Okay, so I saw this question floating around: “Is David Turner still alive?” and, honestly, I had no clue who that was. So, naturally, I did what anyone would do – I went down the internet rabbit hole.
First, I just typed the name “David Turner” into my search bar. I mean, that’s the obvious starting point, right? The results, were a total mess. Seriously, there are a lot of David Turners out there. I’m talking musicians, professors, politicians… the list goes on and on.
So, I tried to refine my search. I added keywords like “computer scientist” because there was an inkling of familiarity, the name runged a bell but no sure why. Still got a bunch of different people. Then I saw someone mention “Miranda” (it’s a programming language, apparently). That seemed promising, but I’m no programmer. I added that to the search string: “David Turner Miranda.”
Digging Deeper
I was scrolling through the results and I skimmed through a few computer science department pages from various universities. Many of them listed faculty, past and present. I opened some promising pages and then, used ctrl+f and typed“Turner”, no luck yet. I was beginning to think this was a dead end (no pun intended!).
Making the Call
I found a result about, maybe, a retirement, and that he had worked for the University of Kent and I thought “OK, maybe I could see if I could find someone to contact there?”. I went to the University of Kent website, then I navigated to the “Contact Us” section. I was looking for, you know, a general inquiries email or phone number, something like that. But to be honest, the thought of emailing a university to ask if a possibly retired professor was still alive felt… awkward.
So, I put the whole thing aside for a bit. I made myself a cup of coffee, and thought it over. After a while, I decided to use my phone. I found the University’s contact. Then I dialed them up. I got through to some receptionist, it was a bit embarrassing explaining what I wanted.
In the end the lovely person on the phone confirmed me that David Turner is very much alive.
So, there you have it. The internet is a wild place, and sometimes, the simplest questions lead to the most convoluted searches.
