Interesting Links for 13-02-2022

[andrewducker]

Douglas Adams has an interesting answer when asked what kind of computer Arthur Dent had

(tags:computers fiction writing douglasadams HHG2G )

Russia tensions reveal threat to UK food supplies

(tags:UK food Russia Doom )

In Moscow, Macron found a different, tougher Putin

(tags:France Russia nato )

Britishvolt gigafactory: Britain's best-kept industrial secret is an unexpected solution to saving the planet (I didn't know most of this, fascinating stuff)

(tags:batteries oil carbon UK manufacturing )

'Futurama' Revived At Hulu; John DiMaggio Not Returning As Bender

(tags:Futurama tv animation )

220 musicians perform "Europe - The Final Countdown"

(tags:music video russia )

Why 'Death on the Nile' is every publicist's worst nightmare

(tags:movies Doom )

Evolution is just amazing

(tags:evolution animals snake video insects birds )

Thread of metal statues where one part has been stroked so much that it's shiny

(tags:statue )

Comments

[anna_wing]

I rather agree with the Adams position. Obviously ithere'll be things that you don't necessarily wwant to put in explicitly in your fiction, but which will inform how you write the character and the world. I recall Roger Zelazny saying something along those lines. But I'm not a fan of the "characters have independent existence" trope, which I find rather twee.

[andrewducker]

I don't object to world-building, and to authors working out more complex backgrounds. But I agree that the idea that there's an infinitely detailed world the story exists in, that the author is reporting back from, doesn't feel at all right to me.

[rhythmaning]

The Douglass Adams link worked fine this time! :)

[andrewducker]

I'm glad.

[cmcmck]

Certain parts on this boar in Munich get stroked- one part you'd perhaps rather not talk about! :o)

[azurelunatic]

I think Arthur's Mac was probably a few models old when he bought it new (a sensible, financially responsible sort of decision at the time) and has steadily been getting older, although it's been faithfully updated, defragmented, unvirused, and all of the sorts of things that you are supposed to do when you have a computer. It's now quite slow, and Waiting For the Computer is a thing that Arthur does without thinking about it very much. It wouldn't have quite occurred to him to get a new one until either something work-related forced him to, or it accidentally caught fire. And we might well have seen some of these things if Arthur'd spent much more time on Earth.

[andrewducker]

The Macintosh had only been in existence about a year when that book (So Long And Thanks For All The Fish) came out (in 1984), and there were only two models (128k and 256k), almost nobody was using them for work, and they hadn't been around long enough for them to be available second-hand.

And we were all very used to waiting for computers if they did anything at all complex!