Nickb missing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Nickb missing?

#41

Post by gmate » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 8:39 PM UTC

adrianwaj wrote: post #31

rcoder wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That means that someone manually took the site down. Since the News.YC code (which NewMogul also uses) runs in a single Scheme process, it could have shut down for any number of reasons: it might have crashed, failed to start after a server reboot, been killed by the OS or hosting provider due to a memory leak, etc. I don't know what kind of monitoring nickb might have set up, but if he's not responding to personal…

Something's happened to Nickb, but he'll bounce back eventually.

Do you know or are you guessing?

I've called him, emailed, etc. but no answer. He went radio silent a few weeks ago, was back in contact, and now again radio silent.

If you do know what's up, maybe fill us in. Some of us here in Ottawa are a tad worried.

Re: Nickb missing?

#42

Post by rms » Thu, Aug 20, 2009, 9:36 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #10

kyro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They outed him, too, and discovered his real name to be Nicholas B-something.

I thought nickb was a pseudonym as well. There was a conversation wherein one of the HN biggies hinted he was a well-known tech person who didn't want his name getting in the way of conversation. I could be misremembering, though.

He posted his real name/email address on Hacker News in the early days.

Re: Nickb missing?

#43

Post by adrianwaj » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 12:13 AM UTC

gmate wrote: post #41

adrianwaj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something's happened to Nickb, but he'll bounce back eventually.

Do you know or are you guessing? I've called him, emailed, etc. but no answer. He went radio silent a few weeks ago, was back in contact, and now again radio silent. If you do know what's up, maybe fill us in. Some of us here in Ottawa are a tad worried.

It's an educated guess.

If something had happened seriously to him, his family would be attending to it on a practical level. If so, I'd have expected them to have contacted someone already in the online community via his emails or by his direction. That expectation may be wrong, but you'd expect him to at least shoot a message out somehow already.

So either something extremely bad has happened and news hasn't got out, or he'll bounce back in some way. I think the latter. Furthermore, by the removal of NM's submissions of NickB, there could be a _why scenario: maybe he's wanting to rearrange his life: hopefully for positive reasons.

OTOH if something serious has happened, we could provide emotional support: but he might not want that.

Re: Nickb missing?

#44

Post by adrianwaj » Fri, Aug 21, 2009, 12:41 AM UTC

gmate wrote: post #41

adrianwaj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something's happened to Nickb, but he'll bounce back eventually.

Do you know or are you guessing? I've called him, emailed, etc. but no answer. He went radio silent a few weeks ago, was back in contact, and now again radio silent. If you do know what's up, maybe fill us in. Some of us here in Ottawa are a tad worried.

Why did you open an account to just ask me that? Why don't you seek him out?

Re: Nickb missing?

#45

Post by peterwwillis » Tue, Aug 25, 2009, 2:05 PM UTC

People tend to relate their whereabouts to people they know IRL more often than those they communicate with online. If you don't know where someone is, you ask their friend, their parents, their wife, co-workers, etc as the amount of socially-relevant information (such as location) will be much greater and with a larger history of previous knowledge in those person IRL than those met online. After all, why does Markus in Timbuktu need to know you vacation in the hamptons every 6 months when you've got your Crackberry on you for the duration? Markus' co-workers, family members, and friends will be much more aware of such information.

And sometimes people need a break from the internet.