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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)
xmpp fastfinge@im.interfree.ca
keyoxide aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
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
1y
@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
1y
@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
1y
@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
1y
@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
1y
@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
1y
@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
1y
@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
1y
@simon @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @modulux Nope. I had one of the early GPD's, and the battery exploded after like six months. Never again.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@modulux @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel @simon Also, like, it's just a Raspberry Pie with a special case. If I had more time and willpower I could make something similar for a lot less money. And yet, I still want it! Even knowing exactly how overpriced it is.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@munchkinbear @VE3RWJ He claims to pull it every morning. So maybe if the address is withheld he just keeps the old one?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@simon @DavidGoldfield @mcourcel Man, the BT Speak is something I really want, and really have absolutely no use for, and thus can't justify purchasing in any way.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@VE3RWJ Yup. Amusingly, googling Mark's callsign gives his full address from his own unsecured website LOL.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@VE3RWJ Yeah, I found that and sent him a message. No answer as of yet.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
I've sent Mark (VE3PZR) a note via his contact form. Also, if you'd like to know his physical address to mail him a letter, just google "VE3PZR" in quotes. It's the second result...from his own poorly secured website! @nul42
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@nul42 Thanks! You can also use google's "results about you" removal form to get the results removed. But I'll shoot him a note on the off-chance he's active on QRZ.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Warning to canadian Operators: If you're a in , Mark Bramwell,, operator of the website foxhollow.ca, has placed the entire Industry Canada database of ham callsigns on his website, in a way publicly indexable by Google. While this data can be downloaded and searched at Industry Canada's website, at QRZ.com, and via RAC (Radio Amateurs of Canada), none of those websites make your full name and address available to 's search index. They all require a login or prevent indexing. However, while Foxhollow claims it needs verification, the website owner has done nothing to prevent Google from crawling his website. For example, searching for "VA3SEP" in quotes reveals my full address as results 2 and 3, as Google is allowed to crawl this page without verification. Unfortunately, Bramwell has decided not to offer any public means of contacting him on his foxhollow.ca website.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@Jage Sral or speech core.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Warning: I went back and fourth multiple times on if this should have a content warning for male chauvinism. It didn't feel that way in the dream, but it could absolutely be interpreted as obvious chauvinism on the part of my subconscious. It also contains mentions of heterosexual relationships, and objectification of women. Also, I don't know anything about the person mentioned, other than that they have a YouTube channel, sound female, and my dream borrowed their voice.

With that out of the way, last night I fell asleep with YouTube playing. Autoplay had somehow gotten me into the weirdly specific video genre of slightly adorkable women reminiscing about flash games they played as kids. That lead to me dreaming that I was attending FlashCon, the world's leading convention for fans of Macromedia flash! However, I was the only guy there. Random women kept approaching me and saying things like "Wow, you're a guy and your interested in flash!" and being the kind of vaguely flirty where you're not sure if they're intentionally flirting, or that's just how they are, or you're just misreading things. Anyway, then the YouTuber Dream Jelly (I think it was her video I fell asleep to) ran up to me, grabbed my arm, and was like "You have to attend my talk!" She dragged me into her session room, and sat me down in the front row. Then she proceeded to give a lengthy and detailed talk about her work on GFC, the GNU Flash Compiler. It was rather awkward, as for the entire talk, I was the only person in the room.

Don't worry, Fediverse; I know you folks, and I'm not going to leave out what few details I remember about GFC from the talk. Note that I know nothing about flash or compiler design, so I doubt any of this is even a thing. The talk started with an overview of the Flash Virtual Machine, FlashVM. Apparently this is the key part of the Macromedia Flash plugin that allowed cross-platform, cross-browser execution of flash. But Dream Jelly wanted to compile to native microcode, so she had to reverse engineer Flash VM, and write an opcode interpreter. As a bonus, that apparently allowed her to run all existing flash code natively. Then there was apparently something that I only noted in my dream journal as "a long boring section on binary hashtree optimization and string handling". Well, those are sure some words my subconscious knows! The talk ended with boasting about how GFC was a nine-pass compiler. Apparently, somehow that means it is the most efficient compiler written, and code written in ActionScript and compiled by GFC will always run faster than hand-written assembly, or assembly generated by any other compiler of any other programming language.

After that awkward morning, it was finally time for lunch. But before I could get food, someone cornered me to talk about MicroMedia, her operating system that was being written entirely in ActionScript with the GNU Flash Compiler. She asked me if I wanted to be a committer to the MicroMedia codebase. I agreed, mostly so I could leave the conversation and get something to eat. But she told me that the only way I could commit to her codebase was if I was her boyfriend. I was just kind of like, "Yeah, sure, that's fine, whatever. Email me." Then she hugged me and ran off, and I realized with horror that I was apparently dating some random woman I met at FlashCon and working on her pet project that I didn't care about.

Then, as usually happens in my long dreams, the fire alarm in the conference centre went off, but it was actually my alarm in real life, and I woke up.

What on earth was that, brain! All the weird awkwardness of an NSFW dream, but with absolutely no payoff, just obscure technical nonsense. I don't think I want to know what this dream says about me.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@andrew @jscholes You specify an smtp server for it to use.
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