

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Zina Lahr - keithflower
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/media/The-Brief-Wondrous-Life-of-Zina-Lahr.html?

======
cema
If the accident had not happened she would still be alive and we most likely
would not read anything about her. Perhaps her life can be inspiring, as the
sister posting suggested
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244943)),
but the fact that we often do not learn about interesting, inspirational
people until after their deaths is somewhat depressing.

~~~
MichaelGG
Really? There's all sorts of creative people all over creating all sorts of
interesting things all the time. Just go to deviantArt or Soundcloud or any
number of sites and you'll find thousands of talented people. Even YouTube's
got creative people showing off neat things.

Or just look at the site you're on: There's all sorts of people coming up with
neat stuff, and the majority of them featured here haven't died.

Inspiration takes on many forms and it's there if you want to find it. If it's
true that you're not finding out about interesting people before they die,
it's because you're not looking. Zina's website was there before her death
right? Would it have gained as much appeal and attention without the touch of
tragedy? Probably not, but only because it's "just another artist". (Edit: I
don't mean this callously, she was obviously very talented and watching the
video of the stuff she made wants me to make something.)

I had a acquaintance from high school that did some great work and research,
though it's not mentioned a whole lot on HN. When he killed himself, though,
that got him to the top of HN a few times. But you could have looked him up a
week before, and his interesting code and research would have still been
there. This probably holds true for a lot of people - if one of the top HN
comment-writers eats a cyanide pill tonight, would you not expect headline
news tomorrow?

The only real depressing part is that people are dying.

If you're really depressed about only hearing about such people in the nice
summaries written up after they die, then go seek out living people doing cool
stuff today!

~~~
cema

      When he killed himself, though, that got him
      to the top of HN a few times. But you could have
      looked him up a week before
    

How would I know?

------
patcon
[https://vimeo.com/80973511](https://vimeo.com/80973511)

Wow. Just wow. I'm actually unreasonably sad right now.

------
keithflower
Inspiring.

Her website is still up:

[http://normallyodd.com/](http://normallyodd.com/)

------
fsiefken
The reddit link referred to in the outsideonline article:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1sa91z/artist_zina_n...](http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1sa91z/artist_zina_nicole_lahr_passed_away_recently_i/)

------
noonespecial
Whenever I hear about people like this, I get the unpleasant feeling that the
world properly belongs to them and that the rest of us are nothing but
trespassers and thieves.

If I may borrow a reference from her favorite comic: She was a "spark" if
there ever was one.

------
arjn
Tragic and inspiring at the same time.

One wonders what could have been.

