Being a Real Person®, Part I of Many

It sure has been a while since I've blogged (about anything!), so this post will be an end to such hiatus. I have a bunch of drafts on various technical shenanigans, but haven't found time to write in the middle of relocating.

Moving was pretty darn stressful. Because I am a Terrible Person and procrastinated, I felt pressured to liquidate a bunch of computer parts at the last minute. I was not pleased that I had to make aggressive price cuts to increase liquidity. At least I sold all of my GPUs I bought for mining, because those would have been worthless now. Having movers to repack and ship was convenient, so everything settled down after they came and did their thing.

My main hobby is taking care of Bud, my Porsche 911, who I bought near the beginning of my senior year :3 (yeah internship money~~~) [1] Driving Bud is a huge blast; I'm getting into advanced stick shift techniques, such as rev-matching my downshifts. I'm still no good at heel-toeing, but that's okay since I'm still learning! One piece of advice I got was to practice by nudging the throttle at a stop light while my foot is on the brake.

I should note that babying Bud is pretty expensive: I got Bud waxed and washed upon delivery ($120) and then a wash and leather conditioning two months later ($80). Most recently B&R Racing did an outstanding job repairing the curbed wheel (completely my fault for being a n00b); that'll be $350 please. On my list of future repairs is replacing the alternator, since the car is really slow to crank from a warm engine, and that's $1500 (thankfully including labor and tax). That said, slow starts aren't a big deal now that I don't stall the car at every other red light.

Carrying responsibilities of a Real Person seems not too hard for now. I don't have much of a life outside of work, which is quite relaxing, so I have plenty of time to do chores and run errands. Because driving Bud is such a blast, I look forward to commuting and getting grocery and shuttling friends to and from the airport and what not.

That said, I do avoid doing some chores, like vacuuming, which I've delegated to the wonderful Roomba. It's not only convenient, but also highly amusing to watch.

On being a woman in CS/technology/STEM, I figured I'll comment a bit since this is much of the rage in the tech industry right now. I have yet to be discriminated against (ever since my middle school misfortunes -- and that was by my female peers). Maybe I'm just socially inept and don't know when my colleagues/classmates/friends are disrespectful toward me or my female peers. There definitely are way fewer females in the teams I'm on and work with, which might be solved by targeted recruiting at women in CS/tech groups, getting and retaining younger females (middle/high school aged) into STEM, reworking social constructs, etc etc.

On that note, as a former USACO (competitive programming) participant, I'm disappointed by the lack of females in the upper divisions (silver, gold, and camp, but camp really is not relevant at this stage). [2] The competitive math scene is better, probably because of more participation and exposure at schools.

[1] My parents paid for my MIT tuition (~3.75 years since I took a light load last term). I will hopefully continue this tradition and hopefully buy my parents a Ferrari someday :3 As for internships, I did something every summer (3x) and every January (4x). All in all, I had a decent surplus after buying the 911. Do math! Make informed decisions!

[2] That said, this year has been extraordinary in that a girl qualified for the invitational camp, but sadly did not represent the US at the international level. This rare event happens once several years; hell, qualifying for the gold division (which I did) isn't even a yearly occurrence. Perhaps I should start mailing high school teachers about it.

A Summer of Cars, Part I

As promised, I have test driven one (1) car a week every week I have been free. Here's a brief writeup of each:

Porsche Boxster (981): Wicked awesome. Great exhaust note, especially with the top down. Accelerates slow enough such that I could enjoy the exhaust note when merging onto highways, or accelerating from red lights. I was surprised that noise isolation was decent with the top up, in contrast to what I've read online. The interior fit and finish is good without full leather, but would be incredibly sumptuous with a special order two-tone natural leather with mahogany wood. I think this car could be a real winner (hey, it won a 10Best award from Car and Driver).

Porsche 911 Carrera (991): Unfortunately, I liked this test drive the least. I found the sport exhaust to be overwhelming; with it enabled while cruising, the exhaust is a loud, unpleasant droning noise. Sport plus mode was exceedingly scary, holding the engine at 5000+ RPM in second gear on the highway. I was also disappointed to find out that I could not fit in the claustrophobic rear seat with an extremely tall driver. So much for the #911fund.

BMW Z4 sDrive30i: Drove a pre-owned one since the dealer doesn't stock Z4s. More of a GT (grand tourer) than the Boxster. Engine roar was good, but quiet for my tastes. Lower quality interior materials than the Boxster, but not sure how a full leather interior would look. Steering was slow and light, unlike the Boxster's, which did not inspire confidence. The car also has poor rearward visibility with the top up. Also, to my horror during the test drive, the temporary license plate fell off when opening the hardtop.

Audi TT 2.0T: Drove a pre-owned one since the dealer doesn't stock TT's. The salesman said that I could "take my time" with the test drive, so I detoured from the normal route and drove on some smaller backroads. The steering was light compared to the Boxsters's, but had a tighter ratio than the Z4's. The accelerator was also very odd; it did not require any effort to push. The engine had unpredictable turbo lag (floor the car and the engine doesn't respond for a second), and did not sound as good compared to those of the Z4 and the Boxster (because of the turbo in the TT). The seats and steering wheel seemed unpadded and were very hard. I was delighted to learn that I can special order one with a manual gearbox to lease.

For kicks and laughs I test drove a Lexus CT200h. In short, it's Lexus's Prius, with the same lethargic powertrain, but considerably better fit and finish. Coming from the TT to a CT in Eco mode, the car was incredibly unresponsive -- pushing the accelerator halfway does practically nothing. Sport mode was marginally better. The car reacted to the throttle, but still moved relatively slowly. The engine roar was an irritating drone that I unconsciously blocked out. Steering was light, but somewhat twitchy. The brake pedal had a very short throw, which took a while to get used to. The synthetic leather feels really odd: it has a much finer grain texture than leather.

Some comments about the dealership experiences: I'm amused that I pass as a potential customer. At ze German dealers, the salesmen were not naggy at all, I think partly because I knew quite a bit about the respective cars. There was also a greater amount of trust: none of the salesmen came on the test drives. This was not the case at the Lexus dealer: the salesmen took every chance to ask if I needed help, and tagged along on the test drive. The Lexus salesman also seemed disappointed when I was "just looking," unlike the respective German marque salesmen.

Next up: Mercedes-Benz SLK and Lotus Elise!

Third time's a charm

Welp, I'm here on the east coast again, trapped in the heat and humidity. It's not all bad though; for the most part of the week, I get fed to watch money being printed. Unfortunately, that's only a good 50 hours a week, at best. What do I do with the rest?

Definitely planning on finishing my scooter and go kart -- I think I learned a fair bit about chassis prototyping to get my scooter chassis right on the first try. I guess I'll have to bear walking in 32ºC weather.

Powerlifting? Seeing as I'm walled around 100/120/135 (bench/squat/deadlift), and without a bench spotter, I doubt I can catch up to vchiu, the star female powerlifter at MIT (she's currently at 110/209/286). All figures in lb.

Learn how to drive a manual? There are no rental agencies that stock manuals! How unfortunate. I'll buy a beater from craigslist after I graduate this December and practice on that for a good half year.

As my consolation prize for not having a stick shift for the summer, I figured a good use of weekends is to sample as many cars as I can before the semester starts. Since there are 11 weekends during which I am employed, 9 of which I'll be free, I figured that I can sample a vehicle a weekend. In particular, here's the plan:

• Porsche Boxster (981) -- 1 Jun
• Porsche 911 Carrera (991) -- 8 Jun
• BMW M3 -- 15 Jun
• Audi S4 -- 22 Jun
• Mercedes-Benz SLK 350 -- 13 Jul
• Lotus Elise -- 20 Jul
• BMW Z4 -- 27 Jul
• Chevrolet Corvette -- 3 Aug
• ??? -- 10 Aug (might ditch this one)

I'm seriously considering a Boxster or 911, not so much the rest. I'm going for as much sportiness without sacrificing too much luxury -- I want my wood trim :P

This summer just got so much better.

Summer

I'm back in the tri-state area for the summer. While it's unfortunate that none of my MIT buddies are remotely close to me, I figured these three months alone were sorely needed to get stuff done.

Or not.

It's too bad that I have more or less only two hours of down time at home every weeknight; transportation is significantly nontrivial compared to last year; I lived half a mile away from the Infinite Loop. Transportation is especially horrendous when the weather is ungodly humid or when the bus is late.

I also miss the shenanigans I'd partake with my MIT buddies. My internship friends are the kind who wouldn't want to be caught dead in a McDonald's, never mind play the Triangular Burger game, in which a group of people line up and, starting with ordering three cheeseburgers, order one more cheeseburger than the person in front. *cough* #richpeople. After two months without McDonald's, I got a little nostalgic for my favorite infant-hood food:

Tower of Hamburger!

For the record, the cheeseburgers from 56th and 8th in NY are considerably drier than the ones from Central Square in Cambridge. They're also 20% more expensive, to my dismay.

On the bright side, work has been pretty fun. My boss has a 5ft remote-controlled flying shark! After only a week I've learned how to drive it really well. I am really tempted to glue an Arduino onto it and make it do something silly, like 8-bit music.

And then of course there are the NYC zoos, which are quite picturesque. I've only been to the Bronx Zoo so far; I'm hoping to go to the other four and practice my photography.

I've also seen some exotics around the city, namely a Mercedes SLS AMG, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, and a Maybach 62S. There's also a ton of fullsize luxury sedans; Audi A8, Mercedes S-class, Lexus LS, and BMW 7 series. It's too bad that one cannot take advantage of the potential of these cars while crawling through streets cluttered by yellow cabs and people.

Now excuse me as I hide from the humidity.