Jerry Pournelle Parody

At 06:19 PM 7/31/98 -0700, Kai wrote: The parody mentions his kids - week before last, I bumped into Alex Pournelle walking around in one of the computer history exhibits (where one of my Teraks was on display) at the ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics convention in Orlando. For many years while I was working as a freelance writer, I'd see Jerry in person at press events at computer shows, and I knew many of his assistants / toadies. Ugh. It was frightening what he was given, and how little time he spent with it, and how little he understood it. Alex has certainly inherited or adopted many of his father's traits, including the condescending dismissal and endless bumming of software and hardware. He and another writer are working on a WinNT "studio" book, and are gathering all the 3D and video stuff they can find - but of course, many writers do all that. Where does it all go? It depends. The more pricey the toy, the less likely someone gets to keep it forever. Software often has no value on this spectrum, and stays in the hands of the reviewer, who might keep it or even resell it. (I was once appalled by the brisk cash gathered by a "reviewer" of books for a newsletter for librarians, who'd turn a bagful of new books into cash each week at the nearest used book store, after dismissing each with barely a paragraph "review".) For someone of Poor-Nelly-ian magnitude, you've ultimately got to *hire* someone to be in charge of returning and donating all the stuff that arrives. Keep in mind, a great deal arrives unsolicited. I note that the parody was written by Ed DeJesus, an actual editor at Byte, who oversaw my first and last Byte article (see <http://www.byte.com/art/9507/sec8/art5.htm>. I recently saw a summary of the mindset of the Pournellian branch of science fiction as "Space is like Texas, only bigger." - John