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Goodbye Marco

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51–60 of 61 posts

Re: Goodbye Marco

#51
I remember reading somewhere (I forget where) that making software has the ability to improve change/many lives and that alone makes software development, but especially open source, a useful endeavour.

How great it is then, that now I know who to thank for Evince. So sad that he's not here to receive my thanks.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#52
post #26

Started a tilt for his family if anyone wants to donate: https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/for-marco-pesenti-grittis-fam...

Is it in Growth Engineering 101 to exploit a family tragedy?

Re: Goodbye Marco

#53
post #52
post #26

Started a tilt for his family if anyone wants to donate: https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/for-marco-pesenti-grittis-fam...

Is it in Growth Engineering 101 to exploit a family tragedy?

Growth Engineering 101 is to exploit everything that is exploitable. (Sometimes, though, what is exploitable is the public appearance of restraint in an obvious opportunity for exploitation, but that's probably 201 -- or at least 102 -- level.)

Re: Goodbye Marco

#54
post #3

I had this weird thought the other day, not sure if it makes sense; We all think that one day we'll grow old, we see old people around us all the time so I guess we assume one day we'll be one of them. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be true for many of us. Goodbye Marco. May you rest in peace. And to you my friends, smell the flowers while you can.

Though the upside to not growing old is that you don't have to become old.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#55
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop saying that please. Might come across as snarky, but really meaning not to: What's an expression that would be more acceptable?

Well, if you die of something else, these terms are not used. Or maybe I didn't see, but you don't say 'after fighting alzheimers' 'after fighting ALS' etc, they just say; he/she died of X. That feels more fair than taking some kind of process into account whereby one gets the feeling that if you had battled harder you would've come out on top. For many cancers this is simply not the case yet; I was 'lucky', he was n…

I've read phrases like "battling", "fighting", etc. used in a variety of illnesses. Its never been apparent to me that it is specifically relating to cancer.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#57
post #2

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

Indeed. I've found xpdf is OK for quickly viewing most PDFs, but Evince is the only one I've found that has decent support for form-fill-in.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experimentatio…

Both my parents had cancer. Lung cancer for my father (he was a smoker for most of his adult life). He had a couple of surgeries and radiation and chemo and it bought him probably 10 years at the expense of a few intervals of discomfort. I think that's probably worth it, but it's hard to know ahead of time how things will turn out. The cancer eventually returned, and given his age and overall health at the time there was nothing more to be done.

Mother had breast cancer, caught early, and fully cured with lumpectomy and some radiation (no recurrence before her death due to unrelated causes).

Other forms of cancer are less treatable. It all depends on type and how early it's detected. I don't see much point in making any kind of hard-and-fast decisions ahead of time. When the time comes, look at the facts, get some good medical advice, and then decide what you want to do.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#59
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to you my friends, smell the flowers while you can. I'm 35, and I've already lost at least 4 friends. Causes of death: Drunk driving, Suicide, Murder, and bacterial infection/dropped dead. The friend with the infection was a super-healthy woman who was opening a fitness studio, one of those people that you would expect to grow old, not catch a random bug and die.

What bug? This is something of a fear of mine, especially after my wife received a MRSA infection a few years ago.

Try to stay away from hospitals then.

Re: Goodbye Marco

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experimentatio…

That all makes sense. I guess, in my head, when i say research i am thinking: wire the fuck out of my body. plant sensors, take biopsies, whatever. Metaphorically, i am a craft (space or flight) that is definitely going to crash, so instead of trying to fix it, let's get some hardcore telemetry. that may seem strange, but i believe data is the key to, well, everything. and i want to help my Family, which is every human being, and in my mind good data is the best way to do that.
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