Re: Going away

Hi,

I think this might be a misunderstanding.  I never meant I'd take the 
gateway down or anything (although the ssb22 one will have to go down 
as I'm shortly going home, and the others will come down eventually as 
their supporting students disappear).  I only meant I can't sit here all 
day reading W3C messages and patching up other people's source code when 
I'm supposed to be taking an exam and have a fever that won't go away.  
Also I'm about to go home and therefore offline.

I want to do a PhD in universal information access when I graduate, but 
if I spend all my time on this list then I won't graduate.  I'd never be 
able to do anything then.  It seems like I've spent more hours on this 
list than I have on writing the gateway.

As I said, I think of the gateway as just a little program that I had to 
write, not my life's work or pet project.  My pet project, if you like, 
is something rather larger, and I don't want it to suffer because of 
some simple gateway program.  Of course I can keep the gateway going, 
but I can't track all the W3C messages and sort out Altifier and 
everything else as well as having to find a research place (an activity 
that so far has taken something like 3 hours a day and achieved nothing) 
and help all my peers that come knocking on my door and sort out all the 
problems I've got myself and fulfill my musical commitments and sort out 
the Computer Society and the ACCU and write a talk someone's asked me to 
do next week and get ready to go home and catch up on the lectures I 
couldn't see well enough to follow and prepare for exams and sort out 
the hundreds of items on my organiser's to-do lists and all while 
feeling like I'm going to die.

Regards Silas

> Reply-to:      "jonathan chetwynd" <jay@peepo.com>
> From:          "jonathan chetwynd" <jonathan@signbrowser.free-online.co.uk>
> To:            "Silas S. Brown" <ssb22@cam.ac.uk>
> Subject:       Re: Going away
> Date:          Wed, 17 Mar 1999 19:42:31 -0000

> Dear Silas,
> 
> I do hope you will reconsider.
> 
> A few friends have got dreadfully depressed, going so far as to burst into
> tears everyday at work and rush off home. It seems to be a strange spring,
> the fine weather and all.
> 
> I had determined to ignore many of your more abtuse, or plain ignorant
> remarks.
> 
> however I have not had time to see your gateway, (and I might need a helping
> hand)
> mainly because it sounded text based, and as you will realize I am committed
> to images.
> 
> There really are very few people prepared and able to contribute.
> I am on ~.5 tutors pay scale, with a family, luckily my wife has a good job,
> and is gracious.
> 
> Enough of me.
> 
> My GO programmer is a maths Phd, one of the top three AI programmers in the
> world been working on his pet project for 15 years, a family, one bedroom
> flat and no money, well not nearly enough.
> 
> YOU HAVE TO BE COMMITTED TO SOMETHING.
> 
> Good luck, and keep in touch when you can.
> 
> jay@peepo.com

-- Silas S Brown, St John's College Cambridge UK http://epona.ucam.org/~ssb22/

"Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the sons of earthling man, to whom
 no salvation belongs." - Psalm 146:3

Received on Wednesday, 17 March 1999 16:41:14 UTC