Seeking Soarer - evidence thread

[an_achronism]

Cool. So, either he's alive and you're calling him stupid and irresponsible (which would be rude and disrespectful) or he's dead and you're calling him stupid and irresponsible (which would be rude and disrespectful). We also have a thread full of people talking about tracking down someone who clearly doesn't want to be found if they are alive, and who shouldn't be tracked down if they're not, and people casually assuming that he's dead when we have no idea if that's the case.

If the guy's reading this, I can hardly imagine it's going to make him feel like sharing his source code and blessing for you to slap a licence on it. Fuck me...

EDIT: And yeah, the holier-than-thou "DOTH THEE NOT KNOW TO WHOMST THY SPEAKETH?" act isn't exactly going to help you win any goodwill. But you *must* know that. Surely.

[E TwentyNine]

To say he did "inexcusably careless, risky shit" is truly the height of assholery.

Sorry, I'm not backing down on that. Your failure to understand why is not a problem with me, it's a problem with practices that produce bad outcomes and your own willingness to accept them. Call me an asshole if you like, but I'll never leave my peers and users in the lurch the way he did.

That said, I hope we find Soarer alive. I'm serious about buying him that beer. After I berate him for doing stupid shit.

Of course. It isn't that you're wrong or that what constitutes inexcusable actions is up for debate. It's my "failure to understand".

Good lord man. It is a problem with you. And I'm going to go ahead and guess the people in the thread who have stated such are far from the first ones to tell you that. But I suspect you enjoy the shitshow.

[Nasanieru]

This thread is unbelievable.
I wouldn't want randos trying to find out whether or not someone in my family is dead. That is incredibly disrespectful.
It shouldn't be any different for soarer's family.
Leave him alone, leave his software alone, look towards the future: bright prospects ahead for converters!
This response is sponsored by Toshiba.

[doomsday_device]

unbelievable that there is some random dude trying to doxx someone very much in the public, not knowing whether he is dead or not.

ive never thought such disrespectful stuff would happen on my once favourite forum. i feel deeply ashamed being a part of this.
the only worse thing is, that it gets backed by long term members. wow, im fucking shooked. not a good outlook for the future of this community.

maybe progression would be a better direction of DT instead of literally waking the dead.

[esr]

Cool. So, either he's alive and you're calling him stupid and irresponsible (which would be rude and disrespectful) or he's dead and you're calling him stupid and irresponsible (which would be rude and disrespectful).

It's called "having standards".

EDIT: And yeah, the holier-than-thou "DOTH THEE NOT KNOW TO WHOMST THY SPEAKETH?" act isn't exactly going to help you win any goodwill. But you *must* know that. Surely.

You misunderstand. It's completely OK with me that you don't know who you're talking to. The biggest risk is that I might hurt myself laughing because some of the crap that has been slung at me is so ironically hilarious.

And no, I'm not a sufficiently petty or egotistical person to bother explaining that. Someday the two people who seriously self-owned will figure it out. Maybe. Or have it explained to them. Whatever. I won't even be bothered if they never clue in - I have better things to do than play silly monkey gotcha games.

[an_achronism]

It's called "having standards".

It appears to escape you that it's possible to criticise somebody's actions without calling them stupid. Interesting.

It's completely OK with me that you don't know who you're talking to.

Oh I know exactly who I'm talking to. And before all this shit, I would have been quite happy to gab to you about the stuff you've done and the experience you've had with stuff that I have not had the luxury of being there for. After the way you've dealt with all this, I cannot even begin to take you seriously. If anything, it's telling that you are assuming that I don't know who you are. I understand perfectly why you think it's so bloody hilarious that you're being accused of misusing the term "hacker" and so on, so don't you dare condescend by suggesting that I'd need you to explain it to me. The lack of self-awareness you've exhibited from start to finish here is utterly staggering.

Unlike some of the others here, I will not claim that you have contributed nothing, and I know that isn't true. The thing is that I simply do not care. If this is how you treat people, then you do not deserve respect in return. I had been staying out of this because I did have some respect for you (or at the very least, for your work and your experience in your field) and I disagreed with the tone that you were being met with to a certain extent because I do think it was disproportionate at the start, but I no longer feel that at this stage. The things you are saying at this point are beyond redemption.

(Edit for a typo)

[doomsday_device]

Cool. So, either he's alive and you're calling him stupid and irresponsible (which would be rude and disrespectful) or he's dead and you're calling him stupid and irresponsible (which would be rude and disrespectful).

It's called "having standards".

EDIT: And yeah, the holier-than-thou "DOTH THEE NOT KNOW TO WHOMST THY SPEAKETH?" act isn't exactly going to help you win any goodwill. But you *must* know that. Surely.

You misunderstand. It's completely OK with me that you don't know who you're talking to. The biggest risk is that I might hurt myself laughing because some of the crap that has been slung at me is so ironically hilarious.

And no, I'm not a sufficiently petty or egotistical person to bother explaining that. Someday the two people who seriously self-owned will figure it out. Maybe. Or have it explained to them. Whatever. I won't even be bothered if they never clue in - I have better things to do than play silly monkey gotcha games.

holy shit dude, how is the air so high up on that horse? calm down. if you continue to talk like you are the king of this community/forum, i dont see why people would take you serious. holy shit.

its called "having standards"? again, this is purely disgusting. have fun fladdering corpses. disrespectful, nothing else is this.

[ZedTheMan]

This is the worst thread on Deskthority. I recommend that it be fully nuked from metaphorical orbit.

It was better in my view when terrible DT threads were filled with Chinese Nationalist rants...

[esr]

This is all very nice, but ffs esr, when you are going to flaunt your boards?

I'm afraid my collection isn't very interesting.

My daily driver is a Unicomp New Model M. The full-sized version, I like big heavy keyboards.

I recently acquired a 1988 Model M 1931201 in astonishingly good condition - I was braced to have to do my first bolt mod, but it wasn't needed!

I have a Model F XT that works fine but is kinda smelly - I suspect there's a mat replacement in my future.

I have a New Model F77 on order from Ellipse.

If and when Kono ships a beam-spring board, I will likely buy one and put Space Cadet keycaps on it.

[doomsday_device]

This is the worst thread on Deskthority. I recommend that it be fully nuked from metaphorical orbit.

It was better in my view when terrible DT threads were filled with Chinese Nationalist rants...

actually it should be closed and pinned, so people see this massive chunk of shit. this is how you destroy your name and a community.

[Muirium]

Oh, it's a crock of shit, all right. But this thread is just some tiresome childsplay. It'll take a lot more to destroy DT than that.

[esr]

If anything, it's telling that you are assuming that I don't know who you are.

I was unclear. I was using the conditional about people here in general. After our conversation on the Discord I was in fact assuming you in particular had recognized me.

I probably can't stop you from thinking of me as a jerk, and if it required pretending to retract my judgment that Soarer fucked up I wouldn't try. But if you're going to dislike me I would prefer that you not do it for the wrong reasons.

[4_404]

There is a lot of opposition to the methods proposed here. Enough opposition that it is time to shelve this proposal. Stop telling people what they need and how it should be done. Leave Soarer alone.

[zrrion]

Its really peculiar that people using their real names online think that people don't know who they are when they can easily be looked up. The idea that """"industry veterans"""" who apparently have reputations that should be known to everyone would still be mudslinging after page 4 or so where it should have been clear this had hit a tipping point is very funny to me. If one were to attach their name to their work you think they would not want people to find out they spent their time arguing with youngsters on a keyboard forum like this. I guess if you've expressed the same sort of views as esr though then folks are already aware of the content of your character

>Provided we don't annoy the judge
I suspect there is little point in presenting this thread to a judge and doubt it will ever happen but if you ever do please let us know what they say about this whole mess. Perhaps the judge themself could make an account and hell, maybe learn about keyboards while you're at it

[an_achronism]

I probably can't stop you from thinking of me as a jerk, and if it required pretending to retract my judgment that Soarer fucked up I wouldn't try. But if you're going to dislike me I would prefer that you not do it for the wrong reasons.

As I said, I don't have any issue with constructive criticism. Clearly, releasing code with no licence has repercussions, especially when that software becomes somewhat relied upon by a community of other people, but I can't imagine that Soarer was unaware of that; I suspect he simply didn't really care or think of it as massively important at the time. The focus was quite possibly just to get the job done in short order and to a high standard without spending time on the licencing side when he didn't give much of a shit about it. Unfortunately, when he later withdrew for reasons unbeknownst to us, that lack of interest in the matter created a larger problem than it otherwise might have. If he'd still been around, then he might've taken steps to make the code more portable. He might've opened the source, as he alluded to at least once. But that never happened.

So no, that's not the problem. Rather, as I feel I already explained quite clearly above, what I have an issue with is how disrespectfully you chose to communicate your disapproval. Regardless of how anyone feels about the shit that's been flung at you, the way you've responded since has done you absolutely no favours. It's one thing to be defensive, but quite another to resort to performative self-importance.

I respect your career, but after what happened here, I do not respect you.

[ZedTheMan]

>Provided we don't annoy the judge
I suspect there is little point in presenting this thread to a judge and doubt it will ever happen but if you ever do please let us know what they say about this whole mess. Perhaps the judge themself could make an account and hell, maybe learn about keyboards while you're at it

Man. I feel real sad for any judge that has to trudge through this.

[Muirium]

"Mmm."

[esr]

It's one thing to be defensive, but quite another to resort to performative self-importance.

"Performative self-importance" is a tactic for people who have not already won every social-status game they care about.

Someday you may find out what it's like to have nothing left to prove to anybody - I mean, to be where you still argue about problems and solutions and ideas, but the status-game aspect of argument is pretty much gone. Generally that's a good thing. I find it very restful. But if you get there, you will find that on the other side of that there is there is a subtle dilemma that is difficult to escape. Because other people are still in the status game, and they're going to interpret your behavior as though you are too.

You probably got to a post-competitive place by being really good at something. Do you speak honestly about what you know and what you've done and what that has taught you, and risk being slagged because your audience things you're bigmanning, still in status competition? Or do you pretend to know less than you do, be less than you are, in order to not trigger peoples' monkey-brain "ZOMG I'M LOSING STATUS" responses - but in doing so fail to get across the actual weight of that experience and what it teaches?

It's a more difficult balance to strike than you will know until you have had to deal with it yourself. If you ever do, one of the troubles you will get used to is that you will fail. Sometimes, you will leave people believing you're a self-aggrandizing asshole when, in fact, that is nothing even remotely like what is going on in your head. Other times you will underplay your hand and fail in a less obvious way - people didn't get from you as much from your experience as they could have.

But people only remember their impression of the first kind of error. The second kind is invisible.

It's seriously annoying sometimes that people usually can't see past a status-game interpretation, but it is is not crazy. Most people die before they become post-competitive. Many people have never met anyone who checked out of the status game as a winner, and therefore have never observed a behavioral model of what it's like. Me, I had breakfast with Freeman Dyson and his family once. That was educational.

Curiously, there is a certain kind of autist that has less trouble with this than neurotypicals, because the subtle damage to their other-minds modeling has partly disconnected them from the monkey status game. I have a couple of friends like that. It's nice that they don't project status competition all over me - makes them fun to argue with.

As for neurotypicals...you just have to maintain a sense of humor. Especially around the younger ones who are playing the monkey status-game to the max because they're in their mate-seeking years and it's tried to sexual selection. It's pretty much hopeless trying to get them to understand. I know exactly how they'll respond to this explanation. They'll think it''s just another power play, poor things. They can't imagine genuinely not giving a fuck about that game any more.

I suppose it's possible I might find a new social-status hierarchy I feel like climbing someday, and revert to being an actual asshole on occasion. But it's been about fifteen years since I checked out, and who needs the aggravation? I'd rather write code and play boardgames.

I don't know how old you are. If this doesn't make sense to you now, maybe it will in ten years. Or twenty.

[vincent]

When I started at my current job (software engineer), one of the classes during orientation was on open source contributions, IP law, and general legal stuff. I found most of it to be non-intuitive and non-obvious. Within the first few minutes of the class, I already understood that I could not rely on common sense or good intentions/good faith. We were strongly advised to not read patents. EVER. Because of the liability it could open us up to. Reading open source code is also a risk, because in certain cases, like if we were to write something too similar in our product and ship it out, we may be forced to open source ALL of the company’s IP, due to the license’s stipulations. If we wanted to contribute to open source code, we had to go through some legal approval process or something because generally what we write belongs to the company or something.

All of the above are precisely why many coworkers and I decided not to even bother contributing to open source while employed here, because of the barrier to entry. There’s a lot of overhead in learning the legal stuff before even beginning to contribute actual code.

I didn’t go to law school. The math, physics, electrical engineering, and computer science courses I took did not prepare me for all the legal stuff. A lot of times, it’s hard not to feel frustrated at how complicated it all has to be.

[depletedvespene]

When I started at my current job (software engineer), one of the classes during orientation was on open source contributions, IP law, and general legal stuff. I found most of it to be non-intuitive and non-obvious.
[...]

When I was the source code auditor at the Green Mud Bank, I had the feeling that I was the only one that not only cared about the peril of using/importing improperly licensed software into our own, but the only one who had even a passing understanding of it; even the "Chief Security Officer" was a total ignorant in this regard. When finally one of these issues "exploded" and I managed to get the legal department involved, they couldn't understand how everyone had been so cavalier.

It's not just the barrier to entry to contribute, but the barrier of usage as well; if the worst-case scenario came to pass and a copyright troll managed to succesfully declare ownership of software X (Soarer's, in this case) things would go sour very quickly... and then the shiRtstorm that would ensue would eclipse the present one.

[vincent]

[…] they couldn't understand how everyone had been so cavalier […]

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t doubt the importance of compliance. In fact, ironically, I’m working on GDPR compliance at work right now, and I’m actually loving it. I feel like my coworkers take legal compliance seriously too. And we know we’re far from experts on it, so we do ask for guidance from the right teams/people.

But yeah. I didn’t think it was easy learning a lot of this legal stuff (and I still don’t think it’s easy).

[Erderm_]

It's one thing to be defensive, but quite another to resort to performative self-importance.

"Performative self-importance" is a tactic for people who have not already won every social-status game they care about.

Someday you may find out what it's like to have nothing left to prove to anybody - I mean, to be where you still argue about problems and solutions and ideas, but the status-game aspect of argument is pretty much gone. Generally that's a good thing. I find it very restful. But if you get there, you will find that on the other side of that there is there is a subtle dilemma that is difficult to escape. Because other people are still in the status game, and they're going to interpret your behavior as though you are too.

You probably got to a post-competitive place by being really good at something. Do you speak honestly about what you know and what you've done and what that has taught you, and risk being slagged because your audience things you're bigmanning, still in status competition? Or do you pretend to know less than you do, be less than you are, in order to not trigger peoples' monkey-brain "ZOMG I'M LOSING STATUS" responses - but in doing so fail to get across the actual weight of that experience and what it teaches?

It's a more difficult balance to strike than you will know until you have had to deal with it yourself. If you ever do, one of the troubles you will get used to is that you will fail. Sometimes, you will leave people believing you're a self-aggrandizing asshole when, in fact, that is nothing even remotely like what is going on in your head. Other times you will underplay your hand and fail in a less obvious way - people didn't get from you as much from your experience as they could have.

But people only remember their impression of the first kind of error. The second kind is invisible.

It's seriously annoying sometimes that people usually can't see past a status-game interpretation, but it is is not crazy. Most people die before they become post-competitive. Many people have never met anyone who checked out of the status game as a winner, and therefore have never observed a behavioral model of what it's like. Me, I had breakfast with Freeman Dyson and his family once. That was educational.

Curiously, there is a certain kind of autist that has less trouble with this than neurotypicals, because the subtle damage to their other-minds modeling has partly disconnected them from the monkey status game. I have a couple of friends like that. It's nice that they don't project status competition all over me - makes them fun to argue with.

As for neurotypicals...you just have to maintain a sense of humor. Especially around the younger ones who are playing the monkey status-game to the max because they're in their mate-seeking years and it's tried to sexual selection. It's pretty much hopeless trying to get them to understand. I know exactly how they'll respond to this explanation. They'll think it''s just another power play, poor things. They can't imagine genuinely not giving a fuck about that game any more.

I suppose it's possible I might find a new social-status hierarchy I feel like climbing someday, and revert to being an actual asshole on occasion. But it's been about fifteen years since I checked out, and who needs the aggravation? I'd rather write code and play boardgames.

I don't know how old you are. If this doesn't make sense to you now, maybe it will in ten years. Or twenty.

Hi guys thanks for letting me on Dr. Phil! My one question for the host: Why not put some of your own neurotypical autist energy into just making that converter yourself? Instead of this circus. Love the show tho thanks everyone!

[mode1ace]

It's one thing to be defensive, but quite another to resort to performative self-importance.

"Performative self-importance" is a tactic for people who have not already won every social-status game they care about.

Someday you may find out what it's like to have nothing left to prove to anybody - I mean, to be where you still argue about problems and solutions and ideas, but the status-game aspect of argument is pretty much gone. Generally that's a good thing. I find it very restful. But if you get there, you will find that on the other side of that there is there is a subtle dilemma that is difficult to escape. Because other people are still in the status game, and they're going to interpret your behavior as though you are too.

You probably got to a post-competitive place by being really good at something. Do you speak honestly about what you know and what you've done and what that has taught you, and risk being slagged because your audience things you're bigmanning, still in status competition? Or do you pretend to know less than you do, be less than you are, in order to not trigger peoples' monkey-brain "ZOMG I'M LOSING STATUS" responses - but in doing so fail to get across the actual weight of that experience and what it teaches?

It's a more difficult balance to strike than you will know until you have had to deal with it yourself. If you ever do, one of the troubles you will get used to is that you will fail. Sometimes, you will leave people believing you're a self-aggrandizing asshole when, in fact, that is nothing even remotely like what is going on in your head. Other times you will underplay your hand and fail in a less obvious way - people didn't get from you as much from your experience as they could have.

But people only remember their impression of the first kind of error. The second kind is invisible.

It's seriously annoying sometimes that people usually can't see past a status-game interpretation, but it is is not crazy. Most people die before they become post-competitive. Many people have never met anyone who checked out of the status game as a winner, and therefore have never observed a behavioral model of what it's like. Me, I had breakfast with Freeman Dyson and his family once. That was educational.

Curiously, there is a certain kind of autist that has less trouble with this than neurotypicals, because the subtle damage to their other-minds modeling has partly disconnected them from the monkey status game. I have a couple of friends like that. It's nice that they don't project status competition all over me - makes them fun to argue with.

As for neurotypicals...you just have to maintain a sense of humor. Especially around the younger ones who are playing the monkey status-game to the max because they're in their mate-seeking years and it's tried to sexual selection. It's pretty much hopeless trying to get them to understand. I know exactly how they'll respond to this explanation. They'll think it''s just another power play, poor things. They can't imagine genuinely not giving a fuck about that game any more.

I suppose it's possible I might find a new social-status hierarchy I feel like climbing someday, and revert to being an actual asshole on occasion. But it's been about fifteen years since I checked out, and who needs the aggravation? I'd rather write code and play boardgames.

I don't know how old you are. If this doesn't make sense to you now, maybe it will in ten years. Or twenty.

That's a whole bunch of intellectualising around the fact that you like to talk about your own achievements. You don't seem to acknowledge that your detractors here do not want you to succeed at what you've set out to do, specifically the posting personal information part. This isn't a problem of professional credibility which can be solved by you explaining who you are. Whatever your intent behind your self aggrandising behaviour you've got to learn from the social consequences of it, which is that a large number of people now think you're an ass.

As a software developer I learned pretty quickly that if I wade into a new project and act like I have nothing to prove and people should just respect what I've done and achieved it just doesn't work, you have *zero* credibility.

I know what it feels like to have absolutely nothing to prove, it's freeing and perhaps a little intoxicating, it's also socially dangerous, people often react very badly to it when you just act in a way that feels natural to you with this perspective, you're not playing by the rules and they don't like it. Rubbing their faces in it doesn't help either, it's all very well scoffing at social structures as "monkey brain" business but the bottom line is, by thinking about people the way you do, you're very bad at interacting with them, and for what exactly? your own smug satisfaction?

I'm really confused what you're seeking to achieve at this point, is it stubborn bloodymindedness to respond in kind after being trolled? Or do you genuinely want to work with the community to improve the free software resources available? If it's the latter you've got to observe the results of your approach and course correct, if it's the former then there's really no point in engaging with you.

[lis0r]

You misunderstand. It's completely OK with me that you don't know who you're talking to.

We know exactly who you are. We can read about your shining exploits on rationalwiki and the ncurses website. We just think you're a wasteman.

[Muirium]

You misunderstand. It's completely OK with me that you don't know who you're talking to.

We just think you're a wasteman.

Speak for yourself, dimmy.

[Weezer]

I mean I'm not invested in this all, and I have no idea who esr is, but the way he's acting on this thread is less than pleasant. He seems very egotistical.

[Muirium]

With me, it’s my instinctive resistance to pile ons. When ****s jump on, I want to pull them off and handle them one by one. Or at once, their choice.

Comes from growing up in a family of boys on a working class housing estate in 1980s Scotland.

For all this telling esr he should see things from your point of view (“your” is plural here), also try looking at it in reverse. What this thread also reads like is a bunch of squealing ****s trying to man up by screeching and jumping. That’s why it’s such a shitshow.

In meatspace, one of the grannies of the tenement would have come out by now with a frying pan and started getting boisterous weans telt!

[lis0r]

In meatspace, one of the grannies of the tenement would have come out by now with a frying pan and started getting boisterous weans telt!

In meatspace, the grannies would have chased him away with their brooms before he even had a chance to set himself up on the street corner to start selling his corrupting brainrot. The bad reaction esr is getting is because people know precisely who he is, and precisely the danger he poses. He's not a stranger, he's a known quantity, with a bad history.

[Muirium]

In meatspace, one of the grannies of the tenement would have come out by now with a frying pan and started getting boisterous weans telt!

In meatspace, the grannies would have chased him away with their brooms before he even had a chance to set himself up on the street corner to start selling his corrupting brainrot. The bad reaction esr is getting is because people know precisely who he is, and precisely the danger he poses. He's not a stranger, he's a known quantity, with a bad history.

So the “brain rot” is what, precisely? That software should have a license?

The emotions in this thread are getting in the way of the argument.

[Rayndalf]

Soarer didn't flaunt his knowledge or belittle people for not being OG hackermen, he was a genuinely kind and helpful person that created something that continues to make people happy.
I'm glad he wasn't a dusty, bitter grey beard.

You'll be happy to know I made this image using GIMP (and images I shamelessly stole from various sources).