That is quite sad, and to me unexpected. From what I know he wasn't that old.
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He gave a wonderful talk at a Typecon years ago I still recall vividly . . .

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/remembering-bill-hill-important-operating-s...

I am deeply saddened by this loss. Last talked to him on the phone a few months ago. He was a memorable and irascible fellow, passionate about things that mattered to him and ought to matter to everyone. Damn.

I remember that talk as well. A memorable man, full of energy and interesting ideas. A shock that he's gone so soon.

This news was a sad way to start the day. Bill and I didn't always agree, but I admired his metaphorical mind: his ability to make sense of one thing through the prism of another, e.g. how his experience tracking animals informed his thoughts on reading. His Osprey paper [MS Word Doc link] is now in parts an historical document, as one would expect from something last updated in 1999, but I re-read some of it today and still found it interesting an insightful. I can't think of a more fitting tribute to Bill than to encourage everyone to spend some time today lost in 'ludic reading'.

I picked up the news via Berkson and Phinney on Facebook.
I spent a lot of time emailing with Bill. Chewing the fat about this and that. (For some reason, I remember a bad joke - Bill mentioned running into Graham Nash on the plane to Hawaii and that, coincidentally, Nash had a house near Bill's on Kauai. I emailed Bill back asking if he knew whether it was a very, very fine house.) It's ok to start singing.... go with it.

To re-state what Thomas said on Facebook - I knew him, I liked him.

He was a mentor and teacher to me in the field of fonts, typography, and readability. I owed him one.

There's a song that was written by a guy named Nick Gravenites called Buried Alive In The Blues.
Janis Joplin was scheduled to record the vocals for it the day AFTER she overdosed. (They included the song on the record "Pearl" as an instrumental.)

Bill was in super physical condition and had just announced a new "readability" related project that he had gotten involved with on his blog.

The unexpectedness of it.....

On the subject of jokes, it was from Bill that I heard 'What do you call two type designers in a room together? ... An argument.' Which would serve quite well as a motto for Typophile.

Bill’s Channel 9 videos.

This very sad... I asked Bill what should I do next.. I think I should design a decent font editor, but he said we have thousands of SDEs why don't you design a typeface the way we did Tahoma... ironically it is used in the geek wire article. Very sad. Think I'll make a very hot Indian Curry in honour of bill.

Bill was a real character and had real character. Best guy on earth to be stuck in an elevator with!