Slashdot Mirror
Roland Piquepaille Dies
overheardinpdx writes "I'm sad to report that longtime HPC technology pundit Roland Piquepaille (rpiquepa) died this past Tuesday. Many of you may know of him through his blog, his submissions to Slashdot, and his many years of software visualization work at SGI and Cray Research. I worked with Roland 20 years ago at Cray, where we both wrote tech stories for the company newsletter. With his focus on how new technologies modify our way of life, Roland was really doing Slashdot-type reporting before there was a World Wide Web. Rest in peace, Roland. You will be missed." The notice of Roland's passing was posted on the Cray Research alumni group on Linked-In by Matthias Fouquet-Lapar. There will be a ceremony on Monday Jan. 12, at 10:30 am Paris time, at Père Lachaise.
All of his submissions (minus one or two) were simply links to his blog to generate traffic/revenue, rather than passing us directly to the news source.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Years ago, perhaps. That hasn't been true in a long time, however.
The "Roland Piquepaille" account is a troll.
The actual Roland's account, as mentioned in the story, was "rpiquepa".
Kdawson made the phone calls to confirm this before posting it.
Somebody mod parent troll. I didn't always agree with Roland's editorial habits, but I enjoyed many of his stories. The man was quite an accomplished individual, as many would realize if they took the time to learn a bit about his life. There's more to the Web than Slashdot.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Oh, no, Roland is no more...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=1138
It is with great sadness to tell you that our Emerging Technologies blogger Roland Piquepaille has passed away suddenly. His wife Suzanne just confirmed his passing.
Roland, 62, was one of our most passionate bloggers and his ability to explain complex science well was something to behold. Roland spent most of his career in software, mainly for high performance computing and visualization companies, working for example for Cray Research and Silicon Graphics. He left the corporate world in 2001 after 33 years and jumped into blogging.
Roland passed away Monday in Paris. He was hit with a digestive virus that lead to a high fever and health complications beyond that. Suzanne said that the doctors are still trying to quantify how Roland got the virus and the exact details. We spent the last few hours confirming Roland's passing as word began to spread. It has been a rough year for the ZDNet family.
There will be a ceremony held on Monday. Rest in peace Roland, we'll miss you. Suzanne said that Roland had a few posts in the pipeline and wanted them published. If she is able to pull them from Roland's PC we'll put them on his blog to complete his record.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Actually I will. His reporting improved significantly from his early blogging days, so much so that I often did not notice that the story submitted here on Slashdot was from Roland unless the "oh no its Roland" tag appeared. I think this became more of a good natured ribbing rather than slighting him personally. I also subscribed to the nascent "oh yeah it's Roland" tag movement a couple of months back. Now that he is gone, I really do miss him. Rest in peace, friend.
Here is more details about his death, which appears to be a fast moving gastrointestinal virus.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The real rpiquepa was either a sockpuppet or ad revenue kickback contributor anyhow. I'm not entirely convinced there ever was a Roland Piquepaille. I bet the casket is actually full of hot grits.
Well, there's always the old Latin saw: De mortuis nisi nil bonum "Of the dead [say] nothing but good"
Hey rude boy, you might try "Vaya con dios" next time.
You'll still sound like an asshole, but at least like an educated asshole!
Agreed, but for Roland, one should say, "Allez avec Dieu."
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
A digestive virus, plus complications.
I always enjoyed the irony of Slashdotters accusing him of aggregating multiple articles just to whore his blog :D
He eventually figured it out and started linking directly to articles in his submissions, while including additional information/pictures on his blog.
The whining really should have died out around that point, but ohnoitsroland had already become an institution in and of itself.
Just one word.
That should be "where flaunting your moral bankruptcy is in style"
Bruce Perens.
Wait.. So you mean the whole United States?
4chan.
Yeah, definitely 4chan.
And of course here where it's expected to laugh yer ass off.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I read his posts for the content, some I enjoyed, some not so much. I know a few people are saying "I'm Sorry" but I'm sure others would grudgingly agree Roland was a changed man from the early days, all under the bridge and history. Sure he was in it to earn a living, no problems there, but I think it safe to say that in the end he was doing it better.
RIP: I guess you are just young to colour everything in such simple black and white concepts. In 5, 10, 20, 100 years, his kids, his grandkids, his descendants, whoever, these are well wishes for them as much as they are personal or for other readers on slashdot.
In my world Roland was just a name on my computer screen - for good or bad (I never judged), but he definitely stood out from the noise, a name I became so familiar with that it was an assumed extension of slashdot - from the day I started reading this site to the day I finish, this happy looking old guy with glasses would always be there. Simple as that. It really is a case of "You miss what you took for granted when it's gone", and sometimes it can be a sobering moment when you stop and ponder that it is no more.
So get your head out of your basement and understand that people are social creatures, we are compassionate, we interact. We might go through predictable motions like saying "Rest in Peace", but for each of us, we mean it in ways that go far beyond a moment of personal gratification.
No offence taken, not everybody squats on the same tree branch though.
Not just yet:
No existe.