[-] frogman@beehaw.org 12 points 3 weeks ago

beehaw is a safe-space, we shouldnt villify the experiences/needs of people who need alt-text. this could be game changing for people who need it.

220
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by frogman@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

New accessibility feature coming to Firefox, an "AI powered" alt-text generator.


"Starting in Firefox 130, we will automatically generate an alt text and let the user validate it. So every time an image is added, we get an array of pixels we pass to the ML engine and a few seconds after, we get a string corresponding to a description of this image (see the code).

...

Our alt text generator is far from perfect, but we want to take an iterative approach and improve it in the open.

...

We are currently working on improving the image-to-text datasets and model with what we’ve described in this blog post..."

666
submitted 10 months ago by frogman@beehaw.org to c/gaming@beehaw.org

based


image:

screenshot of a Tweet from Running With Scissors reading

"We've been told our games are too expensive in some countries but we've been using Steam's recommended pricing for a while. We trust Valve enough to not change this. If our games are still too expensive for you, you can pirate them until you have enough to support us."

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 20 points 10 months ago

just a comment to try get this to the active tab. best of luck guys <3

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 16 points 10 months ago

not to come off overly negative- steve also does great work. i hope we hear from LMG soon <3

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 31 points 10 months ago

not to cast doubt on anything he says here, but steve has increasingly been making 'dunk' videos for the past year or two. i feel like his channel has been trying to find (or create) exposés, because those are the videos that pop off. starting from the video of that NZXT case that caused fires.

again, not to cast doubt on the experiences of billet labs, but i question steve's intentions in presenting this. i hope this discussion doesn't end up revolving around gamers nexus.

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 11 points 10 months ago

i just tried this and got a more fence-sitting result of "here are the pros and cons, there should be public discussion before we know if it's good or bad".

but your result is fascinating.

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 8 points 10 months ago
[-] frogman@beehaw.org 8 points 10 months ago

join guys, she's coming together really nicely

76
submitted 11 months ago by frogman@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

"Researchers have developed a highly robust material with an extremely low density by constructing a structure using DNA and subsequently coating it in glass."


“I am a big fan of Iron Man movies, and I have always wondered how to create a better armor for Iron Man. It must be very light for him to fly faster. It must be very strong to protect him from enemies’ attacks. Our new material is five times lighter but four times stronger than steel. So, our glass nanolattices would be much better than any other structural materials to create an improved armor for Iron Man.”

im just glad someone is doing the real research

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago

to answer your other questions, i do have a used pixel with grapheneOS now. much better phone, much better experience and much better piece of mind. i use a good all-covering case so nobody asks what phone i use, because i'd hate to be a billboard for google.

the biggest selling point of the fairphone for me was its' unique form factor. i was asked what phone i had A LOT. when i took the back off, people's mind broke. this created a segway for me to talk about right-to-repair with people who otherwise would have never cared. it's a great tool to open discussion into ethical hardware and software. i miss having those conversations as regularly as i was.

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

i wrote this comment on another post recently, i think you might find some value. the thread has some good discussion. note that i regret using a fairphone, but i dont regret supporting the company. in a 'lesser than two evils' sense, fairphone is MUCH less evil.

the fairphone company makes grand promises of 7 years support, despite historically really doing 2-4 years of support very badly. to the point where when the fairphone 4 released, it was going to take so long for it to make an android upgrade that a FOSS group CalyxOS ended up making the port for them. being this late for security and feature releases is insane, especially when they make claims outside of SoC OEM support periods despite knowing that they can't provide those updates. the fairphone 3 even launched on the same day as android 10 but instead of quickly porting over, they instead ported over their next line of phone (fairphone 3+)

the phone ~~removed expandable storaged~~ and a headphone jack, with obscene pricing for storage upgrades and at the same time as they released their unrepairable line of wireless products. this is just begging for e-waste.

the claims of being ethically sourced are not universal to the whole phone, the fair trade gold standard is limited to some parts that they source.

they have hardware for an extra SIM slot on the fairphone 4, but made it unusable to the user. clearly just an anti-consumer move.

there are other reeasons, and you'll also notice im not providing sources here. a lot of this is readily available info online and frankly im tired, i hope you can search these things up yourself if you want to confirm. i'm saying these things in good faith if that makes you feel more comfortable. there are reasons to consider the fairphone, but know that if you're doing this for a 'long-lasting' phone, then you're only getting that on the hardware side and even then you're vastly overpaying for the value of what you receive.

i still support fairphone in their journey to making mainstream fully modular phones with readily available replacement parts and open schematics. as a big 'fuck you' to smartphone producing companies, the fairphone does its' job magnificently and provides an excellent example of why samsung, apple, google etc are lying scum when they say these things aren't possible. if a small company like fairphone have been doing it since their infancy, we shouldn't believe that big tech can't.

EDIT: i was wrong about the expandable storage, please read replies to get see some further discussion.

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 26 points 11 months ago

i'm half way through reading only but this is such a cool resource, thanks for sharing. strongly recommend actually reading it, for anyone lurking.

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago

i used this phone for a year. the phone is a bit bulky and heavy, but not much more than a flagship phone with a case on it. i never needed a case because of the metal build, and the back is this rubber/plastic material that's really nice. no stupid glass that will crack if u drop it.

the back comes off nice and easy and everything is removable with a screwdriver. the battery doesnt require a screwdriver to remove if i recall correctly. the replacement parts are available on fairphone's website. the bootloader is unlockable so you can change the OS if you wanted to aswell. the stock OS isn't so comfortable so i do recommend trying out alternatives, i had good experiences with /e/ and CalyxOS.

the fairphone marketing is a bit gross in my opinion. removing the headphone jack right as they release their own wireless accessories. having the hardware inside the phone for a second SIM, but making it inaccessible to end-users. promising 5 years of warranty and software support despite using old hardware that will not have 5 years of firmware updates, let alone security updates down the line. they base this on their long-term updates to fp2 and fp3 which also lack these critical components.

the phone's specs are nothing special. which is fine when you consider that the premium you're paying is for your own ethics; NOT the quality of the phone. but remember, fairphone are no stranger to misleading marketing and greenwashing. if you care about security updates, this isn't a 5 year phone as they're promising it to be.

i ended up installing grapheneOS on a used pixel, that's my phone now. it's a much, much better experience and i get to know that it will hold this quality of life for a long time to come. i do miss the removable battery, though.

please correct me if im wrong on anything.

4
submitted 1 year ago by frogman@beehaw.org to c/gaming@beehaw.org

this browser-based game tests your ability to create the perfect password. overcome various insane password rules to crack the code. awesome, super goofy puzzle-type experience. it's unique and a lot of fun :)

https://neal.fun/password-game/

14

Anyone who's been using privacy-respecting frontends for some time will recognise Piped. A YouTube frontend with no ads, integrated SponsorBlock, return dislikes, and a customisable UI.

Piped also allows you to subscribe to as many channels as you want without ever logging into a Google account. You can export your subs list from YouTube and import them to Piped seamlessly.

If you've never heard of it, give it a glance at https://piped.video. For more instances, check here.

18
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by frogman@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

We're reaching the end of an era wherein billions of dollars of investor money was shovelled into tech startups to build large user-bases, and now those companies (now monoliths) are beginning to constrict their user-bases and squeeze for every single penny they can possibly extract. Fair or not.

Now more than ever, it's important for us to step back and reconsider whether we want to be billboards for these companies anymore.

For anyone unfamiliar, some good resources to have when starting your degoogling journey are below:

Privacy Guides - A list of privacy-respecting services you can use.

Plexus - A crowdsourced information bank of service compatibility with degoogled devices.

This random PDF - A study from 2018 detailing data that Google tracks about its' users.

4

Thinking of self-hosting some basic tools; SearxNG, Bitwarden, Lemmy.

What kind of tools are you self-hosting right now? Which ones are easy to manage, which ones are awkward? 👀

[-] frogman@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago

i'm 21, it wouldn't be weird if you were gaming at 77, let alone 47 lol

maybe it's not intergenerational :p

1
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by frogman@beehaw.org to c/gaming@beehaw.org

"Apple has created a new Game Porting Toolkit that’s similar to the work Valve has done with Proton and the Steam Deck. It’s powered by source code from CrossOver, a Wine-based solution for running Windows games on macOS. Apple’s tool will instantly translate Windows games to run on macOS, allowing developers to launch an unmodified version of a Windows game on a Mac and see how well it runs before fully porting a game."

The new software will allow Mac users* (see edit) to play 'Windows games' on their Apple silicon (M1/M2) devices. With development, this has the potential to bring gaming to Apple.

*EDIT: The Game Porting Toolkit is designed for developers to see how their game performs on Apple silicone to entice devs to create native ports. Thanks to commenters for pointing out this distinction. The CrossOver project on which it is built, I believe, is designed for end-users to run software on their Mac clients.

6
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by frogman@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

If you're like me, you want to see how Reddit looks mid-protest but don't want to give Reddit any direct web traffic or contributing to their ad revenue. That's where Libreddit comes in, see github.

Libreddit is a privacy-respecting frontend for Reddit, so you don't need to worry about supporting them.

A list of instances can be found here. If you don't care about instances, just click here.

Happy protesting.

EDIT: User @Malin@omg.qa made a point about web traffic, I adjusted above to reflect more accurately. Reddit will still be gaining web traffic, however not directly. This also means a loss of advertising revenue for Reddit. If you are going to check Reddit regardless, this is the best way to do it as far as I know.

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frogman

joined 1 year ago