Hi, I'm buying a fairly modern built (1996) 3 bedroom semi in the suburbs.

EDIT - I AM PAYING ALL WITH MY CASH SAVINGS, AND NO MORTGAGE.

I will get a RICS Level 2 Homebuyer survey.

The question is, should i pay extra to get the valuation as well?

Apparently, they say having the valuation can help determine accurate quotes/ prices for my building insurance, when I come to insure it.

But when I went on CompareTheMarket and did a mock home insurance quote, the question "How Much Is Your Property Worth" was already pre-populated with an estimate from the RICS database API, by typing in the postcode and address.

So is it worth getting the valuation?

So are altcoins dead?

What's gonna be the next big thing in crypto? I wonder ...

Official statement: https://x.com/Bifrost

Farming pools keep a running tally of how much reward each depositor is owed. The attacker manipulated that accounting so the protocol paid out far more than the reward budget actually held. Once the reward funds ran dry, the payouts started coming out of the deposited principal — the money that was never supposed to move.

Three pools got hit:

• vDOT Single Token Farming
• vASTR / ASTR
• vMANTA / MANTA

It happened at 11:47 UTC on Aug 8, and the funds moved fast afterward: from Bifrost to Asset Hub, then to an exchange deposit address, then through HitBTC to Binance. Most of it was cashed out before the wider community noticed.

The core problem is that the reward accounting and the deposited principal weren't properly separated, so an error in the reward math could reach the actual deposits.

Bifrost's response so far is to pause all farming pools. They've also submitted freeze requests to the exchanges involved (KuCoin, HitBTC and others) they're tracing the funds on-chain as we speak. They've also contacted law enforcement. They say recovery is their immediate priority.

One notable detail though, Bifrost's public GitHub repo (bifrost-finance/bifrost) has been taken private since the incident — it now returns a 404. Teams often pull their source after a hack while they patch. When a team yanks their public code the same week they get drained, you know the wound is deep.

If you're a user, there's nothing to do on-chain right now — farming is frozen. Follow the official thread for the remediation plan. And be careful: after any incident like this, scammers flood in with fake "refund" or "recovery" DMs. Bifrost won't DM you a recovery link.

Another day, another DeFi protocol learning that "abnormal reward/gauge amplification" is just a fancy way of saying the math was wrong and someone read the whitepaper closer than the auditors did. Either that, or they're maxing out Claude Code and getting past it's guardrails.

With Web3, there is NO customer service manager. Permissonless means full permission to drain.

Stay safe out there people.

Hi all,

As the title says, I'm looking for some opinions.

I've always lived in houses with gas central heating, usually with a lovely Worcester Bosch combi boiler, and I really enjoy cooking on an open gas flame with my lovely Smëg range cooker / hob.

The property I've just bought, however, is all-electric and isn't connected to the gas mains.

I know some people actually prefer electric heating these days, so I'm wondering whether it's worth going through the expense and disruption of getting a gas connection installed. The gas main is about 20 metres from the property, and I've already looked into the costs of connecting it, fitting a new boiler, and installing gas central heating with around eight radiators.

Or have modern electric radiators improved enough that they're perfectly adequate?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's lived in both types of homes. This will be my first experience living in an all-electric house, so I'm interested in the pros, cons, and whether you think converting to gas is worthwhile.

Thanks!

Hi,

I want to purchase a house at £314,000.

I have a sizeable deposit of (up to) £120,000, but i only want to use £114,000). So i want to borrow £200k.

I am not a 'first time buyer', having sold my property just over 3 years ago. But i heard Nationwide's classification as 'First Time Buyer' means someone who hasn't bought a house in more than 3 years.

• I have a spotless credit history record
• No debts
• No kids,
• No major outgoings
• Employed
• Salary £40k (£39.870k to be precise).

Am I eligible for for the Nationwide's 'Helping Hand' 5x salary ? I really don't want to commit to a hard credit search just yet.

Thanks.

_______________

EDIT: I got pinged a DM from someone saying: InTheSilverFoxsDen3:52 AM

"Hey, saw your post about the Nationwide Helping Hand Mortgage. That 5x salary rule can get tricky with the 3-year gap on buying, but since your income and deposit look solid, I can pull options from 25+ lenders that might fit better without a hard credit pull upfront. DM me if you want me to run some numbers for you!"

I will never engage or respond to DM's, and I will ALWAYS expose those who covertly try to shill at me privately, things they cannot and will not say here publicly in the main chat.

What are your thoughts on this message?

My 76-year-old mum has a Smeg SY92PBL8 dual fuel range cooker, bought for just under £2,000 in 2017. Recently the main left oven stopped heating properly. It still powered on, but only got lukewarm, then gradually worse, and now barely heats at all. I’m no engineer, but it sounds like a failed heating element or fan element.

She called Domestic & General, who said the cooker was outside its 10-year warranty because the model dates back to 2014, not from when she bought it.

They referred her to Pegasus Domestic. The engineer said his call-out fee was £105.

He came out, had a quick look, fiddled around inside, and said he’d need to:

• Order a replacement heating/fan element
• Replace or clean rusty screws/panels
• Return in a few days and fit it

Quote: £305

That feels steep.

Looking online, replacement Smeg heating elements seem to cost around £50–£70, roughly £66 in many places. So my rough thinking was:

• Part: ~£66
• Call-out: £105
• Total: ~£171 before additional labour

Even allowing for markup and a return visit, £305 feels like a jump.

What also bothered me was he showed Mum a laminated price sheet suggesting the part was closer to £200, which felt a bit sales-pitch-ish.

He did a quick tweak that got the oven half-working and said he’d return after ordering the part. Mum hasn't paid yet, so she can still walk away.

I told her to get 2–3 more independent quotes, but her view is: "I don't want the headacke, and just want my oven fixed without the hassle."

So: does £305 sound like a fair repair price for a Smeg 10-year old range cooker fan/heating element replacement — or is my mum being taken to the cleaners?

EDIT: from ringing around, and family friends, we now think it's more invasive than just the oven heating element. We think it might be the PCB