Author: foxbox

OpenSim server issues fixed

I happily run my own OpenSim server that is hooked onto OSGrig.org. My account there dates from 2007 and it got broken after the big crash in 2010.

It took quite a long time for them to restore the data and after a few years I decided to go back and see if i could revive my sims from the backups. And in 2013, I did so, successfully. You have no idea how great it is to see a backup rise from the dust and see, live, a sim being rebuilt. Since then, another 9 sims have been added and more landscaping has been done. Go have a look!

Sometimes though, my server crashes and I think I have now fixed it. Perhaps things got a bit too busy on a few cores, so I reserved 4 specifically for this server. Let’s see how that works! ^^

in-game screenshot of one of the opensim simulators. There is a railroad visible, some brushes and a house with a large waterwheel.

If the link to the grid does not work then open your viewer, log into the OSGrid and look for one of the following sims:

  • RynFox HQ1
  • RynFox HQ2
  • Himalchuli
  • Cho Oyu
  • Pumori
  • Saipal
  • Nuptse
  • Annapurna
  • Makalu
  • Yangra
  • Shishapangma
  • Lhotse
  • Jannu
  • Kangchenjunga
  • Dhaulagiri
  • Manaslu

If you detect a recurring theme in this list, then you are absolutely right 😉

 

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Make your own Togarashi power (and Aioli)

the top view or a kitchen mortar, looking directly at the ground spices.
It’s hard work, I can tell you that.

I’ve used the Aioli for a pokebowl, matches really well with Sashimi Tuna.
You need besides a mortar and a jar the following ingredients:

  1. 3 tsp szechuan pepper
  2. 3 tsp chili flakes
  3. 3 tsp dried orange peel
  4. 2 tsp ginger powder
  5. 2 tsp sesame seed
  6. 2 tsp poppy seed
  7. ½ sheet of Nori

Grind the heck out of everything until everything looks evenly ground and the result should be medium coarse, if that’s any way of indicating it.

a close-up of the togarashi powder, the end product of a many spices ground together

Now put everything in a jar for later use.

The sauce:

  1. 1 cup of good mayo (will make a recipe for that as well, both the fast and slow version)
  2. 2 tsp smoked paprika powder
  3. 1 tsp sesame oil
  4. 1 tbsp soy sauce
  5. 1 tsp lemon juice
  6. 1 tbsp Togarashi powder

Mix everything together so there is an even consistency and let it rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours before use.

the top view of a recently made pokebowl with tuna, sugar snaps, paprika, lemon and cucumber.
See the orange-y blobs? That’s the sauce.

 

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Chimken Skewer Marinade

Who likes chimken? I do!

  1. 500 gram of chimken thigh
  2. ¼ tsp Salt
  3. ¼ tsp Pepper
  4. ½ tsp Garlic finely chopped, grated is better
  5. ½ tsp Ginger grated
  6. 1 tbsp finely chopped onion
  7. 2 tbsp Rice vinegar
  8. 2 tbsp Brown sugar or brown sugar syrup
  9. 1 tbsp Sesame oil (not sesame flavoured oil, pls)
  10. 4 tbsp proper soy sauce
  11. 2 tbsp Chilly sauce spicy
  12. 2 tbsp Ketchup
  13. a good splash of wustershershireshur sauce

If i remember correctly, I also used lemon juice. Add it if you like it.

  • Chop de chimken in small pieces. Look at the street vendors; they do not have large chunks of chimken on their skewers.
  • Put the pieces in a bowl and add the marinade and mix well.
  • Put the bowl in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
  • Stick the pieces on the skewers, about 50 gram of meat each.
  • Grill on a fiercely hot coal grill until ready.

Enjoy!

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Apache2 permissions “hack”

(Errors are fixed ^^)

It’s not stupid if [the last part] works, right? Right?

1. We need a new group: website
2. We need a user: frank
3. Simple website where everything is put into /var/www/html/

sudo addgroup website
sudo adduser frank website
sudo adduser frank www-data

Let’s see if Frank belongs to the right groups:

groups frank

The result should look something like

frank : frank cdrom floppy sudo audio dip website www-data video plugdev netdev

Let’s change some ownerships, directory first.

sudo chown -vR :website /var/www/html/

Now set the permissions right.

sudo chmod -vR g+w /var/www/html/

You should do a test now by doing the following:

cd /var/www/html/
echo "My server bring all the boys to the yard" > index.html

If you get an error, enter the following:

newgrp - website

This is, in my experience not permanent though, so if you keep having issues, just yeet it into the bash.bashrc file, at the bottom:

sudo nano /etc/bash.bashrc

add at the bottom:

if [[ -n $SSH_CONNECTION ]] ; then
newgrp - www-data
fi

 

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[FIXED] Browning BL-22 Bolt Fault

the inside of the action of a browning bl22 rifle.
The inside of the action of a browning bl22 rifle. The insert can be seen in the “roof” of the action.

It is the second time that I have to fix this issue where the trigger fails to release the hammer.

Symptom: The lever is not closing completely and then you cannot pull the trigger.
Cause: There is a small piece of steel in the “roof” of the action that has come loose and slides forward.
Fix: Fix the steel insert in its place, now with a much stronger adhesive. I used Loctite 648 this time.

Okay, first you need to make everything super clean and free of grease. Then you sand the slot with some fine sanding paper first as another cleaning step and then you use a coarser sanding paper to roughen up the surface.

looking inside the action housing of the browning, you can now see a thoroughly cleaned out slot where the insert goes into.
Look at how nice and clean that has become 🙂

Next, clean the insert thoroughly and use fine sanding paper first, then coarser paper.

this is the insert of the browning rifle that has come loose. when it does this, the lever will not close and you cannot pull the trigger.
The cleaned insert.

I chose for a stronger loctite this time, because I want to wait with more intrusive ways to affix this part. Have I noted that this part should never have come out in the first place? It’s not even noted in any parts list…

one can now see two green drops of loctite in the roof of the action housing.
Maybe this grade of Loctite is good enough. If not, then we go back to the drawing board.

There, all fitted together and now I will give it plenty time to dry and cure. Was briefly pondering about heating it up, but that’s a bit of a weird thing to do with glue as you can also often use heat to undo glued together parts.

and everything is now assembled again. the insert is now back in its place and will hopefully stay there
Will it stick?

I’ll go try it out tomorrow with some beefy ammo. I bought CCI EX Stingers that will yeet the nope with 1640 feet per second. If that breaks the glue bond, I’ll have to figure out another way to affix the insert.

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Client didn’t pay? Make their website go away.

Something I need to test still, but adding it here for later use, maybe. If you find a bug, please let me know! And I’m halfways sure that the author shown in this link does  it less complicated, but it’s fun to learn and play around with code. https://github.com/kleampa/not-paid

GOAL: Let the website fade away, one step per day.

Define the initial opacity as 1 (fully opaque).

<style>
    body {
        opacity: 1; /* Initial opacity */
        transition: opacity 1s ease; /* Smooth transition */
    }
</style>

Modify the function to decrement the opacity by a step (e.g., 0.1).

<script>
    function decreaseOpacity() {
        let body = document.body;
        let currentOpacity = parseFloat(window.getComputedStyle(body).opacity);
        if (currentOpacity > 0) {
            body.style.opacity = (currentOpacity - 0.1).toFixed(1);
        }
    }
</script>

Adjust the local storage logic accordingly.

<script>
    document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
        let storedOpacity = localStorage.getItem('bodyOpacity');
        if (storedOpacity) {
            document.body.style.opacity = storedOpacity;
        } else {
            localStorage.setItem('bodyOpacity', '1');
        }
    });

    function decreaseOpacity() {
        let body = document.body;
        let currentOpacity = parseFloat(window.getComputedStyle(body).opacity);
        if (currentOpacity > 0) {
            let newOpacity = (currentOpacity - 0.1).toFixed(1);
            body.style.opacity = newOpacity;
            localStorage.setItem('bodyOpacity', newOpacity);
        }
    }
</script>

Modify the date-checking logic to call the decreaseOpacity function.

<script>
    document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
        let storedOpacity = localStorage.getItem('bodyOpacity');
        let lastIncrementDate = localStorage.getItem('lastIncrementDate');
        let today = new Date().toDateString();

        if (storedOpacity) {
            document.body.style.opacity = storedOpacity;
        } else {
            localStorage.setItem('bodyOpacity', '1');
            localStorage.setItem('lastIncrementDate', today);
        }

        if (lastIncrementDate !== today) {
            decreaseOpacity();
            localStorage.setItem('lastIncrementDate', today);
        }
    });

    function decreaseOpacity() {
        let body = document.body;
        let currentOpacity = parseFloat(window.getComputedStyle(body).opacity);
        if (currentOpacity > 0) {
            let newOpacity = (currentOpacity - 0.1).toFixed(1);
            body.style.opacity = newOpacity;
            localStorage.setItem('bodyOpacity', newOpacity);
        }
    }
</script>

Here is how the complete HTML file might look for the fading away effect:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Decrease Opacity</title>
    <style>
        body {
            opacity: 1; /* Initial opacity */
            transition: opacity 1s ease; /* Smooth transition */
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>

    <script>
        document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
            let storedOpacity = localStorage.getItem('bodyOpacity');
            let lastIncrementDate = localStorage.getItem('lastIncrementDate');
            let today = new Date().toDateString();

            if (storedOpacity) {
                document.body.style.opacity = storedOpacity;
            } else {
                localStorage.setItem('bodyOpacity', '1');
                localStorage.setItem('lastIncrementDate', today);
            }

            if (lastIncrementDate !== today) {
                decreaseOpacity();
                localStorage.setItem('lastIncrementDate', today);
            }
        });

        function decreaseOpacity() {
            let body = document.body;
            let currentOpacity = parseFloat(window.getComputedStyle(body).opacity);
            if (currentOpacity > 0) {
                let newOpacity = (currentOpacity - 0.1).toFixed(1);
                body.style.opacity = newOpacity;
                localStorage.setItem('bodyOpacity', newOpacity);
            }
        }
    </script>
</body>
</html>

So with this setup, the opacity of the body tag will start at 1 (fully opaque) and decrease by 0.1 each day until it reaches 0 (fully transparent). The localStorage ensures that the opacity persists across browser sessions and days.

Have you tried it? Let me know!

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Making a test photo with the DIY Dashcam

Today I learned that the following command creates a test capture with the raspberry pi camera:

libcamera-still -o test.jpg
A screencapture of the output of the camera test command
The output from the command
A dark image with a window visible. Some daylight shines through the window.
We have an image!

And by golly, it works! So yet again some progress has been made. Somewhat worry that it is blurred, so let me make another one with the lights on:

The same as the previous picture, but this time with the lights on and the room is now visible. But it is terribly blurry
Oh no, this is way too blurry

Well heck. That’s not good. I have still not been ably to install python3-picamera3. Would that be the issue? Weird though. Let’s do another test with a mug at 10 cm distance:

a blurry mug can be seen in the center of the image
Well, that doesn’t look good…

One more test then at 20 cm:

Another attempt at 20 cm distance makes yet another blurry photo
20 cm has failed too.

Sooo. Not sure what’s going on here, but at least the camera works. 😀

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