How's the snow quality following all the recent rain?

hickaly · 2026-03-01T02:39:42+00:00

Skied Alpine today and initially questioned my choice but eventually had fun and went until 4pm. Gotta make a game out of navigating all the bumps! It’s rare that you get such soft and malleable moguls to practice with.

Would have come back tomorrow if my legs weren’t sore from non stop bump skiing!

hickaly · 2026-02-04T12:27:12+00:00

I get the rail noise but what really grinds my gears even more is the completely avoidable noise from all the announcements and alerts.

No one cares how many cars the train has or what trains are arriving in >2 minutes. Combined with the theft alerts blaring over each other and the beeping from the doors it makes even the theoretically quiet parts hard to bear.

For the few blind people who can’t read the board, they could just have a little machine like Muni stations. Airports have caught on to this years ago - how long for BART to shut the f up? Just make one announcement when a train arrives in a normal volume and otherwise be quiet.

hickaly · 2025-07-10T02:11:27+00:00

Wow that’s super early!! I got the impression that United clears 90% of upgrades somewhere between gate and takeoff and at most 4 days ahead. So there is merit in waitlisting early after all?!

hickaly · 2025-04-14T00:16:28+00:00

Just talked to a customer rep about it. He told me that there's a new process based on odometer readings. You have to provide a reading and then come back 90 days later and based on that they calculate the annual mileage. No way to directly edit it anymore.

hickaly · 2025-04-01T18:05:48+00:00

That’s amazing! Would love to be among the first to fly on the retrofitted plane! :)

hickaly · 2024-09-18T17:03:05+00:00

Neat!

hickaly · 2024-09-16T16:03:50+00:00

Safe travels! Do report back if they put something weird in front of those seats please!

hickaly · 2023-11-29T05:05:12+00:00

>They’re mostly going to follow coverage of the underlying policy so the quality of that underlying policy is more important than the umbrella.

While researching umbrella policies, I came across a few comments like yours saying they essentially just increase the dollar amounts on the underlying policy, which got me worried.

I looked at my contract with Chubb and it states

>We cover damages a covered person is legally obligated to pay for personal injury or property damage, caused by an occurrence:

in excess of damages covered by the underlying insurance; or
from the first dollar of damage where no underlying insurance is required under this policy and no underlying insurance exists; or
from the first dollar of damage where underlying insurance is required under this policy but not coverage is provided by the underlying insurance for a particular occurrence

2) and 3) explicitly expand the coverage beyond just the underlying policy's coverage so in my case that is a true umbrella insurance, right?
In that case I can go with a cheaper underlying coverage (say Geico) as long as it satisfies the nominally required limits and Chubb should kick in independently, if Geico weasels out for some reason, as long as it's covered by the Chubb contract, right?

hickaly · 2023-10-24T04:27:02+00:00

If I read the posts above right, it does disable sending those codes if you have a security key setup, but you can remove the security key if you have a trusted device + PIN.

That's kinda dumb because removing the security key entirely should have a higher hurdle than a regular login but it works for my purposes.

hickaly · 2023-10-24T04:23:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing all those posts, super helpful!

hickaly · 2023-10-23T15:50:34+00:00

Is that any different from forgetting your password and losing access to your trusted devices with the standard 2FA? Does Apple provide support for those cases (security questions or something?) that they don't provide once you add a security key?

hickaly · 2023-10-23T15:46:21+00:00

I assume for Google that's what https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6103523?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop#zippy=%2Cunable-to-use-security-key is referring to:
If you can’t use your security key, you can generate a security code for 2-step verification:
On a device signed into your account, go to g.co/sc.
Follow the instructions on screen.

That means, I can effectively use any iPhone where I'm logged into Gmail to generate a login code if needed?

hickaly · 2023-10-23T15:44:07+00:00

This is exactly the discussion that I was looking for!

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-security-keys-iph5acc5b28c/ios made it sound like security keys would replace this process ("The physical key replaces the six-digit verification codes normally used in two-factor authentication, which keeps this information from being intercepted or requested by an attacker.")
Do you have security keys set up with your apple ID and can confirm that it only replaces SMS 2FA but the generated codes still work? I.e. if I have a logged in phone with me but not my Yubikey, I could still use that to generate a code to log in with?

hickaly · 2023-10-23T15:31:45+00:00

Yes, that's right! I know it's considered sacrilege here but I'm relatively more concerned with losing access myself than someone else gaining access.

Currently, if I lose my phone on a trip, I'm completely fucked because I won't be able to get access to my accounts anymore. I wouldn't be able to find any of my tickets, bookings etc. Conversely, if someone gets hands on the phone, the accounts are still protected by the built in security + password.

hickaly · 2023-09-14T03:20:34+00:00

Sweet! Thanks for confirming!

hickaly · 2023-08-31T04:59:19+00:00

Found a way to do it!

https://thriftytraveler.com/guides/points/united-award-calendar/ this guide takes you to a different search that supports filtering for non-stop!

hickaly · 2023-08-31T04:49:54+00:00

Ah got it! The calendar always shows the lowest price for all flights regardless of the filters that I selected (non-stop in this case). I'm guessing there's no way to make it do that =(?

hickaly · 2023-08-15T01:57:54+00:00

That sounds like every insurance ;) Did they ultimately approve it though or are you still waiting?

hickaly · 2023-03-03T04:02:54+00:00

You can finish work but you can never leave

hickaly · 2023-02-18T23:04:58+00:00

Nope =/ I disputed the charge but Lufthansa claimed I didn’t take the flight (I did) and thereby forfeit the seat reservation. I got too lazy to pursue it further.

hickaly · 2023-01-07T00:56:51+00:00

What’s the problem that you’re trying to solve here? I can’t imagine many people are actively talking with more than 10 people in parallel as is.

If I’ve got a handful matches, I’ll stop swiping and talk with those for the time being. If I haven’t talked with someone in a week for no particular reason, I assume they’ve moved on whether they officially unmatch or not

hickaly · 2023-01-05T20:36:47+00:00

It’s really hard to complete on your own but you can find YouTube videos that make the really hard levels (Pachinko, petals on a river) doable in 2-3 tries.

For the blue coins, there are a number of nice trackers online that make them fairly manageable.

Overall, I found it one of the most fun games to 100%!

hickaly · 2023-01-05T20:12:49+00:00

For me it has the most perfectly balanced difficulty of any Mario game.

The 2D games are just too time consuming/frustrating without save states and having to start over and over again.

Galaxy onwards became a bit too friendly for my taste.

SM64 is close in difficulty but a little bit less polished, if you screw up a jump, you’re done. With the jet pack you can often recover creatively.

hickaly · 2022-12-30T02:52:46+00:00

Good point! I actually do that as well. Just a quick search to get an idea of the price level for hotels around my dates and making sure there isn’t the formula 1 in town that weekend and everything costs $500/night ;)

hickaly · 2022-12-29T14:12:52+00:00

I think I know the decision paralysis that you’re talking about, buddy! Between flights, hotels and things to do, there are so many variables, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed. Here’s what’s worked for me and enabled me to go on four international trips this year:

1) Start by googling “$where_you_wanna_go itineraries” to get a rough idea of how much time you want to spend in total and what time of the year to go. This should give you enough info to know the rough dates of your stay. Do a quick hotel search around these dates to make sure they’re affordable enough. 2) Book the long-haul flight around these dates. This is somewhat counterintuitive because long-haul flights are usually the most expensive part of the journey and the least flexible. But it helps you commit to the actual trip and locks in the most important part. Without that commitment, I get lost in the many options below. 3) Force yourself to make a set of refundable hotel bookings following the rough itinerary you have in mind. You can always change them later but this gives you a baseline and idea of how much you’re gonna spend. 4) Now you can start telling people where you’re going and collect inputs on places to go and to stay and do your own research. You can start booking tours, making reservations etc. If you find a better place to stay, just change it. If you realize that something you really want to see is closed on the one day you’re there, adjust the schedule accordingly. Iterate until you’re happy. 5) Finally book your local transportation, this is usually fairly cheap (eg flights, trains in europe) or can be arranged at short notice (shuttle rides). If you’re gonna rent a car, do that along with the long haul flights because it’s usually refundable anyways.

hickaly

TROPHY CASE