I am quite shocked. Kevin was over here day before yesterday. You assume when you have just seem someone that their lives proceed on on an even course when they're not around.

The last entry in Tim's livejournal indicates that he could tell something was wrong but he couldn't tell what.

I wondered about that; but it might have been something unrelated.

Having just successfully read vague signs and portents, resulting in David going to the cardiologist at an opportune moment (and getting his stent put in), I'm sensitized to this.

I remember Tim from the Delphi Forums, and specifically from the now-defunct Warren Ellis Forum (WEF). Thanks to this post, we've been remembering Tim on Delphi, in one of the forums that sprung out of Warren's. One Delphi poster who remembers Tim called him "sharp as a tack." Tim used to post learned commentary on science-news threads on the WEF, and he, Warren, and other science-minded sorts used to have some great discussions.

I most remember Tim from a night in the WEF chatroom, though. I was about to turn 30 (I'm now 34) and the idea was freaking me the hell out. Tim reassured me by explaining that his 30s were, to that point, the best decade of his life.

Tim disappeared off Delphi, and when I finally met him in person just over a year ago, he remembered neither me nor our conversation, but he did say that his comments about his 30s sounded like something he might have said during his Delphi days.

Thank you for posting this. I only knew Tim through some Usenet debating a decade or more ago, but he was the sort of person who made a vivid impression.

Damn.

Same here. And yes: vivid.

Damn.

I just mentioned this over on my Livejournal, but for those of you who don't keep up with my every post: One of the defined clinical symptoms of pulmonary embolism is "a sense of apprehension". I think it's clear that time was experiencing that when he wrote his final post.

My father went down with a pulmonary embolism when he was 57. He was playing basketball. It was very fast. They told me he probably didn't know what hit him, but I've always figured he had time to think "Dammit, I knew there was something wrong--"

I had a particularly distressing way of hearing about this. I'd seen Tim at the Other Change of Hobbit's midnight opening for Harry Potter (Christmas in June for us, in terms of sales); we'd chatted, and he'd invited me to a Gnostic Mass the following Sunday. Couldn't make it, so we'd talked electronically about the next time I could go, after getting back from a trip to Seattle. While in Seattle, a friend told me that Kevin Maroney's brother had died. I didn't make the connection. The same friend then forwarded some posts about Kevin, along with a silliness from RASFF; and I conflated the idea of silliness with the stuff about Tim, and had a moment of serious cognitive dissonance upon seeing the headers.

We weren't close, but damn I liked conversation with Tim!

Tom Whitmore
(and I'll try to be around here more often in the future)

I am terribly sad by the news of the loss of Tim Maroney. He had so much more in him to contribute. I wish I had known him better, but I am really glad I knew him for the year or so I have. He was gracious, genuine and funny. What a loss...