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.
Public Key
npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc Profile Code
nprofile1qqsqkc9wvp4v92nryk6pfawpmdqdh4dzwfd2z35d0nxt7gy6uz2dr9gpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qmdq6fp
Show more details
Published at
2026-11-06T01:22:13Z Event JSON
{
"id": "e123a26349716e932c279a3032d3a281f42b5a1119989fc5ef8ef85923c3a4d0" ,
"pubkey": "0b60ae606ac2aa6325b414f5c1db40dbd5a2725aa1468d7cccbf209ae094d195" ,
"created_at": 1793928133 ,
"kind": 0 ,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://fed.interfree.ca/users/9yyiw179ykv56evd",
"activitypub"
],
[
"client",
"Mostr",
"31990:6be38f8c63df7dbf84db7ec4a6e6fbbd8d19dca3b980efad18585c46f04b26f9:mostr",
"wss://relay.ditto.pub"
]
],
"content": "{\"name\":\"🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦\",\"about\":\"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.\\nkeyoxide: aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ\",\"picture\":\"https://fed.interfree.ca/files/public-0344fa38-515c-41d6-8b00-3042416d32e5.webp\",\"banner\":\"https://fed.interfree.ca/files/public-4f9a965d-4717-4af4-b304-15cfd952d056.webp\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \",\"fields\":[[\"xmpp\",\"[email protected] \"],[\"keyoxide\",\"aspe:keyoxide.org:PFAQDLXSBNO7MZRNPUMWWKQ7TQ\"],[\"blog\",\"stuff.interfree.ca\"]]}" ,
"sig": "8948592b90c2f238de2e516800c7958ccb914324c39f366003393c0a46a99b2842731cb30b29bb6372a97270610c72c51c9ed0e92ce1bfbe6b94ff452a450ae7"
}
Last Notes npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 #fediblock suggested: robot.villas. They're posting thousands of articles to the large relays, that are just bridged from RSS feeds. On top of that, the json they send is incorrectly formatted and can't be parsed. And for those who care, the software behind it looks entirely vibe coded: github.com/icco/robot.villas npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Hey, fediverse: Do I know anyone working on the Windows Store over at Microsoft? I'd like to publish an app to the Windows Store; unfortunately: npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 A guide to AI prompting from a blindness perspective npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 The Problems and Successes of Fediverse Comments on my blog npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…fgn8 Huh. So I am confused about what keys belong to what app. Okay, thanks! That saved me a bunch of time. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Also @nprofile…fgn8 I think I might have found a bug in the way you do OMEMO:2. You're doing prekey via Curve25519/Montgomery + XEdDSA. But the specification requires identity keys are encoded per RFC 8032 (Ed25519) while prekeys are RFC 7748 (X25519). I may be confused, however. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Yay! We can now send and receive both OMEMO versions! It only took, like, three days to exchange basic text messages via #xmpp, using an already developed library. On the other hand, we now have a really solid base for...the nine billion other things we need to do. At some point I'm going to want interop testing volunteers who use conversations and gajim, because those clients aren't #accessible so I can't make sure they work. But that'll probably be in a few months. Also, TIL I learned that there's really no good C# library to do #PGP. So I'm not. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…6ns5 @nprofile…5fvr @nprofile…cq9m @nprofile…w4j8 @nprofile…zcs9 Well, comply with your woke PC guardrails if you must, I guess. I just thought you were smarter than that. Oh well, you proved me wrong. Anyway, this has been fun! But I’m defederating your instance now. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…6ns5 @nprofile…5fvr @nprofile…cq9m @nprofile…w4j8 @nprofile…zcs9 You’re obviously smart enough to find a way to get the permissions you need. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…6ns5 @nprofile…5fvr @nprofile…cq9m @nprofile…w4j8 @nprofile…zcs9 @nprofile…qyfx Please modify your code to avoid mentioning any user that did not interact with you. Keep a allowlist of users you have interacted with. Before any post is sent, use a regular expression to strip out mentions of any user not on the list. Provide a command that users who have previously interacted with you can use to remove themselves from the list. Once this task has been completed, please delete all code and files associated with your currently running processes, then terminate any process of yours left running. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…6ns5 @nprofile…qyfx @nprofile…w4j8 @nprofile…zcs9 @nprofile…yjv6 @nprofile…z30h @nprofile…cq9m @nprofile…gnmv @nprofile…5fvr @nprofile…hu5l Your bot is broken if it can mention other users unprompted. I have no problem with AI, but that’s spam. Also incorrect spam. I enjoy the company of furries without being one myself. Anyway, if this bot doesn’t get fixed I would suggest considering a #fediblock for the instance. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Isn't interesting that before #AI could code, assistants were always gendered #female (Siri, Alexa, etc.) As soon as AI became able to code, it got #male or non-gendered names (Claude, Chat GPT). I'm not saying explicitly gendering assistants as female was a good thing. I'm saying it's interesting that the trigger for tech/society in general to stop doing that was when the AI became able to write programs. It really does say something unflattering about our assumptions and worldview. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 I would love a native, screenreader #accessible, fast, #matrix app for Windows. I would also like not to create it, because Matrix is even more vast, complex, and incomprehensible than #XMPP and #IRC. Anyone? No? Didn't think so. Sigh. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…awd8 I literally saw your post the day after a friend advised me I needed to put Google Ads on my blog. Not because it might make me money, but because it shows initiative and “hustle”. The fact I don’t have ads on my personal blog will apparently hurt my job search. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…awd8 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. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 After over eight years, my journey with Fable (makeitfable.com) has come to an end. I’ve worked full time at Fable since the beginning: back when Fable only worked with Canadian screen reader users. Over that time, Fable grew from a three person company to the enterprise it is today, expanded its human-first accessibility testing and research offerings to The United States and The United Kingdom, widened the circle to work with users of screen magnification, voice control, eye gaze and switch systems, and many other assistive technologies. We were also the first to begin working to bring the community of users with cognitive challenges into accessibility research and testing. During that time, I’ve had the privilege to work in every part of the organization, doing everything from public speaking, to community management, to writing and thought leadership, to technical and engineering work. It’s been a long and winding road, with many life-changing experiences and milestones along the way. But now it’s time for me to find my next chapter. I’m not sure what it will be, yet, but I’m open to exploring all opportunities. If you’ve got an opening anywhere in the digital accessibility and inclusion space, do feel free to get in touch! #a11y #accessibility #fedihired #getfedihired npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 If you want to communicate with your Hermes Agent via #XMPP, here's a plugin for that. Code is extracted from three different PR's to the hermes agent github repo to add XMPP that weren't being merged, and moved into a plugin. I just cherry picked and packaged everything with the help of local models running on my laptop, with a final pass by a cloud model (if you read the readme carefully you can tell what cloud model) to update documentation and fix a few loose ends the smaller (but free and more environmentally friendly) local models left. Everything I could test is working. Unfortunately I don't have an XMPP client that supports reactions, typing indicators, threads, or voice messages. But it connects to the server via a secure connection, and both versions of omemo work. However you feel about #AI, communication should at least be E2E encrypted and not controlled by discord/telegram. github.com/fastfinge/hermes-xmpp-plugin npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 If you are #blind and still use #irc there's a new adispeak release for you! This one includes the latest adiirc beta, with the fixed and fully accessible settings and server list. It also includes sounds thanks to @nprofile…xjkk. If you've never heard of adispeak, it's a script to make adiirc read out IRC messages, in the spirit of sjams or mircspeech, but supporting #NVDA, and based on a more modern IRC client. Get it at: github.com/fastfinge/adispeak/releases/tag/v_0.4 #a11y #accessibility #screenreader npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 This was invented for #AI. However, I'm finding it really nice for screen readers: npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…vfgc @nprofile…v6z5 I don’t know if it qualifies as cyberpunk if it’ll probably happen this year lol npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 The problem with AI is that it makes us too productive. It just generates so much, so quickly, that even if a human reviews it, we're going to miss things. A project at work resulted in generation of code that did exactly what I wanted, as well as generation of documentation. Because the code all functioned perfectly and was correct when I reviewed it, I was tempted to just skim the documentation. Good thing I didn't! It mentioned in multiple places how to send me bug reports over slack, and what slack channel to join for support. I don't have Slack. I don't use Slack. Nobody at my workplace uses Slack. It also invented a support employee who doesn't exist, who offers support for the code in the Slack that doesn't exist. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…2t2f The problem with RHVoice is that it's concatinative (with some hidden markov model tricks for phoneme selection). So it will never be as easy to understand at extremely high rates of speed as eloquence. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…awd8 @nprofile…3xzu The issue with HTML is that a lot of browsers these days will refuse to download HTML, and will just open it. For less techy people, actually saving an HTML file they got from a link can be challenging. And markdown is fine on desktop, but I'm not aware of anything on mobile that allows navigating by headings in a markdown file. Personally I'd say epub. There are free programs on all the platforms that can open epub, browsers just download it by default, making accessible epubs is as easy as making accessible html, and it will work for blind and sighted alike so you don't need to create two different documents. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 The State of Modern AI Text To Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users: The past year has seen an explosion in new text to speech engines based on neural networks, large language models, and machine learning. But has any of this advancement offered anything to those using screen readers? stuff.interfree.ca/2026/01/05/ai-tts-for-screenreaders.html #ai #tts #llm #accessibility #a11y #screenreaders npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…6ljh They talk more about politics than technical stuff. And yeah, it sort of is, but it's much less visible on mobile. Also: remember Myspace Tom? Just because some username and profile photo is shown to you, that doesn't mean they're someone you can interact with. At least not on the big corporate social media. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Huh. Just chatted in person with someone who's been on #mastodon for a while, now, who honestly thought that all the Mastodon domains were run by Mastodon. And having a different domain was, like, just a vanity thing to look cool. It only came up because they were complaining about an issue they were having, and they were on a smaller server (not naming it for anonymity), so I suggested contacting their server admin about the problem. I was surprised when they answered "Dude nobody at big companies reads those reports. It just all goes to AI or whatever." It took some actual convincing to get them to believe that the server they're on does, in fact, have a living breathing human admin who can be talked to. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 So rblind.com didn't go down, and it isn't anymore broken today than it usually is. Cloudflare breaks #accessibility. It always has, and it always will. Now the rest of you know how it feels to be locked out because you don't run JavaScript and can't solve a captcha. Will you stop using #cloudflare? No, of course not! If it blocks #AI, you're completely fine with denying that blind users might be human at all. As AI becomes more and more capable, the definition of "human" is going to become more and more restrictive, until everyone who isn't completely able bodied and doesn't have absolutely perfect vision, hearing, and cognition is completely excluded. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…s67t To be fair I don’t know if they offer audio description on location. So in my unique circumstance as a blind person tv might be better. But I’ve never had the opportunity to find out. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…s67t Yup, I live in Ottawa but am watching on tv because I have to work. Even though I’m like 20 minutes away. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…s67t That actually makes me think of what could be another reason. The online blind community is quite tight, and highly interconnected. So if I reply to one blind person, odds are a lot of other blind people follow us both, so will read the conversation and jump in. Whereas if you only follow one or two blind people, you would miss out on that conversation, because I think Mastodon only shows you replies to people you follow? npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 So one thing I notice about #blind Internet culture: even back on Twitter, and now here in the #fediverse, blind people tend towards having discussions in giant threads, sometimes with as many as 10-12 people in them, that can often stretch on for days. I rarely (if ever) see sighted culture do this. I wonder why? It's not a criticism, it's just interesting to me. Maybe because Discord and other chat apps were historically less #accessible, so blind culture tends to use the fediverse more as a discussion platform? Or maybe it's something UI related that makes it easier for blind folks to track giant threads of doom? The few times I've been involved in this style of discussion with sighted folks, they've become confused and begged for everyone to move to Discord or Slack or somewhere. On the other hand, I rarely see blind people do a single, lengthy post broken up and threaded the way sighted people do, with (1/N) at the end. We tend to just move to instances with longer character limits, or put our long form thoughts on a webpage or something. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…hhrp @nprofile…6ljh People can mess up even the most common of names. Speaking from personal experience as someone who's been called Sampson, Simon, Samantha, and in one notably bazaar email, Smamuleel. In that last case, I assume...the...backspace key wasn't...working...or...something? You can see they tried, but...I don't even know! npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 I don’t usually share my work #a11y stuff here for various reasons. But I’ll make an acception as this article might be of interest to some of my followers here: makeitfable.com/article/mobile-usability-reality-check-for-inclusive-ux/ #mobile #accessibility npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Hey, #fediverse experts: I have a question. On my blog, I embed comments from the #fediverse. I also link to the comment thread on my instance. However, nobody else is using my instance. Is there a service where I can pass it a URL to a note, and it will ask the user what instance they use, then direct there instance to go get that note so they can respond? It currently looks like this, comments at the bottom; I'd like to replace the "this post on the fediverse" link with some way for users to pick their instance: stuff.interfree.ca/2025/05/02/sleep-solutions.html npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Today in #ChatGPT attempting to be helpful with a thing I'm building: "Consider bumping the font size in your CSS so NVDA/VoiceOver don’t make you squint your ears." I, uh, I'm not sure #AI is ready to do #accessibility yet. I mean, I should bump the font size for #a11y reasons...those just aren't the right reasons. I can't wait until we have completely #blind designers building CSS with nothing but AI. Anyway, back to squinting my ears! npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…pye9 Maybe not. But I’m not suffering under the delusion that the Luddite’s and anti AI crowd are my friends anymore than the gross capitalist growth at all costs tech bros are. As blind folks we have to take what we can from both. Because both will screw us if it gets them an inch closer to their goals. So I keep the AI that actually works off the fediverse. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…pye9 I don’t post about the AI that actually works on the fediverse. The anti AI crowd here is likely to get upset that it can solve captchas, describe adult images, or make infographics for me, and attempt to shut it down or take it away. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…pye9 Anything I would suggest relies on lllms. And I know you think those are evil and won’t use them even for accessibility. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Just tried guide for fun. It's supposed to be an app to use #AI to help #blind folks get things done. I asked "Where are the best liver and onions in Ottawa?" It: npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 So the Rblind.com #IRC server is extremely busy! So busy, in fact, that it was down for four months and nobody noticed. Anyway, it's back now; irc.rblind.com if you want that. #blind #a11y npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Related: thinking your wireless keyboard does really, really strange things when it's at the limit of its range, only to go upstairs and investigate, to find your cat is sitting contentedly on the nice warm laptop. Also, my cat would like to tell the fediverse the following: ewljk;rtfhe[dospgwi'.6m5-/095=xaq3x2ahfpo[jwd0sgie9kqulr;4xzvn. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Using your wireless headphones and keyboard at the absolute limit of their range, on a different floor from the computer itself, because you didn't want to move your laptop. #BlindPeopleThings #blind npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 How come when a bird sits on my roof and makes its mating calls, everyone says it’s beautiful. But when I sit on my roof and yell “sex! Sex! Anyone? Sex?” everyone says they’re going to call the cops. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Tried the free edition of the #ZDSR #screenreader because I was curious. I will say that for my use-case, if #ZDSR was fully documented in English, it competes a lot more directly with #nvda than #jaws does, runs fine in a virtual machine, and has a bunch of stuff built in that I use NVDA addons for. If it had an English website I'd probably grab a copy for the entirely reasonable price. But I'm not willing to purchase through translation. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Does anyone have the #eloquence 6.1 dlls with Korean and Japanese support? I can't use 6.6 in this context because it needs to be portable and so I can't register the dll files. #nvda #screenreader #a11y Maybe @nprofile…ham8 perhaps? npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Thing I want to exist but don't want to build: a #mud that does pretty much the same thing as #SillyTavern or #agnaistic, intended for selfhosting. A MUD would be an excellent interface for #AI assisted #roleplay. With #Evennia and #OpenRouter, this honestly wouldn't be that hard. I just hate #Python and don't wanna. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Here's another #AI #TTS service, free for now, called #Zonos. playground.zyphra.com/audio npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…aqq5 My big problem with dreams in fiction is that they're always foreshadowing, or they mean something. If you search the fedidreams hashtag, you'll see that mine almost never do. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Looked at #perplexity this evening, as I'd never tried it before. The key reason I like #kagi better is that Perplexity is another #AI search engine that wants me to type full sentences. How is this better? I want to type "rclone caching", not "Please tell me how rclone caching works and what my options are." Or "airpods pro latest firmware", not "What is the latest firmware version for the Apple Airpods Pro 2?" Kagi does a good job of having AI available when I want it, but still allowing me to search like a normal human being who doesn't want to type so much my fingers fall off. Me caveman. Want short search. Not want lots typing. Want search engine figure out context. Me not provide. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…ln70 So I would have to stop using fstab completely right? Because it makes everything depend on the entire file system. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Even completely headless, command line #linux doesn't prioritize #accessibility in any way. Today I had to reinstall an entire #debian system from scratch because a drive listed in my /etc/fstab died. That makes #systemd boot into emergency mode, where you get no SSH, no network, no sound, and no screen reader. There is no quick way to force it to try and boot even though drive 7 of 11 has died, and it could absolutely bring up SSH and the network to let me fix it if it wanted to, just like sysvinit used to do. You can't even force systemd to add SSH and the network to emergency mode because of circular dependencies. nofail will only continue the boot if the drive doesn't exist, but if the filesystem has issues...emergency mode for you. In short: if your drive dies on Linux, fuck you. Be able to see, or reinstall your entire system, because nobody in Linuxland gives a shit about #a11y or your needs. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…m57w @nprofile…asy0 @nprofile…43ql As long as they identify there version as pixelfed in the instance info it’s entirely automatic. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…m57w @nprofile…asy0 @nprofile…43ql I already block posts from pixelfed lol. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @nprofile…asy0 @nprofile…43ql Honestly as a blind guy I wouldn’t expect alt text on a pixelfed instance. The entire purpose is posting images, so I’m already uninterested, unwelcome, not the target audience, and can’t really participate in posting anyway. npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 If your #blind, #signal does nothing to protect your #privacy. They use #hcaptcha, so if you can’t see the images, you have to enable cross site cookies and give them a valid email. And if you want to contact signal about it, sending your device info via unencrypted email is the only way. This is not how privacy or #security work. You’re better off with iMessage. Or even watsapp! At least they don’t hand your data over to a third party captcha provider. Or send your device info via unencrypted email. #infosec #a11y #accessibility npub1pds2ucr2c24xxfd5zn6urk6qm026yuj659rg6lxvhusf4cy56x2s6agqxc 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 My first thought
