terry pratchett probably best known as the creator of the discworld series sir terence david john pratchett was awarded an obe 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in 2009. he was an animal loving humanitarian and generally splended chap who believed that the world needs more orangutans. he was diagnosed with early-onset alzheimer's and despite his openly discussed intention of assisted suicide he died naturally at home on 12th march 2015, with his cat laying beside him, surrounded by his family. his writings and persona had an impact on me and my view of the world, and his handling of his illness was an inspiration. in keeping with discworld and his sense of humour he even tweeted his own death.

in "going postal" the inventor of the clacks, a network infrastructure of semaphore towers, lost his only son in an accident. to keep his memory alive he transmitted his son's name as an operational signal through the clacks to forever preserve his memory:
GNU John Dearheart
G: Send the message onto the next Clacks Tower.
N: Do not log the message.
U: At the end of the line, return the message.

as a way to preserve pratchett's memory fans came up with the idea behind the x-clacks-overhead http header. it allows web designers to invisibly remember someone through the use of a non-invasive header.