Steven Hawking dead, age 76

[Buster's Uncle]

It's early and I've only seen a headline from around midnight.  -Just, a titan of cosmology and nerd icon who wildly beat the odds not dying 40 years ago, and shook the world doing it.

Lori - I strongly urge you to write him up.  I imagine you've seen the Remayne movie and need not look up a lot more than dates and such.  For a science journalist, this is being Jim Cantore when they've nailed the hurricane track - hit the beach and get to work.  Obit/thinkpiece/memorial - your option. Tell teh people about teh Great Hawking. 

[Green1]

What gets me is not just did he do successful research in a prestigious position despite his condition....

He also had two wives and three children on top of that!

A full life.

[Buster's Uncle]

[Lorizael]

Yeah, this is where I don't think I have anything useful to say, when people better acquainted with the subject (Hawking) are plastered across various media outlets for a day or two.

[Buster's Uncle]

Not the point, sir; if you get a steady gig, they're going to tap you on the shoulder and say Cantore-track-landfall-beach-GO!  This is something I expect you to be able to extemporize eloquently on for a moderate-length post, and you need to do it as a training exercise precisely BECAUSE everyone's doing it and you'd have to in a steady science-writing job - so let your unique take be heard.

A few good paragraphs, roughly, north of 500 up to 1500 words, touching on his life and hurdles, but about his accomplishments, quantum black holes, and why he was important and that kind of thing, by teacher's bedtime, or teacher will be disappointed in you - (and you already have that covered, so chop chop).  Don't overthink it, no worries about style and format, only be entertaining, not rigorous.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ha.  Anyway, I happen to have just made it to the science news for the first time in a week, and of course Hawking is the very first item on the page.

You may not not admire what the man made of his life with the cross HE had to bear.

He was the guest on a Larry King Live circa mid-90s, and my parents were fascinated (Dad kinda infected Mom with his intense interest in medical oddities and the people living with them, Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins having lived out long retirements down at the area of North Carolina he was from) and I was totally briefing them in some depth on the man during commercial breaks -King, for all the virtues of his unresearched interviewing style never exactly nuking a subject thoroughly from orbit- and they were all "where do you know all this from?" and I was all "I'm a nerd and have known he existed forever; too many places to recall" (the literally true answer of where I first heard of Dr. Hawking was Gregory Benford's Timescape, but that's not actually as helpful an answer to people who don't read a lot of SF).

[Lorizael]

* Lorizael gulps.

[Lorizael]

What the what that works here? I thought that only worked on a version of Poly that hasn't existed in a decade!

[Buster's Uncle]

New one to me, too, after living here over six years.

* Lorizael gulps.

Love you.

Believe in you.

[Lorizael]

I think my first explicit awareness of Hawking was that my oldest brother got A Brief History of Time as probably a Christmas gift one year. (All of the Loribros are giant nerds.) Odds are I was in the single digits when this happened.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yah - I would have been swallowing Benford whole in single digits if I'd discovered him as soon as he published.

[Buster's Uncle]

Teacher is disappointed - hates to have to come out and say so, because teacher knows you and knows that this bluntness feeds problems you have to live with and it hurts you.  -But a professional may not rely on any such understanding from real managers, nor the usual attempts at diplomacy you usually get from your friend coaching you.

Therefore, on the rare occasion I go to Do it Now chop chop, I'd hope you have the respect for my judgement to assume I'm right and you should stand and deliver, and I surmise that there's little I'm saying in this post that you didn't already know when you went to bed last night, and hateful inner Lori has had it playing on repeat, phrased as "I suck".

Sir, fight it not merely on mental health grounds for your own happiness needs, but because it's functionally demotivating and counterproductive.  Own it and work on doing better going forward.

Now, we'll settle for you doing your Hawking piece today sans any external reason preventing the effort, not least because it's not too late for it if this was RL.  I believe in you and that you can do it.  I repeat, chop chop.

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Yo, everybody - ignore the sideshow; the purpose of the thread was to announce in case of anyone hadn't heard, and your own remarks on Dr. Hawking and reaction to his passing are entirely welcome.