Author: ChrisC

Cleaning Up

A Deep Space Nine sizzle reel, remastered using machine learning. The linked version without the Youtube compression artefacts is really rather impressive.

There’s lots of media out there that, either due to cost or just that HD elements never existed, will never be remastered for modern displays. Blackadder, Red Dwarf, early Doctor Who; all of these could be rejuvenated for the 21st century.

Northern Lights at York Minster

I had a good but long weekend. Saturday was, of course, filled with watching England’s hard-fought victory against New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup. Beer was drunk (to excess!) and a good time was has by all.

Sunday was a little more highbrow; I popped up to York and spent a very enjoyable 30 minutes watching two showings of Northern Lights at York Minster – a fantastic laser, lights, and audio installation in York Minster’s Nave. I thoroughly recommend it and would suggest that you either see one of the few remaining shows of this season or jump in early when it (hopefully!) returns next year.

Here’s a short documentary I found about it:

https://vimeo.com/278486676

The Power of Telemetry

The online backup company Backblaze – of which I am a reasonably satisfied long-term customer – makes statistics about the hard drives they use public. A chap called Ryan Smith took this telemetry and, with a little data wrangling and some educated guesses, worked out large parts of their business model – including important elements of their asset replacement cycle.

Telemetry is creepy. Turn it off.