Kris Nóva has died
nivenly.org
nivenly.org
She will be missed so much.
Her energy and enthusiasm for life shone like a bright star.
She will be missed.
[0] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/mastodon-wi...
[0] https://mirror.as35701.net/video.fosdem.org/2020/K.1.105/kub... [1] https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/kubernetes/
https://hachyderm.io/@quintessence/110922746691596046
> The person I cherished more than any other, @nova , died unexpectedly late Wednesday in a climbing accident.
> I have no words, only despair. The light in my soul is gone.
> Joe Beda @jbeda and Nivenly are posting announcements. Others will also.
I'm sorry to hear this much loved person has died. RIP
I recognize myself in my son now, and while I also am sometimes terrified of what that might mean, I think my parents took the right tack and I'm trying my best to do the same. I'd rather he's a strong swimmer, a trained climber, a confident adventurer, than an adolescent just taking risks in defiance.
Looking back on those moments now as an adult, the hair on my skin stands up just at how incredibly stupid and dangerous it was.
I sometimes think of my parallel selves in other worlds, and wonder how many of them are dead and how my family progressed through the grief, from this action alone
The best I can hope is that husbanding my son’s energy will ensure that I leave this place before he does.
Here's a segment from one of her recent streams. This is how I will remember her:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1884973353?t=1238s
Nóva was a great friend and an asskicker, she loved being a hacker.
RIP. I'll be thinking of you on the mountains.
Last Wednesday evening Kris Nova had a climbing accident and died.
All of us that loved her are heart broken and stunned. She was an amazing person that lived out loud and built connection and community wherever she went. She will be horribly missed.
(this is also authored by Kris)
Kris and I worked together only briefly on a small hack project, but everything about them was exactly what you'd imagine in a forward-thinking community leader and technologist.
I'm deeply saddened for those who knew Kris well, and hope some solace is found in knowing that their contributions left the world a brighter place.
I tried Googling her but it just results in a lot of people expressing sadness over her passing. I do not want to intrude on anyone's grief here, but I'd never heard of her before and I've not been able to find any solid info about her life or work.
In another place, someone said she did the best talk of FOSDEM 2023. I was at that event, but I'd never heard of her, nobody mentioned this talk, and he did not link it so I don't know for sure what talk it was.
I've googled that too -- this is way more work than I should have to do, frankly -- and I think it might be [this one](https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/hachyderm/), but the blurb is fairly content-free and tells me nothing useful.
But the talk is also [mentioned here](https://medium.com/@dotdc/fosdem-2023-highlights-163cb96a190...) and that gives a little context.
Apparently she ran Hachyderm. I hadn't heard of that, either. Apparently it is a Mastodon instance -- I see little to distinguish these, TBH, and while I'm on Mastodon/Fediverse, I find it little to no use. But the second blogger there, David Calvert, said:
> mostly known for hosting the tech industry at hachyderm.io since Musk bought the bird site.
That's more info than anywhere else in this thread.
Hachyderm is apparently
> a safe space, LGBTQIA+ and BLM, primarily comprised of tech industry professionals world wide powered by Mastodon and ActivityPub.
I guess Mastodon is bigger than I thought since running an instance gives you so much recognition.
Perhaps I should seek openning an account there to get to know better.
That part threw me off too. It almost sounded like people were damning her with faint praise: talking about her Mastodon instance as one of her big accomplishments sounded to me about as insulting as saying that one's big achievement was running a really cool Minecraft server. But I guess the modern world is a weird place.
Her website doesn't have much: https://krisnova.net/
while also saying
> which I personally find very irritating indeed.
I don't think youre trying very hard with that "want", with the way you are speaking
My heart breaks for those who knew her personally, and for her family and loved ones.
RIP Kris
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1884973353
Said she was running and climbing and the happiest she's been in her life.
What a terrible loss indeed.
Kris recently said how she was feeling the healthiest and happiest she had ever been.
The loss is gutting to those that know her, or only know of her.
For those that don't know, Kris created Hachyderm[1], which had incredible growth[2] after Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. She also created the Aurae runtime[3], and went on to create the Nivenly Foundation[4].
In Kris' own words,
"Fuck the internet, I'm gonna go climb mountains. If you can - if you're lucky enough - please also get outside, if you can."
If you can, take a break. Get outside, and just... take a moment to just /be/ outside.
RIP Kris <3
[2] https://thenewstack.io/how-hashyderm-scaled-up-after-elon-mu...
[3] https://aurae.io
-- Brian S.
Rest in peace. I hope her loved ones are able to take the time to grieve and find solice
Reading her last blog post is hauntingly ironic. She describes making a major change in how she directs get her energy, with climbing cited as more representative of her values. And then she died climbing only weeks later.
I wish that she had more time to live in her new outlook. I also hope that her impact continues to resonate. RIP.
A big loss to the community, and to her friends and family. RIP.
She was one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter, and for understandable reasons she left there to start the mastodon instance but I didn't really use it much.
Really shocked to hear the news, she was very influential.
> "@nova died unexpectedly late Wednesday in a climbing accident."
If I was to imagine what I didn't know about mountaineering, it might be about working to see views that I couldn't have imagined.
https://www.summitpost.org/mountaineering-accident-statistic...
To be clear, I think mountaineering is a perfectly rational activity for people to pursue so long as they're going into it with their eyes wide open. I've certainly done activities in that vein that some reasonable percentage of people would probably consider excessively dangerous for various reasons.
I wouldn't personally do many of them but I'd hesitate to criticize people in general for pursuing activities that have greater than typical day-to-day danger associated with them.
It's essentially impossible to properly normalise across hours of doing the activity.
Those stats, are at best, an estimate but it's exceptionally favourable to mountaineering.
However, as both you and the link suggest, it's essentially impossible to normalize. I don't know how I'd even draw a hard line between a "walk in the woods" and "mountaineering." But do whatever works for you.
I do (and love) outdoor climbing and even a bit of mountaineering, but it seems like most accomplished climbers die in the alpine. Some of what people do makes Honnold's famous free solo of El Cap look tame by comparison
But people like challenges, experiences, etc. some of which are never going to be wholly risk free. I'm not going to pressure someone to get out of their comfort zone in a way that puts them in potential physical danger but I fully understand people who pressure themselves. I've certainly gotten into some dicey situations now and then. Nothing serious happened--I was generally prepared--but it wouldn't have taken a lot for things to go sideways.
Or maybe you get distracted and forget to look both ways before crossing the street.
Its the same with mountaineering.
A ton of upvoted, not many comments (so no indication of flamewar), still is below position 25 for several hours (with much better upvote-to-hours ratio than most of stories above it).
Just weird.