The Mint Café

[ColdBootII]

ColdBootII wrote: "Though, it does boil down to weather..."

Ahhahha.. And yet they ask me why I like using English so much, never discerning that I lie to them whenever I swear by my English so(u)l(e).

[Portreve]

so(u)l(e).

I see what you did there. Don't go dragging Sol into this.

[lsemmens]

Your point being, "you have a disability, therefore, you should not try"?

She's said no such thing. I read it as 'there are things you can do, and things you'll never be able to do; try what you want to try, if you succeed that's great, if you don't then maybe it's just not in the cards'.

That was my point entirely. I have never stated that you could do EVERYTHING, but you can try even if your attempt is pitiful by "normal" standards, you, at least, had a go.

[Chrysalessence]

There are two points I did not see raised yet regarding "really wanting to" do something being a ticket to achieving it.
I think both sides of the discussion are valid, and I'd like to share what I see.

One angle is randomness. The things people really want to do are filtered, chosen somehow, for their particularities. Their choices are not random. Matching up random goals with people would not work at all, and would lead to disheartening results. So the "anything is achievable" doesn't really mean "anything". It means "the things that got through the filter".

I'm thinking about the Armless Archer in my town who holds world records in archery yet has no arms to hold a bow. He also does other things that boggle my mind, but each is chosen by him, filtered through his knowledge of himself. His parents are very "can-do" folks who encouraged him in his efforts since his infancy (with no arms). There must be something in archery that is very in tune with his abilities.

The other thing is ego. When someone chooses a goal from ego (to prove their worth, to get attention, or for validation), their intention is not aligned with inner wisdom nor divine guidance, so it may result in great efforts and crushing disappointment. Saying to someone who chose an ego-based goal, "You can get it if you try hard enough," can be gravely misleading.

[lsemmens]

The other thing is ego. When someone chooses a goal from ego (to prove their worth, to get attention, or for validation), their intention is not aligned with inner wisdom nor divine guidance, so it may result in great efforts and crushing disappointment. Saying to someone who chose an ego-based goal, "You can get it if you try hard enough," can be gravely misleading.

That is the whole point of this discussion, methinks: I think like; Have a go, you might succeed, but, if not, at least you tried! I find it most frustrating listening to people complaining about lack of (insert whatever here) when they have not even attempted to find out if it's possible. You armless archer is a good illustration. He could (rightly so, in some books) not even attempted archery, but, look where it has got him, because he "HAD A GO"!!!!!

[Moem]

Have a go, you might succeed, but, if not, at least you tried!

That part doesn't bother me. What bothers me is 'IF you try hard enough you WILL succeed', which implies '... and if you don't, you did not try hard enough'. That is simply untrue. It's also unkind. We don't all have the same possibilities.

[lsemmens]

Have a go, you might succeed, but, if not, at least you tried!

That part doesn't bother me. What bothers me is 'IF you try hard enough you WILL succeed', which implies '... and if you don't, you did not try hard enough'. That is simply untrue. It's also unkind. We don't all have the same possibilities.

Agreed.

[E1-Beard-0]

lsemmens, I just now saw this 05-Mar-20. Regrettably, my eye sight is too poor to be able to make anything out.

Not with standing, thank you very much for your reply.

Respectfully yours, E1-Beard-0

[E1-Beard-0]

Portreve,

I just now saw your reply, I'll try your suggestions.

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond.

Respectfully yours, E1-Beard-0

(I should have quoted Portreve's message so that folks aren't so confused. Big Sigh!)

[lsemmens]

Don't sweat it, E1-Beard-0. All the piccie was was to show where in the menus that "Character Map" was located. Under "Accessories" .

[E1-Beard-0]

Hello all,

I’m not at all certain that this question belongs here or not, but as it arises from The Mint Café in the Open Chat forum I’ll start here.

In this thread;
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=829

npap uses some special characters, I’m wondering if npap used a word processor as I did to add these common special characters: #, %, &.

Specifically npap used special characters in the following words among others:
goodnéss, sociále, adventúre.

My question is: Are special characters available through the forum or only by the use of a word processor and cut and paste?

Thank you and respectfully yours Massively ignorant

There's actually a very elegant, clean, and I would argue ideal solution to this.

0. Close out any programs you presently have open.

1. LM Menu -> System Settings -> Keyboard

2. Click on the "Layouts" tab at the top.



3. In the lower left corner, click the Add Layout (+) button.



4. Scroll down until you find the listing for "English (intl., with AltGR dead keys)"



5. Click Add.

6. With that layout highlighted in the list, click the up arrow button to make it the default layout. This way, you have the old one and if you don't like this new one, you can remove it and there's no harm done to your system.

This layout gives you what I like to think of as a Classic Mac OS / Mac OS X on steroids way of being able to summon accented characters and other symbols on the fly without you needing to always pull up a utility like Character Map.

Let me explain why I believe this is the best way of doing things (which, you might have noticed from the screen shots above, is how I have my own system set up) and why I think you're going to like this.

If you look at your physical keyboard, you'll see there's an Alt key on the left and one on the right of the space bar. Traditionally, the right-hand Alt key is known as the "Alt Graphics" or "AltGr" key. It's the one you'll use. The left-hand Alt key will continue to work as a standard Alt key and will not do any of what you're about to see.

For example, let's assume you wanted to type the Spanish word for year, which is "año".

You can type this now via the following way: a AltGr+n o


As another example, let's say you wish to type the German word for street, which is "Straße".

Do it like this: Shift+s t r a AltGr+s e


Last example, let's say you wish to type the French word for Christmas, which is "Noël".

Here's how: Shift+n o AltGr+" [immediately followed by] e l

When you use certain other keys, like the quote key for the umlaut, bear in mind that works for any letter which lets you add an umlaut. You can use the apostrophe key for a rightward-pointing mark, like the one over the letter e in José, or the key next to the 1 key, `, to get the à in déjà.

From within the Layouts tab of the Keybard settings panel, you can also click on the keyboard button at the lower left to bring up a keyboard layout and shortcut panel.

Portreve,

After finding the list of Keyboard layouts, I found that Xfce does not provide an "English (intl., with AltGR dead keys" option. I've been using Xfce for a long time. Some time ago, when LM 19.1 came out I did try both Cinnamon and Mate. I ended up going back to Xfce as I couldn't get Cinnamon or Mate to do some things that I wanted to do.

Thank you very much for your response, respectfully yours, E1-Beard-0

[Portreve]

Dog Days Of The COVID-19 Coronavirus
Finding Things To Do...

I work for a company which is deemed "necessary" and therefore has not shut locations down. However, they have halted inventory audits for the duration, and they've been excellent about finding us other work to do so that we don't lose hours. That said, I find myself to be one very, very bored guy, and so I've taken to doing things which are "kind of" preparatory for me to go back to my regular job, but also I need something with which to occupy my off-day downtime.

For a while, I was rocking a beard. I really liked it at first, but over time no matter what I did, it just was a hassle to maintain. Plus, it kept getting dry and itchy, even if I put conditioner on it, so I shaved it off. This meant I "needed" a new name badge.

Now, may it come as no surprise that my company is literally too cheap to have an official system for producing name badges for its employees (well, for non-store employees, anyhow; stores get a pre-printed plastic card that the store manager then has to use a Dymo hand-held label printer to print associates' names with and stick it on) and that means it's left up to us to fend for ourselves. Heaven knows what I would have done if I didn't have a professional background in desktop publishing. But, since I do, I decided it was time to shoot a new photo of myself and build a new name badge. Being the really slick feller that I am in real life, I got it color printed at my local Office Depot, then glued the fronts and backs together and then brought the trimmed-down guts back to them to laminate using 10 mil laminating material. It does a very nice job, and is a lot better than putting it into the badge holders some of us (but not all) have, which are open and allow the paper to deteriorate. Now, I have a main and a backup name badge which once again looks like me.

As a side note, one of the things I could never figure out while wearing a beard was how to take a photo where I didn't look like I had a nasty scowl on my face. Perhaps I should have gone somewhere for a professional trim and styling along the way; nevertheless, there's none of that now thanks to the present situation.

My next project is this...

As some of you may know, inventory auditors use tags which they post in every section they count. This way, anyone who needs to confirm a section was counted can easily visually do so.

I have always made my own tags. Again, this is down to the cheapness of my company and general laziness of the higher-ups to ever set up some kind of official system. They will provide you tags if you ask for them, but all that is is one of our supervisors spending a weekend hand cutting out strips of cardstock paper. Needless to say, it's unprofessional as hell, and I do try and take pride in my work. So, I have a layout I built in Scribus (yay libre software!) that I change periodically as the mood strikes me. Everyone who's seen them has complimented me. My supervisor even wanted to use the design in a more official capacity, but management above her wouldn't pop for the trivial copying and paper cutting cost, instead preferring to pay her to do it (she's salaried) which means, technically, the company is probably spending something like four or five times the amount they would have if they'd just done what I'd suggested.

Penny wise, pound foolish, my grand ol' company is.

It is also of note that the systems we use to do inventory work (auditing, ordering, supplies, etc.) is a bought-in system which we have tried to implement as cheaply as possible. It's forever causing problems, both on the network and the various manager back office computers, but also on our handhelds. Things keep crashing, there's lots of crazy lagging, etc. And, among other things, we constantly encounter the spinning hourglass on our handhelds.

My latest design of inventory auditor tags replaces what was on the bottom end of the tag with a progressively spinning hourglass. I know, I know, cool, right? Anyway, it's Straight Outta Compton Windows Mobile, and 8 bit ghetto af, which is, of course, the entire point.

Remind me never to work for another Canadian-based company. If you think Canadians are frugal (or, at least highly confused as to what to do about tipping while in the U.S.) try imagining a whole new next level of cheapness, and you've got their corporations to a T.


So... What will I work on next?

[RollyShed]

So you now need a new icon for this forum too.

Beards - I realised, while shaving one morning, before heading off to work that it wasted time. I was the first in our establishment and many others followed my example - near 50 years ago.

Name tags - we, at our Shed, use those plastic open ended clip on ones. If there is no pocket to clip to then one's collar will do but the name is now upside-down. Pull the name out and reverse it. Can't do that with a laminated fixed one. As for pictures on labels, why? Pictures on a notice board beside where the labels are kept out of hours - yes. I'm supposed to be doing that, 4 to a page printed using a donated colour laser printer.

The last comment, tipping. What is that? Why? Seems a bit daft.

[lsemmens]

I find the tipping thing in America a bit daft. If you are expected to tip, just put the prices up and pay the employees a decent wage. It's crazy that the waiter/ess gets the tip when the chef, the cleaner, and others who make the whole dining out experience enjoyable and who have put in a lot of hard work miss out.

Here, at least, a tip is only given if the service is exceptional and the patron is in a mood to do so. The staff are all well remunerated for their work and do not rely on tips to be able to eat.

[Portreve]

I find the tipping thing in America a bit daft. If you are expected to tip, just put the prices up and pay the employees a decent wage. It's crazy that the waiter/ess gets the tip when the chef, the cleaner, and others who make the whole dining out experience enjoyable and who have put in a lot of hard work miss out.

Here, at least, a tip is only given if the service is exceptional and the patron is in a mood to do so. The staff are all well remunerated for their work and do not rely on tips to be able to eat.

I have no knowledge of the history of tipping in general, nor specific to America. For the most part, servers are not hurting for money as long as they are working at a decent restaurant. Notwithstanding the present COVID-19 situation, servers working at particularly high volume or nicer restaurants (not even the most up-scale) likely make more in a year than I do.

And in the modern era, the idea is servers have an incentive through being tip earners to give really good customer service. This, of course, absolutely does mean servers are being directly subsidized by the customers.

[Portreve]

Something which sets my phone (and, since I'm the one doing it, me too,I suppose) apart from anybody else's is the highly eclectic collection of notification and ringtone sounds on it.

Just recently added:

“Give 'em a broadside, Mr. Gerald!”

“Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it.”

Roflcopter


Yes, I know: I need help.

[lsemmens]

I use Marvin The Martian as my tone set on my phone.

[Portreve]

I use Marvin The Martian as my tone set on my phone.

Complete with a Space Modulator?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I use Marvin The Martian as my tone set on my phone.

Complete with a Space Modulator?

Well, of course! How else would he be able to get an earth shattering kaboom?

[lsemmens]

I use Marvin The Martian as my tone set on my phone.

Complete with a Space Modulator?

Well, of course! How else would he be able to get an earth shattering kaboom?

And that, young lady, is my Ringtone!!! :D:D