Even before he worked at Valleywag, Nicholas Carlson had taken "Alleywag" as his commenter name. I always saw that passion for the site shining through his posts. True, he sometimes exhibited the inevitable traits of his hard-to-manage millennial generation, but he's unique — unique, I tell you! — among the precious snowflakes of his generation in being able to look at his peers' self-involvement with a wry glance. He covered the beat of online advertising adeptly, and made lists smart. What Here's what I think were some of his best pieces. Name your favorite Alleywagiana in the comments. Like me, you can keep following my favorite Gen Y-er on Tumblr. Natch.

• Nicholas was the first to get a look at Yahoo's Buzz:
  Screenshots of Yahoo Buzz, a Digg competitor
• His historical analysis of why newspapers keep failing to grasp the online opportunity was widely read in the industry:
  5 ways the newspapers botched the Web
• He covered the craze for Facebook applications on its way up — and down:
  The Valley's Facebook frenzy fades
• Google's Chrome browser provided endless comedy:
  Uh oh, the b-tards got their hands on Google's Chrome comic
• He dug into what really made some tech gigs suck:
  Tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs
• The fiery implosion of Pay By Touch, a biometrics company, provided Carlson with one of his best ongoing stories. A former Pay By Touch employee recently complimented him for his work, telling me that his stories on Valleywag were the best source of information on what was happening to the company:
  Pay By Touch story archive
• And most recently, Nicholas uncovered the love connection behind Michael Arrington's MySpace scoops:
  Michael Arrington pounding his MySpace source

Contact information for this author is not available.