RE: WWW: Interoperability Crisis?

At 02:11 AM 1/22/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Wilbur Streett wrote:
>
>> Perhaps if you checked out the technology that I'm working
>> on, it'll be
>> very clear to you that there is no way that it could ever
>> come to a point
>> of not being any use, for the simple reason that it's a move
>> to the more
>> intrinsic nature of humanity than the written word is.
>
>But of course I did check out the technology. Or rather I tried to. On
>arriving at your page I discovered that I'd seen it before... one, maybe two
>years ago. I tried it then but it crashed my system. So, taking a risk I
>wouldn't normally take, I overrode all my security precautions and
>downloaded and installed your plugin again. But when I try to run it, it
>just crashes my browser. So I guess I'm not going to learn about your
>technology.

So you claim that you had a crash.  You provide no feedback on what the
crash was.  You claim that industry standard technology is causing your
browser to crash, but do nothing to provide a way to resolve the problem.
How telling.

>But that's beside the point. Despite your evident status as a genius, you
>were too angry to understand the point of my original post. When I wished
>you luck, I meant it. It sounds like interesting technology - from what you
>said I gather that it interprets a web page and then responds to queries
>from the user interactively in spoken word. 

That's where it will be going.

>Personally, I find the talking
>head a bit unnerving, but for others it might be just the thing. So good
>luck. Really.

Face to face communication is intrinsic to humanity.  That you are finding
the model based on a clay head from Fredrick Parke in 1982 unnerving means
that it's reaching out to you through a different communications modality.
Whish is exactly it's point.  But since you said that you haven't seen it,
and have not been able to run it for years, who can you claim to know that
it's unnerving?

>What I *did* and *do* object to is your rudeness, your self-righteousness,
>and your selfishness masquerading as concern for humanity. 

Only as definded by you.  So please show me where I was rude.  I'm quite
willing to apologize.  On the other hand, I had better be self righteous,
as no one other than myself know what is right for me.  As to the concern
of humanity, yes, I feel the abuse of the group for the individual and I
spend the time righting for humanity as a result.  I'm sorry that you have
such a poor sense of self that you can't grasp the reality that individuals
have rights, and that the world does not abide by your conceptional
viewpoint of it.

>Look at what you
>write. To begin, we have your sarcastic comment above. You presume that I
>didn't bother to look. But I did - 

Actually, you admit that you didn't.

>I'm sorry that I don't have time to
>figure out why it won't work for me. I'll take your word for it that it's
>good stuff.

So you haven't "seen" it, and yet claim that it's good enough based on a
arbitrary statement from me?  How ironic.  You want pepole to put up a
statement about an image, as if that makes the blind able to see the image.
 As I quoted before, "There are truly none so blind as those who will not
see."

>Then this:
>
>> The burden of having other people think that they know what
>> is best for me
>> when they dont' know who I am?  Yes, I've suffered that
>> ridiculas burden
>> most of my life.  When I was in forth grade I was rated at a
>> college level,
>> but they decided that putting me into college wasn't a good
>> thing, because
>> it wasn't the convention of the time.  So I got to sit in classes and
>> listen to teachers pretend to being doing things for my own
>> benefit while I
>> wondered why the world was screwed up.
>
>Interestingly, that is almost exactly my experience. Except it was third
>grade, and they didn't want to push me directly to college, but to put me in
>an accelerated program. My parents thought that it would be harmful to me,
>so they said no. In retrospect, it was the biggest mistake they ever made in
>raising me. But luckily, it didn't fill me with anger as it has done to you.

Well, my parents recognized my brilliance and applauded it.  I'm sorry that
you suffered parents that didn't recognize and applaud you for who you
were.  Quite obviously, it has filed you with anger that you do not
recognize.  Everyone has anger, it's a part of life.  The question is what
do you do with it.

>Then you state:
>
>
>> Information about visual images isn't relevant to the blind.
>> But you keep
>> pretending that you know better what the blind want, and what
>> I should do
>> in defining my web site, than either the blind or me.  But
>> you ignore the
>> larger issue of literacy all the while.
>
>I keep pretending? I sent one reply to your message, how can I keep doing
>anything? 

It's quite clear that your conceptualization does not stand up to the light
of day.  You claim to know what the blind need based on a group norm.  But
where is the blind person in this forum asking for what you claim that they
need?

>And where did I claim to speak for the blind? Not being blind, I
>have no idea what the blind want except for what they tell me. So I would
>never presume to speak for them. 

So why do you?

>I speak as a citizen of the world, and I
>believe that everyone is entitled to equal access to the public areas of our
>society. 

.. and you'll force everyone into that mold, no matter what the reality is.
 I'm sorry, I have the right to be an individual, and to determine what is
appropriate in the use of my time, and efforts, to benefit humanity.
Without that intrinsic right, then I mean nothing, and the group means
everything.  An interesting quote from Thomas Szasz makes it quite clear
that the individual is more important than the group.

"If you treat the group as a group, then by definition you must treat some
individual badly, but if you treat each individual as an individual, then
by definition, the entire group is treated well."

>And I believe that when you connect your page/site/intranet to the
>public Internet, you incur an obligation to make that site accessible.

The page opens via a TCP/IP socket, and is delivered via HTTP.  The page
contains text in English, I choose to not translate it into every language
on the planet because I don't have the resources to make a proper
translation on a native basis to every language knwon to man.  The first
page, and the subsequent pages then determine what browser you have on your
computer, and what OS, if you are running anything but Windows, the site
tells you that the plug in will not work.  If you are running Opera,
Netscape Navigator or Communicator, or Internet Explorer in various release
levels, then the site will attempt to determine if you have the plugin
installed and if you do, then proceed to a page with the plugin where a
face, (not quite human) comes up and talks to you.  If you don't have the
plugin, then web site will attempt to download and install the plugin for
you.  That's about a year worth of my life in effort to just get it to that
point.  You want to pretend that I'm supposed to make it accessable for the
blind as well?  I'll let someone else do that.  Of if a blind person makes
a point to ask me, I'll consider it.

I will not, however, just because you say so, think that the realities of
the media can be overcome just because you make a proclaimation.  That that
can do, those that can't proclaim.  I'm working on transgressing the media
boundaries that exist, and putting the individual back into the equation,
and you think that you can declare that I'm supposed to make the page
accessable to your whim?

The page is accessable to the blind.  The plugin will talk to them.  But
they'll have a hard time navigating the pages without supplimental
technology.  But that technology should be intrinsic to the browser, not
the web page.  You don't declare that people aren't allowed to express
themselves because you want some special group to comprehend what they say.

>Evidently, you feel differently. That's your right, but if I have my way,
>you'll be required to make your sites accessible before you connect them to
>the Internet. 

How telling.  If you want to have a set of sites for the blind, then set up
a group of people to find web sites which meet your requirements, and then
put them onto a list so that the blind can find them.  On the other hand,
the blind are already busy surfing, without your help at all.

>Of course, I'm only one vote - it will take more than that and
>it may never happen. But I'll keep working for it.

Rather than wasting everyone's time trying to force them to do what you
want, why not actually do something with your life and be productive?  If
you see a web page that doesn't meet some accessability standard that you
declare, then offer to modify it for the author, try to sell them on your
particular technology religion, but don't attempt to declare that we must
all live to your rules.

>And speaking of blind people, several of them have told me that "information
>about visual images" *is* "relevant to the blind." So I don't know which
>blind people told you that, but I'd sure like to meet them. Or better still,
>to have them meet the blind people I know.

Let's see, the alt tag on an image tag is relevent to a man that can not
comprehend a picture.  WOW!

When the writer of a page doesn't write well enough to include the context
of the picture in the story, yes, I'm sure that it does.

>> I guess you've never heard of individual rights either?
>
>Of course I have. And I am a staunch supporter of individual rights as well,
>especially the right to privacy. 

Individual rights are not only about privacy.

>But we must co-exist on this planet and I
>understand that for the sake of all, I must occasionally acknowledge the
>individual rights of others... such as the right to participate equally in
>society.

Only if we do what you want us to do, right?

>It is interesting that the biggest advocates of "individual rights" always
>seem to mean their own rights, and not the rights of others. 

How can anyone else have rights if I don't?

>If public property is held in common trust, then decisions regarding the
use of that
>property must be made by consensus, or as close to it as possible. 

Because only the group knows, right?  But you are missing that web pages
are not public property, but the creation of the individual.  You can
choose to read my page or not, as you desire.  You can choose to promote my
or not, as you desire.  I give you that individual right.  But you claim to
know what I must do because of the group knowing better?

>The
>Internet is public property, even if the means by which it is maintained is
>not. 

No, I'm sorry.  The internet is not public property.  It's your computer
talking with other computers.  What you perceive on your computer might be
what comes from mine.  Relayed through other computers.  Or it might come
from another persons computer, but I don't declare what you can send out,
and please don't attempt to do the same to me.

>Thus, by consensus, we (not me personally or some elite group, but
>human beings acting in concert) can decide what is appropriate and what is
>inappropriate for that property. 

Nope.  The group can not determine what is appropriate for the individual.
That's the individual's right and intrinsic reality.  The group can not
determine what is best for the individual, only the individual knows what
the individual needs.  

>And yes, we (society) can enforce those
>requirements on you. 

Yes, they pretend that they can.  But the reality is that the vast majority
of the claims of society enforcing requirements "for the good of others" on
me is nothing other than enslavement.  So how much time from third grade to
college did you waste since you were already at a college level?  What
might you have done with your life if you had taken up the individual
responsibility of teaching yourself, and your parents had decided to help
you in those efforts?  

But I guess that's why I'm changing the face of technology, and you're
attempting to push Socialism onto all of us.

>That is the trade off you make for being a part of
>society and reaping the benefits of it (such as people to use your software,
>not to mention grow your food, make your clothing, etc.)

So you claim that because there are other people, that we must be enslaved
to your whim, or the whim of a group of people who do not know what we
individual need, do not know what we individual want, what is individually
good for us, or what we individually need.

I pay a price for the services of society, as we all do.  I'm sorry that
you don't understand the intrinsic nature of society, the communications
infrastructure, and the reality that the individual knows better what they
need than some other party.  I also pay a price in the contributions that I
make back to society, but if they are forced, then they aren't
contributions.  

I'm already enslaved to my passion, and I don't need to be enslaved to
yours.  

>> >It is true that literacy is a greater ill, but literacy is curable.
>>
>> We're at less than 5%, and you want to claim that it's curable?  3,500
>> years of the cult of the scribes, and you want to claim that
>> it's curable?
>> 12+ years of basic education and the US Government will only accept
>> material written for a 10 year old at a 4th grade literacy
>> level and you
>> want to claim that it's curable?
>
>Yes, I do. It is curable on an individual basis, and to those individuals
>who learn to read, that cure is quite wonderful. 

Sorry, unless you are taught to read before you are seven, the level of
literacy never reaches the state of wonderful.

>That we have yet to make
>much of a dent worldwide is an indictment of our terrible political systems
>(and, perhaps, of our unenlightened minds), but it does not make it
>incurable. 

I'm sorry that you think that the technology of the "Cult of the Scribes"
is the cure for humanity.  The point is that it's not the primary mode of
communications.  3,500 years of the cult of the scribes and only 5% of the
population is considered "literate" which means reads at a fourth grade
level.  The primary mode of communication is face to face, learned a long
time before we ever learn how to read.  Read the book from Darwin before
"Evoluion" called "The Expression Of Emotion in Man and Animal".

It's quite easy to ignore the humanity of someone when you don't see their
face.  But I guess that's what you're doing.

>You really remind me of the stereotypical mad scientist who is so
>misunderstood but who is going to show us all by saving us from ourselves.

Gee, thanks, I guess.  But I'm going to have a good life despite being a
"mad scientist" as you describe me.  Any other insults that you have?  So
where did I try to save you?

>It would be a pretty amusing picture if what you were advocating weren't so
>ugly.

Oh, I'll have my face in there in a little while.  Or are you claiming that
face to face communications is ugly?  

>> But then I've been told that the technology that I'm creating
>> has a killer
>> application, that of teaching reading.
>
>Great! I hope it works.

Maybe if I have the time to focus on that, rather than working on yet
another incompatibility on web pages and browsers forced on me by some
"well thinking" but ill advised group.

>> >Blindness is not. Luckily, it is not an either/or
>> proposition. We can help
>> >both the blind and the illiterate by properly coding our sites.
>>
>> Only in the way defined by you.
>
>Says whom? I have not in any way attempted to discourage you from pursuing
>your dream. Just the opposite, in fact.

You have stated that you wish to deny my web pages if they do not meet your
constraints of being accessable to the blind in this very message.

> How about making a browser capable of
>> descerning the page and converting into something that can be
>> comprehended
>> by someone that is blind, without requiring extra burden on
>> the author of
>> the web page.
>
>You make it sound as if creating an accessible web page was an onerous task,
>or that it would only benefit some tiny portion of blind users.

Creating a good web page is enough of a burden already.

>Actually, it
>is quite easy if you care enough to do so - that is if you put your
>obligation to serve the public (since you're using the public Internet)

I'm sorry, it's MY obligation to serve the public in the way that I see
fit.  I know quite a bit about making web pages accessable to the blind.
But I also know quite a bit about arbitrary standards created by groups
being fostered as a solution to various problems.  That's one of the things
that I fix on a regular basis, and get paid to do so.  Rather well also.

>above your desire to make your site as flashy as possible. 

My site certainly isn't about flashy yet.  I'm putting together the
intrisic component pieces to make it accessable.

>In fact, as many
>companies are learning, accessible sites are good for business. 

Almost all companies ignore the blind.  Are you attempting to declare
otherwise?

>So perhaps
>it's not really a burden at all. Have you had trouble making your site
>accessible? I'm sure that the folks at the WAI IG list would be willing to
>help.

You can't even write out the name of the group in a way as to make the name
accessable, but claim that you can make a proclamation that we must all be
forced to make the page accessable to the blind or be denied access to
having the page served up on the Internet.  I'm quite glad that freedom is
what drives innovation, and we'll continue to not be subjected to someone
that does not see.

If they want to help, and I have a blind person ask me and give a good
reason that makes sense, then I'll change the pages.

Maybe if your statements had a better supporting argument than "because the
group says so" I'd be more inclined.

>If the image isn't clear enough, and someone that is
>> actually blind wants to know what it is, then they can ASK
>> someone to spend
>> the time to define what the image is.  On the other hand,
>> demanding that
>> everyone burden themselves to your idea of reality, means
>> that everyone
>> wastes time.
>
>So if I'm in a wheelchair, I can just *ask* someone to carry me up the steps
>to the post office? 

Given your actions thus far, yes, that's probably what you would ask.  But
since the mail is lighter than you are, I'd offer to carry the mail.  But
the mail is already picked up from your home.

>If I'm deaf, I can just *ask* someone to transcribe the
>nightly newscast? 

Newscast?  Why bother?  Most people don't watch it anyway.  It's also a lot
of noise, than I realized when I didn't bother to get my TV hooked up to
cable and spent the time on the Internet instead.

>Or are you suggesting "separate but equal" accommodations?

I'm suggesting that your attempts to force me to do something arbitrary
which has no meaning for the vast majority of the population and reduces my
productivity is a farce.  The blind person can get a computer, maybe.  So
how many people have you personally given a computer?  Next weekend I'm
giving a 9 year old boy that had his father beaten to death in a New
Hampshire prison a computer.  I choose my random acts of kindness for
myself, thank you.   I don't like people claiming to know what I should be
doing with my life, including spending time on their arbitary whim.

Now how is it that a blind person would be unable to achieve a connection
with this material that I have written in this email?  Where are the blind
specific tags in your responses?  I guess that you should censored.

>Too bad if you're deaf - read the paper tomorrow morning.

I don't read the paper on a daily basis, as is the same for almost
everyone.  Even those that claim to read it most often do not, they only
read a little bit of it.  But, my father has been declared 100% deaf, and
he loves to read.  He got to be 100% deaf doing that Public Service that
was forced on him, for the good of the people, in the Korean War, and he
got to kill other people for it.

>I'm sure that many businesses think it's a "burden" to add restrooms,
>parking spots (usually the best ones, too), and other facilities that are
>accessible to people with disabilities. So should they not bother? And
>everyone with a disability can just stay home and depend on their friends
>and relatives (if they have any) to take care of them?

People without disabilities depend on their friends and relatives (if they
have any) to take care of them, mostly because of the misguided thoughts of
doing good being forced onto them by people like you.

The primary excuse for worst attrocities that have been committed against
humanity have always been "for the good of the people" and they have been
committed by the group claiming to be working in the public's best interest.

>But if it's OK to burden the local restaurant owner by requiring a larger
>toilet stall, why is it unfair to "burden" the local web site owner by
>requiring him to make his code and content accessible? 

Because it will remove his freedom to post material through government
intervention.  But your email doesn't include blind friendly tags, so I
demand that you remove your email from the list, and stop posting until you
post material which has been specifically determined to be "blind accessable".

>Or do you feel that
>*all* efforts to provide access to people with disabilities are misguided?

Gee, given that people that don't have disabilities as defined by the
"public" are in effect cut off from the vast majority of great concepts of
man due to reading comprehension problems, lack of free time to actually
pursue these interests, and lack of access to the Internet in general, I
have to point out that the your claim of making the Internet more
accessable by forcing the people that put out the effort to put up pages to
meet your arbitrary constraints be denied a despotic attempt to inflict
Socialism on all of us.

On the other hand, what efforts have you personally made to provide access
to people with or without disabilities to the great concepts of man?  I'm
doing it with my life's passion.  I decided to do it when I was seven.  How
are you doing it?

>> >Making
>> >images and other non-textual elements available to a screen
>> reader is just
>> >as useful for an illiterate user (assuming he or she is not
>> deaf, too) as
>> >for a blind user.
>>
>> So care to explain Dali's work with a screen reader?
>
>I'm a big fan of Dali, so that would be fun. And I don't think it would be
>too difficult, either, though, of course, something is always lost in the
>translation. 

But if it's lost, then it can't be posted on the Internet, because it's not
a complete description.

>What I'd like to see is the creation of databases with
>descriptions of all sorts of art, preferably written by experts, that pages
>could link to in order to provide local descriptions. It seems to me that
>the Internet is a good way to promote such interchange of data.

So if you think that is a good idea, then go ahead and do it.

But if you have read about the differences between the actual mentality and
conceptualization of people that are born blind, or later become blind,
you'd understand that without having the eye trigger the conceptualization,
that the concepts do not exist in their minds, and never will.  On the
other hand, that doesn't make the blind less human, or of less value, and I
certainly love the use of the brain not diverted by vision of Ray Charles
of Stevie Wonder.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.
There are none so blind as those who can not see.

>> A screen reader doesn't expand the communication channel.
>> Writing a page
>> for less than 1 out of 1,000 readers isn't good business.
>> Wake up already.
>
>I don't think you understand what's required for accessibility. If you're
>writing extra pages, then you're probably doing something wrong. Again, I
>recommend the WAI IG list for advice. 

You can't even write out the name of the group.  You don't comprehend the
basic nature of the written word, and how the name of the group needs to be
written out rather than set in initials in order for the concept to be
clear, but then think that you know how the blind can be given access to a
web page?

>Or there are lots of other resources
>on-line. And 1 out of 1000? Where do you get your figures?

Rough estimate.  I'm rather sure that it's a lot lower than that.

There are plenty of resources online for how to make web pages accessable
for the blind.  The best one that I have seen specifically stated to write
out the text in such a way that the page was clear without the images.

>>  If someone says something actually worth translating into a
>> format for the
>> blind, then the groups of people that are interested in
>> transgressing the
>> media boundaries inherent in being blind will make it happen.
>
>So it's every man for himself, is it? 

How does what I said above translate to your response?

If the page is of value, then it's already not something created by a man
for himself.  But guess what, the value of sharing a great concept with
another provides for the entire basis of communication.  So get over
yourself.  If the page provides no value for anyone else, then no one will
access it anyway, and whether it has tags for blind people or not is
irrelevant.  If on the other had it has sufficient value for people that
everyone knows about it, and people recongize the value that it provides to
blind people as well, then they will make a "blind friendly" version of it,
if the blind people are unable to access the value of the page.

>You take care of your group and I'll
>take care of mine? 

Gee, but you declare what every group is allowed to do, to the detriment of
the individual, or the group effort.

>This is the enlightened world you're working to realize?

I'm sure that my world is much more enlightened than your's is.

>Of course, you have a solution, and if they'll just be willing to pay you
>enough, you'll help them out.

I notice that you cut out a several parts of my statement.  I guess we can
all see that you aren't actually reading what I'm writing.

>>  But to claim
>> that everyone has to design their page to your whim, and add
>> burden to the
>> task of expression, is a farce.
>
>Not my whim, by a long shot. 

It sure is your whim.  You're promoting it here.

>In fact, although I participated in peripheral
>ways, I had virtually nothing to do with the development of the WCAG. 

Once again, can't even write out the word.  I'm sorry that you can't live
up to the basic requirements of writing so that your concepts are clear to
the vast majority of the people attempting to comprehend what you are
saying.  The convention in writing is to write out the complete name of the
acronym the first time that it is referenced, and then to include the
acronym in parentisizes afterward, unless the acronym is generic in nature,
like IBM, or NFL.

>On the
>other hand, a great many other people and groups *did* have a hand in it,
>many of them either disabled or working with/for the disabled community. And
>the best thing is, it was all done in public and anyone can participate.

When we already have too many stupid tasks wasting our time?

>Yes, including you. So if you think that they went about it all wrong, why
>not join the WAI IG list and tell them how to fix it. Then maybe they'll
>stop making you so angry.

Gee, I'll wait until some well meaning but mis-informed party trys to tell
me that I have to implement it or have my pages denied access on the
Internet.  (sarcasm intended).

>The most ironic thing is that you speak of expression as if it occurred in a
>vacuum.  

Please show where I expressed anything to that effect.

>Expression to whom? 

Expression comes FROM someone.  Get over it.

>If your web site is only for your own pleasure,
>why connect it to the Internet at all?  

Because other people share the pleasure.

>But of course you really don't want
>to talk to yourself all day, do you?  

FYI, more words are verbalized in the mind than spoken through the mouth.
Get over it.

>Else why post to this list? 

Pointing out your nonsense is one reason.  I'm talking about the World Wide
Web, the location of freedom of speech, not freedom so long as you make it
compliant with that I say you must make it compliant with.

>Why connect your site to the Internet?  

Duhh... Gee, why don't you tell me.

>But when you do speak to others, you insist on
>doing so only on your own terms (which seem to include ignoring their
>"individual" rights and being downright rude). 

So please show me where speaking from my own perspective as an individual
constitutes what you claim above.

>That may be a form of
>expression of a sort, but I certainly wouldn't waste my time worrying about
>it.

Yes, we know that you have very little self worth.  Very little respect for
yourself.  But if you don't make a change, you'll share that with others
for the rest of your life, as you have been demonstrating.

>> >So you are to set yourself up as arbiter of what is good and
>> what is not?
>>
>> So who else is supposed to decide for me what I find of value?
>>
>> Who made you King?  We got rid of him a long time ago.
>
>A strange leap here. I suggest that you wish to control the experience of
>your users: you will provide a service, but with strings attached. 

I'll provide a professional service with strings attached.  Did you pay to
download the plugin?  Gee, get over yourself.

>People are free to use it (well, if they pay you) 

I do not appreciate your lies.

>and then you will decide which sites they can visit and which they can't. 

Gee, so where did I ever make any statement to that effect?

What I said was if a company wishes for me to enhance the experience that
people have when they come to their pages, then I'll charge them for it.
Or do you think that every corporate web page has been done for free?

>But suddenly *I* am the one who
>thinks he is king? 

Within the context of your claims to know how the entire "public" must
behave, yes, you are acting like the King.

>Are you *certain* that you are a genius? 

Actually, yes, I has been independently confirmed.  Next question please..

>Maybe your logic is simply beyond me...

Apparently so.

>>
>> >The future of the web is one of cooperation, but that is not
>> really your
>> >thing, is it, Mr. Streett?
>>
>> Gee, you couldn't even be bothered to read what I wrote, and only
>> selectively take what I wrote and attack me on it.  That
>> doesn't strike me
>> as cooperation.
>
>That I did not quote your entire letter does not mean that I did not read
>it. Actually, I read it several times through because I couldn't quite bring
>myself to believe that this sort of attitude still persisted or that it
>would manifest itself on the www-html list.

What sort of attitude are you attempting to impute to me?  You still have
not responded to the bulk of what I said, as you admit above.

>As for attacking you selectively, I think attack is a pretty strong word,
>better suited for what you are doing to me and to those members of this list
>and others who've worked very hard to improve the web in myriad ways. 

I have not said "others" in my statements.  I have pointed out the reality
of what you claim and what it really means.

>What I
>did was to respond with dismay and sadness to the parts of your post that
>were offensive to me 

Because you admit that you couldn't comprehend them.  Thanks for the
admission.  Now why is it that you have to claim that statements from a
person that is speaking outside of your comprehension are offensive and
produce dismay and sadness?

>(and I would think, to a great many others). 

Last I checked, you don't speak for anyone other than yourself.  But you
haven't gotten over that yet.

>Since the
>other parts didn't offend me, I didn't respond to them. But anyone who is
>worried that I might have twisted your words is free to look in the archive
>and read them for himself.

Yes, nice thing having a list archived.

>> I notice that you didn't bother to follow my .sig and find
>> out what sort of
>> technology I'm working on.  I only notice that you
>> selectively take what I
>> write and attempt to twist it to your own limited agenda.
>
>You are repeating yourself.

But you admitted the second sentence was absolutely correct in what you
wrote above.  Thanks for posting this to an archived list.  Part of
expression is to repeat the important points of what you have said.  Say
what you're going to say, say it, and then say what you said.  But I guess
you've never heard that phrase related to public expression before.

>> >You insist on walking your own path, doing only
>> >the things that you want to do and only the way you want to
>> do them. Fine.
>>
>> So why are you attacking me on it?
>
>I'm not attacking you, nor am I directing my comments at your project. As
>you pointed out, I know little about it. But even if it cures cancer *and*
>the common cold, that does not excuse the rudeness of your original post (or
>of your reply). 

Which you still have failed to show.

>It was your attack on the efforts of the WAI and of people
>with disabilities in general to ensure that their needs are given equal
>weight (not preferential, but equal) on the web that I responded to. 

I'm sorry that you can't comprehend that we can't declare sight a crime
because there are blind people in the world.  You don't create freedom by
enslaving people.

I'm am also very offended by your specious claims that I attacks the
efforts of WAI and the people with disabilities in general.  You know
nothing about me, or what I'm doing, or how many people I help, or how my
technology will help people the disability of being illiterate.  But you
continue your attacks all the same.  

Are you a newbie to the Internet?  Do you not comprehend the limitations of
the written word and have to project your flame wars to inflate your own
weak ego?

>I am
>responding to your rude comments.

So you have to show where my comments were rude.  Pointing out that you are
not the king, you do not declare what I must do, is not being rude.  It's
pointing out individual rights.  I'm sorry that you don't understand the
Rennisance, or anything related to rights and how it is those rights that
generated the great improvements in society, including the disabled being
able to be in a world where they are given access to the world, with their
limitations, and despite their limitations.  The didn't come about by
Government decree, they came about by individual actions.

>> >Build your own Internet, and you can have it any way you want to.
>>
>> You have no idea what I have created, and what I am doing,
>> but try to claim
>> that you know better how to aid others.  Pretty ironic.
>
>I claimed nothing of the sort. I disagreed with your view of the importance
>of accessible code and interoperability in general, 

Sorry, you know nothing of my view of accessable code or
interoperatibility.  I have created multiple international computer
systems, defining protocols, etc.  You know nothing about what my views are
on accessability or interoperability.

>which you attacked in your initial post. 

I'm sorry that you can't comprehend what I objected to in your first post
with my first response.  Maybe you will after this message.

>I said nothing about whether your creation was inferior
>or superior. As you say, I have no idea what you created, so how could I?

But you claim to know what I'm doing and who I am anyway.  How telling.

>The only comment I made was to suggest that you were angry because you
>feared that it would be obsolete before you finished it. 

.. and I pointed out that you have no idea what you are talking about.

>It was only a guess, 

So you admit that you are not actually communicating, but only putting
forth statements that reach the level of a guess.  Thanks.

>and I based it on your description of what you software will do. 

Putting a human face on technology is going to be obsolete?  I think that
you don't know the true meaning of "technology" as in the study of useful
techniques.

>From
>what little I could gather, it sounds to me like those are the same problems
>others have been working to solve through better code. Hopefully, your
>software will help.

I'm changing a paradigm.  Pretending that you can change it with more text
is a farce.  Now if I could just figure out how to get text out of the
scripts, then I'd have really solved the problems.

>> BTW, Wilbur was the name of the HTML 3.2 specification.  But
>> it doesn't
>> just come from Wilbur the Pig in Charolette's Web, or Wilbur
>> the man that
>> invented the airplane, it's also Willi Boore, the first
>> walled in city.
>> The creation of the bourg, the royalty.
>
>This is apropos to what exactly? What on earth brought this up? Still, it is
>interesting that you've named your software after the first *walled* city.
>Are you building walls, or removing them?

Neither, Wylbur is the name of the Time Share OS that I couldn't get access
to in college because of the claim that I wasn't a senior, and didn't have
the skills required to use it.  I decided that when I would use that name
as a payback.  Pretty ironic, but I instead ended up in the senior computer
lab, playing with raw equipment, rather than sitting at a terminal trying
to work on a computer across the state.  That was actually against the
rules, but one of the senior's realized just how skilled I was and made a
personal appeal for me to be granted access.  But when a professor came in
and didn't park the hard disk drive heads before he removed the drive, and
crashed the system as a result, he blamed it on me, rather than admit that
he screwed up.  The senior pointed out that I wasn't even using the hard
disk, that I had been limited to audio tape, but they still excluded me
from the lab.  Two years later, my father bought me the first IBM PC sold
in New Jersey, and within a year I was teaching professors at my college
how to use the IBM XT.  But then I also had professors from my college as
advisors doing the American Council of Education accredidation reviews of
the first three credit college courses that ever ran on the IBM PC, which I
created at AcadeMEDIA.  We called the personna that taught the course
there, HECTOR, or Holistic Educational Computer Teacher and Organizational
Resource.

>> >But unless
>> >you are willing to do that, I don't think you are in any
>> position to tell
>> >the rest of us - the rightful owners of the Internet
>>
>> Oh, I see, so you admit that you are the King.
>
>Well, put that way, yes, I am. But I share the throne with approximately 6
>billion others, so my one second in charge doesn't show up for about another
>ten years. I plan to use it well, though, and don't think I won't remember
>you.

Then you are not the King.  So which throne are you sharing?  I don't see
it as being royal, or you respecting the other 6 billion internet users
rights to design web pages the way that they want, rather than the way that
you require.

Which throne are you sharing?  I'm somehow thinging of a different throne.

I'm usually not forgotten.  It's one of those things stuck around being
named Wilbur.

>> >- what we can do with
>> >it.
>>
>> I tell you that if you want to do something then go ahead and
>> do it.  But
>> don't pretend that you know better than I do what I should do.
>
>And so we *are* proceeding to build an interoperable, standards-based,
>accessible web. Care to join us? 

Nope.  We already have enough specifications on the table.  XML is nothing
more than a reincarnation of SGML, which died a horrible death in 1985 for
a reason, and it is not a good thing to attempt to bring it back, in any
incarnation.

>No-one is telling you what to do. But if
>you run a public web site and someone wants access and can't get it because
>you've made it inaccessible to them, then they might decide to insist that
>you change it. That is the price of entering the public realm: you become
>obligated to meet the standards set by the public (just as you intend to set
>standards for the users of your software).

The public standards aren't declared by you.  Get over it.

The public standards do not declare "blind accessable" web sites.  HTML 3.2
is the only real standard that is even close to a standard, and yet 4.0 is
out, and I know enough about it to know that it's not a standard, not
implemented in the same way on multiple browsers, and even on multiple
versions of the same browser.  So please, don't attempt to claim that you
are establishing the "standard".  There is a reason that they are called
RFC's.

>> >And if we as a group decide that web sites shall be accessible, then
>> >they shall be.
>>
>> So you speak for "we" with your own voice?  How is it that web site's
>> aren't accessible now?  The internet provides accessability
>> to the blind
>> without your claims to the contrary that it doesn't.  There
>> may be an image
>> on a page that doesn't explain itself in the text on the page, but the
>> reality is that there is more than enough material for any
>> blind person to
>> spend a lifetime engaged.  Check out Project Gutenberg for an example.
>
>The operative word in my comment was "if." It's not up to me alone. But if,
>as I hope, the general agreement is for accessibility standards (it appears
>to be heading that way), then yes, those standards will be enforceable. How
>big a dent they will make is anyone's guess, but I think that they'll help.

How?  By doubling the complexity of web page development?  By making people
have to put together web pages that target all audiences you think that
pages are going to be produced faster, easier, and better?  People have
enough trouble putting together pages that even use the entire screen, or
render SOMETHING before the entire document loads, and you think that
adding in more complexity and requiremens is going to make things better?
ROTLFMAO.

>I've seen Project Gutenberg. But what does that have to do with
>accessibility? 

Gee, so you are claiming that Project Gutenberg does not have anything to
do with making the great concepts of man accessable?

>Are you saying that if the McDonald's in town is accessible,
>then the Burger King doesn't need to be? 

I don't access Burger King anyway.  And it's quite clear that you think
McDonalds to be the Messiah.  I'm sorry that you are incapable of
comprehending reality.

>That some material is accessible to
>all means that it's OK to lock users with disabilities (it's a lot more than
>the blind, you know) out of other sites?

Let me see, so you claim that every web site must do whatever you declare
in an arbitrary fashion to support every individual with a disability.  

Then why are you permitting TEXT to be the basis of the vast majority of
web pages?  Get over your hypocracy.

>> >Just as we have the right to demand that every other public
>> >conveyance - from buses to television - be made accessible as well.
>>
>> Sorry, blind people are already on the internet.  Just
>> because a bus might
>> have a wheel chair lift doesn't mean that it's accessible.
>> Just because
>> you think that a blind person can do a job doesn't mean that
>> he can.  Just
>> because you want to claim that access for the blind shoudl be
>> a burden for
>> all of the page designers on the internet doesn't mean that
>> it ever will or
>> ever should be.
>
>At this point you appear to be raving incoherently. I'm not sure what to
>make of this. But one thing is clear: you have greatly overestimated the
>"burden" of making sites accessible. 

Not based on the fact that already most of the sites ARE accessable if the
blind person is given a browser with sufficient technology to read what is
on the page and to navigate the page as a sighted person would.

It's not the web page, it's the technology that presents it to the user.

>In fact, from the things you've said in
>your post, I suspect that you don't really know much at all about the
>efforts to make the web accessible. 

Quite the contrary, I've read quite a bit about it.

>Most of your comments concern issues
>that were laid to rest long ago. Have you read anything lately? Have you
>even tried to make your site accessible? 

Nope.  I will not make it accessable to anyone, even those that don't read.
 ROTLFMAO.

>What problems did you run into?
>Maybe we can help (though the right place for such discussion is really the
>WAI IG list or similar).

So why are you having the discussion here?

I'm sorry, now I'm going to make some decrees for you, in order for you to
not reduce the productivity of anyone making web pages.  You are no longer
able to talk with anyone making a web page.  If you wish to make a web page
accessable, then you do so YOURSELF, and stop attempting to force people
that have enough problems just designing a web page for sighted people to
also design the page for unsighted people.

>> >So as I said, good luck to you. I am always happy to see a
>> man who suffers
>> >from blindness raise himself up and succeed, especially so when his
>> >blindness is a blindness of the heart - so much more
>> debilitating than
>> >blindness of sight. I hope that in your efforts to help
>> others - if it is
>> >indeed other whom you hope to help - that you may overcome
>> your disability
>> >and regain the true "face of humanity" you seem to have lost.
>>
>> There are none so blind as those who can not see.
>
>My point exactly.

But you can't see yourself, that's quite obvious.


>> I pointed out that my own grandmother was blind.  You know
>> nothing about
>> me, but claim to see enough to know who I am and what I'm doing, even
>> though you haven't bothered to access the web site which
>> explains what I'm
>> doing.  How telling.
>
>The only thing that I claim to know about you is that you posted an
>off-topic message to this list filled with rude comments 

You have failed to show any rudeness, other than in your own comments.

>and untruths 

You have failed to show any untruths.

>and
>that you followed it up with a largely incoherent rant which seems to center
>on what a misunderstood struggling genius you are (but don't worry, you'll
>show us). 

I'm not misunderstood.  Sorry to deflate your ego.  Yes, people will get to
know a bit of what I'm doing, after all, I managed to get a corporation
interested in funding further development.

>All my comments relate to that. 

Hardly..

>Beyond that, for all I know you
>are a midget with bad teeth, a glass eye, and a propensity for farting.

In other words, you are the person that engages in rude comments and
untruths.  

Thanks for the demonstration.

>> But then the face of humanity resides on every human, not
>> just the one that
>> you see in your mirror.  Too bad I know that and you don't.
>
>Come out of your cellar, mad scientist, and meet a few of us then.

I've met more than a few of you.  I'm not interested in sustaining the
conversations with people like you.  But I have met the people that I have
chosen to meet.  But that's another discussion.

>> The reality is that individual effort is what brings about
>> change.  Not
>> group norms, not group edicts, but individual efforts.
>> Please define a
>> technology that was created by a group?
>
>Spoken like a true egomaniac. My dear Wilbur, you ask "please define a
>technology that was created by a group? [sic]" Well here is the answer: ALL
>OF THEM. EVERY LAST ONE.

No, not one.  Please, define one?

>And that includes your software, Wilbur. Unless, of course, you did it all
>yourself... Gave birth to yourself, fed yourself, clothed yourself,
>discovered all of the facts about the universe that you depend on to build
>your software, invented computers and the Internet, etc.

My mother gave birth to me.  Fed me.  Clothed me.  My father contributed.

I'm sorry that you dont' know who Babagge is or was.  Or any of the other
individuals that have created the technology that you are using.

>Every piece of software builds upon the work of others. Working in C++? Did
>you invent it? 

Bjorne Stroustrup.  An individual.  So what group are you going to claim
made the effort to create C++?  But then it was Kernigan/Ritchie that
created C, which was based on BCPL, Burroughs Control Programming Language,
which was also created by less than 5 individuals.  Get over yourself and
your claims that "the group" did it.  The individuals took the time and
created these technologies.

>Didn't think so. Even people who have done extraordinary
>things in their lifetimes are almost always willing to acknowledge the help
>of others. Isaac Newton, a far brighter man than you or I, had this to say:
>
>"If I have seen farther, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of
>giants."

Please notice that he didn't say "the group."

>Why not rejoin humanity, Wilbur? We won't hold you previous antisocial
>behavior against you.

Oh, I'm quite sure that the anti social party is you.  I'm quite human,
thank you very much.  I will continue to be, despite your best efforts to
the contrary.

>If you wish to discuss this further, I suggest we take it off-list. We've
>probably tried the patience of this list enough for one day.

Oh, have other things to do on that day.  But then I had the right to do so.

>Charles Munat

Someone how can't think for himself.

Wilbur


     --------------------------------------------
        Putting A Human Face On Technology ;-)
     --------------------------------------------
        Literally!  http://www.TheFaceOf.com

Received on Saturday, 3 February 2001 14:13:50 UTC