Sleep if you will... just don't fall into Lake Erie till they clean
the mess up.
> In a message dated 7/15/98 10:21:36 PM GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] is quoted:
>
> << too far in the other direction -- desktop publishing gone wild with the
> power of illustration.
>
> But that is just my opinion, having been beaten up in another forum
> for talking about medical facts that the people need to make their health
> care decisions on. How like some of my clients! They don't want facts,
> they want sympathy. When I was in pain, and afterwards, I want the facts!
> Diagnosis, cause, prognosis, treatments, alternatives, percentages,
> interactions, DETAIL FACTS! Because without facts, I can not make sound
> decisions, and without sound decisions, I am not in control of my life.
> Apparently, that is not what the majority want. >>
>
> ~~~~~
> If you're not in that mindframe, then it's intimidating, stupifying! to be
> confronted with big gray blocks of paragraph text. It's not just the info...
> it's the package. If you LOOK at folks when they look at material... actually
> watch their eyes... they do that glaze over thing the instant they hit a block
> of text longer'n about 3 1/2 lines.
It is said that speed reading is good, yet studies show that when we
deal with technical matters, we slow down. University professors,
presumably folks who read an awful lot, are among the slowest readers
around... Also, when one looks at those who profess to read quickly, they
need time to think about what they read.
You can skim a novel. But to comprehend technical information, you
need to read AND RELATE it to something else. That's comprehension.
> then there's a whole lot of scanning going on. Good reading IS scanning..
> grabbing key words faster'n you could possibly say 'em out loud and sort of
> grokking the connectors.
Which is probably why I was often accused of saying the opposite of
what I said, and why some others kept repeating variants of the things
that I had said, to make sure the poor readers got the gist of it... not
that it helped, for the poor readers started flinging the abbreviated
transliteration of the others back at me with more accusations.
> Basically, people are caption readers. That's why cartoons and comic books
> work.
If you are trying to convey important medical information, cartoons
and captions will not work for anything but the simpler things.
By illustrations gone wile, I mean illustrations without a Central
Pointed Theme!
> --not those archvillains of the 30's, 40's, 50's: comic books themselves.
> Because before that, there were magnificently constructed complaints that
> *reading* was destroying the moral fibre of our youth!
I believe some of the Greeks back in Helenistic times were saying
that the cheapness of hiring a scribe to copy plays and other literature
were destroying the youth, yes. And I am sure my moral fiber was totally
destroyed by reading pulp science fiction by Azimov, Heinline, Clark,
Niven, et al. Why, that made an absolute pervert out of me, making me
play with robots, electrical switches, oscilloscopes, even plastic
calculators and plastic computers! (Anyone remember the plastic Digicomp
you programmed with plastic stubs?) When everyone knows that normal kids
are SUPPOSED to go chasing or pretending not to be chased by normal kids
of the opposite gender!!! (Still have a great photo of my cousin hooked up
to a Heathkit oscilloscope, his head "missing", and his EKG on the scope.)
And now, Irix, Unix, and Linux! Gads, the depravity of it all!!!
> Ok, it was the reading of <gasp> novels.. but also, fyi, it was reading at ALL
> in the case of tenderly bred young women! *They* were deemed damaged by the
> reading of the classics and any scientific treatises. It wasn't that long ago,
Not in my parent's homeland! Most of the doctors, half the
accountants and a good part of the managerial workers were women.
That culture didn't waste their women; their women were competent,
wise, even philosophical; and more apt to discuss philosophy than
the men. Not all, but many.
> So I get a little concerned when someone with a mind like javilk's comes up
> with a line like <<desktop publishing gone wild with the power of
> illustration.>>
> The power of illustration, dear-heart, light-o-my-day, is to open the way
> to more whole concept than a linear string of words can. To create a series
> of hand-holds in towering cliffs of printed words.
Lessee now... seems there was some debate upon that once, something
about radio vs TV. I don't recall the details but I'll improvise...
Imagine, if you will... sitting by your radio and listening... seeing in
your mind...
We are sitting here in the three hundred foot high radio stand build for
us by the shores of Lake Erie, early in the morning as the blazing red
ball of the sun breaks through the gap between the distant mottled
orange-blue clouds and the dark blue ground...
Farmers in [agricultural state] have grown an immense strawberry, half the
size of Rode Island! It is a huge mountain of red, folks, higher than the
Matterhorn!
Not to be outdone, cooperative farmers in [dairy state] have produced an
absolutely fantastic amount of whipped cream. As we sit here watching from
our radio stand, we see thousands of fire trucks draining lake Erie. They
have been here since 5am in the morning, and it is now approaching noon.
Yes folks, we will fill Lake Erie with whipped cream and add the
strawberry.
A crowd has come to line the shores of Lake Erie. The crowd must be a
quarter of a mile deep all around the lake at 10am. Some people are going
into the lake bed to retrieve old cars, mattress springs, and other
artifacts of civilization. We see an old Model T being driven out of the
lake bed right now...
The lake is almost dry. A gigantic whipped cream container is being flown
over the lake by about, oh, must be at least 100 military helicopters, the
navy kind, like short blue string beans with spinning disks at both ends.
Ah! They are opening the valve right now....
Whhhhoooooosssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh
It is 3pm now, and after 200 deliveries, whipped cream has finally filled
the former Lake Erie. Nearby is a pile of 150 whipped cream containers,
each twice the height of the Empire State building, and five times the
volume of the VAB at the Kennedy Space Center. It is a HUGE pile folks,
it must rival the height of Mount Everest! And we see some of the
nation's homeless people beginning to inspect these as possible homes. And
we see here a contingent? Hoard? Of Japanese... No, Chinese businessmen,
here in efforts to persuade the Governor of New York to sell these as
ocean going liners to replace Hong Kong with an ocean going flotilla. Oh,
oh, a minor fight has broken out between an ant sized Donald Trump and one
of the homeless. It seems Donald Trump wants one of the towering cans in
this incredibly gigantic... shiny... mountain of what looks like King
Kong's shaving cans!
Look over there, I see the Chineese forming huge chain gangs, carrying yet
another can away, like ants carrying something thousands of times larger
than they are. It is just incredible what the Chinese can do when they put
their minds to it!
Meanwhile, our crowd has grown to about a mile deep all around the entire
lake! There must be millions of people lining this lake, folks, all
standing shoulder to shoulder just to see this incredible sight! It is
amazing to see little old grandmothers selling cookies and kids pulling
their little red lemonaide wagons through this huge crowd.
Now, we hear the drone of what must be 500... no, 1000, no... It must be
at least 10,000 military transport helicopters.... with an absolutely
smashing gigantic ruby red strawberry suspended in the sky between them!
Oh... This is a truly amazing sight, folks! A network of wires gleaming
in the sunlight with a strawberry half the size of Rode Island being
airlifted to the lake!
My God! It is like the Dead of Night as the shadow of this incredible
gigantic strawberry passes over us! What is this? Rain? Folks! It is
raining little drops of... mmmmmMMM! sticky red strawberry juice upon
us! Absolutely Wonderful taste! And the smell... Strawberry heaven! I
can not describe the sweetness to you, ladies and gentlemen, how
wonderfully strawberry-ish it smells!
Wait! Oh No! The lead helicopter has caught on fire! It is going
down... the net is unraveling... I can't believe this folks, the
helicopters are all crashing with the strawberry into the lake! Huge
waves of whipped cream are being thrown into the sky! They are falling
like huge globs onto the crowd! AAHHH! This is incredible! A city block
sized dash of whipped cream is headed Right For US!!! Yeeaahhh [clatter,
sounds of paper shuffling, running footsteps, doors slamming, and with a
creaking crash, Fwooommmphhhhhgh.... silence....
Blubt...
Ptubt...
(I mean, I couldn't just leave these guys dead... By the way, I am
available to write web content...)
Now, can you show that on TV? Can you even draw anything that will
give one a decent impression of the size of any of these things?
> People DO want control of their lives. But why? Well to feel safe, to feel
> exhilerated, to feel worth something. Whenever they don't feel like they can
> successfully get that control, they turn to something secondary to gain those
> same feelings. So they really want both... control AND soothing. But which
> one can they trust to be more often made available to them?
I don't think so. Not after having been nearly killed by the medical
system enough times. Damned if you go to the ER, damned if you don't,
pain either way.
> In the case of health care... get real... it's so fraught with shamanism and
> ego that you have to be a terrifically strong minded and strong willed person
> to wrest any control over your own bod!
I don't know, I walked out Against Medical Advice. The shamanness or
a doctor smashed my kidney, caused the worst pain I have remained
conscious through, and I sure as heck wasn't going to let anyone as
inconsiderate or stupid as her put me in the hospital. I have to assume
that she understood hitting me that hard when she knew I had silica
spicules in the kidney, would cause incredible pain. She did this two
more times, harder each time, as I started to grunt, stand, and turn,
complaining g about the pain. Had this been on the street, I, who
captures spiders live to remove them from my apartment.... I would have
broken her neck in self defense with no regrets for the paperwork that
would have followed.
> Worst of all, they're convinced that it ever was and ever shall be so. It's a
> pattern. They're beaten. (Bad news, javilk... the people that entered the
> cattle cars were already defeated months before.)
Excuse me! My Great Grand uncle and his family, who were carted off
to Siberia, where they died, were not exactly defeated beforehand. Nor
was my Father, who was rounded up in a sweep against Jews, loaded on a
truck, and then and machine gunned by the Germans. He was in the
underground, fighting all the way before and after! (He dropped a little
early, and spent some 24 hours in a pile of bloody corpses as the Gestapo
repeatedly shot anything that groaned or moved.)
> The only way *I* know to have ANY chance of breaking that conviction of
> powerlessness --to make them greedy enough to want and *expect* both
> information AND human caring-- is to empower them in tiny amounts. You can't
Greed? You obviously don't understand the seriously ill! The first
thing that dies, is the will. The easiest fence to build, is the one
against the mind, for that is the fence that can not be seen, and so is
nearly impossible to break down. Hence, the gulags of the mind.
> either... you introduce 'em to the stress in small doses... palatable doses if
Twice, in two very different incidents when I was ill and low on
adrenaline, I had security/police come at me with guns drawn. Having
collapsed outside a bank with my respirator in my hand, I had a gun six
inches from my head, pointing right into my eye, and another a little
further. Did I blink, did I fear? No, not all. And not from bravery, but
from lack of biochemistry. I just sat there and let my white shirt and tie
do the talking for me. Once they saw those, it was "Oops... we thought..."
as the guns went behind their backs or into their holsters. (In each case,
one of the wiser held the gun behind his back as others holstered theirs.)
In the second incident, the security guards made sure the police did
not know whom I was, explaining it all away as quickly and gracefully as
they could! Then helping me as best they could!
I laugh at these incidents now; but when sick, I had no fear, for you
can not fear without enough dopamine and adrenaline in your brain and
body.
And the sick are often low on just those things, dopamine and
adrenaline, hence they become apathetic.
First, you must want. For without want, there is no hope. Second,
you must hope. For without hope, you will not act. Third, you must do
something. For if you do not do something, you are not in control.
I remember falling down, my body growing cold, as it would on
occasion. The electric heater was on the other side of the room. I was
paralyzed for lack of neurotransmitters, lack of glucose, etc., with a few
only basic reflexes operative. But I could hiccup. I hiccupped, moving
perhaps an inch or two each time, till I reached the heater. I budged the
inch, inch after inch. Want, Hope, Act! Why do you think humans panic,
while animals freeze? Once you have a brain, Action has a chance of
succeeding! Do Something! And Learn! And let Others See and Learn from
your actions!
> Megadoses of illustration <<too far in the other direction -- desktop
> publishing gone wild with the power of illustration>> is often exactly what's
> needed.
Sometimes, when it ILLUSTRATES A POINT OR A POINTED THEME! Most web
pages do not, and mine are not exception.
Ah, but It takes a master technical illustrator to bend the art to
the theme. Amateurs bend the theme to the art. Few are truly masters.
Why? Probably because so few on the web work with those capable of
creating a theme, a theme that resonates with the audience, AND has a
point to it.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------- Every mouse click, a Vote ---------------
------ Do they vote For, or Against your pages? -------
-------------------------------------------------------
Hit and Link Analysis: http://www.mall-net.com/webcons/
-------------------------------------------------------
Web Imagineering -- Analysis, Architecture, Automation,
Advanced CGI-BIN Programming, and Content Development.
<A HREF="http://www.mall-net.com"> www.Mall-Net.com</A>
* Anti-Spam FAQ: http://www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done
directly from our website for all our lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
