I posted a bit of a heads up some time back, but I'll just go over it a bit, since three have been a few developments since then.
Basicaly I have Asperger's, which means that I'm shy (well used to be) and sensitive (but thick skined!). But I also have some 'lauguage' difficulties, in that I find reading very very intensive, infact I've only read one book cover to cover in my life. So generally I pick my way through things and play about and experement with stuff, since usually the documentation requires a bit of imagination to learn things properly and best use anyway. So please bare with me if I do ask the odd silly question that's in the documentation, I do go through and read it. Sometimes I find it hard to find the right stuff to read or the right thing to read about. Very technical stuff like code, I have no problem with though. Also my writing can be a little bit odd. I've been coding since I was 8 and I'm now 34, and used to teach kids maths at school when I was 6. So what I don't have in reading ability I make up for in other areas. Anyhow, about 7-8 years ago I had a load of money saved, had a few issues when I gave up smoking (in the UK they now proscribe anti-depressants or anti- anxiety drugs to some people wanting to give up smoking. They don't tell you that on the adds encouraging you to quit!). But got myself back together prertty well. I've done a bit of opensource before then, some drivers and database engines all kind of things. I've been windows free for about 12 years maybe more, but decided that I'd use my spare time to put some effort into FOSS and see what happened. I wrote a few little prototypes and hacks for KDE that seemed quite popular (many of those things are now in KDE 4), and then had a crack at getting some stuff working in Cedega, but gave up as the source was old and partial at best. So then I thought I'd have a crack at getting DirectX 9 3D working on Wine, and spent a couple of years doing that. But about a year or so into doing it, I moved house and stuff and had some job offers and started working with the crossover guys in the end, and went to the Dr to try and make sure I didn't have the issues I'd had at the previous job again, as things where going quite well. Well I ended up getting put on anti-psychotics, which is basically a chemical lobotomy, infact I didn't even realise how badly they affected my ability to function, it affected it that badly! So about 2 years ago, 5-6 years of side-effects and not beging able to think properly and having no emotions appart from somitically (e.g. spent a year throwing up, often bent double for 24 hours). Then I had a trauma caused by the built up emotions and generally being disfunctional, and around a year or so ago relized that I couldn't even work out how I could possibly have thought before I started taking the meds (as I knew I must have had emotions and stuff and was able to do things). So I stopped taking them, which resulted in about 6-8 months of discontination syndrome (basically psychosis, except you know it's not real, caused by upregulation of dopamine receptors in the region that reduces scitzophrenia problems[ well for a while anyhow] and other problems with homeostasis and the post traumatic stress I had) So that was a year ago, I'm more or less recovered and got someone from the local health authority visiting in a weeks time, because the treatment I've recieved, ever since being put on them was compleatly below par, and even worse after I had the trauma. I should never have been on them in the first place, and it's looking a bit like the shrink has a problem with hippies! So, if I'm a little bit thoughtless or go off on one a bit, it's because my brain still hasn't recovered properly, and I do have some reading problems and I'm quite a sensitive chap. But I do have a lot of experiance and am dedicated to FOSS, and am currently in the process of setting up a charity to provide free (or near as) computers to disabled and impoverished people and children and possibly working with people who've come out of prison and that kind of thing. And there all going to run Linux with KDE etc.... I've already installed KDE 4 + Linux based on Mint-9 on a number of peoples machines, and there's been a little linkering needed that should be relativly easy to iron out and make the whole thing really smooth. Appart from that everyones over-joyed and never wants to see windows again, and they are not at-all the geeky type, if anything more of the novice type. Even the guy running a pentium 3 with 512 Mb ram think's it's great. I've got a supply of about 10-20 pentium 4 and above that I can get every week and a few laptops, some good local connections both in the PC world and the disability, low income and criminal justice system. All I need to do now is strip down and stabalise a distro that works really nice and tightly integrated, and needs as little support as possible! I've got plans for revinew streams and comunity involvement that should get things going quite nicely, and also a few freinds who are going to work with me and I'm also teaching some programming and things like that. Also I'm expecting that I'm going to get one hell of a payout from the health service. So I've got a lot of experiance, a vested interest, hopefully a few more people who can work on getting things working very nicely, but a few language problems that got a bit worse whilst on the meds and with the trauma and stuff, and also I'm still talking/or typing a bit without engaging my brain as much as I should do. So applogies if I come accross funny, or ask odd questions or don't split up my emails. Oliver. >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<
