In reply to wae :
Probably you got the high score because you obviously read her comments and acted accordingly. I would not communicate with an email in your case. Maybe face-to-face with a smile would be a better approach, because you are in effect trying to teach her something, not knock her down.
I have always noticed you do write well, even in forum posts.
YMMV
wae said:I hate to be "that guy". And, frankly, Young Bill circa 1995 would probably stab me for what I'm about to write. And I think I've complained about this before. But...
This semester, as one of the courses required for my degree, I'm taking a 300-level English class called "Technical Writing". I was pretty excited for this because while I have spent the last 30 years of my career actually doing technical writing, I've not had any formal training in the subject. The writing that I've created has always seemed like it was above-average, but I am a total feedback whore and love to hear about how I can do things better. The assignments are based around a series of projects where each project has a couple draft assignments that then lead up to the actual project. Most recently, we were tasked with writing a recommendation report to an audience of our choosing that would compare and contrast three different "things" and then provide a decision matrix and final recommendation for purchasing one of those "things".
Writing this type of report is nothing new to me as I've done these over and over again. I was actually hoping to anonymize and turn in a giant report that I did for a local financial institution a number of years ago in which I did deep research on six or eight different storage vendors, did some heavy consulting with the various business units at the company, and then presented them with a 75 page recommendation report that was basically like a Gartner analysis but produced with their very specific needs in mind. It was one of the most brilliant bits of work that I had done but the only copy I had was an early draft that was incomplete. Since I didn't realize it was incomplete until about 4 hours before the first draft portion of the project was due, I had to crap out something entirely new. I got full points on that rush project but with a couple recommendations for changes. Then I did basically the same thing for the second draft portion. Crapped out something in about 30 minutes and got full points with a couple recommendations. Then, I procrastinated the final project submission and then sat down, read for the first time the recommendations that I got for my previous submissions and slapped together about 10 pages. Full points and a series of glowing comments.
I will be the first to tell you that I have an extremely high opinion of myself and I do feel like I have pretty strong written communication skills. If I could find a way to get paid to write, even as a side-gig, I would be absolutely thrilled and I think whomever was writing the checks would be getting their money's worth. Any time there was an opportunity at work to write something up, I'd jump on that grenade without hesitation. But even I know that I'm not that good. Surely my thrown-together report had at least one sentence that might have been a little clunky or unclear. At least one paragraph had to have been too long. There was at least one irrelevant detail that I could have edited out to make the prose flow more smoothly. That submission couldn't have been absolutely perfect.
The 4.0 is great, but I feel like I'm going to really hack this poor professor off when I write her an email later on complaining that I don't think I deserve the grade I got.
You may need to consider what your fellow students are turning in. At 50 with some practice, you may be so far ahead of your fellow students that your reports may be head and shoulders above everything he is seeing.
Been dealing with Anxiety for the past couple weeks. It's a PITA trying to discuss or explain to people where my head is actually at.
"What's wrong? Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help you."
Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine. My life is going pretty well. I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now. I just have Anxiety. That means I'm ultra-sensitive. If something frustrating happens, I'm going to have an outsized emotional response to it.
There's nothing YOU can do. It's all up to me to pay attention to my mood and manage not subjecting myself to things that irritate me.
Mostly it means I feel like either a flake (avoiding stresses) or an shiny happy person (blowing up about stresses). I don't like feeling like a flake or an shiny happy person. Yes, I know that you don't think I'm being an shiny happy person, but I still feel like one.
Fortunately, my wife is *mostly* getting a handle on and understanding what my anxiety means.
The motherberkeleyer I've found with anxiety is- I don't know what it is about half the time and that only makes it worse. I feel you.
In reply to Mndsm :
I've learned that it isn't about anything. It just is. You might as well ask, "What is your migraine about."
I've gotten good at handling it for myself. The tough part is trying to explain to other people. That like, I can be dealing with Anxiety while still being in a good mood.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
This is actually REALLY difficult for some family members to get about a lot of clinical "mood disorders". Anxiety, depression, etc. Conceptually, I can understand that these things aren't actually about anything. That's kind of what makes it a diagnosed disorder. Still, when a loved one is depressed or spinning out with anxiety it's really tough not to say dumb things like, "What do you have to be upset about? How do we fix it?".
I try to be understanding but often fail. My defense is that I have my own bad brain to deal with, so it's sometimes hard to react to their problems in a fully understanding way. Long story short, this stuff is hard.
It just dawned on me, that it's likely our favorite Chinese department store is going to raise prices.
In reply to WilD :
That's why I've been making an effort to differentiate between feeling anxious about something, and dealing with Anxiety.
For me, "King of Pain" by The Police is the best encapsulation of what having a mood disorder is like. Sting wrote it about his depression, but it feels like anxiety too. Just... that one tiny thing that is not right, that doesn't matter, but is everything. That everything is simultaneously not moving and moving too fast.
"There's a little black spot on the sun today. It's the same old thing as yesterday."
In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :
Spring black Friday is this weekend... Time to stock up.
People that do this to install things. Waiting on parts to fix the oil leak on my Avant I bought back on Saturday so I scanned for faults today.
Weird things started happening after I used VCDS to try to reset the service interval. So I started looking at power. Pulled off the cover and this is how the previous owner wired the boost gauge he installed.
Unhooked for now and I'll deal with that later. Thankfully all the weird stuff that started happening was just due to low battery voltage.
Scrolling through newsfeed, got an article writing about "the sting of $70 games".
Biznotch, NES games were $40-60 in the 1980s. That's in the hundreds today.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
And they're trying to again. New switch 2 digital games are reported at $80, physical are $90. For basically mobile games with an annoying controller.
There are threats of the new GTA being over $100 this year.
The real sting of recent $70 games is that, bluntly, they suck. Broken out of the box and/or always online components and/or battle passes and financial gateways to new stuff and/or still being hamstrung by the last console generation because God forbid after 5 years the "current Gen"get full support. On top of the standard asset flips and bullE36 M3 games as a service point of view from publishers.
In reply to RevRico :
And yet those NES games had 8 bit graphics and sound, and didn't have the overhead of paying for voice talent or body modeling.
The games were also "Nintendo Hard" because they were supposed to be difficult enough that you'd have to spend the equivalent amount in quarters to beat the game at an arcade. Still, RC Pro-Am was durn near unplayable once you got to the third tier. And let's not bring up Mega-Man.
I beat Contra on one life once. Who wants an autograph?
Some asshat decided to do donuts in our yard. I have many thoughts about this.
But mostly I want to dig a tiger trap and fill it with tannerite.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
Weeks? You lucky bastard. I have it. Always have. Like every, single waking moment. Sometimes it's better, sometimes worse. Sometimes worse than that.
But its always there.
F--k Microsoft! How many thousands of bucks have I spent on their products over the years and I can't get a timely callback from tech support?! So after waiting for hours and not getting any help, I go back online to try the online chat option. No, it turns out that I've exceeded the daily call limit. Apparently one request is the limit!
Postscript: They called me 4 hours later - repeatedly - while I was in the shower.
In reply to dan0 :
So he pulled a fuse and pushed it back in with a wire under one of the spades? Noice!
I'm at the point I'm not hacking into a harness ever again on a new car.
In reply to dan0 :
I've had these in my River site cart waiting for a use. Looks like you might have a use:
In reply to wae :
I know where you are coming from. I took a C++ programming class back in the mid 90's. I had zero clue what I was doing at the end and I got an A. I was really disappointed.
This +1000...
RevRico said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
And they're trying to again. New switch 2 digital games are reported at $80, physical are $90. For basically mobile games with an annoying controller.
There are threats of the new GTA being over $100 this year.
The real sting of recent $70 games is that, bluntly, they suck. Broken out of the box and/or always online components and/or battle passes and financial gateways to new stuff and/or still being hamstrung by the last console generation because God forbid after 5 years the "current Gen"get full support. On top of the standard asset flips and bullE36 M3 games as a service point of view from publishers.
This was a large reason why I switched to PC gaming.
I don't have to have the latest and greatest game, as you noted, most of them are broken on release or require massive day 1 patches. The new release I bought was Fallout 4, roughly a decade ago.
Now I vote with my dollars and buy "old" games whenever they go on sale on Steam. I haven't paid more than $20 for a game in a long, long time.
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
Just my own personal choice, but I don't like messy wires like that. Solder and heat shrink tubing for me.
And this one is far from new...
I could only give this one thumbs up. I'm quoting it for truth.
Rodan said:This +1000...
Why.does.it.keep.berking.raining.and.snowing.every.freaking.day....
I havent seen the sun in 84 years, it feels like. Seasonal depression? Check. Outdoor, time senstitive projects falling way behind? Check. Pissy, snippy bad mood about something I 100% can't control? Also Check.
golfduke said:Why.does.it.keep.berking.raining.and.snowing.every.freaking.day....
I havent seen the sun in 84 years, it feels like. Seasonal depression? Check. Outdoor, time senstitive projects falling way behind? Check. Pissy, snippy bad mood about something I 100% can control? Also Check.
I feel you. Enjoyed living in Ohio except for those two-month spells where the sun was nothing but a rumor.
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