Cowboy Who?

#Rowen #Ully #Mia #RoninWarriors

There is something though funny...
Oh yeah what's that?
The Cowboy Pat show!
And it's coming on right now! #CowboyWho

This exemplary deep dive from Don Patterson at Uni Watch is a nice capper to the Cowboys’ 40-40 victory over the Green Bay Packers Sunday night.

In brief: Today’s post discusses the subtle change in our weather pattern that will control our region’s conditions over the next week or so. Houston is still going to be warm, but not sizzling hot. Rain chances return to the forecast, but overall they remain fairly low. And when are we getting the next front?

A little cooler, a little more humid

After today, Houston’s flow will become more easterly in response to a trough of low pressure offshore. This will mean an increase in winds, perhaps gusting up to 20 mph or higher during the afternoon. In recent weeks the daily winds have been quite a bit less than this for the most part. We are also going to see dewpoints rise from about 60 degrees during the afternoon to the upper 60s (at least) by this weekend, and this will make afternoon temperatures feel more humid.

However this increase in atmospheric moisture will cause daily highs to be a few degrees cooler, and produce a few more clouds. By Friday we should see the possibility of some light showers returning to the forecast, but overall chances will still only be on the order of 20 percent. We will remain in this new pattern for about a week, at least, before the chance of a front to shake things up.

Thursday

As mentioned today will be a little bit hotter, with sunny skies, modestly drier air, and northeast winds. Highs will be in the lower 90s in Houston, with mid-90s possible to the west (and possibly north) of the city. Rain chances are near zero. Lows tonight will drop into the low- to mid-70s.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

With a more easterly flow in place, these will be more humid days, with highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s. There will be a few clouds, and a slight chance of some afternoon showers. Winds may also turn a bit gusty from the east-southeast, up to 20 or 25 mph.

Next week

The pattern for this weekend more or less remains the same for the remainder of the coming work week. If you squint at the ensemble models there appears to be a decent chance for some kind of front by Thursday or Friday of next week, with the AI version of the European model among the more bullish solutions. At this point I’d lay odds of 30 to 50 percent of seeing a cooler and significantly less humid turn in our weather by next weekend. So at this point it is something to hope for, rather than bank on.

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. We’re supposed to do enneagrams at a company retreat

I spoke to a few colleagues about the enneagram activity, and many agreed and felt this was a strange work activity. I shared with my boss and those in charge of the retreat, and they heard some other feedback as well.

While the activity still happened, it seemed some steps were taken to water down or soften how it was presented to minimize the weight of the activity. Overall it was not too bad, and was amusing to talk about the “types” so long as we were not talking about individuals or the more personal elements. I have a feeling they will gather more feedback before doing a similar activity next time. Thank you for validating my gut reaction!

2. Does it make sense to do peer reviews?

I asked earlier this summer about whether peer reviews ever a good idea and shared insight about my dysfunctional company launching VP peer reviews.

Ironically, the day you ran my question is the exact day I spent pulling the data from the peer reviews and beginning to format the results. I was so in the weeds that I didn’t get to reply to any of the commenters, but it was really interesting to read the comments!

One commenter asked, “What does a group of 6 EVPs do if they don’t manage their 10 VPs? That seems like a lot of salary dollars concentrated in one spot.” Most of them are managing the owner :) It is an absurd amount of salary dollars and makes me want to crawl into a corner and cry.

One commenter said, “I suspect the EVPs are all family members who get paid a lot with low expectations on their work” and that is pretty much correct.

We didn’t actually do these on pen and paper — that was a bad way to explain it — I meant that we didn’t do these in any sort of formal performance review or HRIS system. We did them electronically through a survey-based platform with four blocks of rating-scale-based questions along with open text boxes to provide examples, so I still had to pull the data and manually sort everything. The data pulling, sorting, formatting, synthesizing took me about 50 hours to complete.

However, it was incredibly fascinating and I actually really enjoyed it. I had never done anything like this before and it was a great learning experience for me.

When it was announced to the VP group that they would be required to do the peer reviews, there was a lot of resistance, naturally. However, they all complied, completed the reviews, and some of them actually said that it was a good experience that made them reflect on themselves quite a bit.

Once we closed the reviews, I created two different reports per VP — one version for our CEO that included the full responses, ratings, etc. (the VP group was aware of this before we launched the survey). The second set of reports that I created were fully anonymized for each VP — it gave their overall scores/ratings and a general summary of the comments and common themes. This was actually well received and the VPs had a lot of positive feedback. There was only one negative reaction and that came from the person who had very low peer ratings in all categories.

The CEO and EVPs took this exercise seriously and have (surprisingly) recommended added headcount for some departments, executive coaching, or workshops/conferences for various VPs. Overall, everyone was pleasantly surprised with the entire exercise. I’m still a little in disbelief!

Now, we can only hope that the positive reactions continue and that the EVP group actually follows through on the recommendations.

3. I took a chance on an under-qualified candidate and it’s not working out

Thank you very much for addressing my letter and I also read the comments with appreciation. I have subsequently terminated the employee in question — quite soon after I wrote to you, actually. The commenters noting that I was lax in defining my “must haves” and susceptible to charm are spot on. I appreciate the graceful notes about learning and not being too hard on myself, as well.

I have done a lot of reflecting and will not be in a rush to hire again until I am much more clear on exactly what I am looking for in terms of skills and experience, and wiling to be patient to find the right fit. Thank you again for answering.

The post updates: enneagrams at a company retreat, peer reviews, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

mst3kgifs:

So, you usually see Denise to do your hair, huh?

Hey, Vern! I can’t find yer freakin’ legs, Vern!

mst3kgifs:

Here’s one that oughta get the kids going…

The post Nicole Kidman Retires Drag King Persona ‘Keith Urban’ appeared first on The Onion.

Pete Hegseth sharply condemned “fat generals” at a military gathering, ordering all officers to meet stricter fitness standards. What do you think?

The post Pete Hegseth Rails Against Fat Generals appeared first on The Onion.

Saint John, New Brunswick – Initial excitement over the latest entry in Disney’s sci-fi Tron franchise was ruined when it was discovered it also stars Jared Leto. During a recent family movie night, after several commercials for banking products and before the main attraction, a trailer for Tron: Ares was shown.  “I thought it looked awesome […]

The post New Tron movie looks pretty co – aw, shit is Jared Leto in this? appeared first on The Beaverton.

“Don’t worry, we still have enough funds to indiscriminately bomb people on small boats near the coast of Venezuela.” Luke and the Panel (Nile Seguin, Clare Blackwood, Megan MacKay) talk about Trump’s 20 point plan to end the war in Gaza, Mark Carney’s plan to end Canada Post, and the Toronto Blue Jays’ plan to […]

The post Trump promises shutdown will not impact essential U.S. government services like Bombings and Coups appeared first on The Beaverton.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but Democrats are dangerously close to keeping health insurance costs from spiking.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but that’s just how things go when you only control all three branches of government.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but somebody has to do something about the federal workers who still have jobs.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but what’s the alternative? Negotiate? We don’t negotiate with terrorists. Did you see Hakeem Jeffries in that sombrero hat? Terrorist!

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but we never considered the possibility that Democrats would show some spine. Therefore, we did not consider any alternatives, and we had no backup plan.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but illegal immigrants are getting free health insurance. Well, “illegal” in our opinion. And they are paying for it. Still.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but it’s not our fault that the Democrats only have one true patriot (John Fetterman).

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but the librarians had it coming.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but we promised our constituents we’d make Washington dysfunctional. This was all outlined in Project 2025, which we assume people read before voting for us.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but the alternative is letting people find out Democrats were right about something.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but if the government stays open, what are we supposed to fundraise off of?

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but at least now we have a good excuse to lay off federal workers from states that voted for Kamala.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but an X account with 47 followers called me a RINO, and I will get primaried if anyone sees that.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but government is socialism, if you think about it… SOciialLiZmMm… SppPpoOookKy…. ZoooHrAAn MaMdAAAAniiiiiiiiii. (Another person we intend to fundraise off of.)

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but we had at least one internal poll showing Democrats would get blamed for it, and so we already filmed our “standing strong against the establishment” campaign ads.

We, the GOP, don’t want a shutdown, but we don’t actually live off of our government salaries, so we’ll be okay.

In May 2024, Pooja Shali, an anchor for India Today, received a concerned message from a friend. The friend had been scrolling Instagram Reels and came across what appeared to be a video of Shali announcing the news on her morning show, First Up.

Audiences across India are used to seeing Shali behind the anchor desk, but in this clip, something felt off. Shali’s lips matched the words being spoken, but after the first sentence, her intonation changed and her cadence became stilted. She also appeared to be promoting a mobile trading app, one she said had been vetted by the India Today newsroom and received a $3 billion investment from India’s richest man.

Shali had never heard of the app, let alone promoted it to her viewers on air.

“I was completely shocked,” Shali said. She immediately recognized the clip as a deepfake. While the first seconds of audio were pulled from a real First Up segment, everything spliced in after was an AI-generated fabrication. “We report on digital financial scams consistently and we are the ones alerting people not to fall for digital scams, but you wouldn’t expect your face or your voice to be misused.”

When the trial was initially announced it included 50,000 public figures. After I reached out to Meta for comment for this story, the company updated those figures in a corporate blog post. Currently, 500,000 public figures have enrolled in the program, which is still only available in the U.S., U.K., and South Korea. In the first half of 2025, Meta also says the number of scam ads reported by users globally on its platforms dropped by 22%, when compared to total ad impressions.

While Wolf was ultimately able to fight off his scammers, other journalists may not be able to lean on personal connections or institutional support to get the attention of social media companies. Many journalists don’t even live in countries where Meta’s facial recognition program is operational.

“Trying to go through the official channels is frustrating, it’s time-consuming, and it’s largely ineffective,” said Matthew Garrahan, the head of digital platforms at the FT. “It was only [after] Martin’s column that Meta began to really move. We had a former deputy prime minister of the U.K. intervening to help us get it taken down, and then they were still back.”

Meta did not respond to questions about Clegg’s involvement or whether Wolf’s column influenced the company’s response.

“On the platform side, you need to have this likeness protection really broadly available to a much wider range of public figures,” Witness’s Gregory said of facial recognition programs like Meta’s.

He points to YouTube as a platform that is beginning to take stronger proactive measures. In mid-September, the social media giant announced it was rolling out facial recognition-based moderation to all members of its YouTube Partner Program, which includes more than 3 million creators around the world. (Gregory said that even with increased reach, he’s found YouTube’s moderation enforcement to be “patchy.”)

Women Press Freedom, meanwhile, has scaled back the resources it puts into corresponding with social media companies. Nazish said the decision was prompted in part by the industry’s continued disinvestment in global moderation infrastructure.

In 2022, X laid off the majority of their global trust and safety teams. Earlier this year, Meta ended its third-party fact-checking program. Women Press Freedom used to be able to collect documentation of deepfakes and send them directly to company contacts who they relied on to advocate for post removals. Those channels had all but disappeared by 2022, even before this most recent boom in deepfake scams.

In the vacuum that’s left, targeted journalists are running out of ways to defend their credibility.

“Now when I speak I’m a little bit more cautious,” said Shali, of her appearances at the anchor desk since last year. Eight months after the first scam ads using her image appeared, a new deepfake cropped up on social media promoting a similar trading app. This time, the deepfake video featured both Shali and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “It’s heavy on my mind,” she told me. “When I’m talking I don’t know how they will be able to manipulate it.”

Wikipedia is one of the 10 most popular websites on planet Earth and, in this reporter’s opinion, one of humanity’s greatest modern achievements of the digital age. It’s the closest we’ve gotten to making all the world’s information freely available to all, the result of armies of volunteers constructing an incredibly robust architecture for knowledge. Many have tried to build universal online encyclopedias to rival it, and none have come close. It is, as much as anything else on the internet, sui generis. And, annoyingly to certain acquisitive billionaires, it’s not for sale.

So of course Elon Musk says he’s going to build his own, calling it “a necessary step towards…understanding the Universe.”

We are building Grokipedia @xAI.

Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia.

Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe. https://t.co/xvSeWkpALy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025

In June, Musk raised eyebrows by promising to “rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors,” using his Grok AI. That’s the same one with a nasty habit of heil-Hitlering.

We will use Grok 3.5 (maybe we should call it 4), which has advanced reasoning, to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors.

Then retrain on that.

Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2025

I assume Musk will get around to Grokipedia right after he finishes saving the news industry with micropayments, which has been overdue since May 2023.

Join @xAI and help build Grokipedia, an open source knowledge repository that is vastly better than Wikipedia!

This will be available to the public with no limits on use. https://t.co/3CnfrvNIpI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025

Some employees at the Department of Education changed their responses back to the more neutral language, only to have it changed yet again to the partisan response, multiple sources tell WIRED.

BURBANK, CA—Touting the promotion as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go behind the scenes of the beloved medical drama, producers of The Pitt announced Thursday that one lucky fan had been chosen to undergo an open-heart procedure performed by the stars of the series. “I wrote in to explain how much I love the show and how severe my atherosclerosis is, but I never imagined they’d actually pick me,” said contest winner Jacob Hughes, who added that he’d been wanting a triple bypass from Noah Wyle ever since the actor’s ER days. “It’s been surreal. This morning I arrived at the Warner Bros. soundstage where they’ll do the operation, and I got to meet the actors who play Dr. Robby, nurse Dana, and all the residents. They promised that Tracy Ifeachor will make the first incision into my aorta!” At press time, Hughes’ remarks that he couldn’t wait for the critically acclaimed cast to “crack open [his] rib cage” had been confirmed as his final words. 

The post Lucky Fan Wins Open-Heart Surgery From Stars Of ‘The Pitt’ appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Touting the substance’s anti-inflammatory properties and high smoke point, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released a statement Thursday advocating for the use of beef tallow in home birth tubs. “Despite what the perpetrators of the medical-industrial complex would like you to believe, women have been giving birth in rendered animal fat for millennia,” said Kennedy, who argued that beef tallow lubricates the birth canal while slathering the infant in all the triglycerides the newborn will need to stave off autism. “There’s nothing more beautiful or natural than a mother and her baby slip-sliding around a birthing pool filled with greasy, organic animal by-product. So-called medical professionals insist that babies should be born in water or, worse, a hospital, but pure beef tallow is the way to go. Sure, tallow will go rancid faster than seed oils, but that just encourages Mom to push harder.” Later in the day, Kennedy tweeted his congratulations to a woman in Missouri who went viral after giving birth in the grease trap behind a local Steak ’n Shake. 

The post RFK Jr. Advocates Using Beef Tallow In Home Birth Tubs appeared first on The Onion.

Mommy and Luke had such a fun time on their cruise that they decided to get married and Luke is going to live here with us! Isn’t that exciting?

The post Mommy and Mommy’s Friend Luke appeared first on The Onion.

With 112,408 fans attending his show Saturday at Michigan Stadium, country star Zach Bryan set a new national record for the largest ticketed concert crowd. The Onion shares everything you need to know about the artist. 

Hometown: You Don’t Want To Know The History Of This Place, Oklahoma

Instrument: Sleeveless guitar

Vocal Style: Dehydrated

Biggest Hit: “That Cloud Looks Like A Lady”

Fan Base: Hungover people driving to church

Reason He Joined Navy: Discounted phone plan

Plastic Surgery: Buccal fat addition

Culpability For Rapid Bleaching Of Great Barrier Reef: Minimal

Military Rank Achieved: Level 6 Bard

The post Artist Profile: Zach Bryan appeared first on The Onion.

The post Jane Goodall, Author Of ‘15 Amazing Monkey Facts For Kids,’ Dies At 91 appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Calling him “the best man for the job,” President Donald Trump reportedly asked JD Vance Thursday to research whether the president was allowed to kill the vice president. “I mean, Article II says he’s legally my property, right?” said Trump, who stated that the task was “absolutely critical” as he put both his hands on Vance’s shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye. “See if there’s anything in the Constitution about squeezing and squeezing until the light leaves his eyes. Should be fine if it’s an official act. Russell Vought says I can do it, but I just want to be sure. Though to be honest, I’m probably going to do it whether it’s legal or not.” At press time, sources reported that Vance was asking Trump if he would please let go of his neck.

The post Trump Asks JD Vance To Research Whether President Allowed To Kill Vice President appeared first on The Onion.

https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/blink-df19

It's catalactually a pretty cool idea.

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Canadians are a friendly bunch, famous for our warmth and approachability. Despite this reputation, many of us find interactions with strangers painfully awkward. Among the worst kind is when our thoughtless, selfish kids make friends at the playground, putting us at risk of eye contact or small talk with other children’s parents.  But don’t despair, […]

The post 5 tips to avoid conversations with other parents at the playground appeared first on The Beaverton.

Hey! Just a second! We're ... #CowboyWho

Public librarians are shaping the future of the historic record. As experts in community knowledge dedicated to serving local information needs, these librarians are uniquely positioned to preserve and provide access to their community’s stories. Since 2017, Internet Archive’s Community Webs program has provided training, support, and services to empower public libraries to preserve local digital heritage. 

For rural public libraries, this crucial work may be particularly challenging. While a range of cultural heritage institutions may play a role in local preservation initiatives focused on larger communities, the public library may be the only organization engaging in this work in a rural area. Resource constraints, however, make it difficult for rural libraries to take on new initiatives and they may lack access to tools, training, and technology to support these efforts. Yet documenting how history is happening in these communities is essential for ensuring a more complete historic record. Without participation from rural libraries, these local stories may go untold, unheard, and undocumented.

In response to these challenges and opportunities, Internet Archive has recently focused on recruiting rural libraries into the Community Webs program, providing them with access to web archiving and digital preservation services as well as training and support at no cost. On September 20th, a group of these program members from across the country came together to learn about practical methods and accessible resources that can be used to document, preserve, and share local history in rural communities. Hosted in conjunction with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the event was an opportunity for participants to work with Internet Archive staff and their peers from similar institutions to develop plans for implementing community-focused preservation initiatives. 

Over the course of the workshop, participants learned strategies for developing community partnerships, providing access to digital collections, and ensuring long term preservation of digital assets. Participatory preservation initiatives such as community scanning days and oral history programs were also covered. Particular attention was paid to the preservation of web-based local content. From the websites of community organizations to local news sites to neighborhood blogs, web archiving is critical for libraries working to preserve their community’s story as it unfolds. Attendees learned how to use Archive-It to both preserve and provide access to web archive collections. They then brainstormed about what local online information possessed enduring value for their current and future community members. Many attendees cited local newspapers that had moved to online-only distribution, town or county government webpages, and online information about community resources and services as content they would include in their web archives. 

Internet Archive will continue to offer support through the Community Webs program for these libraries as they take what they learned in this workshop and begin to apply it locally. Thank you to the Mellon Foundation whose support allows our team to host events like this and continue to expand the Community Webs program. We also wish to thank all of the libraries that participated in our recent workshop:

Asotin Public Library (Washington), Belen Public Library (New Mexico), Cairo Public Library (New York), Charlotte Public Library (Vermont), Dodge Center Public Library (Minnesota), Hillsboro Community Library (New Mexico), Holbrook Public Library (Massachusetts), Jemez Springs Public Library (New Mexico), Kendall Young Library (Iowa), Middlebury Public Library (Indiana), Milltown Public Library (New Jersey), Mount Pleasant Public Library (Texas), Randolph County Public Libraries (North Carolina), Salem-South Lyon District Library (Michigan), Scott County Library System (Iowa), Smithville Public Library (Texas), Sweet Home Public Library (Oregon), Van Horn Public Library (Minnesota), Westford Public Library (Vermont), and Yavapai County Free Library District (Arizona)

Interested in learning more about Community Webs? Explore Community Webs collections, read the latest program news, or apply to join!