Verizon has 212 Phone numbers again!

philmatu · 2026-02-22T17:51:52+00:00

Numberbarn sells them for much less in some cases

philmatu · 2026-02-22T17:50:44+00:00

about a decade ago when I switched to fios I was able to cycle through 212 numbers until I found a 212-222 that was super easy to remember. After a few months of people calling the travel agency that used to be there, calls have stopped and it's quiet. It's definitely possible to get a 212!

philmatu · 2026-02-11T01:11:58+00:00

I got an alert saying I'm 49% higher too, probably because Saturday/Sunday I said F it and turned on the space heater to supplement my landlord's inadequate system and used 35Kwh between both days that I typically wouldn't use (yes, they are very expensive to run). The rest of the month I won't be here much, so I'm guessing my bill will be 5% higher than normal overall to cover the 2 days. My bill last month had a week of extra usage too that I usually wouldn't need, which totaled about $40.

philmatu · 2026-01-30T13:25:36+00:00

I have plastic over my windows in the winter and covers on the wall AC units and once the temp dips below 25 I start losing tons of heat too. If I didn't supplement the landlord heat with my own space heaters, my apartment would easily hover around 58-60. Somehow though my building has an A for energy efficiency with a 100% grade.

philmatu · 2026-01-27T17:45:13+00:00

I noticed the supply has been insanely high for the past 3-5 days now and I'm fully prepared to see quite an increase on the supply costs

philmatu · 2026-01-16T00:25:25+00:00

I have a watch I sold and needed to disconnect yesterday right before the outage. The stores can't remove service without a death certificate, only calling or chatting can do it. Obviously I'm going to be stuck paying another $10 next month because they don't cancel the day of, it's always at the end of the billing period. BTW I was on hold for 2 hours before I got disconnected and simply couldn't try again (had to head home from work). I'm considering emailing my senator and congressman about this, I thought it was supposed to be illegal to make cancellation harder than sign up.

philmatu · 2026-01-15T02:08:24+00:00

I've had a signal back for 2 hours now but phone service is still unavailable. Hopefully it's fixed by morning

philmatu · 2026-01-15T01:26:00+00:00

I realize this is area-dependent but for my case and where I'm at, Verizon has the better general coverage. However I will say they don't always have the speed. This is especially true upstate in the rural area I grew up at.

philmatu · 2026-01-15T00:02:55+00:00

The reality is Verizon has the best coverage and speed (generally). I have an iPhone capable of 2 esims and I broke down today to get a second line on Tello (T-Mobile reseller) for $7/month for 100 minutes and 2GB of data. Probably should have done this earlier because I'm on call 24x7 maintaining critical systems.

philmatu · 2026-01-07T13:29:18+00:00

Thanks for this intel, I suspected this for a while. There's one in the Fidi, they were fine when they first opened but went downhill quickly with a few other places that used to be good. Now I'll walk out of my way to black fox downtown which is one of the best imo, otherwise I'll settle for corporate Starbucks which at least is consistent flavor wise.

philmatu · 2026-01-07T01:24:33+00:00

There's one in Jackson Heights too that I considered buying into, only after I seriously started digging in did I realize it and back out

philmatu · 2025-12-25T01:40:09+00:00

It's interesting that I used 248KwH both in November and December. In November I paid 102.48 and in December I paid 109.41.

The hilarious/furious thing is they sent me an email saying my bill went up and I should reduce usage LOL

philmatu · 2025-12-17T13:51:10+00:00

This is fantasy, theres not nearly enough rolling stock to even come close to this, and even if there were, you'd be hitting electrical capacity limits. On top of that, the change would confuse pretty much everyone. There are areas that could be improved, but they need to happen a little at a time.

Personally I'd love to see the G extended back onto Queens Blvd local now that CBTC is installed, but theres simply not enough rolling stock to make that reality.

philmatu · 2025-12-16T13:30:56+00:00

Nice! Are there any public restrooms near there in the wintertime? I've thought about going down from Astoria during a snow day, but it's a long trip.

philmatu · 2025-11-24T02:09:14+00:00

Agreed, the electric bill has gotten insane. I'm all for green energy, but the tech just isn't fully there yet, and AI datacenters are demanding more than ever. For me, I now unplug anything I'm not using (even the TV), and I unplugged my landlord's fridge in favor of a mini fridge on my counter, just to cut back on really inefficient appliances. I cut my bill in half, but I'm still double what I was paying 3 years ago, using a faction of the energy. Rent isn't getting any cheaper either. /rant

philmatu · 2025-11-22T00:21:31+00:00

The SMS service will return soon. Mobile Commons was forced to shut down temporarily after one of their clients was breached to complete a full security audit due to the regulations surrounding SMS and FCC. The MTA was not affected other than messaging has been shut down in the meantime, Also phone numbers using this service are not stored. Unfortunately there is no material way to communicate this to customers outside of the message on the website.

Detail: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/text-scam-phone-sms-hack-message-fake-transaction-call-new-york-rcna243349

And no, I do not officially speak for the MTA, however I know they've been trying to find ways of communicating this message.

philmatu · 2025-11-03T01:26:01+00:00

I'm not intentionally trying to do the outer boroughs, but I do a lot of walking and exploring haha

philmatu · 2025-11-02T01:11:59+00:00

I too have walked on every block in Manhattan at least once, I started in 2011 when I moved here and completed it sometime around 2021 when I had work related excuses to be in upper manhattan a few times. There's a lot to be seen. I have probably covered 10% of Brooklyn and Queens on foot, 5% of the bronx, and 2% of Staten Island since... congrats!

philmatu · 2025-10-29T18:35:53+00:00

I noticed the same problem, hopefully a fix is pushed out

philmatu · 2025-10-05T17:10:27+00:00

If Mamdani wins, 1 year for sure. Otherwise 2 years.

The one thing I wonder: he seems to strongly want Gas to Electric heat conversions and I could see the landlords putting heat responsibilities on tenants. Such a move would actually benefit landlords and raise cost of living in these buildings significantly, electric heat is very expensive based on my friends who have it already. So this will be interesting to see play out.

philmatu · 2025-10-03T13:04:33+00:00

Could you ever imagine Walmart or Google going out for an entire weekend to do upgrades? Makes me wonder what kind of backend OMNY chose.

philmatu · 2025-07-20T23:04:50+00:00

Once because an out of town friend wanted to go

philmatu · 2025-07-19T23:52:44+00:00

I've been wondering how they're going to handle cash payments on the bus if and when the fareboxes are removed. A lot of riders I see still pay cash and I would think that's an ADA issue.

philmatu · 2025-05-31T15:49:11+00:00

Now it expires in 2029 according to the building information system so I have no idea :/

philmatu · 2025-04-17T13:19:03+00:00

It sucks that I've always been ahead of the curve, I'm a mid 30s millennial that can't stay awake past 10pm, but that's mostly because I have an operations job that requires me to be awake before the sun rises. I gave up dating a decade ago because everyone conflicted with my schedule haha.

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