Upcycled Chicken Coop

Four years ago my wife persuaded me that getting chickens would be a good idea. Several years on and 2 extra chickens later; the inexpensive “temporary” chicken coop we first brought is starting to fall apart. With parts of the roof have come away allowing water to leak into the roosting area and nesting boxes.

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Flames of war Dispatches (12-03)

1st Infantry Division

For the attention of:

Major General L. T. Gerow

An account of a fighting force consisting of 16th Regiment 1st Infantry Division supported by elements of the 741st Tank Battalion and the 705th Tank Battalion.

Having received orders to press the advance against retreating German forces who had dug in around a local French village near an important cross road. Entering the southern outskirts of the village had been met with little resistance.

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Adventures in Crypto Mining Part 1

There has been a lot of noise, about Bitcoin, Blockchain and Crypto mining technology. This news has focused on the price of Bitcoin. As well as those individuals whom have made a large amount of money, by being early adopters. What is Bitcoin, Block chain and Crypto mining? In this series of posts, we will go on a crypto mining rig building adventure. Hopefully reaching it’s return on investment (ROI). As well as any technical difficulties along the way.

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Pine A64 a 64 bit single board computer born with help from Kickstarter!

Back in the chilly month of December 2015 Pine64 launched their Kickstarter campaign. Hoping to raise funding to help bring their new single board. The Pine A64, from prototype to manufacture for distribution. After a successful campaign raising over one million dollars, many times the original Kickstarter target of thirty two thousand dollars, the Pine A64 went into production.

Pine A64 1GB version

Now a year has passed since the Pine A64 launch, what has the last 12 months from launch, been like for this original take on the single board computer market?

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Weekend Project: Use your Raspberry Pi to play Steam games on your TV

Having recently become a father, I found that I was spending a lot more time in the living room in front of my TV and I knew that I was neglecting all those amazing games I had recently purchased in one of the many Steam sales. What could I do? I mean there is only so much prime time telly one can relax to before you’re stood at work discussing the finer points of why a dog can win a talent show.

I needed an escape from this drivel, one way to do this would be to stream my Steam library to my TV. There is an official way to do this of course using the Steam Link.

Steam Link
Steam Link box

A small set top box which connects to your main computer and then streams the game over your network to a device of your choice. At just shy of £40 it’s not a bad little device. However I have a Raspberry Pi to hand, as well as Moonlight an open source implementation of Nvidia’s GameStream protocol. 

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An Introduction of sorts for the Raspberry Pi 3

This post is an introduction of sorts for the Raspberry Pi 3, the latest in the range of Raspberry Pi single board computers from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The goal of the Raspberry Pi Foundation like the BBC Micro:bit, was to provide school children with a low cost easy to use computer, to promote the teaching of basic computer programming in the class room. Though the appeal of a low cost highly flexible computer stretches a lot further than just the school room, with makers the world over utilising the Raspberry Pi in a huge number of projects.

The first Raspberry Pi launched on the 29th February 2012 with an ARM v6 Broadcom CPU, clocked at 700 MHz, 256 MB of on-board RAM, a 3.5 audio jack and only one USB port. Though this didn’t stop the original Raspberry Pi A selling out in the first few hours and over 100,000 pre orders being taking on the very first day.

The Original Raspberry Pi board

The Original Raspberry Pi board.

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First impressions of the BBC Micro:Bit

The BBC Micro:bit is the spiritual successor to the very famous BBC Micro, a computer created back in the 1980s by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Acorn Computers. With the idea of providing the resources for British school children to help learn how to code. This original initiative helped not only an entire generation of coders learnt their art but also help in the blossoming of the UK video game scene, with a lot of the early developers noting that the access to the BBC Micros worked as a gateway into languages.

BBC Micro:bit
BBC Micro:bit board front face

So short history lesson over, how does the BBC Micro:bit fit in to this picture? Well the idea behind the BBC Micro:bit is the same as its older brother the BBC Micro, which is to provide a low cost entry point to learning programming.

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