His Notes

MazdaSpeed 3 Round 2
So, University Mazda was happy to let me drive the MS3 on the highway today. Tracks really well even on that grated pavement they’ve got going on up there. Goes like a little rocket. Yes some torque steer, but at the speed/accel I was driving it it was totally manageable. Really very fun. It’s kinda loud at idle. Too loud for my taste. But, I think that’s probably a minor thing. Still pretty much love it. Have to be ok with pretty bad gas mileage and a higher insurance rate. Very fun car.

Hyundai Sonata Limited 2.0T Round 2
Got this on the highway today as well. Even with three people in it, it was rocket-fast. Unfortunately, on the highway the steering wanders a bit. This class of car should not require a ton of attention to keep it going straight, but it does. The tiny Speed 3 is way more planted. As much as I like the Sonata, I think that aspect pretty much kills it for me. I drive too much on the highway to have to fight it all the time. On this round I also noticed the engine is kinda growly, noise-wise. It doesn’t really sing like a honda engine does. Just not a very satisfying sound. The six speed automatic transmission, while it does a good job in first gear, tends to shift a *lot* when just driving around. A little annoying. Build quality and the general feeling of quality in it also dropped for me on my second look at it. The materials just feel kinda paper thin. Sadly, I think this car is out of the running.

Subaru WRX
Awesome Charles let me drive his new WRX up and down the lake today, too. It’s performance profile felt pretty similar to the Mazdaspeed 3, but the delivery was very different. Much more controlled and buttoned down, but still totally sick-fast. A hearty exhaust note at idle but not nearly as much as the 3. It has that characteristic Subaru engine sound too, which is cool, but I think the Mazdaspeed engine spins up a little freer, and the low-rpm torque in the 3 felt stronger. I would prefer a 5 speed like in the WRX to a 6 speed like in the 3, but I think the 3′s shifter works a bit smoother. After the drive I noticed I was wearing my stupid Keen shoes, too, which screw up driving a stick quite a bit. Maybe because of that I felt a little clumsy in the WRX compared to the 3, but I’m not sure which contributed more, or maybe I was just trying to be too nice to the car since it isn’t mine and if I really hammered it things would go smoother. I prefer the look of the WRX to the 3. The 3 smiley-face grille is annoying (though much better on the Speed than the normal one), and the back is a bit meh for me, while the WRX front and back are both chiseled and nice. Interior materials were a nut-hair nicer in the 3 I think. Both were a step below Honda grade, and a step above the Hyundai. Mirror and window visibility was a bit better in the WRX than the 3, but both were OK (and neither were as good as my Civic or Odyssey). The WRX interior is *very* mellow (almost spartan) compared to the 3′s raft of buttons everywhere.

Now I have to decide if 20mpg average when I commute 40 miles/day is acceptable (works out to about $800/year in fuel cost over a 30mpg average car). Insurance will be $400/year higher on a MS3 or WRX than a non-sports car also. But… it’d also mean I have to go find something else that I haven’t considered yet (or re-consider the fuel-efficient (but I think it’s too slow (even though it is a bit peppy) and I don’t like the raspy-sounding engine and swoopy wheels) Skyactive Mazda 3). There’s the regular 2.5L Mazda 3 @ 167hp, which Car and Driver seems to like, but… it’s only 21/28 fuel economy… That’s really not much better than the 19/25 the Mazdaspeed3 gets with 93 more HP. Another thing to factor in is that a car would have to be *very* fuel efficient for me to hit 30mpg in it (basically only that Skyactiv 3 has the right combo of a bit of power and extreme fuel efficiency to make it worth it). Otherwise I’m down in the 25mpg zone, and 20mpg vs 25mpg is getting less significant. I’m pretty sure I get around 25mpg in my Civic cuz it has to be utterly flogged to keep up with traffic, and the cursed 5th gear in it is so short it spins 5000rpm at 65mph.

More food for thought. Hmmmm….

Culled from this reddit post. It’s rare I see something really really new in Windows, but there are a couple of good ones:

* Win7: psr.exe – records actions and produces screenshots of each step! Great for giving people quickie directions of how to do something!
* When you Shift+Right click a file in Windows, additional options appear in the context menu; the most useful of which being “Copy as path.”
* Ctrl+Backspace deletes an entire word, Alt+Backspace undoes (repeatedly!)
* http://ninite.com/ For setting up a pc fresh (seems cool, never tried it though)

Woah TrueCar is pretty neat (if legit). Click through a model to get a histogram of prices people actually paid for cars.

VW GTI
I drove Jon’s GTI last weekend. It’s the DSG automatic. Very nice interior materials. Power is good. Ride is reasonable (though a bit harsher than the Mazdaspeed 3 on rough pavement). Transmission is of the ‘weird low power in first gear’ type (ie, like 95% of auto transmissions out there it seems) that pretty much sinks that model for me. The other aspect is part my own personal psychology, and that is that I feel like if I push the GTI at all, I’m gonna break it. I’ve heard bad things about VW reliability for so long that I don’t think I can do it. In theory I should go try the stick GTI (and the GLI and Sportwagon too, as they are a little better family cars maybe), but I don’t think I will.

Hyundai Sonata 2.0 Turbo
So I drove the Limited, which is not the one I want (leather, push-button start and a moonroof are not worth $3000 to me (right, self?)), but it did have the turbo. Wow what a great driving family sedan. The suspension is not at all floaty like a Camry. It’s quieter than the older Accords (not sure about the new Accords). Visibility is decent (though not Honda-good) if you jack the seat height up (and it goes *way* up). The interior build quality is about like Mazda: so… ok, but not great. Not as good as my 2001 Civic. The interior design and layout is really cool though. Lights and decoration in the right places. Gauges look good. Seats are comfortable. No weird protrusions where my legs go. And most importantly, they nailed the fucking transmission! Very linear, and tons of power everywhere. This one had paddle shifters (lol!), but I doubt I’d ever use them, the auto seemed to just do the right thing. It is definitely a big car. The trunk is enormous, you could put a horse in there (I think they built it huge so they’d have space to put batteries in the hybrid version). Back seats are cavernous. It doesn’t feel that big driving it though. Definitely feels smaller than a Camry. Power-wise it’s pretty great. It feels faster than the GTI (though of course it isn’t) in regular city driving because the automatic is tuned better, so it just gives you an avalanche of power from the second you touch the pedal, instead of Nothing (1st gear), POWER, gearshift, POWER, gearshift, POWER, GEARSHIFT, 80. Most importantly it feels radically strong from 0-40, where 90% of city driving is done. The look is pretty good on the 2.0T. Big tires and rims and fat dual rear exhaust pipes really complete the swoopy look of the car. It looks particularly good with tinted windows I think, though not 100% sure I’d do that if I chose this car. It’s a pretty tempting combination of power, family/safety and fuel ‘efficiency’ (25/30 for a 274hp car!). The warranty is 5yr/60k basic and 10yr/100k drivetrain so presumably I’d be ok out 5 years.

Right now the Sonata Turbo and Mazdaspeed 3 are in the running. They cost about the same up front. The 3 takes premium gas, poor gas mileage, pretty small back seats (good enough for kids, but still pretty tight), and probably higher maintenance cost (fancy tires), and the stick won’t be as chill for commuting. It looks cool and understated though, goes like a bat out of hell, and would be a fun little beast to own and zip around the occasional on-ramp. The Sonata is a much more logical choice (for space, transmission, cost over time), and power-wise it is enough for me, but not as much fun on an on-ramp.

Another two considerations:
1. How will it look parked in front of my house
2. How do I feel about parking it downtown / on capitol hill when we go out for dinner (coolness factor)

Cars left to drive:
* I’d love to drive a WRX but there are like none of them around right now. In between runs of them, and about to change to the new horrid body style. I’d have to drive to Renton. They are incredibly bad-ass vehicles.
* I really should drive an Accord even though I hate how they look and can’t really afford the V6. Le’Sigh.

Test drove the fuel-sipping 3 skyactiv and mazdaspeed 3 at University Mazda this morning.

Skyactiv
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Wow that is a lot of power out of a high mileage car. Mission (almost) accomplished for them. I drove both the manual and the automatic. They let me test drive the cars by myself, which was nice. I thought the manual felt better than the auto overall, counter to what most reviews indicated.

Manual: First gear is weird. Very ‘truck-like’. Coarse, shallow. Hard to describe, but everything about the feel of it said ‘don’t use me’. So, I tended to just stay in first to get started, then go to second. Of course, then there is no power in second cuz no RPMs. Once the revs get up it did kick reasonably well. By the time second gear ran out I’d be around 45 or so. Honestly the civic feels better in the 0-40 mph acceleration range. More motorcycle like. The 3 engine is coarse at revs. Doesn’t sound good. It does *go* reasonably well, and even feels like it wants to. But it doesn’t sound like it wants to. Highway overtaking acceleration (accel from 60 to 70mph) was pretty bad. It does it, but it sounds really raspy doing it. Again even though the civic does this slower it sounds better doing it. Overall the feel of the shifter was incredibly good. Super precise. Clutch feel was linear and great. Very well done. Steering and cornering wonderful. It wandered a little bit on the highway, but was still pretty good (plus it’s a windy day and that section of highway is graded so it’s a rough test)

Automatic: Automatic has a tiptronic/manumatic mode. In regular automatic mode it is fucking terrible. Feels like it accelerates in second gear. No power or torque at all for the first bit. If you hammer the gas from a stop it does the whole “Hang on a sec, I’m gonna think about this for a bit” thing. The Odyssey transmission is god… I’m so spoiled with it I can’t stand these mushy first gear automatics anymore. Downshifts for highway acceleration are… ‘dramatic’. Almost scary. It thinks for a second, then does it, then a lurch of power. Dunno something about the way it comes together doesn’t inspire confidence. The tiptronic/manumatic thing works actually pretty well (for what it is anyway). If you manually put it in first gear, it alleviates the huge delay when starting from a dead stop, and it actually does go. It shifts pretty fast as long as you’re doing a single gear switch. But, try to double-tap it to upshift and it thinks for a while. Feh, I’d just get the manual.

Interior:
Overall it’s a really small car. The back seat space is quite tight. An adult would be uncomfortable back there (no leg room). It even feels a bit tight for kids. No floor to walk on between the front seats and the back. Front seat peeps will get the shit kicked out of them by kids in the back. It’s too small for a family car. The civic feels like it has 6 more inches of space there (though it’s probably more like 3-4), and that adds up to a lot of feel. The interior materials are pretty cheap hard plastic. My 11 year old civic materials are a lot better. It doesn’t feel very durable. Tons of teensy switches. Displays are kinda hard to read. In the automatic, it shows a huge orange D, R or M right dead center on between the tach and speedo for the mode it’s in, and it’s very bright and distracting. The interior layout of the last gen (pre-2010) 3 was super futuristic and cool. This one is hella boring and dense. Steering wheel is like a massive raft of buttons and switches. Visibility is pretty good out the windows. Side view mirrors are a bit small for my taste. No sitting-in-a-bathtub feeling, which is nice. Nowhere near as nice as the big glass greenhouse feeling of the civic or odyssey, but still pretty good. The cloth seats are horrid. Feels like someone took a foam sleeping pad and wrapped a lycra swimsuit over it (fabric is all loose and smooshy). Ick. The leather option is a bit better, but still kinda lame-ish.

Exterior:
The wheels are ugly. Kinda swoopy to evoke speed or something. The tires look too small. Shrug. They did tone down the joker front grille. It’s still not great, but it’s no longer a deal-breaker apperance-wise. Fit and finish on the outside looks pretty plasticy and cheap up close, which is a little surprising. Usually even a heinous looking car looks kinda good up close. The 3 is by no means terrible, but it’s not great either.

Sticker cost: 20k for a basic one. 24k for top of the line everything.

Mazdaspeed 3
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So the Mazdaspeed 3 is the same body as the Mazda 3. Except it has a wing. Also it gets bigger rims and low profile tires and junk. This car feels super super fun to drive. I only got to drive this one around the block, but it felt really great. Way more tame than the last STI I drove (a 2004 I think). Suspension actually feels like you could commute in it, much quieter, much less ‘dramatic’, much more immediate. Even on the horrid pavement in the U District, unless you put the pedal down or listen carefully to the exhaust node at idle, you wouldn’t really be able to tell you were in a ridiculously fast car. Only 24k for a basic (though not at all stripper) one. Or option it up to the gills 27k (I wouldn’t). It’s a completely absurdly great car for 24k. If I didn’t have to think about hauling kids around or the gas I’m gonna burn commuting in it, I probably could have walked off the lot with one. I pay $535/6mo insurance on the civic. It’d go up to $735/6mo for the Mazdaspeed. $400/year. Not heinously bad for a sports car. A GTI would be similar. An Accord it’d go up to $590. A Sonata would go up to $624. I think I’d have to buy another minivan to make it go down. Insurance on a new Odyssey is like $100 less than the 10 year old Civic :) fueleconomy.org puts the Mazdaspeed 3 at $2950/year for gas. fueleconomy.org has the manual Skyactiv at $1900/year. So it’d be $1000/year more in gas. It’s massively more fun and a much better car. It’s a little bit more power than I actually need. I kinda feel like the GTI or GLI is about the right amount of power. Need to drive one of those to see.

Still have a bunch more cars to consider. This is a good start, though.

Update: Wow the 3′s (including the Mazdaspeed) all have 15.9 gallon fuel tanks! Tiny gas tanks are a pet peeve of mine. My Civic’s is 11, so even with good mileage it’s always running out. A 16 gallon tank is super awesome. It looks like people realized tiny fuel tanks suck. The WRX has an almost 17 gallon tank!

Ok. Now I seriously gotta buy a car. Car’s I gotta go test drive:
* Skyactive Mazda 3 – Great fuel efficiency, supposedly reasonably fun to drive for a ‘slow’ car. Stick supposedly sucks in this car and automatic is better.
* Mazdaspeed 3 – Fast and fun, bad gas mileage, stick shift supposedly hard to use (we’ll see), looks good, tons of torque steer
* Accord 4cyl / 6cyl. This is near the bottom of my list (I hate how it looks and am not sure I want a big car), but… almost all cars are horrid looking now so whatever… it’s more an issue of ‘scale of horridness’. Car mags say the modern accord is more fun in 4cyl than 6. With a stick presumably. Have to try both.
* VW GTI – Probably a reliability nightmare, but a good balance of power and efficiency. Looks pretty great from most angles, except the back is kinda dull.
* VW Jetta GLI – See GTI above. GLI slightly less sporty, but a sedan, so something different to try. Actually a decent looking ride on the outside.
* Focus SE 5 Door – With the stick. Generally like how this car looks, except omfg the rear end is an abomination. Not sure if I can get over the fact that it’s a Ford, either. Internal ‘ick’ radar is way up.
* Last gen (used) Acura RDX – Odd man out in this mix. RDX is kinda an un-sucked and not horrific-looking CRV with a turbo-charged engine. The new one exceeds my tolerance for ugly (and it’d be too expensive)

What do you all use for *comfort measures* when you’ve got a cold. Not remedies (I don’t believe there’s much you can do once the virus’ have you), just things to get you through it. Be descriptive :)

For me, it is:
1. Chicken soup and rice porridge.
2. Afrin (works way faster/better than oral decongestants, unless the congestion is way up high). Just can’t use it too often. Like 2 or 3 times max in the duration of a cold. Afrin is addictive. Tilt your head and inhale a bit to really make sure to get it way up in there.
3. Ibuprofen. Numbs pain generally, tends to take the edge off most cold symptoms overall. (Watch out for over the counter drugs that already have Ibuprofen in them so you don’t take too much).
4. Sleep, tons and tons of sleep.
5. Bath/Shower (steam, steam, steam! also works on aches).

Been thinking a lot about what schools (K-College) really should teach kids. Like, really how to *deal* with life’s problems, in addition to academics.
1. How to work in dysfunctional groups
2. How to take rejection in stride, and maintain self-confidence
3. How to memorize information
4. Effective study habits for non-trivial topics
5. How to make a decision among a bunch of choices with partial/missing information
6. How to work well under imperfect leadership
7. How to lead a team

If I were the Secretary of Transportation, I’m pretty sure I’d go around telling everyone “It’s my way or the highway” and laughing myself silly.