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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
6mo
NVDA 64-bit migration breaking older voices, very long (2 posts) @TheQuinbox @pitermach That's what I've already done: github.com/fastfinge/eloquence_64/

However, if we had an API compatible 64-bit DLL rapper, it would mean eloquence can be used in other 64-bit apps, and the dlls could be a drop-in replacement without updating the addons at all. As well, having a bridge means the "copy config" button breaks the addon, because executables aren't included to run on secure screens. As well, it's possible (if NVDA hard crashes) to get in a place where the eloquence bridge is already running, tries to run a second time but fails, and because of threadsafe issues causes the first bridge to also crash.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
RE: 🔒, NVDA 64-bit migration breaking older voices, very long (2 posts) @jscholes @serrebi @pitermach @amir The code is based on the Threshold addon, rather than IBM TTS, so that probably explains the difference. I didn't use IBM TTS because the need to support every eloquence version IBM or Eloquent Technologies ever released, thought about releasing, or had a dream about one time, massively overcomplicates the code, when 99 percent of people only want 6.1 anyway. Pull requests are welcome, but I've successfully scratched my own ich, as they say.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
NVDA 64-bit migration breaking older voices, very long (2 posts) @TheQuinbox @pitermach Happy for a pr on the eloquence64 repo if you can increase speed at all. What we really need is a DLL wrapper. Bridging in NVDA comes with a set of annoying issues.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
NVDA 64-bit migration breaking older voices, very long (2 posts) @pitermach Python itself intends to drop 32 bit support in the foreseeable future. I think they should have offered two releases in 2026 and pulled the switch in 2027. But either way the transition is not optional. It has to happen in the next couple years. And I use eloquence64 as my daily driver. It’s fine for the most part. The main limitations are NVDA and windows ones. For example my bridge is unsigned so it can’t run on secure screens. And for the record it’s based on threshold. 99 percent of the code is human written, and the other one percent has been reviewed and debugged by multiple humans. I didn’t just shit out an AI conversion and call it a day.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
It used to be that setting stream quality to audio only meant twitch would never play ads. Disappointingly, they’ve changed that recently. Now they just play the ad video and all, in spite of your settings.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
It's time for another ! Get ready to be underwhelmed. Last night, work assigned me to recover the mythical legendary sandwich. It was always named in full, in my dream. Apparently, the mythical legendary sandwich was originally created by the Romins, but when Rome was renamed to Italy, all of the maps had to be updated, and the secret hiding place of the mythical legendary sandwich was lost in the process. Can you tell I passed every history class I ever took? To assist me on my search, I was partnered with a set of North Korean triplets named Gold, Silver, and Bronze. No, I don't know, either. But lucky for me, anyone who is holding hands with two out of three North Korean triplets can fly and teleport. I'm sure all of you already knew this rule, but it was news to me! It turned out to be really useful, though. After teleporting to Italy, we began flying over the coast. This was surprisingly less comfortable than you would expect; I was just...dangling by the hands between Silver and Bronze. Also, it was cold and damp! When I woke up, I did notice that I was lying on one of my hands oddly, and it was a bit sore. Anyway, after a few hours of uncomfortable flight, we discovered an unpopulated island with a cave. Upon landing and entering the cave, we...discovered the mythical legendary sandwich. It was right there. So we quartered it into four and ate it. It was okay. And that's how the dream ended: four people hanging out in a cave, eating a pretty average sandwich. It was cheese, onions, mayo, lettuce, and onions on sourdough bread. I have no idea where any of that came from! And that's why I haven't been posting these lately. If you found this one unsatisfying, imagine how unsatisfying all the ones I haven't shared have been.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@quanin 🤮 ⚰️
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@quanin Isn't that what the poop emoji is for?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@tewha 🙄
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@tewha So what you're saying is there's at least a couple guys in the group message waiting hopefully for the day when someone, somewhere, mentions an octopus. They'll finally get to use that one!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
I must be old. I really don't understand emoji reactions. If I say "I'm on the bus and will be there in half an hour" to the group message, why do five people need to react with the bus emoji? A thumbs up or a heart or a smile I get. It communicates some sort of information. You like it, or you're happy, or whatever. But all reacting "bus" communicates is that...the word bus was in the original message, and you recognized it! Yes! Good for you! You recognized the word bus! Do you want a cookie or something?
:nyan@outmo.de:1🚌1🚍1🚎1
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@b Yes, the blind community is quite strong, and almost all of us moved over from Twitter when they discontinued the API and broke accessibility. It wasn't like in sighted communities where some percent is on Mastodon, and some is on Twitter. Nearly a hundred percent of the blindness community who was active on twitter was forced to move.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@cachondo @FreakyFwoof It's not a matter of affording, for me. If it wasn't for NVDA I'd have to come up with the money for jaws. So I give that money to NVDA instead. I just never stopped setting money aside for a screen reader.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@FreakyFwoof TYup. The anual jaws price increase is just a reminder for me to up my NVDA donation.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@jscholes @jaybird110127 Yup, I love uv. It just feels like huge overkill for anything but the machine I actually develop on. And I think uv needs you to modify the path, in order to do everything it does, but I could be wrong. Also, don't modern Python packagers do some tree-shaking so they're not including the complete Python environment in every single build? I know that NVDA's environment, to my sorrow, doesn't include multiprocess, for example, because NVDA doesn't use it. So if I want it in my addons, I have to include it myself, even though it's a Python builtin.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@jscholes @jaybird110127 You're assuming I want to install uv and modify the path and keep uv up to date and have multiple python versions on the machine. And in one particular case, that the machine has an internet connection at all.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@jscholes @jaybird110127 I often package them up if they need to run on a different machine from the machine I developed them on. Saves dealing with setting up a virtual environment and so on.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@MaryAustinBooks I mean if I went, I'd just spend all my time wishing I was dead, and/or actually die when I have to watch the drunk guy from I.T engage in acts of sexual harassment because my social anxiety is far too deep for me to actually do anything about it. So we might as well just front load it, right?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@MaryAustinBooks Where is the option for "just dropping dead the second I hear anything about it"?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@jscholes @bermudianbrit @J3317 I'd rather that than a lot of the places I've scene, including my own home, where names never get changed, so toronto1 is in Montreal, and lanbackup is the print server.
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