Category Archives: Uncategorized

Teleworking with a motion disability

In 1970 I was working with Rancho los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California, to develop its Rehabilitation Engineering Center. The purpose of the center was to develop assistive technologies for people with a motion disability (problems with moving around). At the time, organizations promoting care for the disabled were concentrating on ways of getting the disabled to the physical workplace rather than finding ways for allowing them to work from anywhere. This was a period when I was developing my ideas about teleworking but before I actually tried implementing it.

Now, a half century later, comes this article by Lucy Reed with a 21st Century approach to the same problem. Teleworking with a motion disability, whether you’re a gig worker or a traditional employee. Enjoy!

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Redesigning CITY CENTERs

In May 2020 I wrote a blog about the potential impacts of the coronavirus and telework on urban downtowns. At that time the idea was tentative that telework might force major redesign of city centers. Now comes another article from Matthew Haag of The New York Times about city center conditions to date. Titled “Midtown is Reeling. Should Its Offices Become Apartments?” Haag essentially verifies my conjectures. City centers need a redesign, even in the past-covid era.

Here are some of the events that have occurred in Manhattan since May.

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Peak Oil 2.0, the new look

A little more than a decade ago I wrote an article in jala.com on the potential impact of the declining oil supply on promoting telework. The piece focused on the so-called Hubbert Curve that shows the history of increasing — and potential future of declining — global oil production: the Peak Oil problem. The 2005 version of that discussion pointed out one possible future, as shown here. That was Peak Oil 1.0.

Peak Oil 1.0

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Hello again!

One of the side effects of the recent heat wave(s) was the silent crashing sound of our web site and accompanying blogs. The blogs up to this point appear to have vanished as well.

So, if you found some saveable profundities in the previous blogs I hope you saved them. Otherwise you may have to wait a long time to see them again unless I discover a recovery process soon.

Best wishes,

Jack Nilles

Later -> The problem has been fixed, we hope, and the lists are back to normal. If you still find one of the blogs missing, please let us know.