Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Don't heat it up

October in San Francisco has brought along the typical few days of hot weather (hot for this region, anyways), even though it’s autumn. This brings a unique problem to someone like me who lives in a studio (read: very small). When the temperature is high, I cannot cook at night. The room (singular!) is warm enough already; cooking a hot meal adds heat to it, delaying the natural night cool down. The slower the room cools down, the more difficult it is to fall asleep.

A cascade of negative consequences, that’s what it is. Good news is, I live right by a mall with plenty of food options. So on the hot days these past few weeks, take-out dinner was the only sensible option. Not that I need any extra excuse to not cook. The downside of course is the hit to the wallet. Inflation is still high, food prices are still ridiculous. Can you even eat a non-fast food meal for less than $20 these days?

In addition to not cooking when the weather is hot, I also do not use my LG OLED TV. Did you know that OLED televisions consume more power than the equivalent LED unit? All that wattage has to go somewhere: radiating right into the room. So what do I do for entertainment on a hot October San Francisco evening? I use the iPad. That thing runs so cooly that it doesn’t even have an internal fan. Indeed it’s kind of slumming it to go from a 65-inch screen to a 10-inch screen, but I must avoid heating up the room unnecessarily.

Because as mentioned: sleep is utmost importance. The body needs to cool down 1 to 2 degrees in order for the person to fall asleep. The warmer the room, the more challenging it is to get there. What would be ace is one of those mattress toppers that has active cooling. If climate change gets worse, and San Francisco sees more and more hot weather days, it’s something worth considering.

You can go to Chinatown for a meal under $20.

Up and up

Word on the street is that Netflix is once again raising its prices. For 4K top quality Netflix, folks are now looking at $22.99 per month. Is it just me or is that dangerously close to basic cable pricing? Include the other streaming services a person is likely to also subscribe to, then it is basic cable TV costs. We’ve cut the cord, but the money is still flowing out.

Fortunate for me, I don’t subscribe to Netflix. But I am not delusional to think that other streaming services - the ones I do subscribe to - won’t hike their monthly fees soon enough. Imitation is the sincerest form of making money. Remember a few months back when Netflix effectively banned password-sharing? It seems to be a surprise revenue increaser for the company. So of course Disney Plus has begun doing the same thing. Our neighbors up north in Canada will receive the initial brunt of the crackdown. It’s just a matter of time for us here in the States.

My friends who are sharing my account (would this be incriminating?) will have to find other ways to watch Disney programming. Legal or otherwise.

Prices for everything keep going up and up, way too rapidly. A good way to combat this, at least for McDonalds, is to use its app. The deals offered on the McDonalds app really blunts the hefty prices. Yesterday there was a buy-one-get-one-free deal on the double cheeseburger. Two sandwiches for less than five dollars is a win these days. Also, the more you use the app, the more points you earn towards free food.

Not to say you should make McDonalds a constant staple of your diet…

Right from the table

I am a big fan of the restaurants that do ordering right at the table using QR code. I think it is a great system, kind of a step up from fast food counter ordering. Everybody’s got a smartphone these days, right? A quick scan, order what you want, and the food arrives to the table in short order. Best of all, it allows folks to easily pay for their own meal (bonus if I can use Apple Pay right on the website). The QR code system negates the need for card splitting, or heavy Venmo calculations. Everybody gets to earn credit card points!

It’s awesome for large groups. Especially when said group is a bunch of car enthusiasts gathering once a year, most of us having previously only met on the Internet. Surely a restaurant would hate to split a bill amongst ten credit cards. Having one person pay, and then accept Venmo from everyone else, is a huge hassle as well. That’s why I was surprised and relieved to see the restaurant was the order-from-the-table-via-QR-code type.

Ordering from the table has got to be a thing borne out of the pandemic, right? Back when indoor person-to-person contact is to be avoided as much as possible. Instead of a server coming around to take orders, let people order for themselves digitally. The point-of-sale is packaged right in, too - that’s another interaction eliminated. The only face-to-face potential is when the server brings the food. But even that, I’ve seen in some restaurants, can be done by robots.

This is one of those necessary changes spurned on by the unfortunate pandemic that we are happy to see continue on. Another one is the hybrid university classroom, where students have the option of attending in person, or joining virtually from Zoom.

You son of a beach, I'm in

I am officially in on the Waymo app. I can now hail a fully autonomous car to take me anywhere (?) in San Francisco. Bad news for me is unlike the early invitees, rides are no longer free. But, I am excited to see what it is all about. Hopefully there won’t be any crashing into emergency vehicles. There definitely will not be any sex.

Can we trust computers fully? This morning, my Apple Watch did its hourly thing of reminding me to stand up. Problem is: I was already standing for the past 20 minutes! Kind of disappointed it wasn’t completely foolproof to detect that. I guess the Apple Watch doesn’t use a proximity sensor to gauge how far it is from the floor? That makes sense, actually. Otherwise, you can fake standing by sitting on a bar stool.

Pilots trust autopilot programs on airplanes, and by transitive properly, so do we as passengers. Obviously, there are way less airplanes in the sky compared to cars on the road. Also, there aren’t pedestrians and other objects to potentially run into.

I think the so called robotaxis are perfect for the introverts like myself. I almost never (want to) talk to the UBER driver, and always sit in the back passenger space. (Are there UBER drivers out there using two-door coupes?) With robotaxis, even the subtle pressure of making conversation with the driver will be gone! It is a completely silent car ride - there’s nobody else but me. I would totally watch a Youtube video during a Waymo ride, if I weren’t prone to carsickness.

Will I get annoyed at how strictly a Waymo ride follows the rules of the road? Example: everybody’s going 10 above, while the robotaxi is pegged to the speed limit. Unlike a human driver taxi, there isn’t (yet?) a financial incentive for a robotaxi to get to the destination as quickly as possible.

Just hose it off!

Word on the street is Tesla will begin offering vehicle wraps from its service locations. The stock Tesla color palette isn’t to your exquisite tastes? Then fork over $8,000 for the privilege of having a (presumably) factory-backed vinyl wrap. (Customers can also opt for clear protection film at a more affordable $5,000.) My poor maths says that’s over 20% of the purchase price of a Tesla Model 3. I suspect there won’t be much takers in that price category. A Tesla Model S Plaid optioned out into the six-figures? That’s far more reasonable.

I once had paint protection film done to the entire front half of my Subaru Impreza WRX STI. The not-even-the-whole-car wrap cost $2,300 in 2013 money (That’s $3,000 in today’s money). I kind of immediately regret getting that done. My WRX STI was white, and that color really shows a subtle yet noticeable difference between the wrapped surface and virgin paint. The car never looked cohesive front to rear. For a light-colored car, the ideal way to do paint protection film is to wrap the entire car. I didn’t - and still do not - have that kind of money.

What truly is worth the money - in the world of paint preserving products - is ceramic coating. For those unfamiliar: think of it as paint wax that lasts for many years. Road grime and droppings from the sky (be they avian or industrial) have a difficult time sticking to ceramic-coated paint surfaces. Therefore it drastically reduces car washing labor. My BMW M2 has ceramic coating done, and after a 900 mile road trip, I simply hosed off the grime at a local self-serve car wash. Afterwards the car looked as if it never left on a lengthy journey.

Obviously, the money be damned thing to do is to wrap the entire car in protective film, then ceramic coat on top of that. If I had that done to the M2, I would never hand-wash it again. Taking it to the spray wash periodically will be more than enough to keep it clean and shiny. But, if you’re like me and can only afford one of those options, I highly suggest going with ceramic coating. Time is money, friends.

An electric road trip

Turns out, road-tripping in a Tesla electric vehicle is eminently doable. At least in California.

During my recent trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles - driving my very not electric BMW M2 (God bless the dinosaur juice!) - a friend drove down with me in his Tesla Model 3. It gave me the opportunity to see what it is like to drive hundreds of miles, in a single day, in an electric-vehicle. What is the charging infrastructure like? Do charging times dramatically affect progress towards our destination?

It’s important to keep in mind that we are talking about Tesla. Tesla famously have its own supercharging network. Your non-Tesla EV obviously may have a wholly different experience going down the length of California in a single day.

The supercharging network is fabulous. The ones we went to were situated in malls, offering a far better bathroom experience than the dank ones in gas stations. We even did some last-minute road-trip essentials shopping at the Target next to the first supercharger we stopped at. It makes sense that superchargers are in areas of higher quality than the typical highway-side rest stops. Purveyors of six-figure Tesla cars aren’t wont to slum it with the peasants.

Improved amenities aside, the best thing about the superchargers is the charging speed. My friend charged his Model 3 Long Range from 20% battery to 80% in less than 20 minutes. Just enough time for a bathroom break and stretch of the legs. For sure that charging time is considerably longer than a simple gas fill-up, but if you coincide the charging with the need for humans to take a break as well, then 20 minutes did not feel burdensome at all.

One of the major concerns folks have with electric vehicles is taking them on long trips. I can affirm that if you have a Tesla and you’re in California, that concern is nonexistent. You can comfortably traverse the State and be confident that a supercharger station is always within reach. And once at a supercharger, the refilling experience is quick and seamless. Tesla have done a fantastic job building out the infrastructure, one that I’m sure is a huge competitive advantage.

Running in the 190s

This past Sunday was the first time running with the Apple Watch, and I have to say it was delightful. To be able to run without the iPhone - either in an armband holder, holding it in my hand, or it sloshing around in a pants pocket - is such a luxury. I preloaded my running playlist onto the Apple Watch, and it alone was able to play music through to my set of AirPods Pro. Don’t need to rely on the iPhone for tunes anymore.

I also don’t have to reply on third-party apps to track my running. The Apple Watch’s native workout app does the job superbly, without selling my information to a third party. (As always: if the produce is free, you are the product.)

What the Apple Watch can do that the iPhone absolutely cannot is heart-rate tracking. It’s interestingly informative to see the stats post exercise. For example, my maximum heart-rate during the run was 191 beats-per-minute (BPM), with an average of 175 BPM. That sure seems like a lot of blood pumping to me! What’s most fascinating is that my heart-rate remained elevated for the hour immediately after running. I was just lounging on the couch watching football! I guess the extremities are still crying for energy delivery, even after the exercise is over.

I’ve become that person now: checking their Apple Watch every now and then during a workout to see the progress. Even during the normal day-to-day, I am moving the left wrist up to see my current step count (got to get the daily 10,000!). I hope this gamification of health doesn’t become obsessive compulsive. The Apple Watch is suppose to assist, not become an albatross.