| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Convenor: | |
| Group email: | Computer group |
| When: | Monthly on Thursday mornings 1st Thursday of each month at 10.00 |
| Venue: | Naphill Village Hall |
| Cost: | Suggested 20p towards the cost of refreshments. |
Change of meeting timings for May and June 2026
- The May meeting will be held on Wednesday May 13th at the usual time.of 10am
- The June meeting will be held on Wednesday June 10th ay the usual time of 10am
We are a group with mixed abilities but a common interest in all things computing,
You would be very welcome to pop in for a no obligation look at what we get up to, and join us for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Just email me using the link above.
"There are 10 types of people in this world. Those that understand Binary, and those that don't."
Ian Stewart
News
A long password is a good password.
With 94 characters on a regular keyboard, you could create 6 quadrillion unique 8-character passwords. Finding this password could take a computer 8 hours.
Increase this password to 10 characters and it would take 8 days. Extend it to 12 characters and the same machine would be working on it in the year 2085.
Source: Computer Active
Next meeting
To be announcxed
Previous meetings
April 2nd 2026 - Google 'mymaps'
This month the computer group listened with interest to Mike’s presentation on Google 'Mymaps'
One of the most useful features of Mymaps is something called layers.
These let you organise your map into categories — for example, one layer for places to visit, another for routes, and another for accommodation....
You can then turn these layers on or off to keep the map clear and easy to use.
After a refreshment break, we looked at an amazing resource owned by the National Library of Scotland. The resource contains many historic maps with modern overlays including LIDAR.
Warning, you may lose many hours of your time if you enter this website.
March 5th 2026 - Looking back
Simon C. once again visited the Computer Group to give us a talk. This time on the computer technology of the 80's where he worked as a Geophysicist for a company specialising in Seismic surveying.
February 5th 2026 - Artificial intelligence
Our group enjoyed Two videos about AI. Mike tried to bring the group up to date in this fast changing subject.
The first video was a mix of how AI is continuously learning and assisting.
Find patterns
Make predictions
Learn from mistakes
Improve over time
Examples of use are - Recognise a face in a crowd, Predict the next word in a sentence or spot an abnormality in a medical image or record.
The second video we looked at generally left the members unimpressed. They felt it was promoting products rather than educating.
After our break we had a look at NASA's Artemis II mission to send 4 astronauts to swing around the mood in a shake down of the Space Launch System for (Artemis IV) which will be landing astronauts on the moon in 2028.
We started with a short talk on the computers in the Orion Spacecraft followed by a video looking at the details of the Artemis II mission.
4th December 2025 - An off beat look at Christmas
Thank you to our members who came along to the final meeting of the computer group in 2025.
Many thanks to Simon C. for his wonderful humorous look at computers at Christmas. As usual with Simons presentations it was well researched and, in this case, very funny and enjoyed by all.
We also had a tongue-in-cheek quiz on computing which was fairly informal and just for fun.
We then moved on to our Christmas refreshments which included Angelika’s wonderful homemade Stollen cake which proved extremely popular as always.
I would like to wish all our members and their families a very happy Christmas and thank you for your support during 2025. I look forward to seeing you all again in 2026.
Mike
October and November - Computers in Manned spaceflight.
We spent our October and November meetings loooking at the role computers played in human spaceflight.
Particularly at the American projects of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
Links
u3acommunities A new Fabulous resource of upcoming online lectures and previously recorded meetings.
High Wycombe and district u3a Facebook site
The National Museum of Computing.
How did the Apollo computer get men to the Moon - Opens in YouTube.
All Computer group meetings are 10am on the first Thursday of the month at the Naphill Village hall. Unless stated otherwise.