Ron Guest

The gals in the family convinced me to ditch our treadmill and to get an elliptical in its place. This is a bit of a logistical problem. The treadmill is upstairs and it is so wide it has to go down sideways. I don’t think my wife and I can handle that - one of us, the walls, or the treadmill would likely suffer injury. Places that take large exercise equipment as donations are quite limited. I’ve made an appointment with Salvation Army to take it way next week but they have right of refusal so it isn’t a done deal.

In the mean time the new elliptical shipped today so here’s hoping it arrives after the treadmill leaves. I decided to pay the delivery company to carry it upstairs. We’re not as young as we used to be! 🏃🏻

Welp I thought I was done posting about the Raspberry Pi 4 but I have to add one more thing.

I noticed my Bluetooth keyboards tended to be wonky - trouble staying connected and/or repeating keys. So today I borrowed a different keyboard to try and the same thing happens. After doing some research at the Foundation’s site it turns out there are a lot of reports of this. The RPi 4 has trouble with Bluetooth keyboards when used simultaneously with WiFi. Since June of last year. Because, you know, nobody uses those two things together.

Solution: Don’t do that.

Either use a USB keyboard or only use Ethernet. Or you can pay up for a RF keyboard with proprietary dongle.

It’s aggravating but I consider this defect more an annoyance than the throttling. Though it does further undermine the ‘desktop alternative’ claims.

Oh, in other news I built a small circuit that will turn the fan on when the CPU heats up. It’s amazing how annoying even a tiny fan can me in a quiet space.

Tonight all but 3 of our Ethernet devices dropped off the network. We have 5 gigabit switches plus a Synology RT2600ac router and an old Airport Express acting as a WiFi extender. After a couple of hours of swapping gear I found the AE had gone bad. Now what to replace it with?

Having posted about the problem of throttling of the Pi 4 under load I didn’t want to leave an impression it was a complete loss. So one last post.

I’ve am using every Pi since the 2B, including the Zero and Zero W, and when each iteration was introduced people would talk about it being a desktop computer alternative. That always seemed like wishful thinking to me as web browsing was very slow, video generally didn’t work and so on.

The Pi 4, in spite of throttling, can actually deliver what I would consider a meets-min desktop experience. I streamed 15 minutes of full-screen YouTube videos and it handled it just fine (27” monitor). Without the fan running the temperature did continually creep up but it didn’t reach the stage of throttling. With the fan running the temperature was both lower and stable. I also have a web service that pushes a large JSON file to the browser every second and the display updates in Chromium was smooth and responsive. Other aspects of the desktop experience were responsive as well.

I’ve used all my other Pis as headless Linux boxes. I could see using the Pi 4 with a UI/desktop interface and not wanting to poke my eyes out. That’s quite an accomplishment for a device starting at US$35.

I watched SpaceX’s Dragon abort test live this morning. It was pretty exciting especially when the rocket basically exploded (not unexpected). It’s great to see the test worked as expected. Given Boeing’s failures I don’t know where NASA would be without SpaceX. 🚀

I continued to see the Pi 4 throttle regularly. Since the official Raspberry Pi 4 case was basically worthless I decided to use my 1” hole saw to poke a hole in the top. Normally fans are placed inside the case but since the fan needed a 1 1/8” opening and I didn’t have that size hole saw I installed the fan on top of the case.

This setup prevented throttling under my real-world loads which was good news. I then disconnected the fan and ran some of the same applications. Even without the fan running the Pi didn’t throttle. That is good news but it confirms my opinion that the Pi Foundation was foolish to produce an official case with no passive ventilation. Such a simple change would improve OOTB user experience.

I plan to post some more general observations on the Pi 4’s performance in the near future.

Tiny bubbles

A wall out the restaurant.

Question: has anyone used a multi-device Bluetooth keyboard they’ve particularly liked? I have an old Logitech K810 but it is showing some issues recently.

I.e. by multi-device I mean can pair to multiple computers and switch easily between them (Windows, Mac, Pi etc). ❔

When the Raspberry Pi 4 came out there was quite a fuss about how easily it had to throttle it’s cores due to heat under any sort of load. Throttling means it’s theoretical specs are not realized in the real world. The foundation issued several firmware fixes to address this over the past year.

Based on my experience this is still a major issue. The foundation is making the situation worse by some odd choices they took. First they don’t include a heat sink on the processor (or anywhere else). Having heard of the heat issues I ordered a heat sink with mine and installed it right away.

The second problem is the rather stupid decision they made to provide absolutely no ventilation in their official case. The top is completely solid. So they’re selling a CPU prone to overheating with no heat sink and no provision for passive ventilation in their case.

The very first app I ran (other than the installer and Chromium) resulted in a flashing thermometer on the display indicating the Pi was throttling. I removed the top from the case and felt the heat sink - it was hot enough to burn a finger. I removed the top from the case, exposing the heat sink to open air, and the throttling decreased significantly. Since this experience every time I have the top on and run something that stresses the CPU it throttles.

For comparison I have a Pi 3 B+ in the attic. In a case. In Texas. In the summers. And it doesn’t over heat.

I have a tiny fan I could use and to do something as suggested in this guide to install it in the case and implement automatic fan control. Of course in the vein of Murphy’s law this requires a 1 1/8” hole saw for my drill and the closest thing I have is a 1” hole saw. After measuring for myself I can tell that would hinder air flow from the fan. So I’d have to buy another bit in order to make this case work. Or for the same cost as the bit I can throw the official case away and buy a 3rd party case with ventilation slots and a built in fan. Hence my frustration with the decisions by the foundation.

In spite of having a 13” MBP that is less than a year old, I keep having this major urge to buy one of the 16” models. I have no need for a new MBP. Arguments with self continue.

I had to break out my old USB keyboard, and USB mouse, to set up the new Raspbery Pi 4. The keyboard looks and feels like a relic from the age of dinosaurs. Paired Bluetooth devices as soon as the OS was ready. 🦖

We left the kids at home while we went to a meeting at school. So this was the natural follow on, right?

Yes they have supervision.

_ Lost in a sea of leaves_

Saw this lonely dandelion blossom when I was exercising today. The only one on the whole trail.

We made good use of the cold weather outside to tackle a project indoors. My wife and I re-upholstered the bench we use in the kitchen. ✔️

The forecast had a chance of snow for this morning. Unfortunately all we’ve gotten so far is some graupel. ❄️

I ordered a Raspberry Pi 4 yesterday (it joins a Pi 3 B+ and a couple of Pi Zeros). I don’t yet have a specific project in mind. One thing I’m wondering is if USB I/O is much faster than the prior Pis.

We are under a major thunderstorm watch today with possible 🌪. Apparently the main chances start about the time our kids get out of school. Here’s hoping the storms don’t arrive until everyone is home. ⛈ 🏠

We’ve heard a lot about blue carbon steel cookware - supposedly the benefits of cast iron without the heavy weight so we bought a wok. We followed the simple seasoning instructions but when my wife used it last night the food stuck terribly. We’re going to try seasoning it again.

A warm start before a couple of days of rain ☕️ ☔️

Rest easy my children for soon you shall bud

Something old and something even older. These are two items I couldn’t part with when recently cleaning out a box of old cables and gadgets.

That device on the left is called a “telephone”, possibly unrecognizable to some. The one on the right is a TI SR-11 calculator.

One of my fave use cases for ApplePay is invoices from service providers that use QuickBooks. The email includes an ApplePay button and I can pay the bill in about 5 seconds. So freaking smooth, so much faster and easier than using other electronic bill pay methods… 💵

I think this keyboard protector on Amazon is the best thing I bought last year. One of our kids has a penchant for degrading keyboards (Apple Magic keyboards in our case). I finally thought to get a protector and this one is very thin and has been working out well. All for $7 US.

Wooden obelisk

A pattern change