UKC

What's happened to Andy Kirkpatrick?
All his websites, twitter etc are offline and there is a very strange piece of film of Kevin Spacey in the Usual Suspects.
Any ideas?

In reply to andychapm:

I noticed that.

The line from that scene is something like '...and just like that, he gone' .

Hope he's OK.

In reply to andychapm:

I noticed his website was down a week or so ago, but didn't really read into it. Hope he's alright! Big fan of his. Good writing, helpful advice and he was really funny at the talk I saw of his in Exeter recently!

In reply to andychapm:

Well I last saw him on the 8th March doing a talk in Stockport. He seemed fine then.

................Since then he's probably killed a load of gangsters, been arrested and is walking round with a limp.

In reply to routrax:

Haha, not this again. Wasn't he found in the boot room of outside last time...maybe check there? Or the pub perhaps. Or it could be an elaborate social experiment to see how long it takes his stalkers to notice. Or maybe he has sensibly decided Twitter is a load of shite.

In reply to andychapm:


What a load of self indulgent bollocks.

In reply to snoop6060:

His whole website is gone, which is a shame as it had a load of useful stuff on it. I hope he's allright!

In reply to andychapm:

anyone have any update?

In reply to Red Rover:

The website is still there, you just can't see the content. Just that endlessly repeating film clip.

In reply to lostcat:

The content appears to be gone. Previously valid links into his site now all result in a "system offline" error. UKC won't let me post example links because they are now invalid, but take your pick from https://www.google.co.uk/#q=site:andy-kirkpatrick.com

If it was just his website that was awol then I'd say it had either been hacked or was down for maintenance/update. But his twitter feed and facebook page have has also vanished. Possibly he's decided to withdraw from the internet for some reason.

In reply to andyjohnson0:

Well his vimeo page is still up -
Nice slide compilation of Queen Maud Land
vimeo.com/andykirkpatrick
which has to be one of most surreal places on the planet

In reply to andyjohnson0:
I tried emailing him and got this in reply.

"Andy will not be answering his emails for a while.
If you’re enquiring about speaking work then please contact Dion Clements at Speakers from the Edge.
If it's something urgent then please email anniken@akreative.com.
Thanks
Anniken"

In reply to andychapm:

Maybe he's knuckling down and getting his book finished?

I hope he returns with his website intact, it's a fantastic resource.
(Several coffees bought)

In reply to andychapm:

I vaguely remember seeing something about his website etc being hacked and defaced but cant remember where.
Hopefully it is just recovering from some halfwits hack.

In reply to andychapm:
I got this email today - he is alive & well in Yosemite.
"Thanks for email. Just down from 10 days on a stormy and wintery El Cap and will be sticking blog etc back up today. Thanks for thinking of me : )
Cheers
Andy"

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

And his refreshed website is worth a visit - good reading and well made

In reply to pneame:

It's all a bit odd because he's now back again, apparently doing more of the same. He's quite a good friend of mine, and for a while I was fearful for him. But his temporary disappearance from the net is now looking like little more than a brilliantly staged publicity stunt. Umm. Baffling. Andy is nothing if not paradoxical.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Or just a technical thing?

In reply to andychapm:

All is explained in Andy Kirkpatrick's latest blog post.
http://andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/the_machine_stops

"...And so, as an experiment, a few weeks ago I switched off my website, my twitter, my facebook. I wanted to pull out the plugs and the leads and the cable from my head, to go into airplane mode, and see what it felt like. And as I suspected I found that any interested thought, idea, event, view, article, video, anything, would create an impulse to ‘share’ or to ‘tweet’ or to blog about, each one unsatisfiable. I don’t think social media makes us happy, it is a monster, and animal, one that creeps under your skin and into your brain, effecting and warping your mind to the point where you are nothing but an app, your experiences sucked up for who knows what, maybe bones for some future cyber archaeologist. And so I switched it all off."

The above is just one paragraph from his longer blog post which explains why he did it, and why he's back.

In reply to snoop6060:


Sounds like I was pretty much correct then?

In reply to pneame:

Quote from his latest blog; "It’s obvious that the agricultural revolution was the worst thing to ever happen to man, just as the industrial revolution was the worst thing to happen to the planet"

Oh dear.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Now there is nothing wrong with having inflammatory opinions - I think he just didn't follow that with "Discuss"

And he may have a point - without either of those there probably wouldn't be too many people around. Wars would be just as nasty brutish and short, but not involve (very) many deaths. We'd probaby still have lost the megafauna, however.

Not many people would have the time and energy for pursuits like climbing for pleasure - you'd do it to get eggs.

I totally agree that "Social Media" is a monster. And here I am, on UKC