Book Recommendation: Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary

 No spoilers here, read on with impunity.

Like The Martian, this is another astronaut-up-the-creek-whittles-own-paddle story.  The stakes this time are higher, much higher, and then they unexpectedly double.  The protagonist, interestingly named Dr. Grace (heh), isn't quite the square-jawed astrohero of The Martian, but he rises to the occasion – just as soon as he can remember his name.

Other things to note, without spoiling anyone's read... The whole book has some very somber undertones that were not there in Weir's two earlier novels, the above-mentioned The Martian and elsewhere-reviewed Artemis.  Still, it has the same comfortable nerdy wisecracks we've come to expect, and it's a fast and fun read.  "OK, how's he going to get out of this new fix now?" is the question of every chapter, and the payoffs all along the way keep things moving.  Some parts are downright misanthropic.  Namely, Grace's last academic paper is a giant glowing screw-you to colleagues in his former and future field.  That's just unprofessional and petty, even if we are largely in sympathy with Grace given the situation.  When this is followed by Grace's ultimate situation (no spoilers!), you can feel the warm glow of animosity that simmers throughout the book.  This slight flaw makes for a more interesting character, not the cheap perfection that Grace could have been in the hands of a less capable author.  Ultimately though, Grace re-finds his real calling in the last pages.  Finally, there are two big items that are never explained, but are merely science-y MacGuffins – I promised no spoilers, but this will get close; hang in there – a fully miraculous material and the coating on the central mystery of the book.  I don't quite buy either one, but I was having such a good time reading that it didn't matter all that much.

(Grrr, why can Blogger put images where they should be?  Miserable new interface, *grumble*)

Eh, if you enjoyed The Martian you'll enjoy this one too.  Finally, rumor has it that there's a movie in the works.  Ought to be good.

Mixed Feelings

 From today's xkcd:

Independence Day.... it's almost here.  First I really ought to move the cryopump out of the foyer, then work things from there.  Maybe put it over by the pile of bike parts.

NPR's Sci-Fi & Fantasy Poll

 The question is straightforward: What are the best sci-fi and fantasy books you've read that were published in the last decade?  You can nominate up to five or as few as one.  The info you enter is simple: name, your local NPR station, book name, author.  Here's the link.

They did a similar poll ten years ago, however it was "of all time" not "of the past decade."  (results here)  OK, LOTR won that one hands-down, no surprise there.  This time the results should be more interesting with the focus on more recent work.  I'm always looking for new, good stuff.

FWIW, I nominated Star's Reach and The Martian; you can read my thoughts on them at the links.  Some others I considered but did not included are the Area X trilogy (Annihilation, etc.), Weir's second book Artemis, and the hard sci-fi anthology Carbide Tipped Pens.  I haven't finished Weir's third book Project Hail Mary, but I'm making good progress.

Predictions: Because the article mentions "our panel of expert judges will take your nominations and use them to curate a final list of 50 titles" [emphasis added], we can expect a fair number of little-known books – likely for good reason – that reflect NPR's values.  And that's OK too, their poll, their rules.  Another prediction I'll hazard is that several widely read books that were made into movies will be on the list: the above-mentioned The Martian and Annihilation, as well as Ted Chiang's Stories of your Life and Others, which was heavily adapted into 2016's movie Arrival.  Finally, I will flat-out predict that of the 50 books there should be some interesting stuff.

No "expect the list on or around" date in the article, but I'll keep an eye out for it.  Might have to buy another bookshelf.

Solstice Already?

 Yep, looks like.  Image from NASA/APOD, and you can see what The Old Farmer has to say here.

No sun here today however, with the remnants of TS Claudette raining out upon us.  But this is a good thing, we really need the rain here.

Getting gfortran to Work on a Mac

 Everything was good with my grotty old copy of gfortran -- great even -- until Apple changed the default shell from bash to zshell sometime last winter in the OS 11.4 Big Sur upgrade.  It took a while to get things going again recently.  What follows are both notes to self, and perhaps a rescue line to the truly perplexed.  Here we go.

1. Just get the new compiler.  GitHub is a dandy place but there are others.  It comes in the usual dmg format, so it unpacks and installs and all that automagically.
2. Likewise, get the latest Xcode developer kit from Apple.  It's free, but it's also > 10 GB so it might take a while to download.
3. Here's the fun part, getting the linker to work.  There's a little scrap of code to paste at the bottom of /private/etc/zprofile at this link.  (also, pasted in at the bottom of this post) You're going to have to reset the protections on that file before you can edit it though, via the incantation: sudo chmod 664   You will be asked for the system password.  Be sure to change it back via sudo chmod 444 when done, or some bad magic might leak in.
4. One more step (also found at the above link), type xcode-select --install into the command line window.  Then go fishing, while a couple more GB of stuff gets downloaded from from the Apple servers.  (Only caught hardheads, bleh.  Still it was better than sitting around worrying about the slow download rate.)
5. Re-start the terminal program before you can expect anything to work.
6. Test it with a "hello world" sort of program.  When it's all working, drink a lot of rye whisky and read something fun like Andy Weir's latest.

OK, that was a mean day's work.  Here's that little scrap of path setup code, in case the above link ever goes away.  OK, I'm done, time to get back to work with a functioning compiler.  Yes, it's 8:30 on a Friday night.

if [ -z "${LIBRARY_PATH}" ]; then
    export LIBRARY_PATH="/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/lib"
else
    export LIBRARY_PATH="$LIBRARY_PATH:/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/lib"
fi

To Vax or Not to Vax?

 Over at Handwaving Freakoutery: The Vaccine Might Kill You and That's Fine

All I can add is (1) RTWT, (2) pretty much my take on it also, and (3) I went with the treatment group too.

Key quote: "Safe is a terrible word, and 'is the vaccine safe?' is the wrong question to ask. Walking across the street isn't safe.  Bicycling isn't safe."

Yes, I can vouch for that last part.  Woo, look at the time.  Got to get rolling before the day heats up.  More.

Winter Field Day 2021 Results

 They're posted here.  The main WFD pages aren't updated, but the key results page is.

Eh, it was fun, as I'd earlier reported.  Rained out, didn't camp, just operated for a few hours while the weather held off, and still my score still came out in the top half.  And I'm already looking forward to WFD 2022.

Weekend after next is summer/regular/plain-old Field Day.  Might go, might not: I'm watching the weather on this one.  WFD is a much better camping option here in the Deep South.

How We Roll

 Oh yeah, I'd be jello in a wheelchair without one.  Earlier commentary on the topic here.

In which Dixie Finishes the Florida Trail

 Over at you-know where, the final episode.  Forty solid minutes of north Florida weirdness with a side order of yellow flies and ticks.  This is what you get when you skirt along the northern edge of a place named Tate's Hell Swamp in early springtime.

Yow.  It seems like it was all they could do to get from Sopchoppy to Defuniak without getting eaten alive.  Note to self: If I ever get the urge to do the FT, start NLT 31 January, and try to launch even earlier.  If any delays push completion into April, bail.

Yes, I've mentioned this series before, here, when they started the video series late April.  It seems that they began the through-hike in mid-late February, after recovering from covid.

ps: from today's Far Side.  Note the lack of yellow flies.

Something to Do

I started playing with the search bar on Atlas Obscura yesterday, and it's a pretty remarkable tool.  While by no means does it give a comprehensive listing of local sights, it does uncover – as the site's name would imply – some fairly obscure and interesting places for a day trip.

Take for example Bude, MS.  I've blasted through there on the way to the Clear Springs mountain bike trails for decades.  It's small, but in seconds the search function dug up about 15 interesting nearby places.  None of these were mountain bike trails, admittedly, but sometimes that is a plus.  It's not comprehensive, it's just unusual.

If you're looking for a day trip, Atlas Obscura's search bar is a pretty good place to start.  If you're just daydreaming, the random location button is pretty nice too.

Here, have some related music.