[Hatfield]

This is great news. The xiao long bao at Dumpling Inn went downhill after the Shanghai Saloon expansion. Best in town I’ve found these days are at Tasty Noodle House across the street.

[Hatfield]

Something something never buy the nicest house on the block.

[Hatfield]

Right, and all of this process exists for a reason. Science is hard, and life sciences are especially so. You want there to be scientific basis behind something that is offered as a remedy. As opposed to say, homeopathy, which is utter bullshit.

Unfortunately this does mean that non-patentable remedies fall through the cracks. I mean, we have lots of off-patent remedies like aspirin and so on, but there isn’t a viable path forward for new, non-patentable medications. That’s just the economic reality. If it turned out that rubbing Vitamin C on your big toe did in fact cure melanoma, it would be nice if NIH or some other public health entity could fund the clinical trials for the benefit of mankind. I would like to think that ‘benefit to mankind’ falls within NIH’s charter. It would be a nice second path to clinical trials for promising nonpatentable medicine that could run in parallel with the existing clinical trial path for patented medicines.

[Hatfield]

I’m sorry, am I on Piggington or NatrualNews?

[Hatfield]

Well, I guess if he’s smart his next move will be to prepare for his fraud trial on Nov 28th.

[Hatfield]

Google Fiber is not coming to San Diego: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/google-fiber-laying-off-9-of-staff-will-pause-plans-for-10-cities/

[Hatfield]

We seem to be drifting afield again.

OP is with AT&T and presumably wants to stay with AT&T. But OP is looking for a wireless option for international travel, and a prepaid T-Mobile SIM looks like a pretty viable solution. Buy the sim card, use it for the trip, topping off as necessary, and resume using AT&T upon return home.

[Hatfield]

Right, but in the process you lose all the integration.

Like I said, I like stuff being synched via the “cloud.” I just don’t like the contents thereof being spied upon for the purposes of generating ads. And using a rooted Android comes with its own set of risks.

[Hatfield]

The cloud storage part isn’t what bothers me, it’s having the provider peek at the contents and direct advertising at you based on what it sees. That’s creepy AF. I’ve seen no evidence that Apple is doing this. This is how Google makes its money.

[Hatfield]

Assuming you’re not interested in rooting/jailbreaking your phone, your best bet is to go with a plan that allows tethering. There’s no need to switch wireless providers, just buy prepaid SIM cards and switch back to your AT&T SIM when you get back home. If it’s going to be an extended trip, ask AT&T to suspend your service while you’re away.

Googling “canada sim tether” and “uk france germany tether” got me these:

Canada: http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Canada

Also, the fine print states that T-Mobil’s prepaid SIM cards allow tethering in Canada: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-internet

UK/Europe: http://kenstechtips.com/index.php/best-sim-cards-for-using-smartphone-in-europe

[Hatfield]

Which countries will you be visiting?

You’re never going to get an inexpensive international plan from a US carrier. Your best deal will be to buy a prepaid SIM card when you arrive at your destination. There is a (San Diego based, coincidently enough) company that sells an international roaming SIM card, but their prices, while better than the US carriers, are still very expensive compared to buying a prepaid SIM card in-country. http://www.telestial.com/international-sim-cards.php

So that’s the SIM card half of the equation. As for the device, most smartphones have a tethering option built in, where the phone acts as a personal WiFi hotspot for you, while accessing the cellular data network.

One important note: you can only use a different SIM card in a phone if the phone is “unlocked.”

Many wireless carriers subsidize some or all of the upfront cost of a cell phone by building that cost into the monthly subscription. So when they say “free phone with 2 year contract,” the phone isn’t free, its cost is just being amortized over the two year subscription period. And obviously they don’t want people to get the free phone, cancel the service, and switch to another carrier. So to prevent this, the phone is electronically “locked” to not recognize SIM cards from other carriers.

So you need to figure out whether your phone is locked or not. If you have had the same phone with the same carrier for 2+ years, many carriers will unlock the phone for you for no charge.

There are more clandestine ways to unlock locked phones, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole just yet.

[Hatfield]

Just curious: which Apple services are you referring to?

[Hatfield]

If you have Macs, it’s pretty hard to beat the integration between iOS and macOS worlds. I was pissed about the lack of a headphone jack in the iPhone 7, but wanted to upgrade from my 3 year old 5S. I went with a 6S right after they lowered the price $200 and so far I’ve been pretty happy with it.

If you have PCs, I think the iPhone is becoming increasingly less compelling. Unfortunately Google has given up on “don’t be evil” and is getting creepier and creepier with their spying^h^h^h^h targeted advertising.

[Hatfield]

I used to go to the one on Mission Gorge in the 80s. They’ve really gone downhill in the past few years tho. It seems like their soups are using cheaper and cheaper ingredients, and overall quality has fallen way off. I haven’t been to one in at least 6 months, so I wonder if revenues are falling off also.

[Hatfield]

[quote=harvey]I suppose it is rare in the general population, but anyone with an undergrad degree in architecture should know this stuff.[/quote]
There’s no shortage of architects with no taste or judgement.

[Author]

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