In brief: In today’s post we discuss the fire risk for Houston posed by the influx of drier air today and Friday in Houston. A weak front will lead to modestly drier air and cooler nights this weekend, and a continued pattern of late-summer weather next week.

A backdoor front arrives

A modest pattern change will set the tone for Houston’s weather for at least the next week. A modest front bringing drier air from the northeast, along with expanding high pressure, will drive dewpoints lower and lead to slightly cooler days and nights. This weekend will see the driest air, but even into next week we are going to see less humidity than Houston has experienced the past several days. Rain chances are basically zero for at least the next seven days. The drier air will come with the increased potential for wildfires, especially on Thursday and Friday as winds from the northeast pick up.

Thursday

Winds have already started to increase from the northeast this morning, and will gust up to 20 mph today. Accordingly, we should see a slow influx of drier air over the next 24 hours or so. Houston will see sunny skies today, and highs generally in the lower 90s. For much of the area, appreciably drier air is unlikely before later tonight, when lows should drop into the upper 60s for most locations.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

These three days will be similar, with highs around 90 degrees, and most of the region experiencing lows in the 60s (urban Houston and coastal areas in the upper 60s, with cooler conditions further inland), and sunny skies. Humidity looks to be lowest on Friday, but moderately drier air will hang around through the weekend.

Next week

With high pressure in place, most of next week will continue to bring sunny skies, with highs around 90 degrees, and nighttime lows in the vicinity of 70 degrees. Humidity will be present, but not at summertime levels. We continue to see some evidence for some kind of front by next weekend, but how strong, and whether it brings meaningful rain, is impossible to say.

Cards Against Humanity, the often-vulgar card game, has launched a limited edition of its namesake product without any instructions and with a detailed explanation of each joke, "why it’s funny, and any relevant social, political, or historical context."

Why? Because, produced in this form, "Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke" is not a game at all, which would be subject to tariffs as the cards are produced overseas. Instead, the product is "information material" and thus not sanctionable under the law Trump has been using—and CAH says it has obtained a ruling to this effect from Customs and Border Patrol.

"What if DHS Secretary and Dog Murderer Kristi Noem gets mad and decides that Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke is not informational material?" the company asks in an FAQ about the new edition. (If you don't follow US politics, Noem really did kill her dog Cricket.) Answer: "She can fuck right off, because we got a binding ruling from Trump’s own government that confirms this product is informational and 100% exempt from his stupid tariffs."

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Art by Matt Smith

Now, evuhryone knows that the Vikings were some sehriously hahdco’ah fuckin’ fightahs. ’Cept most’ah ’em actually didn’t go a-viking as they just stayed there in their frigid fuckin’ homelands fahmin’ n’ fishin’ n’ shit. But those that did go a-viking, they were some hahdco’ah fuckin’ fightahs… when they weren’t too busy tradin’ tah be supah fuckin’ violent that is. I guess accumulatin’ material wealth has always been a top human priahrity regahdless’ah race, gender, creed, ah innate inclination towahds extreme violence.

But anyway, the point is, when they fought, the Vikings fought hahd! N’ some’ah the ones that got the most famous fahr fightin’ the fuckin’ hahdest were the Varangians who fought in Constantinople befoh r’it turned intah a Turkish caliphate ah whatevah. Back in those days, it was really just East Rome, n’ its empehrahs always needed guys tah protect ’em from assassins n’ shit, n’ the Varangians were really good at that which is why they got known as the Varangian Guard since they guahrded the empehrah.

The Varangians ’emselves, though, they were basic’ly just specialized viking warriahs, n’ since East Rome was in the east, it meant the Varangians were mainly Swedes n’ Rus as opposed tah Danes ah Norwegians who were mostly preoccupied with fuckin’ shit up ovah r’in England n’ France. The Rus bein’ the Swedes that took over lahge pahts’ah Eastern Europe n’ founded Russia, of course.

Anyway, these Swedish Rus guys had already attacked East Rome a few times stahtin’ in the 800s; it’s just the sohrt’ah thing they did even if they didn’t make the huge waves their buddies were makin’ ovah r’in western Europe. But then Swedish Russia¹ ended up havin’ a fuckin’ dynastic conflict in the late 900s, n’ the winnah was this guy, Vladimir,² who had fled tah actual Sweden. But then he returned to Swedish Russia n’ was like, “Look at the 6000 fuckin’ Swedish wahrriahs I got with me! Now I’m gonnah kill my brothah r’n conque’ah the fuckin’ place n’ be the king’ah Kiev.”

Which is weird but Kiev was basic’ly the capital’ah Swedish Russia at the time since Moscow was just a crappy, little backwatah village. The only othah majah city in Swedish Russia was Novgorod. It’s kindah fuckin’ messy tah be honest, with all the changes’ah bohrdahs n’ vahrious stages’ah fohrmation n’ detehrioration’ah nations n’ all that happened in the last one thousand years, not tah mention the fact that the Swedish Rus eventually became totally assimilated n’ Slavicized, which was already happenin’ with Vladimir since he even had a Slavic rathah r‘en a Nohrdic name. But the point I really wannah fuckin’ stress hee’ah r’is that Russia as we know it today basic’ly stahted out as a Swedish colony.

Anyway, the word “Varangian” is probably an Old Norse refrence tah takin’ an oath, which makes sense since Vladimir’s six thousand Swedish fightahs all swo’ah r’oaths tah him. But now these guys ahr gettin’ boah’d sittin’ ’round Kiev. They’re all like, “I didn’t come all the way out hee’ah tah twiddle my thumbs n’ not kill nobody!”

I mean shit, they’re seriously getting antsy now. Fohrtunately, Vladimir’s been wheelin’ n’ dealin’ with the East Roman empehrah³ n’ he arranges this deal where he gets to mahrry the empehrah’s sistah r’in exchange fahr sendin’ his Varangians tah Constantinople tah help put down a rebellion.

N’ when the proceedin’ acts’ah ultra violence die down, the empehrah decides he really likes these Varangians so he retains ’em as his own pehrsonal body guard n’ he gives ’em special privileges. He’s kindah like a devoted readah r’ah trashy romance ah romantasy novels, tah be honest. He just loves being surrounded by tall, handsome hunks who ahr supah well-dressed in silken gahrments n’ also ahrmed tah the teeth with huge fuckin’ axes n’ shit but who can’t vehrbally communicate.

N’ so Swedes n’ Rus guys continue tah go tah Constantinople tah join the Varangian Guard fahr centuhries since it was a clee’ah fuckin’ ticket tah wealth n’ fame. N’ people from othah countries got in on it, too, the most famous bein’ Harald Hardrada who was an exiled Nahwegian king. He’s the guy who took his crown back aftahwahds but then went n’ got himself killed at Stamford Bridge in 1066, pretty much decimatin’ the English ahrmy just a few weeks priah tah the bastahd William’ah Normandy showin’ up n’ conquah’rin’ the whole fuckin’ place. N’ when that happened, lots’ah English fighters went n’ joined the Varangian Guard, too.

The whole arrangement wohrked out pretty good till ‘bout 1204 when the French n’ Italians went n’ sacked the shit outtah Constantinople.

¹ This medieval polity is usually referred to as Kievan Rus, not Swedish Russia.

² This is the Vladimir who eventually became known as Vladimir the Great. In addition to his role in helping found the famous Varangian Guard, Vladimir’s other major life accomplishments included consolidating control over Kievan Rus and converting the country to Christianity. Prior to his own personal conversion, Vladimir had been an adherent of Perun, the Slavic Thor.

³ The East Roman, or Byzantine, Emperor at this time was Basil II. As part of the marriage deal between Vladimir and Basil II’s sister, Anna, Vladimir was required to convert to Christianity, which he clearly regarded as a small price to pay for an alliance with the most powerful empire on earth at the time.

SKÁL!

Children of Tax and Tea is a special edition full-color, illustrated, hardback, humorous history book about the Vikings written in the charmingly profane tone of a foul-mouthed Bostonian. The book stems from McSweeney’s longest-running humor column, “Norse History for Bostonians,” written by Rowdy Geirsson since 2010 and illustrated by Matt Smith since 2017.

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney held a press conference today to announce a renaming of the “Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”, the document that enshrined our foundational set of rights in national law, to the more accurate “Canadian Charter of Optional Ideas”. Said Carney, “What was once called ‘the most fundamental law of […]

The post PM Carney announces Charter of Rights to be renamed Charter of Optional Ideas appeared first on The Beaverton.

Six years from now, almost to the day, the blushing bride Carlie Beams and joyful groom Drew Jones will be fighting to the death for sole custody over a cat.

The post Carlie Beams and Drew Jones appeared first on The Onion.

mst3kgifs:

How come you’re so old, dad? Did you have me when you were like 60 or something?

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. When your coworker is your Uber driver

This happened to a coworker, not me, but now I’m paranoid it will. She told me that over the weekend she and her roommate got in an Uber to get to a bar, and the driver was our other coworker. I have nothing against side hustles/second jobs (I work one myself, as a bartender at a theater), but of all the people we work with (we’re standard office workers at a large employer in our city) I would not have expected this specific person to take up Uber driving for extra cash.

So, WWYD? My coworker said she was pretty silent the entire time but did acknowledge/greet our coworker/driver. I wouldn’t know how to act, especially if I was coming home after a night out and not sober, or with a date, or just having a bad day.

This doesn’t need to be a big deal! You’d treat the coworker like you would if the driver were anyone else you knew — meaning, greet them warmly, ask how they’re doing, and, if you’re up to it, make pleasant conversation during the drive. It’s no different than your own second job, or than if you ran into them on, say, a subway. I know the power dynamics might feel a little weird — you are now paying them to provide you with a service — but treat it like you would any other unexpected public encounter with someone you know from work, and it doesn’t need to be awkward at all.

If you weren’t in a frame of mind where you could easily carry on a warm conversation (whether from a bad day or whatever else), you could say, “I hope you don’t mind, I’m exhausted and was planning to just rest my eyes during the drive.” That’s probably a good strategy if you aren’t sober as well, to avoid lowered inhibitions leading you to say anything you normally wouldn’t.

2. My colleague has hives because of the stress of our jobs

I work in an industry that doesn’t seem stressful from the outside (arts and heritage) but, due to under-staffing, lack of clear exhibition schedules/timelines, and poorly defined job scopes, is really stressful. I have considered leaving multiple times, but the industry is small and it would be hard to get a similar job elsewhere.

Recently I found out that one of my colleagues has had full body hives for over a year. She told me and another colleague over lunch when we were talking about stress at work, and she said that her doctor has advised her to take a sabbatical. In the meantime she is taking antihistamines daily. However, she does not feel like she can take a sabbatical because we have ongoing projects that will only be completed in another year.

I was shocked to hear that and urged her to take a sabbatical. I lead one of the teams she is on and know that we could distribute her work while she is recovering. However, she said she doesn’t feel like she could.

A couple of days after that, I discovered that an ex-colleague also had full body hives from the stress of working our job. She has since left and the hives have gone.

I feel very concerned for the colleague who is currently experiencing hives. Is this something I should report to our manager? Or would that be a betrayal of her confidence?

Nope, don’t share it with your manager; this is your colleague’s private medical information and how she manages it is up to her. You can certainly raise concerns about stress and unsustainable workloads, and you can encourage your coworker to take time off/brainstorm with her about how to make that happen, but your coworker’s hives (two coworker’s hives, in fact — !!) are not yours to share.

3. Changing clothes in a non-locking office

I recently got my very own office — yay! It has no windows and is completely private, though it doesn’t lock. Is it unprofessional to change clothes in the office, rather than in the bathroom or a downstairs locker room? The office doesn’t have a culture of barging in without knocking, and people mostly leave each other alone unless the door is open.

I wouldn’t change clothes in a non-locking office unless you put a sign on the door saying “please knock.” Even if the culture of your office is not to enter without knocking, it’s still possible that someone might one day — they shouldn’t! but they could — and it’s just far better for everyone (you and them) not to have to deal with stages of undress at work.

4. Will my random email address hurt me in my job search?

I am new to searching for professional jobs. I have a random email address that I used for applying to colleges and scholarships, like 753rlaf61@gmail.com. Also, the name associated with it (my name, but not including my last name) shows up in an inbox as all lowercase. Will this random email be a mark against me as I apply for professional jobs? My name is too common for me to get myname@gmail.com, but I could get an email like myname[random numbers]@gmail.com. Would this make any difference at all when I am applying for jobs? If it would make a difference, is there a format or a few formats for the email address that you would recommend?

It won’t make any difference. If you wanted to look absolutely as polished as possible, you’d get an address more like name[random numbers]@ and also capitalize your name in the “from” field correctly, but no one is going to reject you for not having that, or even think much about it (if at all).

5. Should I mention performance ratings in my resume?

I work at a FAANG company known for being pretty tough/competitive in its performance ratings. Would getting the maximum rating multiple times be something worth mentioning in either a resume, a cover letter, or an interview?

When I interview people, I often have to probe pretty hard to get to what constitutes exceeding expectations at their company versus just doing one’s job, or whether someone was actually driving innovation versus riding along with their team, or whether their cool project actually met a business need. A high performance rating seems like convenient shorthand for “I accomplished things and my employers considered them valuable and my role in them important,” but I can’t recall anyone I’ve interviewed bringing up high performance ratings (as opposed to, say, actual awards), and I’m coming up on having interviewed 100 candidates at this company, so I’m wondering if it’s gauche.

It’s not gauche. Resumes can include things like, “Achieved highest company rating on annual performance evaluation all six years.” If you can quantify that, even better: “Achieved highest company rating on annual performance evaluation — awarded only to top 5% of employees — in all six years.” Even if you can’t quantify it like that, though, it’s still worth including; your interviewer can probe about how rigorously the company operated if they want to.

You just have to make sure to word it in a way that doesn’t inadvertently signal the opposite of what you intend to accomplish. Like if you were there six years, you wouldn’t want to say, “Achieved highest company rating on annual performance evaluation in 2022.” You want it to sound really superlative.

The post my coworker was my Uber driver, changing clothes in a non-locking office, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

The state, home to Netflix and Hulu, has declared volume on adverts cannot be louder than the content people are watching.

Leaders of the effort say they moved to rural Hood County for its quiet country charm, which was shattered by what locals call “that roar” from the facility.

Today's links

• California bans algorithmic price-fixing: Bye-bye, Realpage.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Android can't stop phoning home; FBI wants its bug back; Bikram can't copyright yoga; Prison debaters trounce Harvard.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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California bans algorithmic price-fixing (permalink)

As the Marxist pamphleteer Adam Smith wrote in his Leninist textbook The Wealth of Nations, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

For a commie, that Adam Smith sure had a fine grasp of the business mindset. Price-fixing conspiracies are as old as the lumber barons who gouged Noah, and they're illegal as hell.

But price-gougers gonna gouge, and for most of the past 40 years, regulators have been monumentally disinterested in protecting the public from these ripoffs. All our regulators asked of the price-gougers was that they come up with the thinnest, least-convincing comb-over and in return, these regulators would pretend not to notice the glaring bald-spot shining through.

The one weird trick that these guys have hit upon is to use industry-wide "pricing consultancies" – clearinghouses that pretend to offer individualized price advice to each seller in a market. In reality what these companies do is aggregate all the prices charged by every major seller in the market, then advise all of them to raise their prices in sync:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/

When we talk about "greedflation," we don't just mean one seller – a major grocery chain, say – raising prices because they know they've got a regional lock on their market. That happens, but far more pernicious is when all the sellers get together to raise the price of goods, via a brokerage that lets them pretend (unconvincingly) that they're just getting "price advice."

Take Agri-Stats, a conspiracy in plain sight that gathers in pricing from all the major meat processors and then tells them all to jack up the price of meat:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

Then there's Realpage, a conspiracy that gathers rental prices from all the landlords in your town and "advises" them all to jack up prices. Landlords who don't obey this "advice" get kicked out of the conspiracy:

https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating

These "price consultancies" are the reason you can't afford a hamburger or your apartment anymore. During the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission was working towards a nationwide ban on this stuff:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

Of course, after Trump took office, his FTC canceled all that work and instead set up a snitch line where FTC employees could report on each other for being "woke." And, you know, fair: making sure that no one who works for the federal government has a pronoun is far more important than making sure you can afford to eat dinner and sleep indoors.

But (as the saying goes) the states are the laboratories of democracy. State legislatures are (sometimes) stepping in to fill the voids where Trump has failed the American people. That's what's just happened in California, the world's fourth largest economy, where Governor Newsom has just signed AB325 into law, and banned these price consultancies:

https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB325/id/3269757

Specifically, the law makes it "unlawful for a person to use or distribute a common pricing algorithm if the person coerces another person to set or adopt a recommended price or commercial term recommended by the common pricing algorithm for the same or similar products or services."

As Matt Stoller writes, this may seem like small potatoes, but it's actually a huge ideological victory, and marks a major new milestone in the long fight to slay the political ideology that welcomes oligarchy:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-to-overturn-an-oligarchy

Stoller recounts the history of this pro-oligarch movement, and describes how it began by rejecting earlier Supreme Court decisions that banned price coercion – like when a cartel forces its members to adopt higher prices. The Chicago School – the faction of economists who took over the world in the Reagan years – rejected any kind of politics that took account of the role that power played in the economy. They insisted that if workers accepted a starvation wage, it was because they had a "revealed preference" for going hungry – and not because they needed a union to force their bosses to pay them enough to live on.

The Chicago School replaced this kind of power-centric analysis with something they called "efficiency":

If you were coerced by a dominant supplier, but an economist showed there was no loss of output, then that was just vigorous competition. Gradually, the notion that the antitrust laws protect business from economic violence fell away. The result is an economy of coercion machines, from Amazon to pharmacy benefit managers to RealPage.

The mere existence of a law – in 2025, nearly half a century into the neoliberal era – that mentions "coercion" marks a profoud shift in ideology, a recovery of the idea that we are always under threat of "a conspiracy against the public…some contrivance to raise prices."

In a way, this just proves how right Trump is: the American way of life really is under threat from the radical Marxist ideology…of Adam Smith.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Chat control in Europe, an open letter to the Irish Minister who wants to scan all our messages https://crookedtimber.org/2025/10/07/chat-control-in-europe-an-open-letter-to-the-irish-minister-who-wants-to-scan-all-our-messages/

• Canadaland’s Artificial Intelligence Policy https://www.canadaland.com/canadalands-artificial-intelligence-policy/

• A cartoonist's review of AI art https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

• Folk Tech https://folktechnology.org/

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Object permanence (permalink)

#15yrsago Student finds GPS bug on car, uploads photo, FBI demands to have their warrantless bug back https://web.archive.org/web/20101009211920/https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/

#15yrsago THE UNIDENTIFIED: dystopian YA about education transformed into a giant, heavily sponsored game https://memex.craphound.com/2010/10/08/the-unidentified-dystopian-ya-about-education-transformed-into-a-giant-heavily-sponsored-game/

#10yrsago Court tells millionaire yoga troll Bikram Choudhury that poses can’t be copyrighted https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/10/08/13-55763.pdf

#10yrsago Jimmy Wales calls UK’s proposed crypto ban “moronic” https://web.archive.org/web/20151009011752/https://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/e-regulation/jimmy-wales-wikipedia-encryption-178365

#10yrsago Prisoners’ debate team trounces national champs from Harvard – Cory Doctorow's MEMEX https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/07/harvards-prestigious-debate-team-loses-to-new-york-prison-inmates

#5yrsago Good Intentions, Bad Inventions https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/08/hype-beast/#moral-panics

#1yrago Google's new phones can't stop phoning home https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• NYC: Enshittification with Lina Khan (Brooklyn Public Library), Oct 9
  https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/cory-doctorow-discusses-central-library-dweck-20251009-0700pm

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

• New Orleans: Enshittification at Octavia Books, Oct 12
  https://www.octaviabooks.com/event/enshittification-cory-doctorow

• Chicago: How Platforms Die with Rick Perlstein (University Club), Oct 14
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-platforms-die-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1747916117159

• Los Angeles: Enshittification with David Dayen (Diesel), Oct 16
  https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-16/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• San Francisco: Enshittification at Public Works with Jenny Odell (The Booksmith), Oct 20
  https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25

• PDX: Enshittification at Powell's, Oct 21
  https://www.powells.com/events/cory-doctorow-10-21-25

• Seattle: Enshittification and the Rot Economy, with Ed Zitron (Clarion West), Oct 22
  https://www.clarionwest.org/event/2025-deep-dives-cory-doctorow/

• Vancouver: Enshittification with David Moscrop (Vancouver Writers Festival), Oct 23
  https://www.showpass.com/2025-festival-39/

• Montreal: Montreal Attention Forum keynote, Oct 24
  https://www.attentionconferences.com/conferences/2025-forum

• Montreal: Enshittification at Librarie Drawn and Quarterly, Oct 24
  https://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/events/3757420251024

• Ottawa: Enshittification (Ottawa Writers Festival), Oct 25
  https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/enshittification

• Toronto: Enshittification with Dan Werb (Type Books), Oct 27
  https://www.instagram.com/p/DO81_1VDngu/?img_index=1

• Barcelona: Conferencia EUROPEA 4D (Virtual), Oct 28
  https://4d.cat/es/conferencia/

• Miami: Enshittification at Books & Books, Nov 5
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1504647263469

• Miami: Cloudfest, Nov 6
  https://www.cloudfest.com/usa/

• Burbank: Burbank Book Festival, Nov 8
  https://www.burbankbookfestival.com/

• Lisbon: A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet, with Rabble (Web Summit), Nov 12
  https://websummit.com/sessions/lis25/92f47bc9-ca60-4997-bef3-006735b1f9c5/a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet/

• Cardiff: Hay Festival After Hours, Nov 13
  https://www.hayfestival.com/c-203-hay-festival-after-hours.aspx

• London: Enshittification with Sarah Wynn-Williams and Chris Morris, Nov 15
  https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/cory-doctorow-with-sarah-wynn-williams

• Seattle: Neuroscience, AI and Society (University of Washington), Dec 4
  https://compneuro.washington.edu/news-and-events/neuroscience-ai-and-society/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enshittification (Everyday Anarchism)
  https://www.everydayanarchism.com/168-enshittification-cory-doctorow/

• The Trouble with Tech Companies (and Their Strategies) (Ideadcast)
  https://hbr.org/podcast/2025/10/the-trouble-with-tech-companies-and-their-strategies

• Enshittification (The Honest Broker)
  https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-honest-broker-launches-an-interview

• Enshittification (The.Ink)
  https://the.ink/p/watch-cory-doctorow-on-why-everything

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

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ISSN: 3066-764X

#Kento #RoninWarriors

Three of them. That's three times more than usual!

Other stuff:
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Have you ever noticed that I've never done that whole influencer thing? Well, except maybe this one time? If you think socks for charity counts. Anyway, that's all thanks to people like you! Viewer support through Patreon keeps this channel independent and possible. If you'd like to join the amazing folks who fund my work, check out the link below. Thank you!
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A free browser-based WordArt generator that’s actually pretty good

Added by @adam in Arts & Design › Typography.

bramblepatch:

My RSS aggregator sent me an email announcing they were rolling out AI features for premium users. Who asked for that. That’s not your job. Your job is to be a bastion of Web 1.0 functionality. No one who knows what RSS is wants AI summaries.

5-Day Uncertainty Track last updated Wed, 08 Oct 2025 17:43:18 GMT


Wind Speed Probabilities last updated Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:22:20 GMT

Late last month Parton postponed her first Las Vegas residency in 32 years, citing “health challenges.”

A reader writes:

I work at a government agency (not in the U.S.) and it’s a good job. It’s a relaxed environment that definitely puts people’s safety and well-being first.

However, and I never thought I’d be saying this, I think it might be too much of a good thing.

People spend all day chewing on their fingernails and then touching everything (we are moving to a hot-desk only workspace).

We’ve got a few people who are constantly coughing or throat-clearing, and typing/clicking so forcefully that the desk shakes.

The person who sits near me arrives late almost everyday, having come from the gym, and simply changes into work clothes without showering, then spends half an hour eating breakfast, before leaving half an hour early.

I even have a coworker who constantly has their hands down their pants and pulling at their crotch. Even while presenting at a meeting, the hands are down the pants. Another coworker is not as bad, but similarly is constantly adjusting their underwear.

If I wear a blazer and jeans to work, I get comments asking if I’m going to court or to a job interview. I work in a typical office, and I don’t care what people wear, but the constant questions and comments on my clothing is starting to irritate me. I don’t want to wear sweatpants and a hoodie to work!

Is this lack of professionalism ridiculous? Or do I just need to buckle up, bring some sanitizing spray, and carry on? Are all workplaces like this?

It’s like a daycare in here. I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack from the non-stop noise and concerns about germs.

No, all workplaces aren’t like this.

But this seems like a mix of some genuinely gross stuff along with much more mundane stuff.

Genuinely gross and not typical: the hands down the pants (?!),  touching everything after having their fingers in their mouths, and coming into the office sweaty and unshowered. (And how has their manager not addressed, at a minimum, the person presenting with their hands down their pants? What kind of presentations are these? But since they haven’t, you have standing to ask their manager to deal with it.)

More mundane: the coughing and throat-clearing, loud typing, and casual dress. The coughing and throat-clearing is just part of working around other humans. It can be annoying and distracting, but it’s pretty par for the course. Same for the loud typing. And the casual dress isn’t remarkable if your office allows it, which it seems like it does. (And there are offices where wearing a blazer, even with jeans, would stand out as dressier than the norm. If you do it regularly, people will probably come to see it as your style and not remark on it, but it’s still possible it could be out of sync with your particular office’s conventions.)

But isn’t the hot-desking a blessing in disguise, in that you can move further away from the sweaty gym-goers, the coughers, and the, uh, self-caressers? Carry a supply of disinfectant wipes, clean off whatever space you’re working from that day, and try to keep maximum distance between yourself and the worst offenders.

The post are all workplaces full of loud, germy, sweaty coworkers? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

“[Editor-in-chief of CBS News] Bari Weiss told network staffers in a morning editorial call that she wants to ‘win’ before delivering a rallying cry. ‘Let’s do the f***ing news,’ she declared.” — The Independent

TO: NEWSROOM
FROM: ANIMAL, NEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
SUBJECT: ANIMAL BALANCE NEWS

NEWS TEAM,

ANIMAL WRITE LETTER. CORPORATE ASK FOR CALM HR MEMO. ANIMAL DROP TRUTH BOMB. NEWS WEAK. NEWS SHIVER IN FEAR. TOO MUCH THINK. TOO MUCH WOKE. NEWS NEED DRUM SMASH TO FACE. ANIMAL SEE THIS. ANIMAL FEEL THIS.

WE MAKE NEWS LOUDER. IF STORY GOOD ON ONE SIDE, SHOW OTHER SIDE TOO. OTHER SIDE WRONG? OTHER SIDE WANT BLEACH IN VEINS? ANIMAL RUN BOTH. REPORT BOTH SIDES. EVEN WHEN ONE SIDE THINK HEAD MEDS MAKE QUIET BABIES.

AAAGGGHHH!

EDITORIAL EXAMPLES

STORY: CONGRESS FIGHTING

OLD WAY: PANEL TALK, PUNDITS DISAGREE. BOOORING.

ANIMAL WAY: GIVE PANEL CYMBAL HATS. HIT CYMBAL FOR EVERY LIE. HIT CYMBAL WHEN PERSON SAY TRUTH. BOTH SIDES HEARD. IF PANEL TOO POLITE, RELEASE RABID HOUNDS. AUDIENCE GLUED TO PHONES FOR TIKTOK REACTS. HOUND STORY TRENDING. PANEL MAIMED BUT RELEVANT. PROBLEM SOLVED.

STORY: BILLIONAIRE GO TO SPACE

OLD WAY: COUNTDOWN, CELEBS WITH BOTOX, FACES DEFY GRAVITY.

ANIMAL WAY: STRAP BILLIONAIRE TO SNARE DRUM. HIT SNARE UNTIL ORBIT ACHIEVED. ASK, “HOW FEEL TO LEAVE EARTH YOU RUIN?” BILLIONAIRE CRY, FLOAT FOREVER. “BOTH SIDES,” ANIMAL SAY, “EARTH AND VOID.” ANIMAL ALSO CRY BUT STAY ON GROUND. BOTH SIDES OF HUMANITY. BEAUTIFUL. RIMSHOT.

STORY: CLIMATE HOTTER

OLD WAY: GRAPHICS, CHARTS, AL GORE. ANIMAL SNOOZE JUST THINKING ABOUT IT.

ANIMAL WAY: SEAL WINDOWS. LOCK DOORS. LIGHT DRUM KIT ON FIRE. SCREAM “CLIMATE HOT!” THEN INTERVIEW FACEBOOK MAN WHO SAY, “NO, CLIMATE COLD; DRINK ICE WATER TO PREVENT SUNBURN.” VIEWERS CONFUSED BUT ENGAGED AND CLICKING, CLICKING, ALWAYS CLICKING. AD REVENUE UP. ICE CAPS DOWN. BALANCE!

STORY: ORANGE MAN LIE AGAIN

OLD WAY: “CRITICS SAY STATEMENT MAY BE MISLEADING.”

ANIMAL WAY: HIT KICK DRUM, YELL “LIE!” HIT TAMBOURINE, WHISPER “but other side lie too” IN SOFTEST MIKE JOHNSON VOICE. THROW DRUM KIT THROUGH WINDOW. WATCH COUNTRY BURN. START OVER!

REMEMBER: WE NOT BREAK NEWS. WE POUND NEWS LIKE BONGOS UNTIL NEWS BREAK ITSELF.

AND ANIMAL KNOW, SOME SAY ANIMAL TOO LOUD. SOME SAY ANIMAL GIANT HACK. SOME SAY ANIMAL CANNOT READ. ANIMAL SAY: “CORRECT." BUT ALSO: "ANIMAL HAS THOSE LARRY ELLISON DOLLARS. YOU IN ANIMAL’S WORLD NOW.”

SO, IN CONCLUSION, AAAAGGGHHHH!

RESPECTFULLY YOURS,
ANIMAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

EDMONTON – After meeting with Mark Carney to discuss pipeline construction, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has vowed to hold her breath until the Prime Minister gives her absolutely everything she asked for during negotiations. “Is Carney watching? Are you sure? Okay, here I go,” Smith said, before taking the deepest breath she possibly could and […]

The post Danielle Smith announces plans to hold her breath until she gets what she wants appeared first on The Beaverton.

#Ryo #RoninWarriors

Now I'd like to say a few words to the children watching at home ... What these wongdoers are doing is wrong. When you kids don't like the host of a tv show you don't kidnap him. You take him to court. Alright, you can watch the show now. #CowboyWho

San Antonio-based artist Jimmy James Canales provides insights into his imaginative installation, The Line Layer. Exhibited at the Contemporary at Blue Star in 2022, following his residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, as a part of the Contemporary’s Berlin Residency Program, the body of work uses play to investigate ideas of standardizations of body, form, shape, and, ultimately, humans.

The Line Layer was on view at the Contemporary at Blue Star in San Antonio from March 4 though May 29, 2022.

The post Video: Jimmy James Canales — “The Line Layer” appeared first on Glasstire.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. HR says I can’t use sick leave for a family emergency

Recently, “life happened” and I took a day off from work because I needed to take care of some things and I wasn’t feeling mentally well. I emailed work in the morning and said that a family emergency came up so I needed to take a sick day. That seemed like the most honest description of what was happening at the time without giving too much detail.

When I returned to work the next day, I submitted for sick leave. HR emailed me asking for details, saying that sick leave is provided for employees’ illness or injury, and that for other situations we need to use PTO. In hindsight, now I know that I should have just said I was feeling under the weather — but in this situation, how would you recommend replying to HR for the best chance of being approved for sick leave?

Yeah, the problem is that once you said it was for a family emergency, you conveyed that it wasn’t actually in the “sick leave” category. Now that you’ve said it, I don’t think you can really backtrack. Just know in situations like that going forward, you should say you’re not feeling well.

(There are some employers that will take a more expansive view of sick leave, but HR is telling you pretty clearly that yours isn’t one of them.)

Related:
what do I say when I’m calling in sick for a mental health day?

2. My coworker won’t do his work and we get stuck with it

I work in a front-facing position with one other person on shift with me. Most of my coworkers are great but “Bill” drives me crazy. He doesn’t split the work 50/50 like we’re supposed to and the work that he does do is slipshod to the point where customers and employees in other roles complain about him. I end up shouldering a lot more work on days he works. We have talked to him about where he needs to improve but he just brushes us off. Management is aware but for some reason has not intervened.

My problem is when I work with Bill, I find it really hard to stay calm when non-Bill-related problems happen. I catch myself getting aggravated with other employees and customers because I’m already in a crummy mood. Obviously I don’t lash out but I get impatient and crabby in ways that aren’t fair to these people. I know it’s Bill-related because when I’m scheduled with other employees I take things in stride easily.

We don’t have enough staff for me to be scheduled away from Bill permanently and even if we did, no one would want to be the permanent Bill babysitter. So how can I keep an even keel when working with a frustrating coworker?

What would happen if you stopped covering for Bill? Stop doing his share of the work; when customers complain about him, let them know you’ll share their complaint with your manager; and when employees in other departments complain about him, tell them they should talk to Bill’s boss. Right now your management doesn’t need to act because you and your coworkers are shouldering all the burden of mitigating Bill’s problems. The more you decline to cover for him, the more it will become their problem rather than yours.

That’s easier said than done, but it’s likely to be the most effective option if repeated conversations with your boss haven’t worked.

To your question about staying calm when Bill-related problems happen: if every time there’s a Bill problem, it gets dumped on management, hopefully it’ll be less aggravating — and you can remind yourself that the more that pile grows, the more likely they will be to eventually do something about it.

3. Mandatory ridiculous training videos from IT

I’m wondering if you think it’s worth pushing back on something our IT department has recently started requiring of us. We have to watch a 10-minute video every two weeks. It’s an ongoing story that’s a dramatization of a business getting inflitrated by a fake IT guy and becoming the target of corporate espionage. Doesn’t sound too bad, but here’s the thing: we’re a K-12 private school, not a corporate environment. I’m totally baffled by what they want us to learn from these videos and they feel like a complete waste of time. They’re also full of very technical jargon that most of us don’t understand.

So far we’ve had to watch two of the videos and at the end we can rate them and leave a review, but I don’t know if that review gets read by our IT department or just goes to the company that makes the videos. I’ve left polite but honest reviews both times saying I’m not clear on what I’m supposed to be learning from the videos.

If it were any other department at our school, I’d feel fine pushing back, but the faculty has had a contentious relationship with the head of IT that has only recently become more amicable. He’s done a lot of other irritating things in the past, like getting our student devices to us weeks late, which played havoc with our lesson plans; auto-blocking every website with the word “game” in it without warning, which blocked a lot of educational sites some of us use on a daily basis; refusing to send techs to us when we need help, instead insisting children as young as five carry their devices to the IT office across the campus; requiring very complicated unique passwords for young children who can’t even type yet, so they forget their passwords or type them in wrong all the time and get locked out, etc.

I’ve also heard rumors he’s done some more egregious things, like having a list of teachers he finds annoying so he puts their tickets last in order of priority, and making some misogynist comments about his female staff members. But none of this has been enough to fire him, so the general sense is that for some reason or another, the head of school or the school board won’t fire him. Not that I think these videos would be cause for firing, but just to give a picture of the circumstances we’re dealing with here as it factors into deciding whether to push back or not.

I’m pretty sure it’s futile to speak up about this, but every time a new email comes barking at us to watch the video, I get pissed off all over again. So if I say something, maybe I’ll stop being pissed off because at least I tried, but I might risk riling up more tension between faculty and IT again. What do you think?

Eh, I’d leave it alone. Keep sending your polite feedback since they’re asking for it, but it sounds like this is the least of the problems with this guy! If you want to complain about something, the issues in your third paragraph are much more worth escalating (so are the issues in your fourth paragraph, but it sounds like you’ve only heard rumors about those).

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the issue with the videos is so much that you’re a school, but rather than people don’t understand the language in them and it’s not clear what the outcomes are supposed to be. Those would both be worth bringing up under normal circumstances — especially the unclear language — but it’s not worth the energy and capital in the situation you described.

4. Should you accrue PTO during paid parental leave?

My husband gets 10 weeks of paid paternity leave, and we just found out that he will not be accruing PTO during that time. On one level, that seems fair, he isn’t actually working, but on another level, I’ve always viewed parental leave as something that occurs on top of your normal compensation. What do you think?

It’s up the employer, but it’s pretty typical to do it that way. It’s similar to how at many companies you don’t accrue PTO if you’re on unpaid leave. This happens to be paid leave, but it’s not coming out of his PTO bank — he’s using a whole separate bank of leave that’s a specific paid paternity benefit. If he were using his own PTO for the time, then sure, but I don’t think it’s outrageous that he won’t accrue PTO while getting 10 weeks of completely separate paid parental leave.

A different way to look at it: say he normally gets, I don’t know, 20 PTO days a year, so he accrues 0.38 PTO days per week. That means that in a normal 10-week period, he’d accrue 3.8 PTO days — versus the 50 paid days he’s getting during parent leave. He’s still coming out way ahead.

5. I was rejected for an internal job and now it’s been reposted

I applied for a government job as an internal candidate. After a first round interview, I was told they had to repost the position due to a lack of candidates. A few months ago by, the job is reposted, and I am invited to a second round interview. I was an extremely strong candidate for this position, and was told twice by the hiring manager I was a top candidate. To my surprise, I did not receive an offer. The hiring manager told me I was a strong candidate and to look out for other jobs she would be posting soon.

Today, three weeks later, I see this job has been reposted! There is one additional bullet point to the job description that’s inconsequential.

I’m worried about what factors went into my rejection now that I see the job has been reposted. Is it worth following up with the hiring manager, noting the new job posting and requesting any constructive feedback on why I wasn’t chosen?

I am a bit concerned my rejection could have something to do with the fact that I have an accommodation to work from home full-time. This was not discussed in the interview, but could be surmised based on my calendar.

Yes, you should follow up with the hiring manager. You were a strong candidate but for some reason they’ve reposted the position and not hired anyone? It’s possible there’s a reason that would make sense if you knew it — like you were strong in X and Y ways but she’s realized she also needs someone strong in Z (although government hiring is so regimented that if that were the case, it should have been in the job description, and especially in the revised one).

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your WFH accommodation is the real reason. If that’s the case, she might not tell you. But it’s reasonable to ask for feedback.

The post HR says I can’t use sick leave for a family emergency, coworker won’t do his work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

mst3kgifs:

Look familiar, Mike?

Listen, no one’s trying to broadcast private details about your life to the whole world, but you should know that living here would absolutely violate the terms of your plea agreement.

Reference #18793

The post Not 200 Yards Away From The Dog Park appeared first on The Onion.

Randy Faber, 49, died Saturday after a horn impaling his chest confirmed his severe rhino allergy.

The post Randy Faber appeared first on The Onion.

LOS ANGELES—Describing the mood in the clubhouse as eerie and ominous, several members of the Los Angeles Dodgers told reporters Tuesday they have become increasingly unnerved since Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Will Ireton, began referring to the two-way superstar as “The Host.” 

According to team sources, Ireton’s relationship with Ohtani has taken on a different, more reverential dynamic in the past few weeks, with his translations often feeling less like direct quotes and more like cryptic proclamations. When a reporter recently asked how Ohtani’s elbow was recovering after an outing, the three-time MVP looked skyward and spoke for nearly five minutes before Ireton—eyes cast downward and hands clasped at his waist—cleared his throat to translate: “The Host’s form is but a fleeting shell, his body a vessel for what must come.”

“At first we thought The Host was just a nickname from Japan or something and didn’t think much of it,” said Dodgers right fielder Teoscar Hernández, adding that players were unsettled by Ohtani speaking in a mixture of Japanese and an unknown archaic language while Ireton loomed behind him jotting down curious glyphs in a notebook. “But then Will started saying stuff like ‘The Host will soon conquer more than baseball’ and ‘The Host must not taste defeat, lest his fury blacken the sky.’ It’s weird, man.”

In recent weeks, members of the Dodgers organization have observed a disquieting shift in Ohtani’s behavior, noting that his warm-up routine now feels like a series of solemn rites and that he declines to read scouting reports in favor of “conferring with the veil.” He is said to spend hours before each game carefully rotating the team’s batting helmets to face a precise direction, and when a celebrating teammate offers Ohtani a high-five, Ireton glides between the players and murmurs, “Cleanse first.” 

Sources also confirmed that before each game, Ohtani enters the dugout and constructs a small mound of dirt, pine tar, and sunflower seeds, which teammates claimed is always faintly warm to the touch. Ireton reportedly refers to this mound only as “the Seedbed” and has described it as the keystone of what he calls “the Ascension,” a term Ohtani now invokes many times daily with increasing urgency.

“The Ascension, the Ascension, the Ascension—he’s always going on about the Ascension,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, admitting he was baffled by Ohtani tracing an ancient symbol on his forehead and sprinkling rosin in a spiral over his cleats. “I asked him what it meant, and he just smiled. Then Will said, ‘The hour grows near when all will know. The Ascension stirs beneath the red soil.’ It made me really uncomfortable.” 

Several teammates have reported experiencing peculiar dreams after sitting near Ohtani in the dugout. 

“Shohei told me in a dream that I was cherished and that we’d be together in the Ascension,” pitcher Clayton Kershaw said. “He said, ‘The vessel strengthens with each offering of a strike,’ and then he fed me a glowing piece of Dubble Bubble and said I had been cleansed. After that, I woke up on the floor of my hotel room covered in salt.”

“It was so bizarre,” Kershaw added. “But I went on to pitch my best game of the season the following day.”

Despite the unusual conduct, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts insisted that Ohtani’s habits fall in line with baseball’s long tradition of player eccentricities. 

“You know, guys are superstitious—some wear the same socks every game, some won’t step on the baseline chalk,” said Roberts, revealing that Ohtani had dug little holes in the infield dirt and whispered about summoning a new dawn. “This is the same sort of deal. As long as he keeps crushing the ball and throwing strikes, I don’t see a problem.”

However, team sources expressed concerns about a recent away game in Philadelphia during which Ohtani became visibly distressed upon seeing the Phillie Phanatic gyrating in front of the dugout. Witnesses said he clutched his head in agony and cried, “The shape is wrong. The vessel is mocking me,” causing the stadium lights to flicker and all of the bats in the dugout to fall off the racks and roll toward the Seedbed.

Ohtani then exited the game, sparking injury concerns. While the Dodgers declined media requests to speak with Ohtani after the game, his interpreter emerged at a press conference.

“The Host prepares for the Ascension,” Ireton said in a trembling voice, his face pale and slick with sweat. “He must remain beneath wet towels until the moon completes its arc. Soon, the bases will clear, and the final inning will be played. The Host awaits on deck.”

At press time, the infield dirt began to smolder and throb, and the foul poles swayed in the windless sky. 

The post Teammates Unnerved As Interpreter Begins Referring To Ohtani As ‘The Host’ appeared first on The Onion.