Sent an email to UW’s maintainance… people (the door to the residence fails to close correctly, so it’s usually unlocked…)

Got this in response:

Thank you for your email. We are currently processing your maintenance request.

Please note that your email will give our Maintenance Staff authorization to enter your room.

If this is an EMERGENCY SITUATION please call the Front Desk at 519-888-4086 or Ext. 84086 and speak directly to the FDA on duty.

If you have any questions, please contact [redacted]

I don’t think that telling me after-the-fact that my email gives them permission to enter counts…

Oh, by the way, reading this post gives me permission to kick you in the balls.

Has anyone else noticed how awesome plugin management has gotten in this version?

If you want to add a new plugin, you can do it directly from the admin interface - either by uploading a Zip file; or you can directly browse the Wordpress plugin site from your admin panel and install with one click. Definitely a better way of doing things than ever before; and probably a godsend for people who aren’t comfortable with FTP.

Looks like automatic upgrade is baked-in as well now; so we don’t even have to use the separate plugin for that (although I like the multi-step nature of the plugin, and the way it forces you to make a backup in advance).

If you’ve never had a mango, check it out.

They’re ripe when they juuuuuust give in a wee bit due to pressure - not too much! If it gives too much it’ll be pulpy and stringy. You want it when the texture is just perfect - that’s a lot of why it’s so good.

As you might know, butter in the US comes in the same amount as what we commonly get here. The difference is that it comes inside a box, divided into 4 smaller sticks. This is pretty convenient when cooking (and good to remember if you come across an American recipe that calls for “one stick of butter”…).

Evidently, though, this brings along with it a lot of responsibilities and confusing questions. I mean, suddenly there’s a box - and how can you know if the box is opened or closed at any given moment? How can you open and close a box? All sorts of things.

Luckily, US butter producers have taken the responsibility to ensure that such questions can always have good answers:

Phew.

From: Bill Gates Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM To: Jim Allchin Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH) Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

Hit the source to see the rest.

This is exactly the sort of rant anyone in IT would hear from a user; and I’m glad to see that these things happen in the head office too - if you were ever wondering why a dog food policy was a good idea, this is it.

From: Jane Gilles Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.19pm To: David Thorne Subject: Overdue account

Dear David, Our records indicate that your account is overdue by the amount of $233.95. If you have already made this payment please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

From: David Thorne Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.37pm To: Jane Gilles Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane, I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.

Regards, David.

It only gets better from there. Here’s the whole exchange.

Interestingly, he later put the picture up on ebay.