The Raspberry Pi (part one)
[Disclaimer: All opinions in this post are mine and mine alone. Although I am a moderator on the http://raspberrypi.org I don't speak for the foundation and any factual errors, upset I may cause or spelling mistakes are completely my responsibility]
I first heard about the Raspberry Pi in May 2011, I actually stumbled across it while looking for more details about another device, a bluetooth keyboard in a ZX Spectrum case which unfortunately doesn't seem to have materialized 
, and I have been closely following the project since July 2011, when the Raspberry Pi Charitable Foundation created their website and forum. I haven't written about the Raspberry Pi before, apart from a quick scratchbox2 for the Raspberry Pi setup post and a premade Raspberry Pi VM post, so while I am taking a bit of a break from the myriad things that normally distract me I am going to rectify that situation. I also have a bit of an ulterior motive, but more about that later.
The Raspberry Pi as I am sure you all know by now is a small, credit card size, inexpensive, $25/$35, Single Board Computer aimed at schools and school children in the United Kingdom. The brainchild of Cambridge University Graduate, Ph.D & Executive MBA (Not quite sure what an Executive MBA is but i'm sure it's impressive and anything PHB-y about it is cancelled out by the Ph.D 
) Eben Upton & several of his friends, colleagues & professors from Cambridge University and surrounding area. The Raspberry Pi is aimed to help solve the terrible state of affairs in the UK in the last ten to fifteen years or so where incoming university freshmen wishing to study Computer Science are completely unprepared for the course of study due to lack of real computer science and programming lessons in the curriculum but instead a catchall subject called ICT, that is effectively an update to the old typing & secretarial skills lessons that were available in the 70s & 80s when I was at school.
In a bit of a funk
Last April (2011) I had to spend a few weeks in hospital due to a reoccurance of some health problems I had between 2006 & 2008. To cut a long story short, and to avoid upsetting anyone's breakfast with the grisly details I had Pancretitis, Gastritis & Duodenitis with complications and had to go NPO for several weeks which is a right PITA especially when you have 2 pounds of Red Leicester that are begging to be eaten in the fridge.
Since then I have been in a bit of a funk. I had several new toys to play with, a couple of programming projects to complete, blog posts to write up and some other miscellaneous projects on the back burner but I just couldn't face them. I did a lot of reading, 574 ebooks and counting, hanging out in IRC & MUC and forum visiting but I just couldn't work up the energy or enthusiasm to deal any real work.
I have decided that this situation can't continue so I am taking a couple of days break from the various forums, irc channels and muc rooms I visit and hiding my nookcolor while I try to shake myself out of this funk by forcing myself to finally setup my work area again and setup my UberTooth One, CyberCortex AV & Hercules eCafe netbook, finish up the various programming projects I have on the go and by writing a few blog posts. Hopefully this will work as otherwise I will have to take the drastic measure of turning off the Internet and going outside and it's a little bit cold, wet and windy out there at the moment.
Update to the Christmas Quiz
All the winners now have their prizes in their sticky mitts so the quiz is now officially over. However, I was quite pleased with the response so i'll probably do another quiz in a couple of months. If I have enough stuff in my odds and sods box i'll offer prizes again otherwise it'll be one just for fun and I promise no almost impossible number sequence questions (unless I can think of a really evil one) as no one got within 500 yards of the correct answer although one person (David Ross) was almost on the right track as he did guess it was something to do with prime numbers.
The winners were (in order).
1. Stephen Christie (Brand New Zipit Z2 + Spare battery)
2. David Ross (Timex1000)
3. Vincent Hyde (2 x Palm Z22 + assorted cables and palm psu)