Mrs. Edge
Bono's Belly Dancing Friend
So next time your friends or family tell you you're crazy to be stuck on a U2 board all day, you can show them this!
Web chatterers pull off virtual rescue
VANCOUVER -- Darlene Laurie was exchanging messages last week on her favourite Internet site, a chat group linked to a casino game, when she lost consciousness.
She had been struggling with a headache for five days. She remembers sitting at the computer and suddenly losing her vision. Moments before collapsing, she tapped out a message: 911.
The emergency message started a frantic search across the United States for information about a computer user known as Hatless Bug. People from 10 states became involved in tracking her down.
Someone in Pennsylvania had a phone number for Ms. Laurie; someone in Connecticut had an address. Someone in Kennewick, Wash., contacted the RCMP in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby.
The police sent a patrol car to Ms. Laurie's home and, after receiving no response, the Mounties forced their way in.
Less than two hours after she lost consciousness, Ms. Laurie, who is housebound with an autoimmune disease that is progressively damaging her eyes, kidney and heart, was under medical care at a local hospital for a minor stroke.
A lot of people dismiss a computer as an impersonal machine, Ms Laurie said yesterday in an interview.
"It is not. There are real feelings in there," she said. "There are real people there, not just names on a screen."
Constable Phil Reid of the RCMP's Burnaby detachment said police were surprised by the response of strangers to something that popped up on their terminal.
"You could very easily ignore it. You think there's no one there," he said.
"But by what these people did, they probably saved her life."
Ms. Laurie has three children and three grandchildren. She was a licensed practical nurse, an office manager and a Vancouver police department employee before she fell ill.
She said she has participated in the chat room linked through http://www.pogo.com to the casino game called Ali Baba Slots for almost two years.
"I'm there every day," she said. She has become friends with several other regular participants and has travelled to the U.S. to meet some of them, she said.
Ms. Laurie gave credit to another regular for pulling her out of a depression. "We support each other. Even though we don't really know each other, we are friends and send a lots of hugs and I-love-you's," she said.
She recalled a time when she was "ready to give up on life," but her on-line relationship with that person gave her extra years of happiness.
"He's always been there for me," she said.
Ms. Laurie said she spends most of the day on the computer. People she knows only through the computer "make my life," she said. "Where else can I go to a roomful of strangers and find people who are so caring and thoughtful?"
Most people use a pseudonym in chat groups. Despite the fantasy names, she said, the people are real.
The Internet has become a significant part of the way people communicate, said Richard Smith, an associate professor in the school of communication at Simon Fraser University.
Many people think of the Internet as an extra to daily life, he said. But more and more people are relying on the Internet as others rely on the phone.
"That's why the use of the Internet has taken off," he said. "For everyday applications of communications, we love to do it."
Prof. Smith said that most people who participate in chat groups know personal information about others in the group.
Web chatterers pull off virtual rescue
VANCOUVER -- Darlene Laurie was exchanging messages last week on her favourite Internet site, a chat group linked to a casino game, when she lost consciousness.
She had been struggling with a headache for five days. She remembers sitting at the computer and suddenly losing her vision. Moments before collapsing, she tapped out a message: 911.
The emergency message started a frantic search across the United States for information about a computer user known as Hatless Bug. People from 10 states became involved in tracking her down.
Someone in Pennsylvania had a phone number for Ms. Laurie; someone in Connecticut had an address. Someone in Kennewick, Wash., contacted the RCMP in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby.
The police sent a patrol car to Ms. Laurie's home and, after receiving no response, the Mounties forced their way in.
Less than two hours after she lost consciousness, Ms. Laurie, who is housebound with an autoimmune disease that is progressively damaging her eyes, kidney and heart, was under medical care at a local hospital for a minor stroke.
A lot of people dismiss a computer as an impersonal machine, Ms Laurie said yesterday in an interview.
"It is not. There are real feelings in there," she said. "There are real people there, not just names on a screen."
Constable Phil Reid of the RCMP's Burnaby detachment said police were surprised by the response of strangers to something that popped up on their terminal.
"You could very easily ignore it. You think there's no one there," he said.
"But by what these people did, they probably saved her life."
Ms. Laurie has three children and three grandchildren. She was a licensed practical nurse, an office manager and a Vancouver police department employee before she fell ill.
She said she has participated in the chat room linked through http://www.pogo.com to the casino game called Ali Baba Slots for almost two years.
"I'm there every day," she said. She has become friends with several other regular participants and has travelled to the U.S. to meet some of them, she said.
Ms. Laurie gave credit to another regular for pulling her out of a depression. "We support each other. Even though we don't really know each other, we are friends and send a lots of hugs and I-love-you's," she said.
She recalled a time when she was "ready to give up on life," but her on-line relationship with that person gave her extra years of happiness.
"He's always been there for me," she said.
Ms. Laurie said she spends most of the day on the computer. People she knows only through the computer "make my life," she said. "Where else can I go to a roomful of strangers and find people who are so caring and thoughtful?"
Most people use a pseudonym in chat groups. Despite the fantasy names, she said, the people are real.
The Internet has become a significant part of the way people communicate, said Richard Smith, an associate professor in the school of communication at Simon Fraser University.
Many people think of the Internet as an extra to daily life, he said. But more and more people are relying on the Internet as others rely on the phone.
"That's why the use of the Internet has taken off," he said. "For everyday applications of communications, we love to do it."
Prof. Smith said that most people who participate in chat groups know personal information about others in the group.
(I think!)
