I've got this Windows 7 VM I use for testing sketchy shit and this happened. I think the non-genuine copy of Windows os the least of my problems. Cracked copy of Jaws 17 I found somewhere on the internet that I wouldn't trust anywhere had Acapella Heather with it but for numbers it switches to a foreign language voice. When the installer runs batch scripts in Russian you know its good.
Remote
Xander (KanawhaCountyWX)
@KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-0621 y/o blind nerd from Charleston WV. Tech/music/EAS/radio geek, licensed HAM, o&o of knamedia.net. Also on YouTube, X and Discord (@KanawhaCountyWX@mastodon.social on all)
27 Followers
27 Following
50 Posts
Joined March 16, 2026
Gender:
Male
Birthday:
12/17/2004
Location:
West Virginia, United States
Primary Visual Condition:
LCA
Replying to
And if you've somehow never seen the WFAA clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl2JnXjwWBM
Oops: It was "101,105 heat index" in McKinney on Thursday
don't ask why I bought a second domain. Don't ask why I don't have any plans for this second domain. And especially, don't ask why that domain is pissbin.com
RE: https://stefanbohacek.online/@ignoreallpreviousinstructions/116512442237748244
Nah, more important is cat proofing the toilet paper, they'll shread that shit quicker than you'll ever see. (Trust me, growing up we had over 20 cats at one point)
Also... one fun thing I've noticed on two different systems now, the Debian GNU/Linux installer hates the APH/HumanWare Mantis Q40. Nothing else has given me issues, but for some reason the Debian installer refuses to cooperate with it, both on my ProDesk and PowerEdge. It should just show up as a HID keyboard device and a HID Braille device. It's worked with literally everything else I've ever tried, and it's become my diagnostics keyboard I bring from machine to machine. #A11Y #Linux #Mantis
The two untested mPowers have arrived. Both are in decent physical condition, I'm guessing they came from a school system since there's names in Braille on the bottom of them. One boots but says that the Braille display isn't working, which in fairness it isn't, the other one shows no signs of life. Neither came with the power supplies or case, but I have an OEM HumanWare brick. Both are also the plastic routing key version.
Replying to
@stevo399@dragonscave.space Yeah I don't understand it either. So many things just won't work on my phone, and so many folks (especially around my age) aren't even wanting to put in time to learn how to properly use screen readers on computers because "my phone does everything I need." It's honestly disappointing
Replying to
@Kingslayer@mastodon.stickbear.me @LeonianUniverse@caneandable.social Googling hasn't turned up the accessability mod for me. Would it be possible to provide a link?
Replying to
@DFW_EAS@someplace.social Unsure what alert you're refering to, but I've been away from my desk most of the night and haven't been listening to ERN alerts.
Yes BrailleNote mPower, your battery has been charging for 1904 weeks, 4 days, 7 hours and 47 minutes, with charging having begun tomorrow at 2:53 AM. Ahh the joys of changing from New Zealand Standard Time to Eastern Daylight Time.
Replying to
@lexipic@dragonscave.space Well I'm seeing the post and I'm not on your instance. Not sure if that's what that feature was meant to do, but yeah...
Replying to
@DFW_EAS@someplace.social So the reaosn I remember the exact date, we had catastrophic flash flooding that day with multiple flash flood emergencies being issued and some towns being completely washed away. There's a video of a home in Clendinnen floating off its foundation down an overflowing creek while engulfed in flames. For an hour, WXJ85's programming was airing on WXJ84, these are stations 120 miles aparr and on diferent frequencies. I had some sort of an app on my iPad, when I went to my
Replying to
@lexipic@dragonscave.space I've known about that option for years, super handy.
Update: both units work, second one didn't power on at first for some reason but its working, space bar is a little wobbly but otherwise it's working, including Braille. This one is running Keysoft version 8.1 build 23, and was used until at least 2014. Gonna try fixing the second one as well
I just realized, within a couple months my "collection" of Braille devices ballooned. Before it was the Mantis and BrailleSense 6, but I've also since added a Monarch, HumanWare NLS E-Reader and two BrailleNote MPowers. i might have a slight issue
So the MPower's battery isn't completely fucked! I'm having it calobrate the gauge, so I'm hearing KeyNote Gold saying "I'm discharging bhe battery before doing a complete charge" on loop. la de da. Happy rainy Saturday!
Replying to
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social So, is the key to brilliance suffication?
I've rearranged my DASDEC monitors and switched my WXJ84 monitor from an integrated DASDEC tuner with a poor antenna setup to a feed from my ProDesk's SDR which is far cleaner. Stations heard in order here aare WXJ84 (ProDesk SDR), WVAF-FM (DASDEC tuner), ERN/JON (Internet) and ERN/CRTV (Internet.)
Issue was indeed the length, exporting it as two medium-length files worked.
Okay turns out Balabolka did correctly export the files, Audacity and WIndows Explorer aren't happy with them, VLC plays the WAV files just fine but WIndows Exploder and Audishitty see a 2+ GB WAV file as being 0 minutes and 0 seconds... la de da!
The existance of the air frier is the strongest evidence of the existance of God I've se: yet.
Replying to
@kevinrj@mastodon.social @kd6cae@dragonscave.space can't find the clip anymore but there was an insadent where one of the transmitters from Peach Tree City GA said in the forecast "please fix your forecast grids, you have -80 in them." Also that time Gainsville GA reported one degree. Also a classic clip of the Detroit transmitter having a rediculously low temperature in a forecast.
Replying to
@kd6cae@dragonscave.space There was one from Oaklahoma where every town but Tulsa was showing a temperature of 999, there's one from ABC-7 Chicago where the meteorologist discovers his display is a touchscreen and can move the map, there's one from 2015 in Iowa where the presenter gets the "Install Windows 20" message, and not a blooper but there's also a fake apacoliptic forecast that was intentionally taped at the WTVR studios in Virginia with everything from volcanos to Godzilla.
Replying to
@mckensie@tweesecake.social I like the idea, I've considered something similar for KNA before but didn't decide to do it, maybe some day it'll be a second station running TV series and films and stuff. I'd say go for it!
Ended up having a brainfart and created an amalgomation of Norman Lear and Bill Lear, a guy who created the Learjet, 8-track tape, got bored and redefined television comedies in the 70s.
Replying to
Gotta deal with this bullshit, my name on my fucking voters registration card is misspelled. Gotta love this shit.
Okay, so I was able to get the MPower on the internet, not with Ethernet or Wi-Fi cards or the modem, but through ActiveSync connected to my Gateway Solo running Windows 2000. Most websites didn't work since it runs Internet Explorer for PocketPC, but I was able to control my DASDEC-II over the local network and issue an alert as well as view alert logs and listen to audio.
The MPower is not happy with me and the MIDIs I want to play.
Replying to
@mckensie@tweesecake.social Aye, nothing wrong with that. Your station is already whiplash central station alongside mine.
Okay, I'm too smooth brained to understand the hype surrounding agentic AI like cloudbot and similar. I don't get the need for something like that. Or, at the very least, I don't see a need for it in my life. I don't think I want to know
Gotta love trying to have Balabolka export an entire novels worth of text to a WAV file and something goes wrong. I'm trying a different voice now. Basically downloaded something from Bookshare that I might possibly re-read while on my flights or during downtime at the place I'm going, don't like their TTS option, nor do I really want my Stream3 reading it, so I'm using SAPI voices on my computer. SAPI-5 MongralSoft Mike didn't work, so now I'm trying SAPI4 Sam.
Replying to
@kd6cae@dragonscave.space That last one hever aired over WTVR though, but it is on YouTube.
Replying to
@VE3RWJ@mastodon.radio Never seen that one, that's just sad honestly.
Okay so apparently the WAV file is out of spec, Winamp wouldn't touch it and I decided to see if Obi could handle it and I got this:
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: WAV ’data’ chunk was not found !
at AudioLib.AudioLibPCMFormat.RiffHeaderParse(Stream input, UInt32& dataLength)
at Obi.Audio.AudioFormatConverter.ConvertedFile(String filePath, Presentation pres)
So I guess it's malformatted.
I sreepy... way more sreepy than normal. Ended up taking a suto nap earlier today, and I only take naps if I'm exhausted or ill. La de fkin' da!
Replying to
@mrkrabs@someplace.social @alpuzz@mastodon.social Be careful, connecting to Wisconsin-Fi outside the Wisconsin state limits is a federal crime.
Replying to
@LeonianUniverse@caneandable.social @Kingslayer@mastodon.stickbear.me Thanks for the reply, I'm downloading this now and I will definately be checking this out. Apparently there's also an accessability mod for Rimworld that I'm tempted to try as well.
Replying to
@DFW_EAS@someplace.social grandmothers house at some point later on I noticed some areas using Paul and some still on Tom/Donna/DECtalk.
Was bored at 3:00 AM, decided to feed BREEZE.WAV from the DSP Solutions Digispeech device software to Music Seperator and do a little stereo panning.
Replying to
@DFW_EAS@someplace.social Yeah, crazy what can happen on days with good tropospheric ducting!
For anybody wondering what Rush E sounds like on a BrailleNote MPower... it's pretty narley and actually hangs (and presumably crashes) at the end of the song
RE: https://dragonscave.space/@AlexSpectrum93/116844780192191067
Yeah crazy to believe it's already been a decade. My office transitioned on 06/23/2016 during a historic flooding event... not the best timing there Charleston. One slight point of correction, the modern voices are from VoiceText, not NeoSpeech. They're very similar, but VoiceText is more distinct in its intunation.
Replying to
@LeonianUniverse@caneandable.social @Kingslayer@mastodon.stickbear.me So would you recommend I start with RimWorld first?
Okay, just filled out some more forms for the thing happening at the end of this month, and I'm getting nervous now, just the kind of nervousness that happens with a major life-changing event. I'm starting to have this self doubt, though I think I'm ready
Holy mother of God how do I have 39 windows on my computer open?
Replying to
@DFW_EAS@someplace.social Yeah it was, I heard it say "WXJ85 on 162.550," looked at my scanner and it was indeed on 162.400. Sadly there's not any recordings of the switchover, I was too young and terrified to have recorded it. At the time the EAS still scared me, and I was just hoping our house wouldn't take damage (thankfully it didn.t) Worst thing that happened that day was I knocked my phone out a second story window.
Replying to
@mckensie@tweesecake.social That's a hell of a whiplash though lmao
Replying to
@J3317@allovertheplace.ca @lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social Suffication, no breathing /
Leave me alone, I'm in my room thinking