I have a pi problem. Every time a new version of the Raspberry Pi comes out I’m compelled to buy it. I have at least a dozen of ’em, several of which are on or about my desk in the office. I’ve bought accessories hats, …I backed a Kickstarter for a RasPi tube amp (also currently sitting on or about my desk in the office). Yes, I bought the 400. Yes, it’s sitting here right in front of me, collecting dust. (BTW - Do not buy the PoE hat…and you do, and you should if**if so happen to find a consumer-grade switch that actually powers the fucker, please hit me up. …but you won’t, because the shit don’t work. You have been warned.)
Anyhow, a few months ago I stumbled upon a youtube video of Some Guy showing off his raspi cluster. “That looks fun!”, says I…and back to “the bakery” I go again.
Now, any addict will likely have a story about how “this time it was different”. This time, my oldest daughter helped me build the thing. We spent an hour or two opening packaging, screwing in standoffs, wiring up network kit, etc. Got the MicroSD cards flashed, plugged it all in, she fired right up - rad!
But also…now what? Now I point at the computers and tell my 8-year-old “Well, golly-gee, lookit all the computering these lil computers are doing!” Fuckin’ lame, dad. Do better.
So I sat on it for a coupla-few months…and then, enter: Blinkt! Okay, now we’re talkin’. A bit of fiddling around with GPIO headers and getting some dependencies installed, a few lines of code, et voila!
(Note the greenliness of the blinkenlights, y’all - Happy St. Pat’s!)
These computers now do something we can see in the Real World. I show it to my oldest…and she Loses. Her. Shit.
“Daddy, can you make ’em orange? Or violet? Or like different colors in different rows?”
You bet your ass I can, sweetie. Let’s see what colors we can make!