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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
5mo
@ppatel Nah sorry. Customs has been hitting us with a lot of taxes and duty when US packages enter the country. Paid $79 in import fees on a $150 package from Texas a couple weeks ago. God only knows what they’d decide a bt speak is worth. The shippers declaration doesn’t seem to matter much. Thought you were in India for some reason. Sorry for wasting your time!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@ppatel Where would you be shipping from? I’d be interested as long as it’s not the US. Importing from the states to Canada is unaffordable now.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
one for @FreakyFwoof and my other British followers: An American man tries to pronounce British county names like der ham and glookestershyre: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_ZaN8HRqFs
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
If the title of this one doesn't interest you, the contents sure won't! Correcting Years With and : stuff.interfree.ca/2025/08/28/correct-years-with-nvda-and-espeak.html
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@dandylover1 Right, but the "hundred" shouldn't be spoken in American, Canadian, and several other English dialects. But espeaks American English variant doesn't respect that.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@dandylover1 Because I loathe the way it handles numbers in dates, and that can't be changed. I want all four digit numbers beginning with a 1 or a 2 to be read as years: "nineteen eighty seven", not "one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven". Every synth but espeak can handle this.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
Has anyone started a set of dictionaries for the voices yet? Now that the SAPI bugs in are fixed, I'm trying them out for a while. Problems I'm noticing: number reading is...weird. And change pitch for capitals doesn't work. Also, a set of NVDA dictionaries will be really badly needed. It's not as bad as eloquence, but I've got five entries after just a few minutes use. But these on Windows and the Siri voices on IOS could maybe, finally, perhaps, get me off eloquence.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
I had...this in a notes file on my computer. I have no idea why, where it came from, what it is, or why it exists. It was just a random file called notes.txt hanging out a few subfolders deep in my documents. Now you can have it, too!

In the most famous episode of Lost in Space, taking on the role of the gracious host, Captain John-Boy presents the actress with a parquet silhouette of the spaceship and a receipt of her room and board, proudly boasting, "conditions are 435 per cent better!" It seems to be an impressive sales pitch until you realise that he's including a portrait of himself as part of the deal. However, this doesn't seem to deter Miss Clay, who avidly accepts.
But her excitement quickly turns to concern when she realises the ship's crew won't be as easy to win over. "You think they are going to like me?" she worriedly ponders.
"They will love you," John-Boy confidently assures her, his words almost drowned out by the sound of raucous laughter emanating from the galley. Realising that his actors will soon be subjected to the Walton's unconventional dynamic, John-Boy hesitates before opening the door.
The sight that greets him is one of playful chaos; his parents and grandparents engaged in a friendly food fight, hurling mashed potatoes and greens at each other with gleeful abandon. Recognising the challenging task ahead, Miss Clay asserts, "We'll have to teach them some manners."
John-Boy readily agrees, signalling the start of their mission to transform the lively Waltons into a more refined version of themselves.
The following scenes depict the trials and tribulations faced by Miss Clay and John-Boy as they attempt to instil etiquette into the Walton clan. Their efforts are met with varying degrees of success. Grandpa, in particular, transforms remarkably, adhering to the new rules and proudly declaring, "You can't go against Miss Clay!"
Despite their best efforts, the process is fraught with challenges. Olivia, John-Boy's mother, accidentally destroys a prized family heirloom during an ill-fated attempt at a lesson in table manners. The mishap leaves both her and John-Boy in despair, with Olivia lamenting, "I'm going to be the only mother in history who's going to lock her children in the airlock." Yet, amidst these setbacks, they remain undeterred.
The climax of their efforts arrives when Miss Clay decides to stage a 'dress rehearsal', simulating a dinner party scenario. Each family member is assigned a role, aiming to perfect their newly acquired manners under her watchful eye. However, the exercise quickly devolves into pandemonium when their dog, Reckless, wreaks havoc.
The pandemonium unfolds as Reckless chases a toy, disrupting the carefully staged dinner party. The pursuit ends with the dog crashing into the table, sending food flying and leaving the guests, including Miss Clay, covered in spaghetti. The incident appears disastrous, yet it inadvertently serves to unite the family, reminding them of their shared bond and resilience.
As they recover from the chaos, John-Boy expresses his admiration for Miss Clay, commending her perseverance and stating, "It makes me feel good that you don't care where you are as long as it's with us." His appreciation reaffirms Miss Clay's connection to the family and their mutual understanding.
In the concluding scenes, the Waltons gather to bid farewell to Miss Clay. It's a heartfelt moment filled with appreciation and respect. Despite their initial resistance to change, the family acknowledges the positive impact of her presence. They part ways with a newfound understanding, promising to maintain their refined behaviours, albeit with a Walton twist.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
Interesting that the local network will actually continue to work pretty well if your server just...forgets to give out the DNS addresses for a couple days. Windows, IOS, OSX, Android, and Debian will all just kinda roll with it. That's not to mention annoying stuff like Firefox that refuses to use your system provided by default because it's special. But you get weird failures with anything custom (tvs, cameras, etc). So anyway, that was what I spent my evening diagnosing.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@NVAccess What about those of us who run alphas on a test machine? I really don’t want or need to reboot that machine daily.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@jonathan859 Check out cosmos cloud for managing your dockers and reverse proxy and SSO.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@modulux There's a weird little click between each sentence when I put in longer text.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
If it wasn't for the horrible clicks between every sentence, this would be a good option for an addon. It runs realtime, even in the browser: clowerweb.github.io/kitten-tts-web-demo/
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex @SeveraSnape @FreakyFwoof I assume it's in the archive now? LOL JK
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex @twynn @SeveraSnape @FreakyFwoof It's because every chapter is different. If they were all like chapter 1, it would have been much smaller. But they're not, because this author is a strangely dedicated human being. Also, I think epub uses the lowest level of zip compression so it works on e-readers and other memory/cpu constrained devices.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex @FreakyFwoof @SeveraSnape If you click the author, they have...a bunch of weird sex fics that they wrote (one called "Asshole destroyer 5000"), and a complete copy of the first Harry Potter novel, uploaded chapter by chapter. I...admire the determined trolling.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex @FreakyFwoof @SeveraSnape It's not even AI! Someone had to...write the entire thing. And upload each individual chapter. And publish it.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex @FreakyFwoof @SeveraSnape Wait until you get to chapter 3, and discover the cheese.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex @FreakyFwoof @SeveraSnape How do you feel about watermelons?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
According to the warnings on archive of our own: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex tagging @FreakyFwoof and @SeveraSnape because I'm absolutely certain the fanfic in this thread isn't in the archive.