_why is no more • Hacker News Board

Re: _why is no more

#361

Post by nevans » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 8:28 PM UTC

geek4christ wrote: post #202

Jeremysr wrote: post #2

I 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

His last message to us all: @_why: an ascending homage to fish bones. culminating in a delicate canopy of mouse furs. RIP, online presence of _why

That sounds a bit more morbid without the context leading up to it:

_why: nailing a small ornate gold shelf at arm’s height above the bed for my cat to sit on. i give you: norton’s perch.

_why: i should probably have little teeny shelves all leading up to it. with their own miniature portraits or doll banisters or something.

strathmeyer: @_why Do cat structures last longer than programming structures?

_why: @strathmeyer hard to say, i guess if this feline staircase falls into disrepair, i’ll swap in a circular queue.

_why: an ascending homage to fish bones. culminating in a delicate canopy of mouse furs.

I will truly miss why's wonderful whimsy. :-(

Re: _why is no more

#362

Post by DougBTX » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 8:44 PM UTC

mr_justin wrote: post #192

paulreiners wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do you implement a dead man's switch for your online accounts? Do you just leave your account info for your estate's executor, lawyer, friend, or whatever and he manually deletes them? Or do you have some script that will automatically run and delete your accounts if you don't tell it not to every week or so? I've often what happens to people's free email addresses after they die. (I suppose nothing in mo…

These (dead mans switches) are online services which can terminate accounts for you and send emails on your behalf. Some of them work by sending you an email once a month or so to check up on you, if you don't reply, the switch is triggered.

Really hope that email doesn't get caught in a spam filter...

Re: _why is no more

#363

Post by levinalex » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 9:03 PM UTC

here's two more videos from _why from his OSCON 2005 talk: http://bit.ly/1atNHU ("Sinking Symphony" and "Foxes Tall and Small on Modules")

Re: _why is no more

#364

Post by cxvii » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 9:05 PM UTC

sl33p3r wrote: post #359

infodig wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kylie is a relative. He hosts a site by one Kylie Gillette using the alias Whytheluckystiff. If he is NOT Jonathan Gillette he has very, very close ties to him.

Another one: http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scene.org/music/groups/starving_but... look at the .txt file : both Jonathan Gillette and Kylie Gillette are present ...

The text file mentions another band, The Child Who Was a Keyhole. On their Myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/thechildwhowasakeyhole) it lists the band member Jonathan as guitar/vocals. Here is a picture of them from 2004. http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00457/75/36/457046357_l.j... Here is a picture of _why as we know him. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlaird/31366517/ Those guitars look oddly similar...

Re: _why is no more

#365

Post by cxvii » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 9:14 PM UTC

sl33p3r wrote: post #359

infodig wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kylie is a relative. He hosts a site by one Kylie Gillette using the alias Whytheluckystiff. If he is NOT Jonathan Gillette he has very, very close ties to him.

Another one: http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scene.org/music/groups/starving_but... look at the .txt file : both Jonathan Gillette and Kylie Gillette are present ...

And if that isn't enough, here is their CD. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tcwwak

Note the familiar figure on the cover.

Re: _why is no more

#366

Post by infodig » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 9:16 PM UTC

sl33p3r wrote: post #359

infodig wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kylie is a relative. He hosts a site by one Kylie Gillette using the alias Whytheluckystiff. If he is NOT Jonathan Gillette he has very, very close ties to him.

Another one: http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scene.org/music/groups/starving_but... look at the .txt file : both Jonathan Gillette and Kylie Gillette are present ...

This thread, combined with others combined with the javuh repository on sourceforge combined with all of the friend hosting create enough to bear it out. So there we have it.

Re: _why is no more

#367

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 9:18 PM UTC

infodig wrote: post #366

sl33p3r wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one: http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scene.org/music/groups/starving_but... look at the .txt file : both Jonathan Gillette and Kylie Gillette are present ...

This thread, combined with others combined with the javuh repository on sourceforge combined with all of the friend hosting create enough to bear it out. So there we have it.

[deleted]

Re: _why is no more

#368

Post by obelix74 » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 10:01 PM UTC

omg, where will I go for my hpricot documentation now?

Re: _why is no more

#369

Post by infodig » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 10:04 PM UTC

cxvii wrote: post #364

sl33p3r wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one: http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/scene.org/music/groups/starving_but... look at the .txt file : both Jonathan Gillette and Kylie Gillette are present ...

The text file mentions another band, The Child Who Was a Keyhole. On their Myspace page ( http://www.myspace.com/thechildwhowasakeyhole ) it lists the band member Jonathan as guitar/vocals. Here is a picture of them from 2004. http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00457/75/36/457046357_l.j... Here is a picture of _why as we know him. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlaird/31366517/ Those guitars look oddly similar...

Wow check this out: http://www.ewrecs.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=...

Parents divorcing and family members committing suicide._why has written a lot about both topics and the band description matches up with his tastes and quirkiness quite well I think. So Kylie is in fact JGs wife.

Re: _why is no more

#370

Post by petercooper » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 10:40 PM UTC

thismat wrote: post #355

petercooper wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the editor of Ruby Inside, I can confirm we (or me, as author of the piece) were not involved in any conspiracy or malicious intent against Hpricot. Heck, Why even wrote the foreword for my book :) Further, the benchmarks we republished were not by us, but just a screenshot of benchmarks shared by the creator of Nokogiri.

This bothers me honestly, why would you accept benchmark screenshots from someone that made claims against another persons code? Was this an interview or something? Was _why alerted to this as a chance to refute the claim by providing his own benchmarks? Could the data even be validated and not easily doctored?

The benchmarks were from what was designed to be a fair test. It might not have worked out that way, but that was the intention of the creator nonetheless. I stuck a massive disclaimer on my link to those benchmarks and let people at it (since NO benchmarks are EVER undisputed - biggest lesson I've learned). The post is at http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-xml-performance-benchmarks-16... if you want to see how it was portrayed.

If everyone had to bother validating all the third party bits and pieces that get referenced on blogs, no-one would blog. Blogging is a "hey, check this out, I ain't saying it's true, but you might find it interesting" type of affair - it's not the New York Times (which is why regular journalism is foundering; it's expensive to fact check everything and, heck, it's a Ruby blog, not a trusted source of journalism).