From: cdale@silly.techmonkeys.net
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 00:36:01 PDT
And don't forget that there are some of us who experience this daily.
I have always had a problem with judging distance, even before my heavy
LSD usage -grin- so I measure things in minutes it takes me to get there,
and then, afterward, recovery time.
A grocery store visit is this to me:
1.5 hours walking on concrete floors cuz I'm just not fucking ready for a
chair yet.
2.5 days recovery. Thank goddess for mothers and daughters. I spend
those 2.5 days in either my work chair (a relax0r -- it's cool, but don't
get it, ask me why if you care), or in bed. I don't/can't leave the
house.
Am I bitter about it? To a certain degree, yes. It's the part of me
who's forever the embarrassed teenager that makes me the most angry. What
do I do about it? I find jobs that will benefit from my skills from a
distance, and depend on my mom and daughter for lots of other things. No,
they won't be around forever, but neither will my knees. All will be
replaced by mechanical devices. All? Well, no. Tim Byar's friend Lauri
has promised to push me in a wheel chair around China Town (for those of
you who don't know, China Town has some huge ass hills) as many times as I
want to go. So, no. Friends is the shit. And online friends are not a
lesser being than rl friends. I have one named Greg who I'll most likely
never meet, same with Daniel, who've been there for me more than some of
my "real life" friends. Anyhow, this is what I hope to do with Tech
Monkeys: get people who have problems of any sort leaving the house
working on the web in whatever capacity they can. And also regular
"normal" healthy folks who like to work from their castles. Like that
idea? (:
I've been basically ignored (RK knows what I mean (: ), scorned, and have
had many folks treat me as if I were someone they couldn't possibly lose a
fight with, and ...frankly, they've found my opposition solid.
Sorry you were hurt, but look at it this way: You now have a new point of
view from the folks who have problems getting from A to B physically, but,
who also possess serious skills that could help millions. A wakeup call
you might've needed. I dunno.
Cindy
"A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity."
-- Robert Frost
On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, Rohit Khare wrote:
> As a few of you know, I'm wearing a cast these days with pins in my
> feet as the result of totalling a pickup truck in LA when I was
> packing up and moving out.
>
> First, a word of thanks for technology. In a crash involving several
> vehicles and a flipped SUV, every single person walked away.
> Seatbelts and airbags rule.
>
> Always wear your safety belt. Always invest in technology. Never
> invest in an SUV.
>
> Anyway, I'm writing this from the sidewalk in front of San Jose
> baggage claim, in front of a SJ Murky newsrack whose front page
> decries dot.com deaths, the highest job losses since December, and a
> moratorium on new .com businesses in Redwood City and San Mateo.
>
> This is approximately twenty feet from the baggage claim, from whence
> I hauled two pieces of serious luggage.
>
> The baggage claim is a hundred feet from the lobby.
>
> The lobby is a hundred and fifty feet from the Alaska Air gates.
>
> The Alaska Air gate is fifty feet from the jet, across the tarmac.
>
> The jet is up 30 stairs, with a glossy, shiny, ultraslippery railing
> on both sides.
>
> The jet stairs are 15 rows down from coach.
>
> No one has offered to help.
>
> Now, I'm not the most sympathetic person in the world, and I
> certainly can and did take care of myself. I don't feel at all
> injusticed or angry or sad, just exhausted.
>
> Since Adam had to go get the rental car from, oh, Reno (at the rate
> that this !$%^# renovation project has taken to remove rentals from
> the terminal), I stole a wheelchair from the curbside outside Alaska
> -- yes, stole, from the dirty looks and lecture of the
> we're-shutting-down-the-airport-tonight-whaddya-expect-service?
> school of support. It, like most airport wheelchairs in my few weeks'
> experience, is a total frankenpile of shit. The brakes don't work,
> the wheels are misaligned, the footrests won't fold out of the way,
> and is generally as stable as a pile of tinkertoys for a 300lb CEO.
>
> And don't forget to balance those crutches across your lap as you
> push your way forward on one good leg.
>
> And don't forget not to push too hard and almost tilt the whole
> contraption over a few times, all but landing on your cast before you
> remember you can't.
>
> And don't forget to balance your jacket across those crutches between
> your thighs because it's chilly in Seattle but even in a silk
> Hawaiian shirt you'll be sweating to the oldies as the muzak wafts by.
>
> But don't, in any case, expect a look of sympathy, concern, or
> involvement from the milling civillians, police, and airport staff.
> [Kudos, by the way, for the Napster-shirt wearing geek who carried my
> crutches down the airstairs].
>
> It's too bad there aren't social transactions for exchanging contact
> and recognition short of pity and full involvement. I don't feel at
> all injusticed. I just feel invisible.
>
> Not for long,
> Rohit
>
> ---
> KnowNow is laying the foundation for the Two-Way Web: a world with
> billions of embedded HTTP microservers in every device, desktop, and
> application. Just as the One-Way Web radically decentralized
> hypertext publishing, the Two-Way Web is a disruptive innovation for
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> peer-to-peer applications reinvents the market for multi-million
> dollar Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) solutions pitched at
> CIOs as the vastly larger market for pay-as-you-go, usage-based Web
> Application Integration (WAI) solutions for Webmasters and Web
> developers.
>
> The KnowNow Network (KNN), our flagship Allband event notification
> service, is a branded Internet infrastructure service, a deployment
> strategy akin to Google. By hosting Event Server Page (ESP)
> applications on the KNN, traditional Web sites can incorporate
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> system availability, to shipping options -- all integrated with
> KnowNow's news alerts, instant messaging, and presence monitoring.
>
> Our Zero-Install JavaScript microserver transforms static Web pages
> into Dynamic HTML user interfaces by wiring them into a peer-to-peer
> XML message bus. By sidestepping the cost and incompatibilities of
> Java or ActiveX applets, ESP app developers can immediately leverage
> the massive installed base of 4th-generation Web browsers.
> Furthermore, choosing to route across the KNN can leverage our
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> carriers, and personalized prioritization engine to deliver the right
> information, at the right time, on the right device, to the right
> people & programs.
>
> KnowNow's platform is the foundation for three complementary revenue
> streams: developing and aggregating Web Services, selling event
> router hardware and software, and providing event-routing services.
> Our product line ranges from an Open Source SDK to a high-performance
> server software and appliances which perform Layer 7 routing between
> HTTP, SMTP, WAP, SOAP, and Instant Messengers (IM) at
> Enterprise-scale. Ultimately, The KNN combines these with a unique
> Internet-scale clustering algorithm derived from Akamai's.
>
> KnowNow's founders bring to bear decades of research experience, both
> in industry (W3C, Worldcom, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft) and academia
> (Caltech, MIT, UC Irvine) -- as well as their own Internet
> standards-strategy consultancy, 4K Associates. The team includes
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> engine, and founders of the market-leading Apache web server.
> Currently located in Seattle, KnowNow has raised seed funding from
> the founders and top executives at CommerceOne and Sun Microsystems,
> including First Prize in Garage.com's National Student Business Plan
> Contest.
> -- A certain fledgling .com found in Fortune Small Business
> this month :-)
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Sep 27 2000 - 00:40:17 PDT