I do work in exoplanet and solar system habitability (mostly Mars) at a university in a lab group with four other professional researchers and a bunch of students. The five of us met for lunch today, and it came out that three of the five had independently read HPMoR to its conclusion. After commenting that Ibyqrzbeg’f Iblntre cyndhr gevpx was a pretty good idea, our PI mentioned that some of the students at Cal Tech used a variant of this on the Curiosity rover- they etched graffiti in to hidden corners of the machine (‘under cover of calibrations’), so that now their names have an expected lifespan of at least a few million years against Martian erosion. It’s a funny story, and also pretty neat to see just how far Eleizer’s pernicious influence goes in some circles.
Just an amusing anecdote:
I do work in exoplanet and solar system habitability (mostly Mars) at a university in a lab group with four other professional researchers and a bunch of students. The five of us met for lunch today, and it came out that three of the five had independently read HPMoR to its conclusion. After commenting that Ibyqrzbeg’f Iblntre cyndhr gevpx was a pretty good idea, our PI mentioned that some of the students at Cal Tech used a variant of this on the Curiosity rover- they etched graffiti in to hidden corners of the machine (‘under cover of calibrations’), so that now their names have an expected lifespan of at least a few million years against Martian erosion. It’s a funny story, and also pretty neat to see just how far Eleizer’s pernicious influence goes in some circles.