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Hemos is Homeless
So just as proof that life doens't stop when you go to a conference, Hemos got email this morning from nate informing him that
his house burned down [?] last night. Now some rooms are missing and there is extensive smoke and water damage. Now the geek compound is 25% smaller. On the plus side, both Nate and hemos are safe and insured. Update: 10/16 11:05 by H : And to make matters worse, Chris DiBona threw my cell phone in a bucket of water. On accident. But it's pretty ironic.
I don't know you, except that you're one of /.'s founders. (BTW Thanks for that) Since I have experienced a home fire too, I empathize with your situation. I hope I can lend a supportive voice. I didn't lose my whole house, so I am not in any way trying to say "I know how you feel".
The carport outside my apt. was torched by an arsonist in 1990. The place went up really quick. I was all too tempted to run back in and grab the 386/25 (a killer system back in the day), which was on loan from a good client.
Thanks to the firemen, the apt. didn't burn down. I lost my car, and my high-school teachers' Altair 8800 that was in the storage locker. The car seriously needed to be burned down anyway. =) Then there were the items of sentimental value, geez, I don't really remember what they were any more. Maybe I'm not such a sentimental guy after all.
The Altair was, practically speaking, irreplacable. I always wanted to restore it till it could boot again, just like when it was originally loaned to me. Something my parents hardwired in me - return what you borrow in good condition. Because of the fire (and my unwillingness to kick down serious $$$), I have been unable to do that.
I moved away from that apt. the following month. I guess my point is that there was loss, and it was life altering, and I didn't like it one bit. Overall, the whole experience made me a stronger person, and I am glad for that. Today it is OK, and I am writing code on a much faster box in a much bigger house. Some good came out of it, like the new car, although it was very humiliating having to tell Mr. Geekteach that I didn't have his Altair 8800 to return to him. I guess I still have a few centimeters to go on getting over that one.
I dunno what else to say. I guess there isn't anything else - sorry for your loss (or is it just a change?).
Thanks - I've got my parents close by, so I might crash there. Until I wanna by on my own.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Thanks - I'll take good words, but you are right - I've got stuff under control. Now, if it's irreplacable data - I'll ask.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Most geeks are already pale, skinny and malnurished as it is. If we all become vegetarins we will look like the people in Somlia. Besides I don't want to live with any one that has to eat
beans to stay alive.
Found it odd last night that Hemos' most recent post ended with "I'd like to know if my house will be underwater."
Well, anyway, best of luck to Hemos in rebuilding.
--
I had something similar happen about two years ago.
Good to hear that no one was hurt.
Some advice: a lot of hotels will let you stay
for a week or two at a reduced rate. I lived
in a hotel for about two weeks while we cleaned up
the mess. It's still no fun, but at least you
don't have to crash on someone's couch until the
place is liveable again.
Hemos, I hope you're insured and backed up. Let us slashdotters know if there's anything we can do to help you out.
bradley
Yes it did. Sometime during college. If memory serves me, it was the summer of 97.
He lost a hell of a lot in that one. Several computers and things.
I agree with you there. I lost everything in a fire about 6 years back: All of my artwork written words, films I hade made, music I created. It was such a big deal, that it sent my life into a tailspin for a long time (while I figured out why all the work that I spent my life thus far doing was destroyed).
During the fire, I spent my time risking my life trying to keep it under control while the fire dept got there.
A few months later a friend died while trying to rescue the people in his house when it burned down.
But I recovered, things are even better than before. Fire is the great cleanser, but it still rocks one deep to your core: for example you will never smell things burning the same way again.
The point is: lets try to have some compassion towards others. I know that in the 90's it is hip to be snide and cynical, but I just think (from experience) that it is a way to deal with what we are afraid of.
my 1/4 cent. thanks for listening.
Its nice having a home webcam to check on whenever out of town to know at least if the important connection is still up...
So, if his house is toast, he oughta travel the world in style and put on these conventions. The ALS once again had excellent accomodations... marble floors, grand pianos, limo service, free tshirts, and did I mention free stuff?
The people here at the ALS always do an outstanding job setting us up. Here's my thanks!
That's actually somewhat how Habitat for Humanities (I might have the plural backwards on that) works. People volunteer their time and a bit of money to all pool together and build a house for someone who desparately needs it. I think they tend towards helping people who have suddenly hit on hard times, such as, well, their houses burning down and their insurance not being able to get them back in a home again. Hopefully Hemos's insurance will cover the partial damage which occured, though.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Sigh... Another uninformed post on /. You donate blood, but it costs quite a bit to get that blood to a point where it can be used. I don't know the exact breakdown, but I'd guess that most of the cost comes from testing. You really want blood with HIV in it? On top of that, there are costs from transportation, separation of blood into plasma/solids, repackaging, etc. They do in fact charge the hospitals more for the blood, than it cost to get it there, but they use blood to fund other efforts which they do not charge for.
If they're recooping their costs/making profits on blood, where does your donation go? Most of the money donated to the Red Cross goes towards disaster relief. Of the $1.964 billion spent by the Red Cross in fiscal 1997-1998, $1.791 billion or 91 percent, was spent on programs designed to meet the needs of people, leaving $174 million, or 9 percent for overall administration and fundraising.
I've worked with the Red Cross quite a few times in the past, and I have no clue what you are talking about with them charging high prices for food/drinks while working for them.
Next time consider some research. All of their audited financial reports are available off of their site, www.redcross.org
-Adam
Would you do it for some scoobie crack?
Homeless... I thought his shell account got cancelled...
/me shivers at the thought
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Isn't it ironic that only a few stories ago Hemos was saying about the global warming distributed computing effort "global warming just gives me the creeps anyway and I'd like to know if my house will be underwater" ! (Unless he knew about at the time!)
rm -rf / is the evil of all root
it's not often that you hear about somebody's house burning down. Sorry hemos, nate. If you're looking for a place, there's a real nice apartment building here in VA next to mae-east. I figure you can put on your ninja clothes, and run some fibre in the dark of night. At least gigabit inernet will make you feel better.
-earl
After the Andover.net IPO, Hemos can afford a huge mansion.... perhaps like the one Bill Gates has. Just make sure the bathroom is Y2K compliant .
Seriously.... I hope everything turns out ok for you, Hemos.
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"
>>I never heard of vegetable waste catching fire.
Obviously, you weren't quite the twisted pyromaniac I was in yougnger days.
The oil in orange peels burns like the bejesus.
Think like a person of action, act like a person of thought. --H. Bergson
Anal Correction Mode on.
Habitat for Humanity is not plural.
Anal Correction Mode off.
I have volunteered for Habitat near where I live, and they tend to build housing for those who cannot afford it, I'm not sure if they do repair work (although they do buy abandoned buildings from the gov't and fix them). I believe there is some income restriction to be elegible to buy it, but if you can it is a good deal. (If you call a required 400 hours of working on Habitat jobs good... I do.) Low cost housing, with no interest.
I would encurage everybody to volunteer to help out. Quit banging on a keyboard for a few hours, bang on nails instead.
Insert wit here.
If there's anything we can do to help, all you have to do is ask.
This is just yet another example showing the dangers of closed source house construction.
If this house had been constructed using open source development under the GPL, NONE of this would have happened.
After, NOTHING ever developed by the open source community has ever crashed and burned. Of course, you have to twist bare electric wires to turn your lights on and off, but think of the STABILITY and SECURITY of a home built using open source ideology!!!
(Yes, I'm being a sarcastic troll.
Sorry to hear that your house burned, Hemos. I've had it happen twice when I was growing up and lost my first computer and a ton of good books from the second fire. We lived in a VERY old house with bad wiring...
Just couldn't resist poking some fun at the OSS nazis after reading the response to the Loki contest.)
Red Cross is also amazing - I highly recommend Habit as well. Please - everyone take the time to check your fire safety, and make sure you know how to get it. Buy a fire-proof safe. And contribute to causes around you - tithing is a good idea, regardless of religion/creed.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Past that the whole house thing -sucks- those pictures are heartbreaking.
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
7) Port a Quake II client to a mobile robot platform, and network it to your PC.
8) Put 1 Kg high explosives in each room. Fires are put out by explosions. Deprives them of fuel and oxygen.
9) Build the house underground. Underground fires are much rarer. :)
10) Buy up some SDI lasers, and target them at fire hazards. If any show thermic activity, vapourise.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Good point!
:-)
:-)
On the other hand, the last time I looked, there weren't any trees in the rubbish bin.
Although this wasn't intended to be serious, I guess propensity to catch fire is related to aeration and low water content, neither of which hold in the compacted and very wet environment of discarded vegetable trimmings.
Hey, maybe the Eat Healthy lobby should use this in their advertising: eat healthy or your house will burn down!
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
... because most junk food comes in paper wrappers. :-)
The moral of the story is, change your diet to a healthy one. I never heard of vegetable waste catching fire.
[Morgaine pushes pizza box deftly out of sight.]
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
They're at ALS damnit! Jeeze. They're great people. You should meet Taco and Malda in person. They were great fun to hang out with. No pretentions at all, they're just normal people trying to be friendly and run a good site for everyone. They were happy to chat with people and got annoyed when they were treated like celebrities. There is no reason to ridicule them for being unable to do anything when they're not even there.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Sorry to hear about the fire, boys. I'm really glad nobody was hurt.
On a lighter side there are several ways it could have been prevented (written in a manner to hopefully avoid hurting nates pride even more):
1) Cases of penguin mints. Can't start a fire while you're sleeping if you don't sleep.
2) Cases of Mountain Dew. Good for refreshment and dosing fires.
3) Eat only Peanut Butter M&Ms. Their wrappers are plastic and won't catch fire in the trash so easily.
4) Move from the Geek Compound into the Geek Fortress. An old missle silo would do - concrete doesn't really burn well.
5) Hemos. Oh wait, this isn't a poll.
Learning from other's mistakes is much less painful than learning fro other peoples, so /.ers might all take this as a reminder to check their basic fire safety - batteries in smoke detectors, extinguishers charged, outlets not overloaded by plugging six boxen and monitors into one outlet, and so on...reminds me that I've been wanting to set a fire safe to put backup tapes in. (Yeah, if I was doing really important stuff I'd have offsite backups, but like most of us I'm in good shape if I remember to have backups at all.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I'm somewhat afraid that my house will burn someday, with all the computers and peripherals plugged in. I did a little research and found out that the best way to reduce this risk is to make sure your computer, power strips, etc. are resting on some sort of non-combustible material (my stuff sits on a sheet of steel). A rackmount type rack would be most ideal, however those are a bit expensive (though they may be a good investment anyway). I also twist tie the wires and cables coming out of the back of my computer together and have them travel in bundles to a location. This way I hope to minimize any chance of dust collecting. Dust improves the change of a power arc from one line to another, which can start a fire. Anyone else have any suggestions?
Cute and elligible female to shack up with.
I just *KNEW* the slashdot flamewars would go too far one day!
That really sucks, and I'm sorry to hear it.
I know how you feel. About ten years ago, a roomate of mine and a friend (of his) were using a plastic bag as an ashtray. Burned out one room and destroyed most personal belongings on the top floor. The worst part: I was renting the condo from my mother.
Fortunately, while I lost every stitch of clothing except what I had been wearing, the computer and stereo, both downstairs, were unscathed. (I lost a record player, though, remember those?)
But in the end, it was probably good for me. It drive me to live alone for the first time in my life. It drove me to quite the job where they had troubles paying me on time Events like these can be learning experiences. They aren't necessarily all bad. (When it is just property that is lost.)
And now the real question. Is your insurance policy "Replacement value" or "Actual Cash Value"? That is one of the things I learned the hard way. For those who aren't in the middle of this, you want the former as it saves you huge headaches.
The cake is a pie
No one got hurt - and thank you for the kind words.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
When you rebuild/redecorate your house, how about making it open-source. Sort of like the Kasporov vs. The World Chess match - but instead, The World redecorates Hemos' house!
Just think of the opportunities: Slashdot green walls in the computer room, DustPuppy themed vacuum cleaner cupboard ...
On a serious note, I hope nothing irreplacable like photos were lost.
People, please leave the residents of the geek compound alone for awhile. half their house just burned down! And don't complain if in the next few days submissions get processed alittle slower.
--
Having experienced my house burning down, I find it suprising to read the remarkable calousness of some of these replies. I can say, confidently, that it altered the course of my life. In some ways, it was good, in others, simply tragic. By the age of 27 I'd built a library of some thousand books. Two thirds of them were lost, including a hand written journal covering about 5 years. My filing cabinet containing many, many documents that were, to me, priceless, gone. Keepsakes from my dead Grandfather. Furnature that I'd build by hand. Photo albums and personal drawings, all gone.
I suspect that most of the people replying here have not experienced a house fire, if they had, the tone of the responses would likely be very different.
Perhaps it wouldn't be too much to ask that people posting to this news take a minute to think over what their feelings would be if they lost their most cherished, most irreplacable keepsakes.
Take it from some one who's been there, fires build character, they steel you for the rest of your life.
pjr