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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
3mo
@lynessence Just picked up Package Hero, a silly little IOS idle game. Might be up your alley; something to toss on your phone while doing other things. Simpler than warshovel, but a bit less pay to win, and getting daily updates. And actually runs without crashing. apps.apple.com/us/app/package-hero/id6785399401

Also I have a code. Of course. Because it's that kind of game LOL. Redeem in settings for a bunch of coins: EFDYPZ

Will probably do a blog review if it keeps me playing for a couple weeks. It's like five days old at the moment.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@jscholes @jaybird110127 What option is the sound of nails on a chalkboard? Only way to make that worse. Unless amazon could create a captcha that randomly plays a binaural recording of a mosquito buzzing around someone’s head. Prove your a human by slapping yourself.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@jakobrosin @kevinrj Bonus: that’s not what the update actually does.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
This feels related to your interests @FreakyFwoof @arfy github.com/akustikrausch/yamaha-smaf-player
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@nick Does the fork with the upsampler have the same bug? I’m just curious because that guy rewrote audio processing as well. Honestly I’m probably being a bit too precious about not merging code. But I want the code in my repo to be as simple as possible. Because every time NVDA changes how addons work it has to be rewritten. I’m fine with my repo being the stable base everyone can build more feature rich forks on top of.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@nick I really do want to get to the bottom of this. The main issue with your PR is that it does seem to introduce a click sometimes; if it had no side-effects, I'd just merge it. But between not being able to find anyone else with the issue, and the clicks, I need to hold off.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@mcourcel @emassey0135 @bmoore123 Huh. They sent me to a lab in Atlanta. Would’ve loved to share trips with you too.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@mcourcel @emassey0135 I was part of the clinical trials for this back in the day. Though I couldn’t afford the drug when it came out. Thankfully I found other effective treatments.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
Transphobia Xover: In which Snape befriends an old grey donkey, Harry Potter & Winnie-the-Pooh | FanFiction www.fanfiction.net/s/4903653/1/In-which-Snape-befriends-an-old-grey-donkey
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
FileDentify @FreakyFwoof So the next job is to make an accessible tracker for Windows. We need blind people making modern .mod files! LOL THat’s probably impossible.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
FileDentify @FreakyFwoof Do you support getting info about all the hundred module formats? .mod, .xm, .mo3, .nsf, and so on? Surely there’s a library you could just integrate to add them all?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@lynn Right now Orca is the only practical option on Linux. Unfortunately, most of my work happens on Windows because the Linux accessibility stack is far less mature. I’d say accessibility in Linux is about where Windows was in 2005. The primary reason is a lack of funding. It’s much easier for NVAccess (makers of the open source NVDA screen reader for Windows) to get corporate money to do accessibility work. Because most workplaces still use Windows, and legally can’t refuse to employ someone because they’re disabled. The problems on Linux could all be solved with a combination of money, and a charismatic project leader who could convince all of the window managers and desktop environments to implement a shared, modern accessibility API. I know of two people who are willing and capable of doing the work. But they can’t both do the work and also fight for grants and funding, so it just doesn’t happen. I really wish a lot of the EU tech funding and sovereign tech efforts would just set a required amount that must be spent on accessibility work. That would then force them to go find things to fund, rather than force the few overworked people qualified to fix the problem to spend all there time filing grant applications.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@lynn The primary issue is that on Windows and Linux, the screen reader generally uses an entirely separate “off screen model” containing the accessibility tree etc. The idea is that if the application is blocking, the screen reader can use its off screen model to tell me the state of the interface, without just freezing while it waits for the application to respond with the accessibility information it needs. However, the trade off is that accessibility APIs spend a lot of time refreshing, syncing, updating, and traversing the off screen model. And all of this is usually done in Python or some other interpreted language, or C if you’re really lucky, because few enough people want to work on screen readers as it is; we can’t also ask them to be good systems/low level programmers. And I went with the framework 16 specifically because it has a GPU module that’s more than enough to run image description AI locally. I didn’t need the extra screen LOL. Modern image recognition and OCR models are small enough to run on an iPhone. Someone with a modern computer who is still using cloud models is either making a moral choice, or doesn’t have the technical understanding to set up a local model.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@lynn And before you ask: no, a screen reader shouldn’t be a large resource drain. But unfortunately, the people who write accessibility API’s don’t think about speed the same way people developing graphics libraries and low level visual interface components do.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@lynn I have a framework 16. But my plan is to just keep replacing parts every 5-7 years and stop buying laptops at all. I didn’t want to go used because I run a screen reader, so performance matters a lot more for me as the screen reader is an extra resource drain on everything the computer does. I also can’t solder; some blind people can, but I’m not one of them. So I needed something I could fix without ever touching a soldering iron.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@lynn Used thinkpads I guess? Lenovo also sucks as a company. But the laptops are easy to fix and there’s a healthy used market for machines and parts.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@lynn It just let the controversy die out and everyone moved on. There are too many horrors for a single one to keep everyone’s focus for more than a few weeks. And they no if you want an open laptop you have no other choice anyway.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@x0 Oh, good to know! If it’s international I’ll at least join.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@x0 My understanding was that bits is US only though. Unfortunately I’m Canadian.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
3mo
@WeirdWriter They only hated bloggers who weren’t making money. They loved HuffPost or even BoingBoing. Similarly, everyone loves iHeart podcasts because they make money. Fanfiction authors are dehumanized for the same reason. Can what you’re doing directly make you money? If yes, you’re a hero! If no, you’re hardly even a human.
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