Igor Gamow, Inventor of the 'Gamow Bag' Portable Hyperbaric Chamber, Has Died (legacy.com) 56
mnemotronic writes: Igor Gamow, inventor of the "Gamow bag," a portable hyperbaric chamber for treatment of altitude or Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), has died. He is credited or co-credited with other inventions, including prosthetics for amputees. His career at the University of Colorado in Boulder was marred by accusations from multiple sources of sexual predation. He is one of only three tenured professors ever to be fired by CU Boulder since its founding in 1876.
Re: So his students were one-baggers? Or two-bagge (Score:1)
Ying-Yang Reporting (Score:1, Flamebait)
Igor Gamow, inventor of the "Gamow bag," a portable hyperbaric chamber for treatment of altitude or Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), has died. He is credited or co-credited with other inventions, including prosthetics for amputees.
This, was a decent summary talking about an inventor who has likely saved many lives with his inventions, has passed.
His career at the University of Colorado in Boulder was marred by accusations from multiple sources of sexual predation. He is one of only three tenured professors ever to be fired by CU Boulder since its founding in 1876.
Unfortunately, this was additional unnecessary detail. You might as well have replaced "marred by" with "best known for" when associated with his death announcement. Not very kind. It's called tact.
* Journalist Funeral *
"Here lies my beloved family member. Brilliant brain surgeon, and the only member of our family to divorce three times and get arrested for teen larceny."
Boy can't you
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Re:Ying-Yang Reporting (Score:4, Insightful)
The idiom "Never speak ill of the dead" comes to mind
Only to a feeble mind. Whitewashing the past is how we perpetuate abuse in the future. Your superstition about the dead is irrelevant in the modern age, and retards social progress. It's high time we moved past such notions and into an age of accountability.
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tact - a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations
I hold our world leaders fucking accountable for including tact in every negotiation. That, is how you protect the future, and generally avoid World War III.
The world hasn't always improved when we abandon tradition, that's for damn sure.
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The world hasn't always improved when we abandon tradition, that's for damn sure.
While that's true, it's also misleading. Tradition is never sufficient justification to do a thing, period. "We've always done this" is what happened to the Easter Islanders.
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I'm not sure what you were really trying to express there in the main, but my point was that a full picture is necessary to understand a person's impact, good and/or ill. If that's where you were going with that, I agree 100%. Life is complicated and the sooner we accept that and learn to embrace ambiguity, ambivalence, and all of that ilk the sooner we learn to operate in reality.
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Poor Slashdot. Twenty years ago the readership would have appreciated a proper speaking for the dead.
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Poor Slashdot. Twenty years ago the readership would have appreciated a proper speaking for the dead.
There's too many cuckservatives here now for that. Their whole thing is ignoring reality in favor of their favored narrative. Nothing scares them more than the idea of being held responsible for their actions.
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Alright, so next time you speak ill of Trump we also need to talk about the good things he's done, right? Equal time for both sides!
No one said that it can never be discussed that the guy may have been a creep because he's now dead, but his obituary is not the place to do it.
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the guy may have been a creep because he's now dead
What?
Trump is dead?
Hallelujah!
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"Predition", in the dictionary...
You're probably having a hard time because the word used is "predation", and "predition" isn't in a dictionary. Sounds like you looked up the word "perdition" instead.
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Adolf Hitler, inventor of an innovative political philosophy, has died. He is credited with other achievements including full employment for Germany, and an innovative monetary and trading union for Europe.
This, was a decent summary talking about a politician who has likely done great things for Germany, has passed.
His career as German chancellor was marred by accusations of antisemitism and genocide from multiple sources. He is one of only one German chancellors to resign via suicide since the Reich's founding in 1871.
Unfortunately, this was additional unnecessary detail. You might as well have replaced "marred by" with "best known for" when associated with his death announcement. Not very kind.
Re:Ying-Yang Reporting (Score:4, Insightful)
An man credited with making an invention that saves lives, and has a penchant for dating students (along with enjoying an employer who was apparently very tolerant of it)...
vs. Hitler.
Godwins fucking imagination can't stretch that far, but yours sure as hell can. Wow.
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Most people are crap. Can be nicely seen above your post.
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Adolf Hitler, inventor of an innovative political philosophy, has died.
It wasn't innovative, it was derivative. "Let's create an empire" super original.
Re:Ying-Yang Reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, this was additional unnecessary detail. You might as well have replaced "marred by" with "best known for" when associated with his death announcement. Not very kind. It's called tact.
You can't just leave it out and pretend it didn't happen. When I read his open letter [archive.org] about the situation I became convinced that he was guilty of the accusations against him [denverpost.com], specifically because he was accused of sexual harassment but in his letter he attempts to deflect to the accusations of moral turpitude stemming from his habit of dating students. Yeah, he doesn't mention that the women who were "part of [his] family unit" were students. ("At one point, Gamow is said to have bragged that he had at least 10 ongoing romantic relationships with students, according to pleadings in the case filed in 2002.") That's a key detail which he deliberately omits, and he also tries to deflect onto a drug scandal. That kind of handwaving bullshit is always an attempt to distract from actual wrongdoing. Then he says he was fired for moral turpitude and not sexual harassment despite the fact that the sexual harassment was part of that lack of morality.
You make up your own mind, but his gaslighting letter really tells the story if you know how to read it.
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Unfortunately, this was additional unnecessary detail. You might as well have replaced "marred by" with "best known for" when associated with his death announcement. Not very kind. It's called tact.
You make up your own mind, but his gaslighting letter really tells the story if you know how to read it.
Yes, or I could simply dismiss your entire feedback and remind you why I said tact.
There is plenty of time to peruse and enjoy every sin...later. Guess I grow tired of a society who feels it necessary to include shitstaining, in any discussion.
If 21st Century wedding vows follow suit, they gonna have to start serving popcorn and tea.
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Yes, or I could simply dismiss your entire feedback and remind you why I said tact.
Because you want to live in a world that doesn't exist.
There is plenty of time to peruse and enjoy every sin...later. Guess I grow tired of a society who feels it necessary to include shitstaining, in any discussion.
He stained himself. Now you want to cry about it being reported. Boo. Fucking. Hoo. Guess what? There is no such thing as "too soon" when it comes to accountability. Why do you oppose people being regarded as they really were? What kind of nefarious bullshit are you up to?
If 21st Century wedding vows follow suit, they gonna have to start serving popcorn and tea.
More honesty would be refreshing, but I guess too many people are too afraid of an honest society... like yourself. Fear on!
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I tried to be kind. Shut the hell up already with your assumptions and look up the damn definition of the word tact.
THEN you might actually get it.
I'm not afraid of honesty at all, as you can see. I'm a natural pessimist about most things, but even I see the value of a polite society. Sure, certainly appears man had no morals when it came to dating students, but his invention no doubt saved lives.
TL; DR - When creating an obituary, if you don't have anything nice to say, then fucking leave it blank. Ple
Re:Ying-Yang Reporting (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried to be kind.
You failed to be kind to his victims, who we should care much more about than a dead person who gives zero fucks because they are dead, and when you're dead, you're fucking dead.
Shut the hell up already with your assumptions and look up the damn definition of the word tact.
I don't need to look it up. I know it's what people say when they want to deflect.
I'm not afraid of honesty at all, as you can see.
That's the opposite of what I can see.
When creating an obituary, if you don't have anything nice to say, then fucking leave it blank.
The dead don't care; they are dead. The obituary is for our benefit, not theirs. And this is a key detail. You want to live in a world of make-believe and zero accountability, probably because you are feeling guilty about things you have done and want them buried, but at best because you fear what the world will look like if accountability occurs. That's not a good fucking look. It means that you know things you expect and cherish cannot withstand scrutiny, and you want to prevent that scrutiny. The world has had enough of that already. It's how we got where we are now: in an unsustainable position.
The future is more important than your feelings. Society doesn't care if hearing that a [slightly] famous person who is now dead had serious character flaws that let them to abuse others makes you sad. We need accurate information and if that makes you upset, then you can just fucking be upset.
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The dead don't care; they are dead. The obituary is for our benefit, not theirs. And this is a key detail.
No. It is actually you, that doesn't care in this case. The obituary, is also for the benefit of the remaining family. The remaining innocent family. It deserves a level of modicum and respect when detailing the aspects of ones life.
If we simply toss obituaries into the dumpster fire of reporting, what's next? Birth announcements? "Here comes another baby born from an irresponsible single mother who was drunk when she got pregnant." You like it, right? Solid Honest right there.
You want to live in a world of make-believe and zero accountability, probably because you are feeling guilty about things you have done and want them buried, but at best because you fear what the world will look like if accountability occurs. That's not a good fucking look. It means that you know things you expect and cherish cannot withstand scrutiny, and you want to prevent that scrutiny. The world has had enough of that already. It's how we got where we are now: in an unsustainable position.
The future is more important than your feelings. Society doesn't care if hearing that a [slightly] famous person who is now dead had serious character flaws that let them to abuse others makes you sad. We need accurate information and if that makes you upset, then you can just fucking be upset.
While his transgression
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TL; DR - Enjoy the piranha society we're feeding.
You're just afraid something you did is going to come back to bite you.
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TL; DR - Enjoy the piranha society we're feeding.
You're just afraid something you did is going to come back to bite you.
No. I'm attacking the utter stupidity of Cancel Culture gone Karen, along with facing a technological shift in cybercrime that can frame you or I easily. We have all sinned. Any of us can become a victim. Accuracy IS important, but so is a civil society that doesn't become literally addicted to highlighting the worst in each other 24 hours a day. Can't believe you're so damn defiant in your position to fail and understand that bigger picture.
To remind you of my initial argument, I'm arguing in defense
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When I read his open letter [archive.org] about the situation I became convinced that he was guilty of the accusations against him [denverpost.com], specifically because he was accused of sexual harassment but in his letter he attempts to deflect to the accusations of moral turpitude stemming from his habit of dating students.
What I get from that letter is his bafflement at the weird contradictions of our age. We threw out the old sexual morality, and now we try to reconstruct some substitute morality out of thin air. And it's a mess.
The university literally did fire him for "moral turpitude", BTW.
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When I read his open letter [archive.org] about the situation I became convinced that he was guilty of the accusations against him [denverpost.com], specifically because he was accused of sexual harassment but in his letter he attempts to deflect to the accusations of moral turpitude stemming from his habit of dating students.
What I get from that letter is his bafflement at the weird contradictions of our age. We threw out the old sexual morality, and now we try to reconstruct some substitute morality out of thin air. And it's a mess.
The university literally did fire him for "moral turpitude", BTW.
Ah yes, downmodding. The solution to unanswerable arguments, lol.
The university didn't fire him for "sexual assault", which BTW is a crime and should be prosecuted (in a court, with rules of evidence and other scary old white man stuff like that). No, they fired him for "moral turpitude", which means they couldn't even prove "sexual assault" to themselves in their kangaroo court.
To say that isn't to approve of his behavior. I mean, I know why he shouldn't have been trying to have sex with his students - h
Re: Ying-Yang Reporting (Score:2, Insightful)
Haven't you heard? They get to throw a bunch of stones and be super rude and insulting, but they're blissfully unaware and it's YOU who are the attacker if you don't like it or even expect to refute the bullshit.
You just have to take it and move on because they are the victim.
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Suddenly pretending to forget that a person was an asshole when they die is a tradition in some cultures. There are alternatives.
Re:Why even mention a sexual predator? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because they accomplished things of interest to nerds in their life.
I think this story, as written, is immensely valuable. I'd never heard of this person before. Reading a summary of their story, then looking into the situation further has proven illuminating.
It also has the effect of letting us get to know our fellow slashdotters better. We learn which ones fear accountability. That's immensely valuable.
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"Fear accountability"?
There's a reason that civilized societies have a presumption of innocence, a burden of proof upon the accuser, and so forth. Mob "cancellations" are a feature of Mao's China, not the civilized world.
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I'm in favor of all of those things. However, a civilized society should also have a legal system which does not protect any parties preferentially, and ours does not. If we want those things, we have to have that thing.
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Maoist China was very civilized, it had enormous and successful cities. So were or are many cultures which did not have the legal presumption of innocence for the accused. I'm afraid that word "civilized" does not mean what you think it means. It's popular in modern Western societies, but it's relatively new and inconsistently implemented.
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Why are we giving a single line of front page coverage to a sexual predator?
Because he was George Gamow's kid, and we're nerds.
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The world is not black and white. People may have done incredible valuable things and still made some mistakes. He did not end up in prison, so no rape involved, just some bending of the rules.
Gamow (Score:4, Informative)
His dad, George Gamow was a cosmologist. For a few milliseconds, I thought this article was referring to him. When I see the name Gamow I immediately think of the Alpher Bethe Gamow paper on nucleosynthesis.
Gamgow bag (Score:3)
Binary FTW (Score:2)
Son of George Gamow ... (Score:3)
Igor is the son of George Gamow [wikipedia.org], a scientist with multiple interests and important contributions to science. He is the Gamma in the Alpha Beta Gamma paper [wikipedia.org] (Alpher, Bethe, Gamow). Cosmology nerds will relate.
There is an interview by Igor on his father's life [youtube.com]. Very interesting.
Hmmm (Score:1)
irrational women... (Score:1)
If women in western countries were still rational (and not coddled by the Sorosian nanny state), they would thank DR. GAMOW for His freely-given gift. Not everyone gets to be penetrated by a Job Creator; if He found their wombs willing, they may even be blessed by a child of superior ability (worth, by the way, much more than child support payments should be!!!) if she can somehow manage not to abort it.
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well, maybe, maybe not, but it isn't necessary anyway, as a level 19 Rationalist White Male, he can just use Detect Liberal.