Zillow, ex-MS, Pure Networks, Cisco hacker killed by random bullet in Seattle | Hacker News Reader

Zillow, ex-MS, Pure Networks, Cisco hacker killed by random bullet in Seattle

seattletimes.nwsource.com

95 pointsrubyrescue46 comments

I'm submitting this in honor of my friend, Justin Ferrari. He was a fellow hacker at Viair (now Good Technology). He worked at Microsoft with the Outlook Express team, among other things, helped start Pure Networks (acquired by Cisco). He was a really amazing guy. He was killed while driving w/his father and children through South Seattle by a random bullet thought to have come from two kids who were arguing on the side of the road.

I submit this as a small way of reminding the community that life is short, and as a small and insignificant way of honoring a great man.

I read this in the Seattle Times yesterday and it really made me angry. They keep cutting the police budget and crime only increases... then things like this happen.

There have been a lot of random shootings this year. Maybe we need to train these thugs to shoot better, so they kill each other instead of innocent people who are driving with their kids in the backseat. And of course, no one in the area knows anything...

It almost happened to my coworker last year about the same time and it's also in the central area of Seattle. When he was walking along a street, there were two cars driving by. a guy in one of the car took out a gun, and shot at the other car. It's like 10 feet away from my friend. he's so scared, and he's lucky didn't get shot.

And this is why other nations have gun control laws. I think the rest of us are continually scratching our heads at the proliferation of unregulated guns in the US when they fairly clearly cause so many obvious problems. The article skirts the issue just saying the city had noticed an increase in gun violence and was "galvanized" but then back away and later just talked about police budgets.

Most of the rest of the world honestly finds this aspect of the US quite baffling.

The guy who was behind the trigger probably laughs at you and your gun control laws. In fact any laws.

If nobody had guns from whom would the outlaw purchase(or steal) them from?

From whom they get guns in the UK? Demand will create supply. Drugs are banned, does it mean they are unobtainable?

> If nobody had guns from whom would the outlaw purchase(or steal) them from?

Nobody? Not police? Not govt?

How about folks who know how to use machine tools? (Guns are surprisingly low-tech.)

Yep, people who are rooting for gun ban fail to realize that M1911 was designed and developed 100 years ago and it basically remains as modern as the rest of the modern handguns are. Sure there have been some improvements in manufacturing technology and material science since then that make it possible to manufacture a gun like that in any decent machine shop.

Ammunition is actually the limiting factor. Primers, especially, are difficult to produce even vaguely safely in anything less than a $50mm+ plant. Whereas I could easily make an automatic short barreled rifle using just equipment at many hackerspaces or machine shops.

That's a pretty narrow and shallow way to look at it. For one thing, over time guns would become harder to get. Fine some people will always brake the laws. But at least maybe school children would stop shooting each other to death in school then?

And yes, it might make even the dumb, and gangsers think before drawing a gun in public and shooting away. Nothing will be perfect but I think looking at most other countries gun shooting statistics we can see it can greatly decrease it.

It's terrible that you can't even wait more than a few days before politicizing someone's senseless death.

You are a disgusting human being.

So when senseless atrocities are committed the proper response isn't outrage and attempts to fix problems but to sit by quietly and "respectfully"?

Yes it's a damn tragedy he is dead. I'm pissed off and angry about it. Was it preventable? Quite possibly. Even sadder. But instead you say I should stand by quietly and watch as it happens again and again with regularity.

It's a damn shame that taking steps to prevent deaths is such a political issue to some people :(

What about the marches after Trevon Martin's death? Should they have stayed home and not "politicized" that either? What about genocides? Should we just be sad and stand by?

> What about the marches after Trevon Martin's death? Should they have stayed home and not "politicized" that either?

What about them? Based on what's come out since, it's unclear why lynching Zimmerman (who is part black) is so laudable.

Also no one got mad at the guy mentioning the police budget keeps getting cut presumably suggesting increased police funding might help. Public allocation of funds and public policing seems to fall under political discourse but no one touched off on him.

It seems to indicate the issue isn't politicizing the the death, it is the issue of gun control in specific that bothers people deeply :/

You need to calm down dude.

I'm not entirely sure why you felt the need to make a fake account immediately before posting this, your only comment to date.

guns kill people just like cars drive drunk and forks make people fat.

Mexico has super strict gun laws, read the news and you'll see how well that is working out for them.

A gun is a force multiplier that makes it easier to kill someone.

A car is a force multiplier that makes it easier for a drunk person to kill someone.

A fork is a non-sequitur placed presumably to create a Voltron-like strawman out of a gun, car and fork.

That's kind of disingenuous, Mexico has massive corruption problems and a massive, semi-open black market.

> That's kind of disingenuous, Mexico has massive corruption problems and a massive, semi-open black market. reply

And the US doesn't? Where do you think that the recreational drugs come from?

Not to the degree Mexico has. And drugs are entirely different from guns -- drugs are something an individual takes that affects them; guns are bought by those who either feel the need for defense or the need to kill people easier.

> And drugs are entirely different from guns

Not from the supplier's point of view. (There is one difference - guns aren't consumables. Ignoring that, the US could supply a gun per crime with less than 1% of the suspected marijuana smuggling volume.)

FWIW, I've been offered illegal guns in both England and Japan. "You" may not know where to find them (but I suspect that you're lying to yourself about that) but anyone who does can.

Your straw-man argument falls flat on the fact that the US is actually quite good at enforcing it's laws.

Well, actually Mexico is safer for Americans than the US:

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/blog/2012/04/30/are-americans-sa...

edit: on the other hand there's Switzerland with 3M firearms (including assault rifles) among population and 0.9 homicide rate

I understand the history behind it, but It's not 1787 anymore. I find it amusing that pro-gun people point out Mexico and Colombia have stricter gun control laws but worse violence problems. Look at Somalia and Afghanistan for counter-examples. Armed societies are polite societies? Realy?

Anyway, as a Brit really not my problem except for on my occasional visit states-side.

Think of the current state of gun ownership, laws, and culture in the United States as the legacy system. Many don't like it (I certainly don't), but "be like Europe" is not a viable migration strategy without a lot more detail.

How would we (in the US) get from where we are to where, say, the UK is with respect to gun use, ownership, and laws?

This is also why we should keep all drugs illegal. If you are behind the wheel of a car, you could kill someone!

I worked at Expedia while he was there. He and I didn't work directly together. Despite that he and I are only very loosely connected through 6 months as coworkers more than 10 years ago, it somehow feels like I just narrowly dodged a bullet.

I'm really saddened to hear about this. RIP Justin. And best regards to your survivors.

RIP. :(

I didn't know the guy but heard about him on the news. What a tragedy.

That's really awful.

How hard is it to get a car with bullet proof windows?

It really depends what kind of bullets you want to stop. Edit: alright, I admit I don't know what I'm talking about :)

Not only is this the inappropriate time, but you're pulling answers out of the air. You have no idea what you're talking about. This whole discussion is patently absurd.

A man was just murdered in his car while driving down a public road. This is not a concern any of us should have to deal with, but devastatingly, it is a statistical anomaly that has impacted his family's life. Should we get in to the statistical probabilities as well? Should we dig in to the physics involved?

How about we honor his death by simply acknowledging that of all the crazy aspects of this event, the most important is the loss that everyone involved is suffering and leave it at that.

Why not? The article did. Your emotional response is completely valid, but don't demand that everyone feel the same way that you do. Worrying about one's own safety is also a completely normal and human response to hearing this kind of news.

How about we honor his death by simply acknowledging that of all the crazy aspects of this event, the most important is the loss that everyone involved is suffering and leave it at that.

I don't think "simply acknowledging" anything is a very helpful response, but if you feel that way, go ahead.

I'm happy to lose karma fighting this fight. It's something that appears lost on the internet, and especially amongst hackers. This is, in effect, standing over his body pondering whether bullet proof glass would have helped. Does it matter? Where is your empathy? Where's your perspective? I don't demand you feel any way, but I will always demand respect for other people, and this entire discussion is distasteful and disrespectful to those suffering loss.

It's fine to wonder about your own security, but have some sense of context. Go do some research and find out what the real best way to protect yourself from events like this is. Go write an article about it and post it to HN. Those are all constructive things to do, but have some respect for the loss here and compartmentalize the discussion a bit.

This is, in effect, standing over his body pondering whether bullet proof glass would have helped.

Distance makes a difference. I don't feel any immediacy to this event or these people.

compartmentalize the discussion a bit.

I definitely agree. Tycho started another thread of conversation instead of responding to anyone here who knew Justin Ferrari. That's about as compartmentalized as we can get on this site.

How about looking to maybe make this an even more unlikely anomaly? How about learning from "our" (society) mistakes?

As a whole, when we hurt our self, should we just be sad and move on and do it again and again, or should we learn and take measures not to make the same mistake?

Random and stupid and pointless deaths like this should be cause for conversation.

It is really awful.

You could have left it at that.

Simply tragic.

I think Tycho is asking where _he_ can get bulletproof car windows from. He's not criticising the dead guy for not having bulletproof windows. And it seems to be a reasonable question if you live in Seattle :(

Fair enough, so I'll suggest this. If you live in a crime-heavy area, accept that your life isn't something you want to risk on a hack (like retro-fitting bulletproof windows to your family minivan).

Securing an automobile against bullets involves some very specific domain knowledge that you're not likely to gain during a weekend project. Specifically, retrofitting your car with bulletproof windows isn't a very good option, because bullets (even a lowly 9mm) can penetrate the thin steel of a car door at close range. Glass capable of stopping the same round will not fit in the channels that support a standard car window, and will be far too heavy for the existing power window mechanism.

Cars that offer protection from bullets are purpose-built, have much more than just bulletproof glass, and weigh a lot more (because of armor plating) than your average automobile, which is going to equate to horrible gas mileage. It's simply not a viable option for most people.

Yeah, because any persons biggest concern when buying a vehicle is how bullet proof the glass is.

R.I.P. man.

Several companies will retrofit just about any vehicle to any degree of armoring. Search "armored vehicles". Digging around, I'm seeing a low end of US$37,500 for a used VW Passat 4Motion armored to match the implied scenario (9mm, 12ga, etc.). Prices fast go well into 6 digits, depending on how serious the attackers are and how valuable the occupants/cargo are. Yes, standard options include much "James Bond" material.

And, considering other replies, yes thinking about how to protect oneself from such random events is worthwhile and a normal (if not universal) response to tragedy.

Does any one else find it sad the question is about bullet proof glass and not controlling guns?

The last place I was that someone I knew had bullet proof glass in their car was Colombia. Are the American's here happy with this comparison on public safety?

Colombia, by the way, has strict gun controls.

Realistically though, you can't do anything about gun control. You can, however, modify your car.

Rational cost/benefit analysis is probably that you should learn first aid, carry a trauma kit in your car (trauma dressings, seat belt cutter, glass breaker, etc., accessible to the driver and secured in a crash), and have a cellphone and map of where the nearest trauma center/ER are. That would protect you just about as much in most shooting situations, and in the 10000x more likely vehicle accident (yourself or someone else).

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