Fravia died on Sunday, 3rd May 2009 | Hacker News Reader

Fravia died on Sunday, 3rd May 2009

fravia.com

40 pointsmpk18 comments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia

If you don't have the time to contribute to the article, but know about some source of information about him (required to add anything to a Wikipedia biography), please drop them here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fravia&ac...

(link to the input form of the proper section in the talk page).

.. and I am sad. A great man has passed.

That sent shivers down my spine. I attended a lecture of his in 2003 in London. On the train there he sat onfront of me, at the time I had no idea who he was, I had never seen or heard of him, but for some reason, I just knew he was going to be talking at the series of lectures I was heading to. Don't ask me how. It was really weird. Anyway, his lecture was fascinating. Truely. For several years after I read his site and learnt incredible things. I hadn't been to the site for a few years and for some reason he popped into my head last weekend and so I went pocking about the site again. Just checked my browser history, it was the 2nd May, the day before he died. The first two lines of a Bob Marley song come to mind "Theres a natural mystic blowing through the air; If you listen carefully now you will hear". I have no doubt there was something special about the Fravia chap. RIP.

He was a good human. I just realized that I have benefited from his works in the past, after watching this video about using RFID tracking for omniscient like marketing metrics: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/08/rfids-on-the-brain.html

Which reminded me of this article on his site (that I found via "reality hacking" on the wikipedia) http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/slaves.htm

It was so powerful to me then that I recall wondering around campus slightly dazed and confused afterwards.

He will be missed.

How sad. I learned so much about searching the web from him. I always found his web site painful to use but the time spent there was very rewarding.

Awful news, another great mind and soul has left us ...

I've learned a lot from his pages... Thanks Fravia!

There's days that I wish that people like Ray Kurzweil are correct about the Singularity. When that day comes, what we cherish the most will no longer be lost unwillingly.

I frequently wish that I was born a few hundred years later than I was. Then I remind myself that I'm lucky I wasn't born a few hundred years earlier. Which isn't quite enough to balance out my disappointment at being in this time.

You're only disappointed because you're looking at the future from a perspective of the present. People from the future won't understand why you think you're missing what they have.

If you're disappointed by the generation in which you live, you're doing it wrong. When you talk on a cell phone? That shit is being sent to outer space! Incomprehensible!

I realise you're only regurgitating what you saw on a Youtube clip linked to by reddit, but you do realise that standard mobile ('cell') phone conversations don't use satellites don't you?

Anyway, RIP Fravia

Yes, and the clip was hilarious despite being inaccurate, though the inaccuracy doesn't change the point.

And since I don't visit reddit, I must have found it here ;)

At any point in time, there were always skilled technical people pushing the edge of their trade. I had the privilege of visiting a Viking museum in Oslo, where I had an epiphany.

Did you know that 1000 years ago, viking smiths were smelting iron from bog peat, and making swords from it?

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/...

And then you have their outrageously sophisticated and evolved ships. I'd like to think that if I lived back there, I would have gotten involved with something like that.

At which point we will cease to cherish it.

You don't cherish things like clean water and computers?

Of course I do, but only because I've experienced life without them and understand that they are not ubiquitous. If there were an infinite supply of clean water and computers I wouldn't really need to cherish them, would I?

Without death, life ceases to have meaning; it ceases to be cherished. You cannot have one without the other as they imply each other.

Fine. That which is important shouldn't be fragile enough to need cherishing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com