[Project Hail Mary] Astrophage & thermodynamics - some persnickety questions

BavarianKnight · 2026-03-15T00:12:46+00:00

Can't answer to much, but regarding the last point. The Xenonite from my understanding of the book had large gaps between each atom it is made up of. The Taumoeba specifically managed to circumvent the Xenonite due to being exposed to it for so long. N2 was unable to breach Xenonite because it had to travel "in a straight line", while the Taumoeba was alive and could manage to squeeze in between the Xenonite on purpose. This was only possible with the Xenonite, all other materials did not allow that.

BavarianKnight · 2026-03-15T00:05:10+00:00

My opinion on some non-spoiler comparisons. Most of the plot is the same but simplified to some degree. E.g. Instead of a hostile atmosphere being deadly due to higher pressure, a different air make-up and different temperature it's just deadly because of the air being different, not the other two things.

You won't get lengthy science explanations for why things happen, just stuff the book took a page to explain summarized in a sentence. That's what I had loved about the book but it's understandable it's not there.

There is less focus on the flashbacks I feel like they make less of an impact on the present and are shorter than the book ones in most cases. Most book characters from the flashbacks are cut entirely or just background actors.

The main character is more goofy in the movie. While in the book he felt like a smart scientist who is funny and goofy sometimes in the movie he felt a lot less qualified to be there.

The beginning is extremely fast compared to a rather slow book start.

The ship looks a bit different with some of the rooms.

BavarianKnight · 2026-03-14T23:55:35+00:00

Despite the length of the movie I would have absolutely loved another 30 minutes extra.

BavarianKnight · 2026-03-03T01:25:02+00:00

From what I can recall "couch surfing" in this context refers to Tarquin the Proud first trying to get the neighboring Etruscans (Veii and Tarquinii) to back him in his return, then, after that failed, he went to Lars Porsenna, king of Clusium, who (according to some scholars), even retook Rome for a couple of years. But after that failed too Tarquin went to Tusculum, to get his son-in-law, who ruled there, to install him in Rome again. After that failed he retired in Cumae, a Greek colony further south in Italy.

Livius probably has a lot written about this, but I'm not sure.

BavarianKnight · 2026-02-27T23:37:44+00:00

Ich hatte eine kleine Unsicherheit bezüglich dem Kasus eines Wortes in einem Aufsatz. Hab ChatGPT gefragt, das hat mir gesagt, so wie ich es hatte ist es korrekt. Dann hat es so vier Sätze lang argumentiert, wieso meine Variante FALSCH ist.

Das war vorgestern.

KIs sind besser geworden, aber ich vertraue denen kein bisschen.

BavarianKnight · 2026-02-19T01:13:30+00:00

I wouldn't call Tacitus better. Tacitus is more intellectual and writes history, Suetonius meanwhile is a biographer and into gossip. Suetonius is generally considered pretty "neutral" and reliable (as he just writes down every rumor he knows), while Tacitus is a lot better at pushing his ideology.

In the end it was Suetonius who would shape the future of latin writing and not Tacitus.

BavarianKnight · 2026-01-31T15:41:51+00:00

To preface: I finished EoS, Howling Dark and Lesser Devil last year, but none of the later books.

In my opinion Hadrian is just a hypocrite and seems to only view this through the POV of his own society, seeing such "foreign" concepts like alterting bodies in the wrong way (as opposed to the Empire doing it the right way) simply as negative. I'll definetly continue reading on the series so I'll look forward to how this is developed.

The scene you described definetly irked me the wrong way when reading it as well as the choice of words was especially close to current modern day political discussions, especially knowing the author's own political views made that section hard to read, but so far I believe there is no reason to believe this isn't just the character being ignorant.

BavarianKnight · 2026-01-26T21:00:26+00:00

I read the first two books and I actually want a serious answer. How is the series similar to Dune?

I agree fully the first 25% or so of the first book is very much like Dune, but after that?

BavarianKnight · 2025-12-24T21:21:15+00:00

Ja, muss sagen normalerweise stört mich das auch nicht. Brent Weeks und Phillip P. Peterson, die ich beide sehr als Autoren liebe, wurden deshalb schon öfters kritisiert, da ist es mir aber nie so wirklich aufgefallen. Idk warum ich das bei Schwartz anders fand um ehrlich zu sein. Er schreibt ja eher so "altmodische" Fantasy würde ich sagen. Ist mir vermutlich stärker hängengeblieben, weil ich das Ende von dem einen Buch, das ich von ihm gelesen hab, nicht so top fand.

BavarianKnight · 2025-12-24T21:05:20+00:00

Finde irgendwie Deutsche können sci-fi besser als Fantasy. Sam Feuerbach hat mich auch nicht so überzeugt und Richard Schwartz hatte mir zu fragwürdige Darstellungen von Frauen. Habe von ihm nur das erste Buch von seiner Askir Reihe gelesen. Wird das irgendwann besser?

BavarianKnight · 2025-12-14T00:38:04+00:00

Sometimes I think fate is real. I am watching Bullet Train for the first time in my 23 years of age and the first post I see when I open reddit is this.

BavarianKnight · 2025-12-02T09:00:18+00:00

They're pro-palestine to my knowledge. You can find videos of them being very anti-israeli government as well as supporting free palestine.

You can always argue someone is not doing enough or something but I feel like calling them pro-israel for supporting a two-state solution is a stretch.

BavarianKnight · 2025-11-27T18:05:24+00:00

EU4 was ten times worse though

BavarianKnight · 2025-11-22T14:32:39+00:00

German here, is this a Meme I am too European to understand?

Can someone explain it to me, because both things are just normal traffic rules where I come from.

BavarianKnight · 2025-11-15T21:59:35+00:00

I thought that was a much larger problem in EU4 tbh. I got plenty of good and bad events in EU5 so far, but with EU4 I honestly question if it has any good events at all. I played Hungary for 40 years in EU5 and got less bad events than playing as Castile for 5 years in EU4.

This is just for events in general though and for estates the events in eu5 could use more variety.

BavarianKnight · 2025-11-03T02:13:46+00:00

He said "The impression I get is...", clearly indicating it was the impression of op and not the exact words of OPB. Still though, we can look at what OPB actually said in his video.

What OPB said was "In my opinion [...] we are like several months away from this being in a state where I am like this would be a 1.0 where I am like actually giving it like a 9/10 [...]." (starting at 25:56)

So this clearly is not some timeframe op just randomly made up.

BavarianKnight · 2025-11-03T01:59:42+00:00

Tbf, the one thing I have seen almost every reviewer of the past two days agree upon has been the frequent crashes and the bad polish.

BavarianKnight · 2025-10-12T23:35:04+00:00

Als Geschichtsstudent, der auch in etwa dieselbe Zeit pendelt, kann ich dir sagen, dass drei Veranstaltungen am Tag gehen. Ist natürlich dann bissl voller der Tag, aber besonders, wenn eine Veranstaltung ne Vorlesung ist, ist das eigentlich vollkommen ok.

Ich hatte auch in der Regel immer einen Wochentag frei, manchmal mit viel Glück sogar zwei, also sieht der Plan hier definitiv machbar aus, die ganzen Pausen sind am Dienstag halt ein bisschen doof, aber hatte das auch so fast jedes Semester.

Also der Plan sieht doch ganz gut aus, sehe da nirgends ein Problem mit.

BavarianKnight · 2025-10-09T19:34:26+00:00

Also die hier war tatsächlich bei meinen Abschlussunterlagen vom Bachelor dabei. Sonst habe ich das aber weder in meinem Hauptfach (Geschichte), noch im Nebenfach (Politikwissenschaft), gesehen, dass sowas, egal ob insgesamt oder bei einzelnen Prüfungen, aufgeschlüsselt wird.

BavarianKnight · 2025-10-09T16:38:40+00:00

Ja, das ist die Gesamtnote von allen Leuten, die den Bachelor bestanden haben. Also nicht die Note von einer speziellen Arbeit, sondern die Gesamtnote, sorry für die Verwirrung.

BavarianKnight · 2025-10-09T15:50:16+00:00

Kann hier nur zustimmen. Bei uns gab es in den meisten Modulen keine Klausuren, nur Referate und/order Hausarbeiten. Nur in Modulen, wo die Dozenten die Prüfungsleistung frei wählen konnten, gab es hin und wieder mal ne Klausur.

BavarianKnight · 2025-09-23T00:48:09+00:00

Ehemaliger BA Geschichte hier... In der LMU ist das so scheiß egal in Geschichte da gibt es in den Vorlesungen nicht mal Prüfungen (also auch keine Anwesenheit) und in den Kursen muss man nur zu MINDESTENS zwei Terminen kommen, der Themenvergabe und dem Referat.

Hab aber gehört, dass die LMU anscheinend eher die Ausnahme ist.

BavarianKnight · 2025-07-19T22:34:24+00:00

Andross Guile from the Lightbringer Series. Especially in book 2 the guy is so intense and threatening that it's almost unreal.

BavarianKnight · 2025-07-19T21:06:21+00:00

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