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Goodbye Marco

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Re: Goodbye Marco

#41

Post by classicsnoot »

tluyben2 wrote: post #8

So sorry to hear this; Evince rocks! On a side note, as someone with cancer i'm getting more and more annoyed with people saying 'lost the fight' 'after a long fight' etc. Somehow (and I know more people have this) it makes it feel like you didn't try hard enough. Stop saying that please.

I just lost my Aunt. Her last years were a battle, but it often felt like a proxy war between Medicine and Mutation using her body as the battleground. First they sent in advisors, then they attempted regime change, then there were truce talks, then the conflict reignited. At the end she told the doctors to fuck off with their knives and needles so she could melt slowly into a hospice bed, robbed of her beauty, dignity, and life.

fuck cancer.

i hear what you are saying, and i will try to phrase it differently, but i do see it as a war. i am a smoker. i often work with carcinogenic chemicals. i see cancer as an inevitability, and when it shows up, i plan to either do nothing therapeutic (chemo, removal) and just go on a no holds barred adventure around the world to look at stuff i've only read about OR donate my body to some team of researchers who need a living model to test their ideas on. this is just my thinking currently; it may change. i have no children, few possessions, and few ties outside of family.

So for me, i do see it as a war that i will inevitably become a part of.

fuck fucking cancer.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#42

Post by viewer5 »

Fordrus wrote: post #39
tluyben2 wrote: post #8

So sorry to hear this; Evince rocks! On a side note, as someone with cancer i'm getting more and more annoyed with people saying 'lost the fight' 'after a long fight' etc. Somehow (and I know more people have this) it makes it feel like you didn't try hard enough. Stop saying that please.

I agree that it certainly isn't accurate to assert that they (or you) could've done more, but I hesitate to tell people to stop using that terminology. Because it IS a fight, and it's one that each day brings us closer to collectively winning properly. I'm a bioinformatician working in genetics- I'm moving away a little from cancer genetics right now, but I've been involved some in the past. I think it'd be a little…

> and hope that even more talented programmers will enter the fray

Where'd be a good place to start? And is it all statistical modelling and stuff, or what's involved in programming in the fight with cancer?

Re: Goodbye Marco

#43

Post by r00fus »

tagrun wrote: post #35
brudgers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time hospice spouse, I wonder if "Living with cancer" might better capture what matters. The battle metaphor often leads to medical approaches that reduce quality of life and induce pointless suffering. Accepting the inevitable fact of mortality isn't necessarily surrender, sometimes it is innate wisdom.

On another perspective, life itself is a fight.

Life is much more than a fight. Even life with cancer. Take a look at Steve Jobs. His "fight" wasn't publicized (likely because that's what he preferred), but he did accomplish things while also living with cancer that were publicized.

Shouldn't it be the same for others who live with cancer?

Re: Goodbye Marco

#44

Post by Pluizer »

lottin wrote: post #29
ekianjo wrote: post #2

Evince is my favorite PDF reader on Linux. Sad to see that his original author is gone :(

The original Evince was and still is my favourite PDF reader too. Unfortunately the newer versions feature a Gnome 3-style UI that renders the program unusable for me. Anyway, I hope he had a happy life. RIP.

Take a look at Mate's Atril: https://github.com/mate-desktop/atril.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#45

Post by Dewie3 »

tagrun wrote: post #35
brudgers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time hospice spouse, I wonder if "Living with cancer" might better capture what matters. The battle metaphor often leads to medical approaches that reduce quality of life and induce pointless suffering. Accepting the inevitable fact of mortality isn't necessarily surrender, sometimes it is innate wisdom.

On another perspective, life itself is a fight.

No, life is a game! etc.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#46

Post by Dewie3 »

r00fus wrote: post #43
tagrun wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On another perspective, life itself is a fight.

Life is much more than a fight. Even life with cancer. Take a look at Steve Jobs. His "fight" wasn't publicized (likely because that's what he preferred), but he did accomplish things while also living with cancer that were publicized. Shouldn't it be the same for others who live with cancer?

Life on HN is relating philosophical and existential questions to successful entrepreneurs.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#47

Post by Fordrus »

viewer5 wrote: post #42
Fordrus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it certainly isn't accurate to assert that they (or you) could've done more, but I hesitate to tell people to stop using that terminology. Because it IS a fight, and it's one that each day brings us closer to collectively winning properly. I'm a bioinformatician working in genetics- I'm moving away a little from cancer genetics right now, but I've been involved some in the past. I think it'd be a little…

> and hope that even more talented programmers will enter the fray Where'd be a good place to start? And is it all statistical modelling and stuff, or what's involved in programming in the fight with cancer?

http://rosalind.info/problems/list-view/ It's the 'bioinformatics stronghold' at Rosalind- I feel like explanations I might give would be lacking, but these being practice problems in genomics, they might explain it better! :) Certainly there's a lot of statistical modeling involved, but just as much, it's a matter of getting a large number of command line programs to work together and yield a usable result! Many tools that do not all play nicely together. XD

https://tutegenomics.com/ is the place I'm interning at right now, part time, while I also help at a lab at university. That website is pretty interesting, as well, you might find- and I'd best get back to work for now. Ask me any other questions you have, though, I'd be happy to help, just a little short on time at the moment. :)

Re: Goodbye Marco

#48

Post by brudgers »

tagrun wrote: post #35
brudgers wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time hospice spouse, I wonder if "Living with cancer" might better capture what matters. The battle metaphor often leads to medical approaches that reduce quality of life and induce pointless suffering. Accepting the inevitable fact of mortality isn't necessarily surrender, sometimes it is innate wisdom.

On another perspective, life itself is a fight.

There are attitudes toward cancer and death that are drawn from another perspective. The concern is that by describing another person's life as "fighting cancer" we ascribe that perspective to the other person without respecting how that person actually views [or viewed] their life.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#49

Post by dmritard96 »

This is sad news as this he has obviously made some really great software and shared it with the community. At the risk of threadjacking - I am always curious how evince and others are funded (if at all)? Is it corporately sponosored, completely volunteer, backed by a foundation. And following that up, if it is backed by a foundation, which ones generally give the most? Just trying to figure out how the money for opensource relates to things I know and use everyday.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#50

Post by pascalmemories »

classicsnoot wrote: post #41
tluyben2 wrote: post #8

So sorry to hear this; Evince rocks! On a side note, as someone with cancer i'm getting more and more annoyed with people saying 'lost the fight' 'after a long fight' etc. Somehow (and I know more people have this) it makes it feel like you didn't try hard enough. Stop saying that please.

I just lost my Aunt. Her last years were a battle, but it often felt like a proxy war between Medicine and Mutation using her body as the battleground. First they sent in advisors, then they attempted regime change, then there were truce talks, then the conflict reignited. At the end she told the doctors to fuck off with their knives and needles so she could melt slowly into a hospice bed, robbed of her beauty, digni…

> when it shows up, i plan to either do nothing therapeutic (chemo, removal) > donate my body to some team of researchers who need a living model to test their ideas on.

I have a cousin who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and, like everyone, have lost various other relatives and friends to cancer over the years.

One thing which is very clear from their experience is that all cancer treatment is experimentation on living people, with a hope that some combination of treatments will bring a cure. For some people there is a brief success (reduced tumor size, sometimes to undetectable levels) but, outside of some cancers which are very treatable, this is normally a brief pause.

Treatments people receive today are because of the experiences of people in the past which showed a good response and this is fed into developing and fine-tuning what is done today. The hope is this experimentation will mean more success in future and longer lives with better quality.

There are lots of anger filled comments (understandably so) here. The reality is you are best to receive the experimentation early on when it can bring benefits, but to also recognize it's not always going to benefit you for long and the benefit may go to someone a few years from now who have a better treatment and better results because of your experiences.

I think that's really the only positive thing you can take from the experience.

If you ever do get diagnosed, the bucket list thing is good. That's what I'm doing with my cousin while she has time. There is only a brief interval to tick that off; take it before it's too late.

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