An Update on Patrick Volkerding 518
Noryungi writes "Patrick Volkerding, the maintainer of Slackware Linux has posted an update on his health problems on the ChangeLog of Slackware-Current. Unfortunately, it seems his health is getting worse and not better... Again, if you know some specialist in viral infections, contact Patrick ASAP. Hang in there, Pat!" Our original story.
Check him in (Score:3, Funny)
I personally think he should be checked into CVS.
Thats way, at least we have a backup..just in case
Re:Hurry up and die faggot (Score:1, Funny)
Re:he scares me (Score:3, Funny)
Of course he was, but then so was B. P. Roberts when he had "I told you I was sick" inscribed on his crypt.
Cynical humor is the best way to stay sane when you're dead.
KFG
The man is still working on updates??? (Score:5, Funny)
I get the flu and I can barely stand to surf the web or chat on IRC! Hopefully, he will live into old age and share this story with his grandkids...
"When I was your age, I was compiling code by hand, with a lung infection, uphill, in the snow! You linux programmers have it easy these days!"
Good luck man, I'm pulling for you.
Dear God... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:He needs to relax (Score:3, Funny)
Re:FOR THE LAST TIME! HE DID NOT SELF-MEDICATED! (Score:4, Funny)
s/last/latest
Otherwise, it's creepy.
Re:FOR THE LAST TIME! GRAMMAR MATTERS! (Score:1, Funny)
You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously, I have not examined this guy. He might have a new disease that completely goes against science as we know it. But people come to us for rare medical problems all the time... we love it. When we find something rare, we jump around giving each other high-5s. We spend tons of research and government money trying to figure out these rare case. However...
I'm just not buying in this case.
*****
When his story was first posted on slashdot, several of the hospital network gurus came up to me and asked me about it in our CIS meeting...
If you were to reread my post, I wasn't giving advice. I was just giving my opinion of his situation.
Oddly enough, I had just finished reading this post on an unrelated thread:
Sadly, I got the same feeling when I perused Volkerding's missive - I couldn't help but wonder whether the guy is willing to pay for proper medical care.
As you indicated in your first post, one of the most likely explanations for his condition is hypochondria, but competing for the title of "most likely explanation" will always be the possibility [or even probability] of incompetence on the part of the attending physician. And closely related to that possibility is an obtuse, self-destructive determined-ness on the part of the patient to refuse to pay for proper medical care.
Volkerding goes on and on about showing up at this or that emergency room with this and that complaint, but surely he must realize that the MDs in the ER who are examining him at all hours of the night are precisely the doctors who were too stupid to get into a proper American medical school, and got their degrees from some diploma mill in a third world cesspool like Grenada.
If you're sick, and you suspect you have a viral infection, you don't go to a family practitioner, or an internist, or even an "Emergency Room Physician" - you go to a virologist. And you don't go to any virologist, you go to the virologist who graduated #1 from his class at Harvard Med and who is chairman of the Department of Infectious Diseases and who has published numerous articles in Nature, Science, and the like.
And if you suspect you have a cardiovascular problem, you don't go to a family practitioner, or an internist, or even an "Emergency Room Physician" - you go to a cardiologist, or a cardiovascular surgeon. And you don't go to any cardiologist, you go to the cardiologist who graduated #1 from his class at Harvard Med and who is chairman of the Cardiology Department and who has published numerous articles in Nature, Science, and the like.
"But that's not fair," legions of /.-ers will cry. Your damned right it's not fair - it's called "life." You want fair, you purchase your crappy HMO policy from Oligopoly Insurance Inc, with its $10 co-payments for ER visits, and you get "fair" medicine. Better yet, you move to Canada and sit in line for two years waiting to see a doctor.
You know, a while back, there was this experiment in "fair", where a bunch of intellectuals tried to create a "fair" society, and all that's left of their efforts now is the rapidly fading memory of about 100 million people who were butchered by equal opportunity murderers parading under pseudonyms like Lenin and Stalin.
Back to the original point, though: There's a reason that Oracle isn't free, that Windows isn't free, that DB2 isn't free, that Novell Directory Services isn't free, etc, etc, etc: It's because th
Re:Bacterial, not viral (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Best of luck (Score:2, Funny)
Sturgeon's rule (90% of everything is crap)
So Sturgeon was a proctologist, was he?