A year, $1260 dollars later, my (failed) fitness journey ...

September 2016, I decided to hire a personal trainer due to my skinny fat around my upper body. From the very beginning I clearly mentioned that my intention was to get rid of my skinny fat (which means that even though I'm not overweight, I have too much body fat around 25% for my case). The response was that it was just caloric balance, I had to burn more calories than I ingest which is a quite disappointing response but I went with it since I really wanted to get rid of my fat.

Since the whole thing was subsidized by my employer I only paid $120 a month, not too bad for a personal trainer although I only got 3 half-hour sessions a week (most sessions lasted only slightly longer than 25 mins but to be fair at the end of the 25 min I had no strength left to continue the session anyway).

Needless to say I was quite disappointed with the result. Although I gained some muscle mass and feel that I'm more fit now than last year I did not achieve my goal, my skinny fat persists. I had three assessments through out the year and according to the omron fat measurement device my body fat dropped by around 5% which translates to 5 lbs of fat.

The thing is that this omron device is more like a moron device :) The accuracy is absolutely abysmal. One time after a prolonged exercise session I measured my body fat percentage and the device showed that I lost roughly 4% compared to my previous measurement. The next day I measured my body fat again and I gained that 4% back LOL what happened was that after a weight lifting session your muscle expands due to water intake, and water has higher electrical conductivity than fat and hence the drop in body fat percentage. So I don't really know how much fat I lost this past year although looking at the mirror I don't look any different, sigh ........ a $1260 lesson, ouch!

Aorus M7 Gaming Mouse Review (Don't Buy!)

Not too long ago (second half of last year) I received a brand new Aorus M7 gaming mouse (due to someone's kindness). I used it mainly with my gaming laptop for roughly about 2 to 3 hours a day. Barely less than a year in, the wheel was already squeaking ........ For an $80 dollar mouse this is embarrassing  :) Note that most reviews you find online will not tell you this as most of them are nothing more than disguised advertisements since they just list the features in a greater detail ..... not too mention that most of them did not even use it for a prolonged period of time

I have much lower confidence in Samsung products now

The exploding Galaxy Note 7 and to a lesser extent the Samsung washing machines have grabbed headlines recently but my experience with Samsung products started when I purchased my MSI gaming laptop (see my other review on MSI on this blog), and much more recently I had the privilege to interact with one of their engineering units in person and one thing I must say, I now have much lower confidence in their products than ever.

A few years back I would recommend Samsung products to my friends and family without a doubt, seeing their rise as an electronics power house, usurping the invincible SONY, gave me a sense of security in purchasing and using their products.

However, my first indirect purchase of a Samsung LCD screen changed all that, the MSI Ghost Pro 4K came with a 4K panel made by Samsung (SDC4852) and boy, what a disappointment it was, first the viewing angle stability is very bad, next, the color reproduction (with a measly 47% of Adobe RGB), brightness, and contrast is complete trash, not to mention the 48Hz refresh rate you can check it out on notebookcheck.net and to top it of they're using pentile pixelation to qualify for 4K, in short they cut lots of corners.

My recent run in with their engineering unit only exacerbates the situation, although due to the NDA I can't spill the beans here, so when the Note 7 explosion happened I wasn't surprised at all, just like what my friend used to say "shocked, but not surprised".

But at least now I know why Samsung's logo is oval because they've cut all corners possible :)

Gaming laptop update

When buying a gaming laptop a few things are important
1. Brand, this will determine if your laptop has any resell value, Clevo tends to be a good choice
2. Timing, it's important to buy (or not to buy) at the right time, a good example is the recent Clevo Pascal debacle, if you bought a $6000 laptop with dual 980m 5 months ago then you're out of luck as the new Pascal based Clevo is waaaay superior than the 980m but it costs roughly the same and the killer is that you can't upgrade 980m to Pascal 1080

Yet another example of bad timing would be if you bought Razer Blade a few months ago since the older one has 970m and the latest one has Pascal 1060, selling for the same price

CIGNA sent my HSA debit card to the wrong address and I lost $800!!!

So due to CIGNA's negligence I'm down $800, three weeks ago my HSA debit card stopped working (I suspected that the magnetic strip was damaged somehow). So I called CIGNA for a replacement card and I explicitly made sure that it would be sent to my new address.

Lo and behold, CIGNA did NOT update my address with the bank that actually issued the card and it was sent to my old address, whoever received my card decided to do multiple ATM withdrawals ........

The thing is that when I called CIGNA today they still told me that the card was sent to my current address but when I was transferred to the bank I was told that they sent it to my old address and CIGNA didn't update them at all

To buy or not to buy, part 2

After dealing with various online sellers on eBay and elsewhere, the lesson I learnt is this

Find reliable sellers rather than reliable products

Products, no matter how reliable they are, can still fail, but if you have a reliable seller, you'll be taken care of, as simple as that. And the most reliable seller I know (firsthand) so far is Apple!

Dodgy Chinese Sellers on eBay

I recently purchased a few electrical items from eBay sold by three different Chinese sellers in China. And all of them were disappointing to say the least. Note that each seller has a very good rating.

For the first item the eBay status changed to shipped the very next day and I was given the tracking number, however, the item itself didn't actually ship until more than a week later and on top of that it was defective, it was supposed to be an HID USB relay (listed at $11.59, a good one on amazon sells for $40) and yet Windows failed to detect it as an HID USB device. I tried it on 3 different PCs with 3 different OSes and all failed.

When I contacted the seller he told me to send pictures of the item, I did and I even sent him the screenshot showing Windows couldn't start the HID device driver for this particular USB relay. He then replied asking for the picture of the USB connection and I told him that the picture of the item I sent earlier included the USB connection I used.

He then replied that he's been selling this item for a long time without any problem and I replied that the item he sent me was obviously defective. His reply was that it would be troublesome for me to return the item but he can give me a partial refund.

I then asked how much refund he would give me and in return he asked me how much I wanted at this point I felt that he was just stalling. Since he asked, I asked for the full price of the item, I was willing to waive the shipping cost since he did ship it to me but then he came back with just $5, less than half the price of the item.

When I replied that I would only take the full price of the item he sent me the same email the first time I asked him for a refund ..........

For the second item it was a DC DC converter, the item shipped promptly but the thing is when I connected it to a 12V line of my PSU the whole thing blew up, there was a short somewhere, the thing is that I wasn't sure if it was my fault or the item itself was defective, I have a strong feeling that it was defective .....

And last but not least, the third item was a Arduino board that was selling for $1.69 including shipping cost LOL the item "shipped" promptly (as the status changed to shipped the very next day) , however, a few days later I got an email that the item might be defective and if I would like a refund instead. The odd thing is that the item description of the eBay link changed completely into some fashion thingy.

I then replied that that I didn't order a fashion item and I got an exact email asking me if I wanted a refund. In the following two weeks the seller sent me two emails asking me to give him a positive review even though I haven't received the item yet. It might as well be that he didn't actually send the item, hence the ruse using an email stating defect and the possible refund, since if you ask for a refund he'd lose nothing as he didn't actually send the item and if you're too busy to notice his email he'd pocket your money for free ....... just a guess though

Fast forward more than a month later and I still hadn't received the item, I then asked for a refund since I didn't receive the item and he prompty gave me a full refund. So at least I got my money back on this one.

Well, I guess if it's too good to be true, it is .........