158 days ago was July 7, 2009. Google news doesn't show a news story about a hang gliding death of anyone named "nicholas" this year, though that's far from conclusive.
Judging from the extremely low number of deaths per year from hang gliding (for example, 2 reported in 2003), my money is on this just being a troll. I hope that's the case anyway.
Well, obviously some people do die, but I bet that it's a lot more likely that a troll would say someone died in a hang gliding accident than it would be for someone to actually do so. The perceived risk is probably much higher and it makes the story more interesting. If you want to believably report someone's death, say they were in a traffic fatality.
I've known Nick for a decade. He's gone silent before, but not like this. I can't get a hold of him at all. Neither can anyone else I know who knows him.
Trust me, I've known him for 10 years. His last name is Bobic. We had a few long chats this past summer, but then he went radio silent. I just thought it another of his long rests wherein he sits back and thinks. I know he was at his cottage. But the snow is falling and he's always been back in Ottawa before the snow falls as I don't believe the cottage has been wintered.
Nick Bobic is a researcher at University of Ottawa focusing primarily in experimental algorithms, neuroscience, evolutionary algorithms, cryptography, bio systems, wireless computing, and P2P technology. Bobic is the primary developer of Cryptobox which is a secure decentralized application platform. Cryptobox was the first P2P system to use bio principles. More recently, Bobic is working on a new self-sustaining bio system application for the financial sector along with three researchers from Japan.
It's so easy to disappear on the internet. _why and nickb being the two most relevant to this community. It seems like someone out there would know these guys in real life and would tell us if something was up. Or is it that easy to disappear in the offline world as well?
Whatever the case may be, I hope he's doing well. I'm very curious as to what he's up to these days (and _why for that matter), but only because they're such interesting souls to share the journey with, and it's a comfort to have such people in the world.
The newmogul.com registration was renewed on the 14th of October, I don't know if nickb used a corporate account or not (the registration suggests he did, listing an 'inc' as the registrant), but either way it is a sign there is at least some stuff active:
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: NEWMOGUL.COM
Created on: 13-Oct-04
Expires on: 13-Oct-10
Last Updated on: 14-Oct-09 <-----
I hope this is just a troll. I'll believe it when someone more reputable than a brand new anonymous account can confirm it. nickb has disappeared for long periods in the past.
If I remember correctly pg has contacted him in past. Hopefully he can debunk this.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadWow. My goodness. Is his death confirmed? It wasn't clear from the thread. I'm unsure of who else (from HN) knew him. Can anyone clarify?
No search hits for accidents and Nick Bobic though.
Source : http://www.ushpa.aero/safety/HG2003AccidentSummary.pdf
http://www.newschief.com/article/20091116/NEWS/911169996?Tit...
To be clear, I'm not making any insinuations and I really hope this is a troll
Actually, there's several post like the above one. Here's all (recent) posts with nickb in title: http://searchyc.com/submissions/nickb
Nickb tells his background history here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=99966
They seem to be the two most common topics here - are we becoming Reddit? and why isn't nickb around to help prevent it?
Perhaps the answer lies in some erlang source code?
I've known Nick for a decade. He's gone silent before, but not like this. I can't get a hold of him at all. Neither can anyone else I know who knows him.
Edit: I was also searching using the string "Nick Barnes" however there's some dispute about whether this is his name.
Nick Bobic is a researcher at University of Ottawa focusing primarily in experimental algorithms, neuroscience, evolutionary algorithms, cryptography, bio systems, wireless computing, and P2P technology. Bobic is the primary developer of Cryptobox which is a secure decentralized application platform. Cryptobox was the first P2P system to use bio principles. More recently, Bobic is working on a new self-sustaining bio system application for the financial sector along with three researchers from Japan.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2002/view/e_spkr/1162
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152428
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/bugbear_2037_155503...
Whatever the case may be, I hope he's doing well. I'm very curious as to what he's up to these days (and _why for that matter), but only because they're such interesting souls to share the journey with, and it's a comfort to have such people in the world.
If I remember correctly pg has contacted him in past. Hopefully he can debunk this.