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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.



  • Senior developer here. It is hard to overstate just how useful AI has been for me.

    It’s like having a junior programmer on standby that I can send small tasks to–and just like the junior developer I have to review it and send it back with a clarification or comment about something that needs to be corrected. The difference is instead of making a ticket for a junior dev and waiting 3 days for it to come back, just to need corrections and wait another 3 days–I get it back in seconds.

    Like most things, it’s not as bad as some people say, and it’s not the miracle others say.

    This current generation was such a leap forward from previous AI’s in terms of usefulness, that I think a lot of people were looking to the future with that current rate of gains–which can be scary. But it turns out that’s not what happened. We got a big leap and now are back at a plateau again. Which honestly is a good thing, I think. This gives the world time to slowly adjust.

    As far as similarities with crypto. Like crypto there are some ventures out there just slapping the word AI on something and calling it novel. This didn’t work for crypto and likely won’t work for AI. But unlike crypto there is actually real value being derived from AI right now, not some wild claims of a blockchain is the right DB for everything–which it was obviously not, and most people could see that, but hey investors are spending money so lets get some of it kind of mentality.



  • 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 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