Saturday, while I was judging the IEEE Ethics competition, I received a very unsettling phone call. My cousin, Nick Faigin had unexpectedly passed away on Friday morning. Nick was 47; 5 years younger than me. You don’t expect younger cousins to go before you.
Now, I didn’t know Nick closely, although we always got along when we saw each other. The age difference was part of it; I tended to associate more with his older sister. I did follow Nick, however. He had a wonderful poetry blog, and was very active in the club and music scene, doing a lot of promotion of bands. I hadn’t realized how much of an impact he had until I was reading all of the wonderful tributes and testimonials that had been posted on his Facebook page.
Being one of the more computer literate of the cousins, I’m the one fretting over the modern worry: how to preserve Nick’s wonderful digital legacy. The two domains he owns do not expire until October; I’ve already contacted the registrar to figure out how to transfer them to my ownership so I can keep them alive. But other areas are harder. What does one do about his Facebook presence? I’m guessing the account will stay there forever, but it would be nice to be able to post a closing message (I guess we could just write something to his wall). What about other places? His gmail account? Other email accounts? This is an area that is far too new and far too sensitive (another good article, another on turning facebook pages into memorials).
In any case, I’ll worry about that latter. For now, Nick, recognize that you touched the lives of a lot of people for good. This is a great legacy to leave behind, my cousin.
Hello, Nick was a very wonderful person. I am really sad that he is gone but he is in a better place now. I will be going to Harvelles from time to time in his honor and reminisce on the memories of Nick.