I know everyone's having a jolly good time bashing how stupid Americans are for the weaknesses in their phone plan options, but what about the strengths of what AT+T offers? I will focus on non-data users, where the US offerings are particularly appealing. First of all, it can be really cheap. If you get a few friends on a "family plan" with AT+T, you can basically get unlimited voice calling for a family of four for like $20 per person per month, including free phones for all. Talk to anyone anywhere in the US, any time of day, as much as you like, and don't pay more than $20. Ok now, I'm stretching the truth a little, because the minutes are not actually unlimited, however if your family consists of normal/typical Americans, it's very unlikely that they would all talk enough to use up the minutes that come with the plan. I talked for hours nearly every day, as did my brother, and we never hit the limit. Also, mobile-to-mobile AT+T minutes don't count against your balance, which would typically include a lot of people who you would be calling anyways.

I've traveled through a LOT of countries in the past couple of years, and for someone who actually likes to TALK on the phone, few places beat the USA pricewise. Many countries, like Australia or Japan, do not offer many "talking" minutes. Prepaid 3G internet via USB stick was surprisingly cheap in NZ and Australia, but voice calls were not. The locals told me they usually only SMS each other since they can't make many calls without paying loads. Japan is similar with messages being used because calls are prohibitively expensive. In Los Angeles, people talk for hours every day while sitting in traffic just to entertain themselves, and they don't have to pay much for it. When I returned to LA from my travels, I added myself to my family's plan for only $15 extra a month, and did not get locked into a contract. $15 a month for virtually unlimited calling and no contract, using my a phone I already owned (a free phone from AT+T would have required a contract). Even without a family plan to mooch off of, prices for plans with massive amounts of talking minutes but additional fees for data or texts are still quite cheap. If you can call instead of text, good luck finding service with that many talking minutes at that price in many other countries.

Almost every country screws you in one way or another on your cell phone communications. In the US, it's tethering fees, expensive data plans, trying to lock you into contracts, and outrageous per-msg fees for sending or receiving(!) texts unless you also pay an outrageous additional $15 per month for unlimited texts. In many countries it's expensive talk times that prohibit your ability to have long unimportant conversations with your friends. At least there's Skype for jailbroken data users :) My cell phone and plan options here in Japan super-suck and I really wish I were getting a US type of plan. On the bright side, having email in your cell phones without a data plan is quite nice though.

One last point of interest. Those "free phones" from AT+T in the US can actually make money for you! I know a guy who would unlock/jailbreak his free iPhone from AT+T, then as soon as he's eligible to upgrade to a new model (for free or heavily discounted) and renew his contract with AT+T, he would sell the unlocked/jailbroken phone on Ebay for a lot of money. Repeating this every year or however often they offer it ends up getting him an awful lot of money back on what he's paying them.

You nailed it. So sad we can't agree upon and implement a better system that would foster actual competition and drive down unnecessary profit margins.

Boooooooo new slashdot format.

I just wrote that anonymous comment, not intending it to be anonymous. I wasn't logged in and it never gave me the choice between logging in or posting anonymously. It just posted it anonymously! Guess I have to log in beforehand now...

They've more than just "convinced" me that I need a plan that includes text messages. "Forced" is more like it. I'm 31 years old and the majority of my friends, around my age, rely on text messages extensively to coordinate all sorts of social events. I've been told that it costs $5.00 a month just to block the ability to receive those messages! Not to mention that half my friends would be too lazy to call me instead of texting, because they aren't used to having to do that for anyone else. So I pay $5.00 extra per month for 200 texts, and I have to be really careful to not go over that limit, which basically means I have to tell certain friends to "just stop texting me".

It's really rotten that the US is one of the only places where they charge you to RECEIVE texts!

Probably the worst example of these sort of ridiculously unfair pricing schemes is text messaging. Remember when text messages first came out in the US, and they were only 5 cents per msg? Over the five years or so following that, their price inched all the way up to where it is now, 25 cents per msg I think (or is it 20?). Either way a 400%+ increase in price, despite the fact that most networks can handle more traffic now than they could back then.

The obvious cause for this is lack of competition. There's simply no incentive for the few companies holding down the monopoly on cell services to charge any less for text messaging.

It's frustrating that our govt either can't or won't do anything to open up the market to more competition.

I think Google's Picasa also has an option for you to upload your photos in full-res without downsizing them, so it could have been downloaded from a Picasa Web Album.

According to Wikipedia, your statement is false.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper:
'It is incorrectly claimed that the verb "To crap" comes from Crapper, but the verb first came into use before Crapper was born. It is believed that this could be an example of nominative determinism, in which people are more likely to do a job connected with their name.'

I have to disagree. I dive for lobsters and will sometimes bring them from the bottom of the ocean to my kitchen in about 30 minutes. These are California Spiny Lobsters, can't speak for all the other species.

But some of them are particularly lively, and will definitely thrash for a few seconds in the boiling water. Much unlike the movement you might see if you put them into cold water. If it's sufficiently hot though, I think the shock kills them pretty quickly (about 5 seconds).

When you REALLY notice their apparent ability to sense pain is when you have to "clean" them, which involves shoving a long, barbed object (like a piece of their antennae) up their rectum, so you can pull out their intestine. They usually remain pretty calm as you handle them, even if you flip them over and touch the underside of their tail a bit. But the moment you try to jam that thing up their ass, the really lively/alert lobsters are sure to resist and flail about excessively. I truly think it is mighty unpleasant for them.

One time, I had one that was so effective at resisting the required cleaning, I was unable to get the job done. So I tried running it under hot water in hopes of killing it. Seeing as just being under the sink is nowhere near as fatal as being thrown into boiling water, I witnessed a lobster thrashing about, apparently in pain, from being held under such hot water. It did seem to shock him into compliance though after 20-30 seconds.

Anyway, I feel bad for the lobsters, and really dislike feeling as is I am causing them pain. In the future, I'm going to go with the knife-through-the-head method of killing, as recommended by one of my dive buddies (and someone earlier in this thread).