<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>The pleasant memories of an evening with Damien Broderick and Rudy Rucker led me to discover that Damien had passed (damn.) This caused me to become worried about Rudy, who is about the same age as Damien, so I looked into that. The good professor is alive and well as far as the internet knows, but there was a comment about his having suffered a stroke in 2008. He recovered, but the experience led to some deep introspection. He was only 61 yrs then. Warranties on life’s subsystems begin to expire in one’s seventh decade (how well I understand that.) One is never sure how much time is left on the old game clock.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>After his stroke, during recovery at home, Rucker asked himself what were his top priorities in life, what did he want to do most. He asked himself if he had time to write only one more book, what would he write about?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>As many of us might do, he chose to write an autobiography. His is called Nested Scrolls.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I ordered a copy and have started reading. That man has TALENT! He is a most compelling writer. Once in a very long while you meet a person like that, a true polymath: he is good at everything he does, good enough with language to sell his words, great cook, artist, mathematician, computer scientist, great conversationalist, easy to be around, super nice guy. Any good writer’s best work is often his memoirs (examples are many) or fictionalized versions, in novel form (examples are even many-er) but it is easy to tell when a good writer is writing a topic he knows so well, because he was there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>