5 Thoughts for April 22, 2015

1. Google announced Project Fi, which charges a flat $20 for unlimited domestic / international texts and unlimited domestic calls, while adding $10 / GB of data, but rebated back to you at the end of the billing cycle for unused data. If you only use 3.5GB of data but signed up for 5GB of data, you get back $15, while only paying $20+$35 = $55. It's very similar to how MetroMile vehicle insurance works. It all comes down to incentives to using less data, which works extremely well. Except, it's limited to the Nexus 6, which is not cheap...making the discounted smart phone service a moot point, don't you think? It's like telling someone that you've got this great, premium car, and oh by the way, the cost to service it is super cheap.
2. Spent about 2 hours with a dealer today, trying to get a test drive then a price from them. I nearly called out the middle guy (in auto sales there is a 3-person strategy that they all employ: the front sales guy, the middle man, and the manager) for lying straight to my face about his own product. (My father's got a 23 year old car that constantly has one thing or another broken. The last straw was the AC compressor and fan, and it was time to replace the vehicle.) Anyway, I walked away after 2 hours, which is not the longest I've negotiated and walked. I went online and checked out Portland prices, and after adding up the cost of shipping a vehicle via Matson, to Honolulu (via Seattle), it would have resulted in at least $500 in savings, just on the dealer's "best price". Deduct the cost of the taxes in Hawaii, and the total price difference is roughly $1300, again, even when accounting for the shipping costs.
3. Sur La Table has the Bonavita 5-cup coffee maker for a lot less than MSRP, and has had it at that low price for several weeks, now. When I get back to Portland, I'm going to go in and check it out.
4. Went to the farmer's market at the Blaisdell, and found an exceptionally smooth, medium-dark roast coffee that was better than traditional Kona. It was 4x more than what I would normally pay for coffee beans, but this was just too good to pass by. Not telling you where it came from. :D
5. On Kickstarter, it seems to me that being the first to get something may not always be a good plan. There are bugs and kinks to work out, and I'm still waiting for improvements on the 1st generation software that was pushed out way too soon, for a hand-held scanner I pledged for.