Geologist and Photographer.
Views are mine.
| Research | https://www.paulknightlyphotography.com/research/ |
| Photography | https://www.paulknightlyphotography.com |
| Location | Northwest Arkansas, USA |
I wouldn't even call these smokescreen sales tactics, and this wasn't a case of lying by omission. The agent outright lied to me about what coverage they were enrolling us in and they said they words "we can keep you enrolled in the same coverage" and "maintain your current discount". Copy and paste, nothing should have changed. It was slipped in without our consent.
If not outright fraud, it's towing the line, and I'm now on the market for a new insurance provider when this term ends.
I called them out on it yesterday and said I would not be ordering a beacon and to remove the discount. Rate immediately went up by $20 per month for the remainder of our current term.
Needless to say, I'm not pleased. I know virtually all insurance companies offer something similar and that isn't the issue here. As long as the choice exists to not enroll in a program like that, I will always opt out. The issue is the severity of the dishonesty on the part of the agent.
Getting insurance setup on our new vehicle. Spoke to a rep at our local State Farm agency and they said they could move the 'safe driver' discount in effect on our old vehicle to the new one and keep our same coverage. Excellent.
Fast-forward a few weeks and I'm getting emails about needing to enroll in their driver monitoring program and to order a beacon. Turns out the agent enrolled us in their "Drive Safe and Safe" program, something we've never been enrolled in, so they flat out lied.
What I particularly like about where we live is that there are community owned plots that serve to provide natural dividers between residential lots, as well as swaths of wooded hollows where development would be challenging if not impossible anyways.
The resulting community aesthetic has resulted in de facto protections to natural space that provides recreational opportunities for people and protected natural habitat for native species. I wish more communities were designed this way.
That's in stark contrast with my spring gardening activities, which has included work on a new shade garden on the north side of our house that will be populated with native ferns and flowers to create a pollinator and firefly habitat while also stabilizing the existing slope.
That's not say that creating pollinator oases like what I've built are futile. They serve a valuable purpose and enrich the local ecosystem. But there's no guarantee that habitat will be maintained after we leave.
Activities this week in our wooded subdivision include new neighbors that have wasted little time bringing in landscaping and pesticide crews to 'clean up' their property, and an existing neighbor who had a tree removal company cut down about a quarter acre of trees on an empty adjacent lot to start work on a new outbuilding.
They're all entitled to do with their property as they wish, and I won't fault them for that. But it highlights the need for protected natural spaces in urban ecosystems.
For many people, the #Linux vs #Windows vs #Mac debate is a privilege — it assumes you can choose. But working with the Computer Upcycle Project, I've seen the real choice is often Linux vs no computer at all.
~95% of donated computers are "too old" for Windows 11 or macOS. Linux installs on them anyway, adding 10+ years of life to machines #Microsoft and #Apple called trash.
This isn't Linux vs Windows. It's Linux vs e-waste.
The award for creepiest new cars goes to Subaru. All of their new models appear to have a 'driver assist' system called EyeSight built-in, which includes driver monitoring and facial recognition built into the dash, and that you can't disable.
The salesman was gushing over how great it is and when he asked us if we were interested in looking at one more seriously we were upfront and said finding a car that wasn't constantly looking at us and storing biometric data was a non-negotiable.
Followers in the U.S.:
I frequently bemoan the state of new cars on the market. Too much invasive vehicle telemetry and "safety" features that are more hazard than help because they aren't ready for prime-time.
Starting to look into replacements for my wife's car, which has become a money pit rather prematurely (only 140k miles and scheduled for a new transmission).
I know most cars are awful, so Im looking for recs if you've bought a car in the past few years that you're actually happy with.
Mike 