Category: Miscellaneous

The most nervous for me as a TA is when the course instructor releases the grades that I have marked. I am worried there may be complaints about my grades on Piazza (a discussion board between students and teaching staff).

Luckily, it’s been two days already, and there hasn’t been a complaint about my grading for CSC343 assignment 1 at UTM.

[This article was polished by GPT-4]

It’s important to talk defensively, just like to drive defensively.

Recording every meeting, as I had personally experienced due to a requirement, doesn’t equate to the effective preservation of information, contrary to popular belief.

In fact, I am of the opinion that it is not a beneficial practice. The rationale behind recording meetings is often to maintain a record or archive of discussions and decisions.

However, based on my experience, this method doesn’t necessarily lead to better information retention or utilization. Instead, I believe that it may not be the most effective or positive approach to managing meeting content.

1. When we record every meeting, it’s just like keeping all the items in your room – you will never be able to find out what’s most important when you need to do so.
2. Recording every meeting can inadvertently lead to information misinterpretation which results in rumours.
   • When individuals become accustomed to their conversations being recorded, they tend to communicate less cautiously, not guarding their words as they might in a non-recorded setting.
   • This casual approach to communication can be problematic when others review lengthy meeting recordings. Listeners often selectively hear what aligns with their preconceptions or interests, neglecting the broader context of the conversation. This selective listening can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what was actually said, potentially giving rise to rumours and misinformation. In essence, the convenience of recording every meeting may paradoxically contribute to communication breakdowns rather than clarity.

But I agree that recording “important” parts of a meeting is very useful.

1. It’s much easier for people to organize the recordings.
2. Aware of the recording taking place, individuals can speak in a more guarded and cautious manner.
3. Since individuals typically don’t review the entire recording, it’s simpler to insert context, thereby reducing room for misinterpretation and rumours.
   • We can’t change the fact that some people misinterpret on purpose, but we can help people who don’t intend to do so.

My father switched to an iPhone last week. He was using two physical SIM cards but with the iPhone, he can not do it anymore. He is with Chatr right now. After doing some research I believe that Chatr doesn’t have an eSim feature. We were planning to move to another provider near the end of the Chatr monthly cycle.

But yesterday I ran into a Chatr store. I asked the worker if Chatr had eSim cards. He told me: “This is coming this month”.

While I can not find any news from Chatr Official Website to confirm this, I really hope this is true so that we don’t need to move and my father can still enjoy the bonus 500MB with his Chatr plan.

I was at Toronto’s Eaton Centre to pick up my new iPhone from 11:30 AM to 11:45 AM. But when I entered the Apple Store around 11:33 AM, my order was still “In Process”, i.e., “Not Ready for Pickup”.

I asked a lady, and she told me to wait until my pickup window closed at 11:45 p.m. Then she told me that this was an online pickup order so the store couldn’t do anything about it, she suggested I wait in line so that if the online order was too late, I might be able to just buy the iPhone in-store if in stock.

I was frustrated because the wait line was so long. I called Apple Support but this was too noisy so our conversation was in a low efficiency.

Then I asked a gentleman, I showed him the email with the QR code I got yesterday titled “We look forward to seeing you during your Check-in Window.”. I told him it was still in process. He told me “We will figure it out”.

But another genius didn’t allow me to join the online pickup wait line. He insisted that I couldn’t pick my phone up until the order status changed to “Ready for Pickup”. He said it might be the bank that didn’t release money – but the Apple Store app didn’t give me any further instructions other than “wait”.

So I tried to call my bank. During that time, another young lady was offering to help. She said she would scan my QR code. Surprisingly, once she scanned the code, she told me that it seemed ready on her side. Then she tried to call someone to send the device, but the procedure was slow (too many people picked up phones today!). I was nervous because I thought it would end up with the same result that required me to wait, wait and wait, and I might not be able to get my new phone today.

But gladly, she handed over the phone to me! She’s very friendly and a very helpful Genius! I told her the transaction did disappear on my CIBC app. She assured me: “It’s good. Maybe it’s just the system. The system shows the order is complete. You are fine, the bank will post the transaction.” (Yeah, I recalled once upon a time I asked CIBC why an transaction was gone and they told me it would be posted later.)

So, if you are in the same situation as I was. Just ask the genius to scan your QR code. Maybe they can figure it out for you.

I have a personal blog in Chinese, which I have been running since 2016. It is my first WordPress site. I decided to make it serve WebP images for the sake of speed. I had lots of ShortPixel credits so I ran “bulk image optimization” in the media library after installing the plugin, expecting the process would be complete after a day.

However, when I wake up, the process bar stuck at ~40%. It was so annoying, but I didn’t have any clue why – I chose to wait. Even after several days, the process bar stuck still at ~40%. I knew something was wrong.

And I wrote a backup script, so as long as a change occurs in wp-contents/uploads, the script is called, and some of my Google Drive space will be consumed. Every day I saw new backup was made for my personal Chinese blog – it was because the new WebP images were generated. But I just didn’t know why it took forever to finish.

However, today, after reviewing the reminder of ShortPixel carefully, I notice that it says, when the browser tab is closed, the bulk optimization process will be paused…

So, my bad. I shouldn’t close the browser tab (although I don’t think it makes sense because my VPS can upload the original images to ShortPixel servers, and fetch the converted optimized images?).

Today I have learned that whenever we use a product, we should read every single message it shows carefully!