Sunday 06/20/2021
Dennis called at 7 and suggested going to Half Moon Bay to walk, which we did.
Back home I had lunch, played with software a bit, and took a couple of naps. My tummy was not feeling happy. I ate lightly at supper and sat around to read. Kind of a nothing day, aside from seeing brown pelicans.
Saturday 06/19/2021
Went for a modest walk and picked up a pastry. Got home about 9am and only then remembered I had promised to meet with Stephen, a big SWBB fan, at 10, for coffee. Well, no harm done. Out again for the short walk to the coffee shop and an hour’s chat.
At 11am Stanford played in the College World Series. They did not do well, losing 4-10.
In the afternoon I finished reading Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary. So many irritating things about that book. I wrote a review (see immediately previous post). Not sure what to do with it.
Note: do not read this review until you have completed reading the book! The book is a decent, fast-paced, entertaining SF story. Many people praise it; and it is already on track to be a Major Motion Picture. However, the book is structured around a slow reveal of many discoveries, both scientific and emotional. To enjoy the book, you need to experience these discoveries in their proper order. This review contains MANY SPOILERS. Really. LOTS OF SPOILERS!
Ergo, stop reading now, and read the book. While you’re at it, make your own list of nit-picks and complaints. Then we can compare notes.
NOW, GO AWAY.
So, person who has finished Project Hail Mary, welcome! How did you like it? Did you see any issues? When I read it, I was irritated by a whole lot of things about the book: Things that I thought were wrong; but more, things I thought were huge missed opportunities for an even better story. I took notes; and I’ve collected them here.
Let’s get rid of the editing flaws first. These would appear to be down to Julian Pavia, “my editor for this book” Weir says in the acknowledgements. Not big errors, but just wrong enough to break my flow in the early pages.
Kindle Location (KL) 129: “There are two more hammock-like beds mounted to the walls, each with their own patient.” Each is singular, this should be “each with its own patient.”
KL 129, “they’ve sunken into their bedding like I had.” Should be “sunk into”. Also “like I had” is awkward; if “as I had” sounds too fancy, “the way I had” would still be better.
KL 902, ‘area labeled “Cable Faring”’, and KL 922, “the Cable Faring area.” Both wrong; it should be “Cable Fairing” A fairing is a “structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fairing), not a place where cables travel or eat (“faring”).
KL 1319, “my body shined like a beacon”. Should be “shone”; “shined” is the past tense. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shined)
KL 3532, “He pumped his fist.” This is a continuity break; Weir has forgotten that Redell is “handcuffed to the table” (KL 3437). Should be, he tried to pump his fist and was brought up short by the shackles.
Oh, “picky, picky, picky” you say — yes, but this is the kind of stuff a professional editor should know. And as I say, these things broke my concentration.
Starting around KL 2153, Ryland Grace receives a cylinder from the alien ship. It’s “hot as heck!… not stovetop hot. But hot” (later he says “over 100ºC”). And it smells strongly of ammonia. He gives these two facts zero consideration, as he tosses it in the airlock to cool. Then around KL 2422 be examines the cylinder, works out how to open it, finds inside a small 3D model of the local stars.
To convey his own origin, he uses a soldering iron to attach an arc of wire from Tau Ceti to Sol in the map. This alone struck me as nuts. I’ve used solder often. The stuff melts at 190C (average, some even lower). What in the world lets Grace think his solder won’t melt? It was obvious to this reader, and I think most readers, that “room temperature” aboard the alien ship must be higher than 100C. It’s the only way to account for the hot cylinder; there’s nothing about what they can see of Grace’s ship to suggest they should heat the cylinder before sending it over.
If that isn’t stupid enough, he then adds a model of a Petrova line to Sol in the map using — wait for it — “hard paraffin”. What?! That would have melted at the temperature of the cylinder when he got it, let alone at the higher temperature back in the alien ship.
There are ways he could have added the arc without paraffin, perhaps a loop of wire. This bothered me for a whole chapter.
(Note that much later, KL 2491, he begins to work out how hot the cylinder must have been, “way higher than the boiling point of water”. But that comes after he has sent it back with his paraffin arc.
KL 2481, the Eridian ship wants to attach a tunnel to the Hail Mary. Somehow Grace concludes “They’ll need a sample of my hull.” Why? He has a spectroscope that told him immediately what the cylinder was made of (Xenon), why wouldn’t the aliens have something similar? In any case his solution is insane.
He grabs a tool belt and heads out for an EVA, where he uses a cold chisel in a place where “If I breach the hull here, it shouldn’t matter.” And he chisels out a 6-inch circle of his hull! This is just nuts. You don’t breach your hull for anything! Surely he could have found a sample of aluminum inside the ship, a cupboard door or something. This stunt bothered me for another whole chapter.
At this point I made a lengthy note about how he should find a way to print the periodic table in heat-resistant ink, circle the square for aluminum with an arrow to a drawing of the ship. Send that over.
Well, it turns out that wouldn’t have worked, because the aliens don’t see by light. Later the alien finds a way to symbolically express atomic weights as beads on a string. But Grace, a science teacher, should have at least considered the periodic table as a means of communicating.
Let’s go to KL 2727. The alien is just the other side of a barrier and they are about to meet, and Grace says this, which is the stupidest statement in the book, and will bother me the rest of the book:
“I should go back to the lab and find a camera, but come on. No one would have that presence of mind at a time like this.”
He has had HOURS while the alien aligned the ships and built his tube. But he never even considers recording any of this. He didn’t record opening the cylinder (the first alien artifact in history), he didn’t record the making of the tube, and he isn’t going to record this, the first meeting between the two species.
After the meeting (KL 2746) “I return to the Hail Mary… I pant and wheeze with excitement. I can’t believe what just happened.”
Right. And none of it was recorded. Nor is anything else, during the weeks he and the alien share the ship and establish a common language and work together to solve their big problem. There is no further mention of cameras or recording.
My comment somewhere around here was, Ryland Grace, if you ever get home, people will revile you and curse your name forever. And I think they would. Just for selfishly keeping these historic events, life-changing for two races, to himself.
Perhaps Weir felt this was an appropriate way to portray Grace as a self-centered, selfish jerk? Which he certainly is! But it seems impossible to me that anyone growing up in the age of YouTube and TikTok could fail to think “Video it!” for the most momentous event in his own life, let alone all human history.
It turns out that Rocky the alien “speaks with musical chords. While it’s very difficult to make a computer turn human speech into text, it’s very easy to make a computer identify musical notes and find them in a table.” (KL3220)
To drive this home, for the rest of this chapter Weir shows Rocky’s speech as musical notes. And not just “notes” meaning “single-frequency sounds” but specifically notes of the Western well-tempered scale, as shown by this passage (KL 4342):
“I don’t need the frequency analyzer anymore. That was an A-below-middle-C major fifth, followed by an E-flat octave, and then a G-minor seventh.”
At another point (KL 3387) Rocky is emotional and speaks at a lower pitch, which turns out to be exactly one octave lower. Weir has Grace say, “The octave is a universal thing,… means doubling the frequency of every note.” Well, yes and no.
Thus it is pretty clear that Andy Weir claims Rocky (and presumably all his species) speak in tones that Grace’s computer could identify using standard software. Which pretty clearly shows that Andy Weir hasn’t studied musicology.
This is, simply, the most unlikely idea in the whole book bar none! There are so many specifics to the Western scale that the idea that a completely different species evolving in a completely different environment, would have settled on it for their universal language, is just… beyond impossible.
First, they appear to have settled on dividing an octave into 12 notes. That’s completely arbitrary. Yes, the octave, a doubling of frequency, is natural and universal, but to choose to divide it into 12 notes related by a ratio of the 12th root of 2 — why? It is a specific cultural choice for us, and different human cultures have divided the octave differently (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_(music))
Second, why on earth would they have settled on 440hz as the base of the system? They must have done so; otherwise the computer wouldn’t recognize a chord as a G-minor 7th. Yes, given a triplet of three notes within an octave, the ratio of their frequencies could be pegged as a minor 7th, but what makes it a G minor 7th is the assumption that the notes fall on a scale based at 440hz.
It’s truly incredible that alien speech would be based on our Western system of notes and chords. No natural human language ever did so. Yes, there are tonal languages, where a bend of tone up or down adds meaning, but the bend is relative, not between specific notes. What is truly incredible is that they would have chosen to base it on exactly OUR octave structure and scale.
Rocky’s language snapped my belief suspension hard. But there’s another musical issue.
Having established that Rocky’s people speak in human music structures, it never once occurs to Weir (or at least to Ryland Grace) to do what was screamingly obvious to this reader: play him some human music! What would Rocky make of a Sousa march, a Bach sonata, or any kind of music? It should at worst come across to him like our scat singing, melodic nonsense syllables.
It is established in the “copyright trial” scene that Project Hail Mary has loaded the ship with all human documents, although there is no mention of audio files. But at least there should be music recordings in the personal effects of Grace’s crew mates. It’s just sad that Weir, having set up this very unlikely scenario, did not use it to full effect. I kept wanting that scene to happen and it never did.
And, let’s not be cultural imperialists here; so turn it around: Besides trying human music on Rocky, consider that, if Rocky’s people have any culture at all, surely they must have made an art form based on their speech. What does an Eridian poem sound like to a human ear? Or what they consider a great oration, the Eridian equivalent of the Gettysburg Address? Another wonderful dramatic moment that Weir fails to grasp.
KL 4300: “During the decades that Rocky’s been here, he observed the system very well. He gave me all the information he’d accumulated. He cataloged six planets, noted their size, mass, positions, orbital characteristics, and general atmospheric makeup. He didn’t have to travel around to do it. He just did astronomical observations from the Blip-A.”
Wait, what? Earlier it has been established that Rocky does not perceive light at all! His people evolved in a completely lightless environment, miles deep in a thick ammonia atmosphere. But here he is using highly sophisticated telescopes and spectroscopes. Which raises the question, What kind of astronomical instruments could a blind race have?
Obviously they can’t use sound for this; so what are their instruments? Do they have telescopes? And if so, what kind of transducer converts the focused image to sound for them to sense?
Later (KL 4562) it turns out that Rocky has a “camera” that captures a light image and renders it in texture that he can perceive. This explains how, if they could invent a telescope, they could “look” through it. But the problem is more fundamental: how the hell did they ever conceive of optics, let alone perfect them? Since there were literally no optical sights for them to see, how would they invent the prism or the mirror, let alone the lens?
I can see no explanation that would account for a blind species living in permanent darkness, inventing the lens. Living in Stygian darkness, they literally have no motive to invent any kind of optics. There is nothing to look at.
Again, this incongruity bothered me and made it hard to focus on the book.
KL6028, “They haven’t invented the transistor yet…” Well what did they have? Certainly not the vacuum tube! If there is one device that is even less likely than the lens to be invented at the bottom of 29 atmospheres of ammonia, it is the vacuum tube.
One can imagine how the Eridians might discover magnetism and even electricity. But they are stuck for switching elements. Electricity is if little use if you can’t open and close circuits and vary resistance. They might manage relays. But no way can they do vacuum tubes. In fact it is more likely they would invent the transistor first, given their skill in solid material handling and synthesis. You need some kind of electronics to get a vessel up to the top of that atmosphere. You need stepper motors and servos, you need switches, you need batteries and generators (note that at one point Rocky repairs a generator from the Hail Mary).
That leaves open the biggest question of all: how did they ever discover there was anything outside their world? They had to get to the top of their atmosphere somehow, and even then, what could they learn? The would find that the air gets thin, the temperature drops, there is a source of heat that comes and goes. That’s it. How would they know that there was a universe of radiant and reflective objects to look at? They’re blind!
At the very end, Weir tries to paper this over by describing a social or communal mind (KL 7518) in which multiple Eridian minds can merge to be smarter. I’m not buying it, and the lack of a good explanation of how Rocky’s people could have ever been motivated to invent optics, discover the universe, and invent space travel, remained a major flaw in the book for me.
Friday 06/18/2021
Went for the standard walk in the morning. Deliberately sat to rest between legs C & D, although I could have not done so.
At 10am there was an introduction to the newest equipment in the fitness center, a Cyber Cycle: a recumbent bike exercise machine with a nice big touch screen, and lots of vertual routes you can ride. I look forward to trying it.
Worked on the software project for a couple of hours.
At 4pm it was time for Rhonda’s weekly open meeting. 89% of staff have had both vax injections and 91% have had at least one. Various restrictions are being lifted. The temperature checking station is being removed from the lobby, because vaccinated staff don’t need to be checked. Visitors still do, but that will be done at the front desk. Staff can for the first time, have lunch together. For a year they’ve been eating lunch and taking breaks alone.
Unfortunately Santa Clara County is still “very clear” Rhonda says, that facilities like ours can’t yet have guests in the public areas or the dining room.
And that, Rhonda announced, was hopefully the last ever weekly Covid meeting. We have been doing them since March 2020. From now on there will be an open meeting, but it will be monthly, 3rd Monday.
Thursday 06/17/2021
Still not feeling 100%, and this is getting annoying. What do you do with a very low variable fever and no other symptoms except lack of energy? Wait it out, I guess.
So I blew off the morning exercise class, even though I had calculated that I could finish it, shower and dress, and be on my way across the bay to be in plenty of time at CHM’s Shustek center.
It was pleasant to meet with three other volunteers and the cheerful museum staff, and got together for lunch with another four of them. Almost everyone who has worked at Yosemite or Shustek is back.
Spent the day cataloging about half of a pile of Cryotrons, experimental superconducting switches from the estate of Dudley A. Buck. The guy was experimenting with logic switches that only worked when bathed in liquid helium. In the same building at MIT where they were building Whirlwind, a vacuum tube computer. In 1950.
Came home by 4:30pm, feeling ok but tired. Did not much in the evening.
Wednesday 06/16/2021
The main activity today was to drive to town, see an exhibit of paintings by Carol Aust, which was the excuse to get together with Jean, cousin Darlene, and her partner Jessea.
Jean pulled in about 10:20, early as I expected she would be, and we transferred to my car. Drove to the City, to Noe Valley, around 25th and Sanchez. Google Street View can be quite deceptive. I had “walked” around the area last week in street view and never picked up on the fact that the streets are all steeply sloped every which way. It also didn’t warn me that this very intersection where we were to meet for lunch, was being made over by SF street crews. New sidewalks. Still, I managed to find a parking space and we all managed to meet up on time and have a nice lunch.
Darlene is a cousin of Jean, and was the flower girl at Jean’s wedding 70-odd years ago.
Back home, at 4pm was the first meeting of the Strategic Planning Committee. I’ll write about this more another time. Odd meeting.
Tuesday 06/15/2021
Hey, today, June 15, is the 2nd anniversary of my moving into Channing House! That would have been Day 195 “moving out”. Probably I should think about rearranging my furniture, after two years, but I can’t imagine how to do that.
Did the aerobics on the 11th floor, three of us physically present and one on zoom.
Writers group at 11am. I had nothing to read, but listened to the others’ work with pleasure.
After lunch went to FOPAL where there were 5 or 6 boxes to cull. Not much of quality, I only shelved maybe 15 books at the end. The rest will go to the $1 bargain room.
FOPAL is edging back to normal. We still wear masks in the building, but they no longer require appointments for donations. Open from 3-5pm every day for drive-up donations. First sale coming in August.
I meant to post this yesterday. According to a Japanese car enthusiast website, these are official design renderings of the 2023 (available late 2022) Toyota Prius.
I think that is a really pretty car. My 2012 will last just fine another year, then I will get in line for one of these. Supposedly there will be a “sport coupe” model as well. Not too sure about buying a 2-door, but it might be real purty too.
Monday 06/14/2021
Went for the standard walk. Was a bit more tired than usual, finishing it. I’m continuing to be mildly concerned about my health. My temp has been going up toward 99 in the evenings. Today it was 97.7 at dawn, which is excellent, normal. But now at 7pm it’s 99.9, which is almost high enough to call myself ill.
The monthly Resident Association meeting was at 10:30. Today in the admin section, Rhonda presented on the planned charge structure for nursing activities.
She presented a chart that clarified a lot of things for me. Down the left, each row of about 25, listed a nursing activity, e.g. eyedrops, blood pressure. Three columns: the left column had check marks in the first 3 or 4 rows; these are the few nursing services that are included for independent living. Middle column, a longer line of check marks, the services that are no-charge to Assisted Living. Last column, check marks all the way down, services that are no-charge in Skilled Nursing.
She explained that as a CCRA, our business model is based on actuarial statistics: people will live a certain length of time at each level of care. During the pandemic, owing to various problems including a shortage of AL units, some people have lingered longer in IL and the nurses have spent time supporting them. However, if they continue providing free AL services to IL residents, it breaks the business model. But now that the 3rd floor renovation is wrapping up, with its addition of 20-ish new AL rooms, they need to get all that straightened out. People who need more assistance (putting on compression stockings, putting in daily eyedrops, help bathing…) can enter AL where they get all they need (and their rent does not change).
There was an hour of discussion following this but my take is, everything is working pretty much as the contract I signed promised. You get the care you need, your rent doesn’t change, but the trade-off is you have to move to an appropriate unit.
There have been two couples on my very floor who fought this for a while. In both cases the husband is moderately healthy and mobile, while the wife is declining badly. This puts a steadily increasing burden on the husband; but in both cases either the wife or both resisted letting the wife move to AL. One couple finally agreed. The other is still hanging tough.
The rest of the day I slogged around my room doing more or less interesting stuff but being physically inert. By 5pm I was sick of myself and went for a mile walk. On return I grabbed a sandwich from the to-go refrigerator and had it with some cherries and a beer.
Sunday 06/13/2021
About 7am Dennis called to say he could pick me up at 8 to attend another girls’ basketball game featuring Kaylee Mills, the 12-year-old phenom. We had done the same a week back (Day 2.180).
The game this time was at Sequoia HS in Redwood City. We got there in good time for the 8:30 tip. Most of the Mills clan showed up: Dennis’ oldest son Bill (father of Kaylee, husband of Kaylee’s teams coach Kay), Dennis’ daughter Denise and her husband, and stepsons Ted and James, plus James’ wife and grandson Josh. Good size cheering section.
As before, the girls displayed pretty good ball-handling, strong defense, lots of energy, but a low shooting percentage. But “our” team won.
The rest of the day I pretty much just slouched around in my room. Around 9pm Jean sent to me along with many other recipients, a string of emails with pictures remembering her brother Emile. Among these old snaps were of course several featuring me and Marian. Here’s one from 1996.
Seated, Octavie on her 100th birthday with her three children Marian, Emile and Jean. Standing, spouses of them.
Of this group only three survive today: Me, Jean, and… believe it or not, that shirt. Hanging in my closet now.
A couple of months ago I wrote about trying to get IBM’s benefits administrator, VIA, to directly deposit a small regular check to my bank account. I wrote about this in detail on Day 2.128. After I sent them a form with the correct account and routing numbers, they reported that the deposit failed
for the reason code R15-Beneficiary or Account Holder Deceased.
They tried to deposit money in Marian’s name and SFCU very properly rejected it. I couldn’t figure out then or now why they would do that. Yes, Marian was an IBM retiree and I was her beneficiary, but when their paper check arrives, it is made out to me; Marian’s name is not on it. Why use her name on a direct deposit?
Read the 2.128 post for what happened when I tried to talk to their customer service people. They just couldn’t understand the problem even when they read the “reason code”. The insisted I must have given them the wrong account or routing number.
At that time I just let it go. I’ll go on depositing their paper checks, I thought.
A couple of weeks later a VIA admin called me up and wanted to try again. They really want to do direct deposit. So I agreed he could send me a new paper form.
He did, and in early May I received it. Filled it out and triple-checked it. Attached a void check. Now note these facts:
Unfortunately, I did not make a copy of the form before I mailed it. Nor did I write down the date.
Well, you can guess what happened next, right? I got this email:
Yup. Same issue. This time I am not going to bother calling them. Fuck them. They are completely, hopelessly, incompetent. Plus I am tired of being reminded that my wife is deceased.
Codgerville 