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Bob Seaborn departed us
Ward Dossche - 2:292/854
As nobody else is doing this, certainly none of the people
professing to miss him that much, I will write something about Bob
Seaborn.
A few weeks ago in November 2017 Bob Seaborn's system suffered a
catastrophic crash so bad that he decided not to generate the
energy and the effort to build it up again. He vanished from the
nodelist.
Several faces turned towards me because in recent messages in the
FTSC_PUBLIC conference about the below-par management of the
ZONE1-portion of the nodelist, he was rather "unfriendly" towards
me.
So when his system crashed I wasn't happy about it, having
experienced catastrophic crashes of something you invested 20 or
more years of your life in, is dramatic enough. Been there, done
that, got the T-shirt. The only statement I afforded myself is "I
will not dance of Bob's grave".
Then on Thursday Dec.21st 2017 he really did … pass away … and
suddenly that last statement got a bitter undertone. I had sent
him an email expressing "sorry" for his technical mishap, the
decision not to rebuild and thanked him for all his help behind
the scenes. That message crossed the news of his death.
An hour later Dallas Hinton's message arrived…
What's to be said about Bob Seaborn… I don't recall when I
consciously took notice of him but I bet John Souvestre must've
had something to do with it in the very late 1990-ies.
My first conscious direct contact with him was July 12th 2002, I
was staying at a Calgary hotel and he badly needed to talk to me
announcing the demise of Roy Witt as moderator of FN_SYSOP after
the latter tried to oust me from that conference. (just remember,
the internet then was not yet where it is now, news didn't travel
at the speed it does now)
Over the next years we called over the phone on and off, sometimes
dealing with the "Black Hole" which never got really solved.
Painstakingly the problem at his system became analysed and
identified but he vehemently refused to accept it. Most likely his
set-up had become too complicated to thoroughly deal with it … so
until the moment when his hardware abandoned him, his system truly
was the black hole in which sometimes mail vanished, earning him
the nickname in Sweden of "Black Hole Bob". He hated that but
never dealt with the cause.
Unknown to people however he was a great help in the background
and I agreed not to really mention this as long as he lived. With
that out of the way, here it goes …
Over the years Bob sent me software for my system, including a
complete OS, with it valid uncompromised bona-fide user-keys. I
used all that until roughly September of last year. Also he mailed
me stuff by post … so when I lost a modem and found no
replacement, 3 weeks later there was a ring at the doorbell of the
mailman delivering a big box containing a USR-modem, power supply
for 220V, cables … That was even 'after' the FIDONEWS-controversy.
I mailed him Belgian beers via the post office, not all of them
arriving in one piece I have been told.
It's one of the ways to remember Bob.
The other thing that I will remember him by was the Fidonews
shutdown where the combined NAB (with Ross and Janis) decided to
cut lose Zone-2 from the Fidonews-echo and the distribution of the
same-named publication. I think that period was in-depth dealt-
with in the period itself. The cut didn't last long and signalled
the demise of the NAB (North American Backbone) which from a
controlling entity was degraded to "just another distribution set-
up".
Bob could be a pleasure to deal with, he also could be the
ultimate ass. So at least he was human, that much we know.
From the dead nothing but good … so much was clear from some of
the messages in the echoes. And it was remarkable how he was dealt
with in saint-like adages as if the Fidonews-debacle never
happened, as if he never deeply insulted people, as if he never
cut-off people from mail nor from distribution. It's in the past
and that page should be turned.
Bob is mourned by a family and friends and a memorial event is
planned for January 16th 2018 which would have been his 73rd
birthday. People who want to pay their respects to the next of kin
or say something noteworthy about Bob, you can email his son Robin
whose email address is
rseaborn@gmail.com.
Let's remember Bob with his strengths and his weaknesses, praise
the former and be forgiving about the latter.
Ward Dossche
Z2C - Fidonet
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