Al Macintyre's Radio Weblog : Al's random interests while learning what can be done with Weblogging, and perhaps what ought to be done.
Updated: 11/01/2002; 11:27:37 AM.

 

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Tuesday, October 22, 2002

[Eclecticity: Dan Shafer's Web Log]

Cyberspace is Not a Place After All!

Judge: Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web. A federal judge says Southwest Airlines doesn't have to make its site more accessible to the blind. The Americans with Disabilities Act, she says, doesn't apply to virtual space. [CNET News.com]

I'm sure glad this well-educated and articulate judge is here to teach all of us ignoramuses what cyberspace is and isn't. As more and more people rely to a greater extent on the Internet for news, connections to other humans, interaction, data storage, and a host of other things, it's nice to know that the U.S. government, at least, won't worry its pretty little empty head about those who have any disability. Let 'em cheat fate! [Eclecticity: Dan Shafer's Web Log]

I expect that someone will try to appeal this.  But absent that, some employers may be able to cite this legal ruling as justification for denying access to computers on the job.  If the internet is exempt from the disabled, then it is not much of a stretch to say that intranets are also exempt.  If you are disabled, and want a job that involves using a computer terminal, which is probably a very large percentage of the jobs that exist today, then tough luck, the law does not apply to computer access.  Discuss


1:00:14 PM    

Observations on Al's writing skills development.

I got feedback from more than one person on Friday's essay, about mismatches between our use of technology, our needs, how we learn how to use it effectively, and dreams of effective Knowledge Management.  Basically my writing skills are at issue, and how I should focus practice to improve on my flaws. 

While the indented bullets help me organize my thoughts, they do not always communicate well to other people.  When I have a collection of related ideas, to communicate through my current level of understanding how I can utilize Radio, I should try to package each sub-thought as a separate page, using Radio Stories, then tie together a smaller piece on Home page or relevant category.

The article started as an outline in my head that was never put on paper.  The end user needs that outline, or structure, spelled out using more obvious sub-titles.

On the content of my last essay.

With respect to the notion that lots of software comes with tons of features that no logical human can possibly use, and thus there will always be waste in what we get, I believe that so long as the excess capabilities do not impair performance of product usage, this is an economical way to deliver versatility using a standard package.  I would hope that the Word Processing Software of The Future, come with features that do not occupy computer memory when they are not being used, so that current bloat demanding more hardware purchases just to keep same efficiency when upgrade to next software version, will become a design approach of The Past.

Blogging is not the only software where the computer gets out of the way, and the end user just does our thing to communicate ideas or transactions or whatever.  Some other software is more helpful when it comes to access to integrated help, when we get stuck.  Some other software is more helpful when we need to diagnose when something goes wrong.

I agree that with blogging, we can communicate effectively, without the software or other users reality constantly tripping us up, like in e-mail how we have to cope with the risk of viruses, con games, spam, flames, as an overhead baggage that comes with that territory.  However, the fact that we CAN, does not mean that all users DO.  In the article link that inspired my original writings, it is evident that a gigantic volume of potential users are blocked by the learning curve and common misconceptions.

However, my thinking in that essay, was aligned to the efficiency and comfort level of end user humans taking full advantage of the promise of Knowledge Management, and broad spectrum of users seeing the changing reality.  This has marketing and training implications such as potential audiences not seeing the implications of how easy it is to implement new technologies.

My failure to communicate this more effectively is a testiment to both my writing skill inadequacies, and where I am in learning how to use Weblogging.


10:32:37 AM    

Test of what shows up on Al Home v.s. Categories v.s. RSS News Aggregation in Al's Radio 8.0.7.

  • Shortcut Link to Radio Userland Discussion Group Tech Support.
  • Link Services Story Link
  • What I am looking for is which show up in double quotes as opposed to links as opposed to what works as a hyper link, and in which scenarios.

10:23:32 AM    


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