If the accident had not happened she would still be alive and we most likely would not read anything about her. Perhaps her life can be inspiring, as the sister posting suggested (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244943), but the fact that we often do not learn about interesting, inspirational people until after their deaths is somewhat depressing.
Really? There's all sorts of creative people all over creating all sorts of interesting things all the time. Just go to deviantArt or Soundcloud or any number of sites and you'll find thousands of talented people. Even YouTube's got creative people showing off neat things.
Or just look at the site you're on: There's all sorts of people coming up with neat stuff, and the majority of them featured here haven't died.
Inspiration takes on many forms and it's there if you want to find it. If it's true that you're not finding out about interesting people before they die, it's because you're not looking. Zina's website was there before her death right? Would it have gained as much appeal and attention without the touch of tragedy? Probably not, but only because it's "just another artist". (Edit: I don't mean this callously, she was obviously very talented and watching the video of the stuff she made wants me to make something.)
I had a acquaintance from high school that did some great work and research, though it's not mentioned a whole lot on HN. When he killed himself, though, that got him to the top of HN a few times. But you could have looked him up a week before, and his interesting code and research would have still been there. This probably holds true for a lot of people - if one of the top HN comment-writers eats a cyanide pill tonight, would you not expect headline news tomorrow?
The only real depressing part is that people are dying.
If you're really depressed about only hearing about such people in the nice summaries written up after they die, then go seek out living people doing cool stuff today!
Well made point! I think there should be something like an obituaries section but for people who're still alive. I know that profiles of celebrities etc are a bit like this, but obituaries tend to cover a broader (and more interesting) range of people.
Whenever I hear about people like this, I get the unpleasant feeling that the world properly belongs to them and that the rest of us are nothing but trespassers and thieves.
If I may borrow a reference from her favorite comic: She was a "spark" if there ever was one.
