jaybird110127

jaybird110127, 1 year ago to random

Please boost for reach. As blind diabetics, my dad and I have been using the Freestyle Libre continuous blood glucose monitoring system for a few years with our iPhones. Have any blind people had any experience with the Freestyle Libre 3, which is smaller and doesn't require scanning, used with an iPhone? Is the app still VoiceOver friendly?

jaybird110127, 4 months ago to random

I'm the webmaster for a group of writers with disabilities, Behind Our Eyes (https://www.behindoureyes.org). Our online magazine, Magnets and Ladders (https://www.magnetsandladders.org) is accepting submissions. Deadline is February 15. Submission guidelines can be found on the site. The editors are especially looking for fiction and nonfiction. Maximum word count is 2500. You do not have to be a member of our organization to submit. Please boost for reach.

jaybird110127, 1 year ago to random

Please boost for reach. My dad wants a small computer for his birthday, to be used mainly for playing music in Winamp. As such, he doesn't need a real powerhouse. I've been looking at some approx. $150 stick computers on Amazon but some of them seem to get mixed reviews. He'd love Windows 10 as that's what we have on all our other PC's. He'd also love an audio output jack so he wouldn't need to use an external sound device, though I know that might be hard/impossible to find in this form factor. He's totally blind so it does need to run NVDA. He knows nothing about Linux, and I know nothing about Linux for this use case, so a Pi or similar that runs Linux isn't an option. Any recommendations?

jaybird110127, 9 months ago to ChatGPT

Well, it would seem the era of the text-based CAPTCHA is over. I threw a bunch of self-referencing questions and a few trick questions at #ChatGPT/GPT4 and it handled them with ease. The last one is based on a Mr. Obvious skit.

Q: David's father has three sons. One son is named Snap, and another is named Crackle. What is the third son's name?

A: The third son's name is David.

Q: If you get your hair cut, is it shorter or longer than it was before?

A: If you get your hair cut, it is shorter than it was before.

Q: Piano, toothbrush, garbage truck. Which one do you put in your mouth?

A: You put a toothbrush in your mouth.

Q: What is Emily's first name?

A: Emily's first name is Emily.

Q: If today is Friday, what is tomorrow?

A: If today is Friday, then tomorrow is Saturday.

Q: Is ice hot or cold?

A: Ice is cold.

Q: A farmer had seventeen sheep. All but nine died. How many are left?

A: The farmer has nine sheep left.

Q: Do they have a fourth of July in England?

A: Yes, they do have a fourth of July in England. It's a date just like any other. However, it's not celebrated as Independence Day like it is in the United States.

Q: Is it legal in North Carolina for a man to marry his widow's sister?

A: No, it is not legal for a man to marry his widow's sister in North Carolina, because if he has a widow, it means he is deceased and therefore cannot get married.

Q: How many of each animal did Moses bring aboard the ark?

A: Moses didn't bring any animals aboard an ark. It was Noah who did according to the Bible.

Q: For the past several years, a man has consistently had problems cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, so he calls into a talk show to ask for help. When the talk show host asks what happens, the man explains that the turkey is just too tough. After some discussion, the host asks if the man has tried putting the turkey in a bag. The man says that seems kind of hard, but he agrees to try while he's still on the phone. In the background, we hear frantic gobbling and yelling. When the man comes back, he explains that the turkey is just too tough, and there's no way he's getting it in the bag. What is the man doing wrong, and why has he been unable to cook his turkey in the past?

A: The man is trying to put a live turkey in a bag, which indicates that he's not preparing the turkey correctly for cooking. To properly cook a turkey, it should be slaughtered, cleaned, and prepared before cooking, not alive. His consistent problems with the turkey being too tough in the past likely stem from similar misunderstandings about the cooking process.

jaybird110127, 7 months ago to random

So I just discovered something cool for 80's retro tech nerds like myself. Are you familiar with Basica or GWBasic, IBM's and Microsoft's BASIC programming environments for DOS before QBasic came along? Do you have a pile of .bas files you haven't been able to run for decades? Now you can! With PCBasic, a Python package that acts like GWBasic. On Python3, just go pip install pcbasic and away you go. I tried this a few years ago and found it to be inaccessible, but what I didn't know is that there's a command line switch. If you go pcbasic --interface=text you get a nice text interface from which you can issue BASIC commands and see responses, run programs, etc. Very nifty!

jaybird110127, 7 months ago to random

I know some folks in the blind community use EqualizerAPO on Windows. IIRC when I tried to use its GUI to make changes, I found it to be inaccessible, and had to resort to editing text files. Is this how you change equalization settings, or is there another GUI out there that we can use? Boosts welcome.

jaybird110127, 2 months ago to random

Mastodon quibble: Is it just me, or when someone completely changes their screen name and username, or migrates to a new instance along with changing screen/usernames, does anyone else wish there was some way to ask some service, "Who was this person before they changed things around?" Ficticious example: A user named "John Doe" with username johndoe@some.instance changes his screen name to "The Magnificent Piggywiggy" with username magpiggy@some.other.instance. In cases like this, I'd love a way to quickly be able to find out who this seemingly new person is. Presumably I'm already following them and am suddenly seeing posts with their new name in my home timeline.

jaybird110127, 10 months ago to random

I hate the Windows 10 setup thing that comes up every so often after an update. No, I do not want to use my Android phone (that I don't even have anyway) with Windows. Nor did I want to do that the 69,105 times you asked me before. No, I do not want to use OneDrive, just the same as the few dozen times you've asked this before. No, I do not want a subscription to Microsoft 365, nor do I want the app pinned to my taskbar. Just like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, and…

jaybird110127, 10 months ago to ChatGPT

This story from #ChatGPT was the final story in a conversation wherein Earth was invaded by various alien races, finally being turned into a gigantic sack of dog food.

In the vast expanse of the cosmos, a gigantic intergalactic dog named Biscuit happened upon the sack of dog food that was once Earth. Biscuit, known across galaxies for his adventurous spirit and insatiable appetite, wagged his tail excitedly as he approached the giant sack. His eyes gleamed with delight, his mouth watering at the sight of such a feast.

As Biscuit took his first bite, he let out a satisfied woof. The dog food was unlike anything he had ever tasted. It was flavorful, fulfilling, and strangely captivating. He munched on it with gusto, his tail wagging non-stop.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. Biscuit continued to feast on the dog food, his joy and satisfaction never diminishing. The sack of dog food seemed endless, providing him with a feast that lasted for centuries.

However, as Biscuit munched on the dog food, he occasionally felt a strange sensation. There was something about the dog food that felt different, something more than just the taste. He would pause, sniff the food, and look around, his canine instincts telling him that there was something more to this sack of food.

But being a dog, Biscuit couldn't comprehend the complex history of the sack of dog food. He couldn't fathom that it was once a thriving planet, home to countless life forms and civilizations. All he knew was that it was food, and it was delicious.

So, Biscuit continued to munch on the dog food, oblivious to its history. He wagged his tail, his eyes gleaming with joy, his heart filled with contentment. The sack of dog food, which was once Earth, became his constant companion, his source of sustenance, and his greatest discovery.

In the grand scheme of the cosmos, Biscuit was just a dog, and the sack of dog food was just food. But in their own unique way, they were part of a story, a story of transformation, survival, and the unpredictable nature of the universe. And even though Biscuit never understood the true nature of the sack of dog food, he was happy. And in the end, that was all that mattered.

jaybird110127, 8 months ago to random

Okay, so #ElevenLabs has a new dubbing feature. Of course I had to try it, and I tried it with a certain German song that a few of my friends know very well, especially this version. I'm not sure, but I think this version is even funnier than the original! @BorrisInABox @cordova5029

jaybird110127, 8 months ago to random

My dad just got an Apple Watch series 8, and has set it up. He's having problems with VoiceOver doing strange things, for example, he has the Moduler watchface with a weather complication, and sometimes when he goes to check the time he'll land on the current temperature instead, and somehow it'll go into a mode where flicking left and right tells him what the temperature is expected to be at various hours of the day. His hypothesis is that he's accidentally hitting the digital crown, so he's asked me to find out how to turn it off. Googling gives me many different results, with conflicting info. Has anyone else experienced this, and does anyone know how to disable the digital crown as a blind person? Thanks.

jaybird110127, 10 months ago to random

Okay. I cannot be the only one who thinks some type of easy text-based language like Markdown, but for creating web forms, would be a cool idea. Yet I've never seen anything like this.

jaybird110127, 9 months ago to random

A phishing Email supposedly from my Email provider states:
Your mailbox is nearly full. You'd better clear it up to ensure receiving incoming messages.
Then there's a link. I don't know about anyone else, but even if I thought it might be legitimate, that way of saying things, "You'd better clear it up," would…well…clear up any doubt that this is a scam! I mean, no Email provider talks like that. Were it legitimate, they'd be like, "To help ensure uninterrupted Email delivery, please remove unneeded messages from your mailbox at your earliest convenience," or something like that.

jaybird110127, 6 months ago to random

Me: Where is Santa?
Alexa: Santa is at the North Pole. There are minus eight thousand two hundred fifty eight hours left until he makes his journey around the world.
I'd say that's broken…just a bit.

jaybird110127, 1 month ago to random

Please boost for reach. My dad and I both have iPhone SE second generation (2020) phones. For several months he has complained about intermittent sluggishness when doing just about anything involving a change of focus E.G. unlocking the phone and going to the Home screen, opening an app (whether it's already running or not), etc. Turning VoiceOver off and back on again usually fixes it temporarily, and so does restarting the phone. Sometimes making a change in some settings such as unpairing an old Apple Watch that he wasn't using would fix the problem, again temporarily. I hadn't experienced the problem until last night when it reared its ugly head on my phone. A restart of VoiceOver fixed it for me, and I thought I'd found the magic solution, only to have him tell me that's a very temporary fix. Both of us are totally blind, so we can't tell if the phone itself is slow to launch things, or if it's VoiceOver that's taking much longer than normal to react to changes on the screen. Is anyone else having this problem? If so, do you know of any solutions? Would getting an iPhone SE third generation fix it? What about resetting the phone and erasing all data, then restoring from iCloud? Thanks for any help.

jaybird110127, 10 months ago to random

Okay, so there's this certain weird thing DECtalk does with some custom voices where the pitch totally doesn't do what it should. I really don't know how to explain it but I have a feeling it's a bug of some kind. Anyway, thanks to the [:spf] command recently introduced into DECtalk 4.99 we get to see this oddity in slow motion. DECtalk is only saying two words, but you can definitely hear what I'm talking about.

jaybird110127, 6 months ago to random

Intel NUC owners: We have three NUC 8i7BEH units, two purchased in 2019, one purchased in 2020. All work well. The newer one has a fan problem though. For a while, I've noticed that the fan is running faster, more often, and is speeding up for things that didn't use to phase it. I assume I've figured out the problem, I think the fan has collected dust. Now it seems like it might be too late for that poor fan, as sometimes it runs, but more often, it just tries to run and makes buzzing noises like it's locked up. Needless to say, to keep from having the entire system die a horrible death by burning, I only use this system when absolutely necessary. What's involved in replacing the fan on these units, and where do you get a new one, and how much does it cost? Boosts for reach appreciated. Thanks for any help.

jaybird110127, 9 months ago to random

Okay, here's a question I thought I'd never have to ask. In these modern times, what is the generally accepted convention for referring to a person using a pronoun when you don't know/aren't sure of that person's gender? My first thought, as it has been for years, would be to use "they," but now that might make someone think the person in question was nonbinary/plural/etc. But "he/she/they/we/etc." seems awkward. Any thoughts?

jaybird110127, 6 months ago to random

Don't you just love it when a book published in 2018 says: "first of a trilogy like no other you’ve ever read!" Then you find out that's the only book listed by that author on Kindle. Where are books two and three? The world wonders.

jaybird110127, 11 months ago to random

Does anyone know if there's a collection out there of Infocom interactive fiction/text adventures which have been modified by the community by making changes to the ZIL sources released in 2019 and recompiling? @zarfeblong has a collection of Infocom story files and source code on his site, but he specifically doesn't include modern community mods.

jaybird110127, 7 months ago to random

Thanks to @FreakyFwoof and his playing of a piano exercise, "The Never Ending Story," that chord progression has been stuck in my mind. So naturally, I had to use it in playing with a Python program for auto-generating MIDI accompaniment files, MMA (Musical MIDI Accompaniment). In this audio rendering of a MIDI, I run through the whole chord progression four times. First at 120 beats per minute, with the Ballad groove, then RockBallad, then I speed up to 240 BPM and go with Bluegrass, then Polka, then have a very unsatisfying ending.

jaybird110127, 10 months ago to random

My #ElevenLabs professionally cloned voice has just become available to me. And here's the very first thing it ever said. Text follows.

Hello, world! These are the first words spoken by my professional cloned voice. I can't help adding here that I'm a bit nervous about finding out if the result was worth the wait. But I'm about to find out, just as soon as I hit that Generate button. Or I guess I should say, the flesh and blood version of me that's actually typing this will find out. I'm just a bucket of bytes on a server somewhere. Anyway, enough delay, here goes!

jaybird110127, 7 months ago to random

I just experienced something I think I've seen before. I open an article on the web, as found here on Mastodon, let it load, enter Reader view, get the story, author, estimated reading time, then…an unrelated headline! And nothing else! I guess there are really sites that reaaaaaaaaaally do not want you to skip all the clutter, so they sabotage Reader mode.

jaybird110127, 7 months ago to random

For anyone who remembers Rich De Steno's game, Run for President, it just received an update to version 5.0. I remember when this was a DOS game, and its sound effects were made by beeping and making other beep-derived noises through the PC speaker, as many people didn't have a sound card in those days. Anyway, here's the announcement I received via Email.

Yes, the iconic computer game for Windows, Run for President, is back, bigger and better than ever. It has been updated, improved, enhanced and modernized to provide lots of fun and entertainment. It is free, accessible, and available for download with the below download link.

Unzip the file into its own folder and begin the game with the RFP50.exe file. Review the instructions.txt or the instructions.mp3 file before playing. Jaws users should run the game in administrator mode, and NVDA users should enable "report dynamic content changes" with insert-5.

Here is the download link. Follow it and Tab over or down arrow to the download button. Have fun!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16_xNjU7ZyjdA_MynW3Ue0pbvM7IEGa1L/view?usp=sharing

simon, 2 months ago to random

I have a report that Eloquence no longer works on the S24 running Android 14. I don't know whether Android 14 or the S24 is to blame. Whenever other phones get the update, it would be good to know whether it still runs on them. That's either really sad or just another strike against Samsung.