2021.11.27 virtual meeting

This week, Theo showed the group his work in Blender https://www.blender.org/ then four members of the group downloaded an example from blender. Following instructions from Theo, each person loaded the same example and measured the time taken to render it. The winner was a razer blade. https://www.razer.com/gb-en/pc/gaming-laptops .

The MacBook M1 max was second, but blender will not be optimised for the apple silicon until the new year. Apple are supporting the effort, and the M1 max will be expected to outperform the razer blade once support is available.

2021.11.13 virtual meeting

This week, we almost renamed the group to the Mac User Group as we now have two members who own a MacBook M1. It is brilliant, apparently. Windows 11 and it’s version of the Linux subsystem integration received praise.

COP26 was ending and the discussion had to be steered away from being overly political a couple of times. I suggested “small is beautiful” by Schumacher might be worth reading, and the Asimov foundation trilogy received praise.

October 2021 Solar hot water graph

For the next six months, hot water is the wrong term, the solar panels barely produce warm water.

2021.11.6 Meeting

Attending this week- Arthur, Tony,Mike and Theo.

Theo showed off the progress on his game. The Pi Zero 2W was discussed. I mentioned how my first computer, the Acorn Atom was less powerful than the cheapest Arduino, and it was suggested that hardly anyone needs the power of the latest Macbook pro with M1X chip.

2021.10.30 meeting

Although I haven’t posted anything lately, the Blackpool lug and makerspace have continued to meet virtually every Saturday at 10am ( using Jitsi).

This week, Barry talked about putting Ubuntu touch on his phone. Theo was waiting for parts to repair his robot and Tony showed a model pickup truck he had restored the previous week.

Solar hot water Aug/Sept 2021

2021.08.28 virtual meeting

It was such a glorious sunny bank holiday weekend, I decided to join the meeting sitting outside using the jitsi app on my phone. We talked about the M1 Apple MacBook, C++ and C# programming using visual studio. Windows 11 also got a mention. Arthur has a new 3D printer with extra fine resolution. Theo continues to improve the game he is developing. I talked about the Pinebook pro laptop and the pinecone RISC V development board.

2021.08.14 virtual meeting

Theo has been developing his game over many weeks during the school holidays. This week, we were treated to a simulated run of the game. The characters, some of whom were named after members of our group, battled it out to become “last man standing”.

solar hot water July 2021

Results from the solar hot water project, July 2021/

2021.06.26 Virtual meeting

This week at the virtual meeting, we talked about the release of Windows 11 and how windows 10 was to be the last release of Windows and be a continuous rolling upgrade.