Review: Exhalation: Stories

Amazon

From Exhalation: Stories, by Ted Chiang:

Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons."

Nine science fiction stories of all kinds: time travel, entropy, artificial intelligence, alternate universes, free will, robotic childcare, total recall, SETI, and creationism. Most of the stories have been published elsewhere, but they are new to me — the stories anyway, not the ideas. The ideas aren't fresh, but I suppose the value of sci-fi is telling stories to make hard-to-grasp scientific concepts accessible to the non-scientist.

POTD: Rybinsk Lock

From 2018 08 18 Yaroslavl

Today's photo-of-the-day is of the Rybinsk Lock on the Volga River in Russia. The Rybinsk Reservoir was once the largest reservoir in the world. It's part of the extensive Baltic-Volga Waterway.

Abstract canal art after the jump.

POTD: Mother Volga

From 2018 08 18 Yaroslavl

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Volga River in Russia. The Volga is the longest river in Europe (2,292 miles). It's the source of life for Russia. It flows into the Caspian Sea, but with dams and canals, it's also connected to the Baltic Sea at St. Petersburg. At the locks that form the entrance to the Rybinsk Reservoir stands a 236 feet tall statue of Mother Volga. This photo-of-the-day has symbolic significance today, as today is the day I bury my own mother, who at 98 years old was every bit the life blood of her large family as Mother Volga is to Russia.

Always Be My Maybe (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes

Always Be My Maybe (2019): Rom-com with more rom than com. Childhood sweethearts grow up only to meet again in adulthood with predictable results. Keanu Reeves steals the movie with a zany scene as the rival love interest. Do I still need to say it has an Asian-American cast? C+

POTD: Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery

From 2018 08 17 Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery on the Baltic-Volga waterway in Russia. It was founded in 1397 and was once the largest monastery and the strongest fortress in northern Russia before the growth of Moscow caused history to pass it by. The walls are 732 meters long and 7 meters thick. Like many other churches, the Bolsheviks secularized the monastery and turned it into a museum. Monks were allowed to return after the fall of the Soviet Union. Restoration of the whole site is slowly underway.