hardware vs. software

[kirby urner]

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 7:23 AM, Charles <cco...@gmail.com> wrote:

This looks interesting:  The Pi Desktop

Yeah nice.

Kids into Xbox to play Doom-like 1st person shooters don't like UDP lag and may ask if R-Pi behind a router or as the only router in the house, will be a bottleneck in terms of bandwidth.

The netdispenser API would seem simple enough to encode in a more specialized router device in addition, with R-Pi a proved prototyping environment?

Kirby

[Charles Cossé]

On Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 1:36:34 PM UTC-6, kirby urner wrote:

Kids into Xbox to play Doom-like 1st person shooters don't like UDP lag and may ask if R-Pi behind a router or as the only router in the house, will be a bottleneck in terms of bandwidth.

The netdispenser API would seem simple enough to encode in a more specialized router device in addition, with R-Pi a proved prototyping environment?

The daisy-chaining of the CreditMeter off the main router is likely the biggest bottleneck.  Recent rough observations while doing speed tests suggest that the R-Pi CreditMeter imposes a roughly 20% slowdown. 

The first version (circa 2007) used a Linksys wrt54gl flashed with OpenWRT and running some software ... but there wasn't enough free space in the limited amount of solid state memory, and thus it was necessary to control via an external computer, thereby precluding usage by just about anyone.   Maybe that situation has changed and there is a router on the market which can be flashed and have more free space ... do you know of any? 

Meanwhile I'm still deliberating on the problem of recruiting interested parents using current hardware and software.   A short video would be useful.  More thoughts?

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 4:10 PM, Charles Cossé <cco...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 1:36:34 PM UTC-6, kirby urner wrote:

Kids into Xbox to play Doom-like 1st person shooters don't like UDP lag and may ask if R-Pi behind a router or as the only router in the house, will be a bottleneck in terms of bandwidth.

The netdispenser API would seem simple enough to encode in a more specialized router device in addition, with R-Pi a proved prototyping environment?

The daisy-chaining of the CreditMeter off the main router is likely the biggest bottleneck.  Recent rough observations while doing speed tests suggest that the R-Pi CreditMeter imposes a roughly 20% slowdown. 

Yeah, that'll be way too much of a bottleneck for some, not others.  The R-Pi solution will be just dandy for some household-schools I'd think.

Lots of people will want to combine credit metering with whitelist / blacklist controls as we're in the domain of net-nanny software to some extent.

The credit metering part is what's novel and interesting to me.  I can see single adults using it for self discipline, like a Fitbit.  Every minute on Facebook costs me big time, per my own rules, and I have to earn that time solving specific puzzles.  Fine tuning the IF-THEN relationships is how I enforce a particular diet for myself.

Kirby

[Charles Cossé]

On Monday, June 12, 2017 at 8:12:51 AM UTC-6, kirby urner wrote:

Yeah, that'll be way too much of a bottleneck for some, not others.  The R-Pi solution will be just dandy for some household-schools I'd think.

 

Here are some nice little programmable routers running OpenWrt for $35 ... case, buttons and everything: https://gl-inet.com/ar300m/
 

The credit metering part is what's novel and interesting to me.  I can see single adults using it for self discipline, like a Fitbit.  Every minute on Facebook costs me big time, per my own rules, and I have to earn that time solving specific puzzles.  Fine tuning the IF-THEN relationships is how I enforce a particular diet for myself.

Married adults need self-discipline too!  If you think this through a little more maybe we can see a good generalized design to support more contexts like you're thinking of. 

-Charlie
 

Kirby

[Charles Cossé]

On Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 11:12:35 PM UTC-6, Charles Cossé wrote:

On Monday, June 12, 2017 at 8:12:51 AM UTC-6, kirby urner wrote:

Yeah, that'll be way too much of a bottleneck for some, not others.  The R-Pi solution will be just dandy for some household-schools I'd think.

 

Here are some nice little programmable routers running OpenWrt for $35 ... case, buttons and everything: https://gl-inet.com/ar300m/

Today the GL-MT300a mini router that I ordered arrived.  In the attached picture you can see that it's tiny -- the volume of a mouse in the shape of a cube.  So this thing still hangs-off the main hardware in the home, but it's dedicated hardware unlike the Raspberry-Pi.  This cost $35 only, too, which is about half what a R-Pi complete would cost.   I'll post an update about it after I get into it a little more. 

-Charlie