vital functions
Dec. 6th, 2020 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. Artemis, Andy Weir. Oh my goodness you were all entirely correct about the extent to which this book is a complete trainwreck. Spoilers, technically, under the cut, though honestly I don't think they really explain anything: so we wind up, in the climactic scene, with Principal Protagonist's welding! being too good! such that, upon blowing up the lunar aluminium smelting plant, in order to stop it -- via shenanigans with contract law -- being taken over by the Brazilian mob, who want to do so because it will make them trillions because of the invention of a zero-attenuation fibre optic cable that can only be created in low gravity, they chloroform the entire lunar city (miraculously, nobody dies). Serendipity: the scientific crux of the book (...) is the FCC Cambridge process, currently the ESA's favourite in-situ resource utilisation, which I came across for the first time on Monday, because I was teaching it to my undergrads. The key plot-breaking thing Andy Weir doesn't understand, this book, is sociology (and in particular the social dynamics of town with 2000 residents). He's also astonishingly ignorant about mobility aids, in ways that I had to stop and stare at a wall about, and bafflingly in a world (circa 2060) where there's a shuttle to the Moon once a week proximity sensors on cars are still a luxury add-on. Which is just. What.
Anyway, it was trash and I'm glad I read it and it's going straight back into the charity-shop pile.
I have just started Jackalope Wives & Other Stories, T. Kingfisher; most of these I think I've read before, which means they will make an excellent soothing reread, and for once I'm actually in the mood for an anthology of short fiction because it means I am less likely to get sucked into read the whole thing right now whoops where did my day go I was going to do thesis work.
Writing. ... speaking. of which. My introduction is entirely LaTeXed up! I learned about subfiles, including that page numbering apparently breaks if you stick an abstract environment in the middle of the front matter, rendering my earlier-still learning about multiple abstracts with customisable headings irrelevant! (Or at least I commented out the abstract environment and reintroduced section headings as proof-of-concept, and that actually worked, so I'm not spending more time debugging it now.) Also learned: giving figures short titles for their inclusion in a list of figures.
Unfortunately my brain then had An Extended Moment about actually making the words go, so I am only tonight finishing up extensive rewriting of the introduction to chapter 4, but that's now pretty much there and making a lot more sense, and fingers crossed the rest of the chapter will go slightly more easily. On the upside (?), while my brain was Refusing I did at least manage to sort out DOIs for all of my references that have them, including that one paper from 1862, so while not strictly necessary that is Satisfying. (More necessary: sorting out punctuation around initials. Also now Done.) Next step (for tonight, sigh): message my supervisors to say "lol sorry was delayed by getting my brain back into stable equilibrium post-Paperwork".
Creating. The other main bit of thesis work I did this week was of course graphic design (
).
Watching. CXG S02E02. Oh my goodness I had a lot of feelings about this. The tiny reprise! The beautiful tensions between the various and contrasting ways people tell the truth and dissemble and outright lie! The sheer joy of Knowing, during That Scene, that Father Brah's actor is also one of the writers.
We also put on A Night In With Rachel Bloom on Friday evening; alas she was in conversation with a... rather green... interviewer. Chief rec I have squirrelled away for future: Forget Paris (1995), which is apparently Rachel Bloom's favourite romcom.
Listening. Suggestion from last therapy session: have music on while A is having [regular meeting], because I find being able to overhear his half of it deeply stressful, so while I can't actually work terribly effectively with music on, for the most part, I wouldn't be working effectively while overhearing the meeting anyway so I had might as well at least be less stressed. Verdict: works excellently! However, next time maybe not Vienna Teng, because I started crying about three tracks in and then just kept right on weeping until shuffle brought up the specific track I had needed to listen to to get it out of my head. Lessons... possibly learned.
Playing. Dragons dragons dragons! Dragons. Some quantity of PoGo, where I am mostly ??? at the new Pokémon released this week. Another batch of Among Us, with cousins et al. A & I also tried making a start on Obduction but I rapidly got sufficiently motion-sick I couldn't actually look at screens for a while, so. Trying again, with me in control of camera view, is on the cards, I think. At some point. When I've got these chapter revisions done.
Cooking. A big vat of vegetable stew with dumplings! And apple & pear crumble, and a leek & mushroom risotto, both as collaborations with A.
Growing. Mrrrgh lemon. (Sigh. Upside: I'm reasonably sure I can nurse it back to health again, this time.) Also mrrgh: the patio-tomato seems to have managed to acquire The Blight, so that's going to need chopping up and feeding to the compost at some point in the near-ish future. So it goes.
On the upside, the pepper I brought home to keep indoors seems to be actually ripening to red, which I'm a little startled about but very pleased by.
I did not make it to the allotment this week. I have more physio on Tuesday, though, and the allotments are right behind the hospital, so At Least A Flying Visit is in my future!
Anyway, it was trash and I'm glad I read it and it's going straight back into the charity-shop pile.
I have just started Jackalope Wives & Other Stories, T. Kingfisher; most of these I think I've read before, which means they will make an excellent soothing reread, and for once I'm actually in the mood for an anthology of short fiction because it means I am less likely to get sucked into read the whole thing right now whoops where did my day go I was going to do thesis work.
Writing. ... speaking. of which. My introduction is entirely LaTeXed up! I learned about subfiles, including that page numbering apparently breaks if you stick an abstract environment in the middle of the front matter, rendering my earlier-still learning about multiple abstracts with customisable headings irrelevant! (Or at least I commented out the abstract environment and reintroduced section headings as proof-of-concept, and that actually worked, so I'm not spending more time debugging it now.) Also learned: giving figures short titles for their inclusion in a list of figures.
Unfortunately my brain then had An Extended Moment about actually making the words go, so I am only tonight finishing up extensive rewriting of the introduction to chapter 4, but that's now pretty much there and making a lot more sense, and fingers crossed the rest of the chapter will go slightly more easily. On the upside (?), while my brain was Refusing I did at least manage to sort out DOIs for all of my references that have them, including that one paper from 1862, so while not strictly necessary that is Satisfying. (More necessary: sorting out punctuation around initials. Also now Done.) Next step (for tonight, sigh): message my supervisors to say "lol sorry was delayed by getting my brain back into stable equilibrium post-Paperwork".
Creating. The other main bit of thesis work I did this week was of course graphic design (
).Watching. CXG S02E02. Oh my goodness I had a lot of feelings about this. The tiny reprise! The beautiful tensions between the various and contrasting ways people tell the truth and dissemble and outright lie! The sheer joy of Knowing, during That Scene, that Father Brah's actor is also one of the writers.
We also put on A Night In With Rachel Bloom on Friday evening; alas she was in conversation with a... rather green... interviewer. Chief rec I have squirrelled away for future: Forget Paris (1995), which is apparently Rachel Bloom's favourite romcom.
Listening. Suggestion from last therapy session: have music on while A is having [regular meeting], because I find being able to overhear his half of it deeply stressful, so while I can't actually work terribly effectively with music on, for the most part, I wouldn't be working effectively while overhearing the meeting anyway so I had might as well at least be less stressed. Verdict: works excellently! However, next time maybe not Vienna Teng, because I started crying about three tracks in and then just kept right on weeping until shuffle brought up the specific track I had needed to listen to to get it out of my head. Lessons... possibly learned.
Playing. Dragons dragons dragons! Dragons. Some quantity of PoGo, where I am mostly ??? at the new Pokémon released this week. Another batch of Among Us, with cousins et al. A & I also tried making a start on Obduction but I rapidly got sufficiently motion-sick I couldn't actually look at screens for a while, so. Trying again, with me in control of camera view, is on the cards, I think. At some point. When I've got these chapter revisions done.
Cooking. A big vat of vegetable stew with dumplings! And apple & pear crumble, and a leek & mushroom risotto, both as collaborations with A.
Growing. Mrrrgh lemon. (Sigh. Upside: I'm reasonably sure I can nurse it back to health again, this time.) Also mrrgh: the patio-tomato seems to have managed to acquire The Blight, so that's going to need chopping up and feeding to the compost at some point in the near-ish future. So it goes.
On the upside, the pepper I brought home to keep indoors seems to be actually ripening to red, which I'm a little startled about but very pleased by.
I did not make it to the allotment this week. I have more physio on Tuesday, though, and the allotments are right behind the hospital, so At Least A Flying Visit is in my future!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-06 11:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-07 12:21 am (UTC)You're really not. It's fine if you're after some outrageous popcorn but just... no. There is a point at which the protagonist, who is a 26 year old woman, describes the lunar habitat (consisting of domes) as looking like boobs. BOOBS.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-07 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-07 03:46 am (UTC)Marks for style for referencing a paper by Crookes!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-07 11:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-08 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-07 05:30 am (UTC)Sorry for silence
Date: 2020-12-07 11:21 pm (UTC)and I'm delighted that an 1862 paper can get a DOI. Even more delighted to discover that the style guide for the middle 19th century permitted/encouraged/allowed an abstract to be one sentence.
Go go go!