What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[MikeR]

Back to CEX today with another dead memory stick , yep they confirmed it , 3rd time on a row , any way they swapped it for two more 2GB sticks just to give the server a bit more memory , did I not choose a ddr3 and a ddr2 stick !!! , My mistake this time 😊😊😊

[RoverFolkUs]

12 hours ago, 95 quid Peugeot said:

Just picked a brand new complete clutch assy for the recently acquired Citroen Xantia from GSF....a whole 10.97 Sir

thats a worth hanging onto item

Anything parts you buy in a clearance sale mean you will never end up needing/using it by sods law 🤣

I can't think of how many bits and bobs I've previously accumulated for a few quid a piece and then thrown in the bin after realizing it never ends up being needed 🤣

[Timewaster]

The TV ad for the latest Peugeot.

Is it a 508?

Anyway, first time it came on I thought they said it had VELOUR!

It caught my attention, and I thought it is about time velour made a comeback. I can't stand cheap leather or scratchy Tweedy seats.

Quite disappointed when the next time it came on. It turns out to be "the car with ALLURE."

So just advertising bollocks and no 80s luxury seating.

Won't be buying one of them anytime soon then.

[Metal Guru]

10 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Anything parts you buy in a clearance sale mean you will never end up needing/using it by sods law 🤣

I can't think of how many bits and bobs I've previously accumulated for a few quid a piece and then thrown in the bin after realizing it never ends up being needed 🤣

I’m going to buy some brake discs then. I’d save a fortune if I never  needed them again.

[High Jetter]

Followed a skip wagon with a couple of empties on the back just now. They are really efficient at carving through oncoming traffic on urban streets narrowed by parked cars.

[Dyslexic Viking]

First day of the year with 20 degrees, the leaves have come on the trees and it's starting to turn green and a trip to the post office in a proper car, small things that make life good.

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Looking like we may finally be able to go car shopping soon!

[Mally]

21 hours ago, andy18s said:

 

I kept the new radiator which cost less than a tenner,

I've just found it tucked away in a corner of a Bulgarian barn..

I'm in Bulgaria soon.

Like you, I don't need one!

[hairnet]

5 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

First day of the year with 20 degrees, the leaves have come on the trees and it's starting to turn green and a trip to the post office in a proper car, small things that make life good.

oof

[RoverFolkUs]

[LightBulbFun]

On 07/05/2023 at 04:02, LightBulbFun said:

it really is quite amusing how some evenings go, so here I am settling down for the evening, hot chocolate in hand, when a good lighting collector friend of mine *in the states* who i have not directly spoken to in a few years drops me a message 

okay computer issues sure, that sounds innocent enough, I am fairly competent with the things, what be the issue with ye olde computer?

Oh....

 yeah thats a different sort of computer issue entirely, I mean theres "help me install a video game" and then theres "help me low level hack my car" but I am not one to leave a friend in need

so, 3 hours 44 minutes later, at almost 2AM in the morning, yeah I fucking pulled it off LOL

 

 

but fucking hell it was quite the roller-coaster ride for me because,

at first thought ok, perhaps he just needs help setting up the dodgy windows XP era software that these things need and then I could just let him handle it from there?

I see that he running ubuntu linux on his laptop, so ok lets setup a windows XP VM and do USB device pass through, simples right? NOPE, turns out he is, essentially as far as all this is concerned, completely computer illiterate, and he did not even know *which* program he was suppose to use and how to use it,

and this is where it really dawned on me like "ahh fuck" 

like how would I have a fucking clue on how to work an ECU programmer? but again I was not going to leave him the dark

turns out he at least had another computer running windows (windows 11 eugh LOL) so i got him to get team viewer on that and I just took the reigns from there LOL (and just told him when to plug/unplug things) I know how to work linux myself no problems, but I was not going to even try and walk someone who is computer illiterate through how to setup teamviewer on linux/how to work a command line package manager! so windows it was!

but even then, I mean I have never fucking done this sort of shit before, so figuring it all out was fun, hence the roller coaster ride-ness of it, because there where several points during this where I was like "what the dodgy hell is that" or "where in the dodgy hell am I going to find that" and subsequently thought this was just getting too complicated/obscure for even me to be able to get going, but I got there in end!

first of all was getting the software setup, that in itself was actually not too bad, and in the end I did not even need the windows XP Virtual machine for it, so all that was a waste of time LOL (but hey now he can play pinball LOL)

but then came getting it to talk to the programmer magic box thing, turns out he got this one, some cheap knock off version of some programmer of sorts

https://www.amazon.com/Diagnostic-Scanner-V5-017-Programming-Unlimited/dp/B08M5SHK2L/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

note the glowing* reviews...

so the software was giving me a fit about it, after a bit of head scratching (read: googling cryptic error messages and trying to make sense of broken english posts from some god knows what forum) I had figured out/it turns out these programmers have an internal SD card thats onboard which contains the firmware for the programmer itself, and this SD card was bad (or was not making good contact in the socket) so I got him to open up the magic box and have a look for me, sure enough there be SD card

he got the SD card out, not in the manner its supposed to come out mind I dont think mind...

so then he had to go to the local store get another SD card, because he did not have one spare at home

I then had to figure out how to go about prepping the the new SD card, I mean just figuring how to program a car ECU is one thing, now I had to figure out how to program the fucking programmer itself! finding the firmware from god knows where on the internet, (yay for random broken english forum posts again) but, got it flashed to the SD card! (all while my friend had his thumb going numb holding the SD card down into its socket to ensure a good connection after aforementioned botched removal)

and this finally got the software and programmer talking to each-other, which by some miracle as per above was then happy to talk to the ECU in the car and dump its firmware, thank fuck for that! woo!

(for those wondering he says he needs the firmware from his ECU for some sort of remap, he says the chap modifying the firmware should be helping him flash it back to the  ECU, which is good because fuck having to then try and flash back *modified* firmware to something and the risk of bricking someones car, it was bad enough just trying to figure out how to dump it, knowing there was a still a none zero risk it could still get bricked)

this is up there in really fucking obscure technical support I have had to give/been involved with, I mean I have helped people out in all sorts of weird computer situations, in the past, from Hackintoshing a deaf guys desktop machine over FaceTime to helping someone else with the software for a Gas chromatography–mass spectrometer, but at least the person in the 2nd example was computer competent and aware of what they where doing and involved with

 but managing to help someone who is in in a completely different country and who does not have the foggiest idea whats what, dump the ECU firmware of his car, using the most obscure/dodgiest software tools/software known to man (and having to also fix said tool in the middle of all of this) is something that I am quite proud of LOL

and its clear he is really appreciative of the support (apparently he got the kit over 6 months ago and has been fretting about it ever since, not knowing what to do etc) and I am also just pleased I was able to help someone out in their time of need!

 

 

(and I guess this is what people mean by being tech savvy, I might not have had a clue what I am doing at first with this particular "computer issue" , but it seems I have enough similar-ish previous experience, general know how/understanding of how things work, and google fu to figure it all out in the end LOL)

so update on this utter clusterfuck! 

 he got the modified firmware back from the chap in Italy doing the actual ECU Firmware modification (so thats a woo in and of itself as that confirmed the firmware that I dumped was indeed the ECU firmware, and that I had not just randomly dumped the Firmware from the built in Radio or something daft)

and then it flashed back, without a hitch thankfully

or well ill take the last comment as it having worked LOL

Can add "helped a computer illiterate American  re-map his Jeep by way of team-viewer" to my non existent CV LOL

 

[New POD]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

so update on this utter clusterfuck! 

 he got the modified firmware back from the chap in Italy doing the actual ECU Firmware modification (so thats a woo in and of itself as that confirmed the firmware that I dumped was indeed the ECU firmware, and that I had not just randomly dumped the Firmware from the built in Radio or something daft)

and then it flashed back, without a hitch thankfully

or well ill take the last comment as it having worked LOL

Can add "helped a computer illiterate American  re-map his Jeep by way of team-viewer" to my non existent CV LOL

 

Can you send me a CV and I'll send it to my mate Ed Gummow.   You are the sort of person he needs to build his Automomous vehicles 

[hairnet]

first 5 mins of enter the dragon where the camera is attached the the rickshaw

omg tat overload (and a reno 6 and a merc 114) and weird asian trucks

[hairnet]

6 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

some kinda cowboy?

[Leyland Worldmaster]

This...

[RoverFolkUs]

1 hour ago, hairnet said:

some kinda cowboy?

Maybe an avid supporter of a certain football team, hence the lack of cup holder 😅

[RoverFolkUs]

A local town has one particularly bad pothole. 

For whatever reason, the council had a knee jerk reaction to the complaints and adopted a set of 3 way traffic lights (!) just to section off this pothole. 

A keep right sign would have sufficed for people to slow down and give way to eachother

Anyway, most of the local residents were dismayed at the absolute bedlum caused by a set of overkill temporary lights so somebody has taken it upon themselves to remove the lights and place them all in a neat arrangement followed by an old boy on the phone to the number printed on the lights requesting them to be taken away 🤣

The power of the people! 

[High Jetter]

17 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

A local town has one particularly bad pothole. 

Just one? You could be anywhere in the UK saying that, with dozens of contenders.

[RoverFolkUs]

4 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Just one? You could be anywhere in the UK saying that, with dozens of contenders.

Maybe because it's just the one they were trying to actively preserve it 😆

[RoverFolkUs]

Audi Cabriolet 😂

[cobblers]

Camped in the woods last night, in my hammock with a couple of mates. Cooked some amazing food. Very pleasurable, done me the world of good.

 

 

 

 

[Saabnut]

22 minutes ago, cobblers said:

Camped in the woods last night, in my hammock with a couple of mates. Cooked some amazing food. Very pleasurable, done me the world of good.

Must have been cozy with three of you in the one hammock!

Looks a good way to spend some time....

[Rust Collector]

31 minutes ago, cobblers said:

in my hammock with a couple of mates.

How does that work then?

32 minutes ago, cobblers said:

 

Never mind, I shouldn’t have asked.

[hairnet]

because kippers ❤️

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, cobblers said:

 

 

❤️ 

[Garythesnail]

I didn't catch this in the detail I wanted (me2slo) but your eyes do not deceive you.

 

Yes, there is both a recovery vehicle and a Land Rover in the same photo...... but the Defender is towing the Transit  - the world's gone mad!

[Rust Collector]

36 minutes ago, Garythesnail said:

the Defender is towing the Transit  - the world's gone mad

The Transit works fine, it’s just good to keep a recovery truck to hand when you’re out in your Defender 🤣

[RoverFolkUs]

Anybody need an "insinuating" bin? 🤣 

[RoverFolkUs]

[Blunderguts]