funki
Bluelighter
DBjag
your post is beautiful
your post is beautiful
We have found out a little about Bill's death.
It seems likely that it was the result of an unlucky accident.
It seems that after climbing to watch the sunset that he simply tripped forward down a steep embankment of only 3 or 4 metres.
Wire grass and his shirt, caught around his neck and fractured his windpipe. It seems likely that he died instantly.
WILLIAM McGOWN PEDEN
Extreme software engineer
24-9-1968 - 17-3-2002
Bill Peden was a Renaissance man who, for those that knew him, lit up the last years of the 20th century and the beginnings of the 21st.
His talents were extraordinarily diverse and his interests broad, ranging across information technology, academia, sport, the arts, electronic music, philosophy, food, wine and conversation.
He was at once self-effacing and a huge personality, who loved intellectual stimulation, rowing, dancing, debate, his friends and his cat, and who earlier this year meticulously calculated to the hour (and celebrated) his 33 1/3 birthday.
In professional life, many describe him as the most brilliant software engineer they have encountered. He had a superb mathematical mind that could solve problems and think abstractly, logically and laterally. But after hours, and particularly on the dance floor, he was just 'Bill'.
He died accidentally after attending a music festival in Gippsland. A celebration of his life this week drew some 400 people to the Chapel of All Saints, Geelong Grammar School, where in 1986 he was senior prefect and dux of the school.
This was predominantly a gathering of young people. Dreadlocks, T-shirts and skinny bare midriffs mingled with suits and ties. There wasn't a lot of grey hair. Eulogies were given in American and Swiss accents as well as Australian, for like so many of his contemporaries, Bill's work (and his inspired, irreverent use of the Internet) made him a citizen of the world even though he lived in Melbourne.
Bill Peden was a standout performer at everything he did. Growing up in Geelong, he crawled at four months, tried to fit a power plug into a socket at six months, used books for building blocks, and wrote his first computer program at the age of eight (his father, a professor of electrical engineering, had a personal computer at home as soon as the technology was invented).
While at school he ran 400 metres in under 50 seconds, reached the finals of the Australian Maths Olympiad, took up - and quickly became proficient in - the bassoon, rowed in the winning Head of the River crew, and played lead roles in 'The Crucible', 'West Side Story' and 'The Pirates of Penzance'. For the last, he memorised the fiendishly difficult Major-General's "patter" song inside 30 minutes.
In 1987 he began medicine at the University of Melbourne, where he was at Queens College for a time, then switched to accounting, intending to become an actuary. But the lure of the sport where one faces backward in order to move quickly forward proved irresistible. Too small to succeed in heavyweight rowing, he dieted off 10 kilograms and represented Australia internationally as a lightweight in 1990-91, finishing fourth at the world championships.
Bill completed his B.Sc. (hons) in 1995 with emphasis on computer studies and mathematics then began work as a software engineer, working 24-hour stints and making rapid progress. He spent six months in Colorado in 1995-96 as one of an international team assembled to deliver a delayed project on time and within budget. This time away confirmed his ability to find a way forward that had eluded others, rekindled his delight in extracurricular activities - particularly skiing and disco dancing - and encouraged him to reassess his priorities.
In 1997 he joined the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute (A2 I2), where his skills, broad life experience and capacity to think laterally were greatly valued. In a dry, laconic manner he would put on the table strong technical opinions, kindling the kind of debate he relished but ready to listen to others. Bill was a challenger, always seeking an alternative - and perhaps better - solution. And he was generous when workmates needed a helping hand.
He kept a detailed journal - another manifestation of looking backward while seeking to move himself forward. He returned to his much-loved Melbourne University Boat Club as rower, coach, Saturday morning coffee-maker, and gourmet cook for uproarious dinner parties - the piece de resistance being crème brulee, caramelised at the table with blowtorch and goggles. He started delving into philosophy, reading ever more widely, and kept up his subscriptions to the ballet and opera. He was delighted when long years of attending the opera netted him a seat in the middle of the fifth row. "You feel more a part of the action when you can see the band," he said.
From 1999 ensued the most satisfying part of his career when Agentis Software was spun off as a commercial venture from A2 I2. Bill had equity in the new company, based in Melbourne and the USA, and was a key member of the team that developed a range of software systems aimed at allowing large corporations to automate (and thus save time and money on) their most challenging, complex and unpredictable business problems. These next-generation systems have to be flexible yet simple, and Bill's formidable ability to utilise both Java and XML codes was fundamental to their development. His name is on several patent applications now pending in the United States.
Bill Peden's business card read 'extreme software engineer'. He worked hard and played very hard - some called him 'Mr 110 per cent'. He was always passionate. A conversation with him not only crackled with facts, questions and humour, but reaffirmed one's value as a person. 'He spoke to me as though I wasn't past my use-by date', said one woman after spending time with him at her granddaughter's wedding.
An inveterate builder of model aeroplanes as a child, latterly he made paper aeroplanes that flew higher and longer than anyone else's. In his pocket he carried a supply of pipe-cleaners which he would fashion into flowers to give to friends or passers-by, or into intricate geometric shapes - a favorite was a sphere, inside which was a cube surrounding a triangle. Wherever he lived he grew tomatoes, herbs and - if possible - roses in the back yard.
He loved life and had enormous zest for it. He was an icon in the rave music and dance party scene, his gymnastics on the floor matched in intensity only by the velocity of his smile. 'Like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. Full of humorous and bizarre yet incredible wisdom…all accompanied with a huge grin', reads a tribute on one of the websites that mark his death. He loved the anonymity and freshness of this scene. Here his talents and achievements counted for nothing, few knew he had a mind that was wired differently to most, and he was simply 'dancing Bill'.
He is survived by his parents, Bob and Marlene Peden, his sister Laura Peden and her husband David Nolan, and his nieces Genevieve, Josephine and Emma.
- Anne Latreille