Sam Sharp, formerly of MacSoldiers, and the cofounder of BraveNewMac (a site cofounded by our own Raena Armitage) died earlier this week. In addition to his work on the Mac Web, he was also the boyfriend of Ms. Raena, and we wanted to publicly offer our condolences to both her and Samis family.

Raena wrote to the mailing list of BraveNewMac with the news last night, and the following is quoted from that message:

Sam is one of the brightest people Iive ever had the fortune to know. He believed that there was no such thing as an unsolvable problem. He loved to figure out interesting and even downright kooky ways to do things. He told me once that when push came to shove, life came down to clearing a circle around you and fending off the bad guys who were attacking you and the people important to you. He loved to surprise people. He liked making ridiculous jokes. He would take half a concept out of a list post and go off onto the most bizarre tangents, just writing what he thought about, because thatis what he loved to do. He could be trusted with anything. He had a sense of wonder and a desire to learn as much as he could in the shortest possible space of time.

The Mac Conspiracy (over at the old Ambrosia Cafe) MacSoldiers, Brave New Mac, and Macintosh-Talk all meant a lot to Sam. These were things into which he poured a lot of time and energy and what we all did here was important to him. I know he had a lot of fun.

We also have a memorial thread in the TMO forums for Sam, and we encourage you to drop by and leave your respects. Sam was important to Raena, and he was a good friend to the Mac community. He will be missed.