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Car Tinkering

J is very attached to her first car which was bought very cheap and had an abundance of quirks and maladies. But it was her pride and joy, gave her the independence she dreamed of. When she left to college, we initially thought to sell the car but on second thought decided to keep it for a while in case she came home for holidays and wanted to use it. The pandemic happened and indeed J was home for longer than expected and the car came very handy. Then she returned and is unlikely to come back anytime soon. Yet, the car remains here and is being used. 

Recently we changed the radio on it to an Android device. With a bit of tinkering, the technology on this old car is now state of the art and stands in remarkable contrast to the rest of the vehicle. The firmware being open-source, the possibilities are endless if someone has the time to make things happen. The quality of driving experience in this car has improved remarkably for a very little incremental spend. This is all on the driver side but with Android Automotive, the possibilities are even more interesting. It's been a long time since I got excited about technology even though that's all I deal with every working hour of my life for decades now. I know a few die-hard Android fans but this is the first time, I came into contact with the technology and see what I have been missing out.

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