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Comment by Volpe | Hacker News Reader

> ... to make sure he is ok.

Sure people aren't just being nosy? If something happened to him, it is highly unlikely he'd remove his entire web presence.

When someone removes their web presence isn't the implicit message that they don't want to be contacted?

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February 13: Ten years ago I would never have walked into something like this. A bear trap so poorly camouflaged a child would have seen it. But I didn't. I pried it open and got my leg out, but there was no way I could make it back. I was prepared to die out here. And to be honest, I felt I deserved it. A man gets too old for a job, he should know it, and stop. But then Buck found me. I don't know how. No one knew where I was going, but he found me and carried me back. Three days over terrain a mule couldn't navigate, laughing his ass off the entire way. Riding like that, completely helpless, slung over Buck's shoulder and staring down his back, I came to understand two things. One, at a certain point in life a man's hips spread and there's nothing you can do about it, and two, there's a very easy way to define friendship. A friend is someone who won't stop until he finds you and brings you home.

Wow. Where is that from?

Apparently from Due South http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108756/quotes

If you want to send that message, why not make it explicit?

If you dislike good stories, why don't you just say so?

What I'm saying is, if you really intend for people not to try to find you, leave a message saying not to try to find you. If that's the intention, the person removing all their stuff is not trying to tell a story, they're trying to remove themselves from one.

If, however, you're trying to cause endless speculation about your motives, and for people to wonder whether you're dead or alive (and I do hope he's alive), I suppose this way works.

Sorry - I though you were responding to the nice story about the bear trap, and wondering why all that story stuff was necessary, and whether the conclusion wouldn't stand on its own.

i don't think anybody believes that he got hit by a car and all his internet presence suddenly went poof. there's more ways of not being OK than just physical injury.

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