It’s time for PI (What I find interesting in tech, special raspberry pi edition, Mar. 2025)

Over the last year I’ve been working with various Raspberry Pi products, from the Pi Pico to the all-in-1 400 series. Along the way, I’ve found these links / articles to be useful for me. I hope they might help you too.

How To Guides: Here’s a variety of how to articles for various Raspberry Pi products:

Here’s how to disable Auto-Login on Raspberry Pi OS
Herer’s How to install pip on the Raspberry Pi
Here’s wow to power the Raspberry Pi Pico? 6 Different ways
How to boot without starting x server.
How to raspberry pis working with remote ir receivers.
How to use ifttt with the raspberry pi.
How to get the display settings right on Raspberry Pi.
How to use the Raspberry Pi Touch Display.
How to set up a raspberry pi pico weather station.
More on the pi zero and blinking an led. And some more good stuff on basic gpio control on raspberry pi zero w to get a blinking an led.

LCD/OLED output: If you want to use LCD or oled displays with your Pi, check out how to get Billboard Scrolling with LCD Display & Raspberry Pi Pico. Here’s how to get your raspberry pi working with your oled. More on that, here: using ssd1315 oleds with the raspberry pi pico. Also here .

RPis’ config.txt: If you want to use your Pi with an old composite display, then you need to learn more about the config.txt file. So here’s click on the links to know about the config.txt file: here and here and here and here.

If you are having problems with output display, check those out. Also, how do i shrink the screen with composite out is good. So is this: how to add an rca tv connector to a raspberry pi zero.

Pin settings: Pin settings articles for the Raspberry Pi are here and here and here. Finally, here’s the pin layout for the Digispark Pro. More on the Digispark here.

P.S. Posted on 3/14 for obvious reasons. 🙂

Remnants from the 80s stick out my feed that lead to other good things.

Every so often remnants from the 80s pop up in my feed. When something does stick out like a thread and I pull on it, more good 80s things appear.

For instance, things like this story on Angelina Jolie taking over Basquiat’s former NYC studio that lead me to a good post on Jean Michel Basquiat’s notebooks which is JAM PACKED with good stuff on him.

Or this thing in Martha Stewart on how 80s decor home trends are back that led me to this piece on one woman’s home full of Memphis design (so 80s!)

Same with tech. I went from this excellent interview on Robert Longo where he talks about many things such as the remaking of Johnny Mnemonic into black and white, That led to me reading how modern software is bringing back the timex datalink, a device I loved, to this great video of this guy living with 1980s tech for a week! Awesome.

Other great threads that came out of my 80s unravelling was this piece on how Sinead O’connor changed Ireland, these fantastic photos of Blitz Club in London by Andrew Holligan, and this interview of the singular Debbie Harry who says sex is what makes everything happen and more. This blog by Jamie Bradburn on Toronto in 1980s is a whole rabbit hole in and of itself.

The number of times the 80s appears in my feed is less and less. So whenever I find a bunch of them, I will of course be writing about them. 🙂

(Top image from the story on Memphis; bottom image from the substack on Basquiat’s notes)

Why do we have only one phone?

Why do we have only one phone? In truth, many of us have many phones: we just use one at a time. But why?

I was asking myself this question when I was reading about this sensible foldable phone with minimalist + clock mode is digital detox done right from Yanko Design. I would like to have this phone as well as my iPhone. When I get home I could ditch the Apple device and just use something like this device to stay up to date with important information.

The clue to the answer is the photo below:

We are tied to two things when it comes to our phone: the carrier and the device maker. Device makers don’t allow you to easily have two or three phones and transfer the SIM from one to the other. And carriers don’t support have multiple devices with the same SIM.

Sure, you can have phones just using wireless to get and send information. That’s something. But it would be great if you could have multiple devices using the same connection to get and send data. Some day, perhaps.

What’s cool? The interactive Open Infrastructure Map is cool

I can write what the Open Infrastructure Map is by using the words of its creator:

Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world’s infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database. This data isn’t exposed on the default OSM map, so I built Open Infrastructure Map to visualise it.

But the best thing to do is tell you to head over to it and zoom in on areas you know. Being from Cape Breton, I did just that, and I was wonderfully surprised by how much detail was there. I think you will feel the same.

Highly recommended.

On Fake quitting, real layoffs, and worker unhappiness

It’s been a tumultuous time when it comes to the current workplace, or at least business writers think so. From quiet quitting to the Great Resignation, writers can’t stop coining terms about pseudo quitting. So we have pieces on quit quitting, on rage applying and my new favorite, calibrated contributing. Even places like the WSJ join in with this piece on High-Earning Men Who Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours. It’s as if readers of business magazines and websites can not get enough pieces on worker unhappiness.

That was before times though. Now workers, at least IT workers, have something to be truly unhappy about: being laid off. You can read about it everywhere, from the Verge to the New York Times. It seemed like every IT company was suddenly shedding workers, from Facebook/Meta, to Microsoft, to Salesforce, to Google……even IBM, which had a decent year compared to the rest of the list. The reasons for the layoffs were varied. Facebook/Meta continues to have a bad business model. Others like Microsoft went on a hiring bender and the layoffs are almost a hangover. There’s also been talk that some of the companies were just following the others and trying to look tough or something. One tech company that did not lay anyone off: Apple.

Layoffs suck. If you get caught up in a layoff program, you can find many guides as to what to do. Here is one layoff guide: What to do before during and after getting laid off.

If you only pay attention to the tech job market, you may guess it applies to the job market in general. But if you read this, Mass Layoffs or Hiring Boom? What’s Actually Happening in the Jobs Market, you get a different picture. The job market is a jumble now due to the fallout of the pandemic. I suspect it is going to take another year to settle down.

In the meantime, good luck with your work. Things aren’t as bad as they may appear. Despite all the think pieces and the tech layoffs. Stay positive.

On the new iPhone SE

iPhone SE, 2022 edition, RED

One of my favorite phones from Apple is the SE, and in 2022 there is a new version of it. From what I read, the new version is a combination of physical features, old and new, combined with new software. I like it.

I read some complaints that argued the iPhone SE should have the same shape as the previous SE phones (think “flat edges”). Those complaining miss the point: there is no ONE form factor for the SE. The form factor is based on recycling once was what was new recently.

If you like an older form factor — home button, anyone? — and you like a great low cost iPhone, then the SE may be for you. Check out this list of reviews:

Convinced? Then head over to Apple and buy one. I am a fan of the (PRODUCT) RED one: iPhone SE 64GB (PRODUCT)RED – Apple

(Image from the Apple web site)

P.S. If you are looking for a bargain smart phone that isn’t the SE, there I recommend this.

Why beach robots are good

While I am not a fan of most popular robots these days, I will make an exception for this one: This Microsoft-powered AI-enabled robot cleans up cigarette butts littered on the beach! – Yanko Design

It’s sad we need such a robot, but if this problem is going to exist, I am all for such technology. It’s a great project and not unlike a Roomba for the beach. Nice.

What I find interesting in tech, August 2021

Here’s a cornucopia of things I have found interesting in tech in the last month. As usual, lots of cloud, some Kubernetes, DevOps and software of course, as well as IOT. Grab a drink and read!

Cloud:

On the cost of cloud: The Cost of Cloud a Trillion Dollar Paradox.
Relatedly: Why Is Cloud Computing So Complicated?
Also: Why the cloud is so complicated is an explanation not an excuse.
On Choosing Your VPC Endpoint Strategy for Amazon S3.
How to optimize your Azure costs.
For IT people: Which is the best Cloud Certification for beginners?
A great list: A To-Do List for Every New IBM Cloud Project.
Moves IBM has made: IBM upgrades its Big Iron OS for better cloud security and AI support.
Helpful: A cloud services cheat sheet for AWS Azure and Google Cloud.
For IT shops going to go hybrid cloud: A study of hosting and managing on Hybrid Multi-cloud.

Devops:

I thought this was useful: devops-a-complete-guide.
If you need to know: Three Differences Between DevOps and SRE.
A good intro: What Is DevOps and How Does It Work?
Some training advice: Train at your own pace for a well-paid career in DevOps and blockchain for just $30.
Curious about DevOps and mainframe? See Understanding how GitHub fits in a mainframe DevOps toolchain.
Here’s a piece on GitArchitecture.

Software:

A smart piece: Day 0/Day 1/Day 2 – the software lifecycle in the cloud age.
As a fan of Evernote, I found this interesting: Evernote works to keep current users and tries for new ones.
Before C, there was B: A TUTORIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LANGUAGE B.
For Kafka users: Understanding Kafka Topic Partitions.
For Javascript folks: The JavaScript Framework That Puts Web Pages on a Diet.
Java Devs, here’s a must read: We Crunched 1 Billion Java Logged Errors.Here‚’s What Causes 97% of Them.
Finally, this is a good primer: How To Build a Website with HTML.

Kubernetes:

Some good tutorials: Kubernetes tutorials: Hands-on labs with certification.
Relatedly: KubeAcademy : Unlock your full potential with Kubernetes courses designed by experts : KubeAcademy.
On K8S storage: The Importance of Persistent Storage in Kubernetes- OpenEBS.

Security:

Kubernetes users, take note: Kubernetes Cloud Clusters Face Cyberattacks via Argo Workflows.
Relatedly: Threat Alert: Market-First Container Image Built to Attack Kubernetes Clusters.

IOT:

This looks fun: E-Ink Tide and Weather Tracker. So does this: Build a Mute/Unmute Button for your Video Calls with a Raspberry Pi Pico and MicroPython.

Cool stuff:

I love stories of what Doom can run on!
For fans of the old NeXT, check this out: Build your own NeXT with a virtual machine close.
Kudos to Microsoft for doing this: This Microsoft-powered AI-enabled robot cleans up cigarette butts littered on the beach!

General

For architecture fans: Part 1. Envisioning the architecture.
A fine initiative: Microsoft and Toronto non-profit partners to help firms set up workplace rapid screening program in as little as a week.
For Chromebook users: How to fix the “cannot download file” issue in Google Drive on a Chromebook. Relatedly, How to Check Whether a Used Chromebook is Obsolete Before You Buy It.
This is a great idea: Minimum Viable Governance. Relatedly: Minimum Viable Governance: lightweight community structure to grow your FOSS projects.
This app is terrible: Millions of people uploaded photos to the Ever app. Then the company used them to develop facial recognition tools..
This is frightening: Autonomous war machines could make costly mistakes on future battlefields.
Useful IP for ecommerce people. A good STORE POLICY.
More on ecommerce: Coffee shop owner says Shopify saved her business suggests other business owners take advantage of free tools close.
For BigIron people: Mainframe Tips Tricks And Tutorials.
For Linux folks: Use caution when making changes to bash configurations in Linux.
Don’t use these passwords: Top 500 Most Common Passwords Visualized.
That’s a nope from me: Facebook Wants Us to Live in the Metaverse.

(Photo by Sam Albury on Unsplash )

On the rise and fall and unlikely rise of QR codes

I’ve been a fan of QR codes for a decade. Back then I wrote about how they could be used to tag everything from trees and medic alert bracelets to IOT devices. I thought the sky was the limit for them. I was wrong.

Until this year. As Clive Thompson writes here, the pandemic has been a game changer in causing the resurgence of QR codes. I am glad to see that.

I’d still like to see QR codes everywhere. It would be a way of connecting the virtual world to the real world. Cities could tag streets and neighborhood with QR codes to allow you to get a glimpse of context into where you are standing. If a new building is being built, put a QR code on a sign out front that links to a web site providing greater detail on it. As for historic buildings, why not put a QR code on them that links to their wikipedia page describing the historical significance. Anyway, lots of ways QR codes could enhance our understanding of the world.

Here’s hoping they are here to stay, providing us a way to better navigate our world.

(Photo by Rebecca Hausner on Unsplash )

In praise of e-paper and alternative displays

Here’s three pieces by Max Braun on using alternative displays for information. I think they are great. For example, I would love to have postersized screen on my wall to read the paper each day.

And this calendar is minimal and cool:

For more on these, see these links:

What I find interesting in tech, November 2020

Kubernetes

Here’s 59 links (!) of things I have found interesting in tech in the last while. It ‘s heavily skewed towards Kubernetes because that’s mostly what I have been involved with. Some stuff on Helm, since I was working on a tricky situation with Helm charts. There’s some docker and Open Shift of course, since it’s related. There’s a few general pieces on cloud. And finally at the end there’s links to a bunch of worthwhile repos.

Almost all of these links are self explanatory. The ones that aren’t…well…few if anyone but me reads these posts anyway. 🙂 Just treat it like a collection of potentially good resources.

Two good pieces addressing racial inequality in tech

Here are two good pieces addressing racial inequality in tech

In my humble and limited opinion, tech has many gaps when it comes to who works in the industry, especially when it comes to women and when it comes to black and indigenous people. Any efforts to address these gaps are a good thing.

(Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash)

The decline of start-up tech in 2020

Is described here: As the Start-Up Boom Deflates, Tech Is Humbled – The New York Times.

Key takeaways:

It’s not as bad as the dot com era
It should not be expected, given how many duds startup tech has given us lately
It may lead to something worse, but my assessment right now is it could signal a correction more than an overall decline

There’s been many stories written about tech lately: that article is a good chance to get an overall assessment as to where tech is now. At least, start up tech.

Kubernetes Is the Future of Computing?

I hesitate to echo Barron’s here: Kubernetes Is the Future of Computing. Everything You Should Know. – Barron’s because computing is vast, and there is more to computing than Kubernetes. (AI, for one thing.) But Kubernetes is one of the main drivers of change in IT, and more and more people are moving towards it. If you don’t know much about it and you subscribe to Barron’s, I recommend you read their piece. Otherwise Google “kubernetes for business leaders” or “Kubernetes 101” and you’ll find quite a few good pieces on it.

Moodnotes: an app to document your thoughts and moods

If you are using CBT to deal with your mood, consider this app: Moodnotes: a Thought Journal, Mood Diary, CBT App.

It helps you quickly capture your mood, but it also help you deal with distorted thinking that contributes to poor moods or worse.

I am cautious about recommending such apps, because I worry what the app developers will do with the data. I have looked at their privacy policy and it is easy to understand and it says they won’t keep specific data. So I am cautiously recommending it.

A smart poster that knows the weather (and a great alternative display)

Is this:

It uses smart ink, so it’s low power. But it changes throughout the day, based on the information it gets from the Internet. It looks great, and it’s around $134, which is not bad.

I’d like to see more tech do this. A fine marriage of high tech and aesthetics.

For more information, see A smart poster that knows the weather | Yanko Design

Some thoughts on insurance companies and the use of wearable technology

When it comes to insurance and wearables, I think the effect of these devices will be limited. I think this because:

I don’t believe people are consistent about using wearables. I have been using wearables and fitbits for some time. I believe most people are prone to not wearing them constantly. Inconsistent use will make it harder for insurers to guarantee you a better rate or for you to achieve one.
You are more likely to wear it and use it when you are trying to keep in shape. If you are not, you will likely not wear it. The insurer can’t know if you are getting out of shape or just no longer wearing it. (I used to use a Nike+ device for running, and I ran consistently, but I did not use the device consistently. Many days and weeks I just didn’t feel like it.) The use of wearables is mostly an upside for you, and of limited value to the insurer.
One reason I gave up on using wearables consistently is that they don’t give you much new information. I walk and exercise consistently and so they often give me the same information consistently. Which means I tend to not wear them often. I don’t need the fitbit to tell me I walked 10,000 steps. I know I did because my commute to and from work plus my lunchtime walk consistently gives me that.
My fitbit scale is great for tracking my weight over time, but an insurer could also just ask me my weight, height and waistline and get a sense of my eligibility for insurance, just like how they ask if I smoke. A very low tech way to measure things. Men with a waist over 40 inches are more prone to heart disease then men with much smaller waists, regardless of what a high tech scale says. A insurer needs a limited number of data points to assess your health risks.
I believe there is limited return for insurers to get this much data. I base this on my current life insurer. I can get life insurance from 1-6X my salary (assuming I pay the corresponding rise in premiums) without providing medical data. They only ask for medical data if I ask for more than 6X. It likely isn’t of benefit for them to process the data for lower amounts, so they proceed without it.
Insurers are data driven, for sure, but I think they are good at picking out a limited number of good numbers to determine what to charge you for insurance. I don’t think the numbers coming back from wearable tech is all that good.

So in short, I don’t believe people or insurers will get much benefit from wearable tech. People will not get breaks on their insurance, and insurers will not be able to reduce their risk substantially with the use of wearables.

In an alternative universe this is the next hot smartphone

I am unexcited about the direction in Smartphone design. The key design idea that less is more in a phone is becoming Less is a Bore. Perhaps that’s why this design of a Blackberry got me thinking about it. While it still has a gorgeous screen, the phone itself is worthy of looking at and touching. It strikes the right balance. The phone as a design object is worthwhile.

It would have been good if Apple had struck out in a new design direction with the iPhone X. Instead they went with Less is More. Instead we have a phone with the Notch and a camera on the back that sticks out. It’s as if Apple would have preferred not to have these cameras and sensors, so rather than design the phone to incorporate them into the design, they stick out, figuratively and literally. In a few years from now when Apple has gone in a different direction, Apple fans will look back and exclaim how poor that aspect of the phone design is.

As for now, we live in an age where the screen dominates design, from TVs to smartphones. In the future that may change and the technology that we interact with will be contained in objects that have noteworthy design in them.
For more on this beautifully designed phone, see If BlackBerry Ditched the Keyboard | Yanko Design.

The iPhone 8 is really the iCamera 8

iphone
Great review of the latest iPhone*, here: The iPhone 8 is a look into the augmented future of photography | TechCrunch. I had heard that the iPhone 8 had a great new camera, but this article really drives that home.

If you are thinking of getting an “8”, this could be the reason you need. On the other hand, if you rarely take photos or don’t care too much about the quality, I think the case for an upgrade gets weaker.

* I don’t consider the iPhone X the latest phone so much as a promise of where the iPhone is going. To be honest, I think the iPhone X is as much an attempt to celebrate the 10 years of the iPhone and Steve Jobs’s legacy, not unlike the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Juicero post-mortem

Juicero
The juicero is toast. Not surprising to me: it was a terrible idea.

While the juicero was terrible, this analysis of the engineering behind the juicero is fantastic: Here’s Why Juicero’s Press is So Expensive – Bolt Blog.

Even if you aren’t interested in this device, read this analysis. You will come away with a much better appreciation of all the devices currently in your own life and some of the thinking that goes into making them.

ICYMI: What is code, by Paul Ford

Happy Monday! Are you affected by code at work? Of course you are! Do you code at work yourself? Very likely, even if it is to use formulae in a spreadsheet program like Excel (which, years ago, would have required been considered coding). However code affects you, I highly recommend you read this:
Code. It’s a very rich piece on code (i.e. software) and what it means to you (and everyone else).

Among other things, it is brilliantly designed. Lots of hard work went into this piece. If you can’t get started yet this week at work, read this as a research project.

Looking to buy a technical gift for someone (or yourself) ?

Then you need to check out the Wirecutter. It has experts in every area of technology — from headphones to TVs to much more — stating what they think is thebest thing to buy right now. They explain their reasoning, offer alternatives, and best of all, the site is kept up to date. Also, they have links to sites like Amazon and others to let you take the next step and purchase the tech you want.

Why the Surface RT Failed and the iPad Did Not (Not)

Nick Bilton tries to explain the failure of the Surface with one cause, here: Why the Surface RT Failed and the iPad Did Not – NYTimes.com. While I think this is one potential reason, I also think there are many reasons why it failed. Here are some more:

Too expensive: comparatively to other tablet devices. Even if it was alot better, customers would be more likely to go with the equally impressive and less costly iPad or Android devices.
No need for the product: if the other tablets lacked in some capacity, perhaps the Surface would have taken off. But the needs of tablet users was more than met by what was in the market.
Network externalities: what used to work for Microsoft now worked against them. It’s not enough to develop a tablet: you have to develop all the things tablet users expect and support that as well. Otherwise you have to go to the commodity market.

Invalid reasons would be:

Microsoft can’t do hardware: Microsoft can do hardware. Their XBOX line in particular is nowhere near the weakling of the Surface or Microsoft’s earlier hardware failure, the Zune.
No one can compete with Apple: Google in conjunction with Samsung and others are doing a good job of competing with Apple.
There is no room for more hardware in the market: again, Google and others have shown it is possible to compete in this space.

I don’t think Microsoft is done in this space. But I think they may approach it differently. We’ll see in the next two years.