Slashdot Mirror
Auto Accident at SANE Conference Kills One
Several people have submitted news from SANE 2004 that a car crash involving several Free Software developers has killed one and injured two others. Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.
My deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the loved one they lost.
Car accident details
There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place for all information I am trying to gather all information here.
If you have any other information please drop me an email at wichert@wiggy.net
All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).
-
There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)
-
they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)
-
Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.
-
Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).
-
At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
-
The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
-
Hans Bakker (photo,
homepage)
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
-
Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
Bad information-
This Yahoo
France accident report is from another accident which occured
later and the car was traveling in the wrong direction
Press..and the first 3 posts I see are jokes about it.
I'd like to send condolences to Mr. Bakker's family and friends for their loss, and hope the others recover quickly.
Now post a story I can make fun of, quick!!!
Shit. I know one of those guys. It's messed up to read something like that on /.
First Assasination Attempt?
No, but it's the 2nd car accident within the past 6 months. The first was in Spain
Condolances to the family and friends of the individual killed. Good luck on a quick recovery to the injured individuals.
/. crowd that needs to try making a joke out of it (Gates/MS jokes), try and imagine if the individual who died was your father, or brother. If you can still make a joke about it, you're sick.
It's always sad when people die, but when they're connected to you in some way (even an abstract way), it hits a little harder. Any Christians (or other faiths, for that matter) should say a quick prayer for everyone involved.
As for the
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Yesterday I was demonstrating on the dam square in Amsterdam with some of the people involved. I want to express my deepest respect...
http://www.wiggy.net.nyud.net:8090/tmp/accident/
It's really very sad and depressing to find that the first ten or fifteen comments of this article (yes, I browse at -1 level) are all offtopic and attempts at first post.
My deepest sympathies to the family of that person killed.
This is very sad and my sympathy goes out to the family but I don't understand why this is news? Were these important people or people I should of heard of? I'm not trying to sound trollish, I genuinely don't understand why this is news or what influence these people have as to why we should mourn them. Could someone enlighten me?
There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving
some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place
for all information I am trying to gather all information here.
If you have any other information please drop me an email
at wichert at wiggy dot net
All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).
* There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)
* they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)
* Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.
* Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).
* At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
* The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
* Hans Bakker (photo,
homepage)
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
* Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
Translation:hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
* This appears to be the traffic report for the accident, as taken
infotraffic.
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
Tone of voice probably didn't matter with regards to the sentence, as it was just a statement of fact. Any bias in this particular sentence would be introduced by the reader.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Never put RMS & Alan Cox & Linus in the very same car/plane or even building (just for sure ;-))). If you are paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't after you.
P.S.
Deepest condolences...
Christ that was insensitive. There are enough trolls here without that comment.
Please do not make any snarky comments about RMS getting out of the car before the accident. Regardless of your personal feelings, a person escaping potential serious injury or death should not be joke fodder - contrary to the first several posts.
Condolences to the family of the deceased.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
It's always tough to lose someone so young. May you find some peace in this time of sorrow.
Seriously. Someone is dead. Two others are injured.
THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY???
Wake up, go outside, and maybe you'll realise that this isn't the kind of thing to joke about.
And whoever modded the parent funny is fucked up.
Also, John E. Mack was killed earlier this week after being hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street on foot.
Slashdot has a strange focus on issues of free software, an accident that killed one developer and could have potentially killed one of the founding fathers of the movement (Stallman aka Mr. GNU, Mr. GPL) makes it news. Even though Slashdot isn't generally an obituary site, I'd like to question why the person would have to be "important" for you to mourn them, a man with a girlfriend and a family passed away tragically. Do you need to know anymore to feel a pang of sorrow? Does he have to be a celebrity to make it important?
Sorry for the moral/ethical tirade, but maybe it'll give the moderators of this post and the poster himself something to think about.
What a terrible loss. My deepest sympathies to the bereaved family, and hope the survivors return to health quickly.
This is a time to think about how much all of the wonderful work in the free software world is based on the unselfish actions of precious individuals. Perhaps someone would like to post an accepted, confirmed email or physical address for people to send condolences or offers of assistance.
One question to slashdot, I did not see anything yet about drinking and driving. So maybe the "turn down a glass department" byline is, while a good idea in general when you are the driver, in this case perhaps inappropriate.
Matthew Rosin
http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Richard%20Sta llman&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab= wi
http://www.stallman.org/
Richard Stallman
founded the GNU Project in 1984. He is the principal or initial author of GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler, the GNU Debugger GDB and parts of other packages. He is the President of the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
What's with open source and accidents? one of the PearPC developer - died in a train accident one Apache guy died in an accident (can't remember what) now this...... :(
Knowing hans since 1999 this is a real shock :( Condoleances to everybody who knew him :(
We'll miss you!
-- Cliff Albert
care to make any more posts on the subject, or have you not learned your lesson yet. don't joke about death.
In 1980 I remember my computer science professor saying his profession was the safest in the world - since no Professor of Computer Science in history had ever died. I believe it was true at the time.
The worst part about this is that it's hard to know what to comment. It really sucks and there's nothing anyone can do about it... It's always sad when stuff like this happens...esp for no reason. It was foggy and a truck changed lanes into them....
just sucks....
For those of us who hold onto our faith dearly, a simple prayer.
"God, I ask you bless and comfort those who are grieving in this time of loss. I ask you bless the Bakker family, and be with the those who have lost a good friend. Allow the loved ones to seek closure for Mr. Bakker. In Jesus name, amen"
http://www.freebsd.org
If anyone has news of Richard Stallman today, please call either the FSF (ask Bradley Kuhn) or +33 1 42 76 05 49 (ask Loic Dachary). We have no reason to beleive that RMS was still in the car but he did not call yet, probably unaware of the accident and our worries. Please Wichert Akkerman, call us if you have more information.
Our deepest sympathies to the family of the person killed.
I'm glad you have this important information on your front page:
-Letter
It was actually as I would put it how I would take what the parent poster said, to heart, aka home... cp * /home/
Deepest sympathies to the family and friends for their loss. RIP.
toresbe
Even though I didn't know Hans Bakker, I'd like to express my deepest sympathies to his loved ones. :'(
:(
It's so bezarre. The atmosphere was great at the RAI conference center yesterday evening. It was a very nice event where like-minded ambitious and talented young people met with eachother and exchanged ideas.
And then, something like this happens.
Rest in peace, Hans.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
The report says that the accident occured after dropping off Richard, this trip was specifically to bring him to Paris. I know in his place, I'd be blaming myself, that's my nature.
For what it's worth : It wasn't your fault Mr. Stallman, so don't blame yourself. And my sympathies to the families involved.
BTW, does anyone know whether they were wearing seatbelts? Just just curious.
At 11:32 CEST i read a message on IRC from a friend that our buddy Madeddie was taken into a hospital in France. At that time i though it was a sick/silly joke, to realize 4 hours later that it wasn't a joke and that one of a fellow IRC regular was involved in the accident and died. I only hope that Madeddie and Webmind both are ok and back home soon. Madeddie, if you read this ... BETERSCHAP!
My condoleances to Hans Bakker's family and gf.
Seriously. Someone is dead. Two others are injured.
/.
People die every day. Seriously. Many of them children. Many of them after living lives of such desperate poverty that most of us cannot even imagine it except in vague abstract terms.
In my mind crocodile tears over people who you do not know, and whom you only care about because they're linked to a famous person are far more patronising and -frankly- downright insulting to the very real, very person suffering and grief that they are going through than if I had made a beowulf cluster of first post jokes about how the OSS movment will start wearing tin-foil hats and start looking for MS-assasins behind every grassy knoll.
Their suffering is real.
But your outrage is contrived and your "grief" is a grief of convience.
If Dick Stallman's name wasn't linked to this; no-one would give a shit --and that's the only reason this is on
I didn't know Hans well but we hung around in the same IRC-channel. My deepest sympathy goes out to the family and friends that suffered from this tragic loss.
Also a get well soon for the other guys in the car...
/(bb|[^b]{2})/
Hans Bakker was the organizer of several NE2000 camps. Ne2000 is a yearly event where about 200 people show up with their tents/campers/caravans and plug into the network, it's a fairly open source oriented happening. I've seen and spoken Hans around there although I wasn't a close friend of him or anything. He has also participated in several open source projects.
The people involved in this car accident are all from the same fairly big group of "young" open source fans in The Netherlands that keep contact with each other over IRC and also IRL. Therefore I'm not surprised that this story was submitted by several readers. I hope this explains why it is important, I know I was shocked and saddened by the loss.
I hate these kinds of comments. Something bad happens and someone points at something slightly relevant but totally random thing that could with great effort be interpreted as... well... dunno what you'd call it.
Is the ad there because of it being related to an auto accident, or because it's about Free Software?
- These characters were randomly selected.
This is Slashdot - we well know the power of distributed community. Accidents like this are very costly ordeals, typically even with insurance. Can someone with the ability to make disbursement to these individuals (and the family of Mr. Bakker) set up accounts via PayPal (many mixed opinions, I know) or bank local to their residences for contributions and post the details?
Any spoon would be too big.
I never met Hans, however, after hearing this I browsed his website. It feels like going into someones house after they've died. Very sad. You know that that "under connstruction" banner will stay there forever.. I hope archive.org will pick up the site before the ISP drops it in the coming months (if they do... who knows who's hosting the site).
I knew Hans, the guy who died in the accident. I was very shocked, I met him only recently, and I just discovered that there was a picture of me on his site. Last time I spoke he told me he wanted to join geekcorps or something similar, to do something useful for the world. It pains me that that won't happen.
he made some money somewho to aford the funeral.
HAHAHAHAHA....
god damn I loved that skit. You'd get a +1 Funny from me if I had the mod points.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
My deepest condolances to the the family and the survivors. I did not know them personally, but I feel connected in some esoteric geek, /., techie way.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Thanks for WAN, thanks for NE2000, thanks for your company on all LAN parties we shared, and your company in the Beiaard. And not to forget, IRC.
Rest in peace.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Plays on words are amazingly dissimilar to witless comments about wishing a specific individual had been involved in an auto accident. Frankly I'm a little surprised that this required clarification.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
very insightful. the /bots are being real jackasses about this situation. it's not like it's the end of an era or anything!
Honestly, other than the fact that it's Stallman, it's JUST a car accident. How many of us can say we've never been in one? I certainly feel badly for Mr Bakker, this happens all the time. The fact that RMS was in the car prior to that is just a coincidence. How many other people had been in that car over the course of the weekend? Let's not sit here and talk about how close he came to possible tragedy, instead let's send our best wishes and hopes to the other victims in the accident that are still alive. If there's anyone able to appreciate how we feel, these two guys are at the top of the list.
Im there with you man. The only reason people care about this person is because they were known somehow in a cause they cared about.
I guess the poor kid in iraq who's family was blown up and died slowly over says because of loss of blood, due to missing legs, isnt someone to cry over. But if Brittany Spears died...
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Did you see how young Hans looks in that pic? Fucking bullshit...cut down in his prime...my sympathies to his family and friends.
syrrys
Oh fuck off, it's one thing to say you don't cry over every single death that occurs, it's completely different when people are making jokes, stupid ass jokes at that, and acting like jackasses over it
Join the TWIT army now!
Or, if the person who hit them wasn't driving a truck...
But... I guess that's the logical equation and you'd rather be a fucking idiot.
Besides, it's Europe. They don't have SUVs there, they have lorries and motorcycles and people who say, "caio"
Yeah, SUV's are a great vehicle, they allow at least some protection from the necessary trucks on our roads when things go horribly wrong in a storm or fog... All hail SUVs... Problem is if everyone had SUVs we wouldn't be able to walk the streets, because SUV's could /quite possibly/ be a higher killer of pedestrians..
I just don't know.
Don't tell me to take the high road when you use a word associated with terrorism and the brutal and painful death of thousands of people in a joking manner.
Open source developers should never travel in the same car or fly in the same plane. They are just too precious and should use teleconferencing.
He was a part of our community. Even though I didn't know him, I still take offense at the fact that you say things like that. /. is irrelevant, death is not something to be treated trivially.
How the story got onto
So many people die every day in tragic circumstances that bear no comparison to this like sudan. I felt more pain over this than I did over sudan, and I don't even know what project this guy was involved with.
Somehow, a man whose life was somewhat more similar to mine (ok, judging from his site we have vastly different personalities) than a sudanese victim has more impact on me. If anyone with a psychology background would help explain why this is I'd like to know why.
Photos.
Death is part of life. Do you mourn every person who dies somewhere in the world? No, you couldn't care less because you don't know them. I don't know any of the people mentioned personally and their death (or not) is irrelevant to me. Will their loss be felt? Not even a little bit, I suggest you get a bit of perspective into your life.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Logically, the pedestrians should be driving SUVs too, instead of walking.
It's a good question, and I think the answer lies in how much of your life was tied up in the life of the other person.
." .....
For some insight into this you might want to read this extract of chapter 21 of "The Little Prince"
"What does that mean--tame?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To establish ties?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . .
if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "
The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said.
You can read more at http://students.washington.edu/yana/LP.htm or various other locations shown by google
blog.sam.liddicott.com
here here, while I'm not happy to hear about this accident, there is little focus or sympathy for the estimated 12-14,000 Iraqis who have been killed by US forces over the past 3 years. That's huge. And while 9/11 was terrible, look at home many more we've taken out, and yes, most of those are civilians. Is there any surprise that we we're greeted as liberators?
Read, and learn, more about what we've done:
http://www.antiwar.com/
And just wait until we hear about what's happened in Gitanamo Bay Cuba...it'll make us long for the Abu Graibe deal. (no I can't spell)
PCB(*(
free ipod and free gmail!
Is there a common place to give tribute to those in our community like this who have been lost? It would be great if there was (sorry, not volunteering). Back in July, one of the main PearPC (the PowerPC emulator) developers died.
This is what I love about the OSS community; it's a community! People drive each other from and to places, stay at each others', and when something unfortunate like this happens you truly feel that it's a community where people care about their own.
Here's what I feel we need to do; we need to put up a fund (donations) and a website to commemorate the OSS community members, and part (if not the vast majority of it, deservedly) of the mission/website fund ought keep their personal homepages and accounts on notable community portals (e.g. slashdot) alive, and be linked to from the website. Hans' personal homepage should **never** disappear due to lack of payment or activity, and it should not be left to his family members, hit by grief and possible loss of income, to do ensure that. Possibly too, condolences may be posted to one list that can be sent to his surviving folks. OSS members make personal sacrifices to be active members of the community and it'd be a nice tough to let their family members, who have likely been compromized financially by the opporutnity cost of their breadwinner being an active OSS member, ought to be let known that many many others care and are thankful for their contribution, whether it was code, logistical (hey, driving RMS is a big deal!), or even in spirit and enthausiasm.
Mod parent up, it's funny.
why? it's not his joke...
That is, unfortunately, something of a generalisation. Firstly, even a good SUV doesn't stand much chance up against a 40ft lorry. But secondly, many "SUV"s aren't even very good in accidents; many of them are no better (or even worse) than the equivalent saloon.
Land Rover Discoveries are utterly dire, to give one popular example; you're much better off in a little Renault.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Actually the only safe way to drive is in an amphibious tank. If we all drove amphibious tanks, no one would ever die. Not even from the cancer.
I've set up a Paypal fund for the family of the deceased and the survivors (to help with medical bills, etc).
I swear to you all that I am not scamming you, these funds will be transferred to the family/survivors.
Send donations to:
nospam_paypalcom@scovetta.com
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
If you can't joke about death what can you joke about. Yes, it is unfortunate that someone died, but as pointed out earlier in this thread people die all the time, some in really shitty ways. Moral of the story: life ends. Now I didn't bother to RFTA(big surprise, this is /.) but unless there is some really bizarre circumstance this really isn't news, people die all the time in auto accidents.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
What a fitting tribute to someone who was a big part of our community... on the day of his death, we slashdot Hans' personal web space.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
So, because I don't care about the deaths of everybody in the world, my caring about the death of some particular people that happened to be (relatively) closely linked in a social network I care very much about is false and hypocritical?
Besides, when confronted with the deaths of people who's names I never knew, and who's friends names I never knew, and who's friends friends names I never knew, I don't make snarky sarcastic comments. I at least manage the humanity to be silent and at least momentarily sad that such things happen.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The tens of thousands of people that will die today, tomorrow and every day for the forseeable future must make you horribly depressed.
Could this be a terrorist incident?
Trying to remove the very people who
love freedom?
That would make sense since the terrorists
hate freedom.
There would be much rejoicing. NEXT!
Un-news
It's true, people die every day and I don't shed a tear for them.
On the other hand if someone does mention an accident in which people have died I don't make their sorrows worse by joking about it.
It isn't hypocrisy, it's empathy.
From Project Gutenberg
GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING.
Turn down a glass afore his place; Draw up the dog-eared chair; For though we shall not see his face, I think he will be here Our wedding day to share.
Turn up the glass where she would be And put a red rose there. Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see, But weren't they everywhere, And shall not they be here?
Though them old blids are in the grave And their good light's gone out, We'd sooner their kind ghosties have Than all the living rout As will be there no doubt.
For some are dead as cannot die. Some flown as cannot flee. You still do fancy 'em near by. 'Tis so with him and she, At any rate to we.
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
It is undisputable that if they were driving an SUV, that software developer would be alive today.
What about the people in the other car? SUVs are more dangerous for everyone else. So what you're proposing is an arms race of escalating vehicle size.
It's a lovely poem, by Eden Philpotts. I think it makes a very appropriate dept.
GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING.
Turn down a glass afore his place;
Draw up the dog-eared chair;
For though we shall not see his face,
I think he will be here
Our wedding day to share.
Turn up the glass where she would be
And put a red rose there.
Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see,
But weren't they everywhere,
And shall not they be here?
Though them old blids are in the grave
And their good light's gone out,
We'd sooner their kind ghosties have
Than all the living rout
As will be there no doubt.
For some are dead as cannot die.
Some flown as cannot flee.
You still do fancy 'em near by.
'Tis so with him and she,
At any rate to we.
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
There is a difference when the person that has died is completely detached from me.
However, with all of the SUV bashing you see on this site, it should be mentioned that they are the safest vehicles on the road.
Really? I've heard a lot of people come off a lot worse after colliding with them than they would with a normal car.
So next time you see someone bashing an SUV for gas mileage, just remember the person who died today.
And remember all the people who are being killed by pollutants.
The only person an SUV is safer for is the driver. And that's assuming you discount the increased risk of actually being involved in an accident. The stopping distance in the things suck, and so does the steering. The safest cars are those that can avoid accidents.
Get a minivan, which has all the claimed benefits of an SUV, better fuel efficiency, and is safer.
Its bad taste to joke about death so soon after it happens. Yes people do die all the time, but if you have no opinion on the matter or are going to post jokes dont post at all. How would you feel if jokes were made as soon as someone you know and love died?
I didnt know hans, but I do 'know' (have contact with) webbie/webmind. My thoughts go out to him and hope he recovers soon, and to the friends and family of the others.
Please enjoy your stay.
and nobody really thinks about it until an acquaintance dies.
Just goes to show ya...
UNIX kills. Don't let anyone tell you different.
But you said yourself you didn't know him? How is that not detached?
Or are you taking online communities too seriously? Now THAT's sad.
I knew one of the persons involved in this accident so its not because its a famous person. He was famous in my life. I never mett Stallman and don't really care for him these days and don't care he was remotely involved. Hey -- he is. They drove all the way from Amsterdam to Paris to drop Stallman over there.
Please don't tune out, or mod me down. This is a legitimate question. I know the "community" is millions of people strong (me included), but I have often wondered whether there is any risk to a concentration of people at the top of the open source/free software community.
Leaving aluminum foil hats aside, certainly there have been times in history when those whose financial or other powerful interests are threatened use violence against their opponents. Don't you think the leaders of certain threatened proprietary companies might rejoice if, for example, Linus passed away?
More commonly, when we focus on risk avoidance in things like IT security and disaster recovery, sometimes we point to the risks of loss of aggregated concentrations of people or resources. (How many folks did Cantor Fitzgerald alone lose at the World Trade Center?)
So, I am not being facetious. I know the idea of free software will live forever, others will carry the banner forward, but nevertheless, is there a risk to Linux when the leaders of the community all get together in one place at one time for a conference or something? If a plane heading to a conference went down which had RMS, ESR, Linus and many other community luminaries all on board, whither Free and Open Source software?
Please, mod me up so we can have a real discussion on this. I am not astroturfing, FUDDing or anything else. Sometimes I am just feeling concerned, and stories like today's tragedy worry me.
Hans was my friend. I knew him in real life. /. eventhough he is not here anymore and unfortunatly it is not a positive way to be on /.
I spoke to him some weeks ago. I think he is proud now that he is on
If heaven had e-mail, I would e-mail you!
bye m8
Alexander den Engelsman
...the car dropped Stephen King off in Bangor, Maine before continuing on. Such a tragedy that could have been.
We're not talking about moments of silence for every death. That's not possible. It just isn't.
What we're talking about is NOT joking about deaths of others.
There's a difference between the deaths in Iraq not being the focus of every waking moment and our Dear President joking about WMDs not being found and making light of the whole situation.
Shameless plug: Vote for a man with a conscience. Vote for Kerry.
Actually SUVs are less safe because they handle poorly, making it more difficult to avoid an accident. They are more likely to roll-over in a crash, and many of them have poor bumpers because they adhere to truck safety standards. There was a New Yorker article about this a few months ago. You're actually safer in a sedan with better steering and shorter stopping distance.
So, what will you do for your fun when all the forums in the world die because you and your ilk persist in making them unpleasant places to be? Would you just vastly prefer that people not try to gather in large groups and communicate with one another?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Everyone here is old enough to understand death. If you think you're being cerebral..you're wrong. You're basically saying this is not newsworthy. Show some damn respect..his friends are posting on this site. You make me wanna slap some sense into you. Idiot
Really, it's because they're people we know and respect. Well, some of us know, and many of us respect for what they do. Realistically, it could have been one of us... I'm not so popular on slashdot or OS that somebody might post an obituary for me, but we have done so for authors, actors, even scientists. Personally, I don't know all these people, and I'd not consider all of them celebrities.
If a John Doe dies and we don't know him - we'd still consider it a tragedy in most cases. However it's not so personal a tragedy. Given the relation between OS and slashdot (as mentioned), they are well enough known here, as are movie-stars, that enough of us might be touched by the news in some way.
That being said, perhaps somebody could give a brief mention of the contributions of those involved - I may not know them but that's not to say I'm not interested in what they've done.
However, with all of the SUV bashing you see on this site, it should be mentioned that they are the safest vehicles on the road.
Bullshit.
While it's true that if you are in a huge SUV and hit a car, the SUV will come off better, the overall safety picture is not good for SUV drivers.
The additional mass also has downsides. In single vehicle accidents it's better to have less mass as there is less energy to dissipate. According to the NHTSA, single vehicle accidents accounted for only 18% of crashes, but 44% of fatalities.
Larger vehicles have longer stopping distances, increasing the likelyhood of a crash.
Also figures from the NHSTA show that SUV fatality rates are 11% higher than cars.
According to those statistics, the safest vehicles are minivans, with a fatality rate of 2.76 per billion miles travelled, 2nd were large cars, with a rate of 3.3 fatalities per billion miles. The largest SUV's came in 3rd with 3.79 fatalities per billion miles
time to adjust your review mirror methinks
But it's ok, as the Slashdot story states that Stallman wasn't killed. It's a sad world when a story tells me who wasn't killed and not who was (killed or injured). It's obvious that the poster thinks Stallman living is more important than someone dying. Shame on you!
fame != importance
Why do you not have the same sensitivity towards the 3000 killed in the World Trade Centers or in various places over seas in the name of "jihad"?
Software developers die every day believe it or not.
the overall safety picture is not good for SUV drivers.
You're right: for drivers as they tend to take more risks. It has nothing to do with the car/SUV.
I'm hoping that at least one of my friends or family can find the courage and heart to make a joke. Mind you, it should be made at the appropriate time. At the only funeral we went to, we talked a lot about my friend's life, and made quips about how "Adults Only Video" would probably go bankrupt without his business. He would have appreciated the joke... we made much the same remarks when he was with us.
Now, for people who don't really know the deceased to make such comments, it just isn't appropriate. It also depends on the character of the person involved in the tragedy. A joke should bring light smiles and help offer some balm to the wounds of those affected, not simply be the attention-seeking acts of immaturity we unfortunately tend to see online.
and bit hard.
Condolences to his family and friends.
No, jihad is a holy war against the "infidel".
Take a history class or two.
For those who "cope" with life, but immerse themselves in saddening film that still contain some wit or light humor, see a Hong Kong film named "Funeral March".
. ht m
(Try your local Asian or import video store. If your LUCKY, BB or HV might have it, but don't count on it. Or, order it online or from some places in San Francisco/Burlingame, CA...)
Male or female, soft or tough, if you have feelings or sensitivities, you will cry and you will laugh, and in some parts, you do both and without guilt. Some have sobbed like babies if immersed in this film without distractions
Review is at:
http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/funeral_march
The one at IMBD.com doesn't do justice to the film.
But, I watched it and it's touching:
Non-spoiler gist:
Yee, a young woman hires a funeral director to arrange a burial. It turns out it's for herself. She's dying of intestinal/stomach cancer, but the funeral director encourages/recommends that she take the medicine prescribed and undergo the operation. As part of his hiring by her, though, we get to see an interesting and different perspective on living, living with limited time, and dying.
Most of the film is in Hong Kong, but a brief jaunt to New York shows some nice scenery I'd not seen (I've never been there, but even with all the TV shots, I don't think I'd seen the images in "FM"). Not all cultures are like the US. In some places laughing and celebration mark a passage to a hopefully BETTER place than here. I tend to think of Earth as a "proving ground" which will determine where we go next. I prefer to discount any Heaven or Hell, for natural things around us recycle, so why not the soul as well as matter. For us puny humans to be given ONE life to live, from seconds to just uner 115 years, but usually 45-85 years, it's a CHEAT for a god to creat billions of souls that in the cosmic scope of things are snuffed out relative to a fly's lifetime, actually vastly shorter.
I think fatal incidents or accidents are just interruptsion or even accelerators. I feel murder is "forced eviction" from the game of life, depending on the circumstances, but all around us we eventually forget the millions living under undeveloped or corrupt regimes, starving, dying, living malnourished, and more and worse.
In developed nations, aside from some petty corrupt leaders, we live fairly comfortably, and increasingly lack a clear, fundamental understanding of living when fast-paced, tech living distorts the big picture.
Slow down. Ponder. Live. Reflect. Volunteer. Donate. Help. Complain, and fix the people system, not just the tech stuff.
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
If you feel the need to respond to any post because it is "insensitive", you are simply looking for something to be indignant about. Does your viewpoint of the situation change because you read an "insensitive" post? Does the post have any tangible effect on your personal situation or the situation of others? If the answer to either of those questions is "yes", perhaps you should instead spend some time in introspection examining why your will is so malleable.
There is nothing "wrong" with "insensitivity". It is of no consequence. It is no excuse for hostility. Fight against it if you must, but never believe your actions are justified by any inherent "right" or "wrong" regarding insensitivity. Determining why you feel the need to respond may be far more productive than posting your unearned indignation.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
Good thing you're posting anonymously, because he'll never know what hit him!
No mention in the story, or in the accident reports in French, of whether alcohol was involved in this accident.
Free Software Developers: 0
Satan: 1
To state that "Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident" is so incredibly RUDE and DISTASTEFUL and INSULTING, especially when the names of the dead and injured are left out. To even insinuate that we are all so lucky that Stallman wasn't hurt even tho these nameless folks got pasted infuriates me to no end. Heaps of SHAME and DISHONOR to the poster "michael" for his horrid thoughtlessness.
I propose that a worthy open source project be named after Hans, in his honor.
My deepest condolences to his family and friends.
I am very sorry to hear this. I give my condolences to Hans's close friends and family. I did not know him personally, however any loss of an OSS contributor is a great loss (*). Thank you Hans!
-Chuck
(*) For those suffering from a lack of perspective: Yes, any death is a great loss to someone.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Actually it's a human defence mechanism to make jokes out of painful things. It's just a way to cope... One should be very careful about making jokes in the public though. Someone is bound to be insulted, and if they new anyone involved, hurt.
www.aleo.no
How predictable. Some jackass modded parent down to -1. Sucks that I have to browse slashdot at -1 so I can see the good posts.
Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.
I don't know what makes me feel worse, the fact that someone was killed in the car crash, or the fact that it wasn't Stallman.
I know laughter helps us cope but the jokes I saw were not of a coping nature.
More accuractely, I believe you should say, "the jokes I saw were not how I choose to cope."
Please remove the "us" when you start pontificating about how "we" cope. We're individuals. You will never know how, if, or why anyone else attempts to cope the way they do. The search & rescue story indicates. Coping is part of our individual discovery processes.
I've seen friends cope with loss in so many ways... laugh, joke, toast, cry, destroy property, lash out at loved ones and friends, and even destroy themselves. It's never clear to me at the moment if their coping actions are "good" or "bad", and honestly, it's not my place to know or judge that.
Do you know something we don't, Michael? Did the driver have a drink or is this another snide remark?
This guy is way out there
I just read some sad news on Slashdot- Free Software developer .... was killed in a car accident this morning. There weren't any more details yet. I'm sure we'll all miss him, even if you weren't a fan of his code there's no denying his contribution to Free Culture. Truly an Open Source icon.
Let me paraphrase: "Some people were killed, but Richard stallman was not one of them, so everything is okay."
Yeah... Try that one on the families of the accident victims.
Who approved this article?
Your argument assumes that humans do not have free will. If we did not, the complaint would be that we are all good because we have no choice. However, we do have a choice, and not all choices are good. How could a loving God disallow us free will? That's my question to you. Also, your condolances are not meant for the dead person. They are meant for those who survive the dead person, those who are not now in eternal peace. By your logic, none of us ever deserve any sympathy at all, for eventually we will all be dead.
Doesn't Stallman constantly exhort people not to drive because they'll get themselves killed?
Don't Crease the Weasel!
While not part of my direct family, I have some of the most wretched people on the planet who share my blood. These people aren't merely assholes, annoying, etc. These people are absolute scum. The day they die is the day I have new joke material. Had these "kin" of mine been in that car, the world would have been a better place for it.
No jokes, no clever comment, just condolences.
...has definitely lowered the discourse on Slashdot. 90% of the people who post just want to get modded to +5 funny. It would probably be better to retire the Funny modifier for a couple weeks so people can practice posting useful comments.
We're quick to jump into camps here. There are the "ha ha, man fall down and die" nervous humor camp. Then there's the "don't make fun of death" camp. Still another camp comes in next to say "lighten up, people are coping in different ways"
Not many clue in to this pattern, even as they help to shape it. Go look at the stories from 9/11. Same threads, different (in some cases) posters. Slashdot is a COMMUNITY of people, not a uniform voice. I see people on all sides of every controversy here deriding the "slashdotters" or "slashbots" or whatever term they can think of. But, if you're posting here, THAT'S YOU you're talking about (hi, I'm in camp #4, good to meet you).
Some of us are flamers and trolls. Some of us are the innapropriate joke-makers. Some of us are suits with pointy hair. Some of us are late-night coders. And today, one of us is no more. If you're a regular, come in, sit down and have a drink. We'll toast the honored dead, maybe share a story or two, and the guy over in the corner will spout an embarassingly rude comment every few minutes. I just hope that when my time comes, he thinks of something really funny to say about me, and that (behind the masks of indignation), my friends smile just a little bit and remember me....
Peace and long life.
http://www.platopeople.com/about.html was started in 1960 - surely it's got to be a candidate for being the very first online community of any kind.
Unless, of course, anyone knows different...
Whew, you had me going there for a minute.
I have not met these individuals, but I am sad they were hurt. They are part of a great, good thing. They contributed to a common good that everyone can benefit from.
There is nobility in the choices they have made, and we are poorer for losing one of them.
Peace
What a tragedy :( My feelings go out to all the relatives and friends of Hans. Good luck in the hard period that follows. Best wishes for the people who are still in the hospital.
Tens of thousands of people die daily to starvation, accidents and so forth.
Do you cry for each one? I doubt you do - don't act like a hypocrite.
And do you crack wise at every one? That's what the poster was talking about after all. There was no false grief, just asking why some people can't have the decency to show some minimal measure of respect.
I don't think you know what hypocrisy really is.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I'll bet they do. Seems like Bush supporters agree with that approach. Tsk, tsk, tsk...
I thought all of the dope smoking Eurohippies rode bicycles or walked to their destination.
Seriously though, I did read where Ted Kennedy chastized the driver of this vehicle saying that killing people with cars is just not right...
Fantastic. I followed the link, then clicked on "try this page" only to find that we had /.ed the Coral server.
Back to the drawing board...
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Your link just goes to the article, not a specific thread.
Yeh, Damnit DAldredge, Anonymous Coward has had a hard enough life without having to listen to you. Go easy on him, he's sensitive!
what genius modded this as insightful???
12-14,000 Iraqis who have been killed by US forces over the past 3 years
Feel free to restate this estimate in terms of lives saved compared to Saddam remaining in power.
Then, consider how, lacking oil, the tyranny of Saddam would have been ignored, in the same spirit as similar evil in Africa.
Bono put it well on Zooropa when he wrote "throw a rock in the air, you'll hit someone guilty".
-1 Offtopic
If a person's mindstream ceases when he or she dies, then anything you do after that moment has no relevance to that person - it can't offend them, because they no longer have the capacity to be offended. If it does not, then praying for that person may be beneficial, whether or not they would have approved of it in life.
:')
The problem with exhorting people to prayer in a public forum like this is that (1) it's pointless, and (2) some people who are still alive here find it offensive. It's pointless because if we think that prayer will help, and we have the capacity to do a sincere prayer on behalf of Hans, then we will do it whether or not we are exhorted.
It's offensive to some people for a variety of reasons - I will say for myself that I used to be offended by overt mentions of Christianity because I felt very judged by people who had blind faith and felt that I was defective because I didn't have the capacity to have blind faith. It doesn't offend me anymore, because I understand the problem better, but I think it's worth being understanding toward those who do have this problem, and examining ones' own actions to see if one is doing anything that would tend to engender this sort of feeling.
The job of a religious practitioner is to succeed in his or her practice, and it is through this that they may help others - any activity that projects one's religious beliefs outward is very risky, and needs to be undertaken with great seriousness, and probably not on a forum as public as slashdot.
This is not to say that you should shut up entirely, but I do urge you to consider your audience!
This is a sad thing. My sincerest condolences go out to the family of the person who died.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
So, what will you do for your fun when all the forums in the world die because you and your ilk persist in making them unpleasant places to be?
For the 8 years I've been on the web, usenet has been a wholly unpleasent place to be. Yet, oddly enough, people still read it and post to it.
As long as we have people, and the technology to creat them; we'll always have forums. Usenet teaches us that, if nothing else.
I believe you are right, considering the conference itself is /. worthy. Therefore, the accident related to the conference is also newsworthy, even had there been no fatalities. However, the mention of RMS and his peripheral involvement is quite relevant, because it makes the point that Hans and the others were only in that car because they were helping out a friend (who we just happen to recognize). They weren't just hopping down to the liquor store to pick up beer and cigarettes. That makes this a tragedy in the true sense (trying to do something good got him killed), rather than simply a misadventure.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
"The safest cars"
are no cars at all. Cars kill people, animals, plants, pollute the earth and require the sealing up of the Earth (which stifles more animal/plant life from ever existing, etc. And people accept this as normal and any efforts to convince these car lovers that cars are more dangerous than most diseases will cause them to mock you, challenge you with "you got a better idea?" or insult you.
We need a safer, "open sourced" approach from the ground up for transportation.
Until then, the Earth, animals, insects, plant life, and people will continue to suffer, all for what? Cars.
The statistics are actually that SUVs are more likely to be in an accident, and the accidents are more likely to be fatal. One reason is because many SUVs are prone to roll-over and many people drive their SUVs like they are sports cars because they feel "safe". There is also the problem that SUV bumpers are too high for some cars and that SUVs block people's visibility (not unique to SUVs... 18 wheelers are much worse about this).
They don't have to have many of the safety features of passenger cars because they are regulated like trucks. Safety regulations assume trucks are for business use like deliveries and not for transporting people, especially children.
The only advantages to SUV's are 1) their additional weight. That "advantage" is only relative to other vehicles so it ends up putting other people at risk and 2) better visibility due to the driver being higher from the road surface.
Like another poster said a minivan has both of those advantages, and none of the disadvantages of an SUV because they have more strict regulation and are specifically designed to transport families and other groups of people.
When someone as prominent and as much an annoyance to the coporate capitalist power structure as Richard Stallman has a nearly fatal accident we SHOULD start asking if there is a conspiracy to murder him.
F %2Fwww.debian.org%2FNews%2F2004%2F20040515&langpai r=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&prev=%2Flanguage_too ls = 31&contentid=1110&page=1
The free software movement is in the crosshairs. Why do you think software patents have become such an issue recently? Did SCO come up with the idea of its copyright attack on Linux on its own all of a sudden? Some investor immediately gave it the cash infusion it needed to persue the lawsuit, recall (BayStar etc.) Was it SCO, by itself, that got the De Toqueville Institute to issue an article questioning the originality of Linux? In fact a lot of "think tanks" have been piling on the free software movement.
Free software is a loose cannon, the normal mechanisms that keep sources of consumer products and innovation from stepping on the toes of governments and governments' interests don't work with free software.
How happy do you think the United States is that free software has given China and countries like it an operating system which is guaranteed free of any CIA / NSA backdoors?
For christs sakes, how fucking naive do you have to be, of course they are going to start killing leaders of the free software movement.
I hope RMS isn't himself so naive and starts taking precautions (for all the good that will do him if the CIA wants him dead).
Some other highly suspicious accidents:
Microbiologists http://www.rense.com/general20/mic.htm
Free software authors (google translation from German) http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2
Alan Gibbs, founder of TruVote (electronic voting machines) http://conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid
Why the fuck was this modded down? I was there in Valencia with them you moron moderator, I do know what happened.
dammit, RMS was SUPPOSED to be in that car, everything's ruined now :(
And then there was E
[free will, loving gods, deletia]
I was going to flame you because your argument has no presuppositions: you forgot to INCLUDE the text you were responding to.
But in context your argument was ok. You might still be marked down as Offtopic, though, which you might have gird yourself against by including a little context.
[anonymous to avoid... ah hell, I have enough karma!]
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Must have been running Linux
those crazy jews just keep doing WTC
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" Real hackers don't die, there packages just expire. . . " Whe have hade some hard conversations, but it is even harder to know, that we won't have that again. Hans, rest in peace. Is je mclightje nu uitgegaan?
I heard that Bruce P3r3ns was the driver of the meat wagon...
The last thing he saw was broken Windows...
First, let me say that your post re: religious comments within this story's thread was about the fairest of those objecting to such comments.
With that said, I'd like to respond to your comment.
It seems as though you're suggesting that anyone who may have certain beliefs should feel almost _obligated_ to think twice before publically asking for those of the _same_faith_ to participate in something like a prayer, only because someone who may "over-hear" their request are not comfortable with their own beliefs and/or confusions. After all, if you're not of the same faith, I'd argue you weren't part of the audience since the comment was directed towards those of the same faith. Yes, it's a public forum, but the post was directed towards Chrisitans, or those of similar faith, praying for the deceased and the surviving loved ones. Should he/she have bit their tongue before posting such a comment in a public forum? Of course not, it's a public forum. If you get offended by the mere mention of religion, even if it's not directed towards you, I doubt a public forum is where you should be until you come to grips with your own beliefs.
I also want to mention that I'm agnostic.
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
Only that some people will be running them armed.
Troll -1, Here I Come!
Reading 100's of strangers passing their respect to yet somebody they've never met dieing gives me a funny feeling.
How many people die each day? And of those, how many lead sorrowfull lives, filled with pain and suffering? How many of you pay a thought to them, and of those of you who do, are you willing to take a large dent in your own wealth to help them? Are you willing to spare your own time?
Its a common fact that people really don't care about strangers, but this shirade of caring when the opportunity arises makes me want to puke.
(To those who knew the victims, apologies for ranting, this was certainly not directed at you)
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
If a person's mindstream ceases when he or she dies, then anything you do after that moment has no relevance to that person
What would your opinion about posthumous misrepresentation be? (putting words in someone's mouth after they are dead, such as false claims of deathbed conversions). I'd say such a thing still has very detrimental effect even when the person himself doesn't care anymore.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
TTobi
Hans, thx for many MSN hours. Strenght family and friends. Groene achtergrond was idd leuk
When you come to grips with the fact that people are simply collevtions of molecules, you will get over your silly mourning.
People are born. They die. There is no meaning to it. If someone dies? There are six billion others to fill his place. You sound like some Jesus freak who thinks that GOD has endowed us with some kind of purpose in life. There is no God.
Life is a tale, told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Why waste my time mouring? I will laugh about it if I want to.
My condolences to your spell-checker. May it rest in peace werever it may have gone off to.
Natural Selection: self-destruction of the poor and lazy
At last. Someone here is sane.
The quickest way to become an atheist is to study the Bible thoroughly.
> hi, I'm in camp #4, good to meet you
Camp #4: the camp of pretentious nimrods who think that categorizing others in an attempt to remove themselves from said categories makes them better or otherwise superior. Especially annoying when they punctuate their posts with mindless liberal hippyisms like "peace and long life."
Karma whores, I call em.
If you creatively edit the above post in your mind, you can make it say "Don't make fun of death camps."
Dear All, please be aware of the initiative of the
h e condolences: http://www.condoleance.nl/registers/register_3254. html
Dutch irc community regarding the tragic accident of Hans Bakker.
I am Posting on their behalf. Also note the following urls
the text below: http://www.xs4all.nl/~mariekek/hans-im-eng.txt
t
Please direct to the ppl mentioned in the announcement for any further information.
Dear All,
Today 30 september we received the sad news of Hans Bakker's
(for the most of us known as McLightje) tragic accident in
the northern part of France in which he lost his life.
More information can be found at http://www.wiggy.net/tmp/accident/
In order to pay a proper tribute to our dear friend we
(Wiggy, JohnR and Tatsel) are organizing a fund to have
an obituary placed in one of the Dutch newspapers or otherwise.
Every action from our side will be done in close co-operation
and approval of Hans' family and relatives.
If you want to contribute please send an e-mail to the
address below IM.Hans.Bakker@gmail.com for further information
on how to contribute to Hans' tribute.
Thank you all in advance for your support.
Wiggy, JohnR and Tatsel
PS As you are all aware of McLightje's activities, please distribute this
e-mail to anyone you think Hans was involved with.
RMS wasn't in the car, schizophrenic boy. Did you forget your risperdal this morning?
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
LESS mass is better? No shit? Gee, maybe you should drive a scooter made out of tin foil then.
you can post condolences to Hans and his family and friends on this site.
This wikipedia page has already gone up for Hans. So if anyone can find out about his biography and post something up as a lasting memorial to the guy, then please do so. Thanks
Tanks are the only answer to this SUV escalation.
Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.
:-P
Damn! j/k
As long as we have people, and the technology to create them; we'll always have forums.
Please, do share this people-creating technology you speak of! I, for one, am hoping to build an army of clones so I can outsource all my coding projects to myself.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Rewriting that, we have:
"God, I ask you to stop cursing and distressing those who are grieving in this time of loss. I ask you to remove the curse from the Bakker family, and refrain from avoiding those who have lost a good friend. Stop denying the loved ones from seeking closure for Mr. Bakker. In Jesus name, amen"
The job of a religious practitioner is to succeed in his or her practice, and it is through this that they may help others - any activity that projects one's religious beliefs outward is very risky, and needs to be undertaken with great seriousness, and probably not on a forum as public as slashdot.
:-)
I disagree with your logic. Or I misinterpret you.
Basically what you seem (to me) to be saying is that being open and actively telling about your faith is morally wrong independent of a) what you believe and b) whether what you believe is true or not.
However, consider this. Christians generally believe that the only way of being saved (going to Heaven) is through faith on Jesus Christ. Also they believe that if you are not saved, you will suffer after your death eternally in a lake of fire. They (we) really believe it, it's not just some principle that affects how we live in this life.
Now, let's assume for the sake of this counterargument that what Christians believe is correct (which fits in (b)). I could talk about moral values in Bible here, but I believe we should be able to stipulate that Bible teaches that selflessness and helping others is good.
Now, it's true that very many people don't want to be helped. If it was really so that nobody would listen to us Christians AND one can be certain that nobody is going to be saved anymore, it perhaps could be argued that active evangelization would be an unnecessary nuisance and therefore probably wrong.
However, think about it this way. If you really really do believe that the majority of people around you are going to suffer in an eternal fire, and that it could be possible to save at least some of them, then is it morally right to not try? Even considering that, what, 99% of people who don't want to hear anything about it, I'd maintain that the remaining 1% or even a single person that can be saved makes it more than worth it. After all, this life is only a finite piece of time, very short compared to eternity.
That's how we Christians see it. Hope this explains it to you satisfactorily. I don't expect it to make it appear any less annoying to you, but perhaps it helps you understand our behavior a little more.
I didn't really intend my comment for any other than the author of the post to which I was responding. Yes, I knew other people would read it. If you want context, hit the Parent button. When I'm addressing a larger audience, I always provide context.
it would be safer provided you were made highly visable and could keep up with traffic. SUV's are not safe, they are the modern day sports car. The only purpose they serve is to act like a cock extension for those of you lacking in that department.
The additional mass also has downsides. In single vehicle accidents it's better to have less mass as there is less energy to dissipate.
:)
It's not so simplistic. As an AC reply pointed out, were your theory to hold true scooters should be safer than SUVs since they have less mass. It's not so much the mass per se as it is the density and distribution of the mass combined with the absorbency of the material when it crumples. I'm not an expert by any stretch, but that's how I see it. You need sufficient mass to form an effective barrier which will crumple properly and mitigate the effects of sudden deceleration as well as protect the occupants from getting impacted directly. So the ultimate would be a large vehicle which has an incredibly light but impenetrable rigid inner core (ie: the passenger compartment) but outside this inner core would be material of appropriate stiffness so that it can crumple and take the sudden deceleration, depleting the energy over the course of the crumple distance. Or something like that.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
When you say something in a public forum, putting an apology in your message to the effect that it's only intended for a certain part of that public does not mean that in fact your message only reaches that portion of that public, so yes, I would say that you need to think about every person who will read it, not just the people that you intend to have read it.
Every religion of which I am aware has as one of its basic tenets that we should speak gently unless there is some strong reason to do otherwise. Christianity is no exception. So considering what effect our words will have is one of our most basic obligations as practitioners.
I'd say you're right, because the lie you tell affects those who come after the one who has died, and also because lying is a bad habit that I think harms the one doing it as well, particularly when the lie is harmful, as in the case you've described.
I saw this accident scene this morning. Driving back from Paris to Brussels, there was a large traffic jam which took about 20 minutes to get through. The accident occured just after a rest stop, just after the point where the rest stop traffic merges back into the autoroute. Since its where I usually stop for a rest about an hour north of Paris, I can imagine they either stopped for a rest and were merging back onto the autoroute, or else they got caught in a bunch of trucks scooting around someone merging slowly. Lots of accidents happen at the far end of rest areas. It was pretty foggy this morning, its that season.
There was quite a bit of heavy equipment on the scene, a mobile crane on the slip road, and a bucket-crane truck with a dump truck picking up what was left of the one truck's load, it looked like scrap metal. There was the cab and remnants of a trailer, very shredded, on flatbed trucks on the slip road. There was obviously a fire, since parts of the guard rail were burned, and the asphalt was scorched. There were some Pompiers (firefighters) and about a dozen Gendarmes from the B.E.A (Bureau d'Enquetes Accidents) standing around, but they had obviously finished all of their report gathering by 10:30 AM when I passed.
I know Rop, and I've probably met the others at various linux/hac-tic/2600/CCC/EC patent protest events. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those involved, and here is wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured. This accident affects all of us in the techie, hacker-in-the-good-sense-of-the-word, and linux scenes here in Europe. Lets remember Hans for the good things he accomplished in his life.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Anicca vata sankhara, uppadavayadhammino.
Uppajjitva nirujjhanti tesam vupasamo sukho.
Impermanent alas are formations, subject to rise and fall.
Having arisen, they cease; their subsiding is bliss.
The younger somebody is, the fewer people will be really affected by their death. The death of an infant, for example, is quickly forgotten by everyone but close relatives. Even then, most of the grief of everyone but parents is *for* the parents.
Infants have no life-long friends to be pained by their going... they've no spouses, no kids of their own, no students or coworkers.
An eight year old has had more of an impact, but stil... eight year old friends will get over it. They hardly even understand.
About the peak time for individual pain seems to be the death of a teenager, since the teenagers around them are already in such a delicate state. A best friend dying is devastating at sixteen, more so than at 30. Teenagers usually only have school and activity friends, they haven't known them that long, and they don't have leftovers from previous life stages, so the pain is sharp and localized.
At 30 you have more people who care, so the total pain level is probably higher, but the pain of any one non-relative is mostly less.... they have their own life.
It does trail off towards the end of life, but only because the people who would care have died themselves and you're all alone.
Hm. I guess you can tell I don't much care for the feelings of the deceased... there aren't any. Suffering in the years approaching death is a separate issue. The question for me is the effect on those left behind.
You didn't annoy me. This is extremely off-topic, though. I will say just one thing about it. I too believe that many of the people around me will visit that lake of fire as a result of their misunderstanding of the world. But I can't prove it. So if I am to help them, just saying "you're going to burn in that lake of fire" isn't going to do it. I was turned off to religion for thirty years as a result of people who said things like that to me. All of them were very sincere, well-meaning Christians.
When you connect deeply to a spiritual tradition, and what it teaches seems self-evident to you, then it's a natural reaction to want to tell everyone what you've seen. But the thing you've seen that you want to tell them isn't in the words you're going to say. You can't show someone the Eiffel Tower when they're standing in Peoria, IL. You first have to get them on a plane to Paris, and then once they're there you have to get them to a point where they can see the tower.
Just so, if you truly want to save someone from that lake of fire, the path down which you must lead them doesn't begin with telling them "OMG, you're going to burn in a lake of fire!" The path starts with you coming to understand precisely how to save them from that lake of fire. If you don't know, how can you explain it to them? I have met very few Christians who even try to find that out, even though it's written all over the New Testament in nice friendly red letters. Jesus was a really nice guy - he spelled it all out for us. But mostly we seem to argue and preach over esoterica that have nothing to do with the red letters, and won't get anyone out of that lake, or we loudly proclaim our beliefs in a way that is helpful to no-one.
(I mean we when I say we - when I first started to get what was going on with my path, I did the same thing, even though I should have known better. Sigh.)
> We'll toast the honored dead
Jesus fucking christ, man, the dude didn't die in a Romulan battle cruiser while fighting the Klingon Empire! What is so honourable about some geek distracting himself with his cellphone long enough to pile-drive into a cement wall?
It's not so simplistic. As an AC reply pointed out, were your theory to hold true scooters should be safer than SUVs since they have less mass.
Of course it's not that simple, If one could explain crash dynamics in a few sentences life would be simply indeed.
again, in simple terms, it would be best if all vehicles weighed about the same, that way they take equal (or nearly equal) responsibility for dissipating energy. in a single car crash, it's better to have the lightest car you can while still having enough structure and crumple zones to dissipate the energy and yes this post is a simplified version of reality
mindless liberal hippyisms like "peace and long life."
Heh, actually, I was tossing around several last lines there. I had orginally quoted Romeo's, "Live, and be prosperous," but was sure no one would recognize the source, and worse, many would attribute it to Spock's, "Live long and prosper," which The Great Bird lifted from The Bard.
Random thoughts. And no, I was not trying to remove myself from the observed catagorization. Again, go chechk out the 9/11 posts. They're very informative on the point.
There are the "ha ha, man fall down and die" nervous humor camp.
I'm not nervous.
I hate to hear of a young mind dying. What would it have accomplished?
Rest well and peacefully.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
"But leave small gaps every ten feet or so for animals... I see roadkill stuck by them every day."
I agree wholeheartedly. I sometimes see small channels built into the bottom of the concrete dividers to allow for water runoff, but these are too small for many nocturnal creatures taller than about 4" to get through (armadillos, dogs, foxes and coyotes seem to be the most affected here in Texas). I've often wondered why the engineers responsible for designing these things didn't think of this when they pictured miles of their dividers running down the middle of tollways and construction areas in continuous-without-a-gap fashion.
Yes, it *will* work!
I must admit, I do feel truly sorry for the victims, but I do believe I would have rammed a truck too if I were forced to share a car with RMS for any extended period of time. I wonder if their families have grounds to sue RMS.
I have to admit, it is a terrible event when a person dies. Thanks to my faith, which is more or less realism, I'd like to hope the person lived a good life, accomplished what he had hoped to at that point in his life. I also see what we live in as an ecosystem, although the human race likes to separate itself from the animals, the chaos and destruction rendered by humans is part of the ecosystem and we will all be effected (one way or another) by the loss of any human being.
That being said, I have to present the obvious which is that the Slashdot community is far too diverse too cope with a situation like this. There are people of every known religion (except possibly Amish sects of Christianity), there are a great deal of children as well, it is definately safe to say that no matter what posting is made regarding this event, someone is bound to get offended. In fact, the less rational are likely to not only make defensive remarks such as "imagine it was your dad", but others are likely to respond further and fuel the argument.
It is my personal oppinion that a comment forum such as this should either in this circumstance simply turn the comments section black in order to pay condolences by blocking what may be rude comments, or people who insist on writing comments that are defensive regarding the seriousness of the issue simply avoid fueling the debates by giving people more reason to disregard to original reason for the posting.
I personally am among the group of people which has always accepted life and death and have always valued death as the greatest contribution a person can make to the environment. When I die, I personally hope to fertalize a lovely tree, the tree will one day be chopped down and made into firewood and later it will help to save the life of a child that would otherwise freeze to death without the warmth of my wood, etc...
So if people make comments that are rude or jokign regarding the death, instead of forcing them to see your way of perceiving death, simply avoid fueling a debate which simply can not be won. The Christians have tried forcing their beliefs down the throats of millions by force, of course they have had great success, but there's still a lot more that aren't Christian than that are. Your comments on Slashdot will be taken much less seriously than the churches gunpoint salesmanship. Just leave it alone and pay your respects to the dead.
To the others which are trolling for flamebait on this one, please find a more appropriate forum, or at least fake your own death, get a comment on slashdot and then poke fun.
Save lives.... by killing people?
I only know one of one human being that abysmally stupid on this planet. You don't happen to have been spanked in any presidential debates lately, have you?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I know who he was, I know that he shared some similar interests to me.
Thre is a difference between the death that you never hear about, and the death that you do hear about, especially when you know things about them.
In M2, I treat all the moderations as if they were the first one given to the post.
It's a fundamental flaw in the metamoderation system that you can't know in what order the moderations were performed. That also makes it very difficult to M2 "Overrated" and "Underrated". Giving a +5 Funny post a -1 Overrated may be fair. But it's unfair to give an unmoderated post a -1 Overrated.
Also, several moderators could have entered a moderation around the same time. That way, posts jump up far above what the moderator thought the post deserved. This could be solved by an optional "Maz score" field next to the moderation SELECT, so that if three moderators moderated a post with starting score 1, "+1 Funny, max 3" at the same time, only two of those mod. point were used, and the third user got the mod. point back to use later.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!