RIP Andre Hedrick: The engineer who kept the PC open(theregister.co.uk) |
RIP Andre Hedrick: The engineer who kept the PC open(theregister.co.uk) |
I never met him in person or knew him on a real personal level, but I considered him a great ally of the things I care most about (software freedom and reliable software, in particular). I hate to see him go, and I'm sorry his family has to go through this. I know that he inspired many developers to stand up for software freedom as well as technically sound implementations, not because he preached about it but because he lived it, every day.
I wish he could have found a way and the courage to live on -- for the sake of his children.
A man having committed suicide is sad. But four children growing up without their father is a real tragedy.
Edit: changed wording out of respect
But nobody deserves anything in life, neither good nor bad. What is good? What is bad? We have no promises for anything. Why things happen? For some reason unbeknownst to anyone, he and his closest people chose to participate in such a tragedy. It wasn't him choosing to commit suicide alone nor it wasn't his closest family members choosing to live through an event of suicide but that they all shared a bond that invited them to such a course of life where one of them takes his own life. Nobody knows why but nobody's in it for nothing. There are lessons to be learned and facts to be faced. People have to deal with things and that's why they're living their lives--to deal with things (that are uncomfortable). Some of the people might not make it, some might rise above. There's a course of life for everyone but it depends on how they take it, not what happened.
What do you mean by "his closest people chose to participate in such a tragedy" and "it wasn't him choosing to commit suicide alone"?
RIP.
But then, sometimes there isn't.
R.I.P
Some of you folks might remember a discussion involving Losethos sometime back on HN. I can't find the discussion but here is the article which was discussed: http://qaa.ath.cx/LoseThos.html . In that article, one kind person had taken some effort to understand the reasons behind such incoherent comments.
I am not sure that people who marked the comment as dead, are aware of that discussion. Perhaps we need a policy at HN to handle such situations better.
PS: I got the above link by doing this search 'site:news.ycombinator.com losethos' on google. You can also see some more comments on the same here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4189669. But can't find that original discussion
Do you think they were members of a random family who just happened to witness their husband and father coincidentally decide to commit suicide while still a member of that family? That they all weren't in for that tragedy earlier in time, probably from the beginning? Because if you do, surely and lastly now at least they all are part of it. And that begs the question of not whether it was coming but where it was coming from and who saw it coming. Things like these don't surface from a vacuum.
Edit: changed my wording. I'm Dutch, we don't beat around the bush, but you have a point, I can say it differently. I will use those words for the people I did know. I do think that people should talk more; it is just strange how this happens if you actually HAVE people who care about you around you.
Edit: I am pro euthanasia, but it should be discussed; most cases are fixable, the ones which aren't well aren't.
@erre below (I cannot reply): we agree, the moment itself definitely not rational (that's probably why so many people actually change their minds during the fall from the Golden Gate; there is a good documentary about that), however during the years and years of getting to that point there are rational moments. Your friend went to seek help ; that was rational. It does not have to be continues; it's just sad to see how many people do this without ANYONE actually knowing they even had anything like that on their minds. My cousin was an upbeat, happy guy; he was always the most cheerful and nicest person you could have around. He had tons of girls around him and a steady girlfriend. He went for a drive, cheerful as ever, from his house, left a note + a tape for the funeral. No-one had a clue. A forest ranger found him in his car. That's just weak, really, especially considering his note explained the years he spent coping with this and that he couldn't take it. The moment itself was not rational by any means, however the YEARS before and the show he put up was.
Except that I have close contact with someone who suffers from depression, and I know it's very hard. She sought help, and is much better. But, during crises, none of this matters. You cannot argue with them, try to get them to see reason. Cause and effect just don't get through to them.
I know it's exasperating. My initial reaction was to get angry, to tell her the same "you know this and that", until I realised it was completely beyond her control. I'm very, very happy she got better, but I fully realise that if she had jumped out of a window at some point, it would not have been a rational decision; it would not have been "irresponsible" (the concept wouldn't even apply); and she would have sees absolutely no other course of action she would have been capable of having taken. It's very sad, and very hard to deal with.
I think a lot of this comes down to a very poor understanding of mental illness in the general population. Nobody has a problem if you can't play frisbee with your friends because you broke your legs. But if you don't want to play frisbee with your friends because you brain is sick, their frame of mind is completely different. They're not thinking of it as a disease, with your mental state being just as much of an uncontrollable symptom as the inability to run is out of the control of the person with the broken leg.
We need to better educate people on this stuff. I'm sure that discussions like this help, as long as they don't go off the rails into misinformation.