Categories
tech

Raspberry Pi Alternatives

I like raspberry pi PCs because they (were) cheap when I bought them (around $25) and they’re the size of a deck of cards, and use little electricity. The alternatives are now a better bang for the buck since 2019 when availability went down and they started being scalped. Hopefully later this year or next year the production runs will go up and bring the prices back down.

I currently have 4 running Raspy Pis:

  • 2 in a local realtor’s offices displaying Lake County Ca properties (using a boot-time chrome to display the houses using a webserver I maintain)
  • 1 running a DIY nas in my office
  • 1 running a music webserver (volumio) in the bedroom

Here’s a short youtube video on the Raspy Pi alternatives.

A new video came out on May 18 with an Eben Upton (creator of the Pi) interview, where he says supplies will catch up in later half of 2023.

Categories
Prior Unity

Max Planck: “I regard consciousness as fundamental…”

Max Planck (1858-1947) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physicist and the father of quantum theory. His work in the field of theoretical physics led the way to many advances throughout the 20th century. Today, Planck’s name is synonymous with the German science community, evidenced by his being the namesake of the country’s Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

Source: The Observer (25 January 1931) (via Wikiquote)
Categories
Leela

Krishna Das Meeting Ram Das & Neem Karoli Baba

Here’s a link to a youtube interview of Krishna Das on meeting Ram Das, which eventually led to him to finding his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

Categories
tech

What will it take for Apple to disentangle itself from China?

The tech giant increasingly finds itself beholden to America’s biggest geopolitical rival. But is diversification even possible?

This is a fascinating article on making iphones in China. Basically the whole infrastructure exists on such a big scale that no other country is in the same league as China.

“Look at the smartphone manufacturing hubs that China has created,” he says. “I don’t know where that can be replicated.”

Chan, the Foxconn labour researcher, predicts that as media attention dies down Apple will quietly increase its investments in the country. “China has so many advantages,” she says. “From the moderately educated and skilled workers to the really high level engineers and PhDs — those providing expertise in cutting-edge knowledge.”

Chan adds: “Apple would have too many difficulties to find the human resources and infrastructure that is parallel — or even close — to the scale provided in China.”

From the Financial Times Article
Categories
tech

Learning to Code

Give a computer program to a person to frustrate him for a day. Teach computer programming to a person and frustrate her for a lifetime.–some Computer Science Professor

A vast majority of people who try to learn to code will get frustrated and give up.

I sure did. I got frustrated and gave up. Several times.

But like other people who eventually succeeded, I kept coming back after a few days, and tried again. —Quincy Larson from How to Learn to Code & Get a Developer Job in 2023 [Full Book]