Tag: Auto

Parking Woes at Cocoa Beach: A Costly Oversight | July 12 2026, 13:09

Florida, Cocoa Beach. Parked the car not far from a roadside restaurant. The sign says paid parking, here’s the parking number, here’s a QR code to download the app. Took photos of the QR code, my car’s number, and the parking spot number and thought as I walked the hundred meters to the restaurant, I’d install the app and pay then. Installed it, entered the parking number, and now it’s asking for the parking spot number! Darn, have to go back. And there I was, already greeted by a parking ticket… Talk about efficiency

Car Trouble or Just the Off Button? | June 11 2026, 01:34

If you ever need someone to laugh at, take a look: I saved 500 bucks today. I spent a month or maybe more thinking my car’s AC was dead. Went to a service station, got a quote. The stinginess killed me to repair it on the same day; I thought the car is old, I’ll find some garage service, refilling the AC with refrigerant isn’t critical.

Turns out, all this time I’ve been driving with the A/C turned off. The funny thing is I didn’t realize it in the car but while walking the dog.

From MS-DOS to Modern CAD: My Journey with Bazis Soft | March 06 2026, 17:43

My first job as a programmer, with an office in Kolomna and for money. It was 1993, or maybe even a year earlier. 10th-11th grade of school. And this company still exists, and the guys I worked with are still there! Natalya Bakulina, Pavel Bunakov, Nikolai Kaskevich. Imagine that. Moreover, they started back in 1986, that is, 40 years ago already! I can hardly remember other commercial companies of such age in Russia. When I came to work there, there was MS DOS, they wrote in Turbo Pascal, but they had started many years before me on the SM-1420 computer, though back then, the company was not entirely commercial. At the time of my arrival, their system was a competitor of AutoCAD in the market, locally also competing with “Kompas”. I made an installer from 5.25″ and 3.5″ disks – to capture the spirit of the era. Later they switched to Delphi and Windows. After that, they narrowed down their focus, transitioning from CAD for engineering to CAD for furniture, where they still hold very strong positions.

Tesla vs. Gasoline: Analyzing Fuel Costs in 2025 | February 26 2026, 04:07

We bought a Tesla in mid-2025 – comparing gasoline costs to electricity costs.

Looking just at charging the Tesla, the stats are separate. Since buying, we’ve used 5000 kWh costing $738 – covering 13,550 miles. Meaning, traveling 18 miles (28 km) costs one dollar. On a Toyota RAV4, one dollar spent at the gas station gets me 10 miles (16 km).

Tesla Model Y Conquers the Winter Wonderland: A Snowy Road Test | January 26 2026, 03:50

We tested our Tesla Model Y on a winter road in weather that almost one hundred percent of people here consider “unflyable.” I’m serious, on the way back, at 8-9 PM, we encountered the first private car on a four-lane highway after 45 kilometers of travel. Meanwhile, snowplows appeared literally every two minutes.

A lot of snow had built up, and then it started to rain. After a few hours of parking in a snowbank at a friend’s house, the car was covered with an inch-thick layer of ice. We even got a bit stuck on the exit, but together we managed to push the car out of the “snow pit”. The most challenging part is the last mile on small paths, which the machinery doesn’t clean quickly enough. Now, I’m writing at 10:30 PM, and right outside my window a tractor is clearing the driveways, while in most places, this is usually the homeowners’ responsibility, and of course, everyone prefers to wait it out. Actually, we didn’t even make it to the friend’s house because the last 100 meters were just knee-deep snowdrifts, and even walking through them was difficult, let alone driving.

Very pleased with the Tesla’s behavior on snowy roads and maneuvering in snowdrifts. Here, nobody uses winter tires (the snowy season is very short), and everyone has “all-season” tires on their wheels.

On the highway, there’s a lot of snow removal equipment, and overall the highways are in pretty good condition – the driving is very predictable, with no skidding. But as soon as you try to turn off onto a smaller road, that’s where the test for the all-wheel drive and clearance starts. Again, no surprises at all – it passes like a tank wherever needed. 627 “horses”, dynamically distributed across four wheels, apparently helps.

Tesla Ends Lifetime Autopilot: Subscription Models Rise | January 24 2026, 19:27

Tesla has stopped selling the lifetime autopilot option for $8,000, leaving only a subscription for $100 a month. I never understood people who pay these $80,000 instead of sticking with the subscription, because the subscription only equals these $8,000 after 7.5 years (considering 3% inflation), when probably it’s time to switch to a new car anyway.

But it’s interesting how much Tesla has increased the attractiveness of cars with low mileage, which have FSD, but are sold significantly below the MSRP due to being used. In fact, if you’re buying a car and seriously intend to pay for FSD, purchasing a used one could save you thousands of dollars in ownership costs.