Why I love my PIs

[Roken]

Small
Retro gaming
Nextcloud - giving access to my files from anywhere
Plex, giving access to my media anywhere
PiHole, for ad blocking
VPN, for security
tvheadend - for live TV anywhere (via Kodi)

I could go on. Why do you love your PI(s)?

[Imperf3kt]

I don't.
My Pi's cause nothing but grief, headaches and chew through my pay check faster than my other hobbies.

[jahboater]

chew through my pay check faster than my other hobbies.

Well yes, you do end up spending more than the price of the one Pi - in my case countless Pis, official PSU's, fast SD cards, various HAT's etc.

BUT, compared to Intel PC's or Mac's, their accessories and hardware, anything Pi related is always astonishingly cheap!

[Chris D]

I don't know if I love my RPIs but I sure am addicted to them, they are like Crack to me. Currently my robot has 6 of them and it is only a matter of time before it has more.

Chris D

[Burngate]

Two kayaks (used to have more), 2000 SF books, several Pis.
Not enough room for more kayaks, and running out of wall-space for books. At least the Pis don't take up much room - yet.

Some people collect guitars, others collect stamps.

[W. H. Heydt]

Two kayaks (used to have more), 2000 SF books, several Pis.
Not enough room for more kayaks, and running out of wall-space for books. At least the Pis don't take up much room - yet.

Some people collect guitars, others collect stamps.

Only 2000 books? You don't read much, do you?

[k-pi]

They are a neat small quiet computer that lets me access the internet, play my music, & play time wasters.

[Heater]

2000 books is far too many. One only needs Euclid, Homer and Kernighan & Ritchie. Possibly Horowitz & Hill and Patterson & Hennessy.

You could get a lot more Pi in if you passed all those books on

[W. H. Heydt]

2000 books is far too many. One only needs Euclid, Homer and Kernighan & Ritchie. Possibly Horowitz & Hill and Patterson & Hennessy.

You could get a lot more Pi in if you passed all those books on

What? No mention of Agricola?

[Heater]

Well, OK, Agricola. Although I have a bit of a beef with him. As far as I can tell he is the guy that banished the use of the letters c, and q from the Finnish language and added å, ä and ö to the end.

[Burngate]

Where are these in your list?
Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5 & The Sirens of Titan (still not got Player Piano)
Olaf Stapleton - Last and First Men
Robert Heinllein - The Number of the Beast
Larry Niven - Ringworld

I used to be able to pick out any of my books and give a short precis of it
Since having a small 'stroke' my memory is shot to pieces - which means I can pick any of them up and read it as if it's new to me.
Always look on the bright side of life. I'm sure someone famous said that, but I can't remember who.

[Heater]

I might be tempted to keep Slaughterhouse 5, if I had it.

But it's a slippery slope...

My initial selection was based on the deepest books that have had a profound effect on civilization getting to where we are today. Books that one could study for a lifetime before extracting the most out of them.

[rpdom]

One of my Pis has a library catalogue on it. Over 20000 books. An actual library. I scanned the barcodes of the books by hand.

(I work as a volunteer in my local library and wanted to see if the Pi could handle it. It could - easily)

[jahboater]

My initial selection was based on the deepest books that have had a profound effect on civilization getting to where we are today. Books that one could study for a lifetime before extracting the most out of them.

I suggest for that selection: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

[Heater]

I'd be tempted to keep Russell as well.

I was considering books that caused our philosophy/civilization to develop rather than documented it's history after the event.

[jahboater]

Yes, understood.

But it doesn't seem to read as a history.

First published in 1946, History of Western Philosophy went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, Russell's History of Western Philosophy offered a cogent precis of its subject. Of course this cannot be the only reason it ended up the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. Russell's book was 'long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism', as the New York Times noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made Russell's History of Western Philosophy one of the most important philosophical works of all time.

Russell got the Nobel prize for it I believe.

[Heater]

OK, we'll keep Russell. Who does not like a good paradox after all?

Also I'm keeping the two Douglases: Adams and Hofstadter.

Also Camus for when I'm feeling suicidal.

This is all eating valuable Pi and gadget space you know...

[Douglas6]

Books. 4 or 5. Seriously. Bows head.

[W. H. Heydt]

Robert Heinllein - The Number of the Beast

Very nearly the last Heinlein I'd pick. The Moon is a harsh Mistress is a lot better. Heck, Citizen of the Galaxy is better. Heinlein went way down hill when he got famous enough to excape having someone *edit* his books.

Larry Niven - Ringworld

The Niven/Pournelle works are readable, and Ringworld is an interesting--if fatally flawed--concept...which he worked on fixing in Ringworld Engineers.

[W. H. Heydt]

Well, OK, Agricola. Although I have a bit of a beef with him. As far as I can tell he is the guy that banished the use of the letters c, and q from the Finnish language and added å, ä and ö to the end.

Are we talking about the same Agricola? I'm referring the Georgius Agricola, author of De Re Metallica. It's everything you ever wanted to know about mining and metallurgy is 16th century Germany, which makes it a good thing to have if civilization goes down the tube. After having the terms change so much that nobody could read it, it was translated in the early 20th century by a husband and wife team. He was a Mining Engineer and she was a Classical Scholar. He did go on the have an interesting political carreer, and eventually post-war reconstruction support in Europe (more successfully than his political position).

[Gavinmc42]

Since having a small 'stroke' my memory is shot to pieces - which means I can pick any of them up and read it as if it's new to me.
Always look on the bright side of life. I'm sure someone famous said that, but I can't remember who.

That would be nice to reread then all again, my collection is between 5000 and 10,000 probably more with all those magazines
Not sure how many ebooks I have, whatever fits on 8GB USB stick, got copies on the mobile phone.
Read back issues of Pi Mag while wife shops or OpenGL/VG programming recently.
Phone 16GB card getting full with all those Gutenberg books too.
Many old classic SF coming out of copyright now

Monty Python, The Life of Brian "Always look on the bright side of life" not sure if they quoted someone else.

Plato was a bit of a idealist but Socrates, Aristotle and Cicero, Machiavelli if you deal with Gov in anyway.
De re metallica now added to my list of must have to reboot the World after the Apocalypse/Revolution list
Boy Scout Handbook? What other books are needed to reboot.

Anyone know a good Beer brewing one? That is basic food requirement so I'm told
Probably Wines, distilling too, may not be able to trust the water with all that fracking going on.
Need a good one on DIY Geiger counters, radiation leaks. etc.
Blacksmithing is a must, should be plenty of steel and iron rusting away, waiting to be upcycled to horse shoes.
Animal husbandry and midwifery. Wheelwright for after the rubber tires fall apart.
Farmer's Almanac? Something for building shelter, barns, houses etc

Lots can be put on a Pi uSD card and passed on and copied.
Bit of a worry when the screens die, so printing presses will be needed?

[W. H. Heydt]

Anyone know a good Beer brewing one? That is basic food requirement so I'm told

It has been speculated that what started the agricultural revolution (the switch from hunter-gatherer tribes to farmers) was the "need" for a steady and reliable supply of grain for brewing.

If you can find a copy--mine is on the order of 50 years old--get "The impoverished Students' Book of Cookery, Drinkery, & Housekeepery". It was originally published in 1965. It is, I think, the only "cookbook" I've ever seen that gives actual data on just how much cooked rice you get from a given quantity of dry rice. At the time it was published, home brewing was illegal in the US. The book states that this is a pity, but that if you did, this is how to go about it.

Animal husbandry and midwifery. Wheelwright for after the rubber tires fall apart.
Farmer's Almanac? Something for building shelter, barns, houses etc

Check up on various small works put out by members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). Pretty much everything you mention is done by some members of the group.

Bit of a worry when the screens die, so printing presses will be needed?

There is a group in Oakland, CA--Kinetic Steam Works--that brings a steam driven letter press to the Maker Faire in San Mateo every year. The bigger issue (since How to Build a Press gets lots of attention) is how to make the *ink* you'll need.

[Gavinmc42]

KSW's gear cutter is much bigger than mine, a bit of size envy there
Nice to see a revival of that stuff, beats collecting old equipment which is getting expensive.
Been following these guys progress for years.
https://www.opensourceecology.org/

KSW use the printing presses to make beer coasters
Home brewing is legal here downunder.
And plenty of Pi controlled beerbrewing setups on the interweb, probably more if you guys were allowed.
Banned Hemp, banned brewing, allow GMO, er you guys in USA could be doomed?

Going to check up n that steam refrigeration, might be clues to solar aircon?
My long term Pi installs here are for temp monitoring/alarm on fridges/freezers.
The poor little things are only working at 2% for a few seconds when updating the server pages once a minute.
They need a hobby, like predictive failure analysis.

[Yukon Cornelius]

.....
Anyone know a good Beer brewing one?
.....

Protz and Wheeler .... it's all you need .

[tpyo kingg]

One of my Pis has a library catalogue on it. Over 20000 books. An actual library. I scanned the barcodes of the books by hand.

(I work as a volunteer in my local library and wanted to see if the Pi could handle it. It could - easily)

I loaned a 3B+ to the local public library's unofficial IT guy (the one who actually does all the desktop support in practice) and he ran it through its paces. I didn't get the details but apparently the limited demands put on the desktop machines (currently towers) by daily tasks there were accomplished quite well with just a RPi, which obviously takes a lot less electricity and space.

As to why I think they're great, the ability to swap out the whole system by just removing the SD card makes up for a lot of the shortcomings. So a group of RPis becomes a pool and projects that require a lot of special configuration can be moved around or out of the way to work on something else without making a mess. That goes even more when a project or task invoves multiple RPis.