Auto Accident at SANE Conference Kills One 542
Several people have submitted news from SANE 2004 that a car crash involving several Free Software developers has killed one and injured two others. Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.
Simply one thing to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Prayers (Score:2, Insightful)
"God, I ask you bless and comfort those who are grieving in this time of loss. I ask you bless the Bakker family, and be with the those who have lost a good friend. Allow the loved ones to seek closure for Mr. Bakker. In Jesus name, amen"
Re:Prayers (Score:5, Insightful)
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-Isaac Asimov
In this case his transition was swift and for that I am happy. My condolances to his family and the community for our loss.
Re:Prayers (Score:5, Insightful)
-Volcan Proverb
Hans Bakker's Life was not a waste. My sympathies.
In case of /. effect (Score:5, Informative)
Car accident details
There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place for all information I am trying to gather all information here.
If you have any other information please drop me an email at wichert@wiggy.net [mailto]
All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).
-
There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 [nluug.nl] to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)
-
they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)
-
Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.
-
Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).
-
At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie) [madtech.cx], and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
-
The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
-
Hans Bakker (photo [slashdot.org],
homepage [www.hans.cx])
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
-
Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
Bad information-
This Yahoo
France accident report [yahoo.com] is from another accident which occured
later and the car was traveling in the wrong direction
PressRe:In case of /. effect (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In case of /. effect (Score:4, Informative)
All other informations in the accident report (highway, location, direction, vehicles) is consistent with what has been reported here.
The fog condition is not unlikely early morning in that area, at this time of the year. Unfortunately, many others have died in similar crashes (sometimes dozens of cars crashing one after the other).
Here's a more complete and hopefully stable URL to Infotrafic web-site: http://www.infotrafic.com/perturbations.php?Regio
(Note: it appears that when Infotrafic is under heavy load, they redirect to a single summary page of traffic condition around Paris - try again later, then.)
Re:In case of /. effect (Score:4, Insightful)
Recently we had a story about a camera technology that could see even through smoke [slashdot.org] and there are places online [thinkcycle.org] where we can work on an open source solution to this problem that would be more likely implemented than if some company sold them exclusively.
A majority of people on the planet live near water and a cheap enough technology or system that could help people drive safer could save hundreds of lives per year.
Re:In case of /. effect (Score:4, Insightful)
Eye witness report (Score:5, Informative)
There was quite a bit of heavy equipment on the scene, a mobile crane on the slip road, and a bucket-crane truck with a dump truck picking up what was left of the one truck's load, it looked like scrap metal. There was the cab and remnants of a trailer, very shredded, on flatbed trucks on the slip road. There was obviously a fire, since parts of the guard rail were burned, and the asphalt was scorched. There were some Pompiers (firefighters) and about a dozen Gendarmes from the B.E.A (Bureau d'Enquetes Accidents) standing around, but they had obviously finished all of their report gathering by 10:30 AM when I passed.
I know Rop, and I've probably met the others at various linux/hac-tic/2600/CCC/EC patent protest events. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those involved, and here is wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured. This accident affects all of us in the techie, hacker-in-the-good-sense-of-the-word, and linux scenes here in Europe. Lets remember Hans for the good things he accomplished in his life.
the AC
Somebody dies in an accident (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somebody dies in an accident (Score:5, Insightful)
But I can understand. My first reaction to bad news, once the shock begins to fade, is to crack jokes. That's my way of dealing with stuff like this. My brother was in a horrible accident and I was the first person to find out and meet him at the hospital. The first words out his mouth, while lying on the emergency room table, were "Sorry about your car, man."
Yes, it's sad. Yes, it's awful that such things happen. But laughter is another way of coping with tragedy... don't rush to condemn the jokes.
Re:Somebody dies in an accident (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somebody dies in an accident (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Somebody dies in an accident (Score:5, Insightful)
- George Bernard Shaw
I'm not defending morons, just trying to lighten the heavy mood.
The 'Funny' modifier.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The 'Funny' modifier.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to get moderator points somewhat regularly, and meta-moderated somewhat regularly. But since I started raising my personal bar for 'funny' or 'unfunny' on slashdot and meta-modera
Re:Somebody dies in an accident (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to joke about this, but (Score:2, Insightful)
Now post a story I can make fun of, quick!!!
I'm shivering... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:5, Interesting)
My mistake, we met 24 years ago, not 25. It was on the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium's (MECC) mainframe. It was a CDC Cyber 72 that was operated on behalf of all the schools in Minnesota. We had 110 baud modems with acoustic couplers and teletypes. Many (all?) of the community colleges, public high schools and even some of the elementary schools had a terminal or two tucked away in a math or science room somewhere. MECC also had an email application, and the "list" command would list all of the email accounts. (Just picture typing "list" and getting a list of all valid email addresses today!)
MECC was huge in Minnesota schools in the 1970s. Today, they're probably best remembered for having produced educational games such as Oregon Trail and Odell Lake. But back then, having computer access in public schools was a novel concept, and most of those of us who became computer nerds have all done quite well for ourselves. There are even a few MECCies here on Slashdot.
One day, I found an email from someone named "SWEETHEART" (we didn't have lower case back then :-) who found my username funny. We began exchanging emails, we moved our conversations to some of the "talk" programs (these programs were the great-grandparents of IRC, only with nicer interfaces) and exchanged phone numbers. Eventually, we met, started going out, and now we've been married 20 years with a 16-year-old hacker son to show for it.
It was a different time; definitely a more innocent era. The only people with access to the computers were students -- we didn't worry about predators or pedophiles.
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was once in a CS class where a student stated, in all seriousness, that "there were no home computers before the Internet because there was nothing to do with them". It turned out in the ensuing discussion that the majority of the kids in the class had never even HEARD of BBS's and were under the impression that the term "online" was synonymous with Internet. *
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:3, Informative)
All us MECCies were really spoiled. After having spent so much time with so many people on the big cyber at MECC, BBSs absolutely sucked. A lot. They were tiny, overcrowded, noisy places that I never cared much about, and w
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:5, Insightful)
To everyone who is using 9/11 as some kind of emotional excuse I say, "Fuck you!"
Unless you were actually there or lost someone close please shut the fuck up about it scarring you mentally or some bullshit like that. I lost friends and co-workers and damn near fucking died.
Find some other buzzword to cling to and stop using others pain for your own personal ends.
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:3, Insightful)
I heard firetrucks scream down Broadway. I saw dust-covered firemen drive out silently an hour later.
I didn't lose anyone personally on 9/11, but it doesn't mean it didn't affect me.
Get some appreciation for empathy, you Coward.
Re:I'm shivering... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your 9/11 experience is not the baseline against which all other 9/11 experiences are measured. The severity of your trauma does not render trivial the experiences of those who suffered less than you. You are not the center of the univ
Condolances (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always sad when people die, but when they're connected to you in some way (even an abstract way), it hits a little harder. Any Christians (or other faiths, for that matter) should say a quick prayer for everyone involved.
As for the
Re:Condolances (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people deal by making jokes. That's quite normal.
Re:Condolances (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a look at -1. Those aren't people dealing, they're people who don't care about the lives of other people.
Re:Condolances (Score:5, Insightful)
And some people are just irreverent, insensitive dorks. That's quite normal as well, but its normalcy doesn't mean we should encourage or otherwise condone their social incompetency.
Jeremy
For my funeral (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, for people who don't really know the deceased to make such comments, it just isn't appropriate. It also depends on the character of the person involved in the tragedy. A joke should bring light smiles and help offer some balm to the wounds of those affected, not simply be the attention-seeking acts of immaturity we unfortunately tend to see online.
Re:Condolances (Score:3, Insightful)
And some people are just irreverent, insensitive dorks. That's quite normal as well, but its normalcy doesn't mean we should encourage or otherwise condone their social incompetency.
And there are also dorks of a different kind - they storm to offer public condolences because an OpenSource (ah!) developer, whom they neither know nor even heard of before, rode in a car with RMS (oh!) and lost his life to a car accident. If you are such a good hearted person, go and email relatives, don't show it off here.
Re:Condolances (Score:3, Insightful)
If I can't find some way to joke and laugh about things, they really pull me down in a depression.
For that reason I want the people that know me to have a good laugh and party when I die, and not mourn or feel bad because I should be at a much better place.
Besides, they'll just be too happy to finally be rid of me anyway.
Re:Condolances (Score:2)
Re:Condolances (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I would rather have someone make an innocent joke at a time like this than ask me to "pray." Different things offend different people. I personally find public displays of religion offensive (seriously), especially if it's stated that others should join in, as you did.
Re:Condolances (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is fine. Except that's exactly what you did - try to make someone feel bad because of what they said. Maybe they meant to be cruel, maybe they were trying to lighten the mood, maybe that's their way of dealing with sadness. Whatever - it's not your place to judge. Freedom of expression is just that, and it applies to all people and all messages.
If you want the freedom to ask others to pray (which I, although a devout atheist, support), then you have to allow others the freedom to make bad jokes.
Re:Condolances (Score:4, Interesting)
My grandmother recently passed away. While at the funeral home reviewing the work of the embalmer (or whoever puts on the makeup/etc) the funeral director asked what they thought. My Mother made the comment that they had done an excellent job and that she looked wonderful. My Uncle said, and I'll never forget it...
"Yes, she looks great. So great that I'm thinking of bringing my wife down here."
Sometimes you just have to make light of the situation if you're going to try to get through it. I don't think there's a single
Re:Condolances (Score:5, Interesting)
Any Christians (or other faiths, for that matter) should say a quick prayer for everyone involved.
Why? Being an outsider to religion, this is one of the notions about it that always seemed self-contradictory to me. The god as described by most religions wouldn't re-assign his distribution of benevolence based on a popular vote. To say that a lot of people praying for someone else has an effect on that person leads directly to the conclusion that god cares more about famous sufferers than anonymous ones. And that doesn't fit the personality most religions ascribe to their god. It just doesn't seem consistent at all to me.
Now, praying about other people's misfortunes might be a way to demonstrate to your god that you aren't selfish, but according to the tenets of most religions, it really shouldn't have any effect on them at all, but maybe it would have some effect on you, and make *you* feel better about it.
Re:Condolences (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with exhorting people to prayer in a public forum like this is that (1) it's pointless, and (2) some people who are still alive here find it offensive. It's pointless because if we think that prayer will help, and we have the capacity to do a sincere prayer on behalf of Hans, then we will do it whether or not we are exhorted.
It's offensive to some people for a variety of reasons - I will say for myself that I used to be offended by overt mentions of Christianity because I felt very judged by people who had blind faith and felt that I was defective because I didn't have the capacity to have blind faith. It doesn't offend me anymore, because I understand the problem better, but I think it's worth being understanding toward those who do have this problem, and examining ones' own actions to see if one is doing anything that would tend to engender this sort of feeling.
The job of a religious practitioner is to succeed in his or her practice, and it is through this that they may help others - any activity that projects one's religious beliefs outward is very risky, and needs to be undertaken with great seriousness, and probably not on a forum as public as slashdot.
This is not to say that you should shut up entirely, but I do urge you to consider your audience!
Re:Condolences (Score:3, Interesting)
With that said, I'd like to respond to your comment.
It seems as though you're suggesting that anyone who may have certain beliefs should feel almost _obligated_ to think twice before publically asking for those of the _same_faith_ to participate in something like a prayer, only because someone who may "over-hear" their request are not comfortable with their own belief
My condolence to the family... (Score:5, Interesting)
Coralize it first!!! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.wiggy.net.nyud.net:8090/tmp/accident/
Re:Coralize it first!!! (Score:3, Informative)
It's bascially a distributed caching system that anyone can use.
You just go to www.sitename.com.nyud.net:8090/rest/of/uri/
Sigh. (Score:3, Interesting)
My deepest sympathies to the family of that person killed.
Site is slow: text of the site (Score:3, Informative)
There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving
some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place
for all information I am trying to gather all information here.
If you have any other information please drop me an email
at wichert at wiggy dot net
All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).
* There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)
* they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)
* Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.
* Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).
* At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
* The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
* Hans Bakker (photo,
homepage)
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
* Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
Translation:hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
* This appears to be the traffic report for the accident, as taken
infotraffic.
RMS & comp. (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S.
Deepest condolences...
Re:RMS & comp. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:RMS & comp. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RMS & comp. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:RMS & comp. (Score:3, Funny)
A request for /. readers: take the high road (Score:5, Insightful)
Please do not make any snarky comments about RMS getting out of the car before the accident. Regardless of your personal feelings, a person escaping potential serious injury or death should not be joke fodder - contrary to the first several posts.
Condolences to the family of the deceased.
Re:A request for /. readers: take the high road (Score:2, Insightful)
Respects and sympathies to the family... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are people who died, died... (Score:5, Informative)
Deepest condolences (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a time to think about how much all of the wonderful work in the free software world is based on the unselfish actions of precious individuals. Perhaps someone would like to post an accepted, confirmed email or physical address for people to send condolences or offers of assistance.
One question to slashdot, I did not see anything yet about drinking and driving. So maybe the "turn down a glass department" byline is, while a good idea in general when you are the driver, in this case perhaps inappropriate.
Matthew Rosin
Re:Deepest condolences (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think the byline "Turn down a glass" refers to drinking and driving. If you're at a restaurant where all of the glasses you may use for the evening are there (water, coffee, wine, etc), you turn down a glass (flip it over) to show that you won't be drinking any of it tonight. For example, I would turn my coffee cup o
Sorry, better formatting (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a lovely poem, by Eden Philpotts. I think it makes a very appropriate dept.
GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING.
Turn down a glass afore his place;
Draw up the dog-eared chair;
For though we shall not see his face,
I think he will be here
Our wedding day to share.
Turn up the glass where she would be
And put a red rose there.
Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see,
But weren't they everywhere,
And shall not they be here?
Though them old blids are in the grave
And their good light's gone out,
We'd sooner their kind ghosties have
Than all the living rout
As will be there no doubt.
For some are dead as cannot die.
Some flown as cannot flee.
You still do fancy 'em near by.
'Tis so with him and she,
At any rate to we.
For anyone whom doesn't know... (Score:2, Informative)
A great friend left us in a brutal way :( (Score:4, Interesting)
We'll miss you!
Re:A great friend left us in a brutal way :( (Score:3, Insightful)
I felt a little strange visting his personal site and reading his diary and seeing pictures knowing that those would be the last entries.
Cheers to his life and the contributions he made to the world.
Safe professions (Score:2, Interesting)
Sympathies to all involved (Score:5, Insightful)
For what it's worth : It wasn't your fault Mr. Stallman, so don't blame yourself. And my sympathies to the families involved.
Re:Sympathies to all involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Paypal fund (Score:4, Insightful)
BTW, does anyone know whether they were wearing seatbelts? Just just curious.
Re:Paypal fund (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately it is not unusual to see fake funds. Would you pay if you had no way of knowing if the fund was real?
Eddie (Score:3, Interesting)
shock (Score:3, Interesting)
Also a get well soon for the other guys in the car...
For those of you wondering... (Score:5, Interesting)
The people involved in this car accident are all from the same fairly big group of "young" open source fans in The Netherlands that keep contact with each other over IRC and also IRL. Therefore I'm not surprised that this story was submitted by several readers. I hope this explains why it is important, I know I was shocked and saddened by the loss.
Support funds? (Score:4, Interesting)
Shocked (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks, Hans (Score:4, Interesting)
Rest in peace.
A Thought and A Proposal (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what I love about the OSS community; it's a community! People drive each other from and to places, stay at each others', and when something unfortunate like this happens you truly feel that it's a community where people care about their own.
Here's what I feel we need to do; we need to put up a fund (donations) and a website to commemorate the OSS community members, and part (if not the vast majority of it, deservedly) of the mission/website fund ought keep their personal homepages and accounts on notable community portals (e.g. slashdot) alive, and be linked to from the website. Hans' personal homepage should **never** disappear due to lack of payment or activity, and it should not be left to his family members, hit by grief and possible loss of income, to do ensure that. Possibly too, condolences may be posted to one list that can be sent to his surviving folks. OSS members make personal sacrifices to be active members of the community and it'd be a nice tough to let their family members, who have likely been compromized financially by the opporutnity cost of their breadwinner being an active OSS member, ought to be let known that many many others care and are thankful for their contribution, whether it was code, logistical (hey, driving RMS is a big deal!), or even in spirit and enthausiasm.
Fitting tribute (Score:3, Interesting)
(Sarcasm) But it's ok - Stallman lives! (Score:5, Insightful)
fame != importance
This article is incredibly distasteful (Score:4, Insightful)
Ha ha ha (Score:3, Funny)
Whew, you had me going there for a minute.
Showing Respects (Score:4, Interesting)
Reading 100's of strangers passing their respect to yet somebody they've never met dieing gives me a funny feeling.
How many people die each day? And of those, how many lead sorrowfull lives, filled with pain and suffering? How many of you pay a thought to them, and of those of you who do, are you willing to take a large dent in your own wealth to help them? Are you willing to spare your own time?
Its a common fact that people really don't care about strangers, but this shirade of caring when the opportunity arises makes me want to puke.
(To those who knew the victims, apologies for ranting, this was certainly not directed at you)
Re:Tone of voice... (Score:2)
Re:I don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course you should have heard about . [stallman.org]
But anyway, this article isn't about him. Someone of our community just passed away, and we mourn him as one of us.
Well you see buddy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot has a strange focus on issues of free software, an accident that killed one developer and could have potentially killed one of the founding fathers of the movement (Stallman aka Mr. GNU, Mr. GPL) makes it news. Even though Slashdot isn't generally an obituary site, I'd like to question why the person would have to be "important" for you to mourn them, a man with a girlfriend and a family passed away tragically. Do you need to know anymore to feel a pang of sorrow? Does he have to be a celebrity to make it important?
Sorry for the moral/ethical tirade, but maybe it'll give the moderators of this post and the poster himself something to think about.
Re:Well you see buddy... (Score:2, Interesting)
maybe why, Re:Well you see buddy... (Score:5, Interesting)
For some insight into this you might want to read this extract of chapter 21 of "The Little Prince"
"What does that mean--tame?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To establish ties?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . .
if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "
The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said.
You can read more at http://students.washington.edu/yana/LP.htm [washington.edu] or various other locations shown by google [google.com]
It's identification (Score:3, Interesting)
Somehow, a man whose life was somewhat more similar to mine (ok, judging from his site we have vastly different personalities) than a sudanese victim has more impact on me. If anyone with a psychology background would help explain why this is I'd like to know why.
Amen brother. (Score:3)
It is sad. That being sad, you don't see an article posted every time someone dies at Microsoft or some other software company or at some non-free software conference. If it was
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a good chance that 1 slashdot account will never be used again, which is a sad thing for us all. Not to mention that the individual that died wasn't just a member of the community, he was a contributor... something that makes him stand apart from most of us.
Re:I don't understand (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand (Score:2)
Those are people who have been killed in car crashes in the last day or two, but I expect that aside from a tiny fraction of Slashdotters who might have known them, they won't be mourned mostly because their deaths have no effect on us. The GP post is a very valid question -- the poster doesn't know who the person killed was, and so asks what made him so important in the community. He may not be mourned, but when a community suffe
Re:I don't understand (Score:3, Insightful)
These are all great tradgedies but if everybody was going to mourn every death that was barely tangental to the
Re:I don't understand (Score:3, Interesting)
This is Slashdot news because a sizable fraction of the Slashdot community is aware of, or has benefited from, these people's work. RMS being almost one of the guys is of interest to some, but even if he had been uninvolved I suppect this would have made the cut.
Re:FAA? (Score:2, Insightful)
THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY???
Wake up, go outside, and maybe you'll realise that this isn't the kind of thing to joke about.
And whoever modded the parent funny is fucked up.
Re:FAA? (Score:5, Insightful)
People die every day. Seriously. Many of them children. Many of them after living lives of such desperate poverty that most of us cannot even imagine it except in vague abstract terms.
In my mind crocodile tears over people who you do not know, and whom you only care about because they're linked to a famous person are far more patronising and -frankly- downright insulting to the very real, very person suffering and grief that they are going through than if I had made a beowulf cluster of first post jokes about how the OSS movment will start wearing tin-foil hats and start looking for MS-assasins behind every grassy knoll.
Their suffering is real.
But your outrage is contrived and your "grief" is a grief of convience.
If Dick Stallman's name wasn't linked to this; no-one would give a shit --and that's the only reason this is on
Re:FAA? (Score:3, Insightful)
How the story got onto
Re:FAA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not many clue in to this pattern, even as they help to shape it. Go look at the stories from 9/11. Same threads, different (in some cases) posters. Slashdot is a COMMUNITY of people, not a uniform voice. I see people on all sides of every controversy here deriding the "slashdotters" or "slashbots" or whatever term they can think of. But, if you're posting here, THAT'S YOU you're talking about (hi, I'm in camp #4, good to meet you).
Some of us are flamers and trolls. Some of us are the innapropriate joke-makers. Some of us are suits with pointy hair. Some of us are late-night coders. And today, one of us is no more. If you're a regular, come in, sit down and have a drink. We'll toast the honored dead, maybe share a story or two, and the guy over in the corner will spout an embarassingly rude comment every few minutes. I just hope that when my time comes, he thinks of something really funny to say about me, and that (behind the masks of indignation), my friends smile just a little bit and remember me....
Peace and long life.
Re:FAA? (Score:3, Funny)
There would be much rejoicing. NEXT!
Re:FAA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you cry for each one? I doubt you do - don't act like a hypocrite.
And do you crack wise at every one? That's what the poster was talking about after all. There was no false grief, just asking why some people can't have the decency to show some minimal measure of respect.
I don't think you know what hypocrisy really is.
Re:Paypal Fund Set up (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sorry for the coincidence, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I am deeply sorry for the loss of life (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit.
While it's true that if you are in a huge SUV and hit a car, the SUV will come off better, the overall safety picture is not good for SUV drivers.
The additional mass also has downsides. In single vehicle accidents it's better to have less mass as there is less energy to dissipate. According to the NHTSA, single vehicle accidents accounted for only 18% of crashes, but 44% of fatalities.
Larger vehicles have longer stopping distances, increasing the likelyhood of a crash.
Also figures from the NHSTA show that SUV fatality rates are 11% higher than cars.
According to those statistics, the safest vehicles are minivans, with a fatality rate of 2.76 per billion miles travelled, 2nd were large cars, with a rate of 3.3 fatalities per billion miles. The largest SUV's came in 3rd with 3.79 fatalities per billion miles
time to adjust your review mirror methinks
Re:"From the turn down a glass dept" (Score:4, Informative)
The phrase is used in many places, among them, Edward Fitzgerald's translation [tripod.com] of the 10th-century Persian poetry of Omar Khaiyyam.
The Russian tradition of smashing a shot glass after a toast stems from the same source