dive into mark

I came home Sunday and immediately fell asleep. I dreamt of an army of monkeys. Not The Army of The Twelve Monkeys, just a run-of-the-mill army of an indeterminate number of monkeys. Not an infinite number of monkeys, although the monkeys were willing to commit suicide by solving an infinite number of simultaneous equations. They were ascending a staircase of some sort. A golden staircase, ascending to Heaven. Good Lord, not a Stairway To Heaven, but yes, there was a stairway involved, and Heaven. And monkeys. Perhaps it was a non-golden staircase, but began its ascent from the Golden Gate Bridge. But there were definitely monkeys. Monkeys solving an infinite number of simultaneous equations, and then dying. They were mathematical martyrs. Mathematical martyr monkeys.

I awoke four hours later, thinking, Keith, check the tox screen on that dreamer. Who is Keith? Why have I been watching so much CSI? Also, a punchline without a joke: I’ll have what the man on the floor was having.

Went to the doctor Thursday. Discovered I have ear dandruff, impacted ear wax, high blood pressure, seasonal allergies, and a sinus infection. Those doctors, they don’t dick around. I left quickly, prescriptions in hand, before she could examine anything else. For the next four days, there were long stretches of restless sleeping, punctuated by brief periods of lucidity, followed by a variety of antibiotics, prescription drugs, and over-the-counter medication inserted into what seemed like every possible orifice above the waist. The rest is a haze. Not a Purple Haze, per se, but certainly one of the web-safe colors. Azure, or teal. Is teal a color? I thought it was a spice.

In another dream, one of the most recognized brands in the world released a new webmail service that actively discriminates against the blind. It was an I dream of Gmail kind of thing. No, wait, that actually happened. Oh fuck me. The monkeys thing would have been much more interesting.

Backtracking some links from this weekend, I seem to have given the impression that I dislike Gmail’s user interface. On the contrary, I tried it again this morning, and I like the user interface very much. I will never use the service personally, of course. Not because of the numerous accessibility problems, none of which affect me personally — being, as I am, a power user with a working pair of eyes, specifically one of the deluded power users who believes that vi-like interfaces make me more productive, since we consistently discount mental transaction costs at a furious rate.

And not because of the much-discussed — and mostly specious — privacy concerns. The day I signed my mortgage contract was the day They broke my spirit of any absolutist privacy fantasies I might have had growing up. Sure, privacy is important, but not enough to live in a cave with no credit cards.

No, the reason I would never consider using Gmail is that it provides no data export. I’ve been down that road; I know exactly where it ends. For some class of people, specifically ones who enjoy voluntarily locking their data into proprietary products and services, I’m sure Gmail will be wildly popular. These people probably enjoy using Powerpoint, too.

Still, it’s a bummer about that whole discriminating against the blind thing. We can argue until we’re teal about whether accessibility is free or simply cheaper by the dozen, but Google isn’t even trying. Apparently writing while under the influence of whatever it is I’ve been taking for the past few days suppresses my vicious moralistic reflex and prevents me from using words like despicable and unconscionable. I can read my Yahoo mail in Lynx. I can shop at Amazon in Lynx. If your web site doesn’t work in Lynx, your web site is thoroughly, thoroughly fucked.

NOTE TO SERGEY BRIN: fire one of your PhDs, and use the money to buy yourself a cluestick. Then beat your developers with it until they start taking accessibility seriously. I don’t want to read a single review of Gmail that doesn’t contain the words discriminates against the blind. This isn’t rocket science, people. Try harder.

Update April 13, 2004: Kevin Fox, a user interface designer at Google, says Google is aware of these problems, and that accessibility is very important to them. He also points out that data export is a planned feature. Once that feature is available (even for a fee), I can imagine using Gmail every day.

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