_why is no more • Hacker News Board

Re: _why is no more

#261

Post by burke » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:36 PM UTC

burke wrote: post #173

mosburger wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something doesn't seem right about that detective work - there's a Jonathan Gillette online who is a web developer in Harrisburg, PA who doesn't seem to be _why. Obviously it's likely that there's more than one Jonathan Gillette on the internet, but it seems odd to me that this other guy is also a web developer, with a decent online presence, in (somewhat) the same geographic area where _why is suspected to live, tha…

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.

Also (too late to edit):

Why apparently went to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City: http://web.archive.org/web/20010518151731rn_1/deathstar.eng....

Re: _why is no more

#262

Post by cpach » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:36 PM UTC

DTrejo wrote: post #213

blasdel wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just weird enough to be plausible -- there's pictures of the Shoes shoes, kitties, rainbows, needlepoint, and Tom Cruise giving a piggy back ride.

http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/about.html

404 not found

Re: _why is no more

#263

Post by lylo » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:38 PM UTC

it's the mystique, the razzle dazzle, the enigma. his fabulous body of work will live on, restored, uploaded and duplicated by hundreds of devotees and admirers. he'll be reincarnated. a _why by any other name would still smell as sweet. it's better to burn out than to fade away. ladies and gentlemen, elvis has left the building.

Re: _why is no more

#264

Post by blasdel » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:39 PM UTC

cpach wrote: post #262

DTrejo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/about.html

404 not found

I think that might have been intentional on the part of the GP.

Cheap shared hosting with hijacked 404 pages is not very _why

Re: _why is no more

#265

Post by cpach » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:43 PM UTC

levinalex wrote: post #172

duairc wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you find his music? I remember seeing on his Wikipedia article before that he made music, but I was able to find very little about it.

i tried to build a torrent: http://tinyurl.com/ktrjs8 don't know if it actually works yet.

That link doesn't seem to work.

Re: _why is no more

#266

Post by gourneau » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:43 PM UTC

"This is the true joy in life ... being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy ... I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing on to future generations."

-- George Bernard Shaw

http://tr.im/why_burn

I lament the departure of _why. However, it looks like his flame will continue to live on, even if he would have hoped otherwise. Thanks _why

Re: _why is no more

#267

Post by rplevy » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:45 PM UTC

duairc wrote: post #245

lylejohnson wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was presumably the hosting company (listed in the WHOIS records as "Layered Technologies"). I wouldn't expect them to provide you with any information about him.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't them, it definitely ended with "Solutions". The first word sounded something like "all-doors" but I couldn't really make it out (I'm not familiar with the accent).

Aldor Solutions, 1647 Witt Rd, Ste 201, Frisco, TX. "Todd Abrams" is the contact.

Re: _why is no more

#268

Post by h3h » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:46 PM UTC

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

John Resig has posted a eulogy: http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/

Re: _why is no more

#269

Post by cpach » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:51 PM UTC

ssn wrote: post #242

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://whytheluckystiff.net/

If anyone's about to mirror the stuff on his web sites, it might be wise to act quickly. Wayback Machine always checks the current robots.txt for a given domain, so it's possible to block files that have already been archived.

Re: _why is no more

#270

Post by hvs » Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 10:58 PM UTC

pavelludiq wrote: post #27

hvs wrote: post #14

Is it just me, or does Ruby tend have these "personalities" more than other communities? Seems like the Ruby community focuses a lot on the "rockstar" mentality. I don't spend any time in it to know for sure, though.

_Why is more like a fairy tale character than a rock star. What qualities of his persona do you consider to be rock star qualities?

By "rock star" I just meant the lone, dedicated, popular, and generally charismatic developer that has a lot of people talking about how great he/she is. A personality.

Again, I don't travel in Ruby circles, so I don't know of _why and can't speak about him personally. I just seem to hear about specific developers from the Ruby circle more than, say, C#.