
Evi Nemeth, retired Boulder computer professor, missing at sea near New Zealand - rrauenza
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_23553916/retired-cu-boulder-computer-professor-evi-nemeth-missing
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tptacek
Shit. Nemeth is the author of _The Unix and Linux System Administration
Handbook_, which is one of the all-time great Unix books, up there with
Stevens.

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nieve
I desperately hope she makes it back, she's kind of an amazing person.

Every edition of that book has been better than the last and it's insanely
useful, especially to people who aren't familiar with the way Unix & Linux
work at a low level. It's the first book I toss at new sysadmins and devs who
need to learn about Unix, even before "Essential System Administration" or
"The Practice of System and Network Administration". The latter two are good
for why you should do things, but ULSAH tells you what, where, and how and
explains the different methods and tradeoffs. I haven't picked it up in a year
or two, but I keep it around because when I do get stuck with some random AIX
box or creaky old Hockypux system it's essential.

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jbellis
Shades of Jim Gray. :(

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#D...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_\(computer_scientist\)#Disappearance)]

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ChuckMcM
I hope she is OK, I too thought of Jim when I heard she had not checked in as
expected. For all of our technology, the ocean can and does pose essentially
unbounded risk to mariners to this day.

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cantos
It bothers me that finding someone's location is such a problem since the
technology exists to do it. How much would it cost to track a boat by GPS?
Search and rescue missions over ocean must cost a fortune. Why don't
governments subsidize the cost of GPS tracking?

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jlgreco
This is what you are looking for:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System)
Many of these do not transmit particularly far (especially horizontally).
Class B's, like you might expect on a personal ship, only broadcast at two
watts.

You have to keep in mind though that for all of our advancements, the ocean is
still a fundamentally hostile environment. One rogue wave takes your ship out
and by the time that search and rescue people can be in the area any survivors
could potentially be hundreds of miles away. They had a satellite phone with
them, so I am inclined to think that they also had a AIS transponder, but
these sorts of situations are difficult regardless.

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pampa
AIS is for traffic control mostly. What you are really looking for is an EPIRB
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon#EPIRBs_.28...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon#EPIRBs_.28marine.29)

It is standard equipment on an oceangoing boat.

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gonzo
And they had one, albeit not the type that goes off if submerged.

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droithomme
The Southern Ocean can get rather rough in winter. It's not the best time of
year to be sailing in the open ocean there.

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Tloewald
It can get quite rough in Summer. The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race frequently
claims lives and it's in Summer.

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lostlogin
That's the Tasman Sea I think - not that this is any better. The Tasman side
of NZ is the wild side, and it gets pretty damn wild.

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Tloewald
It's the Tasman and the South Pacific, the latter being precisely where
someone going from NZ to SE Australia is sailing.

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lostlogin
I meant to reply to the post yours is a parent of sorry. I get South Pacific
as a description, its just Southern Ocean that seems a stretch.

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stretchwithme
Wouldn't it be cool if we got the current satellite photos and asked millions
of people to look at a small piece of the area where she is suspecte to be? We
could find her quick if she's still afloat.

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cscheid
We all tried that with Jim Gray (I know I did at the time), and nothing :(

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stretchwithme
Yes, if nothing's there, nothing can be found.

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pclark
This article is so scant on details. It's very odd that they have not yet
found _any_ debris. There is _always_ debris.

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rrauenza
This article as a great deal more detail:

[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/7-aboard-u-s-boat-
miss...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/7-aboard-u-s-boat-missing-
south-pacific-article-1.1383782)

~~~
nieve
Weirdly enough that article mentions Dyche as the skipper and she's only
listed as "a woman named Evi". AFAIK she's the shipowner and has plenty of
experience as captain as well as being the most well known person on board(1),
but I guess either the reporter didn't do their research or the authorities
only mentioned Dyche.

(1) Beyond her general profile in CS and administration a quick google check
shows 136,000 hits for her name and 13,000 for "David Dyche", almost all of
which appear to be someone else.

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smegel
I saw this on the news in Australia this morning, no mention of his status or
background, just a "US family". Things aren't looking good either.

~~~
nieve
She - Evi Nemeth is a woman and one of the most influential on my approach to
sysadminning. Even more than the Armadillo book or Limoncelli the handbook she
and her collaborators put out was pragmatic, sensible, and incredibly useful.
I really hope she makes it back somehow.

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tomphoolery
Is it me or have there been a lot of old-school UNIX hackers dying recently? I
guess they were all around the same age, so not TOO surprising...but still...

~~~
dredmorbius
You can do the math yourself if you want, though estimating the cohort size
may be a bit challenging:

[http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2705802-a-morbid-...](http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2705802-a-morbid-
python-script)

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lostlogin
First submitted here yesterday.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5954536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5954536)

