In Memoriam: Ross Anderson, 1956–2024
Last week, I posted a short memorial of Ross Anderson. The Communications of the ACM asked me to expand it. Here’s the longer version.
EDITED TO ADD (4/11): Two weeks before he passed away, Ross gave an 80-minute interview where he told his life story.
Clive Robinson • April 10, 2024 1:12 PM
@ Bruce,
It is never easy writing a memorial.
What to put in what to leave out, the reality is a lifetime of work and interaction can never be squeezed into a small space or even encyclopedic sized volumes.
Not that long ago a friend who I’d gone to school with who I later worked with off and on, as well as sharing a social life in the entertainment and other sectors all of his adult life.
I was chatting to his Mum just a month ago and I pulled up from memory a story of how an oil-drum, some bags of pilfered fertilizer, and a shot gun cartridge and mechanical contrivance gave rise to what the Victorians would have called an “infernal machine” and a new “duck pond” in a farmer’s field. I thought she knew about it, but it was news to her, as was how the pair of us gave rise to a story about poltergeists by using tennis rackets and thumb sized pebbles.
As I said to her “there are a lot more stories where those came from”. And she has promised to ‘grill me’ when we next meet up.
And that is the point to life, not the “Good and the Great” we do, most know those, but it’s the little stories that define who we were and stood as the lights that built the person into who they became.
In Native American and other cultural faiths there is a belief that you live on in the memories of others, not for your achievements, but the person you truly were.
Thus it’s the little memories, the funny stories that bring the person to life in others minds, and hold them there.