A member of our community is missing, help find him | Hacker News Reader

A member of our community is missing, help find him

blog.izs.me

594 pointsmcgwiz65 comments

Please read this. It seems to be the source of the original post and provides additional details (news articles). It is also easier to read.

http://findluk.com

Edited to better describe the link.

Isaac isn't just some guy who read a website and made a blog post, he has been at the forefront of the search for Luke, and is (rightly!) using his profile as the maintainer of Node to call attention to the dedicated website that has been set up.

This page also prints to a flyer - easy to share and distribute.

Hope Luke turns up ok, here's a story of someone local to me who disappeared but came back: http://thepopcop.co.uk/2013/12/the-boy-who-went-missing-from...

The point being (as Tom says in his story), if you feel alone - talk to someone. It's ok not to feel ok.

Asking for a friend, what do you do if you don't have anyone to talk to? I feel like the answer should be obvious, but I have no idea what it is.

I find it hard to believe your friend doesn't know a single person who will listen to him talk. I think more likely he is afraid to show vulnerability to people he knows.

In my experience I've always become better friends with someone who has shared with me or who I have shared something personal with. Through showing vulnerability, which takes courage, we build strength.

I've also been surprised at how accepting people are when you confide in them. People are much more sympathetic then we think.

I'm not usually a fan of Ted talks but theres a good one on this subject, you might want to show him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

That being said here is the national suicide prevention hotline 1-800-273-8255 just incase its an emergency. I know people who have called before it's not a big deal they don't send out police to your house or anything like that, if anything you may have to wait on hold for a while, but the people who work there are saints

I am socially isolated. I can go for several days without speaking to anyone. Sometimes the only speaking I do is the hellos and thank yous to shop keepers.

I find it easy to understand someone who might not know anyone to talk to.

Using a web search engine to find a support service or using Reddit is very different to talking to someone who knows you.

You don't have to be suicidal to get someone to talk to, if you really have no-one you can approach personally. Ministers of religion are everywhere, and this is their supposed bailiwick. You don't have to be religious to talk to them.

Large cities often have some kind of resources where you can see a social worker (who can refer you) or psychologist. The trick, of course, is getting over the initial reticence. Or look for things like depression hotlines - these are sometimes separate to suicide ones.

College didn't work out for everyone. There weren't enough jobs for all of us, now I am in my mid thirties, have no friends, and am unemployable. But you can rest assured that, yes, most people think that I shouldn't exist.

Hello! I believe you are more valuable as a person than the contributions you make through a job. Many people find their self worth through employment, but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, employment generally means making money for someone else. This concept of economic slavery causes people who don't fit into the job market to feel like they're not worth their weight.

Your value as a person doesn't have to be defined by your employment. If you open your mind you can find your value as a listener, a thinker, a gardener... whatever.

I could use a friend as well - hit me up @gmail.

It is extremely likely that humanity is an evolutionary dead-end that will never spread out from this little rock we're on prior to its eventual destruction (or even more likely, our own destruction prior to that), in which case nobody's contributions will have mattered any more than your own in the long run.

So don't sweat it too much.

But I advise making some friends and making yourself employable because both of those things pass the time pretty well.

There are more than a few people who have done well in the professional world, only to discover that said "value" is a myth. Your value is intrinsic, it doesn't come from any job, any social status, or any amount of money. So, for the record, I think you should exist.

That said, internalizing that message is tremendously difficult. I struggle with it myself.

You got a friend in me. I'm in my early 30's and have no social life due to my responsibilities.

Sometimes all you need is someone to bounce ideas off of to figure out how you want to move forward. I'd be more than happy to be that person for you.

hnsakes 'at' gmail.com

In the UK, there's the Samaritans helpline, which is completely anonymous; the NHS also help, you can talk to your GP in confidence.

I don't know exactly who to call elsewhere, but as chad_oliver says the helplines are there. http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/ lets you search for a local support group in the USA.

It's always going to be difficult to pick up the phone the first time, but it is worth it.

Anonymous? Oh please.

There's a YC startup for everything these days: http://www.7cupsoftea.com/

Its not really obvious. If you're religious, the local priest / reverend is not a bad bet. They tend to have a training and know a fair number of people. Otherwise, the suicide prevention hotline works for those moments of "I'm alone".

Some of the danger for people is the thought of attracting attention from authorities that could make it all worse. The two suggestions above shouldn't have that effect.

There are quite a few hotlines which have volunteers who are willing to listen. I'm not sure if that's the sort of thing your friend is looking for, but it's certainly better than nothing.

You don't need to be suicidal to call the SF Suicide Prevention line. From http://www.sfsuicide.org/get-help/call-us/: "Trained volunteers are available 24 hours, 7 days a week to listen and help you sort things out. You do not need to be suicidal to speak with us." I don't know for sure, but I suspect other prevention lines are similar.

Join a group/club. Book club, sports club, some sort of tech-related local meet-up group, game club, etc.

Joining an active development community for some opensource project that has primarily online interaction is not as psychologically beneficial, but might be sufficient depending on level of depression/isolation and how it affects you.

This directory should provide a place to find someone to talk to no matter where you're located.

http://suicideprevention.wikia.com/wiki/International_Suicid...

MKP is another support group (for men). Here's a link to the Australian chapter: http://mkpau.org/

There are some inconsistency with regards to his tattoo in the blog and the website.

In the blog, it mentioned that the rm -rf / was in his left chest. And in the website, it was said to be in his right chest. This is also the case for his sacred heart tattoo. Based on the picture, sacred heart tattoo is placed in his right chest.

I hope Luke is fine and okay.

It might just be an problem of perspective. In medicine when talking about body parts one refers to them from the person's perspective. Those that don't know that will most likely go with the more intuitive way of describing it from the viewers perspective. So the heart-style tattoo is on his right side (medical speaking), while when you look at him, it's on his left side.

I imagine that is probably a webcam photo, so left/right are backwards.

If left/right were backwards, then the text would be backwards as well.

Webcam image don't swap images around, if you take the image that is actually getting streamed/saved. The only time they are acting as a mirror is when you set them up and the reason is simply because people are somewhat familiar with setting up things in front of a mirror, so adjusting the camera is much more intuitive that it would be with the actual image. Just try it out once.

according to another person who worked with him when he lived in New York, he disappeared for 5 days once there. So hopefully he'll turn up.

Beyond giving my heartfelt wishes that he turns up ok, I have to give kudos to Yahoo for hiring a private investigator to try to find him.

His last tweet just says "Ok." [0]

[0] - https://twitter.com/luk

That's not really suspicious, someone answered "thanks for coming", this was right after he was last seen in public.

His friends have stated that later on he communicated in private, with something that got them worried (not publicized). The search begun just a couple hours after that.

I think the "Thanks for coming. Ok." thing is an in joke. See @isz's Twitter profile.

https://twitter.com/izs

is it possible to find out what location he tweeted from?

Yes but that one doesn't have one:

    {
        "contributors": null,
        "coordinates": null,
        "created_at": "Wed Jan 01 21:42:33 +0000 2014",
        "entities": {
            "hashtags": [],
            "symbols": [],
            "urls": [],
            "user_mentions": []
        },
        "favorite_count": 3,
        "favorited": false,
        "geo": null,
        "id": 418497499427393536,
        "id_str": "418497499427393536",
        "in_reply_to_screen_name": null,
        "in_reply_to_status_id": null,
        "in_reply_to_status_id_str": null,
        "in_reply_to_user_id": null,
        "in_reply_to_user_id_str": null,
        "lang": "und",
        "place": null,
        "retweet_count": 0,
        "retweeted": false,
        "source": "<a href=\"http://twitter.com/download/iphone\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter for iPhone</a>",
        "text": "Ok.",
        "truncated": false,
        "user": {
            "contributors_enabled": false,
            "created_at": "Fri Oct 03 00:19:22 +0000 2008",
            "default_profile": false,
            "default_profile_image": false,
            "description": "computers",
            "entities": {
                "description": {
                    "urls": []
                },
                "url": {
                    "urls": [
                        {
                            "display_url": "luke.xxx",
                            "expanded_url": "http://luke.xxx",
                            "indices": [
                                0,
                                22
                            ],
                            "url": "http://t.co/oDe3EQ10AH"
                        }
                    ]
                }
            },
            "favourites_count": 1660,
            "follow_request_sent": false,
            "followers_count": 957,
            "following": false,
            "friends_count": 135,
            "geo_enabled": true,
            "id": 16569603,
            "id_str": "16569603",
            "is_translator": false,
            "lang": "en",
            "listed_count": 37,
            "location": "oakland",
            "name": "luke arduini",
            "notifications": false,
            "profile_background_color": "131516",
            "profile_background_image_url": "http://abs.twimg.com/images/themes/theme14/bg.gif",
            "profile_background_image_url_https": "https://abs.twimg.com/images/themes/theme14/bg.gif",
            "profile_background_tile": false,
            "profile_banner_url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/16569603/1388423699",
            "profile_image_url": "http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/416404684014776320/ua8US-XB_normal.jpeg",
            "profile_image_url_https": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/416404684014776320/ua8US-XB_normal.jpeg",
            "profile_link_color": "009999",
            "profile_sidebar_border_color": "EEEEEE",
            "profile_sidebar_fill_color": "EFEFEF",
            "profile_text_color": "333333",
            "profile_use_background_image": true,
            "protected": false,
            "screen_name": "luk",
            "statuses_count": 16273,
            "time_zone": "Eastern Time (US & Canada)",
            "url": "http://t.co/oDe3EQ10AH",
            "utc_offset": -18000,
            "verified": false
        }
    },

I do find it interesting the time_zone got set to Eastern even though he should be somewhere on the west coast... (maybe all tweets are passed in Eastern, idk)

I do know that up until a few months ago, Luke lived in New York City—so, that may have something to with the time zone field.

Hey Luke,

I hope you are ok and is reading HN right now. Come back, the world is missing you.

I'll share this - not that I'll be any help (no where near you). Hope he turns up ok!

My friend disappeared before and it's amazing to see how many people we reached with just facebook and twitter. In my case it sadly didn't have a happy ending - but the support you receive from complete strangers is just mind blowing!

Hope the guy's okay and he turns up. It's sort of touching to see his coworkers come up with this. I wonder though, if he had issues with anxiety or depression, if the attention could push him away.

Reminds me of this guy: https://twitter.com/mauricemach

Could never figure out what happened to him

could you expand on the history? As a fellow brazilian I'm curious.

He is the initial creator of https://github.com/mauricemach/zappa, but his online activity stopped late 2011

I don't mean to be callous, but what exactly are you asking for help with? He's not a 4 year old child, he's not an elderly person with dementia. He's a grown man. If he can't be found, apparently he doesn't want to be found. Are we concerned that he is somehow wandering around town without access to any means of communication? I don't get this.

> He's not a 4 year old child, he's not an elderly person with dementia. He's a grown man.

He could be a grown man suffering from psychosis.

Without knowing him or his details specifically, but considering the range of possibilities generically:

A person in such a situation could be the victim of a crime or accident, or of a health episode – physical or mental – that's caused temporary incapacitation. That incapacitation might mean they're still ambulatory, but confused and in need of help, or alternatively trapped/disabled/unconscious somewhere – perhaps even not far from help, if people were just perceptive enough to notice.

Consider, for example, the case of the patient lost and deceased in the stairwell of the SF General Hospital last year: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/How-S-F-General-lost-t...

A slightly more thorough search, rather than the assumption "she's an adult, she must have wandered off the grounds for her own purposes", might have discovered her unconscious in time to save her life.

Of course, if in any such case the person truly is a competent adult devoutly not wanting to be found, they won't be. But if friends/family are concerned, it's better to trust their particular knowledge.

This is what I was wondering as well. If someone that understands what's going on could better inform me, I'd appreciate it. Was he last seen going hiking or something? Has he just not been on the internet in a while?

Are we supposed to call the police if we see him in Starbucks?

Grown men, despite what you may have heard, sometimes need a little help too.

Obviously this is true, but rarely do they need help being physically located. If he needs psychological help or emotional support, clearly that is a different matter, and not something that can be provided by rallying as many random, well-meaning strangers as possible...I still fail to see what is being requested here.

hard to render psychological help or emotional support if you cannot find the guy who needs the help.

Ominous title on that last twitter picture.

ITS THE FINALE

https://twitter.com/luk/status/418306940662321152/photo/1

That's not really suspicious in describing a new-year's-eve fireworks photo. That tweet was followed by a few more innocuous tweets, and one of the other links posted suggest Arduini was last seen the next afternoon (~12 hours later).

So those words are only 'ominous' with some straining, in retrospect... and are unlikely to be relevant to the disappearance.

I point this out just so that people won't see your comment and, lacking context, jump to premature conclusions.

"rm -rf /" is pretty cool.

Hope he's not in trouble.

i think he is suicidal, do the math. if that is his most recent tattoo..., otherwise just a cool guy.

sorry i can't be of more help, but i'm curious as to why the fact that he "has travelled to Thailand" is relevant...

It's possible that he knows someone there, or is at least familiar with the place, and so might turn up there again.

I'm in Thailand - don't know if I can be of any help?

Also in Thailand, eyes peeled

He is familiar with Thailand and might go back there.

Seems as though he was in the SF area. For those of us who are not in California is there anything we can do? I'm in Texas...

Share the message. And keep your eyes open :)

what if he doesn't want to be found?

What's the deal with the creepy hookah/booze bottle picture at the bottom of that page?

its a tumblog of isaacs. it changes every page load.

it would be nice if this could somehow be a banner across the top of HN...

hope he is found soon.

    echo 'Amber Alert' | sed 's/Amber/Luke/'

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