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.