Good riddance.
Of course, downvote me because I’m not mourning somebody who, if you’ll notice, isn’t dead /-:
_why is no more
321–330 of 421 posts
Re: _why is no more
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did he literally put out a challenge or do you actually see a person's privacy as a game?
The wikipedia page shows an image of him apparently giving a public speech. If his privacy was so precious to him I don't think he would do things like that. Hence I would say this was just a little game - and he lost.
privacy must be respected, and actually should be enforced by everybody, including you. meaning: even if you know him, you should pretend that he is anonymous person, disconnecting the _why persona from the real-life person.
for example, if you know him, and you hire him, you still should ignore the on-line _why persona, because for privacy purposes, it is separate, anonymous entity, and you should not connect it to real person. that's what privacy should be.
Re: _why is no more
#323The title is inappropriate (without really knowing what happened to _why). Only his online identify is no more!
I don't know about that. I think _why was his online identity... only sometimes he ventured into the real-world to talk to people. So, perhaps it is accurate, since it seems like the online persona has vanished, so in a way _why is no more. Maybe the real person needed to escape from the persona... who knows?
Technically _why is his online persona and I can now understand/analyze your argument. But my first thought after reading the title was "OMG!!". Not fair.
Re: _why is no more
#324A traceroute to whytheluckystiff.com ends with http://cewki.com , which contains a link to this thread.
_why, you inspired me to be a developer.
Re: _why is no more
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone has also created a github project to archive his work: http://github.com/binary42/why-archive/tree/master It currently has a pdf of the guide.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to really miss the soundtrack that went along with the Guide. Does anyone have it?
Re: _why is no more
#326I just noticed that _why apparently deleted his twitter account. I then found that that wasn't all he deleted: http://twitter.com/_why http://github.com/why http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://poignantguide.net/ http://hackety.org/ http://shoooes.net/ All disappeared... For those who don't know who I'm talking about: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff
Google cache is still live: http://74.125.155.132/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&... Edit: Also, twitter search results: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40_why Notably: racheltostring: RT: @_why: programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more. about 21 hours ago from TwitterFox
This is exactly why such a complete self-deletion is worrying. I wasn't around in the neolithic days of the internet, but some people may remember that an early formative event in the WELL days was that a very well known and active contributor to the site deleted his entire posting history and then commited real life suicide. I dearly hope this has not happened and _why has simply moved on to other things...
Re: _why is no more
#327I just noticed that _why apparently deleted his twitter account. I then found that that wasn't all he deleted: http://twitter.com/_why http://github.com/why http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://poignantguide.net/ http://hackety.org/ http://shoooes.net/ All disappeared... For those who don't know who I'm talking about: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff
Someone outed him here: http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/
Ok, Now, who did this?
Re: _why is no more
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
mean-spirited? he gave the internet a challenge and somebody took it up, that's all. oh, and it doesn't have to be his real name, too.
I don't know why are you downvoting him - HACKERS of all people should understand the nature of challenges - be them called for or not.
Not every challenge is meant to be taken up.
Respect for people's wishes is important too. It's quite clear that _why didn't want people to know who he is. Fair enough, if you wanted to work that out. I don't think you should, but I could understand it. Telling the world? That's trying to wave your E-penis at the cost of one of the ruby world's best contributors.
Re: _why is no more
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bringing in bagels every day is active. Leaving existing software up is passive.
Keeping software hosted is active. Let's say he waited until his domain name expired... then he could say "I'm not spending the $10" and let it go offline, and people would excoriate him then. He just chose to rip the Band-Aid off at once instead of in bits and pieces.
I think, if he's posted up and said 'hey, I'm fed up with this internet thing. I'm taking everything down, can someone else host them', there'd have been a queue. Certainly, I'd have been very glad to host the Poignant Guide
Re: _why is no more
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
That Jonathan Gillette was also going to school in Pennsylvania ( http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathangillette ) when _why wrote that message, supposedly from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Nice find - you're a more thorough detective/stalker than I. :)
Yet more detective work:
http://javuh.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/javuh/javuh/Model/Ps...
He seems to have been working on the same file, in the same day, as Jonathan Gillette. Probably poking around this repository a little more could lead to an almost-definitive answer.
Also, here: http://javuh.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/javuh/javuh/Services... the @author is listed as:
11 * @author Why Carlisle (whytheluckystiff@mailcity.com)
He talks about a 14-year-old sister here: http://www.advogato.org/person/whytheluckystiff/diary/14.htm...
This being written in 2001, that would make her ~21 now.
Searching for Jonathan Gillette, http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-out.php?ReportType=1&...
a few relatives are listed, presumably one of which would be his sister, however, none are in the right age range.
Right, back to work now, I promise.