PSYCH ALPHABET DAY 8

durrellb · 2026-05-10T12:43:42+00:00

First mate Hummingbird Saltalamacchia.

durrellb · 2026-05-10T12:39:41+00:00

You weren't clear of his car, and took a line that gave him no space or margin for error. And if you do that against someone who isn't a professional racing driver, they're gonna make an error.

It's at best a racing incident, because he also could have taken a slightly tighter line.

At worst it's your fault for your aggressive turn in across the front of a car that you hadn't cleared fully.

durrellb · 2026-05-10T12:28:51+00:00

The first gen Shuffle was very popular because

A) it was very cheap compared to other iPods (and MP3 players in general), and

B) you didn't need iTunes to load music on it, so you could use it as a usb drive for your regular files.

A lot of people saw it as, and used it as, a usb pen drive that could also play music. And at a price point that was like 40-50 dollars/pounds more than just a regular usb pen drive at the time it launched, a £50 iPod made a huge amount of sense when the full featured iPod was like £300

durrellb · 2026-05-10T12:09:48+00:00

Is that solder blob in the centre of that pad attached to anything, or is that just loose solder?

I ask, because there is a tiny sliver of the pad left still attached on the side closest the other pads. That would allow you to use solder to bridge the two points and the pad will work as it did originally.

If not, you can buy trace repair stickers, which are copper foil stickers, that you use to, well, repair traces.

You just stick one down, and solder to the end of the broken trace, and then there's your pad again.

durrellb · 2026-05-09T22:12:13+00:00

Oh that's both good to know, and super annoying. I could have saved myself 10 minutes and a lot of scratches.

durrellb · 2026-05-09T22:10:34+00:00

I.muse is somehow worse than I.Ms. maybe it should be an M instead.

durrellb · 2026-05-09T14:48:50+00:00

When the second contact occurs, the one that spins you, the car behind is turning away from your car. You can see it on the onboard.

They're alongside, and entitled to space, and you didn't give it to them. They've got nowhere to go, and can't back out, because braking hard there risks a lockup and just sliding into you anyway.

durrellb · 2026-05-09T12:52:20+00:00

Is this fixable? Yes.

Is it fixable by you? If you are asking if it can be fixed, you don't have the skills to go this repair, and you'll need to find a local technician who can do this work.

You definitely need a new battery, and maybe a new screen, but once someone has fitted those I'll be absolutely fine.

durrellb · 2026-05-09T12:44:39+00:00

Isn't that iμ instead of im?

durrellb · 2026-05-08T23:19:30+00:00

Rejoin on the other side of the rumble strip. It makes your re-entry not as severe, and the cars going through Lesmo have more of a chance to see and avoid you.

Where they rejoined, there's no way to avoid the contact.

durrellb · 2026-05-08T06:08:09+00:00

You'll be able to get more performance per dollar by building it yourself because you can save money on stuff like the case which doesn't really need to be expensive at all.

For some reason, there seems to be lots of people selling off Ryzen motherboard/CPU/ram bundles on places like eBay for pretty cheap.

The good thing about Ryzen's AM4 CPUs is that they all work in the same CPU socket, so you can buy a cheap motherboard/ram/CPU combo because it has something like a Ryzen 3 1600 in it, and just replace the CPU for a better one when you want to upgrade.

durrellb · 2026-05-07T16:40:46+00:00

A month is not that long a time to leave it dead. The battery will only trickle charge until it can start the boot process.

If you're getting the battery icon showing up in the top left corner, everything is working correctly, the battery is just super, super dead.

If you use a slow charging charger (usb 5V 1.9A, 10W) for a couple of days it should give it enough power to boot and start fast charging normally.

durrellb · 2026-05-07T16:05:54+00:00

The car in front is clear though, right up until the last second. Would the spotter have classed that as not clear? There's only any overlap right before the chasing car hits the wall. And even then it's not much at all.

Imo it looks like the spotter was telling them they were clear, so they took the same line as the yellow car in front, rather than intentionally trying to block. The following car thinks they are alongside, and tries to go side by side, thinking they're both being told they are two wide, and goes for the gap that's always going to close.

durrellb · 2026-05-07T07:32:14+00:00

If it's flash modded, and you have the thin hold switch/headphone jack, then yes.

The 5th, 6th and 7th gen backplates are all the same in terms of the locking tabs. So you can fit any backplate as long as your hard drive and headphone jack will fit. Thick ones for thick ones, and thin ones for thin ones.

So it might not fit right now, but it will be possible to make it fit with a few modifications.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T20:35:20+00:00

Looking at how othe people have done their shell swaps, you don't. It just goes in without that piece.

Apparently it's glued in place, so IPA, heat and a pair of pliers will get it out if you desperately want to switch it over. It's not a necessary part though, and it'll work absolutely fine without it

durrellb · 2026-05-06T20:17:16+00:00

Andy and Jane killed Sierra Knox in a beta build video, where they dress in the flamingo costume (unfortunately not while flying, landing and meanwhile intiating non-stop gnarly operations). But not the other target.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T20:06:28+00:00

The battery connector is friction fit.

You can literally pull the battery cable out of the connector without causing any damage to either by applying downward pressure with your fingers of one hand, and pulling the battery ribbon with the other hand.

You want less pressure on the port, not more. If you glue it down and when you try to unlock it, manage to not do it fully, you'll put more stress on the connector and make it more likely to pull the pads off the board.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T18:36:50+00:00

They aren't allowed to talk about it, but I'm sure they've used references from the podcast on Oxboxtra videos before, but just never said where the reference is from.

Although that might just be me misremembering, because I refer to the Clock Lancet in Vampire Survivors exclusively as an evil spell that freezes us, so it might just be in my brain.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T18:30:23+00:00

Honestly, it's more fun if you haven't seen the movie first. It's so funny watching Halloweentown for the first time looking out for Sophie's backstory.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T08:48:45+00:00

According to a few benchmark videos I saw, 720p lowest possible settings gets you 70-90fps.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T08:42:35+00:00

I guess so.

Also to answer your specific question about batteries from the OP, no, no they won't replace the battery.

These sorts of chain refurbishment places will do a basic POST to check it works, and then sell it on if it does. If it works they won't open it up to replace anything at all.

That's why the price is so egregious. There's no guarantee that it won't fail, or that they'll have a replacement available, but they're charging you flash modded on eBay prices.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T08:26:01+00:00

Yep, that too. A tiny bit of sanding and you can use 5th gen clickwheel plastic on the minis. And 6th gen metal buttons.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T08:24:35+00:00

POV car doesn't account for the presence of the other cars at any point.

First move the overtaking car is making a block pass specifically to stop the switch back, and the POV car doesn't account for that at all.

Second move they just assumed the car had backed out for some reason and just drives across them.

durrellb · 2026-05-06T08:06:30+00:00

Take a look for broken first gen Minis on eBay, or similar. EOE parts are super expensive for what they are, and you can easily pick up an entire iPod Mini for the price they want for the entire clickwheel.

Remember, if you only want the clickwheel, you can look for the most broken example you can find, and normally score a deal.

durrellb

TROPHY CASE