To chineserider: Oh oops... okay, I'll give it a shot then.

Okay, system locale set to Japanese, restarted and nuh uh... still the same thing.

Unicode encodes non-English characters too, which is largely why UTF-8 is recommended over ASCII.

And, I ran chardet and file on the file and both said that the file was:
Little-endian UTF-16 Unicode English text


After spending way too much time in decoding land, I'm gonna agree with your gut that you've got the wrong font. Can you ask the person who created the doc to export it as a pdf? That would at the least be readable and font independent. Otherwise find out what font they used.

Last edited by story645 at 5:15 pm, Sep 21 2011

I will not. I don't remember reading anything by a 10 year old, but I've read a few stories by a fifteen year old (silly and amateurish as could be expected) that outclassed Eragon easily. The action is like an attempt of a kid, who has read perhaps ten books in his whole life, to describe a fight scene in a video game on paper. No one writes well on their first try, so it's understandable that Paolini wrote a crappy story. What is not understandable why the book was published (unless they predicted that crappy stories make money). Rejecting the manuscript and giving harsh criticism would have been good to Paolini also.

If you liked it, well, good for you (or maybe not).

________________
Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

Paolini self-published first and made enough money that way for a real publishing house to take interest.

Well, I was 10 years old(or so) myself when I read Eragon, so maybe it was really bad and I couldn't tell, I will pick it up later and judge it...Even though the book I have here is in portuguese and brazilian translators like killing the author's writing style, which can be a good thing in some cases.

Thanks guys for all the replies!~

@Sagaris
Lol, I wish I could do that. But I'm far too shy to try using something as casual like 'Prof' with my teachers. xP;;

@mattai
Hmm.... Then what do you do usually do when it's a female teacher?

@Toto
Haha, that's what I normally do in class too. However, when it come down to writing emails, I normally end up using 'Professor [name]'... But it's just always felt so awkward to me. >_<;;

@story645
You're a professor, story? O__O That's really cool!
Is there a way you usually prefer to be called at school?

@Klapzi
Thanks for such a through list, it's really given me some food for thought. But what do you usually do when you have to contact them over email?

________________

Well, if it's an English or a political science professor, you could open an email with, "O Captain! My Captain!"



Anyways, for emails... I verge on pedantism. So, I'd suggest, if you have never spoken with the professor in person, you use Professor [Full Name Here]. If you have spoken with them and he/she does not seem the rigid type, you can use Mr./Ms. [Last Name Here]. The only times this will not work is if the professor you are dealing with requires you to address them as Doctor [whatshisface]... or the like; in that case, you're kinda screwed.

Just remember that the first email is a throw-away, as long as you write in complete sentences... avoiding grammatical errors and slang. So, when you write subsequent letters, you can cheat and use whatever the professor ends his/her reply with.

________________
"Officially, this machine doesn't exist, you didn't get it from me,
and I don't know you. Make sure it doesn't leave the building."

The safest way in which to write emails to your professor is:

Dear [title] [last name],

[Polite, grammatically correct sentences, which don't start with "I" and don't contain contractions]

Yours sincerely,

[your full name]


If you don't know how you should address your professor in speech, it's probably best to ask how they would like to be addressed as preferences may vary.

________________

Oh, and don't forget to write which class you are in...
ex/ CatzCradle
Bio 271 MW 9:00

________________
"Officially, this machine doesn't exist, you didn't get it from me,
and I don't know you. Make sure it doesn't leave the building."

This.
Send a polite email and see the way he treats you then treat him correspondingly. Professors aren't all alike, so I think they will be happy to not be treated like they were.

Last year I had a literature professor who liked telling dirty jokes, slangs, smartassed answers etc.
Once I had to e-mail him about a test...I tried using polite words, searched twice for gramatical errors, and added the "Yours sincerely + full name". He used half of his reply to mock my email.
So in my Re:Re I just wrote

Fuck you

Yours sicerely,

Edit: One of the things he said in his email was that mine didn't have a "Greeting" so I made sure to not use one.


Next day he entered the classroom laughing.
I miss him, my new literature teacher is an extremely serious guy. He would have liked my email.

Your literature professor was being extremely rude
That kind of behaviour would be completely unacceptable at my university; if his higher-ups saw that behaviour, I'm sure he'd very quickly be out of a job here.

At my university we're expected to write our emails in the style of a formal letter; in fact, we're being specifically instructed to do so.
It's pretty much a given here to address those who have been promoted to professor as such and those who hold a PhD as Doctor; those who have drs. as a title are addressed as Ms/Mr in speech and by their title in writing.

________________

just writing it for future reference to other ppl...

lol reminds me of 2 of my fav teachers from high school XD
the bible teacher used to boast about his S&M club marathons and "hit" people with their notebooks if we werent paying attention without a great reason (a great reason was sleeping or great emotional distress) he was cool tho, and his was one of the classes i actually passed at the end of the year.
we bought him a whip as a present, and then he dropped the notebooks for the whip XD

the other teacher was my cinema class instructor, who seriously pissed me off all the time by either serenading me my full name or aiming filming equipment at my friends head during a test like you'd aim a golf club.

i got back at him by reminding him his age, and torturing him in my scripts got all A's in his class, and he kept standing up for me against other teachers, and praising me during class

the first teacher was reported and had to tone it down a bit, the second made sure to step less on my toes.
so you could have tried to report your professor, or just make it personal and kill him in some creative ways in your assignments.
i used a tiny car running him over, a herd of sheep running him over.. etc' etc'

________________
the best security guard, EVER.

Nope, I'm a grad student/adjunct-but I teach at my school. I prefer being addressed by my first name, so I introduce myself that way the first day of class.


At my school, the only people who get addressed as doctor by convention are medical doctors and maybe clinical psychologists. Everyone else tends to be called professor or by their name.


I think the policies are random. At my school it'd warrant a sexual-harassment, but I'm not sure he'd get anything more than a warning (if that).


Last edited by story645 at 6:17 pm, Sep 24 2011

I've never had a female professor.

I've had non-professor instructor of both genders, but they're generally more lax about what they're called.

________________
"It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

Are you an undergraduate or a graduate? As an undergraduate, I think it's professional to call them "Professor" or "Doctor" (supposedly "professor" is a higher title/ranking than "doctor"... since lecturers -- people who have only PhDs but do not participate in research are called "doctor" based on what my grad student TA said).

If you're close to a professor (work or research), then if they say that you can call them by their first name, kudos to you! They like you.

Oh... as for discussion leaders / TAs / lab assistants (who are grad students) -- just call them by their first name. They're awesome.