Back in 2010 I was at a party in my home town of Leuven, where I first met someone who would later become a very good friend of mine. The person I met at that party was Meredith L. Patterson, a talented programmer, biohacker, science fiction writer, and journalist. She was married to Len Sassaman, who was pretty famous in the cypherpunk movement and contributed to a lot of privacy-related FOSS projects. I'm really omitting a lot of their achievements here, so check out their Wikipedia pages to learn more.
Over the course of about a year and a half, we must have met up at a weekly basis at some point. I'm not a programmer myself, but I'd always found it extremely interested to hear both of them talk about technical and privacy-related topics. During those conversations, I think my jaw hit the floor quite a number of times and I often wondered how the hell someone could be an expert at so many different topics.
Then, around July the 3rd in 2011, Len had committed suicide in his apartment in Leuven while his wife Meredith was out of town. I remember it quite well, I was just back from Rock Werchter and heard the news from Meredith right after I got back to Leuven.
Since she's an American who's living in Belgium, arranging everything for the funeral was fairly difficult, so I'd helped her with everything as best as I could. The funeral itself was simple, just as Len had planned it, but it was 'good' to see that a lot of people showed up. It's one of those few moments in life that I will never forget and I've thought about it many times afterwards. Wherever he is, I hope he has found peace.
Dan Kaminsky Creates a Memorial on the Bitcoin Blockchain
A few weeks after the funeral, I had heard that Len's good friend Dan Kaminsky had created a tribute to Len and embedded it in the Bitcoin blockchain. You can still see the tribute today, by running run strings -n 20 over blk0001.dat.
That should give you this memorial:
---BEGIN TRIBUTE---
#./BitLen
:::::::::::::::::::
:::::::.::.::.:.:::
:.: :.' ' ' ' ' : :
:.:'' ,,xiW,"4x, ''
: ,dWWWXXXXi,4WX,
' dWWWXXX7" `X,
lWWWXX7 __ _ X
:WWWXX7 ,xXX7' "^^X
lWWWX7, _.+,, _.+.,
:WWW7,. `^"-" ,^-'
WW",X: X,
"7^^Xl. _(_x7'
l ( :X: __ _
`. " XX ,xxWWWWX7
)X- "" 4X" .___.
,W X :Xi _,,_
WW X 4XiyXWWXd
"" ,, 4XWWWWXX
, R7X, "^447^
R, "4RXk, _, ,
TWk "4RXXi, X',x
lTWk, "4RRR7' 4 XH
:lWWWk, ^" `4
::TTXWWi,_ Xll :..
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
LEN "rabbi" SASSAMA
1980-2011
Len was our friend.
A brilliant mind,
a kind soul, and
a devious schemer;
husband to Meredith
brother to Calvin,
son to Jim and
Dana Hartshorn,
coauthor and
cofounder and
Shmoo and so much
more. We dedicate
this silly hack to
Len, who would have
found it absolutely
hilarious.
--Dan Kaminsky,
Travis Goodspeed
P.S. My apologies,
BitCoin people. He
also would have
LOL'd at BitCoin's
new dependency upon
ASCII BERNANKE
:'::.:::::.:::.::.:
: :.: ' ' ' ' : :':
:.: _.__ '.:
: _,^" "^x, :
' x7' `4,
XX7 4XX
XX XX
Xl ,xxx, ,xxx,XX
( ' _,+o, | ,o+,"
4 "-^' X "^-'" 7
l, ( )) ,X
:Xx,_ ,xXXXxx,_,XX
4XXiX'-___-`XXXX'
4XXi,_ _iXX7'
, `4XXXXXXXXX^ _,
Xx, ""^^^XX7,xX
W,"4WWx,_ _,XxWWX7'
Xwi, "4WW7""4WW7',W
TXXWw, ^7 Xk 47 ,WH
:TXXXWw,_ "), ,wWT:
::TTXXWWW lXl WWT:
----END TRIBUTE----
The transaction in which this tribute was embedded is 930a2114cdaa86e1fac46d15c74e81c09eee1d4150ff9d48e76cb0697d8e1d72 and was made by sending small amounts of BTC to addresses that didn't exist, all in a particular order so it created this memorial. In total, this cost 1 BTC to produce, 0.85 BTC for the transactions and 0.15 BTC in fees.
Sources:
- http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photographs.html
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33618
- http://pastebin.com/raw/BUB3dygQ
- Personally asked Meredith L. Patterson
The ASCII art is well done, if you look at a side-by-side comparison of the ASCII art and his portrait you'll see that the resemblance is striking.
The reason why I'm posting this story on the Steem blockchain, is because it's entirely possible that all the references to the memorial on the Bitcoin blockchain will disappear over time. Now that the story is posted here as well, these references will forever be embedded in the Steem blockchain.
Writing about the passing of a good friend is also cathartic for me. I don't think I've ever written down this story before and doing so helps me put things in perspective, even if it's 8 years after the events.
Wow tough story. Still have contact with his wife? How is she doing?
Yeah, I just talked to her today actually. She's okay, but it obviously wasn't easy for her these past coupel of years.
Wow, that is really powerful and awesome that they made that memorial. You are truly a good friend for helping out when you could. It must have been really hard for everyone that was close to him. Thanks for sharing this.
Yeah it's a pretty unique idea, I wouldn't mind having something like this done too after I pass. I hope you could do it for less than 1 BTC though :)
Yeah, these days that 1 BTC is quite the commitment! You have your Steemit account though, so we can always go back and look at that. I'll be gone way before you though :P
That is simply amazing. I am in awe of the tribute to your friend.
Thank you for embedding this forever and for sharing it with us!
I don't know what to say. This is a great story. Thanks for posting it. I suppose it's possible to memorialized on every blockchain.
This post has been voted on from MSP3K courtesy of @isaria from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).
Bots Information:
Join the P.A.L. Discord | Check out MSPSteem | Listen to MSP-Waves
Congratulations! This post has been chosen as one of the daily Whistle Stops for The STEEM Engine!
You can see your post's place along the track here: The Daily Whistle Stops, Issue 378 (01/22/19)
And even if 8 years, times helps for placing it but not for getting your friend back. I find it super cool that he is remembered in the BTC chain and that you also too the effoort to put him in the steem chain. Kudos Daan
Yeah, I think the whole process of crafting those transactions wasn't really easy. There are actually more of these custom messages in the Blockchain:
http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photographs.html
How sad he took his life, the memorial on blockchain is a brilliant idea to keep such a talented friend forever.
It is good to write down what you feeling or how you remember friends @daan
Indeed, like I mentioned in my post, still think about it a lot. Definitely a very nice tribute to him though.
Hi @daan!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.969 which ranks you at #3837 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 44 places in the last three days (old rank 3793).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 249 contributions, your post is ranked at #40.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Thank you so much for participating the Partiko Delegation Plan Round 1! We really appreciate your support! As part of the delegation benefits, we just gave you a 3.00% upvote! Together, let’s change the world!
Thanks for using eSteem!
Your post has been voted as a part of eSteem encouragement program. Keep up the good work! Install Android, iOS Mobile app or Windows, Mac, Linux Surfer app, if you haven't already!
Learn more: https://esteem.app
Join our discord: https://discord.gg/8eHupPq
Congratulations @daan! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click here to view your Board
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPWoahhhh! What a story......