Occasionally science fiction but mostly frogs and bats.
Sunday, 29 August 2021
Interview with Media Death Cult
Moid and Chris spent quite a few hours chatting to me last weekend. Here's the result. It's one of the best long-form interviews I've done, so I hope you enjoy it - and thanks to Media Death Cult for the initiative.
What a wonderful interview; thanks very much for showing us around your office where all those great works of fiction are produced. Loved all the discussions about not only your writing but subjects ranging from Star Trek to cosmology and UFO’s. Loved your telescope and would really like to see some photos of deep space objects that you mention including Saturn and the Andromeda galaxy. Finally I also enjoyed those wonderful models of aircraft and spaceship; I have always wanted to get a model of the DC3 is this something you built recently ? Thanks !
Thanks, it was fun. I used to post astronomical pictures on my twitter feed and occasionally on the blog, but it was a while ago and the images are scattered here and there.
The DC3 is the Revell 1/48th kit in Berlin Airlift colours which I made about five years ago. I think it's essentially the old Monogram kit, if you go back that far. It's a basic kit with raised panel lines but goes together very nicely and like you I always wanted a DC3.
This was such a good interview, definitely the best one I've heard so far. It's really refreshing to see an interview conducted by someone who's a fan of your work and can ask intelligent questions. Would love to see him do this with Stephen Baxter and Peter Hamilton as well!
Ah, you're in for a treat. The first season seems ropey on first viewing, but it plants the seeds for everything that comes later. Characters have emotional arcs, it has reasonably plausible space battles, and it's high concept space opera.
I hope you're regularly (daily!) backing up all your files to an external USB drive because the hardware on that XP box has got to be skating well past MTBF/end of life - if the power supply doesn't go first, a hard drive will! (and although it's possible to pay someone to recover it, it's a pain!)
Also - what game are you playing with that joystick? :-)
Hi Orin - yes, daily back-ups of all work in progress onto an external hard drive. People have been telling me that the PC is past its MTBF for about ten years! I say, keeping using things until they fail. I'm not a luddite but I despise the whole cycle of endless upgrades that the tech world would like us to be on. In other news, I've just bought my first new one in ten years (and only the fourth phone I've owned, third if you allow that one was brought to replace one lost to theft).
As for the joystick, that's for MS Flight Sim. I've aso got a set of rudder pedals that can go under the table. I run an old version of Flight Sim but it's fine for what I want. I've also got an add-on for carrier operations which is great fun.
I'd sort of figured that your reason for using such a relic was that it forced you to write and stopped you from procrastinating on the internet because you knew if you connected such an old machine it would probably get the equivalent of the melding plague ;-p (but then I saw the joystick and thought "hah, procrastination!")
There are definitely people out there running older kit than yours (I'm aware of a power station where they are running Windows NT 3.51 which came out in 1993 to control a critical system). The question of "how long should an OS be supported" is definitely an interesting one (though in your case I'd be more worried about the hard drive than the Windows XP or Office software).
The new Flight Sim on a top end PC is amazing. On YouTube check out the video "Sydney looking REAL in Flight Simulator" from about one minute in if you haven't seen it.
Hi Orin - actually it's never been connected to the internet (or maybe once, for some licensing thing) so even when it wasn't a relic, I kept it strictly for writing. I think that's half the reason it works so reliably, in fact, because it's not been muddled up with endless software releases.
The only real issues with it that it won't open .docx files, so I have to convert them back to .doc on another machine, and it can't open some pdf formats. I can live with those limitations!
What a wonderful interview; thanks very much for showing us around your office where all those great works of fiction are produced. Loved all the discussions about not only your writing but subjects ranging from Star Trek to cosmology and UFO’s. Loved your telescope and would really like to see some photos of deep space objects that you mention including Saturn and the Andromeda galaxy. Finally I also enjoyed those wonderful models of aircraft and spaceship; I have always wanted to get a model of the DC3 is this something you built recently ? Thanks !
ReplyDeleteThanks, it was fun. I used to post astronomical pictures on my twitter feed and occasionally on the blog, but it was a while ago and the images are scattered here and there.
DeleteThe DC3 is the Revell 1/48th kit in Berlin Airlift colours which I made about five years ago. I think it's essentially the old Monogram kit, if you go back that far. It's a basic kit with raised panel lines but goes together very nicely and like you I always wanted a DC3.
This was such a good interview, definitely the best one I've heard so far. It's really refreshing to see an interview conducted by someone who's a fan of your work and can ask intelligent questions. Would love to see him do this with Stephen Baxter and Peter Hamilton as well!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks. Hopefully Moid will get to do some more along the same lines.
DeleteLovely model of the Enterprise. Goo to hear you talk too.
ReplyDeleteAwesome interview, yep Trek over Wars - dare I ask, any views on B5? Looked like you were having fun ... apart from the book signing maybe :-)
ReplyDeleteNever seen B5.
ReplyDeleteAh, you're in for a treat. The first season seems ropey on first viewing, but it plants the seeds for everything that comes later. Characters have emotional arcs, it has reasonably plausible space battles, and it's high concept space opera.
DeleteOMG highly recommended. It’s great
DeleteI hope you're regularly (daily!) backing up all your files to an external USB drive because the hardware on that XP box has got to be skating well past MTBF/end of life - if the power supply doesn't go first, a hard drive will! (and although it's possible to pay someone to recover it, it's a pain!)
ReplyDeleteAlso - what game are you playing with that joystick? :-)
Hi Orin - yes, daily back-ups of all work in progress onto an external hard drive. People have been telling me that the PC is past its MTBF for about ten years! I say, keeping using things until they fail. I'm not a luddite but I despise the whole cycle of endless upgrades that the tech world would like us to be on. In other news, I've just bought my first new one in ten years (and only the fourth phone I've owned, third if you allow that one was brought to replace one lost to theft).
ReplyDeleteAs for the joystick, that's for MS Flight Sim. I've aso got a set of rudder pedals that can go under the table. I run an old version of Flight Sim but it's fine for what I want. I've also got an add-on for carrier operations which is great fun.
"first new phone" that should be.
ReplyDeleteI'd sort of figured that your reason for using such a relic was that it forced you to write and stopped you from procrastinating on the internet because you knew if you connected such an old machine it would probably get the equivalent of the melding plague ;-p (but then I saw the joystick and thought "hah, procrastination!")
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely people out there running older kit than yours (I'm aware of a power station where they are running Windows NT 3.51 which came out in 1993 to control a critical system). The question of "how long should an OS be supported" is definitely an interesting one (though in your case I'd be more worried about the hard drive than the Windows XP or Office software).
The new Flight Sim on a top end PC is amazing. On YouTube check out the video "Sydney looking REAL in Flight Simulator" from about one minute in if you haven't seen it.
Hi Orin - actually it's never been connected to the internet (or maybe once, for some licensing thing) so even when it wasn't a relic, I kept it strictly for writing. I think that's half the reason it works so reliably, in fact, because it's not been muddled up with endless software releases.
ReplyDeleteThe only real issues with it that it won't open .docx files, so I have to convert them back to .doc on another machine, and it can't open some pdf formats. I can live with those limitations!
This was the kind of interview I'd always hoped you'd get a chance to do. Really enjoyed it and it was neat to see your workspace as well!
ReplyDelete