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Personal Professional

Changing language setting on facebook

There’s been a couple folks I know who use facebook and have faced the issue of having their “language” setting changed.  There doesn’t seem to be anything they did, which makes think suspicious activity and I’d probably be changing the password used for facebook. However, before you can change the password, you need to be able to read the menus, and unless you just happen to read the language it’s been changed to, you’re between a rock and a hard place.

In an effort to help those, here’s the screenshots and where you should click in order to change your language settings in facebook.

Step one : Click on “Settings”, it’s the highlighted in the following image

Facebook language settings step one

Step two : Click on “Language”, it’s the highlighted in the following image

Facebook language settings step two

Step three : Click on “Edit”, it’s the highlighted in the following image

Facebook language settings step three

Step four : Select your “Language”, from the drop down list. Luckily all the languages are localized, so you should recognize your language’s name.

Facebook language settings step four

Step five : Last, but not least, don’t forget to click “Save Changes”, the button on the left.

Facebook language settings step five

Categories
Personal Professional

Faint praise

For my own safety and the privacy of those involved, this story may or may not have any basis in fact.  Those involved with this story have had their names changed to insure their privacy.

This morning a coworker (Bartholomew AKA Bart) had us (me and another coworker – Martin) listen to a song he and another coworker (Elizabeth AKA Beth) reworked for a project.  After listening to the song, I was duly impressed with the singing ability of Beth and said so.  Martin agreed, and continued to say that “with a little practice and the help of a voice coach” she could be really good.  I thought about what was said and I decided to point out that it could be viewed as a backhanded complement.  I continued by pointing out that if someone were to look at his code and say, “Wow, that some really nice code.  You know, with a little work and some tutoring sessions with a professor, you could be a really good.  Now how would you react to that?”.  His response was as expected, seeing the insult in what was being said, even if it started out as a compliment.

The point being that sometimes it’s best to stop at the compliment and leave off the rest of the narrative.  Normally I might now post about such things, but I saw the following story on a social media site and it made me think of the morning’s interaction and how it’s related.  That story is:

So, in a little town in Nowheresville, USA, there’s a river that’s about to flood, and needs to be quickly dammed.

The local college sends three professors: a structural engineer, a chemical engineer, and a literary critic.

The structural engineer suggests building a concrete dam to stem the river, and the mayor calls in a construction company to do the job. A week later, the dam is completed, but in a few days the river’s current becomes more intense, and the dam crumbles.

Next, the chemical engineer suggests adding a gelatin solution to the river, to solidify the whole thing. The mayor calls in a favor with a multinational chemical company, and they deliver a half ton of customized gelatinizing solution.They add it to the river near the source, and the whole river turns to gelatin. But a few days later, the current of the river becomes even stronger, and the water pressure at the source starts to break the gelatin apart

Then, out of nowhere, an awful thunderstorm appears over the town. the heavy rain starts to make the river flood.

In a last ditch attempt, the literary critic steps up to the river bank

He coughs softly, purses his lips, takes a momentary glance at his fingernails, and says “I suppose this river is… adequate.”

…and suddenly the flooding stops.

The two other professors rush to the critic’s side and ask “How the hell did you stop the river from flooding?”

And the critic replies, “Simple. I dammed it with faint praise.”

Backhanded compliments and faint praise can both have a detrimental affects on individuals.  Those that are gaining confidence and seemingly unstoppable can be brought to a stand still with such “compliments” and “praise”.  And it’s often not an intentional malicious act by the offending party, they often view it as being helpful.  So, I guess the question to ask yourself before doling out such helpful tidbits is: “How would you react if someone said something similar to you?”

Categories
Personal

Finding the positive

The day was Saturday, January 23, 2016.  It was the day after “snowmageddon 2016” (I find it interesting how people hype of a little bit of snowfall, but that’s a different topic all together).  The snow had mostly stopped, so I decided it was time to get out the tractor and clear the driveway, little did I imagine such a simple task would turn into such an adventure.

I went outside to start the tractor, swapped the brush hog for the back blade so I could clear the snow off the driveway. I start working and one of the tires must have been low because it came completely off the rim.

20160123_121546Not to be defeated (and because I was relatively close to the garage) I get the air hose out… only to fine out it will reach to within about 12 inches of the tire.

20160123_122309Bound not to be defeated, I reconfigure things to add a few inches to the hose! And wouldn’t ya know, I couldn’t get the tire to take air. So, out comes the air wrench and off comes the wheel. Thanks to a few things taught to me growing up, I know a few tricks when it comes to getting tires to take air (thanks Dad!). I finally get the tire to take air just in time for the belt to start slipping on the air compressor (guess it’s time to buy a new belt for the air compressor). Luckily, I have enough air left in the air compressor to fully air up the tire.  Tire aired up and ready to go, I start rolling it back out to the tractor to be greeted by the neighbor and his son on their four wheelers clearing my driveway.

Moral of the story? Well, from my perspective, it’s simply this: if you look for defeat and bad times you can find them easily enough, but if you do that, you can miss the good. In this case, having great neighbors that jump in and help without asking and the fact that the tractor is back together. All that other stuff, it’s simply noise.