Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

could it be a coating on the glass that's been damaged somehow?

 

Not sure what that would look like, but it doesn't sound right? It looks like sand, and if I scrape it assiduously with a fingernail a little comes off. So I don't know what kind of cleaner or scrubbing tool would work right/ not damage the window.

 

So I don’t think cleaner can harm glass(I could be wrong but I haven’t come across it) but scrubbers definitely can. Car scrapers or aquarium scrapers are safe to use(assuming your glass isn’t hella warped). Otherwise stick to paper towels or soft clothes(no dish scrubbies). Have you tried straight vinegar? If it is at all greasy try a degreaser.

 

if it comes down to it you should be able to just scrape the gunk off with a razor blade

 

If there's gunk and you wipe it too hard with pretty much anything, it could potentially scrape the glass by dragging scratchy stuff across it. I'd try cleaning chemicals and gentle wiping first?

 

I've personally had some luck with rubbing alcohol for cleaning glass in general? Not sure about windows specifically but it seems like that'd be helpful (unless it turns out I've been doing something silly there :P).

EDIT: As for tools, seconding everyone who said not to use something too scrapey. Paper towels might be good or maybe a sponge? But you don't wanna scrape it off, because it's just too easy to fuck up the glass that way.

 

Very belatedly, I did get it off after applications of various things x3 honestly now that I'm done I'm half-wondering if it was fine paint splatters- it seems odd that I shouldn't have noticed it in the couple years I've been living here, but truly, until recently I never raised the blinds when it was dark out and my den's lights were on (making it possible to see them at all- I open the blinds when it's LIGHT out sometimes, but not when it's dark, and usually I just have some very faint light in my den instead of the main lights)

Next issue- heh, issue- I have some dozens of oldish (but in excellent shape) Game Informer magazines that I should probably let go of. Should I just heave them in a recycling bin, or do you think it's worth looking around to see if anyone would want them (and how/where to do so, if that's the case)?

 

Does anyone know how I’d go about taking a single specific class at a community college? I’m not looking for a degree or anything like that, but I want to take a screenwriting class. The local community college offers this, but I’m not sure how to go about registering for just that class and not, like, A Major or whatever. Do I just call and ask or what?

 

Probably call or email their office, yeah. It may be offered as a standalone class you can take, like my mom and I took a class at the college in the evenings.

 

Yeah, I'd call them and ask - I don't know if the procedure is different between colleges, so it's best to confirm.

 

my laptop just bluescreened for the second time in a couple days. last time it restarted pretty quickly but now it's been stuck at 0% for a few minutes. error code is UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION. it's also been running weirdly slow and freezing up all day, though not consistently.

can anyone give me some words of hope that I will not have to replace or factory reset this relatively new computer

 

...one of the two hard drives is straight up not showing up in the file browser. alright then.

edit: yeah, and the times it was freezing up earlier were only when I tried to access things stored on that drive, like my games and music... gdi

 

The affected hard drive is probably under warranty and you might even be able to get everything off it?

 

Seconding this. I’m not the most tech-savvy, but given that the laptop is, as you said, relatively new, it’s most likely still under warranty, and it’s often possible to recover data from hard drives that are acting up. As for what the issue actually IS, I’m not sure, but my personal guess is that you either unfortunately wound up with a defective unit, or you somehow acquired a computer virus—the former seems far more likely to me personally, but if you haven’t yet, I’d also suggest running a virus scan, just to make sure.

(I also might be able to ask my dad if he has any thoughts there? he’s a Computer Guy)

 

Anyone got pro tips for proper posture/setting up of PCs/monitors? See, my personal PC and monitor has always been the way it was and never caused me any pain. However, now that I'm working from home, I'm needing to scoot things around a smidge. On my personal PC front, the only change really is that the monitor's a smidge closer to me, but still arms-distance from my face which I'm told is optimal. However, as of recently- I THINK it must have to do with me doing a bit of drawing lately after a long, long dry spell, not so much the scooting around for the WFM setup- I'm getting some serious pain in the back of my neck (right below the knobby bits at the top of the spine really) and I don't know what I need to adjust to resolve it, and googling for ergonomics gives me conflicting information up the wazoo. The gist I'm getting is that you want it so that you're not moving your head a lot to look up and down the page, but it truly doesn't seem that I am? Do I need a neck brace or something to keep my head at the proper angle? x_x

It's all terribly painful and worrying. I've been playing with my monitor a bit but I don't know how to know when I have it right because my neck still hurts and I'm guessing it will for a while whether or not I have it right. I'll have to stop drawing permanently if I can't find a reliable fix :( which is all the more irritating because I used to draw a LOT for many years (different desk and PC) without pain but I don't know how to replicate those magical conditions, and I never had to work for a pain-free setup in the past!

 

I don’t have good advice, but I am a little surprised because that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of any advice suggesting moving your neck less while you’re sitting. Usually it’s more. Granted, people are usually talking about moving around more frequently in general and not sitting in a single position for too long, not about one small, highly repetitive movement presumably associated with a less than optimal distance from things.

I would actually recommend periodic gentle neck stretches. It won’t fix the problem, but it can help with how fast it builds up and how severe it is.

 

I'm not sure about the warranty, because I got it from a local surplus and salvage department store chain. it was new in box but I can't recall if any sort of warranty was involved - I'm thinking not. however I'm pretty sure it's a mechanical issue? as in, I think the physical connection between the hard drive and the rest of the computer may have gotten knocked loose somehow. a little while after I made that post, I opened file explorer and the drive was actually visible again, with all the folders inside where they should be. it disappeared again when I opened steam to see if it could find my game files, but that doesn't seem like a virus, at the very least. and there hasn't been any clicky hard drive failure noise.

I don't know if thats a thing that can even happen on a laptop but it seems worth calling a repair shop to see how much for them to open it up and look inside.

@The Mutant do you have a gamer chair? because I used to get a ton of pain in that exact spot, and it all went away when I got a gamer chair (out of the trash at the back of my apartment lol). nothing else about my setup changed, same shitty desk and posture, but the pain (at least in that spot) is just gone. I don't know the exact brand of chair off the top of my head but its not a fancy one, and I think the basic ergonomics are mostly the same across the board.

edit: oh yeah. and if you can't get one or it doesn't help, I've heard that the pain in the muscles around the knob of your spine is actually caused by extended stretching, like when you have your hands down at a keyboard or tablet for hours at a time. so you could try periodically scrunching your shoulders up or adjusting your posture to minimize the stretch in those muscles. it helped at least a bit for me.

 

Oh yeah, that definitely sounds possible to me. Thankfully I think it should be fixable? Definitely worth calling a repair shop either way.

 

I've only typed about seven hundred words of a novella I'm trying to write and I already feel burnt out. My urge is to write things with the minimum of words that are actually necessary, which'll never reach novella length. Is this something other people have trouble with?