Jim Gray Is Missing

K-Man writes "Jim Gray, Turing Award winner and developer of many fundamental database technologies, was reported missing at sea after a short solo sailing trip to the Farallon Islands off San Francisco. Gray is manager of Microsoft's eScience group. The Coast Guard is searching for his vessel over 4,000 square miles of ocean, and there have been no distress calls or signals of any kind. Gray is 63 and a sailor with 10 years' experience."

Comments

Mirror of SFGate News

[mfh]

SFGate's Report - Mirrored:

(01-29) 15:23 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for a San Francisco computer scientist who may be lost at sea after he failed to return from an outing to the Farallon Islands Sunday afternoon.

Jim Gray, 63, set out alone on his 40-foot sailboat, "Tenacious," Sunday morning and was expected back sometime that afternoon, officials said.

Gray is a prize-winning researcher and the manager of the Microsoft Science Group in downtown San Francisco.

His wife notified authorities at 8:35 p.m. Sunday after Gray failed to return and did not answer cell phone calls, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard searched all night with an aircraft, helicopter, coastal patrol boat and motor life boat, officials said, but found no sign of the missing vessel. They also found no signs of distress.

Officials said that Gray has more than 10 years of sailing experience and that his boat is "well-equipped with communication, safety and emergency gear."

The Farallon Islands are about 27 miles off the coast from the Golden Gate Bridge.

I know what happened....

[Anonymous Coward]

he accidently did a Cartesian Join, and flooded the boat

Re:You don't think

[Anonymous Coward]

All Hans on deck...

Hm...

[Cyberax]

> SELECT loc FROM Locations loc, People p WHERE p.name="Jim Gray" AND p.loc=loc.id

The query returned 0 results.

Re:Hm...

[Cyberax]

Actually, my development environment does not require semicolons after lone SQL statements. Besides, when you embed SQL statements in code using JDBC/DBI/... you also don't need semicolons.

And I don't like semicolons because one time I accidentally typed "DELETE FROM Table; WHERE ..." on a production database. Luckily, one entry had a constraint which forced transaction to rollback.

Re:You don't think

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor joke. I will kill you with my bare Hans for that one.

Was using MS Sailor 2007 XP

[kbob88]

Cue up the jokes about how he shouldn't have automated his sailboat using Windows. Now facing the Blue Wave of Death.

Seriously though, there's a good chance he's OK. The weather out here has been great today, and he hasn't been gone that long. One of the following probably happened:

• Something broke and he's drifting around out there, probably to be spotted fairly soon as there's plenty of ship traffic and the Coasties are looking;
• Got blown off course and had to put in somewhere remote on the coast (unlikely as the winds aren't bad);
• Navigation broke down, he missed the Farallons (although you can usually see them from shore on a good day), went too far out, and is down coming back;
• Hit a whale / whale hit him -- not good, could sink the boat; hopefully he had a liferaft and was able to get into it;
• Hit by a ship (it's busy out there); definitely not good; but unlikely as weather has been very good
• Accidently fell overboard -- very bad, especially with our cold water here. That's why you don't make ocean passages alone, no matter how experienced you are.

Re:It's OK

[DrRevotron]

For a second there, I thought Slashdot would drop this stupid anti-Microsoft bullshit and at least show some compassion.

Re:It's OK

[Anonymous Coward]

For a second there, I thought Slashdot would drop this stupid anti-Microsoft bullshit and at least show some compassion.

If you come to slashdot for compassion, then I DO feel sorry for you.

Uh-oh.

[Jello B.]

I hope this turns out to be better than Mario is Missing.

Re:It's sad really.

[Jello B.]

What's even sadder is that Ballmer & Gates weren't with him....But w

Wait, why isn't that thought finished? Did somebody mention Candlejack? Now there are two people mi

Negative comments

[Sabathius]

I heard he made an anti-microsoft comment and a chair hit the side of his boat.

Possibly run down by a larger ship

[Animats]

He went out in a 40-foot C&C 121 yacht. That's a very nice boat, with a epoxy resin laminate hull, carbon fiber reinforcement and masts, Kevlar sails, and a 38HP engine. There hasn't been any weather lately bad enough to give a boat like that any serious trouble. If it ran aground it would probably survive the experience.

But between San Francisco and the Farralon Islands is a major shipping lane. One with fog. Container ships and oil tankers come through there. Sizable fishing boats have been run down and sunk without anyone on a large ship even noticing. There's a USGS Vessel Traffic Service station and established traffic lanes for large ships, but small boats aren't required to check in with traffic control.

I had the pleasure...

[Anonymous Coward]

of meeting Jim a number of years ago. He struck me as a very thoughtful, very conscientious, and very nice man. My thoughts are with him and his family.

The rest of you modding and getting modded funny can die in a fire.

Re:Sickening

[LordLucless]

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."
        - George Bernard Shaw