Q&A: Questions and Answers

[catstaff]

By law, it's illegal for a former employer to say anything, good or bad, about a former employee. All they can tell a potential employer who calls them for a reference is whether you actually worked there or not.

That's here in the US, anyway.

 

Also, I think they're allowed to tell the dates a former employee worked, and possibly also if they're eligible for re-hire... that part might vary by state.

[Fuzzbucket]

By law, it's illegal for a former employer to say anything, good or bad, about a former employee. All they can tell a potential employer who calls them for a reference is whether you actually worked there or not.

Are you serious ? So if you had to fire someone for theft, or for sexually assaulting a colleague, you can't warn someone considering hiring them ? And you can't say how absolutely excellent someone who left for personal reasons, or who you had to let go is, either ?

 

That is INSANE. I'm very glad it has never applied anywhere I've been job hunting; I had references from previous bosses that were very helpful to the interview panel.

Edited September 18, 2016 by fuzzbucket

[Shienvien]

Are you serious ? So if you had to fire someone for theft, or for sexually assaulting a colleague, you can't warn someone considering hiring them ? And you can't say how absolutely excellent someone who left for personal reasons, or who you had to let go is, either ?

 

That is INSANE. I'm very glad it has never applied anywhere I've been job hunting; I had references from previous bosses that were very helpful to the interview panel.

To my knowledge, it doesn't apply to recommendation letters - so, it means that they can give you a signed recommendation letter to show potential future employers, but they can't go on to hanging up/telling info of you "behind your back", so to speak. (Laws may vary by place, but that's roughly how it's here.)

 

Not sure about sexual assault etc - may be criminal background check, if it escalated to police level?

[georgexu94]

Could you identify the song in the 6:17-7:00 fragment?

Here is the site:

 

It is a collection of songs in symphony and I cannot have midomi.com or Sound Hound (mobile app in detecting music) identify it; I even tried singing but to no avail. It is because it is slightly modified. They are all contemporary songs, I assure you.

 

If you can identify all songs in the playlist, then by gods, that would be appreciated!

 

Update: Shortened; this is the clip: http://swf.tubechop.com/tubechop.swf?vurl=...420&cid=8362897

[Moonlight_Eevee]

Does anyone know of any good anti virus programs out there? I'm looking to switch and I don't know of any o.o

[Shienvien]

Avast and Avira are among the best when it comes to free anitivirus.

 

Paid ones ... Kaspersky and Bitdefender.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

Okay, so I am having serious trouble with my laptop. I managed to switch to Avast and now my laptop is freezing up, something it never has done before. It is much more slower then usual and the entire screen sometimes fades out in a gray screen. How does one go about fixing it?

[DragonBreederGirl]

~Off-topic removed; please take DragCave questions to the Help section. General Discussion is for all non-cave related talk~ Edited January 18, 2017 by SockPuppet Strangler

[georgexu94]

Okay, so I am having serious trouble with my laptop. I managed to switch to Avast and now my laptop is freezing up, something it never has done before. It is much more slower then usual and the entire screen sometimes fades out in a gray screen. How does one go about fixing it?

Hello, Raptor of Dragons!

Download Malwarebytes and have your laptop scanned for any malicious software. That is the programme people usually advise to have. I find the free version good enough.

https://www.malwarebytes.com

 

If you are having difficulty downloading the programme, you should download it to another computer then save it on a storage device such as a flash disk. Then set it up to your laptop.

[Confused Cat]

Do "play" buttons on CD players point to the left in countries where the language is written from right to left (e.g. Arabic (I think?))?

What about the "back" and "forward" buttons in a browser?

 

Or, more generally, is the direction that means "forward" to a person depending on the direction in which they write?

Edited February 2, 2017 by Confused Cat

[georgexu94]

@Confused Cat: I'm Chinese and we traditionally write from right to left, but that change during the modern times. Chinese now write left to right. As for the browser buttons, I'm sure it is still the same as everyone- that is, forward is pointing to the right and back is pointing to the left.

[missHPfan2]

Okay, so I am having serious trouble with my laptop. I managed to switch to Avast and now my laptop is freezing up, something it never has done before. It is much more slower then usual and the entire screen sometimes fades out in a gray screen. How does one go about fixing it?

Get Malwarebytes like Georgexu mentioned. There's also another free antivirus called Comodo that's really good. Uninstall Avast and any other antivirus you have (you should never have two at once). Malwarebytes is anti-malware, which antivirus doesn't do as well, and it also works well alongside antivirus. Make sure to install Malwarebytes BEFORE uninstalling Avast. So, you'd get Malwarebytes, uninstall whatever antivirus you had before Avast if you didn't uninstall it, then scan with MB, then uninstall Avast and get Comodo.

If you installed Avast without uninstalling what you had before, there's your problem. Though, it doesn't explain the fading to gray...

When installing Comodo, don't bother with installing GeekBuddy. It's harmless, but it's annoying. Comodo also doesn't seem to have a paid version, meaning you get everything right then and there.

Edited February 4, 2017 by missHPfan2

[Predat0rs]

I have a random question that may or may never be answered. For some reason, when I go to type "me", my fingers end up typing "my" instead. I'm a rather fast typer (over 100 wpm) and I know where each letter is, but for some reason I end up with the typo. I don't even realize that it happens; sometimes I re-read something I posted and the error is in there! Is there any particular reason it happens? Can I re-train my fingers/brain to type the correct word? It confuses the heck outta me.

[georgexu94]

@predatorfan4ever: It is a typo and well, if it is another word, confusing 'e' and 'y' can be an unacceptable typo. However, me instead of my is acceptable. Kind of sounds like pirate speak though. Ex. I love me mommy.

 

Addendum: Don't really know what you're complaining about. It will make you sound cool. But of course, in formal letters, it wouldn't be acceptable. My answer is, you can train your mind in typing the right word. You say you are a fast typer? Well, if you are writing formal letters, you take note of what you type and type slowly. And keep tabs of the words that you often misspell.

Edited February 5, 2017 by georgexu94

[Shienvien]

Kind of sounds like pirate speak though. Ex. I love me mommy.

Makes me think of fantasy dwarves...

 

My answer is, you can train your mind in typing the right word. You say you are a fast typer? Well, if you are writing formal letters, you take note of what you type and type slowly. And keep tabs of the words that you often misspell.

I sometimes do things like that myself (though not with me/my). I used to consistently write "definitely" as "definetely", for instance - it'd appear I've gotten rid of that particular bug a few years back, though, as I've not seen it for a while now. More recently, I'll substitute 'g'-s in the beginnings of a few words with 'q'-s with frequency that goes beyond regular typos.

 

While I'm a fast typist myself, it has absolutely nothing to do with typing speed, more with hand-to-mind coordination, automation and association (my ticks tend to hark back to phonetics). You don't think, your fingers just move. You don't look at the keyboard, either. The only thing that helps, really, is eventually outgrowing the tick as new neural pathways form (so yes, you can eventually lose it or train it out) - until then, it's just proofread, proofread, proofread ... and then, if possible, ask a friend to proofread what you just wrote, too, because noticing your own mistakes is always harder since the brain has the tendency to automatically substitute what it figures should be there in its attempt to optimize.

 

Funnily enough, I tend to do it more commonly in pen-based writing than while typing ... the whole letter-substitution and/or skipping thing. And handwriting is both snail-pace and harder to correct. If anything, I'd say the slow speed is part of why I make more mistakes - I type notably faster than I speak, and think faster yet ... I can barely or not all keep up with speech while handwriting, and my thoughts would be who-knows-where by the time I'd even begin to catch up with my hands, so I figure my muscle memory runs out of buffer and I end up with the organic equivalent of general fragmentation fault.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Shienvien

[wonderwanders2]

I type notably faster than I speak, and think faster yet ... I can barely or not all keep up with speech while handwriting, and my thoughts would be who-knows-where by the time I'd even begin to catch up with my hands, so I figure my muscle memory runs out of buffer and I end up with the organic equivalent of general fragmentation fault.

LOL, me too... although generally I mess up the other direction. I tend to say things as they are spelled, rather than how they are supposed to be pronounced.

 

Faux fur coat... I used to always say "fox fur coat" Obviously this caused a lot of confusion among the anti-fur crowd. Is that real? No it's Fox. ... ??? wait... huh ??? Took a lot of correction to fix that one.

 

Meme is "me me" not "meem" - I never understood why it's "meem"?

 

 

[Ninetails]

Hopefully I can word this right on here, because google can't find the answer for me.

 

I'm currently doing my bibliography for my research paper. I'm trying to arrange it in alphabetical order, but one of my titled sources starts with a number. Would that source go in the beginning, end, or would the number be be completely ignored?

 

Here is the cited source.

"2015 Intern and Resident Salaries." (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2017, from http://www.aavmc.org/Public-Data/2015-Inte...t-Salaries.aspx

[Infinis]

Hopefully I can word this right on here, because google can't find the answer for me.

 

I'm currently doing my bibliography for my research paper. I'm trying to arrange it in alphabetical order, but one of my titled sources starts with a number. Would that source go in the beginning, end, or would the number be be completely ignored?

 

Here is the cited source.

"2015 Intern and Resident Salaries." (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2017, from http://www.aavmc.org/Public-Data/2015-Inte...t-Salaries.aspx

It's placed in alpha order based on the written spelling of the number - in this case, two thousand fifteen. So it goes in the Ts, alphabetically.

 

https://style.mla.org/2016/10/18/alphabetiz...numeric-titles/

 

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/...ng/faq0005.html

[Ninetails]

It's placed in alpha order based on the written spelling of the number - in this case, two thousand fifteen. So it goes in the Ts, alphabetically.

 

https://style.mla.org/2016/10/18/alphabetiz...numeric-titles/

 

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/...ng/faq0005.html

Ah, I never considered that. Thank you so much for the help, I was seriously thinking about it all night!

[irrelevantindigo]

Anyone know how to care for a scratched CD or at least make sure it doesn't get worse? I have a CD that had one of those cases you have to slide it into and it scratched the CD enough to create the occasional skip. :u

[Gryphonic]

Is there any way I could get in trouble for putting castor oil in my own drink at work?

(Some on first shift keeps stealing my tea between my last break and the time I go home in the morning. I figure, I can put whatever legal substance I want in my own food. I should have no responsibility for someone else being a thief.)

 

ETA: yes, my name is always on the bottle. And I don't know who wants to drink something already open and clearly half-consumed, cause that's just gross. But I look in the trash can and recycle bin to see if it's misguided "cleaning" (despite having today's date on it as well), and nope, just completely gone each time.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Gryphonic

[Obscure_Trash]

Is there any way I could get in trouble for putting castor oil in my own drink at work? 

(Some  on first shift keeps stealing my tea between my last break and the time I go home in the morning.  I figure, I can put whatever legal substance I want in my own food.  I should have no responsibility for someone else being a thief.)

 

ETA: yes, my name is always on the bottle.  And I don't know who wants to drink something already open and clearly half-consumed, cause that's just gross.  But I look in the trash can and recycle bin to see if it's misguided "cleaning" (despite having today's date on it as well), and nope, just completely gone each time.

My inclination was yes, and after doing some research (not looking for cases, as I'm not sure how to do that, but finding some legally-inclined folk and other stories), I really wouldn't suggest this. Yes, it seems really silly that you can't do this to your own food to ward off thieves, but intent here does matter and as you are doing this to ward off a thief, you know this could potentially harm someone else. You could possibly be charged with assault/battery if the thief realizes what's going on and follows through (especially if something happens and they end up hurt). You could even potentially be fired. I don't think it's worth the risk for you that you'll get away with it and have discouraged this thief to take anything of yours.

 

It might seem kinda silly (and frustrating to have to spend your own money), but there's something called a "fridge locker", which is basically a locked box for the fridge to put your food/drink in. They run about $15 - $20 (google shopping search), and that would be a legal option to try and protect your drink. Or maybe a small cooler with the type of opening you can buy a lock for (although this will probably run about the same cost, though depending on the lock you by, might be less hackable). That's the only alternative I can think of to protect your drink. =x

Edited March 22, 2017 by SockPuppet Strangler

[georgexu94]

No! Wait! Just hear me out. You can put large amounts of salt in your drink. That way, you cannot be liable for anything. One, the thief should not be drinking from your drink. Two, salt is legal substance and an edible. And three, you always have the excuse that you love the sea and love putting salt in your drink to remind you of it.

 

I suggest using scheduled psychology, at random intervals. That way, the thief will stop drinking from your cup after a while. They wouldn't know when you will put salt, unlike doing it at a regular intervals (e.g. Only on Wednesdays) where they can figure it out.

[Kestra15]

(Some on first shift keeps stealing my tea between my last break and the time I go home in the morning. I figure, I can put whatever legal substance I want in my own food. I should have no responsibility for someone else being a thief.)

Laxatives. Not enough to do harm, but enough to make the day much more uncomfortable.

[Obscure_Trash]

Laxatives. Not enough to do harm, but enough to make the day much more uncomfortable.

(That's what castor oil functions as, so that was pretty much what they were already asking.)