Im all for a four day working week. Has any one thought about the impact on schooling and education? Education is centred around a 5 day working week (at least in the U.K.). Presumably teachers would not be eligible to work a four day week? This seems a little unfair.
If workers move to a four day week, should schools do too?
France has been experimenting a 4-day week for primary school since the 80s [1], generally with a day-off on Wednesdays. The impacts are certainly there, e.g. "before September 2013, more than 40% of mothers whose youngest child was of elementary school age did not work on Wednesdays".
It sounds like a 4-day school week would be the natural consequence of a global 4-day working week.
If it wasn't a government-mandated day (e.g. Friday is now part of the weekend) then you'd have to ensure days off were split such that there was coverage of the whole working week - which is exactly what service industries that need more than 9-5 x 5 days a week availability often do currently.
The original jackplug was also just as simple. Instead of 3.5 they could have gone for the 2.5" to avoid confusion as an audio out. But the new proposed cable? Is it available? Seems to be more work to offer.
/me checks taobao again
Nope, still not.
Kittenbot devices came with a standard audio jackplug. Easy cabling, off the shelf.
Although, thinking about it, I wonder if the connector is designed for sequencing (power/ground first, then data) and if the linear insertion of the jack plug caused issues with that, since when the plug is being inserted the connector nearest to the outside contacts all three of the rings on the jack in turn.
A potential application area for TileCode is perhaps in countries where a laptop for every child to learn programming is out of the question. Entirely on device programming, a relatively low cost, and an engaging experience could provide a convenient and affordable way forward for these countries.
In your opinion is 8-bit even a realistic choice anymore? Many ARM CPUs offer way more bang for your buck nowadays (unless i'm looking in the wrong place).
What do you want? Do you want a system to play with for your own learning? Or do you want to build a shipping product?
If for your own learning, do you want a full-powered environment? Or do you want a simple system that you can learn all of, even if it's more of a toy?
If it's a shipping product, do you care more about ease of development, or about total parts cost? (The difference is often quantity that you expect to ship - 10 cents in part costs matters if you expect to make 100 million of them.)
Yes 8 bit is absolutely a good choice. ARM comes in less than a dollar for the cortex m0 core (maybe others now?) but sometimes that is more than you need in both size and capabilities.
Also sometimes you may have existing expertise, tooling, or firmware already for a processor such as a PIC, AVR, or STM8, so why reinvent?
Some examples may be things like a custom serial to input/output expander, small motor controller, power controller, data logger, or other small and simple machines.
If workers move to a four day week, should schools do too?