From: Strata Rose Chalup (strata@virtual.net)
Date: Thu Sep 28 2000 - 11:33:33 PDT
I always find myself trying to size up someone individually and figure
out if they will be offended if I offer to help. It runs about 90/10 in
favor of helping, but the 10 percent can be very very vocal.
I think this one needs a media plot-- a major movie, tv show, or book
featuring a character who invents some kind of sign, like wearing a
yellow flower or a blue smiley face or whatever that means "I can take
care of myself, but I wouldn't mind a hand now and then". Then we could
just parse for the token and know what to do.
_SRC
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
> publish-and-subscribe event notification. KnowNow's platform for
> 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
> real-time, dynamic Web Services ranging from credit approvals, to
> 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
> pre-provisioned real-time content, security, peering with wireless
> 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
> designers of Palm.Net's wireless messaging backbone, DataChannel's
> collaborative authoring notifications, EoExchange's XML search
> 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 :-)
-- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Strata Rose Chalup [strata@knownow.com] | strata@virtual.net, KF6NBZ Director of Network Operations | VirtualNet Consulting KnowNow, Inc [http://www.knownow.com] | http://www.virtual.net/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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