Benie's General Blog

Guess what day it is…

That’s right, it’s my birthday. Even Google has decided to celebrate it when I was looking up the above image.
I’ll be officially 39 years old around 10-11am EDT. Already getting Happy Birthday emails from several of the websites I have accounts with.

So what am I going to do on my special day? The same day I do everyday. Wake up, eat breakfast, piss. Then play video games. Might go on the MRT to ‘celebrate'(more like sit around being bored). But it also includes a cake(chocolate fudge) and pizza(triple cheese from Papa Johns). Nothing all that fancy. No silly happy birthday song. 😛
Though I can’t forget how it was different last year, when I got the WoD Beta key. And we all know how well that turned out….
I’m just glad to live another year. That’s pretty much all I’m really happy for. Though when I get in my mid-40’s, I probably won’t be thinking that as much.

Might as well take advantage of my OK health when I have the chance. At least I’m still getting out and walking twice around the block everyday. Last weigh in, I was back down to 258LB. So go me. 🙂

Since the start of the month, Windows 10 has once again been in many people’s minds. Some don’t like it, because it looks and feels like Windows 8.1 (and it also feels like it’s for a smartphone).
Others like Windows 10, and are trying to get the ones still thinking about it to do so.

Myself? They claim the free upgrade is available until August of next year. So I got plenty of time to think about it. But the reasons I haven’t went on and done it, are thus;
-No Windows 10 Upgrade Adviser to tell me that my current hardware WILL handle the update with no problems. There is a 64 bit version, which is good.
-I don’t believe it’ll be easy to downgrade back to Windows 7, without having to do a clean reinstall.
-No real way to do a clean install of Windows 10, as this is an upgrade and not a full version (they don’t give you a product key).
-To do clean install after a complete wipe of my C drive, I have to install Windows 7, and then the 10 upgrade everytime.
-It looks like Windows 8.1 (with those movable gadgets). Heard they can be removed, but… it’s still the principle.
-No “earlier versions of Windows” theme (what I’ve heard and read).
-Hearing that Microsoft can legally look through all of my hard drive’s contents(even my private folders). There is an option in the post-setup of Windows 10 to allow or disallow this to happen. But I don’t believe it’ll actually stop it.
-Hearing constant “having issues with (game here) through Windows 10!”.
-I don’t need my OS to talk to me. I’ve been fine without a talking computer for many, many many (did I say “many”?) years.

I have heard that it also has Direct X 12, which promises to support hardware that can handle Windows 7 (and give higher FPS to lots of games). I don’t believe this, especially hearing the complaints.
I feel that waiting, will give game companies a chance to fix these issues for users of Windows 10 (not to mention Microsoft releasing updates (and SP1 for Windows 10)).

Microsoft still supports Windows 7 (and respects people who don’t wish to upgrade yet), but on a non-security basis. Just last night, I got 13 updates. So 7 is going to be around for a pretty long time until it’s declared “dead” to them (aka not offering anymore support).

Dan’s ‘NerdCubed FAT’ thing is now over. Yesterday morning, I was at the doctor to get the gashes on my hand looked at. They weighed me, it said I weighed 262 LB.

So overall, here’s my stats for the month;
Week 0: I started at 260 LB. I didn’t start my diet until the next day (Saturday) due to bad weather.
Week 1: Constant rain chances. Had to go walking on certain hours. I lost two pounds, and went down to 258LB.
Week 2: Was better. I went down to 255LB. We had a really nice stretch of weather.
Week 3: Very, VERY hot week. Didn’t get to walk much. Gained 4 pounds to 259LB.
Week 4: Got my injury from tripping and falling, lost a few days of walking from it and the heat. Had a few nice days though. Weight was clocked in at 262LB.

Overall… I only gained two pounds from the start of the challenge to the end. Am I going to keep it up, even though Dan’s challenge is over? Yes. Yes I am.
Losing weight is one thing, but maintaining my current weight is actually more important. I am not by any means, morbidly obese. I used to be in the 300LB range, but have really lost it over the years. As long as I continue to watch my calorie intake and walk every day, I should be good and “healthy” for a (hopefully) very long time. I hope to live to see my 60’s.

For four days of Week 3, I’ve been unable to do my walking due to how fucking hot it’s been. Next week won’t be any better. And sadly, it has costed me.
I weigh one pound more than I did on Week 1….. yeah. All of that loss, has been gained back.
I’m on the verge of giving up here. Fuck this diet! My mother told me; “You don’t need to walk! Just watch what you eat!”… this proves I do need to walk!
And since I didn’t lose any weight, I’m going to make it harder on myself. I’m going to work extra hard to burn as many calories as possible.
I’m going to walk two times a day. Once in the early morning, and once at night. This is going to make up for last week. Was told around 7-8am in the morning would be a good time to do so (for the morning walk).
Last week will be the final one before this FAT thing is over with. On top of that, Dan said in a Twitch chat with his main moderator, Matt, that he’s going to “slowly gain it back” in August.

He looks too skinny to even THINK about dieting! His father on the other hand, should (and is). Plus, they eat healthy foods; foods I would never put to my mouth. So why in the fuck do they care about dieting?! Because this is, as I said before, nothing but a promotional gimmick to get people to go on diets (and he’s using his fame to do so).
If this was a struggling Youtuber, only a few people MIGHT care.

While Earth celebrates a successful 9 year mission in the making (New Horizons doing its flyby of Pluto), the human race is in for a major event in late November.
According to “NASA” (and this article), they have “confirmed” that between November 15th to the 30th, there will be known as the ‘November Blackout’. Aka, what you see at night (or if you lived up in Iceland during the Winter months) will be for 15 DAYS… 15 days, of complete darkness. Day and Night, total darkness.
How it will happen, Venus and Jupiter will get in such a position which would cause Venus to heat up 10 times hotter than Jupiter, and cause Jupiter to send a shitload of Hydrogen at the Sun, causing it to turn blue for 15 days. This is how long it’ll take for the Sun to recover.
As for the planet to get a new ice age, “NASA” actually said the tempature of Earth will be 6-8 degrees warmer, due to the color of the Sun (as we all know, blue stars are hotter).

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Right…so, this is what “NASA” said as a statement to the public…. and if you haven’t figured out how ridiculous the above sounds (and as many times as I put quotes around ‘NASA’),.. well, this is clearly a hoax. If you have, congratulations.
Basically, I saw the whole New Horizons thing on Twitter, and there was this site called ‘NewsWatch33.com’. Along the strange news that I personally never heard before, one really caught my attention, and that was the article that I linked at the beginning. It literally scared the shit out of me when I read it. I couldn’t breath, I felt I was frozen in fear. 15 days of… darkness?! Fuck!! It felt like one of those “End of the World” scenarios. Yet as time went on, I started to question the authenticity of this article (especially the fact the official website, NASA.org), said nothing about it.

I looked around the web, frantically searching for anything about this ‘November Blackout”. All I saw where references to a major power blackout in the Northeast US around 1965. Nothing about this. I narrowed my search, and found this website called ‘thatisfake.com’. Just by reading the description, it said this whole “15 days of darkness” thing is totally and completely false.
Here’s the article, calling this ‘NewsWatch33.com’ site a fake news website.
There was also other entries that I found while searching, stating “The world will plunge into darkness for 6 days in June 2015”, and that was made last year. And of course that was obviously fake (as we’re currently in July’s mid-month).

I mean, if you think about it, there’s just no way something like this could happen. It sounds way… way too Sci-Fi for it to be real. And the fact it was ONLY on that website, really made me question if this was a hoax. And it was. So rejoice, my fellow Earthlings! The world ISN’T coming to an end.. yet!
Still, it pisses me off how the owners of these websites do this for ‘shits and giggles’ by initiating fear on the public. It’s just as bad as the SPC issuing out a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for an area of the US, when there’s no real need for one.

Before I start, I just want to leave this WARNING… this post is VERY long (and as detailed as I remember what happened). Please understand when attempting to read, and have patience.
Lastly, please understand I tend to get very… moody when I don’t get the answers I seek. Thank you.
-Benie

I’m finally using my Samsung Galaxy S Blaze, without fear once again. It has been quite an annoying two weeks for me because of this.
It all started with my father telling me about Samsung phones got hacked. I thought “that’s just not possible. There’s no way a hacker could get in without downloading a malicious app!”. He claimed he heard it on the news, yet I didn’t see anything. Still, it had me a bit worried.
During the (I think) 5pm news on my local channels, they mentioned it. It was a ‘software vulnerability’ that a hacker can get in and not only steal your personal info, but watch you using your camera and delete everything on your phone. My immediate reaction was, just not fucking use my phone.. ever. They claim Samsung knows about this and would release a fix.

A week later, my mother’s getting a bit annoyed at whoever I’m paying, saying “Why are you paying for something you can’t use?” I told her how T-Mobile can’t do anything about this, as this is Samsung’s problem.
After our conversation, this got me thinking. I’ve been meaning to see when said fix would be released for all Samsung phones (and why the media suddenly stopped talking about it, and has even to this day).
So I found Samsung’s website. There was nothing… NOTHING about this hacking attempt on the front page. This had me very curious, and also angered they weren’t putting more effort into informing their millions of users about this software flaw.

I discovered that Samsung’s support has chat as well, and used it. I asked them if they knew about this. At the time, they seemed they did and said “in a few days”(Keyword: ‘a few days’), a fix would be released. I told them I was too scared to even touch my phone when they said to make sure it’s set to accept software updates.
I then asked them if they would simply give me an email (or some form of notification) that said fix has been applied. They claim they couldn’t. Why? Seriously why?

I then asked T-Mobile. They claim (and still do) that they were never informed about this. They also told me of the times I’m afraid to use it, they would compensate me. At the time I didn’t know how that would be possible, but the person claimed they would look into my history and see when I have and haven’t used my phone. Also claimed they would leave a note on my account for the next agent to read it.
Lastly, was told to try to call Samsung to see if they could give me a second opinion. Curious, I did.

First call, the woman claimed that this whole “hacking attempt” was just the media blowing it out of proportion, and all of this other stuff. Not really helpful, as she never told me about the fix or when it’ll be pushed.
Second call, the woman here agreed with what I was told in chat with Samsung. I asked why(about not knowing when the fix would be released), and she claims that they can’t possibly tell me… how is that possible when they fucking work for the company?!

……………………

A week has passed, which brings me to today. I asked Samsung again in chat, thinking (and hoping) the fix was applied. I never got an answer until 10 minutes later after all of this other crap. Asked me what Android version I use (even after telling them I was too scared to turn it on).
Finally after another five minute delay, the fix STILL hasn’t been released. What happened to this “a few days” I was told a week ago? And then the person has the nerve to tell me to turn my phone on to “troubleshoot”, as if something was wrong with the phone. That… was my boiling point.
I said “There’s nothing wrong with my phone! What’s wrong is Samsung isn’t treating this seriously enough! Millions of Samsung customers need this fix! Where is it?!” The person tries to explain how they can’t push the fix all in one go, due to their servers. Oh wow.. all the sudden NOW you “work” for Samsung, when I was told before they didn’t know when it’ll be released??
I wonder if getting pissed with them, finally made them spill the beans.

I left a not so pleasant review after the conversation, then called Samsung in hopes I would get a non-BS answer… and surprisingly I DID.. and then some! His answer was pure common sense that I should’ve had as a consumer.
He started off by saying “as long as you got a secure connection, you won’t be hacked”. I explained how I use my ISP’s WiFi and with T-Mobile when not. He said both are secured and I should NOT have a problem!
He then continues on, how pretty much anything can have a software bug in it to allow a hacker; even a computer. And how it happens everyday. I explained how the media said what the hacker could do (which is not really something I ever heard happening to a computer).
He said too (as the woman in the first week that I called Samsung) that the media blew it out of proportion. He said how it started is someone found the software bug, got in. It spread. However, the fact it was such an isolated case, that “it just wasn’t a big deal” to Samsung. Which is why they didn’t rush the fix.
An.. isolated.. case? Are you serious? Why.. in the FUCK wasn’t I told this A WEEK AGO?!?!?!
He deeply apologized, and said that maybe those three other agents weren’t informed of Samsung’s statement. Wait.. they made a statement about this?! They actually said something?!

Now everything is coming together. That explains so much, and also makes me happy I get to use my phone again with no worries! 😀 Several times I really, really needed to due to the constant storm chances last week while trying to do that weight loss challenge. Plus now I can listen to my music while I do my daily walk.

So I talked to T-Mobile(just got done) about everything that happened (incase they didn’t have it on record). They assured me how they didn’t have this “hacking attempt” on their records. However, they felt sorry for me (to try to keep me a T-Mobile customer of course). Though the outcome, wasn’t really what I had expected.
The person claimed I would get $5 back as credit for every day that I “chose to not use my phone”.. really? ‘Chose to’? I… meh. No. I’ve been through enough of that.

As for that note, I was never informed if it was there or not. I assumed not, when the person told me how “I was promised”. I ended up only getting $5 at the end… I haven’t used my phone in two weeks, and I only got $5. How is that “every day”? Two weeks, isn’t a day. *deep sigh*… what..EVER!!
However, the person made it better by telling me there would be no tax when I put in the extra $45 to pay for this month’s bill. No tax? FUCK YEAH!! :D… or so I thought.
Went to go and pay for it. Hello.. ‘Tax: $4.15. Grand total $49.15! PAY PLOX!!’ Um, no? Where’s my “no tax” promise?
Final conversation with T-Mobile, asking why is there a tax when I was told there wouldn’t be. The person, exclamation points at the end of nearly every sentence as an ‘attempt’ to make me feel welcomed, gives me an additional $4.15 credit. Now that’s something to exclamation point about!
In one hour from now, the person says the credit should be in the system (aka on their website). So, very nice. Very happy.

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In conclusion of this very lengthy story… there’s really not much to say. I’m both happy, and pissed (at myself). However, I’ll be calm here.
I should had used common sense on Day 1. The media always likes to make things more serious than they actually are, just for their ratings. And they don’t give a fuck if it’s not actually true.
But given how they phrased the seriousness, wouldn’t you, my readers, do the same thing? Would you? If yes, then you know what I went through. If no… meh. I don’t care.
When it comes to my security (on both my phone and my computer), I take it very seriously (as one should). Not having answers of a fix, and Samsung claiming they don’t know when it’ll be (as if their support agents are separate of the devs working on the fix. They probably are), of course I would be very pissed and worried at the same time.
The fact Samsung said (to me)… nothing, absolutely nothing of what I should do as a consumer, it felt they just didn’t care for their customers. Yet in reality, it just wasn’t a big deal to push the fix quickly. And it took two weeks, to know this. Two. Weeks.

*sigh* Whatever. It’s done. I pray that something like this, never gets mentioned ever again by the media. I want to continue to trust Samsung that they know what they’re doing.

At the end, I’m just glad I can use my phone again, and not worry about this shit. I got enough things to worry about in my life.
As for the refund, I wouldn’t care if it wasn’t given to me if they were just as greedy as I was. Being able to use my phone again, is all that I want.