11 ms·

Tangential: A few years ago a coworker of mine suddenly died in a tragic accident at way too young of an age. Every once and a while when I see his name pop up

by S201 3y ago

Tangential: A few years ago a coworker of mine suddenly died in a tragic accident at way too young of an age. Every once and a while when I see his name pop up in a git blame from code written many years ago I'll click into his GitHub profile as it is frozen in time now. For the first year the worst part of this was watching the green contributions squares slowly retreat to the left until the wall was solid grey. It makes me wonder how long all of our online presences will remain after we're gone. Personal blogs/websites will go down and large companies like GitHub & social media will yield to newer competitors. Archive.org is probably the longest living publicly available archive of these profiles but who knows how long that will exist for either. Like countless other human lives, at some point there will be no evidence left that we were even here at all. "All those [profiles] will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

amatecha 3y ago
Yeah, we had a colleague pass unusually young due to cancer. It was very sad. I saw his name in git blame or various JIRA tickets etc. for years. I'd always take the time to think about him and our time working together. It absolutely affected how I see work and how I value my time (especially since I later had a couple long-time friends die unusually young, too).
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
There's so much social media skepticism that burns what happens online, that sweepingly categorizes all the effort as bad or pointless or negative. And yeah, so much is whatever. But man, we each carry a little light. And these records, these pasts, they - to me - mean something. Code commits or comments; they are some kind of testament I forget what it was but yesterday I think there was a nice submission where the author was saying even lack of evidence or failing is evidence. They were saying that just because theirnefforts didn't pan out as expected, doesn't mean they aren't informative pieces. Letting time in, letting us figure out long terms what values & lessons there are... I think that respectful & aweful ability to regard each other without moving to ill judgement is enormous. When people are gone it just becomes so obvious how much the world loses from that active actor trailing off.
jemmyw 3y ago
Same situation, although the colleague in question had left the place I worked a few months before he died in an accident. I still see his name in the git blame lines most weeks and think of him.
thunderbong 3y ago
I read this a long time back somewhere - A person dies twice. The first time is when they die. The second time is when the last person who remembers them dies.
- tromp 3y ago
  This is the theme of the 2017 Pixar movie "Coco" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_(2017_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_(2017_film)
- the-dude 3y ago
  Jewish : https://johnswinburn.com/you-die-twice/ https://johnswinburn.com/you-die-twice/
  - Fluorescence 3y ago
    I spent some time trying to chase down an actual source. The most common source given is Irvin D. Yalom but he references the notion to "A Green Tree in Gedde" by Alan Sharpe. I don't see evidence for the various claims that it's a Jewish proverb, has an Egyptian source or a Marcus Aurelius quote. Overall I think the idea of "living on in the memories of others" is pretty persistent and cross-cultural with a number of related phrasings. Irvin D. Yalom - Staring at the Sun (2011) > I have let go of the wish, the hope, that I myself, my image, will persist in any tangible form. Certainly there will come a time when the last living person who has ever known me dies. Decades ago, I read in Alan Sharp’s novel A Green Tree in Gedde a description of a country cemetery with two sections: the “remembered dead” and the “truly dead.” The graves of the remembered dead are tended and adorned with flowers, whereas the graves of the truly dead were forgotten; they were flowerless, weed infested, with tombstones askew and eroded. Alan Sharpe - A Green Tree in Gedde (1965) But when at last the threads of memory rot and the rememberers themselves are tombed, then the liberated dead move in silent flit to the old open field of the truly buried, and there in sight of the living they relax and at last rest. Earliest related phrasing I can see is Shakespeare Sonnet 17, but it's more about living twice rather than dying twice: Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say “This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.” So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage And stretchèd meter of an antique song. But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice—in it and in my rhyme.
Dalewyn 3y ago
I question why leaving behind a legacy is important. Personally, if I leave nothing in my wake (as far as practicality allows) when I die I will be very happy. Leaving behind a legacy only inconveniences whoever it is who has to pick up the reins and clean up after me.
- soco 3y ago
  Because we are afraid of death, of the annihilation of our everything it brings. So leaving a legacy alleviates that a bit - we die but we are not dead-dead as long those memories are alive. For some it will be an immortality project, for others a silly endeavour, but I say as long it makes one happy (less scared) let them all have it.
- ljm 3y ago
  Everything is temporary, a legacy makes it slightly less. Brings an element of continuity to our existence as people learn or are inspired by the impressions other people leave behind.
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> I question why leaving behind a legacy is important. Just leave things better than when you found them. Not for you, and not for those who follow, but for the thing itself. I suppose in this framing people are things too - help them to be better versions of themselves if you can. Other than that, have fun and enjoy the ride.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Leaving a legacy (a good one anyway) kind of validates that you did something that outlived you in your time on earth. To be sure we should try to take care of the loose ends if we can before we die — not knowing when that is means we should probably keep a tight ship as regularly as we can - especially more so as we get older. This thought crosses my mind fairly regularly when I look across the garage, in the storage room at all the crap I've accumulated. (Nevertheless, if the kids just want to toss everything, have an estate sale that's cool.)
- mindcrime 3y ago
frou_dh 3y ago
Makes me think of GitHub's totally custom tribute in the UI on Jim Weirich's last commit: https://github.com/jimweirich/wyriki/commit/d28fac7f18aeacb00d8ad3460a0a5a901617c2d4 https://github.com/jimweirich/wyriki/commit/d28fac7f18aeacb0...
- benj111 3y ago
  Personally id be quite disappointed if I were memorialised for gem 'sdoc', require: false Maybe we should all set up a commit for after we die that would be a commit we're actually happy with.
  - gorjusborg 3y ago
    It's about the people who care, not the content of the code.
    - benj111 3y ago
      Ok yes, I was interpreting it from the POV of someone who doesn't know the person, whereas the people who memorialised it probably did know the person. but then it is a public memorial so it shouldn't really be intended as a personalised memorial? If a statue to a famous person is unveiled, I would expect that it would celebrate the things they are famous for, not their personal life.
kristopolous 3y ago
I've entrusted access to all my accounts to someone on the premise that they will do "hauntings" on my behalf after I'm done, impersonating me. It'll be great. Too bad I won't be around for it. I'd love to see updates from my friends who passed, even if I know it's all theater by a secret impersonator.
- MPSimmons 3y ago
  I have legitimately thought about training an LLM on my writings and doing something similar
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    The idea of an authorized secret human imposter is really what makes it for me. Maybe I should have a second one and not let them know about each other
  - dghughes 3y ago
    That sounds like a movie plot it starts off as a joke but ends up being a working digitized copy of you.
    - paranoidrobot 3y ago
      It is the actual plot from a Black Mirror episode.
    - leetrout 3y ago
      This is a minor plot device in Netflix's new Fall of the House of Usher.
  - kugelblitz 3y ago
    That's the "Be Right Back" Black Mirror episode from 2013.
  - vertis 3y ago
    I would love to train a LLM on everything I've written and everything I believe and give it agency to continue after my death. How long might I live on then. The tricky part being the agency. How to continue and persist itself. Survive the demise of servers and hosting providers.
m463 3y ago
"All those [profiles] will be lost in time, like tears in rain." If you're not a replicant, it's never to late to create habits to increment your TTL counter. :)
VikingCoder 3y ago
Even more tangential: I joined a company in 2001 and left in 2010. A tool and library I wrote for debugging 3d geometry is still in active use. In 2010 at a new company, I wrote another tool for visualizing a complicated tree structure. It has thousands of daily active users in the company. My two biggest legacies are tools to help developers visualize their data. I'm pretty proud of that. Even if I don't get to maintain either piece of software, I'm glad to know they helped and continue to help.
pabs3 3y ago
Your code will be at least saved by Software Heritage: https://www.softwareheritage.org/ https://www.softwareheritage.org/ ArchiveTeam saves things to archive.org too: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/ https://wiki.archiveteam.org/
about3fitty 3y ago
I have never wanted kids, but I made a very small contribution to Django core, and after it was merged in, I realized that this is the most likely way that I could be remembered as a footnote in history, even if Django is retired from popular use. A lot of people seek some kind of immortality through reproduction, but this is good enough for me!

by S201 3y ago

amatecha 3y ago

Yeah, we had a colleague pass unusually young due to cancer. It was very sad. I saw his name in git blame or various JIRA tickets etc. for years. I'd always take the time to think about him and our time working together. It absolutely affected how I see work and how I value my time (especially since I later had a couple long-time friends die unusually young, too).

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

There's so much social media skepticism that burns what happens online, that sweepingly categorizes all the effort as bad or pointless or negative. And yeah, so much is whatever. But man, we each carry a little light. And these records, these pasts, they - to me - mean something. Code commits or comments; they are some kind of testament I forget what it was but yesterday I think there was a nice submission where the author was saying even lack of evidence or failing is evidence. They were saying that just because theirnefforts didn't pan out as expected, doesn't mean they aren't informative pieces. Letting time in, letting us figure out long terms what values & lessons there are... I think that respectful & aweful ability to regard each other without moving to ill judgement is enormous. When people are gone it just becomes so obvious how much the world loses from that active actor trailing off.

jemmyw 3y ago

Same situation, although the colleague in question had left the place I worked a few months before he died in an accident. I still see his name in the git blame lines most weeks and think of him.

thunderbong 3y ago

I read this a long time back somewhere - A person dies twice. The first time is when they die. The second time is when the last person who remembers them dies.

tromp 3y ago
This is the theme of the 2017 Pixar movie "Coco" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_(2017_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_(2017_film)
the-dude 3y ago
Jewish : https://johnswinburn.com/you-die-twice/ https://johnswinburn.com/you-die-twice/
- Fluorescence 3y ago
  I spent some time trying to chase down an actual source. The most common source given is Irvin D. Yalom but he references the notion to "A Green Tree in Gedde" by Alan Sharpe. I don't see evidence for the various claims that it's a Jewish proverb, has an Egyptian source or a Marcus Aurelius quote. Overall I think the idea of "living on in the memories of others" is pretty persistent and cross-cultural with a number of related phrasings. Irvin D. Yalom - Staring at the Sun (2011) > I have let go of the wish, the hope, that I myself, my image, will persist in any tangible form. Certainly there will come a time when the last living person who has ever known me dies. Decades ago, I read in Alan Sharp’s novel A Green Tree in Gedde a description of a country cemetery with two sections: the “remembered dead” and the “truly dead.” The graves of the remembered dead are tended and adorned with flowers, whereas the graves of the truly dead were forgotten; they were flowerless, weed infested, with tombstones askew and eroded. Alan Sharpe - A Green Tree in Gedde (1965) But when at last the threads of memory rot and the rememberers themselves are tombed, then the liberated dead move in silent flit to the old open field of the truly buried, and there in sight of the living they relax and at last rest. Earliest related phrasing I can see is Shakespeare Sonnet 17, but it's more about living twice rather than dying twice: Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say “This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.” So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage And stretchèd meter of an antique song. But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice—in it and in my rhyme.

Dalewyn 3y ago

I question why leaving behind a legacy is important. Personally, if I leave nothing in my wake (as far as practicality allows) when I die I will be very happy. Leaving behind a legacy only inconveniences whoever it is who has to pick up the reins and clean up after me.

soco 3y ago
Because we are afraid of death, of the annihilation of our everything it brings. So leaving a legacy alleviates that a bit - we die but we are not dead-dead as long those memories are alive. For some it will be an immortality project, for others a silly endeavour, but I say as long it makes one happy (less scared) let them all have it.
ljm 3y ago
Everything is temporary, a legacy makes it slightly less. Brings an element of continuity to our existence as people learn or are inspired by the impressions other people leave behind.
phkahler 3y ago
>> I question why leaving behind a legacy is important. Just leave things better than when you found them. Not for you, and not for those who follow, but for the thing itself. I suppose in this framing people are things too - help them to be better versions of themselves if you can. Other than that, have fun and enjoy the ride.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
Leaving a legacy (a good one anyway) kind of validates that you did something that outlived you in your time on earth. To be sure we should try to take care of the loose ends if we can before we die — not knowing when that is means we should probably keep a tight ship as regularly as we can - especially more so as we get older. This thought crosses my mind fairly regularly when I look across the garage, in the storage room at all the crap I've accumulated. (Nevertheless, if the kids just want to toss everything, have an estate sale that's cool.)
mindcrime 3y ago

frou_dh 3y ago

Makes me think of GitHub's totally custom tribute in the UI on Jim Weirich's last commit: https://github.com/jimweirich/wyriki/commit/d28fac7f18aeacb00d8ad3460a0a5a901617c2d4 https://github.com/jimweirich/wyriki/commit/d28fac7f18aeacb0...

benj111 3y ago
Personally id be quite disappointed if I were memorialised for gem 'sdoc', require: false Maybe we should all set up a commit for after we die that would be a commit we're actually happy with.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  It's about the people who care, not the content of the code.
  - benj111 3y ago
    Ok yes, I was interpreting it from the POV of someone who doesn't know the person, whereas the people who memorialised it probably did know the person. but then it is a public memorial so it shouldn't really be intended as a personalised memorial? If a statue to a famous person is unveiled, I would expect that it would celebrate the things they are famous for, not their personal life.

kristopolous 3y ago

I've entrusted access to all my accounts to someone on the premise that they will do "hauntings" on my behalf after I'm done, impersonating me. It'll be great. Too bad I won't be around for it. I'd love to see updates from my friends who passed, even if I know it's all theater by a secret impersonator.

MPSimmons 3y ago
I have legitimately thought about training an LLM on my writings and doing something similar
- kristopolous 3y ago
  The idea of an authorized secret human imposter is really what makes it for me. Maybe I should have a second one and not let them know about each other
- dghughes 3y ago
  That sounds like a movie plot it starts off as a joke but ends up being a working digitized copy of you.
  - paranoidrobot 3y ago
    It is the actual plot from a Black Mirror episode.
  - leetrout 3y ago
    This is a minor plot device in Netflix's new Fall of the House of Usher.
- kugelblitz 3y ago
  That's the "Be Right Back" Black Mirror episode from 2013.
- vertis 3y ago
  I would love to train a LLM on everything I've written and everything I believe and give it agency to continue after my death. How long might I live on then. The tricky part being the agency. How to continue and persist itself. Survive the demise of servers and hosting providers.

m463 3y ago

"All those [profiles] will be lost in time, like tears in rain." If you're not a replicant, it's never to late to create habits to increment your TTL counter. :)

VikingCoder 3y ago

Even more tangential: I joined a company in 2001 and left in 2010. A tool and library I wrote for debugging 3d geometry is still in active use. In 2010 at a new company, I wrote another tool for visualizing a complicated tree structure. It has thousands of daily active users in the company. My two biggest legacies are tools to help developers visualize their data. I'm pretty proud of that. Even if I don't get to maintain either piece of software, I'm glad to know they helped and continue to help.

pabs3 3y ago

Your code will be at least saved by Software Heritage: https://www.softwareheritage.org/ https://www.softwareheritage.org/ ArchiveTeam saves things to archive.org too: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/ https://wiki.archiveteam.org/

about3fitty 3y ago

I have never wanted kids, but I made a very small contribution to Django core, and after it was merged in, I realized that this is the most likely way that I could be remembered as a footnote in history, even if Django is retired from popular use. A lot of people seek some kind of immortality through reproduction, but this is good enough for me!