Crossed My Desk this Morning

Yeah, movies have been kind of crappy for the better part of the past decade.  Here's hoping for a brighter future.  However, I suspect we'll just get some meaningless AI-generated slop with dancing rock piles, and the Hollywood execs will remain as baffled as ever.

Good Advice on Bike Wrenching

An ex-mechanic with ten years' experience dives into some useful stuff over at youtube:

• Top 10 Things I learned Working in a Bike Shop (10 minutes)
• Three More Things You'll Find Useful (6 minutes)
• Five Mistakes I've Made (9 minutes)
• 10 Essential Tools for Any Home Bike Mechanic (15 minutes)

FWIW, I still don't have a work stand.  Where the hell would I put it?

Anyway, his channel's just getting rolling, so look around through his videos for a handful of other bike items.  He does some other mechanical stuff over there that you may find useful too.

Yes, after Friday's post, I'm still around.  Though I have to say, that would have been a great post to wrap up this blog.  Not going anywhere though.

Because I've Been Asked About This

Sabine Hossenfelder digs into the somewhat recent, somewhat mysterious disappearance of scientists and a few scientist-adjacent people.  (8 minutes for the analysis, followed by a 2 minute ad)  TLDW: Mostly explainable, but the overall rate is about four times what one might expect in the general population, which is statistically slightly alarming.

Here's a short summary of my thoughts on the matter:

1. There's a significant subset of scientists who have a taste for outdoor adventure, so expect a higher disappearance rate there.
2. What's more, there's also another subset of scientists who will dive into adventures somewhat blindly, so expect trouble there as well.  Usually they morph over time into the previously mentioned subset – if they survive the learning curve.
3. Personally, over the years I've stumbled across a handful of things that could have been trouble: a probable pot farm, a fresh murder scene, a few awkwardly placed rattlesnakes, a couple of unoccupied hobo camps, etc.  Any of these could have been trouble had my GTFO circuits not overridden my curiosity.  I know some people, especially in Subset #2, who do not have such highly attuned GTFO circuits.
4. The relatively low number of missing persons here can account for large statistical fluctuations.  Along with numerous cases of weak GTFO wiring, this is probably enough to account for the observed 4x disappearance rate.
5. But yeah, Hossenfelder's about right on the matter.  The numbers are a little high but not badly out of line with general expectations.

Beyond that and on a personal note, I don't expect to disappear anytime soon.  Some may be comforted by this, others may be a tad disappointed.  Comment below.

Of Course I'll Go See It

First Project Hail Mary, now this.  It's shaping up to be the best year in movies in about a decade.

The Ground-Side Fuse Question Revisited

First addressed in 2020, the consensus was "don't put a fuse on the negative wire to your mobile ham rig, because" eh, go read the post.  Lots of good reasons given there.

However, this auto mechanic makes a valid point for having a fuse on the ground side in this video.  Go and watch (7 minutes), you'll see a new side of things.  Oh, here's the TLDW: Sometimes the engine ground cable ends corrode.  With 100 to 150 amps cranking current, if that ground cable connection isn't pretty darned good, it's going shoot some current back through various unintended paths and ultimately through the negative/ground wire and into your radio, in which case you really really want  a fuse on that thing.  This is especially a problem if the antenna is permanently mounted on the car body, i.e. not a magnet mount.

I see the guy's point, and it is a valid one.  He's actually seen the bad effects this can have.  However because all my vehicle antennas are mag mounts, it's moot.  I'll keep fusing the positive-side only, but if I change my antenna & mounting system I'll consider adding a fuse to the negative wire.

Finally, I'd previously written back in 2020:

Of course all this is moot for a fully-floating ground plane antenna, but how often do we see those in mobile installs?

Turns out, all the darned time, with every single magnet-mount antenna out there, which is something like half of the antennas actually in use.

It's surprises like this that keep the hobby fresh.

Give my regards to Igor

A brief tour of the real Castle Frankenstein over at Atlas Obscura.

Wish I had more original content this week, but we're still sorting out repeater troubles and various other problems around Castle Coyote.  On a positive note, the bicycles are all functioning at 100% and the sinus problem is letting up.

ps: For those who need it here is a pronunciation guide.  And – speak of the devil – here is someone who needs said guide.

Santos 2026 Recap Video

17 minutes over at YouTube.  He's been doing these the last few years, I've linked there before, but  you can most easily find his previous years' recaps at his youtube page.

Pushing for speed over 50 miles, I dunno, not my style.  You can tell the guy was suffering.  Hey, everybody gets to pick their own poison.

FWIW, here are my March comments on the Santos Fat Tire Fest 2026.  Was that just a month ago?

PHM Side-Note on Accidents

Following up on last week's review of Project Hail Mary, one of the things that struck me both while reading and watching were the parallels between PHM and the Manhattan Project.  Yes, both were multinational big-budget science and engineering projects carried out in a rush, but that explosion 

boom

put a punctuation mark on things.  And while in the story the explosion did add a dramatic element, it was also the catalyst behind the major plot twist about which the entire story revolves.  Moreover, the incident very much echoes two criticality accidents at Los Alamos that happened just as and just after WWII ended.

Reenactment with inert components.  Don't try this one at home, kids.

Maybe it's my background, but while reading PHM this parallel jumped out immediately and it gave the whole book – and later movie – a ring of authenticity.  In case you want to learn more on the Manhattan Project (and perhaps get the feel for the behind the scenes action in PHM), look no farther than Richard Rhodes' fine 1986 history The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Yeah, just go read the book.  Both of 'em, I mean.  And see the movie.

Some Sober Thoughts on Artemis II

And I have to agree with the author linked below on the matter: Glad everyone made it back in on piece, but using rehashed Shuttle components probably isn't the way forward into a financially viable future for lunar exploration.

Now that that's over with at Silicon Graybeard's blog.  Go, read the whole thing, it's short.

Finally, note that this is a pre-scheduled post, I'm really not up at 6:30 again this morning.  At least my 10 pm previous evening self is intending not to be up then.  Actual events may prove otherwise.

Not a Pre-Scheduled Post

No, I'm really just up this early.  Serves me right for not having my usual after-supper pot of coffee and then going to bed at 10 pm.  Grumble.

Gonna go for a bike ride as soon as it gets good light and try to move past this whole "early to bed, early to rise" thing.

Project Hail Mary: Just Go See It

TLDR: It's the adaptation of the book that I'd hoped to see.  Here are my 2021 thoughts on the book.

Today was the first time I've set foot in a movie theater since 2021 (well I at least tried, once, in 2023; see jaundiced thoughts here), and it was an hour and a half drive each way to get there.  Worth every minute of the trip.  Go see it in a good quality theater while it's still in its original run, then buy the blu-ray next Christmas.

So... 4.5 out of 5 stars?  Maybe 5, I'll have to see it a few more times before granting that high honor.  It's good though, so go see it in a theater while you can.  It looks great up on the big screen, plus we need to vote with our dollars when given something to bother voting for.  Lord knows, that's a rare enough occurrence these days.

Yeah, yeah, the puppet alien stuff is good, as good as all the critics are saying.  However, don't fall into the cutesy-alien sentimental trap here.  Look at the person behind the carapace, at the fully developed character.  It took competent writing, scriptwriting, puppeteering, and voice acting to let Rocky's personality show through.  Don't waste all that effort treating this as another cheap Spielberg ET exercise in emotional manipulation, because it isn't.  This is a reasonably complex character, and while the kids can get a thrill from seeing an articulated rock pile, adults can appreciate what's going on too.

Finally, it's a miracle this story made it through production hell.  In a spoilerific interview here (No, don't click if you haven't read or seen it!  Really, don't!), the scriptwriter reveals how he was gently pressured to take out one key plot twist.  If the studio execs had succeeded in so gutting the story, my review would have been reduced to 2 out of 5 stars: "Nice special effects, but it's a shame they threw away the book.  Don't bother."  But they didn't!  So go see the movie.

This is not to say that major parts weren't adapted for screen.  And that's OK.  Not every technical in-joke or plot complication can make it – or even translates – to film.  The main point though is, the core of the story is there, it is a good story that people who've read the book will recognize, and it was faithfully translated to screen.  Again, this is the adaptation of the book that I'd hoped to see.

I Always Wondered About That Green Color

Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green over at a designer's substack.

Not just control rooms either!  Accelerator vaults were full of this color.  So were many printing presses.  And metal bookcases.  Couldn't get away from that stuff.  So what color do I paint my place's interior?  "Wind Song," a very light seafoam green.  What color do I paint my place's exterior?  A similar light gray-green "Sea Glass."

OK, at least it is sort of calming.  I also note that I picked none of these colors, relying instead upon various female influences around me.  Only however after I mock-threatened to paint the place a nice 70's goldenrod yellow when they wouldn't step up and advise.  Had to motivate them somehow.

Maybe they're all trying to tell me to cALm tHe F! dOwn!

Picture Perfect

From today's APOD:

That is all for today.  It's a rocket to the moon, what, you want something more?