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Comment by lylejohnson | Hacker News Reader

"I haven’t bought an app for about a year. Neither hardware nor software excite me very much, after whatever brief (and usually painful) novelty has worn off."

It's probably because I'm so immersed in tech stuff at work, but it's hard for me to understand how such an imaginative science fiction author can be so... indifferent about the technology he uses.

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If you're a novelist your career doesn't usually start rolling until you're in your mid-thirties. (You need life experience before you can depict characters folks want to read about.) Neophilia for its own sake usually wears off some time in the forties, even among many geeks. Moreover, if your job involves spinning text, just about any computer built in the past two decades will do the job.

(I know one award-winning SF novelist who uses an obscure British word processor, originally for CP/M and MS-DOS, now supported as a hobby project by one of the former developers -- the company is long since bust. Their SO has a hell of a job keeping them supplied with either 20 year old Compaq 386 lunchboxen or Linux boxes tailored to run DOSBox full-screen on the console without pestering them to do annoying GUI things every few days. This novelist is younger than I am.)

Gibson has repeatedly displayed a fascination with style and fashion and design language, rather than with random agglomerative collections of features bolted together into a Frankensteinian morass by a bored marketing committee. Given how Apple is oriented around design and the humanities, I find it very unsurprising that he'd be working on a Macbook Pro ...

Would love to have you do a usesthis as well - the more obscure stuff is especially fascinating as it usually carries a much better story than just "I'm using the newest Macbook Pro and I got 8GB of RAM."

Well, I am a gadgetoholic-in-recovery.

Let's skip lightly past the colo server running Debian that I keep the blog on. I'm mostly a Mac shop. On my desk right now is an older 23" Apple Cinema display, being driven by an October 2010 13" Macbook Air (4Gb/250Gb SSD, OS: 10.7.2). Next to me is an iPad 2/64Gb and a 3 mifi, with a ZaggMate cover/keyboard. And there's an iPhone 4 that ain't going to be upgraded until it's at least 24 months old (next summer).

Pretty dull, huh?

(There are also hordes of eccentric items around here, such as the Viliv N5 palmtop -- currently running Win7 as I don't have the energy to battle a GMA500 chipset into cooperating with Linux right now -- but let's not get into lesser-used territory.)

Core software:

- Firefox 7.blah (with noscript, adblock pro, ghostery, beef taco, instaright, https-everywhere, and tab mix plus)

- Thunderbird (mostly using gmail as an IMAP/SMTP/SSL server)

- BBedit (what can I say -- it's prettier to stare at than MacVim, and seems to support MultiMarkDown better)

- Apple Pages (I loath MS Office 2010's ribbon with a cold and fiery passion because it eats vertical screen real estate; Pages is "good enough" for layout and final markup)

- Scrivener (because when I write myself into a corner and need to refactor the deep structure of a book, Scrivener makes life a lot easier)

- NeoOffice/OpenOffice/LibreOffice (because sometimes I need something that can handle MS Office documents better than Pages)

- Calibre (ebook management software)

- NetNewsWire (this may change soon)

- SplashID (because we all need unique passwords for each website, right?)

- MacPorts

- iTerm (and Go2Shell)

...

I think that about covers it. I really don't game much, if at all (it interferes with work to have attractive nuisances on my computers).

Dream rig:

(This is going to strike you as deeply sad)

Start with a build-to-order Macbook Air 11", 4Gb RAM/128Gb SSD. Add the 1.8GHz i7 CPU bump. Don't bother with the 256Gb SSD from Apple because we are going to replace the stock SSD with a 3G OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express sized in 480Gb. Finally add a 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display for when it's sitting on my desk.

Underpowered? Sure. But it's tremendously portable, and I'm on the road for 8-12 weeks of the year. Two wires to connect, and I have a decent desktop system. Unconnect, and I have a nice 1Kg notebook.

The reason I don't have this dream rig right now is that I have the last generation, and I'm not quite enough of a sucker to upgrade every time Apple crack the whip, thanks. Maybe next year.

Awesome cstross - thanks for taking time to answer the question - I like the idea behind the MacBook Air with the 480 GB upgrade and may have to look into that myself. I just got an iPhone 4S and it surprises me how close it feels to being eligible to be my only computing device - in a few years I can imagine sitting down next to my computer and just having the Apple Wireless Thunderbolt display connect to it and have my entire computer ready to go (I'd go through the trouble of plugging in a cable if necessary :)

This line really caught my eye: "(because when I write myself into a corner and need to refactor the deep structure of a book, Scrivener makes life a lot easier)" I've heard of Scrivener being used by writers for this purpose, but do you think it would work well for programmers? I'm struggling right now like I've written myself into a corner and notes/diagrams aren't really helping as much as I'd like.

Scrivener is really tuned for slicing and dicing prose. You _could_ use it for code, just as you _could_ use MS Word as your IDE. But it would probably be a bad idea.

Sorry for the ambiguity - I guess I'm looking for a better domain modeling tool, not IDE. I'm aware of UML but always looking if there are interesting tools from other trades that might apply to programming/modeling...

Wow. This is much more what I'd expect from a scifi writer, or really anyone who uses a computer all day professionally.

Have you considered Microsoft Office 2011 for office documents? I agree about the ribbon, but it is better than the free alternatives.

Why not upgrade to the 27" or a dell u3011 now, and mba11 later?

Also, backups?

Office 11: Well, giving money to the Beast of Redmond goes against the grain a little, and in any event publishing tends to run on Office 97/2000/2003 .doc files, not .docx. Publishing is conservative for structural reasons. (I'd rather hand in markdown files or even LaTeX or similar, but unfortunately they've standardized on Office documents, dammit. Because "that's what everyone uses".)

The 27" ... well, I upgraded my wife's side of the office to one earlier this year (pre-Thunderbolt) and there's a limit to the depth of my pockets. Besides which, my desk is already dwarfed by the 23" panel (and said desk is an obscure 1970's Swedish designer item, not something I'm likely to replace in a hurry).

Backups: Time Capsule for on-site, 1Tb pocket hard disk for on the road, and Dropbox as a sync solution and if-all-else-burns-to-the-ground fallback.

Microsoft BizSpark (for your tech business, whatever) could get you free Microsoft products via MSDN, if you really wanted them.

My solution to big monitors and small desks is a VESA arm mount and either a wall/floor stand or a desk stand; give in to the monitor being bigger than the desk!

Thanks for the info! One thing you should know: on all the Air models except for the first-gen, the SSD chips are part of the logic board, and therefore unable to be upgraded. As a user of OWC SSDs myself, this is a damn shame.

Fortunately, your info is incorrect.

The RAM is soldered on board. The SSD is a SIMM-like module, which can be upgraded by the user.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Express

I'm still not sure if I'd do it for 256GB vs. 240GB or 480GB, but maybe, and the cost savings vs. Apple might make it worthwhile. Speed could be a plus too.

I didn't realize that. Very cool. :)

I don't think you can upgrade the SSD on an Air. My understanding is they are pulled apart and soldered to the MB in order to give the Air its awesome form factor.

Somebody, please correct me if I am wrong, because that is one of the primary things keeping me from an Air instead of a MacBook Pro.

You can most certainly upgrade the SSD in an Air, as my first-generation 11" Airbook with the 256Gb SSD (that I installed in it myself) can attest.

It's the RAM on the mobo that's non-upgradable.

Macsales sells SSD upgrades for the Air (they're not particularly hard to do either) here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Express

Thanks for this. I knew first Gen could be updated, but didn't know the latest could be. This now makes my decision hard again: performance or weight? sigh

Performance v. weight with the Macbook Air is currently easy.

The real issue is battery life/screen size (on the move) v. weight.

The top end 13" and 11" Airbooks both upgrade via BTO to a dual core i7 clocked at 1.8GHz, with 4Gb of RAM/256Gb SSD. The difference is in screen size and battery life (the 13" model has more of both) and weight (the 11" wins here, by 300 grams).

If you're out of the office and working on the laptop a lot, or don't use an external monitor, I'd go for the 13" model (unless weight and the ability to work in very cramped spaces are an overriding priority).

If you're in the office a lot with laptop plugged into a desktop monitor, or if you don't do much work outside the office (just need the laptop to check email/web/social networks), then the 11" model wins.

But they seem to be a tie on performance, which makes life a little easier than when they first launched (the 11" was, even maxed out, slower than the 13").

My performance calculation is MacBook Pro 13" with 8gb RAM versus the 13" Air with 4gb. The 13" is a must for either, but the decision comes down to less swapping and more horsepower versus less weight.

I wonder how much impact SSDs have on swapping. I rarely need 8gb of active memory. I just can't stand waiting minutes for things to swap around right now.

Time for more research...

> Calibre (ebook management software)

Please, dear lord, someone fork this and fix the god awful user interface.

What, you don't use the command line tools?

I do, but there are plenty of people who want a gui but who hate the Calibre gui. And it is an awful awful interface.

Not everyone can write a (trivial) bash script to do a batch conversion.

> loath

Aha! -> loathe! (I think?) Correcting you on the off chance I am actually correct and can then check off "corrected the grammar of a professional author" on my bucket list...

In my defense, I recently bought The Hidden Family and The Clan Corporate during Border's clearance sale, so I feel I'm entitled to this rude behavior as a paying customer.

You know that books sold on clearance during Border's closing-down sales mostly don't result in any money going to the author or publisher, right?

zing!

Aw, I was afraid that might be the case. Okay, I just placed an order for a "New Mass Market" copy of Glasshouse with Powell's Books. Better? :-p

I loath MS Office 2010's ribbon with a cold and fiery passion because it eats vertical screen real estate

You can minimize it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

      "obscure British word processor, originally for CP/M and MS-DOS, now supported as a hobby project by one of the former developers -- the company is long since bust."

Charlie, I'm racking my brains here. Ami Pro? Pipedream (no, that was Acorn Archimedes, and don't we wish Thatcher had supported that particular lame duck).

And how on earth does the revered author get the words out to publishers? OCR and an Olivetti might be easier...

I'd guess WordStar. Or failing that, WordPerfect.

WordPerfect was more commonly seen, but WordStar fits the description of "Runs on CP/M and is not supported" better.

Edit: See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#Abandonment

Nope: Protext.

http://www.tigerteam.co.uk/protext/

NC100 - got it

George R.R. Martin writes on WordStar.

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/1220865-talking-a...

(I know one award-winning SF novelist who uses an obscure British word processor, originally for CP/M and MS-DOS)

This is not so exotic; how many of us still adhere to vi in an xterm when we are in "time to stop fooling around and work" mode. ;)

vi and emacs are products that are still upgraded and distributed; obscure word processors by shuttered companies are a different thing.

Let's face it. A TRS-80 Model 100 in many ways is probably still the ideal portable writing machine. Only displays a couple lines at a time so you can't get too distracted with formatting and such. Rugged, full keyboard, 20+ hours of battery life, and reasonably easy to read even in full daylight. While I have migrated to an iPad 2 for many things, I sometimes wonder if that really represented an improvement...

I'd like to proof-read things more than a line at a time, though.

I'm of the belief that William Gibson pretty much hates computers which is why he wrote so much about them. He doesn't write SF, he writes anti-SF. An SF author posits scientifically plausibe scenarios and shows his/her work. Gibson's novels about cyberspace and that relied extensively on handwaving, magical thinking, and "unseen, unknown threat" to develop their narratives.

This isn't negative. Gibson probably knows more about computers than you. Hint: Rather than look at technical details, he has always thought about computers from the most critical perspective: at the points where they interact with people.

> An SF author posits scientifically plausibe scenarios and shows his/her work.

You probably missed all the "soft science fiction" movement after the sixties... ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction ).

What you describe was 30-50s style "hard science fiction" --think Asimov, Clark, etc

I'm aware of what "soft SF" is. What I was getting across is that it is much more a rebellion against SF than a continuation or evolution of it.

The sense I get is that he lives one rung up the ladder of abstraction.

Yes. Just simple tools and the writing. Canny, and aware of the demands of the industry (word: 'talks to publishers'). The page is small (word-count/ego) and to the point as well.

I would think that, as a Science Fiction writer, separating yourself from current technology as a whole would allow you to be more creative in how you perceive the world(s) you are creating.

Perhaps he's become jaded.

When he began his craft it was a world of typewriters.

Amazing imagination and forward thinking -- but it's hard to blame him for wanting technology to mostly stay out of his way.

> When he began his craft it was a world of typewriters.

It kind of blew my mind to learn he wrote _Neuromancer_ on a typewriter.

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