after charging for 100% on a hot evening in Italy, it showed me a range for the first time above 500 km. In reality, 90% just brought me 320 km on the highway with air condition in 35°C
I recently got the chance to visit E.1027, a house built between 1926 and 1929 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, on the French Riviera near Monaco. It was designed by Eileen Gray, an Irish architect and designer who was one of the most important (and for decades most overlooked) figures of early modernism. The house is a landmark of the Modern Movement and is also infamous for a bizarre bit of architectural history: Le Corbusier, a friend of Gray’s collaborator Jean Badovici, later painted a series of murals directly onto the walls without her consent — something widely seen as an act of professional sabotage against her.
More info here: E.1027 on Wikipedia
What caught my eye as a record collector was this built-in vertical storage niche, packed edge-to-edge with shellac 78s. Yes — shellac, not vinyl, since vinyl records didn’t exist yet in the late 1920s/early ‘30s. I hope that’s forgivable given the context.
Storing records vertically like this in a narrow slot obviously isn’t something you’d do today (warping, edge stress, etc.), but for the era and for shellac specifically, it was completely normal practice — and it fits the overall design logic of the house.
So there I was, 32°C in the shade, groceries in the trunk (meat, veggies, fruit), parked for a 3-hour city tour. “No problem,” I thought – I have a BMW with remote climate control!
My strategy: set a 30-min timer on my phone, restart cooling every 30 min. Worked perfectly. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times.
Then: “Maximum function runtime exceeded.”
79% battery. Groceries slowly becoming a science experiment. Outside temperature: still very much 32°C.
You see, somewhere deep in BMW’s firmware lives the digital ghost of King Ludwig II of Bavaria – a man who built three fairy-tale castles simultaneously while his kingdom went bankrupt, who rejected the entire concept of other people having opinions, who once had a dinner table mechanically lowered into the floor so he wouldn’t have to interact with servants, and who was eventually declared insane by a committee of doctors who had never actually examined him.
That guy is making runtime decisions for your electric vehicle.
79% battery? Irrelevant. Perishable groceries? Not his concern. The fact that YOU manually restarted it five times, clearly demonstrating intent? Peasant logic.
His Royal Highness has spoken. The cooling stops. Perhaps you’d like a castle instead?
The question to the community: Any workaround? Or do we just curtsy and accept our fate?
(The steak did not survive with dignity. Neuschwanstein was unavailable for comment.)
And I thought, there would be progress...
Starting today, sellers can now upload photos of the actual item directly to their marketplace listings. Highlight unique labels, rare color variants, and condition details to show buyers exactly what they're getting before purchase.
The result? More customer confidence, fewer back-and-forth questions, and a shop that stands out. Our step-by-step instructions will walk you through your first upload in minutes.
A Few Things to Know: Photos can be added to existing listings, but not new ones. A new listing workflow is in development. This feature is available now on desktop and mobile web. App is coming later this summer. It’s completely optional. Catalog Photos remain the default on all listings.
For years I've owned every Doors tape that was officially released. Today I finally got to hear the last one — but the real story starts about 10 years ago, when I bought a reel-to-reel tape on eBay out of pure collector's obsession. The seller described it as a master tape used to cut the Mexican pressing. I had no way to play it. Until today.
Today I finally got the machine to go with it: a Revox A700, 2-track, 15 ips. And I sat down and played that tape for the first time.
I hadn't had goosebumps listening to the Doors in years. Today they came back. The tape is exactly as described — the recording is crystal clear and dynamic in a way no vinyl or digital release has ever given me. You feel like Jim is sitting on a club stage in front of 30 people.
For a Doors fan, an absolute moment of pure happiness.