Cowboy Who?

Kimberly Phillips died of malnutrition and dehydration after three weeks in the Tarrant County Jail. Her daughter is suing the county for information about her incarceration and death.

Panera Bread now has 10 fewer locations across Houston after EYM Cafe, a franchisee, filed for bankruptcy last week. EYM Cafe was founded in 2019. EYM started with 18 locations across Houston, Lubbock, and Midland, expanding to Abilene and Amarillo before collapsing. The drama began in February when EYM started falling behind on payments to Panera and suppliers. This prompted intervention by Panera, which concluded the stores were not being run to its standards, and ...

While other universities move to preserve the advisory bodies, Texas State will abolish them under a new state law that curtails faculty’s influence on campuses.

The local management organization for the Harrisburg area in east Houston will host an Aug. 19 information session about the planned revamp to Telephone Road. Because of Mayor John Whitmire’s policies, the project faces major changes.

Republican state lawmakers argue their proposed congressional redistricting map would create Latino opportunity districts. But state Rep. Vince Perez (D-El Paso) counters that the map is drawn to leave Latino residents with one-third the voting power of whites. For Blacks, he says it would be one-fifth.

A vote to censure is a formal expression of disapproval but has no impact on Hidalgo's ability to serve in her elected position or on the commissioners court.

In brief: I’m pushing out a brief post this morning to highlight what I wrote to our Houston audience earlier. This applies to the system coming toward the western Atlantic next week, currently not highlighted by the NHC. We’ll have more on this for you this weekend. Thanks for your support!

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

It’s getting to be the time of year where we do start watching more and more things, even some of the innocuous looking ones. We’ve had some deterministic (operational) model guidance (the GFS, the Euro, etc.) go crazy in the day 14 to 16 timeframe lately. This bears repeating. The day 14 to 16 timeframe. Deterministic modeling has virtually no skill at that timeframe. So, while we are certainly empathetic to people getting a little unnerved when they see bad things in that timeframe, Eric and I both are realists and recognize that those runs, even if 2 or 3 in a row show something similar, are somewhat meaningless. Put another way, if I had a buck for every time a deterministic model wrecked a major Gulf Coast city on days 14 to 16, I’d be getting wrecked on some tropical island somewhere far, far away living the dream. I’m just saying!

So what do we do instead? We look at ensemble guidance for clues. What can the ensembles tell us about the potential for a tropical system in a more distant timeframe? Ensemble modeling is where you take a single model and run it 30 to 50 times but tweak the initial conditions, or what the model starts from. We can’t get a perfect snapshot of the entire atmosphere over the entire globe, so we have to improvise a little. Ensemble guidance is that improv.

Okay, let me show you a perfect example of this. Here’s last night’s GFS operational model for hour 294, which is day 13.

That’ll get your attention! And it has been showing this for a few days, though it varies in location between the Caribbean, the Carolinas, and out to sea. But what do the ensembles show?

Not all lines on a spaghetti plot chart are created equal. Some of the lines above may be ensemble members that are slightly more skilled than others. That’s a tough lift to figure out specifically in every situation. But the point is this: Yes, the GFS operational model may be right! But according to the ensembles there are a bunch of other options too, including many that go out to sea and a handful that come into the Gulf.

I show you this for a couple reasons. First, I want you to recognize that the scary images you often see on social media are almost always from operational models. Second, when you look at the ensemble guidance, it offers a far more nuanced take on all this that suggests the operational models are just one possible solution of many. We go through this exercise every season. It’s the same culprits from the same places with the same intentions. They’re basically preying on people’s fears to drive engagement under the guise of “we’re not saying this is a forecast (it is), but we want to just let you know what’s out there!” In reality, the picture is nuanced, complex, and not at all straightforward. A deterministic model showing Armageddon on day 13 does not make that scenario any more likely than any of the possible outcomes on the ensemble chart I showed you above. Hurricane season is a months’ long marathon. We just want you to keep your sanity.

In this specific situation: Yes, we should keep an eye on this tropical wave as it comes west over the next 10 days. It is August, and we should keep an eye on all tropical waves this time of year. If it looks like this will be a real, credible threat, we’ll be talking about it here well before it happens. We already have been. But we won’t share scareicane nonsense with you. Thanks for reading!

In brief: Hot and humid weather with daily shower chances awaits Houston over the next several days, typical for August but perhaps encroaching on 100 degrees at times. Today, we also dive in deep on the tropical noise that’s been percolating on some weather models.

IAH hit 100 degrees again yesterday. Before you go stand outside Terminal B with pitchforks due to construction the perceived hot bias, there were a string of 99s and 100s yesterday recorded across the north and west side of town. Wednesday’s 100 felt a little less valid. But again, compare IAH to IAH, not to the rest of the city. We saw mid to upper 90s mostly, and we’ll probably do it again today. Nothing unusual for August.

Today

We’ll have one more slightly hotter than usual day today with highs approaching 100 degrees in spots, especially north of I-10. Isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms are likely with daytime heating again, and any of those storms could produce some brief downpours and the potential for some gusty winds.

We may still have residual haze, especially this morning. That’s due to wildfire smoke from Canadian wildfires. This is a problem that much of the country has been dealing with at times in recent years.

Weekend

Both days should be fairly typical for August. We’ll see highs in the mid to upper-90s, possibly leaning more toward mid-90s on Sunday with slightly higher coverage of showers and storms. But, sunny, hot, and humid with daily isolated to scattered downpours and thunderstorms.

Next week

There’s nothing particularly notable about next week’s weather right now. It looks like we’ll have a few isolated to scattered showers or storms each day, especially on Monday or Tuesday. Temperatures may try to rebound back closer to the upper-90s again. But overall, it looks like very basic August.

Tropics

First and foremost, we’re good here for the next 7 to 10 days in Houston. We’ve got no concerns noted on modeling right now.

All that said, it’s getting to be the time of year where we do start watching more and more things, even some of the innocuous looking ones. We’ve had some deterministic (operational) model guidance (the GFS, the Euro, etc.) go crazy in the day 14 to 16 timeframe lately. This bears repeating. The day 14 to 16 timeframe. Deterministic modeling has virtually no skill at that timeframe. So, while we are certainly empathetic to people getting a little unnerved when they see bad things in that timeframe, Eric and I both are realists and recognize that those runs, even if 2 or 3 in a row show something similar, are somewhat meaningless. Put another way, if I had a buck for every time a deterministic model wrecked a major Gulf Coast city on days 14 to 16, I’d be getting wrecked on some tropical island somewhere far, far away living the dream. I’m just saying!

So what do we do instead? We look at ensemble guidance for clues. What can the ensembles tell us about the potential for a tropical system in a more distant timeframe? Ensemble modeling is where you take a single model and run it 30 to 50 times but tweak the initial conditions, or what the model starts from. We can’t get a perfect snapshot of the entire atmosphere over the entire globe, so we have to improvise a little. Ensemble guidance is that improv.

Okay, let me show you a perfect example of this. Here’s last night’s GFS operational model for hour 294, which is day 13.

That’ll get your attention! And it has been showing this for a few days, though it varies in location between the Caribbean, the Carolinas, and out to sea. But what do the ensembles show?

Not all lines on a spaghetti plot chart are created equal. Some of the lines above may be ensemble members that are slightly more skilled than others. That’s a tough lift to figure out specifically in every situation. But the point is this: Yes, the GFS operational model may be right! But according to the ensembles there are a bunch of other options too, including many that go out to sea and a handful that come into the Gulf.

I show you this for a couple reasons. First, I want you to recognize that the scary images you often see on social media are almost always from operational models. Second, when you look at the ensemble guidance, it offers a far more nuanced take on all this that suggests the operational models are just one possible solution of many. We go through this exercise every season. It’s the same culprits from the same places with the same intentions. They’re basically preying on people’s fears to drive engagement under the guise of “we’re not saying this is a forecast (it is), but we want to just let you know what’s out there!” In reality, the picture is nuanced, complex, and not at all straightforward. A deterministic model showing Armageddon on day 13 does not make that scenario any more likely than any of the possible outcomes on the ensemble chart I showed you above. Hurricane season is a months’ long marathon. We just want you to keep your sanity.

In this specific situation: Yes, we should keep an eye on this tropical wave as it comes west over the next 10 to 12 days. It is August, and we should keep an eye on all tropical waves this time of year. Rest assured, if there’s a threat that seems realistic to Texas, we’ll be talking about it here well before it happens. You can also use The Eyewall to follow along with more of the day-to-day details.

WASHINGTON—Suggesting an unorthodox alternative to standard oncological treatments, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued recommendations Friday that encourage Americans to eat what he described as good cancer to kill the bad cancer already in their bodies. “They cancel each other out,” Kennedy told reporters as he demonstrated how he uses a Microplane to grate tumors he forages from medical waste bins, incorporating their positive carcinogenic effects into his meals. “Instead of flooding your system with nasty chemicals that big pharmaceutical companies manufacture in foreign labs, you can incorporate organic good cancer into your system to naturally crowd out and eliminate the harmful bad cancer cells. We’ve known about this for generations, but lobbyist groups like the American Cancer Society have misled people about the proven health benefits of good cancer in order to line their pockets. It’s all about balance: Too much good cancer will act like a bad cancer, but not enough good cancer in your diet will cause the bad cancer to run amok.” As he blended a raw tumor into a Nutribullet smoothie, Kennedy argued that it was best to consume the good cancer raw to avoid cooking off its healthy cancer properties.

The post RFK Jr. Recommends Eating Good Cancer To Kill The Bad Cancer appeared first on The Onion.

PHILADELPHIA—Rushing into a darkened stadium and dreading what they might discover, NBC Sports producers reportedly panicked Friday upon realizing they had accidentally left analyst Cris Collinsworth in the Sunday Night Football broadcast booth for the entire offseason. “We just assumed he’d gone home after calling the divisional round, but then people at Lincoln Financial Field told us they’d been hearing scratching sounds and a faint voice praising Jalen Hurts’ poise in the pocket,” said NBC spokesperson Allison Carlisle, adding that Collinsworth had survived the past seven months by eating foam off of microphones and drinking half-empty water bottles he found in the trash. “Doesn’t seem like it bothered him, though. When we found him, he was talking to no one in particular about how A.J. Brown is undersized yet isn’t afraid to lower the shoulder. He was gaunt, sitting in his own urine and feces, but instead of asking for food or water, he just turned to us and calmly said, ‘This Eagles O-line is a five-man wrecking crew with a blocking scheme straight out of your nightmares. Good luck lining up against them.’” At press time, producers were said to be quietly discussing whether to just leave him there until the start of the regular season.

The post Panicking NBC Realizes They Left Cris Collinsworth In Broadcast Booth All Offseason appeared first on The Onion.

CHARLESTON, SC—In what was originally intended as a “low-key girls weekend,” four of bride-to-be Julia Rose Atkinson’s closest friends were financially ruined this week after her bachelorette party completely bankrupted her fave girlies. “The weekend turned out a bit more expensive than we had anticipated, but of course it was all worth it to celebrate our ride-or-die chica,” said newly insolvent bridesmaid Zara Khan, who quietly canceled her dental insurance after being hit with a surprise $800 charge for damage to the pink party barge chartered for the occasion. “Seriously, the weekend could not have been more perfect. The Airbnb we rented was huge, the spa day was absolutely divine, and the champagne-room VIP club crawl in matching designer ‘Till Death Do Us Party’ sashes was a night I’ll never forget. That’s not even to mention the boozy yoga, the private pole dancing class, the beach day with matching swimsuits and custom towels, the Hummer limo rental, the professional makeup and hair services for the group, the wine tasting and vineyard tour, the bottomless-mimosa drag brunches, the custom ‘Bride Squad’ tumblers, the late-night tattoo stop, the session with a psychic, the sexy male strippers, the first-class plane tickets, and of course the professional photographer who tagged along all weekend to preserve the memories forever.” At press time, the destitute bridesmaids had reportedly made appointments to sell their plasma in order to afford the $600 floor-length sage green gowns required for Atkinson’s wedding ceremony.

The post Bachelorette Party Bankrupts 4 Of Bride’s Fave Girlies appeared first on The Onion.

SAN FRANCISCO—Kicking himself for having made such a foolish error in judgment, restless tech billionaire Jasper Stroud expressed regret Friday at having an infusion of child’s blood after 4 p.m. “I should’ve just taken a nap instead of popping open my blood boy fridge and getting a quick hit,” said the anxious fintech founder, noting that so much blood so late in the day was bad for his sleep schedule and he could already feel the middle schooler’s testosterone upping his heart rate. “Even a couple drops is a lot—what the hell was I thinking taking a whole liter of this stuff? I’m going to be tossing and turning in my bed for hours thanks to this fresh, youthful blood! Jesus, I should’ve had it parabiotically filtered through a college student at the very least.” At press time, the jittery billionaire was running on his underwater treadmill to see if he could sweat out the 13-year-old’s hormones.

The post Restless Billionaire Regrets Having Infusion Of Child’s Blood After 4 P.M. appeared first on The Onion.

Tea, an app that encourages women to write reviews about men they’ve dated, was recently hit by a data breach, with thousands of photos and messages leaked on 4chan. Here is everything you need to know about the viral app.

Q: What is the Tea app used for?

A: Fighting with your boyfriend’s girlfriend. 

Q: Is it popular?

A: Tea is extremely popular among women who wrote page-long notes in each other’s yearbooks in high school. 

Q: How do you know if reviews are true?

A: Photo verification confirms if a guy looks like he would do that. 

Q:  What’s the app’s slogan?

A: “Your Personal Data May Have Been Compromised.”

Q: What were the hackers trying to prove?

A: That women don’t need to go on dates for men to harass them.

Q: What has Tea done for women affected by the hack?

A: Told them to calm down.

Q: How will Tea recover from the hack?

A: With six months’ time and a logo change.

The post What To Know About The Tea App appeared first on The Onion.

An Ohio couple gave birth to a baby developed from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 30 years, which appears to be the longest storage time before a birth. What do you think?

The post Couple Welcomes Baby Born From 31-Year-Old Embryo appeared first on The Onion.

A customer was developing a service, and they didn’t want users to be able to change the service’s startup type (e.g. change it from auto-start to disabled). They saw that other services had the “Startup type” field disabled. How can they get in on that action? They found that that they could get close to the desired behavior by restricting the ACLs on the service registry key. That doesn’t disable the startup type combo box in the UI, but it did mean that when the user tried to change the setting, they got an error message.

There is no need to do any undocumented hacking to get the desired effect. It’s all right there in front of you.

To prevent users from being able to change the startup type, don’t grant them SERVICE_CHANGE_CONFIG access to the service. The “Startup type” combo box disables itself if the user does not have permission to change the service configuration.

Use the Set­Service­Object­Security function to change the access control list for a service. There is a sample program in the documentation: Modifying the DACL for a Service.

Similarly, you can control who can start and stop the service by adjusting who gets SERVICE_START, SERVICE_STOP, and SERVICE_PAUSE_CONTINUE access to the service.

Bonus chatter: For every immovable object, there is a more motivated unstoppable force: My friends over in support tell me that they sometimes get cases where they discover that a system-provided service has been configured in some way that shouldn’t be possible, given that the option is disabled in the UI. Upon closer questioning, the customer explains, “Yeah, it was disabled in the UI, so we had to do ⟦really extreme thing⟧ to get that service reconfigured the way we want it.”

This is like driving up to a bridge, seeing a “Bridge out of order” sign, then getting out of your car, moving the sign, driving onto the bridge, falling into the river, and then complaining to the car manufacturer that their car doesn’t work.

The post How do I disable pieces of the property sheet for a service in the Services MMC snap-in? appeared first on The Old New Thing.

At least 12 people have died in the Harris County Jail this year, including Alexis Cardenas, a 32-year-old man who recently died during a struggle with officers who were escorting him to the exit door. His sister was among those to question Gonzalez after Thursday's meeting in Austin.

Ten Texas Democrats as well as two Republicans – one from California and another from New York – are advocating federal legislation to restrict states to redistricting once a decade, following the U.S. Census, unless otherwise required by courts. The chances of passing such a bill in the current Congress are slim.

The proposal by County Judge Lina Hidalgo would have given Harris County voters a say on whether to support a tax increase to continue funding certain child care and education training programs. The initiatives were previously supported by pandemic-era federal dollars.

Remember the letter-writer was poly and wondering if they could bring both their partners to work events? Here’s the update.

I appreciated Liz Powell’s perspective, and your joint discussion did help me figure out how to approach the issue. I ultimately decided that, given how relatively new I was to the job at the time, I didn’t want to risk being known only for being polyam at work.

I spent the next year and a half avoiding ever talking about my life outside of work with anyone in my department, or being extremely vague if someone asked directly, which is isolating! But I’ve actively worked to build a reputation for being efficient and generally being easy to get along with, so that I have more capital at work to spend on being visibly queer and polyamorous if I need to.

I also decided that, given how few people in the smaller gathering had children/families at the time, and how inconsistently-conservative my boss is, it would’ve been gauche to ask for a second guest. I made excuses to my boss to skip the gathering last year, but this year, I brought my other partner*. I’m sure my boss just thought I was dating someone new, but even if he was confused, neither he nor anyone else mentioned it, everyone was quite pleasant, and I got to spend time with some coworkers who I like but don’t see in person much.

* I got a bunch of comments expressing surprise and horror that anyone might want to attend their spouse’s work event. I don’t know what to tell you besides “some people like to meet new people and learn about them via small talk.”

The post update: I’m poly — can I ask to bring both my partners to work events? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Doug Ford continues to push ahead with plans to dig a 19.5 metre wide, multi-story tunnel under the 401 in order to solve the issue of traffic congestion once and for all. Here are some of the pros and cons of such a move. Pro: It will make driving from Brampton to Scarborough feel 0.0000005% […]

The post Pros and Cons of solving traffic congestion by building a big ass tunnel under the 401 appeared first on The Beaverton.

It’s Mortification Week at Ask a Manager and all week long we’ve been revisiting ways we’ve mortified ourselves at work. Here’s the final installment — 15 more mortifying stories people have shared here over the years.

1. The costume

For my very first job out of college, I worked on an Air Force base. A few months into my time there, Halloween rolls around, and we get no fewer than five separate emails assuring us that it’s TOTALLY COOL to wear a costume to work (as long as you aren’t in an external meeting). It will be fun! Lots of people do it every year! Now with more experience, I would definitely ask around first and get a feel for the vibe before doing this, but at the time I was a shiny new employee eager to appear willing.

I pondered for several days on what would be a work-appropriate costume – something that would show that I had a sense of humor without being ridiculous, something a MATURE ADULT would wear. All of my in-office coworkers at that time were significantly older than me, largely ex-military folks, and I wanted to send the right impression sooooooo bad. At last, I settled upon … a TELEWORKER! (This was 2020 but they were still making most civilians come in at least part of the time and the active duty folks had never been authorized to work remotely, even if they were just doing computer work.)

So, from the waist up I wore my nicest blouse under a suit jacket, did my hair and makeup, the works. For my lower half, I wore my fluffiest, silliest pajamas with little bitty foxes printed on them, and big fluffy slippers shaped like bears. I confidently rolled up to work, excited to share my joke with all my cooler, older coworkers. My confidence faltered a little as I realized the costume invitation had apparently not been extended to most active duty personnel, so I was a goofy looking speck in a sea of uniformed officers, but remembered that my floor was almost half civilian so I would surely blend.

You know where this is going. Literally no one else wore a costume. In fact, I saw exactly ONE other costume on base the entire day. Worse, apparently my coworkers had all forgotten it was Halloween – so not only were they not wearing costumes, they also didn’t realize I was wearing a costume, and assumed that the shiny new employee had chosen to wear pajama bottoms to work because she just liked them!

Throughout the day, multiple people, including but not limited to my boss, my boss’s boss, a colonel, and the recently retired chief master sergeant, who was my newest colleague, all pulled me gently aside to give me a few quick pointers about professional dress. I am, in general, very difficult to embarrass, but the idea that absolutely everyone I worked with thought I was so naive I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to wear pajama pants to the office made me want to just melt right into the floor.

Also, at the time I had a medical condition that prevented me from driving, and was entirely dependent on the bus system which only came by the building twice a day, so I couldn’t even go home to change. One of many reasons to keep a spare outfit at work! Can’t recommend it enough.

2. The mansplainer

A fellow researcher and I were interviewing a source over Zoom for our research. Near the end of the interview, the source volunteered, without our asking for it, some information about how to conduct research, how to publish it, how to analyze data, that kind of thing. So we ended the interview, and then said to each other something like “OMG did he just man-splain OUR OWN RESEARCH to us?” After a couple more words like “Yes! Ugh, Men!” and “So annoying!” we realized that we had said the words to end the interview (Thank you, bye now!), but we had not actually ended the Zoom session. He was still there, listening to us criticize him.

To his credit, he emailed us shortly thereafter and apologized for mansplaining.

3. The nap room

I was in my first year of teaching and was being shown around by the custodian during the week of in-service before school started. He and I immediately got along and could recognize the smartass in each other. He was sure to show me that I had a TV that got full cable and that The Price is Right was coming on soon. In response, I had intended to say, “Hey, I’m gonna be in here taking a nap. Whatever you do, do not come in here” as a sort of way to say, “Yeah, I’m gonna hunker down and watch TV while I should be working.”

Readers, instead, I told this 60-year-old man I had just met, “Hey I’m going to go to sleep. Do what you gotta do, but don’t come inside me.”

4. The underwear

Years ago, one of my first real jobs was working the overnight shift at a dog daycare/boarding facility. It was an easy, straightforward gig: give the dogs dinner, do some laundry, prep breakfast, then hang out or sleep until the morning shift came in at 6 am.

I had several mortifying experiences there, including my first shift – I slept through my alarm, so the day manager came in to find me fast asleep on a dog mattress in my oh-so-professional Muppet Babies pajama pants.

But the one that still makes me cringe is the time I got my period early and bled all over one of the aforementioned dog mattresses. Luckily, I had a change of clothes, and the mattress was designed to be easy to clean. It only took 10 minutes to get cleaned up, and since I was doing laundry anyway, I decided to just throw my underwear in with the rest of the wash. And then, of course, I completely forgot about it.

I returned a few days later to find the underwear neatly folded in a paper bag, which someone had kindly pinned to the bulletin board in the break room with a note that said, “Is this your underwear?”

5. The layoff

I didn’t realize I had been fired and showed up for work the next day!

Right out of college, I worked part-time for a young startup founded and run by a bunch of college kids and interns. It was pretty normal for the volume of work to fluctuate, so when my supervisor pulled me aside and told me there wasn’t enough work, my services weren’t needed, and I could head home, etc. I thanked her and enjoyed an extra few hours of free time that evening.

The next morning, I showed up and got right back to work. My supervisor looked so confused and said, “What are you doing here?” After I explained that I was completing my assigned tasks, she left the building to make a call, only to come back and explain to me that the company didn’t need my services moving forward. Slow on the uptake, I thanked her and told her I would finish what I was working on before I headed home. It slowly dawned on me that she was trying to lay me off – she was just being so kind and gentle that I didn’t get it! Once I put two and two together, I picked up my purse and walked out – stunned in silence for the next few hours. (Note from me: this was not your fault! They were in the ones who messed this up!)

6. The mangled sentence

In my first job out of college, I worked for a Fortune 500 company in a major city. I was one of ~115 people in an open office that was a sales environment and I was an admin. I had walked over to my supervisor’s cube to chat about something and during the course of the conversation, as we were both standing there chatting about work, I said, “He’s going to chew me out” in reference to a colleague.

What actually came out was, “He’s going to eat me out.”

We both pretended as if nothing had happened, but I still think about it to this day and it has been more than 25 years.

7. The haircut

I was working retail, it was a small independent business, and there were only two of us working. It was close to the end of day and it had been DEAD. It was a beautiful summer afternoon and people had clearly chosen to enjoy the outside.

My coworker, Suzie, had an event after work and was disappointed that she had not been able to schedule her hair appointment beforehand, because she felt like her style had grown out too much. So, her great idea was to talk me into giving her a haircut:

Suzie: You should just do it! You’ll do a fantastic job, you’re an artist!
Me: No! That’s a terrible idea, our scissors suck.
Suzie: I just want an inch off the bottom, three cuts and you’ll be done. I know you can do it, I’m confident.
Me: Okay, why not.

I really was just that bored that it only took one more sentence from her to convince me, like, that conversation has not been edited down. I got out our terrible scissors that are used to cut open all kinds of boxes and have residual goo from packing tape on them and proceed to start giving her a “trim.” I quickly saw how just how bad on an idea this was; after one cut her hair looked like an absolute disaster, and unbeknownst to me my brain had flipped the numbers in her request. It has translated “one inch in three cuts” to “three inches in one cut.” I cut off way too much hair. It was only around shoulder length to begin with.

Me: This isn’t going well, are you sure you can’t make a last-minute appointment?
Suzie: *feels back of head* OH MY GOD! How much are you taking off?
Me: Three inches, that’s what you wanted, right?
Suzie: I said one inch in three cuts! Well, just keep going. It’s too late now.

I kept going. At this point, it finally dawned on us just how insane this all was. We both got kinda giggly in that hysterical way. Both of our faces went red, we both could not believe how much I had butchered her hair and realized that our boss would kill us if they found out (this level of goofing off would not go over well). So now we’re putting all her hair in a bag to get it out of there and she says she’s going to try showing up at her hairdresser in person and begging. I say of course: just go right now, I’ll close up and if anyone asks, I’ll say you were here till close.

This is when the last customer of the day comes in. Suzie take off out the back. I try very hard to be normal to this poor person, I’m pretty sure it didn’t work. She clearly picked up on the weird vibe and did not stay long.

I close up. Still reeling. I go to the closest liquor store and buy a bottle of gin and bring it to Suzie’s house (it’s a small town). Her husband opens the door and I ask him to give it to her. My face must still look crazy because her asks me if she’s okay. He looks extremely concerned and shocked. I tell him, “Yeah, yeah she’s okay. She’s fine. She’s not hurt or anything.” I leave, I am so ashamed.

Twist ending: her hairdresser takes pity on her and gives her an amazing haircut! She really looked fantastic.

8. The Zoom reveal

I was on a Zoom call that I had to leave halfway through in order to pick my kids up from daycare. My company is a “cameras on” place, so I had my camera on for the call, and then turned it off so I could change out of my sweats and into shorts before I picked up my kids…

Or least I thought I turned off my camera, but dear reader, I did not. And thus about 10 folks got a view of my butt and underwear while I changed, and then dropped off the call. And I was blissfully unaware, until I returned home and saw I had a missed Slack message from someone on the call. We did a quick huddle where she gently informed me about my inadvertent strip show. It’s been about three years now and I’m still embarrassed just telling this story…

9. The image

Part of my job involves receiving and forwarding mail throughout my company. I don’t need to look at the mail in any sort of depth, just enough to know who it goes it.

This one particular envelope had the recipient’s name clearly written on the front, so I just stuck the contents in the scanner without looking, grabbed it when it was done, and then looked up at my computer where there displayed on the scanning app was a full-screen, very zoomed-in butthole.

I closed out the window in startled panic and then immediately went back to the envelope to actually read the accompanying letter to see what on earth??? Was it hate mail? A prank?? Nope. It was in fact a business-related butthole and I had to forward it on to the proper person with a big huge warning of basically SENSITIVE MATERIAL, BUTTHOLE INSIDE

I spent the rest of the day nervously hoping no one had been behind me when I scanned it.

10. The misspelling

I texted the dean of my department that I was taking a sick day. But the letter S and the letter D are very close on the keyboard.

Luckily he was also a friend out of the office, so he found the exchange rather amusing.

11. The misprinted placemats

One Thanksgiving, my entire family spent the day helping my sister and her boyfriend manually correct printed plastic placemats containing a typo. It was a child’s placemat with brightly colored sea creatures on it, and had been printed overseas. One of the sea creatures was labeled as “RED CRAP.” Needed to turn all the Ps into Bs. Fun times.

12. The static shock

I gave a coworker a static shock into her nose ring: We had an awful static problem on one side of the office and I was mostly good about discharging myself when I stood up, apart from this day, when I wandered over to her to talk, mentioned she had something on her cheek, and went to wipe of off (we were the kind of office where that was okay), and then I saw the actual spark jump to her nose ring. She jumped a good foot back from me.

13. The centrifuge rotor

When I was a grad student, I was wheeling a heavy centrifuge rotor out of a cold room when it fell off the cart and clattered like a manhole cover so the entire building heard it. It triggered a brief assembly/party where everyone told me about their lab mishaps such as injecting themselves with an antibiotic resistant bacterium or doing a three day purification and then throwing way the sample at the end.

14. The meowed conversation

I recently started a new job, and the organization hosted an all-hands Zoom meeting to discuss continued funding for our work in the face of a hostile political landscape. I also have a cat who likes to meow at me from the other room when she wants attention. My habit is to “talk” to her, imitating her meows. So of course, I somehow unmuted myself and carried on a full “conversation” with my cat. I wasn’t paying attention to the chat, so I missed the warning messages that people could hear me. It wasn’t until the facilitator stopped what he was saying to ask me to mute that I realized everyone could hear me carrying on in fluent cat.

15. The coding

I was in the final stages of a job I really wanted and they asked for a technical interview, needing to solve coding problems live on a virtual platform. Between knowing I was being watched and judged, the new program, and general anxiety about coding, I panicked. I misunderstood the first question, tried to overcomplicate it, completely blanked on how to write code in a language I’ve used almost daily for 10 years, and in a grand finale, gave up for a few minutes and put my head in my hands trying to calm down, forgetting that I was still live on Zoom and the interviewers could see me.

I will be reliving this for a long time but life goes on and I have a better idea of how to prepare for any future interviews like this.

The post the costume mishap, the Zoom reveal, and other stories to cringe over appeared first on Ask a Manager.

BOISE, ID—In what is being hailed as a victory for advocates of the right to end one’s life in total humiliation, the Idaho Legislature passed a new death with indignity law Thursday that will allow the terminally ill to be crushed by falling vending machines. “Across our state, people dying of incurable diseases will now have the right to choose a slow, painful, and really embarrassing death,” House Speaker Mike Moyle said of the bipartisan measure that is expected to be signed into law today, remarking that the option to die in the manner of a person who has rocked a vending machine back and forth, perhaps when it failed to dispense change or release a desired food item, had been legal in Switzerland for many decades. “If they’re too sick to travel to an office break room, hotel hallway, or bowling alley, a vending machine–assisted death can be carried out in a patient’s home, where they can be crushed to death while surrounded by deeply ashamed loved ones.” At press time, a 33-year-old Pocatello man had become the first Idaho resident to die with his hands around a bag of Famous Amos cookies as two large male nurses pushed a snack machine over on top of him.

The post New Death With Indignity Law Lets Terminally Ill Be Crushed By Falling Vending Machines appeared first on The Onion.

Today’s “ask the readers” question is a reader request to hear about stories of colleagues overstepping their expertise in disastrous or funny ways. It was based on this story:

I am having flashbacks to a recent logo design process where the client, hostile to me, kept using AI to generate ideas and then refused to accept why we could not, in fact, have a one-color logo with enormously tall giants striding in a line up a ridiculously dinky mountain AND ALSO have racial equity in the image AND ALSO have realism, which is why we ended up with a logo that screams “2006 band poster” and is hands-down one of the worst things I have ever designed. And no, I couldn’t fire my client; they were my colleagues, who have zero technical design sense.

In the comment section, please share your own stories of colleagues overstepping their expertise.

The post let’s discuss coworkers overstepping their expertise in disastrous ways appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Jaime Galvan Sanchez has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years. He was deported in less than 24 hours without due process and allowed to return. But his family is still suffering from the aftermath.

Artists interested in the natural splendor and sublimity of the Hawai’ian Islands are invited to apply for a National Parks Arts Foundation artist residency at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, which will take place in April 2026.

The park is located on Hawai’i’s Big Island, with active volcanoes Kīlauea and Mauna Loa onsite. As described on the National Parks Arts Foundation website, within the park’s boundaries are “mysterious and ever-changing active lava flows, as well as legendary lava tubes, active lava vents, and extensive greenscapes and rainforests. … For artists, the park offers dramatic volcanic landscapes, glimpses of rare flora and fauna, and a view into the sacred Hawaiian culture connected to these landscapes.”

New this year, selected artists will receive a $4,000 stipend following the completion of their residency, as well as living quarters within a spacious house outfitted with a baby grand piano, recording booth, meditation area, and art studio conversion with panoramic views of the ocean. Residents are expected to participate in a public event or presentation at the park.

The residency opportunity is open to single artists, families, artist couples, artist collectives, and arts troupes.

Artists working in all media are encouraged to apply for the April 7-30, 2026, residency period. Notable artists to have visited the park in the past include photographer Ansel Adams and Mark Twain, who wrote about his stay at the Volcano House on the rim of Kīlauea. Past artists-in-residence include musician and actor Will Oldham, composer Byron Yasui, artist Emma Stibbon, and installation artist Hasan Elahi.

The application is due Friday, August 15, 2025, and notification to selected artists will be sent out Friday, November 14. Application fees are $60 for a single artist, $120 for an artist couple or duo, or $160 for a group of 3 or more artists.

Many National Parks maintain artist residency programs, including San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and Big Bend National Park, though only the Hawai’i park is currently accepting applications.

To learn more about Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park and the residency program, visit the National Parks Arts Foundation website. Full information on park policies for the residency is available here.

The post Open Call: Artist Residency at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park appeared first on Glasstire.

Paul? I enjoyed your letter to the Philippians.

The Republican senator, who is facing a tough primary challenge, previously asked FBI Director Kash Patel for the agency’s help in tracking down the House lawmakers.

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