Author: karlbunyan

Papilio Carnivorus – A New Short Story

Papilio Carnivorus – A New Short Story

One of my short stories, Papilio Carnivorus, has been published in the Elegant Literature magazine. The magazine is free to read and contains ten short stories selected from all competition entries. The story is generated from the open prompt of “paradise plundered” and tells the story of a nineteenth century scientist who travels to Africa …

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Learning About Fiction Publishing

Learning About Fiction Publishing

I’m not alone in harbouring an ambition to publish a book one day, and after a) having had a programming book published, and b) having a short story published in an anthology, I have a reasonable expectation of how much work it is, and low expectations of how much money it makes. Still, it makes …

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Kodi And NextPVR Setup On The Raspberry Pi

Kodi And NextPVR Setup On The Raspberry Pi

As with everything in Pi land, following the “just install Kodi” guides left a few things that didn’t work. Extra commands and steps so far are: Despite following about fifteen different methods I still haven’t gotten Kodi to autostart on reboot.

Detecting Pico-W LiPo Shim Battery Charge Level

Detecting Pico-W LiPo Shim Battery Charge Level

I’ve got a couple of Pimoroni’s excellent LiPo SHIM for Pico. When soldered to a Pico they allow a LiPo battery to be connected, or USB power, and if the latter then the battery is charged. There’s also a power button, which is a bonus. I wanted to programattically determine charge level, which it appears …

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LCDs And Pico Memory Management

LCDs And Pico Memory Management

It may not be quite true to say modern computers have unlimited processing power and memory, but the high performance and huge storage space I’ve gotten used to does make things a lot easier. Yet one of the fun things about programming for the Pico is in working within tight constraints. The Pico is advertised …

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Measuring Temperature With The Raspberry Pico

Measuring Temperature With The Raspberry Pico

Measuring temperature with the Pico is one of the easiest “quick wins” for getting familiar with the platform. Along with turning the onboard LED on and off, you can achieve something that feels like interaction with the real world with nothing more than a few lines of Micropython due to the Pico’s onboard temperature sensor. …

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Playing Simple Sounds With The Pico And Adafruit STEMMA Speaker

Playing Simple Sounds With The Pico And Adafruit STEMMA Speaker

I’m starting to get more confident with putting components together with the Pico, so without too much research I bought a simple speaker/amplifier breakout board. Still, given how every time I try something simple on the Pico it turns out to involve hours of Googling I assumed that getting a speaker to work would be …

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The Arduino Mini Camera OV2640 2MP Plus And The Pico

The Arduino Mini Camera OV2640 2MP Plus And The Pico

I’m starting to realise that “compatible with the Pico” might have as much meaning as “sure it’s possible to ride a tiger”: “compatible” is not the same as “conducive” in the same way that “possible” is not the same as advisable. Perhaps I was boosted by the “ease” with which I got the Pico and …

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