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    fireboat
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    Member No.#1
    Registered๐Ÿ“…7th Jan 2006
    Last Online๐Ÿ“…29th Apr 2025
    City๐Ÿ“Cheshire
    Country๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งUnited Kingdom
    Genderโ™‚๏ธMale
    Age๐Ÿ‘ถ35
    Posts๐Ÿ’ฌ1055
    Followers๐Ÿ“ฃ12
    Likes Received๐Ÿ‘1655

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    ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Monty6 ( Recruit)
    ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Stephen T ( Commander)
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    ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บ MouldBuilder ( Admiral)
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    ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง georgeo5664 ( Petty Officer 1st Class)
    ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช RNinMunich ( Fleet Admiral)
    ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Colin H ( Fleet Admiral)
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    We may not be able to control the wind ๐Ÿƒ but we can always adjust our sails โ›ต - MBW Admin
    About
    Full time data analyst. Ex Engineer. Part time model-boater, electronics and software enthusiast. Model Boats Website founder.
    Members Harbour
    Recent Posts
    ๐Ÿ“ Private sales
    6 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 39 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Yes, you can advertise private sales. I only disallow companies.

    Although if you make a sale from advertising hereโ€ฆ I do encourage a small contribution ๐Ÿ˜Š it does cost to keep everything afloat ๐Ÿ›Ÿ

    Stephen

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    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    7 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 27 Views ยท 3 Likes
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    Since this is bound to happen again, what is the correct action next time around when we know thereโ€™s an error?

    1. Fix the current question
    2. Generate a totally different question
    3. Leave it as is

    And your time startsโ€ฆ nowโ€ฆ ๐Ÿ˜

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    7 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 27 Views ยท 3 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Second chance to all today! I've updated the question and reset any entries.

    Also Doug... I may have found a reason for your glitch by accident. I discovered the database is creating a few questions per day, not just the one! Shouldn't be happening... so I'll fix that later. It could be that when you clicked it was right, then the database got another update, page refreshed, the new question was then wrong... seems possible. Some were the same question but the answers swapped about.

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    8 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 24 Views ยท 6 Likes
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    Do we all agree that the answer today is none of the above? It should be safe passage to the west?

    I may have to reset todayโ€™s question.

    Getting closer to AI being reliable but then it throws in a curve ball, or a buoy ๐Ÿ˜ซ

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    8 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 19 Views ยท 2 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    I was wrong, it was 1 minute and 9 seconds after the new question was released. The server works on GMT+0 (no summer time).

    Not accusing you of fiddling! It's likely something unusual happened. Somehow C must have been selected. I'd be curious to know if anyone else has seen this? I've a feeling it's been mentioned before.

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    8 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 20 Views ยท 2 Likes
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    No clue why it happened. I know you answered within 1 minute and 19 seconds of the question going live. So I was going along the thoughts of the submission and the server going out of line with the current days question. But looking at the server logs, you did submit answer Cโ€ฆ

    Why the confetti if that was the case I havenโ€™t worked out still! ๐Ÿคฃ perhaps an uncleared cache somewhere.

    Might be worth giving it 5 minutes after a new question is out before submitted an answer ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ

    Iโ€™ll have another dive into it later.

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    8 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 20 Views ยท 3 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Are you sure you answered A? ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿ˜

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ’ฌ Re: Demo of W-Tail mixer to control two motors and rudder
    9 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 56 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ’ฌ Add Comment
    I've been looking into uploads - the limit was set to 60MB, but there were server settings that might have prevented smaller files still.

    Website storage is limited only by number of files and not file size, so I've increased the file upload size to 1GB. That is a massive increase! But, do bear in mind huge files uploaded have to also be downloaded... and I may need to look into warning users about attachment file sizes (and likewise video file sizes) before allowing them to be downloaded and viewed.

    Let's see how things go!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ’ฌ Re: Demo of W-Tail mixer to control two motors and rudder
    11 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 102 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ’ฌ Add Comment
    Yes, the server kicks the upload out if the file size is too large. It tries to upload, fails, then as the file doesnโ€™t exist in the next step, it only shows an invalid file type warning, even though MP4โ€™s should be ok.

    Iโ€™d cut it down to a smaller clip, lower the resolution, or cut into multiple smaller clips.

    Not ideal; but I canโ€™t allow a greater upload size unfortunately. Itโ€™s why the option to link a YouTube video is available instead ๐Ÿ‘

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    18 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 42 Views ยท 3 Likes
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    A little iffy today, I think the answer should really be the SS Caronia given the date.

    SS Caronia: Sent a warning on 13 April, acknowledged but not significantly acted upon.
    SS Californian: Sent a warning on 14 April, but was dismissed by the busy wireless operator (Cyril Evans).
    SS Mesaba: Sent the most detailed and timely warning on the evening of 14 April, but it never reached the bridge.

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    19 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 47 Views ยท 3 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    16 correct in the past 30 days = 53% ๐Ÿ‘

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    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    20 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 47 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    I shall have another go at the score board at some point. There will be a reason why youโ€™re hovering around 50%โ€ฆ I think a lot of it is about publishing the numbers to the granular level, so you can all see how itโ€™s calculated up at the top level. A bit like a โ€˜show detailโ€™ option.

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    21 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 44 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Got a titanic question. Iโ€™ve been missing thoseโ€ฆ

    Date and answer is right again though! I feel there may be more titanic related questions in the coming days ๐Ÿค”

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    22 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 47 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    The first question I ask captain AI is if there is an anniversary for anything. Except now, Iโ€™ve asked it to be more accurate and also double check it.

    If thereโ€™s a wrong anniversary or no anniversary, itโ€™ll fall back to a general question based on a keyword.

    Whichever route, several questions are generated, based on either keywords or event anniversary. Each question and answer is then double checked. If it passes the check, it gets added to the consideration list.

    Then the best question from the consideration list is calculated out, and itโ€™s that question which is published. If there was a keyword prompt for it, that keyword is also removed for the next 30 days.

    Then a final fallback, if captain AI isnโ€™t feeling like playing, is to recycle an old question. Letโ€™s hope that doesnโ€™t happen too often though!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    22 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 47 Views ยท 7 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Is this two days in a row that weโ€™ve had correct questions, answers and relevant to the date as well!? ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    23 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 48 Views ยท 6 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    I'm just happy that the question today was about an event that actually happened today (in history) and not a random other date...

    So I'm taking that as a win!

    @SimpleSailer, what would you expect to happen if you only answer 1 question in the last 30 days, and it was correct? To keep you at 100% all month? I think we'd end up with a leader board full of members only answering the questions they know for certain... tried to solve this tricky one a few times ๐Ÿ™ˆ

    I'm debating using the new US Tariff formula next ๐Ÿ˜‚ apparently it makes things fair ๐Ÿ˜Ž

    Update: got it sussed! Potential formula attached!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    26 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 46 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Oh no! Youโ€™re quite right. Despite all my workโ€ฆ we still have issues! Will have another think ๐Ÿค”

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    26 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 44 Views ยท 6 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Captain AI has been told off and had a slight re-wiring! Let's see what tomorrow brings.

    I decided to apply some multi-step logic with multiple different algorithms checking each others homework. There's also a 'temperature' parameter which hopefully is adjusted to give more fact than fiction. Then after generating several potential new questions of the day, a third algorithm picks the most interesting one.

    Let's just say, Captain AI is being monitored very closely from tomorrow!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    29 days ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 45 Views ยท 5 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Oh gosh. Something needs to be done again to get Captain AI in check.

    Any AI experts out there?

    Other than running a few recursive checks and an initial randomiser to stop the breakwaters coming up all the time, Iโ€™m a bit at a loss!

    Once I get time (again very little right now as weโ€™re moving house and I stupidly broke my arm) then Iโ€™ll have another dive into this.

    Feels a little like Norbot when he went Rogue!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    2 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 54 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Iโ€™ve explicitly told Captain AI not to repeat questions. He seems to be ignoring his orders ๐Ÿค”

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 49 Views ยท 1 Like
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Internet says it happened on the 24th April 1895?

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    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 51 Views ยท 5 Likes
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    I can never guarantee what's going to come up, but I have told the captain to stick with maritime questions! He's not allowed to resign, so I think we're safe to continue feeding him with more and more requirements! ๐Ÿ˜‚

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 54 Views ยท 8 Likes
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    Captain AI will be getting orders tomorrow not to lazily repeat previous questions!

    Iโ€™ll keep todayโ€™s rudder one. Think we also need more difficult questions but Iโ€™ll not change too many orders at once yet!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 55 Views ยท 4 Likes
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    With the all time percentages it would take a great deal of correct answers to move the needle.

    What I have done with the members one, is look at the last 30 days, regardless of whether you answer a question or not. So after midnight, everyoneโ€™s percentage will drop by about 3% (100/30 days) until they answer the current days question, leaderboard wise, as everyone drops at the same time, nobody moves higher or lower in relation to one another.

    I could match the same logic for the countries, probably would be sensible. Maybe also sensible to remove the big all-time average number too and we stick with just the last 30 days?

    Itโ€™s a minefield in itself getting a sensible stat everyone likes ๐Ÿ˜‚

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 54 Views ยท 1 Like
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Not a great start. I had to regenerate today's question. AI captain already telling us fibs on what happened on this day in history ๐Ÿ™„

    Cleared today's entries, so please have another go.

    Hungary I shall look into too!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 52 Views ยท 8 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Some slight changes; for better or for worse we'll have to see!

    1. I've added a top 20 members list, all looking at the past 30 days with a scoreboard. If you're off the list, it'll show your individual ranking at the bottom.

    2. This could go terribly wrong, but I'm going to ask (automatically) for totally fresh questions each day (instead of recycling), from an AI. There is quite a high benchmark for it to generate something relevant for the day/date and relevant for the subject area. I've upgraded it to a more intelligent model which takes in fact a chunky amount of time to generate something. We'll have to see how well it does each day in coming up with something good and maybe tweak it further over time.

    3. I'm capturing a detailed explanation which will replace the current poor explanation for why the correct answer is correct (lets hope it is) and why the wrong answers are wrong (lets hope they are wrong). Additionally I'm logging the data sources, so if it starts giving us rubbish, it may be useful to see why it is doing so. If these sources are useful, I'll publish them here too for everyone to use for further reading!

    The first question will be tomorrow. Even I don't know what it'll be yet. Lets see how this goes!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 49 Views ยท 1 Like
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    Just changed it.

    Lets see how you all get on with all-time averages ๐Ÿ˜ ๐Ÿ˜ ๐Ÿ˜

    Shouldn't have to worry about scores changing when not answering anything now ๐Ÿ‘

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Question of the Day?
    3 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 50 Views ยท 2 Likes
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    Hi Boatshed,

    Itโ€™s based on the last 30 days. So if 30 days ago you answered correctly, it may go to 91%, but once tomorrow comes, that win 30 days ago is then 31 days ago, taking you back to 90%โ€ฆ

    Your last 30 days is constantly changing! Maybe it should be based on all-time records?

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Merry Christmas!
    4 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 58 Views ยท 20 Likes
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    I heard Santaโ€™s traded his sleigh this year, and heโ€™s loving the upgrade!

    Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas - filled with laughter, joy, and maybe a few surprise spare parts in your stockings (Santa knows your wish list)!

    Stephen

    ๐Ÿ“ Christmas Cards
    5 months ago by ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง fireboat ( Captain)
    โœง 47 Views ยท 2 Likes
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    ๐Ÿ“ Reply
    Hi All,

    We now have charity Christmas cards for sale. A little late in the year for my liking - most of you have probably already have sorted your cards out! But if you'd like to help out this years charity, all proceeds are going to St John's Hospice.

    I'll dispatch orders asap. Shouldn't be long getting them if ordering from the UK, overseas it can be 5 days, so just bear that in mind.

    Two options; you can buy blank cards, as many as you like. They'll be bundled together with their corresponding envelopes in a single parcel. Or you can get a single personal card, hand written from The Model Boats Website to you ๐Ÿ˜Š

    80p for personal cards (max of 1 per member)
    ยฃ1.00 for blanks



    xmas


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