personal – Core Dump

Behind the Wheel: 2017 Mercedes-Benz C300

Yes, that's right - I'm reviewing another C300, this time a 2017 model. But is it any better (or even any different) from the 2016 I drove last year?

Once again I found myself behind the wheel of a (loaner) Mercedes-Benz C300 sedan (4MATIC AWD, of course, as almost every Mercedes is in the northeast) – this time from the 2017 model year. So how does it compare to the last one I drove?

Surprisingly, it is actually quite a bit different – and mostly in a good way!

The engine is basically the same – a turbocharged 2.0 liter inline-4, producing roughly the same horsepower as before (around 241HP, 273 lb-ft of torque). No surprises there – it’s plenty of power for a car of this size and weight, and though it sometimes reminds you that it is a very small engine, the power is perfectly serviceable, even before the turbo kicks in.

However, once that turbo kicks in, watch out – with just a single turbo (no fancy variable vanes or dual-turbos here) the power comes on in one big gulp (especially in any of the “sport” modes). Maybe I’m just not used to it, but it’s almost too much power at once.

Still, this is more or less unchanged from the previous model year. What has changed, however, is the transmission – whereas last time I noted how lurch-y the transmission seemed, this time Mercedes seems to have worked out all the kinks. Shifts were smooth and quick, and I never found myself worrying that maybe something was broken (as I did last time) – even in the aggressive “sport+” mode.

Overall handling seemed somewhat improved as well – the car felt incredibly stable heading into corners at speed, and the steering feel, although light, was responsive and intuitive. I actually wished I could’ve driven on some twistier roads to really dive into some corners. (I love my GLK, but it’s not exactly toss-able in the way a car is.)

On the interior, things were not so rosy, however. It may be down to the package that the particular car I was driving had, however a lot of the dash and console felt… rather cheap.

The wood grain which flows all along the center console (and doors) was, according to the window sticker, real, but I almost didn’t believe it – it felt incredibly light and plastic-y to the touch.

Gone is the weird touch pad thing that used to hover over the control knob for the car’s screen (though I think the top of the knob might be touch-sensitive; I didn’t check) but otherwise the UI stays pretty much the same. The speed of the interface does seem somewhat improved from last time, however, which is nice.

Beyond that, most everything else about the car was more or less the same – it’s a comfortable ride with nice features, a huge sunroof, but not a lot of room for back-seat passengers.

All-in-all I have to say that the Mercedes C-class doesn’t exactly stand out in my mind against cars from other manufacturers – sure, some of the materials are probably higher quality, but some materials aren’t (or don’t seem to be) and other manufacturer’s are really upping their game quality-wise to nip at the heels of Mercedes’ entry-level sedan.

If you’re in the market for a small but luxurious 4-door sedan, there’s a lot of choices for you – and although Mercedes is known for being a luxury brand, I honestly can’t say I’d mark the C300 as an automatic “first pick” in that category. (Though for myself, I’m just glad to be back in my GLK – as I’ve mentioned many times, I’m just not a car person!)

The March to Tyranny

How quickly a country can fall...

If you’ve ever wondered how a democratic country can become a dictatorship, just look around you right now. The current “president” of the United States has:

Tried to ban immigration
Arrested journalists for covering events unflattering to him
Tried to silence the media
Told people to ignore the media and only listen to him
Fired people for daring to challenge him
Uses his own private security force, loyal only to him personally
Trying to concentrate power in a small group of people and bypass the legislative branch
Removed military leaders from decision making about national security
Describes people who disagree with him as having “betrayed” their country

These are not the actions of a free and democratic society, they are the actions of a despot.

We do not have a president anymore; we have a tyrant, and he deserves to be deposed as one.

A Party in Denial

Denial has somehow become the political strategy of the Republican Party in the United States, and somehow... it's working?

The Republican Party in the United States is a party in denial, both literally in its stances and in regards to what it is. It still claims to be the party of small government, state & individual rights, and the idea of a strong military with a leadership role in the world. But this is all patently false, and as of the recent election it’s become even more clear.

The Republican Party has created some of the largest, most invasive, most pervasive federal government agencies ever; it has overruled state rights, it has clamped down on individual rights, and it has been less of a leader in the world and more of a bully.

Now that the Republican Party controls 2/3rds of the federal government, it’s doubling down on these same things and driving itself so far from what it claims to be that it is basically unrecognizable.

Further, the Republican Party is simply a party of denials:

Denying that climate change is happening
Denying that climate change is caused by humans
Denying women control over their own bodies
Denying people control over their own identity
Denying that police are at fault for shootings
Denying that there is any problem with race in this country
Denying refugees aid and comfort

The list goes on and on – and many of the denials contradict one another (e.g., climate change – you can’t say “it isn’t happening” and then turn around and say “it’s happening but it isn’t caused by us!”) or contradict the supposed backbone ideals of the party itself (e.g., championing individual rights but then taking them away from people).

There is no denying it: the Republican Party is a party in denial; though it would almost be more appropriate to say the Republic Party is a party of doublethink. Or maybe they’d just prefer to be called “The Party?” Hmmm…

This Seems Oddly Familiar

Disturbing dystopian similarities.

I was making a list of the way things are going around here and I suddenly realized I’ve seen this before…

Mass surveillance of citizens
Small, wealthy ruling party
No speaking out against the ruler
“Truth” defined by what the party says
Prosecution of those who speak against the party/leader
Figurehead larger-than-life leader

Maybe George Orwell got it wrong – it’s not English Socialism in Oceana, it’s American Socialism.

New Year, Another New Computer

It’s been 7 years since my last new computer, and so I decided it was time to finally bite the bullet and not only upgrade, but build a new computer myself.

The last two of my computers were pre-built PCs, bought mainly because in both cases I didn’t have the time to invest in selecting parts and building my own machine. But this time I had the time to spare, so I started picking up parts bit by bit until I finally had everything I needed.

These are the parts I selected for my new computer:

Intel Core i7-6700 (Skylake) 3.4 GHz CPU
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler
Asus Z170M-PLUS motherboard
16 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM
Intel 256 GB 600p M.2 SSD
Fractal Design Core 1500 MicroATX tower case
Corsair 430W power supply
Sabrent USB 3.0 media card reader

I’d also be re-using the same video card (an NVIDIA GForce GTX 750) from my old computer, along with an extra USB 3.0 expansion card (I have a lot of USB devices), as well as my old SATA SSD and the 1 TB & 3 TB hard drives.

The main goal of this new PC was to build something that would both last me a long time and also vastly improve performance in the one place I really needed it – disk speed. My old PC was actually holding up quite well for its age – especially since I had an SSD for the boot drive – but my old PC’s motherboard only supported the older, slower SATA interface, which prevented me from taking full advantage of that SSD.

The new PC would have one of those new SSDs that used both the M.2 connector and the PCI Express (PCIe) interface, which should allow me to take full advantage of the speed of a modern SSD. This, combined with the faster RAM (double the amount my old PC could handle) and the slightly faster CPU, would give me a machine with impressive performance for everything I needed it to do. Additionally, I should be able to upgrade this computer to keep it going for many years to come.

Now, keep in mind it’s been something like 15 years since I last put a computer together myself – I’m a little out of practice. But then again, there’s nothing fundamentally difficult about building a computer from parts, so I wasn’t too worried.

Probably the hardest part was figuring out how to mount the absolutely massive CPU cooler I’d bought – it used a fairly complex bracket mounting that I’d never seen before (remember again how long it’s been since I’ve done anything like this). But after staring at the directions for a bit it finally “clicked” and I got it attached without much fuss.

The rest of the computer was pretty much just plugging things together and trying to keep all the wires neat & tidy. But the moment of truth was when I finally switched it on for the first time – and it booted!

After that, I installed Windows 10 and all my programs (and boy howdy was it a long list of things to reinstall – I use a lot of programs on a day-to day basis since this is both my work and personal computer) and transferred my settings over with a program meant for that purpose.

Since I was re-using my existing drives, I didn’t really need to move much in the way of files – I even re-mounted the drive volumes to the same drive letters as I had on my old computer, so all the paths and shortcuts I’d set up would work just the same as before.

Once my programs and settings were installed, I could finally start to get a feel for the new computer I’d built – and I was immediately impressed with how fast it was! Even with all the programs that run at startup, it booted (POST to desktop) in about 14 seconds, which was much faster than my old machine.

Additionally, all my programs now opened almost immediately and everything was just faster and smoother. Adobe Lightroom – which was one of the programs that lagged quite a bit on my old machine – now opens very quickly and the complex UI renders on screen without any delay. I can switch between photos without waiting for the screen to draw and all my edits and adjustments are applied quickly and smoothly.

Another thing that saw a big gain for me on this new machine is my virtual machines – I run a number of VMs for compatibility testing and so forth, but using them was often a bit of a pain because they were so slow. Now though, they run much better, and once I’m satisfied that I don’t need anything from my old SSD, I’ll wipe it and move my virtual machines to that drive for even more speed (disk speed is a huge factor in virtual machine performance).

Aside from the usual new PC headaches (mainly of the “now I have to put everything back the way I like it” type), the new computer has been a rousing success – I’m exceptionally pleased with it. It runs fast, and it also runs quite cool – at idle the CPU temperature is not much above room temperature. The new motherboard has a ton of high-speed USB 3.0 ports, which makes writing to my external backup drive go much faster, as well as downloading RAW photo files from my camera’s memory card.

All in all, I’m very happy with how my new PC build has gone, and I think I’ll be happy with it for just as many years as (if not more than) the last one!