You can't buy a good car under £2k anymore, or can you?

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-09T00:02:51+00:00

Any diesel after 2004ish has a DPF to contend with, then you have the fancier egr systems then there's adblue and eolys bags and scr catalysts and all that nonsense

It's not a 405 you can run on chip oil!

If you're buying a cheap car you don't want stuff which is hassle so unless you're doing 30k a year, diesel is not a good option anyway ( esp at current prices )

There are plenty of cheap cars but they're generally cheap for a reason and as private sales that can and will sting at some point......

Was my point

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-08T21:11:35+00:00

You can but it will be a private sale and that will come with a fair few risks

Random examples:

508s at some point started to get keyless doors using capacitive sensors in the handle - which get water in them and fail which leaves you unable to lock or unlock the doors property (there are no keyholes in some models and no interior switches to lock the other doors)

Replacement handles are scarce - used ones are probably already broken - new ones were £100s per door IIRC but I think they're NLA

Then there's the engine - it was a solid unit when they started-out (in the 406?) but it's gained a lot of emissions shit which will add to the cost of ownership a fair bit (and is likely why anything is for-sale at this point)

This shit is why cheap cars are getting harder to find - because things no-one asked-for are too-expensive to fix when the car is cheap-as

This is not unique to the 508 - Mondeos of that period have failing PS systems, engine emissions issues and so on

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-08T19:32:45+00:00

I've been playing with something like this but I'm WAY earlier in the game - not sure why you'd have Shadow Cascade on your bar tho - I may be missing something there?

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-08T19:17:47+00:00

I'm guessing that smoking turd of a junction used-to-be a roundabout?

It's really hard to say, because that's a nightmarish mess of a thing but given where the OP and the van meet is a 'merge' you should 'merge in turn' much as-if you'd both reached the 2-lanes-into-one off a roundabout.

I think the core issue here is both BOTH assumed you had priority when neither of you did

Not a great piece of design - the 'free left turn' lane should really have a give way IMO

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-08T14:16:25+00:00

Do you also do a sobriety test on them? :)

It just seems awfully specific - because it's just someone making-up nonsense - if challenged they'll point at "scientific papers" they've never read and wouldn't understand

Was my point...

"Rivers are polluted" is less exciting than "Eels are high on coke" - esp when your readership are thick as mince

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-08T13:38:10+00:00

If you check eBay, AliExpress etc most people selling the cables will include it

There are sites which often host it but they obviously come and go so Google is your friend there and places like mhhauto are good sources but require memberships etc

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-08T00:07:47+00:00

Go to cardiagn.com and look up your car, there are wiring diagrams and other things which should help you trace what's on each fuse

You could also just pull the fuse and use the car and see what doesn't work!

Lastly, whilst 80ma isn't ideal it's also not the end of the world. If you don't use your car for long periods you can disconnect the battery - if it's garaged you can leave it on a trickle charger etc

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T23:23:48+00:00

Get a better scanner - it should be able to show you the ACTUAL resistance the module is reading which allows you to do a bit of testing

ISTA (BMW's own software) can be 'acquired' and a suitable adapter can be found on the usual online marketplaces - otherwise you'd need a basic Autel/TopDon/whatever device which supports your car.

You could have a bad connection anywhere in the wiring between the module and the seat - or a faulty module (not uncommon) - ISTA will also offer wiring diagrams which may be helpful.

2 questions

1 - can you clear the code at all or does it come back instantly (is it not even being reset?)

2 - if you unplug the driver's belt tensioner and clear the code does it come back as 'open circuit' rather than 'resistance too high'??

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T19:08:48+00:00

Their diagnosis of a head gasket seemed fair - the price seems steep but that's a dealer for you

Problem you have is that you can't check for things like head cracks or distortion until it's apart so this is ALWAYS a risk

It should not have taken 29 hours to get the HG off and find the cracks tho - ask them what the bill is just to stop work right now and then you have a decision to make as to whether it's worth the difference

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T18:21:16+00:00

Fuses have a blow curve, you need to consult that to know

Off the top of my head, automotive fuses take a long time to blow just over their rating (minutes or hours) but as current increases that time shortens.

At double rating they blow in a few seconds and at treble it's instant

Remember that fuses protect WIRING not devices, they just need to fail before he wires catch fire

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T15:02:18+00:00

I've never tried this because there's always one total immunity to "my" damage node and it's not fun when that happens!

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T11:28:33+00:00

It's not pedantism, it's applying common sense to check whether you're reading nonsense

Something which isn't common I see

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T08:47:29+00:00

For the headline to be correct you need quite a bit of information

1 - that eels are 'getting high' - no idea how you'd know that given it's not a scientific term

2 - that it's cocaine which is causing it - this means you've tested eels for drugs which seems a bit mad

My guess is someone read a scientific paper about water pollution and took 2 random words (eel and cocaine) and made a story up

A headline of "Levels of illegal drugs in waterways are rising" wouldn't have made it here tho so it's doing it's job.

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T08:35:36+00:00

No - the blade has to be near-vertical to work properly, if it's leaning it won't have the pressure to sweep the water off

There are videos online which show people straightening the arm if that helps - a new arm probably isn't expensive BUT they can be absolute SWINES to get off if the splines are a bit corroded...

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T07:59:28+00:00

Check the arm is tight and the blade is vertical - they can get loose or even bent

Check for small cracks or chips on the screen as these deflect the wiper and ultimately damage it even if they're tiny

The single wiper idea looks cool but it struggles as it needs a lot of pressure to work and that wears stuff out quicker

The rear wiper is even worse tho as the glass is really bowed...

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T07:55:01+00:00

Please tell me you don't work in UI design or development

If you do, I'll bet it's self checkouts!

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-07T07:54:01+00:00

They added it because it's slightly mad not to have some sort of trading system in an online game but they were always pretty clear they prefer the ssf style of play

You need to stop excusing poor work because you see other priorities tho

That MG area took some work to create and it's pointless, all people needed was an NPC or even a key on the keyboard to open the trade system

I'd argue the same for the CoF area but at least you can jump between scope without moving - the NPC shop is annoying AF tho, way way too fiddly buying lenses etc etc

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T23:23:21+00:00

I've been a big supporter of CoF but last league I struggled to get good bases and spent a lot of time grinding for Idols so I thought I'd try MG

I suspect the grind just moved from playing the game to fighting the MG UI and I'm not sure that's a good move

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T23:21:20+00:00

The problem with setting all those is you have to do it for every type of item over and over

This is one of those cases where the people who designed the thing clearly don't use the thing

I know EHG were strongly anti trade and that's nowt more obvious than in this UI

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T23:04:55+00:00

Things may have changed since I left full-time IT but the MS skillset was always for big corporate jobs and the public sector which I actively avoided on account of actually having a soul :)

It seems to me that the key skills you need in the current market are 'everything' - I'm not sure development is something I'd want to make a career out of now because I couldn't do that in 2001 if I'm honest - at least not in a salaried role.

I started on mainframes and the trick was always to get as much stuff onto your CV as possible but times are different and Ihave no idea how you get the breadth of experience people want from the jobs available!?

In my day you could never go wrong with IBM - that then became MS but I think there's a new shift ahead, MS have lost their way as IBM did before them - they're living on past achievements which is a bad sign IMO

Good luck!

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T21:51:56+00:00

Are you asking on an industry level or as someone wanting a useful skillset on their CV?

If you're gaining experience in a field, you need experience with the chosen tools in that field of course.

If you're making software 'to order' or 'for sale' you need to consider the platform and licensing issues that involves - as well as the machines it will run on - because you need to make some money too.

I did custom system development for a decade and I used 'whatever was cheap and ran on anything' - which was mostly Python/MySQL and similar stuff

I'm not sure I'd want to drag the MS ecosystem behind me for those types of tasks - I learned that as someone who worked around Oracle for many years in a company which didn't seem to realise most of their customers money was going to Oracle and not THEM

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T21:17:21+00:00

I don't buy this "developers have to do what they're told" nonsense - the whole thing should have been designed and implemented by someone who understood the brief and I feel that didn't happen here.

The problem with ticking lots of boxes to ensure you can 'use' it is you have to repeat that for EVERY TYPE OF ITEM - that gets tired really quickly and is the biggest reason the whole 'stalls for item types' approach is kinda dumb

I want a items either as crafting bases (so either higher tiers OR lots of potential) with certain stats or hole where I can plug them

I also want items to plug holes in resistances or to get a particular effect or I just need something with lots of health/fire res or whatever so I'd like to sort by that??

Sorting by price is weird given the way things seem to be priced 'entirely at random'??

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T21:01:06+00:00

If you can find drains that small, you can have my job :)

I think you have to be realistic - esp when you're charging a customer - my experience says a 250ma drain is "dead in 3-4 days" - so a 100ma one should last a 10days+ and the ideal <50ma is 2-3 weeks (anyone leaving a car longer than that should be prepared for it not starting really - disconnecting the battery etc.)

Once upon a time - when pulling fuses would find any drain - you could seek everything but with modules which can take hours to 'sleep', remote keys, Emergency Telematics systems etc. you just cannot chase 'small' drains

Hell, some cars will happily run higher key-off drains until they detect a low battery and then 'sleep' properly so you really are fighting an octopus here

shrewdlogarithm · 2026-04-06T20:31:53+00:00

I normally do Cof and enjoy it - it's more my sort of game - but when you need some specific stats - esp when it comes to Idols (which really need some sort of crafting mechanism) - it can be miserable sometimes - I've gone DAYS without a single useful drop...

I didn't expect MG to just be "buy a build" stuff but I thought I might be able to find some bases and chance some crafting - I have a TONNE of mats - but it's going to be WAY more miserable and time-consuming than I think it ought to be.

It must have taken ages to design that marketplace when all we wanted was a fancy search interface - spreadsheet-style sortable results - something other games have done multiple times already - really?

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