Washita and Other Weird Tales

My e-book, Washita and Other Weird Tales. written in 2023-2024 and published in 2024, has been added to this blog. You can find the main pa...

Showing posts with label Productivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Productivity. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

7 Signs You Have a Powerful Mind

7 Signs You Have a Powerful Mind

I found some good "signs" on Meta. I'm not sure of 100% accuracy, but they are interesting to think about.

  1. You don't argue - you just stop explaining. You've learned that silence protects your peace better than words ever will.
  2. You lost interest fast when conversations have no depth. Small talk drains you. Real connection energizes you.
  3. You sense people's intentions instantly. Your intuition picks up energies long before they speak.
  4. You're calm in situations where everyone else panics. That's emotional intelligence - not luck.
  5. You don't chase...you attract. Because you know your value, and you act like it.
  6. You can walk away from anyone, even someone you love. Strength isn't staying - it's choosing yourself.
  7. You reinvent yourself quietly. While others are posting, you're improving. while they talk, you transition.

"If these signs hit a little too hard...you’re not 'different' — you’re leveling up mentally. Most people never develop this kind of emotional strength...but if you relate to even 3 out of 7, your mind is operating on a higher frequency than you realize. Strong intuition. High standards. Zero tolerance for drama. That’s not attitude — that’s growth."

Source: Meta. Text by gosetainsights.

Monday, November 24, 2025

Roman Numerals

Roman Numerals Chart
Roman Numerals Chart

Need a fast way to discover the proper Roman numeral? Look no further. From time to time, I need this chart to calculate the proper number. I often use it when composing a table of contents. Or I'll use it to describe rare (fictional) book, i.e., "Book 20, The Mage's Chronicles."

The image belongs to exceltemplates.org.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Words Typically Not Capitalized in Titles

Words We Do Not Capitalize
Do Not Capitalize

Words that are typically not capitalized in titles, unless otherwise directed to do so. You wouldn't want to refuse the request of an editor or instructor.

A

And

As

At

But

By

Down

For

From

If

In

Into

Like

Near

Nor

Of

Off

On

Once

Onto

Or

Over

Past

So

Than

That

To

Upon

When

With

Yet

Friday, April 25, 2025

Keyboard Shortcuts 1

Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard Shortcuts

This list covers Windows 10 shortcuts. Some shortcuts may not work with Windows 11. The ones I have tested do work with 11. Sources: MSN, Internet.

Ctrl + A - Selects all content.

Ctrl + C (or Ctrl + Insert) - Copies selected items to the clipboard.

Ctrl + X - Cuts selected items to the clipboard.

Ctrl + V (or Shift + Insert) - Pastes content from the clipboard.

Ctrl + Z - Used to undo an action, including undelete files.

Ctrl + Y - Used to redo an action.

Ctrl + Shift + Esc - Opens the Task Manager.

Ctrl + Shift + N - Creates a new folder on the desktop or File Explorer.

Alt + F4 - Closes an active window. (If no active window is present, a shutdown box appears.)

Ctrl + D (Del) - Deletes a selected item to the Recycle Bin.

Shift + Delete - Deletes the selected item permanently, skipping Recycle Bin.

F2 - Renames the selected item.

Esc - Closes the current task.

Alt + Tab - Switches between open apps.

PrtScn (Print Screen) - Takes a screenshot and stores it in the clipboard.

Windows key + I - Opens the Settings app.

Windows key + E - Opens File Explorer.

Windows key + A - Opens Action center.

Windows key + D - Displays and hides the desktop.

Windows key + L - Locks the device.

Windows key + V - Opens the Clipboard bin.

Windows key + Period (.) or Semicolon (;) - Opens the emoji panel.

Windows key + PrtScn (Print Screen) - Captures a full screenshot in the "Screenshots" folder.

Windows key + Shift + S - Captures part of the screen with Snip & Sketch.

Windows key + Left arrow key - Snaps app or window left.

Windows key + Right arrow key - Snaps app or window right.

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Practical Creativity Exercises

Creativity Exercises
Creativity Exercises

  • Get familiar with AI. It's all around us!
  • Pick a random object in your home's work area (where you write) and write a story about it.
  • Subscribe to Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day.
  • Choose a random noun (or other words), such as "camel." Attempt to list other words in the category of animals that start with "c." Now choose your own word(s). How many can you discover?
  • Keep a journal of ideas, such as short story ideas. Write about four sentences about your idea(s). You'll come back to your list eventually and it'll be valuable to you.

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Audio Formats

Audio Formats:

MP3 - MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III:

Name of the type of file for MPEG, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three coding schemes (layer 1, layer 2, and layer 3) for the compression of audio signals.

Layer 3 uses perceptual audio coding and psychoacoustic compression to remove all superfluous information. It also adds an MDCT (Modified Discrete Cosine Transform) that implements a filter bank, increasing the frequency resolution 18 times higher than that of layer 2.

The result in real terms is layer 3 shrinks the original sound data from a CD (with a bit rate of 1411.2 kilobits per one second of stereo music) by a factor of 12 (down to 112-128kbps) without sacrificing sound quality.

3 - Southeast Asia, South Korea, Republic of China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Macau.

4 - Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, South America, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea and much of Oceania.

5 - India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Africa (except Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho), Central and South Asia, Mongolia, North Korea.

6 - People's Republic of China.

7 - Reserved for future use (found in use on protected screener copies of MPAA-related DVDs and "media copies" of pre-releases in Asia)

8 - International venues such as aircraft, cruise ships, etc.

ALL - Region ALL discs have all eight flags set, allowing the disc to be played in any locale on any player.

WMA - Windows Media Audio:

Short for Windows Media Audio, WMA is a Microsoft file format for encoding digital audio files similar to MP3 though can compress files at a higher rate than MP3. WMA files, which use the ".wma" file extension, can be of any size compressed to match many different connection speeds, or bandwidths.

WAV:

WAV is the format used for storing sound in files developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM. Support for WAV files was built into Windows 95 making it the de facto standard for sound on PCs. WAV sound files end with a .wav extension and can be played by nearly all Windows applications that support sound.

FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec:

Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is an audio compression codec that employs a lossless data compression algorithm. A digital audio recording compressed by FLAC can be decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data.

Audio sources encoded to FLAC are typically reduced to 50–60% of their original size.

It can handle any PCM bit resolution from 4 to 32 bits per sample, any sampling rate from 1 Hz to 655,350 Hz in 1 Hz increments, and any number of channels from 1 to 8.

Channels can be grouped in cases like stereo and 5.1 channel surround to take advantage of interchannel correlations to increase compression.

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Helpful Writing Tips

Writing Tips
Writing Tips - AI-Generated Image

Some thoughts on writing short stories:

  • If it becomes a job, write one paragraph and quit for the day.
  • Less is more.
  • Keep it simple.
  • One paragraph a day is fine.
  • Write three paragraphs a day if possible.
  • Extreme detail is not necessary.
  • Outlines are helpful. You can search the internet and find many pages to help do this.
  • Research then write.
  • Prepare the outline for one paragraph the night beforehand.
  • Learn something new every day.
  • "Me time" is a dumb phrase. But take it when you can.
  • Go somewhere relevant.
  • Remember the camera on your phone.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Windows File and Folder Attributes

These were gathered from the internet and placed here for my own use. I believe I found them all through the use of Google.com.

R = Read only

H = Hidden

S = System

C = Compressed

N = Not Indexed

L = Reparse Points

O = Offline

P = Sparse File

I = Not content indexed

T = Temporary

E = Encrypted