CALGARY – Calgarians are being asked to ration water while crucial pipeline repairs are conducted, reminding the city’s older residents of the great water rationing effort of three months ago. “Youngins won’t remember this, but I was around for the last water shortage, if you can believe it,” said 17-year-old Allison Cheng. “That’s right, kids. […]
The post September 2024 water crisis reminds elderly Calgarians of the ol’ water crisis of June ‘24 appeared first on The Beaverton.
Enlarge / The USS Manchester. Just the spot for a Starlink dish. (credit: Department of Defense)
It's no secret that government IT can be a huge bummer. The records retention! The security! So government workers occasionally take IT into their own hands with creative but, err, unauthorized solutions.
For instance, a former US Ambassador to Kenya in 2015 got in trouble after working out of an embassy compound bathroom—the only place where he could use his personal computer (!) to access an unsecured network (!!) that let him log in to Gmail (!!!), where he did much of his official business—rules and security policies be damned.
Still, the ambassador had nothing on senior enlisted crew members of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, who didn't like the Navy's restriction of onboard Internet access. In 2023, they decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to secretly bolt a Starlink terminal to the "O-5 level weatherdeck" of a US warship.
In brief: Development of some sort of tropical system is becoming increasingly likely in the western Gulf of Mexico next week. Generally, there are two potential outcomes: Either a better organized system that tracks offshore toward Louisiana, or a lesser organized system that tracks offshore but closer to the Texas coast. In this post, also published on The Eyewall, we go deeper on what could happen and its implications for the greater Houston region.
The state of play as of early afternoon on Saturday is that we have a fading system in the northern Gulf of Mexico, which was responsible for much of our rainfall this past week; and we also have Invest 91L with thunderstorm activity in the southern Gulf, but no real organization. Our focus should now turn toward 91L, in the southern Gulf.
At some point heading into later tomorrow, Invest 91L will probably halt its southward progress, slow down and begin to make a turn back northward later on Monday. From here, we’re beginning to see some model consensus increasing around this becoming at least a tropical storm by Tuesday or Wednesday. Development odds from the National Hurricane Center have increased to 70 percent as of this afternoon.
As 91L comes north, it will enter a tricky environment from a forecast point of view. On the one hand, you will likely have low shear and warm Gulf waters to help it along. On the other hand, there is likely to be a lot of dry air over Texas thanks to this weekend’s early fall cold front. That dry air works against tropical development. We’ve seen dry air in Texas take its toll on tropical systems before, so that’s one reason to be cautious about some of the more bullish models.
Whatever the case, slow, gradual development is likely late Monday and Tuesday as this comes north about 100 to 200 miles off the coast of Mexico. Modeling is actually in very good agreement on all this through Tuesday morning. From that point, the models diverge. The European model, which I might argue would have a better handle on more of the nuance at play here, tends to develop this slowly. The GFS, ICON, and Euro AI (AIFS) modeling shows a slightly faster development path for 91L on Tuesday into Wednesday.
This poses an interesting forecast challenge. The upper pattern on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning will support steering currents around the periphery of high pressure off the west coast of Florida. This should allow for a north and northeast track in the Gulf. A stronger storm would probably be more apt to take that northeastward movement, where as a weaker storm may come more due north. We see this as both the ICON and AIFS show a faster, stronger storm farther out in the Gulf headed toward Louisiana, whereas the European model keeps it weaker and close to the mouth of the Rio Grande River.
The GFS eventually caves and strengthens it, allowing the system to follow the AIFS/ICON group toward Louisiana, whereas the European model just brings it into Texas as a depression or low-end tropical storm.
Obviously, this gives us a forecast challenge, but I think we’re in two very distinct camps right now.
I am not a betting man, but I would probably say the odds right now are 70/30 in favor of camp 2, but that 30 percent is a weighty one given that the system could be a hurricane in that scenario. Normally, I’d discount the ICON model, but given its performance this season and the consistency it has had with track and intensity here, I think there’s merit to considering it with this particular system.
So what do you do? You check back in again tomorrow for more. If you’re in Louisiana, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you have your hurricane kits up to date and know what you’ll do in the lesser chance this comes your way as a stronger storm. In Texas, I think Houston and Corpus Christi are fine. However, I think folks from Matagorda Bay through Sabine Pass along the coast and bays should probably be aware of both a rainfall flooding risk and a tidal flooding risk that may develop from this. More to come.
We’ll continue to monitor this storm closely. If the forecast materially changes, and we are likely to see more directly threats in terms of wind and surge in the Houston area, Space City Weather will publish an update early on Sunday morning. If the forecast remains more or less the same, look for an update later in the day.
TORONTO – Amidst an increasingly tough real estate market for sellers fraught with increased listings and buyers sidelined by interest rates, the Canadian Real Estate Association has reported that a number of their members have increasingly been forced to actually do their job. “Wow so I really have to like… SELL this thing,” said Toronto […]
The post Amidst increasingly tough real estate market, realtors forced to actually do job appeared first on The Beaverton.
OTTAWA – In the wake of the news that Russia was paying far-right personalities to promote talking points that helped sow discord in America and Canada while supporting Russian talking points about Ukraine, Rebel News founder Ezra Levant has reacted with fury over the fact that he wasn’t getting any of those sweet Rubles. “Hundreds […]
The post Ezra Levant furious to discover he could have been getting money from Russia this whole time appeared first on The Beaverton.
PLAINS, GA—Opening his eyes to find an empty room eerily devoid of any sounds, former President Jimmy Carter reportedly awoke Friday to learn that he had seemingly outlived every single person in America. “Hello? Is anybody there? Can anyone hear me?” said the 99-year-old in a shouted plea, stumbling through the halls of an abandoned hospice center to reach the front doors, a formerly bustling town now entirely still as the 39th leader of the free world frantically peered into windows and banged on doors street after street, mile after mile, only to find the nation had become a ghost town. “No, no—this can’t be. My family? Where is my family? I must find a phone to call Bill and Hillary—surely they’ll know what’s going on. God damnit, pick up already! Oh no—the lines have gone dead. This cannot be happening. I am…the only man left on earth.” At press time, a slight whizzing sound reportedly broke through the silence as an arrow flew through the air from an unseen source, hitting Carter square in the back.
The post Jimmy Carter Awakens To Learn He Outlived Every Single Person In America appeared first on The Onion.
KANSAS CITY, MO—Growing increasingly alarmed as she stared at her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s upcoming 2024 schedule, a horrified Taylor Swift reportedly realized for the first time Friday that football happens every year. “So football…that’s not just a thing Travis did last fall for a couple of months—that’s something that’s going to happen again and again?” said a wincing, shuddering Swift, who added that she had assumed she would never again need to dress up in Chiefs merchandise, buy out stadium boxes, or hang out in Kansas City after Kelce and his team won the Super Bowl last year. “Oh wow. I thought Brittany Mahomes was joking when she said she’d see me again soon. How many games are there this year? 17? And that’s not counting the playoffs. Hoo boy. Guess I better start scheduling more stops on the Eras tour.” At press time, Swift was seen googling how long it took for CTE to kick in and end a football player’s career forever.
The post Horrified Taylor Swift Realizes Football Happens Every Year appeared first on The Onion.
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to federal tax charges, a surprise move that spares President Joe Biden and his family the ordeal of another likely criminal trial. What do you think?
“I bet he wishes he had some powerful government connections right about now.”
Eric Day, Unemployed
“That’s exactly what someone who’s guilty would do.”
Mike Lopez, Brick Speculator
“Optimistic to think I’m not going to harass his family anyway.”
Sandy Caldwell, Glass Filler
The post Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty To Federal Tax Charges appeared first on The Onion.
Despite its looming U.S. ban, TikTok continues to grow in popularity, with over 1 billion active monthly users across the globe. The Onion shares tips for growing your follower count on the social media platform.
The post Tips For Growing Your TikTok Following appeared first on The Onion.
Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro decreed that Christmas will start Oct. 1 in the country, the announcement coming as Venezuela grapples with the fallout from a July presidential election that saw Maduro claim a third term despite global skepticism and outcry from the country’s opposition movement. What do you think?
“Seems like they’re starting the decrees about Christmas earlier every year.”
Brent Bucheit, Podium Carpenter
“As long as he doesn’t fuck with the Feast of the Seven Fishes, I’ll let it slide.”
Jase Fabrie, Second Bailiff
“Venezuelans get to have all the fun.”
Charlene Tupps, Systems Analyst
The post Venezuelan President Declares Christmas In October appeared first on The Onion.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. My neighbor, her nephew, my kid, and her dogs
My question has to do with kid work. I recently found myself in an uncomfortable situation with my middle-schooler, Falcon, and I’m wondering if I handled it badly. My neighbor, Jane, asked Falcon to check on her dogs and take them for a walk while she attended an event. She offered $15/hour, and since Falcon loves dogs, he agreed. The request was for him to spend two to three hours walking and playing with the dogs, starting between 5 and 6 pm.
On the afternoon of the event, Jane texted, asking if Falcon could instead stay at her house until she returned around 11 pm. She also mentioned that her adult nephew, Hank, would be at the house with Falcon. This change was … unexpected. We only saw the text after returning home from Falcon’s soccer game, by which time Jane had already left for the event. Neither of us had ever met Hank before, and all we knew about him was that he had learning disabilities.
Falcon was uncomfortable with the idea of spending several hours in a house with an adult stranger. But, since Jane had already left, we felt obligated to fulfill her request. I accompanied Falcon to the house at 6 pm. We walked the dogs, played with them in the yard, and greeted Hank, who was sitting in the dark and ignored us. Falcon was afraid of him. We played outside with the dogs for a couple of hours until it became too dark and mosquito-y to reasonably remain outdoors. We then brought the dogs inside and waited together in the front room with them until Jane returned, as neither of us was comfortable leaving Falcon alone with Hank.
When Jane got home, she noticed dog poop in the kitchen, which we hadn’t seen because Falcon was too scared to go in there (it was attached to the room where Hank was hanging out in the dark). It appeared that Hank and/or the dogs had stepped in the poop and gotten it all over the place. Our best guess is that the pooping happened before we arrived, as we were with the dogs fairly consistently from 6 pm until Jane’s return. Jane handed Falcon $75 as payment, but I texted her the next morning, offering to return the money since we hadn’t prevented the dogs from soiling the house. Jane asked us to return $50, which we did.
I feel terrible about the whole situation. I don’t think Jane should have put my son in the position of being alone for hours with a man he didn’t know. Falcon feels guilty for not doing a better job with the dogs. I’m wondering how could I have handled this better. Beyond letting the dogs out earlier, of course. I feel like I’ve both traumatized my child and let down my neighbor.
This is 100% on Jane. Falcon agreed to a specific job: playing with the dogs for a couple of hours, on his own, ending no later than 9 pm. Jane unilaterally changed that to “stay at my house for six hours with an adult man you don’t know.” Even if Hank had been friendlier/less intimidating, this wasn’t an okay thing to ask of a middle-schooler, particularly without checking to see if he’d be comfortable with it and possibly talking with you as well. (Frankly, even if Falcon were comfortable, I don’t think it would have been an appropriate ask. If Hank isn’t capable of taking care of the dog himself, and is someone who might smear dog poop all over the house without cleaning it up, an unprepared middle-schooler isn’t the right person to be alone with him.)
If we could go back in time, ideally you would have coached Falcon to tell Jane that he couldn’t stay later than the time he agreed to (or even told her that yourself). You say you felt obligated to fulfill Jane’s request, but you weren’t obligated; the request wasn’t the one Falcon had agreed to. I don’t think you needed to offer to return the money although I can understand the impulse, given the poop situation. But Jane should have refused that offer and should have apologized for how things unfolded.
2. I submitted a time off request 3 months ago … and am still waiting
I work at a small company, about 50 employees. Last year, the owner turned over day-to-day operations to a VP who has been with the company for the past 10 years. I report to the VP and am one of four people with the company in a managerial position.
Over three months ago, I submitted a leave request for the week of Christmas. I have been in this industry for over 20 years and that week is historically the slowest week of the year. I usually do not take off that week so that my staff is able to travel to see family (my family is small and local). Last year, my brother-in-law died on Christmas and my husband does not want to be home due to the bad memories from last year. Because it is Christmas, I submitted my request early to make sure it was timely and before any other requests were submitted.
The VP has not made a decision on my leave request and advised me he is still “thinking about it.” I’m very frustrated. I feel disrespected and unappreciated. I only earn two weeks of leave per year, which isn’t much and often causes issues as my husband has considerably more leave and we are unable to travel due to my lack of leave. It is also use or lose, so if I do not use my time by the end of the year, I will lose it. I feel like my vacation time is being held hostage. Never mind that I have to pay for the AirBNB and flight and my husband has to request leave as well for that week. Everything is in limbo over this and the costs are rising each day. The difference in the cost of the flights between early June and September is nearly $1000. I’m so angry and disappointed.
I’m willing to quit over this. My issue is that I don’t think the owner is aware of the issues with the VP, and I’m not sure how to bring it up as he has stated multiple times that he has complete faith in the VP and trusts him 100%. I do not think it is appropriate to withhold PTO approval (or denial) for over three months, all while the cost of my vacation plans are now increasing and I will not be able to use the leave before the end of the year if this vacation request is not approved. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated in how to address with both the owner and VP.
Talk to the VP first! Say what you’ve said here — the costs are rising with each day that you wait, the time off is use-or-or-lose it, and you need to be able to plan. Ask what he needs to give you a definite answer by next week.
If he doesn’t do that (or if he denies the request), talk to the owner. “Having complete faith in” the VP and “trusting him 100%” doesn’t generally mean “I believe he will never miss anything / could never benefit from help changing his perspective.” And you’re a high-level employee who’s been there for a decade; the owner probably would want to know that you’re on the verge of quitting over something so easily solvable.
All that said … two weeks of vacation time is very stingy for a management level position, and even more so after 10 years. I’d also find it grating to be in a high-level management role but still be required to get approval for a meager amount of time off during a slow period. No one should need to wait this long to have PTO approved, but typically PTO approval for managers at your level is much closer to a rubber-stamp; making you wait months for no discernible reason is ridiculous. Is this the only thing where your company is stingy and overly rigid? I’d be inclined to reassess how well this place treats you (in money, in benefits, and in respect) and compare it to other options that might be out there.
3. What do I do when my company firewall blocks a website?
On occasion I will open a safe-for-work link but it will be blocked for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because it’s a “advocacy website” (which, my job is in advocacy, so I don’t totally get) but sometimes it’s for pornography. This is absolutely mortifying! (And I must stress, there’s no reason to believe these links are actually NSFW!) What should I do when this happens? I usually do nothing, but I am very embarrassed at the idea of our IT team getting an alert that I tried to access porn at work. Do I need to email them about it and clear the air?
Nah. They’re probably well aware that the software misfires, and you’re undoubtedly not the only person it’s happening to. However, it would be fine to message them, “FYI, OatmealAlliance.com is being blocked as ‘pornography,’ which it obviously isn’t.” That way you’re informing them about a problem (their blocking tool needs refinement) and if it happens to bring you peace of mind in the process, so much the better.
If these are sites you need to do your job, you should add, “Can you please unblock it? I need it for a project I’m working on” (or similar).
4. Greeting people you’re not sure you’ve met before or not
Low stakes question, but do you have a favorite way to acknowledge people who you’re introduced to and aren’t sure if you’ve met before? Or you know you have, but they don’t remember and you don’t want to put them on the spot?
I’m usually in the latter category, but may be moving into the former. The default seems to be “nice to see you,” to cover all bases, but honestly I hate it. Curious if you have anything better?
“Nice to see you” is a classic among politicians and others who do lots of glad-handing for a reason: it covers you in case you’re forgetting that you’ve met the person previously. You could go with “hello, how are you?” but there aren’t many other options for this specific context.
Dear Whoever Is Trying to Hack into My Instagram Account,
Hey, man. Just got that little automatic email you generated trying to hack into my Instagram account. Dude, no. You do not want to go in there. Seriously. This is for your own good.
I may not know you, but I’m confident you do not have the mental or emotional stamina to survive the torment and torture that is my Instagram account. Stop trying to guess my password and SAVE YOURSELF.
Still don’t believe me? Okay. Let me ask you this, then. Have you ever come to, somehow missing five hours you’ll never get back, staring at a blurry field of numbers that you soon realize is your bank account? But the bank account is much, much lower than you remember it being last you checked. And amidst the swarm of new charges—a fifty-dollar artisanal sunscreen here, a nonrefundable year-long subscription to something called a “Booger Box” there… Yes, it’s insect boogers you rub on your face promoted by a freakishly convincing beauty influencer. I bought endless boxes of boogers, man. You realize, oh god. It was me. I’m not okay. If you can’t weather dark moments like that, then you are not ready for access to the harrowing landscape that is my Instagram account.
It’s taken me years to build up the level of tolerance necessary to safely scroll through the minefield of targeted ads vying for my sweet, sweet credit card digits. And even guarded with my emotional shield, with that protection, I’m still vulnerable. How many body-shaping body suits can one buy before one loses the funds to feed said body and withers away to oblivion? Unfortunately, that’s a rock bottom I thought I had reached. And then I bought more. My waist looks amazing. I am dead inside. Live!
At this point, my dog has basically become a canine cocktail of every anti-itch, anti-pest, anti-anything-bad-that-could-ever-past-present-or-future-happen-to-him gel, ointment, and/or spray amalgamation. If a millennial witch tempted me with it via sponsored post, I’ve rubbed it on my dog’s butt. So many moist cures. For the love of god, don’t become this.
And the TIME. All that lost time. Scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling the doomiest doom that ever did gloom. Escape the doom and gloom, man. I have diagnosed myself with so many illnesses. If I don’t know what the fuck is going on with the stars at any given moment, hives break out all over my body, and the itching won’t subside until I read not one but five different astrologers’ takes at the very least. If I don’t, I’ll miss something. What? The fuck do I know! All I know is god forbid I miss that important prediction careening toward my fate, destined to blow up my life. My skin can’t TAKE IT. I’m a Taurus sun with a Capricorn stellium goddamnit. This isn’t a state of being anyone should willingly subject themselves to. You shouldn’t be in there. None of us should be in there.
So stay the hell away. For your own good. Your physical, mental, emotional, financial, and astrological well-being will all greatly appreciate it. I’m jealous that you’re on the outside. Take pictures. Post about your freedom. I will find you. I will follow. I will like. I will comment. I will share. I can’t stop myself. Not anymore. But you can. Just stay far the fuck away.
Yours from the deepest depths of the infinite scroll,
Rebecca
A customer wanted to to transfer pixels between a ID2D1Bitmap1 and a GDI HBITMAP. The original D2D bitmap looked like this:
This usually got converted to a GDI bitmap correctly, but once in a while, they’d run into a system where the result looked like this:
Just from the screen shot, I knew what the problem was. Do you see what happened?
Here are some clues.
Notice that the result is not total garbage. There is a striped pattern to the result.
Notice also that the result has roughly the same color distribution of pixels as the intended result. The pixels are just being put in the wrong place.
And if you kind of squint, you can see the correct image. It just got stretched really thin and twisted.
Let’s unstretch and untwist it:
This twisting and stretching is what happens when you mismatch the bitmap stride.
Imagine two metronomes ticking at slightly different rates.
X X X X X X X X X X X Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Let’s insert a line break in the timeline each time the fast X metronome ticks, so this lets us see what the Y metronome looks like from X’s point of view:
X ↓ Y | |Y | | Y | | Y| | | Y | |Y | | Y | | Y| | |
The ticks of the slower metronome get gradually more and more late until they get so late that they “wrap around” and are back in sync (but a full cycle behind). And then they get more and more late, and wrap around again, and the whole thing just repeats.
A bitmap’s stride (sometimes known as pitch) is the value to add (in bytes) to get from the start of one row of pixels to the start of the next row of pixels. If the bitmap was produced at one stride but consumed at a different stride, then you get the mismatched metronome effect, where the producer is starting each row every X bytes, but the consumer expects each row to begin every Y bytes. If the producer’s stride is larger, then from the consumer’s standpoint, the bytes of each row arrive later and later. (And if the producer’s stride is smaller, then the consumer sees each row starting more and more prematurely.) The result is that each row of pixels is offset slightly, and as more and more rows are processed, the offset accumulates, leading to the slanting effect.
The choice of stride can be hardware-dependent. Some video drivers prefer that each row of pixels begin on an exact multiple of, say, 64 bytes. If your bitmap uses a pixel format that is 4 bytes per pixel, then a bitmap of width n will have 4n bytes of pixel data for each row, and if that’s not a multiple of 64 (if n is not a multiple of 16), then there will be padding bytes at the end of each row.
This explains why the problem occurred only on some systems: You need a graphics card which imposes stronger alignment than that required by GDI.
Next time, we’ll look at the code for doing the conversion and see where the stride needs to be taken into account.
The post The case of the image that came out horribly slanted: Diagnosis appeared first on The Old New Thing.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I work in a field that has been heavily affected by layoffs in the past year. I have been lucky and managed to maintain work, but many talented people I know have not been so lucky.
My question is about whether posting depressing, sad posts on social media, especially LinkedIn, affects your hiring potential.
I have seen many of my former coworkers posting status updates that include how they been out of work for many months, they are burning through their savings, they applied to hundreds of positions only to be rejected by AI recruitment tools or ghosted by human hiring teams, and, in some cases, that they are are about to be homeless.
While I will not argue that the current job market is incredibly difficult, I worry that they are hurting themselves with potential employers who might unfairly see them as “difficult.”
I would like to know your take on this and what you would recommend on posting status updates like this on LinkedIn.
Yes, they are likely to be hurting their chances with prospective employers.
Employers tend to want to feel they’re hiring someone who’s in-demand — or at least someone who 100 other companies haven’t looked at and said, “We’ll pass.”
To be clear, this is not aligned with the realities of job-seeking and hiring. It’s not uncommon for talented people to struggle to find jobs, especially in a tight market, and being unemployed or having a long job search isn’t a sign that someone shouldn’t be hired.
But it’s not helpful to raise those questions in a hiring manager’s mind.
Moreover, hiring managers — being humans — tend to respond better to optimism than to cynicism, pessimism, or bitterness. That doesn’t mean that cynicism, pessimism, or bitterness are never warranted — but when you want people to hire you, making that your branding on a professional networking site is a bad move.
LOVES PARK, IL—Firm in his refusal to move on to the next tee until his standards had been met, area dad Greg Nevins announced Thursday that he was not leaving this mini golf hole until his son Logan showed him some good form. “Come on, enough playing around—now square your shoulders and keep your damn head down,” the increasingly agitated Nevins told his son, a growing line of impatient families waiting behind them as he demanded the boy retrieve his green golf ball from the heart-shaped water hazard and putt like he gave half a damn. “Don’t be a quitter! I understand you want to pack it up and move on to the go-karts, but we’re not leaving until I see one solid stroke from you. A 2-year-old could make this hole, for fuck’s sake. All you need to do is time your swing to the blades of the windmill. Oh Jesus Christ, don’t start crying!” At press time, bystanders reported that Nevins had vacated the mini golf course and redirected his anger toward his other son, Brian, who was allegedly exhibiting “piss-poor” form at the nearby batting cages.
The post Dad Not Leaving This Mini Golf Hole Until Son Shows Him Some Good Form appeared first on The Onion.
Supporters of MDMA therapy say the treatment eases the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, producing lifesaving results for groups such as veterans. Here is what you need to know about the experimental new treatment.
Q: Why did the FDA recently reject MDMA-assisted therapy?
A: They believe it could be a gateway to harder therapies.
Q: What are the risks of MDMA therapy?
A: Potential side effects include prolonged and severe optimism about the future.
Q: What dosage is administered during treatment?
A: One blue dolphin followed by half a yellow daisy.
Q: Who is MDMA therapy recommended for?
A: Anyone who’s too much of a pussy to just sit down and tell a lady in a scarf that you’re really sad.
Q: What if it’s not covered under my insurance?
A: Venmo or CashApp are fine.
Q: Do the clinical trials ever go on forever?
A: No, you’ll be okay. Just breathe.
Q: How does this differ from normal therapy?
A: Regular therapy is not yet decriminalized in multiple states.
Q: Will it fix the feeling of wanting to have sex with your mom?
A: It will make the feeling of wanting to have sex with your mom even better.
Q: How can I try MDMA therapy?
A: This guy’s a fucking cop!
The post What To Know About MDMA Therapy appeared first on The Onion.
The REM is going to be a transformative system for Montreal, because it will extend metro-level public transit service deep in Montreal’s suburbs with fast automated trains (as well as features even the metro doesn’t have, like Wi-fi, screen doors, and air conditioning) , but what excites me even more than the initial network buildout (which, to be clear, is hugely exciting) is how the network will develop.
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Two of the biggest automated (or semi-automated) urban transit systems in the world are the Vancouver SkyTrain and London’s DLR or Docklands Light Railway. Both of these systems share a lot in common with the REM: being automated, largely-elevated (but sometimes located on old railways) networks with roughly 80 metre-long trains. And what’s interesting about both networks is how they’ve been able to incrementally grow both their infrastructure and service in the decades since they opened in the late 20th century.
That these systems were able to be upgraded and expanded piece by piece is no accident. By using light, flexible trains and having most of your tracks above ground, it’s easy to add on new branches and extensions to your network to create additional capacity and serve new development areas. You can see this particularly well in London, where the DLR has several branches extending along the river Thames and through the Docklands entirely surrounded by new housing and development projects — and built on the cheap by going above ground on economical but attractive elevated structures.
Automation is also an underrated enabler of incremental expansion — it allows service patterns and operations to change substantially without retraining tens if not hundreds of staff, and it can allow a level of scheduling precision that can let you go with less infrastructure than would otherwise be the case. Two examples of this that come to mind are the sections of the DLR and SkyTrain that operate reliable frequent service with single-track sections (something that would be less likely outside of, say, Switzerland to be so reliable at such high frequencies), but also to completely change operating patterns based on minimizing infrastructure wear (SkyTrain used to do a weird wrong side operation of trains going to the “Evergreen Extension”, where trains would operate the wrong way for one station to simplify merge conflicts — something that was abandoned after the impacts were determined to be too significant, but that would probably have never been tried had humans been driving the trains).
Now, ironic as it is, the first big expansions that I think make sense to set the groundwork for the REM are actually expansions of the Montreal Metro. The Metro network is connected to the REM on its three main lines, but the connections all being near Mount Royal means that trips are forced into radial patterns. Additional connection points away from the mountain could be created at low cost, expanding connectivity, allowing passengers to avoid the congested city centre, and maximizing REM capacity by allowing trains to unload and refill with passengers at more points along their journeys.
The obvious first extension is taking the Orange Line to Bois Franc, which in many ways will be a Berri-UQAM-level interchange — with metro to downtown and to the MUHC, and REM connections out to all four branches. If there is a place in Montreal that justifies a big and dense transit oriented development it’s this site, and with fast connections to the airport and downtown it could be any attractive place for offices and conference space as well, creating a valuable mixed-use node.
The extension of the Orange Line to Bois Franc is less than 2 kilometres (thanks to the extended tunnels built at the same time as the new Cote-Vertu metro garage) and could be built for less than many metro extensions, with the terminus station tightly integrated with the REM above ground (in a sealed building, keeping the metro trains dry), platform screen doors from day one (which the Metro can already support), and perhaps, if we are ambitious (which I think we should be), cross-platform transfers (Bois Franc REM has side platforms!) with tail tracks for turning trains. This is something I have thought a lot about, and I think it would take this interchange from nice to amazing. This connection and design would create an immensely convenient link for people on the Orange Line heading to the airport, the West Island, or Deux-Montagnes, and it would similarly give passengers from these destinations a super easy connection onto the Orange Line — say, for going to an appointment at the MUHC or to Lucien L’Allier for a game at the Bell Centre. This kind of cross platform transfer would be just as useful as the one at Lionel Groulx, but intermodal and arguably even more valuable since it would link all 3 northern REM branches seamlessly into the metro.
The other extension I would suggest is one of the Green Line’s western leg from just south of Charlevoix, branching to the south to connect to the REM and serve redevelopments south of the VIA rail maintenance yard (as well as redevelopments on the yard land itself if VIA relocates those facilities). This branch would allow a train every 5 – 10 minutes on the Green line to run down to the riverside and connect with an infill REM station near Rue Marc Cantin, where the track should enable the addition of a station. The raison d’être for this connection would be to enable some passengers headed for destination along the east of the Green line to change here, securing a seat for their journey or for passengers headed to Guy or Atwater to have a slightly more reasonable trip. Probably most importantly though, it would allow an easy connection to the western end of the Orange line, without needing to make the rather annoying connection at Bonaventure.
The connection is also attractive because it’s logistically easy. The junction box could be built cut-and-cover alongside the A-15, and the tunnels could also be built cut-and-cover under Gaétan Laberge. The waterfront site could also play host to a large modern metro garage for the Green line that would enable very high service frequency on the line with housing developed on top of it. And yes, you could do another cross platform transfer, albeit you’d want the tracks to crash over so that the inbound REM passengers could change easily to a Green line train heading down the line
Both of these connections mean some REM passengers will get off of trains before reaching the three central interchanges, and that will allow more capacity for urban redevelopment (at the Peel Basin, or in TMR) and transit connections to occur near to the city centre (not that I think the capacity will really be needed anytime soon). Of course, those passengers would be getting on the metro, but thankfully the western legs of both the Orange and Green lines should have no problems absorbing the passengers and they still have much room for increased capacity with higher frequencies in the future and which have already started to be enabled by the Cote Vertu garage.
Linking the metro more heavily with the REM helps to create a stronger overall network for Montreal, and helps to relieve local congestion across the network in a way that lets us think about further cost-effective REM expansion, without short term concern about the core of the line being able to handle all of the passengers. How the REM network might grow from here will be the subject of future posts in this series.
Enlarge / Spotify released the Car Thing to the general public in February 2022. It's bricking them in December. (credit: Spotify)
For some of us, few things are more infuriating than a gadget that stops working due to a software change. As we've frequently covered here at Ars, startups and Big Tech companies are guilty of rendering hardware obsolete and/or stripping it of core functions. Consumer groups are urging the Federal Trade Commission to get involved.
In a letter sent today to Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, and Serena Viswanathan, associate director of the FTC's Division of Advertising Practices, representatives from 17 groups, including Consumer Reports, the US PIRG, and iFixit, urged the FTC for "clear guidance" around software tethering. Software tethering, per the letter, is "making functions of a device reliant on embedded software that ties the device back to a manufacturer’s servers.” As it stands, the practice is hurting customers with "unfair and deceptive practices," such as suddenly locking features behind a subscription—like the Snoo smart bassinet recently did—or bricking already-purchased devices, which Spotify did with its Car Thing.
The letter to the FTC argues that such practices hinder owners' ability to own their hardware.
Enlarge (credit: tunart | iStock / Getty Images Plus)
The Internet Archive has lost its appeal after book publishers successfully sued to block the Open Libraries Project from lending digital scans of books for free online.
Judges for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected the Internet Archive (IA) argument that its controlled digital lending—which allows only one person to borrow each scanned e-book at a time—was a transformative fair use that worked like a traditional library and did not violate copyright law.
As Judge Beth Robinson wrote in the decision, because the IA's digital copies of books did not "provide criticism, commentary, or information about the originals" or alter the original books to add "something new," the court concluded that the IA's use of publishers' books was not transformative, hobbling the organization's fair use defense.
Can the fear of students using generative AI and the rise of questionable AI “checker” tools create a culture devoid of creativity? It’s a topic that is curiously one worth delving into a bit more deeply, in part because of something that happened this weekend.
Earlier this year, we had a post by Alan Kyle about California bill SB 942. That bill would require AI companies to offer a free AI detection tool, despite the fact that such tools are notoriously unreliable and prone to nonsense. As Kyle wrote, the bill takes a “nerd harder” approach to regulating technology its backers don’t understand.
SB 942 has continued to move forward just passed in the California Assembly. It’s now on Governor Newsom’s desk to potentially sign.
I was thinking about that this weekend after a situation at home. One of my kids* has an English homework assignment. They had to read Kurt Vonnegut’s famous short story, Harrison Bergeron, and write a short essay about it. Since I do a fair bit of writing, my kid asked me to review the essay and see if I had any pointers. I gave a few general suggestions on how to think about improving the flow of the piece, as it read very much like a standard first draft: a bit stilted. My kid went off to work on a rewrite.
If you’re unfamiliar with the story of Harrison Bergeron, it’s about a society that seeks to enforce “equality” by placing “handicaps” on anyone who excels at anything to bring them down to the least common denominator (e.g., ugly masks for pretty people, having to carry around extra weights for strong people). One of the morals to that story is on the perils of seeking to force equality in a manner that limits excellence and creativity.
Later in the day, the kid came by with their school-issued Chromebook, which has Grammarly Pro pre-installed. The students are encouraged to use it to improve their writing. One thing that the tool has is an “AI Checker” in which it tries to determine if the submitted text was written by AI.
This is similar to “plagiarism checkers” that have been around for a few decades. In fact, Grammarly’s “check” covers both AI and plagiarism (or so it says). Those systems have always had problems, especially around false positives. And it seems that the AI checkers are (unsurprisingly) worse**.
It turns out that Grammarly only just introduced this feature a few weeks ago. Thankfully, Grammarly’s announcement states pretty clearly that AI detection is pretty iffy:
AI detectors are an emerging—and inexact—technology. When an AI detector definitively states whether the analyzed content contains AI, it’s not acting responsibly. No AI detector can conclusively determine whether AI was used to produce text. The accuracy of these tools can vary based on the algorithms used and the text analyzed.
Anyway, the kid wanted to show me that when the word “devoid” was used, the AI-checker suggested that the essay was “18% AI written.” It’s a bit unclear even what that 18% means. Is it a “probability this essay was written by AI” or “percentage of the essay we think may have been written by AI”? But, magically, when the word “devoid” was changed to “without” the AI score dropped to 0%.
In Grammarly’s announcement, it claims that because these tools are so flaky, it “does things differently” than other AI checker tools. Namely, it says that its own tool is more transparent:
Grammarly’s AI detection shows users what part of their text, if any, appears to have been AI-generated, and we provide guidance on interpreting the results. This percentage may not answer “why” text has been flagged. However, it allows the writer to appropriately attribute sources, rewrite content, and mitigate the risk of being incorrectly accused of AI plagiarism. This approach is similar to our plagiarism detection capabilities, which help writers identify and revise potential plagiarism, ensuring the originality and authenticity of their work.
I can tell you that this is not true. After the kid continued to work on the essay and reached a point where they thought it was in good shape, the AI checker said it was 17% AI, but gave no indication of what might be AI-generated or why.
Now, to be clear, the essay can still be turned in. There is no indication that the teacher is relying on, or even using, the AI checker. When I mentioned all this on Bluesky, other teachers told me they know to basically ignore any score under 60% as a likely false positive. But my kid is reasonably flustered that if the AI checker is suggesting the essay sounds like AI wrote it, that it might mean there’s a problem with the essay.
At that point, the hunt began to figure out what could possibly be causing the 17% score. The immediate target was more advanced vocabulary (the issue that had already been identified with “devoid.”)
The essay did use the word “delve,” which has now become something of a punchline as showing up in every AI-generated work. There’s even a study showing the massive spike in the use of the word in PubMed publications:
Even crazier is the use of both “delve” and “underscore.” However, my kid’s essay did not use “underscore.”
The main theory I’ve seen is that the reason “delve” is so popular in AI works is that some of the training and data commonly used in AI systems was done in Nigeria and Kenya, where the word “delve” is more common. This has resulted in some arguments online, such as when online pontificator Paul Graham tweeted out how receiving an email with “delve” in it indicated it was written by ChatGPT, leading a bunch of Nigerians to call him out by mocking him, and highlighting that other cultures use language differently than he might.
Either way, the “delve” in my kid’s essay was not written by AI. But, just to be safe, the word was replaced. As were some other words. It made no difference. The AI checker still said 17%.
At one point, we looked at a slightly oddly worded sentence and tested removing it. The score went up to 20%. At that point, the kid just started removing each sentence, one at a time, to see what changed the score. Nothing actually seemed to do it, and despite Grammarly’s promise of transparency and clarity, no further information was provided.
All of this struck me as quite a series of lessons. First, it points out the absolute stupidity of bills like SB 942 which will only increase, rather than decrease, this kind of AI dousing rod woo woo divination.
But, the bigger lesson has to do with AI and schools. I know that many educators are terrified of generative AI tools these days. Plenty of educators talk about how they know kids today are turning in essays generated by ChatGPT. Sometimes it’s obvious, and sometimes less so. And many are not sure what to do about it.
I’ve seen a few creative ideas (and forgive me for not remembering where I saw these) such as having the students create a prompt to get ChatGPT to write an essay related to a class topic. Then, the real homework is having the student edit and correct the ChatGPT output. The students are then told to hand in the prompt, the original ChatGPT essay, and also their corrections.
A similar idea was to have the students write their own essay and then also have ChatGPT write an essay on the same prompt. Then, the students had to hand in both essays, along with a short explanation of why they thought their own essay was better.
In other words, there are some ways of approaching this, and as time goes on, I expect we’ll hear of more.
But, simply inserting a sketchy “AI checker” in the process seems likely to do more harm than good. Even if the teacher isn’t guaranteed to be using the tool, just the fact that it’s there creates a challenge for my kid who doesn’t want to risk it. And it’s teaching them to diminish their own writing skills in order to convince the AI-checker that the writing was done by a human.
And that seems, ironically, quite like the lesson of what “Harrison Bergeron” was supposed to teach us to avoid. Vonnegut was showing us why trying to stifle creativity is bad. Now my kid feels the need to stifle their own creativity just to avoid being accused of being a machine.
I’m not against AI as a tool. I’ve talked about how I use it here as a tool to help edit my (human) writing, to challenge me, and to push me to be a better (human) writer, even as those tools tend to be awful writers themselves. But I fear that with there being such a fear about “AI writing,” the end result might actually make people write less with the creativity of humans, and more to simply avoid being called out as a machine.
* In case you’re wondering, I checked first to make sure they were okay with me writing about this before telling this story and have kept details to a minimum to protect their privacy.
** After reading through a draft of this piece, kid suggested we should run this through an AI checker as well, and it tells me (falsely) that 3.7% of this article appears to be written by AI (it specifically calls out my description of Harrison Bergeron as well as my description of plagiarism checkers as likely written by AI).
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