Linux Journal has learned fellow journalist and long-time voice of the Linux community Robin "Roblimo" Miller has passed away. Miller was perhaps best known by the community for his roll as Editor in Chief of Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned Slashdot, SourceForge.net, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, and ThinkGeek from 2000 to 2008. He went on to write and do video interviews for FOSS Force, penned articles for several publications, and authored three books, The Online Rules of Successful Companies, Point & Click Linux!, and Point & Click OpenOffice.org, all published by Prentice Hall.
See, also: "Roblimo" on Wikipedia.
[Ed note: The SoylentNews web site runs on a fork of Slashcode, an open-sourced version of the code that ran Slashdot. --martyb]
[Update: Removed extra content; retained the part which noted Roblimo's passing. --martyb]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @08:43PM (1 child)
Hey this guy died, also a big website has a database problem. Because this type of thing happens in twos.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday May 24 2018, @08:51PM
Yes, I originally feared that folks might have difficulty accessing the link, but upon further thought concur with your perspective. I've updated the story to just cover Roblimo's passing.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @08:48PM (5 children)
I remember his getting tired of all the wannabe "techies" who tried Linux for a few minutes then wrote a sour review about what they had "learned" (mostly, that it isn't Windoze).
His "A Week of Windows" thing (he had long been a Linux-only user) was fun, mentioning the things that were easy with his favorite OS but were difficult (or just different) with MICROS~1's OS as well as some things that he just couldn't figure out a way to do with the "non-standard" OS.
I thought he had done more debunking on that topic but the oracle isn't spotting [google.com] as much stuff [google.com] as my tired old brain seems to remember.
Thanks for the memories, guy.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by coolgopher on Friday May 25 2018, @12:38AM (3 children)
Well, here's [linux.com] the link to the week of windows article you mentioned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @01:15AM (2 children)
Yup. From 2003.
An apt subheading there:
Boy, that takes me back.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 25 2018, @05:52PM (1 child)
At least one of those things takes you back. The other two never left. :-(
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @08:47PM
Actually, I was using an early version of Mozilla in late 2002.
So, for me, all 3 were already done by the time the article was published.
(That browser had the built-in ability to block popups and popunders, as he attempted to indicate to you.
You may have still been downloading the code, but it didn't do anything on your screen.)
Shortly after that, I figured out how to most effectively configure an AdBlocker (for me) and, since then, I see a tiny fraction of what Joe Average websurfer sees (generally, black text on a white background) and I save lots of bandwidth and I like it like that.
...and there had already been a CERN advisory to stop using Internet Exploder.
So, even though they had given me a Windoze box at work, I got to install my own way-more-secure/way-less-irritating browser.
(It's a big reason that I am very aware of idiots who construct pages|sites in oddball ways that DON'T Degrade Gracefully or which expect me to be using a particular piece of software.)
My only regret was that, by default, the Mozilla bloodline honors the blink tag for text.
(The Nuke Anything Enhanced extension or the Aardvark extension takes care of that the few times I have encountered it.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday May 25 2018, @05:55AM
I mainly saw what he wrote and agree he wrote a lot of good stuff, but I had wondered why he seemed to be so quiet of late. I had just assumed that he was busy in other areas. I'm hard pressed to recall anything specifc he wrote, just that he wrote well and often about good topics. Now that I look around, this one was quite informative:
Microsoft's 'Men in Black' kill Florida open standards legislation [linux.com].
Joe Barr also used to write often and well too.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:01PM (15 children)
It struck me that he couldn't have been that old.
Birthdate: October 30, 1952
So, he was 6 months short of his 66th birthday.
Man, that's too early to be checking out.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:15PM (11 children)
Yea, that is young for a man but depends on the lifestyle and genetics, not that bad. My father who didn't smoke, drink and was in pretty good shape didn't make it past 46. His younger smoker alcoholic brother who also did a shit load of drugs is still going strong at 67. Then again my father was a maniac businessman and my uncle a laid back truck driver. Go figure.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:24PM
Stress is a killer, and not just a cliche.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:46PM (9 children)
What did your father die of at only 46? I'm going to guess cancer.
That's really sad.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @10:34PM
He died of AIDS. Thank you for your condolences.
- LoRdTAW
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Friday May 25 2018, @12:27AM (7 children)
Stroke. His father also had one but older, in his 60's. So I have to watch my health.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 25 2018, @03:19AM (3 children)
What can you do to prevent a stroke at 46? You said the guy was in pretty good shape after all. Do you think it was just way too much stress? This makes me worry a lot about myself...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @05:41AM (2 children)
Stress has already been mentioned. Minimize that.
(These days, there's all kinds of biofeedback machines.)
Take good care of your circulatory system.
Do the same kinds of stuff you'd do if you had a history of cardiac disease in your family (proper diet; no salt; regular exercise; medication, if recommended).
Oh, and here's the big one: Move to a country that has proper healthcare financing.
With that, these days, they can take periodic pictures of your brain and be on the lookout for anomalies.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday May 25 2018, @06:00PM (1 child)
Low salt. Not No Salt. Your body needs salt to function properly. It's just that the average first world diet doesn't tend to be lacking in salt.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/146677.php [medicalnewstoday.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @09:03PM
True.
the average first world diet doesn't tend to be lacking in salt
Right. Unless you -only- shop for raw food and prepare it yourself, you'll get more than enough sodium chloride.
(I do the vast majority of my shopping in the produce aisle.)
Pretty much any processed food will have salt added.
Where I typically get my canned veggies ($1/2), I have occasionally seen the low-salt stuff, but that's not the norm there.
Protip: They typically run specials on canned goods at Thanksgiving and Christmas ($0.39).
Try to buy then.
I have even found low cost (not Mrs. Dash) versions of No-Salt in the spice aisle.
One was onion powder, garlic powder, and parsley flakes.
(After getting the jar with the label, I started mixing my own and putting it in that container.)
Another type has those herbs plus celery seed and carrot with some actual spices, which is more like the name brand thing.
At one point, they started putting in cornstarch filler.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Friday May 25 2018, @09:32AM (2 children)
As someone who had a stroke at 45 (minor, survived) my one piece of advice (if you haven't already) is to get a blood pressure machine and use it every week or so.
I was lucky in that I got a minor warning stroke first and it was properly diagnosed and assessed by the medics, so I may now get away with not having a big one, but I have older relatives who didn't get such a warning before a big one, or the warning was dismissed and not properly investigated by medics and the big one followed.
Blood pressure is the canary in the stroke mine, but it won't give any warning if you don't check it. An "annual / when I can fit it in around work / when I get round to it" check with a doctor isn't enough - there are conditions that can kick it up fairly rapidly, some of those conditions run in families, and have a tendency to end in stroke. Annual health checks are designed to catch slowly rising blood pressure that will damage heart and kidneys and stuff over months/years, they won't catch rapid rising blood pressure and often the first symptom of it is stroke.
BP machines are easy to use and dirt cheap these days, best 20 quid I ever spent - or it would have been had I spent it before I ended up in the back of a blood wagon being asked by bemused paramedics was I sure I didn't have any headaches or chest pains or ... because I had BP of 240/140 (the answer was no, I didn't have any of those symptoms, yes I was sure, but actually answering is tricky when speech equates mostly to slur-and-dribble).
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday May 25 2018, @01:27PM (1 child)
Thank you for sharing that bit of advice, I've never thought of purchasing a BP monitor.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday May 25 2018, @03:22PM
Most people don't until they have a problem. What staggers me is that the medical professionals don't appear to think of it or recommend it even to patients who are there for high BP, stroke etc.
In hospital they take your BP several times a day at least, as standard, it's considered "vital signs", yet once you leave it's "we'll see what it is in a month".
With a basic BP machine and any spreadsheet program of your choice you can turn up at appointments with a chart of daily readings with drug changes etc. marked on it, and they'll say "ooh that's really useful" - so why not _tell_ people to do it then? You get _told_ to do low-fat diet, _told_ to do low salt, _told_ to do more exercise, but not told to monitor the effects?!? It's not rocket science, and there's zero risk to the testing (well, I suppose I could drop the thing on the floor and trip over it). [note: I'm stable and under control now and only do daily readings if/when changing meds]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @10:28PM (2 children)
don't caare, he may have been nice to others but he was a jerk to some
Well,Bye
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @11:23PM (1 child)
...and, of course, you have links to back your assertion.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by c0lo on Friday May 25 2018, @06:43AM
Of course, now he has [soylentnews.org]
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:34PM (2 children)
At one point, CmdrTaco put out a desperate plea for help with his weird persistent infection. Anybody remember? What did it turn out to be?
(Score: 5, Funny) by chromas on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:49PM (1 child)
It was called Dice.
(Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Thursday May 24 2018, @11:22PM
2soon
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @12:35AM (2 children)
This is just a sad news. Whatever tiny interaction I had with him was over the internet and still this makes me sad. What he created was part of what I am today.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @09:39AM (1 child)
would have existed if not for his early support, and I imagine his, CmdrTaco, and a few other early guys Linux usage was responsible for a fair share of early linux conversion during that period. I know that I learned all sorts of unexpected tricks thanks to either their comments, or articles that were posted over the years on slashdot, plus its various sister and competitor sites (kuro5hin for instance.)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 25 2018, @11:29AM
I never met Roblimo. Exchanged messages with him a couple of times over the many years I was on Slashdot. This news made me sad, though. I wouldn't have expected, had you asked me at the beginning, to form an emotional bond at all with folks I talk to over the Internet, but I have.
I have here, also. Even the curmudgeons.
RIP Roblimo. Hope you find your way to that LUG in the sky.
Washington DC delenda est.