A lovely and sad short story by Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell about the end of the universe, as part of his “12 Blogs of Christmas” series.

The great fantasist Michael Moorcock talks more about agreeing to write a Doctor Who novel. Truly, we live in such strange and wonderful times, that a) one of the great authors of the genre is writing Doctor Who, and b) that it becomes front page (well, of the books section) news in The Guardian.

Abhorrent. And John Leeson’s voice is being badly mis-directed. Why get the original actor if you make him sound completely different?

I don’t think the owners of these social spaces realise the impact their decisions have on participants. Forums aren’t just fungible tools for communication. They’re not replaceable.

It’s particularly frustrating when the owner in question explicitly admits the space is financially sustainable. He just doesn’t want the burden of running it any more.

The lesson to social network creators: plan for permanency and plan for the diminution of your own enthusiasm for the space. You implicitly nurtured the relationships and the conversations within the space and f it’s a space people love but it making you sad, sick, or poor, have mechanisms in place to hand it over. Don’t just kill it.