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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • When I’ve queried DTC using a cheap scan tool it’s usually resolved the important (as in emission relevant) DTC information text and most of the non engine stuff. In order to create a DTC there usually is a customer recognisable fault or an implication for emissions performance.

    Many of the DTC are spurious and would only serve to confuse the user. As a system integrator, I’m personally responsible for creating tens of thousands of spurious DTC (in a vehicle population of ~100k) and I have to periodically report to management what has been done to reduce that number. The funny bit is when I found the root cause the management completely lost interest in solving the problem because, money 😂

    I’m with you though, there’s no such thing as too much information. I want to know how my car is doing and fix the problems. Most people in the business do not care and our users are ignorant and apathetic, that’s why we can’t have nice things.


  • Who is going to look at that stuff apart from technicians? Most users have no clue how the functionality of their vehicle is achieved and they don’t care.

    For argument’s sake, let’s assume there is a userbase for this type of information. It would be possible to show diagnostic information like DTC or run DID routines from the dashboard but this is already possible from any cheap offboard tester, via a phone app or laptop.

    The reality is that even if an OEM wanted to provide detailed diagnostic information, they don’t know it either because the information isn’t disclosed by their supply chain. Companies such as Bosch, who supply brake ECU, are extremely tight lipped about their intellectual property. When something goes wrong we use a special development version of the ECU to record the associated software variables during the fault and present that as evidence but we don’t have access to the source code.

    Modern products are not designed to be repaired. They want us to continually buy new shit. Basically anything with software in it is an absolute nightmare to maintain. It makes me depressed just thinking about what a clusterfuck this landscape is.

    Source: control system engineer for a large OEM.







  • The same threat that democracy faces, it’s vulnerable to charismatic people who become entrenched and draconian. I’m not convinced it can ever work without some competing force that resists the consolidation of power, such as highly educated and politically involved populace.

    Communism probably works at smaller scales but for larger populations it would only be feasible when the leadership is benevolent. A robot administrator would be an interesting experiment.


  • The situation where a candidate is rejected because they don’t have relevant experience is often decided by people who don’t have that experience either. The last thing I want is a job where I immediately know how to do it. That’s often the reason to leave - it’s boring and not a challenge any more.

    The market is probably flat right now and that’s the reason there’s no jobs. You have to hang in there for a bit and wait for an upturn.





  • I don’t think it’s necessary to have a formal education in any subject, it’s more of a shortcut in the best case. An open curiosity and some logic for mitigating the biases from our reasoning is probably sufficient.

    Superficially that is the appeal of Harris, he is articulate and strong on logic but it will only carry an idea so far. His stance on atheism is a good example of limitations of a purely rational approach to living in the world. I agree with his point that we probably would be better off without religion but we still need some of the spiritual elements. I suppose he would argue that he obtains this from an introspective practice which make his blind spots all the more surprising, given his obvious expertise in the area of self awareness e.g. Waking Up app and book. There’s some interesting insight on this point by the producers of Decoding the Gurus podcast where they recently mused the rise of fascism. One other podcast on the fringe of philosophy that I’ve found entertaining and informative is The Very Bad Wizards, it’s run by scholars for fun but I first became aware of many of the basic philosophical tenets there.

    Thanks for the links, appreciate it.