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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
5mo
@FreakyFwoof @matt none is way too dry and thin for me.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@FreakyFwoof @matt For me it's either Edward2 or Reid.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@matt Yes, "anyone who cares to" is the key phrase here. From what I understand, espeak's code is terrible because it was written for Risc OS. And the overlap between blind people who know C++ and blind people who want a speech synthesiser kept up to date is going to be vanishingly small. The Espeak IOS app is a perfect example. It hasn't been updated in three years, even though everyone who tries it is aware of the bugs, and many people want it fixed, and it's not really useful in its current state because of the constant crackling. Just because something is open source doesn't mean it will be maintained.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
Shower thought: I wonder if any kids today are growing up on espeak the way we grew up on eloquence? Is there a future where espeak is out of date and ancient, and people are clinging to it with the desperation people today cling to eloquence and dectalk? Honestly y'all, espeak read isn't that bad. I just wish espeak was usable on IOS; the available app is old and littered with bugs.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@austinnix Sure did!
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
I took a stab at converting eloquence to work with the 64-bit alphas. Unfortunately, it's a bit laggy, and pitch doesn't come back down after a capital letter. Does anyone know what I've messed up? share.interfree.ca/api/v2/open/share/5GvHXPCRd2o-5iEwCHmxHBN-Sc64A9wtps1-e6yzfabRwV3/file/3ewj7im7W4t-AQKhhGYmydH-1KhDfBeb1YN-inxCAb3LFb8
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
If you're looking for unspoken-ng for the 64-bit alphas of the , that now lives here: github.com/fastfinge/unspoken-ng/releases/download/v1.0.2/Unspoken-ng-1.0.2.nvda-addon
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@feld Looks terrible. Developing a browser in a game engine means zero accessibility with multiple different assistive technologies. Using parts of HTML means you still need to develop an entire browser engine, or use webkit or something, meaning you're open to all of those security problems and can't really leave big tech behind. They could have at least used XHTML 1.1, meaning that you can parse it with an XML library. LUA, in fact, has a perfectly good XML library; you could parse the page in the same language as the scripts are written in...that's bound to have some advantages. And what's the point of replacing HTTPS if you're just going to re-invent all of the centralization and problems with SSL certs? This is in a super weird and awkward spot where it's both doing too much, and not enough, at the same time. Who's it for? It won't solve any of the issues with centralization, tracking, or privacy. It depends on big tech to exist. So why not just use the current web? Or if you don't like the current web, why not use something like Gemini?
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@mcourcel A web interface: lovable.dev
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@ppatel In this case I used lovable.dev. But all the tools have accessibility issues, so I flip between copilot, lovable, and replit.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
So today I needed an interface with a few intentional accessibility errors that I wanted to show for a demo. It didn't need to actually work, I just needed to briefly record the effect of a particular issue. So I used to vibe code it for me. It was perfect! Within fifteen minutes I had an inaccessible interface that didn't work right! Exactly what I wanted! No, but on a more serious note, it was impressive that it did manage to build in exactly the flaws I asked it for (and some bonus other flaws), and it was full fledged enough that I could show the issue I wanted to demonstrate without writing any code myself. I do find it somewhat ironic, though, that this is easily going to become the way I most frequently use AI at work, and it's going to save me a ton of time and effort.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@serrebi I'll hack on it a bit, see if I can come up with anything reliable enough for a public release.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@dodecahedron Hmmm. The main thing is getting the list of supported domains for each tool. I don't wanna update the GUI every time a tool updates, and I want the GUI to keep the tools it uses up to date, so I'm gonna have to parse the command output where it lists supported websites. That's really the big job that I don't already have code for.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
Project I'm vaguely thinking of building: getthing. A GUI where you paste a URL, and it sends the link to yt-dlp, or fanficfare, or ARIA2c, or spotdl, or streamlink, based on the website and what supports it, and then just saves the thing. Because I often have things I want, and I don't like thinking about what app to use. Also, I have a nest of scripts to keep it all working: the update thing that updates yt-dlp and ffmpeg and deno, the other different update thing that updates fanficfare, the thing that uses rookie to get the auth cookies from my browser, the thing that bypasses cloudflare, the other thing that bypasses cloudflare when the first thing doesn't, the thing that keeps the user-agent up to date for all the different other things so they are impersonating the latest version of a browser, etc. Someone should really just put this all into a package that will just save stuff to your hard drive in the "correct format"(tm) that you probably wanted based on what it is.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
@alexhall This was off by default for me. Or maybe I changed it years ago or something.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
So am I the last person on earth to learn that windows+up arrow maximizes a window? Kind of means that I don't really need alt+space for anything anymore.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
lewd, sexuality, male genitals Tonight, in things I will not be reading despite what the AI recommendation systems think of me, we have the following example. Who is this even for? Lonely moms? Teenaged boys? The harder I think about it the more upset and baffled I become.

Oops! I Banged My Bully’s Mom
"A boy’s reputation is thrown into the trash because others are intimidated by his large dick. His bully’s may resent and despise him, but their lonely moms see him in a different light."
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
5mo
Right! Been a while since I did a . So: last night, I dreamed that my work created a new security policy. All employees must use bloodlock on any device that contains work related data. What's bloodlock? Glad you asked! Obviously, it's a feature that requires you to prick your finger and deposit a drop of blood on the sensor every time you want to unlock your device. In the meeting this was announced, we were told that we would be supplied 60 needles and bandages a month for this purpose, and if we needed more, we'd have to pay for them ourselves. Also, the "auto-lock" policy would be reduced from 60 seconds to 15 seconds. Lastly, Microsoft, Apple, and Google would all use our DNA (as collected from our blood) for AI training purposes. So I did this on my work device. However, I got a meeting scheduled with our HR team. They told me that "Your first and last name are work related data. Any device that contains your first and last name must comply with the bloodlock policy." So then I had to put it on all my personal devices, too. The dream ended with me trying to log into my work device for a critical meeting, but it wasn't working! I had pricked my finger so many times to unlock my devices that no blood would come out! I woke up to find my left hand had fallen asleep. Obviously that was the trigger for...all of this nonsense. LOL
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@alexchapman @pixelate Never heard of thrive. I was thinking about twblue and tweesecake.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6mo
@pixelate The problem is the blind made mastodon apps are buggy, incomplete, and abandond. They are nowhere near sighted apps. I don’t want the same thing for my desktop.