As someone with the opposite problem, too formal and not very good at casual writing. Truth is, formal writing is robotic and in today’s context it is regarded as awkward except in a few places. Most of the samples online that the bots are trained with are overly formal examples. 99% of cover letters are never published online, so that’s an area they’re lacking. What they have access to is the awfully generic slop that’s impersonal and meant to sell online workshops about writing cover letters.

There’s a very difficult task in making formal writing feel natural and warm. I would advice instead to aim for transparency. A cover letter is supposed to highlight a match between your skills and personality, with the company role’s needs and work culture. It’s not a cold sales pitch, you must show that you did your due diligence about getting to know the place before applying for the job. As long as it sounds like the genuine you talking, not a façade, it doesn’t has to be too formal, just keep the content and vocabulary professional. How you would talk in the workspace with a coworker that you don’t know too well yet. A cover letter is more like corporate flirting than lawyer speak.

As for material, read the basic common sense guides online, but, and it is a big but. Also read a lot in general, specially in English as it isn’t your first language. Unlike LLMs humans are actually intelligent and we can use experiences from other contexts, and good writing in general shares common principles across all genres. Even if every genre has specificities, they’re usually an addendum or exception of general good writing. Variety is the spice of life.

I mean, I’ve been downvoted to hell just for saying “hey, writing is the core of a movie or series, good production can rarely salvage a bad script”. Then I was crucified.

Funny, art is about more than sales numbers? Who would’ve thunk?

The first episode of the penguin is cinematic crème de la crop. While the entire season of the Acolyte is barely amateur hour. Writing, cinematography, costumes, set design, acting, makeup, music, sound design, plot. The penguin delivered in a single hour to levels of artistic satisfaction that not even the best hour of the Acolyte could even dream of achieving.

I know it is unpopular to say this on the Internet, but storytelling and dialogue is still the core of video entertainment. No matter how high the budget and quality is, if you’re filming a turd, it is still just cinematographic shit. While you can make a modest production of a masterpiece writing and it will still outpace in praises the literal gilded turd. No matter how much either sells.

Humor comes fast to you, but you’re obviously faster.

Millions of dollars in yearly profit by the food industry that makes and sell raw cookie flavors disagree with your business acumen.

1. Yes, you can share location, the widgets aren’t as fancy as Google integration with everything.

2. Not feasible without the constant data harvesting in the background, which it doesn’t do. It doesn’t log your every move as Google does. Privacy vs surveillance, will always be at odds.

3. Depending on the area. In my country public transportation is way better on OSM than on Gmaps. Oftentimes Gmaps won’t even have large structures like train stations or bus terminals. It depends on users and contributors.

I know, I agree. It’s just, I’m tired of people using bad coasters then complaining when they stick to the bottom of their glass spilling condensation water all over their lap and shirt. This is the reason that happens. That said, I would totally love to have good floppy disk look alike coasters. But being given an actual one as a coaster won’t amuse me, it would make me groan.

Ok, this is a sidetrack but hear me out. Floppy disks would make awful coasters. A coaster has to be somewhat absorbent to avoid spilling condensation water on the table. This is why cork is the most popular material for coasters. The best coasters are a cloth top over a cork shape with a plastic rim and a felt bottom. This ensures total protection to the table and gives enough freedom to be creative with shapes, prints, colors and figures. The novelty printed plastic disks are the worst coasters possible, and floppy disks will only drip all over the table defeating the purpose of a coaster.

Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Do you want to do the thing or do you want to stress about the thing for days, delay it for months while you save up then suffer regret anxiety about whether it was the correct choice? For a lot of people the latter is the part they enjoy about the hobby. For others it isn’t worth the time and resources requires, they’d rather do the thing now with what they have and enjoy it as it is. Where does the inflection point lies between hassle and enjoyable results is personal and everyone has different criteria for different goals and contexts, and that is OK.

Often times people have resolved all the rational arguments to act on a decision but lack on an emotional excuse to figuratively pull the trigger. I’d bet on someone high up had already made up their mind and you not using WhatsApp was the perfect excuse to just have the whole team finally migrate.

He didn’t abandoned us…he just forgot the password.

Habituation. We get used to seeing the same things all the time. When you do novelty or high adrenaline experiences your perception changes. Try jumping with a parachute out of a plane, or a high altitude zip lining, driving a race car around a track, etc. Aftewards you experience a sense of heightened perception and appreciation.

Wow, the dairy industry must’ve paid a lot to get that spot replacing water. Milk is atrocious for diet and filled with bad fats, with little added nutritional value. At least cheeses are condensed protein and fat. Not considering that most of the world is intolerant to it.

You don’t generally have to. There’s a package or environment somewhere that lifted that restriction or force it by trying to do something else. LaTeX is 100% deterministic. Someone, you perhaps unknowingly, told it to put that text there while trying to achieve something else.

Remember that LaTeX is about setting rules then letting it arrange the text in a way that follows those rules. If you try to meddle into the typography by hand, forcing specifics that break the rules, you will break its behavior. If it is putting text over the margin, it is because it determined that is the only way to fulfill the totality of your instructions.

If you’re trying to do something on LaTeX and you find yourself wrestling with the software or writing TeX commands. Take a step back and reconsider. The reason the software is fighting you is because you are trying to make it do something it is not meant for or you’re actively asking it to do the opposite of what you stated earlier you wanted to achieve. Thus creating a contradiction of intent.

Obvious examples are using the article template to write a book, or using the book template to write a letter. It is akin to using Excel as a game engine, possible, but not easily. You’re trying to use a hammer to unscrew a bolt. Of course the tool is gonna fight you.

If you’re trying to do pixel adjustments of figure position and changing it breaks something, you missed the point of the software package and/or are doing something horribly wrong and unsupported.

Skill issue.

Depends on the country, but usually a “background check” is nothing more than paying a lawyer to check if you have ever been convicted, accused or investigated for a crime. Prosecutors have an archive and a office of records to collect and share that public information. This is why clearing records are important in courts and settlements. It’s a big mark to say the person is actually alright and won’t be found in the records if searched, as they were cleared. Other than that it is usually just a phone call to a previous employer to ask if you were an asshole there.

Yes, I also believe in invisible pink unicorns. You’ll get to see one soon, I promise.

But god forbid someone ever has to open a Linux terminal.