PhobosAnomaly

Hi American friend!

I absolutely get it - “too good to be true” is definitely a thing in the English speaking world.

I absolutely get the apprehension - if I was jumping on to a Bee Bus or the Edinburgh Trams with a ticket that some rando was trying to offload, then my Spidey senses would be tingling too.

In this instance though, we’re probably looking at a value of US$10ish, so in my own perfectly subjective opinion, I’d be happy to give it a bash. If it doesnt work, the the ticket gets yeeted and the contactless card gets used instead.

I absolutely understand settling in to the “normal” of buying your own ticket though and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.

It’s whatever floats your boat at the end of the day. I’ve seen people with unique usernames being super chill in one community, and then appear in another spouting off like they’re two steps away from annexing Poland in another. It’s wild.

I do my absolute best not to block people or communities though. I worry that my account will just end up as an echo chamber for whatever I’m interested in, and I’ll just end up disconnected from the Real World™️, as tempting as it sounds sometimes.

Sometimes seeing and hearing shit that wasn’t top of your agenda keeps you grounded - but it’s an entirely subjective view.

e: community clarity.

Nah that’s fair enough, I get it. It’s a reasonably common thing in the UK - either the person who takes it is a local rogue who’ll flog the travelcard for a quid, or it’ll be used by someone away out on the piss for the night.

I just found it odd is all. Like, if you take it and it works, happy days - you’ve saved yourself a bit of cash. If the ticket gate spits it back at you, then oh well, back to plan A.

It’s cool to hear your take on it though, thank you.

Hey thanks for your insight.

Maybe in the UK we’re super used to fast fashion shite like Primark or Asda George. I mean, the designs are cool but the quality rivals that of the Looney Tunes ACME products.

Maybe you’re right though, maybe I’m looking at them through rose tinted specs. I rather like the Old Navy stuff or American Eagle. The material just seems to last a tad longer than the supermarket pish in the UK.

Oh man, I forgot the ESTA. A travel plan for your travel plan for your travel plan.

We’ll have the ETIAS to do soon as well. Won’t be long before the dude at the border in Gibraltar will be like “¿que tal bruv, where’s Travelling With Authority Treaty form?”.

Oh well. We did it to ourselves 🙁

edit: forgot to say, thanks for the addition.

Definitely worth calling your mobile provider beforehand - I think I had an add-on where I could pay £2 per day and use my contract allowance as usual. It worked nicely.

Cheers for the added advice.

It was a bit over 18 months ago I was last in a CVS, but as has already been pointed out, the US is a huge place so there’s bound to be regional differences. Glad contactless payments (or is it tap-to-pay in the US?) has become the norm.

Irn-Bru too, funnily enough.

The FDA aren’t a fan of how it (or was) made.

Hello fellow Brit.

Everything is bigger. That’s an obvious statement, but the knock on effect is that nobody seems to have a sense of “nearby”. I frequently went out running on the pavement around two or three blocks, and people either looked at me as if I was possessed, or honked their horns like a “run Forrest run!” type thing because there was literally nobody else out putting miles on tarmac.

Retail parks are a cracking example. I was out with a friend who knew the area well, and we wanted to go from one store at one end of the retail park to the other. I was happy to walk the three or four hundred metres and back, but they were positively horrified at the thought of not taking the car to another parking spot there.

Speaking of driving - know your rules. Four way intersections are a cool invention. Roundabouts traffic circles are fucking wild going in from the right.

See those 300, 200, 100yd marker boards on A-roads and motorways allowing you to figure out what lane you need to be in to take your slip road? Purely optional in the US. Be ready for people in lane three (or four, or five, or six) to see their exit and cut straight across. Blind spot checking is for nerds and communists.

Things have changed lately, but go out with two or three changes of clothes, and that’s it. The clothes in the US are generally much cooler and much cheaper, it’s a good excuse to get new gear. Depending on where you’re going though, it’s hard work getting particular stuff - asking for Under Armour’s heatgear stuff if you go running in winter will get you some real fuckin’ weird looks in Florida, where even the vests are sometimes hotter than a duffle coat.

The border: know your shit - where you’re going, how much you got, who you’re with. The border force agents (whatever their unit is called) are generally super cool, but they ask super intrusive questions. That Marks and Spencer ham baguette you got in Gatwick/Edinburgh/Manchester? Eat it quick, because it isn’t going through customs.

Not sure how long you’re going for, but get a Post Office multi-currency card, or a credit card that specialises in the US Dollar or low international currency fees. While you’re at it, feel free to wow them with contactless payments. Last time I went to CVS, I had tapped the card before the cashier had finished his spiel about swiping the card, and refused to believe I’d actually paid for a few seconds. It’s like a magic trick with none of the effort.

Overt generosity is mostly viewed suspiciously. I left the DC metro system at a gate, and tried to hand off my all-day travel card for someone else to use for the day, and was looked at like I’d shit on their station concourse and drew a Greek flag in it. It’s not like the tube.

Tylenol: get shitloads. It’s basically paracetemol wrapped in bubblegum. Outstanding for hangovers.

Enjoy it! The Americans are friendly enough even if the majority of them make some pretty wack political choices, but that’s another discussion. They’re generally sound as fuck, and find the British accent something of a novelty, so feel free to use it as a get out of jail card if you make a social faux pas. (edit: I don’t mean literally, I haven’t tried it on police officers)

Have fun, let us know how you get on!

Is that a picture of a tweet of a printout of a MS Notepad file that was probably cut and pasted from a forwarded email, newsgroup post, or web page?

my head hurts

Andrex is much cheaper, if admittedly a little less satisfying.

Awesome. I miss the raised numerals on the front of the card.

I don’t think there is in terms of process, I think payment handlers just add a higher charge for processing credit card payments, which is why stingy retailers dislike them.

I’m happy to be corrected though.

Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear.

I’m assuming the 16 digit card number, start and expiry dates, and CVV are printed on the reverse - whereas it used to only have the CVV on the reverse and the rest of the details on the front.

What’s stopping someone with a picture of the rear of the card visiting an online retailer and going wild with a picture of just one side of the card these days - aside from multi-factor authentication at the point of authorising the payment?

Absolutely spot on, thank you - always handy to know.

I’m wondering what it does to mitigate the “card not present” fraud though, for online purchases or remote purchases?

As entertaining as that is, it does raise the question - why do they put all of the details on the back now?

I thought one of the main reasons that the CVV was on the signature strip was so if a card was photocopied, photographed, or carbon copied (literally on carbon paper), then it was still less possible to clone the card.

Is “physical” cloning so small of a problem now that it’s more beneficial to make fancy looking cards? Anyone in the industry able to shine a light?

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Is this the same as plugging an extension cable into itself to get free and unlimited electricity?

One, two, three, four, let me hear you scream if you want some more

Push it, push it, watch me work it, I’m perfect

Underrated banger.

I should check usernames.more

Man I haven’t been keeping up with the remakes. Is that Adam Jensen or Albert Wesker?