Finished reading: A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith is an entertaining and informative exploration of what is actually required to colonize space. A good counterbalance to all the sci-fi I’ve been reading 📚
Lunch companions
Chose a run over leisure
Finished reading: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal is a good entry in the Lady Astronaut series. I enjoy these alternate histories of space exploration books📚
🏊♂️ The easing in continues
🏃♂️ Easing back into a routine
Finished reading: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a surprisingly amusing story about the robot apocalypse 📚
🎧 Given the rewrite of Overcast, I’m switching back from Apple Podcasts to try it out (yes, right on time). Although the audio engine is better and there are some other, nice refinements, I think my favourite feature of Overcast is that it just shows me a clean list of the podcasts I’ve actually chosen as subscriptions. Apple Podcasts pushes discovery too hard for me.
Finished reading: Adam Frank cleverly uses interest in UFOs to get at the science of extraterrestrial life in The Little Book of Aliens 📚
Finished reading: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport has some interesting concepts for how to manage pseudo productivity. Almost makes me want to have the type of job that would allow me to really apply the advice 📚
Finished reading: Black Hole Survival Guide by Janna Levin is a short, fascinating, and entertaining book all about black holes 📚
📺 Thoughts on recent television shows
Some short notes on recent seasons of shows that I’ve watched:
- Outer Range Season 2: Still nicely strange, though not as good as Season 1
- Night Sky: A slow build with a sci-fi mystery. Sissy Spacek and JK Simmons are great. Clearly a second season was planned, but it ends okay for a one season show
- Dark Matter: A decent multiverse show. Really picks up in the last couple of episodes
- Sugar: A fun crossover of detective and sci-fi
- Mr and Mrs Smith: An entertaining show, modelled after the movie, though the last episode was disappointing
- Shogun: A great historical drama with compelling characters and fine attention to detail
- Unchained Season 2: Really makes the Tour de France understandable and exciting. Such an epic event
- The Acolyte: Just fine, though uneven. I didn’t like the ending
Adding The Peripheral to the list with Outer Range and Night Sky makes me reluctant to watch sci-fi shows on Amazon Prime. I enjoyed each of these well made and smart shows, only to have them all cancelled.
Finished reading: I enjoyed A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. Moves briskly with an interesting plot, good characters, and intriguing magic system 📚
Finished reading: Blood Meridian, Or, The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy is bleak, nihilistic, and compelling 📚
🔗 Matt Gurney: Anson Mount saved Star Trek
Because Anson Mount saved Star Trek. And I’m not afraid to say so. In fact, I’m here to shout it from the rooftops: thank you, Anson Mount. You were just what we needed.
I endorse this claim
As usual, against my better judgement, I’ve installed the public betas. I’m mostly interested in the new fitness features of watchOS 11. Although I already have something like Training Load in the HealthFit app, Apple’s take is intriguing. For me it is the simple things, like structured swim workouts and being able to see what the next interval is in a custom workout that will make the biggest differences.
To get watchOS, I had to install iOS 18. Overall, some nice incremental improvements with nothing too significant (at least until some of the Apple Intelligence features get added).
Finished reading: The Rise and Reign of the Mammals by Steve Brusatte is a comprehensive and detailed tour of all of the mammals, past and present, that stays engaging. Such tremendous diversity and curious lifestyles 📚
Dog couch
Finished reading: The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson is a good ending to The Wax and Wayne series. Although the Cosmere hints were intriguing, they also got a bit confusing. Presumably to be clarified in later books 📚
🏊♂️🚴♂️🏃♂️ 2024 Muskoka Ironman 70.3
Well that was “fun”! The Muskoka Ironman 70.3 was very well organized with great volunteers and an excited crowd of spectators.
I was within a few minutes of last year which I’m very happy with, considering the interruptions to my training with a trip to Portugal and introduction of a new puppy (neither of which I regret).
Not much new to report, relative to last year, in terms of the course. Still super hilly and challenging with some great views of the Canadian Shield. Given the challenges of the run, in particular, I don’t think I’d recommend this as a first 70.3. Definitely should be on anyone’s list that is looking for additional courses though.
As always, a huge thank you to my wife for her continued support and excellent race crewing. And thanks to the One Academy crew for all of the training hours together. These races are not a solo effort.
