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Synchrotron Gets Sci-Fi Writer In Residence
kandela writes "CBC News is reporting that Nebula and Hugo award winning author Robert J. Sawyer is to become the first-ever writer in residence at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron facility (see also their media release). Sawyer will spend two months at the facility, where he is hoping to be inspired by the everyday grind of scientists, 'I spent a lot of time visiting science labs over the years, but it's always the VIP tour,' he said in an interview Wednesday. 'You are in and you are out in a couple of hours, and everyone has shown you all the things they want you to see but none of the day-to-day grind of the work as well. I want to get the flavour of that.' As a scientist who has worked at synchrotron facilities (and occasional sci-fi writer myself (page 4)), I'm excited to see what a professional can do with that environment for inspiration."
...it will take him to 'synch' up...
...where he is hoping to be inspired by the everyday grind of scientists
What, reading papers, crunching numbers, writing papers and browsing Slashdot? Hmm...think I've already read that story.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
Obviously the purpose of books is to draw us out of our own day-to-day grind into a universe consisting of... more day-to-day grinds? Right.
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Ok, Kandela. If you're "Daniel Cotton", let me be one of the ones to tell you - that was fscking brilliant! I haven't been so pleasantly smacked in the face by a short story in a very long time. That bit of fiction is a much bigger story than that of some writer trying to get inspired... and yes, I admit it - I've never heard of Robert J. Sawyer, though I've got on the order of 19 untouched copies of "Asimov's" piled up from between the onset of presbyopia and the procurement of reading glasses(it was hard to admit that need).
I've worked at a synchrotron, and...
oh my god is it boring. This would seem like a good idea for about 3 days.
shining a synchrotron beam on maple sugar crystals, which accidentally opens a portal from which giant beavers invade our world and cut every tree on Earth. Eh.
Shouldn't all science fiction writers have some firsthand experience with science, ideally from an actual involvement with science? Well, maybe or maybe not. But more disturbing is the prevalence of people with no knowledge of science in the business of so-called science journalism. Of course, a few months in a science lab won't cure what ails most science writers. But it would be better than nothing, which is apparently the status quo.
This week it was announced that the Synchrotron, North America's most advanced feminine menstrual cycle calculator, has been granted its first wish since becoming sentient: A sci-fi writer in waiting.
IT WILL BE MY CLOSEST CONFIDANT said Madame Synchrotron as she ha ha
hahaha
hahahahahahahaha ha. ha. Sorry, couldn't go through with it.
There's a certain usefulness to being familiar with what a science lab is like and the daily operations of scientific research, but that's not central to science fiction writing.
It is clear, though, that some science fiction writers have no understanding of scientific principles, and some certainly do. When science plays a visible role in a sci-fi story, particularly when the author is intending for the story to be not far from reality, the difference is really clear.
As far as I've seen, there are almost no science journalists that know a bit of science. As they say on the Internet, nearly all science news stories are full of fail.
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. I
He'll write a story about a bearded bespectacled scientist, who only armed at first with a wrecking bar, sets out to save the world from aliens who invade through a crack in reality created by a particle accelerator experiment gone wrong!
It'll be a hit!
It's the mindless grind we want to see in a scifi story. How a scientist gets up, stares at a screen for 8 hours and then goes home, stares at his personal screen for a few hours and then goes to sleep.
from that linked wikipedia entry.
His interest in consciousness studies is also apparent in his WWW trilogy, beginning with Wake, which deals with the spontaneous emergence of consciousness in the infrastructure of the World Wide Web.
Why does this sound familiar
So whois the brilliant scifi writer again?
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whenever I visited SSRL...I swear sometimes it sounded just like the game whenever I would walk on hose metal stairs on the outside of the buildings.
Sawyer is an incompetent SF writer, a shameless attention whore who campaigned his way to an undeserved Hugo, and was forced to resign from SFWA due to massive incompetence. Just ask any Canadian SF writer how Sawyer knifed them in the back once they became more famous than him.
* 1 Case Regular Pint size Mason Jars ( Used for canning)
* 2 Boxes Contact 12 hour time released tablets.
* 3 Bottles of Heet.
* 4 feet of surgical tubing.
* 1 Bottle of Rubbing Alchohol.
* 1 Gallon Muriatic Acid ( Used for cleaning concrete)
* 1 Gallon of Coleman's Fuel
* 1 Gallon of Aceton
* 1 Pack of Coffee Filters
* 1 Electric Skillet ( If you don't know what iam talking about i will have pics later)
* 4 Bottles Iodine Tincture 2% (don't get the declorized it won't work)
* 2 Bottles of Hydrogen peroxide
* 3 20 0z Coke Bottles (Plastic type)(with Lids/caps)
* 1 Can Red Devils Lye
* 1 Pair of sharp scissors
* 4 Boxes Book Matches (try to get the ones with brown/red striker pads)
* 1 pyrodex baking dish
* 1 Box execto razor blades single sided
* 1 digital scale that reads grams
* 2 gallons distilled water \
* 1 Roll Aluminum foil tape
That's what you would have to go buy if you wanted to make meth.
First things first -- the Iodine Crystals. Take one 20 oz, plastic Coke Bottle and pour 4 Bottles 2% tincture into it.
Add Hydrogen Peroxide to this. Use only 1/2 a bottle of Hydrogen peroxide. After this you know, the gallon jug that the Muriatic acid comes in take the cap off and fill this cap level with the acid. Add the acid to the coke bottle (Place in a freezer for at least 30 mins).
While the Iodine crystals are being made we are going to extract the Phsuedo from the Contacts. You are going to need a towel for this so go get one. Take the pills out of one box, add it to one of the mason jars fill with rubbing alchohol just enough to cover the pills let set for 3 minutes. Remove pills and take the towel and wipe the top coating off the pills this will remove the wax. Do the same with the other box of Contacts as well, after this add those wiped off pills only 10 to a clean mason jar. On top of this add 1 bottle of Heat do the same for the other box of Contact. Let theese two mason jars with pills, heat stand for 30 minutes. Then shake the jars till pills are completly broke down then let the jars sit again for 4 hours or until the Heats is completly clear . Once clear cyphon the heat off (Not the powder stuff at the Bottom you don't want this it will fuck your dope up).
Well anyway syphon the heat off with a piece of the sergical tubing syphon this into a pyrodex baking dish place in microwave on high till the heat is almost evaporated. Take out of microwave. Now plug up your electric plate set the pyrodex dish on this on about 180 deg continue evaporating till you get a white powder on the pyrodex (Carefull not the burn the phsudo if it turns yellow it's burned) after you get it dried take a razor blade and scrape this powder up. (put this asside for later use)
Now we are going to get the red phosphorus from the book matches take a pair of scissors and cut along the edge of the phosphorus do the whole four boxes of match book matches then take 1 small coffee cup will work to this coffee cup add about 1/4 the way with Acetone dip the match book strike pads into the acetone for 10 seconds this will loosen the phosphorus so it will be easier to scrape with the razor blades. ( put the phosphorus in an empty match book box to let dry. Now it's time to get the iodine crystals get a clean mason jar on top of this place 1 coffee filter and pour the contents of the iodine +muriatic+Hydrogen Peroxide into the filter ( do it slowly don't over pour) well once you get though with the filtering on top of the coffee filter will be a black substance ( This is iodine crystals) dry them by wraping in more coffee filters till you get a pretty good thick pile around the original filter place on ground and step on it to get the rest of the liquids off save this for the cook.
next take your digital scales wiegh your pills first say you had 2 grams of pill powder then weigh out an equal amount of iodin
That concept is older than old. Heck, computers randomly gaining sentience was done by Heinlein in 1966 and I doubt he was the first. Going from a single computer gaining sentience to a network of computers does not make it brilliant.
I beg to differ. The difference between Shirow's version and everyone else is the entity was not created by humans. A data trojan inadvertantly interacted with random data on the web in the same way a molecule interacted with others to form DNA.
This is very different from "AI's gone wild" a-la heinlein or t-1000.
The real mark of brilliance in such areas is how you actually treat the subject and what interesting sub-questions you bring to light. There are a hundred different ways to cover some basic ideas and every single one of them can be utterly unique.
and Shirow covers this entire area better as well if you examine the bulk of his work.
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From from my own experience doing research at a synchrotron, I call tell you there is nothing "day to day" about it. We get roughly one week to do as much as humanly possible in an environment which drains you (16+ hour days under high fluorescent lighting with the incessant hum of vacuum pumps and machinery).
The scientific environment is electric. Things get done - ideas flourish and are crushed in minutes as a gaggle of intelligent scientists throw ideas around and call on their years of experience. Copious amounts of coffee are consumed and everyone stands there silent when the a-ha moment arrives and all the hard work comes together.
It might be hard for an outsider to appreciate this, and there is a chance this isn't the norm when it comes to the average synchrotron experience.
Don't sugar crystals open a portal to a giant gummy bears dimension?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Gordon Freeman is yet another Hollywood douche, who is patiently failing upwards.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I grew up in this town.
It's winter there now. And it's F&#$%#$@'n Cold.
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I heard him on the CBC once. I haven't heard someone so full of himself for quite some time.
I think some of the best stories could come from the dialogue between Sawyer and the scientists at CLS. As to the need for a writer to have a backgroud in science, I think we've seen benefits to a writer having it or not. Did you ever see the bibliography of Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton? Now there was a science based story. Other writers haven't had a formal training but an aptitude in the sciences that have led to future predictions that have come true. At the heart of good SF is the story and I have read all of Sawyers works and find him to be one of the most distinctive writers I have read. Here's looking for a future Sawyer novel based at CLS.
Am I the only one that thought a murderous synchrotron with a vendetta found a sci-fi writer in his home and killed him in an ironic twist of fate?
I have to put in a word of praise for my friends at the CLS Outreach Office, who do a creative job of explaining the complexities of synchrotron science to a popular audience. Their work with high school students is a really amazing ongoing project.
I am not familiar with this author, but I can hardly wait to read a novel populated with my CLS colleagues!
Have you ever actually read "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley? Arguably much of modern science fiction is just a retelling of that story.
isn't a Synchrotron one of the early particle accelerators, like a poor mans LHC?
A glance at the website however made it sound more like the Eureka facility (used to be on the SciFi channel)
...and Robert E. Howard never journeyed more than fifty miles away from his hometown in Texas.
There's a certain school of writer (and reader, too, apparently) that craves that super-deluxe gritty no-don't-make-it-a-blue-beaker-real-chemists-would-never-use-a-blue-beaker work-a-day realism, and then there are those focused on the human condition, complex themes, and imaginative notions no one has ever put to paper before. Not saying the twain can't meet, but life is short...
If real scientists were better writers then it'd be easier for the science journalists to copy-and-paste from their technical papers and conference presentations to tell the real story. There would be more appreciation for science if those conducting it could espouse their hypothesis and experiment results with the eloquence and clarity of professional writers, but the fact is that writing and science are two different proficiencies that are rare to be found within a single individual (both require time and energy to learn how to do well) so the result is that real science writing is plagued by the miss-communication that results when two professionals that don't understand what each other do have to deal with each other.
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If real scientists were better writers then it'd be easier for the science journalists to copy-and-paste from their technical papers and conference presentations to tell the real story.
Easier, but still basically impossible. Scientists write for a specialized audience that's defined by having a background in the field, and journalists for the most part don't have that background. In fact, for science writing to be at fault, we would have to assume that science journalists are at least trying to understand the articles. From what I've seen, most of them barely get through the press release and don't care what their interview subjects say.
I'm not going to claim that most scientists are good writers, but many scientists are. Scientists shouldn't be faulted if publications meant for their peers can't be understood by journalists with no working knowledge of the field. The alternative to this system would be for each journal article to recap the field's entire progress to date, solely for the benefit of laypeople and journalists who haven't been paying attention.
Sounds like the plot for Galatea 2.2. Ah, humanist-in-residence or writer-in-residence, it's all the same: where can I sign up?
I think the real gain will be to Synchnotron. Science Fiction writers have quite a track record for predicting both future trends and future technology.