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Such a large proportion of my online community were raving about this movie so I thought I'd check it out, despite it not being my usual genre. And...well...it was ok? I guess? I was struck by how parallel the overall plot arc was to The Martian: protagonist finds himself the sole remnant of an Earth expedition, is improbably successful at jury-rigging solutions to daunting problems, just barely survives a dire problem of astronautics. Yes, there are any number of differences, especially the first contact plot (which, as a linguist, I have to say also involved improbable success).

It's very much old-school SF, where a lone (male) hero solves insurmountable difficulties through the power of his enormous brain. Despite Weir's evident recent claim that he doesn't do politics in his writing, the "cross-species cooperation to survive" element is solidly political (and should be promoted more often for intra-species cooperation). But it's a solidly traditional theme (see, e.g., Enemy Mine), as is the mechanics of developing an alien language translation program (see, e.g., Arrival).

I did find the late reveal of spoiler spoiler spoiler to be a satisfactory motivation for the protagonist's eventual choice of fate. (Not the self-sacrificing aspect but the later choice.) And in that context, the flashback method of showing his gradual memory recovery was also effective.

So: it was ok, I guess?

My essay? book? blog series? Let's call it a "book posted in installments" The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category has begun appearing on my blog at: https://alpennia.com/blog/theory-related-ivity-segment-i.

The series will appear in parallel at File 770. At some point after the whole series has appeared, I'll also release it as a e-book. (I figure it's a nice low-pressure project for learning Vellum.)

This was a really fun geeky research project with some interesting (if not always surprising) conclusions. Best Related Work challenges Hugo voters to think about what "related" means and what constitutes a "work" with few administrative constraints. My study asks: how do Hugo nominators answer those questions?

I hope the study might spark conversations, although that means I'll need to keep on top of approving comments on the blog. (All comments are pre-screened due to spam.)

I prefer not to duplicate content on multiple platforms, largely through laziness. And I tend to assume that if people are interested in the content I post on a particular platform, they'll follow me on that platform.

That said, I'm posting a couple of multi-part long-form essays over at my Alpennia.com blog that people might possibly be interested in.

One is an 8-part series presenting and analyzing the primary source material on 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, in addition to presenting and analyzing the narratives about them in the General History of the Pirates. This is part of my usual Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog.

The other will be a 16-part series entitled The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category. If you were the sort of fannish data nerd who enjoy the article Charting the Cliff that Camestros Felapton and I wrote a couple years ago, this may also be your thing. Related-ivity will also be mirrored on File 770. (I haven't started posting this one yet.)

So you have several ways of reading, if that's something you want to do. I'd love it if you read (and commented) at the Alpennia.com blog. The blog also has a RSS feed here at Dreamwidth but I have no way of being notified about comments on it. And, as noted, Related-ivity will also appear on File 770 (where you can also comment) but obviously the LHMP series won't appear there. It occurs to me that, given that the RSS feed on Dreamwidth doesn't like image files, it's probably a poor choice for Related-ivity, since you won't be able to see the figures and tables.

Why is life so complicated?

On the positive side, it all got fixed within a few hours.

I've been commenting lately that I felt like my home repair budget was fairly safe because I'd replaced every significant appliance in the house at some point since I acquired the house. (Fifteen years ago. 15! Can you believe it?)

Well, I forgot about the garage door opener. But it didn't forget about me.

I'd just gotten my bike out this morning, then when I went to close the garage door behind me, it made a lot of sad noises and declined to close. Examination showed that several of the side-rollers had jumped out of their tracks. (I'd known that one was out of the track for some time, but I couldn't man-handle it back in and it didn't seem to be causing problems.)

So. This calls for professional help. But first it called for securing the critical garage contents because the door was stuck open and I live on a well-traveled street. That having been done, I went on Yelp, located a relatively local garage door repair company, and got scheduled for a window within a couple hours. OK, good sign.

I solved my anxiety about the lack of door closure by doing yard work in the front yard until the repair guy arrived.

In addition to the roller misalignment (which is now happening on both sides of the door, thanks to my efforts to get it to fail closed) the cables (which evidently get winched up by a heavy-duty spring) are tangled on the spindle rather than being neatly wound on their designated place. So the immediate problem could be solved with brute force: prying the roller track open enough to force the roller back in; disconnecting the cables and rewinding in the correct place. That was going to be about $500 labor. Ok.

But, he says, look: these cables are corroded, and one of the heavy-duty springs is rusty. Furthermore, you really should use rollers with longer shanks, because these have a risk of popping off their sockets on the door. (I'm sure my description is not helping anyone visualize this.) So, he says, I'm going to recommend you replace pretty much all the door-lifting hardware. That's going to be a couple thousand.

I wince, but I can see the truth of everything he's saying. So he goes to work on all that and gets it all back in working order. And then he says, "So, you don't have to do this, and I don't get any commission or anything if you do, but the motor on your door opener is 20 years old, it isn't really as powerful as it should be for how much you use it, and it's probably going to fail within the next couple years.

So that was a couple more thousand. But now I have a fancy garage door opener that talks to my iPhone and includes a security camera. And maybe--just maybe--now I really have replaced the last appliance that came with the house when I bought it. Unless I've forgotten something else.

I think people who follow me on social media (especially here and fb) are aware of my habit of explicitly noting when I don't want "helpful" commentary/suggestions/feedback on something I"m describing--and, conversely, explicitly noting when I'm seeking input. But sometimes I worry that people take that as a signal that I don't want interaction at all. (Why in the world would I post things about my life if I didn't want any interaction?)

I'd love to have more actual conversations on social media. Back and forth, discussions of topics of mutual interest. But it feels like so few people stop to ask themselves, "Am I phrasing my participation in this conversation in a way that implies the original poster is ignorant or incompetent? Is there a way I could rephrase that makes it clear that I'm providing additional information for other readers, rather than implying this is something the original poster doesn't know? Or that I'm amplifying and agreeing with the post, rather than contradicting it or poking holes in it?"

Here's a generic example.

OP: [Interesting Fact]
Commenter: [Subsidiary Information that could be assumed to be known by anyone who already knows Interesting Fact]

Compare to:
OP: [Interesting Fact]
Commenter: What I love about that [Interesting Fact] is [Subsidiary Information].

The first implies the OP doesn't know the fact. The second shows solidarity by assuming the OP knows the fact and the commenter is sharing their love for it.

Now, one could object that people differ in their ability to communicate in nuanced fashions and some people just aren't good at analyzing on the fly how their comments might be taken. But from the other side, people differ in their ability to assume good will in the face of past experience. A mirror-world version of "I'm not good at reading social cues" is "I'm working very hard to read social cues and the false positives are abundant." Telepathy still hasn't been invented.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm whining about this (given that the inciting interaction was incredibly trivial).

I gambled that my authors would read their email and respond within a few days and held off on the On the Shelf podcast until I could include the announcement. Offers went out on the 6th, the podcast would normally have gone up on the 7th. As of this morning I still had one acceptance yet to come in, but I'd scripted the show and decided to go ahead and record. Then the final acceptance came in just as I was setting up the mic. (I wouldn't have uploaded the episode until everything was final, but it was unlikely I'd have to change the script.)

Once again, I'm pledging myself to get ahead of the game. I'll send out payments tomorrow and any suggested edits by the end of the week, along with requests for bios and pronunciation guides. I'll be doing all the narration myself this year. So I have half a chance of actually getting everything recorded well in advance. (But only half a chance, because inevitably I get distracted by something else, thinking, "Well, I have plenty of time.")

I bought five stories again this time, due to some short lengths, though I'm not sure whether I'll do a double-episode or use one as a special bonus fiction episode at some point. The podcast is having its 10th anniversary this year, which might make a natural context for that.

I forget whether I discovered the technique for turning artichoke leaves into cardoons earlier than last year. Having solidly learned the knack, I've started the harvest already (while the globes won't start showing up for a couple more months). The result is basically a slightly bitter "carrier" for other flavors, but they add bulk and fiber to a dish. They go well with marinara sauce, for example.

I actually got my act together to grow some "winter vegetables" this year and have a dozen cabbages thinking about doing something, as well as some assorted greens. Haven't checked to see if the peas have come up, but there are also onions that were started as seed last spring that have gotten as far as scallions now. This is the tricky time of year when I don't have the irrigation turned on, so I need to pay attention to whether it's raining often enough to keep things going.

I harvested all dozen or so of my grapefruit and they're chilling happily in the crisper drawer. (Some critter had gotten to a couple of them, so I didn't want to leave them on the tree.) I have a half grapefruit every couple of days, since the word is that they don't always play well with blood thinners and I don't want to overdo it, but that'll take me through the end of the month or so.

The juice oranges are mostly ripe and I'm picking one or two at a time. (I think there may be a couple dozen in total across three trees.) And it's time to Do Something with this year's Seville orange crop, which reminds me I need to reach out to the friend who wants some for marmalade. (I can never remember what the middle vowel in marmalade should be on the first try.)

Other than that, I need to spend a lot more time pruning and weeding during the wet-and-fallow season. But the first daffodil bloomed today, so there's that.

So today's adventure was going uptown to meet friends at the Cloisters and see the special exhibit (on sexuality in the Middle Ages) with them. I took the subway up then walked the last bit through the park with snow softly falling. As I'm walking along the path, a couple coming the other way stop to compliment my coat. (This is the long green redingote with the shoulder capes.) I thanked them and told them about how I loved to make historically-inspired clothing and we chatted briefly then went on our way.

So I saw the exhibit and the rest of the museum. Went to an early dinner with my friends. Then caught the subway back toward downtown, but because it's a weekend I had to overshoot my destination and double back from Columbus Circle. So I'm standing on the platform at Columbus and I hear this voice, "I'd recognize that coat anywhere!" It's the same couple (at the opposite end of town). We chatted some more while waiting for our trains and it turns out they both went to Berkeley for college. What a small world.

This is the sort of trip I never felt able to schedule before retirement: put together several purposes and just take a couple weeks to see people and do things.

I flew out on a red-eye because I always have this dilemma when flying east that I can either get up at an ungodly hour of the morning (which means either leaving my car at long-term parking, or getting an airport hotel room the night before), or I can arrive later in the evening than I want to be dealing with unfamiliar transit systems, or I can take a red-eye and have the logistics at both ends done at a reasonable hour of the day...at the expense of losing most of a night's sleep. I did sleep for several hours, but then spent most of yesterday vegging around L's appartment. (Which worked out because she had several online things to do.)

Today is L's big-number birthday celebration (one of the aforesaid "several purposes"). Then I have five days in NYC in which I have two items scheduled, which gives me a chance for more spontaneity than I usually have on trips. After that, it's up to Maine for the family part of the trip.

I was able to get all my blog/podcast stuff set up for the rest of the month--only need to switch things to "live" on the web--so any "work" I do on this trip can be on less urgent (i.e., actually writing on book projects). I think I've been managing better at avoiding having short-term deadlines rule my creative life, but somehow the non-fiction projects have called to me more strongly than the fiction. I suspect that's because the non-fiction is more in the revisions phased than the "creating text out of nothing" phase.

So yesterday I was checking my calendar to make sure I was keep track of things and had a "wait...what?" moment when I realized that I fly off to the east coast for a couple weeks...um...next Monday. And that means I"m popping down to Monterey for a family ting on Saturday. And that means...

So I spent a large chunk of yesterday evening drawing up my compulsively -detailed itinerary/schedule and making some additional reservations. I got the plane tickets months ago, but my plans also include some Amtrak travel, a rental car, and a motel room. I didn't want to leave any of that to chance (despite it being off season) but I hadn't previously nailed down exactly when I was doing the non-NYC parts of the trip.

The conjunction that inspired this trip is a friends large-number birthday (hi Lauri!), the Emma Stebbins exhibit at the Heckscher Museum (which I did a podcast interview for), it having been too long since I've seen my brother and family in Maine, and the chance to meet my grand-niece (also in Maine). Alas, the grand-niece contingent had since decided to do the snowbird thing for several months and won't be in scope on this trip.

So I'll be in NYC for 7 days (including two planned-but-not-yet-calendared events) then Augusta ME for 4 days. Currently it's looking like no blizzard, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed as that would make the driving parts annoying.

Unlike most NYC trips, I have plenty of unscheduled time this trip, and I'd love to meet up with folks if it works out.