Gosh, it’s been a while, so I guess it’s time I put something up here. I kept starting to write stuff, but then some needy bastard at work would call me or some system would get all screwy and I’d have to go deal with some crisis or another. I’ve now been not on-call on-call 24\/7 for nine days and I have the rest of today and tomorrow to go. It kinda sucks.<\/p>\n
I finally got around to listening to Obama on WTF (and the follow up with Brendon and Marc talking about how the whole thing happened). I thought Marc did pretty well – he didn’t talk over Obama too much, so that was good. It was kind of interesting to hear Obama sounding like a regular human being instead of this devil (or god, depending on who you happen to be listening to) that he gets made out to be. I still think he should’ve pushed for single-payer just so he could cave in and give Republicans (and Democrats on the insurance industry payroll) a “victory.” It probably would have avoided a lot of the nonsense that came after. <\/p>\n
Oh well.<\/p>\n
Of course the big thing for me is that I’m somewhere into 3 weeks in to my “Project Fi” experience, which I guess can be broken down into two parts: the phone itself, and the plan.<\/p>\n
As for the phone, it’s a Nexus 6. I’d heard a lot of things about it – mostly that this phone is a “whale” and way too big and all that other stuff. I was kind of afraid it would wind up seeming stupid big and that I’d regret it. I’m pleased to say that, though I don’t have especially large hands or anything, I took to this phone right away – and though the display kind of dwarfs my “old” phone (an HTC One M8 – no slouch at 5.2″), it doesn’t seem big to me at all. <\/p>\n
Of course, I don’t go walking around with my phone in my ear all day either. If I’m talking on the phone (which I’m generally not), I’m using the speaker phone or my trusty HTC earbud headset. Otherwise, I’m just checking my e-mail or using it as a remote for my Raspberry Pi or maybe asking Google if it’s going to rain. So size, I’m pleased to report, really doesn’t matter. Not to me, anyway.<\/p>\n
I’ve also been very pleased with the battery life. Again, I’m not yapping all day but I listen to podcasts on my 30-40 minute commute via Bluetooth connection to the car, I keep BT, WiFi, and location on all the time, and check the odd e-mail or web page now and again, plus (as I said) use it as a remote for various devices and even watch the odd episode of “Vicar of Dibley” on NetFlix. By the time I put it into the wireless charging cradle before bed, there’s still plenty of battery life remaining. In fact, I’ve never seen it less than 75%.<\/p>\n
So, phone – good. Plus they gave me a “welcome” gift for being a Fioneer (made that up myself) with a case (white – used it for a couple days before my Spigen case came; even though I’m not into white, it was actually not a bad looking thing), a 6,000 mAh external battery (which I welcomed to the collection along with the 11,000 and 20,000 I already have and never use because I don’t actually go anywhere), and a headset which looks nice but which I haven’t used. So, hey, it’s always nice to get free shit. <\/p>\n
No for the service. If you didn’t know, Fi automatically chooses the best connection between T-Mobile, Sprint, and WiFi. And it switches automagically between them. I wasn’t supposed to get better than 3G out here in the sticks where I live (say what you want about Verizon, but you can’t beat their network), but I’m pleased to report that I almost always get LTE from T-Mobile, and when I don’t, I get HSPA from Sprint. Both of which are faster (in theory, anyway) than what I get from Time Warner (which will hopefully change when Charter buys them out).<\/p>\n
The deal with Fi is that you pay $20 a month for unlimited voice and texts, and then you basically pay as you go for data at a rate of $1 per 100 MB. You choose how much data you want to set your “goal” at, and pay for that a month in advance. And you get credited for what you don’t use or charged for what you went over at the same rate. I have WiFi at work, WiFi at home, and no real desire to check my e-mail while I’m driving to work. Since I download the podcasts I listen to while driving (or on the tractor) overnight on WiFi, and don’t stream anything, after playing a bit, I decided to just turn off cellular data completely and I can turn it on if I need it and WiFi isn’t available.<\/p>\n
With Verizon, I had a 2 GB data plan and had to play extra for the privilege of using it as a hotspot. For this, with the voice\/text plan, I was paying about $80 a month (excluding taxes and fees). I think the most I ever used was one month when my power and Internet were out for like a day, and that was 300 MB or so. <\/p>\n
For Fi, the same 2 GB\/voice and text costs me $40. However, I get a credit for unused data on the next bill. So had I not been getting screwed by Verizon at the time, that 300 MB month would have cost me $23 instead of $80. <\/p>\n
As it is right now, with 13 days left to go this cycle, I’ve used 30 MB (or, as I think if it, 30 cents worth) of data – and this is why I paid about $220 to get out of my Verizon contract early. I figure at worst, a 5.5 month payback – and probably more like 4. Even with the price of the phone, it should be a bit more than a year payback (would have been better had I sold my old phone to Gazelle, but the wife an ancient Droid Razr and she fairly leapt at the offer to upgrade to something a little more modern, and Junior got her Droid as an upgrade from his old dumb phone, so everybody’s happy).<\/p>\n
Another advantage of Fi is that when somebody calls me (admittedly, a mostly hypothetical scenario), the phone will also ring my tablet and my computer (which is actually a bit confusing when I’m sitting next to all three at the same time) if I want it to, and when I get voicemail (from myself, testing), it sends me an e-mail with a reasonable decent transcription and a link to listen to it online). <\/p>\n
So, anyhow, that’s what’s been keeping me busy over the past couple of weeks. That, and we had our anniversary in there somewhere too (16 long, long years). I hope your July is going well. It’ll be winter before you know it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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