Diaspora Co-founder Dies At 22 312
phaedrus5001 writes "Tech Crunch is reporting that one of the co-founders of Diaspora, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, has passed away. He was only 22. At the moment, the cause of his death is unknown."
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Diaspora Co-founder Dies At 22
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Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food.
Let this be a lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
To all young, horny, self-absorbed, invincible little gods of the internet: you're never too young. The cosmos cares not for you.
Value your health. Value your safety.
Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.
Re:Let this be a lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true words... health is one of those things that gets stolen away from you almost literally overnight and from there it's a major struggle to get back to normality. Most of us as kids would screw up our faces when our parents would say "You've got your health" when we moaned about not having anything - sadly, as with so many things, you don't realise how true that is until you're older.
The trouble is, you trip up with something, that later causes something else...and so on... you find yourself snowballing down into the pit of death .
Re:google's hand (Score:1, Insightful)
u mean facebook, they allready trained the stalkers
Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is Diaspora? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, guys, I know only a moron like myself doesn't know what this Diaspora project is, but couldn't you put a link or a two-word explanation? Yes, I know Google is my friend. Feel free to mod me down now.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fact (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it's a bit late now, isn't it AC! Sheesh. Geez... I'm not even going to respond to you any further.
To Ilya: R.I.P
To Ilya's family, friends, colleagues and associates: I offer my condolences and wish you peace also and wish you the strength to get through this.
Regards
Craig
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone commits suicide, it's not always the case that they're going to smother the Internet with cries for help -- introverted especially, especially the geeky kind, tend to bundle up their emotions. Suicides can and do happen out of the blue.
I'm really sorry to hear this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Condolences to his family and friends.
Re:Naturally... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, yeah. Championing the cause of privacy protection in social networks earns you that right many times over.
Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause (Score:0, Insightful)
Awful and upsetting for the family and friends, sure. But for himself, I don't know.
I'm not sure life deserves the worship it gets. Ok, life can be fun but not fun enough to justify the overhead. By the time you're 20 you kinda get the plot, and it usually doesn't get any better after that.
I've been trying to shield my children from discovering this, but my 13-year-old son, who's of a very contemplating kind, voices similar thoughts already. While I will in no way encourage this line of thinking, I'm having a hard time countering his arguments because he's totally right.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an educated (BS in SE), 25 year old male who has attempted suicide twice (and failed by chance/luck/bad luck), in general we do send out cries for help. They get dismissed or go unnoticed. They aren't "I'm going to kill myself tonight. Don't try to stop me." but more like "I don't really care" or "I just cause problems" along with a passive shrug cause you don't want to make the other person feel bad too.
Personally if someone had noticed my attempts, I think I would've been better off. The ones that are vocal about it get help, the ones that are discovered before death get help, but the ones that are barely strong enough to keep from going all the way just linger on in quiet misery without being able to get help or end it.
My respect to the guy. Humans die easily, but it takes a lot to kill yourself. He was stronger than me.
Re:I'm really sorry to hear this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Maybe we realize that registration is pointless. You're not "anonymous"? You "put a name behind your beliefs"?
Really?
I'm guessing your birth certificate doesn't say "Psychotria". If you worked in the cubicle next to mine, I wouldn't even know that this was you. How are you any less anonymous than me? What, because I can see which of the comments on this specific website came from you, whereas you can't know for certain which AC comments came from the same person? BFD.
Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause (Score:5, Insightful)
What? Life didn't even get interesting until I was at least 22. The best years of life are in you 30s when you have money, friends who are more than just coincidental classmates. I pity your children.
Re:Suicide Apparently Was the Cause (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree strongly with that. I'm in my mid-40s, and so far I have to say that life has got better with each passing decade. Not necessily easier, mind you, but certainly better. My job has never been more interesting, and my kids are getting old enough to be not just fun but interesting to have deep discussions with. Perhaps most importantly, I know myself, my strengths and weaknesses better than I ever used to, I've got far more confidence than when I was younger, I'm happy with who I am, and I know how to apply myself and to work with the people around me to get stuff done.
Life is what you make of it. Whatever age you are.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would tend to say this post is a cry for help.
Re:Let this be a lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
Value your health. Value your safety.
Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.
Value your mental health.
Working flat-out at all costs to accomplish something can be extremely detrimental to both your physical and mental health. The line between sane and insane is much narrower than many imagine. Whilst you may write some cool code, what use is that if you end up losing your sanity, or worse your life?
Re:Causes? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same thing. I don't think you can so easily find and take a moral high ground in such a complex philosophical issue. I think most people would agree that anyone contemplating or attempting suicide needs help, I'm just not sure that insulting someone in such a fragile mental state by calling them selfish is very helpful.
Advice for younger /.ers: Do not kill yourself. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't kill yourself. Just don't.
Throw away all your stuff, shave your head, leave your home and your hometown, and start walking, heading in one direction. Drop your job. Stand and pee on the desk of your Boss. Run away from school. Do whatever you must, but do *not* kill yourself. It's about the stupidest thing you can do.
My Grandpa who dug the whole Nazi-Wehrmacht thing back then and went on to invade and fight on the eastern front in WW2 as a Waffen-SS Officer (Kompanieführer) gave me this advice he took home after the war: If everything you believed in is gone, the 3rd Reich, the Wehrmacht, your hometown and half of your homeland burned and lost to the russians of which a few million are now rightfull super-pissed and heading straight your way, raping and killing their way through whatever is left of the eastern german population, if your entire Kompanie is dead (two assistants aside, which got captured a few days ago) if the beloved Führer is dead (*his* beloved Füher - not mine (emphasis mine!)), Berlin is falling and you're hearing the gunfire, the Stalinorgel and their bombshells crashing in near Zossen just a few Kilometers away, your injured and they are coming to get you and they will tear you to tiny bits and pieces, and the maggots are eating away at the festering wound in your leg, your career and your life and everything you've ever believed in is basically over and out with no stone on another in bombed out Berlin for Kilometers in each direction ... if all that has and just is happening before your very eyes right here and now ... you might aswell just crawl on a few more meters and see if something interesting happens instead of putting a gun to your head.
He crawled on, found a deserted Wehrmacht horse, crawled on to its back sideways. The horse eventually rode to a gathering-camp. The nurses picked him up and the russians didn't deport him because his injuries were to severe - the lucky bastard.
Long story short, he lives to this very day (age 97) to tell us this advice. Old Type-A nazi or not, that actually *is* a very valuable advice. If *he* in that situation decided *not* to kill himself, so can you.
Bottom line:
Don't kill yourself. It's that simple.
My 2 cents.
It's not the external world that is the problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
Suicide isn't about what's happening to you, it's about what's happening inside you.
Changing everything won't stop suicidal people from killing themselves, just like non-suicidal people like you Grandfather won't kill themselves even when everything has changed for the worst.