331–340 of 405 posts
Portlanders are the best! My brother was visiting us here and he lost his wallet at a major tourist attraction. He figured it was gone for good. Nope, someone turned it in with the $200 in cash still in it.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lost-wallets-are-more-li...
I left my AirPods Pro at a school sports field an hour away, and I didn't realize until the next morning after it been raining heavily. I gave them up for lost and needed headphones for work – so ordered some from Apple with same day delivery. A week later, I got a Find My notification that they had been spotted – at the same sports field. I figured what the hell, put on a podcast and drove the hour to see if I could…
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Is it some kind of proprietary P2P mesh network?
Yes, with a strong emphasis on the proprietary part. Apple and Google both have their own networks. All the Apple devices (and now, rolling out, all the Google Play Services enabled devices) scan for nearby Bluetooth LE beacons (that use their protocol) and upload (with some cryptographic operation) the location of the device who found the beacon, together with the accuracy (signal strength) to a proprietary server (…
If you want a non-Apple, non-Google solution, you go to the OG tracker tag -- Tile. You have to install their app, so the reach won't be nearly as extensive, but that is fine by me -- the last thing I want is a third party developer able to push code to my device without me explicitly installing it.
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This part of the story is even more surprising to me, as I'd never considered the possibility that mobile phone numbers could have area codes. The Portland metropolitan area has a population of just under three million according to Wikipedia[1]; my country has a population of just under seventy million and has only a single block of phone numbers allocated for cellular use. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland…
This is not the case in the U.S. (discussed elsewhere in this discussion). All phone numbers, landline or mobile, have an area code associated with a specific city/region. Since number portability became a thing in the early 2000s it’s much more common for cell phone users to just keep their number from decades ago, however, which will often not match the physical area they now live in.
I used this feature recently, after my mom passed. She had the same home number we grew up with, for fifty years. I ported it over as a second line on my mobile. Partly nostalgia (okay, mostly), partly because it was a pretty great number for memorization; it has an excellent number pattern.
TIL American cellphone numbers use an area code that represents the actual location. Do you get a new number if you move and then change to a different provider? In Germany the cellphone area code is just out of a range your provider has registered and if you move to a different provider, you typically move over your number.
There's also some social signaling here, like 415 is the original San Francisco area code – but if you got a number in the last few years it might be 628 which was added as 415 reached capacity.
> The episode also featured the New York area code 646. When the 212 area code ran out of numbers, 646 was created. Elaine gets a new number with the 646 area code. She is not happy with the new number because she believes the area code makes it too long to dial. She is proved correct when attempting to give her number to a man in the park. Initially eager, he reads the number, asks if it is in New Jersey. Her response is, "No, it's just like 212 except they multiplied every number by 3…and added 1 to the middle number." He says he is already in a relationship and walks off.
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This is since the existence of software and is going to stay with us until most people is ok to have 1/3rd of the features for the same kind of money. This will never happen, so bugs are here to stay.
The fact that software is buggy is not the customer's fault any more than food poisoning is the fault of people who eat too much.
I left my AirPods Pro at a school sports field an hour away, and I didn't realize until the next morning after it been raining heavily. I gave them up for lost and needed headphones for work – so ordered some from Apple with same day delivery. A week later, I got a Find My notification that they had been spotted – at the same sports field. I figured what the hell, put on a podcast and drove the hour to see if I could…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My first gen pros didn’t survive. They still work, but have a high pitched wine. They were already out of warranty so I had to buy a new pair. I did not and will not complain. I have owned over a hundred pairs of headphones/earbuds in my lifetime and these things are the best, by FAR. However, don’t wash them.
> They were already out of warranty so I had to buy a new pair. You realize that this is not a warranty issue, right?
TIL American cellphone numbers use an area code that represents the actual location. Do you get a new number if you move and then change to a different provider? In Germany the cellphone area code is just out of a range your provider has registered and if you move to a different provider, you typically move over your number.
They stay with you if you choose. What's kind of sentimental and nice is that the area code stays with you as marker of where you're originally from no matter where you go. It says "this is where I was from as a teenager when I was first allowed a cell phone." I don't know if this coincided with trend of getting an area code tattoo to signify where you're from, but that also is something that is done by some.
Alas, if you move out of the country for a period of time, it is a challenge to maintain the host country phone service. So there are no guarantees that you can hold on to that signifier of "this is where I was the last time I wanted to get a new phone subscription".
So the tattoo might be the better choice.