The Perils of Buying a Used Car (Or, Why Beggars Who Are Choosers Die Young)

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Jan 252012

So I got rear-ended by a 40+ year old learning driver with a bunch of previous accidents last month.

Not including pics of the damage, because honestly the exterior damage was superficial – it was all under the skin, so to say, so you’ll just wonder wtf I’m talking about.

Insurance is fixing it, yes, but:
A) I was actually thinking of selling it this summer anyway
B) While I do love it, I was never attached to it like my first car. I guess it’s not my true love.
C) I need something with more oomph.

So with that in mind I decided to buy a

Subaru Impreza

 

I’m currently looking at a few. One option is an older one that has had a newer, hotter engine swapped in. Test drove it yesterday and HOLY CRAP that thing pulls. The things that give me pause are a rust problem of indeterminate severity, no A/C, and a kind of ratty ugly tan interior.

Another couple options are stock Imprezas, which on their own are a bit Coroll-lame. I mean they have AWD, which is awesome, but 140 hp is rather meh in a 2800 lb car. So what happens if I get an unmodified Impreza?

The engine bay goes from this...

...to this.

 

And more than doubles the car’s power. Anyway, in looking for a used car, I’m having some issues, being a picky person and all. A choosy beggar if you will. The car must:

-be without a sunroof! (it lessens headroom, and I’m 6 feet tall)
-not have too much rust if at all (and only cosmetic at that)!
-have folding rear seats! (makes a trunk so much more useful)
-NOT have that ugly-tan-interior! (come on, it should be obvious. Pic below)
-have a manual transmission (automatic is for cattle. If you’re my girlfriend, you’re going to learn stick)!
-be coloured World Rally Blue (WRB is so hot right now. WRB.)

Finding all of these in a used car is not possible.

Rust is an issue on most of these cars. Finding one without is a superhuman task in Canada.

There is a model that had a black interior, was blue, with a manual transmission… but it had fixed rear seats and a sunroof.

I’ve seen many that had a 5-speed, no sunroof, had folding seats, and weren’t terribly rusty, but the interior and exterior colours were all wrong.

That said, I’m not opposed to getting the car re-painted, so throwing money at that problem is a solution. Minor cosmetic rust can be fixed while the car is at the body shop getting resprayed (again, money). Fixed rear seats can be swapped out for the folding ones, but that will take some money and some elbow grease… and the new seats may not match up exactly with the rest of the interior!

Yeah, lots of money can solve anything in car land. Even the sunroof… although screw welding the panel in place and all that bs.

When it comes down to it, the transmission only matters for as long as I keep the car stock. When you’re swapping out the engine, you can also change the transmission, so an Auto could easily become a 5- or 6-speed post-swap.

It's like drowning in non-tasty breadcream or something! Ughghgbnegrbknfd

 

I guess all I REALLY need then, is a car with minimal rust and no sunroof… and the non-tan interior. Yes, moneychuck again, but damn that’s just such a PITA. Seating, carpets, and trim I’m comfortable removing and reinstalling – I do NOT want to have to pull the dash – or pay someone else to do it.

So okay, 3/6 is maybe doable. ;)

I made a video of a car crash.

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Nov 132011

This is made from footage over a year old. Yes, it’s from Forza 3. I just had no software to edit it with, or motivation to do so until recently.

I was racing in that black, white, and wine-coloured RX-7 when I lost grip and went into the wall. It bounced me back into that Corvette (which righted me), and this started a nutso chain reaction that affected pretty much every car but the BLUE ONES (the Blue GT-40 and C6 Corvette).

You try to race clean, but sometimes NASCAR happens and you get some fun footage. :)

So I have a few problems with how this was done that I need to vent about.

By that, I mean the way Microsoft has been, and is continuing to handle media and certain things. They’re kind of in the position that Apple was in, back in the 90s. They have this proprietary technology that NO ONE ELSE wants to support or use, but they continue to push it on everyone that dips into their platform. WMV is the Quicktime codec of the 20-teens.

Microsoft: You’ve lost this battle. It’s time to give up and support .MP4/H.264/AAC/whatever instead of forcing us to use your tech in the most inconvenient fashion. You owned the 90s. Someone else will own the next decade, but for now, this is what we have to deal with, so GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Stop making stuff harder for us to use just so you can keep trying to push your rock up that mountain.

You enable us, the player, to output replays to video, which is FANTASTIC, but you hobble us by A) limiting the clips to 30 seconds max, which one has to B) upload from their console to your website, and then C) download BACK to their computer from your website, D) encoded with a kind of high amount of compression, E) within your proprietary mess of a codec, requiring that we F) need a Windows install to G) convert the video into a usable format, which we can finally use in a video editing application.

How to video?

Now, maybe I’m just bitching a little. I can have a tendency to complain about small details. But God is in the details, someone once said, and I think it’s true. It’s the details that you notice when they’re missing. I can deal with the crappy compression and even the 30 sec limit (which is more of an annoyance than a roadblock), but why the hell can’t we just save them to a USB stick to transfer to our computers, and why aren’t they in a proper video format so that they can be easily imported into a non-Microsoft app?

People will say “Well Apple is just as guilty of this!!” – and yes they are. All the companies are. The difference in this case is that they succeeded, and now it’s the standard. Well, that’s one difference. The other is that Apple’s ‘format’ was made free and open (more or less), which is one reason it succeeded.

—

Anyway! Kvetching aside, I had fun making this, and I’m enjoying learning how to use this software even more! I’ve got a whole bunch of awesome replays in Forza 4 I need to check out one of these days to get more fun footage off of, although I wish less of them had to do with crashing!

 

PEACE OUTSIDE!

Mistaken Nostalgia

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Jun 042011

Yeah, I finally found something to write about that wouldn’t fit in 140 characters or less. This is rare, so read me well!

Defective photo services. I mean stuff like Instagram or Hipstamatic.

I wish you’d all stop using these! Photos that look like this are about as cool as songs sung by throat cancer survivors.

The whole idea behind certain old photos looking ‘cool’ was because of technical, physical, or other limitations of the period, reflected through the lens of time. These cameras took shitty photos, which via NOSTALGIA were lent a kind of charm.

The colours of winter would have been nice to see!

Very well, I can accept that these old shitty photos have, over time, earned a kind of artfulness, but again, there’s nothing else that could have been done. You can’t drive faster than your car can go.

The advent of digital cameras has opened up a huge new widened horizon of photography, with the only problem being the crappy sensors that most phones and compact cameras have. This leads to noisy images in the dark, but let’s ignore that and look at the best-case.

Come on now, the jungle should be vibrant. The picture is flat, all the depth in the face is gone!

Digital photos, at their best, are vibrant, sharp, and noise-free to an extent that film photographers could never have dreamed of. Whether this is desirable or not is beside the point, digital photos offer an unprecedented look at the world. What these apps do, and I guess I have to blame the users more than the apps (guns don’t shoot themselves, etc) is basically the equivalent of sandblasting your car or beating you new solid wood furniture with chains to make it look weathered. AKA shitty.

Scars are meant to be gained through experience and use; they’re supposed to have stories behind them. THAT is honourable. Dirtying up a mediocre photo to make it look more interesting is not just ugly and/or lame, it’s dishonest.

Way to not spend money! Jerk!

If you want to share what you see – I’m all for that! I love seeing pictures from my friends! – share what you SEE.

And lastly, if you think you’re being artistic… don’t. Art is not using a preset to ruin your photos; it’s not imposing someone else’s vision on your work.

PS – While looking for examples on GIS, I found others who share my disdain for this practice.

For or against the iPad

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May 282010

I’m not trying to convince anyone either way, but I see three cases regarding the iPad:

1. You want to consume media and don’t really care about usability or ultimate function. Maybe there’s some specialized app(s) that make(s) the purchase worth it.

2. The lack of function for its size means you’re happier with a smartphone, which ultimately provides a good deal of the same usability, but is far more portable. You’re also not really interested in the type of app that would make better use of the larger screen.

3.You’re ultimately happier with a fully-functional notebook, which provides much greater functionality, but sacrifices certain aesthetic or form-factor benefits.

Arguably, the thing that the iPad does best is just being itself. What I mean is, its size, shape, and ergonomics make certain uses better, but its hardware and Apple-dictated limitations mean that its range of uses is smaller.

I guess you could say that the iPad is like Wolverine, in a way: It’s the best there is at what it does. However, I think in my case I want both more, and less, than it offers.

Nick’s Monster Budget Tracker (taxes/shipping/labour included)

1. 1999 Subaru Impreza L Sedan Feb 12, 2012 $4500
2. Valeo Ultimate wiper blades Feb 16, 2012 $50
3. Misc parts: Armrest extension, cargo net, intermittent wiper stalk, JDM tail lights, JDM clear corners, trunk lamp Feb 24, 2012 $517
4. JDM Impreza WRX STi RA Version 6 DCCD gauge cluster Apr 18, 2012 $280
5. Subaru Impreza JDM front grille Apr 28, 2012 $159
6. Perrin Turbo Inlet Hose May 02, 2012 $255
7. DCCDPro DCCD controller w/ OEM controls May 05, 2012 627$
8. x 2012 $
Total $6488

(via Kelley Blue Book as of Feb 18, 2012) 2004 Subaru WRX STi          -           $14000-17000
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