Support a Blind Coder as he transforms the Web

Hi and thank you for your time.

You've heard other people tell their stories. I respect what they go through and I respect you for wanting to help. But boy, do I have a story to tell you.

I held onto a Santa Clara, California condo by the skin of my teeth. I sold it in 2015. Too soon. My plan was to move to the country, buy a mobile home & invest my nest egg & when it grew, retire to a life of splendor. At first, it worked. I invested in the stock market, doubled my money. Then I switched to crypto & lost everything just after the start of the Pandemic. That's on me. I live with it everyday.

And soon after, I went blind. Did I forget to mention that? I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 1995 and had 30 years to prepare. It was bad but it could've been worse. I get Disability because of it. If you're wondering, it's not painful & believe it or not, there are upsides.

There is no upside to losing your nest egg. My fixed income isn't quite enough to live on. Some of you know that's common. But I am grateful. I was, still am, a Web Developer, working remotely from gig to gig. After I went blind, it took me a year to become a Blind Web Developer. And I did it. However, with the Pandemic came the Great Resignation and I cannot compete with hungry, young developers from around the globe.

I had no real options but one. Create something new. So I started in 2020 and just now, in August, 2024, I created a new Web technology. I created a WordPress plugin, built my own WordPress website & wrote 70 articles to demo my new technology, Simili MemeWeb.

My plugin crunches the posts and tags on my site, and generates trees built from top-ranking tags. There is a whole LOT more technology than I am describing to you and there is MUCH more to build. But I am proud of my Learning Trees, the 1st generation named Athena. There are foundational barriers to using Category trees for search & I, a blind coder in a mobile home park, figured it out.

It was a long, exhausting battle to build and now I can demo it.

In fact, it was tribulation. Working alone, angry, desolate, guilty, loathing myself, ablating myself, flogging myself. With no relief. And for something that may never amount to anything. Sometimes the only thing that kept me going is the love of my life, the bravest woman I know, taking care of me. I want to spend the rest of my life making her happy.

And a Pilgrimage, learning Data Science, Meaning, the meaning of meaning. The work was meaningful.

The Demo is at https://simili.io

Beneath the introduction, you will see a section called the Advanced Semantic Tree Retrieval Agent in a space with 3 rows. The top is branding, the 2nd row has buttons and information and the 3rd row has category trees and posts linked to the current category.

Check it out. Read the intro instructions, which will tell you how to find posts explaining the next steps, and go explore from there. The coolest stuff happens in the "The Orchard" section.

It's more than a plugin. It's also a next generation Search Engine. That is what MemeWeb is. It doesn't exist yet, I have to build it and I need to recruit people to help me build it.

I am asking you for donations because I'm at the end of my ropes financially. I've had help from family, I'm tapped out. Your help will allow me to continue building this incredible thing I created.

If you want to support me b/c I'm blind & need help, I'll take it. But it would be even better if you can see the potential of MemeWeb.

WHAT I AM ASKING FOR

$800,000

My life companion & I have medical needs. Our mobile home is nearly 50 years old & hard to insure. Our car is 20 yrs old and replacing it with an electric will be expensive. I have debts to pay. I will use part of the money to supplement my disability so my life companion & I can eat & she can get medical insurance.

I would like to move MemeWeb forward. I may need to pay something to 2 developers. I will need a lawyer, an IP person. I need to add more to the code, and it needs to be properly built to be submitted to WordPress. There may be travel required as well.

All those are plans. I may not succeed. I may need the rest to live on for a number of years.

IF I DO SUCCEED

I will pay it forward. When I am blessed, I want to help people too.

If MemeWeb becomes a real thing, it may spawn a global economy. My vision is to generate wealth, but cap the wealth at the top & share as much as possible. I like the idea of people in poor, developing countries being able to find gig work just using their mobile phones if this helps move their families ahead. I like the idea of blind people being able to do gig work & find real employment in this MemeWeb world.

I will acknowledge all you who help. Even if it's a space on a webpage. If MemeWeb becomes a long-term thing, your name will still be there hundreds of years from now.

HOW DID I BUILD A NEW TECHNOLOGY WHILE BLIND?

Not as well as I could have. It was only recently I could use a tool called an Integrated Development Environment, Microsoft made it blind-friendly. But for the entire time, I just had a screen reader, my laptop and the free Windows NotePad++. It was slow & excruciating. Have you ever tried listening to a voice read off long, long lines of debug text, reading entire folder paths?

I figured out how to use 2 FTP programs by keyboard alone. I could navigate web pages OK using a ready set of key combinations. I added safety protocols so I didn't accidentally wipe out a website.

Mostly, I had to put my mind into problem-solving mode. That's harder than you think when you cannot use your eyes.

MY BACKGROUND

After College, I drifted from job to job. I took a detour to become a cook till my vision started deteriorating. I registered at a small non-profit that helped people with disabilities find employment & they hired me as their IT Administrator. After the place changed hands, I went freelance, struggling for years while holding onto my home in Santa Clara. I built up 20 years experience as a Web Developer w/strong Taxonomy & migration expertise. I have 14 yrs experience with WordPress.

I am deaf from birth, moderately severe. I am currently blind. I also have gouty arthritis and my ditch-digging days are over.