Former President George W. Bush will not make formal election endorsement, office says (Quinn Scanlan/ABC News)
abcnews.go.com/Politics/former…
memeorandum.com/240907/p27#a24…
Okay, so I just have to rant about something that I think is going to hold the Linux Desktop back a bit, especially for blind users. That is config files. Specifically, editing some file that's got no kind of linter, or checker, to make sure that whatever the user put in it works and doesn't leave one without speech.
So, this is specifically about the Speech dispatcher, which is a package in Linux a bit like Microsoft's SAPI. Of course, there's that new one, Spiel, that's being worked on, but I've not tried it yet. So, you can run spd-conf to set up a config file, but a lot of folks tell me that, in order to increase the default speech rate for stuff like games that use speech-dispatcher, web apps that speak through speech-dispatcher, self-voicing apps, I'd have to edit the config file.
Now, that's not awful for me, I can do it. But there really, really needs to be a GUI for it. And if you ask *me* why I don't make it myself, I'll tell you that if it's so easy, you should have made it with the snap of *your* tallented fingers, instead of spending all that time being a reply-guy. Windows has a speech properties dialog. Mac has Spoken Content in System Settings. Linux should have something similar. And, if it turns out that there is and I just don't have the proper package installed, I'll gladly change my tune to "distros should have this installed by default."
I've also seen this in Emacs packages like Ellama, where you have to set up Emacs Lisp calls to the right function with the right parameters inside your usepackage block, and it's hard for me to figure out how to add the openAI-compatible service that I have to Ellama. And AI hasn't helped yet.
So, having things being customizable is amazing. It really is. There are so many keyboard configuration settings, for example, that I think blind people are going to love playing with. But goodness, there needs to be something to change your system TTS stuff, and hopefully one day we can have a command to turn on and off the screen, like the iOS screen curtain so we can maintain privacy.
#Linux #accessibility #blind #LinuxDesktop #foss #tts
Weird headline: "Harris ran her office like a prosecutor. Not everyone liked that." I mean, duh: No boss in a highly stressful job is liked by "everyone." But the article isn't anti-Harris. Goofy headline aside, it paints Harris as a tough, smart, knowledgeable and engaged boss. archive.ph/WZmJ9
![Image of the top of the FSF Board Nomination and Review Process chart. It says, Nomination Process: FSF announces nomination dates. (Nominations are currently open until March 3rd, 2023.); Discussion Process: FSF associate members, staff, and voting members nominate potential nominees. [...] Read original page for full text.](https://social.trom.tf/photo/preview/640/15532008 "Image of the top of the FSF Board Nomination and Review Process chart. It says, Nomination Process: FSF announces nomination dates. (Nominations are currently open until March 3rd, 2023.); Discussion Process: FSF associate members, staff, and voting members nominate potential nominees. [...] Read original page for full text.")
Grandma and grandpa are actually too busy to help with childcare, Vance.
They’re out working their shifts because they can’t afford to retire.
Why have salmon deserted Norway’s rivers – and will they ever return?
North Atlantic populations are at a historic low, and this year 33 of the country’s rivers were closed during the fishing season as salmon farming and the climate crisis threaten the fish’s future. #ClimateChange
Here's why some people do it anyway.
sltrib.com/news/2024/09/07/can…
@strangeculprits Thank you for the feedback.
Do you happen to know on what version of Firefox Floorp is based? I.E. do they keep pace with ESR?
Whoa! Whoa! Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, first we got to know:
Do they say this Floorp is a bad motha'?
@danmac Vivaldi (which is what I use) has something called "workspaces" that might be similar.
(I went from Chrome to Firefox to Vivaldi and don't currently feel inclined to change again.)
@danmac Vivaldi workspaces are this:
(begin quote)
Workspaces allow you to quickly group tabs for pages related to various topics, such as work, research, shopping, or school, in the same window. Once you have made a set of workspaces, moving between them is easy; using either the menu button or shortcuts.
(end quote)
As Nicolle Wallace exclaimed on her show Friday, Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have all gathered together around a cause.
That cause is #democracy
and its standard bearer is #Kamala #Harris.
This is a momentous time in the United States, unprecedented at least in this century and likely since long before the Civil War.
The question is whether our national media will understand this moment
— or whether they will continue to insist on their trope of a "divided America"
This is not a divided America.
Patriots are gathering together and putting past differences aside to forestall a next civil war,
to support and defend the Constitution.
A profound phenomenon is emerging :
The question is not whether we should demean or understand or empathize with fascists.
We should instead concentrate on welcoming those who will stand for democracy in a larger movement.
open.substack.com/pub/fosterth…
Found 18 new servers and 34 servers died off since 3 hours ago.
22,742 servers checked. 13,563,230 Total Users with 1,052,368 Active Users today. Check out the stats!
New #fediverse servers found:
pixelfed.tekolote.co a #pixelfed server from United States
graythink.net a #misskey server from Japan
mi.blindalley.net a #misskey server from Private
social.samhenri.gold a #mastodon server from United States
tjol.eu a #wordpress server from Germany
soc.radhitya.id a #gotosocial server from Private
hyperspace.party a #mastodon server from Portugal
lil.spacegoo.monster a #sharkey server from The Netherlands
chadf.masto.host a #mastodon server from France
mastodon.holorum.com a #mastodon server from The Netherlands
flipboard.com a #flipboard server from United States
mk.frizzbees.dev a #sharkey server from Private
blog.cysioland.pl a #wordpress server from Private
photos.thegayborhood.club a #pixelfed server from United States
dev1.cyberpigeon.club a #iceshrimp server from United States
fedi.unleaked.me a #sharkey server from United States
misskey.lognaze.com a #misskey server from Private
mastodon.robalexa.com a #mastodon server from United States
Help others find a home, send them to fediverse.observer
Using hot lava would be crazy dangerous. But there are ways to tap volcanic heat to make electricity.
To harness the energy, engineers drill wells down into the magma and bring steam to the surface, where it is goes into power plants to spin turbines and generate electricity.
theconversation.com/could-we-u…
#environment #science #energy
Paul 💙 28 💔
in reply to Working Families Party • • •Same in the UK.... Made worse as the retirement age keeps getting raised.. especially for ladies....
Somewhere somebody does the calculation that the state retirement fund increases when older people die before receiving the pension (sorry benefit) they have been paying into for decades.
Allowing Covid into retirement homes helped immensely... Bastards