Happy Me Thread

[rogue]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

After ~30 years of hobby programming, we are pretty certain that our first "patch" of code has been accepted to be included in a real software program!

The patch is just a small modification of the program's output to the screen but it took us a long time to track down all of the variables and learn how to manipulate them.

What program are you referring to?

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by chalsall

We just saw "The Martian" at the drive in (yes, there is actually still a drive in in Barbados).

Pretty cool.

While the wind storm at the beginning of the movie is totally impossible, they managed to get _most_ of the rest of the science correct. (Unlike, for example, "Gravity", which didn't even get gravity correct....)

Haven't seen the movie yet - may catch it at the local 2nd-run theater when it gets there - but just finished reading the book. Quick hits:

[0] Andy Weir is a potty-mouth:

89 'fuck's;
111 'shit's;
10 'bitch's;
51 'damn/dammit's.

Bad-science boners:

[1] The initial wind & dust storm which separates our intrepid astronaut-hero from the rest of his mission mates has 175 kph Martian winds blowing people and heavy metal equipment around willy-nilly (First mention i Chapter 1 dexcribes just the radio antenna dish getting torn from its morrings; more details in Chapetr 12, e.g. "The Hab shook in the roaring wind ... The driving wind and sand battered them, but they were able to stay on their feet."). But Mars's atmosphere is so tenuous that even such high-speed winds would barely create more force than a light breeze on earth. Later in the book our hero encounters another huge dust storm which is more accurately described - he doesn't even notice he's in it until he's several days in, and notices his solar panels are losing a few % efficiency each day, and that visibility is down to 'only' 50km. But that second dust storm is described as a "low-velocity" one.

[2] The Chinese space directorate head expressing regret at sacrificing their 'one-off' super-duper heavy-lift booster to serve the attempted rescue mission: while scientific probes may be unique and boosters may come in multiple variants, ya never design and custom-build just one booster. It's not like they make you throw the blueprints away after you build the thing. (Unless you're NASA with the Saturn boosters, that is - and even there they did build a fair number of them before abandoning them 'because shuttle!' - a mistake which still costs them/us nearly every day.)

[3] Late in the book, after having made a long overland rover trek to reach the preplaced ascent vehicle (MAV) for the next-shceduled Mars mission, NASA tells our hero to stop discarding urine and instead electrolyse it to produce hydrogen for the MAV's built-in fuel-production plant to turn into extra fuel for the ascent, which normally only needs to be into low orbit but now must reach escape velocity. Our hero agonizes over 'how to separate' the gaseous mix of H2 and O2 which results. But anyone who has done the grade-school classic water-electrolysis experiment knows that the process automatically separates the two gases - the H2 accumulates at one electrode, the O2 at the other. No drama needed, nor warranted.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

But anyone who has done the grade-school classic water-electrolysis experiment knows that the process automatically separates the two gases - the H2 accumulates at one electrode, the O2 at the other. No drama needed, nor warranted.

Be careful there. At (high) school it's common to disolve NaCl in the water to raise the latter's conductivity. It's all too easy to generate Cl₂ rather than O₂ ...

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by xilman

Be careful there. At (high) school it's common to disolve NaCl in the water to raise the latter's conductivity. It's all too easy to generate Cl₂ rather than O₂ ...

Been there; done that.

When I asked the teacher after he ran this experiment if Chlorine gas was poisonous, he said "Yes.

I then said "Great." The class laughed.

The teacher then explained that the amount of Chlorine gas the students were exposed to during this experiment was less than what one would be exposed to swimming in a pool.

I have to say, I miss school.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Haven't seen the movie yet - may catch it at the local 2nd-run theater when it gets there - but just finished reading the book. Quick hits:

[0] Andy Weir is a potty-mouth:

From his FB page today:

We're working on a "scholastic edition" of The Martian for release some time in 2016. Basically, it's just a version of the book with the profanities removed or replaced with softer words so schools can put it in their curricula without people objecting. (Don't worry, the normal version of the book won't be affected. This is just a special version for schools.)
So the publisher sent me a printout of the book with every swear word or potential phrase schools might not like highlighted in yellow. I'm making my edits in red. Sometimes I eliminate the offending word entirely, other times I use a replacement word that's PG-13. But sometimes, I stand my ground!

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

After ~30 years of hobby programming, we are pretty certain that our first "patch" of code has been accepted to be included in a real software program!

The patch is just a small modification of the program's output to the screen but it took us a long time to track down all of the variables and learn how to manipulate them.

Ha, yeah, congrats! After ~30 years of professional programming, I didn't manage that yet...

[pepi37]

Stone gate at 1997 meters above sea

[petrw1]

Q9550 started just under 7 years ago.
Nov 23, 2008 to Oct 30, 2015
2,532 days....not quite 10 GhzDays / Day

==============
Newest Quad i5-3570K OC to 4.2Ghz is more than 4 years newer (Dec 2, 2012)
Currently at 32,582 or
1,062 days or over 30 GhzDays / Day

[petrw1]

About a year ago I started looking for low'ish (<50,000,000)) exponents with poor P-1 limits and re-doing them to higher bounds.

In that year I have so far:
- 8,614 P-1 tests
- 101 factors found

Exponents 10M-50M I took to standard bounds using PFactor and 2 tests saved.
I limited this work to exponents which have Stage 2 done (B2>B1)
There are over a quarter million with B1=B2.
- 7,546 tests
- 81 factors found
- Success rate of 0.89%

Exponents under 1M I took to bounds where B1 is at least Exp X 10 and B2 at least Exp X 300 using PMinus1.
- There were none under 500,000 with these conditions.
- 1,068 tests
- 20 factors
- Success rate of 1.87% (though the estimated success rate Prime95 reports is generally 9 - 11%)

My current plan has me completing this work before year end.

[Xyzzy]

Thanks to an early "Black Friday" sale, our sneakernet's bandwidth was significantly upgraded today.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

Thanks to an early "Black Friday" sale, our sneakernet's bandwidth was significantly upgraded today.

What sort of numbers do they claim for it? Read and Write, that is.

Does one of those hieroglyphs on the card indicate that the USB connector retracts?