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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
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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
11mo
@FreakyFwoof I absolutely would. I would rather die than take orders from a nazi. That’s the choice a lot of people will have to make in the coming months. If they don’t, the death of democracy in the US is inevitable.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@FreakyFwoof The students had no choice. The law says you have to go to school. The law doesn’t say you must advertise on x. Not yet anyway. Give trump a week or two.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@FreakyFwoof Or perhaps it’s time to stop working for and with nazis. “I was just following orders” is not a defence. “I did it to make another billion” is even less so. Apple made a choice. X isn’t the only place they could advertise. They probably won’t even get any new customers. The only reason they did it is to signal support for musk and his actions.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
transphobia Haven't read it yet, but this looks like another interesting :
Harry Potter and The Great Escape To China - Part 1 by
naughtypixie
"Snape decides to save Lily's son.
The measures are a touch drastic, but Harry isn't minding the results." archiveofourown.org/works/37143376/chapters/92664745
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
In conclusion, I think riffusion was best, by far. Udio sounded and styled better, but Riffusions lyrics were exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. What did you like best? Can you think of any services I missed?
Why won't they let me edit? 3 votes100%The Greatest Show on Earth 0 votes0%The Trumpet of Folly 0 votes0%The Very Model of a Modern Stable Genius 0 votes0%
3 users voted - Ended
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
And finally, here's ! With "The Trumpet of Folly". You know what? I'm gonna give this 8/10 for style. It's pretty close! But only 5/10 for topical. This is pretty generic. www.udio.com/songs/kYNd5nrvVMwEZogimBQtoD
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
While we wait for Udio to finish, here's a bonus Riffusion generation. It calls this "The Very Model of a Modern Stable Genius". But uses the wrong tune and kind of forgets the song it's attempting to base this off of. www.riffusion.com/riff/d95a122e-b436-4b44-b730-ecc7e03a3844
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
So if I just use default Udio settings, I get an instrumental thing that's 30 seconds long. Looks like I'll have to change some settings for a fair comparison.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
Next, we have . Unfortunately, it failed completely. You thought the other one was modern musical style? Suno created a song called "The Greatest Show on Earth" and spent most of its time praising Trump. I'm giving this 2/10 for topicality, and 0/10 for style. suno.com/song/f23e8e3e-2fa9-4d18-b3fc-546accace8e8
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
Now that we have three different Music generators, I wanted to give them a tricky test and compare the results. I'm totally not musical, so hopefully one of my followers will chime in to this thread with some musical theory criticism.

The prompt we'll be using today: "A comic operetta in the style of Victorian satirical comic operettas making fun of President Donald J Trump." We'll be leaving all other settings as default.

The things I'm looking for:
1. Does the song refer to recent events?
2. Can it follow my strong style instructions? I'm wanting something in the style of gilbert and Sullivan. But if I mention them directly, the AI's either refuse on copyright grounds, or generate endless bad versions of A Model of A Modern Major General.

Let's start with riffusion.com. It gave me a song called "Why won't they let me edit?" It's apparently about how Donald Trump wants to edit his wikipedia page. I'm not aware of this being a thing that happened, but it's possible I missed that? It starts off enough like an opera for my taste, but it quickly devolves into a kind of 2000's pop musical style. I give it 8/10 for topicality, and 5/10 for style. Link: www.riffusion.com/riff/40bbc4f8-c557-4bb4-9a95-1bbcb66c38de
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@Jage Their's also Universal Speech. That's what the playroom uses and the dev open sourced it. I have no experience with it, though.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
Wow, Goodreads is a disaster. The community curated list of The Absolute Worst Books Ever Written includes The Diary of Anne Frank, Mein Kampf, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Along with, you know, The Twilight Saga and Dan Brown's books. Just in case you thought people who read were somehow smarter than those who don't.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@mcourcel @DavidGoldfield @modulux @simon I do not. But I have two friends, each of whom live within ten minutes of me, who do. The Ottawa Public Library also has several, and you can submit files to them if you have a design to print.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @modulux @simon To clarify this tweet in a direct reply, my use of the word "overpriced" was expressed unclearly. As someone who is highly technical and owns multiple raspberry pies, multiple Linux machines, has access to a 3d printer, and so-on, it's far harder for me to justify the price (that is both real and fair) that support, software development, updates, etc, etc involves. What I was trying to express was that for me, I could get the components much cheaper, and spend my time instead of my money building something vaguely similar. But I haven't spent either time or money on it, because both time and money are limitted resources, and the BT Speak is something I want badly, not need badly.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@mcourcel @DavidGoldfield @modulux @simon How did you not know about this? You got the interpreter and compiler from the Blazie website via ftp. Then you loaded it onto your BNS. The FTP site had a bunch of examples of geometry calculations and a to-do list in a desperate effort to hide that what this was really for was playing silly games written by Dan Zingaro. In fact, you can still get the compiler from: mail.nfbnet.org/files/bns/BASICBNS.ZIP
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@modulux @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @simon Sadly, if it could run the old basic programs that needed run.bns and compile.bns, I'd probably already have one ROFL. I spent so many days in battle.bas instead of listening to whatever the middle school teacher was on about.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@simon @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @modulux Yes, but every time I get a new kernel I get to lose accessibility. And I get to fight with sound drivers and video drivers and all the rest. The BT Speak makes everything but userland someone else's problem. That's almost worth paying for. Almost.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@simon @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @modulux Right, but when I want to take my laptop apart, I already have a Framework 16 LOL. The thing that makes me want a BT Speak is Linux that's actually supported and accessible and maybe works most of the time.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@simon @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @modulux Interesting. I have the giant, swollen, pregnant looking GPD in a cupboard right beside me. When I contacted them they basically said "Tough luck, buddy."
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
11mo
@simon @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @modulux Nope. I had one of the early GPD's, and the battery exploded after like six months. Never again.