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Evi Nemeth, retired Boulder computer professor, missing at sea near New Zealand
- tptacek 13y agoShit. Nemeth is the author of _The Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook_, which is one of the all-time great Unix books, up there with Stevens.
- zeroexzeroone 13y agoYep, cut my teeth on this book. I seriously hope all aboard are OK. I hated that she decided to not contribute to future editions for this trip.
- nieve 13y agoI desperately hope she makes it back, she's kind of an amazing person. Every edition of that book has been better than the last and it's insanely useful, especially to people who aren't familiar with the way Unix & Linux work at a low level. It's the first book I toss at new sysadmins and devs who need to learn about Unix, even before "Essential System Administration" or "The Practice of System and Network Administration". The latter two are good for why you should do things, but ULSAH tells you what, where, and how and explains the different methods and tradeoffs. I haven't picked it up in a year or two, but I keep it around because when I do get stuck with some random AIX box or creaky old Hockypux system it's essential.
- jbellis 13y agoShades of Jim Gray. :( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#Disappearance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#D...]
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI hope she is OK, I too thought of Jim when I heard she had not checked in as expected. For all of our technology, the ocean can and does pose essentially unbounded risk to mariners to this day.
- droithomme 13y agoThe Southern Ocean can get rather rough in winter. It's not the best time of year to be sailing in the open ocean there.
- Tloewald 13y agoIt can get quite rough in Summer. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race frequently claims lives and it's in Summer.
- lostlogin 13y agoThat's the Tasman Sea I think - not that this is any better. The Tasman side of NZ is the wild side, and it gets pretty damn wild.
- lostlogin 13y agoI don't think they were in the Southern Ocean - at least that isn't where they are searching (when they find a non-broken plane to fly). We have had near record breaking bad weather, so so calling it rough out there is a serious understatement. We have a very nice break at the moment, so I hope the search goes A bit better. http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10893755 http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=...
- lostlogin 13y agoFirst submitted here yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5954536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5954536
- pclark 13y agoThis article is so scant on details. It's very odd that they have not yet found any debris. There is always debris.
- cantos 13y agoIt bothers me that finding someone's location is such a problem since the technology exists to do it. How much would it cost to track a boat by GPS? Search and rescue missions over ocean must cost a fortune. Why don't governments subsidize the cost of GPS tracking?
- jlgreco 13y agoThis is what you are looking for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System Many of these do not transmit particularly far (especially horizontally). Class B's, like you might expect on a personal ship, only broadcast at two watts. You have to keep in mind though that for all of our advancements, the ocean is still a fundamentally hostile environment. One rogue wave takes your ship out and by the time that search and rescue people can be in the area any survivors could potentially be hundreds of miles away. They had a satellite phone with them, so I am inclined to think that they also had a AIS transponder, but these sorts of situations are difficult regardless.
- pampa 13y agoAIS is for traffic control mostly. What you are really looking for is an EPIRB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon#EPIRBs_.28marine.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon#EPIRBs_.28... It is standard equipment on an oceangoing boat.
- gonzo 13y agoAnd they had one, albeit not the type that goes off if submerged.
- rorrr2 13y agoWhile GPS works nearly everywhere, there's no simple affordable system to transmit your location. Oceans are huge, and even sattelite transmitters don't cover everything. Example: http://www.gpstrackersandmore.com/spot2-gps-tracker http://www.gpstrackersandmore.com/spot2-gps-tracker http://www.findmespot.eu/en/index.php?cid=102 http://www.findmespot.eu/en/index.php?cid=102 Even if something like that worked perfectly, oceans are extremely dangerous. A huge wave can destroy even a large sailboat in seconds.
- stretchwithme 13y agoWouldn't it be cool if we got the current satellite photos and asked millions of people to look at a small piece of the area where she is suspecte to be? We could find her quick if she's still afloat.
- cscheid 13y agoWe all tried that with Jim Gray (I know I did at the time), and nothing :(
- stretchwithme 13y agoYes, if nothing's there, nothing can be found.
- rrauenza 13y agoThis article as a great deal more detail: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/7-aboard-u-s-boat-missing-south-pacific-article-1.1383782 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/7-aboard-u-s-boat-miss...
- nieve 13y agoWeirdly enough that article mentions Dyche as the skipper and she's only listed as "a woman named Evi". AFAIK she's the shipowner and has plenty of experience as captain as well as being the most well known person on board(1), but I guess either the reporter didn't do their research or the authorities only mentioned Dyche. (1) Beyond her general profile in CS and administration a quick google check shows 136,000 hits for her name and 13,000 for "David Dyche", almost all of which appear to be someone else.
- smegel 13y agoI saw this on the news in Australia this morning, no mention of his status or background, just a "US family". Things aren't looking good either.
- nieve 13y agoShe - Evi Nemeth is a woman and one of the most influential on my approach to sysadminning. Even more than the Armadillo book or Limoncelli the handbook she and her collaborators put out was pragmatic, sensible, and incredibly useful. I really hope she makes it back somehow.
- tomphoolery 13y agoIs it me or have there been a lot of old-school UNIX hackers dying recently? I guess they were all around the same age, so not TOO surprising...but still...
- dredmorbius 13y agoYou can do the math yourself if you want, though estimating the cohort size may be a bit challenging: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2705802-a-morbid-python-script http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2705802-a-morbid-...