Tripped over oneko in #FreeBSD ports, and installed it for some Nostalgia. Which caused me to trip over this https://eliotakira.com/neko "Neko: History of a Software Pet" page.
Which included a repository of a bunch of historical versions. Including the original 90s #BeOS version which had introduced me to the net kitty.
Which caused me to wonder if the "replicat" app from BeOS could be made to build in #Haiku. (It can).
The actual replicant feature where the app window is embedded into the desktop isn't working quite right for some reason that escapes me at the moment. (Other replicants work fine on my system.) #HaikuOS
Hypothesis: Copilot told a vibe-coding employee to FORMAT C: /Y on the Azure servers and convinced the poor sod's vibe-working manager to sign off on it.
We are creating an increasingly brittle world.
https://mastodon.social/@mhoye/115459019613067069
There's an Azure outage, so in the Netherlands the trains aren't working.
https://nltimes.nl/2025/10/29/ns-hit-microsoft-cloud-outage-travel-planner-ticket-machines-affected
If your government's legislature can't vote because a third-party commercial ~~cloud~~ somebody-else's-computer is down, then your government needs to ditch it for an on-prem solution pronto.
The Scotsman, "Scottish Parliament suspends voting over ongoing Microsoft outage": https://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/scottish-parliament-microsoft-outage-voting-5380855
i want recommendations for free text to speech interfaces like those used for speech impaired people (screens of icons for quick vocabulary, customizable, with option for full text input)
bonus points for something with a highly customizable voice, or also seeking recommendations for any tts voice that's local, customizable, not genAI, runs on old hardware. i don't want solutions that only work with the system's black box TTS i have to find arcane packs for
please boost!
I am once again setting up for a customer a new PC that didn't come with a manual, required assembly with no assembly instructions, & started talking during the out-of-box experience (OOBE). There was a speaker icon, but clicking on it did nothing but make the icon's "click me" border disappear.
I get that computers need to talk for blind & low-vision users, but come on, not at the expense of making your new users deaf as well!
As someone who is totally blind, the Fediverse is the only place where I have ever been able to follow people such as photographers, artists, or even those who post pictures of their cats or the food they ate. The reason is that most of them use alt text. They take the time to describe the images that my screen reader can't recognise. Some write the descriptions themselves, and others use tools such as altbot. Some worry that their descriptions aren't good enough, especially when they are new at this. Let me assure you, not only are they good enough, they are extremely appreciated! If the rest of the world thought as you did, it would be a much better place. Don't hesitate to ask if you're unsure of something, but never think that we don't notice your effort.
#appreciation #accessibility #altbot #alttext #blind #blindness #fediverse #gratitude #images #inclusivity #peoplewhocare #pictures #technology
✨ Kind 'Net Help Desk fairy by day. ✨
✨ Weird & furry Unix fairy by night. ✨
✨ Sometimes a retrocomputer fairy. ✨
✨ Pays the ComputerFairi.es bills. ✨
✨ Sparkly✨shellscript✨princess. ✨
✨ Age: Mere days younger than ✨
✨ the Intel 4004 & Unix 1st Edition. ✨
✨ Follow requests welcome. ✨
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