23 June 2009

Low Tech

This is a very, very low tech blog.

There is a very, very good reason for that.

No, it's not laziness - at least, not primarily. It's also not Fuddy-Duddy Disease, although I will admit it's long past time for me to update my browser and operating system.

And it's not Militant Simplicity. A beautifully laid-out site, with well chosen graphics and a warm color scheme, is something I enjoy tremendously.

[Insert shameless promotion here for CZBZ's blog The Narcissistic Continuum, which is not only incredibly well written, but can be enjoyed purely as an art gallery, when one is weary of the struggle and needs refreshment for the soul. (CZ? The Waterhouse is great, but so is the Chagall - if you linked to more of his stuff in future posts, I sure wouldn't mind :-) )].

Nope. The reason is more fundamental, and it's personal only in the way that any informed choice is personal.

Abuse survivors come from all walks of life; all socioeconomic levels; we come from all nations and races and languages and faiths. And in cyberspace, we can come from anywhere in the world; in http://www., the www. stands for World Wide Web.

World wide Web.

World wide Web.

How cool is that?

Very cool. But also, extremely variable in terms of technology.

A lot of us are on dial-up. Some of us can't afford DSL or cable, or don't have that service in the areas where we live.

Some of us find dial-up to be a cheap and convenient 'extra firewall'.

And some of us live in parts of the world where people buy pedal-powered computers, and our phone service, while adequate, won't load elaborate Web pages rapidly if at all.

Many of us have limited time for the Web. And it can take long enough to get a connection - after that, having to wait and wait for a search result to download can mean that we never get to see that particular result. We can't afford to wait that long; so we move on to the next hit, and hope that one loads fast enough that we'll have time to read it.

I can't do much about the language barrier, i.e., this blog being in English only. But I can do something about the technology barrier. I can keep this blog as simple as possible, so that anyone, anywhere in the world, with enough Net access to find it, can load it and read it and, hopefully, find something helpful here.

And that's why this blog has stayed so basic, un-glam and low-tech. No criticism of any other site is intended. There are amazing, incredible sites and blogs and Web pages in cyberspace, a treat for the eyes and ears. But I want this site to be accessible to anyone, anywhere, who can get online and run a search and find it.

In sisterhood [and brotherhood] and peace,

Stormchild