After being mostly disappointed by Artemis and The Martian I was quite wary of this one. Perhaps my expectations were more reasonable this time around, but I think it was also a better book. Considering how those other books were trying their hardest to stay within a reasonable level of scientific accuracy and plausibility I was completely surprised that there turned out to be an alien in this one. An intelligent sentient species no less. He also just kind of showed up out of nowhere and I was in disbelief that that was the direction the story was going for a bit.

Like someone else mentioned I did find the book to be a bit too much “for all ages” kind of thing. Like it was intentionally written so that it could some day be a PG movie for both kids and adults. There is nothing wrong with this of course it is just not my usual thing. I did find it a bit eye rolling at times how great this supposed average teacher was at any kind of science and alien communication. Rocky was clearly the best character in my opinion. If he wasn’t there to offset the whole lone savior idea like The Martian I don’t think I would have enjoyed this book.

The science bits were a bit too sciencey and not enough fictiony for my tastes, but I don’t think it is Weir’s style to try and make up his own fictional science. Almost all of the science was just real science and math. I think the only thing that was pretty much entirely made up was the idea that something like astrophage and its neutrino harvesting amoeba could exist. I did like the details given for everything Ryland and Rocky were doing.

I kind of wish he actually managed to get back to Earth. It felt like a bit of a cop out for us to never fully see the impact to Earth. We know that at least somebody survived, but I wanted to see the scale of the damage. Anyway I liked this book more than I expected and I’ll more than likely read whatever book Weir publishes next.

When you design a new device from the ground up you make them fit in a way that allows the remaining space to be a single large rectangle to be entirely filled with battery. This might require custom PCB to have some L shapes. If you want to target a specific weight and having that much battery is too heavy then you make the device thinner. Instead it looks like they took pre-existing components from other devices such as Pixel phones or the Google Home and put them in a larger case.

It’s not necessarily a problem that this device exists how it is, but that it is a cheap way to go about it and yet still sold at a premium price.

Yes, but at $500 the profit margins are still huge. This is like a $200 tablet being sold for $500. It probably costs $50 to manufacture.

They are good and interesting in my opinion. I haven’t finished all of the short stories yet though, but I can’t imagine the rest of them would be bad.

I have a book called Sinopticon which primarily consists of science fiction stories by woman from China. So far they have been very different from anything else I’ve read as they often completely abandon any kind of tropes.

People for once not being overworked has made it clear that the scope of modern AAA video games is unsustainable.

That all sounds pretty cool. I could have sworn they mentioned all those devices they were producing were “personal aura” devices thus being a shield, but that could have just been Day not being aware of what they were. Perhaps the technology of a personal aura but used differently can become a teleporting device.

It’s also possible Hari didn’t even need to sneak anything to Demerzel. I think merely mentioning that the prime radiant is right there and that she could understand it was enough for her to be curious. I can’t recall if she actually took it? I suppose they could have snuck it out with her.

It looked like Day was crying after that brutal insult she gave him. Knowing how petty Day can be at even the slightest offense it seems like he is incapable of harming her or even talking back.

I don’t think so, but I can’t tell. I don’t think OP is the author of the book being mentioned in this article which confuses me as to why the post title is what it is.

At any rate, self promotion is against the rules so if so please avoid doing so.

They are still good for alternative builds of Android such as GrapheneOS. Ideally I wouldn’t support Google at all.

I’m hoping for a good episode tonight. I’ll have to get to it in a bit. I’m actually looking forward to it after that last one.

Not a huge deal, but if you see this message would you be able to put a spoiler around the book title? 👽

I find it really fascinating how different peoples minds can work. I’ve heard the internal monologue aspect come up a lot when discussing reading in general. There is no instruction manual when learning how to think as a baby so I suppose it isn’t surprising that there are a lot of variations.

I’ve never heard of anyone actually just sitting on the couch and listening to an audiobook while doing nothing else. It’s usually while doing some other mundane activity that doesn’t require much thought. Or at least something that doesn’t require the language part of your brain so you can do them at the same time. I can’t work and listen because my work involves thinking about words.

But at all times I am in the middle of a paper book and an audiobook. I listen to the audiobook when driving, doing chores and am in the shower. All other times I will read the paper book I am in the middle of.

Wow, 2.5 hour commute seems wild to me. I spend 10-15 minutes in the car to get to work and have been thinking about moving closer so I can bike. 👀

I occasionally buy a hardcover of a book I listened to on audiobook if I really liked it. Sometimes I’ll even switch back and forth on the same book depending on if I have the time to sit down and read paper.

It’s strange but I feel like with audiobooks the information is transferred directly into my mind. With reading text I have to convert the text into words in my mind so it can then be understood. This is a nearly instant process and almost imperceptible, but it does make listening to an audiobook an easier form of reading with a higher level of comprehension for me. I can get the same from a paper book, but it takes a little bit more mental work to achieve the same level of comprehension.

Perhaps some people can look at a word and have it directly understood without thinking about how the word sounds. I probably can do that just fine for individual words, but when it comes to painting a complex scene in my head it just doesn’t work without a bit more effort.

It’s unfortunate because I have a misophonia problem and sounds, especially the sounds of peoples voices annoys me greatly. It’s completely out of my control. I just hear specific sounds and I can feel my body getting anxious. Some voices cause this problem and others don’t. I have no idea what about someones voice annoys me, but it is a completely involuntary reaction no amount of logical reasoning can get rid of.

Is there a version of Foundation on audiobook that isn’t from forever ago with a guy that sounds like he is a 1950s radio host?

I’m hoping for some crazy robot (android) conspiracy where Demerzel has been creating a robot army for hundreds of years and is waiting to destroy all humans. 🤖