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Amy Ko’s bio reads that is a “Professor at the University of Washington iSchool, where she studies humanity’s individual and collective struggle to understand computing. She believes in an equitable, sustainable, and liberatory future in which everyone has the freedom and resources they need to thrive as themselves. She views uncritical uses of computing as a threat to that future, but believes computing can be reimagined to help achieve it.”
At this point you’re either laughing or trying to invent a time machine to an era before woke idiots like this had infiltrated even the handful of remaining useful academic fields.
So what do you do, as a studied of humanity’s collective struggle to understand computing when your fearsome skills of combining Ukraine flag emojis with agender emojis for a dissertation of the unfairness of the universe in your profile is interfered with by an injury that most people would just deal with like functional adults.
But, as a professional social justice warrior, your job is to be anything but a functional adult. So you think, how does my broken elbow make me more of a victim and is there a book or a movie in this? Or at least a Nature article (once a fine publication, but now willing to publish whatever woke nonsense comes in the door.)
And so I give you, the horror and the humanity of Amy Ko’s (very temporary) struggle with disability and her realization that having to type thing is unfair.
How my broken elbow made the ableism of computer programming personal – Amy Ko
I had many exciting plans for the end of my sabbatical year. Breaking my elbow wasn’t among them. Suddenly, all of my work as a computing and information-science professor — writing, and especially programming — had to be done with one hand or by voice. It was a pain. At the same time, it provided a strong reminder of why I do what I do — studying our individual and collective struggle to understand computing and harness it for play, power, equity and justice — and accelerated my desire to develop a truly accessible programming language…
…being unable to use my dominant hand underlined the fact that programming caters mainly for non-disabled people. My temporary disability meant that my work could no longer keep up with my thoughts. Even speech-recognition software customized for coding was error prone and slow. My inability to type two-handed keyboard shortcuts meant I had to reconfigure numerous settings and memorize dozens of new shortcuts.
It’s really sad when your article’s premise was originally the premise of an episode of a ridiculous 90’s sitcom. And that was still less ridiculous than complaining that you’re now a victim because computer programming requires typing things.
Sure, Beethoven lost his hearings and went on composing, but isn’t it so much more admirable when a social justice twerp breaks an elbow and then immediately rushes to rack up more victimhood points before it heals while explaining how it proves that everything that came before her is a form of oppression?
Even speech recognition software could not keep up with this genius’ thoughts and gave up, hanging its bytes in shame. But cheer up, Amy! Now you can add another buzzword to your somewhat tiresome babble. In addition to “sustainable, diverse, and equitable,” you can now call yourself VULNERABLE, the new favorite word of lefties.
Perhaps the software recognized an imbecile and chose not to participate in her idiocy.
What struck me was that that is a good example of inverted thinking, or seeing things from the wrong end of the periscope. Rather than seeing typing (or technology in general) as a tool to increase productivity, criticize it because it is imperfect.
Methinks she could break both elbows and her work could still keep up with her thoughts-such as they are.
“…I had to reconfigure numerous settings and memorize dozens of new shortcuts…”
So, even though she couldn’t use the keyboard, current technology includes workarounds and settings to mitigate the difficulty for the disabled. Doesn’t that undermine her entire thesis? I guess her brain wasn’t quick enough to keep up with the obvious.
In 1988, I broke my right arm in a racing accident. It was in a cast for 2 months. I built a sprint car racing engine with that arm in a cast. She can’t type?
The computers and internet have had an interesting side effect.
They reveal how many idiots live among us.
Yeah, that was what most surprised me about the internet.
“Suddenly, all of my work as a computing and information-science professor…”
She has nothing to do with computing and information science. She’s just another charlatan pedaling grievance and victim-hood. And there’s way too many of them in the academic world. No wonder so many college graduates are working at Starbucks. And anytime someone uses the word “reimagined” I stop listening.
Reinventing the wheel, and calling it new, lol.
Thanks Cowboy. That reminded me, a lot of primitive cultures didn’t even have the wheel.
Liberal Democrats s till proving to be total blunderers cant let people to deice for themselves
Rather than celebrate the fact that there is a way for disabled people to cope using reconfigured short cuts and voice control, she complains that it sooo hard to work with this injury. The griping of folks like this isn’t what anybody needs to hear.
Anyone see the legless man Zion on AGT? He is an amazing performer and an inspiration.
On Dec. 26 of last year, I skated on thin ice in Winchester, MA and fell into a frozen pond, breaking my upper humerus as I hit the ice. The break was in my dominant right arm. After 25 minutes in the frozen water, I was rescued by the Winchester Fire Department. The surgeon had to install a plate with seven screws to repair the damage. I was out of work for two months and required five months of physical therapy. Even after I returned to work, putting in full days at the computer was too much for several months. I needed to intersperse meetings (much less taxing) with coding.
I endured more than the woman in the article, but my attitude is gratitude. I am alive. I still have a job. By now I have recovered my productivity at work as a software engineer. I just completed the first draft of a manuscript for a 725 page book that I began researching last September. I leveraged my two months of disability leave to forge ahead on the book, limited though I was. You roll with the punches and learn to accept the help you need, and offer help to others when you can.
Most of us have abilities that others lack and vice versa. This inequity is the very force that binds people together. The only challenge is if you use your abilities solely for yourself or if you love your neighbor as yourself and lend a hand. If we decry the advantages of the abled, we also sacrifice the help they have to offer to the rest of us and diminish our world.
Ow. Sounds painful.
Makes the time I had a leg fall through a frozen lake’s ice hole seem wimpy.
It was cold, though. And whoever cut that hole was an asshole, in my opinion.
Ouch. That’s bad. Always have to watch your step.
Funny, I blundered when getting off a bus a few months ago, and didn’t watch my step. Turns out it was a big step down. I didn’t know bus steps were like that as I rarely ride them. Seems like it would be a hazard for elderly and disabled passengers.
Don’t feel bad. I use the “light rail” regularly here in San Jose and I grab the hand bars when I step off.
I’m old and I know it.
beautiful sentiment!
You have beauty of soul. Thank you for sharing your challenging season.
Amy Ko belongs in a dictionary entry for self pity. The opposite entry would have Bob Dole for his handling of a permanent bad arm resulting from combat in World war 2.
Amy is nerdy looking and obviously quite evil, but I’d like to dig into that.
Susanna Gibson would be easier–for a few tokens–and less complicated.
” . . . being unable to use my dominant hand underlined the fact that programming caters mainly for non-disabled people. ”
It’s called reality, Amy. It’s not patriarchy or “ableism” or “discrimination” or sexism or capitalism. When you have a physical or mental impairment, you can’t do things as quickly as people without that impairment. If sprinter Usain Bolt had a leg in a cast when the Olympics came around, that would be bad luck but not a sign of some social injustice.
Why didn’t someone proof read and correct this mess?
Lamest damn generation I’ve ever seen. They need to pray to whatever god they serve that the PLA doesn’t come marching through our southern border and shows them what “oppression” actually looks like.
“…being unable to use my dominant hand underlined the fact that programming caters mainly for non-disabled people.”
My research (unfunded, by the way) shows that Professional Basketball caters to those who do not have physical ‘disabilities’ (being under 5’6″), instead catering to those who can actually reach the rim on occasion. How terrible.
This one has quickly thrust herself into the running for “Stupidc__t of the year”. She’ll never catch AOC, but she might give her a scare.
I retired from more than 35 years in the IT business and I exaggerate not at all when I say, working with clients from one end of the country to the other, I never came across a twit this colossal. She wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.
Did this quack go to the KMart School of Professorship? Did she even have to pay for her “buy one, get one free” degree? Or did she use the Moronic Society’s coupon?
Unfortunately, she didn’t crack her stupid head.
Programming also caters to people who think logically. Amy Ko can claim full disability there. I doubt she writes programs at all, and is just bitching at the difficulty of typing her complaints about the world with a busted elbow. Ko is obviously an affirmative action hire and her students are being cheated out of their money so Washinton iSchool can check off some boxes and get more government funding. Higher education has become such a racket, lol. All aboard the lemming train!