Author: patrick

Car Shopping

In the past, my parents haven’t really done car shopping. They buy a 4-ish year old car and keep it until it dies, which is fine. The problem comes when the car dies. They scramble to buy a car as soon as possible, and they’re stuck with whatever is on local dealer lots that week. My dad pays for the cars and he has refused to get an automatic since forever. This further limits the potential purchases.

It’s about time for my mom to get a car. She has a 2007 Saab 9-5 wagon, with the very rare manual transmission. It’s an alright car, but it has close to 180,000 miles and it’s getting creaky. Last summer, I had to replace the rusted power steering lines, which was an enormous job. Not long after, I tried to replace the rear shocks. When I tried to undo the bolts securing them to the car body, one bolt broke, and the welded nut for another started spinning. I decided to not risk going any further. The car gets from A to B and is reliable, but it’s getting old. Not to mention, it’s a Saab, so while parts availability isn’t totally awful right now, no one knows when the parts will dry up.

Because cars are my life, I decided we should go car shopping. Even if they wanted to wait until a car drops dead, at least they’d have the test driving part of the process done, and maybe they could take some extra time to shop around for a good price on a car they actually want.

I put together a list of cars to look for. My mom’s one must-have feature is a heated steering wheel. It’s actually not a rare item these days, but it’s often locked away in a high trim level or options package. She wants something comfortable and soft, so I decided we should look at larger sedans. She’s open to an SUV type thing, but I haven’t found any that fit the price range. My dad finally OK’d an automatic transmission this time, so that opens up a ton of options.

So here’s what we looked at:

Lincoln MKZ

The first thing we drove was a 2017 Lincoln MKZ. Actually, we drove two of them; one four-cylinder and one six-cylinder, both in the Reserve trim. It’s a pretty nice car. Just look at it. It looks great. The leather was much better quality than I was expecting, as were the rest of the interior materials. Most reviews seem to deride it as a tarted-up Ford Fusion. Yes, it’s on the Fusion platform, but it’s a very different car inside and out. Thanks to the Fusion platform, it’s a decent size car on the outside, but kind of tight inside. The center console in the front is huge, and head room in the back seat is in short supply. The standard 2-liter turbo four-cylinder engine is adequately powerful, but kind of coarse like most four-cylinders. The optional 3-liter twin-turbo V6 however, is a lot of engine. It puts out 400 horsepower and 400 ft-lbs of torque. It’s probably too much engine for the car, but it’s more fun than you’d expect from a Lincoln. Prices are excellent too. A Reserve trim four-cylinder with 20,000 to 30,000 miles can be had for not much more than $20,000 and a V6 for maybe $25,000.

BMW 5 Series

Next up was a 2016 BMW 535i xDrive. My mom and I were both thoroughly whelmed by the car. It was fine. It’s a good car, but not really all that interesting, which I guess is the point of a big German car. It was exactly what we expected.

Subaru Outback

After that, we checked out a 2017 Subaru Outback 3.6R, in the Limited trim. It was actually really good. I can see why they sell as many as they make, if not more. It was quiet and comfortable and well laid out inside. The trunk is huge, of course. The back seat is decently sized. My mom wasn’t expecting to like it as much as she did. Our one hang-up on the car is the CVT transmission. Subaru has been using them for a while and they don’t seem to have a bad reputation, but I still don’t feel totally confident in them. I’d feel a lot better with a regular automatic. The six-cylinder engine in this car is neat because it’s a boxer layout, but it just wheezes out 256 horsepower. Toyota gets 300 with 100cc less displacement. It’s still better than the four-cylinder that wheezes out a paltry 175 horsepower. I don’t know how Subaru gets so little power out of so much engine.

Cadillac CTS

Later that day we checked out a 2016 (I think) Cadillac CTS. I could only find a four-cylinder model nearby, but it turned out not to matter. Neither of us really liked it. The engine was unrefined for the class of car, but it felt more powerful than I expected. The shifter was positioned oddly. The fit and finish of the materials in the car wasn’t great; several adjacent seams in the dashboard stitching didn’t line up correctly. Not what you want to see in a car that originally cost close to $60,000. But worst of all were the center stack controls. They’re all capacitive touch buttons, and they’re mounted on a springy board. It’s difficult to use and doesn’t feel very nice. We crossed this car off the list before the test drive was over.

Genesis G80

Remember the Hyundai Genesis? Yeah, no one else does either. It grew up into its own brand. And just look at it. This is one of maybe a dozen or so cars I’d buy just to look at. I think it’s a styling masterpiece. It’s bold enough to stand out right now, but conservative enough that it’ll still look good in 20 years. Plus, it’s rare. Like, really rare. They sold under 20,000 G80s in the US for 2017, and under 10,000 the next year. I was surprised to see one close to home, and it was a V8 no less. That car was great to drive. The inside looks just as good as the outside. It has the best cooled seats I’ve ever used. They get cold, but make hardly any noise. The V8 engine is perfect for the car. It’s effortless, and makes a great noise, one you might not expect from this kind of car. The only drawback is the price. The one we looked at was being advertised for$36,000. There’s also a V6 model, which we drove the other day. It’s 85% as good as the V8. Other than the engine, the V6 we drove was identically equipped to the V8. The V8 is certainly better, but probably not $10,000 better.

For now, the G80 is at the top of the list, followed by the MKZ, then the F10 BMW 5-series and the Subaru Outback. I’m going to try to get my dad to drive the G80 later this week to see if I can convince him that it’s worth a little more money over the MKZ.

Another Update on My NextPVR System

Way back in April of last year, I told you about getting Verizon FiOS and setting up a NextPVR server and a Kodi client on a Raspberry Pi. I never did get that timeshifting problem fixed. It works when using NextPVR on the server, but crashes on the Raspberry Pi Kodi client. I think it has to do with the TV tuner I’m using. It’s a Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCI. It’s an old tuner that uses some proprietary system to interact with recording software. Because of that, it’s only compatible with Windows Media Center (RIP 😥) and NextPVR. I’d really prefer to use an HD Homerun device with a Linux based server, but they aren’t selling any cable card tuners right now. Anyways, I think that Ceton driver junk is hampering the timeshifting.

Since I’ve been back at school, I’ve been noticing the enormous number of Lenovo business computers around campus. A light bulb lit up in my head the other day. Why not replace the Raspberry Pi with a tiny Lenovo running Windows? So I did. I bought a decommissioned M72e Tiny from eBay for about $20. It’s a tiny computer, as the name implies. It’s about the size of a typical hardcover book. The listing said it worked before it was pulled from service, but functionality wasn’t guaranteed. Turns out it works perfectly.

For my $22.50, I think I got a pretty good computer. It’s got a Core i3 3220T it’s a dual core with hyperthreading running at 2.8GHz. I added 8 GB of memory I had laying around and an older 120 GB SSD. I also applied some new thermal paste to the CPU cooler for good measure. I’m really impressed with the performance. Even though it’s nine-years-old, it boots up in seconds. If I didn’t need a more powerful computer for gaming, I’d be very happy to use it as my normal desktop computer. It has one small fan, versus the Raspberry Pi’s fanless design, so it’s a tad louder than I’d like. I’m going to see if switching some BIOS settings helps that.

As for software, I installed Windows 10 and Kodi. Timeshifting works perfectly, so I’d call this mission accomplished. I ordered a used wifi card to add AC wifi and Bluetooth to the machine. I’ll install Steam so we can stream games from the living room or office into the bedroom and use a PS4 controller to play.

So I’ve got my first job working on my own schedule. It’s for my wife’s sister, so I’m not sure if it really counts, but I’m getting paid for it. I had to buy some new tools for it, so that’s fun. They should be here in the next day or two. I should still be making about $300 on it even with that expense. I set up some invoice software to keep track of everything, which makes me feel pretty businessy.

I’ve been in contact with a few other potential customers, which seem promising. I’m waiting for the weather to improve in the middle of the next week to see where things go. I haven’t had as much trouble getting responses to my ad as I expected. My goal is to bill 10 hours per week. I’m charging $60 per hour, so I’d be making $600 in labor. Profit on parts would probably work out to a similar level per week. If this takes off like I’m hoping, I should be in decent financial shape.

Changes

Since I last posed, there have been some changes in my life.

First, I lost my job in November. The owner of the company decided he wanted to sell the building, and told everyone to not come in the next Monday. Probably not the best way to end things. I wasn’t out of work for long though.

The owner of the place next door (who rents his space from the owner referenced above) needed an extra hand, and I needed money, so it was hard to say no. He has been looking to buy a bigger place, and he finally settled on something. He agreed with his landlord that he’d be moved out by March 30. The landlord broke that agreement, and now the move-out date is February 28. So I will be once again out of work.

Hopefully not for too long though. With some encouragement from my current boss, I’ve decided to start a mobile mechanic business. If all goes well, people will contact me for an appointment and I’ll go fix their car at their place and get paid for it. I’m charging $60 per hour, which is low when compared to most independent mechanic shops in the area. I’m hoping to keep myself busy with work for 10 hours per week. I’d be making $600 for my labor, plus some markup on parts. Here’s my Facebook page if you’re interested.

In January, I started going back to college. I’m going to get a two-year degree in computer information systems. I think eventually I’d like to be a systems analyst. This subject is something I’m already interested in, and thankfully doesn’t require me to take any math courses. So in a couple years I should have a real job that pays me a decent amount of money.

So that’s it. I’m hoping my mobile mechanic thing takes off so I can make some money to pay for college and other things. I’d really like to do some photography in the next few weeks. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone out for some picture taking.

Game Streaming From Home to Anywhere

In late 2017, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. After trying a few oral medications, I’m moving on to a biologic infusion. That means, at least for the first several treatments, I’ll be hanging out in a chair with an IV in my arm for a couple hours. I’ll need something to entertain myself. I find that I quickly exhaust my usual website reading rotation if I’m faced with a lengthy wait, and I’m not really a book reader. So I thought a portable game console, such as a Nintendo Switch, might be a decent buy.

To be honest, I’ve been trying to justify a Switch since I’ve been watching Super Mario Maker 2 on Twitch for the last month or so. This seemed like a great way to justify that purchase. Additionally, someone got Android working on the Switch a few days ago, expanding the the gaming possibilities to include streaming PC games. I knew Valve had a Steam Link app for Android and I figured it couldn’t be too hard to make game streaming work over the internet.

So I dug into the Switch idea a bit more. In order to hack a Switch, its firmware has to be older than a certain version. That means I can’t buy a new one to hack, and would have to search for a used one with a serial number in the right range. I found several eBay listings for hackable Switches, but the prices turned me off a bit. Most were asking about $160 for just the console, with no Joy-Cons, no AC adapter and no dock. After adding $50-$80 for new controllers and $15 for an AC adapter, it didn’t seem like such a great deal.

If I did get a Switch, I’d definitely want Super Mario Maker 2, which could be a problem with a hacked console. Nintendo has some means of detecting a console that has been tampered with, and can ban that console from accessing any features that require internet access. If the console was cheap enough, I could deal with that, but not for $250 or so. Then I realized that I didn’t even need a Switch. I could just use an Android tablet, and I already have one.

Almost immediately after that, I figured that I could probably just use my nice Windows laptop (a base model Surface Book 1). And it turns out I can. I tried to get Steam Link Anywhere going, but couldn’t figure it out. Which was probably a blessing in disguise. I decided to try Moonlight, which I was originally going to use on the Switch, and then the Android tablet. Turns out the people behind the project have developed a client package for just about anything with a network connection.

To use Moonlight, I first installed Nvidia GeForce Experience. Moonlight works by making your client look like an Nvidia Shield to Geforce Experience. Initially I was skeptical about this solution because I wasn’t sure it would work with UWP games, like Forza Horizon 4 or Sea of Thieves. I was wrong. GeForce Experience auto-detected the UWP games right away. I installed Moonlight on my laptop and gave it a try.

I was stunned at how well it worked. I launched Sea of Thieves, and after a bit of loading I was in the game, with it working as if I was sitting at my desktop. I bumped the resolution from the default 720p to 1080p, and it was just about perfect. The laptop’s trackpad wasn’t terribly responsive, but I plan on using a PS4 controller instead. I installed the Moonlight internet access utility on the desktop and tried it using my phone’s wi-fi hotspot. I didn’t want to use up all my data, so I only tried it for a tiny while, but it seemed to be just as good as the local network.

I’m really pleased with the results. It was so much easier to set up than I expected and the gaming experience was better than I hoped for. Now I just need to set up my Raspberry Pi to use a wake on LAN command to start the desktop and I’ll be all set. I’m looking forward to trying this out from another building. I’m expecting more perfection.

Update on NextPVR and Kodi

It’s been about two and a half weeks since I got Kodi set up on a Raspberry Pi in my bedroom to watch TV. So far, it’s going nicely. The guide works perfectly, setting and watching recordings is fine and watching live TV is great. However, I’m running into a problem with timeshifting on Kodi. When I pause a live program and then resume it a bit later, it works fine as long as I don’t fast forward or rewind. It’s a problem because timeshifting is kind of the whole point of this PVR system. I’m going to try adjusting some settings later today and see if I can fix the issue.

So we finally got FiOS

After a couple false starts, we got our FiOS service going on Thursday. We got the gigabit internet and lifestyle and reality custom TV package. The download speeds have been a tad disappointing at about 330 mbps, while the uploads are an excellent 700 mbps. The download is three times better than we had before, but I’d like it to at least match the upload. I’m not sure what’s causing that problem, but I’ll have to try a few things to fix it this coming week.

The TV side of things is going very well so far. The Ceton PCI tuner is working just fine for now, but I’ll still probably upgrade to the new HD Homerun Prime when it comes out. I have the Ceton card in my living room computer, connected to the TV. It runs NextPVR which contains a client for local use and a server that other devices on the network can connect to.
It’s a very powerful program, with lots of options for customization. In the living room, we just use the local NPVR client. I didn’t realize that cable TV services don’t transmit program guide data like the over-the-air service does. The Schedules Direct service is supported by NPVR, with fairly easy set up. It costs $25 per year, but, to me, that’s very reasonable for the convenience.

I was originally planning to use Emby with the NPVR plugin on the server side and the Emby Roku app on the client side. Quite frankly, it sucked. It just dumped all 1200 channels the tuner card sees into a menu with no options to sort or filter them. When I clicked a channel to watch, it didn’t work either. It’s a small caveat, but to use the live TV function of Emby, you have to pay a subscription fee of $4.99 per month, $54 per year, or $119 for life. So I had to go back to the drawing board.

I decided to try out Kodi on my Raspberry Pi server. I installed the NPVR add-on and adjusted some settings. It kind of worked. The guide was perfect, but playback was a little wonky. The audio was fine, but the video would stutter or freeze. I figured it was good enough and I could fix the problem. I ordered a new Raspberry Pi 3B+ and set it up with OSMC. OSMC is a fork of Debian with Kodi preinstalled. I installed it on the Pi, and then velcro’d the Pi to the back of the TV. After a little bit of setup, it was working perfectly. The guide looked just like NPVR, live TV worked without any catches and watching recordings was great. I’m extremely satisfied with the setup.

There’s only one small thing left to do; add a remote control. In the living room I have a Logitech K400+ couch keyboard, which is great for changing app settings, launching games and light web browsing, but it’s really clunky and unintuitive for watching TV. A regular remote control would be ideal. I remembered the new computer my dad got for Christmas 2006. It was a Dell XPS 410, which had a novel for the time TV tuner card. This meant it came with Windows XP Media Center Edition, and a remote control. The remote had every button you need, but none you don’t, with a very solid and high quality feel. To my surprise, I was able to track down two new in box examples on eBay. Set up with NPVR should be a breeze, because it has native support for these media center edition remotes. I also discovered Kodi has an MCE remote add-on, so hopefully set up should be easy there too. The first one comes tomorrow, so I’ll find out soon.

While the internet service so far is a tad disappointing, I’m totally thrilled with the TV. This setup with a cable card tuner inside an HTPC with client computers around the house is something I’ve wanted since not long after we opened that new computer over a decade ago.

After doing some more reading about the Ceton TV tuner cards, I discovered the Ceton company went out of business a few years ago. Their website lingers on the web for some unknown reason. It turns out the InfiniTV 4 PCI card I bought is one of many with defective on-board storage so I am unable to update the firmware to the best version. I’m really hoping that it works reasonably well. The new HD Homerun Prime 6 is the tuner I really want, but it’s not out yet. They say it’s coming in 2019, hopefully sooner rather than later. I’ll pre-order it if I can. With that tuner I’ll be able to switch to using Emby’s built-in tuner support rather than the NextPVR plugin.

Upgrading to Verizon FiOS

Currently at my house, we have Spectrum internet with an advertised speed of 100 mbps, though it’s often a tad faster, and there’s no data cap. For TV, we subscribe to Sling TV, which was a pretty decent deal at $20 per month, but less so at the new price of $25 a month. It gets the job done, but the basic tier we have doesn’t have several channels we’d like to have. We use an antenna occasionally to watch the local channels.

This weekend I stumbled upon the Verizon FiOS sign up page. We considered FiOS when we first moved in, but decided on Spectrum because at the time, FiOS had the same speed, with a data cap, for a slightly higher price than Spectrum. Now though, the tables have turned. FiOS now offers gigabit (actually around 950 mbps down and 850 mbps up) internet, your choice of several TV packages and home phone starting at $75 a month (without tax of course). The current Spectrum bill is around $65 a month with taxes and everything. Seems like a no brainer, right?

Verizon encourages you to rent their router and set top boxes, neither of which I want. And it turns out that’s fine. I already have a great Netgear Orbi setup I want to keep, and according to the forums, I can hook that right up to the FiOS box in the basement with an ethernet cable. In lieu of renting set top boxes at $12 a month each, I’ll be getting a single CableCARD at $5 a month. The card is going to plug into a tuner connected to an old computer acting as a server. I’ll be able to watch my TV channels and record things from anywhere I have internet access.

The only hold up right now is the tuner. I’d love an HD Homerun Prime. Unfortunately, and somewhat stupidly, they don’t have any for sale right now. They say the new six tuner model is coming this year, but in the meantime, they’ve stopped producing the three tuner model. So I can’t buy an HD Homerun unless I want to pay a lot for a used three tuner model.

The other option I’ve found is the Ceton InfiniTV. They have a few models, but the new ones are too expensive at $300. I’ve found a few used ones on eBay, so we’ll see if I can get one. There’s a problem with this tuner though. I really want to use Ubuntu sever for this because it’s free, and faster and easier to use than Windows for this project. There are Linux drivers for the Ceton tuners on Git Hub. The DVR and media management app I want to use, Emby, runs on just about anything. Emby only supports the HD Homerun Prime natively, but will work with the Ceton if you use the NextPVR backend for TV watching and recording. NextPVR only works on Windows though.

I think what I’ll do is get a used Ceton for a hopefully low price, and use my living room computer as the server. I’m just worried that with the transcoding Emby needs to do that there won’t be enough processing power left over for gaming at the same time. If it doesn’t work out I can always build or buy another computer I suppose.

Yesterday afternoon I had such a “duh” moment. I realized that I can use a Megasquirt system on the Saab engine I was originally planning on using. So now the plan is to get myself a 2004-2011 Saab 9-3 2.0T with the B207R engine. 2003 and 2008-11 all wheel drive models had secondary air injection which is stupid. I can remove it, but it’s just easier to not have it in the first place. Hopefully, I’ll be able to use the car’s original computer to run things, but if that’s not possible I can always go with Megasquirt. This engine would be easier to run with Megasquirt than the LE5 anyways because the B207 doesn’t have variable valve timing.