Notices by Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (_thegeoff@mastodon.social), page 2

Getting back in to coding with Rockstar. The need to make source code sound like a vaguely passable hair-rock ballad is always a fun challenge, and I'm confusing the issue by trying to make it generate the lyrics to Total Eclipse Of The Heart as the output, but without obviously including the lyrics in the source code. (Yes, it's a song that encodes another song.)
https://codewithrockstar.com/

I particularly like this one for the depth of field: grasses (cm), #aurora (100km) and stars (tens of light years)

Funeral for my neighbour that used to play with mega-amps and related tech today. Hell of a life, well lived, I'd be terrified by much of what he did. A long life well lived. I'll be keeping the oscilloscope he built as a teenager warm, literally.

May need to cover experimental celery dye results with a class tomorrow (under supervision of a supply teacher, I'm not a teacher). So...

[Video: David Tennant as The Doctor, saying "physics" a lot in front of a class of bemused high school students.]
https://youtu.be/NsIh1-G6FIw

Also...

All credit to the biology teachers, we do go on to vaguely look at the biophysics of raising water in plants, we get them to try and suck water up a tube dangled down the 8m stairwell, 2m is a good effort.
And we have 30m Sequioa growing across the road, visible from our windows :)

Rewatching #StarTrek #Enterprise and can't help but think that #IronMaiden's "Fear Of The Dark" was always the better theme in every way. (Review / satire)

Little note that Einstein thought the main point of IQ scores is in measuring how good you are at IQ tests, and little else.
Plus they've been basically discredited since, *even for* measuring the narrow range they measure.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/22/devon-schoolboy-joins-mensa-with-higher-iq-score-than-einstein

Incidentally, every time I interact with someone speaking another language on the internet and we both get the idea via a translation, that's a far better use of "AI" than most.

"Do this."

"That's illegal, sir. It is wrong. I swore an oath not to do things like that. I realise it may harm my career, but I am duty bound to refuse that order."

"OK...hang on a minute...OK, it's legal now, you have to do it."

How do you deal with that? Other than submitting to military punishment for refusing a "legal" order?

If the govt do somehow pervert the legal system enough to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, I feel sorry for the RAF pilots who will be ordered to do it. There's no way commercial airlines will take part in something so toxic, so it has to be military flights. Imagine being that pilot. You could have refused on the grounds that it is an illegal order, but the govt have recently changed the law specifically to get around that. It's immoral.

@slothrop Having run bars and worked in a high school, I've got to say it's pretty 50/50. I prefer the kids to be honest, if it kicks off the "reasonable force" is basically nothing, even with a 17yr old, compared to a drunk 40 year old.

A 6th year is doing a chemistry project on various substances found in wine. So I need to go and buy a bottle of wine for a 17 year old, who will not be drinking any of it. Am I breaking the law?
If Scottish licensing law is still the same as when I was running pubs, I may have to buy them a meal to go with it.

UK high-school level science technicians are in high demand. Part of the problem is relatively low pay compared to the skillset (~£20k-£35k). But on the upside, there's a lot of fun stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkOJU2osgjY

Guising is the Scottish version of trick or treat - you need to tell a joke or do a dance or similar to get the treat. The joke of the year seems to be:

"Why doesn't Princess Elsa have a balloon anymore?"
"She Let It Go."

I was going for something-keema myself, but that works, people.

@Theorem_Poem I see it two ways (cos I am NOT coming down on a side in geogastropolitics... 😉 )

There's those who say a kebab is anything cooked on a rotating spit....and fair enough.

There's those who say this is a great way to cook a bunch of minced whatever (and I'm a big fan of using all possible edible things), and I agree with this too.

But everybody is wrong, because the greatest kebab ever is my first one, aged 17, a Donner with extra chilli sauce after a night out in Dundee.

@Theorem_Poem Statistically it was probably Turkish. Or at least that corner of the Mediterranean coast. But wow...and other than the grease-laden meat, kind of healthy, a bigger dose of raw salad than most fast food here.

@Theorem_Poem We're actually arguing linguistics, aren't we? Like the claim that JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" actually translates as "I am a very specific donut" 😂

Watching an early Star Trek DS9 episode where Lieutenant Dr Bashir is trying to convince Crew Chief O'Brian that he doesn't need to call him "sir".

Amusing, as the senior students at school can call me Sir, Mr R, or Geoff, up to them, I'm not a teacher, they're going to work with people like me at uni and generally be on first name terms...and the school's behind that approach.

But there's one this year who is more formal with me...and that's fine too. It's funny, because.... (1/2)