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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Weird. My txt said the following:

    “Hi, it’s AT&T. As early as Oct. 2nd, the AutoPay and Paperless discount for customers paying by credit card will decrease from $10 to $5 per line. If you prefer to use your credit card, no action is required to receive a $5 discount.”

    Sounds like your offer is different. One quick tip if you are looking for other ways to save on AT&T. If you sign up for AARP you can get an additional $10 off of the top plan in addition to the paperless discount on AT&T.




  • I think it is way more likely they just bought imagery from existing sources. There are tons of high res imagery out there that you can purchase. Price is usually determined by how old it is. This seems way more likely than an insurance company hiring a drone operator and going door to door. Secondly, companies never share the details of things like this. Wherever the source, they are unlikely to share it. Companies don’t give details because they don’t want to fight you. They just want to cancel your account and move on.

    That isn’t to say this is right.

    Do we want insurance companies peering into our backyards from imagery? I don’t. Regardless of if it’s a drone or not.









  • I was making my way over-land from Vietnam to China and there was only one train a day from this town and the border crossing took too long.

    So here I am stuck in this tiny border town and I go to the only “hotel” in town.

    The “bathroom” did not have a toilet, just a 3 inch sewer opening where a toilet should have been. I had to aim as best I could. The bed was obviously rough, I did not trust the sheets at all that looked dirty. Luckily I brought my own little sarong I could put down. Too hot for any blankets luckily.

    Later that evening the hotel keepers son kept bringing girls to the room to try to sell, and his parents were cussing him out over it at the top of their lungs while he was trying to present them.

    The “hotel” was not approved for foreigners and the hotel keeper was adamant I get out of there early in the morning before the police came by.

    That was quite the welcome to China, and the next two very long days in “hard seat” class on a meter gauge rail line winding through China, while beautiful, about broke my spirit.






  • I think I’m miss stating my key point.

    When I swap a SIM card out for one in the country I am in, how am I going to receive all my SMS and RCS messages tied to the phone number? Nobody uses SMS/RCS outside of North America. Making people in other countries pay per message to send me a text or photo is weird. And yes a lot of plans internationally still charge per message, which is why most messaging is on WhatsApp in Europe, South America, and Aftrica. Line in Asia. Kakao Talk in Korea, WeChat in China. And none of this has to do with iPhone not using RCS–which sure, they should adopt–but it’s because people don’t want their phone carrier involved in their messaging. So again, even if Apple implemented RCS–and they should–I don’t think we are seeing any kind switch back to using phone carriers to deliver messages outside of North America.

    When I use iMessage I use my email address as the source/destination, not phone number. And in that sense, it is no different to me than WhatsApp, Line, KakaoTalk or WeChat. And I use all of those too depending on what country my recipient is in. Whether SMS/RCS I don’t want the message tied to a phone number that might be temporary. So again, when I ask my android friends to move to WhatsApp or another app it is not because iMessage is better. It’s that SMS and even RCS are worse than everything.



  • iPhone user here. Not a dealbreaker, but I can explain why some people may want to switch platforms. Blue bubble iMessages go out over the Internet–wifi, cell data, whatever. Green bubbles need cell signal and go over the cell network as an SMS, Blue bubbles can go out over cell network (via data), but they also can go out via wifi.

    For me this means green bubbles cause a couple issues:

    • Many places I go do not have cell coverage. Sometimes its a dead area because of mountains, sometimes its an office building that is too thick. In both cases, iMessage blue bubbles still work. Green bubbles do not.
    • When I travel internationally I might not purchase an International plan. But you can bet the hotel I am staying at and most bars/restaurants I can go to have wifi. This means I can still communicate without buying a SIM card or purchasing a data plan. FURTHER, even if I did purchase a SIM card, now we are talking international SMS messages which cost a ton.

    Now not a dealbreaker. I just move those conversations to Whatapp, Messenger, Line, KakaoTalk, whatever. It’s not a big deal. And definitely not a dealbreaker. If it’s a dealbreaker for someone that should be a red flag.

    I can still be friends with someone even if they did choose the wrong phone ;) /s