simon

@simon@dragonscave.space

Accessibility tester, bookworm, occasional musician and audio producer, coffee addict, selfhoster, tech tinkerer.

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podcast, to random
@podcast@livingblindfully.social avatar

This is a pity, of course for the workers who’ve lost their jobs, but also because they made some excellent products. The downfall of Brydge: iPad keyboard company folds, leaving staff unpaid and customer orders unfulfilled

https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/04/brydge-keyboards-out-of-business-update/

simon,

@podcast That's disconcerting. I just bought their keyboard for my Surface. It's great, and I don't know of any other company that makes anything like it.

douglawlor, to random

Anyone know of a good currency conversion app for iOS?

simon,

@douglawlor Just use spotlight. 100 USD to AUD, 5000 PHP to GBP, etc. The first result will be the conversion. You can also use it as a calculator.

mikedoise, to random
@mikedoise@techopolis.social avatar

Does Mona detect the character limit that a server supports, or does it have a hard limit in the app. I just upped mine on techopolis.social to 2000, but the app still limits me to 500.

simon,

@mikedoise Mine shows 2000, but I've never been on an instance where you could individually adjust your character limit. Also I don't know when and where it gets that information. Have you restarted the app and does anything else correctly detect the new limit?

simon,

@mikedoise Kind of disappointing that the official Mastodon server doesn't let you modify that in an external file. I've never set one up, but I assume there is a config somewhere and surely adding a CharacterLimit key wouldn't be that hard. Hometown FTW, I guess. Except then you have to wait for updates to be merged.

simon,

@mikedoise Yeah, Hometown is often behind on major releases. Not sure whether that's lack of time or if merging is a hellish process. Mastodon development comes across as very inflexible in a number of instances.

CaptainStormblade, to accessibility

For one iOS beta, 16.5 beta 3 to be exact, we were getting closer to having more features of Eloquence supported by Apple devices. Shorten pauses, and toggles for phrase prediction and abbreviation expansion come to mind as features that are not there yet. Shorten pauses was... For beta 3. Phrase prediction doesn't work anyway, at least not for Finnish which is my native language. But abbreviations do... Unfortunately. Maybe I should be grateful for having Eloquence in the first place but I still think that being able to toggle abbreviation expansion, shortened pauses and phrase prediction would make it close to perfection. I'd much rather have Eloquence say "to" when encountering the word 'to' in a text read with the Finnish voice instead of "torstai" which has nothing to do with the word to, that means Thursday in Finnish, after all. Ah well, let the time pass and just maybe we'll see more improvement.

simon,

@CaptainStormblade Ever since 16.4 beta 1, VO has been crashing horribly, and it seems to be related to Eloquence because switching to Vocalizer made it go away. I agree it is beyond ridiculous that the abbreviation dictionary is still forced upon us. Have you e-mailed Apple accessibility? If you include the feedback ID, they can sometimes poke the right people. More of us need to write and ask them to change this.

simon,

@CaptainStormblade I've never actually used that. Does it work?
I was told to prefix feedback titles with AX: for more exposure, so I'VE also been doing that. Currently I have a lot of Eloquence ones open. They did start implementing Eloquence pauses in some places in 16.5, which made number reading a lot more tolerable, though I dislike the forced single-digit reading and also think that should be user preference. They still haven't properly implemented mixed-case; anything with two capitals next to each other gets treated as a single word. It's frustrating to see such basic things being ignored; it's like they got Eloquence working and now refuse to assign anyone to actually updating it. The sum total of what I've seen them do with it since 16.0 can't have taken more than a day of dev time, if that.

simon, to random

@MonaApp I'm really not in favour of content warnings being locked behind a paywall. I'm all for giving free users a limited experience and it's clear that the free version of the app is meant to be a preview, but content warnings are for the benefit of followers, not the user. This seems excessively limited. I just paid for pro; I've been a Spring and Mona Beta user and don't see that changing, but I wonder if this has been considered.

simon, to random

looking back through e-mail archives and reading my extensive communications with building management regarding the neighbour with superhuman hearing who lived below me in 2013.
She introduced herself to us by banging on the door so loudly that the walls shook. It was before quiet hours on Christmas Eve, and my mother and I were watching a movie through a set of computer speakers at low volume.
She then spent seven months writing a report of every single noise she heard from the apartment and accusing me of retaliating by making more noise whenever she made a noise complaint. She claimed that even when I was talking quietly, she could hear every word--but was conveniently never able to quote anything I said in her "extensive report." She also incinuated that since I was young and had a disability, I was unable to read the time and unable to comprehend what "reasonable noise levels" meant. I walk around in socks and listen to everything on headphones. My best pair of speakers at the time was a pair of generic USB computer speakers I found at a thrift store for $8.
She took the building management to arbitration in July of 2013 and tried to get them to compensate her for seven months of rent, claiming my noise had impacted her sleep and overall mental health, that no amount of white noise, earplugs, or other preventative measures were working, and that the building hadn't done anything about it--when the only solution was evicting me or moving her to another apartment where she'd very likely have the same problems.
She lost spectacularly and I was never asked to testify. Management was extremely communicative through the whole thing. She eventually moved out and I've had exactly one noise complaint (for an actual good reason) from the new downstairs neighbour since. I have no idea who lives there now or how many people have lived there since.
Good times.

simon,

@bryansmart Yeah, I might get there one day. I'm less opposed to it than I used to be.

simon,

@FrostPoem Me too. I wasn't ever super worried, but I did learn to make a lot less noise as a result.

simon,

@munchkinbear I think I was playing my digital piano late at night and it was resonating through the floor a bit too much.

simon,

@MichiganPal I'm glad too. Management really could have been a whole lot less cooperative or they could just have believed her over me. I might not still be living here if that had happened.

JonathanMosen, to accessibility
@JonathanMosen@tweesecake.social avatar

Castro, my formerly favourite app for which broke with iOS 16 and took a while to get fixed, then introduced some fixes that broke , is slowly coming right again. There’s one outstanding issue for me, which is that when in the Inbox, no longer speaks the name of the podcast from which the episode has come. This is schedule to be fixed in the next version.
Hopefully I’ll then be able to move away again from which is a poor substitute if Castro is behaving itself. Apart from the better feature set, I’m really encumbered by the fact that when I’m playing something in Overcast, my , a 14 Pro Max, slows to a crawl and VoiceOver gets incredibly sluggish.

simon,

@JonathanMosen Any idea if that Overcast lag issue has been reported? It could be an Apple problem because it also happens to me when playing some types of audio in Safari. Would still be worth investigating though. you're the second person this month who has specifically mentioned not using Overcast because of this problem. I just put up with it because it's an otherwise great app, but it's certainly not pleasant. @overcastfm

marcoarment, to random
@marcoarment@mastodon.social avatar

I'm @marcoarment on Bluesky if you're over there.

I don't know if it'll stick yet, but the crowd there is VERY different so far from what I've found here — much smaller, of course, but also much more diverse. It's refreshing.

simon,

@JonathanMosen @marcoarment And then, there's this: https://dragonscave.space/@SingingNala/110301622417785342

Meepercat, to random

LitRPG and reading about people killing stuff is great stress relief. I am Spazzy McBasketcase and I approve this message.

simon,

@Meepercat Would still love to know which LitRPG thingy is currently improving your life.

amir, to random

@NVAccess @jcsteh NVDA Alpha 28166 little bug: with the Windows Audio Session API, NVDA sounds are louder than usual, and don't follow NVDA's volume adjustment in Sysstem/Sounds/Volume Mixer. That is, we can adjust the volume of NVDA's TTS engines in the Sysstem/Sounds/Volume Mixer window, but that adjustment doesn't affect NVDA sounds like start/exit chime, screen curtain, etc. Note: the System Sounds volume doesn't affect these either. Windows 11 22H2, V22623.1635.

simon,

@jcsteh @NVAccess @amir Would the audio generated by the Bluetooth Audio addon contribute to NVDA sounds? That might make it easier to find.

gallagher123123, to random

I have been a long-time user of the Olympus recorders, mostly because of their great accessibility. Currently have the LS-P2, which I have been using over six years at this point. I was curious to know if they had anything newer, and found out that they are now known as OM System. They recently came out with the LS-P5. Does anyone know if this new recorder has voice guidance? Very intrigued by it.

simon,

@gallagher123123 I looked at the LS-P5 manual and the LS-P4 manual. The P5 does not mention voice guideance at all, whereas the P4 manual has a section on adjusting / using it. it seems like that rebranding came with a side of inaccessibility. Personally, I'm reasonably happy with the DM-720, though I don't know how it compres to the P2.

BorrisInABox, to random

Just randomly thinking about the time a few years ago when Melanie was in a car accident. She called me to tell me what happened. I appeared unconcerned. I could tell by the way she spoke that it wasn't serious, so I treated it as such. Turns out I was correct. I got yelled at for not taking things seriously. The truth is, I completely bypassed the "oh crap, is everything OK" stage and went straight to "Yep, obviously nothing to worry about." That's just how I work.

simon,

@BorrisInABox You got yelled at by her, or by other people?
Seems like a validation thing. Car accidents are supposed to be serious and if you're told about something that's supposed to be serious, you're supposed to be concerned, never mind what reality says. If you aren't, it must mean you don't care. Can't possibly be that you're perceptive.
In other news, I saw a whole thread on Reddit about how, when someone asks for your opinion and says "be honest", you're not supposed to be too honest. I guess we don't owe our friends the truth and we're also supposed to instinctively know where the line is.
It's all just a bunch of nonsense.

keao, to random

just got apple music, will try it out for 2 months, is it worth paying for?

simon,

@keao I like Spotify for music discovery and a few other obscure reasons, but Apple Music isn't bad. It works as advertised.

simon,

@rowdyamerican @keao I don't love the podcasts thing as a concept, because it's trying to take a very open ecosystem (RSS) and close it off so it's Spotify-exclusive. It also benefits Spotify because you can't listen to music at the same time as a podcast, and Spotify doesn't pay royalties for podcasts. But I guess as a user it's nice.

podcast, to random
@podcast@livingblindfully.social avatar

The new for mastodon is the most powerful, Mastodon app for iOS, MacOS and iPadOS. Living Blindfully Plus members now have access to our 2.5 hour Mona tutorial. It will be public in 3 days. Not a member yet? Join now and get the tutorial immediately. https://LivingBlindfully.com/Plus

simon,

@Lynessence @podcast Interesting point. Normally beta apps just turn into official apps, but you made me realize the app is specifically called "Mona Beta." However, the developers are already familiar with how to share data across apps: Spring and Spring Mini were two separate apps which could access the same accounts and settings. So regardless of whether they are separate apps or not, I am pretty confident they'll also get this right.

soundshadow87, to random

Well Facebook, if all you're going to do is spam me with notifications about posts that you think I need to see, then you can have your ability to deliver notifications completely disabled. I've gone through the settings for the app, but can't find anything to do with new posts, so I'll just turn everything off. Has anyone else seen this or know what I need to do to fix this madness? Thanks in advance for any feedback/suggestions.

simon,

@soundshadow87 I want to know about posts it thinks I'm interested in, but now it's giving me things like "Matthew Campbell posted a status" when actually it's just someone else's post with you tagged in it. It's patently false but they do it hoping you'll stay in the app.

evilcookies98, to random
@evilcookies98@dragonscave.space avatar

Just for idle curiosity, what is your stance on cheating in single player games? I would never do it in a multiplayer setting, but if it’s just me, I don’t see the harm in loading myself up with absurd amount of items just to goof off.

simon,

@evilcookies98 If you're really creative you can start doing stuff like finding the coordinates of your current position on the map and making macros that teleport you around the world. It breaks in interesting ways depending on the game.

JustinMac84, to random

What do the numbers that get read out in front of emails in Thunderbird signify? I either get zeros or hundreds. If they're not significant and they don't seem to be, how do I make them go away? Thanks for any help.

simon,

@NVAccess @JesseF8693 @JustinMac84 I think I just used mouse movements to reorder them many years ago and have been moving the same config from machine to machine ever since. If there's a more conventionally accessible way to do it, i'm not aware of it.

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