Pi in the sky

[Nick]

>> documented instance

NOPE! I have been posting for quite a while using mine.

Photographic proof?

As requested - attached. The Pi is in the raspberry red enclosure.

Ah! The "posh" enclosure

What surprised me was that the performance of Midori/RPi was almost acceptable. Its really not too bad.

However, I'd not do development on it - too slow for coding - use a gcc/g++ cross-compiler on another, more reasonably powered, Linux box... Fine for scripting, though...

[camallison]

Any/all scripting I do is on an old desktop with Ubuntu installed. The distribution is unimportant to me, and that one was to hand when I built it.

The "posh" enclosure was a gift from the outfit who make them. I have done a lot of trialling for them and others in building the educational packs (incl software) that are currently going out to schools.

Today, I took delivery of 5 of the new camera and, this weekend, after I have finished my building project I will be bringing them to life as part of a project write up for schools use.

After 10 years of mentoring for The Prince's Trust, I can see results that make me feel proud of the kids of today who "take" to such mentoring. If we are only successful with 5% of them, then that is more than before without such help. As an engineer I want to put something back into the industry rather than sit on the sidelines bemoaning whatever the government of the day is/isn't doing.

Colin

[Nick]

That's neat - I was looking at the cameras today as a result of the BBC article by Rory Cellen-Jones (bizarrely, we were at school together, in the same class).

I've not done Prince's Trust mentoring, but my brother does (we tend not to cross over too much) - a good thing to do - I was a school governor for (too) many years - being a scientist & engineer, that was my remit - as you say, its important to put back. I do, however, mentor (and have funded) a number of small engineering startups and have done (and sold) a few (3) myself (some more successful than others!).

I tried to make it clear that I most emphatically don't "sit on the sidelines bemoaning whatever...", I'm just puzzled as to why this approach has been taken - it is bespoke and overly complex. If you look at Arduinos, there are tons of different shields, including many cameras etc. Not "singing the company song" is often frowned upon, but I've never really been a company man

The engineering in the RPi is great - Broadcom have been fantastic - but I still feel its an opportunity lost.

I guess we'll just have to agree to differ...

[Refugee]

I have never logged onto Golborne with anything but Linux ever.
It is the desktop version though.

[AlanBeckett]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22796724

Alan

[Nick]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22796724

I've been having a bit of fun with my Pis - I ported our full FX eCommerce post-trade suite to it (not that tricky as we do our Linux builds with gcc anyway). Interesting sales demo when you bring the server along in your laptop bag and run it off your phone charger...

However, the quote in the above article from Eben Upton (the designer) is telling:

"The Raspberry Pi is a great platform if your parent is an engineer or you have a teacher who is an enthusiast, but if you don't have a tech-savvy adult to hand it can be quite a technical operation"

The Pi Foundation have called their software for beginners "Noobs".

Anyone who does anything even vaguely professional with computers will tell you that "Noobs" is a generally derogatory term for complete idiots - newbies who haven't a clue. Yes, we were all there once upon a time...

Yes, the mnemonic is accurate, but causes some amusement that that particular word was chosen for the package...

[AlanBeckett]

A whole Million my life - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24435809
To put that into context Apple only sold 31.2 Million Units in the Second Quarter and are dissapointed. Samsung shipped 71 Million Smartphones and are quite pleased.

Alan

[AlanBeckett]

Can't wait

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24446046

Alan

[AlanBeckett]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28263659
Got to keep the hype going.

Alan

[pwdrive]

It's all beyond me, BASIC and 32k of ram was where I jumped off.

Lawrence.