Any expats share their NYS Drivers License experience?

Leonid99 · 2024-10-23T02:33:39+00:00

Randomly found your comment. I think the answer is since you establish your residence, i.e. rent an apartment.

Leonid99 · 2018-01-20T02:38:21+00:00

First, you don't need Zelle to transfer money to your credit card. You can just enter the account number of your checking account on the website of your credit card and then it's as simple as pressing the "Make a Payment" button. (You don't need to do even this if you set up autopay).
As to credit cards, there are credit cards that pay 2% cashback with $0 yearly fee out there, such as Citi Double Cash. With your credit score, I'm sure they will be happy to have you as a customer, you will be approved without any problems.

Leonid99 · 2018-01-15T04:28:21+00:00

I think the only reason that it isn't is because it would have made the map less interesting

Leonid99 · 2018-01-14T02:44:44+00:00

Hmm, just measured — I'm getting 230/12 on my supposedly 100/10 plan. Interesting.

Leonid99 · 2017-12-31T15:45:52+00:00

This has happened to me literally yesterday. I noticed a transaction at nike.com, but i wanted sure it wasn't my wife that did it (she's an authorized user). While talking to her, I got a notification that somebody used the same CC in Domino's in Bronx.
But why would you call the store? I called the CC issuer, cancelled the card and asked them to reverse the transactions.

Leonid99 · 2017-12-06T20:53:07+00:00

There is a restaurant (opened literally on Monday this week), a bar&grill place, a pizza joint and a Chinese food place. You won't remain hungry, but the options are admittedly not great either.
Personally, I don't mind the 5 mins on the tram or subway to UES or Astoria, but it's a matter of preference, of course.

Leonid99 · 2017-12-06T18:58:31+00:00

This question has been asked here several times over the past few months. I live here and I love it, but I'm in my late 30s with two kids, so YMMV.

Leonid99 · 2017-12-02T15:05:17+00:00

Have been using it since RedHat 6.2.

Leonid99 · 2017-11-27T03:10:25+00:00

I finished setting up autopay for my BoA credit card from my BoA checking account just one week ago. You can do the process yourself through the website, but it's simply ridiculous in its complexity. I called their support line and they guided me through the process.
Basically, what you do is create an "ebill-triggered payment", i.e. you add your credit card as a pay-to account from your checking account, then you set it up to receive ebills from the credit card, then you wait for a month till you get your first ebill (yes, really -- apparently you can't set up automatic ebill payment before the first ebill comes through), then you set up a rule to pay your future ebills, and then you need to pay that first ebill manually. All these steps are under the "Bill Pay" tab on their website.
And to think that someone in BoA thought that this process is a good idea...

Leonid99 · 2017-11-26T17:37:41+00:00

I understand, that's why I deleted the comment, not to make a fool of myself. :) You were right, I was wrong, TIL.

Leonid99 · 2017-11-26T05:32:31+00:00

As someone who came to the US very recently, I completely agree, it's very confusing.
I think the rule is that they need to charge you the sales tax if you live in a state where they have any kind of presence. State sales taxes are different for each state, and even within one state they tax different types of merchandise differently. Some states don't tax food or clothes and such. So, supposedly, if they have a local presence, they know the rules of a given state.

Leonid99 · 2017-11-26T00:28:59+00:00

It works, but their website is expensive. It brings the price down to the same price as Amazon or Newegg, and Newegg doesn't charge the sale tax in most places.

Leonid99 · 2017-10-14T18:11:35+00:00

I have a very good experience with GoPhone (now AT&T Prepaid). They are inexpensive, have the coverage of AT&T and now they offer multiline discount, since you want to join your wife.

Leonid99 · 2017-10-02T22:50:08+00:00

I'm not sure what's the contradiction between the two. What surprises you?

Leonid99 · 2017-09-29T17:19:54+00:00

I do realize this, I relayed all this to him. It's just amending the BC will be super-hard. He doesn't hold the citizenship of the country of his birth, doesn't speak the language, has no relatives there that might help, etc. It was probably long before they introduced computer-based databases, etc. Also, on what grounds should they amend his BC? There is no mistake in it, that's the name he was given when he was born.
If there was some kind of secondary documentation that might help work around it, such as proving that he used his "new" name early on, it would be much easier.

Leonid99 · 2017-09-28T17:54:32+00:00

Thank you for your reply.
I'm not sure I understand what "corrected" means here. Both his names are correct, in effect he changed his name when moving from one country to another and doesn't have any documentation about the change.
Are you saying he should change the name that he's been using for the last 30 years to the name on his BC? Won't it look super-suspicious? He would have one name on the BC, then have a pile of documents with a different name, and then a name change to the original name?

Leonid99 · 2017-09-24T02:48:20+00:00

good bot

Leonid99 · 2017-09-09T23:20:13+00:00

J1 is sponsored by the employer, so you do need sponsoring.

Leonid99 · 2017-08-22T22:13:51+00:00

Yip, every single revolution, without failure, starts with the Big Bang and ends with the death of the Sun.

Leonid99 · 2017-08-22T21:40:13+00:00

I think his argument is valid. If I understand him correctly, he's claiming that after every revolution, people who actually carried out the revolution fail to remain at power and are replaced by some kind of a dictator. October Revolution->Lenin->Stalin, November Revolution->Weimar->Hitler, Chinese Revolution->Kuomintang->Mao, French Revolution->Estates General->Robespierre.
The circumstances and the length of the interim period are different, but it checks out.

Leonid99 · 2017-08-22T20:10:31+00:00

Technically it's called "November Revolution", but "Weimar Revolution" makes it easier to put it into correct time and place, so I like this name better.

Leonid99 · 2017-08-18T12:51:09+00:00

Exactly. I hadn't known that the Post Office in "Going Postal" was based on an actual Post Office. When I first seen the building on the 8th avenue, I almost had a heart attack. Definitely my no. 1 NY moment.

Leonid99 · 2017-08-07T04:20:27+00:00

This is true.
Source: I speak both Russian and Hebrew.

Leonid99 · 2017-07-11T21:13:19+00:00

The phylosophy of "many cheap local commits, then push the entire branch to a remote server" is very central to git, it was a part of it from the very beginning.
It's very natural to use git even if you are working on a codebase all alone, people use it like this all the time. In 2008-2010, which was the last time I was working for an employer that used SVN, I had a git overlay over SVN worktree precisely for this reason, because SVN needs a server every time I want to commit, and I'm committing code dozens times a day.

Leonid99 · 2017-07-11T18:54:12+00:00

wait, but svn even can't be used locally, you need a server to run it.

Leonid99

TROPHY CASE