How this site started

This site started as a simple but accessible document in Google docs where I could record an idea for a solution to a problem at work, while I was away from work.  Like most people I often got ideas about how to solve a problem while I was grocery shopping or when waking up, and needed a good place to record them.  Over time, I started to add ideas about solving other problems too. Everything from how to make a better toilet paper, a clock to help the chronically late (like me), and even big things like an equitable way to pay for universal health care (still thinking about that one).

It quickly became apparent that many of my ideas were about things I didn't have the money, time, or authority to do anything about. I know that sounds pompous, but it isn't meant to be. It's more about my desire to help others make things better.  For years my job was to improve office automation, to take a task at work and use computer automation to make it easier and/or faster.  I usually did this in Lotus Notes, my specialty, but not always. Over time, the focus shifted from being about the tool to being more about the automation, and the tool be damned. Once I broke out of that box in my mind, I suddenly saw a world with all sorts of ways that the right application of either a tool or process would improve things for everybody.

Then the universe said "Hey, pull my finger!" 

While that metamorphosis in my professional life was happening, drastic changes were going on elsewhere.  I survived thyroid cancer, though it will forever play a part in my life since I no longer have a thyroid.  Cancer treatment also creates a host of repercussions in it's own right.  I was also diagnosed with narcolepsy, a chronic and incurable disease, which explained why I kept falling asleep even while driving  - something I no longer do.  Over the course of years a whole host of medical problems which individually would be no problem, have collectively become for me the biggest problem most people can face.  I can no longer work, at least not in the normal 8:00 - 5:30 office job kind of way.  Currently I'm on long term disability, and spend most of my time dealing with this stuff, and sleeping.

Nowadays, when I'm able, I make art or music, write stories and the odd essay, annoy all my friends and family by spamming them with this stuff on Facebook, and generally try my best to create content for others to use instead of just being a content consumer.  I can't do much that takes a long term physical effort, like sitting up and staying awake, but I'll be damned if that means I'm going to flunk out of the world.  I hope that someday one of my crazy ideas, strange artwork or designs, or my lame attempts at making music will be successful enough to be used by others, and maybe even earn a donation to the "Buy Malcolm New Gizmo's" fund.  That is how I'm judging my success in the world, not by paychecks, which may help explain the seeming emphasis on attribution throughout the site.  I'm really not that picky, but if you use something even if it's not really compliant please tell me, I'd love to hear it and I promise not to be a jerk.