What a lovingly written, beautiful obituary. If you're reading this and didn't click through yet, some highlights to help nudge you:

Kevin David Mitnick, 59, died peacefully on Sunday, July 16, 2023, after valiantly battling pancreatic cancer for more than a year. Kevin is survived by his beloved wife, Kimberley Mitnick, who remained by his side throughout their 14-month ordeal. Kimberley is pregnant with their first child. Kevin was ecstatic about this new chapter in his and Kimberley's life together, which has now been sadly cut short.

...

Kevin attracted attention and support from unlikely sources. The bus driver who saw young Kevin memorize the bus schedules, punch cards and punch tool systems so he could ride the buses all day for free testified as a character witness for Kevin during his federal trial. The federal prosecutor offered his testimony that Kevin never tried to take one dime from any of his “victims.” The probation officer assigned to monitor Kevin after prison gave Kevin permission to write his first book on a laptop when he was not yet supposed to have access to computers. Shawn Nunley, the star witness in the FBI's case against Kevin, became so disillusioned with the government's treatment of Kevin that he contacted Kevin's defense team, helped garner Kevin's release, and became one of Kevin's dearest friends. Kevin had an irresistible way of converting foes to friends and keeping them as friends forever.

...

Kevin was a gentleman: well-mannered and respectful, astoundingly generous with those he loved. He had a unique and unforgettable laugh - a delightful, loud, booming one - which he unleashed unexpectedly and often, frequently accompanied by a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He saw the funny side of his compulsive perfectionism and work ethic, and enjoyed laughing at his own expense - a rare quality among the best of us.

...

He had so much living left to do. And we know, with broken hearts, that there will never ever be anyone like him again. We will miss him for the rest of our days, hear his voice in our minds, and look forward to reconnecting with him in whatever version of the 'beyond' we each believe in. To imagine that Kev could be there to greet us, likely playing a prank, or inviting us to share an extraordinary meal and conversation, will be heaven indeed. We are each so deeply grateful for the time we had with this truly great man.

We celebrate that a part of Kevin will live on with the upcoming birth of his and Kimberley’s child. We can only hope that the child knows, as he or she grows, that around the world, the many friends of his father will be holding them in their hearts.

I can't imagine the loss and devastation his pregnant widow feels, but I'm so glad that she and their child will be surrounded by so many people who dearly loved him.

Kevin had an irresistible way of converting foes to friends and keeping them as friends forever.

Truly - what a loss to the entirety of humanity. What a gem of a human.

Maybe push him to try and become friends with a female coworker.

Please ask her before you use her to teach a lesson.

Me right now:

and being even mildly educated is a problem for our dipshit ideology

For real though. I went to church multiple times a week from around age 8 until my late teens, I went to the private Christian school run by our church from grades 8 through 11, I was thoroughly indoctrinated - but it all started falling apart in my early teens, when the pastor told me that animals don't have souls. How can you have pets and love them and not be absolutely certain that they have souls?!? And if he's wrong about something so obvious and basic, what else is he wrong about??

Turns out - everything 😂

It really doesn't take much education or life experience to start questioning it all.

It sounds like you've never had the experience of being the woman used as a lesson, and I'm really glad for you. I'm sorry you think my lived experience is weird! Blessed be.

Agree with everything in this comment, especially

makes this feel more like an actual community or a co-op.

🥰 TOTALLY, and it makes me feel very good about my recurring donation - the people running the server care, I care, pretty much everybody interacting here really, truly cares about the community, I genuinely love supporting that. This is a beautiful place on the internet.

You're passing in my household! I wouldn't have guessed you were trans from this picture. My husband walked into the room to ask me something as I was about to comment, and I stopped him, told him I was going to ask an obvious question but just play along, showed him your picture, and asked him to guesstimate your age and gender with no other information; he guessed woman in her mid-20s.

You have a beautiful face! Big, sad eyes, delicate brow and chin, and truly perfect lips (seriously - size, shape, everything about them is gorgeous). I really like your nose too, I'm super into strong noses on women and men and have told my husband and his sister - who hate their prominent noses - that the only thing I'd change about them would be to make them bigger. 😂🥰 Yours matches the proportions on the rest of your face perfectly.

You're genuinely beautiful. I'm really sorry you're not feeling that way right now, but hopefully we can nudge you back to reality. ❤️

I would be delighted to wear a Beehaw shirt out and about, and I'd love a Beehaw sticker for my laptop. I am happy to contribute labor to making these things happen - please let me know if I can assist in any way. My design skills are mediocre, but I am capable of taking an existing thing and turning it into a format that works for various applications, and I'm familiar with setting up basic online storefronts for print-on-demand etc.

Maybe there could be a community on Beehaw where people could post about their bots and associated commands, so we could learn how they could be called into threads where they would be helpful?

That was my answer for why I wanted to join, too! And I answered the "what will you contribute?" one pretty simply too, with the same things I try to bring to any conversation: my knowledge and empathy wherever they can be helpful.

I took the questions as the same kind of very basic filtering that my husband does for his tractor enthusiast Facebook group; he's not looking for essays, he just wants to know people will actually read (and follow!) the rules and not be jerks.

This is kinda my take, too; after reading OP's post, I was left wondering how much time they spend on here and what they're doing outside it.

I know everyone's ability and opportunity to be engaged with the world is different, so I hope this doesn't come off as a "touch grass" kinda thing, that's not how I mean it at all. For people with difficulties communicating or mobility issues, sometimes being online is the best way to engage with the world, and I totally get that. However, I think it's unwise to put all of our social eggs in one basket; we need multiple platforms for communicating and outlets for expression and connection. What ways are you connecting with people outside Lemmy?

When I'm feeling sad and disconnected, I like to work against it by sowing the kindness and understanding I would like to be reaping. This is pretty common advice - it's not unusual for someone going through a rough patch to be told to try volunteering for something they care about - and for me, it is almost always Super Effective.

So, maybe posting on a social media board could be fulfilling, if gone into with the attitude of finding a way to contribute instead of trying to find what is needed.

Idk, maybe that doesn't make sense, I'm not fully caffeinated yet and out of medication and I know I'm not totally with it. But hopefully I'm getting the gist across: posting/commenting would ideally not be your primary (or only) way of connecting with others, posting is usually not satisfying, but empathetic/meaningful commenting can be, and if there's not already a meaningful reply to something, try making one and see how it feels. It might feel better than you expected to be that first meaningful comment even if nobody ever replies; sometimes heartfelt expression can be its own reward.

I love this! I feel this too.

I'm 41, so a lot of my age-peers are running up against the cumulative effect of decades of neglecting their bodies and starting to curse the aging process, but I'm secretly kinda loving it. I made a conscious choice to be more active in my 30s, and now I'm in the best shape of my life.

I have much less energy and so many fewer fucks to give, and this means I've had to learn to be strategic and learn when to cut out things - including relationships - that aren't edifying.

I'm a traditionally cute petite cis woman, and I had fantasized my whole life about shaving my blonde curls off and freeing myself from those golden chains, so I finally buzzed it this spring, and it looks great. And I am in stealth mode all the time now!! Nobody ever recognizes me until they see me with my husband, it's hilarious and awesome every time.

I know myself and my own capabilities better, so I am better about not getting myself in over my head, and I'm more able to ignore skeptics and naysayers. Most of the time, I no longer feel the need to be overly polite and accommodating to their desire to give me unsolicited advice, which is awesome.

I am having a tremendous amount of fun getting old, and I think you will too! I love your attitude. ✊

Can I ask what is perhaps a very silly question - why are you advocating for cute cat gifs as thanks on BEEhaw, shouldn't it be adorable bee gifs? We contribute, and the little bee gathers up pollen and then poots a happy little glitter confetti pollen fart or something? Idk.

I'm allergic as fuck to bees and wasps, I had a bad wasp encounter last year that has left me with PTSD regarding everybody who goes BUZZ BUZZ, I vastly prefer cats and dogs as animals to share space with - but this is Beehaw, it just seems totally wrong for any official anything to not involve bees.

The grammar bots were so annoying! I love good grammar as much as anyone, but really, what help are we actually adding to the world with the they're/their/there bots, the your/you're bots, the payed/paid bots, etc. I really can't imagine those changed anyone's behavior or spelling.

My husband has never read the books, watched Season 1 with me, and enjoyed it. The person saying it's got problems isn't wrong, but as confused as my husband was at times, I had a lot more problems with it than he did because of my knowledge of the books. I didn't hate it at much as many other book fans did, so we will watch Season 2 and probably once again be entertained but mildly disappointed.

You can reset your voicemail, which on some carriers will result in callers getting the, "This voicemail box has not been set up yet," outgoing message (which will not let them leave a message). From the quick search I did, it looks like it's a pretty carrier-specific process, though, so you'll need to search " reset voicemail" to get anywhere.

the 12 hours of identical dungeon corridors underneath the dwarf city

ugh, this just gave me real, visceral dread, and I haven't played that stage in at least 5 years!

it was so, so HARD. Also I'm a filthy casual and everything is hard for me, but jfc that area kicked my whole ass repeatedly.

Image text: Announcement

1!Open Alpha!! RBlind - A community on Lemmy, brought to you by the moderators of the /r/blind subreddit.com

Submitted 11 hours ago by user DHamlin Music (flair: Bilateral Optic Neuropathy)

Since the news broke regarding the forthcoming changes to reddit's API and the ippact that will have on the third party apps and tools many of us rely upon the mods here at r/blind have been working on an accessible option for those who either cannot or will not be staying on reddit. As talk of alternatives like mastodon, lemmy, and the like have increased we decided that it would be best to reveal what we have been working on, hence this post. Several days ago we shared this with those of you on our Discord server and have been asking for feedback.

This project is by no means finished or polished, and is currently operating on development backend code and a beta UI to allow for access to still unreleased features that our community needs such as up/down votes displaying state changes, and nested comments, read this as there are and will be bugs and outstanding accessibility problems. However, the advantage of this platform is we control the servers, the UI, and can fix accessibility concerns ourselves instead of relying on a for profit company or the generosity of app developers to do it for us, not that the latter is unappreciated.

So please be understanding of the above and we hope those of you who decide to join and see what we have done so far for all of us, and please report problems as you find them.

https://rblind.com/

novelty comment bots don't bother me much either as long as they're not drowning out actual conversation

Same - honestly, I generally find them legitimately amusing! - but I worry that most Lemmy instances are too young/inactive for this kind of bot yet. I don't think we're past the tipping point where the people commenting will automatically outweigh the bots, and I don't think those bots are fun unless they're dramatically outweighed by normal human interaction. It's not novel if that's all the comment thread ever is, you know what I mean? And novelty is the true spark of humor imho; things usually have to be at least a little surprising to be actually funny.

I'm wishing you excellent digestion, effortless prioritization, energy, ease, and efficiency. ❤️

My Buff Orpington, Welsummer, and guinea chicks are all 2 weeks old today, and they are legitimately trying to fly around their enclosure even though none of them are fully fledged! It's crazy, they are like little peeping popcorn, hopping and popping around. And they're so funny! Somebody will occasionally find an extra long piece of pine shaving to carry around, and it starts a mad scramble as everybody else tries to catch them to steal it. 😂 I'm trying to figure out how to set up a livestream so my parents can watch them from their home. I'm also scrambling myself, trying to finish the coop and run before they outgrow the indoor enclosure.

My golden retriever is a perfect angel with them and loves to sit and watch them play. It's hard to believe he's only a year old, we just can't get over how unbelievably good he is for his age. Idk if all goldens are magic angels or if we just got crazy lucky.

My 16yo is still not interested in taking the permit test or driving. He's got my sense of caution, so I'm not really surprised. I can't believe he'll be a junior this year! And he's dating, he and his partner have been together for a few months, and they're so very good to each other. It's so lovely to see him in love, cherishing someone and being cherished.

And my husband is almost fully recovered from Lyme! We might have social plans this weekend for the first time in a while. 🎉

Direct link to Lionir's comment on bots - it's very near your comment in the discussion right now, but adding a link just in case these drift apart.

I agree - these seem to me like very common-sense rules.

I'm super interested in all these projects! Would you mind sharing guides you found helpful when designing and building then?

Thank you for this nudge, I contributed too and was shocked to see I was number 228. Something special is being built here, and I hope more people can throw in a couple bucks to support it.

Does your carrier's online account management allow you to block numbers yourself? That will prevent them from leaving voicemails. If they don't let you do it yourself online, you'll probably have to call, and regardless, there might be a charge per number - the last time I looked into it, it was $10 to block a number for my Verizon account.

It says a lot about your character that your reaction to your own hardship is that you want to work to make sure other people are protected from it. We're lucky to have you in the world and on this instance. Thanks for being you.

I love that it went so well for you! Were you popular in high school? Were you still in touch with many people? Did you take many photos and were any of them recreations of fun shots from back in the day? What was the biggest pleasant surprise of the night? Did anybody go in a direction that totally shocked you, but in a good way?

I had a rough time in school (✨Undiagnosed Neurodivergence in Rural America✨) and have never had any interest in keeping up with anyone, but I find it marvelously fascinating to hear about different experiences, and honestly - I love spectating a reunion! 😂 I've gone to a couple class reunion functions with my husband for his class, and I really enjoyed seeing him interact with all his old friends and hear their stories. I reached out to a couple random people from my childhood/teen years last summer around my 40th to check in and thank them for their positive influence and friendship, but I think that's the closest I'll ever get to my own reunion.

is there a Transcribers of the Fediverse community starting or are you just doing this to set an example? I love both options, just wondering if I should join the group or jump on in to participate.

My two moods:

I relate so much to that imposter feeling and just wanted to say I don't think you're a loser at all, I really admire your ambition! It sounds like you're working towards a lot of awesome things to be proud of.

Am I the only person who keeps meeting medical professionals and support staff who don't realize that insurance is unhelpful in some situations? The only insurance with premiums my family can afford has deductibles and co-pays/etc so high that we only ever paid premiums when we had it, we literally never once were able to also afford to go get care. Once the mandate dropped and we didn't have to pay premiums anymore, we could use that money to self-pay our appointments.

Sure, yes, if I get cancer or my husband is hit by a truck, we are fucked. But also, if we go bankrupt paying for insurance we can't afford to use, I'm gonna be pretty fucked for that cancer anyway because I can't afford the co-pays etc. Idk what part of "I can't afford to pay premiums and co-pays until I potentially reach a $1.5k out of pocket maximum," is so hard to understand.

I helped host a local protest to raise awareness about Single-Payer (anybody else remember SPAN, the Single-Payer Action Network?) back in 2004, and holy fucking shit that was almost 20 years ago.

Ugh, ME TOO. It always feels so horrible when it happens, and it takes so long after for me to feel better or relieved at all, but then that feeling finally comes and probably all the suffering was worth it. But UGH, yuck.

What a great answer!

I hope you are having the BEST time! ❤️ May every lovely moment together stretch into blissful eternity for both of you.

I love the Wrong Boys. ❤️ They are a bright light of hope and ideas in a dark time.

What interface are you using to change it? I discovered when editing mine that changes made in an app didn't stick (I tried both Jerboa and Connect) but changes made in the browser did (so maybe Voyager/wefwef would have worked, but I didn't try that). I don't know why it works that way or if that's a bug that needs reported.

I feel the same way - totally understand why some people wouldn't, but I definitely would appreciate the utility. Looking at the way someone interacts with others is often a consideration when I'm deciding whether to engage with them myself.

Oh totally. I guess I was thinking of it as something a community member might be delighted to make, like all the other fun bee-themed imagery.

I'm in Ohio, and my reluctant suggestions for your meal would be Buckeyes (the chocolate-coated peanut butter candy, not the actual nut), that weird "Cincinnati-style" chili served over spaghetti noodles, and a big buttery ear of sweet corn. "Reluctant" because the idea of eating all 3 in one sitting really grosses me out, let alone in combination with anything else from any other state.

Can you tell me more about the taste side effect you're experiencing? What medication causes that? I've been having some weird mouth things since I started a medication a few months ago, but hadn't thought to connect it until now.

I've never thought about it this way before. You've given me empathy for billionaires; thanks, I hate it!