text:
Talk:Jerry Pournelle

Untitled
RE: Lucifer's Hammer. It's mustard gas, not napalm, you non-fact-checking humps. Besides that, I thought that part of the article was hilarious.

---crimeraker

Well my critics may say that, but they don't define "right"; while some of my admirers think that The Strategy of Technology by Possony and Pournelle, and our work with SDI, had a beneficial effect on winning the Cold War.

JEP — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.80.177.254  (talk)  23 July 2003

Hey, Jerry, welcome to Wikipedia! Stick around and contribute, please! RickK 03:53 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Well, it is pretty cool to see people doing vanity searches on Wikipedia. -- ESP 04:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * My guess is that he came here via Google -- the article is ranked #12. However, it's still pretty shabby -- don't we have any Pournelle fans? --Eloquence 04:41 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * I emailed JEP a heads-up that he had an entry earlier in the day. -- LarryW

Ex-communist?
Niven says in Playgrounds of the Mind that Jerry was an ex-communist. Should this detail not be in the politics section and has Jerry every given a reason for why he made an about face? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snookumz (talk • contribs) 07:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

 * I've read somewhere that he joined a graduate student cell in his department at the University of Washington in the late Fifties.

65.88.88.127 (talk) 21:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Links to Journals
Links to BYTE and Dr'Dobbs journal both require subscription. IMHO they should be removed.

Well, that requirement was removed, so this objection is MOOT. Mike 06:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Who maintains Jerry Pournelle's page?
Who checks the accuracy?

 * You do. I do. So does anyone else who is inclined to do so. Jamesday 04:14, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, but I would like to add to the list of nonfiction that Jerry Pournelle published "Home Before the Leaves Fall" in an issue of _The General_ in the early 1970s. The article dealt with the Imperial German expectations of an easy victory over France in 1914. Avalon Hill published it about the time they brought out their game 1914. [Only an old boardgame fanatic would remember the game and the article.] --hlk

Also, _King David's Spaceship_ was first published in serial form in Analog as "A Spaceship for the King". Not a nickel's worth of difference between the two except for the better title in the serial form. --hlk

King David's Spaceship is actually an expansion of A Spaceship for the King, with new material added after the original ending. Instead of ending when they've gotten what they needed from the old library, it continues with their journey back to Haven, ending with the construction and launch of their first spaceship.JDZeff (talk) 02:59, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Question about "campaign manager"
I see the article describes JEP as Sam Yorty's campaign manager in his third (1969) campaign for mayor. However, this doesn't seem consistent with contemporary news accounts. The Los Angeles Times for April 15, 1969 has an article about Henry Salvatori taking over as Yorty's campaign manager; Pournelle is described in that same article as a "Campaign Research Director". Then in September Pournelle quit his post as Executive Assistant to Mayor Yorty to work on his book with Stephan Possony ("Key Assistant to Yorty Quits After two weeks", LA Times, September 30, page A8); from the article, it appears that Pournelle was a relatively minor functionary in the campaign. (Presumably if Yorty's campaign /manager/ had quit five weeks before the election, it would have gotten more than one column on page 8.)

Salvatori is also cited as Yorty's 1969 campaign manager in a number of sources available online, including his obituary:

http://articles.latimes.com/1997/jul/08/local/me-10735

A 1971 article in Society magazine entitled "Los Angeles Liberalism", by Richard L. Maullin, says that Yorty had two campaign managers -- Salvatori and Preston Hotchkiss -- but does not mention Pournelle.

Does anyone have a cite for JEP being campaign manager, as opposed to "research director"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.214.117.70 (talk) 14:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

During his interview with Leo Laporte he describes his work on both the Yorty campaign and also his later work for Newt_Gingrich Codebear (talk) 00:17, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Parodies
A number of other Wikipedia entries also feature links to related parodies. There is a number of much circulated and frequently linked to parodies on the subject of this article, any reason these are not linked in?

Slashdot
In a story about DECnet, someone threw out a Jerry Pournelle reference. - McCart42 (talk) 7 July 2005 00:38 (UTC)

I think this is misleading.

In a 1997 article Norman Spinrad wrote that Pournelle had written the SDI portion of Ronald Reagan's State of the Union Address, as part of a plan to use SDI to get more money for space exploration, exploiting the larger defence budget.

It suggests SDI was just a way to get more money for space, when it was in fact a legitimate Anti-Missile Defense. I think Dr Pournelle might have a counterpoint to that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.94.38  (talk)  23 January 2006

Direct Commission
Dr Pournelle told me this direct commission stuff did not happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.41.204.3  (talk)  27 January 2006

Whitewashing Falkenberg
The person(s) who try to whitewash John Christian Falkernberg and hide the very brutal means he uses to "solve the problem" on the planet Hadley is (are) doing a very stupid thing. Falkenberg is nothing if not brutally honest, and that is what Pounelle is clearly trying to convey by creating the charcter. Falkenberg is fully aware that he had perpetrated a pre-meditated massacre, which in his best judgement was what the situation needed. If the writer and character appeals to you, the least you can do is acknowlege this. Anyway, the article as it stands is certainly nowhere near the Neutral Point of View required by Wikipedia. Adam Keller 20:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

 * However, orginally the section of "Politics in Fiction" was even more grossly bias aginst Falkenburg, making it sound like he murdered alot of helpless people.  In reality (of the story ), Falkenburg was outnumbered by the armed Freedom Party partisans with brtutal city fighting who were resiting the government, and there were people in the statdium who were armed.  Still, 30,000 people in a stadium is still a large force aginst a few thousand mercenaries.  I considered putting down Falkenburg's own reactions in the story, but it just did not seem like the right place to put it.  The article subject had an non-objective view of the event, with the relevant facts.  It was up to the reader to decide wither or not Falkenburg commited an arosicty or not.  --Eldarone 03:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Numbers don't make a difference. When trained, orgainised and determined soldiers face disorganised civilians the result can never be in doubt, even when the ciivlans are in far greater numbers and even if some are armed. The only way it can be otherwise is if the soldiers DON'T WANT to shoot the civilans (that is, for example, the difference between what happend in Russia in 1905 and in 1917 - in 1905 the soldiers did shoot the crowds and the revolution was crushed, in 1917 they didn't shoot because they were sick and tired on the old regime and of WWI, and the revolution won). In the Pournelle story, the soldeiers are as determined as can be and the civlians don't not have the slightest chance in the world. What Pournelle describes is not a battle but a massacre, and Falkenberg is completely aware of what he is doing. What Pournelle set out to do in this story is create a situation where perpetrating a pre-mediatated, cold-blooded massacre is the only way to save the planet, Falkenberg sees that it is so and does what needs to be done. I don't particularly like Pournelle's views (I think that is obvious) and if wrote the story I would have tried to find a different solution - but it is Pournelle's stroy, written the way it is and which I think nobody else would have dared to write it. (I think he writes well, starting from premises which I very much don't like - which is why I bother to read his books and comment on them.) By trying to find for Falkenberg justifications which he himself manifestly does not dream of looking for, you are chepening him and Pournelle. You should give Pournelle the courage of his convictions, and what he tries to convey by creating the character of Falkenberg. Anyway, just writing "Fakenberg solves the problem", and refering the reader to another article which he may or may not turn to, is simply not good enough - certainly not up to the minimal standards required in Wilipedia. Adam Keller 06:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Talk about Non Point of View. You're saying it's a massacre, when you're ignoring the releveant data.  You're interpreting the events as witness from your understanding.  Let the reader anaylize the facts, not one's point of view.  Falkenburg was angry because it could have been avoid, if the Freedom Party had listened and not revolted, had BuReloc not sent thousands to Hadley and then abandoned them to starvation and collapse, had stupid people not made stupid decisions.  And Falkenburg knew he only brought time, if not used correctly, would have still led to collapse.  No wonder he's upset, it could have been avoided, but the options got narrower and narrower.  As for numbers, then why have mass conscript armies managed to overwhelm smaller, more trained military forces in history?  Although I do admit, the French Revolutionary Army at least had some veterans, but they still had to draft alot alot of people just to win aginst their much better enemies.  Notably the French Revoltuion Amry and The Red Army during the Great Patrotic War.  One could point out that unlike these fiorces Tthe Freedom Party Partisians were just untrained, unorgainzed civilians without any veterans.  However, I do not recall at any event in the book (i may be incorrect) that it was ever stated that the Freedom Party was unorganized.  Surely they lad leadershiop of the Freedom Party leaders, and they still held back a mercenary force of professionals.  That's data that showing that they were probably organized enough to fight back the mercenaries in urban warfare.  --Eldarone 15:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Cetrtainly, in fighting between a motiavated conscript army and a professional one the result is far from pre-determined. But this has nothing to do with this case. What you have here is a professional unit penetrating into a stadium where people - some armed and some unarmed - are holding a political rally, concentrating on hearing speeches and shouting slogans. They are not in any kind of military formation, are not expecting any trouble - they think they have won already. In the unlikely case of trouble, they expect that there will be long delaying fighting in the guardrooms and they will have ample time to get organised. But Falkenberg gets a total surprise, and he has also the commanding heights. A few of them start shooting as disoganised indivuauals, many try to swarm up as a mob without any organization - and then 700 of Falkneberg's men shoot a volley. Do you realise what this means? They had no chance whatsoever, they could have been 300,000 instead of 30,000 and still would have no chance. No mob in the world would be able to charge in the face of this. Anyway, what about inserting the following instead of the bland and stupid "Falkenberg solves the problem"? I think it is eminently fair to Falkenberg and to Pournelle.Adam Keller 14:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Proposal: Falkenberg finds what he considers a brutal but unavoidable solution: in order to force the city people to move to the countryside, the Freedom Party must be completely crushed, in however bloody a way - as the other alternative is a total economic collapse in which at least a third of the population would perish. Accordingly, he gets his soldiers into the stadium where the Freedom Party holds its rally, catching its members by complete surprise. His men, firing deadly volleys and advancing with bayonets fixed, break the disorganized resistance and proceed to systematically kill the armed militants and party leaders. Mission completed, with blood literally flowing down the stadium aisles, Falkenberg hands over power to planetary President Hamner, a well-meaning liberal who hitherto could only wring his hands in despair, and departs the planet. He freely offers to Hamner himself and his men as scapegoats, since "nobody is going to forget what happened today". Pournelle clearly set up the situation leading up to such a climax as illustrating his opinion, that in some situations a brutal solution is unavoidable and that those willing to implement such a solution unflinchingly should be considered heroes.

 * Agree to the proposal. --Eldarone 17:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

LinkSpam removed
Bogus link by indefinitely blocked spammer deleted from external references.

This is the current list of domain names used by Wayne Smith AKA Projectorion/UniverseToday/UniverseDaily/ etc ad nauseam

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yale s (talk • contribs) 01:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * jerrypournelle.net
 * yowiehunter.com
 * spaceforums.net
 * spaceforums.org
 * badastronomer.net
 * universedaily.org
 * badastronomer.org
 * spaceonion.com
 * space4peace.com
 * badastronomer.com
 * jeeperscreepers3.net
 * universetoday.net
 * robertzubrin.com
 * spaceforums.info
 * spacedaily.info
 * universetoday.info
 * nuclearspace.org
 * universedaily.com
 * jonathanbreck.com
 * wikipedian.info
 * universedaily.info
 * everythingspace.com
 * stephenhawkingsuniverse.com
 * alienlife.info
 * wikipediac.net
 * wikipediam.net
 * wikipedial.net
 * wikipediac.info
 * wikipediam.info
 * wikipedial.info
 * sciforums.info
 * carlsagan.info
 * amateurspaceflight.com
 * atomicrockets.com
 * projectorion.org
 * projectorion.net
 * projectorion.info

This Week In Tech
Would someone like to add information about his appearances on this WEEK in TECH? Yavoh 02:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Done! Mike 02:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Artillery
Dr Pournelle says this is false.

receiving a reserve commission as a Lieutenant of Artillery

I am removing it. Jokem 02:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

New article for Jerry Pournelles books?
I just created an article on this author's book. Birth of Fire, and have noticed there articles on many other books by this author. I'm wondering if, due to the small size article alloted for each book. If we should simply create a main article on Jerry Pournelles books. Like

Books by Jerry Pournelle and then we could list out each of his books and a plot summary etc. if we have one.

Anyone up for this? It'd be kind of like the lists of video game characters or 'sci fi universe locales'. Easy to access, compressed, and a lessening of strain on the Wikipedia servers.

I say we go ahead with this once we get a general consensus. I'll wait about a week or two if the responses are slow. And if this plan goes forward then I'll be glad to help. (We'll need to delete the old articles though. I'm not quite sure how to do that). Nateland 00:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me direct your attention to the works of David Sherman. Here is a science-fiction author somewhat similar in prolificity (is that a word?) to Pournelle, and his books each have their own article; his article series have their own articles as well, all listed in a Bibliography section in the biography. A similar situation exists with respect to the more famous authors Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Tom Clancy, and James Thurber. I would propose that your idea is thoughtful and interesting, but it's not being "done" in the case of other authors, so perhaps it is not the way to handle Pournelle's works, either. Mike 06:32, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Ok, no problem. I just felt it awkward for there to be seperate articles for each of his books. (Although a condensed article would probably be just as awkward. For the Deathworld series we integrated it all into a single article. But there was only a paragraph synopsis available for each book. Nateland 15:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Duplicate book lists
The article contains two separate lists of books written by Pournelle, under "Writing career", and under "Bibliography". If there is no objection, I will combine them. --Blainster 10:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I see the first list is chronological while the second is alphabetical. Are both really needed? --Blainster 17:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

portrait
He looks drunk in that picture! Is there none better? —Tamfang 04:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Noted by JEP himself at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view502.html#Monday - obviously meaning Image:Jerry Pournelle crop.jpg. Let's see how long before they come up with something better... --Malyctenar (talk) 16:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

SEK3?
Is Jerry Pournelle related to Samuel Edward Konkin III? They do seem to resemble each other.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.67.35.112 (talk) 08:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know in which photos you see a resemblance, but I knew them both personally when I lived in Los Angeles, and in person they looked very little alike. And no, they aren't related beyond the both-members-of-the-same-species extremely-distant-cousin relatedness we all of us on Earth share.  -- Davidkevin (talk) 21:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Infobox picture
I do see where he said the tuxedo image could go on Wikipedia if someone knows how to do it. What I don't see is a release for the picture under a free license. The bottom of the page claims "Entire Site Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Jerry E. Pournelle. All rights reserved." Unless there is an explicit release for the tuxedo pic, I don't think we should use it. Dr. Pournelle has not, in my opinion, made it clear that he'd like to release this picture under a license that would allow for anyone to use it for any reason. The image he objected to has already been removed. I believe the current picture can work at least long enough for any copyright questions to be answered. --Onorem♠Dil 11:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Dr. Pournelle’s comment explicitly releases it: “As for pictures, Deb sent this and it could go on Wikipedia if someone knows how to do that.”  It’s hard to imagine either him bringing suit after that, or any court not laughing at him if he did; but I’ll email him again, asking for a different form of words.  This does seem to confirm the popular image of Wikipedia…
 * —FlashSheridan (talk) 17:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

 * His comment does not explicitly imply that he understands that he would be releasing the image under a free license for anyone to use for any reason. He's thanked me already for changing the image, so I'm guessing he doesn't have the same concerns about it that he did when he asked for help posting the tuxedo pic. I'm sure he won't be upset if we take a day to straighten out any additional questions before they have a chance to turn into a new problem. --Onorem♠Dil 17:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

 * From his blog "...I will find a picture of me that they will accept, although I am not sure what forms and notarized documents I will have to provide to satisfy them. Ye flipping gods." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.203.226.186 (talk) 00:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I've re-uploaded the image, along with email from the photographer confirming the obvious, that “it could go on Wikipedia” means “it could go on Wikipedia under its normal terms,” not “it could go on Wikipedia in violation of its normal terms.” The actual terms from the photographer, Geo Rule, are
 * “I hereby place the cropped image of just Jerry in the public domain and release rights to anyone and everyone (even the heathen geeks who wear no breeks)”

 * He suggests attribution, but explicitly disavows this as a condition.
 * —FlashSheridan (talk) 18:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I was also independently attempting to get this photo up on here, and also emailed Jerry for a more specific rights statement, to which he responded "It's my image and it's public domain for heaven's sake."  FWIW.  Anyway, thanks FlashSheridan for your efforts.  Mike (talk) 01:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

 * The picture of Dr. Pournelle in a tuxedo as originally uploaded was a thumbnail of insufficient size, and wasn't recognizably a photo of any particular person. I substituted a photo I personally took which I'd also uploaded to Flickr; another contributer re-uploaded the tuxedo picture in a suitable size and changed the cited image to larger image of the tuxedo picture, which would appear to conform to Dr. Pournelle's wishes as reflected above in the cited correspondence. Disambiguated (talk) 07:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Health issues
Ordinarily health issues aren't encyclopedic but if this impacts his career it could be: His blog retrieved 2008-03-11. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  15:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

 * We should probably wait and see, but the usual privacy issue doesn't figure in since he has publicly discussed it on his blog. However, there's no need to be hasty about it. He's in my thoughts, and I'm sure those of all his fans. Wellspring (talk) 14:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

 * I've updated the health info (Dr. Pournelle is no longer hospitalized, and he's back to writing again, though the effects of his stroke impair his typing). I linked to the information on his blog, including a WaybackMachine copy, because blog information is notoriously transient.

 * However, my first version was better, because it linked directly to the relevant blog paragraph using archive⋅is ("tinyurl dot com/qdjumfy" - make the obvious substitution). That link goes directly to the relevant paragraph within the blog page. But such links are apparently verboten on Wikipedia, these days.

 * It seems like almost every time I visit Wikipedia, I marvel at what an awful mess it is. In this case I found voluminous arguments from a couple of years ago about whether or not to allow links to archive⋅is archives, with approximately equal numbers of people arguing vehemently on both sides. That apparently constitutes a "consensus" on Wikipedia, to forbid such links. That wouldn't be so bad if other sites offered functionality comparable to archive⋅is, but they don't. Sites like WebCite and the WaybackMachine do not offer the ability to link directly to a referenced paragraph within the archived text. (AwesomeHighlighter and CiteBite used to offer similar capability, but AwesomeHighlighter is defunct, and CiteBite seems to be becoming unreliable.) NCdave (talk) 05:27, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Professional Influences
Section with one sentence moved to talk page for discussion and sourcing. 65.54.98.28 (talk) 04:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Important to Pournelle's early career was Jack Woodford and his books on writing and getting published. (incomplete)

Contrarian Scientific Views
What are the sources on the contrarian scientific views? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.2.205.162 (talk) 20:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There were no sources, and Wikipedia articles should never contain unsourced controversial claims about living people. I've therefore moved the whole section here, to see if anyone can find sources for these statments. (I'm too lazy/busy to look for sources myself. Google searches with site:jerrypournelle.com may prove useful.) Cheers, CWC 12:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

 * Contrarian scientific views
 * Pournelle has expressed support for several viewpoints that differ from popular themes. These include skepticism on a significant human contribution to global warming and on evolution, and he has advocated research to directly investigate Peter Duesberg's controversial views on the cause of AIDS. He emphasizes that in some cases, particularly when the effects of wrong decisions could be disastrous, contrarian research by competent researchers is valuable as insurance.
 * Although claiming not to be a proponent of Intelligent design, he argues (in opposition to many critics) that it can generate falsifiable hypotheses that contribute to the understanding of evolution. He regards proposals to teach Intelligent Design in public schools as less damaging to education than the expert-dominated, centralized educational systems he sees as a prerequisite for banning such proposals.

 * Muuuch later - I can find something like such views from him but not exactly as this wass phrased and not third party coverage on it so think this is OR and UNDUE. Yes he had what I would call alternative views rather than contrarian in the sense of opposing things.  More offering things as possibilities or pointing out where science was still developing, evaluating the scientific quality of positions, speculating on possibilities -- he was a Science Fiction author after all.   I did not find him advocating doing Duesberg research, but his website had this view of the reaction.  I also found items on global warming (e.g. here and  here) ad on intelligent design (e.g. here and here).  James Hogan (another science fiction author of the 1970s) had somewhat similar comments, but in all cases these are writers offering their own view of things.   Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

article is too long
This is a Wikipedia entry about an opinionated science fiction author, not the president of the United States. The 'Politics in fiction' section can be shorted a lot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.40.148 (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

1979 Tom Snyder interview with JP online
http://www.nyoatrader.com/blog/2010/01/18/a-look-into-the-future/ - Bevo (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Black Holes Redlink
< User:TheLastWordSword Jump to: navigation, search

ISBN-10: 0449239624 ISBN-13: 978-0449239629 So, this is a book edited by Jerry Pournelle. I need to cudgel some other data together from various sources, maybe there is a copy at a library nearby. This is a fairly important book, with a still VOICE-speaking Stephen Hawking story, the "Purple People-Eater" theory before Hawking radiation. '''You hereby are granted permission to edit the page "User:TheLastWordSword/Black Holes (anthology)". Please.''' --TheLastWordSword (talk) 22:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Recurrent themes
The recurrent themes section seems to be original research, at least, sources are not cited. I'm shortening this and putting it into the politics section. Guy who reads a lot (talk) 00:18, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Needs ordering
There were two bibliography sections, so i condensed this down to one-- it would be nice to put these into chronological order, and check some of these, but I'm not sure I have time right now. NumberC35 (talk) 22:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Is he retired?
Did Jerry retire from doing tech articles? I haven't seen any updates in months. What's up?108.23.147.17 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:33, 6 April 2012 (UTC).
 * Anybody? Mcfly?108.23.147.17 (talk)
 * His current columns appear to be at this location: http://anewdomain.net/author/jerry-pournelle/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.46.32.8 (talk) 05:40, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * His current writings are at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/chaosmanor/ and he is not retired. He is working on Lucifer's Hammer now (he referenced this in the Triangulation Interview (episode 90) with Leo Laporte tonight) Codebear (talk) 00:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding "erroroneous" report
Checked Factiva for cited article. Checked Star Tribune's own archives. The cited article appears in both places. WP:VNT applies -- if the report is erroneous enough to merit deletion, please provide a citation of a source that provides more accurate information. Hal (talk) 10:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

'Modern Age'
From 'Modern Age: The First Twenty-Five Years', edited by George A. Pancias, 1988, ISBN 0865970629: "MODERN AGE was founded in 1957 by Russell Kirk, with Henry Regnery and David S Collier. The magazine is now published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute." Accordingly, removing the line about Kenneth Cole's involvement in it. Put it back in if someone can find a citation, but if not, then not.

Two PhDs?
Various weblurbs for Pournelle report that he has "Doctorates in Psychology and Political Science", "advanced degrees in psychology, statistics, engineering, and political science, including two PhDs", and he himself appears to claim "I have a PhD in Psychology". Searching, I can only find thesis titles for his MS and PolSci PhD, in line with what this article already reports. Does anyone have a reliable source for such a thing, or is this perhaps a case of "double counting"? 84.203.43.181 (talk) 23:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

 * There are two problems here, one of logic, the other of WP policy. The logic problem is, how do you prove a negative?  That is, one cannot show that Pournelle doesn't have two PhDs, one can only report what one finds.

 * That said, the next problem is, just what are the limits of WP:NOR? I can tell you that this is the University of Washington's "Degree Validation" page.  For degrees prior to 1983, it refers you to the National Student Clearinghouse.  If you pay their fees, this is an example of the report one will get:

 * Transaction ID.........: 022104809
 * Date Requested.........: 02/16/2011 21:58 EST

 * INFORMATION YOU PROVIDED

 * Subject Name
 * First Name.........: JERRY
 * Middle Name........: EUGENE
 * Last Name..........: POURNELLE

 * School Name............: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON (003798-00)

 * Degree Title...........: TWO DIFFERENT PHD
 * Major Course of Study..: PSYCHOLOGY; POLITICAL SCIENCE
 * Attempt To.............: Verify a degree.

 * INFORMATION VERIFIED

 * Name On School's Records: JERRY EUGENE POURNELLE
 * Date Awarded............: 03/1964
 * Degree Title............: DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
 * Official Name of School.: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
 * Major Course(s) of Study: POLITICAL SCIENCE
 * Dates of Attendance.....: 09/1954 to 03/1964

 * Name On School's Records: JERRY EUGENE POURNELLE
 * Date Awarded............: 06/11/1955
 * Degree Title............: BACHELOR OF SCIENCE
 * Official Name of School.: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
 * Major Course(s) of Study: PSYCHOLOGY
 * Dates of Attendance.....: 09/1954 to 03/1964

 * Name On School's Records: JERRY EUGENE POURNELLE
 * Date Awarded............: 03/21/1958
 * Degree Title............: MASTER OF SCIENCE
 * Official Name of School.: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
 * Major Course(s) of Study: PSYCHOLOGY
 * Dates of Attendance.....: 09/1954 to 03/1964

 * Does that violate WP:NOR? I'm just not sure. Anyone can go to National Student Clearinghouse; anyone can pay their fees; anyone can get their report.  So it can be repeated, in principle. WP:SOURCE says, "Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form"." This would appear to qualify. Hal (talk) 07:49, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

New Novel: Lucifer's Anvil
On Leo Laporte's interview show, Triangulation #90 & #95, Pournelle indicated that he and Larry Niven were in the process of writing a sequal to Lucifer's Hammer. I started to add this and Scray undid the revision as unsourced just as I was about to add the source. Scray also indicated WP:NOTNEWS. I understand the sourcing thing (about to be fixed), but what is it about a world-renowned author who is writing a sequel to a successful novel that is not noteworthy? Cyberherbalist (talk) 06:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

 * A book that does not exist, the title of which could change - at this point it's the author's speculation and it simply sounds like "news" rather than encyclopedic content. -- Scray (talk) 11:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * OK. I see your point. Cyberherbalist (talk) 01:58, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

'"One user, one CPU" ???
I think this is vandalism:

"one user, one CPU." He has also used "Pournelle's law" to apply to the importance of checking cable connections when diagnosing computer problems — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.228.119.58 (talk) 08:53, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

 * Much later, but I have seen that his first use of the term "Pournelle's law" appears to be for the expression "one user, one CPU." here or bio, said to be a phrase for proponents of personal computers versus shared servers here. I do not know the original post, but his chaosmanor website claimed he was saying similar back in the 1970s, and it is one of his recommendations here.
 * The cable reference is to another Pournelle's law. See https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/pournelles-law/
 * "In the early days of my old BYTE column, when the important systems were Apple ][ and CPM on an S-100 Bus system, and everything was experimental and flakey, my column was called The User’s Column. In those days, if you wanted to get computers to do anything useful you spent part of your time poking around, trying this and that until it worked. I developed some rules, one of which became known as Pournelle’s Law. It said 90% of the time the problem was a cable. Actually the first formulation was “you’ll find by and large that it’s a cable.” I just had another confirming instance."

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Citation?
Has anyone been able to find the citation of Bullock (no. 10 on the page as of now)? I'm unable to find a reference to it on Google anywhere but two Wikipedia pages (and various mirrors) and I have not found it in the year it was supposedly published in that particular journal (which was titled differently in 1999). If anyone can find it, please let me know--I'm trying to do research on this topic and I can't just cite an article I'm not sure exists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikibolian (talk • contribs) 22:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Added Details
I have added some details of Jerry Pournelle's life, with citations.Sbelknap (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2019 (UTC) There are several citations in this article to Jerry's own writings. These are likely to be accurate, and often provide informative contextual information. However, there is a need for secondary sources, so I've been adding some of those. I suggest that the links to Jerry's writings be maintained, but that we mainly rely on material from secondary sources. If anybody else has additional secondary sources, that would be great. Sbelknap (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Polymath?
This seems remarkably peacockish. He was notable as a SF writer, and that's very predominantly it. I don't think we'd have an article on him at all on the strength of his polisci or psychology. (Or in "mathematics, systems engineering and experimental statistics" that he seemed intent on wringing out of those same two "advanced degrees" in those subjects -- hey, might as well refer to them both as doctorates!) Even his Byte column seems marginal in that regard (and frankly really only flowed from the other anyway). I'm very much inclined to refactor the lead accordingly. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 05:24, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Essays
In 2014, an IP editor added a statement to the effect that Pournelle had "won first prize in a late 1960's essay contest run by (Avalon Hill's) magazine on how to end the Vietnam war".

This is, as far as I can tell, technically correct (the best kind of correct): Pournelle was indeed listed first among the winners. However, the wording "Pournelle (...) heads the list of 10 best comments on the Vietnam situation. Actually, the list was pared to 30 excellent entries of which the following [10 names, beginning with Pournelle's] were picked at random out of our collective hat" would imply that this was not in fact such a great honor.

I would further note that the parameters for the essay were: "select items from a checklist, then - in 50 words or less - justify your choices". Winners received gift certificates for $6 (in 1968 dollars).

As such, I feel that the article is not improved by mentioning the essay. Are there any objections to removing it? DS (talk) 02:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

 * It's been a week and no one has objected, so I'll remove it. DS (talk) 01:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jerry Pournelle


text:
User:Ditkoofseppala/Sandbox

=OMIGOSH, THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH TO DO HERE!=

Articles are needed for:

 * George E. Haynsworth (if there's any truth in the story - enquiry 22/7/03)
 * Leah Hirsig
 * Carolee Schneeman
 * Jim McWilliams
 * Leonhard Seppala
 * Scotty Allen
 * Arthur Treadwell Walden
 * John Johnson (Alaskan dog driver)
 * Charles Maule Ramsay
 * Olaf Swensen
 * All-Alaska Sweepstakes
 * Fédération Cynologique Internationale stub
 * Canadian Kennel Club needs editing & expansion

And about 400 dog breeds...

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Ditkoofseppala/Sandbox


text:
Selena (film)

Selena is a 1997 American biographical musical drama film about Tejano music star Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, played by Jennifer Lopez. The film, written and directed by Gregory Nava, chronicles the star's rise to fame and death when she was murdered by Yolanda Saldívar at the age of 23. In addition to Lopez, the film also stars Edward James Olmos, Jon Seda, Constance Marie, Jacob Vargas, Lupe Ontiveros, and Jackie Guerra.

Selena was released in the United States on March 21, 1997, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $35 million worldwide against a production budget of $20 million. For her performance, Jennifer Lopez received a Best Actress nomination at the 55th Golden Globe Awards.

In 2021, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and was re-released in select cinemas on April 7, 2022, to coincide with the film's 25th anniversary.

Plot
The film opens backstage at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas on February 26, 1995, right before Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla Pérez plays to a sold-out crowd ("Disco Medley").

In 1961, young Abraham Quintanilla Jr. and his band "The Dinos" are rejected by a restaurant owner after an audition in Texas. They perform for a Mexican-American nightclub, but a riot ensues when they do not perform the audience's preferred Tejano music, but rather American pop ("Oldies Medley").

Twenty years later, Abraham is married to Marcella Samora, with three children: son Abraham III (A.B.), and daughters Suzette and Selena. Discovering Selena's singing talent, Abraham creates the band "Selena y Los Dinos", her as lead singer, A.B. on bass, and Suzette on drums. Initially reluctant, the children enjoy making music ("We Belong Together"). Moving to Corpus Christi, Texas, the band goes on the road to support the family. After lackluster reception at a carnival, Selena begins adding more dance and personality into her acts. The band's success grows following local performances. In 1989, Selena reveals her bustier during a carnival performance ("Baila Esta Cumbia"), angering Abraham due to its sexually suggestive nature.

In 1990, Chris Pérez auditions as the guitarist. Abraham disapproves of his heavy metal style but hires him after he agrees to cut his hair. Then Selena and Chris eventually fall in love. In 1992, when Chris' former band members trash a hotel suite, Abraham threatens to fire him. A.B. pleads with him to reconsider, mentioning he is needed for their upcoming tour in Mexico. Promoters worry when they realize Selena does not speak Spanish well, but her personality and care for her fans win everyone over. A show almost goes awry when the huge crowd rushes the stage and it buckles ("La Carcacha"). Selena calms them down with a joyous performance ("Como la Flor") and is accepted as an "artist for the people" in Mexico.

After catching Selena hugging Chris on the tour bus, Abraham loses it and fires him and threatens a heartbroken Selena to disband Selena Y Los Dinos if Selena follows him. Eventually on April 2, 1992, Selena insists that Chris marry her, stating that Abraham will never willingly accept their relationship, and they elope at the Nueces County courthouse (though the said courthouse was never seen). The day after a radio station announces their marriage, Abraham tells Selena he is proud of her maturity, having realized that he was too harsh on her and Chris. The Quintanillas congratulate them, accept Chris into their family, and rehire him as the guitarist.

In 1994, José Behar and music executives from EMI Latin attend a Selena concert ("Bidi Bidi Bom Bom"/"No Me Queda Más") and offer her the chance to record an English-language album, showing that she has successfully broken down cultural barriers. Selena opens her first Selena Etc. boutique and asks her fan club president Yolanda Saldívar to manage it. Her live album wins a Grammy for Best Mexican-American album, so her staff chip in to get her a celebratory gift. After claiming she knows the perfect gift and suggesting they give her all of the money to buy it, Yolanda gives Selena a ring resembling the Faberge eggs but does not mention it was a group present. Selena begins recording her crossover album ("I Could Fall In Love") and she and Chris plan to start a family together.

One night, Abraham tells Selena fans are upset as they paid to join her fan club but received nothing. Other funds that Yolanda has been handling cannot be accounted for, and vital business records are missing. Summoned to Q-Productions and confronted by Abraham, Selena, and Suzette, Yolanda denies wrongdoing and says she will find the missing documents. While on the road Selena talks to her mother about being accepted in the English-speaking market with the upcoming crossover album and tour as well as possibly starting a family ("Dreaming of You"). On March 31, 1995, Selena is fatally shot offscreen by Yolanda, who then ends up in a standoff into the night with police and negotiation units. The Quintanilla-Pérez family mourns Selena's death, while a candlelight vigil is held by her fans.

Cast

 * Jennifer Lopez as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez
 * Rebecca Lee Meza as young Selena Quintanilla
 * Edward James Olmos as Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
 * Panchito Gómez as young Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
 * Constance Marie as Marcella Quintanilla
 * Jon Seda as Chris Pérez
 * Lupe Ontiveros as Yolanda Saldívar
 * Jackie Guerra as Suzette Quintanilla
 * Victoria Elena Flores as young Suzette Quintanilla
 * Jacob Vargas as A.B. Quintanilla III
 * Rafael Tamayo as young A.B. Quintanilla III
 * Alexandra Meneses as Sara
 * John Verea as José Behar
 * Ruben Gonzalez as Joe Ojeda
 * Seidy López as Debra
 * Pete Astudillo as himself, Dinos 1990s
 * Ricky Vela as himself, Dinos 1990s
 * Don Shelton as himself, Dinos 1990s
 * Janice Cruz, Lopez's body double (uncredited)

Development
On March 31, 1995, Selena was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldívar, a former friend who had managed the singer's Selena Etc. boutiques. Response by the Hispanic community was comparable to the reaction of the assassinations of John Lennon and John F. Kennedy, or the death of Elvis Presley. Newsstands were swarmed by people looking for items concerning Selena. Shortly thereafter, several media projects were in production, including eight unauthorized biographies, six documentaries and two Quintanilla family-unapproved biographical films. This led Abraham to begin working on an authorized biographical material within weeks of her death, a process he found difficult since the family was still mourning.

He believed the film would "put an end to all the false rumors" that were circulating through the media at the time and "silence [the media] from telling the wrong story." He wanted "the whole world to know the [true] story about [Selena]." A.B. spoke out about the family's concern about possible "misinterpretation of [Selena], [their] family, and a culture" by outside sources, and their belief that it was imperative to release their own official film. A.B. claimed the decision was foisted upon them after learning about the unauthorized biographies and films that could have potentially misconstrued Selena's story. At the time of Abraham's decision, there were "gossip and hurtful crazy things that were coming from the press" about the family's plan on a film. Abraham wanted the film to immortalize Selena "in a true positive and beautiful way [and wanted] to celebrate her life [and to] quiet and put to rest all [the] negative ugliness [the media had portrayed]."

News of Abraham's desire to release an official authorized film reached Hollywood, and American film producer, Moctesuma Esparza. Esparza immediately approached Abraham at his Corpus Christi office about partnering to produce the film. He educated Abraham about the filmmaking process and the support system he could provide while giving Abraham authoritative control over casting, approval of the script and choosing the director. On August 30, 1995 (a week after he and Abraham agreed to partner), Esparza returned to Corpus Christi from California and brought on Gregory Nava. Abraham disliked Esparza's decision and expressed concern about Nava's potential involvement.

Abraham told Esparza he did not want Nava to be the director because of his ego, though Esparza convinced Abraham that he was the perfect candidate. Producer Robert Katz later said Nava was chosen because other films he directed "[have] a very uplifting and positive quality" and believed they deal with "very strong and tragic elements." The Dallas Morning News found Nava's works to give "moviegoers a passionate, powerful look at Hispanic life". On September 8, 1995, Abraham informed the media his decision to partner with Esparza/Katz Productions and announced the film's budget to be in the range of $15 and $20 million. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Abraham confessed on wanting the duo because they were "in tune with our culture". Other Hispanic filmmakers were considered to direct the film including Luis Valdez and Edward James Olmos (who later joined the cast for the film), but had settled with Nava. Katz said the team had overcome "what most people thought was a fatal contract" by entrusting Abraham's decisions and having a working relationship with him throughout the film's production: "working things out in advance so the studios knew exactly what we were proposing."

Nava began writing the script after recording the Quintanilla family on their stories about Selena. Suzette commented on how Nava took "hours and hours of little stories of our lives and what we would do and how we felt." Nava explained how some stories "had came out" during his recording sessions with the family and published the first draft on March 4, 1996. The incident where Selena and Perez eloped was written in the draft, which Abraham expressed disagreements on. Citing the singer's popularity with children, he was concerned that they could get the wrong message about elopement as being in her best interest.

Nava took a few days to persuade Abraham about the scene's content before he agreed to it, noting that although he understood Abraham's viewpoint, Selena's elopement was important to include because it was a major part of her story. He further insisted that his character's embrace of the match after the scene would shade a more positive tone after his earlier negative judgments on Selena and Perez's relationship. Curious about how Nava found out about the elopement, Abraham asked the director and found out that he had interviewed Perez, who had said that Selena had coaxed him into engagement. The earlier assumption was that Perez had pressured her into secretly getting married.

Casting
Roger Mussenden was hired as casting director, and he held casting calls throughout the United States including San Antonio, Texas, Miami, Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. Casting calls began on March 16, 1996, and concluded on March 23. Over 21,000 people auditioned for the title role, becoming the second largest audition since the search for Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939). Casting turnouts reached 10,000 in Los Angeles and 5,000 in Chicago, while turnouts reached 8,000 in San Antonio. Mussenden chose newcomer 10-year-old Rebecca Lee Meza of Harlingen, Texas to portray young Selena.

Mexican actress Salma Hayek was invited to test the role of Selena by Esparza. Hayek turned the role down; she said she felt it was "too early" to base a movie on Selena and that it would be too emotional. Abraham discovered an actress in Los Angeles and wanted her for the role as Selena, despite her inability to convince the casting crew. He later had a change of heart when American actress and dancer Jennifer Lopez had showed up for the audition.

Lopez found the audition process an elaborated procedure and was asked to sing, dance, and act out the elopement scene in front of the casting crew and Abraham. Within three takes of the elopement scene, Lopez convinced the entire casting crew who believed her performance was "among the strongest". Lopez had previously worked with Nava in My Family (1995). Screen testing was described as "grueling" and required "nine minutes of singing and dancing and eight pages of script." After the announcement that Lopez would portray Selena, news media and fans criticized Abraham for choosing Lopez, a New York City native born to Puerto Rican parents, to play a Texan of Mexican descent.

The Mexican media disapproved of the film and were outraged that Lopez was chosen for the title role. Lopez received backlash from the media and fans because she was not a Mexican American. The Hispanic community began protesting for a recast. During pre-production, Lopez stated: "I know a few people were protesting, but in Corpus [Selena's hometown] everyone has been really supportive". Nava admitted that the backlash was "a little hurtful", and felt the protesters "should be celebrating that we have an all-Latino cast and that Lopez, one of our own, is becoming a star." The announcement was described as the "role of a lifetime," with Lopez's salary for the film reportedly $1M USD, making Lopez the highest paid Hispanic actress up to that time. Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly noted that "nothing could have prepared [Lopez] for the hype attached to her million-dollar salary."

On August 8, the Los Angeles Daily News announced that Jon Seda (who is of Puerto Rican descent) and Edward James Olmos (who is of Mexican descent, and previously became as one of the candidates for replacing Nava as the director) had joined the cast as Chris Pérez and Abraham Quintanilla, respectively. After Lopez landed the role, she decided to stay with Suzette Quintanilla, Selena's sister, at her home to study her character in the recordings and footage the family shared with her. Lopez felt that her "spirit and [Selena's] spirit were so similar" which was echoed by the singer's family who found that Lopez mimicked the personality traits of Selena. They believed that Lopez' body language, laugh and how she talked were identical to that of Selena.

Lopez had constant dance rehearsals for the film and said how she would arrive at the studio late in the day after finishing filming for another role. The family often had the entire main cast of the film over for dinner and would notice how they would watch them in their interactions with each other and the way they ate. Edward James Olmos, who took the role as Abraham, was asked to gain 40 lbs for the film. The cast found Olmos to be a father figure for them who often gave advice to the cast during filming.

A.B. found Olmos' portrayal of his father to be convincing, especially in the scene where Abraham was angered after finding out about Selena and Perez' relationship. Band member Pete Astudillo, commenting on production, said he had to do a screen test to play himself and had to improvise in several of his scenes, since he had little dialogue in the film.

Jon Seda often spent time with his subject Chris Pérez for character development. Seda visited Perez at the home he shared with Selena and found a price sticker in the bathroom with a scribbled letter that read "Selena and Chris, I Love You" which further inspired Seda to "show the love they [once] had" in the film. The biographical film focused on Selena's life rather than her death, with Nava saying, "I don't want to attend to [her murder]."

Filming
Principal photography began September 1996, in San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Poteet, Houston, and Lake Jackson, Texas. Nava used locals as extras for the film. Selena's singing voice was dubbed onto Lopez's performance. During the opening of the Selena Etc. boutique scene, Suzette Quintanilla, Selena's sister, believed Lopez was wearing Selena's clothing, but it was in fact a replica recreated by the film's costume designer.

Quintanilla expressed how she was overcome with emotions after seeing Lopez in a replica of the dress Selena had worn to the 1994 Grammy Awards. During the elopement scene, Pérez explained how the scene was reminiscent of the actual event as if he were "transported back in time," and remembered how he had a do not disturb sign and heard a knock on his door. He found the scene to be one of the hardest to watch after and recalled Selena told him that eloping was the only resource they had and they would never have a wedding she dreamed about. Pérez refused to visit the set and explained that he did not want to partake in the film's process.

Seda convinced Perez to visit the set for the scene where his character auditions for the role as the new guitarist for the band. After researching on how to perform a riff on a guitar and having lessons from Pérez, Seda felt that the scene would not come off as authentic since he could not replicate Pérez's guitar riffs. He tricked Pérez into visiting the set so that he could play the riff and have the director shoot a close up of his hands for the film. Seda said how after the film was released that people were convinced he could play the guitar; Seda said he revealed to fans how it was actually Perez performing the riff in the scene.

Nava pointed out how he wanted the performance scenes in the film to be "integrated into the drama and to reflect what the characters were going through emotionally and what Selena was going through emotionally at that particular time." He further explained how he wanted the Astrodome scene to be the opening of the film to show viewers at her height of her career and then flashback to show how she got there. The scene was shot at the San Antonio Alamodome on September 15, 1996, and was attended by 35,000 residents lured by newspaper ads.

Lopez expressed that she was nervous for the scene since it would be the first time she would perform in front of an audience of that size. Furthermore, explaining how uneven she felt due to the criticism she received and was unsure how fans would receive her. Jackie Guerra commented that during the scene she caught a glimpse of Selena's parents sobbing. The cast later expressed how they were overwhelmed with emotions once the scene was completed. Later that night, fans approached Lopez, sobbing and expressed to the actress that “she looked so much” like Selena and the public perception of Lopez changed after her performance.

The hospital scene set after Selena's death was shot once, making everyone present emotional. Guerra said how she was physically and emotionally drained after the filming the scene. She explained how she "could not imagine what's it like to be [the Quintanilla family]" and further said how she had to live with the pain for four months and found the pain the family goes through unimaginable. Lopez said it made her appreciate life even more, whereas Seda expressed that working on the film was one of the hardest for him in terms of departing from the cast.

Music
An original motion picture Selena soundtrack was released by EMI Latin on March 11, 1997, debuting at number 20 on the US Billboard 200. The soundtrack is a compilation of Selena's music, three of which are medleys of Selena's live recording remixed for the film, as well as tracks included in the film and tribute songs from various artists. The only songs featured on the soundtrack that were not in the film were "Is it the Beat," "Only Love" and "A Boy Like That," and Selena tributes sung by other artists. The only recordings heard in the film were the "Cumbia Medley," "Disco Medley" and "Where Did the Feeling Go?", which was played in the last half of the film's closing credits. The Vidal Brothers' "Oldies Medley" was also in the film. All the other songs, including rare tracks, hits and cuts like the "Disco Medley, Part II" (which was recorded live during Selena's 1995 concert at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo), were live recordings of Selena in concerts.

Box office
Selena opened March 21, 1997 and earned $11.6 million on its opening weekend. On its second weekend, the film earned $6.2 million. The following weekend, it earned $6.1 million. The film grossed $35.5 million domestically during its theatrical run.

Home media
The first DVD release of Selena was released in 1997. A 10th Anniversary DVD edition was released on September 18, 2007, by Warner Home Video. The two-disc set contains the original theatrical version (127 minutes) and a director's cut version (134 minutes) of the film, which had been shown on several TV stations before. Extras include Making of Selena: 10 Years Later, Selena, Queen of Tejano, and nine additional scenes. Warner Archive Collection released the Blu-ray format for the first time on May 19, 2020, as a manufacture-on-demand title, and it contained both cuts of the film in addition to all the extras from the 10th Anniversary DVD. Selena was re-released in theaters on April 7, 2022, by Iconic Distribution, to mark twenty five years of the classic film.

Critical response
Selena received mostly positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 66% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 85 reviews, with an average score of 6/10. The critics’ consensus reads, "Selena occasionally struggles to tell its subject's story with depth or perspective, but those flaws are rendered largely irrelevant by Jennifer Lopez in the title role." At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 67 based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, was impressed by the acting, and gave Selena three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Young Selena is played by Becky Lee Meza, who has a big smile and a lot of energy. The teenage and adult Selena is played by Lopez in a star-making performance. After her strong work as the passionate lover of Jack Nicholson in the current Blood and Wine, here she creates a completely different performance, as a loyal Quintanilla who does most of her growing up on a tour bus with her dad at the wheel." Entertainment Weekly believed Lopez perfected Selena's accent while "studying performance footage of the pop sensation" according to Nava. Lopez said "you need to do your homework on this gig" because Selena was "fresh in the public's mind".

Film critic Lisa Kropiewnicki liked the film and wrote, "Jennifer Lopez delivers a breakout performance...[and] Nava's engaging script wisely mines his subject's life for humor and conflict, embracing Selena Quintanilla's passion for music." Film critic James Berardinelli also liked the film and the screenplay, writing, "It would have been easy to trivialize Selena's story, turning it into a sudsy, made-for-TV type motion picture." He believed the acting was top-notch and wrote "Jennifer Lopez is radiant as the title character, conveying the boundless energy and enthusiasm that exemplified Selena, while effectively copying not only her look but her mannerisms. I wonder if Selena's family, upon watching this performance, felt an eerie sense of déjà vu."

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan gave the film a mixed review. He wrote the film is part of a "completely predictable Latino soap opera." However, he added that "there are chunks of Selena that only a stone could resist. This movie turns out to be a celebration not only of the singer but also (as "What's Love" was for Angela Bassett) of the actress who plays her, Jennifer Lopez." Leonard Maltin gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four; while he praised Lopez and Olmos, he called the film a "glossy, congenially corny biography. "Ironically," Maltin wrote, "the film does more to solidify Selena's celebrity than she was able to accomplish in her short lifetime."

Some critics, however, did not like how the film appeared to be a sanitized Selena portrait. Critic Walter Addiego considers Nava's work a worshipful biography of her. Addiego, writing for the San Francisco Examiner, did have a few enjoyable moments viewing the film but wrote, "You can't help cheering for Selena, but the good feeling is diminished by the sense that her story's been simplified and sanitized."

Legacy and recent history
In Latin Sensations (2001), Herón Márquez noted that the film's success "introduced English-speaking America to Selena's music, made Jennifer Lopez a bona fide star, and awakened Corporate America to the enormous and growing presence—and buying power—of Latinos in the United States."

On January 1, 2021, all 38 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus signed a letter addressed to the Library of Congress "formally nominating" Selena to be added to the National Film Registry. The lobbying effort aimed at Carla Hayden was led by Representative Joaquin Castro (D–TX), chairman of the caucus, and framed the act as a way to, among other things, more broadly recognize Latino contributions to film, increase acclaim of Latino cinema and effect broader cinematic representation. On December 14, 2021, the film was officially selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Selena: The Series is a biographical television series about the late singer Selena Quintanilla. The series comes 23 years after its original film and premiered on Netflix on December 4, 2020.

title: Selena (film)


text:
Col du Tourmalet

Col du Tourmalet (elevation 2115 m) is one of the highest paved mountain passes in the French Pyrenees, in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées. Sainte-Marie-de-Campan is at the foot on the eastern side and the ski station La Mongie two-thirds of the way up. The village of Barèges lies on the western side, above the town of Luz-Saint-Sauveur.

Higher roads in the Pyrenees
The Col du Tourmalet is the highest paved mountain pass in the French Pyrenees second only to the Col de Portet. So in contrast to frequent claims (see for example ), it is neither the highest paved road in the Pyrenees nor the highest paved mountain pass in the  Pyrenees. Paved roads leading to the mountain lakes Lac de Cap-de-Long and Lac d'Aumar in the same French Department Hautes-Pyrénées are higher, as these lakes are at altitudes of 2161 m and 2192 m, respectively. However, these roads are not mountain passes. Departing directly from the Col du Tourmalet, there is a road to the mountain pass Col de Laquets with an altitude of 2637 m However, this road is not paved. Finally, the highest paved mountain pass in the Pyrenees is the Port d'Envalira in Andorra with its altitude of 2407 m.

Meaning of "Tourmalet"
Some Frenchmen believe that Tourmalet translates into "bad trip" or "bad detour" because in French Tour translates into "trip" and mal translates into "bad"; however, the correct language to translate from is Gascon, not French, because of the mountain's location in the Gascony region. Then Tour becomes "distance", which is spelled "tur" but pronounced "tour" and mal is translated into "mountain". The translation from Gascon to English then becomes "Distance Mountain".

Tourmalet is also a cheese made from sheep milk produced in these mountains.

Details of the climb
The western side, from Luz-Saint-Sauveur, is 19.0 km long, climbing 1404 m at an average of 7.4% with a maximum of 10.2% near the summit. Starting from Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, the eastern climb is 17.2 km, gaining 1268 m, at an average of 7.4% with a maximum of 12%. As with most French climbs, each kilometre mountain pass cycling milestones indicate the height of the summit, the distance to the summit, and the average gradient of the next kilometre. According to PJAMM Cycling's ranking system, the east side is the 24th hardest bike climb in France, and the west is ranked 26th.

From the pass, a rough track leads to the Pic du Midi de Bigorre observatory. Up to the Col de Laquets (elevation 2637 m) this track is a dirt and gravel road. The part between the Col de Laquets and the observatory is a steep and narrow hiking track. Some terraces of the observatory can be entered for free from the end of the track. Paying an entrance fee, one can enter the actual observatory and also take the cable car down to La Mongie.

Tour de France
The Col du Tourmalet is one of the most famous climbs on the Tour de France. It has been included more than any other pass, starting in 1910, when the Pyrenees were introduced. The first rider over was Octave Lapize, who went on to win the general classification in Paris. In 1913, Eugène Christophe broke his fork on the Tourmalet and repaired it himself at a forge in Sainte-Marie-de-Campan.

Up to 2020, the Tour has visited the Col du Tourmalet a total of 87 times. The total includes three stage finishes at the summit and three at La Mongie. Since 1980 it has been ranked hors catégorie, or exceptional. The Vuelta a España has also crossed the pass several times.

The 2010 edition of the Tour included the pass on two consecutive stages, crossing westward on the 16th stage to Pau and eastward on the 17th stage with a finish at the summit.

At the col is a memorial to Jacques Goddet, director of the Tour de France from 1936 to 1987, and a large statue of Octave Lapize gasping for air as he struggles to make the climb. The Souvenir Jacques Goddet prize is awarded for the first rider to cross the Col du Tourmalet summit.

In 2023, the climb was featured in the Tour de France Femmes for the first time, as the queen stage of the race.

Origins in the Tour
The Pyrenees were included in the Tour de France at the insistence of Alphonse Steinès, a colleague of the organiser, Henri Desgrange. He told the story in a book published soon after the event.

Steinès first agreed that the Tour would pay 2,000 francs to clear the Col d'Aubisque, then came back to investigate the Tourmalet. He started at Sainte-Marie-de-Campan with sausage, ham and cheese at the inn opposite the church and arranged to hire a driver called Dupont from Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Dupont and Steinès made it the first 16 km, after which their car came to a stop. Dupont and Steinès started to walk but Dupont turned back after 600m, shouting: "The bears come over from Spain when it snows". Steinès set off. He mistook voices in the darkness for thieves. They were youngsters guarding sheep with their dog. Steinès called to one.

"Son, do you know the Tourmalet well? Could you guide me? I'll give you a gold coin. When we get to the other top, I'll give you another one"

The boy joined him but then turned back.

Steinès rested on a rock. He considered sitting it out until dawn, then realised he'd freeze. He slipped on the icy road, then fell into a stream. He climbed back to the road and again fell in the snow. Exhausted and stumbling, he heard another voice.

"Tell me who goes there or I'll shoot".

"I'm a lost traveller. I've just come across the Tourmalet".

"Oh, it's you, Monsieur Steinès! We were expecting you! We got a phone call at Ste-Marie-de-Campan. Everybody's at Barèges. It's coming on for three o'clock. There are search teams of guides out looking for you".

The organising newspaper, L'Auto, had a correspondent at Barèges, a man called Lanne-Camy. He took him for a bath and provided new clothes.

Steines sent a telegram to Desgrange: "Crossed Tourmalet stop. Very good road stop. Perfectly feasible".

Le Tour de France Femmes
The Col du Tourmalet featured in the premiere event of Le Tour de France Femmes in 2023 as the finish of stage 7 on July 29.

Other events
The Col du Tourmalet features in other bicycle races, including the Vuelta a España when it has made excursions into France. It is also on the route of cyclosportive competitions. Thousands of amateur riders make the climb every year and many take documents to have rubber-stamped in the shop at the summit to show they have made it.

title: Col du Tourmalet


text:
GNU Project

The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaboratively developing and publishing software that gives everyone the rights to freely run the software, copy and distribute it, study it, and modify it. GNU software grants these rights in its license.

In order to ensure that the entire software of a computer grants its users all freedom rights (use, share, study, modify), even the most fundamental and important part, the operating system (including all its numerous utility programs) needed to be free software. Stallman decided to call this operating system GNU (a recursive acronym meaning "GNU's not Unix!"), basing its design on that of Unix, a proprietary operating system. According to its manifesto, the founding goal of the project was to build a free operating system, and if possible, "everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system so that one could get along without any software that is not free." Development was initiated in January 1984. In 1991, the Linux kernel appeared, developed outside the GNU project by Linus Torvalds, and in December 1992 it was made available under version 2 of the GNU General Public License. Combined with the operating system utilities already developed by the GNU project, it allowed for the first operating system that was free software, commonly known as Linux.

The project's current work includes software development, awareness building, political campaigning, and sharing of new material.

Origins
Richard Stallman announced his intent to start coding the GNU Project in a Usenet message in September 1983. Despite never having used Unix prior, Stallman felt that it was the most appropriate system design to use as a basis for the GNU Project, as it was portable and "fairly clean".

When the GNU project first started they had an Emacs text editor with Lisp for writing editor commands, a source level debugger, a yacc-compatible parser generator, and a linker. The GNU system required its own C compiler and tools to be free software, so these also had to be developed. By June 1987, the project had accumulated and developed free software for an assembler, an almost finished portable optimizing C compiler (GCC), an editor (GNU Emacs), and various Unix utilities (such as,  ,  ,   and  ). They had an initial kernel that needed more updates.

Once the kernel and the compiler were finished, GNU was able to be used for program development. The main goal was to create many other applications to be like the Unix system. GNU was able to run Unix programs but was not identical to it. GNU incorporated longer file names, file version numbers, and a crashproof file system. The GNU Manifesto was written to gain support and participation from others for the project. Programmers were encouraged to take part in any aspect of the project that interested them. People could donate funds, computer parts, or even their own time to write code and programs for the project.

The origins and development of most aspects of the GNU Project (and free software in general) are shared in a detailed narrative in the Emacs help system. (C-h g runs the Emacs editor command describe-gnu-project .) It is the same detailed history as at their web site.

GNU Manifesto
The GNU Manifesto was written by Richard Stallman to gain support and participation in the GNU Project. In the GNU Manifesto, Stallman listed four freedoms essential to software users: freedom to run a program for any purpose, freedom to study the mechanics of the program and modify it, freedom to redistribute copies, and freedom to improve and change modified versions for public use. To implement these freedoms, users needed full access to the source code. To ensure code remained free and provide it to the public, Stallman created the GNU General Public License (GPL), which allowed software and the future generations of code derived from it to remain free for public use.

Philosophy and activism
Although most of the GNU Project's output is technical in nature, it was launched as a social, ethical, and political initiative. As well as producing software and licenses, the GNU Project has published a number of writings, the majority of which were authored by Richard Stallman.

Free software
The GNU project uses software that is free for users to copy, edit, and distribute. It is free in the sense that users can change the software to fit individual needs. The way programmers obtain the free software depends on where they get it. The software could be provided to the programmer from friends or over the Internet, or the company a programmer works for may purchase the software.

Funding
Proceeds from associate members, purchases, and donations support the GNU Project.

Copyleft
Copyleft is what helps maintain free use of this software among other programmers. Copyleft gives the legal right to everyone to use, edit, and redistribute programs or programs' code as long as the distribution terms do not change. As a result, any user who obtains the software legally has the same freedoms as the rest of its users do.

The GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation sometimes differentiate between "strong" and "weak" copyleft. "Weak" copyleft programs typically allow distributors to link them together with non-free programs, while "strong" copyleft strictly forbids this practice. Most of the GNU Project's output is released under a strong copyleft, although some is released under a weak copyleft or a lax, push-over free software license.

Operating system development

The first goal of the GNU project was to create a whole free-software operating system. Because UNIX was already widespread and ran on more powerful machines, compared to contemporary CP/M or MS-DOS machines of time, it was decided it would be a Unix-like operating system. Richard Stallman later commented that he considered MS-DOS "a toy".

By 1992, the GNU project had completed all of the major operating system utilities, but had not completed their proposed operating system kernel, GNU Hurd. With the release of the Linux kernel, started independently by Linus Torvalds in 1991, and released under the GPLv2 with version 0.12 in 1992, for the first time it was possible to run an operating system composed completely of free software. Though the Linux kernel is not part of the GNU project, it was developed using GCC and other GNU programming tools and was released as free software under the GNU General Public License. Most compilation of the Linux kernel is still done with GNU toolchains, but it is currently possible to use the Clang compiler and the LLVM toolchain for compilation.

As of present, the GNU project has not released a version of GNU/Hurd that is suitable for production environments since the commencement of the GNU/Hurd project over 33.60241450925926 years ago.

GNU/Linux
A stable version (or variant) of GNU can be run by combining the GNU packages with the Linux kernel, making a functional Unix-like system. The GNU project calls this GNU/Linux, and the defining features are the combination of:

The GNU packages consist of numerous operating system tools and utilities (shell, coreutils, compilers, libraries, etc.) including a library implementation of all of the functions specified in POSIX System Application Program Interface (POSIX.1). The GCC compiler can generate machine-code for a large variety of computer-architectures.
 * GNU packages (except for GNU Hurd)
 * Linux kernel – this implements program scheduling, multitasking, device drivers, memory management, etc. and allows the system to run on a large variety of computer-architectures. Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel under the GNU General Public License in 1992; it is however not part of the GNU project.
 * non-GNU programs – various free software packages which are not a part of the GNU Project but are released under the GNU General Public License or another FSF-approved Free Software License.

Within the GNU website, a list of projects is laid out and each project has specifics for what type of developer is able to perform the task needed for a certain piece of the GNU project. The skill level ranges from project to project but anyone with background knowledge in programming is encouraged to support the project.

The packaging of GNU tools, together with the Linux kernel and other programs, is usually called a Linux distribution (distro). The GNU Project calls the combination of GNU and the Linux kernel "GNU/Linux", and asks others to do the same, resulting in the GNU/Linux naming controversy.

Most Linux distros combine GNU packages with a Linux kernel which contains proprietary binary blobs.

GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines
The GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG) is a system distribution commitment used to explain what it means for an installable system distribution (such as a Linux distribution) to qualify as free (libre), and help distribution developers make their distributions qualify.

Mostly, the list describes distributions that are a combination of GNU packages with a Linux-libre kernel (a modified Linux kernel that removes binary blobs, obfuscated code, and portions of code under proprietary licenses) and consist only of free software (eschewing proprietary software entirely). Distributions that have adopted the GNU FSDG include Dragora GNU/Linux-Libre, GNU Guix System, Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre, Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, Trisquel GNU/Linux, PureOS, and a few others.

The Fedora Project's distribution license guidelines were used as a basis for the FSDG. The Fedora Project's own guidelines, however, currently do not follow the FSDG, and thus the GNU Project does not consider Fedora to be a fully free (libre) GNU/Linux distribution.

Strategic projects
From the mid-1990s onward, with many companies investing in free software development, the Free Software Foundation redirected its funds toward the legal and political support of free software development. Software development from that point on focused on maintaining existing projects, and starting new projects only when there was an acute threat to the free software community. One of the most notable projects of the GNU Project is the GNU Compiler Collection, whose components have been adopted as the standard compiler system on many Unix-like systems.

The copyright of most works by the GNU Project is owned by the Free Software Foundation.

GNOME
The GNOME desktop effort was launched by the GNU Project because another desktop system, KDE, was becoming popular but required users to install Qt, which was then proprietary software. To prevent people from being tempted to install KDE and Qt, the GNU Project simultaneously launched two projects. One was the Harmony toolkit. This was an attempt to make a free software replacement for Qt. Had this project been successful, the perceived problem with the KDE would have been solved. The second project was GNOME, which tackled the same issue from a different angle. It aimed to make a replacement for KDE that had no dependencies on proprietary software. The Harmony project did not make much progress, but GNOME developed very well. Eventually, the proprietary component that KDE depended on (Qt) was released as free software. GNOME has since dissociated itself from the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, and is now independently managed by the GNOME Project.

GNU Enterprise
GNU Enterprise (GNUe) is a meta-project started in 1996, and can be regarded as a sub-project of the GNU Project. GNUe's goal is to create free "enterprise-class data-aware applications" (enterprise resource planners, etc.). GNUe is designed to collect Enterprise software for the GNU system in a single location (much like the GNOME project collects Desktop software).

Recognition
In 2001, the GNU Project received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award for "the ubiquity, breadth, and quality of its freely available redistributable and modifiable software, which has enabled a generation of research and commercial development".

title: GNU Project


text:
Pete Parker

Lionel Dyke "Pete" Parker (September 7, 1895 – February 11, 1991) was a Canadian radio announcer. He was one of the first people to ever broadcast ice hockey. He served overseas in World War I from 1916 to 1919.

Career
On March 14, 1923, Parker made the world's first complete play-by-play radio broadcast of a professional ice hockey game. The broadcast was carried by CKCK Radio in Regina, Saskatchewan. The game, held at Exhibition Park in Regina between the Regina Capitals and the Edmonton Eskimos, was a meeting of two Western Canada Hockey League teams. Edmonton beat Regina, 1–0. This broadcast was officially recognized by Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1972. This followed by one month the Norman Albert broadcast on February 8, 1923, of the third period of a game between Midland and North Toronto of the Ontario Hockey Association. The first-ever full-game radio broadcast was made of a February 22, 1923 game between the Winnipeg Falcons and Port Arthur by Winnipeg radio station CJCG (owned by the Manitoba Free Press).

For many years, it was thought that Parker's broadcast preceded by 8 days the March 22, 1923, first broadcast by Hockey Night in Canada's Foster Hewitt. Hewitt's own biography lists the date of his first hockey broadcast as March 22. However, on March 22, there was no game at Toronto's Arena Gardens to call. Hewitt's first broadcast (of the third period only) may have been on February 16, 1923, for a game between Toronto and Kitchener.

title: Pete Parker