Haggling for fair price on a Toyota Sienna

I purchased a new minivan a couple months ago. I hate buying cars. The whole process seems very confrontational. To speak in terms of 7 Habits, it feels very win-lose with me being the loser. That is probably why I put off making the purchase for so long. I am happy to say that I actually nailed it this time. I do not believe I took the dealer to the cleaners, but I feel good about what I paid and thing I negotiated well. I ended up paying $12,000 for a $17,000 car. Here's how:

• My wife did a lot of research about minivans and narrowed us down to Siennas and Odysseys. By limiting the "serious" search to those two the search space became tractable.
• I shopped at the end of the month. The dealer specifically referenced this as we were going back and forth, in that he wanted to make the sale before the end of the month.
• I researched the prices of cars the night before, so I knew the internet price prior to stepping on the dealership. I do not know if they would have tried the higher price if I didn't know, but knowing the price on the web took the first $1000 off immediately.
• I enumerated the available cars in our area and graphed the mileage vs. the price:

  Car		Year	Miles	Price	Town	Dealer
  Sienna	LE	1999	87391	$8,765	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	LE	2004	79136	$11,763	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna	LE	2004	77313	$12,686	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna	XLE	2004	87501	$12,889	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2007	74353	$13,997	Framingham	Direct Auto Mall
  Sienna	XLE	2004	96191	$14,555	Lexington	Lexington Toyota
  Sienna		2006	76846	$14,597	Framingham	Direct Auto Mall
  Sienna	CE	2008	83783	$14,986	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna		2005	59732	$14,988	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna		2007	63706	$14,997	Framingham	Direct Auto Mall
  Sienna	XLE	2006	88967	$15,678	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	LE	2006	51593	$15,953	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna	LE	2006	80134	$15,995	Tewksbury	Tewksbury Toyota
  Sienna	LE	2007	61517	$16,988	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna	CE	2007	57668	$17,317	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	LE	2008	68134	$18,378	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2008	53970	$19,222	Lexington	Lexington Toyota
  Sienna	LE	2008	54830	$19,730	Woburn	Woburn Toyota
  Sienna		2008	65614	$19,877	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	LE	2009	49274	$19,987	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2008	63053	$19,995	Tewksbury	Tewksbury Toyota
  Sienna	LE	2007	57863	$20,996	Hyannis	Hyannis Toyota
  Sienna		2009	36132	$21,322	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	LE	2009	44968	$22,487	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	LE	2010	33505	$22,679	Hyannis	Hyannis Toyota
  Sienna	XLE	2007	42937	$23,782	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	XLE	2008	63772	$23,999	Lowell	Lannan Chevrolet
  Sienna		2008	40786	$26,588	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2008	80244	$27,634	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2011	25508	$28,566	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	XLE-L	2008	37135	$29,834	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna	XLE	2007	58888	$31,255	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2008	19025	$31,255	Burlington-ish	Herb Chambers
  Sienna		2004	96708	?	Woburn	Woburn Toyota

  
  
  This enabled me to to draw a "best fit" line and point to where the price for certain cars should be at certain mileages. The scientists among you may notice some problems with the graph, but I believe it still sends the right message. By pointing out that the price for my car was on a peak, I had some clear math to get another $4000 off.
• Probably the most important is that I was willing to walk away. I made it very clear that I did not care if we bought a particular car at a particular time. I did not try to act like I didn't care, I really didn't care. That takes work.

Of course, this doesn't work for every dealer or every car. I could not have used my nifty graph to negotiate a price down if the price was one of the local minima. Also, the graph only allowed me to pull the price down to where it should be. I didn't get a "steal" on the car. I did walk away feeling good about it, which is worth a lot in my book.

Day9's Starcraft 2 mechanics tips

Starcraft came out the year I started college. I spent a significant portion of my time as an undergraduate playing, particularly during my freshman year. A friend of mine that lived down the hall had such mad skills that he ranged toward the top of the ladder. I stunk, but still had a fun time. Flash forward to 2010, when Starcraft 2 came out. My time for playing is significantly more limited, but I still enjoy the game. I also still really stink. I mostly play the campaign and co-op with my brothers, but occasionally I swallow my pride for some ladder play in the bronze league.

I looked for a Starcraft podcast to listen to in an effort to improve my game a bit. I found Starcast. While the episodes do not maintain the production and host quality I expect from TWiT netcasts, it is a fun low-key show with good information spread here and there. The hosts pointed me at a gold-mine (or mineral-mine, if you will) of tips in Day[9]'s daily podcast. I do not particularly like the speaking style of Sean Plott (a.k.a. Day[9]), but the content is pure Starcraft gold (or mineral, if you will). Every player should watch his newbie mechanics episodes: 257 and 261.

This list contains a summary of the mechanics he emphasizes:

• Click on things instead of area select
• Don't scroll your screen with the mouse
• Use hotkeys, including groups
• Use screen hotkeys
• Click on minimap
• Watch the minimap, not your main screen
• No click spam, just accuracy
• Establish patterns and develop habits
• Tap (hotkeys without moving screen)
• Move slices of your army instead singles
• Always have building structures building things
• Never get ahead 500 minerals

So if you just started Starcraft: Good luck, have fun, and I hope that helps. If you have been playing a while, got any silver-bullet tips to share? Keep an eye out for me on battle.net as Zorgum.

"Resurrected" to mortality

The issue at hand is that the "Resurrection" entry in the LDS Bible Dictionary must be wrong because of Hebrews 9:27. Specifically, man can only die once and can therefore not be restored to mortality after death. The corollary to this is that anybody who believes otherwise is a nincompoop. I will be playing the role of nincompoop today.

There are many scriptures which explain that Christ resurrected first. Acts 26:22-23 says that Christ "should be the first that should rise from the dead." 1 Corinthians 15:19-23 describes Christ as "the firstfruits of them that slept." Colossians 1:18 described Christ as "the firstborn from the dead," while Revelation 1:5 calls Him "the first begotten of the dead." Seems pretty clear to me, but I must be misunderstanding something about Hebrews 9:27.

Hebrews 9:27 states "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement." That does seem a bit confusing. I interpret the "once" to apply to the "appointed," but I can see where the other interpretation comes from. A good friend of mine who majored in English Language Linguistics and studied Early Modern English agrees with my interpretation, but there are others who see it the other way.

A drastic approach would be to discount the letter to the Hebrews. It is always dangerous to get theology from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Pauline_epistles#Hebrews. Plus, the afformentioned LDS Bible Dictionary insinuates that the letter did come from Paul. So the letter to the Hebrews remains cannon.

Is the Bible infallible? Certainly not. Consider the two conflicting accounts of Paul's vision: Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9. There are also conflicting accounts of Judas' death: Matt 27:5 and Acts 1:18. When we start getting into contradictory interpretations (such as the current subject of this discussion), the list grows by leaps and bounds.

Consider the experience of Joseph Smith, found in Joseph Smith History 1:11-12:

11 While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
12 Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

So Joseph went and prayed to ask for this wisdom. We know how that turned out.

Today we have modern prophets and apostles. Just as Peter, Paul, and the other ancient apostles brought clarity in how to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, our modern day apostles bring clarity in establishing the official theology of the church. Were ether set of these great men infallible? No. Do words from dead prophets have more authority than words from living prophets? No.

Then again, I'm just today's nincompoop.

The Bit9 race car team

Sorry for the kerfuffle over the last set of Bit9 race car pictures. I should have that squared away now. If you took a look at them, you might have wondered if they were legitimate. I'll admit that even I thought they were photoshopped. I am now certain that there really is a Brazilian Bit9 race car team. Our partner in Brazil, FreeDivision, seems to be pulling out all the stops! Ka-chow!

Does your job have race cars?

Interviewing with BAE

Here is a description of the process I went through when interviewing for my first real job out of grad school. I interviewed with BAE-AIT specifically. The whole process started because I posted on Facebook that I needed a job. One of the employees in that office found that and sent me in as a referral. I had never met the guy or heard of the office, but it got things rolling and they kept rolling until I had a job! It has been three and a half years since I went through this process, so my memory fails me at some points.

1. I had my first interview over the phone with a section lead (manager of half-a-dozen people). He asked me about my history and my interests. No real technical questions, although we did talk intelligently about my school work up to that point. Whatever I said must have been good because they then decided to bring me across the country (from Utah to Massachusetts) for a full day of interviews.
   
2. I spent a solid day interviewing.
   
   1. My first interviewer gave me an overview of the company (with slides) and described the main product, ATIF. The technology was not directly related to my academic experience, but it looked cool and she claimed to like the questions I asked.
      
   2. Next, I gave my presentation. I essentially gave a combination of my LCTES and PLDI talks. It went really well. This, more than anything else, landed me the job (I think). My future manager asked me some fairly specific technical questions that I fielded well. One audience member asked me a question to make sure he understood what I had done. When I answered that he had it right, he leaned back in the chair with his hands on his head and said "wow."
      
   3. My first real interview did not go so hot. The interviewer asked me about object oriented design. I had known this was coming and had studied on the plane, but I still thought too much like a C programmer. I was glad to be done with this one.
      
   4. Second up was my future manager, although I did not know it at the time. He had asked some tough questions during my presentation, but the technical question he asked me during the interview was about bit manipulation. He wanted me to reverse the order of the bits in an int. Not a problem.
      
   5. I had one more interview before lunch. This one had a technical question about developing a protocol for communication between two processes. I did not think I handled it too well, but I also do not think I bombed it.
      
   6. For lunch I went with two section leads. They both spoke in glowing terms about the company, and their enthusiasm was contagious.
      
   7. The final technical interview that I remember went over a home grown data structure for managing search trees. The engineer I talked with and I just walked through the white paper and discussed the pieces. He did not seem to be trying to judge me as much as showing me what kinds of problems they dealt with.
      
   8. My last interview of the day was with the director (manager of a handful of sections). Unfortunately, my brain was fried by this point and I do not think I put up my best performance. I must not have done too bad, though. . .
      

Application Whitelisting 101

Received this email today:

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