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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
blog https://stuff.interfree.ca/
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
So there's a meme where you give kids the first half of a proverb, and ask how they think it ends. My friend's Four year old has apparently never heard the proverb "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

She guessed it goes: "In the land of the blind...
Netflix is cheaper."

It made me chuckle.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@blindndangerous I never used the free version, so I don't know. First thing I apparently need to do is get a geonames username.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Update again: after two more email exchanges, I now have a working password, and they uploaded the file on my server directly so I can access it. I have no idea what will happen with updates, but I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
I don't usually share stuff here. But this may be of interest to and folks who live in the : rblind.com/post/8599526
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Using Gemini to write me a script to fix a Python error I was encountering took me about an hour. Writing the script myself would have taken me about an hour (I have to look up the syntax for tar and invoke-url and friends every single time). However, as a lazy programmer, Gemini's code is actually better. I wouldn't have bothered with any error checking, and I would have hard coded all the paths I needed. So I guess in this case, AI wins. The entirely generated script, if you're curious: share.interfree.ca/app/open/5WidkTfzuPp-EsRM6XcBvpG-UWbmvCrW28H-tmjf28qCYjH?view=1
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@blindndangerous They’re html formatted and tweesecake is failing to handle that. Every single other client works correctly.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
Update: i got a response from an info email address with an apology and a Dropbox download link. Unfortunately, clicking the link tells me I don’t have permission to access the file.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@alexhall @lorimolson Now if it was a translated martial arts film, it absolutely would have been dialogue. “How dare you challenge the master of the glorious plasma heavenly fist technique, you lousy perfidious guy!”
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@FreakyFwoof I have no idea lol. I’ll give it another week; I can always reverse the transaction.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
An aborted journey into accessible flight simulation:
It's been quiet here for a couple of weeks because a project I was hoping to begin fell through.
stuff.interfree.ca/2025/06/22/flight-simulation.html
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
All the years I’ve spent playing casual mobile games, and I still haven’t managed to train autocorrect that spell books are a thing. When do I get personalized again?
Screenshot of a game chat where I ask “wtb level 519 legendary smell book with int.”
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@mckensie You have to add a hotkey for it in preferences under interface then hotkeys
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@aardrian I don't think they federate, so here's the exact numbers in case, like me, you have an actual use for this unscientific data:
Talkback 29 votes 33%
Prudence 2 votes 2%
Jieshuo 6 votes 6%
Other, please say what in a reply 0 votes 0%
I don’t use a screen reader 37 votes 42%
I don’t have an android 13 votes 14%

In short, only TalkBack really matters. If it works with TalkBack, Jieshuo and Prudence would be forced to make it work with them too, because they're small fish. Note that all of my followers speak English, and Prudence and Jieshuo are developed in China, so these numbers are even more meaningless than they already are outside of North America.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Yeah I would. Sounds a little less Japanese; the ever so slightly rolled r sounds make it interesting.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Japanese is the closest. But could be Korean as a runner-up.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Yeah this is exactly what I want, but spoken, not sung haha.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Yeah, the actual gender someone identifies as doesn't matter to me. It's the sound of the voice. Soft spoken and higher pitched does it to me every single time. But if they're speaking English, I can't relax enough to get the ASMR because I'm too focused on what they're saying. Similarly, if it gets into my head that they wish I could understand them, it won't happen. Like if I land on a livestream where I suddenly realize I'm one of three viewers or something. I need to not understand, and...have permission to not try and understand? If that makes sense.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Yup. If you were female-sounding I'd offer some kind of ASMR exchange LOL. But if I recall correctly I don't think you are haha. And soft speaking male sounding voices don't work for me. I don't know why. Probably some sort of deeply instilled gender roles based trauma somewhere there.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Eleven Labs is getting close. Just gotta find a prompt that works regularly, have it generate 30 second chunks, and stick them together with a script. Depending on what your ASMR actually is of course.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1y
@dodecahedron Yup. There are some audiobook channels that upload foreign selfhelp books that work pretty well. Also a couple Korean artists who produce what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, most European creators seem to whisper all the time. And I loathe whispering. The only situations where I whisper or hear whispering are stressful situations where something bad will happen if we get caught. So someone whispering in a video just spikes my heart rate.
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