The Raspberry Pi.

Erith looking suitably chilly with the River Thames at low tide. The cold weather has been made even more bitter by the winds blowing off the Thames - I get the feeling there is nothing Eastwards but water until you get to Siberia. Not nice at all.

I may be rather slow on the uptake on this issue, but with some reason; I am normally at work when the post is delivered. I have been assuming that all of the unwelcome spam advertising leaflets (often for pizza or kebab places so far away that they would never deliver to Erith, and even if they did  the food would be a cold and congealed mess by the time they arrived) were delivered by dedicated people working on behalf of the shop in question. No. I was working from home on both Friday of last week, and Monday of this week, and I saw the postman shove a clutch of advertising flyers through my letter box – there were not even any letters accompanying them. It would appear that the postal service is being paid to deliver advertising rubbish door to door. I suppose that there is less money to be made out of delivering letters than there is delivering junk mail to your door.

News has leaked out this week that there is to be a big budget remake of Space: 1999 along the lines of the excellent (and way better than the original) remake of Battlestar Galactica. The new show will understandably be called Space: 2099, but the basic premise will remain the same: The moon is inhabited by a little over 200 scientists and astronauts in a giant, semi underground facility called MoonBase Alpha. One day, the huge underground silo of nuclear waste on the opposite side of the satellite to MoonBase Alpha goes supercritical; the resulting nuclear blast pushes the moon out of orbit around the Earth, and off into deep space. The inhabitants of the moon base then encounter all sorts of strange events in their quest to get back home. I hope it turns out well; the original series had some stunning design work, not least in the form of the classic Eagle Transporter craft - one of the most realistic and believable sci fi spaceships. I just hope that the scripts and story lines are better than the original series.

It looks like the producers of award winning E4 sci fi comedy drama “Misfits” are going to have to scout out fresh exterior locations for the show. Up until now most exterior shots have been filmed in and around the Tavy Bridge area of Thamesmead, which was also used as a location for  the film “A Clockwork Orange”. News reaches me that the area is about to be redeveloped, which is good news for local residents, as the designs for the replacement accommodation is far superior to the tired brutalist design concrete blocks that currently blight the skyline, but not good for the Misfits production team; the very reason for using Tavy Bridge has been for its’ dystopian atmosphere and bleak outlook. Now that will no longer be available, I wonder what they will do?

I was pretty much self taught in computing; when I was at school, computer studies was a very new field, and generally maths teachers were given the job of teaching pupils about computers. Some were excellent, many had little training and less aptitude for the job. At my school, a fair number of pupils knew way more than the computer studies teacher. I recall the time when my friend Roy and I rewrote the CP/M operating system disk on the school’s solitary Research Machines 380Z so that instead of saying on boot up “Research Machines 380Z Basic (C) RM 1979” it said “Washing Machines 380Z Basic (C) Hugh and Roy”. The teacher went ballistic – saying “you’ve broken the computer” and banning us from the computer room for a month. He could not grasp the fact that we had copied the operating system onto a fresh floppy disc, and only made changes to the copy. This kind of innocent (and sometimes not so innocent) tinkering was a key way we learned how to program and also modify computer hardware. It also helped that this all happened at the beginning of the home computer revolution in 1981/82. The BBC Micro, the Sinclair ZX81, and a little later the ZX Spectrum, and a host of other pioneering machines were making their way into the bedrooms of children all over the UK. Compared with kids in the USA, who had Apple II‘s and IBM PC’s, which at the time had a substantially greater amount of processing clout, us Brits were struggling with computers with very limited resources indeed. Back then almost all kids could program their computers with a varying degree of skill. My own programming abilities were okay – my BASIC programming code was horribly inelegant and messy, but it usually worked – in the end. Since these golden days of the dawn of the home computer age, things have changes in many ways, some for the better, but many for the worse. School children have not been taught programming for years; instead computer studies lessons are mainly in how to use Microsoft Office or other proprietary applications. Little consideration is given to how computers actually work, or how a student can develop their own software. If lucky, they may learn a bit of simple HTML, but that’s about as far as things go. Fortunately this is about to change. A charitable organisation called the Raspberry Pi Foundation has started what could turn out to be a revolutionary project. They are a not for profit group aiming to promote children learning programming by using a Raspberry Pi computer - see the image above, and the diagram below for an idea of what the initial versions are actually going to look like.

The computer is of a very simple, single board construction that is shipped without a case, input device or display. It is designed to stimulate productive experimentation amongst school children (and no doubt curious adults such as myself). The machines run an ARM processor, 128 or 256 Mb of Ram, and use flash based storage. The operating system is Linux. There are going to be two versions of the Raspberry Pi computer available – a lower featured version called the Model A, which will cost around £16, and the full featured version called the Model B which will cost around £22. Yes, those prices are correct. The reference to Model A and Model B is a direct doff of the hat to its’ spiritual predecessor, the BBC Micro, which was the prime educational computer for most of the 1980's and early 1990's, and which shares much engineering DNA with the Raspberry Pi. Challenges to the owners of these fascinating machines will be to build a case for the hardware, interface the machine with a monitor and keyboard, and get it online. The units will ship with a version of the Python programming language, which the developers feel is the most suitable language for novices learning to code. The Raspberry Pi computers are due to go on sale next month; I may not be the target market, but I am certainly going to buy one. I would urge you to support the philanthropic project too. 

There is a trailer below for a forthcoming independent movie made by a Finnish director and European film production company. The film is called "Iron Sky" - and before you write it off as some stuffy art house movie where nothing much happens for two hours, check out the trailer...

See - I told you! The world in 2018 being invaded by space Nazis, with only America led by President Sarah Palin to stop them. Utter genius - this looks like it could be the ultimate popcorn "B" movie. I am looking forward to it. The basic plot is - In the last moments of World War II, a secret Nazi space program evaded destruction by fleeing to the Dark Side of the Moon. During 70 years of utter secrecy, the Nazis construct a gigantic space fortress with a massive armada of flying saucers. When American astronaut James Washington (Christopher Kirby) puts down his Lunar Lander a bit too close to the secret Nazi base, the Moon Führer (Udo Kier) decides the glorious moment of retaking the Earth has arrived sooner than expected. Washington claims the mission is just a publicity stunt for the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul), but what else could the man be but a scout for the imminent attack by Earth forces? The Fourth Reich must act! Two Nazi officers, ruthless Klaus Adler (Götz Otto) and idealistic Renate Richter (Julia Dietze), travel to Earth to prepare the invasion. In the end when the Moon Nazi UFO armada darkens the skies, ready to strike at the unprepared Earth, every man, woman and nation alike, must re-evaluate their priorities to defeat the space Nazi invaders. How cool is that! All it lacks is Indiana Jones on a rocket cycle. More of that later. I do plan these things...

Last Monday the RNLI carried out a rescue to a sailor on a yacht in the Thames off Erith. You can read more about the incident by clicking here. I have been a keen supporter of the RNLI ever since working for Radio Caroline; I saw firsthand the excellent and dedicated work they did, and signed up as a member of Shoreline – their supporters group. It amazes me that many people think that the RNLI is paid for by Government funds. This is absolutely not the case, it receives no public funding whatsoever – it is a registered charity, and all their running costs are derived from donations and bequests.

Several local bloggers have recently been united in a common cause, which you may have seen highlighted in the local press. Bexley resident Elwyn Bryant has raised a petition of 2,200 names demanding that Bexley Council limit its’ senior executives pay to a maximum of £100,000 a year. The request for an open council debate on the subject has been rejected, with the council hiding behind administrative red tape.  I think it is cowardly and undemocratic for the council to blankly ignore the demands of an appreciable proportion of their council tax payers – after all it is us that end up footing the bill for  the currently extortionate salaries the top brass enjoy. You can read more on the subject on the News Shopper website here.

Over the next few months, Pewty Acres will be undergoing a fairly extensive refit. Both the kitchen and bathroom are in dire need of some TLC, and will be completely gutted and reworked. The lounge will be receiving some new furniture and the A/V technology will be completely upgraded; many people are amazed that I still have a CRT television that is well over ten years old - it, along with my ancient Sky+ box are now firmly reaching end of life, and will be replaced in as part of the refit. It is part of my rolling plan to modernise and improve the property, which began last year with new double glazing and doors throughout, followed by a new central heating system. Now it is the turn of the service areas. I am currently using Google Docs to project manage and budget the ongoing programme. By using a cloud based solution, I can selectively share documents with suppliers and contractors whilst keeping overall control and ownership. Project and budget management thus become far easier and more practical.

This weeks' video is a follow on to the outstanding three fan produced documentaries examining the original Star Wars trilogy that I featured over a three week period a while back. The same outstandingly talented amateur fim maker has put together a nearly two and a half hour behind the scenes documentary about the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I heartily recommend that you click to make the film full screen, sit back and enjoy a fascinating and entertaining documentary on the making of an iconic movie.