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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
Admin
completely blind computer geek, lover of science fiction and fantasy (especially LitRPG). I work in accessibility, but my opinions are my own, not that of my employer. Fandoms: Harry Potter, Discworld, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Buffy, Dead Like Me, Glee, and I'll read fanfic of pretty much anything that crosses over with one of those.
keyoxide: aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
Location Ottawa
Birthday 1987-12-20
Pronouns he/him (EN)
matrix @fastfinge:interfree.ca
keyoxide aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
Is it just me, or do other people find knocking things over comes in streaks? I can go nine months at a time without spilling or knocking over anything. Then over the course of a few days, I knock or spill something over once or twice a day. Then it stops and I'm normal again. I haven't changed my environment, or habits, or anything. Let's see if I can get back on track and not spill anything today.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@Tamasg Yeah, if it's on Amazon, I tend to just purchase directly; I have an Amazon Prime account, and I'm comfortable with how the website works. But in this case, the product was only available directly from the manufacturer, or from retailers like wayfair where I don't have an account. And I just don't have the time or mental energy right now to fiddle around with a new website I might use only once.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
So I seem to be on a bit of an testing kick. A non-critical product I needed (some replacement filters for an air purifier) was available at the best price from a website I really didn't want to deal with right now. So I put the order in via innosearch.ai. I'm mostly suspicious because the marketing is so polished; I've come to distrust well-marketed products. On the other hand, if innosearch makes it possible for me to spend less money on Amazon, and makes distributing my shopping dollars to other places more practical, it's a net ethical win. If I get entirely the wrong thing, or nothing at all, it won't break me. I'll keep this thread updated with my experiences.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@adam I speak from experience.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@adam And it crashes NVDA so hard you have to reboot the machine?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@matt Having exchanged emails with Andrew, GUide’s developer, I really don’t think this is a cash grab. He strikes me as well intentioned. I was unaware of the coding issues, or that it runs an unsecured web server on the users machine. From what you can see, is there anything to stop another rogue app from connecting to the web server and telling Claude to execute stuff on the user’s machine? I was only really evaluating this from a functionality perspective. Though I was somewhat surprised that some of the changes I proposed in my email weren’t things he’d thought about previously. This feels to me like good ideas that didn’t get enough time in the oven, combined with lack of experience and good intentions. The telling thing, to me, will be what happens over the coming weeks. Will this go back in the oven for more cooking? Will we see the changes in safety and security that are needed?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@mcourcel No, it's something similar for Windows. www.guideinteraction.com
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
So an update on Guide: I've exchanged some long emails with Andrew, the lead developer. He's open to dialogue, and moving the project in the right direction: well-scoped single tasks, more granular controls and permissions, etc. He doesn't strike me as an maximalist can and should do everything all the time kind of guy. He's also investigating deeper screen reader interaction, to let AI just do the things we can't do that it's best at. I stand by my thoughts that the project isn't yet ready for prime time. But as someone else in the thread said, I don't think it should be written off entirely as yet another "AI will save us from inaccessibility" hype train. There is, in fact, something here if it gets polished and scoped a bit more.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@jscholes @Jage It's also a security thing. Sure, it was pretty funny that it opened Stardoo Valley. But if I was using it on my real machine, I can think of a lot of apps I wouldn't want it to unexpectedly launch.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@jscholes @Jage On a more serious note, I think the interface as presented is just way, way too generalist, and its freedom too unrestricted. Things I'd like to see:
1. it gets prompted with the name of the currently focused app, and the mouse is disallowed from leaving that app window.
2. Bringing it up with alt+ctrl+g gives prompts of what tasks it thinks it could perform inside the current app. Instead of the current general "ask me to do anything!"
3. It should have access to the DOM for browsers so it's not taking screenshots and acting only on that all the time if it's being asked to do something on a webpage.
4. It really, really needs training on NVDA focus mode. It says to turn off speech, but that doesn't solve for it trying to type into an edit field when NVDA isn't in focus mode. It does this constantly.

I still don't think it'd be ready for prime time, but it would be closer.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@Jage Nope. It's far, far better at Balatro than me. And now I'm upset and I hate it forever. ROFL JK
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@Jage Also, the only way to start a new chat is to open the program and close it again?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@evilcookies98 But do they have liver and onions?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
Issue filed here: codeberg.org/Codeberg/Community/issues/1836
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
Unfortunately, I can't migrate my repos to . I get: "Error 1062 (23000): Duplicate entry '394640-' for key 'UQE_release_n'". Seems codeberg doesn't support something about my workflow.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
So I wanted to try guide on a real accessibility issue. However, it seems that has finally fixed their . Now, if you tab into the field, you're told what you need to type to get past it. Good job codeberg!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
Final update: The developer is now on Mastodon via @andrew_guide.

Update: The developer has removed the ability to download Guide until the security issues mentioned in the linked thread are fixed.

Update: this product contains some code flaws that are concerning from a security perspective, beyond just giving control of your computer to an LLM. You might want to read this thread before installing the product: toot.cafe/@matt/114258349401221651

Update: I've exchanged some long emails with Andrew, the lead developer. He's open to dialogue, and moving the project in the right direction: well-scoped single tasks, more granular controls and permissions, etc. He doesn't strike me as an maximalist can and should do everything all the time kind of guy. He's also investigating deeper screen reader interaction, to let AI just do the things we can't do that it's best at. I stand by my thoughts that the project isn't yet ready for prime time. But as someone else in the thread said, I don't think it should be written off entirely as yet another "AI will save us from inaccessibility" hype train. There is, in fact, something here if it gets polished and scoped a bit more.

Just tried guide for fun. It's supposed to be an app to use to help folks get things done. I asked "Where are the best liver and onions in Ottawa?" It:
1. Decided it needed to search the web.
2. Thought that the "stardew access" icon on my desktop was a kind of web browser, so clicked it.
3. Imagined an "accept cookies" dialogue it needed to accept.
4. Decided that didn't work, so looked for Google Chrome (I don't have chrome installed on that machine)
5. Finally opened edge from the start menu. By the way, it just...left Stardew open and running. Because apparently having Stardew Valley running in the background is a vital part of finding liver and onions in Ottawa.
6. Opened a random extension from my edge toolbar (goodlinks).
7. Clicked the address bar and loaded google.com, instead of just doing the search right from the address bar.
8. Got blocked because it couldn't sign into my Google account, even though it could have also searched from the Google homepage.

To be fair to AI, that was the kind of open-ended task AI is terrible at. If I had asked it to check an inaccessible checkbox, or read a screenshot, or something, I'm sure it would have been fine.

Anyway, I'm still better at using a computer than an AI. So is my 87 year old grandfather, for that matter. www.guideinteraction.com
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
Seriously, who are these people both getting the entire afternoon off work, and who can also afford tickets to the home opener? It’s apparently packed for a spring afternoon game.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@munchkinbear @serrebi @NightDrake Just someting I maintain for myself. Don't promote it hugely because nobody uses IRC anymore. And the client it's based on doesn't seem to be maintained.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
10mo
@munchkinbear @serrebi @NightDrake github.com/fastfinge/adispeak