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Silence due to ...

A combination of: not much to say, being busy working on "The Revolution Business" (book #5 of the Merchant Princes, the first draft of which is now two-thirds complete), and having lost the first half of the week to an overnight trip to see Siouxsie on tour in Glasgow. (Yes, it was a good gig. Yes, she can still sing. Yes, she can still bounce around the stage like a teenager. (But she needs a cordless mike, and she needs it before she rips the shit out of any more harmless cables that were minding their own business until she attacked them with a microphone stand. Ah, the old school punks never move on ...)

In other news, earlier this week the unelected legislator of our virtual worlds died. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the design of our embryonic next-generation virtual reality networks owe a lot more to Dungeons and Dragons than it does to anything serious researchers came up with, and the requirement for running a really cool dungeon crawl is right up there in lights above the need to support more conventional business-centric services. Gary Gygax, we salute you! And the final word goes to xkcd.

Posted by Charlie Stross on March 7, 2008 11:21 AM |

Comments

1:

R.I.P., Joseph Weizenbaum, too. )-:

Posted by: Andreas Fuchs | March 7, 2008 12:25 PM

2:

My boss just saw Cyndi Lauper do her thing, a little while after seeing the other Suzie (Quattro). Someone's been splashing the zombie juice about a bit lately.

Yes, the Gygax dungeons were the best, and worth quite a bit now in good condition. Pity about the the litigiousness and vitriol.

Posted by: Andrew Smith | March 7, 2008 12:48 PM

3:

But she needs a cordless mike

If she's half as energetic as she was twenty years ago, a cordless mic wouldn't stand a chance.

Posted by: Erik V. Olson | March 7, 2008 1:21 PM

4:

Siouxie tour... fine !!!

That lady looks like wine: she was fine in late 70ies but now she is superb !!!

Hope to have news on your book soon. Just read "Halting State" twice.

Posted by: Casimiro Barreto | March 7, 2008 1:22 PM

5:

It's amazing how popular XKCD has become. Randall Munroe has an amazing grasp of what it means to be a geek.

Posted by: David Watson | March 7, 2008 4:14 PM

6:

Never really forgiven him for Tomb of Horrors but my youth would have been boring without him. Give me the old skool RPG like AD&D, Traveller, or Runequest over the angst ridden rubbish like Vampire and Trinity anyday.


Posted by: David Somers | March 7, 2008 5:09 PM

7:

Penny arcade had a pretty good tribute as well: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/04

Posted by: Merit | March 8, 2008 2:56 AM

8:

Thank you for relaying the word of Gary Gygax's passing away on Tuesday. 'Tis been a strange week, as—sadly enough—I have to add, that on Wednesday Joseph Weizenbaum went on the great journey, too.

Posted by: Alexander Knorr | March 9, 2008 2:37 PM

9:

Comment #1 I only discovered when it was too late—please excuse the redundant spam of mine!

Posted by: Alexander Knorr | March 9, 2008 3:33 PM

10:

Hi Mr Stross, I'm reading Singularity Sky at the moment, and was most amused to find this at Make Blog today: a PDA in a hardback book! http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/03/weekend_project_make_a_pd_1.html

Posted by: marrije | March 9, 2008 4:34 PM

11:

Passing this around at WotC, good for a chuckle. :) But 1st edition, for shame! :) Next WorldCon I run into you at, I'll try and rope you into playing a 4th edition adventure. ;P

Posted by: Cormac | March 11, 2008 8:01 PM

12:

I didn't know much about the guy who invented D&D but strange to think he passed away. God, I must be getting old... I actually feel some nostalgia for when I played D&D back in the late 70s/early 80s. D&D was great but overall the-latchkey-kid-threat-of-nuclear-war-any-day atmosphere not so great. Guess that's why we were so lucky to have D&D and Atari Indiana Jones to distract us.

Posted by: Paula | March 13, 2008 4:41 PM