a story of a top expert of Mathematica: Robby Villegas

Thu Nov 25 15:56:47 EST 2010

On Nov 25, 2:10 am, Xah Lee <xah... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2:02 pm, Xah Lee <xah... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > just learned that one of my best friend, one of world's top expert of
> > the Mathematica language, died, last month.
>
> > • 〈Robby Villegas Died (1968-2010)〉http://xahlee.org/math/Robby_Villegas.html
>
> so, apparantly, he killed himself.
>
> not lisp related, but i thought it is interetsing to many here,
> becuase Robby is very interested in computer languages, and share with
> many of us being ubberly socially inept and frustrated. (he's not a
> emacs users. Occationally uses vi. I think he's main editor is NEdit
> (if he hasn't changed since 1990s). Yes he's a linux user. Became a
> Redhat linux user as his main machine in late 1990s. You could find
> many of his writings in comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica, but i believ
> they all dates in the mid 1990s. He's a extremely keep-to-himself
> guy.) He's also the first computer programer that i got to know in
> real meat space, who hates Windows and Microsoft.
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Robby's Goodbye Notes
>
> Apparantly, Robby killed himself. There's this memorial page posted by
> Robby's friends on his site at: Source. Reading it, i came across
> several Wolfram employees i remember having met, some i recognize as
> Robby's good friends. In it, there's this post, apparantly Robby's
> goodbye note.
>
>     Robby via Christina Szabo Says:
>     October 7th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
>
>     Robby wanted to “give some explanation to people in general” and
> asked
>     me to post this, which he wrote. -Christina
>
>     Subject: the end is important in all things
>
>     Robby Villegas October 2 at 7:17am
>
>     Depression, and even more so, physical exhaustion, continues to
> claim more and more of my life, to render a larger percentage of each
> day either unusable, or a sloggin, dragging fight to keep myself
> upright just to get through the basics of my day. On top of fatigue, a
> few years ago I began to develop a tendency toward anxiety, which
> gradually became more frequent and of faster onset, throwing a specter
> of borderline panic attacks over many of my activities. Eventually, I
> was taking partial doses of my prescription sleep medication
> *preemptively* before simple activities like skating class, meeting
> friends at a bar, going to a theater, or spending an evening studying
> at a cafe.
>
>     The sleep and exhaustion problems that forced me to suddenly quit
> working in January 2007 have gradually worsened, and I have run out of
> means at this point.
>
>     More important than financial means, though: the ratio of quality
> of life to pained struggling has passed a threshold. Eventually, I’ll
> forget what it even felt like to be happy, the memories of what I was
> will fade further, I won’t be able to appreciate any of the good parts
> of life, and I’ll be bitter, not even a shadow of my self.
>
>     This must not happen. For many years, I have felt that some day
> I’d have to make that call that it’s time to go; that most of the good
> stuff was past, and the proportion of hope and new joy to the pain and
> effort that goes into rallying would fall too low I want to go out
> while I can still reflect on the good things, and go out really
> feeling and believing “I lived.”
>
>     Worse than the death of the body is the death of pieces of the
> self while still alive, and the memories that provide conviction that
> there was a lot worth being here for, while it lasted.
>
>     In retrospect, I probably should have made this call last winter,
> or at the very latest, early summer, given that the last few months
> have had a marked dulling effect on me. But, two decades of fighting
> depression, rallying through many dozens of life-hating and self-
> hating episodes ranging from bad patches to truly close calls, and
> being thankful I did each time I got a “new lease on life” that was
> followed by more of the worthwhile stuff of life … two decades of that
> makes it *intensely* difficult to make that final call.
>
>     Albeit more weary and dull than I’ve ever been, I am thankful that
> there’s enough left of me to look back (even with difficulty) and
> appreciate all the good people, activities, and interests that made My
> Life worth living during that time. So it is perhaps not too late to
> exit while there’s a reasonable amount left of Me.
>
>     Yours in truth,
>     Robby “R. Scott”
>
> Not sure what to say.
>
> Robby has told me in around 2004 to 2005, our last big exchange, that
> he has serious insomnia problems. But i don't recall any serious
> depression. Actually, i remember now he has told me that he had
> depression episodes, which i did too, and we chatted our experiences.
> But i recall it's all past tense, and this chat was in 1995.
> (depression is hard to define) But i didn't know it was getting to the
> point of killing himself, but again, for certain type of persons who
> are not emotionally responsive (i.e. cold, lone, type, who hide their
> emotions or unable to express it), it could happen on any seemingly
> good day. Robby is extremely sensitive to stress and pressure. He's
> the type of nice guy who find it hard to say no, and when he actually
> had to, it's after huge mental struggle.
>
> So i guess, for a personality as lone as me and Robby, i can't say i
> feel particular regret or inappropriateness on Robby's act of killing
> himself. He didn't feel worthwhile to live on, so he had to go. I
> certainly wished things could be different, and wished that we'd have
> communicated about his situation. I believe, if i told him of my
> personal situation, he'd feel better. We certainly would have great
> conversations about the pros and cons on methods of suicide, in fact i
> believe we had such a conversation before. I missed a friend, who is
> one of the greatest unsung expert of Mathematica, of which, i could
> certainly use some help, and as a alley in the war on computer
> languages.
>
> In the future, i'll dig up some of Robby's emails and post here.
>
> The world has 6.5 billions of people. Due to the incredible advances
> of communication tech, especially the internet, we the masses get to
> see all sort of weirdos and behaviors directly. (e.g. shown in shock
> sites, 4chan, etc.) And, in the past 5 years, we greatly see many
> suicides (on facebook et al), and in many cases, literally watched
> thru online video someone killing himself.
>
> Am not sure where am going with this, but i guess let's open even more
> communication. Legalize suicide. Stop censorship of all sorts except
> things like how to make nuclear bomb. We don't like pain, and we don't
> want to see our friends to choose to end their life. But we don't want
> whatever problems that leads to that path. Hiding and banning is not
> going to help. More open info, more communication, we can have more
> understanding of us the human animals, and more happiness with us and
> our friends. Maybe Robby had biologically rooted psychogical problems.
> But am sure, whatever his suffering of depression, can be helped
> better if whatever caused his stress, socially induced self-loathing,
> closet inhibitions (such as gay people), parental or family problems,
> can be reduced. Tolerate, and appreciate, your friends, co-workers, or
> strangers, while they are alive.
>
> It's kinda sad that many of my math friends, died in recent years.
> Perhaps it just means am getting old.
>
>  Xah

I find it COMPASSIONATE that WOLF RAM Research Incorporated after
milking such a smart person did not give him safety cushion in his
time of difficulty. This is in line with the corporate operational
policy of bernard madoffs, roman polanskys, wolf rams, larry ellis
islanders, and neocons.

Even stalin cried and led the funerals of his comrades whom he had
used his jewish doctors to kill.

I urge everyone to read the great ebook, the sale and manufacture of
saint einstein.

postings like mine are needed to get the google censhorship crew to
wake up and remove the porn postings barraged by CIA criminals. It is
well known that they are targetting minorities with drugs and various
marijuana and porn.

Mathematica is LISP IN DISGUISE. Wolf Ram stole the idea from lisp.
Its R-LISP. The guy who came up with R-LISP was also doing some
physics calculations at Stanford. Wolf Ram was doing at Caltech. The
fundamental object of Lisp is the cons cell or pair or list and with
nesting.
The fundamental object of Mathematica is table - really a cheap
attempt to pretend NOVELTY. A table is atleast a pair. A symbol-value
table of one row is a pair.

THE GREATEST TRIBUTE THAT CAN BE GIVEN TO THIS PERSON IS TO MAKE SURE
THAT HIS IDEAS DO NOT BECOME LOST AND BECOME THE MONOPOLY OF A SNAKEs
OF A CORPORATIONs BUT BENEFIT THE HUMANITY AT LARGE.

publish them in the clearest manner in an accumulation for free. if
they are clear then they wont take many pages, lot of effort. If they
are published openly, they will get refined automatically and get
added. Maybe a wikipedia article saying the fundamental ideas or an
anonymous pdf posted on forums. or a wikileak doc.

THE MANUFACTURE AND SALE OF
SAINT EINSTEIN

By Christopher Jon Bjerknes

2,825 page treatise on Einstein's plagiarism, Einstein's Zionism,
history of Zionism, racism, Judaism, and more. The complete book The
Manufacture and Sale of Saint Einstein in one 17 Mb. PDF file can be
downloaded by clicking on this link: http://www.jewishracism.com/SaintEinstein.pdf