

Searching for Mark Pilgrim - jlbruno
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2011/10/04/searching-for-mark-pilgrim/

======
haberman
<https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440>

"Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand down and
give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring."

~~~
chrismsnz
Annoyed someone called the police when he vanished? What a schmuck...

~~~
pgroves
He deliberately deleted some files from websites he had admin access to. Not
exactly the behavior of someone in need of help from the police.

~~~
glhaynes
It sure scared a lot of people into thinking that perhaps he was going to
commit suicide (or already had), which is something that cops get called about
and try to stop.

~~~
mpyne
I'm actually kind of surprised about how many people are not aware of the
suicide concern. But then, I worked for a couple of years at a large training
site where suicide awareness was a Very Big Deal so perhaps I'm just suffering
from transference.

The symptoms displayed by Mark here are very similar to some kind of "classic"
pre-suicidal actions (i.e. "putting his affairs in order") so I can definitely
see why suicide would be a concern among his friends.

------
kenneth_reitz
His GitHub projects have been mirrored:

    
    
        https://github.com/diveintomark/
    

Dive Into Python 3: <http://diveintopython3.ep.io/>

    
    
        GitHub: https://github.com/diveintomark/diveintopython3
    

Dive Into HTML5: <http://diveintohtml5.ep.io/>

    
    
        GitHub: https://github.com/diveintomark/diveintohtml5

~~~
NnamdiJr
Thanks for this. I've been going through the new "Dive Into Python" book
online everyday for the past few weeks, so I got pretty worried when the page
wasn't loading and I saw this thread.

I hope Mark is alright, and he knows just how much his contributions are
helping people like me.

------
phillmv
Mark Pilgrim is an awesome dude.

I remember stumbling upon
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110724223826/http://addictionis...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110724223826/http://addictionis.org/)
years and years and empathizing and feeling moved. I hope he's alright.

~~~
vitomd
Maybe he was addicted to internet too. So he delete all his online presence.

~~~
itsnotvalid
I think most of us here also are having the same issues.

------
GavinB
Given that a) Mark is known by his real name, employed by a major company, and
presumably has numerous friends, coworkers, and acquaintances in meatspace b)
none of his friends, coworkers, or acquaintances are stepping forward either
with information or panicked questions

is it safe to assume that our interest and attention at this time is unwanted?

~~~
haberman
The moral of the story is that if you are well-known on the Internet and want
to disappear quietly, you need to leave a note saying "I'm fine, I just don't
want this stuff here anymore. Please respect my privacy in doing so."

~~~
joeyh
Or just add an archival tarball to your 410 page.

------
natch
It's completely understandable that someone would ask the police to do a
welfare check, given the circumstances (signs reasonably interpreted as
indicators of possible impending suicide).

I'm sure he understands that he brought this annoyance on himself, probably
with a good reason that's none of our business.

But, now that his welfare has been established... Let's give this Googler
privacy and space. If only we could expect Google to do the same for all of us
when we need it. How about it Google? Consider this a feature request: Google
Cocoon, an on-request service that hides your personal information from search
and perusal in special circumstances. Sounds like a can of worms, but
interesting to think about.

------
ceejayoz
<https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121430050930298880>

"Pass along - several people have called Mark Pilgrim's local PD for a welfare
check, and they've sent a car just to knock on the door. #hope"

~~~
dalton
<https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440>

"Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand down and
give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring."

------
wyclif
Surely someone reading this thread works for GOOG, and can find out if he's
still around.

~~~
joeyh
This is a really amusing comment if you read it w/o knowing where he worked.

------
firebones
That's too bad. I checked his Wikipedia page and noted that he requested that
it be deleted several years ago, only to be denied.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mark_Pilgrim_(software_dev...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mark_Pilgrim_\(software_developer\))

The talk page mentions his involvement in a computer tampering case nearly 20
years ago...if it is the same Mark Pilgrim (and the ages seem to match) then
he seems to have redeemed himself with his subsequent work. I had no idea.

------
jlbruno
Mark Pilgrim seems to have disappeared from the Internet. Eric is searching
for anyone who might know him personally to make sure he is ok.

~~~
Volpe
> ... to make sure he is ok.

Sure people aren't just being nosy? If something happened to him, it is highly
unlikely he'd remove his entire web presence.

When someone removes their web presence isn't the implicit message that they
don't want to be contacted?

~~~
ubernostrum
_February 13: Ten years ago I would never have walked into something like
this. A bear trap so poorly camouflaged a child would have seen it. But I
didn't. I pried it open and got my leg out, but there was no way I could make
it back. I was prepared to die out here. And to be honest, I felt I deserved
it. A man gets too old for a job, he should know it, and stop. But then Buck
found me. I don't know how. No one knew where I was going, but he found me and
carried me back. Three days over terrain a mule couldn't navigate, laughing
his ass off the entire way. Riding like that, completely helpless, slung over
Buck's shoulder and staring down his back, I came to understand two things.
One, at a certain point in life a man's hips spread and there's nothing you
can do about it, and two, there's a very easy way to define friendship. A
friend is someone who won't stop until he finds you and brings you home._

~~~
shadowfiend
Wow. Where is that from?

~~~
imrehg
Apparently from Due South <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108756/quotes>

------
azulum
my hope is that he has retired to an ashram and hasn't been abducted by cyber-
terrorists bent on killing f/oss and torturing him by deleting his accounts.

or maybe he has evolved to the point that our invisible alien overlords saw
fit to promote him.

be well, mark, wherever you may be.

------
spullara
Maybe he is trying an experiment to see whether it is possible to remove
yourself from the Internet. Would be an interesting experiment for Google to
run.

------
nutmeg
@textfiles Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand
down and give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring.

------
varikin
The firehose and feeds pages on diveintomark are still active.

<http://firehose.diveintomark.org/>

<http://feeds.diveintomark.org/>

------
akent
This is probably one of my favourite Mark Pilgrim posts:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110514133252/http://diveintomar...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110514133252/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/01/19/influences)

"Do not misunderstand me. I don't think the personal web has become boring. I
think I have become boring. I've spent too much time tracking statistics,
living up to the meaningless ideals of others, and pontificating on matters of
no importance. When I should have been writing about lighthouses."

------
pingswept
As I've commented elsewhere, there's a precedent for this. He disappeared from
his blog for a while in 2004. Check the Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:diveint...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:diveintomark.org/archives/2004/10/18/exit)

------
biot
This is the URL from one of the comments from the Ask HN thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3073836>

Not sure it needs another dedicated story.

------
sandyc
via @textfiles "Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please
stand down and give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for
caring."

------
lclaude01
here is the .pdf of Dive into HTML5

[http://www.jesusda.com/docs/ebooks/ebook_manual_en_dive-
into...](http://www.jesusda.com/docs/ebooks/ebook_manual_en_dive-into-
html5.pdf)

~~~
phillmv
Does anyone have an html copy of dive into html 5?

~~~
jlbruno
I found a fork on github <https://github.com/jlbruno/diveintohtml5>

~~~
ceejayoz
<https://github.com/met/diveintohtml5> looks to have a few more Mark Pilgrim
commits.

------
wavephorm
Can't a dude just disappear in peace anymore?

------
AndyKelley
I don't get why, noticing that all his accounts are disabled, you would worry
about him being harmed. If he got hit by a truck and died, all his stuff would
still be online.

~~~
ceejayoz
There are ways of dying that don't involve surprise demises.

~~~
AndyKelley
Oh, wow. I just sat back in my chair. I had not even considered that.

------
pitra
Atlas shrugged

------
nestlequ1k
Deliberately taking down such a highly seo indexed site is an act of terrorism
as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
nestlequ1k
Haha, HN never appreciates irony

~~~
getsat
Irony implies a reversal or an opposite. Your comment was stupid, not ironic.

~~~
nestlequ1k
Yup, that's true. I welcome a verbal debate.

