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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.
Shit. I know one of those guys. It's messed up to read something like that on /.
Yesterday I was demonstrating on the dam square in Amsterdam with some of the people involved. I want to express my deepest respect...
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.
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
Knowing hans since 1999 this is a real shock :( Condoleances to everybody who knew him :(
We'll miss you!
-- Cliff Albert
In addition to the other responses you'll get, please check out this thread. You'll notice that a handful of the posts are from people that knew these individuals, or had been around them within the past few days.
There's a good chance that 1 slashdot account will never be used again, which is a sad thing for us all. Not to mention that the individual that died wasn't just a member of the community, he was a contributor... something that makes him stand apart from most of us.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
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.
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.
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.
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.
Let me introduce you to my family...
/.er on here that is happy because this event happened and of the few jokes I've seen have none have been negative/insensitive.
My grandmother recently passed away. While at the funeral home reviewing the work of the embalmer (or whoever puts on the makeup/etc) the funeral director asked what they thought. My Mother made the comment that they had done an excellent job and that she looked wonderful. My Uncle said, and I'll never forget it...
"Yes, she looks great. So great that I'm thinking of bringing my wife down here."
Sometimes you just have to make light of the situation if you're going to try to get through it. I don't think there's a single
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
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
It used to be (before a new workload came crashing down on everyone) that occasionally a large group of us would go to lunch together in one guy's Suburban (nicknamed the War Wagon). The head of the division (who knows the network back and forth and one of two people with access to the firewalls and high-level ACLs), the head of security (the other guy with access to the firewalls and high-level ACLs and backup IDS man), the primary IDS guy, the head of the networking team, the head of the database team (and the only one who knows some of the more archaic systems), and the head of the remote access team, together with a couple of us peons, would all load up in the War Wagon. One day, the driver had to swerve to avoid what could have become a very bad accident, and we spent the lunch wondering how the rest of the division would recover from the loss of seven or eight people, five of whom were key to operations.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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."
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
Any Christians (or other faiths, for that matter) should say a quick prayer for everyone involved.
Why? Being an outsider to religion, this is one of the notions about it that always seemed self-contradictory to me. The god as described by most religions wouldn't re-assign his distribution of benevolence based on a popular vote. To say that a lot of people praying for someone else has an effect on that person leads directly to the conclusion that god cares more about famous sufferers than anonymous ones. And that doesn't fit the personality most religions ascribe to their god. It just doesn't seem consistent at all to me.
Now, praying about other people's misfortunes might be a way to demonstrate to your god that you aren't selfish, but according to the tenets of most religions, it really shouldn't have any effect on them at all, but maybe it would have some effect on you, and make *you* feel better about it.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
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? """