Author: Mhix

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Facebook, why didn’t I receive that update…?

 
Noticed how sometimes you don’t get notified of someone’s update, an event or a post in your interest lists/groups?  Missed that party for your friends’ birthdays?  Here’s why…
 
So many of you will have seen posts similar to the following:

Facebook is now pushing administrators to pay to promote every post/update from their page. In an attempt to make page administrators and users pay for “promoted posts,” Facebook will now only notify 7% of you receive each update posted. Meaning that now, in order to receive all messages/posts from things you have ‘liked’, you must do the following:

1) Go to the the page (eg: http://www.facebook.com/mhix.org for ‘Shells Shots’).

2) Hover your mouse over where it says “LIKED” and click on “ADD TO INTERESTS LISTS”

For users/friends:

1) Goto their timeline, or hover over their name in one of their posts in your newsfeed.

2) Hover the mouse over the ‘Friends’ Button.

3) Click ‘Settings’

4) Click ‘All updates’

By doing this, you will be able to see all posts for pages and friends alike in your news feed. Please “share” this post with your friends.

Note: They also set the ‘Sort’ on the newsfeed to only put the top posts (those that have paid to be at the top) at the top, change it to ‘most recent’ to see what people are posting when they post..

Please share this post/information with everyone so all can know what Facebook are doing…!

Thank you!!

 
 So what does it mean?
 
Well simply it’s the response to Facebook‘s latest attempt to get money for its investors.  Facebook’s stock is falling, people are loosing money, the company is failing… Privacy is required by many people, and laws have mandated it so they can’t sell your data to others as they once did, advertising is failing particularly as mobile devices don’t see most of it…  They need to make money…
 
So as most users of Facebook (the reported billions of users) are not actually real users (eg my Ex Katie Crothers has/had three “Officially her” accounts, plus at least 30 fake accounts in various alias names (eg Leon Mconnell etc) that she created to attack my account with, then later stalk me to try and to ‘collect evidence’ for my former employer to take me to court for breach of a non-disclosure agreement and right waiver that prevents me from taking them to court over the sexual harassment and discrimination I suffered whilst employed.)  Then we have those like me, where I have 3 accounts, one for me publicly, one for my closest only friends, and one that I use to investigate people with (as part of my job, and for evidential evidence against the stalking and harassment.)  Finally, I know many other people that have at least 2 accounts, one for employers, one for friends etc… So based on knowing many people with 2 legitimate accounts, I would suspect that Facebook’s user Total of 1.01 billion is actually around half that, despite their pathetic attempts to weed out fake accounts.
 
So back to the original question… what does it mean?
 
Well simply, they need to make money, and make money fast, so as they cannot get money from the fake accounts, and they can’t get people to pay for the newsfeeds they are relying on companies to pay for their ‘page’ posts to ensure that all their users get the updates.  The problem with this is they are targeting the vast majority of pages by asking for payment to those pages that have less than 5000 ‘likes’, ie all the less known ones.  The ones where people want to get themselves up on the limits so they don’t have to pay…
 
Here’s the problem though… it didn’t work, the little people won’t pay when the big ones get it free, and they worked out that if they have a second phone number and access to a limitless number of email addresses (like me) they can create ‘fake’ accounts, in this case the ‘fake’ is because they don’t represent a real person, they are the company, someone that can post adverts when they are your friend and you get them in your newsfeed as ‘Pages’ used to do…
 
To combat this, Facebook has been changing your ‘Newsfeed’, first they changed the ‘Sort Order’, it used to display the latest posts at the top, now by default it only displays ‘Top Stories’ – these ‘stories’ are those that go viral, ones that get shared, ones that get ‘liked’ ones that get lots of comments.  So when this happened, I amongst many others told people how to change it back..
 
Go to the ‘News Feed’ and hover your mouse over ‘Sort’ and select ‘Recent Updates’ instead of ‘Top Stories’ (Note that ‘Top Stories’ only shows ‘Sort’, where after it’s changed it says, ‘Sort: Recent Updates’ – quite deliberate so you as a user don’t realize.)
 
Problem is everyone changed it back when they saw the posts alerting them to the change, so they change it back every so often, because they want you to always see ‘Top Stories’ first…
 
So their next attempts (and the current issue) is to make everyone suffer the ‘promoted posts’ issue…  As a user, only 7% of your friends will only see any post you make, if you get a lot of people ‘Like’ing or ‘Comment’ing on your post it goes up the ‘Top Stories’ list and more of your friends *may* see the post…
 
Sooner or later Facebook is going to have to bite the bullet and start charging people for access.  The problem they have with that is the user base will fall dramatically, their number of active users will probably be just a small percentage of their current total..  Why is fairly obvious, fake accounts will vanish, people will only have access if they have access to a credit card, and of course some will refuse to pay as there are free alternatives out there…
 
So here’s a list of the Advantages I see with a ‘pay for’ Facebook (and I’m only talking about paying $5 per year as this would if they insist that majority of their 1.01b users are real, $5.05b in revenue):
  • Fraud and Fake accounts will be stamped out (one account per credit card number.)
  • Revenue is generated.
  • People will not abandon stolen accounts so readily.
  • They can better ensure that children (under 18s) are not allowed access without their parents knowledge.
  • Abuse by stalkers and harassers will be greatly reduced (it won’t stop it though, stalkers are psychotic and determined.)
  • Spam and other abuse will be reduced (though it is unlikely to stop it.)

Disadvantages:

  • Many people will just stop using it in favour of ‘free’ services.
  • The real figure of Facebook users can be accurately calculated, audited and reported (and if it is significantly lower will decimate the Stock Price.)
  • “Stolen accounts” trade will increase on the black market.
  • Facebook ‘Phishing’ attempts will greatly increase as abusers will attempt to steal other people’s accounts.
  • Facebook will have a contract with end-users so their legal obligations will significantly increase (terminating an account someone has paid for will require due cause/process and is auditable by a court – this would have significantly helped me in my received abuse and harassment by my ex..  Facebook would not want to get involved in such cases, but they would have no ability to get away from it.)
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United finally get it right… (wonders will never cease)

Well in all fairness I have to post this, normally I am only seen whinging about United Airlines (and with good reason) but as I am also a fair and honest person, time to give credit where credit is due.

Today I had to take a flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Baltimore (BWI) and was booked on flight UA558.  I wasn’t looking forward to 5.25 hours in yet another badly maintained plane with rude staff, and an awful checkin system..  What a pleasant surprise I got.  A quick drive to SFO from Sunnyvale, was uneventful, the roof was down and Rammstein was blasting out at full volume (much to the angst of fellow road users who looked decidedly afraid, of the Goth in a big convertible mustang, banging out some very metal tunes… I suspect they thought at any minute I might draw a shotgun and start taking pot shots for fun!)  Arrival at SFO was also uneventful, car was returned to Hertz, no comments, complaints in fact several of the staff started head banging to the sound of the (still very loud) Rammstein!

I got to the check-in desk and as usual, they weren’t manned at all, leaving only the computerised systems, my heart fell, however a very cheerful dark skinned lady (United staff) decided to help me through it…  [Hang on a sec, you say, Michelle is a techie and programmer, how come she needed help….  My response to all of you.. you ever tried checking in using one of those damned machines?!?!? 😉 ]  anyhow, after initial problems with getting the machine to read my passport (my fault) it asked questions and I responded.. including a question, ‘this flight is full, would you consider helping us out and taking a $250 flight voucher for taking an alternative flight’… I thought, I answered, “yes” …  I hurried in to the departure lounge to talk to the boarding staff because I wasn’t all that sure about it… just wanted to make sure there were no problems..  I mean, 36 hours to get to Baltimore, sure, I could take a different route.. but they had to ensure my back was not destroyed in the mean time…  They offered (and I accepted) alternative flights, a hotel for the night and an upgrade to first class as well as the $250 voucher…..  I said, “yes please” 😉 [Note: in the end I didn’t get it because 2 people didn’t make it to the flight so they didn’t need my seat, but that was a bonus I was willing to take 😉 ]

So, the flight.. Airbus 319.. very small aircraft, old and notoriously uncomfortable for people like me..  they gave me Seat 7D at checkin..  just behind the business class section, tonnes of leg room but completely impossible to watch the movie… glad I bought a book. 😉

Now loud and proud.. United I had done many flights with you, some using my Frequent Flightier card (so you know who I am) some without…  The following people do you credit:

Terri Clark

Monica Travis

Ronda Novotny

I have *NEVER* had a flight with United that even comes close to the quality and standard of other airlines (even with a $7500 one-way Business class ticket).. however, this was an Economy Plus flight, and I thought I was on another airline, the service, the staff, everything was good.  Service was with a smile, they were helpful and courteous, there was none of the, “You’re a dirty low class economy piece of s**t” that I have experienced in the past.  These people answered the bell within a few minutes, they served me food and wine when I asked (even if they didn’t have 3 of my choices, it doesn’t matter, they served in a manor that made up for the shortcomings of what was in the galley.)  I watched the business class service from where I was and the same was happening there… All I can say is (and I never thought I’d ever say it).. For the United Flight UA558 on the 20th Oct 2012, Top marks from me!!

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Rude, Arrogant or just plain stupid…?

One would expect public figures to be the example, certainly in other countries those in public office, rock stars, actors and generally anyone famous has to set an example for others.  Where the law is broken, those famous often get heavier sentences as an ‘example’ to others, indeed as a person who has worked for a customs office I was warned as part of my induction if I was ever caught in possession of drugs I would likely get the maximum sentence by any court etc..  Where laws are not broken but ethics are, jobs are lost, people are distanced from colleagues and the culprits are discredited.  So the question is how does the Maltese political parties fair in this game of showmanship?

Well yesterday I had to fly back to San Francisco for my 3 monthly visit to ‘Head Office’ and I wasn’t looking forward to it.  United Airlines are renowned for the worst service of any passenger airline, and traveling some 60,000 air miles per year, I have to say I have had my fair share of their awful service.  However, my ‘travel dramas’ of the past were surpassed to my amazement and disgust by and incident at the very beginning of my journey…  Happening right in the Malta International Airport (MLA).

I was waiting patiently in line for a checkin assistant to become available with at least one person in the queue behind me, and a couple of friends being served already, then an older man came up and stood near the desk.  Thinking this guy was just after asking a quick question I did not challenge him, checkin continued and my friends started to move away, and to my amazement the guy stepped forward and put his suitcase on the conveyor belt and handed over his passport.  I immediately called, “excuse me! excuse me! There is a queue here you know?!?!” to which the reply was, “I see no queue.”

I did not hear the reply, but my friends had, I repeated myself with the addition, “are you really such a rude person that you will jump the queue whilst there are others waiting?”  The reply, came under his breath, “F’oxx …” (I did not hear the second word but am fairly sure it was “Ommock” ..  Now for the benefit of the non Maltese speakers, “F’oxx” is equivalent to “Fuck” in English and “Ommock” is “Mother” (ie the term is “Fuck your mother”, which is used rather offensively instead of “Fuck Off”) ..  I was outraged and turned to the checkin assistant who was a young girl and she said, “he’s Flypass”

Now Flypass members get preferential treatment, they get to use the business class lounge etc..  However, their privileges does not extend to queue jumping, and in the event that someone does have that privilege they are to use the ‘business class’ line, or wait to be invited by the assistant.

Mr Joe Debono Grech
Mr Joe Debono Grech – MP for Labour

Remember me saying that I travel around 60,000 air-miles per year?  Well, that’s around 20,000 ‘Flypass’ miles per year, I am known to Air Malta staff in Malta, Germany and the UK (though not this girl on the check in desk).. I was flying Premium on Lufthansa in this case, I am a Gold ‘Star Alliance’ member (Lufthansa Miles and More, and United Airmiles etc)  I am a silver British Airways member and just 4,000 airmiles off being a Platinum Etihad member… I fly a lot, and have been doing so since 2009, I don’t enjoy it….  Not that it made any difference in this case the assistant still allowed him to continue and the poor people behind me had to wait for this ignorant twit.

Another Lufthansa staff member became free and checked me in.

I spent 30 minutes in the departure lounge wondering where the person had gone to, and boarded the flight on time, several minutes later one of the last people to board came into view, and who would it be, you guessed it, the rude person from checkin, and to my astonishment, he continued past my seat into the economy area and sat approximately half way down the plane…  Yes folks, this guy was not even a premium class traveller…!

Incensed by finding probably the most rude, ignorant person in Malta, I formulated a plan.  The plane landed and I jumped up and got off the plane as fast as possible, taking my carry on luggage with me, little did he know I would be waiting at the gate in Frankfurt with my Nikon D3s and F2.8 lens…  Camera checked, turned on, set to highspeed shooting (9 frames per second).. he walked off the plane and one of the pictures was uploaded here..  My plan to name and shame him into better behavior…  Give him an unwelcome 30 seconds of Internet fame…  Little did I realise who “he” is…

Within minutes of posting the picture to Facebook several people messaged me to tell me it was none other than Mr Joe Debono Grech, a politician parliamentary candidate for Labour. Many describing him as a relic of the 80s, some stating quite clearly that my report about his conduct has made up their minds on which way to vote at the next election.

Personally I am shocked that someone holding public office would conduct themselves in such a manner that brings their party into such disrepute.  Labour, not for the people, for everything they can get for themselves, is what comes to mind.  Well Mr Debono Grech, I will not stoop to your level, I will not tell you to “F’oxx ….” I will not use my frequent flyer privileges to be rude and inconsiderate to others, I will be the example you obviously cannot set, and I pray that the people of Malta never have to suffer election of someone so ignorant in the future.  I fully expect you to use your contacts to make my life hell, well do your worst is all I can say, I currently pay 4000EUR in income tax per month, I can claim most of those back with all the loop holes in the tax law, I choose not to!  I put my taxes into the community for the benefit of all, I support local artists where I can, often at great cost to myself, and never charge a penny.  I am polite most of the time (I am just not polite to people who don’t take ‘no’ for an answer) and I believe in the Maltese people and way of life.  I was not born here, and I do not have relatives here.  My only connection with Malta before I moved was that my father was stationed here in Malta during World War II..  I am 43 years old now, and I have never in my life seen *anyone* with a attitude as disgusting as yours, and I am just glad the new generation of Malta, whilst not following in as much tradition as many would like, are better behaved and respectful to others than yourself.

 

Oh and the right (Dis)Honorable Joe Debono Grech…. just for the record… you won’t be getting my vote either.

 

PS: I am learning Maltese, not because I have to – but because I WANT TO!!  So yes, I could understand what you said to the assistant.

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To VEET or not to VEET that is the agony…

THIS IS AN ACTUAL CUSTOMER REVIEW FROM A MAN ON AMAZON.CO.UK AFTER USING VEET HAIR REMOVAL CREAM FOR MEN.

 

After having been told my danglies looked like an elderly Rastafarian I decided to take the plunge and buy some of this as previous shaving attempts had only been mildly successful and I nearly put my back out trying to reach…the more difficult bits. Being a bit of a romantic I thought I would do the deed on the missus’s birthday as a bit if a treat.

I ordered it well in advance and working in the North Sea I considered myself a bit above some of the characters writing the previous reviews and wrote them off as soft office types…Oh my fellow sufferers how wrong I was. I waited until the other half was tucked up in bed and after giving some vague hints about a special surprise I went down to the bathroom. Initially all went well and I applied the gel and stood waiting for something to happen. I didn’t have long to wait.At first there was a gentle warmth which in a matter of seconds was replaced by an intense burning and a feeling I can only describe as like being given a barbed wire wedgie by two people intent on hitting the ceiling with my head. Religion hadn’t featured much in my life until that night but I suddenly became willing to convert to any religion to stop the violent burning around the turd tunnel and what seemed like the the destruction of the meat and two veg. Struggling not to bite through my bottom lip I tried to wash the gel off in the sink and only succeeded in blocking the plughole with a mat of hair. Through the haze of tears I struggled out of the bathroom across the hall into the kitchen, by this time walking was not really possible and I crawled the final yard to the fridge in the hope of some form of cold relief. I yanked the freezer drawer out and found a tub of ice cream, toe the lid off and positioned it under me. The relief was fantastic but only temporary as it melted fairly quickly and the fiery stabbing returned. Due to the shape of the ice cream tub I hadn’t managed to give the starfish any treatment and I groped around in the draw for something else as I was sure my vision was going to fail fairly soon. I grabbed a bag of what I later found out was frozen sprouts and tore it open trying to be quiet as I did so. I took a handful of them and an tried in vain to clench some between the cheeks of my arse. This was not doing the trick as some of the gel had found its way up the chutney channel and it felt like the space shuttle was running its engines behind me.

This was probably and hopefully the only time in my life I was going to wish there was a gay snowman in the kitchen which should give you some idea of the depths I was willing to sink to in order to ease the pain. The only solution my pain crazed mind could come up with was to gently ease one of the sprouts where no veg had gone before.

Unfortunately, alerted by the strange grunts coming from the kitchen the other half chose that moment to come and investigate and was greeted by the sight of me, arse in the air, strawberry ice cream dripping from my bell end pushing a sprout up my arse while muttering “ooooohhh that feels good” Understandably this was a shock to her and she let out a scream and as I hadn’t heard her come in it caused an involuntary spasm of shock in myself which resulted in the sprout being ejected at quite some speed in her direction. I can understand that having a sprout fired against your leg at 11 at night in the kitchen probably wasn’t the special surprise she was expecting and having to explain to the kids the next day what the strange hollow in the ice cream was didn’t improve my status…so to sum it up, VEET removes hair, dignity and self-respect.

On a more personal note, I hate sprouts and therefore do not have any in the freezer, that is the extent of the differences in my experience of the same! 😉

 

Thank you Kevin Agius for finding this!

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Gay marriage… the rights, the wrongs, and ‘what next?’

So today have been a really interesting day, not one but two issues came up to talk about, today I’m only going to blog about the latter of the two are it’s certainly considered controvercial, but its also an ongoing ‘current affairs’ issue… “Gay marriage”

Before I start, I will say this blog is not intended to offend anyone and I apologise in advance if you are offended.  My point is to inform, not offend.

I have seen the arguments going on around the world for some time, both sides have valid points, but I think both sides are not focussing on the actual issue.

  • First you have the Church (and church going people).. their argument is marriage is a sacred thing and only something that can be regconised before God.
  • Second you have the Gay people of the world, they want the rights of anyone married. They don’t want to be discrimated against, they want any benefits of a married person, so they want to “get married”.

Now there are clearly at least two seperate reasons to it.

  • First, Gay people want the rights of a married person, this is not a marriage issue, this is an issue in law.
  • Second, Gay people want to have their partnership union recognised as the same as a non Gay couple, ie they want to be married.

So now we have the main issues lets look at the history. Marriage is a word that belongs to the church, anyone fighting for ‘gay marriage’ is trying to change history, and in most cases they have not considered that by calling it ‘gay marriage’ they have already created a distinction that makes it different from ‘marriage’… so that is not the answer.

So why does the word marriage belong to the church you ask next…? Well lets look at the history of the word itself. Back before laws on marriage to get married you went to the church, there was no register of Births, Marriages and Deaths outside of the Church. The laws came later and the governments of the world used the church term in their documentation, so it became part of society. However, partnerships have existed for long before the church, people lived together as families without ever being married, without ever being legally joined. In fact if we look at nature (Gods other creations) we see these partnerships, this coupling of two animals even today. Many birds, will partner for life (certain types of duck for example)… they will only couple with one partner ever. This is nature, this is the way God created the world. The are many examples in the world where animals other than homosapiens (us humans) partner and/or have casual sex with same sex partners.. again another of Gods creations, so any man or woman that says that being Gay is not Gods way is telling you that they don’t know the real teachings of God. The Church I have said (and I mean all churches/religions) are “mans” creation, they are “mans” interpretation of what God wants, these are not the word of God. We can see the word of God in what God created for us to see in the world, what we see in nature… So that in mind, the word “marriage” is a man-made creation that defines the partnership of a man and a woman. Live with it, accept it, deal with it.

Now.. laws are also man-made, and define how we live our lives whether we are part of the church or not. They define how legal benefits and rights may be obtained or are enforced. They define the law in which we live… So what’s the point…? Well it’s simple, stop arguing about the word ‘marriage’ stop trying to make ‘marriage’ legal between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, you won’t win the argument and you won’t win with good reason. Instead as for the laws to be changed to recognise a ‘civil union’ a union of two people that confirms in law that they are partners, that they have the rights and restrictions of anyone who up to now is ‘married’. Same thing isn’t it? Well not quite because recognising a civil union in law may give Gay people the rights of someone married but it’s still called something else. So what’s the answer, well read on…

The church (and some governments of the world) state clearly that marriage is creating a family, it’s about family values. So why don’t we create families instead of getting married, well some do. In the UK (and other countries) where ‘civil union’ laws exist, a person gets ‘married’ or ‘joined’ in a registry office, and finialise it with a signing of the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages. People (heterosexual couples) can get married in church, some do, some don’t. At sea, anyone who wishes to get married may ask the captain of the ship to marry them…. There is no church involved, there is however a ceremony, which at the end of it, when the ship reaches shore, the happy couple must regularise by signing the register of Births, Deaths and Marriages. So really what are we doing by requiring people to sign the Register is getting them to sign a register of “Births, Deaths, and Partners” or a register of “Births, Deaths and Families”. So, lets change the name of the register, lets forget the word Marriage, lets change the laws and the register to indicate what it really is, a register of Births, Deaths and Couples, take away the ‘Marriage’ component.

Next what do we need to do, well simply we need to replace the word marriage in the relevant laws and replace it with something that means the joining of two people in the same way marriage is the joining of a man and a woman. A conversation I had earlier suggested ‘unionized’ (I disagree with this as it has other connotations in other countries. I suggested ‘lawful partnership’ and it was suggested that would devalue the union below marriage. Suggestions obviously needed here, another conversation suggested a, ‘spousalisation’ .. wow what a mouthful! 😉 Other suggestions I have seen are ‘amarriage’ and ‘monasticism’ (another mouthful there, but technically accurate)… Either way, lets stop fighting between the church and the non church people, stop fighting between homosexual and hetrosexual people about it. Lets come together as God wishes and let people live their lives as they wish as *family*, for it is God’s wish (regardless of the name of your God) for people to live as families, be good to others and lead a productive life.

Now I am not suggesting at any point that people no longer get ‘married’, if a man and woman wish to go to church and get ‘married’ allow them that right, allow the church the right to say marriage is the joining of a man and a woman – only. Instead in regular society, change how we define the joining of two people as legal and life partners call it something else for *everyone*, allow people to say for instance, we are in a legal partnership, and for those men and women who choose to do so say “we also got married”. Lets legislate that forms may not ask if you are married, but instead if you are in a legal partnership (or any other name that is used legally.) Lets make both sides happy, lets join people, allow the church to keep their definition of marriage, and change the word used in regular society for the joining of *any* couple whether both male, both female or a man and a woman. Stop the arguments and work together for families as this is what the world is in desperate need of affirming.

Notes:

  • References taken from: Marriage Watch on Major World Religions on the Question of Marriage
  • I am a transsexual (male to female) that is Gay – I only date women (legally I am a woman, I date women, therefore I am legally gay. The church defines me as a man and therefore will allow me to ‘marry’ a woman.. go figure!)
  • I am not a believer in the church (any church/religion) I am agnostic, i.e. I believe in a higher power that people refer to as their God, I do not know it’s name, I do not care or need to know it’s name, I believe it is there, and it will judge me on my passing from this realm.