Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, but first I need more coffee.

Month: April 2017

11,000 BC

I just saw an article about how ancient carvings in Turkey recorded a comet swarm that hit the earth 13,000 years ago.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/24/ancient-carvings-from-11000bc-show-swarm-of-deadly-comets-hitting-earth-6593613/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128512-ancient-carvings-show-comet-hit-earth-and-triggered-mini-ice-age/
https://www.universetoday.com/135240/comet-impact-push-humans-technological-overdrive/

 

I have no idea if that is true, but I recall reading about something similar that a comet struck the Earth about the same time and struck North America.

https://phys.org/news/2010-04-giant-comet-responsible-north-american.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-a-comet-hit-earth-12900-years-ago/
http://www.astrobio.net/meteoritescomets-and-asteroids/the-deadly-sting-of-a-comet-tail/

We know that a little over a century ago, in 1908, a comet struck Siberia in the Tunguska Event and it was devastating for the region, but because it was so remote and so little population that few were affected.  Explorers took several years before they could even visit the site. There was no crater, but trees for miles around was flattened by the blast. If something similar had happened, 13,000 years ago by an even larger comet striking the glaciers in North America there’d be very little evidence to show for it today.

And even more recently in 2013 a meteor exploded over a populated Siberian city,  Chelyabinsk, but because it was so much smaller than Tunguska the damage was relatively minor, 1100 were injured and thousands of windows destroyed.

I’m writing about it as a reminder to dig a little deeper to see if the evidence supports the theory. Catastrophic events have shaped human evolution and history, so it is possible, but is is true?


As a side note: It really should be the Year 12017 HE (Holocene or Human Era)

 

Raspberry Pi Print Server

We have two printers in our house, an old Brother laser printer and a newer HP color laser printer. The newer printer has built in wifi and we can print via wifi directly or through the home wifi network. I did have a Raspberry Pi print server set up and working with my old Pi (model B version 1)  and could print via wifi on it. I recently purchased a Raspberry Pi Zero and wanted to set it up as a print server.  Install the following packages:

 sudo apt-get install cups

and then configure user pi

 sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin pi

[Note– It is recommended that you change the default password of pi to something more secure or replace the pi user with another user name  with a strong password as I did for better security]

I have a Brother HL-2140 and you can get the Linux drivers from Brother
http://support.brother.com/g/b/producttop.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hl2140_all

However, it turns out they don’t work on the Raspberry Pi as it uses an ARM chip to run it’s flavor of Linux and not an i386 based Linux, so you’ll need to use HP’s HPIJS driver – PPDs for compatible PCL-5e-based non-HP laser printers

https://www.openprinting.org/driver/hpijs-pcl5e

You can select your printer in this case the Brother HL-2140 and it will generate a PPD file, but it won’t on it’s own as you’ll need to install the follow packages.

 sudo apt-get install hpijs-ppds printer-driver-hpijs

You’ll need to add the driver via the browser. Go to localhost:631 or whatever the IP address is on your network to access the CUPS web interface. Connect the printer via USB to the Pi. Speaking of USB, I recommend getting a Zero4U 4 port USB hub which piggybacks onto the Raspberry Pi Zero in this case v1.3. Make sure which Zero version you have to get the right hub.

http://www.uugear.com/product/zero4u/

I also purchased a case, a wifi dongle, and a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable. I had a USB keyboard, USB mouse, and monitor with HDMI to connect to the Pi Zero Once you have the Pi Zero configured and connected with a wifi dongle and the IP address you’ve assigned it.

My next step is to get a short USB cable and a way to secure the print server to the printer, probably a velcro strip or something.

How much did it cost? The Zero costs $5, but I needed a power supply ($8), wifi dongle ($12), and SD Card ($10). I paid about $18USD for the Zero4U USB hub, plastic case and shipping from the Czech Republic. I’m not counting the other accessories I bought (mini-HDMI to HDMI cable) or needed (USB cable), but just for the making the print server itself it cost about $53. I’m going to leave out the countless hours of frustration getting it to work because I couldn’t get CUPS to work on the Zero to print. It would talk the printer. I could see it try to do something but nothing would happen. It wasn’t until I got the hpijs packages installed that I was able to get it to print. I’d set up CUPS before on laptops. When I started this project wireless print servers were a little more expensive, but I just found one on Amazon for $40. So I didn’t save any money, and I wasted a lot of time getting it to work. So if you just need a wireless print server for an old laser printer, then just buy one, but if you are into Raspberry Pis then this is what I did.

WordPress to Plone

The time has come for me to move away from WordPress. I’ve been saying that for a while. I realized that I could migrate to Wagtail which is a CMS that sits on top of Django, but it requires some assembly. However, I can migrate to Plone much faster, and that is what I intend to do.

I  will continue to support my existing WordPress clients and won’t push them to migrate to Plone. One or two might benefit, but WordPress is a good platform and is well supported. Why should they have to pay for a site twice? I worked with Plone extensively in the past, but not recently. I am looking at it again and it has improved dramatically and is no longer just for enterprise level websites. It can fill some of the niche that WordPress does.

I’m going to give myself 30 days from today to migrate my site to Plone. I still want to work with Wagtail, but mostly I want to work more with Python. It’s my favorite computer language. PHP not so much which is what WordPress is written in. The WordPress community is large, active, and makes up for the shortcomings of the language.  The developers of the language have continued to make it more robust and secure, but that is not where my interests lie.

You have to go with what works for you. Python is easier to maintain and easier for me to figure out what the code of some project is doing if I look at it.

Goodbye, LiveJournal

LiveJournal has come out with new terms and conditions that are unacceptable. Unfortunately, I had to agree to them to access my content even though I was given the option not to. So no I really do not agree to them because they are make you agree to be subject to Russian anti-LGBT laws. I’ll let Charles Stross explain why this is the shits.

I am in the process of migrating to Dreamwidth. I’m keeping the same username. So you can find me at entp2007.dreamwidth.org. It’s a fairly straightforward process. This account may end up going away, but it will no longer be updated, though I may respond to any comments posted here. I suggest anyone else looking for a new LiveJournal home check out Dreamwidth. It’s made by some of the original founders of LJ.

© 2024 Christopher Merle

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑