Dearest Lydia and family,

My deepest heartfelt condolances to you all. The loss of Alex from this world; far too soon, and following on so quickly from the losses of your dear mother and father; seems too cruel a burden for you, your lovely family, and all the dear friends of the Gregorets. Each of you have been  in my thoughts, and will remain so at this impossibly sad time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Alex was a rare and beautiful person, with the most exceptional mind and spirit. Although often troubled by the confounding, harsh, and frustrating realities of life and society today, at his core he always remained a truly gentle soul, one possibly too vulnerable for this world. 

His intellect and his passion for people, science, justice, and decency, bonded him closely to likeminded people near and far, myself included. While to the outside world he lived a somewhat insular existance, the internet, and the people of the internet he came across, gave him the keys to entertain daily his love of storytelling, teaching, intellectual discussion, debate, joyous laughter, and bonding to his internet tribe of people, who I believe were his ultimate passion. 

The internet gifted us Alex for 15 years of intense love, laughter, the deepest of friendships, and hope for this world and the future. I was one of the lucky few internet people in Alex's orbit who was blessed to step out of our digital world, to spend time in Minnesota with Alex in person. I got to discover for myself that his rare magic, was very much real in person too, and so our unseverable connection began. I had the added privilege of experiencing the breathtaking warmth and generous spirit of the whole Gregoret family through Alex's generosity in sharing them with me.

Alex was precious to all of us, from the United Kingdom to Canada, Denmark, Australia and beyond. We will never cease to miss his presence amongst us, but in our own way we will keep him present with us as we relive our amusing memories of him, recount his vividly described anecdotes, or recall a witty turn of phrase he would coin and use with us. Those memories comfort us as we nurse our broken hearts.

We will in time all be reunited, and rejoice again in Alex's company, when god calls each of us home in turn.

Love, deepest sympathy, and gratitude to you Lydia, for the years of love, compassion and humanity that you, Alex, and your dear parents each offered a relative stranger from Australia in her most trying times.

Pippa, Geoffrey & Georgie Bayman

On behalf of those likeminded netizens whose seemingly random online paths crossed with Alex's, our deepest sympathies to his family, friends and neighbors. What follows is an abridged mini mémoire that he would surely confiscate, edit into something far superior - effortlessly correcting every grammatical flaw, replacing most of the vocabulary while simultaneously upbraiding the author - before returning it and quietly perhaps reluctantly appreciating the effort because its heartful message was about right.

Boasting impeccable computing credentials gained from the 1980s/1990s bulletin board chatroom scene and onwards thru the 'golden era' of a pre-Facebook, pre-Youtube, pre-Google world wide web, Alex sailed close to the Internet wind on tempestuous seas where the only available nautical charts say 'here there be dragons' which means rogue government agencies and hackers on steroids. He carried a precious cargo of optimistic sensibilities and scientific aptitude, allying himself with gifted crews of international personalities who were magnetized by his polymathic, enigmatic displays of unmatched intellect and hilariously macabre often indecent yet sometimes endearingly innocent comedy.

As an analyst Alex was superlative, his curiously well-informed angular insights inevitably proving more direct than the mathematically conventional shortest distance between any two points. He loved to be sociable, deploying a disarming savoir faire to induce conversation from almost anyone he met, chatting freely about life, the universe and everything; few were impervious to his signature blend of inscrutable panache, intimate detail and paradoxically offhanded warmth.

Over the time we spent in that eclectic anonymous collective it became clear our resident charismatic and mercurial scientist we later knew to be Alex was a magician with language as much as any technical subject. He delighted in all forms of sophisticated wordplay. A naturally masterful storyteller, he would spellbind with improvized tales drawn from the widest array of sources, embelishing discussion of current affairs with scintillating supplementary detours, or simply by descriptively animating his daily activity to share a personal world for us in such a colorful way no visual art could ever approximate.

Trusted audiences might rarely be treated to brief glowing snippets of family history in more revealing moments. His relatives and their communities were his heroes and heroines; their living legacy of adversity transcended became the source of his enduring hope in benevolence.

At a primal level Alex understood how language can create links across time and distance, between ideas, between people and ideas, between people and people, mind to mind, concept to concept, why stories work, and how this arcane power can be transformative. He wanted to live in a world where our expressive potential was encouraged and enabled to the benefit of the best and least of us, the othered and marginalized who are over represented in the invisible halls we walked. He saw the pioneering online work of his generation being abused by those who would seek to divide and corrupt, and it became a burden to his genius; his unguarded emotional sensitivity and self-imposed great expectations made it increasingly difficult for him to find solace where for so long he had felt at home.

The loss of Alex is incalculable. His influence is everywhere, it is systemic. I do not know how to explain or describe the connection we had. A hundred years from now someone like Alex will figure it out, and someone like me will name it after him.