Robert X. Cringely Has Died

Mark Stephens, who wrote for the blog I, Cringely as Robert X. Cringely has died. His legacy has been felt across the Internet, but it also had me thinking about how he influenced me.

Mark was writing as Cringley for some time; since 1987, in fact. His blog was always informative, witty and had a bite to it. It was the kind of writing and style I wish I could’ve had if I could do this thing one day. I’m not the only one who was inspired by him. I’m here still learning after all these years and writing much like he did.

The best comment about Mark’s passing on Slashdot has to be, “I miss when tech journalism was more than just parroting corporate press releases and sucking the asshole of broligarchs without any original analysis or commentary.” And it’s true, tech journalism today is an AI-written wasteland of regurgitated press releases from fanbois.

But, sometimes that writing stops. Much like a TV show that gets canceled after they’ve produced their last season, no one is prepared for the end, so there’s no nice, clean wrap up or send off. The final post three months prior talks about aspirational ideas and even offers something of a subtle invitation to watch what comes next in, “We are going to spend the next couple of years watching very smart people confuse those two things.” Mark’s October passing may not have been on his radar as he wrote that blog post. Sometimes you’re planning for other things when a cross falls on top of you. And let’s face it, there are bigger things to life than the next blog post.

The stopping is harsh. It’s this online life that so many of us live and we no longer continue to live our feeds will just stop updating. The social media site has to infer that we’re gone, likely from comments people leave. I’m Facebook friends with multiple accounts of unique individuals that have passed away. Does Facebook know that about all of them? There’s a lesson in loss from that. In our lives we’re so used to having answers for almost everything but sometimes dead air is nothing, not the least of which an answer. Loss is sometimes here to teach us we may never get answers or closure, but we still must endure and live on. This blog too will probably give you no warning. I will stop publishing and maybe that will mean I’m gone. Eventually, there will be no one to pay the bills and the domain goes dark too.

It’s often said that “The Internet Never Forgets,” though that’s only part of the story. Our current Internet is very much based on attention. Lose enough of it from creators and consumers - and that digital artifact cannot survive. The death of stale digital data¹ is a real thing and no doubt someone will build a tool to save the things no one wants (until the day comes when they want it again) like the Library of Alexandria but for books. It’s already a herculean task to keep a blog (like this one) alive for multiple decades.

I, Cringley is an RSS feed I subscribe to. Now I must remove it.

I want to thank Mark for all the words. For the writing that taught me how to write in my own way and for his own adventures that informed that writing.