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I did have a flurry of letter writing between 2004 and 2006. In the past, written letters were a kind of compromise. I send you proof of what I mean and my feelings. Now, in a way, the electronic is proof of trust, as it is easy to resend and distribute, while a handwritten letter is mostly private and difficult to share with others. That made it the right way for one on one communication. But it is so much work... So I stopped, or the replies stopped coming. However I lost some e-mails from some people, a combination of computer change, bit rot, broken servers and moments of melancholy, while I keep full correspondence with some people, with the negative that all that has survived is what I share also with Google. At the same time I still keep one sided traces of long and I suppose brilliant written correspondence, as I have no real idea today what I wrote, only what they wrote back. I always mused that I should keep a copy of my letters, but I felt that was not the point, as in that case, just write an e-mail. Written letters are like hostage exchanges, and you have to trust the other side to take care of your children. Letters also allow the exchange of other things. Images, gifts, old style music. The letters mostly started because exchanging music CDs requires an envelope, and that requires at least a short written letter. I have tortured a few select people with my own musical tastes since 2003, and I continued in some cases till 2015, though the last wide sending was in 2008. And with some people the exchange of words became the point. Because at least for me to send a physical letter engages a different set of revision than an e-mail, or a social media message. And it also has a degree of permanency. I may prepare a draft, but once it is written it is written, and unless it is horrible, the words on the paper remain, and they are sent. Possibly I stopped doing so when I realised I lost more acquaintances through letters than e-mails. Because the letter is also taken more seriously. And the consequences are real. Conversely, to write of love, ink on paper conveys feeling in a way pixels on a screen cannot do. I am preparing a 20 year anniversary music compilation. The music is ready. I feel I have been composing it the last 14 years, sincethe last one I mentioned, the soundtrack of those lonely years. Now the problem is the physicality, the image, the accompanying text. And the last obstacle will be the accompanying letter. Some people will be easy. But I know others will be extremely hard.

"I write less, and they reply less, and the nostalgia gets stronger, even if it is impossible to return." Ain't that the truth. It's very sad. To which point, I have decided that I need to resurrect the ancient art of letter writing. I have a fountain pen collection that needs exercise and I need to keep my calligraphy hand in. I recently wrote to a couple of non-WGB friends and found the practice remarkably calming and sustaining. So who wants a missive from your truly, written on actual paper, probably in a shade of ink referencing colour finishes on Gibson Les Paul guitars (or whatever other obscure Diamine ink I have to hand)?

Lance Reddick has died. Man, he was only 60. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/17/lance-reddick-dies-john-wick-the-wire-actor

I did not like it as a whole, but it certainly has some bright details, and a quite good casting. I suppose inspired by would be more accurate. However for me they discarded most of the important messages I got from the novel, probably to avoid pushback in the USA: - Decline of the US Empire within ten years. - Unabashed victory of the kleptocrats in the future. It is much more optimistic than the novel, at least if you think it through, although that is offset by the depressing twist of the season ending. If it did not link with WG I would have stopped watching in episode 5, with the introduction of Bob and the phony Cherise / Flynne fight.

As you can see I still come around, though less often. I still enjoy a few RPG and wargame forums which are doing still quite well, though real life is quite busy for me right now. Recently I have been browsing Slack because I expect to meet ArkanGL next Sunday, to see how things are with the old WGB crew, and it still does not click. I have a few free hours every two-three days, not a few minutes every day, The Peripheral watchers are not forum people, so they will set up their own discussion zones. And they go unnoticed by the dinosaurs. My empirical experience with those forums that still work remains the same I said above. A dozen (or more) of people that post at least daily, a core group that know each other by name and style, around 40-50 people, and two-three times as much infrequent posters that are needed to keep the forum from running in clircles discussing the same things time and time again. Add moderation and mobility, so trolls are con-trolled and people move between the three groups so populations hold steady. I do not think we can get those numbers again. And what made the WGB so special was the fascinating and huge Random Thoughts. Most forums have that but it is a big minority of the discussions, rather than the main purpose, and discussions outside the main drive tend to sputter and die in less than a dozen replies. That unique behavious probably arose from the light nudges of our host, as we knew he was looking on us benevolently, and we wanted to do right, and the general awesomeness of some of the frequent posters that energized some discussions and placed a high quality benchmark that made the rest of us strive to be worthy of it. Awesomeness seems to be in short supply right now... I still exchange e-mails with a few WGB people, twenty years later, and even reached out to a guy I had not met (or written) in seven years once I knew I had some free time in Nantes. But every year I write less, and they reply less, and the nostalgia gets stronger, even if it is impossible to return.

My food geek forum is pretty dead anymore (most people have gone to instagram I think?) My Radiohead forum is pretty quiet although I think most of us visit at least once a week...but things only get busy when there's new Radiohead-related music/tours, now. Some of it I think is twitter (it's funny bc I was an early adopter among that group and now I don't go, but they're not interested enough to try Mastodon) and some is facebook and some is that they don't have time in their grown-up lives to hang around with internet weirdos, I suspect.

It's pretty quiet in here isn't it? I miss the old forum days a lot. Inspired by db's post on slack I have logged back in to go round catching the dust bunnies.

It's been a lot of fun looking at how they've changed it for TV purposes. De-Gibsonified it with a touch more of the old ultraviolence and that kind of thing. I think it feels pretty Gibson-y still (and so does West World) and I've enjoyed the West World series as a sci-fi world that doesn't seem committed to maintaining a status quo so I'm hopeful for their take on Gibson being not crap (true so far). Def prefer weekly release cycles vs the Netflix all-at-once style. Get to sit with them for a bit and maybe give 'em a rewatch.

Normally we wait until shows are finished before we start watching, so we don't have to wait each week, but so very many of our friends are watching weekly that we figured we'd better keep up I hate waiting! but it's nice to have the option to rewatch in the meantime, too, instead of rushing through the way we usually do.

I have not yet convinced my wife either to watch it or to give me freedom to watch it without her. I will probably have to give an ultimatum, as we have a similar problem with House of the Dragon.

There really should be a topic for this here. At this time, three episodes have been released. WG seems to dig it quite a lot, and most of the WGB are similarly enthusiastic despite several changes to characters/plot/etc. Personally, really like the casting. Also like the Westworldy nature of it (exemplified, for me, by the heroic future London air scrubbers).

A shop in Oceanside, CA.

Mez is doing some very high-level work with it, if you follow her on twitter.

I have been coming here but not logged in and not noticing new posts Not ignoring you all. We have a decent Slack these days, but of course it's an insider group. I have been hoping The Peripheral would bring some noobz here, but it seems not. But with Twitter Muskifying, who knows? it could happen!

I would not blame anyone, unless it would be WG changing his media sharing habits. A forum requires a critical mass to function, some hundred frequent posters and a dozen or more daily posters. Otherwise it becomes just a series of one on one converstaions and that is better suited to other media. So no single person is to blame. Even a quite heroic effort by Minx and Heavyboots was not enough to make this one take off, mainly because we had no new influx to balance the daily wear and tear. I have to blame myself for not adapting to slack, that seems to work well with a lower headcount. As I come and go, I really need some kind of threads, and possibly why the only parts that work for me are those slow moving ones that actually work like one of the old megathreads. The problem with all the remaining fora I have joined is that they are not very friendly to off-topic threads, even if they do have a subsection for that. I wonder if we will see a sudden influx of people when the TV series comes out.

First time I've stopped by in a while, so while I also miss the good old days I have only myself to blame for not helping to preserve the board's momentum...