Free Republic

Being reported in several places, Jerry Pournelle has passed away. Noted Science Fiction author, strategic analyst, early popularizer of personal computers, one of the original bloggers. In his own way he was one of the more influential Americans of the 20th century. As per Instapundit in a comment to his own post, "I just talked to Alex. Basically, Jerry just laid down for a nap and passed in his sleep this afternoon. It was nice that he, Alex, and Larry Niven got to hang out and have such a good time at DragonCon. It's as easy a death as one...

I was a big fan in the early 80's. I had a week long correspondence with him in the mid 90's. I loved reading his Chaos Manner column in Byte magazine along with Garcia s circuit cellar. It was a great mag. I've been rereading some of his works lately and just reminiscing. Jerry Pournelle s Iron law: ...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach...