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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
@Tamasg The lack of prosody markers is a blocker, though.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@Tamasg Yeah, not quite what we need. But a step in the right direction...
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
Tagging @Tamasg odorediamanka600-source/FYLs-G2P: A lightweight hybrid G2P engine with less than 1.8M parameters and can be deployed on any devices (almost) github.com/odorediamanka600-source/FYLs-G2P
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
Openclaw Is More Fun to Fiddle With Than To Use: Of course I have to write about , the latest viral sensation: stuff.interfree.ca/2026/02/06/openclaw.html
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@kaveinthran @Tamasg @nick It might be because the newer versions of the driver had settings that the older one didn't, and it's causing a crash. I'm really not sure; everything is different about the driver since I wrote that.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@kaveinthran @Tamasg @nick It only includes support for 64-bit NVDA, because gruut needs 64-bit.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@Tamasg @kaveinthran @nick Here, the version that used an ancient version of speech player was still on my file host. I won't be updating it, but if you want to have a play, here you go: share.interfree.ca/app/open/AX2qBbXiJ8D-2wZ6znjs4bv-nZAAAyQ1zkB-9FHwonCxUDQ?view=1
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@kaveinthran @Tamasg @nick Unlikely. It needed, like, 700 megs of just Python dependencies. And loading all that into NVDA slowed the entire thing down hugely.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@sclower I suspect it would work better if I wrote the project requirements document myself. Then fed it into the AI for implementation. Maybe it would shift me from thinking "What do I want coded" and towards "What are my requirements". I tend to start thinking too low level, about what libraries I want to use and what language, when I still haven't one hundred percent laid out what I want to do. The example that prompted me to post was reformatting a set of files. If I'd have thought just a bit harder about what I actually needed, I would have ended up with three regular expressions and a batch script, not a C# DotNet app.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@x0 I haven't looked into it, yet. But maybe?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
Honestly the biggest problem with coding is that it lets me build things without having to think about what I want to build. It's happened twice now where the AI coded something perfectly, only for me to realize when I had exactly what I asked for, it wasn't what I needed or really wanted. I usually realize this during the act of building, and the act of building often helps me clarify what it is that I actually want.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
Today I learned that Google Gemini can understand ASCII maps like in nethacks or other roguelikes: Route to the Stairs
From your current position [@], follow these steps:
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Move East (Right): Move one room over to a cleared room [#].
2.
Move South (Down): Move one room down to another cleared room [#].
3.
Move South (Down) again: This will take you directly to the room containing the stairs [>].
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@mcourcel @jaybird110127 They are! And I went with a bank of interconnected EcoFlow's.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@jaybird110127 It actually cost me less than putting in an automatic switchover. Because I could do it myself, without requiring a licensed electrician, inspection from the power company, or a disconnect from the grid while it was installed. I looked at a propane generator with automatic switching, and between all the licenses and completely replacing the breaker box, it was going to cost me around 20 thousand dollars. I did this system for only eight thousand.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@jaybird110127 I have a hole home battery backup. However, I don't switch to it automatically. I want to ration power, so I switch circuit by circuit based on what's going on. For example, in the summer I don't put the hot tub circuit on it, but in the winter I have to in order to prevent the pipes from freezing. I also shut down the servers and then take the battery backup away from them. Assuming I ration to use only the essentials (medical equipment, lights, refrigeration) I can keep everything going for up to five days without electricity or a fuel delivery. Also, the battery system can be charged by a Tesla charger, or any other electric car charging station. And it's multiple batteries, so if I think after 60 hours I won't be getting power back, I can take one discharged battery and recharge it, and bring it back without interruption to the power.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@Tamasg @ppatel I've never heard Diphone synthesis that sounds good. That's pretty much what festival and flight do.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@ppatel @Tamasg Good luck with that. The more I dig in, the more complex it all gets. But you could make a big difference if you focused on the phonemizer (IE going from text to IPA). Then we wouldn't depend on espeak at all anymore, and would effectively be a speech engine from scratch. The phoneme editor includes support for third party phonemizers already, so you can test easily.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@Tamasg So weirdly, I'm using this voice pretty much exclusively at work. It's perfect for reading emails and generating reports and proofreading my writing and stuff. But for home use, I'm still not finding it a good fit for reading fanfic or ebooks or articles. It's...not relaxing? I can't identify if it's just Eloquence is what I'm used to, or if it's something about the voice.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@Tamasg Something about the new release sounds really good! I can get up to 80 without having issues understanding. Before it was around 65.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
7mo
@Tamasg It's probably a good idea. Just so that if someone is giving feedback, or complaining about something, that you can't hear or reproduce, it's easy to say "Please press reset and make sure you still have this problem."
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