Re: Two SF-adjacent stories from RL

On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 15:26:27 -0400, William Hyde wrote:
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In the late 1990s, a Canadian civil servant and his daughter were avid
players of "Asheron's Call", a game I recall Dorothy mentioning. Through
the game the daughter met her future husband, a German guy who moved to
Canada and tried to set up an internet sales site specializing in
snowboards.  He hated all the options then available, so started his own
company with cash from his father in law, who got shares.
 
Over the past five years the father-in-law, Bruce McKean, has donated
200 million dollars to CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Foundation).
 
The young man's company turned out to be Shopify.  Of course, he might
have had the same success regardless of who he married, but CAMH
wouldn't have gained 200 mil without "Asheron's Call".
 
Kevin Lambert grew up in a Quebec town where his main supply of reading
material came from Costco.  His early reading included  Harry Potter,
Narenia, and "A series of unfortunate events".
 
His novels are non-genre, but he still cites those works as influences,
and has won a slew of prestigious literary awards in France.  Pity
Harold Bloom can't be told about this.
 
The author is in transition (and doesn't care what pronouns you use,
hence the above) but still likes the Potter books, though he's not at
all keen on JKR.  Once published, he says, a book has a life of its own,
independent of the author's later opinions.
 

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What's RL?
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