I’m just this guy, you know?

  • 25 Posts
  • 364 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • As someone on semaglutide therapy, I can share that a large calorie deficit hits you in the wills to live. At some point even just eating feels like a stop at the gas station to fuel up, and it hardly matters whether it’s 87 or 95 octane. Hell, rancid fry oil would even work. At some point, you stop caring whether you eat because it feels like another chore.

    Eventually your metabolism syncs up again with your energy demand and you start getting interested in food, except you’re way more selective about how you’re (edit: spending) acquiring those calories. I almost can’t abide by junk food, fast food, or breaded fried crap anymore. But neither do I want salad or vegetables because they’re “fluffy.” Too much volume, not enough calories. I want about 6 or 10 forks full of food, and then that’s it. And it’d best taste good, or I can’t be bothered. Restaurants easily stop looking like a good deal.

    Anyway that’s a digest of my diary for the last 22 months. Do with the info as you will.



  • When you simmer or slow roast tomato sauce over several hours, the sugars in the tomato release and caramelize which helps to offset acidity. If you’re finding the cooked sauce is still acidic, you can try adding other sweet vegetables such as finely grated carrot, sweet onion, or half of a raw potato (which you’d remove before serving).

    That they pack your tomatoes with lemon might mean you need to actively neutralize the extra acids, which you can do with milk or cream, or just a little baking soda as you suggest. Probably not more than a pinch, though, or the sauce could lose its brightness.








  • Termux (on F-droid) is a userland environment that runs on top of your Android device’s kernel. It has Debian/Ubuntu-like package management system that pulls from repos maintained by the termux team. If the package is available for aarch64, its probably available in the termux repos. Its not so much of an app as it is an alternate userland that runs on top of the same kernel, but can interact with Android a couple of different ways.

    The main Termux app gets you a basic command line environment with the usual tools included in a headless Linux install. From there you can select your preferred repos, do package updates, installs, etc, just like on a desktop or laptop. You could even install a desktop environment and use RDP to access it.

    Then there are some companion apps that are useful:

    • Termux:boot is like a primitive rc.d feature that executes upon boot up any scripts found in the termux ~/.termux/boot directory. You could use the feature to launch an SSH server, or perhaps start your syncthing service when the phone starts up.
    • Termux:Tasker is a Tasker plugin that allows Tasker to launch scripts in .termux/tasker based on whatever triggers or profiles you define in Tasker. For example, stop or start selected services when connected to your home WiFi
    • Termux:API is a set of termux utilities to interact with the Android API, and do things like send messages, interact with the camera or battery, and manipulate system settings.

    So you could install the syncthing package in Termux and (after setting up Termux access for your internal storage) configure it to sync folders from your phone to wherever syncthing syncs. You’d set up a start script under Termux:boot to launch it when your phone starts, or Tasker to start/stop the service on your home WiFi.


  • For the F-droid enabled users, it seems there’s a Syncthing app in the Termux repos:

    ~ $ apt show syncthing
    Package: syncthing
    Version: 1.28.0
    Maintainer: @termux
    Installed-Size: 26.4 MB
    Homepage: https://syncthing.net/
    Download-Size: 7857 kB
    APT-Sources: https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-main stable/main aarch64 Packages
    Description: Decentralized file synchronization
    


  • The Volt is a hybrid gas & electric. The gas engine is there in part to charge the battery, and in part to power the electric drivetrain.

    Under normal drive conditions, the gas engine short-cycles and doesn’t really come up to operating temp, which gums up the EGR valve causing the valve to pull too much current and start blowing fuses that power other critical parts of the battery charge control circuit. Left us stranded on an interstate this past spring until I could limp it to an auto parts store off the next exit to buy a replacement fuse. It ate two more before we could get home.

    (edit: the OEM part is no longer manufactured, and what OEM stock is left is unobtainable. What’s left is remanufactured, Chinese aftermarket, or a scam. Install at your own peril.)

    The workarounds to disable or bypass the EGR (for now) can cause other potential issues with the engine in the long run. Simply disconnecting the EGR keeps it from blowing fuses, but then the car isn’t road legal in many states because it fails emissions. Also, the EGR is part of the combustion engine’s cooling system, so not recirculating hot crank case gases works the rest of the cooling system harder, and potentially damages the pistons & cylinders.

    The whole situation is a mess. Thankfully we have a second vehicle that’s a regular gas engine, so we use that one for distance driving, and can just use this one for around-town driving while we figure out what to do next with it.


  • The OEM part is, as the service manager at the dealer put it, “on intergalactic back order.”

    They don’t make the OEM part any more, and anyone who has new stock isn’t selling it to other dealers. You might be able to find a Chinese version, but if you have a warranty or service plan, you’re rolling the dice with it.

    It’ll be a class action suit one day, I feel it in me bones. 🏴‍☠️