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"here I was being schooled by a homeless person". Get off your fucking high horse. Nice story otherwise.
Why blame a person's ignorance on the person, rather than their upbringing? Ignorance has to be resolved somehow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Being homeless myself I can say most homeless people I have met do it on choice." Not so much in the UK. Usually psychiatric illness or drug dependency coupled with a catastrophic loss of income. Perhaps the causes are different in different places. I understand your idea of freedom, but I'm sure you can stay free in a small room somewhere!
I hope even in the UK, the gov't would pay your housing and basic needs?
I think there is more of a safety net here than in US, but there are holes in it still.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a very strange story. I'm also quite surprised you didn't know about the two bike valves on a pump! At least it led you meet this cool person.
Yeah, it sounds like I was out of the loop with these reversible hand pumps. Things you learn from homeless people!
Being homeless myself I can say most homeless people I have met do it on choice. Not sure about the USA, but here in Tokyo people become homeless after realizing they are wasting their lives working for goals and objectives that benefit nobody. Eventually you realize you don't need most of the "commodities" and "comfort" of modern life. Maybe it is my engineering background speaking, but you learn to maximize output…
"Being homeless myself I can say most homeless people I have met do it on choice." Not so much in the UK. Usually psychiatric illness or drug dependency coupled with a catastrophic loss of income. Perhaps the causes are different in different places. I understand your idea of freedom, but I'm sure you can stay free in a small room somewhere!
What this guy didn't say is that he figured out an alternative occupation - wandering the streets of san francisco saying intelligent things to young middle class people in the hopes that they will give him disproportionate handouts. I've encountered this more than a few times when I lived in Berkeley. I think its a technique thats somewhat endemic to the bay area homeless population.
How is his being homeless related to his knowledge of bikes?
Larry had actually been the messenger for the first documents in the Barry Bonds perjury case. Larry had been the first member of the public to know about the doping. He told me how reading those documents had ruined baseball for him. I find this a bit unlikely. Then again, it might explain why he doesn't have a job as a bike messenger any more.
On the other hand, he could have just heard about the contents without reading them at the time, and later read them when they were publicized.
I enjoyed this story, even though I'm unsure about the message I should take away, it does make me think.
This experience really made me step back and think about humanizing design. It also got me thinking about stereotypes and the way I classify people as I walk down the street.
Maybe the real lesson is that good design comes from experience more than theory?
Replace "homeless" with black, gay or similar words and see how you feel about announcing they are human and everything.