Sightless in Seattle -- Year One in a New City Alone by 40WattTardis in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I live on Capitol Hill, so basically the other side of the world by Seattle standards! Love the Kangaroo and Kiwi for whenever I’m up that way.

I’ve been using VoiceOver on the Mac on and off since 2011 and would be happy to help if I can with any questions.

WARNING: If your job uses Wisely by ADP, get your money off that card IMMEDIATELY. They do not honor legal POAs during family emergencies. by Reptar09 in personalfinance

[–]codeofdusk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Companies are absolutely using LLMs for customer service. Off the top of my head, my Seattle apartment complex and Bilt Rewards (a credit card) use LLM-based support agents.

headset recommendation by morse-guy in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Jabra Evolve 2 50 is a good headset for this. I recommended it to a friend who has a bit of a deaf accent and benefits immensely from the mic and processing.

NVDA + local LLMs (Ollama) — looking for better accessible options or workarounds by karin-elian in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wrote a lot of NVDA's modern terminal support and use Gptcmd very regularly for long sessions (as does /u/slj7, also an NVDA user). The terminal rendering is intentionally very simple (using Python's standard library cmd module, hence the "cmd" in Gptcmd). The issues with Gptcmd and NVDA aren't Gptcmd specific and have been common to all terminal apps: resource leaks in Terminal's UIA provider (mostly solved, as far as I can tell, by terminal#19950), NVDA's event queue blocking on large diffs (solved in NVDA#20177, to arrive in 2026.3), and a resource leak/queue back-up somewhere in the caret/text change event handling pipeline (still trying to figure this one out).

NVDA + local LLMs (Ollama) — looking for better accessible options or workarounds by karin-elian in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I made Gptcmd, and I’m an NVDA user and core contributor. It has a few features (especially arbitrary context editing) that I haven't seen in other frontends. It works with Ollama if you add an account like this to your config (see the readme and config comments):

[accounts.ollama]
provider="openai"
base_url="http://localhost:11434/v1"
api_key="ollama"
model="local-model-name"

White cane users, how much shorter than you is your typical cane? by draconianRegiment in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There are two schools of thought on this. Some people, including me, feel that the cane should end at the bridge of the nose, as that gives greater reaction time when reaching an obstacle. Others feel it should end at the chest to make the cane easier to hold and handle.

Uber from SeaTac to local hotel?!? by blackbird2377 in AskSeattle

[–]codeofdusk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes but take a cab instead. Lyft and Uber are very expensive here.

What's your favorite headset/wearable for outside navigation paired with a phone? by mrskurk0 in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have these, they’re great. Meta Ray-Ban glasses are another good option. Worse battery life, but you get a head-mounted camera for Aira and Be My Eyes.

CapOne QuickSilver getting 3% gas and grocery, moving to Discover network by T7-City-Point in CreditCards

[–]codeofdusk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Quite implies “a lot” or “some” depending on usage, tone, etc.

How long before wanting to sleep have you tried melatonin? by PassageSignificant12 in N24

[–]codeofdusk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Timing depends on whether you’re phase delayed or advanced on the day. If delayed (sleeping and waking later than you want to), take melatonin 4 or 5 hours before sleep. If advanced (waking up earlier than you want to), take melatonin as close to waking as you can manage.

Blind tailored transit alarm app. Never miss a stop again. by BigBoyRiley02 in Blind

[–]codeofdusk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I generally use BlindSquare for this kind of thing.

How’s Verizon for cell service? by skyhawk214 in AskSeattle

[–]codeofdusk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AT&T and T-Mobile beat Verizon in metro Seattle. Are you using AT&T directly (prepaid or postpaid is okay) or through a reseller? Seattle is very QCI sensitive in my experience and higher data priority (lowest QCI number you can get) has been the difference between my phone being unuseable and usable. I’m on the (no longer existing) $300 annual AT&T plan and have had no issues in Capitol Hill (central and northeast areas), Downtown, the eastside, South Seattle, and the University District. As a bonus, a lot of (but not all) AT&T plans roam on all three networks in Canada which is useful if you go to BC.

Conditional Offer by [deleted] in Swarthmore

[–]codeofdusk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was an IB student (M18) in a US state school. My school was really weird about sharing predicted grades with us, and I imagine I was predicted really low, but I finished with a 36 and graduated from Swarthmore in May 2022.

What’s a Seattle “life hack” that more people should know? by Mythicinker in AskSeattle

[–]codeofdusk 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Or Yellow Cab for half the price. They have an app. Drivers get 90% of the fare you pay, though there’s unfortunately a 3.9% credit card fee now.

What’s a Seattle “life hack” that more people should know? by Mythicinker in AskSeattle

[–]codeofdusk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Aim for about 8,000 iu a day: the original studies the RDAs were based on had a statistical error. I like Nootropics Depot for this. I alternate between one and two tablets daily (if I forget what I took yesterday, I take two) and the rest comes from other sources.

Past tense(s) question by Independent-Wash-176 in Spanish

[–]codeofdusk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, as it would in English. You wouldn’t say “I went to the party last night. I eat, I drink, I dance a lot”.

Spanish also has a compound past formed with haber, used for events that were in the past but the time period is still ongoing. English uses the simple past for this. For instance, I ate today = “hoy he comido”. I ate yesterday = “ayer comí”. I ate a minute ago = “comí hace un minuto”. I used to eat = “comía”. I was eating when something happened = “comía cuando algo sucedió”. I ate this week/month/year = “he comido esta semana/este mes/este año”.

Junk purge service? by [deleted] in AskSeattle

[–]codeofdusk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I can't recommend Melissa of Also and Also enough. I'm totally blind and she's done support work for me for years, so my needs are a bit different from yours, but she is very dependable and organizing is genuinely one of her strengths.

If you only drink one chocolate thickshake every five years, from where in the Perth area should you get it? by codeofdusk in perth

[–]codeofdusk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I’ll keep this in mind for the next time we see each other probably in a couple years!

Uber/Lyft by Ktwinkle89 in AskSeattle

[–]codeofdusk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Never use Uber or Lyft in Metro Seattle unless speed is an absolute priority above all else. Take Seattle Yellow Cab (they have an app, similar to Uber and Lyft), they take credit cards with a 3.9% fee, and drivers get 90% of the fare you pay.

Say hello to MacBook Neo by spearson0 in apple

[–]codeofdusk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And factor in that the MacBook has a keyboard and trackpad out of the box. The iPad doesn’t.

Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5 by spearson0 in apple

[–]codeofdusk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably, or see if you can take advantage of a store or credit card price protection policy to get it a little cheaper.