Exploring Ambivalence: A Review of Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary” | June 19 2026, 14:11

I finished reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. My feelings are mixed.

On one hand, Weir is an absolute genius of hard science fiction. It’s evident that the universe is developed down to the smallest details. The author doesn’t just make up facts; the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, space navigation — everything is based on real modern scientific concepts. The problems the main character solves are logical, and following the plot development is insanely interesting. Pure delight for the inner geek.

But on the other hand… throughout the novel, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading young adult or even children’s literature.

For instance… Ryland Grace, the main character, behaves not like a leading scientist stranded alone in deep space on a mission to save humanity, but like a hyperactive school teacher (which he actually was). His inner monologue is filled with childlike wonder, and instead of normal adult swearing in stressful situations, he uses amusing euphemisms. And generally, the idea that a single scientist should be able to quickly retrofit a spacecraft on the fly with a “sticks and stones” approach just to make it work is – well.. that’s something.

Too tame and kind space. All conflicts on Earth before the launch are resolved suspiciously easily thanks to the “absolute power” of project leader Eva Stratt. Her actions often look caricatured, not realistic. And when the alien Rocky appears… Their friendship develops by the canons of a classic Disney fairy tale. They instantly find a common language, they have perfect mutual understanding, zero cultural barriers, or dangerous misunderstandings. Everything is very cute, conflict-free, and “on friendship.” Adding some conflict for sharpness would have been nice. Everything always goes smoothly for the main character.

Writing style. Short, chopped sentences, very simple language, chewing over every thought, constant exclamations. The text seems specifically adapted so that a twelve-year-old could easily read it. The plot moves in circles: a problem arises => Grace in panic => Grace calculates something on paper / Rocky helps with an alloy => problem solved. And so every 30 pages. Because of this, towards the end, the sense of real danger is lost: the reader knows in advance that the author has another scientific trump card up his sleeve.

As a result, it turned out to be a cool, very scientifically accurate… comic book. A kind, optimistic fairy tale, wrapped in relatively impeccable physics and mathematics. There’s definitely a lot to praise the book for, but if you’re expecting a deep psychological drama or existential horror from fiction — this is clearly not for you.

Who read it, what did you think? Did you also catch this feeling of a “kindergarten” on a spaceship, or am I being picky?

Engineering Zen: A Daily Dose of Science and Creativity | June 19 2026, 03:28

Due to numerous requests, I have created a Facebook group and a Telegram channel “Engineering Zen”, where I can write about all kinds of interesting things related to science and engineering every day, and guests can write too. I’ll find it interesting if we gather at least 50 people. Shall we gather? I have a ton of interesting content, enough for a year for sure.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/4344370099148010

I will also write on Telegram if we gather at least 50 members there. The channel is called @engineersdzen.

I will be happy for the shares and likes. If we don’t gather enough people, I will drop this activity with groups and channels, which I’ve been planning to do for ten years anyway 🙂

Maximizing Health Benefits with Short Bursts of Intense Activity | June 19 2026, 01:22

Nature: To radically extend life and protect the heart, there is no need to spend hours training in the gym or laying out a mat at home. Transitioning from complete inactivity to short bursts of intense household activity (1-2 minutes, 3-4 times a day) yields the maximum health benefits, reducing the risk of premature death from all causes by about 40%.

That is, with regular sports activities, the maximum effect is in the first minutes of exertion, then it significantly weakens (but still grows).

Unlike most previous studies, which relied on inaccurate questionnaires (where people forgot to report household activity), this research used accelerometers. Sensors accurately recorded each sharp movement of the participants.

Scientists observed 25,241 volunteers (average age — 62 years), who fundamentally did not engage in fitness in their free time, for 7 years.

Even if a person intensely exerts themselves just once a day for 1–2 minutes, their risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases decreases by 33%. Three sessions a day (totaling about 3–4 minutes) reduce the risk of death from cancer by 40%, and from cardiovascular diseases by 50%. 4.5 minutes — 26-30% and 32-34% respectively. 11 sessions a day — 65% and 49%.

The main criterion for high intensity is that you cannot talk normally, let alone sing during the activity. Examples: Quick ascent on the stairs or running up the escalator, sprinting after a departing bus, brisk walking around the office or corridor during a break, a short (3 minutes) bike ride instead of a 15-minute leisurely walk, carrying heavy shopping bags or children for a distance of 50–100 meters (effect proven in other related studies, but caution is needed not to strain the lower back).

Possible reasons include: Short-term, but relatively intense physical load slightly shakes the immune system, forcing it to work better and more efficiently in finding precancerous cells, changes the balance of hormones, reduces insulin resistance, which suppresses chronic inflammation — one of the main predictors of cancer.

Source: Stamatakis, E., Ahmadi, M.N., Gill, J.M.R. et al. Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality. Nat Med 28, 2521–2529 (2022).

Mind-Blowing Facts About SQLite: From Naval Beginnings to Mars | June 18 2026, 12:48

Today I learned some mind-blowing and brain-blasting facts about SQLite — the most widely used database in the world (A trillion installations. In every smartphone, browser, vehicle, A350 aircraft, even on Mars). So, it was born on the military destroyer USS Oscar Austin. It’s developed by JUST THREE people. Open source. But. You can’t just walk into this open source – it’s invitation-only and through an affidavit. The company is called Hwaci (“Hipp, Wyrick & Company”). Also involved in music (founder’s wife is a musician). Check out the website. Office — in a residential house in Charlotte. 600+ lines of tests for every line of code. 100% branch coverage and MC/DC. That is, they simulate OS crashes, power outages, I/O errors, and memory shortages. The main test suite is proprietary and closed. Imagine that, open source with paid private tests. Want access — join the consortium for $120,000 a year.

And the strangest thing — the spirit of the project is almost monastic. Instead of a Code of Conduct, they have a Code of Ethics, taken from chapter 4 of the Rule of Saint Benedict (literally 1500-year-old “tools for good deeds”). At the beginning of each source file instead of a legal notice — a blessing: “May you do good and not evil…”.

(They have not yet found a suitable version control system and wrote their own for themselves — Fossil (based on SQLite, of course). And their parser-generator Lemon is also homegrown. Just like Linus with Git.)

Innovative DIY Program for Live Transcription and Screen Capture Analysis | June 18 2026, 04:47

I made a really cool thing for myself. I launch a program, it turns on the microphone and listens. I switch to, say, a browser, comment on what I see on the screen, periodically pressing a hotkey to take a screenshot. Meanwhile, my program makes a time-stamped transcript of my comments, saves the screenshots with time stamps, then it recognizes the screenshots, extracting therefrom the spellings of various words, brands, identifiers, people’s names, so as to then transform the transcript of my speech into correct text. And all this – local models, running on my laptop, which means, absolutely free.

After I finish talking to the computer, I start processing the transcript, which takes the raw transcript and text-recognized screenshots as input and outputs a processed transcript, which now looks presentable (Gemini API is used here). One could even go a step further and automatically cut out fragments from the screenshots that were discussed, and insert them in the text exactly where they were mentioned.

Or here’s another thing I can do: just turn on a video on the speakers and the program immediately makes such a transcript for me. Google on YouTube the video “Angular HttpClient Under The Hood. Design Patterns & Source Code Overview” starting at 3:51 – I just put it on autopilot for a couple of minutes, then stopped my script.

Roman Naming Traditions: From Numerical Sons to Maiden Names | June 17 2026, 13:04

In Rome, there was a tradition to give personal names only to the first four sons, and to the rest — numbers: Quintus — “fifth”, Sextus — “sixth”, Septimus — “seventh”, Octavus — “eighth”, Nonus — “ninth”, and Decimus — “tenth”. However, they quickly grew lazy and stopped counting the children literally. For instance, a sole son might be called Quintus simply because it was his grandfather’s name. There’s a more elegant version too. The numerical names might indicate not the order but the month of birth. For example, Sextus might refer to the month of Sextilis (August, the sixth month).

For men (patricians), the structure was strict: Praenomen (personal name), Nomen (clan/family name), and Cognomen (family branch/nickname). For example: Gaius Julius Caesar. In this entire immense civilization, there were about 18 praenomens. The most popular ones were: Gaius, Lucius, Marcus, Publius, Quintus.

If you are a woman in Ancient Rome, you have no name. Period. Women were referred only by the feminine version of their father’s clan name (family name). If the father is named Julius, his daughter is named Julia. If he has a second daughter, she is named Julia Secunda (the Second). The third — Julia Tertia (the Third). The youngest — Julia Minor (the Younger).

P.S. By the way, about the months. Why is September the 7th month, October the 8th, etc.? It turns out the year started on March 1st. January and February were added later. In the very first Roman calendar, which, according to legend, was introduced by the founder of Rome, Romulus, in the 8th century BC, there were only 10 months and 304 days in a year.

Transforming Image Proportions with Generative AI: Smart Redesign Solutions | June 16 2026, 10:08

I published an article about how to transform images with changing proportions. Using generative AI, of course, because transforming a square into a rectangle can either result in data loss, their extrapolation, or by stretching and compressing the image itself. Here, I describe a method where smart extrapolation is performed. When processing hundreds and thousands of images, this approach is not without errors, but their number is relatively small, and it turns out to be much more advantageous to focus on manually correcting the erroneous ones than to do all the work manually right away.

This is specifically necessary during a redesign, when it turns out that the new design slightly mismatches the old one in size, for instance with banners, and the number of these banners is measured in hundreds and thousands.

Automating Banner Crop/Resize Across Breakpoints with Generative AI

Navigating Presidential Search Results: Putin to Yeltsin and Back | June 16 2026, 01:29

If you type “fifth president of Russia”, “sixth…”, “seventh…” in Yandex, Putin comes up until the hundred first. The hundredth, too, brings up only Putin. But the hundred first – it switches to Yeltsin. And the hundred second and beyond – back to Putin again.