As mentioned here on March 26, Michael David Crawford has passed away. One person in the SoylentNews community was concerned that MDC might, instead, be incapacitated and in a hospital somewhere. He spent a few hours calling around and reported back to me:
Just got off the phone with the Clark County medical examiner
"I can confirm that a Michael Crawford died on March 24th"
Further, we received news that there is an obituary page up for him.
Separately, takyon suggested in a comment to that story:
Maybe we can put a quote or two of his in the quotations thing.
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"I Am Eternally In Your Debt."
"The Mind Simply Reels."
"Thank You For Your Submission. Our customer service personnel will respond to your request in the order it was received."
etc.
Both TheMightyBuzzard and I ran with the idea and independently posted journal stories asking to gather up MDC sayings.
I am happy to inform the community that, as of 2019-03-31 04:20:00 UTC this morning, SoylentNews now has 31 fortunes attributed to MDC in our fortune rotation. Note: fortunes are chosen at random from all of the fortunes we have, so this represents a very small fraction of those available. Point being that it could be quite a while before you actually see one pop up.
Now that I know how to create and update fortune files, it should be simple to add any additional quotes people suggest. Continue to post any sayings of his to either of those journal articles (with a link to the source for verification, please!) In another week or so, I'll take another look through and update the fortune file as needed.
[Updated 2019-04-02 18:29:28 UTC. MDC quotations can be provided us posting a comment to my journal entry or to TMB's Journal entry. Please provide a link to the source so we can validate it is genuine. Thanks. --martyb]
(Score: 2) by Shimitar on Monday April 01 2019, @09:38AM (3 children)
This news makes me sad. He was a strange and unique perspective and will be missed.
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kazzie on Monday April 01 2019, @09:43AM (2 children)
Yet, on the other hand, this news that he's now immortalised in the Soylent fortune file is rather pleasing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 02 2019, @01:55AM (1 child)
up. you don't know mdc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Tuesday April 02 2019, @02:51AM
Not personally, no. But his comments often stood out to me (unsurprisingly) and I found myself trying to picture myself in his shoes / thought processes. That's something that hasn't happened with other outspoken members (such as Ethanol Fueled).
Read into that what you will.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @09:51AM
You say that like it's a bad thing.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday April 01 2019, @10:43AM (10 children)
My fortunes are now stuck on
You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth. -- Nicklaus Wirth
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday April 01 2019, @10:44AM (4 children)
Nevermind... JUST changed after a LOT of Wirth.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday April 01 2019, @10:44AM (3 children)
Now it's back.
Not joking.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Funny) by martyb on Monday April 01 2019, @10:56AM (1 child)
So, what I'm hearing is that, at least for a while, your fortune was Wirthless?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by zoward on Monday April 01 2019, @06:14PM
One of my college professors who was not a fan of Pascal said his name should be pronounced "Nickle's Worth".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DECbot on Monday April 01 2019, @01:19PM
I understand the fortunes were added to each page to gauge the staleness of of the varnish cache for any one page. Perhaps the cache for the pages you're looking at had some remarkable shelf life.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday April 01 2019, @05:04PM (4 children)
Where does one see these fortunes?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 01 2019, @06:13PM (3 children)
Scroll to the very bottom of each page, and in the right bottom corner, there should be a quote of some sort.
I'll often get the same quote repeatedly, for maybe as much as half an hour. Then it changes. Sometimes silly, sometimes stupid, sometimes genuinely witty, sometimes even relevant to the discussion. I have on ocassion looked up a quote, to see WTF it was about.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 01 2019, @06:27PM (2 children)
That's odd, i just got that quote for this comments page.
Or is it not odd and the same page gives the same quote for everyone?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 01 2019, @07:09PM (1 child)
You'd probably have to ask the Buzzard how it works. My best guess, the server serves them up one at a time, and leaves them up for a period of time. Anyone who loads a page during that period gets that quote. I suppose someone could tweak them to have a shorter or a long shelf life.
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 01 2019, @07:30PM
Cool. I kind of like the idea that many of us are seeing the same quote at the same time.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @11:41AM (1 child)
Can we get a link to the fortune file? I'd like to add MDC to my local fortune files.
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Monday April 01 2019, @12:24PM
That sounds like a reasonable request. All of the entries were taken from public posts of his, so there's nothing "sensitive" about them.
That said, and as requested in this very story, we are looking for additional contributions for the file and will make updates in the next week or two.
Will revisit making it available, and how to do so, then.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday April 01 2019, @11:50AM
Thanks...nice tribute...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @12:04PM (2 children)
http://www.warplife.com/mdc/legacy/estate/last-will-and-testament/2019-03-20.html [warplife.com]
Soylent News owns his business interests
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @12:09PM
It looks like I misread that. SN gets his copyrights.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday April 01 2019, @03:11PM
Does a signed and witnessed copy of that will exist? Otherwise it's meaningless.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 01 2019, @11:57PM (1 child)
I posted this in one of the other stories on the page--how about an annual nethack session in his honor, or adding a story category of "MDC" to cover News of the Weird-style stories, or an "MDC" moderation option for a wild, oddball post?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 02 2019, @01:16AM
I would get behind an "MDC - mental wellness, creative writing, coding, astrophysics, and society's treatment of the downtrodden: choose two" category, for complex issues. Mike was a complex guy! That phrasing is awkwardly long but maybe that's also subject-appropriate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 02 2019, @01:12AM
Thanks so much martyb. MDC didn't get money from the people who wrote thanking him saying he prevented their suicides; I won't send you money for keeping shards of his outlook alive; thank you nonetheless.