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Berkeley Pi: Re: Berkeley Raspberry Pi meeting March 1st -- Jam Time!

Aaron, sorry for the double email.  Reply in Gmail sent my response to you only, 
but I meant it for the group:  

On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 8:36 AM ace36 <acohen36@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 8:58 PM tom r lopes <tomrlopes@gmail.com> wrote:
The weekend of Feb 29th is the 8th anniversary of the Raspberry Pi computer. 
So our meeting on March 1st will be part of that celebration.  It is already accepted 
as an official event.  https://www.raspberrypi.org/jam/ (zoom to Berkeley on the map)  
With Event page here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/berkeley-raspberry-pi-jam-tickets-91996019571  I created it with only 5 tickets, because I didn't want to overwhelm the space.  But I may add tickets or instruct people to message me before attending. 
 
As an official event we get the Raspberry Pi branding kit and here it is:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/Jx2fmkxXACWABzbK6   Included 3 T shirts (i'll keep the L 
so XL and M up for grabs), Raspberry Pi logo stickers, one Raspberry Jam button, 
Event poster, blinking led project cards with 5 little hardware kits (breadboard, jumper 
wires and leds - No Pi, It is BYoPi, I guess) and a USB drive with project tutorials 
(one of which is how to build a WordPress site on a PI, Argh!) 

Hey, that's all great!

Just as a suggestion, would you (Tom) and/or other friends, technical
acquiantances and local Raspberry Pi aficionados consider creating
a special mailing-list perhaps even modeled after this one -- this
Googlegroup for the Berkeley Linux User Group -- specifically
dedicated to your Raspberry Pi events and projects??
There is already ongoing activity from this week's Googlegroup posts
about establishing a pi.berkeleylug.com web-presence, so the idea
of having a mailing-list separate from this one might not be too
farfetched after all... of course depending upon how many other
interested parties and local Raspberry Pi event attendees there are.

Yeah, pretty much it is only me who posts messages about Berkeley Pi.  
So, sorry for generating all the email traffic :-)  I really hope that I haven't 
been spammy with all this.  Rick's suggestion is good and so from now on 
I'll preface my announcements with "Berkeley Pi:"  That way they will be 
easy to filter or ignore.  

I believe Berkeley Pi is an appropriate offshoot of BerkeleyLUG and that 
the Raspberry Pi is relevant to Linux (i'll say more about this later)  
If the will of the people is that it must go then I will separate it, no 
problem.  

And Aaron, I have no problem with you bringing this up as I have already 
been thinking about this, too. 
 

Also, and admittedly a nitpicky point, I notice that the (Tom's) March 1st
event posting is entitled 'Berkeley Raspberry Pi meeting March 1st'
as opposed to 'BerkeleyLUG Raspberry meeting March 1st'.

Are you (Tom) perhaps trying to attract all Raspberry Pi users to
your events, even including those not using Linux on their devices??

YES!  March 1st is an all and only Pi meeting.  The date happens to 
coincide with the 8th anniversary of the Pi computer.  

Even though we are now calling it "Berkeley Pi"  I have stressed in previous 
announcements that it is not exclusive to the Pi and have mentioned Arduino, 
for example.  Or firmware or hardware hacking and reuse, etc.  
 

Because according to the current 'Third-party operating system images for
Raspberry Pi' section of the Downloads page https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ ,
there are Pi downloads available for the non-Linux OS's Windows 10 IoT Core

Yeah I have seen those, and downloaded.  Never actually wrote to an SD card, though.  
Raspbian is just so good and useful.  

But your comment has got me to look at some of those other OS'es.  And RISC OS looks 
really interesting , actually.  It's history is it comes from the people who created ARM cpu.  
I may actually load one up as a demonstration.   
As for Windows 10 IOT, seems to be a rebranding of Windows Embedded. Ugh.  And it 
doesn't seem to be a SD card image.  Instead you download and run a Windows program.  
An IOT Dashboard which can write the SD card.  I have't been able to find a video that show
it running.  I found this:  
https://jeremylindsayni.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/windows-10-iot-and-the-raspberry-pi-3-installation-failure-and-eventually-success/
 My impression is that Windows IOT is a platform for creating Apps for Windows embedded.  
Which would be interesting if you were an experienced Windows programmer.  
Not the accessible "teach programming to kids" which is the Raspberry Foundation's aim.  

So I would argue the Pi is primarily a Linux computer.  And I think it is Linux 
that gives this little board its power.  

We all have laptops and desktops running Linux.  That's Linux primarily for 
a user.  A desktop, like gnome,kde xfce and so on.  
But we also have Linux on devices or machines.  Like when BerkeleyLUG had 
a booth at the 2012 Maker Faire, we pointed to Linux on your router (WRT54G) on your 
gaming machine (Playstation) on your dvr (Tivo) on your ereader (Kindle) 
All these have Linux but it is not really accessible.  Not so easy to roll your own.  
You would need some hardware specific build tools or cross compiler to create 
an OS image.  
Now with the Pi we have a platform that is like an embedded Linux device.  But one 
that you can attach a mouse and keyboard.  Not for the Linux devices I mentioned.  
(Actually, Sony had a Linux kit for the Playstation.)   And then you have Debian!  
You can make a Pi do things because Linux can do it.  A Pi bluetooth speaker - you 
can make you laptop or desktop into a bluetooth speaker the same way.  If a 
Windows user wants to build something with the Pi, they install software with sudo 
apt install.  And configure the service by editing a txt file.  Learning the GNU/Linux 
way of doing things.  

The Raspberry Pi is a great ambassador for Linux.  

Sorry for the wall o' text.  I'm just a little passionate.  

Gotta go build something - Later, 

Thomas

 

-A


---
When you must stand up for something important in the face of those who would readily cut you down, then you must continually remind yourself of the words of the great Mahatma Gandhi,

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
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