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Google Executive Dan Fredinburg Among Victims of Everest Avalanche
alphadogg writes: Dan Fredinburg, privacy director for the company's Google X team, and an engineer who worked on many of Google's most exciting projects during his 8 years with the company, died over the weekend in an avalanche on Mount Everest. The 33-year-old worked on projects such as Google Loon, the company's balloon-based Internet access effort and self-driving car. He also was involved in Google Street View Everest, leading expeditions to gather imagery of the Khumbu region around Mt. Everest. Fredinburg's career began in a much less glamorous fashion as a "dock rat" and as a farm hand in Arkansas.
Base Camp on Mount Everest; not a bad place to kick off, all thing considered...
Hopefully there was a pitcher of Mai-Tais and some native girls. :)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
No, because some asshole that did nothing of praise but was latched to a big "tech" biz "living the life" "doing what he loved!" is worthy of front page news unlike the common native peasant carrying his luggage on donkeys up the camp, because "those "weren't living the life" and "doing what they love", but who cares, they are poor because they chose to.
It was very tragic for the Nepalese people as well.
I feel sorry for the people grieving today for lost loved ones. But I'm getting a bit tired of the tiny number of climbers and tourists that died completely dominating the news. Thousands of Nepalese died. Their loved ones may have trouble even surviving, going forward. Let's not forget about them.
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Climbing Everest is stupid, irresponsible, dangerous, pointless task for people with severe mental problems like constantly needing approval from others or pathological levels of arrogance or constantly feeling inadequate. So I have to wonder how he even got that job at Google with the personality of an Everest climber.
Do you play computer games?
If so do you play on beginner mode or hard mode? Personally I go for the harder modes because accomplishment is a lot more satisfying when there's a legitimate challenge involved.
Climbing Everest isn't anything different. If you really like to climb it's the most accessible major challenge out there, it's true that not everybody who climbs Everest is a dedicated climber who's "earned" the right to take on that challenge, but I see no evidence that Dan Fredinburg was one of those people.
The fact that climbing Everest doesn't personally appeal to you doesn't give you grounds to make up some BS rationalization for insulting those who do.
Personally I have no desire to take on an even moderately dangerous hobby, but I think nothing less of those who do.
I stole this Sig
Apparently we don't care about a terrible natural disaster unless some famous white guy, livin' the dream for his Googlionaire foundation, dies in an avalanche.
The world has looked the other way for a long time at the exploitation of the Sherpa and the other problems caused by rich Westerners, many not well-qualified, who feel they just have to make the Everest attempt. It's mostly the Sherpa who pay the toll.
I've never understood the sherpa thing.
If you're going to climb Everest, shouldn't you at least do the work yourself? Claiming you climbed Mt. Everest and not acknowledging the people who hauled your ass up there is like claiming you trekked the Grand Canyon and not mentioning that it was a bus tour and all you did was get out for a few photos.
Apparently we don't care about a terrible natural disaster unless some famous white guy, livin' the dream for his Googlionaire foundation, dies in an avalanche.
The world has looked the other way for a long time at the exploitation of the Sherpa and the other problems caused by rich Westerners, many not well-qualified, who feel they just have to make the Everest attempt. It's mostly the Sherpa who pay the toll.
I've never understood the sherpa thing. If you're going to climb Everest, shouldn't you at least do the work yourself? Claiming you climbed Mt. Everest and not acknowledging the people who hauled your ass up there is like claiming you trekked the Grand Canyon and not mentioning that it was a bus tour and all you did was get out for a few photos.
I've never understood the whole Everest thing and I have heard a number of people who climbed Everest say the same. They either almost got their ass killed climbing up there or they walked past people who didn't make it and either lay there dead beside the path or were in the process of dying. Apparently it's an unwritten rule that you leave people to die if they can't make it and there are some pretty chilling stories by people who summited Everest of dying people laying there next to the path pleading for help. So why climb Everest? It's been done, what's there to prove? Those last two sentences aren't my words they are the words of an American who got the idea in his head to climb Everest and lost his nose and most of his fingers and toes in the process. Most of the people who 'summit' Everest are literally carried up there by Sherpas. If I ever get the notion to 'summit' Everest I'll take a helicopter, jump out, take a few snaps and fly back down again and even that would be (1) a stupid risk and (2) something that has been done before: Didier Delsalle, Eurocopter AS350 (It kind of surprised me that it was done by a little flea like the AS350, you'd expect the first chopper to summit Everest to be some big burly monster like a Black Hawk brimming with horsepowers.)