Meeting the Worldbuilders — Samuel
This is the third of a series here on Universe Factory, where we look at the people behind the Worldbuilding. This is a number of short interviews with people who have been using our site to try and get some insight into who they are and how it is being used. This interview is with Samuel, one of our highest reputation members.
Hi Samuel, and thanks for agreeing to be interviewed for the Worldbuilding Blog.
Greetings, it’s my pleasure.
Can we start with a little bit about you? What part of our world are you from and what do you do for a living?
Sure. I’m from Portland, Oregon, USA. I’m an electrical engineer. I work in research and development for a medical device company making implantable medical devices like pace makers, subcutaneous-ECGs, and neuromodulation devices.
Wow, I’m sure that experience is relevant for quite a few of the questions we get. Especially the more sci-fi cybernetics ones.
Possibly, I think it just gives me a slightly higher platform to hand-wave from. Telling a story is just a form of lying, and the lie is better when it’s mostly truth; when the hand-waving is more like slight of hand.
I know you’re one of our longer-standing members, do you remember what originally brought you to the site?
Yeah, it was a Hot Network Question I saw from the Electrical Engineering SE (which I started contributing to while in grad school). The question was How can magic be used to drive someone insane — later. The required creativity and interesting questions around the site are what convinced me to stay.
You are actually number two in overall reputation on this site since you and Bowlturner both overtook me recently. Is there anything in particular you would attribute that to or any advice you would like to give to anyone looking to contribute?
That is a difficult question. The easy response is “write good answers”. Which is not a formula that helps anyone. The best advice I can give is to write the answers you like to read. Whether that’s funny, scientific, or minimal. The ones you like are the ones you know something about, so you’ll be better at writing good ones.
Are you building any worlds yourself at the moment?
I have a lot of notes, ideas, and plans. Some combine into rough worlds, but I’m not actively writing any stories in those worlds, so they’re almost certainly not complete or even fleshed out. While writing is a passion of mine, writing my own stories has not yet joined the long list of commitments I currently have in life. For the time being I’ll continue to give acting advice from the peanut gallery ;)
Which would you say are your personal favorite answers that you’ve written?
I particularly like the answer I wrote to my own question “Gravity on a Minecraftian world?”, the answer to “What are the requirements for the zombie in order to reach a full zombie apocalypse?”, and though the question was closed, “What was the magic moon for?”.
Is there any particular question, answer or person here on Worldbuilding that you would say has really inspired you?
I can’t point to any particular question, answer, or person. But I will say that the top users on this site are all inspiring. There is a record of consistent and high quality answers from the top contributors here.
Is there anything else you’d like to add or say?
My favorite thing about this site, besides the community, is that it is like participating in an interactive fantasy and science fiction story. The thing I have always loved about reading science fiction and fantasy is the ideas. They’re not great intrinsically, but once they’re read they take root in the mind and grow. The best ideas are great because of the growing medium provided by the reader’s mind. This site is fertile ground for ideas. I love to watch them grow and help from time to time.
Thank you for doing this quick interview Samuel.
