Mark Ping

For posterity, possibly the most important statement in modern history.

@JWhitebread1 The chain deploy and retraction were straight out of the book, but not explained in the movie. It didn't need to be explained on screen, and the details are in the book.

Project Hail Mary is an exceptional film. Great adaptation of the novel. Go see it. Anything I could criticize about it would be nitpicking. ... BUT HEY! THAT'S WHAT THE INTERNET IS FOR! SO LET'S DO THIS! NITPICKS AWAY! If you loved the parts of the novel of where Grace "sciences" his way out of problems, a hallmark of Weir's writing, you aren't going to get much of that out of this film. They chose instead to focus on the relationship between Rocky and Grace, which was the right call. It's mostly a story about a man finding his courage through an unlikely friendship. Still, there are hints to those problem-solving scenes in the movie. One of my favorites is near the end of the novel where Grace uses the spin-drives on the Hail Mary as an improvised IR LiDAR to find Rocky's disabled ship. If you look at the displays, you can tell that's what he's doing, but they never explain it, it's more of an Easter Egg to fans of the book to let us know, hey, we love that part of the book too. Still, the movie has a LOT of musical montages, and long cinematic scenes where nothing much happens other than gorgeous visuals. They are beautiful, but, they could have cut a few minutes of those and put a LITTLE more of the science into the movie, I think. Overall, very great film though, great performances, great sets and visuals and really heart-warming.

@lisavsworld I loved the science in the book, but the emotional core was the "save the world", and the friendship between Grace & Rocky. The movie hit those, with great visuals and didn't contradict anything in the book. The scene with Eva saying "and they won't" was amazingly understated.

Project Hail Mary is also a 400+ page book. It's hard to make that into a 2.5 hour film. You could probably make an 8 one-hour episode series on the book and fit all of the science into it, but for a film, you need to make sure the structure of the plot is airtight. Plot structure and pacing, emotional beats, and a compelling narrative will always trump extraneous "technical" aspects of an effective story. People have a very subconscious reaction to stories that deviate outside the four-part "five turning points" rule typically followed by your average screenplay. That is, you have four sections of a story mimicking the "three act" story structure, but it splits the second act into two parts. Each part needs to be as exactly close to 25% of the film's run time as possible in order to not elicit that subconscious reaction of "feeling off." Ever feel like a story is dragging? It's probably because one of these four parts is longer than it should be and it now feels out of balance. Ever feel like a part of the story was too rushed? It's likely because they shortened the length of one of these parts in editing or it just wasn't fleshed out enough in the script. That isn't to say there are no exceptions to this rule. We all love "Return of the King" despite its 42 endings. But unless you're literally one of the greatest stories ever told, you have to stick to the formula. (Even then, we all noticed...) Our brains know where there is a discrepancy and it's likely a holdover from some neuro-developmental oral language/memory trait we've retained from when oral storytelling was our primary means of passing down information. We are engaged and actively listening when our minds are stimulated in this exact storytelling formula. Now, as for the formula in question... as I said, there are four parts. Each part is 25% in length of the total story. Part One contains the hook, the set up of the story, and the inciting incident (also known as turning point one), "the opportunity." It has the main character dealing with a new situation, and ends on the second turning point "the change of plans." Part Two begins on the second turning point, contains much of the initial optimistic progress of the story, and ends on the third turning point, "the point of no return." This is where the main character must make a decision on whether they will choose to go back to their life as before, or carry on in their journey. Part Three begins as the main character makes that choice (or that choice is made for them). This is where the stakes in the story continue to rise until we reach turning point number four, "The major setback." Part Four begins with the main character at the lowest emotional point of the story. All hope is lost. The main character has to, however, keep pushing until he reaches the fifth and final turning point, "The Climax." The Climax begins around the 90% part of the story and can be brief or continue until the end of the story altogether (aka, end on a cliffhanger), but usually there is some room for the aftermath of the climax. This wraps the story up into a neat little bow and the four parts at last come to a tidy, equally proportioned end. Every now and then, I encounter a writer who balks at this formula. They think the rules do not apply to them. They believe they can reinvent the wheel. And there is a reason why they do not find success as writers. The rules are not arbitrary. As mentioned before, they're quite literally built into us. This is how our minds want to absorb information in a narrative form. I try and keep this formula in mind for every story that I write. Whether it is a one-paragraph micro-story on X, or a sweeping epic novel. Honestly, if you want more viral long-form posts on X, I can't recommend following this formula enough. Pay attention and you'll start to see the formula all around you as well as in every story that you love.

@ShitpostRock2 I've been wearing Zenni frames / lenses for years without problem. Even bifocals. Nothing costing more than $50.

Question to people who wear glasses, do you really need to spend 1k on good glasses or is this literally just to flex?

@Nerdrotics Looks like this set was made for you: madebymutant.com/products/proje…

👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎 IYKYK

@whenbatmenfly It was filmed in digital.

There are only 30 locations in the world that have IMAX 70mm screen. Unfair.

Aside from the AI slop it's frustrating how wrong this is about taxes. If your taxable income is say $500m and your tax bill is $80m, then a $80m write-off reduces your taxable income to $420m and your tax bill may go down to something like $64m. This is just bait.

@ThePrimeagen That's the dongenschlapper.

just found this chair... What is the purpose of this middle piece?

This AI text detector says Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was written by AI.

@cmuratori Yeah, the DEC Alpha team were legendary ad Intel would have loved to have them onboard but regulators said otherwise. I was in the software team making the tools for the chip designers.

@markping I did not know that! I had a vague impression that a bunch of DEC chip designers went to AMD. I also knew the non-CPU stuff and fabs themselves went to Intel (my Dad actually ended up at Intel this way - he was a developer at the Hudson, MA facility).

@cmuratori I was at Intel during the 64-bit project, codenamed Merced (branded as Itanium). There was a plot of the die called "El Gordo". The to work with HP was because when DEC collapsed, Intel wasn't allowed by anitrust to buy the chip design division, so HP did.

@ImtiazMadmood This is presented as 15 minutes being the goal on the company's website. There is zero indication of it being accomplished. perceptive.io

In a landmark medical technology milestone, a fully autonomous AI-powered robotic dentist — built by US company Perceptive — completed a full crown preparation on a human patient in just 15 minutes. The same procedure typically takes a human dentist 2–2.5 hours. The robot used real-time 3D scanning, AI decision-making, and a precision robotic arm to perform the entire procedure without any human guidance or intervention mid-surgery. This isn't a concept or prototype — it's already been performed on real patients and a peer-reviewed study was published in the Journal of Dentistry in January 2026. Experts say this is the beginning of a transformation: robotic dentists could eliminate human error, work at any hour, and eventually bring high-quality dental care to remote and underserved communities where trained dentists are unavailable. The dental office of 2035 may look very different from today's.

@IMAO_ Every man laughed at this, and when his wife or girlfriend asked what was funny, he responded "oh just something online"

Chuck Norris told a woman to calm down and she did.

^Commodore64^Atari800xl

@BaronDestructo Dude, Amos is that guy.

The search for our ship's Enforcer/Warrior begins! (The Sweet Sixteen+) Choose -

What are the odds this serial would coincidentally land on that color scheme

@rfleury @soychotic Oh ffs.

@soychotic Someone unironically decided to rename “Remote Desktop” to this btw

They’ve just gotta be fucking joking at this point

@PulpLibrarian @threadreaderapp unroll

More gothic romance another time. Mind how you flee...

Time once again for my occasional series "Woman with great hair fleeing gothic houses!" And today it's a Beagle Gothic special...

@The_Lord_Otter The first Halo trilogy was pretty good: Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike. "The Flood" essentially covers the content of Halo 1, but the perspective from the Covenant is interesting.

A legit question for my followers: are there any book adaptations of video games that are actually good? Asking for a friend.

@RocketPulpHack @mike_doscher @BaenBooks I only need to know if it has Death Blossom.

@mike_doscher did this fantastic render of the FSV Vagabond from TWIN STAR, coming next month from @BaenBooks The fiery blades protruding from the engine nacelles are dusty plasma radiators. The main cargo bay extends from the bottom of the hull so it can load and unload without a landing tower. The armored nosecone moves aside to reveal a retractable docking umbilical. Height: 350 feet Mass: 4500 tons max Dry Mass: 2500 tons Fuel Mass: 2000 tons Delta-V: 1060 KPS What did you think "rocket pulp" meant? Papers? Vibes? (Uh, actually it includes both of those things.)

@politicalmath Without comment: youtu.be/-5wpm-gesOY?si…

This is particularly funny because managing dates and times is one of the most documented problems in software