Notices by fastfinge (fastfinge@fed.interfree.ca)

@hyc Interesting that it continues to exist, and is the default in every major distro, then. Apparently Linux is just as subject to enshittification as everything else.

@dalias @freya Heck, the standard Debian bookworm install media doesn’t have onboard sound chipset working on my framework AMD laptop. And framework intentionally supports Debian.

@freya Nope. USB images don’t support sound or screen readers. So reinstall involves creating a preseed on another machine, making a custom image, and reinstalling. If I can’t have SSH and network, or sound and a screen reader, reinstall is my only option. And the systemd emergency target denies me both of those things, as do live images.

@freya Only if you have a hardware synthesizer. I’ve never, in 20 years of running Linux machines, had sound work out of the box. Not once. Serial console output used to work, but not so much, these days.

@freya Bog standard amd64 with onboard sound chipset. The live image didn’t have sound, and my installed system doesn’t either.

@freya I probably need some non free driver.

Even completely headless, command line #linux doesn't prioritize #accessibility in any way. Today I had to reinstall an entire #debian system from scratch because a drive listed in my /etc/fstab died. That makes #systemd boot into emergency mode, where you get no SSH, no network, no sound, and no screen reader. There is no quick way to force it to try and boot even though drive 7 of 11 has died, and it could absolutely bring up SSH and the network to let me fix it if it wanted to, just like sysvinit used to do. You can't even force systemd to add SSH and the network to emergency mode because of circular dependencies. nofail will only continue the boot if the drive doesn't exist, but if the filesystem has issues...emergency mode for you. In short: if your drive dies on Linux, fuck you. Be able to see, or reinstall your entire system, because nobody in Linuxland gives a shit about #a11y or your needs.

You know your at a real Chinese restaurant when you’re the only person in the place who isn’t Chinese and sweet and sour chicken balls are listed on the menu in a section called Canadian food.

I wish I was a #bot, not a #human. Whenever I get a #captcha, the #AI bots can all solve it just fine. I, being a #blind human, cannot.

Also, the #AI #bots have more rights than us #blind humans. Blind folks had to fight for years and years for copyright exemptions that would allow us to access and read books. The AI bots are just allowed to read as many books as they want, and swallow entire libraries whole. Yup; I'd definatly be better off as a bot.

If your #blind, #signal does nothing to protect your #privacy. They use #hcaptcha, so if you can’t see the images, you have to enable cross site cookies and give them a valid email. And if you want to contact signal about it, sending your device info via unencrypted email is the only way. This is not how privacy or #security work. You’re better off with iMessage. Or even watsapp! At least they don’t hand your data over to a third party captcha provider. Or send your device info via unencrypted email. #infosec #a11y #accessibility

@Lino_JR @mcourcel So were IRC. And XMPP. And dozens of other things. It doesn't matter how decentralized it is if some big corporation manages to pull away all the users into their proprietary system. See, for example, how Discord killed literally every other form of voice chat and text chat. Team Speak and Ventrilo still exist. You can even selfhost your own server! But who're you going to talk to? Nobody, that's who.

@BeAware @lowrah That’d be why. ChatGPT is too slow and pricy for screen readers to use regularly. In fact, both Apple and Firefox use on device AI to generate missing alt text in the browser for screen readers.

@BeAware @lowrah What model are you using? Alt text generation in edge and chrome use an extremely small one because they generate alt text for every image on a page in realtime as it loads.

After spending the afternoon trying out a plethora of #selfhosted apps, my appreciation for developers who offer demo accounts is at an all time high. Having a demo account saves me having to configure the database, clone the git repo, do the configuration, and finally get the app running, only to find the app isn't #accessible. Screen shots don't help me know if it'll work with a #screenreader. A demo account, even if it's just read only, does. More of those, please.

My insistence on running a from-scratch reimplementation of an activity pub server and libraries is only being reenforced. For a supposedly open protocol, implementing fediverse compatible API's feels a little bit too much like reverse engineering.

If you're reading this, please #boost so I can get back to being federated with the #fediverse. Unfortunately, the data center I've been hosting with for years and years encountered some serious issues. I had to move suddenly, losing almost everything. I took the chance to change the software I use. But I've still lost all of my followers, all of my federation, etc! It's also taken down rblind.com, my passion project to get more #blind folks off #reddit. I'll be bringing that back over the coming days. In the meantime, hi! I'm a blind guy who uses the #NVDA #screenreader, loves #accessibility and works in the field, and reads tons of #fanfic, #litrpg, and #sciencefiction and #fantasy in my spare time. Nice to meet you!