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Interview with Jeff Geerling

raspberrypi.com

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Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#51

I remember when geerlingguy was just the author of all the ansible roles I happened to use, crazy to see how much of a "personality" he is now.

I remember when he was just midwesternmac and explaining tricky Drupal stuff. He's been brilliantly intelligible with everything he covers.

Heh, few remember the very early days when I ran a forum on midwesternmac.com — I actually started out doing IT services and web hosting (mostly Drupal, some Wordpress) for local places.

The first project I did as an independent LLC was built out a network with a bunch of eMacs and a central G4 server for a law firm :P

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#52

Jeff is incredible, his brother works for RPi manufacturing I think looking at the factory tour. He's not biased at all when it comes to comparing the Pi to the competition in his blogs, I mean erm clones, there is no competition anyways. Jeff Geerling blog: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog

No, brother is a neurologist up in Iowa :)

The guy who was in that Pi factory tour looks similar but is my British doppelgänger.

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#53
Geerling is just utterly delightful. Comes across smart, friendly, and razor sharp-- particularly in facing serious adversity, I don't know that I'd bounce back EVER if I had a colostomy bag in my 30s. I'm a fan.

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#54
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the software for other SBCs is extremely bad, I've never heard of any Pi on release or after that has any software or hardware bugs. Proprietary blobs aren't that bad with Broadcom...

RPi has its share of bugs. USB spec violations and busted WPA3 come to mind.

If you're thinking of the USB-C PD input being 5v/5A, that's not a spec violation, just a bit of an extreme use of the more recent version of the standard.

It would be nice if it were higher voltage/lower amperage, but it works at least with their own power adapter through a few clever tricks.

For WPA3, it is what it is... most SBCs have 'middling at best' built-in WiFi, and while the driver support can improve, I typically stick to external or M.2 PCIe WiFi chips if I need something more robust. (Hopefully a WiFi HAT will make its way to the market with Intel AX210 or something like that).

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#55
post #31
post #22

(On reflection, this is irrelevant.)

Wow. Skimming through that article, the articles linked at the bottom and some of Jeff’s comments and replies to the articles, he comes across way more hardcore and intense than the chill, wholesome guy I’m used to seeing. The stuff I just read was from over a decade ago, so maybe he’s changed, or maybe the only thing that’s changed is how outspoken he is about this. I like Jeff’s work, this bums me out.

Do you know which article did the OP link? They've edited their comment.

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#56
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Skimming through that article, the articles linked at the bottom and some of Jeff’s comments and replies to the articles, he comes across way more hardcore and intense than the chill, wholesome guy I’m used to seeing. The stuff I just read was from over a decade ago, so maybe he’s changed, or maybe the only thing that’s changed is how outspoken he is about this. I like Jeff’s work, this bums me out.

Do you know which article did the OP link? They've edited their comment.

Most likely one of the blog posts I wrote in the early 00s about abortion.

I started writing my blog in 2004, and decided to leave up almost everything from the earliest days when it was on Xanga, then Thingamablog (SSG before it was cool!), and now Drupal.

Unlike most people, I'd rather be an open book. I figure intelligent people can understand how something written in high school/college days two decades ago can reflect on personality, while also understanding that those words are likely not the same words the person would write today.

It's also why I leave up my very early YouTube videos. It's not like everyone who has seen some success in their 30s/40s popped out of the womb the way they are today!

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#57

> It’s like the tool world: I use DEWALT mostly, because the first tool I bought was a DEWALT. So you gotta use the DEWALT battery, and then you’re like, well, I could buy this cheaper tool, it’s better. But then it won’t work with my battery. So now I have something like 25 DEWALT tools. Oh man, this is something I wish the EU would work on fixing. There's no reason there couldn't be a battery standard.

I hate it :(

At least with the tools, if you pick a brand like DeWalt or Milwaukee... they have been around for decades and will stay around for decades, and the tools don't just die if the company gets bought out.

Well, at least until 'smart' tools start getting forcibly pushed into the market. But Internet connectivity is bad enough in many construction environments that it might never happen (we can hope...).

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#58
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RPi has its share of bugs. USB spec violations and busted WPA3 come to mind.

If you're thinking of the USB-C PD input being 5v/5A, that's not a spec violation, just a bit of an extreme use of the more recent version of the standard. It would be nice if it were higher voltage/lower amperage, but it works at least with their own power adapter through a few clever tricks. For WPA3, it is what it is... most SBCs have 'middling at best' built-in WiFi, and while the driver support can improve, I ty…

I actually meant this old USB issue:

https://hackaday.com/2019/07/16/exploring-the-raspberry-pi-4...

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know which article did the OP link? They've edited their comment.

Most likely one of the blog posts I wrote in the early 00s about abortion. I started writing my blog in 2004, and decided to leave up almost everything from the earliest days when it was on Xanga, then Thingamablog (SSG before it was cool!), and now Drupal. Unlike most people, I'd rather be an open book. I figure intelligent people can understand how something written in high school/college days two decades ago can r…

Thanks for your reply. I'm curious to know if your views have changed in the years/decade(s) since. (I'm asking specifically because there appear to be a few logical flaws in some of the arguments in one of your blog posts from 2009, at the risk of going significantly off topic for this HN thread)

Re: Interview with Jeff Geerling

#60

> It’s like the tool world: I use DEWALT mostly, because the first tool I bought was a DEWALT. So you gotta use the DEWALT battery, and then you’re like, well, I could buy this cheaper tool, it’s better. But then it won’t work with my battery. So now I have something like 25 DEWALT tools. Oh man, this is something I wish the EU would work on fixing. There's no reason there couldn't be a battery standard.

There are adapters for different tool batteries now.
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