Comments on: A Rather Healthy Attitude Towards Wheelchairs

By: Linux.conf.au, Part 2 | Geek Feminism Blog

Linux.conf.au, Part 2 | Geek Feminism Blog — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:51:56 +0000

[...] Penguin Dinner on Friday had great food and wine and company. And more hakas! Nic Steenhout wrote up some thoughts on the crowd of people trying out our wheelchairs and geeking out over [...]

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:16:24 +0000

@noisymime, glad you enjoyed the article :) And you're entirely right, braces/callipers, wheelchairs, they are great pieces of engineering :)

@Haddayr, glad the post made you happy. I like to make people happy :)

By: Haddayr

Haddayr — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:34:39 +0000

Liz Henry sent me here. This made me SOOOoooOOO happy!

–wheelie and crutchie

By: noisymime

noisymime — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:57:15 +0000

Great article! (I found it via @kattekrab retweet)

I wish I had've had a chat with you at LCA about this geek love of the mechanical as its something that I've grown up with.
Not trying to hijack your post with personal stories, but my father has calipers on his legs and being an engineer (and passing this design passion on to me) its always been the mechanical design that's fascinated me the most. The advancements in the last 10 years or so (new materials, MUCH more complex designs etc) have really been interesting to watch and have lead to some fun times out in the shed tinkering with different setups.

Thanks again for the insightful post.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:41:03 +0000

And I'd be willing to bet that the rental you got for your mother was probably twice as heavy as the wheelchair I use daily :)

By: MiriamS

MiriamS — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:21:11 +0000

Nic, great post and wonderful read. I got a wheelchair for my mom to use while visiting as she has a serious knee injury and can hardly walk so we wheel her around a bit. When one is not familiar with wheelchairs much it's quite fascinating to see what they're like, how they move and how surprisingly light they are. Funny and good to see bikers etc take an interest in your chair, that makes sense to me. Totally agree with Beetlebrox :)

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:18:27 +0000

Glad you're seeing it that way :) Only reason we have it more difficult though is a non-accessible society. *shrug*

By: Beeblebrox

Beeblebrox — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:31:20 +0000

It's interesting to see what happens when normality goes put the window and you get a bunch of people who just want to learn about stuff.

I have found new insight into wheelchair users and though as a group you have things on average more difficult, you don't have my pitty, you have my respect.