Bits and Bobs

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

OP: How to fold a flying pig. (cr简开JK)

spiderman dances to the beat

-> Phonics For Adults <-

I WILL !!! I WILL DO THAT

some of my favourite indigenous artists, in no particular order:

Inuit artists:

the jerry cans (esp their album Inuusiq)

beatrice deer

twin flames

Māori artists:

jordyn with a why

Indigenous australian artists:

tilly tjala thomas (i particularly love ngai yurlku nhiina)

kardajala kirridarra (srlsly check out ngajabu (Grandmother's Song))

And one of her own:

Oh and of course there's also the HU and Bloodywood for people who like more rock and metal mixed in:

Darkaside is a Papuan metal band

Shepherds Reign is a Samoan metal band

Lenin Tamayo, Quechua pop singer.

And of course I can't not add Mari Boine (Sámi) to a post like this:

And Arvvas, who I think have moved on to other things but did mashups of Sámi traditional singing and jazz:

please tell me you love me - chat with your guild members for the last time before the game's servers are shut down

GIRLKILLER (covet) - there is a girl who looks like you, and today you're going to kill her

cover me in leaves - stuck in your small hometown, you get your first tattoo. and then a few more, and more, and more

don't rock the boat - play through the different perspectives of a women's crew team as they are stalked by something in the water

GUTLESS - you are the captain of a deep sea vessel. your mission doesn't go well

so, about last night... - you wake up sick and weirdly hungry after hooking up with someone at a party. you spend the next night trying to find her.

close the window, my love - short bitsy poem about closing the window. sound on! this creator has a lot of short bitsy works i recommend.

crunchyroll is getting rid of typesetting in their subs. they're going from the good, modern subbing standard (aegisub/ass) - which lets you position, motion-track, and color code text anywhere on the screen - to one worse than what they had 16 years ago (back when their renderer couldn't handle anything fancier than 9-position placement and overlapping text). the one they're moving to (ttml) doesn't let you do any special formatting, just plain text at the top or bottom of the screen. they're doing it because a) they have exclusive licensing rights to a lot of anime, so there's no competition b) they want to make money off of sublicensing to netflix and amazon, but netflix and amazon use the garbage subbing standard c) sony bought crunchyroll a while back and put funimation in charge, and funimation has never given a shit about anime

for a while they were paying their subbers to convert their good subs to the netflix/amazon shitty ones, but they have decided that instead of paying to make good quality subs for their own platform and shitty ones for netflix/amazon (or demanding that netflix/amazon update their subbing standards in order to sublicense the shows, so that everyone has the good ones), they're just going to stop bothering to make the quality subs at all. worse, it seems like they're going through their backlog and converting shows that used to have good subs over to the bad ones.

the article has a TON of examples of shows that would be seriously impacted by this change. two of my faves it mentions are kill la kill (which makes HEAVY use of onscreen text for its punchiness and humor) and komi-san can't communicate (have you tried watching the netflix subs of this? they make the show literally unwatchable. the whole premise of the show is that komi has selective mutism and talks by writing things down, and the netflix subs just... didn't bother subbing any of the text. whole entire key conversations become extended shots of characters scribbling back and forth while you have no way to know what they're saying). some others it doesn't mention that i immediately thought of were shoujo kageki revue starlight (color-coded subs along both the side and the bottom come in clutch for tracking the revue duets simultaneously with the duet dialog) and yuuki yuuna wa yuusha de aru (you need motion-tracked subs for any on-screen group chat conversation to be readable, and yuyuyu has a bunch). and the article's got a bunch more examples from shows i don't know as much about. probably you can think of some of your own faves that this would ruin worst of all, the english fansubbing community has cratered since crunchyroll came on the scene. there's a lot more anime coming out each season, and audiences are used to day-of simulcast, and most of the really good fansubbers went pro or retired and not a lot of new ones have stepped up. so even torrenting or streaming bootlegs won't be viable for getting the speed, quality, and coverage of subs we're used to these days.

the article exhorts you to kick up a fuss - spread the word, complain on social media - and to cancel your crunchyroll account and give "subtitle quality" as your reason. it cites how back in 2017, crunchyroll tried to reduce their video quality, got slammed by their users, and rolled back the change. unfortunately, the sony/funimation takeover happened since then and that leadership doesn't seem to care at all about the quality of their product or what the fans think, so i don't expect them to respond to anything but a credible threat to their bottom line. so, maybe, if we can make a big enough dent in their subscription numbers, then they'll pay attention

and the article doesn't say this, but i'd add: complain to netflix and amazon, as well. any anime you see on those platforms, report the subs and say the quality makes the show unwatchable. consider canceling your subscriptions to those platforms as well, and citing the awful subtitle quality in your reasons, if the main thing you use them for is anime

#2: "hi [professor], hope you're doing well! unfortunately, I'm [sick/stuck at work/dead] and won't be able to submit [assignment] by [due date]. could I please have an extension? if not, is there anything else I could do to make up this credit? thanks so much, [op]"

The FIRST SENTENCE is the thing you want the recipient to do. Do not make them guess.

I want to let you know about ... (This email is to inform someone of something not to ask them to do anything)

Could you please do ... (This is a request. You want them to do something).

I'm looking into x and wondering if you can help me (this is also a request but for information instead of an action).

People do not want to read an email and even if they do read it, most people are skimming and not interested. Tell them what you want first, then provide context or other information (when you need a thing is often key). If the email is informational, you can even add "you don't need to do anything, this is just to keep you informed!" People will appreciate not having to figure out what you want from them.

If you can't articulate what you want the recipient to do with the message, you are not ready to email them. I read too many emails where I have no idea what the person wants from me.

One of those pamphlets or papers they give out in admittance will contain the number for the hospital ombudsmen or patient advocate. Save that! I had to contact them when they twice messed up a test prep for my grandfather by giving him food when he wasn't supposed to have any so they couldn't do the test. He was moved off that floor to the cardiac wing of the hospital, even though he wasn't in for cardiac care that time, in less than an hour after I called the ombudsmen. It was a much nicer room, and the patient to nurse ratio was better too. Document everything, and be firm but calm.

Don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion or another doctor. The best resource I found was to ask all the nurses which doctor they would use for their grandfather etc. I found him a different heart doctor doing that who was so much better than do nothing doctor he had before.

I've found, "How would you want your grandparent, sister, daughter etc treated," to be a bit magic in terms of getting them good care in general. I've literally seen medical people pause, and rethink what they're going to say after I phrase it that way. Also, women doctors generally spend more time listening to patients. I'm not saying that's always true of course, but there have been studies backing that up, and it's certainly been my experience as well. I went with my grandfather to an appointment with his GP, and reported all these symptoms I was seeing. He literally laughed in my face, and circled his age on the chart. I took him to my doctor, a woman, and it turned out he had Parkinson's.

The Internet is your friend, provided it's a legitimate medical site like the Mayo or Cleveland clinic etc. I saved my mother's eyesight finding an off label usage for a med, and found some stuff my vet ended up using for other patients.