Hackers: Dead Links and Human Compassion?

By Xah Lee. Date:

there's something i don't understand about the faaking tech geekers.

there's a lisp character, his name is Rainer Joswig. Over the years, we've had our exchange of spats. But to me, usually my mindset is that whatever argument we had online among tech geekers, the real life relationship is still a potentially positive one. i.e. for me, i still consider it open to meet people who i had arguments online, in a friendly way, like, having a coffee together or something when the opportunity arise.

but, unfortunately, i find that sometimes it's not how the other party perceived things.

I've had few personal examples. But today, i realized perhaps Rainer is a example too.

in our arguments, he have provided info that are useful to me. For example, in my article on lisp/emacs keybinding: Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts are Painful .

he has made corrections (in the form of argument/criticism/ridicule here in comp.lang.lisp). Then, i accepted some of his points, and at the time, asked him if i can put it on my site. He agreed. I also, happily linked to his site. Like this:

<p>2008-07-15 Addendum: Thanks to
<a class="sorc" href="http://lispm.dyndns.org/" title="accessed:2008-07-15">Rainer Joswig</a>
for some correction about the history of the lisp machine's keyboards.
<a class="sorc" href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/3b3dcdc52f507b02" title="accessed:2010-01-30">Source</a>.</p>

(the link is still there as of today; but i might remove it since his site is dead for a month now)

however, a month ago, i noticed that his website [http://lispm.dyndns.org/] is gone. I took the time to find his contact. I asked him on twitter ([ @RainerJoswig ] https://twitter.com/RainerJoswig) and or Google Plus ([+Rainer Joswig https://plus.google.com/117341181986183554668/posts#117341181986183554668/about]) about this. Got no response. I asked him again last week in a public post here in a thread in comp.lang.lisp (See: Source groups.google.com.). No response.

I don't understand???

There are 2 issues here.

(1) I faaking hate these motherfaaking tech geeking hacker faaks who leave dead links on the web and don't faaking care. What the faak? Aren't these elite, elegant, coding experts who always take perfection in algorithm, code, style, language, etc?

Rainer seems to be well and alive on twitter, Google Plus, StackOverflow, too. No response to my query, yet i don't see any public notice about what's the deal with his dead home page. I see tens of sites now linking to a dead URL, counting my own.

I don't understand, how could they, have their home page dead, and doesn't seem to care?

(2) The second issue, is that, since i found him on Google Plus, i subscribed/followed him, and also sent him a friendly hello message. But today, i discovered, it appears that he blocked me. BLOCKED ME! No explicit cause. Up till today, to my mind, i think that Rainer perhaps thinks i'm a annoying lisp idiot, but that's all, and doesn't hold grudge otherwise against me. But maybe that's not so.

This, i don't understand?? Aren't these hacker types all for the best ethics of humanity? the likes of freedom and compassion and all?

I, Xah Lee, usually go out of my way to be platonically thankful, promote my enemy's cause when proper. In this case, i linked to his website from my website, which i'm very meticulous who i provide a link to. I DON'T HAVE TO provide the link if i don't want to. A name suffices as acknowledgment formality. And SEO sites faaking pay me $30 a month per link. What the faak is going on?

Yours truely no unstand,
 Human animal scumbags.

 Xah

The above is originally a post to comp.lang.lisp: Source groups.google.com .

For story of dead links among hacker idiots, see: