Eric Ostrom, R.I.P.

[jfb]

I've just heard that Eric Ostrom passed away last week. I never met him, but he worked at Xerox PARC sometime before I did. People would walk past my office, double-take at the nameplate, then look inside and comment that I didn't look much like the Eric they knew. Later, when I lived in Boston, I would run into people who knew Eric from M.I.T. I used to joke that I was following him around the country, at a discreet distance of several years.

Anyway, although I never knew Eric, I always felt a certain bond to him, for obvious reasons. I used to think someday I'd catch up with him, and, although I'd already pretty much permanently diverged from that path, it's sad to realize I never will.

Update: Friends of Eric seem to be finding this post with Google, but he was only a tangential figure in my life. You'd get more out of Doug Alan's post.

Comments

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

at the funeral of a mutual friend, Shawn McKay

I missed the funeral, but made it to the memorial service at the MIT chapel. That was a moving day.

There's something just horrifically wrong with a society that even needs a shelter for homeless veterans.

I'm not sure I agree. A substantial fraction of homelessness, especially among able-bodied war veterans, is due to mental/emotional problems with the homeless person. In such circumstances, homelessness may be nearly unavoidable, but providing shelter can be a big help (both in a humanitarian way and in helping with the mental/emotional problems).

[darlene-ford.livejournal.com]

Eric took a shell in the head during 'Nam and had been having seizures ever since. As of the last time I saw him, the seizures had gotten bad enough that he couldn't work, and he was in some financial difficulty. It sounds as though he was able to find better housing since them, from what I've heard, and I imagine that he is in a much better place now.

[(Anonymous)]

Can you pass along more information on what happened to Eric ?