I recently purchased 3 plane tickets through Expedia for a total price of $877.20. During the checkout process, I was given the option to purchase a Price Match Promise for $5 per ticket ($15 for all 3 tickets) which, according to the program rules, would result in a refund being issued for the difference if the price were to drop below my purchase price between the purchase date and the date of travel. I decided to purchase the Price Match Promise, and I did in fact qualify for a refund:
A couple of things to point out… First, the Price Match Promise relies on the user to manually check for price updates. There is no automated process for Expedia to check on the purchaser’s behalf. After all, why should they make any efforts to refund any of your money?
Second, I started wondering when my airplane ticket price would reach its nadir before climbing in the week or two before the flight. Here’s a chart that shows the dates and prices:
In summary, the nadir of $793.20 occurred on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 which was 25 days before my flight. The prices rose in the last 2 weeks before my flight, and another sharp increase occurred 3 days before departure.
I’m sure that many people have performed more comprehensive analyses of ticket prices relative to departure dates and have stratified results by domestic vs. international travel, one way vs. round trip, day of the week of departure, and other factors. However, this was my personal experience. I hope it helps someone decide whether or not to invest $5/ticket on Expedia’s Price Match Promise.
The other day I was planning a trip on Waze and wanted to see if Waze understood the coordinates for my destination in another state. Interestingly, I received the following response after looking up and selecting my destination:
Although it is unlikely that someone would drive 1,000 miles in a single trip, even my Garmin nüvi 650 GPS (which I purchased in December 2007) allows me to calculate routes in excess of 1,000 miles.
There are 2 main reasons why I'd want to program destinations that are so far away, even if I do not plan to immediate drive there. First, I like to plan my route and compare GPS recommendations from different sources (e.g., Waze, Apple Maps, Google Maps). There have been rare instances in which I receive very different recommendations for routes and estimated drive times across different GPS providers. Second, I like to pre-program my destinations into Waze so that when it comes time to drive, they are in my recently used items list. On rare occasions, in the absence of an internet connection, I am unable to program my destination because Waze cannot look up the coordinates--this is when it is very helpful to have my destination saved ahead of time.
I should note that even though Waze was unable to provide me with turn-by-turn route guidance, it did in fact save my selected destination under my recently used items, so I assume that when I am within 1,000 miles of my destination, I can simply tap and go.
While on LinkedIn, I received a message from Safari (version 11.1) at the top of my browser window: "This webpage is using significant energy. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your Mac."
I had just sent an invitation, and both the webpage and Safari were sitting idle for about a minute before the message was displayed. I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.6. I've never seen this message before. Does anyone know why the LinkedIn webpage would begin using "significant" energy, especially after being idle for a minute?
Did you know that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (a.k.a. “HIPAA”) is a law that gives you the right to see and obtain your health records in paper or electronic formats, even if you haven't paid your healthcare bills? It also protects the privacy of your health information, but you as a patient can share your health information with anyone you want. Basically it puts each person in charge of their own health information.
A lot has changed since 1996. Namely, most hospitals and clinics now have electronic medical record systems that enable an increasingly large number of healthcare data assets to be stored and transmitted electronically. Two decades ago, a request for health information might have yielded a pile of photocopies after a long wait. Today it is possible that you can receive an electronic summary in a matter of minutes, depending on the capabilities that are supported by your provider. The bottom line is that many people are using technologies to manage their personal health information.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has announced the release of The Guide to Getting and Using Your Health Records. If you don't already know how to access your health information, this is a great place to begin learning about how to do that. So what are you waiting for? Get your health data now and take control of your own well being.
I'm a big fan of GPS navigation apps like Waze and others. One thing I've noticed in the Los Angeles area is that although Waze theoretically calculates the fastest route between 2 points, it sometimes fails to account for the degree of difficulty. For example, I am sometimes given routes where I am taken onto a small street and then expected to cross or turn left onto a busy 8-lane road during rush hour. While directions work well at a macro level (e.g., take freeway X, not freeway Y), when it comes to surface streets, sometimes you have to outsmart your GPS.
Today I saw an interesting Twitter moment that highlighted another limitation of most GPS apps: it fails to account for the steepness of streets. I was surprised to learn that some streets have grades in excess of 30%. For example, Baxter Street in Los Angeles has a 32% grade:
That's pretty steep, and unsuspecting drivers who are routed through such streets are sometimes in for a big surprise, if not a mishap. I am sure the makers of GPS apps have been thinking about this for a long time, but it would be nice if a driver could choose to avoid “difficult” situations, similar how there are features to avoid tolls or freeways. Even better, a user could select what kinds of difficult situations they wish to avoid: crossing difficult intersections, driving on steep grades (perhaps with options to avoid streets with grades more than a certain % threshold), driving on partially paved or unpaved roads, etc.
Overall it's pretty amazing how much we've progressed since the days of paper maps, and I often wonder how I found my way around without GPS technology. I realize that someday driverless cars will be the norm which will render this post obsolete, but progress occurs in steps. I hope we will see options to avoid difficult situations in the near future.
In case something like this happens to your iPhone, you may need to salvage your content and repair your screen.
I thought I'd share a few observations. First, obviously the iPhone was recording video at 1080p 60 fps when it was dropped about 5 and a half feet, falling face first, without any kind of protective cover, onto concrete. Despite the impact, it kept recording until I pressed stop. Second, in addition to saving the entirety of the video (3 minutes and 26 seconds, although video players incorrectly mark the duration as 6 minutes and 38 seconds), the phone seems to have saved 4 photos in 2720 x 1532 (16 x 9) resolution. I wonder if these snapshots are taken and discarded under normal circumstances but preserved in case of impact? Or maybe my wife (who was recording the video) unknowingly pressed the shutter release while recording...
I took my iPhone to the Apple Store at Fashion Valley in San Diego. Fortunately I came into the store early enough so that they were able to service my phone that same day before closing. The first thing they told me to do was to back up my contents (for me, this just means synchronizing my photos and videos from that day to Google Photos), as they will try their best to replace the screen, and if unsuccessful, they would provide me with a new phone, thus rendering my contents lost. The second thing they told me to do was to turn off Find My iPhone, otherwise they would not be able to repair the screen. I did not understand their explanation for why that was the case, so I don't remember exactly what the reason was. Since you need to enter your Apple ID password to turn off Find My iPhone, maybe they were trying to verify that I did not have a stolen phone in my possession.
I was told that a typical repair is estimated to require about 30 minutes (plus any time spent in the wait queue). Upon returning when I was told to check back, I was told that the replacement screen failed calibration, so they had to try a 2nd replacement screen. Eventually I got my phone back with a shiny new screen. Here are my itemized costs:
Display, Gray, iPhone 6 Plus $149.00 Part Number 661-00159 Item Warranty Code: OW No Returns Tax @ 7.75% $11.55 Total $160.55
Steep price to pay for a replacement screen, but I didn't feel like shopping around.
Did you know that you can download your Facebook data? It's a simple 2-step process where you request your data and then wait for Facebook to notify you that your information is available for download. For me, the process took just a few minutes.
The above link describes how to request your data as well as all the categories of Facebook that can be reported to you. What's lurking in your Facebook data?
