It's all in the tires

This past weekend I did the usual driving on my makeshift simulator playing GT Sport. My absolute favorite thing to do - and just about the only thing I do these days - is drive the Porsche 911 GT3RS on the Nurburgring Nordschleife. Cumulatively since early Summer I must’ve driven around 200 laps on the 13+ mile circuit, which is a number I aim to get into the thousands.

For whatever reason, probably a mix of boredom and curiosity, I had the urge to sample another popular racing game: Assetto Corsa. The game also features the Nordschleife and the same model year GT3RS so I thought it’d be a bit of intrigue to compare the two titles. A hefty 25GB download and $40 dollars damage to the wallet later, for the first time ever I was driving a different game that isn't Gran Turismo. 

I really should’ve switched sooner. Assetto Corsa is absolutely fantastic. Graphically it cannot hold a candle to GT (zero attempt at photo-realism here) but on driving dynamics it’s a league above. For the longest time I’ve read about how the likes of GT and Forza are more on the arcade side than pure simulation, and that has been utterly confirmed within one lap of the Nordschleife in AC.

It’s completely down to the tires. GT’s physic engine is quite excellent in replicating responses and reflexes of a real car, and in that area it isn’t far behind Assetto Corsa. What AC revealed to me that was utterly lacking in GT is proper tire simulation. Tires in GT are standardized arbitrary values with no basis of correlation to anything realistic. High horsepower road cars in GT Sport are practically un-drivable even with traction control turned on unless racing slicks are put on. 

A Ferrari LaFerrari in GT Sport will roast its stock tires through the first four gears - highly unrealistic. Even the aforementioned GT3RS is unusable in first gear because it cannot find traction - unless I put on slick tires. 

Assetto Corsa has shown me the light: proper tire model is the foundation of a good driving simulator. AC replicates the actual tires of what a particular car came with from the factory. Select a Toyota Trueno Sprinter AE86 in the game and in the setup menu it’ll show it’s fitted with ‘Street 90s’ tires. A GT3RS on the other hand is shod with bespoke ‘Hypercar road’ rubber. Good tire modeling provides a tremendous amount of road feel and information transmitted through the steering wheel. Instead of relying on muscle memory I can now better react to the minute details of what the car is telling me. 

Playing Assetto Corsa has been a revelation. I don’t think I can go back to GT Sport, as incredibly beautiful and pretty to look at it may be (I’m going to miss the sunset flares and orange glow on the Nordschleife). AC is great if you’re like me and just want to get in a car and go: all tracks and cars are available right from the beginning. 

Cheers to many more miles to come. 

It may be a GT logo on there but it's all Assetto Corsa from now on. 

911 or bust

If you’re going buy a Porsche car, and you’re the type of person - like me - who can only afford one, the answer can only be the vaunted 911. 

I intend complete disrespect to the Boxster and Cayman. Indeed the duo may be the best most dynamically balanced sports car for any money.  What Porsche has engineered with mere MacPherson struts at all four corners is simply amazing. I definitely would not decline a go in a Cayman GT4 or a Boxster GTS. 

But it’s not a 911. Given an option between said Cayman GT4 or a poverty-spec Carrera, I’d pick the 911 every single time. The Cayman would be the better driver’s car, but for me it cannot hold a candle to the icon, no matter what extreme racing spec it comes in. 

You buy a Porsche, you buy a 911. 

We definitely shouldn't take into account what other people say, but let’s face it, Boxster and Cayman owners are looked at as people who can’t afford a 911. Just like Jaguar sports car buyers are people who haven’t got the money for an Aston Martin; an Audi is out of the price bracket? Buy a Volkswagen. 

It’s all a compromise. I don’t want to compromise. Because when we cheap out on lesser versions there’s bound to be disappointment down the road. The BMW M235i drivers looking forlorn at the M2 pulling up alongside. The flat-bill hatted kid in an WRX wishing he saved a bit longer for the STI. 

If I’m buying a Porsche, it’s got to be a 911. Not just a plain 911, but a GT3. 

Anything less isn't worth the pursuit. 

Nothing like heavy roadwork at 7 in the morning to wake up the neighborhood. 

You've lost me on cars as investments

Perhaps it’s my wealth level's (or lack thereof) inability to provide the proper perspective, but I don't understand people that treat cars as investments. 

Obviously I’m referring to the ultra rich that buy super expensive cars and then park them in climate-controlled garages, all in hopes of gaining significant profit some times in the future. The common Honda Accord us plebs buy is not an investment ever. 

I am speaking to the sort of well-heeled car enthusiasts that buy a limited-edition Porsche 911R for around $250K then promptly garage it. And why wouldn’t they? A delivery-mileage sample fetches $500K now; no telling how much that’ll go up given enough years. Naturally-aspirated 911s with a stick are a dying breed. 

My contention with cars as investment isn’t that it’s driving up prices: capitalism is the best economic system ever and the price anything rightfully ought to be what the market will bear. I complain about the same mechanism going on in housing speculation but unlike houses where you can always build more, there’s only so many Toyota 2000GTs rolling around. 

The issue I have is the utter lack of driving these cars. The point of ownership is completely lost to me once these investors lock them up to preserve miles. Can these people even call themselves car enthusiasts? A car isn’t a car unless I can drive it, and often. 

I respect the heck out of enthusiasts like Nick Mason who continues to drive his unobtanium Ferrari 250 GTO even though it’s worth deep into the eight figures. Car guys like Jay Leno who’s got a large collection but he drives each and every one, irrespective of what it’ll sell for down the road. 

If you're going to buy a car and just park it, why not invest in paintings or sculptures instead? At least those items would be serving its innate function. An automobile's innate function is to be driven and be on the open road. 

Congratulations, Tinder: you've made OkCupid embrace casual hookup sex. 

Once you have success, you will be hated

Piggybacking on yesterday’s post, particularly about Jeff Bezos’ multiple billions of dollars in net worth. Why does the general public shame people with money? Is it jealousy? It’s got to be jealousy, right? Underneath reports of Bezos’ immense wealth are be comments and tweets about how being a billionaire is immoral and ought to be illegal, and how could Bezos hoard this massive money while there are people suffering. 

Another example is Elon Musk. He gets pilloried on the daily simply for being a billionaire that dared to start an (electric) car company from scratch. The have-nots and non-doers hating on those that actually produce and changing people’s lives. 

And should’ve they get rewarded for it? Think of how indispensable is Amazon to each of our lives; I do as much of my shopping possible through it. Tesla is the absolute vanguard of the electric car evolution; mainstream automakers would not be jumping onboard now had Tesla not shown its viability

It seems once a person have achieved great financial success they get magically transferred over to the villain category, and their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities become no longer endearing but the stuff of scorn. Elon Musk’s preference to date girls many decades his junior? That’s just pure evil! Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post is surely a move to push his corrupt agenda! 

A few years back I read about the ‘stealth wealth’ movement, that people with money are purposely hiding the fact from the general public, precisely due to the jealousy and rage factor. Think of the legions of tech-bros blending in with plain shirts and jeans, and the protestors blocking and vandalizing tech company charter buses.

Mustn’t be conspicuous or else risk the wrath of someone keying your nice Porsche car. Never mind the hard work done to buy that Porsche; nobody cares about that. They just see a spoiled 1%’er and his superfluous toy. 

Only the ridiculously rich can afford to be outwardly ostentatious, what with their protected neighborhoods, vast estates, and ultra exclusive gatherings. But if you’re a public figure like Bezos and Musk, the clamor and anger from the cheap seats is a fact of life. 

A rare sight in San Francisco: free-flowing traffic on the highway. 

People don't want the daily grind

Few days ago this piece of advice popped onto my twitter feed:

Trifecta

-Read 1 hour a day

-Write 1 hour a day

-train 1 hour a day

Do that for 3 years, and you’ll be world class at whatever you apply yourself too

— Alexander J.A Cortes (@AJA_Cortes) July 14, 2018

This reads super familiar because it is precisely what I do. Everyday I've got a checklist of things to accomplish and it's the process of doing them for a prolonged period of time that personal progress materializes. It's hard to believe it's been two years since I've started studying Korean. The daily grind of hitting the books really escapes me from the macro view. 

Read the last (only) sentence of that tweet. For most people doing an hour of each of those three items isn't a problem; it's the need to continuously get after it for three years that proves to be an impenetrable barrier. In our modern times of instant gratification and constantly chasing dopamine hits (hello, Instagram), where promises of fast weight-loss diets still get bought, and short cuts and life-hack articles get tons of clicks, three years might as well be an eternity. 

They want the baby but not the labor pains. 

I can empathize with such sentiment. Indeed some days are difficult when the pay-off (so to speak) is years away. There are days I'd really rather not write on this blog, and I have to fight against all counter momentum just to put down some words - any words. Because not doing so stunts the progress, however micro it may be. 

I'm currently saving up for my next car. I'd be lying if I say the process isn't at moments excruciating. 

Success takes a bloody long time. The public only see the veneers of victory and not the hard battle fought for it. Jeff Bezos is in the news for being the richest man on the face of the planet, but lost in the commotion is the fact he spent multiple decades toiling at Amazon to achieve that status. 

So get after it. Every day. It'll be tough, and the rewards won't be for many years, but it's the only way. 

Perks of being a wallflower. 

Apple's sneaky fix for its butterfly keyboard

Last week Apple (finally) updated the internals of their Macbook Pro line with the latest Intel processors, among other improvements (optional 32GB of ram!). The news however was overshadowed because all focus was on whether or not Apple has fixed the issues with their butterfly-switch keyboards. The greatest laptop in the world would be quite useless if mere grains of sand can render keys wholly inoperative. Bold move indeed if Apple kept the same keyboard in the new refresh. 

The good news is Apple did update the keyboard in the new Macbook Pros, calling it their third generation butterfly mechanism. Missing from the PR literature however is any mention of fix for sticking and unresponsive keys. With multiple lawsuits in preparation against it, Apple is likely not at liberty to openly admit any faults innate to prior generation butterfly keyboards. Therefore the official company line is that the gen-three butterfly keys are quieter than the previous versions. 

Journalists who’ve had a first-hand look have found this to be true.   

The team at iFixit did their usual diligence and tore open a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro. They found that underneath each key-cap is a silicone membrane/gasket covering the butterfly mechanism. The new part appears to be what’s damping the clicking noise (ergo quieter as Apple says), though it also functions to prevent small dust particles from seeping in further underneath the key-caps - a de-facto remedy for the malfunctioning keys problem. 

So it seems Apple did fix the issues of the old butterfly keyboards; they just won’t say so officially, again probably due to the pending lawsuits. A PR move dictated by the needs of the lawyering brigade.

Nevertheless, owners of Mac laptops outfitted with the first or second generation butterfly mechanism ought to demand that Apple retrofit this rubber gasket solution onto their Macbooks. On the other hand I wouldn’t buy a Mac laptop that hasn’t got the gen-three butterfly keys; Apple needs to update the rest of its laptop lineup quickly.  

Apple should also continue to work on its 'Portrait Mode' algorithms. The blur on the stem as it meets the flower head is horrendous. 

I won't be saving the manuals?

There’s a solid chance my next car will not have a manual transmission. 

A few years ago I would’ve call that an unimaginably frightening prospect. All the cars I’ve owned thus far have had a stick, and I wasn’t planning on deviating from that for the next one. However, the price level of sports cars I can now afford have changed, and along with that the gearbox situation as well. 

First I must say I continue to adore the manual gearbox: it provides an analog and tactile connection to the driving dynamics that’s utterly lacking in an automatic, no matter how good of a dual-clutch transmission it may be. The beautiful euphoria and sense of accomplishment in executing a perfectly timed heel-toe downshift is incomparable and irreplaceable. 

As all car enthusiasts know, the manual gearbox is being left behind by manufacturers. People aren’t buying stick-shift cars therefore automakers aren’t incentivized to continue development. Often in high-power sports cars the manual transmission - if offered at all - seems to be an after-thought and not nearly as good as the automatic version. In the C7 Corvette for example it’s painfully obvious much of development money is spent on the slushbox. Chevy engineers have actually told journalists the Corvette with the auto is the spec to buy. 

Worse, once you start looking at sports cars into the six-figures, the landscape is almost barren for the manual transmission. 

Putting the lack of demand side, from a technical perspective it makes zero sense for manufacturers to engineer a stick-shift ‘box: modern automatics have gotten tremendously good. A proper dual-clutch unit can shift faster than any human ever and never miss a rev-match downshift. 

But what I most appreciate is the improved gearing: in chasing fuel-economy and top-speed figures, automakers have spaced gear ratios in cars super wide, making life difficult for the standard six-cog manuals. The latest automatics have higher gear counts so the engine’s power-band is better utilized - it's always in the sweet-spot. Driving the latest Golf GTI with a manual was very frustrating because by the end of second-gear the car’s already traveling beyond 70mph. Sacrilege it may be but I'd tick the option box for the 7-speed DSG. 

Due to these factors and the fact I will be looking at used sports cars in the low $100,000s, the manual transmission will likely be eluding me for the forseeable future. 

Daybreak clouds this morning.