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RIP Jerry Pournelle

Sad 🙁

Never read his books, but knew of him from his guest appearances on TWiT. He was usually spot-on with his observations and predictions as futurist, which I'm sure stemmed from (or helped with, depending on how you look at it) his sci-fi novels.
 
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That's sad to hear. I used to read a lot of his books

My favorite as a kid was probably the hard scifi novel Footfall.
footfall-3.jpg


Baby elephant aliens show up from Alpha Centauri and drop a bunch of asteroids on us.

After getting our ass kicked we respond with this thing:
Co5rMeP.jpg

It was propelled by nuclear bombs detonated under that hemispherical plate.

The aliens evolved from herd animals and when losing a fight for dominance it was expected the losing herd would surrender and join the winner as the lowest members.

When that thing launched the leader asked some captured humans if it was to increase our standing in the herd when we surrendered. The humans said, no it was likely coming to wipe all of the aliens out.

The leader thought that was insane they hadn't tried to wipe all of the humans out. The humans replied that they should have figured out what humans were before attacking us. 😀
 
Paratus said:
That's sad to hear. I used to read a lot of his books

My favorite as a kid was probably the hard scifi novel Footfall.
footfall-3.jpg


Baby elephant aliens show up from Alpha Centauri and drop a bunch of asteroids on us.

After getting our ass kicked we respond with this thing:
Co5rMeP.jpg

It was propelled by nuclear bombs detonated under that hemispherical plate.

The aliens evolved from herd animals and when losing a fight for dominance it was expected the losing herd would surrender and join the winner as the lowest members.

When that thing launched the leader asked some captured humans if it was to increase our standing in the herd when we surrendered. The humans said, no it was likely coming to wipe all of the aliens out.

The leader thought that was insane they hadn't tried to wipe all of the humans out. The humans replied that they should have figured out what humans were before attacking us. 😀
Click to expand...

I really enjoyed Footfall, The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer. Niven and Pournelle were the first hard sci-fi I read way back when.
 
RIP. Was an avid reader of BYTE waaaay back in the day 🙁
Still have stacks of them back at my folks'.
 
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Wasn't he the guy from the "Lab Of Doom and Pepsi Cola"? I used to love those articles in Computer Shopper when I was a kid.
 
brianmanahan said:
dang, it's been a long time since i read a computer shopper

those things were massive
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GagHalfrunt said:
LoDaPC was two people named Alice and Bill. The good old days when Computer Shopper was the size of a NYC phone book.
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Current digital versions of Computer Shopper are about 140 pages vs. 300+ pages for the print versions which ceased mid 2009. Yes those were the days, and they were free too. 😵

Archives - July 1991 to April 2009.
https://www.highbeam.com/publications/computer-shopper-p408135

Jan 2001 - https://ia601700.us.archive.org/18/items/computer_shopper_2001-01/ComputerShopper_January_2001.pdf
Aug 2017 - https://psv4.userapi.com/c812221/u4.../Computer_Shopper__Issue_354__August_2017.pdf
 
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SKORPI0 said:
Current digital versions of Computer Shopper are about 140 pages vs. 300+ pages for the print versions which ceased mid 2009. Yes those were the days, and they were free too. 😵
Click to expand...

That 300 page edition was the 2nd generation after the magazine had been pared way down. That happened in the late 90's or early 00s as so many people were online and already buying their PC parts that way. The REAL Computer Shopper from the early to mid 1990s was 800 pages minimum for a small issue and regularly topped out over 1000.
 
GagHalfrunt said:
That 300 page edition was the 2nd generation after the magazine had been pared way down. That happened in the late 90's or early 00s as so many people were online and already buying their PC parts that way. The REAL Computer Shopper from the early to mid 1990s was 800 pages minimum for a small issue and regularly topped out over 1000.
Click to expand...
Your right, they were >800 pages. Wish I kept at least a copy of those early editions. 😵
 
The Mote in God's Eye was one of My favorites ... Think I read most of his books
RIP jerry 🙁
 
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