Raspberry Pi 400 (2020) versus MacBook Pro (Retina 13" late 2013)

I have two computing devices with keyboards: one is a Raspberry Pi 400 released in 2000 and which I bought in April of 2022; the other is laptop, my MacBook Pro, released in late 2013 and which I purchased in August of 2014.

The specifications are as follows:

MacBook Pro Retina 13" with 2560-by-1600 resolution at 227 pixels per inch and 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache. It has a 256GB SSD and 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory. The Intel Iris Graphics support dual display and video mirroring, simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors. There is a 720p FaceTime HD camera.

The Raspberry Pi 400 contains the same general specifications as the Raspberry Pi 4 but is tweaked for this new form factor. Thanks to work on the device’s thermal performance, the processor on Pi 400 has an increased clock speed over the base Pi 4. As a result, the Pi 400 has an increased clock rate from 1.5 GHz to 1.8 GHz. Meaning you should get slightly better performance when using this device. Unlike the Pi 4, there is only one variant of the Raspberry Pi 400. You can only get 4GB of memory with this device. Another change with this device is that it only has three USB ports. One is a USB 2.0 port, and the other two are USB 3.0 ports. The rest of the specifications of the device remains the same as the Raspberry Pi 4. You have access to the same GPIO pins, gigabit ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth as the base device.

It's probably not fair to compare the two devices but, as I use each of them daily, I will. In its day, the MacBook Pro was a premium device and it still holds it own. I've installed Linux Mint, replacing the Mac OS, and am quite satisfied with its performance. Mind you, I don't demand much of it nowadays. At most I'd have twenty tabs open in Google Chrome at any one time, sometimes watching YouTube videos or playing music in the YouTubeMusic tab. I may do some editing in Google Docs. The laptop sometimes runs hot and the fan works overtime but only when processor intensive tabs are opened like AirTable. The only hardware problem I have is the camera which ceases to function under Linux. For me this is not a problem but it might be for others who want to use programs like Zoom or the like. The battery of course after all these years is very weak and is rapidly depleted when not connected to an AC power outlet.

The Raspberry Pi 4 performs well enough given that it is a budget device. It could definitely benefit from 8GB of RAM instead of only half that. At times there is a noticeable lag in keyboard response if too many tabs are open in the Chromium browser. The Bluetooth is faulty and I've been unable to connect wireless earphones to the device. This is a problem since for some unknown reason there is no earphone jack. I've created a workaround that I've discussed in an earlier post. The keyboard is far less satisfying than the one of the laptop. The lack of a fully fledged browser like Chrome is annoying but with the Raspberry Pi OS that's what you get. I've tried booting into Linux but things didn't go and again I've described the experience in earlier posts. There's no battery for the Pi, it must be connected to an AC power supply but its form factor makes it very portable. To function, it just needs power and a monitor or TV.

The MacBook Pro model that I have is currently selling for about US$250 on Amazon while the Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit is selling for about US$100.

Where Did the Martians Go?

Billions of years ago, Mars may have been habitable, with oceans and an atmosphere containing sufficient oxygen to support human life. The planet would have had a magnetosphere that protected the atmosphere from the ravages of the solar wind. As the magnetosphere weakened however, the atmosphere thinned and eventually could no longer support human life.

This would have been a gradual process and, assuming the Martians were technologically advanced, they would have had plenty of time to prepare as the strength of the planet's magnetosphere waned. What would they have done to survive the looming catastrophe? Earth was not like it is today and so, even if the Martians were capable of space travel, there was no where in the solar system to go. There only hope was to burrow beneath the surface.

Mars has never had tectonic plates and so there was no danger of serious earthquakes. When you consider that current Earthlings can tunnel under the English Channel and link England with France, the idea of burrowing down is not that unreasonable. Such habitation would be immune from the bombardment of cosmic and solar radiation. As on Earth, there would be abundant water deep beneath the surface but the main challenge would be creating breathable air.

The Martians may have learned how to harness the energy of nuclear fusion but even if they had not, geothermal energy would would have been sufficient to supply their energy needs. This energy could be harnessed to produce breathable air. How far underground would they needed to go? Probably not very far, a kilometre or two would have been sufficient. However, bombardment by space rocks would have been more frequent as the atmosphere was stripped away and so they may have chosen to go deeper in order to be better able to withstand rocks that on Earth would be deemed planet killers. 

Martian pyramid created using Wonder (AI) app

There would be no need to revisit the surface. The dangers would have been too high. The Martians would have become totally subterranean and no trace of their above ground habitation would survive the onslaught of time. Would they have left beacons on the surface to alert the inhabitants of future planets that there was life underground? Probably not. Why risk attracting attention and possible colonisation? They would have maintained remotely monitored observation posts to watch and listen to what was happening elsewhere in the solar system.

They would have begun picking up radio signals from Earth well over the century ago and they would certainly be aware of our current exploration of their planet. What would have happened to the physical appearance of the Martians over billions of years? They would probably have gotten smaller as there would be no advantage in remaining large. They may have become quite tiny, making them all the more wary of us relatively massive Earthlings. They would strive to remain invisible to us and the outside Universe.

Perhaps they recreated, underground, the life that they once enjoyed above ground. With unlimited energy from the interior of the planet or from nuclear fusion, they could have made their underground world as large as they wanted and supportive of a massive population, possibly in the trillions. Alternatively, they may have decided to strictly control their population size as the global elite are trying to do on Earth where a figure of 500 million is regarded as ideal.

It's far easier to control a population of half a billion rather than eight billion which is what Earth will be supporting by the end of 2022. I think they might have inclined to maintaining a population below one billion. Assuming the Martians were not destroyed at the hands of their own technology, they would have access to some impressive defensive resources and fearful offensive weapons. Our current exploration of the planet might be making the Martians increasingly nervous and predisposed to disabling our capability for interplanetary travel or even eliminating us altogether.

The Martians however, would have been aware that Earth had become an oasis just as Mars had been all those billions of years ago. Perhaps at some point they decided to abandon their underground world and colonise the Earth. Perhaps we are all Martians and thus to answer the question "where did the Martians ago", it might be the case that they simply become Earthlings. It's not impossible. Several science fiction stories and movies have relied on less plausible narratives.

Chromium Problems on Raspberry Pi OS After Update

After updating my Raspberry Pi OS on my Raspberry Pi 4, I now find that YouTube and YouTubeMusic on Chromium both cause the browser to crash. The Chromium browser is a far cry from the Chrome browser. The former has multiple deficiencies and this latest disaster is further proof of this. Firefox has no such problems so I have been using that browser to launch both programs.

The solution however, proved simple enough following a recommendation from an online forum. Simply reinstall Chromium! A logical enough first step in troubleshooting software problems. Overall the Raspberry Pi 4 that I bought earlier in the year is working well enough for what I need to do. I recently purchases an M1 MacBook Pro 14" for my granddaughter who needed a computer for her University studies. I'd much prefer to be using that of course.

Such a computer does not come cheap however, and in terms of value for money, the Pi wins hands down. The Bluetooth still doesn't work but I have my wired earbuds working despite the inexplicable lack of a direct earphone jack (see earlier post).

Charging Issues

It's been a while since my last post but I was out of town for quite some time and did not take my laptop with me. On return however, I noticed that charging cable for my beloved MacBook Pro 2013 was playing up again. After the original, I've replaced the 60W charger twice and the current one is proving troublesome with the little green light not always lighting up unless it's tweaked.

I've ordered and received a new one which I'll keep in reserve as the current one is not too annoying just yet. It will fail eventually of course. It's worth forking out for new chargers as my laptop with Mint LInux installed is running just fine and doing everything that I want it to do. Likewise my Raspberry Pi is fully operational. The advantages of USB C charging are obvious but of course my old laptop does not have such a port and so I'm stuck. The quality of the chargers I'm buying is clearly suspect but they're cheap and work for a while at least. 

Speaking of my Raspberry Pi, I've discovered that I can listen to music via headphone jack to a USB C and then to USB 3.1 as shown in Figure 1. It's a necessary workaround because I can't get Bluetooth to function and there is no headphone jack, for some mysterious reason. Previously I'd been using the headphone jack on a USB C hub but I've given that to my granddaughter so I had to come up with a workaround.

Figure 1

I still can't get WINE to run and that's something that I'll have to keep working on if I ever want to get my astrology program, Astrolog, to work again.

Raspberry Pi 400 Mouse and Bardi Smart Outdoor Static IP Camera

I've had to abandon the mouse that came with the Raspberry Pi 400 that I purchased some months ago. It was never quite right, especially when it came to copying and pasting, and proved absolutely hopeless when playing online chess because it led to frequent mouse slips. I guess they added the cheapest mouse available to the package. "DESIGNED BY XIAOMI" is printed on the top cover of the mouse, not that it means anything.

It not a big deal as a wireless mouse, especially with its own proprietary dongle, can be bought very cheaply nowadays. Overall, I'm quite happy so far with the performance of this particular Raspberry Pi model. My only complaints have been directed at the deficiencies of the Chromium web browser.

Yesterday a package arrived containing a SMART OUTDOOR STATIC IP CAMERA. It had sent by relatives and today I set it up and have it running, the sound and video feed being accessible via an iPhone app. The feed can be accessed from remotely and data can be stored to an SD card although I haven't set that up yet. The maximum card size is 128 GB. The camera connects to the local WiFi network using the 2.4 GHz wavelength.

Here is a description of the product taken from the manufacturer's website:

This camera is now the only device that makes the home router accessible to the outside world. This is something to ponder and it raises security issues as the IP address is indeed static. It doesn't change, allocated presumably by the BARDI company during the registration process and built into the price of the device.

Abandoning BlueHost and WordPress

I've decided to abandon my WordPress blog on BlueHost that I started up earlier in the year. I simply don't enjoy using it and that's reason enough to abandon it. I only made use of the blogging platform and never started building a website by transferring content from my Google Sites. All of my blog posts that I made using WordPress were mirrored on Blogger so my disengagement with the former platform is immediate and complete. There will be no transition period. It's done. However, the experience has been interesting and I no longer have to wonder about something that I never tested out.

I'll return to making blog posts on my respective Blogger accounts and using Google Sites as my personal website. It may not be cool but then again I have no reason to look more professional. I'm blogging for my own amusement and have no audience to pander to. I do what I like and I realised that I don't like BlueHost and WordPress. The dislike was causing me to reduce the frequency of my posts. 

So it's back to Blogger and more frequent posts.

WordPress Glitches

When choosing a theme for your website, one that will carry over to your WordPress blog, don't choose a dark theme. This has become more and more apparent as I kept posting to my blog. Initially the problem was with the numbering of graphics. Under each graphic, there is the opportunity to insert a caption. The problem with using a dark theme is that the caption uses black text and is therefore invisible. It must be manually changed to white text.

That wasn't too much of an inconvenience, although it was annoying. The problem extended however, to the pasting of text. Copying for example from a sequence of numbers in the OEIS, the pasted text was invisible again because of the black on black problem. Other problems occurred when dealing with mathematical content to the extent that I changed to a white background theme.

I've been unimpressed with BlueHost due its slowness and the problems in accessing it all on occasions. I find the whole experience clunky and frustrating, as if I'm back in the 1990's. It has an irritating retro-feel about it. It's hard to believe that this is the most popular blogging platform. I guess I'll persist with it while my subscription is active but I'll definitely be backing up all my posts to Blogger. The guy in the graphic above doesn't really give any good reasons why people hate bluehost but the picture helps capture my mood.