2010-07-27, 23:47 | Link #4023 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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I love cosplay... but frankly I know my limits and those limits are roles where "curmudgeonly Viking" might fit in (e.g. like a salamander or delivery guy in ARIA). If I were slight of build with more androgynous looks then more options would open up.
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2010-07-29, 13:59 | Link #4024 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: 28° 37', North ; 77° 13', East
Age: 33
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After having my fair share of flight problems, I can tell you that your plan doesn't sound all that bad, but you need to get some security in there. You should probably get in contact with your home school; I'm sure they've had this problem before. Your study abroad office mind you, not the financial aid one. Worst comes to worst you should ask your school to give you a student loan, although you may lose a pound of flesh in the process. If the money will be there within a week I can't see it being a problem. Mhmm.. talking to the travel agent is tricky. It's a gamble either way, but I would talk to your travel agent about it. It's just that otherwise, you could find yourself down a lot of money, and with no ticket to Japan. Visa Officials! No, they don't care that much as far as I know - especially for stuff like study abroad. One of the perks of having people read the documents. I don't think they'll mind and you are allowed to do so - they really aren't that draconian. Gah as much as I hate to send people into a debt-trap, you should look into taking out a loan if you're not already knee deep in debt. |
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2010-07-29, 18:06 | Link #4025 | |||
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
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Where are you going?
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Although if you mean I should ask the school itself if it can give me a short-term "painkiller" kind of boost, that's very interesting. I'll try and talk to them, but honestly I don't think they can do something extraordinary like that. It is something of an unusual case and the school, being a public university, is practically broke (it cut down its budget severely recently) and bound by bureaucratic rules that a more "personal" liberal arts college can sometimes just cut through in the interest of its students. Quote:
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I know they want to know I actually won't just go there and stay instead of returning, but I don't know if they'll be verifying the flight information directly during their processing, err, process, since it's likely I'll cancel *that* booking to buy another (the agent says I can't keep the reservation very long). Come to think of it, how long does the Visa process usually take after an application reach them? I have the CoE and everything of course. |
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2010-07-30, 07:32 | Link #4026 |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Is there a way to quickly edit a 10-page report without dying? I did the first paragraph and there are already 3 spelling mistakes, 2 sentence structure problems and an excessively amount of wordiness!
P.S Yeah yeah I brought this upon myself. I thought by volunteering for editing of the report can save me all the trouble of having of thinking up of something to write. Didn't know that it is whole lot more trouble by having to think of something to replace the stuff written.
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2010-07-30, 08:57 | Link #4027 |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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Nope, there's no short cut. I edit, on average, about 12 stories a night, each an average of 500 words in length. That's about 6,000 words a night and, on some nights, around 50 per cent more.
That is, about 9,000 words a night, which is roughly the length of one chapter of a typical novel. So, as you can imagine, my brain is pretty much mush by the end of an eight- or nine-hour shift. There are books that can teach you how to write clean, concise prose. The most accessible one is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Or, you can follow George Orwell's six elementary rules: 1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Rule 4 might need a bit of explaining. A sentence written in the "active" voice uses a simple subject-verb-object structure. Examples: "I go to the zoo."; "Tom picks up the book."; "Jane met Tom." A sentence written in the "passive" voice uses to a "object-verb-subject" structure. It is typically longer and sounds awkward. Examples: "The book was picked up by Tom."; "Tom was met by Jane." Civil servants and officials, especially, love to use the passive voice, because it allows them to drop the subject of the sentence. Example: "The goal was met (by whom? how?)." That creates ambiguity, and also leads to long, horrible sentences. |
2010-07-30, 10:53 | Link #4029 | |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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This has been made possible by the rapidly decreasing cost of computer storage and network bandwidth. A good example of "cloud computing" in practice is Google Apps. It provides a full suite of applications that businesses or consumers typically use, such as e-mail, chat-conferencing, word-processing tools, presentation tools, spreadsheets and so on. In the past, a business would have to pay a licence fee to use these tools, and it would also have to host these applications on its own servers, which it also uses to store its corporate information. Now, however, the business can simply make use of Google Apps to set up its own "enterprise" system and, theoretically, not have to care about where its information and applications are being stored, because Google will take care of those details in the background. So, in a way, "cloud computing" is about outsourcing your applications and data storage to a third party. The obvious advantages are reduced overheads, and distributed computing: You can access those tools and data wherever you can get an Internet connection. The obvious disadvantage is the potential loss of privacy and security. How much do you trust the third party, Google for example, to keep your data safe? |
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2010-07-30, 11:18 | Link #4030 | ||
Adventure ∀logger
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Is that a correct understanding? Quote:
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2010-07-30, 11:35 | Link #4031 | |||
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Is there a proper guideline to writing those readable reports that major government agencies release from time to time? The things I read from the net usually give me stuff that gave my group members the report writing structures.
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2010-07-30, 12:05 | Link #4032 | |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
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You're not expecting me to do your homework for you, are you?
My advice? Too many numbers crammed into one paragraph, enough to cause any reader's eyes to glaze over. Start with the key finding. What's the story? Is business good or bad at the bookshop and cafeteria? Why? That should be your opening sentence. Everything else will follow from there. Quote:
In any case, "cloud computing" is really no more than a fad label, like "Web 2.0" for example. The idea of sharing computing resources over distributed networks is as old as the Internet. It's just that it's now easier than ever before, so some smart hack came up with the name, ran with it, and finally pushed the concept into mainstream consciousness. |
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2010-07-30, 12:15 | Link #4034 | |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Thanks for the advice. Looks like I have to rewrite the entire section.
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2010-07-30, 21:39 | Link #4036 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Bingo! "Cloud computing" is essentially a marketing term and a "pointy-headed boss" term. I'd bet 90% of the people you see using it really have no idea what it means without waving their arms about magical invisible assets that they hope aren't in their budget. People who remember networks made up of smart terminals (e.g. X terminals) and server clusters where apps and data reside chuckle into their beer steins when someone says "cloud computing".
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2010-07-30, 21:41 | Link #4037 | |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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problem, q&a, serious |
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