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

• 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

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yale s (talk • contribs) 01:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

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)