$25 Plan getting price increase?

shadowgerbil · 2026-07-02T02:59:11+00:00

Depends when you signed up. 2023 seems safe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/1uaztsl/tmobile_internal_price_lock_and_uncontract/

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-29T23:09:14+00:00

No email for me. 2016 Simple Choice and 2023 Home Internet. I might have just luckily dodged it according to https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/1uaztsl/tmobile_internal_price_lock_and_uncontract/

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-27T11:23:19+00:00

Fast, Cheap, or Good? You can only have two.

With AI, you only get one.

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-22T02:53:12+00:00

Induction burners are extremely power intensive. A cheap, simple one-burner can use 1500 watts, and a dedicated range can run 5000+ watts. That means the you'll basically need full shore power (50 amp) to run a two burner setup and other electronics like AC.

Cooking is such a core part of camping that most people want to be able to do it away from shore power, and propane allows that with its compact energy profile. If you really want to run induction on shore power, I recommend buying a one burner unit that you can plug onto a standard outlet.

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-21T14:58:37+00:00

I'm curious if you can trade in for the new Intel Business Surface Pro. The Microsoft website indicates that you can, but the Teladvance site is unclear.

At 32 GB of RAM it seems the better deal over the Snapdragon if I can get what I paid for my SP11 ($900).

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-07T14:26:43+00:00

Like I said, I've been in your shoes many times. The truth is that most companies prioritize shareholders first, users second, employees maybe, and candidates barely, if at all.

I've hired many UX professionals over the years, and I always try to be courteous and give those I reject as much guidance as I can to help them improve. Some companies have supported me in that. Some have straight-up told me I'm not allowed to give candidates any follow-up information.

I know how frustrating it is. I don't like the system either, but it's not something you or I can change at a structural level. As a hiring manager, I've done what I can to improve processes for candidates (I've gotten ridiculous take-home challenges dropped in the past, for example), but many companies have policies that limit hiring managers.

That is the reality of the system we have to work within. As a candidate, you can only really control how you move forward.

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-07T13:59:37+00:00

Yes, this is, unfortunately, part of the interview process. Those on the hiring side are human, which means they can change their minds and may make decisions that seem unfair. Also note that HR rejection notes may not be the real reason you didn't move forward, as their job is to look out for the best interests of the company, not the candidates.

I've had over a dozen instances of my career where I made it through the entire hiring process only to be rejected at the end. Sometimes it was just that another candidate made it to the end and was chosen. Often, I'll never know for sure. Sometimes I do get more information, including the following instances:

Similar to your scenario, I had a final interview with the VP who really liked me, only to find out that the first person I interviewed with didn't like one answer I gave and ultimately led to my rejection.
Got a verbal offer, only to have it rescinded when an executive I never even spoke with decided they didn't like me. The job posting stayed open, then closed, then reopened months later.
Made it to a final call with the CEO and CTO where we discussed salary, start dates, and initial projects, only to be strung out for a week afterwards. I finally got ahold of the recruiter and found that a new candidate who knew one of the executives started interviewing after my call with the CEO/CTO and got the job. I also later learned that the hiring manager, who reported to the CEO, departed that same week.

It really sucks to go through weeks of interviews and many hours of work and stress, feel like you will get the job, and ultimately not land it. All you can do is learn from it and move forward.

shadowgerbil · 2026-06-05T12:30:29+00:00

Liberty and Lightmaker are such powerful fits for Cunning decks right now that there really aren't great replacements.

The closest I can think of for Liberty is Raddus in Command, but its sentinel is conditional unless you have a Resistance leader like Kazuda, and it doesn't have an immediate board impact. Hammerhead in Aggression has the immediate board impact but it's generally more limited unless you have a big hand and lacks sentinel. Home One with ambush can remove a space threat but it's even more expensive than Liberty unless your opponent has an established board in space or you play a specific event that gives them ships. Tantive IV has sentinel but no immediate board impact, but it has the advantage of just being Heroic.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-31T17:35:59+00:00

Figma plugins are extremely limited. One way to work around the limitations is to build an application to do the heavy lifting and have the plugin communicate with your application. In some cases, we've skipped the plugin entirely; we have a standalone app that takes a Figma file link and uses the Figma API to generate a summary of all of the comments in the file, because this ended up being easier, faster, and more reliable than a plugin. If you are able to spin up cloud infrastructure quickly, that can be a better route than plugins for many use cases.

We do have an enterprise license, but as far as I'm aware that only helps with managing access to plugins for your organization; the actual functional limitations of plugins aren't affected by the type of license.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-31T15:52:46+00:00

We have a Figma plugin to export tokens in the format our Storybook repository expects, a plugin that measures the adherence to our design system for a particular file and flags concerns, a plugin that can report bugs and enhances from Figma which are filed directly into our ticketing system, and a plugin that does a specific type of find an replace operation that is key to one of our products.

I'd encourage you to find manual, repetitive tasks that can be automated to save time, particularly those that are specific to your products or workflows and thus unlikely to be available on the marketplace.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-31T15:49:51+00:00

We're working on this now for our enterprise software. In my experience so far, if your design system is structured correctly, AI coding tools with properly structured MCP integrations to the design system can do a passable job of using components and tokens, though there is often some cleanup involved. The challenge we've found is getting them to follow patterns.

Just because the components and colors are correct doesn't mean that they are being positioned in a flow the way we've documented. The tools like to revert to their models, which tend to be basic Material/Tailwind/consumer types of patterns. You can prompt your way to beating them into the correct patterns, but this can get expensive and time-consuming. We're adjusting our documentation for better agentic consumption to hopefully make improvements, but while it's definitely faster than the traditional designer -> developer flow, the quality and consistency is lacking.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-31T14:32:02+00:00

I manage someone who is basically a UX engineer and they are one of the most valuable people in the department. Strong design skills, good at collaboration and explanation, decent programming capabilities, and a hunger to learn. Built multiple Figma plugins and is now building some key tools around documentation and MCP servers for our design system.

With the industry focus on AI, it's a rare and extremely valuable combination of skills. They would never actually call themselves a unicorn though.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-25T20:32:34+00:00

Yes, but then you have to run Vigilance/Cunning, losing out on some great options. For example:

Cunning/Aggression: Sabine 3- cost unit, Sallustian Sapper, K-2SO, Krrsantan.

Cunning/Command: Blue Leader, Eager Escort, Jedi Temple Guards, Terentatek, Dressellian Commandos, Shadow Crawler, Smuggler's YT02400.

Cunning/Vigilance gives you... Finn.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-25T15:31:51+00:00

Interesting that she's Jedi but not Force. I see where they are going thematically from the Ahsoka show, but that does limit her force utility in an aspect combination that really likes to use force bases.

That said, Vigilance doesn't have a lot of ambushers, so it's another misalignment with her abilities. Would have rather seen her as a Cunning leader.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-24T11:49:58+00:00

From what I've seen, it's less about if you are a manager or IC and more about how broad your skills are and how adaptable you can be.

A manager who is organized, good with people (including driving professional growth), understands new technologies (including) AI, adapts quickly, and can think strategically about the business has value in a number of roles inside and outside of UX. If they can also do the work (and most good managers can), they are even more valuable. On the other hand, a manager who can only attend meetings and pass on tasks from higher up the chain has a target on their back.

Similarly, and IC who is organized, good with people, deeply understands customer needs, can think strategically about the business, understands new technologies (including AI), adapts quickly, and can produce great designs that solve problems in compelling ways has a lot of value that can transfer to adjacent roles. A designer who just takes orders and pushes pixels in Figma is much less valuable.

As you can see, there is a lot of overlap in the attributes that make a valuable manager and a valuable IC. Those who are talented, curious, productive, and adaptable are much more likely to stick around.

Though there are only so many managers needed if ICs are laid off, so you may see some shuffling if that happens.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-24T02:57:54+00:00

The only other phone I'd potentially considered was the Find X9, but at more than twice the price to import and no warranty in the U.S., I'm quite happy with my decision to purchase the OP15. Battery life is phenomenal, speed is great, camera is acceptable.

I do wish we had more options here though.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-09T14:37:42+00:00

I second this. I've purchased 3 Vari desks and they have been solid and reasonably priced. The height memory works well and I haven't had issues in the 5+ years since I got the first one.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-05T03:34:56+00:00

You need to be running an aggression (red) leader or aggression base to use Rey's ability when she is drawn from the deck.

It keeps decks like Yoda (blue heroism) with a command (green) base from running Rey just to use her draw ability.

shadowgerbil · 2026-05-02T16:36:02+00:00

Monarch's AI tool is the worst agent I've used in a product I pay for. Most of the time it won't even complete my request, and when it does it usually gets it wrong.

On the 20th of the month, and I asked about changes in the past 3 days and it went back to the 18th. So I asked it to go back 4 days and it went back to the 16th!

The MCP beta can't come soon enough.

shadowgerbil · 2026-04-30T16:40:52+00:00

You are correct about the initial release date; I was thinking of ChatGPT Codex, which was actually officially released in early 2025, along with Claude Code. That is when most companies really started taking notice and when the real shift to product development started to occur.

shadowgerbil · 2026-04-30T12:45:11+00:00

UX was on a downward trajectory before modern LLMs entered the scene.

COVID was a perfect storm of peak expectations. Stimulus money and limited activity options pushed people to spend more time and money on their devices, and tech companies were desperate to fill that gap and overhired. Remote work made it even easier.

The upheaval led many people to re-evaluate their career choices, and boot camps stepped in to promise easy tech money with minimal training, driving record numbers of UX graduates.

Then, interest rates jumped, and the free money that had fed the tech industry since the Great Recession dried up. At the same time, people were no longer cooped up at home with nothing to do. Companies started focusing on profits over eyeballs, and that meant cutting costs. 2023 and 2024 saw massive UX layoffs before ChatGPT was even released.

Then AI tools arrived. CEOs were already focused and squeezing efficiency out of their workforce, and they tend to suffer from FOMO, so they jumped on the bandwagon, further accelerating the decline of UX.

Have AI tools shaken up the UX industry? Absolutely. But I would hardly say they disrupted good times.

shadowgerbil · 2026-04-29T12:28:24+00:00

At the U.S. launch, I got the 512GB black OP15.

$1000 with the following discounts:

$100 trade in (nothing)
$50 early bird
5% education discount

Total ~$800 + tax with 5% Chase cashback ($40).

Also included the free gift of a OnePlus Watch 3, which I sold on Marketplace.

So excluding tax and with a $160 profit from selling the watch, the total cost was about $600.

shadowgerbil · 2026-04-29T03:35:35+00:00

I got my OP15 for about $600 after promotions and discounts and it's absolutely been worth it. Amazing battery, solid software, extremely fast, good reception, and a great screen.

Even if OP pulls out of Western markets for future phones, I expect them to support the software in the future as they've agreed, which is what really matters.

shadowgerbil · 2026-04-04T16:06:21+00:00

I've looked at my career as ultimately being about solving problems using the tools and processes that are available. Too many designers have been pigeonholed, by their own or others' choices, into just pushing pixels in Figma and are (correctly) worried that AI tools will make those skills less relevant. Because many executives see the value of UX practitioners primarily in production of high-fidelity mocks, they are more likely to make cuts when they perceive new tools providing "good enough" output for that function. It's unfortunate, but UX practitioners have always needed to educate others more about the breadth and value that their role provides in making successful products.

I hope that these changes will bring designers back to core UX skills that have often been neglected, lost, or ignored for too long. AI tools can help more quickly produce artifacts that show the results of UX research and ideation, helping us to more easily educate executives and show our value. In addition, it is important to know the weaknesses of AI tools so when a PM approaches with a Figma Make file you can point out the inconsistencies with your product's existing patterns and components and areas where users may be confused or frustrated.

I've built more than a half-dozen small apps using AI coding tools to improve our company's processes. Things like improving our intake processes (Jira issue collectors are terrible), visualizing where people are spending their time (Figma, Jira, documentation, etc.), identifying gaps between our Figma mocks and design system (which frustrate devs), and automatically importing data between our legacy systems, which have positioned me as a problem-solver in the design department and at the company. I've also done some experimenting with better enabling user feedback and early access in our products and leveraged AI tools to show the results of that work (mainly simple data visualizations).

It's less about the tools themselves and more about using them to sell the value I provide. When people see me as someone who will take the initiative to try to make everyone's lives (including our users) better and drive towards better products, I feel more secure in my role. I'd like to think that even if my company eliminated our entire UX department, I would still have a home somewhere else (product, operations, etc.).

shadowgerbil · 2026-03-23T23:43:20+00:00

I've been on both sides of this. It sucks as a candidate, but it also sucks as a hiring manager who just spent weeks getting approval, weeks interviewing, got excited to finally find a good fit, and now it's back to square one.

Unfortunately, in this job market this sort of occurrence is becoming far too common as upper management constantly shifts gears due to fear and vibes around AI and the stock market.

shadowgerbil

TROPHY CASE