[Nottingham] [Misc] 23/04/2020 follow-on and 14/05/2020 discussion thoughts

[Martin]

Folks,

Wow! Really, has this been a three week jump?!

At least in my part of the world I could all too easily get used to this
reduced hustle and bustle and noise. The lack of buses thundering by is
also noticeably a good thing for reduced noise and a much improved
ambience... I think even the birds and other wildlife have noticed.

Might people come around to good ideas of a better way of life?


For our last virtual meet, 'twas good to see Matthew from some long time
ago. Sounds like he's enjoyed quite a career adventure right around the
world. And with a lucky escape back to the UK at the last moment!

Good seeing you again Matthew :-) Please be welcome as always!


Note this is not a 'meeting minutes' riposte, on account of no notes
having been taken... Especially in view of this wonderful piece of reality:

Yes, Prime Minister : Minutes
https://youtu.be/jNwOFMmndDs?t=65

:-P :-)

(Strangely, I've been in meetings not too dissimilar to that portrayal!)



For the conclusion for my HDDs 'upset' three weeks ago:

After 61 hours of (non-destructive) 'badblocks' surface scan, and a
btrfs check/scrub and... No further errors showed up.

No suspicious occasional click-clang noises either.

Just-to-be-sure, I ran a compare against the last backup and that
concluded fine.

The disks SMART showed one undefined error and no subsequent errors for
the testing. All numbers for reallocated blocks show "0". (Is that real
or a firmware cover-up?)

So... What happened?

Well, the PC definitely crashed. My heavy hammering nearby is a
suspicious cause. And there is this effect to be believed:

Shouting in the Datacenter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

How many shouts add up to a hammer blow?!

No hiccups or crashes since. Then again, I've not done any hammer work
or other loud noises or bad vibrations nearby since...



Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world (Boca Chica, Southern Texas)...
Elon Musk and SpaceX still haven't blown up their latest Starship. They
have, since our last meet, managed a spectacular test fire of one of
their very new Raptor engines mounted on the flight stack:

Starship SN4 Static Fire Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp2oaguCzN8

Fantastic!

Is Raptor the most powerful liquid fuelled rocket engine yet developed?

I believe it is unique for being the first full-flow engine developed.
Possibly the first for using liquid methane. And it's reusable. All wow!

All the more "Wow!" for putting 20 years or so of SLS to shame...



Leading onto our *meet tomorrow 7:30pm Thursday* 14/05/2020:

Going with some old cult stuff, we'll no doubt be critiquing the latest
remake of:

Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 | Official Trailer | Netflix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HK_l9NHBw4


However, I may be a little 'un-artistic', even allowing for genre... In
contrast, I'm reminded for what was being done with a mere 64k bytes of
program and data some 10 years ago... Compare with?:

Farbrausch - fr-063: Magellan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vguvli1Y0k


Going further procedural/fractal graphics for fun infinite detail from
minimal data, enjoy:

3D Fractal Animation: A Gyre of Stannic Eminences
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpWhaBVIrZw

3D Fractal Animation: Surface III - A Tonal Triptych
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG_rzkgZIEM

Mandelbulb 3D - The Depths of Europa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTpbP5BVtiA

Amazing stuff. Fullscreen viewing needed to appreciate the effect.

Note that our real-world landscapes are fractal for the detail seen...
One simple example is that the measured length of our coastline is very
different for exactly the same coastline depending on what detail
(measurement scale or resolution) you work to...

Good fun stuff.


Any other primers for discussion/fun tomorrow (Thursday)?

Cheers,
Martin