Scintillations

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p> Quick updates on the Warner Brothers suit against RDR Books: Ansible has gotten hold of the Lexicon book and reports that it has much less quotage than the Web site; as speculated last issue, Steve Vander Ark says that RDR indemnified him when he signed the book contract; the big showdown comes April 14th, if everyone can make room in their schedules. The fan community holds; the biggest effect so far is a very polite divorce between the online Lexicon and the Leaky Cauldron, which had operated together under the name "The Floo Network".

Gary Gygax's death unleashed a flood of closet-leaving by journalists at all sorts of respectable publications. The most startling one was a member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board admitting not only to playing AD&D, but also Gamma World and Paranoia. The best reminiscence came from the Independent's obituarist, who recalled a live-action dungeon created for teams of contestants to try to beat for a BBC radio program. The winning team had been a group of anonymous soldiers who had only said they were based in nearby Hereford, which happens to be a major base for the British special forces...

In another high-profile demise, the Spirit rover, having survived over three years of Martian weather and terrain, is finally meeting its match in the form of budget cuts. Instead of keeping it awake through the Martian winter for atmospheric measurements, NASA will put it into hibernation for at least that long.

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