Slashdot Mirror
A Beautiful Mind and Broken Body For Silicon Valley
pacopico writes "About 30 years ago, a young Marine and math savant named Ramona Pierson was out for a run when she got hit by a drunk driver and had her body shattered. As Businessweek reports, Pierson ended up in coma for 18 months, came out blind and emaciated and was sent to live in an old folks home. Her remarkable story takes off from there to include bike racing through Russia, a PhD in neuroscience, a stint fixing Seattle's public schools, and now Declara, a social network run by Pierson and funded by billioniare Peter Thiel, who put the original money into Facebook. One of the more original start-up tales to have ever come out of Silicon Valley or really anywhere."
Exactly.
I'm handicapped and I'm kind of pissed that someone would use a terrible accident/recovery as marketing leverage.
Look, I'm happy someone was able to get their life together and do Great Things, but those great things should not be defined by the ordeals overcome to produce them, rather the greatness they already must possess.
A one in a million feel good story!
That's great!
What about the other 999,999 whose lives are shattered and get buried in medical bills - no, the settlements from lawsuits (if you win) come nowhere CLOSE to paying all the medical bills. Don't forget kids, these are LIFETIME problems; requiring LIFETIME medical care and many times live in caretakers. A shitty couple of million dollars doesn't cut it. Medical care is extremely expensive!
These feel good stories are nice and everything but they leave unrealistic expectations in others who've experienced the same thing and give the impression to the general public that "it's no big deal".
The media - ALL the media - is incompetent.
This article is not about "Another social network" and I don't think Declara has much to do with why this deserves to be on Slashdot. This article is about a incredible person whose life and accomplishments should certainly be of interest to any respectable Nerd. Ramona sounds like a incredible and inspirational person. Can't wait for the movie!
so how is your second ph.d coming along?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Sorry all, but I have a need to vent my spleen about people who insist on habitually running near roads, it's fucking stupid.
First up, you are breathing heavily the toxic fumes output by cars. You are doing your excercise next to moving vehicle which even when travelling at 60 kph (40mph) is roughly the same as falling from a four storey building. Everytime you run near a road you are placing your trust in some random stranger where you don't know if they are competant, drunk, sick, distracted, fatigued or just plain make a mistake whilst you are wearing headphones and placing your life in someone elses hands. Is it really worth it?
I witnessed the height of this stupidity whilst driving home from the gym at night I saw a man, running for exercise, dress all in black in the pouring rain through roadworks where all the street lights were not working - wearing fucking headphones. This is not exercise, this is idiocracy. Zero for sensibility!
Now don't get me wrong, running is a great exercise and builds an iron will, but for fuck sake joggers, there are perfectly good parks, trails, beaches and even bicycle lanes you can use to run on where there is none of the above dangers from cars. Sure, you may wish to take yourself out of the genepool by tramatising someone just trying to get home but FOR FUCK SAKE please, please, please if you are going for a run have some fucking situational awareness.
rant concluded.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.