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Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

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Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

#23

Post by umvi »

philpem wrote: post #11

Posted this on the other thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450 ), I'll copy it here... I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words. What happened, shoul…

> There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers

How about holding the actual bullies accountable instead of shifting accountability to the ISP/Host? What happens in real life (i.e. outside the context of the internet) if bullies harass someone with hate mail until that person commits suicide? Does the blame shift away from the bullies to USPS or FedEx for failing to shield the recipient from the hate mail?

I could see a case made against kiwi farms, but cloudflare? They are infrastructure level and should not get in user content moderation imo

Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

#24

Post by to11mtm »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #8
BreezyBoats wrote: post #7

Instead of calling the Police to give Near’s address or employer’s name to organise some help.. this mutual friend (who often met Near for coffee) waits for an hour while listening to the music loop play on the Telegram call (the screen grab at the end). Then the mutual friend composes a calm, meticulous note for Hector to convey. It doesn’t make sense.

When Robin Williams died, people were putting out images with "Genie, you're free" on it. This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. When "13 Reasons Why" was released, it was criticized for romanticizing suicide as a tool to get people to listen to you "beyond the grave" or have some sort of impact. While nothing has been confirmed by authorities, the behavior in this letter is extr…

> This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering.

It's your typical person's way of trying to excuse their own action or lack of inaction, by making a statement that provides them some comfort, rather than face the way that their own inaction/belittling/bullying towards depressed people in their lives, might be part of the problem.

Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

#25

Post by bjt2n3904 »

to11mtm wrote: post #24
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Robin Williams died, people were putting out images with "Genie, you're free" on it. This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. When "13 Reasons Why" was released, it was criticized for romanticizing suicide as a tool to get people to listen to you "beyond the grave" or have some sort of impact. While nothing has been confirmed by authorities, the behavior in this letter is extr…

> This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. It's your typical person's way of trying to excuse their own action or lack of inaction, by making a statement that provides them some comfort, rather than face the way that their own inaction/belittling/bullying towards depressed people in their lives, might be part of the problem.

Perhaps, but the statement is wrong because of how it portrays suicide, not because of the motivations for making it.

Furthermore, I believe trying to understand suicide as driven by a single cause is detrimental. Suicide is a complicated issue, and is driven by numerous factors.

Trying to reduce any complex issue to a single factor sets anyone who wants to help at a disadvantage, and may contribute to the problem.

Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

#29

Post by TheFreim »

Very sad that they are gone, byuu's work on emulators has been very useful. Weird to hear about things like this and realize that people are real on the other end of the computer.

Skimming through, I don't see a reason why they were harassed by Kiwi Farms. I don't get it, what caused that?

Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

#30

Post by gfaure »

near was the author of higan (https://higan.dev), a SNES emulator which is at the cutting edge of accuracy and emulation research. If you have even touched in passing the field of Nintendo console emulation, it's quite likely you've heard of them or their creations. I hope https://near.sh continues to stay up as an archive of all that they built over the years.

near posted a few words of encouragement when I was wondering whether to start a SNES emulator of my own, which inspired me to build one over the course of a few months. That journey gained me a huge amount of engineering, personal and aesthetic fulfillment.

I hope all the people Near/byuu inspired never forget their contributions to the field either. Rest in peace.

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