[Leica] Pi Day

[Herbert Kanner]

The Computer History Museum went slightly nuts last Saturday. In the U.S., we write March 14, 2015 as 3/14/15, which are the first nine digits of pi. So, they decided to celebrate Pi Day, something that appears once a century. Alas, in Europe, where it would be written 14/3/15, you guys are out of luck. If April had 31 days, you too could have a Pi Day, but alas, that is not to be. Because the next three digits of Pi are 926, they also decided to delay the usual 9 AM opening to 9:26 on that day.

The Computer History Museum has also become heavily involved in what is called K12 education (roughly 6 to 17 year olds). They hold special tours and workshops for school groups.

A big push for the older kids has been the appearance of the Raspberry Pi, a credit card size computer running Linux and having available compilers for at least a half dozen programming languages. They are made in the UK. The first model cost under $20; the second (presumably more memory and faster processor) under $100. The user supplies a keyboard and monitor.

So the Museum was mobbed by kids of various sizes and shapes. It was a mob scene and hard to photograph, though I saw one guy with an SLR and a most lethal looking lens in action. I managed to get a couple of nice shots with my unobtrusive Lumix LX5. The first is two young girls working on some problem:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/P1010688.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/P1010688.jpg.html>

the second is happiness at having solved it: 

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/P1010690.jpg.html <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/P1010690.jpg.html>
 




Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you