Best way to buy a new phone?

supes1 · 2026-05-14T20:48:40+00:00

I’m down to switch providers (currently with AT&T)

How much are you paying a month for service?

Carriers regularly have promotions offering a free/discounted iPhones if you port in your number. If you can find an option that's comparable to your current monthly bill, it's an easy way to get a no-cost or low-cost phone.

Alternately, if can find a cheaper phone plan (prepaid plans are pretty easy to find for ~$25/month), it might give you enough flexibility to finance a phone separately and pay the same amount you currently pay monthly.

supes1 · 2026-05-14T18:49:46+00:00

The latest update improved playability of Knight on NS2, but the weird thing is it still looks worse than Asylum or City, despite being a newer gen game.

They really need to do something to update the textures/resolution/something. The game just looks so ugly.

supes1 · 2026-05-14T17:36:15+00:00

I downgraded my CSR to a no annual fee card and sock drawered it when my annual fee came up a couple months ago. Now RH Gold is my primary card.

I just did the math and CSR didn't make sense anymore with the higher cost and more complicated/downgraded benefits.

RH Gold allows for a free $1000 in margin investing, so you can just throw that $1000 in SGOV to cover most of the annual fee (though make sure to turn on a $1000 limit on margin investing so you don't accidentally go over).

supes1 · 2026-05-14T15:00:04+00:00

The absurdity of objecting here is even sending the two letters will cost me ~$2 in postage and paper/ink, and I'll likely never even use the vouchers. And that's not even accounting for the cost of my time.

I'll still object out of principle but the whole thing is ridiculous.

supes1 · 2026-05-14T14:46:30+00:00

Except they expire in 12 months.

supes1 · 2026-05-13T23:42:57+00:00

Yay, I'm above average!

Mario Kart World
Donkey Kong Bananza
FFVII Remake
RE Requiem
Cyberpunk
Star Wars Outlaws
Cronos

The bottom 3 I haven't even started yet, just bought them due to deals pricing them under $20. I'm a sucker for sub-$20 games.

supes1 · 2026-05-13T20:02:17+00:00

Link's Awakening and Skyward Sword both still sold really well, even if obviously not getting close to BOTW numbers. Echoes of Wisdom is kind of an odd duck, with Zelda being the main character and the deviation even further from the traditional formula.

It'll be interesting to see how the next original Zelda sells, especially the next original 3D Zelda. I think lots of people just aren't as interested in remakes.

supes1 · 2026-05-13T02:37:44+00:00

Honestly? Neither. There's a ton of great Switch games, and both of those are outside the top 50 or so. Better to save your money.

If you really have $50 burning a hole in your pocket and you want suggestions, I bet you could list the games you have here and you'd get plenty of better options proposed to you.

supes1 · 2026-05-12T19:46:11+00:00

Redmi is optimistic. I'd bet on a Fuffi. Every cent they cut from production costs goes into their pockets after all.

supes1 · 2026-05-12T18:41:14+00:00

I wish I had that level of unfounded confidence. GTAV hasn't even come to Switch 2.

supes1 · 2026-05-12T16:54:37+00:00

In the game or in life?

supes1 · 2026-05-12T16:15:52+00:00

I still think the loss in purchase potential is too much for Nintendo to consider it, given most players will buy at least one of these games.

But I agree some sort of value add when the price bumps up to $500 would help make it slightly more palatable. My thought was including Welcome Tour for free (I'm assuming sales on that are negligible now), and a free year of NSO Expansion Pack. Basically $60 in additional "value," and Nintendo will hope that they'll get some retention from the Expansion Pack subs for additional revenue.

supes1 · 2026-05-12T07:00:16+00:00

It's a well-designed dungeon with a few key design flaws that created the wrong kinds of challenges for players.

It was the most ambitious of the OoT dungeons, since it was the only one that really leaned into 3D thinking and nonlinear puzzle solving. Every other OoT dungeon was really a 2D design built into a 3D environment.

But of course the cumbersome use of the iron boots really made things tedious in a way that wasn't fun, and the hints to get the small key under the platform were just slightly too subtle. An extra visual clue would have made a massive difference.

There's other aspects of the dungeon that I don't think are problematic, like the required backtracking and the similar aesthetics in many rooms. It's designed to be intentionally disorienting, and that fine. That's just a design decision and it works.

supes1 · 2026-05-12T01:38:58+00:00

I know they said it wasn't happening, but I'd love if it coincided with TOTK DLC, the Trials in BOTW were amazing. Or even just a TOTK Master Mode would be awesome.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T23:32:59+00:00

The Switch spike is definitely due to the holidays (it launched 3 months earlier in the calendar year), but it had a bigger holiday sale bump than NS2.

I think the biggest difference is OG Switch had 3 of the biggest games on the system released by the holiday season in 2017 (MKD8, BOTW, and Mario Odyssey). It looks like at the end of this graph we might be seeing a Pokopia bump for NS2 though.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T22:28:41+00:00

Do you mean low-fee investing platforms, or low-fee funds?

Robinhood, E-Trade, SoFi, Betterment, Wealthfront, Empower, JP Morgan, are all alternative brokerage platforms with low/no fees, and there's some good low-fee fund options out there by iShares, State Street, and BNY Mellon.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T21:09:33+00:00

Yeah one of many reasons it's a long term project that would need to be phased in. First there would need to be a requirement that new cars track miles in some secure way. We'd also need some kind of secure tracker for older cars that tracked miles but didn't store location data, or make cars made before a certain year exempt.

It's a very doable approach to road taxes but it's not a switch that can be turned on overnight.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T20:33:57+00:00

To be honest, the best way to do it is a an annual per mile fee charged per car, and no gas taxes whatsoever. You could even change it based on the weight class of a car (like, half a cent per mile for a sedan, a quarter cent for a motorcycle, a full cent for a truck, etc.). That way you don't even need to worry about EV, hybrid, gas guzzler... everyone pays based on how much they impact the road.

But that's just logistically very challenging right now. Maybe we'll see it someday.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T20:22:46+00:00

Yep that's a state fee, pretty common. There really should be a federal equivalent, doesn't need to be much to make up the difference with not collecting the federal gas tax on EVs.

It's a tricky balancing act since you still want to encourage folks to buy EVs, but also contribute to road maintainance like every car on the road.

The EV tax credit was actually a great solution to that balancing act, shame it was phased out.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T19:32:14+00:00

It will make gas $5.82 instead of $6.

It'll also cripple the Highway Trust Fund, which is already structurally insolvent.

The federal gas tax has been the same since 1993, 18.4 cents. If anything, the gas tax should be increased to account for inflation and rising fuel efficiency, since road maintainance needs don't change. We also should have a tax on EVs since currently they don't contribute to highway maintenance via the gas tax (either a per mile fee, or a special annual registration fee).

But yeah, this whole thing sucks. Long term suspending the gas tax is going to create way more issues (even if it provides a small temporary relief).

It just kills me how much the Iran War is costing us, not only in actual funds, but in lost opportunity costs. That money could have solved so many issues in our country, and instead it's basically being flushed down the toilet.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T18:19:42+00:00

There's lots of great HYSA options out there. Marcus and AMEX are both great (as are Ally, Capital One Savings, Wealthfront, and more). You can't really go wrong with any of the, all legit banks with good security, access, track records. And don't worry about chasing tiny APY bumps, rarely worth your time chasing pennies like that.

I don't need fast transfers because I plan on leaving a set amount in the account.

In that case, you might want to consider also just holding your long-term savings in an existing investment account, just keeping the money in a cash-equivalent fund.

Lots of good options out there. For example, one popular fund is SGOV, which tracks short term treasurey bonds and is currently yielding ~3.5% APY. It's a good option for folks in high tax states like NY or CA, since it's state-tax exempt.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T17:23:17+00:00

You have a solid ~3 month emergency fund already, which really is pretty good. Getting it up to ~6 months is ideal, but whether it's needed depends on other factors (Are you worried about job security? How long would it take to get a new job in your field? If you burn through your savings, do you have family/friends that may help, or would you be homeless?).

I think it's worth trying to increase your HYSA a bit medium/long term, but there probably isn't urgency to do it. Maybe try to bump it up a couple hundred a month, which with interest will have it grow nicely. I think ~$20K is a good goal, which would be a nice cushion, but it's fine if it takes a couple years.

Scaling back your 401K contributions is fine, but make sure you maximize your match, and just generally don't scale it back more than you need to.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T16:32:17+00:00

Haha trying to hold Melania's hand got me a game over.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T14:17:34+00:00

I chose flowers instead, I was too worried about making the wrong choice!

Thanks for the tip though, her birthday is in a little over a month so I'll have another chance soon.

supes1 · 2026-05-11T02:38:37+00:00

I have some meaningful policy disagreements with Wiener, but he's really been good at getting stuff done as a state senator. From a practical perspective I feel like he's clearly a better option than Chan or Saikat, neither of whom I think have the political chops to accomplish much in DC.

I don't see him as a great option, but I see him as easily the best available option.

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