posted
I'm curious how many writers here have a deep understanding of technology and how it works. Can you setup a PDC? Do you build your own computer? Is Windows 3.11 in your vocabulary? What can you make your computer do for you?
Posts: 6 | Registered: Dec 2006
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When I open the box of my computer, my mind fogs. I started with DOS, then went windows 3.1, 95, 98, and XP
I read science magazines (SCIENCE NEWS especially) regularly and understand all the articles in them. I understand the principles of mechanics, even though I cannot do any of it. I've been learning wood carving and wood turning and talk regulary with my brother who is learning machining and understand all he discusses, and as soon as he gets set up for full projects, I will work with him. I am a draftsman by trade, and have a rudimentary understanding of engineering practices.
In science fiction, a solid science knowledge is quite useable. If you know something about science, you can bluff your way through a story involving technical concepts. If you have read several hundred or more science fiction books of various kinds, you will know what is acceptable science practices and can bluff your way through copying their practices.
Of course, the type of science fiction you write will effect how much science you really need to know. If you write Hard science fiction, like Asimov, Clark, Heinlein, you will need a well developed science background. If you write light science fiction such as where the character and intereactions are key and the science fiction is strictly background and the main character does not understand the technology, then one can get away with very little science fiction background. Of course, one can go with Science Fantasy, such as Star Wars or Flash Gordon, and get away with little or no real science knowledge.
posted
I started off with a Commodore 64, learned Basic and 6510 Assembly. Wrote some primitive pong-like games. That was back when it was all new and magical.
In an Windows XP environment, I wrote a rudimentary chess program in Visual Basic, tic tac toe, and Pacman (enough of it anyway to where I was satified I could do the rest).
Professionally, for the last ten yeared I've work with MVS Mainframes. JCL, COBOL, SAS, VSAM, DB2 ect... application programming with no bells and whistles.
Now I regret going into this line of work because its dying. At least, in the US. _Oh the joys and wonders of globalization and how its everything the ever so wise economists said it would be!_ Underscores=Sarcasm
To tell the truth, now that I'm approaching 35, and life is busier than ever(aka my new hobby is writing), its lost its magic and wonder. I hear the hard drive cycling and wonder what in the world Windows is doing behind my back. So I am not as savvy as I once was in the good old days of DOS when the computer did what I told it and only that.
posted
I have an advanced degree in computer science. Therefore Windows 3.11 is not in my vocabulary. Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I can tell you why floating a rifle barrel improves accuracy and how to do it, why you have to change the fuel/air mix ratio while flying a small plane, and I can read an NMR readout and explain how the machine works. I can explain how tooth geometry affects heat buildup and cutting speed for surgical bone saws, and I've synthesized latex in a lab. Computers--(like knowing how the computer converts the peaks and valleys of NMR readouts into an MRI image)--not so much.
Fortunately, for the kind of writing I try to do, the technology I understand is more important than the technology I don't.
[This message has been edited by J (edited December 15, 2006).]
posted
On computers---some knowledge of basic principles, but nothing on the inner details. [Not even Basic.] I click on this and do that, I press this button and something else happens. If something goes wrong I try to work around it or try to locate what to click on to fix it. (I'm having trouble printing right now---the damned thing shrinks to fit, making the comics I print out so tiny as to be illegible.)
For everything else---a great deal of general knowledge, and occasional depths of it, too. But no systematic study.
This extends beyond science. For example, I know an apallingly great deal about the Beatles and am usually on the lookout for more. (Just yesterday I learned the name of the dentist who...well, if you know the Beatles you'll know what incident in their lives I'm talking about. And if you don't care, it doesn't matter.)
"Caring" is pretty much how I learn all this stuff---I'm interested, I dive in, and days or months later I emerge with a bunch of trivia that, strung together, might add something to my store of knowledge.
posted
Addendum to the above: I know a great deal about a great many things...but not, apparently, how to properly spell "appalling." Maybe this time I got it right...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
If PDC stands for "point defense cannon", then yes. I've built several computers, and rebuilt more from the leftovers of partially obsolete or otherwise defunct computers. Windows is windows, I can use any version of it with equal facility (I do remember 3.11, but it's been a couple of years since I've even seen a working copy). I can do many things with my computer, and I've decided that if some of those things aren't strictly legal then there's no sense crying over spilt milk. Meaning I won't say whether or not I make my computer do everything it could do
Just kidding, of course I don't make it do everything it could do. It could operate a point defense cannon, but do you think I'm going to give up my cycles to something like that when I could be playing games? So not going to happen. Mechanical traps are just fine for my needs.
Do I have a "deep" understanding of technology and how it works?
That depends on what you mean. I understand quite a bit about how technology develops and interacts with a community of adaptive organisms. I also have a high degree of machine empathy, I can often fix minor problems simply by using my chi, and most machines work better the longer I interact with them. Electronics particularly, but also things like motorcycles and lawnmowers. And of course I've studied transistor based logic gates and can design and build a simple ALU, memory registers, io devices, and software using various computer languages.
Yeah, and I love cheating at computer games. Not in multiplayer, it's already unfair enough without that. But I like peeking past the interface and looking at the raw data, yeah. It also helps to remind the computer who's who to whom.
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I'm an electronics engineer (coupled with a healthy dose of programming) so yeah, I know how a processor works. I know a bit about how Windows work, too, picked up mostly from friends. I wouldn't count on myself to get a PC together, though, mainly because I'm not a very meticulous person, and "untidy" is the last thing you want your PC assembly to be Other than that, I know a fair bit of physics (electromagnetism, quantum physics, acoustics, mechanics...) and of biology.
Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I can setup a PDC, BDC, AD, web server, FP server, and any other kind of server I need to. I do build my own computers. I have used Windows 3.11 and I still can if need be. I can even get DOS to work still. I've used every MS OS wince Win98 at least a year before it was released, and I can make a computer do just about anything ... within reason, of course.
Posts: 136 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Point Defense Cannon? That's awesome! I was more thinking along the lines of primary domain controller, but a defense cannon way cooler.
So those of you who understand technology, how does it affect any of your writing? Do you mesh concepts that you understand in with the narrative in some way?
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Thingies. There are many thingies inside a computer box. It runs on smoke. When the smoke gets out, it don't run no more.
Posts: 497 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
[quote=h jacob buller]So those of you who understand technology, how does it affect any of your writing? Do you mesh concepts that you understand in with the narrative in some way?[/quote]
I think anyone's expertise affects their writing. The more technically minded people, in my opinion, are more apt to produce very structured stories. Not only thinking of myself, but other author/technical minded people, sush as, Asimov, Clarke, etc., all have very structured, logical stories. Not that that's bad, it's just a style. The stories, for the most part, are still very fasinating and can contain a good deal of emotion, action, philosophy and whatever else ... they're just more structured and follow a logic progression. At least, that's what I see in my writing and in other technically minded people.
I have a habit, though all novice writers do I'm sure, I just seem to have it more so, spewing out a couple of terms or ideas that make perfect sense to me, but utterly confuse my eaders. Mostly surrounding tech.
posted
Well, I only meant that they claimed to be behind rather than in the machine.
Anyway, my formal technical training is focused more on electronics, particularly communications and information systems. But my raw empathy with machines isn't a trained thing, it's apparently something I've had since pretty soon after birth.
posted
Oh, and I try not to let it affect my writing. In fact, I used to deny that I had such abilities when other people would notice it. I suppose I'm over that, it isn't necessary to keep it a secret or anything. I do usually try to give some kind of rational for how I fixed something, and often enough it's something a human could plausibly do.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I was more thinking along the lines of primary domain controller, but a defense cannon way cooler. 
