From Science Made Stupid.  At the time, before Rule 34, this was a hilarious joke.  Now it’s hard not to take seriously…

Industry experts noted, however, that the government has an interest in continuing to insist that Mox is still viable. If ministers admitted that Mox was not viable, the government would be forced to acknowledge that the hundreds of millions of pounds worth of plutonium that are stored [at Sellafield] would have to be recognised as a liability on government balance sheets. However the pretence that another Mox plant may be built allows the plutonium to be reckoned a zero-value asset.

…

[Labour MP Jamie Reed, whose ... constituency includes Sellafield] said: “It is now absolutely essential that the new Mox plant is brought forward as quickly as possible. The market for Mox fuel exists and is growing, our plutonium disposition strategy relies upon such a facility and the industry requires it.”

Ooooooops!

(emphasis added, also ta enenews.com)

Clear skies and shorebirds
for this rafted sailor,
not far from home.

24 July 2011

1. Plug in USB modem
2. Look for /dev/ttyHS0 to appear in the filesystem (takes a few seconds).  This is basically the control channel that accepts Hayes-style modem commands.
3. Look for the hso0 network interface to appear by running ‘/sbin/ifconfig hso0′.  This is the point-to-point network interface that will eventually send and receive your packets.
4. Launch minicom, point it at /dev/ttyHS0
5. Type :
   ATZ
   to res et the Hayes compatible modem interface (modem should respond with ‘OK’)
6. Type:
   AT+CGDCONT?
   to list the available configurations.  This listed three entries on the modem here; only one of which turned out to be useful (more on this later):
   +CGDCONT: 1,”IP”,”orange.ie”,”",0,0
   +CGDCONT: 2,”IP”,”orange”,”",0,0
   +CGDCONT: 3,”IP”,”orangeinternet”,”",0,0
   The second quoted string above is apparently the APN.
7. The first number in each of the above output lines is the channel configuration ID.  To ask the modem to try to connect to configuration 1, with connection progress messages enabled, use:
   AT_OWANCALL=1,1,1
   The general format of this command is apparently:
   AT_OWANCALL=<configuration ID>,<operation>,<display connection progress messages?>
   where <operation> can be either 0 (to disconnect) or 1 (to connect), and <display connection progress messages?> can be either 0 for ‘no’ or 1 for ‘yes’.
8. The modem should respond with “OK”, then some call status lines after a few seconds:_OWANCALL: 1,2

   _OWANCALL: 1,3
   The first line indicates that the modem is attempting to connect.  The ’3′ in the second line indicates that the connection failed.  In my case, configuration 2 was the only one that worked: after I entered:
   AT_OWANCALL=2,1,1
   the modem returned:

   _OWANCALL: 2,2

   _OWANCALL: 2,1
   (The final 1 meaning ‘connected’).

9. Now you need to figure out what IP address to use to configure the hso0 network interface.  Type:
   AT_OWANDATA?
   This should return a line like:
   _OWANDATA: 2, 10.99.101.63, 0.0.0.0, 192.168.10.110, 0.0.0.0, 0.0.0.0, 0.0.0.0, 102000
   The important dotted quad is the first one, 10.99.101.63 in this case.  I think the third dotted quad is the DNS server address, but am not really sure.
10. Exit minicom and configure your hso0 network interface as root or via sudo:
    ifconfig hso0 10.99.101.63 netmask 255.255.255.255 up
    route add default dev hso0
11. That should do it. You might also have to edit your /etc/resolv.conf file to configure your DNS server, if you use a different configuration than I do.

Here are some other links that you might find useful:

Etna – Supported AT Commands (external use), Rev. V2.04

These packages may also be helpful for you, although they were not helpful here:

PHARScape Option USB modem control programs

Personal discovery of the day: Indian meal moth larvae can eat through LDPE (“Ziploc”) food storage bags.  Freaky but true!

Moral of the day: Store grains, nuts, spices, etc. in thick-walled, tightly sealed plastic, ceramic, or glass containers.

Edit: Okay, it’s the 21st century.  This was a bag of sunflower seeds… upon lifting it up it promptly disintegrated, having been thoroughly perforated…

(White dots are from the flash.)  At least I’m not the only one: this guy thinks they set off his alarm system, which is pretty cool.  He also decided to experiment on them for a while.

First, you’ll need to make sure some prerequisite packages are installed: the package that provides the “amixer” binary, and some variant of awk. Open an XFCE terminal window by clicking on the XFCE “mouse” logo in the XFCE panel, then clicking “Terminal”. Become root by running the following and entering your root password:


su -


Then install the appropriate packages — here’s how to do it in Debian:


apt-get install alsa-utils mawk


Once the packages are installed, drop root privileges:


exit


Then let’s pick a place for our scripts to live. This example will assume that they will go into a ‘bin’ directory underneath your home directory; so, let’s make sure that exists:


mkdir ~/bin


Now, on to the scripts. Copy and paste the following script as “~/bin/alsa-toggle-mute”. Probably the easiest way to do this with a stock Debian system is to start the ‘nano’ editor with:


nano ~/bin/alsa-toggle-mute


highlighting the script below, and then using your middle mouse button to paste the script into the nano terminal window, then using “Ctrl-x y ENTER” to save the file:


#!/bin/sh
#
# alsa-toggle-mute
#
##########################################################
#
# AMIXER: path to your 'amixer' binary
AMIXER=/usr/bin/amixer
#
# CONTROL: sound card control to adjust: run 'amixer' to find this
CONTROL="Master,0"
#
# LEVELKEY: pattern on 'amixer' output lines to search for that provides
# the current control level
LEVELKEY=Mono:
#
##########################################################
#
$AMIXER sset $CONTROL \
`$AMIXER sget $CONTROL |
awk "(/$LEVELKEY/) { if (\\$NF == \\"[on]\\") { print \\"mute\\" } else { print \\"unmute\\" } }"` > /dev/null


Make the script executable:


chmod 700 ~/bin/alsa-toggle-mute


Then attach it to the hardware mute button with the XFCE keyboard settings manager GUI. Click on the XFCE “mouse” logo that should be on the edge of your XFCE panel; click “Settings” from the pop-up menu; then click “Keyboard”. Click on the “Application Shortcuts” tab. Then click “Add”. XFCE will ask for a path to the command; enter the full path to your alsa-toggle-mute script, e.g., “/home/username/bin/alsa-toggle-mute” — of course, you will have to substitute your username in that command. XFCE will then pop up a box waiting for the “Command Shortcut” — at this point, press your hardware mute button.

That should be it! Your mute button should now work.

Now let’s add support for the volume-up button. Save this script to “~/bin/alsa-volume-up”:


#!/bin/sh
#
# alsa-volume-up
#
##########################################################
#
# OFFSET: amount to increment/decrement the control level: e.g., -1
# decrements the volume, 1 increments the volume; values with
# a greater absolute magnitude will decrement or increment the
# control level more quickly. Use "$1" if you wish to pass
# the offset in from command line parameters
OFFSET=1
#
# AMIXER: path to your 'amixer' binary
AMIXER=/usr/bin/amixer
#
# CONTROL: sound control to adjust: run 'amixer' to find this
CONTROL="Master,0"
#
# LEVELKEY: pattern on 'amixer' output lines to search for that provides
# the current control level
LEVELKEY=Mono:
#
# LEVELFIELD: awk field number of the current control level
LEVELFIELD=3
#
##########################################################
#
$AMIXER sset $CONTROL \
`$AMIXER sget $CONTROL | \
awk "(/$LEVELKEY/) { print \\$$LEVELFIELD + $OFFSET }"` > /dev/null


Make it executable:


chmod 700 ~/bin/alsa-volume-up


Attach it to the hardware volume up button by following the same instructions as for the mute script (above), but in place of “/home/username/bin/alsa-toggle-mute”, use “/home/username/bin/alsa-volume-up”. And rather than pressing the hardware mute button, press the hardware volume up button.

Then let’s handle the hardware volume down button. This time we will take a shortcut. Rather than copying and pasting another script, we’ll just copy and edit the volume-up script that you’ve already saved:


cp ~/bin/alsa-volume-up ~/bin/alsa-volume-down


Then edit the ~/bin/alsa-volume-down script in nano to change the line that reads “OFFSET=1″ to “OFFSET=-1″:


nano ~/bin/alsa-volume-down


.. edit the script, then use “CTRL-x y ENTER” to save.

Then, as before, attach the script to the hardware volume down button by following the same instructions as for the mute script (above), but in place of “/home/username/bin/alsa-toggle-mute”, use “/home/username/bin/alsa-volume-down”. And rather than pressing the hardware mute button, press the hardware volume down button.

This is, of course, completely absurd.  I mean, the Archive now has a full pipe organ, and a gathering room filled with wooden pews, and a stained-glass skylight with a cross in the middle.

But apart from the absurdity, there is the reality that, from 1923 until just a few days ago, this church was a community center, a gathering place, a place to celebrate.  Some of us had the chance to meet some of the church members during their celebration and farewell service two weeks ago; this post will try to honor them.

As we spoke, I was surprised that they didn’t seem very sad about leaving.  Frances pointed out to me that the building is simply a building, and that the people who attend are the real church: a true Christian sentiment.  They expressed gratitude that someone had come along to purchase the building.

After the farewell service at the church

Where would they go now for community?  They said that it was up to each member to find her or his own way to other churches.

Hopefully, the Archive can carry on their spirit and grace.

Update: second link fixed.