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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.
Granted the other 1000+ who have died are mostly poor, but on the other hand, they have not done the social harm that Mr Fredinburg has in working for the biggest destroyer of privacy on the planet.
And the 10's of thousands of others who didn't die but were displaced and had their homes destroyed cannot easily afford to replace them. Possibly because they did not enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else's privacy.
With all due respects to Mr. Fredinburg, climbing Mr. Everest is now the "in" thing to do for the elites, to the point that the area is strewn with garbage and human excrement that would take years to be cleansed by natural means even if all climbing were to cease today.
That's too bad. Why is this on slashdot?
Google is a company that does a few things with internet technology. Here's their website if you're interested in checking them out: http://www.google.com
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.
My, you're dense.
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.
When these amateurs start climbing it again WITHOUT a slew of sherpas, and oxygen tanks and using ACTUAL expert mountaineers to hold their hands, then I'll be impressed.
Comparing the conditions under which people like Sir Edmund Hilary climbed to today's rich, trendy yuppies like this guy -- well, clearly times are different.
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.
#DeleteChrome
That's too bad. Why is this on slashdot?
Google is a company that does a few things with internet technology. Here's their website if you're interested in checking them out: http://www.google.com
Not trying to be a web design critic here, but somebody should be fucking fired for that homepage. Like a single search box is supposed to tell me something about a company named Google?
(Pretend you had never heard of Google. Now you might understand just how fucking stupid it is to direct someone to google.com to learn about Google)
I'm thinking you are, linking to a story claiming social *could* help in such disasters, with a closing sentence that one family marked themselves safe on Facebook! HAHAHAHA, yeah tweets and facebook likes will stop falling rocks and bring food/shelter/medical aide to the victims. Let's all paste a white and grey ribbon on our social media pages because "we care" and "to raise awareness" while we're at it.
That's too bad. Why is this on slashdot?
A better question is: Why are you on Slashdot?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So that annoying pedants like me have an excuse to point out that Everest is not the tallest mountain in the world (merely the highest) and that the thousands of people who insist on climbing it are overpaid, pretentious dicks who would rather brag about nearly dying of cerebral edema or hypothermia than do something like climb Kilimanjaro (the tallest above-sea mountain in the world), which is a longer and much more scenic climb.
2,500 people died and a poor country is devastated and all that makes the news is one dead American. Disgusting.
Moron.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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
False. We discussed the death of peasants yesterday. Today, a whole day later, we're discussing the death of a googler. You're either disingenuous, a dipshit, or both. But then, you didn't log in, so we knew that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This isn't Hacker News, for crying out loud. We don't use the word "disingenuous" here. We aren't hipsters.
I was using the word 'disingenuous' on Slashdot before Hacker News existed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If Slashdot's editorial duty is to emphasize news items based on their humanitarian importance, it fails with every article that isn't about death, poverty, slavery, etc. Of course, then it wouldn't be a tech website and we probably wouldn't visit it, so that all is fairly moot. This is about Dan Fredinburg because he was relevant to tech and known in our community (and he's certainly worth remembering as a person as well, regardless of what else is in the news). It's not here because it was the most important thing to happen in the past week.
I think it's on us to give the events in Nepal their due emphasis. Personally, I have donated to Doctors Without Borders, which is sending medical aid. I invite anyone else to do the same, and maybe to bring up the topic with family, friends, and coworkers.
But I am very glad and thank you for remembering the other Nepali. Maybe if we let the editors know that we would like them to setup a donation button or organize something in that vein so we can help out as a community, they would oblige.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Guess you are a hipster, then.
You sound like the insecure dumb kids back in junior high school. If my crime is sounding smarter than you're comfortable with, mission accomplished.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
(Pretend you had never heard of Google. Now you might understand just how fucking stupid it is to direct someone to google.com to learn about Google)
Pretend you're an arseclown and can't use the links on an entry page for a company, to find out about a company. Oh wait - you don't have to pretend.
In todays tech news someone from a tech company died. In arseclown news yet another arseclown couldn't find arseclown.org so trolled as anonymous coward on slashdot instead. When interviewed the arseclown said "I hate tech, it's full of smart people who make me feel stupid, when I'm not busy pissing on people's furniture I like to troll on /. and talk about my genitals, the shrink says it makes me feel less (rightfully) socially marginalized"
His GOOG palm crystal changed color.
I climb mountains as a hobby, and know many climbers, a large proportion of whom are geeks who are disinterested in team sports. It's a hobby like any other physical hobby. It brings risk, but also enormous enjoyment from the combination of experiencing the raw beauty of nature where there are very few others with the challenge and thrill of reaching a summit. We climb a peak not to show off; we climb it because it is there. A tiny fraction of mountaineers are interested in bragging rights (except, perhaps, amongst themselves in a good-spirited manner), so your slight against us is rude and ignorant. Fuck you!
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
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.)
long ago. The oxygen bottles, sherpas, packaged guide services, gourmet food, bridged/extension laddered/roped route "improvements", and instant cell phone/radio communication have made it a circus. I understand why it still appeals to arrogant assholes though... but, it's similar to state of the art "sport" fishing and hunting, which, (in a similar way) "enhanced" by sonar fish locators, high speed fishing boats, carbon fiber rods, laser sighting, tree stands, scent masking, baiting, and "canned" hunts, has become spiritually bankrupt. I wish we could all stop admiring these narcissistic activities.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective