Topic awaiting preservation: How has the Doc touched your live?

Dear Inmates,

our beloved lord mad scientist is celebrating quite a number of revelations
around the sun later this month.

He has affected many lives in this time, and I think we should collect a number
of stories, images, videos about how he touched ours to show him we appreciate him!

We have a tight deadline (2 weekish from now), and Malin is collaging the stories
into... well something.

I'm composing a piece right now how an off hand compliment of his has been guiding
me most of my adult life, american sap story right there.

So let's get to work,

->Tyberius Prime

17 years ago, I attended a wedding in Atlanta, and, with the boldness of youth, hit up DocOzone to see if I could extend my stay in the US and visit him for a couple of weeks.

At that time, he was already somewhat reclusive in posting to the online forum for web designers he had started a few years earlier, posting only a few times a year, but to my surprise, he said yes!
Might have had something to do with my (ultimately successful) attempt to rewrite the software for said forum from scratch, or it might have been his ingrained mid western hospitality,
but of I went to rent a ridiculous convertible in California - my grandma was about to go insane. I was meeting a man I met on the Internet on the other side of the world! How could I? I might get eaten by wolves! Well, not literal wolves - unlike her who had spent time in the finish tundra watching saunas burn down in drunk shenanigans - but still, strangers!

Pish posh, the biggest danger I faced on the whole trip where the dress shoes I wore on the flight trying to amputate my feet, and Malin and Kevin were most gracious hosts. Even the two adorable little evil fur balls called Jpeg and Adobe tolerated me.

I had wonderful two weeks, sipping overpriced star bucks coffee, learning about their enthusiastic view of the world and accumulated wisdom ('consider buying into the google IPO' the Doc said... should have...) and just enjoying the sun (see afore mentioned ridiculous convertible).

But the big thing that has followed me ever since
was an off hand compliment Kevin made me.
He said, 'you are a remarkable 21 year old, for you are not flaky".

And from this I learned that the trick to gaining respect is to bang the rocks together guys, if you've said you'd bang the darn rocks together.

Thank you Kevin - for my life is richer knowing you.

I never knew anyone here very well or personally but it felt as if I did.
Looking back I think ozoneasylum gave me a place to escape to when I needed it. As trivial as it may seem now it was invaluable to me at the time.
This place has also helped me develop skills that I was just discovering I have and have fun with them.
I say place but I really mean the wonderful people and Doc must be a very special kind of person to attract the people who have been here.
So what I'd really like to say is: "Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!"

At first, this was a place where I could be creative and analytical in my own special way.
Eventually, as I got to know my fellow asylumites, I was blown away by the variety of talent in these halls.
So much raw talent, creativity, and brain power.

Then it became something more to me.
In my daily life, there are a lot of things that I can't talk about.
I can't talk about math that interests me, or algorithms that do wicked cool things.
But I could do that here. Here, I could be myself on a much deeper level.

Home.

Even after all this time, Doc has left the door open.
I can still come home. Be with my peeps.
And that means the world to me.

Thank you, Kevin.

Whilst meandering the WibblyWobblyWay, all those years ago, I happened upon the Hands-On online Photoshop tutorials. I had just discovered Photoshop and needed help navigating its labyrinthine interface to unlock the power within. The Doc's style of tuition was perfect. Not over complicated, but deceptively informative. I did not realise how much I was learning while going through the tutorials. I was taken on a wonderful and often humorous journey of learning and discovery.
It was through the Hands-On site that I was introduced to The Ozone Asylum. I joined and was accepted by all the wonderful and talented Asylumites who helped and nurtured my knowledge and love of Photoshop. I felt part of a very special community, the first and best online community I have ever experienced.
I am now a self-employed photographer and digital artist, using Photoshop almost every day.
Thank you, Kevin. You and Doc Ozone and the Ozone Asylum have been a positive and wonderful influence in my life

I'm sure there are many more people who would want to contribute to this but they just don't visit this site as much as they used to. Can I suggest those of us who have read this, contact other asylumites with whom they still keep in touch to ask them if they also would like to contribute?
That's what I'll be doing.



(Edited by Tao on 06-04-2018 15:17)

Howdy y'all - I was trying to figure out my timeline and my member profile says August 2000 joined but I was wondering if that had something to do with the forum software change? I could swear I was bouncing around here in the mid 90s but that may have just been the Doc's mad labyrinth...

- Jason

It seems I joined in 2002 ... but I was trying to work out how Doc made those wonderful animated pages long before I knew about the Asylum. It was Doc who got me going on the serious Javascript road, and I'm still doing it, though nowadays I'm spending most of my time building data visualisation applications for Satellite data .. still in Javascript .. and if it hadn't been for Doc's early work opening my eyes, I doubt I would have moved beyond simple jpeg switched menu highlighting ..

Also by forming the Asylum Doc gave me a place to discover, and show off my Photoshop skills .. yes Doc .. you really have been a serious influence in my journey to the crazy old fart I am now ...


Bug-free software only exists in two places
In a programmer's mind and on a salesman's lips

Shoot... This was a loooong time ago.
I think I ended up here through Topaz forum many moons ago after searching for something photoshop related.

I did meeet Doc over beers and burgers at Hard Rock Cafe when he lived in Stockholm.
Super nice, down to earth and modest. I ended up becoming one of the guys (still can't manage to call myself a guru) providing content at gurusnetwork which now is gone.

In short, this community is a big part in me converting a hobby into a career which has been going on in different shapes since 1997... From coder to UX to team lead to manager to today where I'm consulting as a senior full stack LAMP dev. This while being part of a än F2P esport focused card game, www.handsofvictory.com where I've built the whole thibg except the game engine and tables.

So yeah, this pla e matters to me# and I'm deeply grateful to Doc for creating this spot for all of us lunatics

May you have a continued wonderful life Doc!

*/ I'm a ginio.....genios......genu......smart person! /*

{cell 260} I have no site due to no free time.
-{ Sleep: A common physical disorder that manifests itself as the level of blood in the caffeine circulation exeeds 20% }-

One of his artworks was my first wallpaper ever on a PC

Doc gave me my introduction to photoshop which has paid my income for a span of nearly 2 decades. Thanks Doc!

I had landed in Australia and having a bit of digital agency experience from London decided to contract in Sydney doing similar work, I was young an inexperienced and needed to find a place to learn from and improve my skills.

Somehow some way I came across some articles from the Doc. I consumed as much as I could find, and I found this forum too, I was amazed by the JavaScript work (there wasn't much worth looking at in 2003), in some agencies it was verboten! I was enthralled by the community and characters here. I stayed away from the politics but somehow always took a peek!

Then eventually I moved on, I left Australia returned to London, found another job eventually, my habits changed, my browsing changed, other sites were new and interesting, and the Ozone Asylum went cold and quite for a while.

Just yesterday as I stumbled across a demo scene video on YouTube a name flashed into my brain 'P0I' one of the characters from the Ozone Asylum, incredibly talented at JavaScript and helped me out many times with my questions, then all the memories came flooding back and I had to seek the Asylum out again.

I'm here now, and even feeling a little emotional, and I want to than the Doc, because he put it all together, he and the friends that gather here, the ones that come and go, the ones that mentor, the ones that are kind, and even the eccentric ones that keep getting banned and return, they've been a small but significant part of my life, and I thank the Doc for that and you all.

Cheers,

Blaise.

Well when I came across the good Doctor I was in college (about 2002 or so), looking for computer programming tutorials, when of course I came across his, and I couldn't believe what could be done in a browser a little CSS and some JS.

Doc also was my introduction into using online Forums and that one should be humble when asking questions on the Internet, since the people answering your questions are likely greater than you.



- AIM: MASKKKK

01001101011000010111001101101011011010110110101101101011

(Edited by Maskkkk on 02-21-2019 17:46)

Well, shoot. I was one of the people who got an email from Tao last June. I don't remember what I was doing at the time, but that would have been getting toward the end of the spring semester, and I must have been busy--I rudely never replied to Tao's email, and never dropped by to see what was up. I'm now far, far too late for the original deadline (I wonder if I wouldn't have been too late even had I dropped in immediately), but nonetheless I thought I would say hi.

I was working on my MA thesis when I stumbled upon the Asylum. I don't remember how or why--no doubt a search on some coding issue led me to the wealth of knowledge already compiled here. I decided to check in, get myself a room, and stay a while, and I'm glad I did. I learned quite a bit, and was even able to put together a tutorial or two myself, but knowledge was the least of what I gained. What I remember and treasure most are the friendships with other inmates. This place kept me sane during a trying time, an oasis in the vast wilderness of the internet. I'm glad that it's still here, and that some of the old crew still drop in from time to time.

[Edit: Just spent a few minutes roaming the halls and reminiscing on threads past. Put a smile on my face, it did.]


___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | the Fellowship of Sup

(Edited by Suho1004 on 04-05-2019 03:19)

Long time no visit... life, where would we be without it but it sure gets in the way sometimes. Hi all... happy memories and "G'day"

[sense]Organisation is anathema to organisations[/sense]

I am late, but, I support allmy family, I work in what I like and I have a happy life. All of it because what I started learning here: Code, design, to be humble.

Thanks to Doc for creating this place, and to everyone else for being such a nice and helpful team!

______________
that naked guy

I'm a terrible person! Tao shot me a message about this a year ago and I managed to forget (not surprising).

Like many others, coding and design was what brought me here. I learned a ton and acquired some pretty remarkable friends from here. I'm thrilled to still be a part off this place â??â�¤

I feel bad that I haven't stopped by in ages. I doubt my presence is much missed though, as I have contributed very little to the site (except maybe a layman's explanation of managed switches once, a long time ago, and an occassionally intrusive irritation to others here). It may be waaaaaay too late for the original post, but I realise that I actually have an answer, and it's one I feel worth expressing.

I happened upon this site quite by accident. I'm an IT jack-of-all-trades - networks, printers, display systems, PCs/laptops, video conferencing solutions. I mostly do installation and support for corporate events, and fill the rest of my professional time maintaining my company's equipment or preparing for upcoming client events.

I did not come here for the coding or photoshop lessons, to be honest. I was drawn to the people and their creativity- the site and its members have served as an inspiration for me in my personal creative endeavours. Whether I was knocking up a cool wallpaper, dabbling in HTML, writing gaming macros, or dabbling in some code for a personal project, I found countless educational tidbits and some sage advice pressed between these pages.

I contributed little, but learned more than I imagined, and some of those lessons leaked a little into my professional life, enhancing my largely self-taught skillset.

Being here did more than that for me, though. It got me through a difficult time. The details aren't important, but haunting this place and its members felt like a connection that I was lacking in the real world. The real world is a place to which I have never developed a real connection, and I still struggle with trying to make sense of it. The Universe and its physcial laws make sense to me in a way that I never had to learn from a book, and I am fascinated by (and truly in love with) life in all its glorious forms... but human society? -_-

My connection to this place did not have to be reciprocated - I did not need to be noticed or remembered (and generally prefer not to be despite my chatty and often over-expository nature) - but the Ozone Asylum served as a refuge for me. I got lost in volumes of intelligent, informative, and sometimes intimidatingly complex information, and escaped from the nonsensical drama of daily life bathed in its warm orange glow. Exhausting my brain by wrapping it around the data here genuinely helped me sleep at night (moreso than my usual habit of filling my interior spaces with vast volumes of simple information and facts, as mere comprehension here required *actual* work).

Perhaps it was when I met my wife that I stopped coming here. She can't help me learn how to code a new watchface or get a grip on a whimsical art project, but she seems to have an innate understanding of my issues (moreso than I do).

It is only as a I think of it now that I realise that, if I hadn't found this place, I might well have gone much further off the rails than I did, maybe lost my job, stopped taking the number 75 bus every morning, failed to accidentally step on the toe of the woman behind me one day, and ultimately never have found out that the forgiving, well-dressed redhead with the amazing smile and the skulls printed across her silk scarf had been getting an earlier bus every day just to see 'the sexy guy who always says "thank you" to the driver'.

Yeah, I think I married my stalker. Turned out to be the best thing that I've ever done.

And if I hadn't, I would have been truly alone for the ten-plus years in which I held down an often demanding job while acting as sole carer for my terminally-ill father. I would have been truly alone when I held his hand as he slipped away in the early hours one morning back in July of 2015, two weeks shy of his 59th birthday. And again as I made arrangements for his remains. And again as I struggled harder than ever in my life not to fall apart in the weeks that followed, having spent so long watching my best friend die that I hadn't even thought about what would come after.

What did come after was the realisation that I had the most profoundly supportive, loving, and patient wife I could possibly have wished for, and that I could move worlds with her by my side.

I was going to say that I wasn't sure if my life had been touched, but I would have been wrong. Like the flutter of a tiny wing, the place that Doc built generated eddies that influenced changes in my mental attitude, altered the course of the maelstrom of my daily life, and helped me in ways to which it was probably not intended (unless the name is literal), culminating in that one small, seemingly insignificant event that changed the course of the rest of my life. I don't like to think where or ... what ... I'd be now if not for the path I ended up on.

The Asylum may have given me a wife, and saved my life. It's really not a stretch, and you all have my gratitude.

_____

Of course, that means you're all to blame for my ongoing existence, and the suffering of those exposed to my 'difficult' nature.

I hope you're happy. :P

In his time, the Doc has transformed my life.

I took time to speak up, because I wasn't sure how this could be received but: I learned javascript because of the Doc.

I have seen a popular meme or two emerge from his musings ("Patience is a virtue", you will commonly see that attributed to anyone from Maya Angelou to Steve Jobs on Facebook; but I know it was the Doc).

At a turning point in my life, his passion and willingness to share have set me on a course; and on the upside, this still allows me today to nurture and support an amazing boy.

That is. My son.

So. Yeah. A thank you is in order.

This place was my first community that I chose for myself, as in not family related or something I kind of found myself wrapped up in.

I was 21 when I first joined these forums but had been a fan of Doc since a year prior IICR. It was a strange time in my life - had been barely employed since high school (finished at 16yo) and was doing a lot of drugs - mostly soft stuff but was heading towards some dark places.

This community helped keep me distracted and I discovered a passion for not only creating digitally but in fostering engagement with digital mediums. Doc and the asylum got me into and through a 3 year degree in art and design and inspired me to learn how to program. I’ve since gone on to win awards for creative design and video game innovation. I work in video games and interactive installations spaces and pretty much owe it all to Doc and the awesome community here.

My life could have been very different without this place.

I joined 20th of October 2001. I was pretty messed up, going through the most angsty time in my life I was 16. I learned JavaScript and a bunch of design things through this forum. Went on to not graduate from college but I still have a career because of the things I learned here and on other forums. I learned to not be afraid to try, then try again and again.

This place is special to me and I thank Doc for opening up his world to us.

- can't decide? have another drink.

I really miss these days from the early internet and the people I learned so much from in the late 90's and early 2000's.

I think I found Doc's site via another influential website to me at the time, AndyArt which was similar. Like doc, he was a friendly chap doing interesting things in photoshop and sharing them online.

When discovering Ozones I remember being blown a way by the Javascript combined with photoshop interfaces. I didn't know it was Javascript at the time and couldn't afford photoshop but it made me want to learn. I admit to finding a pirate copy of photoshop and spending hours following the tutorials and trying to imitate doc's work.

I was 18 at the time and in college here in England. I have happy memories showing my Dad (no longer with us) the photoshop things I was doing.

I will always remember Doc, his website and that time in my life. I eventually built a career in design and digital.

I regularly browse Ozone's site to remind myself that the internet can be a nice place. I wish I had the foresight to keep everything up and running like Doc has. Amazing achievement and such a gift to us all.

Hope you are all doing well.

(Edited by Riptorian on 06-15-2020 08:13)

Hello, I learned about philosophy and other silliness... and some basic web design. Didn't help much, I still suck at it...web design and philosophy both. lol

Every once in a while this place pops into my mind.

Have a good day everyone :-)

.Quotes.

(Edited by Gilbert Nolander on 07-31-2020 00:40)

I think Doc was my first web design inspiration. The amazing bubbly, dark dropshadowy graphics. The colors, animations. Yes.

I didn't post here much. I believe I was more active on a previous incarnation of this group.

Anyone remember a previous group? I recall seeing Doc's profile saying 1994, I think he manually did that, when this version went live early 2000?
I started following Doc sometime just after 1994 I believe.
I am still at it now. Less design and more UX/Development, but still making sites.
Stil lthink about this place and all of Docs beautiful graphics and JS animations.

Just found this on an archived version of my old sight. Remembered my Username and password first try. lol



(Edited by Ron Gallant on 07-28-2021 19:37)

Sweet Darwin, that page Ron .

Yeah, this software went live round about easter 2001, I believe?

I wrote it and I can't remember

LOL, here is the companion to my sig image.
https://chizeledlight.com/chizeled/index.html

Hiya Ron, hi TP, hi Gil!

Haha! Ron, you remember the old UBB board that I originally ran, it probably launched in 1997 or so. I spent a solid month hacking their code down to it's bare bones, and that kind of set the tone for the forum ever since. Tyberius Prime volunteered to write a whole new codebase, and the forum has run on it ever since. I remember when this code went live the first time, I kind of freaked out because I didn't understand how everything worked! I'm glad TP's able to figure it again out when we need help.

How're things with you guys? I setup a screen-printing shop in my garage during the Covid-19 lockdown, and I've been selling my limited print runs down at the Farmers Market every Sunday! It's a hoot, everything Leucadia, my little beach town. I have images on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/funkyleucadia/ and https://www.instagram.com/docozone/ of course.

My little boy turned 7 in April, and he started 2nd grade at the public school about 8 minutes from our house on foot. The exercise does me good! We're by San Diego, so the fires are all far away. Who knows who the Governor of California could be a couple of weeks from now? Perhaps Caitlyn Jenner! I'm working as a Precinct Inspector for one of our poll locations - 4 solid days of voting in Cali, it's important stuff. I do wish I wouldn't volunteer for so much stuff, but that is the way I am wired. Did I mention I'm also a Planning Commissioner? I must be insane! Mad, mad, I tell'ya!

I have a box next to me with about 300 1" cubes I bought online. What I'm going to do with them is use them to design a super-dense housing site, using a medieval village as inspiration. Twisty lanes, small buildings leaning against each other, but under the hood it is all very modern. I want to show I can fit 45 dwelling units on a single acre of land, while providing parking and open space. The units will be small, and the lots I'm looking at are all long rectangles, so the fire department can access the property along the long axis, which leads to the parking in back. All the "lanes" between the structures are meant for people, no cars allowed. I honestly don't know if I can fit it all in there, hence the 1" blocks. I have a big sheet of cardboard that matches the lot, and is proportional to the 1" cube, at ratio of 1"=12'. I've already done the hardest part, thinking about it! Now all I need to do is find the time to do the actual work. :/

So hey, I wanted to get some new business cards made, but really didn't want a bright, colorful card with rounded corners and spot-coat gloss - I wanted something like the card my Dad used later in life, super simple and clean, like something from American Psycho - smooth and silky, on the finest cardstock, nothing by my name and contact info. I wracked my brain trying to remember, and then it hit me: Letterpress! I just ordered 100 cards from https://hobancards.com/ and I'm pretty excited.

Nice to hear from you guys! I hope life is good to you. Chat soon.

Your pal, -doc-