Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

I still welcome help and/or recommendations for alternatives.

Balabolka runs on Windows 7, and it found a SAPI 5 voice I sorta like: Microsoft Anna. Sorta because it trips on some word combinations.

@mcc Wait, the peach republic moved to North America?

I'm scared to use anything cloud-based because half of them say they're slop-powered and the other half don't imply they're not.

I have espeak-ng, but I would need some serious help making its speech reasonable.

I have Balabolka on Windows 10, but IDK if it still works on Windows 7 or older, if it isn't slop itself, or how to install SAPI voices other than Microsoft Sam, and I'd need help and/or pointers.

I also want to know what other options I have.

I have an urge to make how-to and let's-explore videos, but the 2019 flu made it too painful to talk for long enough to narrate anything. That means my only options are either captions over voiceless videos or using a text-to-speech (TTS) program to read text I write.

What are my slop-free options for TTS programs and feminine voices folks would be willing to listen to?

I prefer a FreeBSD program, but one for Linux, Windows 7, or an easy to emulate older OS can work as well.

@mavica_again I have no idea what it would be, but I want a glass of greggnog now.

Tangentially, whether you replace it with another third-party antivirus/Internet security suite or go with the built-in Windows Defender ("Microsoft Defender" now?), uninstall the McAfee trialware that came preinstalled on your PC.

If you need yet another reason to quit Google Chrome and quit Google Search, there you go.

My current tech support patient has a bad case of TamperedChef.

It came in through a trojanized PDFEditor download.

My customer was tricked into downloading the trojan because it spreads through Google malvertising. The malicious ads appeared first, second, and third, and Google's ads are indistinguishable from organic search results.

The ads weren't blocked because my customer uses Google Chrome.

The installation wasn't blocked because my customer had an active McAfee subscription.

I tried downloading a car, but it crashed. Now I got a notification my modem device driver insurance rate went up.

I'd suggest turning the rich, especially warhawks, into humanitarian ration pouches, but they're neither kosher nor halal.

I'm eating a pouch of "U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY COMMERCIAL RESALE IS UNLAWFUL" I purchased commercially from a bodega, and I'm wondering:

If the rich are going to send off our young people to die in yet another forever war in yet another foreign land because the people's skin isn't white and the liquid in the reservoirs under their feet is black, the surely there's a way we can feed our troops by cooking, canning, freeze-drying, and preserving the rich industrially into MREs.