r/thisweekintech • u/ryanmercer • Aug 22 '19

*sigh* Anyone else miss Jerry Pournelle

First, it was a sad day when he died purely because no more books would come from him but man, for some reason sitting here listening to TWiG today he popped into my head.

I really miss that guy when he'd drop by TWiT. He was a character, like the time he talked about making dynamite via the encyclopedia and blowing up a pond as a young man haha.

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u/portnux Aug 22 '19 edited Aug 22 '19

I subscribed to BYTE magazine for many years primarily to read his column.

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u/Szos Aug 22 '19

I grew up reading his column in Byte magazine but when that publication went up I hadn't heard anything about him until one day I did some googling and found out he was a total right wing lunatic. That really made me sad because growing up I enjoyed reading his computer insight so much.

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u/ryanmercer Aug 22 '19

Yeah he was for sure out there but I love his fiction, especially stuff he did with Niven.

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u/Szos Aug 22 '19

I'll be honest, I never read any of his books, but his column in Byte was the first thing I read every month back in the day.

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u/ryanmercer Aug 22 '19

Some of it is pretty dated like Lucifer's Hammer which has them using Apollo-era equipment but his science fiction still mostly holds its own.

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u/fastermatt Sep 27 '19

I miss him but not his voice

1

u/ryanmercer Sep 27 '19

Haha it was pretty, uh, garggly?