Hyperfixation: Car comparison Notes

All dimensions are in Imperial units.

Specification 2005 Matrix XR 2004 Matrix XRS 2019 Niro EV
Fuel efficiency (combined) 29 MPG 24 MPG 112 MPGe1
Range (combined)2 380 316 230
Horsepower 130 173 201
Length 171.3 171.3 172.2
Width 69.9 69.9 71.1
Height 60.6 60.6 61.8
Wheelbase 102.4 102.4 106.3
Cargo, seats up 21.8 21.8 18.5
Cargo, seats down 53.2 53.2 53.0
Spare tire Temporary Temporary A can of fix-a-flat
120V power outlet 400W 400W No, and there isn’t even a 12V adapter to plug an inverter into
Purse holder No No Yes
Acceleration time, 0-60 9.0 7.8 6.2
Stick shift Yes Heck yes No :(

Another car update

The Kia service person finally got back to me several hours later, and I have learned:

  1. The parts for the repair have been ordered and are on their way
  2. Which implies that they actually did diagnose it, phew
  3. Also they might have a loaner available for me tomorrow, but they’re “uncertain”
  4. Also they still haven’t told me how much these repairs are gonna cost or if the warranties are going to cover them, bla bla bla, not looking forward to a surprise bill

Meanwhile, I’m scheduled to test drive the Matrix XRS Thursday afternoon, and my brain is currently in a state which has me overcommitting to just buying it, without having seen it in person yet. Maybe let’s think this through, and make sure I’m not just doing my usual self-convincing/rationalizing of something stupid.

Read more…

Matrix Third Room

Back when the VRChat debacle took place, I’d rambled quite a lot about the idea of a standards-based truly-distributed VR system. I probably mentioned how back in the day I was designing something like that, and was intending to use XMPP as the actual transport mechanism; in my more recent reevaluation of the idea I was thinking that using WebRTC to stream the actual realtime data (voice, character animation, etc.) would be the way forward.

Well, the Matrix folks just announced Third Room, which is the same basic concept, running on Matrix and WebRTC! They’ve also made a bunch of other great technology choices along the way.

This is pretty exciting and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. At least from a 20,000-foot view it hits all of the right notes for me. For example, using glTF for all object interchange, focusing on in-world editing, and allowing for (apparently optional) world persistence.

Hopefully this can disrupt the stranglehold VRChat has on social VR and will also be a fun, compelling experience in its own right.