As it just so turns out today marks the 15th anniversary of my accident. It was August 5th, 1996, when a “catastrophic” automobile accident happened, forcing me to realize just how fragile life really is. Sometimes it takes quite a bit, like nearly dying say, to convince a knuckle-head like me just what he has. And, more importantly, what others don’t. Lessons earned and learned.
Point is, what better way could there be to mark such an occasion than to launch a brand new project? Especially one where it could potentially draw so many lessons from the situation I’ve found my self in ever since. I can’t think of any. (Bear in mind, I’ve not paid that thought any more energy than what I needed to compose the last couple of sentences.) And that’s what this is. My brand new endeavour.
In all honesty, this project isn’t really all that new. Or finished — in a presentational vain, at least (keep reading). I’ve been slowly — language is so powerful, I do mean slowly — working towards today since last October. When I bought this domain and commandeered this web space for precisely this project. Granted I haven’t been working on it solid since. I’ve been biding my time between various other interests, of which this project has been an important part of my focus, but not the exclusive recipient of my attention. I digress.
It’s been a busy year, thus far, and looking to get much busier. Such is life.
I won’t bore you with the inane details of what has brought me here (really they’re quite inconsequential and, if I do say so myself, completely uneventful). But back in January I started volunteering at the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC), part of the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), in Toronto. For which you are looking at the culmination, speaking in a very crude fashion (which I’m not entirely sure is fair), of my efforts. I’ve been working on this theme (something WordPress, the software “running” this blog, uses to display what you see) which I’ve named FSSFive.
I trust some further explanation of FSSFive is required. But before I attempt to, please keep in mind that what you see, not by any stretch of your imagination, is this finished — meaning there are more neat and exciting things yet to come. But like, most of everything on the web, this is a work in progress. It’s just a start.
I guess I’ll start explaining the name. As I said FSSFive is a WordPress theme that employ’s a component of the Fluid Project — a subset of the IDRC — called… wait for it… Fluid Skinning System. Simply FSS for short. And the “Five” bit (that remains spelled, rather than numerically represented, simply because of a WordPress issue which I was, rather half-assedily, unable to reproduce) in the name is referring to the fact the theme is based on the newish incarnation of HTML. Oddly enough labelled HTML5.
Hopefully you noticed I linked the first mention of my theme’s name to an external website labelled Github. The online representation of Git (which likely isn’t entirely accurate). What are they about? Well, in a round about way — I don’t understand either myself, quite honestly, and I’d much rather avoid incorrectly describing a program/service I can barely use — Git is a “fast distributed version control system” and a way to interact with Github, a service software developers use to be social with code. It’s a way for people working with code to share what they write, in order to help others, as well as themselves. In terms of turnaround, or speed, specifically. I’ll leave it there before I run even more risk of completely misrepresenting what both actually are.
Anyway fork me (that’s no typo, that’s really what users of Github say, that means to fork a repository) and FSSFive on Github. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. I’m not really active on there, just yet, but I’m learning and more importantly willing to keep pushing myself to find out what I don’t already know. I’m looking to be more active in the development community, wiith accessibility on the in mind. And this, in conjunction with working with people who are much smarter than me, is another first step.
Just a short 15 years ago I had my world completely turned upside down and violently shaken for nearly an entire year afterward. And today I find myself actively wanting to learn about and really work with the command line on my computer. You just never know what the future has in store for you, eh?
So here’s to Github, but wanting to know more, especially…