Jon Cog writes, "For Christmas, mathematician Donald Knuth shared some great geeky fun. He revealed how for the last 57 years, he's been incorporating the digits of pi into the exercises of his computer programming books -- a whopping 1,700 times. And before long his annual 'Christmas Tree' lecture 'had turned into a kind of intellectual funhouse,' sharing other mind-boggling pi-related miscellanies." Read the rest
There's a scene in my novel Homeland (the sequel to Little Brother) in which the first 1,000 digits of Pi are featured; when it came time to produce the audiobook edition, poor Wil Wheaton -- the narrator -- ended up reading out Pi for four solid minutes, with some entirely understandable difficulties. Nick Land set the reading to music, creating quite a delightful little tune! Read the rest
Circuitbeard created this adorable and pixel-perfect miniature OutRun cabinet to sit atop their bar, complete with not-a-Ferrari dashboard and original cabinet decal art. Check out Picade for a primer on how the guts work (and to buy similar guts).
UPi is a full-size rack mount for the Raspberry Pi. Though it can apparently accomodate three Pis, it is clearly best if you just put one in, just as depicted in the product photograph. Then, I further reccommend, do not put it in a rack. Just have a single rackmounted Raspberry Pi lying on your desk, the ultimate personal computer.
On Twitter, Foone (patreon) collected this and other increasingly exotic mounting/clustering solutions for the Pi. Read the rest
Not a new online marketplace for apps, but a brick-and-mortar showroom for the inexpensive, do-anything computers. Romain Dillet checks out "the Pi Foundation's new shop.
If you live in Cambridge in the U.K., you can now buy a bunch of sweet Raspberry Pis with which to tinker and develop some cool stuff.
The Raspberry Pi has always been about making coding more accessible. And a physical retail space fits the bill. The foundation has developed a lineup of insanely cheap computers with an ARM-based processor, a bunch of ports, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
The $35 Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ [Amazon] is the new flagship, but I've been looking at getting a Pi Zero [Amazon] with a battery pack [Amazon] to turn my Seiko Pyramid Clock into something the Illuminati would be proud of. Read the rest
Retro Pi Cases makes and sells adorable housings for tiny computers, and their next model is going to be Tandy's classic TRS-80. It's not available yet, but checking out their site revealed to me their Commodore Amiga model, a no-brainer purchase. Read the rest
Noodle Pi is described as "the smallest, lightest, most open handheld / wearable computer," a Raspberry Pi tightly packaged with a high-resolution multi-touch screen, battery and camera in a compact 3D-printed all-weather case. About the size of a large smartphone but much thicker and more versatile, the Noodle Pi has a bunch of accessories to go with it including a keyboard/touchpad dock and a "Noodlendo" clip to attach it to a classic game controller.
Noodle Pi uses the recently released Pimoroni HyperPixel 3.5" display. This is a high speed, high resolution (800x480 pixels at ~270 PPI) touchscreen display with 18-bit color (262,144 colors) and a 60 FPS frame rate.
Noodle Pi also integrates the Raspberry Pi Camera Module v2, for up to 8MP still photos, and 1080p30 / 720p60 / VGA90 video.
Noodle Pi is powered by an internal 500mAh battery. It can be charged via a regular micro-USB charging socket, and there's a red LED to provide a low battery warning.
You can buy it for $200, or as a bag of parts (without electrics) for $50. Read the rest
To celebrate Pi Day (3/14), have fun with MyPiDay, developed last year by Stephen Wolfram and company. Enter your birthday or any other number and see where it first appears in pi.
Background in Wolfram's post here. Read the rest
Chapter nine of Homeland opens with about 400 digits of Pi. When Wil Wheaton read the chapter, he soldiered through it, reading out Pi for a whopping four minutes! Here's the raw studio audio (MP3) of Wil and director Gabrielle De Cuir playing numbers station.
There's less than a week left during which you can get the independently produced Homeland audiobook through the Humble Ebook Bundle! Read the rest
Tomorrow, 3/14, is Pi Day in the USA (it will not be Pi Day in the rest of the world until the Martian Emperor subjugates us all to his sinister 14-month calendar). In celebration, Thingiverse user Thor4231 posted this great Eggbot design, ready to be automatically sharpied onto your favorite ovum by means of the wonderful Eggbot printer.
Both the Bible and the Indiana State Legislature have tried to redefine pi to equal something much more simple than 3.14159265358979323846264338327950 ... Read the rest
