The serial port is capable of decoding more protocols than just R3232. For example you can use it to work with 1-Wire bus devices and it is easy and reliable. This is an extract from the newly-published Raspberry Pi IoT in C, Second Edition.

We've almost made it through the weirdness that is 2020, and sitting out the rest of it with a good book sounds like a plan. Immerse yourself in one of our top titles and avoid the endless round of news on Covid, lockdowns, and travel restrictions.

 ... at dancing. But don't be put off by this frivolous description. This is not an entirely frivolous display. If there is one robot video you watch this year make it this one.

Coursera, the online course provider which partners with leading universities and companies to deliver courses, certificates and even degrees has a great offer to welcome in 2021 - over $100 off a Coursera Plus subscription. 

Some of our news items deserve a second chance. Here's one from May 2020 that fits our "Too Good" criteria. It isn't really news, but I think it's fun and deserves to be better known. It's the robot panda problem, otherwise known as the Bamboo Garden Trimming (BGT) problem.

Apache Kafka, the big data and datastreams platform, has been updated in a new version that the developers say moves closer to replacing ZooKeeper in Kafka with a self-managed metadata quorum.

The traveling salesman problem is NP-hard so you really wouldn't expect a brainless amoeba to solve it - or would you?

This year's holiday robot videos have been a bit predictable, but at last I found one that was interesting - an inverted pendulum balanced by a drone.

Yes I know we have all seen enough visualizations of sorting algorithms to last a lifetime - which is how long a bubble sort generally takes. But it's the holiday season and sorting is one programmer way to create a tree.

'Tis that time of year when it is OK to use the word 'tis. Programmers are a funny lot, keen and eager to program, but they too are forced to stand away from the keyboard and stop coding. Why exactly? Well there are festive treats to open and consume and Xmas is a CS problem in its own right.