this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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Memes

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Post memes here.

A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.

An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.


Laittakaa meemejä tänne.

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[–] officermike@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Apples and oranges hardware-wise (and maybe having actually taken an intro to C++ course and not python plays a bias), but I found Arduino more approachable for a noob, given the Arduino has example code and a library manager within the IDE. RPi felt less guided to me and required a lot more external reference. That said, there's something to be appreciated about just saving the .py and having the program run without having to wait a minute to compile.

[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 24 points 4 days ago (2 children)

In terms of GPIO only, Arduino is quicker to get started. Getting an LED to blink is easier on Arduino because you don't need to setup SSH or use the Pi's GUI. It's just that the Pi can do so much more than basic GPIO controlling.

[–] ivan@piefed.social 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What I’ve used RPi for:

  1. Finishing masters thesis when my PC died at most unfortunate time possible.
  2. Controlling 3D printers.
  3. Connecting old boring paper printers to home network.
  4. Making my dumb TV smart (worth noting that RPi also supports HDMI-CEC, so no additional remote required).
  5. Hosting all kinds of stuff - websites, web-services, gaming servers, Discord bots, git server, VPNs, Pi-Hole etc.
  6. Controlling radio transceivers (SDR).
  7. Controlling robots.

I’ve probably forgotten something. But yes - it’s a miniature miracle worker, that I used to throw at my problems. 🗿

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ditto. I built a starship computer for my niece that ran on Pygame.

Honestly, I'm surprised that there aren't more alternatives by now. It's been such a fixture for so many years I would've expected alternatives, but every few years I go looking and end up buying another Pi for my project.

It's kind of indispensable for so many projects.

[–] ivan@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I’ve used some alternatives that are cool tho, like Pine boards (sadly, haven’t seen them in stock for quite a while now), NanoPi’s and BeagleBone’s (except “AI” models - their kernels are buggy unfinished mess).

Sadly, today’s economy and decision of Raspberry Pi Foundation to shift away from enthusiast and education market made buying a used thin client more viable option for many things one would use RPi for.

I’ve seen used Mac Mini’s on marketplaces at price tags comparable to RPi’s - you just can’t make this shit up.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That's interesting. What's a thin client? I'm not familiar.

A Mac Mini seems like an interesting option. What OS do you run on it?

[–] officermike@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A thin client is typically a low-end mini PC that doesn't run heavy applications itself, but rather connects to a virtual machine on a server.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Huh. Can you point to any good projects that demonstrate this? Because I don't see how this is a substitute for a Pi.

Currently, I'm looking to replace an upgrade an instance of NextCloud running on a Pi, and I'm curious if this is an option.

[–] ivan@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

I used HP Thin Client T430 to smart my dumb TV as it has HDMI (although it just has a chip that converts DP to HDMI inside the box). Used ones are easily found and very cheap. Requires additional adapter for CEC though.

But for NextCloud instance I’d probably just go with ThinkCentre USFF rather than thin client (maybe 920q) as those are quite beefy for their size, while still being dirt cheap.

[–] officermike@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

Oh I know. I have one Pi running Home Assistant, and another running a print server for a printer that has a shitty NIC.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Both are excellent devices. It's hard to compare them from a hardware standpoint because I think there are so few cases in which you would have to pick between these two.

I think you could compare them in terms of fan appeal, in the same way you can compare Liverpool FC and the Greenbay Packers, not as rival teams but as two totally different teams that people love. But just like in that case, it would seem silly to argue that the Packers are better than Liverpool (or vice versa), you know?