Cowboy Who?

Emanuel Maiberg and Joseph Cox, reporting again for 404 Media:

Despite Tea’s initial statement that “the incident involved a legacy data storage system containing information from over two years ago,” the second issue impacting a separate database is much more recent, affecting messages up until last week, according to the researcher’s findings that 404 Media verified. The researcher said they also found the ability to send a push notification to all of Tea’s users.

It’s hard to overstate how sensitive this data is and how it could put Tea’s users at risk if it fell into the wrong hands. When signing up, Tea encourages users to choose an anonymous screenname, but it was trivial for 404 Media to find the real world identities of some users given the nature of their messages, which Tea has led them to believe were private. Users could be easily found via their social media handles, phone numbers, and real names that they shared in these chats. These conversations also frequently make damning accusations against people who are also named in the private messages and in some cases are easy to identify. [...]

Some of the private messages viewed by 404 Media include:

• One user tells another they just discovered their husband on the app being discussed. “I am his wife,” many of the messages say.
• Another appears to show a woman contacting others about a man she is engaged to.
• Multiple messages which appear to show women discussing their abortions.
• Chat logs between women discovering they are dating the same man, exchanging information such as what car he drives for verification.

When I linked to 404 Media’s coverage of the initial breach at Tea the other day, I wrote, “I’m not accusing Tea in particular of being vibe-coded”. Well, I still don’t know if Tea’s service architecture was vibe-coded, but it’s now clear that whoever made it was shamefully incompetent. They shouldn’t have made any sort of services backend, let alone one like Tea’s that’s intended to carry incredibly sensitive personal information and messages.

This is an outright privacy — and quite possibly, personal security — disaster. With the abortion discussions and the current bifurcation of women’s rights here in the US, it could be a legal disaster, too. 4chan clowns have taken the images and data and created maps of Tea users’ addresses, and a Mark-Zuckerberg-“Facemash”-style site for ranking users’ appearance.

For women who’ve already signed up and started using Tea, I doubt there’s anything that can be done to remove them from exposure. Even if Tea offers a “delete your account” feature, I wouldn’t trust that it actually deletes anything from their database, let alone everything. And the cat’s already out of the bag for any bad actors who figured out this second exploit before Tea was alerted.

Yet another data point for the argument that any “private messaging” feature that doesn’t use E2EE isn’t actually private at all.

ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and other outlets have compiled information on the men deported to CECOT.

Project Connect was approved by voters in 2020 but has yet to break ground.

County Councilmember Evan Glass (D-At-large) sponsors bill

The post Proposed legislation would ban parking in Montgomery County bike lanes appeared first on Bethesda Magazine.

 PACIFIC OCEAN – According to nautical sources, 36-year-old Damian Clarke regrets not bringing fundamental survival supplies to an abandoned island in favour of packing 3 Doors Down’s smash hit debut album The Better Life.  “Is The Better Life nothing but wall to wall bangers?” Clarke said via morse code signalled by using the CD to […]

The post Man stranded on desert island regrets bringing favourite album instead of flare gun appeared first on The Beaverton.

I award this movie 10 stars.

CLEARWATER, FL—After undergoing a medical emergency and dying last week at the age of 71, Hulk Hogan’s spasming cadaver reportedly lifted a mortician high above its head Monday and body-slammed the professional. “At approximately 1:34 p.m., Hulk Hogan’s deceased corpse underwent spontaneous convulsions, at which point the cadaver bolted upright, ripped off its body bag, and started pummeling the mortician,” said Clearwater funeral home director Audrey Pearson, adding that due to the rapid stiffening of the WWE legend’s muscles, Hogan’s body also emitted one final “Brother” before climbing up on top of the embalming table, leaping off, and propelling itself more than 10 feet into the air to deliver a devastating leg drop. “Although Hogan’s brain activity had ceased days ago, his muscles were still able to contract enough to slap a bottle of formaldehyde out of the mortician’s hand, put him in a headlock, and slam his skull several times into the door of a refrigerated cabinet.” According to reports, Hogan’s corpse then involuntarily flexed its biceps, pumped its arms into the air, and let out a guttural scream, its muscles finally stiffening as it fell to the ground with a hand cupped around its ear.

The post Hulk Hogan’s Spasming Cadaver Body-Slams Mortician appeared first on The Onion.

As of late July, recycling service in Houston is three to five days behind schedule. Complaints to 311 about missed pickups soared to 15,000 over the past 12 weeks compared to 4,000 during the same period in 2024.

By: Martin Olsen, Syndicated Columnist The images coming out of Gaza are horrendous. Mothers holding starving babies, children crying out for food, people collapsing in the street from hunger. They are so powerful they have compelled me to, at long last, say Israel has gone a smidge too far and should really stop it. Through […]

The post I’ve been silent for 21 months of genocide, but this one editorial criticizing Israel will prove I’ve always been on the right side of history appeared first on The Beaverton.

From this paywalled report at Punchbowl News, as quoted by Taegan Goddard at Political Wire:

“The Senate GOP campaign arm is warning that Apple’s new iOS update could cost them $25 million in fundraising revenue, as well as priceless GOTV opportunities,” Punchbowl News reports.

Here’s a copy of the original memo from the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee). What they’re freaking out about is the new iOS 26 Messages feature (which will be available in Messages on iPadOS and MacOS 26 too — but because these messages are sent as SMS and because the iPhone is so many people’s primary or sole messaging device, it’s the platform they’re focusing on) that will automatically sort messages from unknown senders into a new “Unknown Sender” inbox.

Quoting from the NRSC letter (emphasis in original):

Apple’s iOS 26 update introduces aggressive message filtering. Political texts — even from verified and compliant senders-will be treated as spam by default, silently sent to an “Unknown” inbox with no alerts or notifications. That change has profound implications for our ability to fundraise, mobilize voters, and run digital campaigns.

It’s important to understand: Apple isn’t just targeting cold outreach or spammy actors. Every political message — shortcode, long code, doesn’t matter-gets pushed into the dark. The only workaround-getting a voter to reply — is increasingly rare and entirely at the mercy of Apple’s unclear rules. How will a voter reply if they never get the message?

Apple’s “rules” for this new feature aren’t unclear at all. If a sender is not in your saved contacts and you’ve never sent or responded to a text message from them, they’re considered “unknown”. That’s it. The feature isn’t even really new — you’ve been able to filter messages like this in Messages for years now, but what iOS 26 changes is that it now will be on by default and has a new more prominent — better, IMO — interface for switching between filter views. Update: I was wrong that this filtering will be on by default in iOS 26 — I was fooled because I had previously enabled “Filter Unknown Senders” in Settings → Apps → Messages → Unknown & Spam (which you need to scroll down quite a bit to get to). I do think, though, that many more iOS users will be using this feature starting with iOS 26 — it’s both better designed and less hidden.

Back to the NRSC letter:

Here’s the shift in practice. Today, a voter with an iPhone gets our message just like a normal text. In iOS 26, unless that person has already replied, our message is silently sent to the “Unknown” inbox. No ping, no badge, just buried in an inbox few people ever check.

We’ve spent years complying with rigorous standards — providing full documentation, opt-in proof, and message samples via Campaign Verify and The Campaign Registry — yet Apple ignores that. Carriers respect it. Apple doesn’t.

Estimated prospecting losses: NRSC alone could see a $25M+ revenue hit. Since 70% of small-dollar donations come via text, and iPhones make up 60% of US mobile devices, the macro effect could be over $500M in lost GOP revenue. [...]

Unfortunately, K St and trade groups are asleep at the wheel. Apple isn’t engaging. But we have only a few weeks left before the public release. If we’re going to push back, it has to be now. We have a very narrow window to fix this.

“Unknown Senders” isn’t spam. It’s for ... unknown senders. Which these political texts are. I don’t know anyone who enjoys getting these texts in their primary timeline of messages. What the NRSC is asserting here is that they have a right to put political solicitations in your primary Messages view, and to have them appear as notifications, which is ridiculous.

Also, there’s no reason to believe that Republican candidates and groups will be more affected by this than Democratic ones. There’s no filtering by message content. It’s just a change to stop sending notifications for texts from unknown senders, and to put those messages in a separate timeline by default. People will check the Unknown Senders timeline occasionally too — all sorts of text messages from bots will go there, including some you want or need.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND—Shortening the 50-day deadline he had previously given Vladimir Putin to put a stop to the war-torn country, President Donald Trump told reporters Monday he was now giving the Russian leader just “10 or 12 days” to end Ukraine once and for all. “I’m disappointed in President Putin, who has failed to halt this horrible country, letting it drag on and on,” said Trump, announcing that he would impose steep secondary tariffs on Russia should the civilian population of Ukraine still exist in any capacity in two weeks. “We cannot let this conflict continue any longer, so I’m giving Russia a hard but, frankly, generous deadline to discontinue all human life in Ukraine and leave behind a peaceful, completely uninhabited salt flat. This is the last time I’m going to say it: Putin, finish the job.” Trump also urged Putin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in person and shoot him in the back of the head.

The post Trump Gives Russia 10-Day Deadline To End Ukraine appeared first on The Onion.

#Kento #Rowen #RoninWarriors

This week on Lost Terminal: Seth gets some headspace, Lyosha visits a friend, Kat tells her story, and Kamil unearths the past.

Lost Terminal will return next week!

📓 Free transcript: https://www.patreon.com/posts/134869090/
🎵 Today's SIGNAL is: https://namtao.bandcamp.com/track/binary-adder
🦣 Mastodon https://namtao.com/@lostterminal
📝 Tumblr https://lostterminalpod.tumblr.com
🎙️ Recorded using a RODE NT-1 v5 USB in 32-bit float, edited with REAPER on Linux🙏

CREDITS

• Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
  ❤️ Thank you so much to everyone who supports me, but especially my Patreon Producers:
• Ada Phillips
• Kit
• Wynand Marais
• Jade Felicity Bilkey
• Stephen McCandless
• Mike Schneider

OTTAWA – Facing resistance to proposed austerity measures as well as criticism of his handling of US trade talks, Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced plans to reach millennial Canadians in words they will understand – budget-focused freestyle rap lyrics. Carney surprised reporters in an impromptu press conference this weekend, stating that he “wanted to […]

The post Mark Carney seeks to reach young Canadians by delivering speech in form of rap appeared first on The Beaverton.

CAGLIARI, ITALY—Groaning as they both realized the other unclothed person on the water was indeed their ex, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom reportedly pretended not to see each other Monday when they inadvertently crossed paths while naked paddleboarding off the coast of Sardinia. “Oh no, you’ve got to be kidding me—what the hell is he doing in the Tyrrhenian Sea?” the pop star said under her breath, attempting to maintain a neutral expression and stare straight ahead as she glided closer and closer to the 48-year-old actor, who was pointedly doing the same. “Of all the people I could have run into, it had to be him. Come on, Katy. Play it cool. Just pretend you don’t see him. He probably doesn’t even notice you. Oh no, don’t look at his penis!” At press time, Perry had reportedly dived off her paddleboard after spotting Russell Brand.

The post Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom Awkwardly Pretend Not To See Each Other While Out Naked Paddleboarding appeared first on The Onion.

Trump’s rollback is another example of the federal government’s lackluster efforts at giving Black farmers a boost in recent years.

A reader writes:

I recently went back to work at my large company after a two-week vacation, the first in five years. During a routine 1-1 meeting with my boss, he said that what he had feared had come to pass: he had mentioned to me several months earlier that due to a recent reorg, the new superboss what’s going to look at people’s entire company history, look for any problems, and then have those problems addressed.

Two years ago, I got a not-so-great evaluation. We had temporarily lost 40% of our team to another big project, so it was just me and one other person doing the jobs of five people, and I started to feel burned out after six weeks of this. I told my boss that I was getting really tired and asked if we could switch around duties and that I was going to take a few days off in the meantime. I got reprimanded for not recognizing that I was getting burned out earlier, and my boss said he “forgot” about switching us after a few weeks.

Three years ago, in my first year of this job, I got ill after traveling for work (not Covid) and was out for almost two months. I kept my boss apprised of my status and went to many doctors trying to see what was going on. I never got a diagnosis. My boss never told me I should have talked with HR about short-term disability or the like. And as a result I got a bad evaluation for not meeting all my goals that semester.

I have had three semesters of good evaluations since then. But since this new superboss looked far enough back and saw these things, I am now being given an option to either go on a PIP or take a voluntary separation. My manager also listed a few deficiencies that aren’t really accurate, like pointing out it took me two semesters to do a project when I had to take extended medical leave in the middle of it (which HR approved and I was on short-term disability). I had talked to him about not finishing it in time and he told me not to worry about it, and that I would get it done the next semester.

In general, though, the PIP says that I haven’t been working hard or fast enough. It’s confusing to me that even though I had a good evaluation for last semester, he was still able to list problems.

The benefits are really good at this company, and I still have health issues that I use our medical insurance for. I just maxed out my yearly out-of-pocket expenses for it. So I was looking forward to not having to pay anything the rest of the year. But I’m also not sure if doing the PIP is the best option for me or if I should take the voluntary separation. With the separation, I wouldn’t be allowed to reapply for a few years, but that time away would remove those bad evaluations, which I think have hindered my attempts to move to another team.

But also, if I agree to the PIP and then don’t end up meeting it, I will be fired for performance, which I think exempts me from unemployment benefits.

If I take the voluntary separation, they will pay me four months of my salary. if I go the PIP route and it is unsuccessful, I do not get any money.

If I take the PIP and I am successful at it, my boss says no one has to know I was ever on it. But that also means that those bad evaluations are still there and could show me first for when layoffs happen.

I don’t think it’s a good time to try to find another job, and I don’t think another company will have the same incredible benefits this one does.

I am unsure what to do. I’ve already done a pros and cons list of both. I wrote out my long-term goals and how each option could impact them. I’ve written HR with some questions and am taking a few days to think it through.

It’s really hard to know what’s best for me in the long-term since I don’t know if the PIP is sincerely offered, nor how hard it will be to get another job — I’m a woman in cybersecurity in my mid-40s. What are your thoughts, what looks best to you as an outsider, and what other considerations should I be thinking about?

You should talk to a lawyer.

Something here doesn’t smell right. Managers don’t come in and go digging through people’s history from years earlier to find problems if they’re currently doing well, let alone put them on PIPs for years-ago issues or ask them to choose between that or voluntary separation. That makes zero sense if your work the last year and a half has been good.

But you know when they do do that? When they’re looking for ways to get people to leave. And maybe that’s something that’s happening throughout your company or division because they’re trying to reduce their headcount. But maybe it’s happening because of the health issues and health-related absences you’ve mentioned. The details in your letter are frankly screaming that.

Moreover, there’s a good chance your company has already violated the law in how they’ve dealt with your health issues previously — like that bad evaluation for not meeting your goals when you were out sick for two months, or penalizing you for a project that didn’t get done when you were out on short-term disability. A lawyer could look at all the facts and tell you for sure. And if that is the case, they could use it to get you a much better separation package now (or potentially to protect your job, although this company doesn’t sound like a secure option long-term).

There are some other possibilities that could explain what’s happening, like that your performance genuinely hasn’t been good enough, your manager wasn’t addressing it forthrightly, and the new boss is pushing him to address it now (and that could be legitimate, especially since your manager sounds pretty problematic himself). Even if that’s true, though, violating the law in how they handled your sick leave means a lawyer could likely use that to get you better exit terms now.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re fired for performance, you’ll still generally be eligible for unemployment benefits (unemployment is denied for things like misconduct or clear rules violations, not for “tried but couldn’t perform at the level needed”).

But there’s enough here that sounds really off that you should talk to a lawyer about what’s really going on.

The post my company is threatening to fire me over performance issues from years ago appeared first on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I recently made a transition from being the director of an organization and responsible for everything (very stressful) to middle management at a much larger entity, with better hours, pay, benefits, etc. and I’m no longer in charge. This is a good thing overall and a good step for my career, so this isn’t about concern about my career overall or my place in the world. I’m happy with this decision.

I think most people make the transition up the rungs of management, not the other way around, so there isn’t that much advice out there on how to peel it back and cool your jets. At my old job, I was on call all the time — evenings and weekends — I never took a lunch and was constantly thinking about the next step for the organization. Now, I just don’t need to do that and there is an expectation that I will not, as this would really be stepping outside of the bounds of my job and would probably ruffle some feathers. I’m way down in the hierarchy and I’m trying to reframe my thinking from “This is my problem and needs to be resolved immediately” to “this is my boss’ problem and I should wait to hear what they say and respect their decision.”

I’ve already run into some issues running head first into a problem to fix it, only to realize that there was no expectation that I should, would, or could. I’m finding that my natural inclination is to overstep the boundaries of my new job because in the past, those things were part of my job. Now they are my boss’ job — or even their boss’s job — or their boss’ boss’ job.

Any tips on how to move from being in charge to being middle management, and letting others be the boss?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

The post how do I adjust to not being the boss anymore? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Uh ... do you mind telling us what those secret documents are all about?
Uh ... no ... I can let you see the briefcase though.
#CowboyWho

He asked me on his deathbed to keep the experiment going, no matter what the cost.

Here are three different images of blues. For each image, decide which blue you think is the warmer blue before moving on.

Story time

Every Wednesday, I work with a local Minnesota artist who helps me improve my watercolor skills. One day, he was giving me some advice on my painting, and he said: "The sky needs to be a warm blue, so use ultramarine." This surprised me because I've always thought of ultramarine as a cool blue.

So I conducted a poll on Instagram. I posted the same three images as above, and asked people to identify the warmer blue, just like I asked you.

The results surprised me. They were almost evenly 50/50!

Results

Lets look at the results:

Personally, I’d pick B, A, A. I was surprised at how split the crowd was. A couple of art friends messaged me, also surprised, and questioning whether they knew anything about art at all. Because as artists, it is so obvious what the warm blue is! Except as it turns out, it isn’t.

Here’s the explanation: in each case, the blue on the right is the redder blue.

Controversy!!

I did a little Googling and found out this topic is hotly contested. Here's a thread specifically on ultramarine that goes on for 11 pages!

Lots of people saying they think Ultramarine is cool:

I hear artists refer to Ultramarine as a warm blue and Phthalo as a cool blue. To me eyes, when I look at the two colors it seems just the opposite to me

I believe Ultramarine is cool and Pthalo warm.

This thread tries to bring some science into it:

Those closer to yellow-orange/red-orange will be “warmer”, while those closer to blue-green will be “cooler”. This is why Ultramarine Blue (closer to red-orange) is warmer compared to Phathlo Blue (which is a blue-green).

This is similar to what a few art friends told me: Red is a warm color, and green is a cool color, so blue + red = warmer, blue + green = cooler.

Issue solved.

But wait!! Here comes Reddit with a different opinion!

It is a warm blue because it has yellow in it.

Ah, so blue + purple = cooler, blue + yellow = warmer!

blue + red = warmer
blue + yellow = warmer

Both make sense!! Which is right??

Well, you're going to hate this answer. Because not only is there not a right answer, the color wheel is wrong.

The outdated color wheel

Everyone knows the primaries, right? Red, yellow, and blue are primary colors, and they mix to form the secondary colors. Everyone knows that.

But if that's the case, why are printer cartridges filled with CMYK (Cyan, magenta, yellow, black)? Shouldn't they be RBYK?

Here's the thing: the color wheel was created a long time ago, when artists first figured out they could mix colors to create new colors. At that time, they had limited pigments, and red, yellow, and blue were the best primary colors to use.

We have many more pigments now. Red, yellow, and blue are no longer the best primaries: cyan, magenta, and yellow are. But we still keep teaching kids the wrong color wheel.

And another thing: why do we have the same number of steps between yellow and blue as between yellow and red? I would say yellow to blue is a big shift (warm to cool), whereas yellow and red are much more similar.

Now at this point, some of you are probably saying to yourselves, "I am so happy to be reading this. It's time that someone exposed the arrogance of the color wheel community."

Others of you are probably saying to yourselves, "Wow, I've never read a blog post and been left with less information than I had before. When I started reading this, I didn't care about warm blues and I understood the color wheel. Now I don't understand either."

For all of you in the second group, here is a possible solution to one problem.

The Munsell color wheel

Some artists have been using the Munsell color wheel instead. This color wheel gives a lot more steps between yellow and blue. We actually have a lot of nuanced blue-green colors, like emerald, teal, etc. and it's useful to have a color wheel that gives space for those.

Maybe these extra steps will help being nuance to the warm blues discussion. Or maybe the reality is you cannot analyze color by itself, but only in relation to colors that is near, as some artists think. Maybe all blues can be warm or cool, depending on situation.

Final thoughts

We talked about color temperature. We talked about color wheels. Finally, here is a cool icebreaker for your next meeting: Show people the three images above, and ask them to pick the warmer blue. I guarantee you this will lead to an interesting discussion.

Other interesting things:

• Colour story: Ultramarine

• My instagram

• The artist who’s teaching me watercolor

• Color fidget: a fidget that uses the Munsell wheel

In brief: Tampa reached an all-time high temperature record yesterday. The Atlantic tropics, while busier, still lack a lot of organized risks. And a destructive wind event is possible later today and tonight, primarily in South Dakota and Minnesota.

Torching Tampa

We start today in Tampa, where it hit 100 degrees on Sunday. While that may seem like a relatively pedestrian number, it happens to be the hottest temperature recorded in that city since records began in the 1890s.

Even 99 degrees has only been reached two times, the 2020 instance noted above and back on June 5, 1985. Notably, only four of the 25 hottest days on record in Tampa have occurred in July or August. Typically, you have a sea breeze or thunderstorms or humidity that’s too high to allow for such heat. Yesterday, the area was under the influence of an abnormally strong ridge of high pressure over the Gulf, as well as a very abnormal offshore directed wind at the time of peak heating. The combination allowed for temperatures to surge at a time of relatively low humidity. It’s a very localized nuance, but we’d be lying if we didn’t also note that it’s certainly symptomatic of a warming Gulf as well.

Tampa has set or tied 107 record highs and 150 record warm low temperatures since 2020. That’s not a typo. Their records go back to 1890 and 30 to 40 percent of their warm records have been met in less than 6 years. That’s remarkable.

The forecast high today is a more tolerable 97° for Tampa.

A slightly busier Atlantic

Taking a snapshot of the Atlantic basin this morning, it looks a bit more interesting than we’ve seen lately. First, we have a pretty healthy-looking area of thunderstorms north of the Caribbean islands. This is associated with a tropical wave in the area. There is very, very little model support for anything here, despite how it looks this morning. High pressure should serve to inhibit any sort of organization.

Secondly, we have the tropical wave that we discussed a bit last week that’s now emerging off Africa. This one still has a puncher’s chance of doing something as it comes westward through the week. Will it actually get anywhere? I don’t know; model support has continuously slipped for this one since last week. At least through Friday, en-route to the islands, there should be a very minimal chance of development.

After Friday, the picture gets a little more complex. Some modeling lifts this area more to the northwest at the same time that thunderstorms roll off the Southeast coast. The result? Something. If you look at the different ensembles, both from AI-derived models and traditional physics-based models, you see a sloppy mess off the Southeast coast in about 8 days.

I really like Google’s tool here because it gives you a good initial overview of what is percolating. Looking into this further from other models, I get the sense that there’s a signal here, but exactly what that signal is (some hybrid subtropical sloppy system, a more formal tropical entity, or something else) remains to be seen. Also, it seems that support right now favors an out to sea outcome ultimately, but again, we’re 8 days out from something that hasn’t formed yet. But I think we pretty clearly have our next area to watch, even if it isn’t a terribly serious concern.

You may have noticed on the Google plot above action in the Pacific. Indeed, it is busy out there now, with Tropical Storm Iona (expected to become a hurricane south of Hawaii) and 3 other areas to watch.

No impacts for Hawaii are expected at this time.

South Dakota & Minnesota with potent severe weather risk today

Flash flooding impacted the Reno area yesterday evening. Severe storms with heavy rain ripped across Minnesota yesterday, with rain totals of 4 to 8 inches in parts of southwest Minnesota. Eastern South Dakota was also smacked by heavy rainfall and a tornado near Watertown.

The focus today is less on flooding and more on severe weather. There’s a fairly strong signal for a powerful line of thunderstorms to develop in the Dakotas later and rocket eastward across South Dakota and into Minnesota. The Storm Prediction Center is already qualifying this setup as a “derecho is likely.” A moderate risk (4/5) has been issued for portions of South Dakota and Minnesota. For those new to derecho, it is a long-lived area of thunderstorms that produces significant wind damage over hundreds of miles.

Storms should develop through the day in western North and South Dakota. As they come east later this afternoon and this evening, they will likely intensify into significant wind producers, along with isolated tornadoes. The highest-end risk for destructive winds appears to be from eastern South Dakota into southwest Minnesota. However, it is possible that these storms will hold together and bring significant wind damage concerns to eastern Minnesota too, including the Twin Cities later tonight. Storms should finally begin to weaken once in Wisconsin.

Bottom line: A destructive wind event is a good possibility tonight in a good chunk of South Dakota and southern Minnesota, possibly extending into northern Iowa.

In brief: Today’s post discusses the historical depths of summer, which occur over the next two weeks. However, while we will see considerable heat the next couple of days, increasing rain chances should help to take the edge off summer heat through the weekend.

Depths of summer

Look, it can be really hot in Houston any time from April through October. And historically we have seen 100-degree weather as early as June 2, and as late as September 27. But the very warmest period of the year, based on climate statistics, comes from July 29 through August 12. This is when the region’s high temperature averages 96 degrees. By August 13, the average high drops to 95 degrees, and by the end of the month we’re down to 93 degrees. So we’re here, at the peak of summer in Houston.

And do you know what that means? If you squint, you can see fall in the distance.

Monday

After several rounds of showers over the weekend, which included some flooding just east of downtown Houston, our weather will now quiet down for a few days as high pressure builds over the area. We will see that in the form of sunny skies today, with high temperatures in the upper 90s for inland areas, and lower 90s for coastal areas. With that said, I would not entirely rule out of a few scattered to isolated showers later this afternoon or evening along the sea breeze. Winds will be light. Lows tonight will be sultry, and in the mid-70s.

Tuesday

This will probably be the hottest day of the week, with sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper 90s for most of the region. However, dewpoints look to be slightly lower, so while the humidity will be high, it may not be oppressive. Rain chances are near zero. Expect another warm night in the mid-70s.

Wednesday

At this point I think high pressure will still largely influence our weather on Wednesday, so we can probably expect mostly sunny skies and highs mostly in the upper 90s. At the same time, we are going to see growing amounts of tropical moisture pooling to our east out over the Gulf, and this will bring higher rain chances during the second half of the week. So maybe we should splash in a low-end chance of a few showers.

Thursday and Friday

Skies will still probably be partly to mostly sunny to end the work week, with high temperatures generally in the mid-90s. However, as low pressure (the risk of this becoming a tropical depression or tropical system is near zero, so we’re not particularly concerned about that) drifts toward Texas across the Gulf, it will bring increased moisture levels into the coast. This will likely yield rain chances of about 30 to 50 percent for both days.

Saturday and Sunday

We should remain in this pattern of elevated rain chances through the weekend, with a 50 percent likelihood of showers each day. At this point I don’t expect the weekend to be a total washout, and there still should be periods of sunshine on both days. But temperatures should be a couple of degrees cooler (some areas may top out in the lower 90s). Overall accumulations look fairly modest. Most of the area may see something on the order of 0.5 inch of rain, but there probably will be higher bullseyes. All in all, for the peak of summer, it won’t be terrible as Houston moves into August.

Next week

I think we will see a continued chance of showers on Monday and perhaps Tuesday before things high pressure asserts a little more control next week. However, at this point I think we’re likely to remain the 90s rather than pushing up into the 100s.

Tropics

Things look very quiet out there for the next week or so, and quite possibly beyond. This is a great position to be in as we edge toward the month of August. Longtime residents will know that the next two months are, traditionally, “go time” for Texas and the tropics. So we will be watching things very closely.

Students and naturalists have been sneaking onto private land to extricate threatened native plants: “This is a war between us and the developers, and nobody’s calling uncle.”

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

1. I was hired to manage an unmanageable team

Just about a year ago, I started managing a team of creatives. I had worked alongside them for several years and had a good rapport with all of them. That all changed the instant I was promoted.

Right up front, two of the seven called our division director and said he had made a huge mistake by promoting me. Another told me to my face on day 1 that she would have been a better manager and then took an unplanned vacation for two weeks. Two more started hiding their work from me. Another sends me messages about how “disappointed” she is in how I handle situations. Only one was open to the change, and has frankly thrived under my management.

I have made exactly two changes since taking over: First, I asked each of them to share their (existing) project plans with each other in advance since they often need to go into all-hands-on-deck mode when deadlines hit. And second, I wrote some documentation for other divisions so they would know which team members were responsible for which project. My team characterized these moves as micromanagement and complained en masse to the division director.

I confided in a colleague about my struggles and they told me the team has always been unmanageable. In fact, it turns out I was promoted into this role because the department director was fed up with their attitudes. But since our company doesn’t have a “my way or the highway” philosophy, the director couldn’t clean house and instead tried a Hail Mary, hoping a new manager (me) would shake things up. Is this just an unwinnable situation? Do I need to get out?

It sounds pretty unwinnable, yeah. That is some strong and frankly bananas opposition to the changes you described. I admit that before I got to the middle of your letter I was thinking, “Any chance the problem could be on your side?” but after hearing what your colleague told you about the history of the team … it really sounds like them, not you, and if your company won’t support you in dealing with them decisively, you’re almost certainly better off getting out.

Before you decide that, though, talk to your boss about what you’re encountering and what you’d like to do to fix it (presumably, holding people accountable for professional behavior and making it clear that they need to meet reasonable expectations if they want to stay — ideally similarly to this). It’s possible that if your boss realizes they’re about to lose a second manager over this, they might be more amenable to changes than they were the last time around.

2. Microwaving eggs at work

After the microwaving fish at work question, I have to know, is it okay to reheat egg-based dishes such as quiche in a microwave at work? There is no ventilation in the kitchen.

Fish is the notoriously bad one (in the U.S., at least; it’s heavily based on culture). Burned popcorn and cruciferous vegetables seem to be tied for second place.

I think you’d be fine reheating quiche. The goal isn’t to never heat up anything that someone somewhere might object to, but to avoid the really high-profile “don’t do it” category of (most) fish.

3. My new job told me skip a family funeral or convince a coworker to change their own plans

My question is about the role of a manager in a small office. This happened several years ago, and I’ve been wondering about how a situation could have been better resolved.

I had just begun working for a small nonprofit office — a manager (Rowan) and three employees (Jamie, Robin, and me). Before I’d been hired, a series of weekend events had been planned. These were fun events and I was quite happy to be involved. Running occasional 2 -3 hour events on weekends was part of the job, and there was flexibility about taking time off before or after the event. In general, it was a great system. Jamie and I ran all in-person events. Robin was non-vaccinated (tail end of Covid times) so could not attend public events. Rowan, the manager, was not directly involved.

Within my first month on the job, we had a scheduling conflict. Jamie had a long-planned special outing with their family for a day on the weekend, and I would run the activity on my own. Then I unexpectedly had a significant family funeral on the same day as our program (not parent or sibling but still a big deal). I went to Rowan, expecting them to offer a solution, possibly to cover for me or to cancel the event. Their point of view was, Why Are You Bothering Me with This? Rowan, who also had plans for the weekend, told me to either not go to the funeral, or to convince Jamie to cancel their plans.

Rowan was visibly very frustrated, not with the situation but with me personally. I did not ask Jamie about changing plans. I hardly knew them yet, and it all felt very awkward. I was just politely assertive with both that I would not be able to work that day. I would have quit (or been fired) over this. I was in the fortunate position of not needing the job.

Poor Jamie very reluctantly, and quite sadly, rescheduled their family outing. I felt quite guilty. Jamie and I developed a positive working relationship in spite of an awkward beginning.

How could the manager have handled this in a better way? What could I have done differently?

Rowan sucks here. I don’t know how cancelable the event was or how important Rowan’s own plans were, but telling an employee “skip a family funeral or convince your coworker to cover for you” is not a reasonable stance. If Jamie were a potential option, Rowan should have talked to Jamie themselves, not left it to you.

As for you, it sounds like you handled as well as you could: you made your boundaries clear (you wouldn’t be working that day) and were clear in your own mind that you were willing to leave over it if you had to. I understand why you felt guilty when Jamie ended up having to cancel their own plans, but that’s on the organization for not having a better system in place, not on you.

4. Employer is hinting I owe them money for used PTO now that I’ve resigned

I’m salaried exempt. According to my employee manual (which disclaims that it is not a contract or comprehensive document and can be changed at any time at my employer’s discretion without notice), I get five sick days (40 hours) a year, and three weeks (120 hours) of vacation time.

Technically speaking, the vacation time is accrued at a rate of 10 hours per month, and my employer just chooses to front the time. When you put in your notice, the vacation time is recalculated based on the accrual rate and any remaining time is paid out. There is no indication in the employee manual that this is also true of sick time.

I gave my bosses a heads-up that I might be leaving last month and formally put in a month of notice last week. This extra notice was not in any way required; I just knew they wouldn’t push me out and thought it would be courteous since they’d had trouble filling the position back when they hired me. I took a two-week vacation well before I put in my notice and I have continued to use sick time as normal.

One of my bosses has just hinted that I might get my pay docked because by their calculations I owe the company 10 hours of vacation time and 20 hours of sick time. I know the answer is probably yes, but I have to ask: Can they really do this to me retroactively?

It depends on the exact wording of their policy. In general, employers can require you to pay back any PTO they advanced to you before you had accrued it. It’s considered akin to a loan or a cash advance. But it depends on whether their written policy indicates that they advanced the leave to you, in which case they can make you pay it back, or whether it was considered earned as of the first of the year, in which case you already earned it and they can’t. Also, federal law says they can only deduct it from your paycheck if they informed you that was their policy before they advanced the leave — so look at your handbook to see if it’s spelled out in there.

It’s also worth checking your state law, because some states prohibit paycheck deductions for PTO repayments without your written consent. (That wouldn’t mean the debt disappears; they could take legal action to get it if they wanted to, although the odds of them doing that are fairly small.)

5. Has Ask a Manager become more anti-corporate?

I’m a very long-time reader and fan. Recently, I’ve noticed a subtle tone change in your responses to be more … not pro-worker, you’ve always been pro-worker … maybe anti-corporate? For examples, on a response to a question about AI, you recently called this a “dystopian hellhole,” which is kind of more blanket negative than I’ve come to expect. You are more blunt about the things that suck widely in the world of work and less … measured? in your responses.

This is by no means criticism. I too have gone from “there are good companies you can work at, you just need to find them” to “yeah, this is a corporato-crazy nightmare and it’s all falling apart and any place you work might get eaten by the system at any moment.” I’m currently at a place that, until recently, I was happily planning on retiring from and had invested nearly 15 years in … now I’m glancing around nervously and leaning into side hustles because I just can’t see anything good coming out of the current chaos. And I’m far enough in my career, that I’ve been through three mass layoff / economic downturns (the dotcom bubble, ’08, and Covid) and it never felt like this before.

You might not feel comfortable answering this, and if so I get it! I was just curious about the change I sensed and the impact that your role has had on you.

There’s been a definite evolution in my perspective over the years! Watching the choices a lot of companies made during the pandemic was a major turning point for me, but I’d probably been moving in that direction for a while. You can’t read years of the mail I get with unending stories of people being harmed by their employers and not be influenced by it.

The other factor, and it’s a big one, is that when I started writing the site I was writing from the perspective of someone for whom the system had worked pretty well, and I didn’t have enough appreciation of the fact that while my approach had worked well for me, it wasn’t going to work well for everyone … or enough appreciation for all the reasons behind that. Over time, I’ve become a lot more aware of that, and that hopefully comes across in my writing here.

Beyond that, our culture as a whole has become much more clear-eyed about the systemic injustices built into our labor system as it’s currently practiced (along with a whole bunch of other things, like growing income inequality, stagnant wages, soaring costs, and the absolute catastrophe that is our health care system) and I’m no exception to that.

The post I was hired to manage an unmanageable team, microwaving eggs at work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA—Causing widespread frustration among women who dared to search for love in middle adulthood, an update to the popular dating app Tinder reportedly began classifying female user ages over 35 this week as system errors. “I was trying to set up my profile, but I kept getting the same ‘Birthday Invalid’ error message every time I attempted to enter my age,” said 37-year-old Anna Moreno, explaining that the popup message then prompted her to input a younger, hotter number. “Once the error timed out, Tinder gave me the alternative option of using their facial verification technology to determine that my skin was sufficiently plump and free of fine lines. Why do apps keep asking me to do that? When I attempted to bypass the process entirely, Tinder shut down and automatically downloaded the OurTime app for dating over 50 onto my phone.” When reached for comment, Tinder explained that women over 35 could get around the error by sharing their net worth to see if they qualify to use the app as a Sugar Mama.

The post Tinder Update Classifies Female Age Input Over 35 As System Error appeared first on The Onion.

CANTON, MA—Stressing that whatever garbage they have on their menu couldn’t possibly be better than what Americans had at home, Dunkin’ officials announced Monday that they no longer have the heart to charge customers money for such horrible, depressing meals. “While we take pride in our brand’s popularity across 43 states, we cannot in good conscience let the public pay for one more completely pathetic sausage-and-cheese croissant,” said Dunkin’ CEO David Hoffmann, adding that their greasy, miserable excuse for a breakfast was often sitting out for hours before being carelessly tossed in a microwave and reheated by pressing a button labeled “egg.” “There is nothing in this world that can justify having you waste your hard-earned money on Snackin’ Bacon. When you purchase a Wake-Up Wrap, it just feels like we’re preying on on someone who has reached rock bottom. Please stop buying our food. You deserve better.” At press time, Hoffmann reportedly urged anyone considering ordering a distressing Dunkin’ meal to just put their credit card away and take it for free.

The post Dunkin’ Announces They No Longer Have Heart To Charge People For Such Depressing Meals appeared first on The Onion.

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But this is an enhanced experience of the crime scene, because now the floor is blue.