Will Wade
@willwa.de
AAC, Assistive Tech geek. Occupational therapist.
I must start using typst - nice blog post on accessible pdfs typst.app/blog/2025…
Typst: How to create accessible PDFs from the start – Typst Blog
Accessibility does not need to be hard. Learn how to create accessible PDFs with Typst without any additional software while reaching new audiences and meeting...
typst.app
November 11, 2025 at 10:16 AM
I must start using typst - nice blog post on accessible pdfs typst.app/blog/2025…
The Joy of Making Bricks: https://willwa.de/2025/11/05/the-joy-of-making-bricks.html
GitHub - AceCentre/pasco: Phrase Auditory Scanning COmmunicator - AAC App for iOS and the Web
Phrase Auditory Scanning COmmunicator - AAC App for iOS and the Web - AceCentre/pasco
github.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:59 AM
The Joy of Making Bricks: https://willwa.de/2025/11/05/the-joy-of-making-bricks.html
Oh! Of course you can make a headmouse from apples headphone range! Genius developer.apple.com/documenta… (from HN)
CMHeadphoneMotionManager | Apple Developer Documentation
An object that starts and manages headphone motion services.
developer.apple.com
September 28, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Oh! Of course you can make a headmouse from apples headphone range! Genius developer.apple.com/documenta… (from HN)
I’m doing a ton of work on languages at the moment. This article is a good read why we don’t have diacritics in the English language. Love it.
"After the Conquest, French took its place for centuries … But the period of French dominance left it... https://willwa.de/2025/09/17/im-doing-a-ton-of.html
"After the Conquest, French took its place for centuries … But the period of French dominance left it... https://willwa.de/2025/09/17/im-doing-a-ton-of.html
Why English doesn’t use accents
And why French is full of them
www.deadlanguagesociety.com
September 17, 2025 at 9:10 AM
I’m doing a ton of work on languages at the moment. This article is a good read why we don’t have diacritics in the English language. Love it.
"After the Conquest, French took its place for centuries … But the period of French dominance left it... https://willwa.de/2025/09/17/im-doing-a-ton-of.html
"After the Conquest, French took its place for centuries … But the period of French dominance left it... https://willwa.de/2025/09/17/im-doing-a-ton-of.html
Winning the Access Award for Echo: https://willwa.de/2025/09/16/winning-the-access-award-for.html
September 15, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Winning the Access Award for Echo: https://willwa.de/2025/09/16/winning-the-access-award-for.html
Made a little tool to print alphabets (in alphabetical order, frequency, uppercase or lowercase) in a wide range of languages - and then keyboards for each of these languages.. for python or nodejs
github.com/willwade/…
github.com/willwade/…
GitHub - willwade/WorldAlphabets: A python and node tool to get alphabets of the world: uppercase, lowercase, alphabetical and frequency order
A python and node tool to get alphabets of the world: uppercase, lowercase, alphabetical and frequency order - willwade/WorldAlphabets
github.com
August 23, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Made a little tool to print alphabets (in alphabetical order, frequency, uppercase or lowercase) in a wide range of languages - and then keyboards for each of these languages.. for python or nodejs
github.com/willwade/…
github.com/willwade/…
Reposted by Will Wade
Just found out that George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, written around 1948, describes a "versificator" that composes the words for songs "entirely by mechanicsl means" simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/6/n...
A quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four
There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except ...
simonwillison.net
July 6, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Just found out that George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, written around 1948, describes a "versificator" that composes the words for songs "entirely by mechanicsl means" simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/6/n...
I woke up this morning to see a ginger cat looking at me. Now I’m sure many of you are thinking “ ah that’s nice. you’ve got a new cat!” I haven’t got a cat. I have no idea how this cat got in my house.
June 28, 2025 at 7:43 AM
I woke up this morning to see a ginger cat looking at me. Now I’m sure many of you are thinking “ ah that’s nice. you’ve got a new cat!” I haven’t got a cat. I have no idea how this cat got in my house.
Correcting Text in AAC (or a failed computer scientist figures out how to correct text): https://willwa.de/2025/06/25/correcting-text-in-aac-or.html
A very light hearted - non-research friendly exploration of our model generation process.
A very light hearted - non-research friendly exploration of our model generation process.
Correct-A-Sentence/helper-scripts at main · AceCentre/Correct-A-Sentence
A really simple REST API to take a string which may have no spaces in it, find the word segments, correct it and then capitlaise it correctly - AceCentre/Correct-A-Sentence
github.com
June 25, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Correcting Text in AAC (or a failed computer scientist figures out how to correct text): https://willwa.de/2025/06/25/correcting-text-in-aac-or.html
A very light hearted - non-research friendly exploration of our model generation process.
A very light hearted - non-research friendly exploration of our model generation process.
AI doesnt hallucinate. Its not a bloody person. Lets be clear - it get its wrong. If we want to anthropomorphise our technology we could say “Poor AI it got confused” or “That shit. It just lied”. But no. Its a statistical inference machine. It got it wrong.
May 27, 2025 at 6:37 AM
AI doesnt hallucinate. Its not a bloody person. Lets be clear - it get its wrong. If we want to anthropomorphise our technology we could say “Poor AI it got confused” or “That shit. It just lied”. But no. Its a statistical inference machine. It got it wrong.
AI doesnt hallucinate. Its not a bloody person. Lets be clear - it get its wrong. If we want to anthropomorphise our technology we could say “Poor AI it got confused” or “That shit. It just lied”. But no. Its a statistical inference machine. It got it wrong.
May 27, 2025 at 6:37 AM
AI doesnt hallucinate. Its not a bloody person. Lets be clear - it get its wrong. If we want to anthropomorphise our technology we could say “Poor AI it got confused” or “That shit. It just lied”. But no. Its a statistical inference machine. It got it wrong.
Owls in Towels is what you need. Not AI. owlsintowels.org
May 27, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Owls in Towels is what you need. Not AI. owlsintowels.org
So I went to use sharedrop.io WTF? Limewire.. Didnt that die back in the 90’s - so fine a fine OSS bit of web has been gobbled - but why does a file sharing system need a bloody “Create with AI” button? Like seriously. How to ruin a good bit of software. Use pairdrop.net instead I say..
May 6, 2025 at 2:42 PM
So I went to use sharedrop.io WTF? Limewire.. Didnt that die back in the 90’s - so fine a fine OSS bit of web has been gobbled - but why does a file sharing system need a bloody “Create with AI” button? Like seriously. How to ruin a good bit of software. Use pairdrop.net instead I say..
Donnie 2 Dolls. The best thing I’ve read today.
May 5, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Donnie 2 Dolls. The best thing I’ve read today.
“I just want to look at my bank balance and say fuck it. I’ll buy a Dyson”
Call Jonathan Pie Series 2: Pie talks about billionaires.
Available on @BBCSounds - and wherever you get your podcasts. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...
Available on @BBCSounds - and wherever you get your podcasts. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...
April 18, 2025 at 6:46 AM
“I just want to look at my bank balance and say fuck it. I’ll buy a Dyson”
Does anyone know how I submit a bug report to Microsoft Azure Team on their translation tool? I keep coming across problems - like Eng->Pashto - all strings are “Afghanistan National Cricket team”. Is nobody checking these lang pairs? Seen similar problems in Kurdish and other langs..
March 26, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Does anyone know how I submit a bug report to Microsoft Azure Team on their translation tool? I keep coming across problems - like Eng->Pashto - all strings are “Afghanistan National Cricket team”. Is nobody checking these lang pairs? Seen similar problems in Kurdish and other langs..
Who the hell would be crazy enough to buy this? Shaking hands with my friends? How did that reach the top of the pile for v1 must have features? I’m more concerned that this would “Memorizes your kitchen inventory..”.. “Memorizes your clean home layout”. Go on, cyber overlords. Take everything.
February 21, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Who the hell would be crazy enough to buy this? Shaking hands with my friends? How did that reach the top of the pile for v1 must have features? I’m more concerned that this would “Memorizes your kitchen inventory..”.. “Memorizes your clean home layout”. Go on, cyber overlords. Take everything.
Direnv - and reinventing the wheel with envloader: https://willwa.de/2025/02/18/direnv-and-reinventing-the-wheel.html
February 18, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Direnv - and reinventing the wheel with envloader: https://willwa.de/2025/02/18/direnv-and-reinventing-the-wheel.html
So we built this aacprocessors library. Intention was to read and manipulate any AAC software. Its not ideal but just made a new method just for the grid right now.
def replace_cell_with_xml(
self,
gridset_path: str,
... https://willwa.de/2025/02/17/so-we-built-this-aacprocessors.html
def replace_cell_with_xml(
self,
gridset_path: str,
... https://willwa.de/2025/02/17/so-we-built-this-aacprocessors.html
February 17, 2025 at 2:02 PM
So we built this aacprocessors library. Intention was to read and manipulate any AAC software. Its not ideal but just made a new method just for the grid right now.
def replace_cell_with_xml(
self,
gridset_path: str,
... https://willwa.de/2025/02/17/so-we-built-this-aacprocessors.html
def replace_cell_with_xml(
self,
gridset_path: str,
... https://willwa.de/2025/02/17/so-we-built-this-aacprocessors.html
If anyone out there is a python dev - and wanting TTS support in theri code - I’d love someone to help roadtest this python library. I think its probably the most extensive TTS wrapper accessing pretty much every online and offline TTS engi... https://willwa.de/2025/02/16/if-anyone-out-there-is.html
February 16, 2025 at 8:28 AM
If anyone out there is a python dev - and wanting TTS support in theri code - I’d love someone to help roadtest this python library. I think its probably the most extensive TTS wrapper accessing pretty much every online and offline TTS engi... https://willwa.de/2025/02/16/if-anyone-out-there-is.html
Adam did this marvellous reprint of the poppy mini trackball for a client needing a chin controlled trackball. This modification stops it falling out. It’s a win as the designs are all open source. @PKL@mastodon.social
ploopy.co
ploopy.co
January 28, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Adam did this marvellous reprint of the poppy mini trackball for a client needing a chin controlled trackball. This modification stops it falling out. It’s a win as the designs are all open source. @PKL@mastodon.social
ploopy.co
ploopy.co
Want to access Panels editor in Mac? Access it here
/System/Library/Input Methods/Assistive Control.app/Contents/Resources/Panel Editor.app
Pin it to your dock (saves you opening in rather wierd way via system settings)
/System/Library/Input Methods/Assistive Control.app/Contents/Resources/Panel Editor.app
Pin it to your dock (saves you opening in rather wierd way via system settings)
January 20, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Want to access Panels editor in Mac? Access it here
/System/Library/Input Methods/Assistive Control.app/Contents/Resources/Panel Editor.app
Pin it to your dock (saves you opening in rather wierd way via system settings)
/System/Library/Input Methods/Assistive Control.app/Contents/Resources/Panel Editor.app
Pin it to your dock (saves you opening in rather wierd way via system settings)
Been working with Sherpa-Onnx TTS a lot over the last year. It’s a nice project to make a onnx runtime for lots of different languages and interfaces. Just whipped together a Gradio demo to show all the voices and hear them - most notably MMS Onnx models Sherpa-Onnx Demo
December 16, 2024 at 5:25 PM
Been working with Sherpa-Onnx TTS a lot over the last year. It’s a nice project to make a onnx runtime for lots of different languages and interfaces. Just whipped together a Gradio demo to show all the voices and hear them - most notably MMS Onnx models Sherpa-Onnx Demo
Great episode on TTS on the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/e…
October 5, 2024 at 7:08 AM
Great episode on TTS on the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/e…
Monkey Management : https://willwa.de/2024/04/15/monkey-management.html
August 21, 2024 at 3:29 PM
Monkey Management : https://willwa.de/2024/04/15/monkey-management.html