Random thoughts thread

malmon I'm getting an error on the video.
Edit: Nevermind I just have to click it.

Dontmindme Bruh we started using Claude at work a few months ago... Made me almost completely lose interest in programming. Just yesteday I ordered a (free!) book that's supposed to be about career guidance in the age of AI.

As fun as it is to be able to "make" something in basically no time, I feel like because I didn't really have to learn or understand whatever the LLM did, there just isn't really any sense of achievement. It's great when you just need to quickly whip up a tool to do some particular task, but when it's taken over your craft, it kinda sucks.

That said, it's cool that you're breathing new life into your PSP! I still have mine in my mum's loft somewhere, and a Vita in the drawer next to me. Would be even cooler if ya managed to make your own UMD!

And the track day was good! So... basically what happened is that I wanted to get the diff oil changed, because the car hit 90k miles and it had never been done. So my mechanic squeezed me in the Saturday before. After some difficulty with loosening the bolts, things were going well, until he screwed the bolts back in. Now, his system said the torque was 70Nm. The BMW TIS I have said 65Nm. Various sources online say 45, 55, or 60Nm. Whatever the correct value is, the diff cover cracked, and it would no longer hold oil. For reference, it's part no. 2 here https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=CD12-EUR-12-1996-E36-BMW-328i&diagId=33_0371

So I left the car with him - the neighbouring garage does welding, so the idea was to just weld the crack up. Unfortunately, the cover is made of aluminium, and one does not simply weld aluminium. So that didn't work, and instead he attempted to temporarily patch it up with some jb-weld-like stuff. It was okay in the garage - lost about 3 drops of oil overnight. But once on the road, with things warm and shaking about, it was losing about a drop a minute. So that evening turned into me and a couple of colleagues frantically searching and asking online for a replacement cover. The only options I could find that were in stock were in Germany, the US, or Hong Kong. Of course, none of these would arrive in time to be fitted for the track day on Friday (it is Tuesday evening at this point).

The next day, the mech found a listing for an entire diff on eBay in the town just next to my workplace. Now, the diff itself is welded, as it came off a drift car, but the cover was intact, and matched my one. So I bought it that morning (£180), collected it that afternoon, and drove it and my car back to the garage that evening. The mechanic said he'd "probably" be able to get it done by Thursday evening. Unfortunately, other clients' work got in the way, so Thursday evening came and went.

At this point, I'm feeling kinda bad, as what was meant to be a quick 1 hour job squeezed in on a Saturday is now shitting all over my mechanic's schedule, and it seems like all my colleagues who wanted to see me in my E36 on track would be disappointed. Friday morning at 11, I finally get the text saying it's ready. I get down to the garage (~40 minute drive), pick the car up, and make my way straight to the event (another ~40 minute drive). Fortunately, I got there soon after the lunch break started, so even though I missed the morning half, I got something to eat, and I wasn't having to get my safety briefing and unloading-junk-out-of-car (including the "new" diff with the old cover fitted, which is now sitting in my garage ) done while things were busy.

The track experience itself was just that - an experience. My car isn't suited for the track at all. My front tyres are old and tired, my rear tyres are whatever lingongs I could get right now after a near emergency during a road trip, and the suspension is designed to take an elderly couple to and from Church on Sundays, and the track was wet and made of concrete. Still, I had a blast, and it got me thinking about where I wanna go car-wise. Logic dictates that I should just fix the bad points of my car, but I also felt kinda bad for tracking it. It was a very small, and rather slow track, but my car is still a somewhat unusually clean example of an E36, even though I've been really piling the miles on it. So maybe a dedicated track car isn't the worst idea in the world, just money and space become the issue.

Yes, I ended up in the grass once, span out twice, and on the straights in the wet it was like a mustang at a car meet. And just to clear up any doubt, my car is supposed to be pointing in roughly the same direction as the white Civic.