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Mike Crawford Is Dead, Contributed to Mac System 7.5.X and Activist
Some of you might know him on the west coast. He worked for Apple fixing/debugging System 7.5.X and attended Cal Tech. He was an activist for the mentally ill and homeless. He was openly bisexual and open about his schizoaffective disorder. His Facebook page.
I had helped him with his project Soggy Jobs which is unfinished. It was his project he needed a business model for.
He was on CNN about the taking away of tax credit from software engineers.
He was a member here at Hacker News.
He had serious physical illnesses that made him suffer and he took his own life.
I was an online friend of his, and I too suffer from schizoaffective disorder.
His wish was not to be forgotten to be remembered through his works. To at least have a Wikipedia article written on him or some other Wiki. Wikipedia named him non-notable about ten years ago. But if you met him, he'd always show you respect and even if he disagreed with you he was nice about it.
takyon: Here is MDC's last post on Warp Life, and Last Will And Testament. User page. Twitter.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @12:11AM (12 children)
It takes some courage to kill oneself. MDC must have had some somewhere. I know this for a fact because I've been borderline suicidal at times for the last ten years but never found the courage in me to actually carry it out. As a result, I am forced to continue to endure the miseries of life. Anti-psychotic drugs help keep me stable, but if I ever stop taking them perhaps I finally will find myself in the proper mood to do what needs to be done.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @12:45AM
Please *stay* courageous by staying alive. The fact you have the strength to tell us this makes me want to say: "Hang in there. For whatever reason, or none at all, the world is richer with you."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:13AM (9 children)
It doesn't really take all that much courage if it's a response to pain. After a certain point, death is simply preferable. I wish he hadn't hit his.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @01:36PM (2 children)
I passed that point a while back. I'm only here now for the shits and giggles rub outs and manhwa.
Just don't say "get some help". The idea of help around here involves forced jail time and serious life changing effects relating to forced incarceration.
Just another brick in the wall
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday March 28 2019, @01:33AM
Shits and giggles are as good a reason as any for continued existence. Just remember, if you've already passed that point you mentioned, you no longer need to live up to other people's flawed expectations. You can prioritize the things that do entertain or please you, one day at a time.
Please stick around. We'll be glad if you do.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday April 01 2019, @06:33PM
Yes, I said it below. The shits and giggles are what most of us are here for. And getting that help when you need it, bad parts aside, will get you to more shits and giggles later if you only believe.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday April 05 2019, @01:08AM (5 children)
I almost flamed you to a crisp for this several days ago, but I closed my browser and went to bed instead.
Glad I did, I don't think you meant anything ill here.
But it's an ignorant comment.
Many people attempt suicide more than once before succeeding. And for someone that's lived through the humiliating experience of attempting suicide and being returned, involuntarily, to the respawn point, minus some deeply missed skills and/or abilities, or simply for someone that's watched someone else endure an injury which is debilitating but not fatal, there is courage involved in even attempting it. Because you expect to fail. You expect to wake up in a few hours or days, in a hospital, in just as much pain as ever, with additional debt, additional humiliation, and additional social stigma.
No, pain alone cannot possibly explain MDCs absence.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 05 2019, @01:42AM (4 children)
See, I don't buy that. Lead to the brain has an extremely low failure rate and is readily available to pretty much anyone, so if you choose something less certain as your method it tells me you weren't fully committed to the idea.
Maybe, maybe not. I wasn't in his head, so I genuinely don't know. I do know he was explicitly talking about pain days before his death. Something about feeling like he was being electrocuted repeatedly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday April 05 2019, @09:31AM (3 children)
I don't know the rate precisely, but the consequences are pretty horrible. Imagine waking up afterwards, in a hospital bed, missing half your face but still very much alive.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 05 2019, @11:36AM (2 children)
Knew a guy who managed to fail because he was very, very drunk and just blew his jaw to shit. That's very much not the norm though. It's pretty difficult to miss your brain at point blank range, even for a novice. All you really need to do is make sure you're sober, aim deliberately, and use a .38 or larger caliber and success is all but assured.
I'm not saying this out of some macabre fascination or scorn, by the way. It's something that I put a lot of thought into at one time and I genuinely do not get why anyone serious about suicide would use a more painful or unpleasant method that carried a much higher risk of failure, so I assume they were not serious about it if they do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:30AM (1 child)
While carrying out the most desperate action possible.
The very fact that you're trying to do it strongly suggests that, whether sober or not, you're not exactly calm and collected.
Pain can be just as disorienting as drugs or alcohol, all by itself, plus many people will use those things to alleviate the pain.
I expect that the vast majority of people would be shaky as hell when attempting this.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 06 2019, @01:46AM
Experience major depression sometime. That's precisely what you are. Living in depression is the sanest and most clear-headed you will ever be. You see life so much more clearly and you can't distract yourself away from it like normal people do. Which is why it's such a miserable thing to experience.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday April 01 2019, @06:29PM
It takes courage to stay alive, sometimes, too, or at least energy.
Please don't stop taking your meds, as I have yet to meet anyone who took their own life that didn't leave behind people miserably asking, "why?" Please continue to endure for their sake, and if you're sure you can't endure anymore (or are sure that there's nobody left) please tell someone - ANYONE - plainly anyway because maybe there is still help.
This sig for rent.