The Martian

(Norsk)

So, many of you have probably already seen the movie The Martian, featuring Matt Damon as Mark Watney, and even Norwegian Aksel Henie as a German astronaut. The movie is based upon the book by the same name by Andy Weir.

As should be fairly clear from the trailer, and without spoiling too much of the story, Mark Watney is believed dead during an emergency evacuation from Mars due to extreme weather, and subsequently abandoned.

Once the weather has passed, he finds that he is completely alone on the red planet and all communication with Earth is dead. The equipment he is living in is basically only designed to last for their original 30 day mission. He needs to survive until the next mission arrives in a few years, and he has to somehow make his way to the next mission's landing zone. So to quote Watney: "Let's science the shit out of this." And what follows is a story that surpasses even MacGuyver's ingenuity and greatness!

As usual the book is much better than the movie. With that said, I think the movie is great, even though I am no huge Matt Damon fan. The main reason that the book is much better than the movie is that, of course, the movie has had to do compromises and due to play length restrictions and keeping up the narrative they have had to drop cool stuff and alter other cool stuff somewhat in order to make it all fit in a feature length movie. That being said, what they have managed to squeeze into this almost two and a half hour long movie is impressive.

Still, if you see the movie and like it, or have already seen it and liked it, you really, REALLY, should consider reading the book or listening through the audiobook. I did the audiobook myself, before seeing the movie, and heartily recommend both! I will also probably buy the book in the near future, just to get to read it myself, and then keeping it in my sagging bookshelves as another cherished work.

If you have not seen the movie yet, rent or buy it from somewhere like Google Play Movies and enjoy. If you have not read or listened to the book yet, then as usual I recommend your local library, or buy it from somewhere like Amazon/Audible, and enjoy it too.

Next week I am going to write about yet another book, this one also about Mars, more specifically the Curiosity rover, written by its Chief Engineer.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

(Norsk)

Image from Amazon.com

Ashlee Vance has written this interesting book about Elon Musk. Now, there are several books about the man and I have not read any of the others, so I am not proclaiming this to be the Elon Musk book. I enjoyed this book however, and maybe it might be because Ashlee also hails from South Africa originally, like Musk. Ashlee is a columnist writing about technology and business also, so he problably knows his way around in the business world pretty well.

As mentioned Musk is from South Africa, but his family is Canadian, so he had ties to the American continent from birth. Although it is difficult to tell without knowing him personally, I feel that the book gives a fair account of his upbringing, a rough one with lots of bullying, his late-teenage move to Canada, and going to University.

Then it all begins! With the startup of the software company Zip2 (eventually sold to Compaq for US$307 million), on to the online financial service and payment company X.com which merged with PayPal (eventually sold to Ebay for US$1.5 billion).

Then a shift from pure software to software and hardware combined (and I mean real hardware, we are talking space rockets here!) in SpaceX, Tesla Motors and SolarCity. The first of which aims to bring the stars to the masses (or more realistically, bring the masses into space), the second aims to shift transportation from fossile fuels to electric and thus help combat global warming, the third aims to bring solar panels to the masses and thus also combat global warming.

In recent years Musk has also been active on other projects, the most known being the Hyperloop which aims to make mass transit faster and more environmentally friendly. Late last year he also announced an OpenAI project, a not-for-profit Artificial Intelligence research project.

All in all, this guy has a lot on his plate! We should be thankful that the world contains people like him, the visionaries that basically kicks progress in the butt and makes it hurry up. If you are interested in this book, I recommend your local library, or if you are willing to pay money for it you can use Amazon or some other bookstore to buy it. If you prefer to listen to your books, grab it from a streaming service like Audible, buy a download or a hardcopy, or maybe you are lucky and can get it from your local library. (PS: Libraries are great!)

Rust - The Longest War

(Norsk)

(image from Amazon.com)

Jonathan Waldman has written a book called 'Rust - The Longest War', and not surprisingly, it is about corrosion. But not from a purely professional, materials science perspective. Waldman is more of a journalist than a writer of professional literature, and it shows in the way he promotes the more human aspects in the book. The people he writes about are presented well and often with several background stories. 

Am amusing thin, red line he has managed to weave through the entire book, is short comments every now and again about the mustaches of some of the men he writes about. This is something he also makes a point of on his web page, where it is written at the bottom: {Made while sporting a mustache}.

In addition he manages to make a subject that can sound really dull, to become quite interesting. After having read the book, you will not have gained any professional knowledge to use in your work, but you will have a good insight into into how big a part of our lives are affected by corrosion, and that it actually is possible to combat it.

If you like to read books, I heartily recommend this one, which can be obtained from i.e. Amazon, or maybe it is possible to borrow it in a library nearby. If you prefer to listen to audiobooks, that is also fully possible, and you can use i.e. Audible to get it.