So, one of our cars has a hatch that stretches into the heavens, which in our garage means it rests against the garage door when the latter is rolled up. Here’s the car (stock photo, though that could be around 3 miles from my house):
In the 10 years we’ve owned it we’ve never really wanted to know what would happen if we accidentally closed the garage door while the hatch was open. Well, as of yesterday evening now we know.
The good news is that thanks to Brexit the cost of a replacement spoiler shipped from England is not too bad.
The better news is that I’d been using the trunk of the car as a platform to set up some rat traps - that’s why I’d left it open - and the traps at least were not a waste of money.
[quote=“Mindysan33, post:2611, topic:67518”]
There was an opening at another local college (in the ATL area, even) in the American Studies department (which I think given my focus, I could make that case for being in that department)[/quote]
I suspect all the many many people getting PhDs in American Studies might disagree, especially since many more schools have History departments than have American Studies.
I have notoriously bad judgment here; I once turned down a tenure track job at one of the best schools in the Cal State system in order to take a postdoc at a 2nd rate school in England nobody in the US has ever heard of. I think though that the number of really satisfying jobs in higher education has been far outstripped by the number of people with PhDs vying for them, and - especially if you are geographically constrained - you should always have a plan B (and even a plan C) that is not in the sector, and be ready to embrace it enthusiastically.
That goes both ways. We’ve had VLs and people apply for tenture track jobs in the history department here with American studies degrees. Of course I can only speak for this department…
At work I’ve just been upgraded to Windows 10. I’m not sure what the previous version of Windows we used was called–it was mainly 2010 Office Suite products–but why the fuck does MS feel the need to make so many changes to the interface with each new iteration? Why the fuck does Outlook now look so completely different and why the fuck did they take away the ability to pin items?
And how fucking stupid is it that I can’t change the wallpaper background color? I have a nice picture for my wallpaper but it’s not big enough to fill the entire screen. On my previous computer I was able to change the color of the wallpaper behind the picture to a nice shade of green. Now, as far as I can tell and as far as anyone in IT can tell me, there’s no way to change that from the default black. Because obviously no one ever wanted to change that color so MS decided it wasn’t necessary.
Granted it’s a work computer and there are probably bigger concerns with Windows 10 and personalizations are, well, personal, but I can’t figure out why MS can’t just leave some things the fuck alone. I’ve talked to developers who tell me they don’t give a shit about the UI which makes me wonder why they insist on regularly changing it.
yeah I have grumbled about their changing of little things since nt4.
however the start menu for 10 is an improvement over 7 which was pretty awesome already but you can seriously customize and pin common used stuff like mad to it.
as far as the wallpaper/background right click on the desktop and personalize doesn’t work?
I am ambivalent about it. Putting the file menu on its own tab is annoying but I have used it at work for years now so I am just used to it by now. Happily I don’t really use it at home and the $20 for 2 licenses from my former employer was a nice deal.
Right-clicking allows me to personalize it with a picture, but the picture I’m using isn’t big enough to fill the entire background. Here’s what the wallpaper looks like now:
Here’s more or less what it looked like previously:
I can’t for the life of me figure out how to change the background color. If you don’t want to use a picture for your wallpaper or the picture isn’t big enough to fill the screen why do you have to be stuck with the default black?
Thank you, by the way, for mentioning that you can pin things–after some tinkering I’ve figured out how to do that and I’ve been able to make the adjustments to Outlook 2016 to make it look enough like OL 2010 that I’m happy. The changes there weren’t significant.
I think I’m partly just very sensitive to having to relearn familiar things but this also sets me off because of my experiences with software designed exclusively for libraries. The companies serve a very limited market but they’re amazingly deaf to customer feedback. More than once I’ve been told, “If the program doesn’t fit your needs then your needs have to change.”
I know in 2016 you can turn off the “Tablet Functionality” (or similar term) and it puts things back to their normal spacing. Or what I perceive as normal spacing. I’m on the continuous bleeding edge march so I can pretend to be well informed.
