Blog

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

It should not cost this much

Used car prices are kind of insane.

On occasion I like to window browse on Carvana and CarMax. Just to see if anything weird and interesting pop up. Recently there was a 2016 Toyota Corolla with a manual transmission up for sale. It brought me back to my very first car: a 2006 Toyota Corolla, also in stick shift guise. It’s very rare to see the common commuter sedan with a manual gearbox. Good on the owner(s) of the 2016 Corolla to have put over 70,000 miles on it. We like to see cars driven.

What we don’t like to see is ridiculous pricing. The listed price on CarMax for that 2016 Toyota Corolla is $16,000. Keep in mind the original MSRP of the car 10 years ago was $17,300! Even if you account for inflation - $24,155 in today’s dollars - 16 grand for a decade old poverty spec sedan is laughable. Especially when it’s equipped with a manual gearbox that nobody wants. This isn’t some Porsche sports car with a stick.

Even if you account for the CarMax premium for let’s say $2,000, a 2016 Corolla still isn’t a $14,000 car. It’s not even a $10,000 car. A gut-feeling fair price for a 10 year old compact sedan is around the $7,000 mark. $8,000 perhaps if the mileage is sufficiently low. Is this simply the era we are living in? Just like how there are zero new cars available for under $20,000, the reasonably conditioned used car for under $10,000 - that every personal finance guru says is available - has also disappeared into history.

I used to have a 2016 Mazda MX-5. That same model year of Miata in today’s market looks to be hovering near $20,000 for a low mileage sample, which is insanity. A decade old MX-5 should be less than $10,000, no matter the miles. It’s not a rare car; Mazda has produced plenty, and continues to do so to this very year. Used examples should not be encroaching on the price of a new one.

Because then why wouldn’t you throw in the extra thousand for one with zero miles and zero farts on the seats? You’d get better financing terms buying new, too. The lower interest costs might even make the price delta disappear completely.

Press F for physical media

There seems to be an uproar on the Internet at the news that Sony will cease making physical game discs for its PlayStation console starting in January of 2028. High speed broadband Internet is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t make sense to waste resources on physical media, packaging, and shipping. Sony certainly has data reflecting gamers’ preference for digital downloads. Steam has perfected this on the PC side for decades. When is the last time you bought a physical copy of a PC game?

Of course, human nature is such that it’s painful to take away something from them. Even if that thing is something they seldom use. You may not have purchased a physical game in years, but you quite like the idea that the option is always there. Now that Sony is taking that away, you write loudly on the Internet at the injustice.

Even taking on Sony’s reasoning for this move to be true, it’s absolute a background ploy to make more money. Digital-only distribution means games cannot be shared. Nor can there be a secondary market for used games. The reason Rockstar is charging only $79 for Grand Theft Auto 6 is because anyone that wishes to play, has to buy. The physical version is only a glorified case with a code to download the game. Surely that code is one time use.

There other loss here is the inability to showcase your collection of games. Bookcases full of game titles will have a definite cut-off point in terms of newness. As someone that prefers analog and tactile, I can understand that pain. Half the reason I buy physical books is to display them on the shelves. You can tell I am a learned man when you see my stocked bookshelves in my Zoom background (tongue fully in cheek).

The one real concern for physical disc aficionados is that when games are solely in the digital realm, the distributor controls the access. You don’t really own the games - you’re at the mercy of Sony in continuing to support the PlayStation platform. It’s a fair question to ask whether or not PlayStation 5 games will still be active when the PlayStation 6 or 7 era come around. Even if you are fully trusting of Sony’s intentions, it doesn’t sit well with people that the potential will soon exist.

But honestly: how often have you gone back to replay a game?

That said, I am optimistic that our friends on the high seas will ensure copies of games will exist outside of Sony’s walled garden. And if that garden ever goes away, coders will surely whip up emulators to replace. It’s the same mechanism that’s been supporting retro gaming for many many years.

I shall still proverbially pour one out for the physical game disc.

Using the proper fluid

A dirty front windshield is very annoying to me. Because I am an obsessive psychopath. That is why every time I get into the car, I hit the washers to remove the previous day’s detritus off my field of view. It isn’t perfect, of course - only the sections covered by the wipers get cleaned, but it’s good enough.

The constant washing presents a problem: I go through washer fluid by the gallons. (I was amazed to read that some drivers use so little windshield fluid that their cars are still on the factory fill!) Throughout my car owning history, I have bought distilled water at the local grocery store. Distilled because it’s doubly free of minerals, so there’s no chance of leaving water spots on the paint. So far, so easy.

Modern cars have sensor in the washer fluid tank that notifies drivers via the dash when the levels get low. The sensor achieves this by utilizing the water as a conducting loop. When the fluid level is no longer high enough to complete the signal, it then trips the warning light. Pretty intuitive and easy.

On my Golf GTI, however, the warning light remains on even when I’ve just refilled the tank. Turns out, distilled water - lacking any sorts of minerals - isn’t conductive enough to complete the signal loop. Sure there’s water submerging the sensor points, but it’s effectively doing nothing.

The solution is simple: use proper windshield fluid. Therefore, for the first time in my 20 years of driving, I actually filled store-bought washer fluid into one of my cars. A bit of a hassle, since the auto parts store is further away from me than the grocery store. Also, a gallon of windshield fluid is some two dollars more expensive than a gallon of distilled water. Inflation continues…

Colorful foggy Fourth

What did they think was going to happen?

I understand wanting to do something special for the 250th birthday of this great country. But having Fourth of July fireworks over the Golden Gate Bridge was ill-advised at best. The famous San Francisco fog is ever constant on the west side of the city, and like clockwork, it showed up yesterday fiercely as usual. What you expected to be something spectacular, turned out to be just a bunch of colored clouds.

What a waste! The organizer should have cancelled the fireworks soon as they learned of the antagonistic weather. Treat it like the Mavericks surf competition: if the waves aren’t humungous, the contest is suspended.

San Francisco should recoup the costs by installing more speeding cameras. Because they absolutely work to slow down insane drivers. Just today someone was tailgating me heavily as I was heading to my parents. The road opened up to two lanes, so the impatient driver moved over to pass. However, we were approaching a known speed camera section. Right on cue, even the mad driver slowed all the way down below the speed limit. It was amazing to see.

More of that, please. The stretch of 19th Avenue next to San Francisco State can definitely use a speed camera or three. Because every night I can hear cars and motorbikes treat that road like a timed drag strip. I’m trying to sleep here!

Half of it is gone

Surprise! Half of 2026 is already gone. I hope you are able to look back and say the past six months has been time well spent. And if you cannot say that for yourself, then it’s time to get off your ass!

I would say my first half of the year has been rather uneventful. But that’s good, right? Boring is good. It is suppose to be boring. Novelty is great, but too much of it means a lack of focus. You pick something to do for a long time and there are for sure going to be dog days.

Much of my weekends in 2026 was focused on getting my new-to-me 2019 VW Golf GTI up to shape. It was exhilarating to wake up on Saturdays with the lastest thing to fix, or the latest item to install. If fairy godparents somehow bestowed upon me the endless money glitch, buying used cars and fixing them up would be something I genuine would do everyday.

Obviously that’s not how reality works. People speak of following passions, but as someone with an entrepreneurial business degree, passion is only the spark. The fuel to sustain the burn is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. Often times people are unwilling to marinate in the minutiae of it all. How are you going to sell your talents? Putting down “it will work out” for the marketing section would have gotten you an F in class.

Or perhaps there isn't fuel to burn at all - the thing you’re passionate about is not financially viable. For me, there’s very little business in fixing up used cars to then not sell. So a hobby it remains. That means for five days out of the week, I have to put in time at a place I’m not nearly as enthused about, in order to be able to do the thing I am super motivated for. And honestly, that in between time can get mighty frustrating. Never mind the other parts of human living that gets in the way, like eating and self care.

Those afflicted with passion can attest to the times when you’re so into doing something, sleep is a mere suggestion. You just want to keep going. And you do!

I think I’ll spend rest of 2026 coming to terms with that fact that my ability to follow my passions is predicated on accepting that it will be cyclical. And that the days without will be way more numerous than the day with. No wonder artists of pre-modern times had moneyed patrons!

Don't be a robot

It remains to be seen what the supposed AI revolution means for us ordinary working peasants. We will all be out of jobs - essentially replaced by robots? If that’s the case, we need Andrew Yang to return to the stage and resume extolling the virtues of universal basic income. We got to eat!

I do have a tip on how to avoid being replaced by AI: don’t act like a robot. Because if you act like a robot, then you can be easily replaced by a robot. We’re all familiar with this type of worker. Every assignment needs to be spelled out precisely down to the punctuations. If this, then that. Should the worker encounter a scenario that isn’t explicitly listed out previously, they immediately get stuck and asks for help. No critical thinking, zero problem solving.

If all you are is an if-then machine, then you’re going to get replaced by a machine.

Even before AI, computer automation has already happened. Car companies don’t need humans anymore to paint cars. Robotic arms can perform to the millimeter precision, with very little downtime. But manufactures still employ human final paint checkers, because the discernment of the human brain remains unrivaled in the world of ones and twos. That’s where the money is: critical thinking, ad hoc problem solving, and genuine creativity. If you’re capable of such skills, employment will never forsake you.

If you’re just an input and output device, not only can AI replace you, but so can a fresh college grad who can be hired for way cheaper.

We're all paying for it

You know RAM prices have truly gone off the deep end when Apple of all companies is raising prices on their products. The same Apple that famously already charges a premium for extra storage and memory. It seems even those fat margins are not enough to swallow the hyper inflation of semiconductor chips due to the supposedly AI revolution. It now costs $1999 for the base MacBook Bro, up from $1699. Kind of insane.

I guess this M1 Max MacBook Pro of mine will solider on until it literally dies.

All eyes now turn to the annual September iPhone event. Will the iPhone get a price bump for the first time in a long time? Place your bets at your prediction market platform of choice.

AI has been cashing checks and making promises (still a solution looking for a problem if you ask me), and yet the downstream negative effects are burdened by everyone. We’re all paying for it, just so Silicon Valley can keep on minting fresh new millionaires and bilionaires. An iPad for grandmother is now $150 more expensive - thanks to AI-caused inflation, even though AI won’t touch her everyday life in the slightest. Our utility bills keep going higher thanks to data centers drawing energy the equivalent of entire cities.

Whether you use Chat-GPT or not, you’re paying for it one way or another. That’s not very fair, is it?