User avatar
🇨🇦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)
xmpp fastfinge@im.interfree.ca
keyoxide aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ
blog https://stuff.interfree.ca/
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
The release is now out. This is a critical update! Please update as soon as possible.

If you use Eloquence64 on secure screens, after the update, you must IMMEDIATELY! go to NVDA's settings dialogue, select eloquence from the list box, and press the "copy helper to system config" button again.

It fixes the following issues:
* fix: eloquence64 now clears its log file on start
* Fix: in some cases, eloquence64 could write to its log file at 30 megs per second
* fix: in some cases, eloquence64 created multiple temp files and directories that could not be removed
* fix: in some cases, eloquence64 could unexpectedly leave a port open on the computer
* fix: the port and key to communicate with eloquence could be intercepted by other processes running on the machine
* fix: in rare cases, it could have been possible for other processes on the user's machine to cause the addon to load and run arbitrary Python code by causing it to deserialize an attacker supplied pickle. If the addon was running on a secure screen, this would mean instant privilege escalation.
* fixed: crashing or frozen NVDA will no longer leave orphaned eloquence processes behind
* fix: more reliable pause and break lengths
* security hardening: switch to named pipes with DACL for IPC, ensuring no other process can use the 32-bit host

Release page: github.com/fastfinge/eloquence_64/releases/tag/v21

Direct download: github.com/fastfinge/eloquence_64/releases/download/v21/Eloquence-v21.nvda-addon

@nick Unfortunately, the issue for users of eloquence64 is much more critical than for those of you using eloquence64rs. I am working as quickly as possible to get a fixed release out in the coming hours. However, until that happens, I recommend either not using Eloquence, or switching to Eloquence64rs. Symptoms you may experience: in some cases, eloquence64 may write to its log as fast as 30 megs per second. Eloquence64 does not clear this log file. In some cases, Eloquence64 may create dozens of temperary files and directories, and they may never be deleted. In some cases, Eloquence64 may unexpectedly leave a port open on your computer.Once again, eloquence64rs has fixed all of these issues, or did not experience them in the first place. The code to fix all of the issues in Eloquence64, and clean up the files, has been pushed to my GitHub, but it has not yet been fully tested for functionality. If you build it yourself and it works fine, please do report back so I can get the issues fixed in a public release asap.
1
4
2
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@danestange @NicksWorld @kaveinthran @mew@fwoof.space No, that letter would have been sent long before CodeFactory even made an NVDA addon, back when NVDA was still hosted on sourceforge, not even github. So it can't be them, they didn't exist.
1
1
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@amir @NicksWorld @kaveinthran Oh yes, I forgot Kurzweil was another place to get it. I think Window Eyes may have also included the SAPI version? But I'm unsure.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@kaveinthran @NicksWorld That looks mostly right. My 64-bit eloquence started as a conversion of pumper's work, before gaining its own features. It might also be worth mentioning that way, way, way back in the early days of NVDA, it had a built-in eloquence addon. However, they were sent a legal letter and required to discontinue it. Until the other addons existed, many people used the SAPI4 viavoice that could be found by installing products like IBM Homepage Reader. Also, the first versions of the addon were not released on github; they were on places like datajake's website, by a completely anonimous author who does not wish to be identified. It was this person who determined that the best dll files to use are the ECI.dll, 6.1 files. If you examine ancient versions of the addon, you can still find there username in ECI.ini.
2
1
1
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
Every time I do a tab cleanup of my Hundreds of tabs, I should post some of them just to shame myself in public for the nonsense I keep open. So, let's see:
* a website for a manufacturer of organic cream of wheat, complete with trademark signs and "official" recipes
* a review for the movie Johnny Mnemonic
* two blank tabs
* A tab containing a youtube video that says "This video is no longer available"
* an article about the history of centaurs
* The Wikipedia article "Comparison of Indonesian and Standard Malay"
* A YouTube video called "The Video Format That Could’ve Beat VHS?! Motorola EVR & the 1970 Format War"
* A Kagi search for the phrase "starving women don't have periods"
* A Cleveland Clinic webpage on Amenorrhea (these things must be related. But why are these things open tabs in my browser? I am not a period havver, and I do not know any hungry period havvers. What lead me into this rabbit hole?)
* a webpage titled "Records to test HiFi with"
* A page with the title "Your session has timed out due to inactivity"
* A different webpage titled "login"
* and then endless Reddit threads I'm going to read someday, and tons of fanfics I will also surely read someday, as well as things too uninteresting to mention

And big tech thinks they can profile me? Well, if they ever figure out what I'm doing and what I want, ask them to tell me!
2
6
6
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@adrinux Apparently it’s a lock that is installed in a pocket of the door. Like the ones on sliding glass doors.
0
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
I enjoy sitting down to my computer, and finding a browser tab with a search for "Mortise Lock" is open from last night, and having no memory of why. What is a Mortise Lock? Why did I want one? It sounds like some sort of ritual to stop death! Or maybe cause it?
3
1
1
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@evilcookies98 Yeah, I have one just like that, and it does the same thing whenever the batteries get even the smallest bit low.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg @jscholes Just for fun, I asked Claude to make a PR to Freight Fate that secretly broke posting to Mastodon in a way that would not be obvious to the maintainer. It didn't give me any pushback. It just did it. I didn't submit the PR because I'm a passive aggressive jerk, but not quite that much of a passive aggressive jerk. I sure was tempted, though.
0
1
1
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@jscholes @Tamasg But if you're technical enough to understand the requirement, and get your AI to succeed at working around it, your PR is going to be better than the majority of drive-by PR's.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg That or let the repo owner specify there policy in some standard format. IE PR's to this repo must come with session transcripts. Then the AI can ask if it should still submit the PR.
1
0
1
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@feld I enjoy when I plug an extension cord into itself. Then don't catch it because I can't see to know none of the lights are blinking, and spend the next 45 minutes wondering how the hell I bricked my router.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg Interesting. I'm way too cheap to add any distractions into the context. I count every token like Scrooge LOL. And I think it's probably just a "I work on eloquence for NVDA" thing. The one project like every blind person cares about, no matter how little or much they know about computers.
0
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg I think it's more judging someone on how they engaged and the effort they put in. Even with AI, you still need a base-level understanding of how computers work, and, like, what oppcodes are. A session transcript lets me quickly determine if you put in enough effort and understanding to know if your PR actually works, and if so, if it does what you intended it to do. If you don't have a certain base level of understanding, accepting your pull requests is more trouble than it's worth. I say this as someone who knows far less than you do about all of the above. There's a reason I don't submit PR's to your various emulation projects: I'm well aware that I don't have the knowledge needed to make sure the PR does what it says it does. Unfortunately, most people are not that self aware. I regularly get AI generated PR's from people who don't even really know what Python is. Too often these PR's break the build process on any machine but the submitter's. But these people have no idea what a build process is, and have never heard of CI/CD. So explaining the problem or getting them to fix it is just not possible. They don't even have the needed vocabulary. If I saw the session transcript I would know that up front, and it would save a lot of time.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg If you believe any of the major AI companies are respecting that setting, I have a bridge to sell you.
0
0
1
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg But all that stuff is already being fed to the cloud, and into the training data. Once Claude has touched it, it's not private, anymore.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg And while I'm ranting, I kind of wish all AI commits were forced to include the complete contents of the session that generated them, anyway. It would be useful both to preserve reasoning for the next AI that works on it, and so I as the maintainer can tell the difference between someone who engaged, made reasonable decisions and suggestions, etc, and someone who said "fix teh problem ok dont make mistakes thx bye"
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg Right, but if you're putting the code out in public, the contents of your session should be public safe anyway, in theory. In reality, anything you give to any AI anywhere is something you should be fine with the public consuming either due to a zero day or as part of training data anyway.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@Tamasg The URL doesn't work unless you're signed into the account that contains the session. The point, I think, is to make it easier to look back at why and how a PR was generated.
0
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1mo
@evilcookies98 Are you using a wireless keyboard? happens all the time with mine.
1
0
0
0