Nickb, Are you okay? | Hacker News Reader

Nickb, Are you okay?

60 pointskirubakaran54 comments

It has been more than a week since nickb was seen here. Am I the only person worried?

He didn't show up in Startup School though he said he would. I hope he is okay.

In the future, I'd like to suggest that all regulars post their vacation schedules and travel times to news.YC so that we can make sure you're ok. Please also post your mom's phone number so that we can call her and tell you're doing alright and that the weather is great in Whogivesashitistan.

i can see both sides of the coin, but its nice to see someone concerned for someone else.

Either your sarcasm detector is broken for writing this response, or mine is for thinking you were serious.

Or perhaps I'm getting a false positive and both of the above posts were serious.

all I know is that this thread has too acerbic a tone for its own good

That's sarcasm. I'm sure Nick is a beautiful human. But ... like ... this ... is a tech news site. I'd be worried if people didn't drop off for a week or so every once in a while.

Surgeon General's note: This thread is a good source of Vitamin C.

I don't see how his sarcasm detector is broken, wheels suggested we relax and don't jump to conclusions when someone is missing for a few days, and jdavid came in and acknowledged that we shouldn't be too worried but it's still nice to see that some people are.

All regulars: before deciding to take a vacation please create a poll and make sure you get a majority approval from the community. An army of satellites, airplanes and robots will be dispatched to locate any missing person and if found guilty of violating the aforementioned rule you will be responsible for covering the costs of the search and rescue operation.

UAVs ;)

There's a startup idea somewhere in there.

I met a guy at Startup School that was planning to build a universal address book that would insure people and businesses knew where to send your bills, tax forms, and how to call you, etc. He intended it to be a tool for handling permanent moves, but I think there's the same set of problems. Making it worth anything requires huge uptake and getting huge uptake without value is impossible.

Personally, I like that every time I move, my junk mail drops off for many months (the "occupant" garbage still shows up, but it's easier to toss without thinking about it). I think that's the only thing I like about moving, actually. Having a system that allowed junkmailers to know my new address automatically would be a negative value, and I think the same is true of a site that allows constant contact with folks on vacation--I like being out of reach when on vacation.

i love snail mail spam, especially the ones with paid envelopes that you can fill with funny things and send back

Fight the good fight, my friend.

I'm afraid I'm just not willing to invest that much time in costing them money--because the amount of money it costs the sender is significantly lower than the value I put on my time. Sure, if enough people do it, they will eventually find it unprofitable to send their junk...but the human resources wasted in getting to that point is overwhelming. Maybe I should hire a neighborhood kid to come by weekly, for envelope stuffing. $5 per week might be worth it.

If you're paying a kid, might as well pay him/her to do this: http://www.dearbulkmailer.com/

A winner is you!

i would like my "address" to move to the location of a massive scanner than can scan and email me all data. then my spam filter can catch, the snail mail spam, and all of my mail gets shredded and recycled.

http://earthclassmail.com

http://paperlessmail.com

You should also probably post your social security number in case you don't post your schedules and we really need to find you to tell you that missing startup school is not ok.

Whoa... I come back and the top story is about me. Thanks guys... I really appreciate it!

I was away for a week. I had some personal stuff to take care off and once that was done, I realized I needed to take few days to just reflect on some stuff and just do nothing. Haven't had a real vacation in quite some time so I used few days to unwind. No worries, I'll be back to regular posting soon!

PS: Now I'm off to answer a bunch of emails!

Welcome back! Got a lot of heat for this post :) Anyway, the timing couldn't have been better and I am glad it made you smile.

I think that both sides in this thread are behaving in a way that is inappropriate for desired tone of this forum. All snarky responses are uncalled for, though the merit of the posing of the question is debatable

Could you not send him an email (it's in his profile)?

Wait. I thought Paul Graham was nickb?

Yeah. Maybe he's off implementing a downmod arrow so I can bury this crap submission.

Maybe a reddit-like "hide" feature would be better -- doesn't affect anyone else, just let's you skip stuff you'd personally not see. I'm sure someone has the GreaseMonkey-Fu to do this without troubling the site programmers.

My criticism is valid. nickb is one of two things: A non-existent person, or a person who has real-life contacts who can submit a missing-persons report if required.

Like this?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=173581

Kind of, although more like reddit's "hide" feature. There's also a GM script to do like the extension you link, but it has menus so there's no need to edit an array. No time to find link but it will be on userscripts.org somewhere.

Fine, I added a UI to it...

http://www.andrewfarmer.name/2008/04/hn-blacklist-now-with-u...

Thanks! We need a YC'er of the week award :)

I'm not sure I should win an award for creating a blacklist. I mostly did it because it was a fun exercise in javascript (which I am learning).

> I mostly did it because it was a fun exercise in javascript

Me too :) Although I'd recommend using jQuery if you have time to learn that as well. Makes DOM-related stuff easy so you only need to roll code for the things which are unique to your app.

I'm actually taking the opposite approach... I started using jQuery to do all my DOM related stuff, but now learning actual javascript for the fun of it. It really is a surprisingly flexible language.

Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw nickb pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

I'd upmod twice if I could.

Thank you Simone.

I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.

(Since this is getting downmodded into oblivion, that was a Spaceballs reference. That's a line from the same scene with "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.")

So you decided to quote a line from a classic 1980s movie because said line occurs in said movie shortly before a line which sounds somewhat like the line from another classic 1980s movie which was (quite relevantly and in context) quoted by the parent post?

Did you think that plan through carefully?

Maybe nickb will mysteriously disappear and completely cease activity, the way linuxer did from reddit. http://reddit.com/user/linuxer

Funny, same thing happened at digg: http://digg.com/users/albertpacino

That can only mean that whatever Wintermute-esque construct nickb was, has moved on to somewhere more interesting than here.

Take me with you, nickb!

after reading all the comments, i start wondering: is this a community, or is it a bunch of kids with nothing better to do that truly don't get what hacker news is all about?

He was at the reception the night before.

Are you sure? None of us met him.

He was logged into Google Talk last night.

I'm sure he appreciates the concern though.

I think he's at home resting. Probably recovering from carpal tunnel syndrome.

Several people said they saw him in the pizza line, but I was too far back to see for myself.

Yeah, I saw him standing in line right next to Elvis.

Damn I regret not jumping on that joke. Missed a ten pointer opportunity.

The disappearance of nickb was an inside job!!1

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!1

Tough crowd tonight!

totally offtopic but jakub the primary bug wrangler (and great maintainer) has been MIA for 3 weeks.

lol, nice to see that the community is so tight.

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