beamjockey: Drawing of Bill of the Heterodyne Boys by Phil Foglio. (Default)
beamjockey ([personal profile] beamjockey) wrote2011-09-28 07:13 pm

Tor.com's Newest Contributor

I've been invited to write for Tor.com, a busy site which covers the world of science fiction and fantasy. My first contribution, "The Latest Starfighter: A Paradox," has just been posted.

[identity profile] derekl1963.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
Nice article Bill...

I recently caught The Last Starfighter on TV, and the effects have actually held pretty well.

[identity profile] controuble.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
So why are you William over there?
ext_63737: Posing at Zeusaphone concert, 2008 (animated)

[identity profile] beamjockey.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
First, it's the byline I've almost always used on my commercial writing.

Second, there is a fairly prominent blogger who goes by "Bill Higgins," a software guru working for IBM, and I would rather avoid confusion.

I did use "Bill Higgins" in the bio lines at the bottom.

So far, my steampunk name, W. Skeffington Higgins, has not come up.

[identity profile] dd-b.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
Congrats! That's a good article.

I think most of the people in the movie theater (well, the 2% left well into the credits) in MA were a bit surprised when applause broke out when Gordon Garb's name came up on the screen. He was the Cray sysadmin at DP, but the screen credit was for the star backgrounds in the film, which he had also done.

[identity profile] wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
That's great!

[identity profile] ffutures.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 06:49 am (UTC)(link)
Nice article.

Couldn't see from the illuistration, how good was the detail on the model? Last time I looked at this technology the models usually needed a lot of finishing and cleanup, have they improved that at all?

[identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 07:26 am (UTC)(link)
Congratulations! I hear tor.com pay pretty well too!

So when can we expect your first novel?????
ext_63737: Posing at Zeusaphone concert, 2008 (Blinking12)

[identity profile] beamjockey.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 12:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't hang by your thumbs. I write nonfiction.

[identity profile] jim-landis.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
Nice article.

w00t!

[identity profile] lsanderson.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 12:02 pm (UTC)(link)
WooT!

[identity profile] bigblued.livejournal.com 2011-09-29 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
The thing I wanted to do more than anything, was to go build models for ILM. Maybe do animatronics if I was lucky. Jumanji came out while I was in college. I remember reading the article in Cinefex about how they used computers to animate the lion and how excited everyone was over the detail in the mane. I realized at that moment that my career path was dead. Animatronics were eventually going to be almost completely replaced by computers.