When You're Done Taking Your Thoughts for Drive
I was in a different town staying at a hotel.
Across the street was a Thai place. Thai 2 Go.
I wanted to call and place my order. So I looked up Thai to Go on my phone, called, and placed an order.
When I got there my order wasn’t ready.
Because I’d called a restaurant 800 miles away that used to instead of 2.
Turns out two letters can make a big difference. In my case, an 800 mile difference.
There’s a fun story behind this hold music, and how it came into existence. If you’ve never bothered to read I’d recommend giving it a go.
For the last month I haven’t carried my wallet. Here’s how I’ve fared.
Most folks in my generation remember learning their times tables with a loving but firm teacher saying, “You need to learn this because you’re not going to carry a calculator in your pocket everywhere you go.”
Oh, how times have changed! I not only have a calculator in my pocket, but I have what would have been the equivalent of a military grade super computer with me at all times.
There are some things you always carry with you. When you drive you carry your license. When you need to spend money you carry either a cash or a card. Most people would combine all of these things and put them in their wallet or purse, and for generations that’s what we’d been doing. But now that we carry our phones with us everywhere do we really need to carry around our license, cash, and cards?
There are good reasons to still use cash. It’s widely accepted, has no network fee, and carries with it a certain level of anonymity (for those sensitive to that sort of thing). There’s probably not much debate on carrying any of these items, except the wallet. I didn’t like carrying a wallet and a cell phone. I wanted to combine the two of them.
Thankfully there’s a wide swath of wallet/phone combinations some of which I find cumbersome and hilarious. There are others that are elegant and work well. I went with the elegant version. My iPhone is now wrapped in a Silk iPhone case. The case is thin, protective, durable and holds up to three cards and a couple of bills. It’s the perfect size for my lifestyle. Ah, but let’s see how I’ve fared.
To support the sans-wallet lifestyle doesn’t just happen on its own. It takes a system various elements working together to make it functional. There are some stores that have full fledged apps that let me pay with an image of a QR code at the register combined with a thumb print for security. Getting dialed in to each shopping experience’s ecosystem does take a bit of time, but it’s not a terribly cumbersome process to set up. Self checkout lets you practice without feeling that you’re holding up the line.
I carry fewer cards. One of the ones I leave at home is my big-box club card. Why? Because I may have a membership, but I rarely go there. In contrast, my wife uses that store for much of her shopping for kids lunches. At this point in time I’m note aware if they have a digital membership feature on their app or not, but minus that it’s been reasonably smooth sailing.
One thing that has been really nice in all of this is the feeling of shedding the institutionalization that I was a part of in the military for so many years. It’s also been really neat to see how technology is enabling faster and more efficient transactions in the economy. I’m sure our great-grand parents would have thought self-checkout was frivolous because regular checkout was already faster than making one’s own bread, killing and butchering some animals, and frying up some potato chips. I rather enjoy not having a paper receipt at the end of the transaction and having the ability to view my purchase history via my phone.
Life, Sans-Wallet is pretty good right now and when we can solve the problem of having to carry licenses around we’ll be doing even better.
A few months ago I wrote about how smoke detectors desperately need a button for when you accidentally set them off burning something on the stove. That idea hasn’t gained wide-spread adoption yet and I can totally understand why. The idea would require a software and hardware change for a highly regulated product. So, no big deal. Let’s try something that only requires a software change–Our Phones.
Several phones on the market have voice recognition. I can say “hey, google or hey, siri and get a polite ding and the device is ready to do my bidding. This means that our devices are constantly listening to us. I also have a few apps that have snooze timers. My audible app for instance will let me listen to 30 minutes of a book as I a fall asleep. The problem is that I might fall asleep before those 30 minutes are up. It’s very rare to fall asleep at precisely the estimated time of the timer.
So, this brings up another idea. Why not add snore detection?
Seriously. If it hears me snoring it should stop the app and rewind my spot by 5 minutes. That would be a great way to go.
I’m not sure why no one has thought of this yet, but now that someone has and it only requires a software upgrade let’s see how long it takes to make this a reality.
While moving to a foreign country and drinking in the all the experiences it offers is exciting it can also be unnerving to move so far away from friends and family and still find ways to keep in touch. Leveraging today’s technology can help shrink the distances and make things more manageable. In this article I’d like to share a few insights about cell phone companies and apps to help inform those looking to stay a little more connected while they’re a lot further away.
Cell phone plans can be a bit tricky over here. Bills are best paid with automatic bank withdrawals. Inside the PX one can sign up for a phone plan with the convenience of talking to someone who speaks English and German and is willing to call the phone company auf Deutsch in your behalf. Off post this language barrier can be more daunting. It’s a good idea to research all the plans before signing up. You might want to pay for a shopping experience that works for you even if it doesn’t make financial sense on the surface.
Cell phone companies over here have less competition than they do in the states so some of the features from the stateside carriers like T-Mobile aren’t championed over here to provide competition to the market. Among the carriers off post to investigate include Vodafone.de and 1und1.de. While some of the smaller communities such as Graf and Vilseck may not have stores for these carriers, they do offer competitive deals that make them worth looking into. For example, 1und1.de offers a €30 per device monthly plan that includes roaming in other countries and 4GB of high speed data. Most other carriers work on a contract basis that can be difficult to get out of especially if PCSing early.
Once you’ve decided which carrier to choose, you can quickly find your phone bill going through the roof calling back to the states. Today’s app ecosystem makes it easy to stay connected to friends and family by switching the conversation from minutes to data. Sometimes the number of apps people use can be a bit confusing. I’d like to do a quick rundown of some of the most popular.
In the end you’re not going to get one app on your phone to rule them all. Some of the people you stay in contact are going to stick with what they know no matter how insecure or costly that method is. Knowing the above should help you select the right blend of applications that work for you and the network of people you want to stay in contact with.
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments below.
