dinge doot.

bear? noooo! not int eh woooods :p

@ratking It should go over automatically when you start your VM. Then control command escape will get you back to the Mac, and then when you want to go back into Windows, focus AVM and hit command shift E. If that’s not working for you, please file an issue and attach logs and I will be happy to take a look at what’s going on specifically on your system @mcourcel

Had cod fish and coleslaw for dinner.

I feel like this definitely used to be true, but no longer is. If your LLM has access to more context or higher permissions, it's not unlikely that your llm's answer will be better than what they can get themselves. Sure, in a non-dysfunctional organization, this shouldn't be the case, but very few places understand how to get this right. https://mastodon.social/@wingo/117524326569711476

The best apology is changed behavior, period.

Autistic joy is not just nice, it is important to surviving this world.

#neurodivergent #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticJoy

Okay, I’m ready to tell the full story behind this toot.
I bought a Roku Streaming Stick because it seemed like a really good fit for an old “dumb” Samsung TV we were left in our main bedroom. I wanted something cheap, simple and accessible, with decent streaming support. As a bonus, this one could control the TV over IR, since the TV is too old to even have CEC*. *I Assume.
When I first turned it on, the screen reader worked. I had gotten a good layout of the remote from chatgpt, which turned out to be spot on, so I pressed Star four times, it started talking, and I was able to set the language and connect it to Wi-Fi independently.
Then the Roku downloaded a software update, restarted, and the screen reader stopped working.
From that point on, pressing Star four times just displayed “reconnect to the internet to launch screen reader” — even though the Roku was clearly online. I could see it connected on my network, it had downloaded updates, and it eventually reached the account sign-in screen.
Because the screen reader had stopped working, I couldn’t enter a Wi-Fi password again. I ended up creating a temporary open Wi-Fi network purely to get the thing online and prove that connectivity wasn’t the problem.
It still wouldn’t speak.
I factory reset it several times, tried different networks and spent far too long troubleshooting it.
Then I contacted Roku support.
Despite repeatedly explaining that the Roku was online and that the problem was specifically the screen reader, I got generic networking troubleshooting. I was asked to restart my router, try another network, and eventually asked:
“Do you have any family member or friend that can help you?”
That was what prompted my original toot, and I nearly gave up then, but I decided to try and be better and try and educate rather than be angry with them.
Another thing support kept asking for was the email address linked to my Roku account. I didn’t have one linked to the device, because I hadn’t been able to complete setup.
Yes, I could probably have created an account on another device and then used Seeing AI to help me get through the QR-code sign-in screen. But that completely misses the point. Why would I go through the effort of creating and linking an account when I still had no confidence that the screen reader would work once I got past setup?
I was eventually transferred to a “technical specialist”, who largely repeated the same script until the chat session just dropped. At one point I was asked to try a mobile hotspot after I had already explained that I couldn’t enter any passwords because the screen reader wasn’t working.
I then emailed Roku’s dedicated accessibility address with the full details.
No reply.
I sent a follow-up making it very clear that I wanted to know whether this was a firmware bug, whether the screen reader was actually supported in the UK, and whether there was any chance it had been region-locked for some ridiculous reason. Roku’s online guidance specifically referred to the screen reader being available on models sold in the US and Canada, and it wouldn’t be the first time accessibility features had been geolocked for no good reason (cheers Sony), and I got .. yup, you guessed it, nothing.
So the Roku has now gone back to Amazon.
And that’s what annoys me most: I actually wanted to like it. It ticked pretty much every box for that bedroom TV, and if Roku ever confirms that the screen reader issue has been fixed, I’d genuinely consider buying another one.
But I’m not keeping a product that made itself inaccessible after an update and then getting bounced around support while nobody actually addresses the accessibility failure.

doonk

I'm told it's national coming out day. So I have a story for you...actually I've written much of my story out already in several blog entries, but I'm not talking about those now.

I told my Mother first, my Father second. There was a 2 year gap because I felt telling my Father was the hardest part. You see, my Dad grew up in the French Catholic school system, and I'm loathe to report I've never gotten the full story out of him, but... there were Fathers who were a little too hands on & my Dad had ... opinions about Gays and Child Molesters and how they were the same - or at least I thought he did, his opinion did eventually evolve.

When I told him several years back he accepted it, because I knew that he understood, despite my claims of being "Bisexual", he could see that I had lived my life as quality person who stood up for what was right, who tried to treat people right. Those are things I actually learned from him.

My partner knows (told her before we married), and a few friends.

If you haven't come out because you don't feel that you have a safe, supportive environment, then don't. Wait until you DO feel accepted. The only thing that changes when coming out are people's perception of you. You're still you. If they truly love you, they'll continue to do so.

So you may lose some friends, but you're likely to gain new ones.

Mastodon is a place that I feel accepted, if you're new here, go ahead and put some feelers out - you may yet find your tribe.

testing @dodecahedron do you hear this/

I just realized that something about the English language is weird.
The past tense of the word "think" is not "thank," that's an entirely different word. It isn't "thunk," which describes a particular sound, and yes, I admit it, it can be the past tense of "think" in the phrase "Who'd have thunk it." But no, the actual past tense form of the word "think" is…wait for it…"thought?" Huh? Where'd that come from?
Meanwhile, "thought" can also mean something someone is thinking, as in "I'm having a thought." It can also mean something one might think, as in "Concerning the thought that 2+2 might not equal four in parallel universes."
#language #English #EnglishIsWeird

#introduction

It's been a while. I should let the novices know what they're in for.

My autistic special interest is power, and the means sapient monkeys use to hold it over one another. I'm a hyperlexical autodidactic polymath and generally do know what it is I'm talking about. I realize this might be hard to recognize in today's information ecology.

I'm pretty tolerant. Kinda supernaturally so. Preternaturally tolerant, because I've always been such an oddball. I'm a gender queer raised atheist in fundamentalist America. I've always been a WASP out of synch with the hive.

The thing is, these days, fascists are being a fucking pain in the ass again. So I can't tolerate fascists. Fuck fascists. I really don't understand why punching them was a controversy, despite the fact I'm ambivalent about that. Punching them plays into their victim complex. On balance, I'm against it. Shooting them in the face? That I'm cool with. Both of my grandfathers did that. They won medals for it an' shit.

That's about me. I've never had any coping mechanism other than humor, so I have the bleakest sense of humor you ever came across. I drink like a fish, smoke anything that smoulders, and do believe the truth is out there. It's just that the lies are already in your head.

Stay safe.

may I just say, to whom it may concern... hey boom. thank you.

ok I'm posting this clip. First word is Braille Lite, recorded over line-in. Then follows our addons representation of that word. Compare carefully. Might be good for strong ears like @BorrisInABox and @bscross32 could judge this better than I can. Same rate on all words. Line handshake.

Do you smoke (cigarettes, pipes, vapes, weed, whatever)?

Apparently around 13% of UK adults smoke. I'm curious if Mastodon is around that level too.

(Please boost and all that. Not that it makes a difference; once around 50 people have voted the percentage doesn't change much. Don't believe me? Boost it and see)

I am no more worried about AI killing us all than I am any of the other thousands upon thousands of things that could potentially kill us at any given moment. I’m just going to continue living my life the best way I know how and refuse to live in fear. I am also not going to change in the slightest the ways in which I use AI.

An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics.

The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist."

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute.

Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all. His answer consisted of two words: "What chair?"

Stop telling girls they are pretty. Start telling them they are brilliant or athletic or wise or ambitious.

Girls can be all of those things. Boys can be pretty or compassionate or tender too.

Regardless of your gender, you can be any or all of these things. Just be you.

#MyUnpopularOpinion

@cordova5029 @sparksexist here y'all go, you can boost if y'all want but I don't really wanna make an alt text lmfao