proud to present the first stable release of TAccess, an accessible Telegram client designed from the ground up for efficiency and ease of use with scre...GitHub
This entry was edited (Monday, January 5, 2026, 5:47 AM)
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@serrebi The latest versions should be significantly more optimized in this regard. I also experienced performance issues with Blind RSS, even on powerful hardware, which is why I tried to improve it—I hope successfully. 🙂
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Remembering the birthday of Louis Braille, a reminder that the 3D printed buildings related to his life, his childhood home, the school where he studied and the Pantheon where he is resting is freely available, just contact me and I'll send you the file.
#LouisBraille
#France
#Braille
#ReplicaBuildings
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here is my tribute to celebrate Braille audiopub.site/listen/3c9fba77-…
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Introducing Whack A Braille! A new Blind-first and a11y-first audio-based game aimed at increasing typing skills and #Braille literacy. Multiple game and input modes, fun sounds, and you earn tickets with each round that you can use to get silly prizes when you cash out at the Prize Counter! Practice your Perkins typing with the home-row setting and your grade 2 symbols and word signs. I'm still iterating, but enjoy this initial release. Go whack some moles! marconius.com/fun/whackABraill…
Whack a Braille!
Whack a Braille is a braille-first arcade game where fast fingers, sharp ears, and solid braille skills win tickets and prizes.marconius.com
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Check it out. Braille Display Calibration tool is now on GitHub for you all to admire in its full 96.4% C++ glory. It will get updates here from now on, but the private binary will also stay current.
github.com/tgeczy/BrailleDispl…
github.com/tgeczy/BrailleDispl…
Release Beta1 · tgeczy/BrailleDisplay_calibration
This is an initial release. It supports all major features I would want in a calibration tool. Best works with NVDA; JAWS still may have issues on multiline displays.GitHub
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So I've just pushed a really early version of being able to control a Mac via NVDARemote to the NVDARC app, via a new Be controlled option in the settings page. Note/warning! Due to limitations in VoiceOver, the speech output is going to be less than desirable in a lot of cases, but at the moment, it's the best one can do. Thanks to @miki for igniting the spark in me to actually make this a reality. testflight.apple.com/join/edg8…
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@pvagner @jonathan859 Yeah, I wanted to bring NVDA Remote to Linux as well. Maybe that'll be my next project.
Now I wanna know how you did that, that's so awesome! Maybe we can finally make the NVDA remote protocol non-NVDA-specific?
This entry was edited (Sunday, January 4, 2026, 6:57 PM)
Happy Jabber Day 🎂 🥳
On January 4, 1999, Jabber was first announced to the public¹.
Twenty-seven years later, Jabber—or XMPP, as it became known after standardization through the #IETF—remains the only truly vendor-independent, federated instant messaging platform.
In almost three decades, XMPP has never stopped evolving and remains our best tool for digital independence.
¹: tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?s…
#DigitalIndependenceDay #Jabber #XMPP #DiDit #DigitalSovereignty #DiDay #JabberDay
Open Real Time Messaging System - Slashdot
Jeremie writes "Jabber is a new project I recently started to create a complete open-source platform for Instant Messaging with transparent communication to other IM systems(ICQ, AIM, etc).tech.slashdot.org
This entry was edited (Sunday, January 4, 2026, 8:15 AM)
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As far as I can tell, work on the standard has slowed down due to being more and more complete. This is good for projects implementing it.
I think the entire ecosystem is on a good path. It needs fair competition between companies and community projects. Let's wait another 2 years and see what we get.
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Zum Geburtstag 🎂 von Louis Braille feiern wir den #WeltBrailleTag 🌏 👩🦯. Erstelle deine eigenen Brailleschilder mit einem 3D-Drucker und unserem Schildgenerator codeberg.org/oskars/define-bes… #make #blind #inklusion
define-beschriftung
3D print lettering with Braille and profiled lettering; 3D-Druck-Beschriftung mit Braille- und Profilschrift [www.oskars.org](https://www.oskars.org)Codeberg.org
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there's a certain day of the week every year, that allows you to calculate the day of the week for any date that year -- in your head!
for 3 years out of four, it's January 3
in the fourth, in leap year, it's January 4
so for 2026, this day, called Doomsday, is Saturday
The Doomsday Algorithm
rudy.ca/doomsday.html
the easiest part of the Doomsday algorithm is the even months
all of these Doomsdays are Saturdays in 2026 --
April (4th month) 4th
June (6th month) 6th
August (8th month) 8th
October (10th month) 10th
December (12th month) 12th
the other months are fairly easy too, and pretty soon you will be able to do any date this year
check out the 2026 Doomsday calendar below
you can also extend this to other years and even centuries, but it's a bit trickier
the Doomsday Algorithm was originally devised by John Horton Conway, a famous mathematician, who died of COVID in 2020
Doomsday Algorithm
The Doomsday Algorithm gives the day of the week for any date (and you can do it in your head)rudy.ca
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I've released at-spi2-core 2.59.0, now with documentation for the protocol. The documentation still needs some work, and I won't be surprised if I overlooked some formatting issues in the rendered version, but then alpha releases are alpha, or something.
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A year or two ago, I recorded the text message sound effect for Happy New Year on iOS.
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UnifiedPush has already been around for five years! Now is the perfect time to look back and forward.
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Every year around this time, @MoonCat and I bring out this ridiculous clip of when I opened a champagne bottle back in 2011. It went everywhere, spectacularly!
Sharing this recording is just tradition at this point.
Please don't drink and listen.
Anyway, it's time for...
'Happy New Year from Andre and Kirsten Louis (AKA The puking champagne bottle)' youtu.be/SECSu6shNRk
Happy New Year from Andre and Kirsten Louis (AKA The puking champagne bottle)
Got time for a little story?The date: December 31.The year: 2011.The time: About 20:14.The event: I'm opening a champagne bottle, and my lovely wife Kirsten ...YouTube
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Thread: For the past 4 years, I have been posting monthly roundups to audiogames.net talking about any new interesting blind friendly games or accessibility mods coming out. If you're looking for something to play or are curious what's going on, I'm going to be posting them in this thread.
To start, here is the last digest of 2025, which covers all blind friendly game releases I heard about both on the audiogames.net forum and off throughout December and even into the new year and boy there was a lot to cover. A lot of games got modded to be accessible, including both entries in the hand of fate series as well as the Phoenix Wright trilogy and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also rhythm games, some christmas vibes, a bunch of games for iOS and so much more. forum.audiogames.net/post/9424…
To start, here is the last digest of 2025, which covers all blind friendly game releases I heard about both on the audiogames.net forum and off throughout December and even into the new year and boy there was a lot to cover. A lot of games got modded to be accessible, including both entries in the hand of fate series as well as the Phoenix Wright trilogy and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also rhythm games, some christmas vibes, a bunch of games for iOS and so much more. forum.audiogames.net/post/9424…
This entry was edited (Wednesday, February 4, 2026, 5:04 PM)
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Is there a particular reason you didn't include my Hitster online version in there? Did you perhaps miss it? It went kinda unnoticed as it seems. Here's the announcement: forum.audiogames.net/topic/581…
And here is the first audiogames.net digest for 2026. A whole bunch of accessibility mods including for the first Diablo, The Bazaar which I've been logging some time into, cookie clicker and more. Also, a detailed fishing simulator, new mobile RPG and a whole lot more. forum.audiogames.net/topic/585…
@Jage throughanks! Yes, Whack A Braille and Roll With it Typing have had a bunch of updates based on feedback and new ideas, and Audio Invaders and Audio Archer are still going strong. More to come soon!
Here's the audiogames.net monthly digest for February. This month, more mods, with some standouts being Heros of Might and Magic 3, Digimon World next order and Death and taxes. Dawncaster coming to PC. The return of the games for blind gamers gamejam. Games you can play with a MIDI keyboard. Games you can play on an Apple watch. Games where you have to decode DTMF tones. Yeah, this one got weird in a cool way. Oh and there's a ton of updates. forum.audiogames.net/topic/587…
Happy mew year! Ever wanted to NVDA Remote into a computer on your iOS device? But whoops, forgot your keyboard? Or have a keyboard? Either way, NVDARC has got you covered! NVDA Remote Controller is a new app for iOS and Mac (as soon as it finishes reviewing) that allows you to control computers over the NVDA Remote protocol. It also offers an onscreen keyboard, as well as page swiping gestures and magic tap, for sending keys with the touch screen. Useful for when you have things you want to do on the computer and are away from it. Try out an early version here! testflight.apple.com/join/edg8…
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@darren_duff I could keep trying things, but I don't know that I'm ever going to be able to make it work.
so are we just out of luck on this then? Or do you have other tricks up your sleeve TO TRY?
RE: mastodon.n6.io/@graham/1157896…
Great presenter too! :)
I just found an interesting video segment on PBS about the old Eureka A4 Braille computer, featuring it singing, playing music, and more. youtube.com/watch?v=84C5SFRh81…The Computer Chronicles - Computers and the Disabled (1992)
Special thanks to archive.org for hosting these episodes. Downloads of all these episodes and more can be found at: http://archive.org/details/computerchroni...YouTube
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It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.
Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.
Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.
The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.
The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.
She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.
She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."
She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.
But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.
To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.
San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.
Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.
Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.
Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.
Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.
When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.
He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.
It was a mistake that would change American history.
Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.
She saw "her kids."
She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.
Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.
She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.
So, she made a choice.
She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.
Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.
The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.
She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.
She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.
"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."
And it did.
Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.
Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."
For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.
She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.
She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."
By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.
In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.
This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.
One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."
They underestimated who they were dealing with.
They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.
When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.
It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.
Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.
She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.
Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.
"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."
The quote ran in newspapers across the country.
The court didn't stand a chance.
Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.
The charges were dropped.
Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.
She needed to change the law.
August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.
She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.
But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.
She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.
She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.
In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.
It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.
She never got rich.
She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.
She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.
Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.
Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.
Most of them have never heard of Mary.
They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.
They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.
They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.
Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."
She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.
She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.
She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.
Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.
It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.
It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.
Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.
Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.
Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana."
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This entry was edited (Thursday, January 1, 2026, 2:08 AM)
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There is a CLI tool that lets you do common video and audio operations without having to remember complex ffmpeg syntax. There is no AI and no API calls, just old school pattern matching. It’s fast, works offline, and feels like video editing in plain English right from your CLI. For example, you can simply type:
```
ff convert my-file.mp4 to gif
```
And it will generate the ffmege command for you:
```
ffmpeg -i my-file.mp4 -vf fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos -loop 0 -y video_output.gif
```
```
ff convert my-file.mp4 to gif
```
And it will generate the ffmege command for you:
```
ffmpeg -i my-file.mp4 -vf fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos -loop 0 -y video_output.gif
```
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@Scott I made a bat file based on similar information a month or so ago that takes image as the first input, file as the second, and turns that video into <second file.mp4> as the output.
The contents of said batch file goes like this:
@ffmpeg -threads 3 -hwaccel auto -r 1 -loop 1 -i %1 -i %2 -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -x264opts opencl -vf scale=1280:720 -c:v libx264 -tune stillimage -c:a copy -shortest "%~dpn2.mp4"
@FreakyFwoof Nice and fast for combining an image with a song, thanks for sharing! This ezff repo can do plenty of other stuff too so might still be worth a look.
Our Sunday morning before church was very interesting! I am getting ready for church, when I hear this loud huge bang that sounds like a car crash. Shortly after, I hear what sounds like a man screaming. My daughter says, Daddy, there's a man trying to climb over the back fence. Quickly, I rushed everyone into the garage and lock the door. We call 911 to report what's going on. The dispatcher sends out four police officers they start combing our little community for the supposed man that is trying to climb over my back gate. Shortly afterwards, the head officer comes back and says it's not a man! There is a deer that has gotten its head hung in your fence. We are going to call animal control to see what we need to do next. At this point there are four officers standing in our back courtyard where the deer is stuck. All of a sudden, the deer breaks loose and runs a rampage around the courtyard totally scared out of its mind. The poor thing runs into the window but does no damage to itself or the window. It runs around the courtyard knocking over my fire pit, and my table and chairs. All of a sudden, it turns leaping over the back fence in which it was stuck at first. Then it leaps over the border fence around the back of my community and runs away leaving behind only a few splotches of blood. I sure hope the poor deer is OK. Needless to say, we've got a great story to tell this Christmas.
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@stalwartlabs THANK YOU for actually giving details about the 0.15 "breaking changes" upgrade and actually supporting database/schema migration
I feel like now the project can actually be trusted before your 1.0 release
Peter Vágner reshared this.
victor tsaran
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