Post Race!

[wes4dbt]

Well, the heat wave is ending. Only 102 today and going to drop down to 90 tomorrow. Glad the AC and power grid held up. Not sure how well I could handle 113 degrees without some AC. Guess I could have just stayed in my car. lol

[dday9]

Yeah, I saw y’all have a hurricane that is supposed to help cool things down. It is weird to be rooting for a major natural disaster to help offset an even worse one.

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, I saw y’all have a hurricane that is supposed to help cool things down. It is weird to be rooting for a major natural disaster to help offset an even worse one.

lol

Well, that wont affect where I live. I'm about 400 mile north of that. Ca it a long state. SoCal is like another world to us in terms of weather. That is a strange swing in fortunes.

Should be a great day tomorrow (actually today, it's12:05), my son's 50th and my granddaughters 30th birthday party. Now they're saying only 89 degrees. Perfect!!

[dday9]

We lost my wife’s grandfather this morning. He was truly a great man, I can only hope to be half as good of a man he was.

[dilettante]

SoCal is like another world to us in terms of weather.

I remember my first trip to southern California back in the day. It was for a business conference held in Anaheim.

This trip took place just months after I saw _Blade Runner_ for the first time, televised in 1986.

When I got there everything was so disorienting and dystopian. The non-Disney hotel was full of signage with Japanese and something either Arabic or Farsi. Oddly there was no Spanish or French as we have on most similar signage we had here back then. One afternoon our sessions ended early with no evening events and I decided to trek over to Disneyland (tickets were cheap back then). The walk over was eerie: nobody else on foot at all and the sun showed deep orange through the thick polluted haze. Breathing was oddly difficult until I finally realized heavy smog was the culprit. In the park there were many unintelligible (to my ear) languages in use.

It was hard not to draw comparisons and see the movie's 2019 as a reasonable expectation of where things might go.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's been a world of smoke for a week. Usually, whether we have smoke depends on which direction the wind is blowing, but with fires all around, the wind just determines WHICH smoke we're breathing.

[Shaggy Hiker]

We got a bit of rain this morning. We should get more later on this week. That should reduce the fires just a bit.

[dilettante]

We lost my wife’s grandfather this morning. He was truly a great man, I can only hope to be half as good of a man he was.

Sorry to hear it. I hope family is coping well, that can be a hard fact to face in life.

I don't like to look too hard around me when I hear such news. I got some anxiety just from my Internet access going down for 3 hours tonight. We get dependent on it as it replaces separate more resilient systems we used to rely on (copper landlines, broadcast TV and radio, etc.).

Not the same thing at all, but it sucks to get old and sometimes feel fragile.

[wes4dbt]

Sorry to hear it. I hope family is coping well, that can be a hard fact to face in life.

I don't like to look too hard around me when I hear such news. I got some anxiety just from my Internet access going down for 3 hours tonight. We get dependent on it as it replaces separate more resilient systems we used to rely on (copper landlines, broadcast TV and radio, etc.).

Not the same thing at all, but it sucks to get old and sometimes feel fragile.

I can relate. It's a strange feeling when you realize you got maybe 10 or 15yrs max left.

Just today I was having trouble with my internet so I download some games that I can play offline just in case. lol

I use to enjoy reading a good book but the only books I got now are old programming books and operating manuals. I should remedy that.

[dilettante]

I decided I needed gasoline anyway and I could use their WiFi if they were up to check on my outage. Got there: "Sorry no free WiFi any more, cutbacks."

It's a mindset issue though. I need to unplug for more of the day I guess. I think 2020-2021 I was isolating a lot and got used to using the Internet to interact with the world a lot more.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Cutbacks? I wonder how much they are saving by not providing free WiFi?

I realize it would be different for a business, but if I didn't have security on my router, I'd be providing free WiFi. It wouldn't cost me any more than what I am paying now. The only issue would be that there might be enough users that throughput for any one user might be severely degraded. If I had a much faster connection, that might not be an issue, either.

So, what are they saving money on? Were they able to switch to a lower bandwidth connection?

[dilettante]

No idea. I know that after 7-11 took over the stores when the oil company sold that part off there were a lot of changes. Or maybe it broke down and they just told the store workers to say it is gone?

[wes4dbt]

I decided I needed gasoline anyway and I could use their WiFi if they were up to check on my outage. Got there: "Sorry no free WiFi any more, cutbacks."

It's a mindset issue though. I need to unplug for more of the day I guess. I think 2020-2021 I was isolating a lot and got used to using the Internet to interact with the world a lot more.

I must not be understanding something. Never heard of a gas station providing internet. I mean, it's 5min to pump your gas and you leave.

I remember a couple of years ago my router went out, it was going to take 2 or three days for them to send me a new one. I felt like a fish out of water, so I went to Best Buy and bought a portable hot spot and paid for like 5Gb of data. lol

[dilettante]

It had been nearly as common as coffee shop WiFi around here. Most have a convenience store and sell coffee and crap, and the traveling public often parks away from the pumps for a break. Pretty routine offering at truck stops too. Public libraries, state highway rest stops, and laundromats and other retail businesses like McDonald's offered it as well. I just haven't looked around in a while.

[Shaggy Hiker]

We're lucky if we can get cell service at some such institutions. There's one town that only has cell service in a short range around the visitor center.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's getting slowly better.

[dilettante]

I suppose that it might be that a critical mass of guppies have largemouthed themselves onto the hooks of the oligarchs and fork over a good fraction of a car payment each month on elaborate "phone plan" commitments that include Internet access. If customers see no need then a business has no competitive advantage in providing free on-premise service .

Perhaps what I was expecting to find has already become as nostalgic and rare as public drinking fountains and payphones.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I suppose that it might be that a critical mass of guppies have largemouthed themselves onto the hooks of the oligarchs and fork over a good fraction of a car payment each month on elaborate "phone plan" commitments that include Internet access. If customers see no need then a business has no competitive advantage in providing free on-premise service .

Perhaps what I was expecting to find has already become as nostalgic and rare as public drinking fountains and payphones.

Guppies and largemouth?? An interesting combination.

Also, you may not be keeping up with the times. I went from phone only to unlimited phone, text, and a fair amount of data while cutting my bill in half. I'm not paying a 'good fraction of a car payment', unless your car payments are SERIOUSLY cheap. I pay $25/month.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Basically, you may be right, but not because people are paying exorbitant sums, but because the costs have gotten cheaper and the services more ubiquitous. It may not make sense for some companies to keep providing the service.

I still find it hard to believe that the service was a significant cost to the business, though, unless it's a hotel.

[dilettante]

I'm just cheap, used to paying just $100/year for talk and text with no cellular data. Trying to steel myself for the day when my old prepaid account is no longer grandfathered in by the carrier.

Younger family members are paying $70/month/"line" for several phones. Ouch.

[dday9]

Yeah, I pay about $1,000 per year for my cell service which comes with unlimited data. I cannot justify it, but I also don’t want to switch, so I guess I’m being irrational.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Just changed my Phone contract to Sim Only deal, as my 2 year old phone is perfectly fine and should last for a few years yet.

I now pay £12 a month for unlimited calls & texts + 100 GB Data, happy I switched to Sim only !!

[dilettante]

A friend always says "The cost of quality of life is not linear." Meaning, I suppose, that "twice as good" costs more than "twice as much." Diminishing returns kicks in early.

[dday9]

Just changed my Phone contract to Sim Only deal, as my 2 year old phone is perfectly fine and should last for a few years yet.

I now pay £12 a month for unlimited calls & texts + 100 GB Data, happy I switched to Sim only !!

Is that specifically a UK thing? I've never heard of Sim Only before now.

[dilettante]

The closest thing around here might be "bring your own phone." But as far as I can tell the best you might expect from carriers here is some form of one-time "reward" in the form of a "gift card" with no other discounts.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I might be doing SIM Only. I went with a reseller. They give me a SIM for whatever network I want to use, and I brought (and bought) my own phone.

I was using a flip phone up until last year. I only moved over because I wanted to be able to use the phone as a navigation device for a very remote, multi-week, bike ride. The fact that I could often use it to work remotely was icing on the cake. The amount of data per month that I have isn't all that high, but I don't think I've come close to using it. I think I have 12 GB/month, and I'm not sure that I've ever topped 2 GB.

I just avoid videos, but that's easy to do for the uses I have.

[dday9]

Ah. Yeah, I bought my phone and my wife's phone from the Apple store in Metairie then got my cell carrier to give me a SIM card. But I definitely didn't get any kind of discount for doing that, just not having to pay a monthly note on financing a phone.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That may be all there is.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Is that specifically a UK thing? I've never heard of Sim Only before now.

What you can't get Sim Only in the US? I thought they were fairly common, maybe they are called something else?

When my last contract finished I had paid for and own the phone, so rather than getting a new one I kept it and over here at least you can get Sim Only contracts where they send you just the Sim and you sign a 12 month contract for you calls, texts & data.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm not sure whether you can get EXACTLY that. For me, I bought the phone separate, but I don't sign a year long contract. I pay by the month with no contract. Still, they sent me only the SIM, so it is pretty similar.

[dday9]

Yeah, it sounds very similar. The only difference is that I'm paying way more than £12 a month.

[dday9]

One reason I am paying so much is that I am with AT&T, which has the more reliable service where I live. If I were to switch to a carrier that leases AT&T's cell service it probably wouldn't be so bad. My only concern is that I had a friend who left AT&T and he told me that those secondary services work great if you're in a big town like New Orleans or Baton Rouge, but if you live in a rural part of the state (which I do) then I may have some problems. They might not lease the area that I live in or even if they do, AT&T prioritizes their customer's usage of the service so I could see slower/spottier connection with a "lesser" carrier.

[FunkyDexter]

Over here, if you're going for a fixed term contract you can generally get a phone included or not, whichever you prefer. If you don't want a phone you can also get a Pay as You Go deal but it will typically be more expensive than a fixed term.

Generally, a fixed term with phone is the best deal because they use the phone as a loss leader to tempt you onto the contract. If you've already got the phone you want then a fixed term without phone is usually the best. Pay as You Go deals are generally for drug dealers.

[dilettante]

I've been on a prepaid plan for years, and I never have to add more than $100 USD each year to carry my existing balance forward.

This is a no-data plan and any day I use the phone I get 24 hours of unlimited talk and text and my balance gets charged $2. So if I used it every day it would cost me $730/year for non-leap years, about $61/month.

As long as I don't exceed 50 days/year I just add another $100 annually. I'm a light phone user so I still have a balance somewhat over $200 right now.

Any day that I get a legit call or a spam call that gets past the filter or send a text it costs $2. But that gives me 24 hours to make social calls and texts to family and friends. I can only think of two years when I had to add another $100 and I could probably have just added $50 or something.

[dilettante]

I just about gag when I see advertising that shows people dipping pizza into Raunch Dressing. Can't abide slimy dumpster-drippins' condiments.

Saw a cooking show where a recipe used Hellhole Valley Raunch dry packet contents in Shepherd's Pie. They explained that it is 50% MSG and the cheapest way to buy MSG unless you buy in bulk. 25% is stuff like onion powder... with parsley bits as decoration. Another 25% is popcorn salt, but most people buy salt in bulk so that wasn't the reason they used it.

[wes4dbt]

I've been on a prepaid plan for years, and I never have to add more than $100 USD each year to carry my existing balance forward.

This is a no-data plan and any day I use the phone I get 24 hours of unlimited talk and text and my balance gets charged $2. So if I used it every day it would cost me $730/year for non-leap years, about $61/month.

As long as I don't exceed 50 days/year I just add another $100 annually. I'm a light phone user so I still have a balance somewhat over $200 right now.

Any day that I get a legit call or a spam call that gets past the filter or send a text it costs $2. But that gives me 24 hours to make social calls and texts to family and friends. I can only think of two years when I had to add another $100 and I could probably have just added $50 or something.

Yeah, for many years I'd just buy $20 worth of minutes and they were good for three months. I never needed more than that. But I just keep the phone in the car for emergencies. But a few years ago I decided to get a smart phone, Because all the cool kids had them. Still hardly use it but now I pay $25 a month. I have a land line at home, with 4 phones attached. So every place I relax there is a phone within reach. I don't want to be carrying a cell phone around with me.

Pay as You Go deals are generally for drug dealers.

We prefer the term entrepreneur.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm a light phone user so I still have a balance somewhat over $200 right now.

I was a light phone user, but my main objective was battery life, so now I'm a heavy phone user. It doesn't affect my balance all that much, though.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I just about gag when I see advertising that shows people dipping pizza into Raunch Dressing. Can't abide slimy dumpster-drippins' condiments.

Saw a cooking show where a recipe used Hellhole Valley Raunch dry packet contents in Shepherd's Pie. They explained that it is 50% MSG and the cheapest way to buy MSG unless you buy in bulk. 25% is stuff like onion powder... with parsley bits as decoration. Another 25% is popcorn salt, but most people buy salt in bulk so that wasn't the reason they used it.

Onion powder is risky, for me. I avoid it, as much as I can. Actually, now that I think about it, the real risk isn't to me, it is to those around me.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I wouldn't want to mess up a perfectly good pizza with some alien sauce, though.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, for many years I'd just buy $20 worth of minutes and they were good for three months. I never needed more than that. But I just keep the phone in the car for emergencies. But a few years ago I decided to get a smart phone, Because all the cool kids had them. Still hardly use it but now I pay $25 a month. I have a land line at home, with 4 phones attached. So every place I relax there is a phone within reach. I don't want to be carrying a cell phone around with me.

I no longer have a land line, but if I did...there's a phone outlet by the toilet in the bathroom. It lets a person share their moving thoughts.