Jim Hornung - †18 January 2013

This post, unfortunately, is not a joke. One if the founders of this blog, Jim Hornung, passed away in January of this year. Peter G. Neumann writes in his obituary at comp.risks:

Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 3:04 PM
From: Peter Neumann 
Subject: Jim Horning, 24 Aug 1942 -- 18 Jan 2013

Jim Horning was one of my favorite friends, colleagues, associates, 
and a long-time inspiration, spanning the past 38 years.  He was 
active in the computer field since 1958.  He was a vital member of 
the ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, continuously since 
1985; he contributed to the very first issue of the ACM Risks Forum 
(1 Aug 1985), and he wrote or co-wrote seven CACM Inside Risks articles.
He also played significant roles in USACM.  We worked together on a 
joint CPSR/ACLU report for the House Committee on Civil and 
Constitutional Rights in 1989.  He made many thoughtful technical 
and socially aware contributions, always with wisdom, common sense, 
and humanity.  I valued every contact I ever had with him. He will be 
very deeply missed by all who knew him, and indirectly by many who
did not.

I only knew Jim by email - we corresponded over cases contributed to comp.risks. When he proposed this blog in 2007 I jumped at the chance to collect the practical jokes that computer people cook up every year. We had a grand time collecting the old ones as well. Jim was too sick to email last year in April (although he did blog a few more times here and here and his history blog is still up), so we only had a few collected from 2012. Jim made an enormous contribution to the field of computer science and will indeed be deeply missed. I am sure, however, that he is busy setting up an Internet connection in heaven, even if it will only be a read-only connection, so that he can keep up with what's going on down here.  Thanks for everything, Jim!