Category: Modern problems

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Down a different kind of rabbit hole

Don’t worry, this one is kind of fun and interesting.

I’ve been getting a Passwords Compromised notice in my browser for months. I’ve ignored it, as I suspect most people do.

Let’s face it, with every website demanding that you create an account, and so many of those websites being hacked almost instantly, you just stop paying attention.

For some reason, perhaps it’s that I’m cranky, this morning I decided to explore the websites that were compromised and change passwords or delete accounts.

I’m heavily favoring the latter over the former.

Anyhoo… 

I was surprised to note that on a lot of the “compromised websites”, my passwords were obscenities.

I know how most of these obscenities came to be my passwords. It’s about frustration and annoyance. In most situations, I was trying to take care of something completely unrelated to passwords and the website in question decided to force a password change.

Thus derailing my intent and turning what should have been a 90 second interaction into a tour de force of guessing what combination of letter, symbols, number, and special characters would please the website, allowing me to do what I’d accessed the website to do to begin with. That is, if I remembered what I’d gone to the site for in the first place.

Apparently “FuckYou96&yourmother^$#” Is commonly used. Who Knew?

“BlowMECocksuckers!-2021” and “LickMyFilthyhole-Asshole!9000” are also common.

This suggests that I’m not the only person who has become sick and tired of Websites, Their demanding that accounts be created, and “Secure” passwords.

Of the 36 websites whose passwords were compromised in various data leaks, I now have 16 left.

I’ve deleted the others. Honestly, do I really need a password and an account to confirm a haircut appointment? Uh, NOPE!

Since I canceled Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. There was no need for their residual threads to be stored in my browser, so I deleted them. The same with T-Mobile.

I was looking at a credit card login that used to work really well, then the rights to the card were purchased by another company and the new company website has never worked.

There’s no reason for me to maintain that login… Or that credit card account for that matter. I haven’t closed the account yet, but that day is coming and I’m looking forward to it.

The last stored password for that website is embarrassingly filthy! Which speaks to my frustration with the site, the creditor, and their offshore “customer service”.

Oh, that embarrassingly filthy password? It’s on the list of passwords that have appeared in various data breaches. Again, apparently I’m not alone in losing my temper trying to reset passwords.

Then there are those passwords that have been “Reused”. Except they’re not. Some of the banking sites are a conglomeration of websites with different domain names but who all use the same initial login.

These poorly designed banking sites trip the security settings because you have no choice but to reuse passwords due to the way the sites work. 

I would argue that these sites create a laissez-faire attitude because they cause end users to be endlessly warned about something they have no control over. Which results in the users being far more likely to ignore all warnings about passwords that their browser may present.

This is how someone like me ends up with 36 warnings that have gone ignored for months, years, decades?

Don’t get me started about cookies. More precisely, don’t get me started about the cookie notifications or the sites that feel it’s necessary to give you cookie notifications daily, monthly or anytime something changes on the site. (Yes, I know this site does that. Thank the EU!)

It looks like I’m not going to be able to delete these other sites for a while, so I’ll have to continue ignoring the warnings, or actually waste a ton of time changing the passwords. Ugh! That means I’ll be using the automatic password generator a lot.

You’d think that would make it easier but it doesn’t because it seems that the website designers create obstacles designed to prevent password generators from working.

I suppose I need to decide if I’m cranky enough that I don’t want to do anything else but mess with websites and passwords, or ignore the whole mess and do something else that I’d prefer to do.

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I really used to like Nest Products. Then came the Google…

Nest Learning Thermostat 3rd Generation product.Google I might add hasn’t substantially changed, improved, or added, to the Nest line of products since they took over. 

Google has however used the Nest products that I own as a gateway to insinuating themselves into my life. (For my own good, of course…)

It’s been hotter than Hell up in my little mountain town for the past week or so, and it will continue to be hotter than Hell for the next week or so. This heat wave isn’t abnormal except that it’s about 2 months early.

This means that I’m running the A/C and while I hate to use A/C I’m not opposed to turning it on when we get above 90°

Google logo hd.Every single year, when I start running the A/C and again when I start running the Heat, Google in their infinite wisdom dicks with my settings.

For example, this morning as the temperature crossed the 80° mark, I closed the doors and windows to the house and set the thermostat to “Cool”.

The Thermostat responded by telling me “Cooling set to 82°” uh nope! That’s not what you’re set to do They/Them Thermostat. (I figured I’d have some fun since my thermostat is now behaving like an asshole.) You’re set to Cool the house to 79° regardless of time, or day. 

I know this because I personally lobotomized your schedules the last time we did this dance, and I turned off your settings to accept changes to my schedules from Google. 

So I try to get to www.nest.com to verify that the web hasn’t pushed some kind of software change to the thermostat. Oh, but that URL now redirects me to a google shopping site and logs me in using a google account created to use Google voice, and does not present me with the website that allowed me to inspect and modify the schedules using a full screen and real keyboard.

Instead I’m presented with all the various google products that I can purchase, however Nest products are not listed prominently. They’re buried under smart home and because Google has logged me in using the Voice account, and I haven’t wanted to link, or create, or whatever other bullshit Google wanted me to do with my nice functional Nest.com login I can’t get to the UI that I want to get to.

One of the reasons I freaking HATE GOOGLE! I swear these people could Un-fuck a wet dream (yeah, think about that one…)

I shift over to the Nest app running on my phone. I’m able to see the schedule and indeed Google, in some software update, reset the switch that tells the thermostat “DO NOT ACCEPT GOOGLE INPUT” for schedules back to “off”.

Of course I want a multibillion dollar company monitoring my coming and going and controlling how I choose to spend my money on my local environment in my own home.

I’ll tell you what Google, when you start writing the checks for the mortgage and the utilities then you’ll have some input. Until then, in the words of Elon Musk, “Go Fuck Yourself!“

After another frustrating half hour undoing their scheduling via the phone app, where at least 1/2 the buttons don’t work as expected and none of them light up, change color or give any indication that they’ve been pressed. Plus because the app is running on an iPhone instead of an android phone, Google refuses to have all of the controls on the visible screen.

Which is why I use, or rather, used to use, the nest.com interface.

Old Thermostat.The dog, sensing my frustration sat next to me and gently made me lower the arm I was holding the phone with. It was, in his opinion time for me to look up, and he was right.

5 or 10 minutes of cuddling and his laughing face did wonders for my outlook.

During the playtime I realized, this is probably the last time I’ll have to fight with Google altering the temperature schedule in my house.

This is a true statement because regardless of my keeping or selling this house the nest devices are due for replacement and they will not be replaced with more nest devices.

The nest protects will reach end of life next year and if I replace them with another manufacturers products there will be no need to keep the Nest Thermostat either.

Intelligent house.

Before Google bought Nest. I’d standardized on the Thermostat and Protect fire alarms because in the event of fire, the Protects can shut the air handler down via the thermostat to prevent the system from spreading smoke throughout the house.

I also like that the Protects have a nightlight feature and use color coded light signals to indicate their operational status. Mostly, I liked being able to shut them up if they warned they were about to go  off because of smoke from the kitchen.

Then Google bought Nest and honestly… they haven’t done shit to enhance the products.

I look forward to the day when I can reset the Nest Products and delete the Nest app from my phone. On that day I’ll delete any remaining Google logins and do my level best to never use their crap again.

Heck, I might go find myself an old Honeywell lever thermostat with mercury bulbs inside, and eschew all this smart home nonsense entirely.

I’ve tried it, I’ve got the T-Shirt and while there are a lot of aspects I really like, the level of complexity and flaky behavior might just outweigh the benefits.

I suspect if/when I sell this house, and while I’m living someplace I’m renting that I’ll be able to make a reasonable evaluation on the benefits of smart home versus dumb home. 

Maybe I’ll choose a “Low IQ” home. Where nothing important can be controlled by any outside force.

(Then my home and I would match. I’m apparently a Low IQ voter, since I didn’t vote for Hillary. I’ll probably be living in a flyover state too. From a marketing perspective, political parties, and in particular, the Democrat party really need to re-evaluate their merchandising to the masses. Just saying…)

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Alright this kinda pissses me off but it was not unexpected.

The final T-Mobile bill showed up.

They are totally Sprintified now. Between the old Sprint’s terrible billing practices and T-Mobile’s well renown awful billing practices what you get, when you leave them is a bill that is about DOUBLE your normal rate. 

My monthly bill for years was 120.00. Then when I lost Jerry my bill dropped to $75.00. Then T-Mobile decided to raise their prices while other carriers were advertising lower rates.

Since I had the temerity to ask, about lower rates and was essentially told by a representative off shore that I shouldn’t be asking about lower rates. I made arrangement to go to one of those other carriers.

As Expected T-mobile had to make this a bad divorce, complete with alimony.

I suppose in the world I’d choose to live. I’d have expected them to ask why I’m leaving.

I’d have expected them to say, “Here’s your final bill and it’s prorated such that you only owe us for the days that you actually used our services. We’re sorry to see you go after 14 years and want you to know you’re welcome to come back to us at any time.“

Nope!

What you get is a psychotic blend. 

“We’re Sorry to see you go. You owe us 140.07“

They printed some really weird itemization. It looks like the phone line being ported to the new company collapsed the bundled plan that had my iPad and Apple Watch attached. But you can’t have a phone line on an Apple Watch by itself without a cell phone plan so in theory the watch plan should have ended when the phone plan did. 

Except it didn’t… The iPad plan since it was no longer attached to a phone plan jumped from $20 a month to $77 a month and then they doubled it. They didn’t care or notice that I manually cancelled these plans 2 days after the phone number had been ported. Nor did they care that I couldn’t cancel these plans because when they killed the phone line, they also killed my online access to the entire account.

They were acting just like a psychotic bitch burning your clothes on the front lawn!

I could call them, I could fight with their foreign customer service and get “The plan is the plan” or just pay the bill.

I’m going to choose the latter because I don’t have the energy to fight what will be a losing battle, just on principal. We all know that none of the foreign customer service people have the ability to “DO” anything. They’re just punching bags reading from scripts. AI will soon replace them and do just as fine a job as they do. Mindless recitation of a script with no comprehension of the words and less comprehension of the customer issue at hand.

Nope. I’ll simply make sure that I let as many people know T-Mobile is just as shitty as the other big carriers these days. They’ve arrived! They’re on Par with AT&T, and Verizon. Congratulations T-Mobile!

In closing,

Why are any of you reading this, paying top dollar to one of the big three when you can get comparable service for 1/3 or 1/2 the price from one of the alternate providers?

Just for the ability to flip them the finger about their shitty customer service and billing practices it might be worth switching.

However, I’d suggest that you contact your particular carrier and force them to calculate the exact day you cancel service to prevent them from screwing ya with a divorce settlement.

I might report T-Mobile to the FCC and CPUC, just to have it on file if there’s a class action lawsuit about unfair billing practices.

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After almost a month with the new cellular company, I’m pleased…

Thus far at least.

After I got the initial eSim glitch taken care of everything has worked like a champ.

I like saving $50 a month on service. Rather, I think I’m going to like that.

I did notice a bit of a data slowdown in one place I happened to be. However, that was only one spot and the issue seemed to resolve itself as I made it further down the road. I wonder if it was simple network congestion. AT&T is the underlying carrier for this particular company. I know in some areas they are a little more saturated than others.

There’s another 2nd tier company that is more expensive, but they buy blocks of data or cellular service from the big three. It looks as though they’ve figured out some balancing system that puts you on the least congested of the three carriers or perhaps the carrier with the best coverage in the area you’re in.

I didn’t go with them because they weren’t much less expensive than T-Mobile and honestly aside from T-Mobile’s customer service getting shitty and the cost of service going up… I was happy with T-Mobile. As I stated before, Their pricing and their Customer Service drove me away.

The new guys, will have me as a customer for as long as they treat me well. I’m probably never going to have “Loyalty” to a cellular provider again. 

I know it’s a hassle but I’d really suggest reviewing your cellular plan and doing some price comparisons. Especially if your phone is not under some contract.

Here’s a list of the folks I checked out.

Mint Mobile – T-Mobile’s Network
Consumer Cellular – Verizon (I think)
Patriot Mobile – All three Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T
PureTalk Mobile – AT&T’s network

What’s really strange is that going through these folks is cheaper than going through the big three Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T. I still have no clue how that works.

These companies typically have US based Customer service. I don’t know how long that’s likely to remain the case, but for the time being it’s nice to talk to someone stateside.

That being said, several have “business hours” so if you’ve got a problem, you’ll have to handle it during normal business hours extant wherever they happen to be.

Puretalk USA Promo Code.I settled on PureTalk because they were the cheapest. I don’t use a lot of data so their 3GB plan with unlimited talk and text serves my purposes very well and cost $20 a month.

There is one thing that is, or can be misleading.

If you’re using an iPhone and their iMessage app. Sending text messages may not count in the unlimited text message column.

Unless specifically set to be otherwise, iMessage uses data not SMS/MMS (Cellular Text).

So yes, the SMS/MMS part of the cellular service is unlimited, but iPhone to iPhone will use your data plan by default.

I haven’t felt like forcing my phone to use SMS. As it stands, with me using my phone as normal I’ve still got 88% of my 3 GB data available. If It becomes a problem or concern, I’ll change to the $25 plan and have 5GB which is the same as I had on the T-Mobile Plan.

I’m really curious about how the new Google RCS standard fits. Does it use SMS or is it too data?

Oh, if you do the comparison and decide to switch to PureTalk, kindly use this link.

https://puretalk.com/r/5fe72606

They do a pretty nice referral bonus. 

Yes! I’m becoming a cheap bastard in my old age.

Fingers crossed that I continue to be pleased. If not, there are other options to choose.

Have a great day.

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Fasinating how draining Twitter is…

At first it’s interesting. There’s a stream of “new” data and ideas.

You interact because some people are funny, and if you’re lonely you’re reaching out to other humans, trying to connect.

There are positive connections but generally they’re temporary. When they go away as they inevitably do, it hurts in a way. It’s not a major hurt but suddenly you’re unimportant in someone else’s life and you wonder if / what you did wrong that made them go away. What changed between this week and last week? Are they just busy, or did they find someone more interesting? With the possibility of thousands of followers all interacting or attempting to interact daily or hourly if you fall of the edge of the map it usually goes unnoticed.

This has the potential to make any loneliness a person may feel, much sharper. 

Some people will move on without paying much attention, after all, there are literally thousands of other people. Some people won’t notice, and others, those with few followers may be devastated.

Everyone is clamoring for attention “Pick Me, See Me, Talk to me”, and yet the satisfaction provided is not sustaining.

In my observations of the “Twitterverse” I’ve started to understand this and noticed a few other things too. 

Twitter has a lot of really shitty, stupid, and narcissistic people. I can only imagine what TikTok or other platforms are like.

For someone like me, seeing that level of stupid or meanness is super depressing. This is especially true when the Twitter Stream is like a broken sewer pipe of shit. It wouldn’t take me long based on a raw Twitter feed to decide that humanity needed to be nuked.

Even if Twitter represented only a fractional part of humanity, it’s pretty clear the species is doomed. Dropping nukes might be a mercy.

The fact that it’s monetized and you can apparently make reasonable money using Twitter, in some cases brings out the absolute worst in people.

The parody accounts are sometimes funny but in other cases are even more depressing because sometimes you’re transfixed by the sheer insanity. You’d never normally watch some of the shit, but it’s like watching an accident, you can’t look away. Then you have to try to unsee what you saw and are depressed about being pulled into it in the first place.

The “Free Energy” Twitter accounts are really depressing for someone like me. Time and time again, the “free energy” person has “figured out” how to make an electric motor.  Something that’s been known for 200 years or so. However, because apparently Science isn’t being taught in school anymore, these people think they’ve got something new. 

All the free energy people succeed in demonstrating is that a rather substantial part of humanity isn’t more than two steps away from seeking out an old crone to “cast the bones” about next years harvest.

That’s really depressing!

So much potential wasted, so many petty people, so much ignorance.

Much of which could be addressed and improved if sites like Twitter and the internet in general weren’t intellectual wastelands.

How many African American fights do I need to see happen in a fast food joint? How many weaves need to be snatched off a fat chicks head before any shame is felt?

Twitter and sites like it pander to the lowest common denominator. In doing so, they drag the rest of us down into the gutter.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitter is not healthy, not even a little bit.

I rather think that cigarette smoking is a healthier pursuit. 

I’m speaking of Twitter because I long ago gave up on FaceBook and all the rest. I have a twitter account and I’m considering deleting it. This is actually the second twitter account I’ve had. I’d forgotten why I deleted the first one. Now that I remember, do I delete this one too, or should I simply stop using it then check in only when someone sends me something from Twitter.

Yes, I know Twitter is called X now, but typing “X” in sentences play hell with auto correct and spelling subroutines.