Unexpected Good News: A Movie of Weir's "Project Hail Mary"

The trailer just dropped today, with a release date of 3/20/26.  link here  You go watch now.

My review of the book (from 2021; has it really been that long?) here.

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked.

"Oppenheimer" (the movie) Dissected

When Oppenheimer came to theaters, I was looking forward to a glorious movie and a glorious theater experience.  In short, the shiny new theater I picked presented such a customer-hostile environment that I walked out before even buying a ticket, and bought a copy of the disc a few months later.  Then I watched it, and was appalled by the lack of character development on the interesting historical figures, while the director instead chose to linger for a third of the film's runtime over a dull, neurotic girlfriend.  In short, this film was a beautifully made complete waste of time and right now that disc is wasting my shelf space, but only because I haven't yet thrown it out.  I haven't written a review until now either, because the film's lack of cohesive content made commentary difficult.  There really wasn't much to say about it beyond a simple "don't bother" delivered months after it had left theaters, so I didn't bother.  Giving this thing any kind of n-stars movie rating would be akin to reviewing one of those semi-funny AI generated Star Wars / Miami Vice mash-up videos.  Sometimes interesting visuals, but really nothing beyond that.

Anyway, here's a writer's take on the film, and it's not pretty (link, just under one hour).  If the hour length  gives you a case of the TLDWs, here's her summary:

• Unnecessary Complexity
• Inconsistent Pacing
• Inadequate  Context
• Failure to Establish Thematic Framing

Whew.  The poor woman actually watched the damn thing three times (that's nine hours!) to bring us this analysis.  I wish there was an obvious link from her review video for some sort of coffee fund donation, because that kind of dedication deserves more recognition.

Drink the Water

The precautionary boil water notice has been lifted, as detailed at WOYS's blog.

I'm still going to run it through a filter though, and you might consider doing the same.

Drilled is Killed

In more good news, Gov. DeSantis signed off on the "Kill the Drill" bill yesterday.  Initial news at The Times, but watch The Times' main page for more details in the coming week.

TLDR: An oil exploration company was seeking permission to drill in the Apalachicola River basin, about 50 miles upriver from Apalachicola Bay.  With the downstream three counties' economies largely dependent upon this river and bay system remaining clean for seafood production, recreational fishing, and general tourism, it's not hard to see how any spill would be catastrophic.  Given the paltry upside to finding small deposits of oil in the river basin, drilling in this area is not a worthwhile risk.  The state legislature and governor agreed, and have blocked the proposed drilling.

Whew.  Onward to less hare-brained things.

More True Than Ever Around Apalach

While things are generally going into the portapotty all around the world, there's a specially scented problem with the water here in Apalach.  However, we may have turned the corner today with the state's AG beginning an investigation.  Time will tell.

Full story here at WOYS.

About That Antarctic Station...

 Last Saturday was the BBC's mid-winter transmission to the British antarctic research station (yeah, missed it again, sigh).  Whether or not you caught it live, you can catch up with various peoples' recordings of the proceedings at The SWLing Post mid-winter tag here.

Anyway, back to the main point of this post.  The Halley VI antarctic station is a tad... unearthly looking.  Here's an interesting video covering its workings, along with mentions of several other nations' stations, and some speculation on future lunar outposts.  A lot of these ideas would work for college dormitories as well.  Interesting, forward-looking stuff that's well worth your 11 minutes.  Also, here's the Wikipedia page on Halley VI as well.

All for today.  Unless something else remarkable happens.

I probably ought to adapt this design for hurricane season around here.  Wind resistant and already up on pilings, there's a lot to build on from this base design.  I wonder how much one unfinished fiberglass module would cost?

A Pretty Good Idea

Fishing shirts for hiking, over at Section Hiker.  Kind of obvious, but I needed this pointed out.  Well, day before yesterday was the summer solstice, so I guess that I have a good three months to spray mine down with permethrin.  Really is a good idea though.