Special Issue 5/1/02                                      Volume 11 No. 1
           In Memory of Michael Hauben: Discoverer of Netizens
 
[9]                       Mike: Sketches
                                  by Simon Butler
                                  SimonHardyB@cs.com

I first met Mike Hauben during freshman year at Columbia. We were both
on the same floor, Carman Nine. He was a friendly fellow, always
interested in chatting even when I, a surlier young man, wasn't. On
the street, while passing all the restaurants and shops by the
university, he'd reel off the names of various sites if I were silent.
He was just trying to make conversation, of course.  After a while, he
stopped. Newbie's habit, I guess.

Mike introduced me to a great deal of new things I never would've
realized were there had he not taken the initiative to help me check
them out. Suddenly, I was posting messages on the poetry newsgroup,
rec.arts.poems, and interacting with other fans on the New York
Yankees newsgroup, when the only way I even dreamed about conversing
in this manner with people before was via some sort of hobbyist's
salon or cultural group. Or at a baseball game, for that matter.

He got me into Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, two bands I absolutely
despised before I met him. And in turn, I introduced him to certain
pieces of classical music. We even went to the opera together, along
with our mutual friend Ed. And Mike who was enchanted by the theater
but was less exposed to the great works of the cinema joined me as we
watched various classics, from Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" to
Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes". Not all of them he liked. In some
cases, we held quite different, and often conflicting, opinions. But
he was always willing to experiment.

That's what I think he wanted to do most, in order to enjoy life, to
experiment. Even his death seems the result of an ill-fated decision
to try the end of existence when all else seemed to fail. I think in
his experimentation, he produced some beauties, some truths; his book
on the Internet; his immersion into the world of music; his increased
appreciation of the cinematic medium; his friendship with people
worldwide, due to his online and offline inter-connectivity.

I think he trod quite deeply on the Earth and broke the soil. His
footprint is still there. The indentation of his life. The perpetuity
of a strange, unique wisdom, and the injustice of itself.

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Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 11 No 1, May 1, 2002. 
The whole issue or a subscription is available for free via email. 
Send a request to jrh@ais.org  or see  http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/
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