Wellness Craze Follow Up: Raw Milk May Have Infected and Killed Two Cats of Bird Flu

According Los Angles County Department of Public Health, two indoor cats in LA County have died of H5N1 bird flu after consuming Raw Farm LLC raw milk. Tests are underway to confirm the diagnosis, but the milk had already been recalled statewide. 

Previously this blog had covered the unscientific naturalistic arguments used by raw milk advocates to justify their consumption. Here's another reason for you to stop consuming unsanitary food... No matter how tempting their specious arguments sound. 

The Uselessness of Restaurant.com Coupons for the Average Joe

Do you have a LOT of spare cash and like to try out a LOT of of restaurants in your area, or even, around the country? If so, a restaurant.com coupon deal may be for you... which claimed to be $200 for $35. 

It's until you try to redeem it when you realize you CANNOT redeem it at a single restaurant on a single meal. Instead, it's designed to be spread out, a little here, a little there. 

For example, the $200 credit on restaurant.com (hereforth as just "R") stays in your wallet, then to redeem it, you find a local restaurant you want to try, and go into their restaurant.com page... Where you are told... Get $10 off for $5 (minimum purchase $35). This restaurant's entrees are in the $30 - 40 range, appetizers are in the $12-15 range. 

So after this meal, you actually spent probably closer to $50 at the restaurant, even with $10 off, (which is really $5 off, leaving you $195 in R eWallet). 

I seriously think it'll take you a whole YEAR to spend that "$200" value you got for $35. And it's so much trouble you probably just "forgot" to redeem most of it. 

Which is where they really make their money. 

Writing Advice: What Would You Do When Your World Made No Sense?

I sometimes help authors research stuff on Reddit, and recently, someone came to us, wanting details of what goes on inside a slaughterhouse, i.e. where animals are killed and processed for meat. Apparently the MC is both deficient in vision (can't see ****) and mind (delusional) and thinks there are prisoners inside the facility. So at night, the MC, with some homemade weapons, managed to scare away the staff and was about to release all the animals, and he wants to know what's the most efficient way to go about it. 

I told him that what he described is IMPOSSIBLE. There are NO holding pens "inside" the facility. The only time a live animal (single) enters the facility is into the kill box. What one considers to be "holding pens" are moveable swing gate barriers on the OUTSIDE of the facility, and those don't hold any animals overnight. They are built to create a line where animals can be paraded and bid on by buyers as they are unloaded from transports leading up into the kill box. There's nothing to release. 

This gentleman's response? Can be summarized by a quote from ex-Mythbuster Adam Savage: "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Then I told him about part 2... Any staff who escaped is going to summon law enforcement, and they will summon the county SWAT team, mutual aid from all surrounding counties, plus bigger guns from state police and any Federal teams that may be available nearby. How is your MC going to deal with that? And don't count on the animals stampeding their way out creating a distraction. Modern farm animals are way too domesticated. They will NOT leave and prefer to stay with the herd. If you open the gate, they won't go anywhere until encouraged to do so. 

At this point he's basically ignoring me. Which is fine. The advice is free. If he wants to create whatever fantasy slaughterhouse for his own reality that's his problem. It simply doesn't conform to OUR reality. 

If he had asked something like, "uh, I'm trying to achieve X, how do I go about it? So far my ideas are Y, Z, and W..." I would have told him what can be worked on, and what wouldn't work. However, he's so married to this idea that he'd rather bend reality than accept this idea wouldn't work. 

Chief Takeaway: Don't be so married to your ideas. When they don't work, they don't work. Save it for something else, or rework the idea. 

Weird News: Police Hunting Suspect Who Had a Standoff with Driverless Waymo, then Assaulted Bystander

(SF Gate) SFPD is looking for a man who, in the very early moring of July 5th (just past midnight), deliberately stood in front of a driverless Waymo (carrying a passenger) forcing a standoff, yelling angrily at the various cameras of the vehicle, even banging on the hood of the vehicle. When a "visibly disabled" (cognitively impaired) bystander commented, the man shoved the bystander to the ground and fled the scene. 

Windows 11 Audio Weirdness: Bluetooth vs Wired, Headphone vs Headset, and More

I do some Youtube videos and one of the ways is to use NVIDIA Shadowplay to both capture the foodtage AND to add live commentary. However, it seems that Win11 has changed the way things are set it's a royal PITA to connect Bluetooth headset, but only use it as Bluetooth headphones. It seems you cannot "choose" that, but you have to disable it under Settings // System // Sound then find Microphone section, find the Bluetooth microphone, and click on "don't allow". 

There are other ways, but they come with additional drawbacks. One of the ways offered up by Google via one of the forums was go into Device Manager and disable the device's "AVRCP" protocol driver. However, this has several problems. a) if you disable AVRCP, Windows will not detect your headset as a headphone, but as a hands-free device. What's the difference? A hands-free device, in order to give microphone fidelity, HALVES the audio transmission quality of whatever you're receiving. Since we're NOT using the microphone, and Bluetooth already has lousy audio quality (and Qualcomm's AptX supposedly helps with that, but is obviously exclusive to Qualcomm chipsets) this is a very bad compromise. 

Wellness Craze: The Cult of Raw Milk and Its Dangers

A recent news item about a salmonella outbreak in 2023 that sickened WELL OVER ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE who drank "raw milk" reminded me of this wellness craze that's completely unscientific. To summarize, "Raw Farm" of Fresno California was definitively traced as a source of the salmonella outbreak that had sickened at least 165 as of February 2024, based on reports recently released to the public. The actual outbreaks happened in late 2023. 

"Raw milk" advocates make a wide variety of claims such as "more nutritious", "help with _____". However, they have NO SCIENTIFIC DATA, just unverifiable anecdotes, to back up any of those claims, only naturalistic fallacy: it's "natural" thus it must be good. Mark McAfree, CEO and founder of Organic Pastures, a raw milk producer in California, was quoted by bon appetit stating, "Raw milk is like breast milk: non-allergenic, full of good bacteria, the ultimate immune-booster..."  He claims that "thousands" of his customers have told him that they and their kids feel better, have less symptoms of _____, yet there are really no scientific studies recently on these so-called benefits, much less verified benefits. 

Even the so-called "Raw Milk Institute" can only cite a few papers sourced from Europe to justify their position, and those papers only indicate that the children studied that consumed raw milk seems to have reduced infections. Most of their updates are guidance on how to clean equipment to reduce contamination. 

If you study those research papers from Europe in detail, you'll notice a couple things: 

• They're only testing RURAL babies and toddlers, who are LESS likely to catch common childhood illnesses since they don't congregate, and this was only 1st year of life. They are NOT URBAN babies and toddlers consuming raw milk. 
• They are relying on weekly "health journals" (i.e. self-reporting)
• One criteria of healthier is lower levels of C-reactive Protein (CRP), but do we really know how much the CRP varies in babies and toddlers? 
• Nice of them to test 4 milk variations: raw milk, boiled milk, pasteurized milk, and ultra-heat-treated milk. 
• Their conclusion was mostly drawn comparing raw milk to UHT milk, NOT pasteurized milk. 
• Even they agree that "health hazards of raw milk" prevents widespread consumption
• The study was from 2014.  

These research papers basically ignored the health hazard of raw milk consumption, because that was NOT what they were studying. They were NOT trying to weigh the risks vs benefits. They ONLY said that there seem to be some benefits based on the data they collected. 

Even if we take their study at full value... 30% less infections in 1st year of life.  Out of 37306 person weeks reported, only 602 have CRP value and at least one "occurence", which I assume to be infection of some sort (RTI, rhinitis, etc.) That's 1.6%. Reduce that by 30%, and you're looking at 1.1%. 

I guess the question here is, are you willing to risk your baby's death for 30% fewer infections?  

PC Gaming: Power of Mods, Grind of Mod Debugging

One of the best aspects of gaming on the PC is availability of mods, esp. if the developers of the game made the game mod-friendly, which allowed gamers who can program to create mods that adds, enhances, or changes certain aspects of the game. 

One of the more mod-friendly AAA tier games that came out recently was Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, where the developers, PGI, used their experience with Mechwarrior Online (MWO) to help create MW5, which was released back in December, 2019! PGI then followed the game up with no less than SIX official DLCs, adding more mechs, patches, improved AI, but also lore friendly additions, such as melee weapons. Yet from the very beginning it was clear that the fans aren't going to wait for PGI to create stuff, and extremely ambitious mods, such as Yet Another Mech Labs (YAML) turn the simple mechlab in the game, which lets you modify the giant "robots" called mechs with different weapons, ammo, while balance their heat, weight, and so on, into table-top-game accurate affairs. Yet others added non-lore weapons, variants only mentioned in the novels, and bajillion other little mods. 

Yet for every official DLC released, there's always some teeth-gnashing as all the mod makers scramble to update their mod to be compatible with the latest DLC. Yet some mod makers have left the mod-making scene, leaving others to pick up the pieces, while different mod makers have different visions on how to change things (there are dozens of "rebalance" mods as each tries to realize a vision on what constitutes a proper play balance). 

This means as just players, you often have to study the mods you download, to make sure they don't conflict with each other, or accidentally break a third mod, or worse, crash the game. Which means you have to make sure you load them in the right order, known as "load order". 

I haven't played MW5 in over a year, but with release of DLC6 earlier in 2024 and hopefully, the upcoming release of MW5 Clan Invasion (whcih will finally update the game engine to Unreal Engine 5), I should get back into the game. So I updated my mods, downloaded the latest versions, and get the game started... Only to have it crash. It's clear something is breaking some of the mods. Unfortunately, there's no debugger available, and the only way to find the culprit is to disable stuff until the game runs, then enable stuff until it doesn't. Then whatever you enabled last is the culprit. Yes, it's grinding without playing. Yikes. 

With 71 mods, I think I ended up disabling half, as those are either too old or no longer needed. But I basically spend the past 8-12 hours debuging my MW5, setup... I've yet to play the game. Hahaha. 

FWIW, here's a load order for MW5 that seems to work... for now. 39 mods. 

« Generated by MW5 Load Order Configurator 3.2 for MW5Mercs. »

LO   oLO   Mod

71    33   "RevisedNightvision" 1.0(11) by Gundug

70    31   "Yet Another Mechlab" 0.93(2874) by cszolee79 and trueg

69    99   "vonBiomes" 1.0(2595) by vonSeiten

67     0   "MedsMod2024v7778L" 1.0(27) by GenericMeds

66    84   "Expanded_Logos" 1.0(8) by G3n.Zer0

64    38   "MoreMercLevels" 1.0(4) by Gloobnib

63    36   "PilotOverhaul" 7.0.3(776) by Wpnx330

61    45   "UnderTonnageBonus2 & Purchase Salvage2" 5.01(158) by WolfEagle1

60    34   "Coyotesmission" 1.0(6061) by coyotekins

58    30   "TTRulez_LanceMateOrderz" 1.0(24) by Oraeon1224

55    28   "Yeti's Jumpship Animation Remover" 1.0(12) by Yeti

54    27   "Yet Another Weapon" 2.2(434) by cszolee79

52    25   "XenoPax Art Optimizer 3.0" 1.0(216) by xenoargh

49    22   "UpdatedHighEmployment" 1.0(14) by 

48    21   "StarMapMouseOver_V3_07 - Logos" 3.5(4) by JGood121

47    20   "Restore Traits" 1.3.5(20) by Bobbert

44    17   "QOL Upgrades 2 - Thermals and Headlights" 2.2(35) by cszolee79

43    16   "PrecisionSights" 1.1.1(0) by MindlessVictim

42    15   "No Friendly Fire" 1.2(1) by yrrot

41    14   "MW5 Compatibility Pack" 5.2(81) by MagnumGB

40    13   "Mod Options" 1.1.3(16) by Bobbert

39    12   "MechAttributeViewer" 1.8(42) by yrrot

38    11   "LancemateStatusBar" 1.0(43) by yrrot

34     7   "Enhanced Cooldown Pips" 1.0(16) by diji

33     6   "Cockpit Glass" 0.96b(153) by Nek

30     4   "BetterCrates" 1.5(5) by Grahamldlw

29     4   "TTRulez_AIMod2" 1.0(186) by Oraeon1224

28     3   "Assorted DLC Fixes" 1.1a(4) by DeadRaiser

27     2   "Advanced Zoom" 1.2.6(61) by Bobbert

16     0   "LeopardRedone" 1.0(11) by RainingFire

12     0   "Expanded Logos Menu" 1.0(16) by G3n.Zer0

10     0   "CompassHeadings" 2.0(12) by Azuvector

 7     0   "Accuracy Recurve" 1.0(2) by Puff

 6     0   "XenoPax Optimize 4.0" 1.0(73) by xenoargh

 5     0   "Throttle Gauge w Line Markers" 1.0(6) by DAP

 4     0   "Higher Visibility Torso Twist" 1.0(7) by DAP

 3     0   "HeatGauge" 1.0(2) by DAP

 2     1   "Simple Enhanced Environment" 1.0(6) by Zanieon

 1     0   "minimap topography" 1.0(90) by K'Braid

« End of load order. »

App Discovery: Zettlr -- a Markdown Editor / Linker to create your own Zettelkasten

Zettlr, available at Zettlr.com, calls itself "one stop publication workbench". I find it just a good app to get yourself organized

To put it simply, Zettlr is a Markdown editor that allows for easy cross-linking and hierarchical file organization. On the left, you have a "workspace" file manager that shows you all the files with folders. In the middle is the main editor window with tabs so you can handle multiple files. On the right is extra info, such as outline view, linked view, external references, and so on. 

Markdown is just plain text with some simple tags added, so that's very easy to learn and the app is quite fast even on slow hardware. 

Zettlr has some extra powers such as Zotero integration for citations. Need to cite an internet article? Use the Chrome plug-in to add it to Zotero, edit it to add some meta info in Zotero, then you can cite it in Zettlr full Academic style. In fact, that's why Zettlr calls itself one-stop publication workbench... you can write your notes and your articles in Zettlr, then export it to LaTeX and have it published. 

But Zettlr is also an excellent way to implement Zettelkasten (German for "slip box"), aka "digital second brain", where various bits of knowledge, with cross linking, and citations, becomes a creative cloud of inspiration for you to write papers and articles... once you've built up the contents. The more entries in the slipbox, and the more cross-linked they are, the more they should inspire you to write.

If you want to implement Zettelkasten in Zettlr, start by creating a folder, call it Zettelkasten if you want. Under that, create 3 folders: Fleeting Notes, Literature Notes, Permanent Notes.  Please research Zettelkasten on how you actually use those folders. 

Zettlr has many other power features such as templates/snippets and projects that's beyond the scope of this article.

Cybersecurity: Where did the term "pwn" come from?

It is surprising how many people got the "true" origin of the verb "pwn" not quite right... even operators of "HaveIBeenPwned.com". They at least understood it's a typo ("O" and "P" are right next to each other on the keyboard!). But they then linked to an Inverse article, who went into a bunch of alt explanations such as it's a corruption of "pawn" (from a chess match) to "Phrack World News" (abbreviated as PWN). Neither theory explains how it was transformed into a verb. In fact, Inverse article chose to disregard the typo theory.  

The true origin of the term pwn, is synonymous with own, usually used in past tense as "owned". In l33tspeak of the time, being "owned" means you were utterly controlled, dominated, and humiliated, usually because you are losing or lost in an online multiplayer game. 

So how did pwn variation got created? 

For that, you need to thank Warcraft, NOT World of Warcraft that came much later. The ORIGINAL Warcraft: Orcs & Humans RTS, and its mods, basically, maps, at the time. 

To make a long story short, one of the map designers wrote a "losing condition" text. When you lose to the other side, you're supposed to get a message to the effect of "You've been owned!" However, he had a typo that day and the map was uploaded with the text "You've been pwned!" instead. The expression then, as we would say today, "went viral", and the rest is history. 

In fact, you can still find this definition in the Urban Dictionary. 

But wait, you ask, what is "HaveIBeenpwned.com"? 

It is a website where you can check your email addresses to see if your information have been leaked in various hacks and data leaks before. Those information tend to surface on the Dark Web, and some gather those up and make them search accessible to let people check if they were affected by the leak. 

Odd News: Florida Man Admits to Damaging Walmart Delivery Drone by Shooting It

As retailers seek to offer faster than ever deliveries, drone delivery, where a small or medium sized package can be lifted from a local distribution center and dropped on your front porch, is emerging as a possible delivery method that's potentially more environmentally friendly and possibly faster than traditional courier delivery. However, it seems that some US citizens choose to shoot at any drones that fly by, believing that their privacy is somehow being violated. Recently a man in Florida found out what are the consequences after he shot a Walmart delivery drone that flew by his house. 

DJI Inspire Drone with HD Cam, delivery drone would be even larger
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Dennis W was arrested in Florida after he admitted to shooting at a drone that flew by his house. He claimed he saw it approaching, went to the gun safe, retrieved a 9mm pistol, then at the height of about 75 ft (for the drone), gave it one shot, which apparently hit. As the drone landed back at Walmart a bullet hole was observed in the central area, and law enforcement was summoned, and through the drone flight log the deputies narrowed down the shot origin to Dennis W's residence. Deputies went there to interview Dennis W, where he admitted to the shooting. He claimed he had been harassed by drones before, which were surveilling him. Deputies then told him he shot a Walmart delivery drone. His reaction was "Really?"

Dennis W is facing 3 charges... the most serious of which is a FEDERAL charge... shooting at an aircraft. 

That's right... It is a FEDERAL crime to shoot at an aircraft, including drones. Federal laws and regulations makes NO distinction between a drone vs an airliner. It is a Federal FELONY to shoot at an aircraft, punishable by fine and up to 20 years in prison. It was not a new ruling... It had been around 2016. 

Yet you'll see gun and archery owners joke about "it's open season" if drone delivery is being scaled up in their area. 

And let's just say more than a few police drones were shot by people. 

But the speed and efficiency of drone delivery seems to outweigh the risks... Amazon and Walmart both wanted to expand use of drone delivery, and many fast food places are considering it as well. Some even started up pilot programs, including Wendy's (in collab with DoorDash) and Chick-fil-a's. 

Except no one can evaluate how many... weapon practitioners may choose to risk Federal prosecution just for a chance to claim they bagged a drone, because they "believe" they're being harassed. 

Judging by the hostility toward self-driving cars which are far less ubiquitous and obviously, limited to public roads and streets, I'd be more pessimistic than optimistic. 

Job Hunting: What's an ATS and How Does It Affect Me?

ATS, or applicant tracking system, is a software used by HR department to ingest and filter resumes from you, the jobseekers, for the hiring managers or decision makers. Often used by larger companies, ATS is a hurdle you must pass before your resume was viewed by a human eye... if you go through the normal application process. 

There are many different ATS's out there, and most of them are branded. You may recognize the name "ICIMS". This is one of the largest ATS out there. Next time you apply at an employer portal, you may see this mentioned at the bottom. However, this is only one of many systems out there. 

ATS is just software, written by humans, so they are stuck in interpreting certain patterns, and they present information in certain patterns to the users. Over time, details about ATS have leaked, and some commonalities have emerged, which resulted in the following tips. While the following tips do NOT apply to all ATSs, every bit of advantage you can get to get past the ATS, the better. 

Bypass the ATS

The best way to get past the ATS is with an internal referral. So check your friends and family for a connection at the prospective employer. Don't hound LinkedIn and spam new employees. They can't refer you since they're still on probationary period. 

Keep in mind that this does not always bypass the ATS. The resume you pass off to your referral may still end up in the ATS, but the fact that you were referred internally usually makes your resume appear earlier.

Name Your Resume with Full Name and Job Title

When you upload your resume, what was its filename? Resume.docx? You're missing an opportunity to stand out. Name it instead Resume_YourName_JobTitle_EmployerName.pdf where you substitute the fields with your name, the job you're applying to, and the employer's name. Not only it keeps YOUR OWN resume variations easy to find, it looks much better on the ATSs that display the full filename, not just the contents. 

Export Your Resume in PDF format

Some ATSs prefer certain document types, but most of them will process PDF correctly. If you can (and why can't you?) export your resume as PDF. 

Single Column Layout Only

Your resume will be parsed by the ATS to extract skills, experience, and so on. The fancier your layout, the less likely the ATS will parse it correctly, and a multi-column layout is one of the messiest to parse. While ATS have advanced, you have no idea what sort of ATS was being used by your prospective employer. Therefore, stick with single column layout. It is the safest choice to ensure your resume is parsed properly. 

Do NOT Stuff Keywords

You may have heard somewhere that if you include extra copies of keywords in your resume, your resume will score higher in the search results, and thus get seen by a human eye. This cuts both ways. While it may get you past the ATS, you'll get rejected at the human review phase. It's quite obvious you've been keyword stuffing just by reading it. Some ATS will highlight every instance the keyword(s), and your resume will show a plethora of yellow highlights.  

Research Which ATS is being used

The aforementioned tips are meant to be generic tips that applies to most ATS. If you can find out which ATS is used by your prospective employer, you may be able to research the optimal way to present your resume to the ATS to make sure you don't get rejected immediately. 

In Conclusion

If you have managed to optimize your resume for the ATS, then any rejection you suffer would be from criteria that may not be as obvious or just plainly not written in the job description. ATS for each job usually has a set of "knockout questions" specified by HR or Hiring Manager that will immediately disqualify you. Why they don't put those criteria in the job description and not waste your time, I have no idea.  But then, when some companies put up fake job listings, I guess anything goes. Still, job hunting is about doing all you can, and if that happens to be not enough due to what's beyond your control, there's always another job listing to apply to. 

Good luck in your job hunting. 

Darwin Award: Man Died After Placing Lit Fireworks on His Head

NOTE: Darwin Award is a satirical award and should not be treated literally. 

South Carolina man was found dead by arriving deputies who responded to a "fireworks accident" at a neighborhood block party in Summerville about 10:23 pm. The man had suffered from massive head injuries. 

The victim, 41-yr old Allen M, according to witnesses which included family members, ignited a large firework device and set it on his head. The device went off, and the victim collapsed. 

It is not known if alcohol played a factor in this incident, but the victim's wife believed the victim was "showing off". 

Source: WCBD-TV news. 

Odd News: Man Wielded 6-inch Game Weapon Replica In Public, Got Arrested

According to report in Kotaku, a gentleman in England was observed by CCTV to be holding what appears to be a bladed weapon and walking down the street, leading to his arrest by the local constabulary. The man was surprised, claiming the "weapon" was sheathed, and was a miniature replica of a fictional sword, specifically, the Master Sword from Legend of Zelda. And he bought it as a fidget toy. 

Cosplayer dressed as Link wielding Master Sword and Hylian Shield
NY Comic Con 2013 by Richie S, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia

Unfortunately, the item does have a measurable blade length of 6 inches, and the allowable blade size in public as per UK law is 3 inches. For this offense, he was sentenced to 4 months in prison. 

Hmmm... Apparently, he made a couple mistakes. One can get a toy with 3 inch or smaller "blade", and one can keep such item in his pocket while fidgeting with it. He did neither. 

Takeaway: Big Brother is Watching in UK

Cybersecurity: No, your email was (probably) NOT hacked, it's (probably) just spam

Over in the subreddit /r/cybersecurityhelp we get one of these daily. This is NOT an exact copy, but the sentiments are the same. 

Help! I got an email sent from my own email address and shows my password! It claims it had tracked me and if I don't send him Bitcoins he'll hack me and ruin me! 

This is unlikely to be real, and it's a case of psychological manipulation, by combining two simple tricks, to make you think he's more powerful than he actually is. 

In other words, it's a case of 2+2=5. 

Photo by Andrey Matveev on Unsplash

Sent from my own email address... No! 

While the email may indeed show "from" as your own email address, it was NOT sent by you. No one hacked your email and use that to send email to yourself. 

What really happened was the "from address" was changed to say YOUR email address instead of the sender's own email address. 

Do you still remember paper letters? That you write your own name and address in the upper left hand corner of the envelope? 

There's nothing stopping you from writing someone else's name and address, is there? Same thing with email. 

Yes, you can say "that's dumb". But you have to remember, email was invented in the 1960s, and the current standard, SMTP, was invented in the 1980s, and extended as ESMTP in 1995. Authentication (i.e. make sure the sender matches FROM) was not a part of the protocol until SMTP AUTH (included in ESMTP) became popular in the 1990s. Adoption of ESMTP is not universal, however. And most email servers do not require ESMTP. 

Please keep in mind that emails transit through the Internet from one SMTP server to another until they reach their respective destinations, accumulating delivery headers in the email itself. And thus, any email (including spam) can be backtraced. Most email clients hide the headers from the user as they are of no use to the end user... until you want to track the true origin of the email. But that is a completely different topic. 

So that email that say its from your own email address? It was (probably) NOT sent by you. Someone merely put your email address in the "From" field. 

What about my password? How did he know about that?

That's actually pretty simple: there are data leaks as different websites got hacked, and the data ended up on the Dark Web.  They contain all sorts of info, from simple email / password pairs to full profiles and possibly more, depending on where the data came from. 

Some security researchers and good samaritans collated all those leaks on the Dark Web and created a website called "haveIbeenpwned.com" where you can enter your email address and see if any data associated with that email was on the Dark Web, and associated with which leak. 

Back to the email... The sender simply got the data (the password in this case) from the Dark Web leak that's associated with your email. 

Add them together, and it's scary to the average citizen

So what do I do? 

Short answer is: nothing. It's just spam. Mark it as spam in your email client. Done. 

You can change all your passwords "just in case". You should do that every 3-6 months anyway. 

Here's the longer explanation: 

You initially panicked, believing the sender of that warning message is a powerful hacker (because he claimed he was), who not only hacked your email inbox to send you a message from it, he obviously knows your password too, demonstrably so. 

But as I've explained above, your email inbox was NOT hacked, and the password came from a public leak list. 

The spammer wanted to scare you into believing 2+2=5.  But the real answer is 4. 

The "warning" or "threat" is just spam email. Indeed, the spammer probably got a whole LIST of email / password pairs (hundreds? thousands) and probably sent the same message (albeit customized with the correct email address and password, in a simple procedure known as templated mail merge) to EVERYBODY on the list. Cost them almost nothing. Someone may be scared enough to send them Bitcoins for real. 

So again, mark it as spam in your email client. Done.  Change your passwords if you want to. 

Takeaway:  Don't believe what random email told you, esp. ones that wants you to pay them. 

Dating Advice: What Sort of Text to NEVER Send? (I count 7 types)

NOTE: I'm a guy, and I'm straight, so this blogpost is meant for guys dating girls. If your tastes run in other circles some of this texting advice may still apply. 

If you've spent time on the dating scene (and who hadn't?) on either dating apps or texting, you have no doubt have this happened to you... you send something you thought was a nicely crafted message, hit send... and got nothing back. 

While it is very easy to blame the other side as "flakey" or "fake profile", it may be best to check your message against these 7 types of "text to never send"... which is obviously not a comprehensive list. 

There are some texts you should NEVER send to a girl when you're dating her. In no particular order:

Photo of man texting, by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Babbling

Your communication with her should be short with intent (and that intent is to push the relationship forward). If it's not related, don't send it. "Hi, how are you this morning" is a waste of bandwidth. You may think it makes you look "considerate". Chances are, it makes you look boring and desperate as you're just babbling something barely better than nonsense. 

Pedestaling

You are dating a girl who obviously means something to you, but that's no reason to "put her on a pedestal" and over-validate her self-worth. It is likely something she already heard before, and it'd just make you sound desperate and pathetic. Use a more subtle compliment instead. 

Sexualizing

Do NOT sext a girl until you two become exclusive, and maybe not even then. If you come across as vulgar you may live on in Internet Infamy as your sext gets screenshotted and go viral as what-not-to-do.  

Infantilizing

You are a mature individual (I hope) and thus you should not be sending texts with horrible grammar, LEETspeak, excess of emojis, or otherwise suggests you're an emo angst-driven teen. 

Overplanning

Some guys love to plan things out... a whole week in advance, but most of us don't know what we'd be doing 2 days from now unless it's something regimented, like work or school. If you do plan on a date with her, it's best to arrange it with only 2-3 days ahead, instead of 4+ days. The longer ahead you set the date, the more chances something will come up forcing a cancellation. 

Underplanning

The opposite of overplanning, some guys are so spontaneous, they expect everybody else to have nothing to do and can accomodate them at a moment's notice. They then lament why can't they get a date when she had other plans. Or failed to confirm 48 and 24 hours before the date. Let's just say some people's memory are... malleable. 

Chatting / Pen-pal-ing

Remember "intent"? You're trying to date this girl, not be her penpal. It is a very good way to get "friend-zoned". 

In conclusion, it is perfectly possible that even if you did not commit any of these texting sins, she still faded away. Some people are just flaky, and it's not always your fault. But it's best to look inward first for potential problems first, before looking outward. 

Now send those texts and get those dates. 

Job Hunting: Why Were You Rejected? (Hint: It's not always about you)

Fellow jobseekers, if you've applied for jobs in the past few years, you've no doubt received generic replies in your Inbox such as these:

"Thank you for applying. This role is now closed..."

"...We will not be moving forward with your application. We will keep your resume on file..."

This can happen even when you think you are the PERFECT candidate. 

What's even more frustrating is the company then reposts the same job with the same requirements again, making you wonder if you should apply again, only to be met with yet another rejection notice. 

Photo of Candidate being Interviewed by Resume Genius on Unsplash

Here's some revelations that may be shocking to many of you: 

3 in 10 companies surveyed by Resume Builder said they are advertising for a role that's NOT REAL.  And 4 in 10 have advertised a fake role in the past year. 

The reasons vary, but ultimately it's to make the company look busier and healthier than it actually is, and to play mind games with existing employees (either they will get relief soon, or to make them feel replaceable). And yes, they will interview candidates, if only to keep up appearances. The most troubling part: 7 in 10 hiring managers believe the ends justify the means, i.e. it's morally OK to post fake jobs they have no intention to actually fill. 

Another possibility is the job role exists, but they have an internal candidate already slotted for it. However, due to procedure (and/or they don't want the internal candidate feel too confident) they will advertise the job and interview external candidates, even though it's mainly for show. 

THEN there are the scam listings from companies that don't exist or were impersonated, with hiring managers that don't exist, whose profiles are cloned from other profiles and whose photos were lifted from dating or social media sites... And the problem is a lot worse than you think. According to LinkedIn, they deactivated 63 million fake accounts in latter half of 2023. Technically, 46.3M were stopped at registration... but 17.1M accounts were deactivated AFTER they were reported by members then investigated by the internal security and trust teams. That's just LinkedIn. There are dozens of job boards out there. I've personally ran into a few of the employment scams.

Okay, what if the job's actually being filled, at a legitimate company? Why were YOU not accepted then?

Did you even make it to an interview? If not, that means you were rejected at "first pass". That means hiring manager didn't like your resume (as compared to others). Keep in mind hiring managers are flooded with resumes, HUNDREDS of them, for a single job posting. They don't have the time or the inclination to study each resume in detail. Instead, the hiring manager will look for ANY reason to reject your resume, including any of the following reasons:

• Resume looks ugly, badly formated, etc. 
• Resume is hard to read i.e. "block of text" instead of bullet points
• Resume is too cute/fancy / unprofessional
• Resume's top 1/4 doesn't tell me anything useful about the candidate (header too sparse)
• Resume's top 1/4 doesn't tell me why this candidate is a good fit for the role
• Resume's top 1/4 doesn't tell me what's unique about THIS candidate i.e. "why you?"

If your resume survived this round of culling, it has caught the hiring manager's attention. You *could* be a good fit for the role, you are showing something unique in your "value proposition", and it was easily gleaned from you resume because you made the top 1/4 of your resume packed with information, yet still perfectly readable and glance-able, takes minimal effort to understand it. 

Now, comes the hard part... The hiring manager wants to believe that you are good, but hiring manager is not stupid. Hiring manager will now look for LESS SUBTLE signs, between the lines, things that were NOT written, as reasons to reject your resume. Those can include any of the following reasons:

• Incomplete start and end dates on the jobs (what is the candidate hiding?)
• Short duration jobs (less than 2 years) (a job hopper, make me do this again so soon...)
• LONG duration jobs (more than 5 years) (so you're not good enough to promote?)
• Unexplained employment gaps 
• Lack of specific achievements in jobs 
• No cover letter 

That last one may be a shock to some, but some hiring managers view the lack of cover letter as "you clearly don't want this bad enough" and use that as a reason to toss your resume into discard pile. 

So please write a proper cover letter, customize it with content from your resume AND the job listing, and use that to tell a story about how you would be the perfect fit for the job. 

If you need advice on how to customize a resume, see my previous blogpost. 

Now write those resumes and cover letters, and get that job you deserve. 

App Discovery: EaseUS Todo Backup 2024

The free PC backup utility space used to be dominated by Macrium Reflect. Unfortunately, it is a bit TOO good, that most people just use the free version and not enough people pay. In 2024, Macrium phased out the free version. This lead to a hunt for a replacement. And I've found that EaseUS Todo Backup 2024 seems to fit the needs of most. 

Photo by Jandira Sonnendeck on Unsplash

EaseUS is a well-known PC utilities provider using the freemium model in the US, and offers a full range of PC utilities centered around data storage, such as partition manager, data recovery, backup and restore, disk cloning, and so on. Today we will concentrate on their Backup solution, Todo Backup Free. 

Do keep in mind that in order to "encourage" you to upgrade to Todo Backup Home, the free version's throughput is limited to 100 MB/s or so. So expect a typical backup job of 1TB to take about 2-3 hours, which means this should be scheduled for overnight. 

With that limitation in mind, this is a full-featured backup which allows full backup, incremental backup, full disk backup, partition backup, even individual files and folders backup. 

The upgrade pricing is a bit weird, as multiple options are offered: yearly plan, one-time (no upgrade), or perpetual upgrade. At this time, the yearly plan is $40, the one-time fee is $60, and perpetual upgrade license is $80. All of this is for one computer only. However, please do NOT buy from the website. Download the free version and try it first. 

If you hit upgrade from the app, the price is only $30 per year, instead of $40 on the website, and lifetime upgrade price is $59, not $80. But anyway, PCWorld has a discount code: PCWORLD25 for 25% off the $30 yearly price. 

EaseUS does offer bundle savings, but you need to check their website for details. 

Personally question the utility of cloud backup, unless you have a very wide pipe broadband (cable or fiber). I think you can do better with a local RAID setup, but that's just my opinion. You should check PCWorld's Cloud Backup survey (May 2024) for their opinions. 

But you do need a backup. Please go download the free solution and make one now. Your hardware can go down. You could be hit by malware such as ransomware. And so on. Better be safe than sorry. 

Job Hunting: How Should You Tailor a Resume to the Job?

Frankly, most people write their resume wrong. They don't tailor a resume specifically for the job. 

Consider how a hiring manager approaches the culling process. They get 100+ resumes at a time, even for a pretty plain job. And they can't just get the "most qualified". They actually have to consider "best fit" into an existing team, as well as other factors that don't go into a job description. They only have seconds to evaluate each resume... If it's "meh" it'll likely be passed over. 

Photo by Resume Genius on Unsplash

In other words, the top 1/4 of your resume, which is the portion hiring manager sees first, is the most important. EVERYTHING there should be telling a story... that you are the ideal candidate for their needs. 

(Yes, this means the stock photo I used above is NOT a good example, except maybe for digital marketers. The multi-column layout is bad for ATS. The top bar just for the name is wasted space. The cute clipart is superfluous. At least it looks pretty neat.)

"I don't know what they need!" 

Not a problem... because you can ask AI LLMs, such as ChatGPT or Claude. Use a prompt like "Take on the role of a hiring manager in the industry of (insert industry) similar to the company (company name). What are the (insert number) most important employee traits-and-skills you are looking for?"

Now that you know the answer(s), make sure your objective/exec summary portrays you as an ideal candidate having those traits and skills. 

Then go through the job description and pick out the keywords that they were looking for, and incorporate those into the objective /summary. Do NOT use ChatGPT (or similar tools) for this as it would come across as very "AI-ish". Obviously, only incorporate those skills and traits you actually have. 

Don't make the summary too long, as you don't want a "wall of text" in front of the hiring manager. Keep the formatting of a resume intact, and keep the resume visually appealing. 

"Okay, what about the rest of the resume?"  

Now that you've caught their attention, you have to make the rest of the resume support your story. 

Go through every job in your employment history, and adjust the description so it incorporates one or more relevant keywords and/or trait/skill that you used in the summary. 

Tweak the job title if the title does not accurately reflect your duties. Don't reinvent the whole thing though. Don't claim to be "Team leader" when you work alone, for example. 

For details of the job, try to use the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Each bullet point should contain all 4... starting situation, what solution did you develop, how you implemented it, and what results did you get (in numbers or percentages if possible, like increased accuracy to virtually 100%, double throughput in 90 days, improved customer satisfaction by 250%, etc.). 

If you spent a long time at one particular job (more than 3 years), break it up into multiple job titles that subsequent titles reflect some sort of growth. If you are training others in your department, you're definitely "senior _____" rather than just the plain version, for example. This makes you look like you're growing rather than staying stagnant.  

Conversely, if you end up taking a lot of short contracts and temp work at different companies, but they are usually the same type of job, you may want to group them together as "Freelance _____" rather than list them individually as it makes you less like a "job hopper". 

Your resume can go over a single page. 2 pages are fine. If you're really senior, you can probably go 3 pages, but generally 2 pages max. 

"But this is so much work!"

Job searching is a job in itself, is it not?  Besides, most requirements stay the same for jobs in the same industry, so any rewrites for similar jobs should be minimal. 

"How would I know if all this tweaking helped?"

You need feedback, but since employers won't give you feedback, you need to get them from a different source... Fellow jobseekers, or those already employed, i.e. former job seekers.

Join fellow jobseekers in Facebook groups or Reddit subreddits and put your resume out for critique. 

Make connections on LinkedIn and make friends with those that have the positions you wanted, then when relevant (weeks later, as you want to learn more about the job), ask for their honest opinion on "do you think this resume may be good enough to get me into your company?" You did not ask for a referral, but if they want to refer you, even better.. 

SIDENOTE: Some people with no shame ask for referrals from brand new employees. "Get me in!" was all they sent. Frankly, that's so rude and immature it should be rejected as spam. New employees have no referral powers, as they are still in probationary period! 

Track your submission to interview ratio, compare with fellow jobseekers. 

As you tweak your resume to improve your "story", see if the ratio improves. 

Good luck. 

JetPens: the full-selection US-based Stationery and Miscellaneous Store

JetPens.com, based on San Jose, California, is a full-service online stationery and related item stores. They stock pens (rollerball, gel, etc.), pencils, multi-pens, dip pens, fountain pens, brush pens, paintbrushes, and all the accessories such as replacement parts, nibs, ink, and so on. They also stock paper, notebook, diary, planner, all sorts of covers, all sorts of refill pages. They have stamps, stickers, washi tapes, pen holders, pen bags... Basically, if it's related to something writing, they probably have it. Yes, they have wax seal stuff too. They have school / backpacks too, plus other things. 

The prices are quite reasonable, and if you order $35 USD of stuff it's free shipping within the US. 

I originally only saw them as a fountain pen and supplies vendor, but they sell a LOT more than that. This is their Pens menu:

Jetpens' Pens menu... It's that big and detailed!

As the menus indicated, they have full buying guides (linking to their own stuff, of course) on what is best for what purpose. They periodically update old ones and create new ones, as inventory refreshes every year. 

They also have an extensive presence on Youtube. 

If you are in the US, and interested in getting stationery related stuff (not just pens), check out Jetpens.com. 

Fountain Pen Esoterica: What Other Special Fountain Pen Inks Are There?

Previously, we mentioned sheening and shimmering fountain pen inks. But what other types of "special" inks are there? Noodler makes the most of these special inks, so I'll mention a bunch of them here:

Anti-feather ink -- ink designed specifically NOT to feather, even on horrible paper such as newsprint, very opposite of fast-drying. Noodler's version is called "X-feather".  

Anti-freeze ink -- Noodler's makes a series of inks that will not freeze until -20 F that they call "Polar" series. Yes, the pen will still write with temperature below zero! However, it also feathers very heavily. 

Photo by Leo Okuyama on Unsplash

Colorfast ink -- ink that will not wash out, and highly resistant to solvents. These go by various names depending on the vendor. Noodler calls theirs "bulletproof". These inks are hated by forgers and check-washers, who relies on solvents that can dissolve the ink... So they can write in a different amount. Colorfast ink makes that very difficult if not impossible. 

Fast-drying ink -- made to help left-handed writers in a left-to-right writing world, these inks are dry to touch after maybe 10 seconds, even on super-slow paper such as Rhodia paper. 

Highlighter ink -- technically they are made to refill highlighters, but some of them are fountain pen compatible, such as Noodler's Electric Color, Dragon Catfish, or Year of the Golden Pig. 

Invisible Ink -- these are only visible under UV light. Some can be mixed with regular ink, or use alone to send secret messages. 

Iron-gall ink -- some of the earliest ink are iron-gall inks. They use a mixture of iron salts and tannic acid to create a purple-black or brown-black ink. However, these inks are acidic and not suitable for fountain pens. "Modern" iron-gall inks that are marked "safe for fountain pen use" are available, and they make marks that are extremely difficult to erase, as the ink penetrates into the paper deeply. Iron gall ink should NOT be left in a pen that's only infrequently used, even "modern" iron-gall ink. Also see "pigment-based ink".  

Lubricated ink -- some fountain pens are known to be "dry"... they don't feed much ink to the paper, making writing a bit difficult. A lubricated ink can help these pens perform properly. Keep in mind that a "wet" pen (one that already feeds a lot of ink) will likely leak badly with lubricated ink. Also, some older pens with piston type fillers or converters can benefit from lubricated ink. 

Pigment-based ink -- similar to colorfast ink, and iron-gall ink, pigment ink is almost impossible to erase. However, pigment-based ink uses carbon-based pigments, and has a similar drying/clogging problem like iron-gall ink. Either use the pen frequently, or use a different ink. Wash the pen out thoroughly first before loading new ink. 

Security Ink -- another Noodler special, their "Warden" series ink is not only colorfast, it is laser resistant, and they are mixed with a slightly different formula PER BOTTLE, so they cannot be replicated. A forger cannot replicate your signature unless they also stole your specific bottle of Warden ink. Else a forensics expert can tell the difference between the ink used in the signatures even if they are the same brand and color. 

So now you've heard about a couple of the special inks available on the market, esp. those from Noodler. I hope they sound interesting to you, and stay tuned for more fountain pen esoterica!

Job Hunting: Another SCAM?! Fake job posting!

Anyone can clone someone else's profile on LinkedIn, then change it a little. 

Anyone can register a domain that "sounds like" an existing domain, or as we've highlighted before, claim to be a company that hadn't existed for 10+ years with a website contain false information. 

Armed with both, they can then post fake jobs on LinkedIn. 

Why? I have no idea. What would they do with all those resumes? Offer them fake opportunities? Like someone tried on me?  

But it's clear I ran into another scam, this time on LinkedIn. But let me start from the beginning. 

I was browsing for jobs when LinkedIn found this "Customer Service Representative" remote job listing. 

Screenshot of the fake job listing, did you spot the red flags? 

I have 6 out of 10 skills, yeah! But something nagged at me in the back of my brain... Something is "off" about this job listing. And I don't mean "cara jacobsen". Yes, that's how it's written... all lower case.

What's the first thing that caught your attention with the job listing itself? 

The post has horrible grammar ("a upbeat"), capitalization ("Customer service Rep"), and missing punctuation marks ("customers concerns"). And that's within the first sentence! 

But that wasn't what caught my eye. It's the mismatching company name. Did you see that the job listing was for the company "Empowered Build Inc", but "cara" works at Empowered build LLC"? (bad capitalization AGAIN?)

This job supposedly pays from $20-$43 per hour, just for customer service work! That's way too high. 

So what sort of profile does Ms "cara jacobsen" have? More red flags. 

Screenshot of potentially fake profile (from video)

The logo looks like it's done in MS Paint by a kindergartener. And she ONLY has 2 connections and 7 followers (probably from those 100+ people who applied). She had NO activity on LinkedIn. She allegedly lives in Shingle Springs, which is Central California, 100+ miles east-northeast of San Francisco. 

What can we find about "Empowered build LLC"? There's a website at www.empoweredbuild.net that matches, that claimed to be founded in 2012 "delivering top notch construction solutions". Yet if you go to the website, and scroll to the very bottom... it's based in CANADA?!

Empowered Build LLC gave a 579 area code, which is Quebec, Canada. 

Given the job listing mentioned construction equipment rental customers, does it even MAKE SENSE for anyone in the US to be renting equipment from a Canadian company? 

But there's more... When we explore the "team" at this Empoweredbuild.net, we found "Cara Jacobsen"... with a completely different photo. 

So who's the "real" Cara Jacobsen? Left is LinkedIn, and right is website. 
Screenshot of video expose

As I explore this "website", I came across the "team" page, giving 6 different people, supposedly employees of the company. Except this Cara Jacobsen (capitalized correctly) is clearly NOT the "cara jacobsen" on LinkedIn, despite same name (sorta) and same employer. Hmmm...

Google Reverse Image Search found no match for the left Cara, but it did find a match for the right Cara... on LinkedIn. 

This Cara has 149 connections and 170+ followers. 
The other "cara jacobsen" is very likely a clone of this one. 

But let's compare the two Cara's employment history, as given to LinkedIn... 

Exactly the same period of employment, hmmm...
then "cara" learned NO skills in HR and Insurance fields? 

When you combine this with the fact that "Cara J" has well over 100 connections and followers, and "cara jacobsen" has only a handful, it's pretty conclusive that "cara jacobsen" is a cloned profile. Which means the company is fake, and the job listing is fake as well. 

And let's just say of the 5 remaining photos on the "team", one of them is practically a stock photo. (Try Google Reverse Image search the bottom right, the African-American girl)

So I reported this job listing. 

Within 90 minutes, LinkedIn deleted the job listing. By the time I finished the video, the job listing no longer exists. 

Here's the video if you prefer to watch that: 

Don't get scammed out there, unlike the 100+ people who applied to this fake job. 

Writing and Storytelling: Are You a Cook, or a Chef?

Brandon Sanderson, famous novelist, had taught some writing classes at BYU (Brigham Young University) many years ago. In the following video, he challenged his students to be chefs, not cooks. 

The video is an hour long, so I'll try to summarize that challenge for you... 

What is the difference between a cook, and a chef? 

A cook is an individual who follows established recipes to prepare food. 

A chef is an individual trained to understand flavors and cooking techniques, and can create new recipes with available ingredients. 

Let's take the metaphor to writing. 

If you write like a cook, you are following a formula. On page X you must have introduce character A, on page Y you must have plot element B, and so on and so forth. 

If you write like a chef, you understand how plot, drama, tension, theme, storyline (or plot line), story structure, character arc, and more combine and interact to create the final result, and you are ready to create new combinations because you understand the basic techniques and the ingredients (characters, words, description of senses, etc). 

At least that's my interpretation of what he said. 

I'll even throw in my interpretation of "anti-cook" (not in the lecture). 

New writers who don't understand story structure and the rest of basic plotting and writing techniques often have a hard time accepting that they need to learn story structure and the rest, because they think it will turn them "formulaic". 

But as Sanderson pointed out, you are formulaic because you're writing like a cook, not a chef. You need to understand the basic techniques, to know how to apply them in different combinations to create new original results. 

At least a cook will produce something edible, if not original. If you are an anti-cook, you may well produce something completely inedible. Or in writing, something people put down and never pick up again. 

So, go learn the basic techniques, and write like a chef. 

Job Hunting: What Are Your Transferable Skills?

 A transferable skill is a skill that an be applied to multiple roles. These may include both hard (technical) and soft (people) skills. Transferable skills are very important if you are applying for a job that was outside your typical employment history, such as a career pivot or (re-)entry into job market. 

Photo by João Ferrão on Unsplash

Here is a list of 88 transferable skills. Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, and many of them sound alike (analytical skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, etc., or flexibility vs adaptability) You need to choose the term that's closest to the ones used in the job description, and either use the same words to describe your prior job, or describe the prior job in sufficient detail to show how that skill is transferable to the job you're seeking. 

Going through this list should give you some ideas on what transferable skills you have. It had to be at work though, and don't embellish. You keeping your bank account from being overdrawn every month does not really entitle you to "budgeting" skill. 

Think of this list as a "basis" for your own list, so you can write a better resume / CV.  

• Active Listening: understanding, responding, and remembering what was said
• Adaptability: Adjusting to new conditions and environments.
• Analytical Skills: Examining information to understand it better and make decisions.
• Anticipating Possible Obstacles: Predicting potential challenges and preparing for them.
• Assertiveness: Expressing oneself confidently without being aggressive.
• Attention to Detail: Noticing and addressing small details in tasks.
• Budgeting: Planning and controlling the financial resources.
• Collaboration: Working jointly with others to achieve a common goal.
• Complaint Handling: Addressing and resolving customer complaints effectively.
• Conflict Resolution: Settling disputes and finding mutually acceptable solutions.
• Contract Negotiation: Reaching agreements on the terms of contracts.
• Creativity: Thinking of new and original ideas.
• Crisis Management: Handling emergencies effectively.
• Critical Thinking: Analyzing facts to form a judgment.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Working with different departments to achieve a common goal
• Customer Engagement: Interacting positively and meaningfully with customers.
• Customer Relationship Management: Managing interactions with current and potential customers
• Customer Service: Assisting and supporting customers to meet their needs.
• Data Analysis: Examining data to draw conclusions and inform decisions.
• Decision-Making: Making choices by identifying options and assessing consequences.
• Detail-Oriented Work: Paying close attention to all aspects of a task or job.
• Diplomacy: Managing sensitive situations and relationships tactfully.
• Document Management: Organizing and controlling documents.
• Editing and Proofreading Documents: Reviewing text to correct errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style
• Effectively Explaining Complex Concepts for Non-Experts: Simplifying complicated ideas to be understandable by normal people
• Emotional Intelligence: Recognizing and managing your own and others' emotions.
• Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of others.
• Event Planning: Organizing and coordinating events.
• Expressing Ideas Verbally: Clearly and confidently sharing thoughts through spoken words
• Flexibility: Adjusting to changes and new challenges.
• Giving and Receiving Constructive Feedback: Providing helpful feedback and being open to receiving feedback
• Goal Setting: Establishing objectives and devising plans to achieve them.
• Goal-Oriented Mindset: Focusing on achieving specific aims.
• Honesty: Being truthful and transparent.
• Initiative: Taking action without being prompted.
• Innovation: Introducing new ideas or methods.
• Integrity and Ethics: Adhering to moral principles and professional standards.
• Interpersonal Communication: Interacting effectively with others.
• Leadership: Guiding and motivating a team towards achieving goals.
• Learning Agility: Quickly learning and applying new skills or knowledge.
• Market Research: Gathering and analyzing information about market conditions.
• Meeting Deadlines: Completing tasks on time.
• Meeting Etiquette: Conducting oneself appropriately and professionally during meetings
• Mentoring: Guiding and supporting others in their professional development.
• Motivational Skills: Inspiring and encouraging others to achieve their best.
• Multilingual Abilities: Communicating in more than one language.
• Multitasking: Handling more than one task at the same time.
• Negotiation: Discussing to reach an agreement or compromise.
• Networking: Building and maintaining professional relationships.
• Organization: Keeping tasks and materials orderly and systematic.
• Ownership of Work: Taking responsibility for your tasks and results.
• Performance Monitoring: Tracking and evaluating performance.
• Persuasion: Convincing others to agree with your ideas or to take a specific action.
• Phone Skills: Communicating effectively and professionally over the phone.
• Policy Implementation: Putting policies into practice.
• Presentation Design: Creating visually appealing and effective presentations.
• Presentation Skills: Effectively conveying information to an audience through speech, visuals, and gestures
• Priority Management: Determining the order in which tasks should be completed based on importance
• Problem Solving: Finding solutions to difficult or complex issues.
• Procedure Development: Creating and improving processes.
• Process Improvement: Identifying and implementing ways to make processes more efficient.
• Product Knowledge: Understanding the features and benefits of products.
• Project Management: Planning, executing, and closing projects.
• Public Speaking: Speaking to an audience effectively.
• Punctuality: Being on time for appointments and deadlines.
• Quality Assurance: Ensuring that products or services meet certain standards.
• Rapport-Building: Creating a connection and trust with others.
• Relating to Diverse Populations: Understanding and interacting well with people from various backgrounds
• Resourcefulness: Finding quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties.
• Respectfulness: Showing consideration and appreciation for others.
• Responsiveness: Reacting quickly and positively to needs, inquiries, or feedback.
• Results-Driven Attitude: Focusing on achieving specific outcomes and goals.
• Sales Techniques: Effectively selling products or services.
• Scheduling: Planning and organizing time and resources.
• Social Media Skills: Using social media platforms effectively for communication, marketing, and networking
• Spelling and Grammar Proficiency: Using correct spelling and grammar in writing.
• Stakeholder Management: Managing relationships with those who have an interest in a project or organization
• Statistical Analysis: Using statistics to analyze data and draw conclusions.
• Strategic Planning: Defining strategies and making decisions to achieve long-term goals.
• Teamwork: Working effectively and harmoniously with others.
• Technical Support: Assisting others with technical problems or questions.
• Technical Writing: Writing clear and precise documents related to technical information
• Time Management: Using time effectively and efficiently.
• Training and Development: Enhancing the skills and knowledge of others through teaching and support
• Troubleshooting: Diagnosing and solving issues.
• Vendor Management: Handling relationships with suppliers.
• Workplace Safety Knowledge: Understanding and applying safety practices.
• Written Communication: Conveying information clearly and effectively in writing.

Fountain Pen Esoterica: Regular Ink, Sheening Ink, Shimmering Ink, Oh My!

Unless you're in the fountain pen community, you would not know there are certain... "fancy fountain pen ink" and new ones developed all the time. Most people expect black ink and blue ink, but there are actually dozens of fountain pen companies all over the world, and they launch new color lines all the time. Some of them can get really fancy, such as sheening ink (shows different colors depending on how much ink you use), and shimmering ink (includes sparkles!)

Photo by David Pennington on Unsplash

SIDENOTE: Fountain pen ink are dye-based, not carbon-based (aka "India ink") If you use carbon-based ink in a fountain pen you'll clog it. Same with "calligraphic ink" unless it is specifically labelled as "fountain pen safe". Calligraphic ink are often not dye-based, but pigment-based, and if they dry inside a fountain pen, the pen is ruined as those will NOT wash out. The pen will be permanently clogged by paint pigments. Calligraphic dip pens, with no feed mechanism, are not affected this way. TL;DR-- ONLY use "fountain pen ink" in fountain pens. 

There are other types of fountain pen ink, but they are more about ink's resistance to environmental challenges, like archival ink (no-fade), water resistant ink, quick-dry ink, and so on. How well they work also depends on what paper they are paired with. And that's another topic altogether. 

Sheening Ink

Sheening ink with its unique dye formulation, forms different colors depending on its concentration. This type of ink is typically slow to dry, and requires a thick pen stroke (made by special fountain pens with stub nib or wider, a cotton swab, or a brush) to see the multitude of colors from a single ink. Sometimes, it's just different shades of the same color, but sometimes, it's distinct colors or mixes thereof. You usually need a fountain pen of at least a broad nib, if not wider, to see the sheening colors, but it is beautiful. Also, you need paper that's NOT that absorbent, because the ink cannot "pool" to create the sheen if it gets absorbed into the paper!

Shimmering Ink

Shimmering ink contains shimmer particles that reflect light, so once they get on paper the inked area will "sparkle" if you shift the paper a bit under the light. However, the particles are known to clog some pens, and requires shaking before use as those particles can "settle" to the bottom of the ink bottle. It is sometimes added to sheening ink so you have an ink that both sheens and shimmers. Similar to sheening ink, they do not dry quickly. And thus, they require paper that are not very absorbent.

Watch Brian Goulet of Goulet Pen show off his "top 10 sheening inks"...  Keep in mind more than a few of these inks are also shimmering inks.  

Conclusion

There are a lot of developments in fountain pen ink, and the best known ones, sheening and shimmering inks, can produce some stunning visuals with the right paper and pen. And they are relatively cheap compared to cost of a new pen, esp. high-end pens, and can add to your enjoyment. 

Stationery Pal: Chinese Stationery for Less, Until You See the Shipping Costs

Stationery Pal is a stationery store based in New Territories, which is next to Hong Kong, but not quite in China yet (that's Shenzhen). Therefore, it is able to take advantage of the price differential between China and other continents. Unfortunately, it is a small company and does not have fulfillment power like Temu or Alibaba (Aliexpress), and therefore, the shipping costs are... shocking when you try to check out, no matter how many discount codes you were able to stack on. 

It's probably easier to show you my shopping cart as an example. There aren't that many items, really. 

• 2 stacks of loose leaf paper, A5 (100 sheets and 50 sheets, resp)
• 2 notebooks (A5, at least 100 sheets)
• 4 small fold-flat storage boxes (more like totes)
• 1 brush rest
• 3 small ink bottles
• 1 pen holder (for tying around notebooks)
• 1 micro tip gel pen
• 2 Sanrio "blind box" items

and the June Mystery Set (which is a random mix of stationeries, but will have many pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, erasers, correction tape, stickers, notebooks, and so on). 

The price may seem low, but with 2 discount codes, I was able to drop the total EVEN FURTHER From $38.xx to $32.49. 

However, here's the shipping cost shock: The shipping cost estimate for my order is $24.90.  

One becomes so used to "free shipping" offered by Amazon in the US and Temu from China, the actual shipping costs are just truly "shocking". They almost doubled the price of each item. Which means for the "fungible" items like spiral notebook, Stationery Pal does not **feel** competitive, unless you specifically want those Chinese Kokuyo Campus notebooks (which are NOT the same as the Japanese Kokuyo Campus notebooks!)

SIDENOTE: Kokuyo is a Japanese brand, but they have a branch in China licensed to locals, who has their own domain, kokuyo.cn. And they have a different product line than Kokuyo Japan... and because its priced to compete with Chinese domestic products, the prices are also MUCH cheaper than Japanese Kokuyo. Either it comes in a much larger pack, or the prices are much lower than the ones "made in Japan". 

What you need to do is search for the same items on Temu, and if it's available on Temu, order them on Temu instead, as Temu was often able to offer the same items for "almost" the same price, with free shipping to the US. 

I found the fold-flat storage boxes on Temu for just a few dimes more ($1.77 vs $1.40 here, which is more like $2.50 when you count shipping). 

As for the small ink bottles, generic cylindrical bottles with metal caps are like 10 for $3 (10 ml each) on Temu with free shipping. They don't look as good as the square ones, but they are also a SMALL fraction of the price. 

And only order those you can't find on Temu on Stationery Pal, AFTER factoring in shipping costs (rule of thumb: add 80%) to make sure it is still worth ordering there. You *may* find that your continental store (Amazon, Jetpens, etc.) actually have the item for competitive prices without waiting 8-12 days shipping.