In Memoriam: Natalie Nguyen (tipsytentacle)

Writing posts like these never get easier. I went for a long walk to get my thoughts in order but they are still a mess so forgive me if my sentences seem the same.

This morning I found out that a friend, Natalie Nguyen (@tipsytentacle) had passed away due to suicide.

Natalie and I did not know each other very well but the one thing I did know about her is that she loved to play a game called OpenTTD.

Therefore, in her name I have made a small donation to the OpenTTD project. I hope the game brings others joy like it did Natalie.

Gone but not forgotten.

Rest in peace Natalie.

In Memoriam: Jon Portnoy (avenj)

Occasionally folks come into large IRC channels and ask some variant of “anybody alive?”. Sometimes I would reply, “No, we are all ghosts in the shell”.

Today, I logged onto IRC and found out that we did indeed have a ghost in our midst.

Jon “avenj” Portnoy is the type of dude on IRC who always says “hey” back no matter the time. Sometimes I thought the dude never slept. An avid Perl programmer he made me see beauty in a language where I only saw gibberish. #otw will never be the same again but I hope the rest of us can keep the spirit of it alive.

In his memory, I have made a donation to The Perl Foundation. If you wish to do so as well, you can do so from here.

Rest in peace, friend.