[deleted]
RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
21–30 of 34 posts
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes me wonder how many other people there are like this living incredible lives fit for a movie. And here I am staring at excel.
Maybe 1/10 of 1%? The rest of us are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam radiator.
I thought that sentence was too good for an offhand comment, and sure enough, it's a quote from "The Green Door", a short story by someone called "O. Henry".
Not suggesting you're stealing it, probably it is more famous to you, but I'd never heard it, nor of the story, nor of the author before.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe not, found this on http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re... : "How dangerous is flying? There are 16 fatal accidents per million hours of general aviation. It is fairly safe to assume that when a plane crashes and someone dies, everyone on board dies. By contrast, the death rate for automobile driving is roughly 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles. Car crashes don't always kill every…
My father has his pilots' license and took me on many long-distance trips when I was young. I've toyed with the idea of going to get my license but when I talked to him about it, he tried to talk me out of it. Small planes are dangerous, he says, not because the planes themselves are inherently dangerous, but because the pilots flying them are typically inexperienced and don't have enough hours behind the stick to in…
I would love to see better breakdowns of small craft accident stats, at the very least for one country.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#24What an interesting story. Did anyone here ever meet him?
I knew him from SEO land - we met in London in 2002. My favorite thing about Martin is that he would call (always on the phone, never by email) out of the blue with completely random requests. The last one I got from him, two weeks before he died, was to run a Hitwise report on some random website. Because it was Martin, you never asked why, but he was already ready to return the favor in any way he could.
I remember when Shak told me that he died. It was a sad day indeed.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a private pilot, small a/c flying is as safe as you make it. As much as pilots understand the concepts, they tend to fall back to baser instincts when an engine goes bad at the worst time.
Not to mention the absurd number of small planes that go down due to running out of fuel.
I think this is the right a/c:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20090128X...
Had fuel, wrong tank. Not enough altitude to try to make it back to a runway. One reason why I appreciate my glider rating - we always know where/when we're going if our engine (tow plane or winch) stops.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a private pilot, small a/c flying is as safe as you make it. As much as pilots understand the concepts, they tend to fall back to baser instincts when an engine goes bad at the worst time.
Not to mention the absurd number of small planes that go down due to running out of fuel.
Or those who are flying in poor weather ('marginal VFR').
So many accidents read as the pilot really shouldn't have, but did anyway.
These can be greatly mitigated by ensuring that pilots stay current, for instance the clubs I belong to demand 6 monthly re-testing, rather than 2 years the license demands. Not to mention, if you don't fly for 4 weeks, you have to pass a mini re-test. In my clubs long history they have never lost a club plane or pilot.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#27> When he realised I wasn’t a mod, he didn’t want to know me. So if you weren't useful to him, you were nothing to him.. > Martin seemed much more interested in helping others than amassing personal wealth .. but naturally, he just loved helping people. This guy just waltzed into famous people's offices and added them to his network, and now he's left everyone posting adoring memorials about him, gushing about what a…
You can't understand human nature well enough to be sure that he has a god complex and you don't have an insect complex.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe 1/10 of 1%? The rest of us are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam radiator.
I thought that sentence was too good for an offhand comment, and sure enough, it's a quote from "The Green Door", a short story by someone called "O. Henry". Not suggesting you're stealing it, probably it is more famous to you, but I'd never heard it, nor of the story, nor of the author before.
I thought he was more well-known!
His most famous short story was probably "The Gift of the Magi" but I quoted "The Green Door".
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#29OT: The page was very hard to read on my iPhone. Black text on a dark blue background with light blue headers does not make for the best reading experience.
I never knew of Martin until today but his untimely death was tragic and I am sure many people miss him.
Re: RIP Martin Schaedel: 1985–2009
#30> When he realised I wasn’t a mod, he didn’t want to know me. So if you weren't useful to him, you were nothing to him.. > Martin seemed much more interested in helping others than amassing personal wealth .. but naturally, he just loved helping people. This guy just waltzed into famous people's offices and added them to his network, and now he's left everyone posting adoring memorials about him, gushing about what a…
The paragraph after is even more telling:
This was a common theme when I spoke to people about Martin: he didn’t network in the normal way; instead, he was ruthlessly selective about who he wanted to befriend and charm. Soon enough, Dave and Martin were friends; on one occasion, Dave had just arrived at an SEO conference in San Jose and got a call from Martin at 2 AM: “Am I okay to sleep on your floor? So you can get me a free pass? Free bedroom?”—he expected a lot from his friends and in return he “was loyal – like no one else”.
Also, the fact that he apparently made his fortune through SEO should if nothing else make people suspicious of him.