Ask HN: Anyone know where Mark Pilgrim went?
I went back to diveintohtml5.org to find something today, and it's gone. Then I checked diveintomark.org, diveintopython3.org, twitter.com/diveintomark...
Is Mark Pilgrim pulling a disappearing act?
Is Mark Pilgrim pulling a disappearing act?
""" Let’s all talk about HTTP error code 410. ... Error 410 means Resource gone, as in, a resource used to exist at this location, but now it’s gone. Not only is it gone, but I don’t know (or I don’t want to tell you) where it went. ... Now, there is not a lot of information about error 410... I suppose because it addresses a condition that doesn’t come up very often. Also, we’ve all been brainwashed into believing that all resources should be permanent, which simply isn’t true. """ Google cache: http://bit.ly/qxdBi5
His servers are returning 410 errors but also the same very deliberate HTML:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"> <html><head> <title>410 Gone</title> </head><body> <h1>Gone</h1> <p>The requested resource<br />/<br /> is no longer available on this server and there is no forwarding address. Please remove all references to this resource.</p> </body></html>
Clearly Mark's invocation of the 410 error is deliberate.
Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand down and give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring. ... The communication was specifically verified, it was him, and that's that. That was the single hardest decision I've had to make this year.
(clicking on "x minutes ago" does it)
Mark is annoyed?
It is Mark Pilgrim's right to disappear, but to disappear in a puff of greasy black smoke and 4̶0̶4̶s̶ 410s is just attention whoring and begging people to look for him and call the police.
There is no reason for Mark to be annoyed that some caring people looked for him. There is every reason for him to count his blessings.
I sincerely wish him the best and hope he recovers from whatever ails him, but please don't tell me how annoyed he is.
FTFY.
That doesn't sound like "creepy Internet people Mark barely knows" to me.
"Mark is goddamn lucky and should be both embarrassed and grateful that he's enough of a character that a chunk of the internet cares about him"
I believe that statement belies a general mentality that I run into constantly: I myself have "disappeared" a few times, for less than 72 hours, because I decided to "take a weekend off" (attending a concert, for example), and I /did not appreciate/ that a ton of people on Twitter seemed to think that meant that I had "died", and insinuated calling the police to find me.
Regardless, to respond now to your comment regarding Jason: they apparently aren't close enough for Jason to a) call Mark directly, b) call someone in Mark's family, c) call any of Mark's friends, or d) have any clue what happened to Mark other than to "[call] his local PD for a welfare check", which to me indicates they aren't really close at all.
Seriously: having something "only the two of them knew about" isn't actually that rare: I've only talked with the man (Jason) a couple times, and yet I bet I could pass that test as well.
Seriously, take a step back and re-read what you just said.
There are tons of people who do, though: my girlfriend, the people I hang out with at my office every day, and even a few "long term allies" (as it were) I've come to know only online (and talk with on IRC). Some (in fact, many) of these people even have access to my exact location at all times via Latitude.
But the people I meet at conferences, the people who follow me on Twitter, or even the people who lurk in IRC channels I'm in? It is simply not any of their business where I am or what I am doing, and it is absolutely silly for them to expect me to tell them how long I'm going to be gone.
Did it occur to you that disappearing in such a manner might be similar to death and cause a similar reaction in people? Maybe their is a grievance cycle going on with people with such a sudden departure from their lives. One day the site is up, the next is a 410 with no explanation. For those where Mark's works were a reality, the sudden disappearance may be experienced like death as there is no explanation as to what was important to you is no longer and never will be. Are you a psychologist or sociologist that understands what is happening? Aren't you curious as to how it became that so many people depended on Mark's reality that do not know Mark personally? Who are you to react to those that are impacted psychologically to his disappearance? Do you claim to understand these things and how profound the internet affects us? I think you presume much about things you do not know about.
Good day to you.
Of the typical signs: a sudden change in behavior, loss of interest in favored activities, setting affairs in order, withdrawing from others, self destructive behavior.
You wouldn't believe the number of suicides who, as their last and final act, cleaned up (shaved, got a hair cut, put on a suit or nice dress, put on makeup, etc.) and prior to that suddenly gave away all of their stuff particularly prized possessions (and for creative types, their lifetime collection of work).
Come on. If I could, I would downvote you to hell. Seriously? You think nobody has a right to delete stuff they put there? They do not have the choice to lose interest in one thing and considering that maintaining it is a liability "take care of it" the old fashioned way? How can you be annoyed that a guy is annoyed that people sent a police car in front of his house. That is just the most ridiculous thing I heard since this morning.
And Mark has every right to delete all of his stuff, stuff that has been widely linked to, stuff heralded as brilliant, and he has the right to delete all of his accounts, but what he has no right to do when he does that and leaves no explanation, is to be annoyed that people wonder what happened to him?
This is an age passed the kids' faces on milk boxes.
We have google that puts up a infobox for suicide prevention if you search for suicide.
We have amber alerts. We have diggs/reddits/farks starting searches for missing people.
We have had several famous net suicides including one in January 2011, where a woman posted her suicide intention, people read it, no one took her seriously, and she went through with it. Needless to say all of her Facebook friends were heavily criticized in the following days.
We have a zillion different ways to connect in an age that stresses how wonderful the socially connected internet is, and Mark goes off and deletes all of his stuff and his accounts with no explanation whatsoever,
And he's annoyed that people notice and take action?
If he wants to delete his stuff, fine. Leave a nice page up saying he is fine but for reason X he is taking down his material for awhile. Wish everyone well, and thank them for their concern. And he's clearly smart enough to understand that.
What did people notice? That his public side is gone? So they immediately assumed that he is dead? That looks like a leap of faith. There were other ways to reach him than police. They could have found out who knew him and told those people to make contact. Police calls are drastic actions and an embarrassment.
Yes. You come off as someone trying to be insulting.
In October 2004, Mark stopped blogging after a post titled "Every Exit" which read: "It’s time for me to find a new hobby. Preferably one that doesn’t involve angle brackets. Or computers. Or electricity." [1] That post sat at the top of his previously very active weblog for 18 months until he returned in April 2006. Of course, that time he only stopped posting new material; he didn't delete all his existing resources. But he did disappear from online life for a while.
[1]: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Mqb93dp...
Hey everybody! Adobe has acquired another batch of awesome products that they will slowly ruin through incompetence and mismanagement!
From http://topsy.com/twitter.com/diveintomark/status/12091889959...
http://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440
@textfiles (Jason Scott) Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand down and give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring.
@textfiles (Jason Scott) The communication was specifically verified, it was him, and that's that. That was the single hardest decision I've had to make this year.
Dive Into Python 3: http://diveintopython3.ep.io/ GitHub: https://github.com/diveintomark/diveintopython3
Dive Into HTML5: http://diveintohtml5.ep.io/ GitHub: https://github.com/diveintomark/diveintohtml5
This is troubling. I'm glad I downloaded Dive Into Python 3, at least.
Source: http://twitter.com/#!/GlennF/status/121434638282530816
He hasn't deleted his Hacker News Account yet. He last commented 27 days ago.
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=MarkPilgrim
[I loved his blog and I wish someone has archive for it. I did not archive it locally because Mark used to write articles about long term archival of his data and I didn't think he would ever delete all his public writings.]
I don't believe you can delete an HN account.
You're free.
Until the next account.
Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand down and give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring.
So everyone stand down and respect Mark's wishes
Source: http://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440
http://web.archive.org/web/20110726001259/http://diveintomar...
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/the-upside-of-quittin...
(discussion at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3071854 )
Then a whois record on the DNS: http://whois.domaintools.com/domaincontrol.com
Then a quick Google search shows results like "Note that anything ending in domaincontrol.com or secureserver.net is hosted by godaddy.com and/or wildwestdomains.com! If you have webmail, you can ..."
or
They are not always 100% complete, but they are free and have good coverage.
For example, did you know that ycombinator.com also hosts workatastartup.org? http://spyonweb.com/ycombinator.com
For example: http://www.bing.com/search?q=ip:174.132.225.106
Shouldn't we respect his wishes? If he wants to pull the plug on his online identity, he should be allowed to do so without HN sending out an internet search squad.
As far as I know he is still working at Google
Which is the proper punitive measure for anybody that actually teaches the usage of JDBC.
He'll return from the self-flagellation in two years after some time spent at a monastery.
I fully expect his enlightenment will bring much into the world of programming.