Cowboy Who?

WASHINGTON—In a provocative 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that everyone’s a damn critic these days. “It is this court’s opinion that apparently everyone has their own ideas about how this court should operate and is not shy about sharing their views—even when no one asks,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his 10-page majority decision, which cites numerous legal precedents of people being able to dish it out but not take it. “After a period of careful review, we have no choice but to uphold the Rehnquist Court’s 1993 ruling that there’s just no pleasing some people. My colleagues and I have pored over the evidence and believe that if everyone thinks it’s so freaking easy to do this job, they should put on a robe and try it for themselves. A little appreciation would be nice from time to time—that’s all we’re mandating here.” In an opinion joined by two of her colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering dissent in which she argued that, sometimes, the court’s critics may have a point.

The post Supreme Court Rules 6-3 That Everyone A Damn Critic appeared first on The Onion.

In brief: Barry has dissipated. Next, we’ll watch the northeast Gulf or southwest Atlantic for development by this weekend, though there’s only modest support for something formal at this time. Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Flossie is likely to become another Pacific hurricane tonight, with heavy rain and tropical storm conditions for parts of the Mexico coast.

Like Tropical Storm Andrea earlier in the month, Tropical Storm Barry held that title for a full 12 hours yesterday. Two names down covering 24 total hours? We could get used to this. Anyway, now we move onto the next development chance.

Gulf or Atlantic? Who’s next?

Over the next several days, we’re going to see repeated rounds of thunderstorms near the Florida Panhandle or just off the First Coast in northeast Florida. By the time we get to Thursday or Friday, a cool front is going to drop into the area and basically stall out, or “wash” out nearby, a typical feature a couple times per summer.

With these festering thunderstorms and an approaching front, it may be just the shot in the arm this area needs to begin to try to organize. The biggest questions right now revolve around where exactly this happens and what sort of environment it will have to organize in. We know that there will probably be some sort of disturbance that consolidates between the northeast Gulf or southwest Atlantic this weekend.

Steering currents this weekend and early next week look fairly weak, so whatever does form could scoot out into the Atlantic slowly, or drift west southwest through the Gulf. Before anyone panics over this, I think there are a couple things we can say. Systems trying to develop this close to land tend to struggle. Also, there will be a fair bit of dry air around the Gulf Coast early next week that should cause this to struggle a bit as well. Another occasional outcome is that sometimes these disturbances split up some instead of consolidating, and a piece of it would go west and another east.

In terms of model support, reliable modeling tends to be subdued in terms of how this develops, with one or two stronger outliers out of 100 or so ensemble members.

So sitting here on Monday, all we can really do is just watch the evolution of this on modeling. A couple things can be said. There should be a disturbance. There’s not much support for significant development, and there is modest support for sloppy development. One thing there is high confidence in is that the Gulf Coast of Florida is going to get whacked by heavy rainfall.

The current NWS forecast shows upwards of 10 to 15 inches of rain or more possible just along the coast of the Big Bend and in the open Gulf. There will likely be some street flooding issues at times along the west coast and Panhandle coast of Florida. Heavy rain may also extend back west to Mobile and coastal Mississippi. This will be the biggest impact concern through early next week. More to come.

Elsewhere

Tropical Storm Flossie in the Pacific is going to become a hurricane by tonight in all likelihood. It will pass along and off the coast of Mexico, bringing heavy rain to the coast. Tropical Storm Watches and Warnings are posted there.

Flossie will significantly weaken as it approaches Baja and enters much colder water. Minimal impacts are expected there, and Flossie’s remnants may get directed out into the open Pacific next week.

Additional development is possible in the Eastern Pacific behind Flossie.

Jim Henson’s Gandhi Babies.

North Korea is opening a beach resort that its leader Kim Jong-Un hopes will boost tourism in the secretive communist regime. What do you think?

“Why would I need the sun when I can bask in the majesty of the Supreme Leader?”

John Kamradt, Lampshade Craftsman

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“Everyone has a beach body during a famine.”

Suzanne Mayberry, Weathervane Calibrator

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“I’ll wait until they open a Margaritaville.”

Edward Majerus, Cola Bottler

The post North Korea Opens Beach Resort appeared first on The Onion.

A reader writes:

I’m a senior individual contributor. I’m not management, I’ve never been management, but I’ve been in my field for 25+ years. Recently, the large company I work for gave officer titles to pretty much everyone in senior-level non-management roles. Let’s say I’m now a “corral director” as well as a senior llama reporting specialist.

Today, we all got an email that lists the new officer titles and a required notice period for each. Stall directors, the lowest title, are expected to give 30 days’ notice. Corral directors like me, 60 days, Ranch directors like my manager, 90 days, and so on. This notice ends with vague threats of legal action if these notice periods are not followed.

I’m just a reporting specialist with a lot of experience in the industry. No other company is going to wait 60 days to onboard me if they offer me a job. Is this at all enforceable? I get that if I decide to leave and give the usual two weeks’ notice, I probably won’t be eligible for rehire by this company, given this rule, but can they actually impose legal penalties on me for not giving them quadruple the standard notice? I’m in the U.S.

Ha, no, they cannot. But they’d clearly like you to believe they can.

The only way a company can enforce a notice period is with an employment contract. That’s not what you have, because this info was delivered in an email announcement rather than via a contract that you were asked to sign. They aren’t interested in giving you an actual contract, because that would also bind them to terms like giving you X amount of notice if they ever decided to let you go, or paying you severance in lieu of that notice, and they don’t want to commit to that. They want to keep your employment at-will (meaning they can fire you or lay you off without notice) while making you think that you are bound to give you the exact notice they’re refusing to offer on their end.

They can implement other consequences for not giving them the amount of notice they’re requesting, like saying that you’d be ineligible for rehire. And if you’re in a state that doesn’t require unused vacation time to be paid out when you leave, they can make that payout dependent on providing a certain amount of notice. But they can’t bring legal action against you, because you haven’t entered into a contract agreeing to their terms. (And if they try to say that by accepting continued employment in your job, you’re agreeing to their terms, the law disagrees with them.)

At whatever point you resign, give a standard two-week notice (or whatever amount you decide to give). Don’t say, “I know you asked for 60 days.” Just give a normal amount of notice as if of course that’s a reasonable thing to do, because it is. If they say you were supposed to give 60 days, just reply, “The job I’m moving to was firm on the start date and this was the most I could negotiate.” Done, end of story.

And perhaps consider discreetly sharing this post, or this advice, with your colleagues.

The post my company says I have to give 60 days notice when I resign appeared first on Ask a Manager.

“Parents with religious objections to storybooks with LGBTQ themes may withdraw their children from public schools when the books are discussed, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.” — New York Times

Once upon a time, I never got involved in politics. But when the developments of a kingdom far, far away threaten my role as the fairest groomer of them all, I feel no choice but to use my platform to ensure future generations are fed my one and true model for what everyone’s happily ever after shall be. Which is why I, Cinderella Charming, wife and spouse and known pretty girl, applaud the Royal Court in all of the land for waving their magic wands and bibbidi-bobbidi-booing the right for LGBTQ families to be fairly and freely represented in school books, for I believe parents have a right to opt out of stories not revolving around one female stranger, one male stranger, and their quickie, looks-based marriage.

Let me begin by saying that as someone who is only identified by the mean nickname given to me as a girl, I am quite familiar with childhood bullying. But as a multigenerational proxy for heterosexual dating, I even better understand the need for both the bully and the bullied alike to hear and see only the framework of functional man-woman unions. Bullies must never accept families as being two loving dads and a daughter with great clothes and even more impressive extracurriculars. Bullies must come to internalize families as being made up of one dead dad, one cranky gold-digging stepmom, a debatably feral cat who very much adopted the personality of its evil owner, two jealous stepsisters who seem angry for the sole reason that they are less conventionally attractive, and an assortment of mice and birds who are particularly adept at sewing. That is what made happiness such a fairy tale for so many for so long.

I am here to recruit the male gaze. Girls must learn from the start that if they change out of their raggedy clothes and look really pretty, then a man will love them. Similarly, young boys need to know about the looks-obsessed quests of male royalists with foot fetishes. It is the natural order for living happily ever after. Children understand the dynamic of a woman who attracts a fairy godmother through her tears. They cannot handle the benign existence of one class mom who attracted the other class mom during their first year at Oberlin. A dream may be a wish your heart makes, but certain hearts make mistakes!

I don’t make the rules when it comes to spells that extend only to midnight or normalcy that extends only to heterosexual ballroom dancing. Children are to travel to school by a magical pumpkin, not an immaculately detailed Rivian with a very well-curated playlist. Girls who can’t land men via their looks should be portrayed as doomed to a life of evil. Boys must be taught that there is no reason to learn the first damn thing about a woman, or to even hear her voice at all, before deciding she will be your bride. Again, I didn’t write the book—I’ve just been retelling it to impressionable young children for centuries.

That all said, I don’t want you to think I’m heartless. I am very well aware of the plight of the downtrodden. When I lost my glass slipper, I was unsure I would ever get to come out of that closet of a room in which my stepmom trapped me. I feared I might never get to let my real truth shine, as a blonde born to enter a tiara-based marriage. Lest you think I don’t get why LGBTQ families might care to freely share their truths, which have existed for all time and within all animal species, I do want you to know I get it. I’m an ally—if ally means loving that one gossipy little mouse who I know sewed the shit out of the trim on my bodice.

But if young children see representations of families that exist all around them, including inside their own classrooms, then what’s next? Are you gonna tell Snow White to skip both the apple and the kiss, opting instead for vegan potlucks and the WNBA? Are you gonna insist Sleeping Beauty not hit the hay and instead keep on dancing with that Chappell girl? We already got scared when that rebel rouser Belle started telling people it was what was inside that counted. We were just one slippery little consonant away from her yearnings turning more breast than beast!

Boys like girls. Girls like balls. Put them together, and what do you have? The right kind of indoctrination.

#Ryo #RoninWarriors

#Rowen #RoninWarriors

Yesterday I visited one of my favorite places, Ira Keller Fountain Park in Portland. There’s just something about the water that is calming and comforting.

It was such a beautiful day and I’m happy I got to share this place with Sarah after our small gathering for the School of the Possible.

I love putting my feet in the water and taking a moment to relax.

It was lovely.

In brief: Today’s post looks back at a fairly typical June in Houston, and ahead to what we might expect in July. We are confident that the first week is going to be rather hot and mostly sunny, but there is no reason to expect high pressure to dominate the entire month.

June a bit warmer than normal

The month of June ends tonight, and if we look back the month delivered slightly above normal temperatures, and for most locations near-normal or above normal rainfall totals. All in all, it was a fairly typical June for the Houston region, which is to say plenty warm and humid, but without the high pressure that can lead to truly searing temperatures. That typically is reserved for July, August, and part of September.

So what about the upcoming month? Although we are going to start out with high pressure in residence, there is no strong signal for it to hang around all month. Instead, seasonal forecasters predict near-normal temperatures for the month, and average rainfall totals. Therefore we might have some hope that despite the very hot start to the month of July, all of July won’t be like this. We shall see.

Monday

Today will be a bit of a transition day. Some scattered showers will still be possible later this morning and during the afternoon hours, but overall coverage should be lower than on Sunday. I’d put chances around 30 percent. We should also start to see increased levels of haze due to African dust. This may cause some issues for people who are sensitive to dust. This haze should stick around through about Wednesday, or so.

Otherwise, expect mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the low- to mid-90s. Winds, generally, will be from the south at 5 to 10 mph. Low temperatures tonight should drop into the mid-70s for Houston.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

As high pressure takes hold, our rain chances will drop back to about 10 percent daily. Highs will vary between the mid- and upper-90s most days, with sunny skies and the aforementioned haze sticking around. Nighttime temperatures will drop into the mid- to upper-70s. Basically, it’s going to feel like full-on summer in Houston so prepare yourselves.

July 4th holiday weekend

Independence Day is Friday, and as usual in Houston we will celebrate our independence from cold air. Temperatures should peak this weekend, with much of the region away from the coast reaching the upper 90s to go along with sunny skies. We cannot entirely rule out a chance of rain on July 4th, but even if you do see a stray shower (perhaps a 10 percent chance), there should be nothing to mar fireworks shows across the area. Mosquitoes, on the other hand, are likely to be abundant after our rains of the last week.

Next week

There is some evidence that high pressure may back off a little bit next week, allowing for temperatures to moderate slightly by Monday or so, with a better chance of rain. We shall see, but at least it does not appear as though we are going to be seeing a perma-ridge type pattern where the high never wants to break.

Hollis Hammonds and Sasha West, “The Great Turning,” 2025, lithography crayon on Mylar and sound: Sasha West reading her poem “The Great Turning,” 120 x 288 x 288 inches. Installation at The Grace Museum. Photo courtesy of Renee Lai

I visited artist Hollis Hammonds in her studio a couple of weeks before she was due to install at The Grace Museum in Abilene. At the time, she was frantically finishing up a large drawing that would end up being part of the work The Great Turning. Huge rolls of paper cascaded down from the ceiling of her studio to the floor, with almost every inch of surface covered in dense drawings of vegetation. 

The show at The Grace Museum is divided into two rooms — the atrium, filled with smaller works on paper, opened into the main gallery, which was filled with installation work. In the atrium, texture felt paramount. Many of the surfaces were hand-made paper, tactile and rough, covered with ink drawings. A large collage, Carbon Collectors, mixed branches and plant material with drawings of the same subject on Mylar. It was located near the entrance to the main gallery, and the change in surface from tactile to slick served as a nice transition to the installation work.

As I stepped into the main gallery, I immediately noticed the audio: a recording of Sasha West, Hammonds’ collaborator, reading her poems. Across the installations, the audio had a seductive quality, drawing me closer to the work and holding me there long enough to listen to the whole poem. The main large installation, The Great Turning, dominated half of the gallery. Wide strips of paper hung down from the ceiling, creating a cylindrical space. There were two openings allowing the viewer to walk in. The space reminded me of Richard Serra’s sculptures, a womb, or a world. The exterior “walls” of the installation were filled with drawings of trash, but once I slipped inside, I was surrounded by drawings of soft vegetation and the soothing voice of West reading her poem about the potential to transform the world in a positive way. 

The following is an edited and condensed conversation with Hollis Hammonds. 

Renee Lai (RL): Two of the installations at The Grace Museum feature large drawings, sculptural assemblages, and poems both written and spoken aloud by Sasha West, your collaborator. How did you two find each other? What is the process of collaborating like? 

Hollis Hammonds (HH): Sasha and I both teach at St. Edward’s University, so we’ve known each other for a long time. We did a faculty retreat together, and during that retreat she gave me one of her poems and I illustrated it. That was the first thing we ever did together. 

We had an event in the St. Edward’s gallery where faculty did readings in the fall of 2019, and she read one of the poems that is in the show, “Ode to Fossil Fuel.” The poem is based on her research about climate change, a direction that she’s been moving in for a while. I was immediately excited because my work is about disasters and climate. Those themes have always been part of my work, and it was a natural transition for me to move towards climate change as well.

“Ode to Fossil Fuel” is an amazing list poem that talks about all the things that fossil fuels have brought us. It is used in making medical instruments, which took her mother’s cancer out, but at the same time, there are so many disastrous effects from fossil fuels. The poem is constantly shifting back and forth between the good and evil of the industry. It really impacted me. 

Hollis Hammonds and Sasha West, “A Dark Wood: In Search Of,” 2021, ink on Yupo, painted detritus, mixed media, sound: Sasha West reading her poems “How to Abandon Ship” and “Ode to Fossil Fuel,” dimensions variable. Installation at The Grace Museum. Photo courtesy of Renee Lai

I asked her immediately if she wanted to collaborate with me. I had a solo show coming up at Texas A&M University, and I wasn’t feeling inspired. I was also at a place in my career where I wanted to shift my work away from what it had been, which was very illustrative piles of debris, to something new. Working with Sasha gave me a fresh take on how to approach a subject that I was already dealing with. She gave me her then-unpublished manuscript. I spent several weeks reading through the poems, and I pulled out ten or so. We talked more, and I started making drawings directly from the poems. I would do an automatic drawing, and they would turn into images. 

In the first version of our collaboration, she gave me her words and I made drawings. I made an installation, and then we recorded her reading her poems for the first time. I also made the first version of the sculptural assemblages, which I call totems. They’re tree forms made out of recycled materials. It was a forest that you could walk through. For the second major exhibit we did together, I created the drawing that you see in the show now, A Dark Wood: In Search Of. It is an adaptation of the first totem works with a backdrop I created about migration or displacement. There are figures walking in this man-made future forest with a flood. That was for an exhibit we did at the Austin Public Library. The piece in The Grace Museum is from that show.

Hollis Hammonds and Sasha West, “The Great Turning,” 2025, lithography crayon on Mylar and sound: Sasha West reading her poem “The Great Turning,” 120 x 288 x 288 inches. Installation at The Grace Museum. Photo courtesy of Renee Lai

RL: Tell me a little bit more about the other large installation, The Great Turning.

HH: The installation is titled after Sasha’s poem “The Great Turning.” Her poem is named after a concept developed by Joanna Macy about the potential for regeneration, reclamation, and regrowth that could be a positive environmental future. The Great Turning asks how we can take disaster and move it in a positive direction.

We wanted to tell a story with this show. There are three moments: the outside atrium, which is about personal climate grief; the disaster installation, A Dark Wood: In Search Of, which is dwelling in disaster; and then the new part of the show, The Great Turning, which is heavily vegetated, showing humankind and nature having a more symbiotic relationship.

RL: Can you talk more about your process, specifically when it comes to your collaboration? Do ideas come before you both make work? 

HH: Our collaboration has radically changed over time. For our first exhibit, I started with her poems, responding to her words and constructing a space where viewers can experience that content in a different way through my mark making. Since then, we’ve been trying to move towards a trans-disciplinary collaboration. I’ll have an idea, we’ll meet up, then we’ll talk about what we’re both interested in conceptually. While we’re talking, I’ll do a quick gesture sketch. That’s how the totems started. I knew I wanted a sound piece, and a vertical sculptural object. I do these rough drawings first, we discuss it more, and then we go off and start working. 

For this show in particular, we talked at the start about what our goals were and what we’re trying to accomplish. One thing we’re interested in is growing our community engagement, but at the same time we are still really focused on the work itself. Most of the work in the show is lifesize. It is a theatrical approach, but it’s a great way for humans to have a different kind of experience rather than standing in front of a painting. 

We want to make immersive spaces that can affect the viewer in some kind of emotional or physical way. We want people to have some personal questioning, whatever that is for them. 

RL: Earlier, you said that you were hoping the collaboration would make your work move into a different space. How has your work shifted through this partnership?

HH: I think the main change is my intention. Before, I was putting bare disaster and what we’re doing to the planet. Humans are naturally prone to destruction. We are amazing. We build, but we destroy, constantly. My intention now is to move towards something that has a glimmer of hope for the future. I think that’s the difference.

Hollis Hammonds, “The Trees of Ucross,” 2023, ink on handmade paper sewn to fabric, 47 x 51 inches. Photo courtesy of Renee Lai

RL: Tactility of surfaces seems important to you. I’m thinking about the hand-made paper in Trees of UCross, which is rough, and the smoothness of your Mylar or Yupo paper in works like A Dark Wood: In Search Of. Is the surface important to you? 

HH: I spent my sabbatical on two projects. The first project was looking at the fringes of nature, trying to see the impact of human intervention. I was looking at groves of dying trees, things that had or hadn’t been managed, to see how climate is stressing nature. 

The second project was thinking about an eco art practice. I spent a year critiquing my own materiality. I collected dirt and rocks. I dried and burned sticks to make charcoal. I made paper out of recycled paper, and added natural materials to it. I investigated different ways to make materials, without spending money, without adding to the carbon footprint. I was exploring all the aspects of what it means to have a sustainable art practice. 

To me, the whole series in the atrium is about climate grief. What is my relationship to nature? How can I look at it more carefully and think about how I’m contributing to the problem? Maybe I can effect change by having a sustainable studio practice.

The Yupo and Mylar are completely different. Originally I wondered if I could even be using those materials, since they’re made of plastic, from fossil fuels. The way that content is embedded in the material is very important to me. The medium is the message, and I teach my students that. I enjoy drawing on a slick surface, but I also choose Mylar because it is translucent. It has a sense of fragility. It is this human-made thing that is slick, but I am layering this natural thing on top of it. To me, that is an interesting conversation conceptually.

Hollis Hammonds, “Distant Past Distant Future,” 2024, ink on drafting film with steel hanger, 103 x 180 x 8 inches. Photo courtesy of Renee Lai

RL: It feels like a scrim covering the gallery wall. Because the Mylar is slightly opaque and simultaneously see through, I think about what might be behind it. The materiality lends itself to an optional way of being, like depicting a landscape that might exist. It’s real, but not real.

HH: The difference between the two bodies of work is that one is very tactile, which is like bark, earth, etc. The slickness of the other body of work is theatrical. I think about a lot of my work as fiction. I am really interested in truth. Truth, to me, could have some fiction in it. To be truthful of a thing or an experience or whatever you’re trying to get across as an artist, you have to lie. As an artist, you’re trying to create a work that someone will have a particular experience with. By trying to achieve that, you may not be able to be factual. I’m really interested in fact and fiction melding together to create something that is more authentic and truthful. I’m okay with this suspension of disbelief, the fantasy of it. 

RL: There is such a density of mark making in the Mylar works. You are describing dense piles of debris or plant matter but they’re so airy, so light, that they’re really not there. You have the outline or the shadow drawn in ink and the rest is just the texture of the Mylar.

HH: I’ve never limited myself to a particular media, though it may look that way. I do think my work moves into illustration. To me, drawing is the most vulnerable form of art making. It is the hand of the artist. Drawing is the most authentic you can be even when you’re rendering something that is a lie. In a way, I think the sculptures are more illustrative, because they’re a physical manifestation of an idea. It’s less so than the drawing, but the drawing is clearly illustrative. I’m not uncomfortable with that.

RL: What is the line between drawing and illustration for you?

HH: I think illustration clearly tries to tell a story. It’s trying to get across a very specific idea, and everything is in service of that. 

Hollis Hammonds, “Carbon Collectors,” 2024, mixed media, variable dimensions. Photo courtesy of Renee Lai

RL: There are many objects within the show, such as branches, broken chairs, and piles of debris, that exist as physical objects. These same objects also appear as drawings within your work. How do you decide what gets to be sculptural? In this case, I’m thinking of the collage Carbon Collectors. The physical branches are at the top of the work, but then there is the drawing of the branch directly under it. How does drawing the object change it for you?

HH: I used to get asked a lot if I make a sculpture and then draw it, or if I make a drawing then make a sculpture. They form simultaneously for me. I’ve never built an installation then drawn it, although I have done drawings then built a physical thing that is an illustration of the drawing. I feel like some things need to be in the physical form. It links the body, a sensory thing, to the image. The drawings are often multiples, on the wall, layered, coming out. I want them to be physical even though they are flat pictorial surfaces. I’m trying to bridge a gap between the physical experience and the visual. 

RL: I’ve noticed that a lot of your works are on moveable panels. I know that paper only comes in a certain width, but is that way of working in bits and pieces important to you?

HH: For sure. A lot of my work has been in components and multiples that are put together. When I was young, I was obsessed with religious art from the Renaissance and the Byzantine eras, even though I wasn’t raised Catholic. I love altarpieces, multiples, things that open, things that have a narrative. Comics are also important to me and my work, and in my teaching I am interested in sequential imagery. Multiple panels are moments but they can be put together to make one big image. It is a methodology that I have been using for decades, but it is different within each piece. It is part of my visual language to have a grid or multiples. The grid, especially in the context of natural imagery, gives structure within the chaos of the image. 

RL: Your drawings are so dense I think of the marks as being more tight, but the material you choose, like the ink, is much looser. What is your relationship to drawing tightly versus drawing loosely?

HH: Actually, my marks are quite gestural. It’s kind of a frenzy when I’m making them. The final image does have a quality of being tight. The thing that I love about the drawings is that they fall apart when you get closer to them. You can see the craziness and the ugly crudeness of the mark making. I want to make visceral crude marks but I want them to hold together as something beautiful when you step back. I like the tension of that. If I could simplify my work, it would be: fragility but also the vulnerability of the hand, the imperfection of humankind as makers. But at the same time, the beauty of the world and how all these imperfect things create this beautiful experience.

The Great Turning: We Gather, We Grow, We Tend is on view at The Grace Museum in Abilene through September 20, 2025. An artist reception will take place on Thursday, July 17 at 6 p.m.

The post Interview: Hollis Hammonds on Her Collaboration with Sasha West, Surface & Truth appeared first on Glasstire.

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

1. My manager said people don’t like my face in the morning

During a 1:1 with my supervisor, she said something that did not sit well with me. Before saying it, she looked away and told me she couldn’t look at me because it was stupid. Finally, she said that I need to work on being less bitchy when I come in. This threw me off completely, as I’m never bitchy when I walk in. So I asked what she meant. She said it’s not my attitude. It’s my FACE. My face is what other staff members find issue with.

I was beyond confused, so I asked her what that even means. She said that the look on my face when I come in is the equivalent to resting bitch face. This bothers people. So they decided to make a point to mention this to her, and rather than tell them no, she thought it was okay to bring to my attention. Should I bring this to upper management, as it strikes me as horribly unprofessional for my supervisor to say?

If she thought it was so stupid, she could have exercised some independent judgment as your manager and not brought it to you. By sharing it with you, she’s indicating that she thinks it’s something you need to act on. It’s a hallmark of a bad manager to pass along feedback they don’t stand by (unless it’s to say, “I don’t agree with this, but you should be aware it’s come up because of Political Reason X”).

But is there any chance there’s more to it than just your face and she’s just communicating badly? For example, if the culture in your office is to greet people when you pass them in the morning and you’re not doing that, or if you seem like there’s a storm cloud over you until you’re settled with coffee, it’s possible that’s behind it. But if it’s really just your face and nothing else, this is BS.

Either way, you could back to her and say, “I thought about what you said about my face when I arrive in the morning, and I’m not sure how to act on that. My face is just my face — I’m not glaring at people or giving dirty looks — but I’ll make more of a point of saying good morning to people and hopefully that will solve it. Is your sense that there’s something else specific I should be doing?” That last part isn’t there to imply you’re willing to have a face transplant, but to hopefully make her realize that so far what she’s said hasn’t been actionable at all.

2. What’s a reasonable amount of info to expect from a college student seeking an internship?

I’m the point person for internships for my healthcare-adjacent organization. The vast majority of those are masters-level graduate students, and those internship requirements are pretty heavily regulated by the schools and by state law. When someone writes to me asking if we have any opening for graduate-level internships, I know pretty immediately what would be required in terms of the type of work the intern would be doing and the amount and type of oversight that would be required.

I occasionally get emails from undergrads asking about internships. We do not have any sort of formal undergrad internship programs. I would like to encourage people to get into this field (especially since we’re facing a national shortage). However, any interns would not be working with me directly, and so I have to sell the internship, basically, to any of my peers who might be willing to oversee an intern. I can help with some of the supervision, but most of it would fall on other managers.

None of the students who write in on their own can give me any details or direction about what they need or want from an internship. When I ask, I get a lot of “Anything would be fine,” or “Anything in your field.” We are extremely understaffed, I have a hard time getting any managers to agree to even the very structured internships because of the amount of time the supervision and training would entail. I’m frustrated by the undergrad inquiries and I find myself thinking, “If you can’t even give me the number of hours you want to or need to complete, the timeline you desire, and some sense of what you want to accomplish, and any restrictions or requirements from your school, you are likely going to require way more hand-holding than we can do.”

Am I holding undergrads to an unrealistic standard? If they could provide me with more details, I’d at least be willing to try to see if I could find them something. I’m not sure how much hand-holding or back and forth I should be doing, and if my assumption that my needing to do that is a red flag or if it’s just what I should be expecting from undergrads.

I don’t think it’s a red flag; by definition the undergrad students have less experience in the work world (and are probably getting less guidance from their programs) than the graduate students who approach you.

In your first contact, try spelling out very clearly what you need from them. For example: “We don’t have a formal internship program for undergrads, but we’re open to creating internships under the right circumstances. Please respond with the following information: the number of hours you would like to complete (this can be a range), the starting and ending dates you’re seeking, any requirements from your school, and an idea of specifically what you would be seeking to accomplish during the internship. Please note: we need all of this information in order to move forward, and cannot consider applications without it.”

If you spell it out that clearly and they don’t come back with the answers you asked for, don’t put more energy into it. But try spelling it out first.

3. How long should I wait for a new manager to turn things around?

I have been working in the IT department of a company for a little over 1.5 years. We have always struggled with understaffing, but it feels it has gotten worse over the last few months. My new manager started a few months after I did and we have worked together to make some great projects happen, but the workload of the department has skyrocketed without staffing keeping pace. I have been pointing this out for over a year. Unfortunately, things move slowly and while he has been fighting to get more staff approved, it has not happened fast enough, never mind that even if/when it’s approved, it takes forever to fill the slot and train someone.

I am approaching burnout quickly. I like my projects, I like my team for the most part and I like the money and the freedoms I have, so I would hate to quit. What is a reasonable amount of time to wait for new management to implement changes before throwing in the towel?

Over a year is a long time to wait, particularly when you say you’re quickly approaching burn-out and there are no real signs of impending change. Why not start looking now? Since you otherwise like your job, you can be picky and don’t need to jump at the first thing that comes along, but getting options in the mix will give you a lot more control in the situation.

4. I was asked to sign an NDA before talking about a job

I recently was reached out to by a CEO of a company that I had previously done some consulting for. It had been over a year since I had talked to them and they wanted to set up a meeting to reconnect. Since we last talked, I began working full-time again and no longer consult. I was open to connecting and could at least forward their questions to other industry contacts.

When we connected, they mentioned they liked working with me and wanted to talk about a vague high-level position and the networking call turned into an unplanned hour-long group interview without any chance for preparation on my side. The company provided no details about the level of the position or what it would require.

Before the company provides a job title or description, they need me to sign a NDA. Since they reached out to me to recruit me and are not providing even the basic details, this is a big red flag to me. What is your wisdom on this?

I don’t think it’s a particular red flag. If you’re open to hearing them out and don’t object to the terms of the NDA, sign it and see what they have to say. It doesn’t obligate you to continue beyond that. If you’re not that interested, let them know you’re not currently looking for work and leave it there! The fact that they reached out to you rather than the other way around isn’t really a factor in navigating it (and doesn’t make their request appreciably weirder).

5. What’s the deal with recruiters?

I see people talk about “recruiters” all the time, but I don’t really have an understanding of what that is. What industries use recruiters, and at what levels? Are they qualified to do things like mapping one’s skills and experience onto jobs, or is that more of a job coach thing? When someone has a resume of things but is open to switching sectors/industries, do they call a recruiter for help?

I have this image of someone in tech getting headhunted, but it seems like “recruiter” can mean a wide variety of things.

Lots of different industries use recruiters; in fact, I’m not sure there’s an industry that never uses them, particularly at more senior levels, although they’re definitely more common in some (like tech) than others.

The big thing to know is that recruiters work for employers, not job seekers. Employers hire them to fill jobs, and then they seek out candidates for those specific positions. They mostly don’t do things like helping you figure out what your skills and experience might qualify you for (unless they look at your resume and realize you’d be a great fit for something they happen to be hiring for). That’s more of a job coach thing.

The post people don’t like my face in the morning, waiting for a new boss to turn things around, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

A recent legal decision has reaffirmed the power of fair use in the digital age, and it’s a big win for libraries and the future of public access to knowledge.

On June 24, 2025, Judge William Alsup of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of Anthropic, finding that the company’s use of purchased copyrighted books to train its AI model qualified as fair use. While the case centered on emerging AI technologies, the implications of the ruling reach much further—especially for institutions like libraries that depend on fair use to preserve and provide access to information.

What the Decision Says

In the case, publishers claimed that Anthropic infringed copyright by including copyrighted books in its AI training dataset. Some of those books were acquired in physical form and then digitized by Anthropic to make them usable for machine learning.

The court sided with Anthropic on this point, holding that the company’s “format-change from print library copies to digital library copies was transformative under fair use factor one” and therefore constituted fair use. It also ruled that using those digitized copies to train an AI model was a transformative use, again qualifying as fair use under U.S. law.

This part of the ruling strongly echoes previous landmark decisions, especially Authors Guild v. Google, which upheld the legality of digitizing books for search and analysis. The court explicitly cited the Google Books case as supporting precedent.

While we believe the ruling is headed in the right direction—recognizing both format shifting and transformative use—the court factored in destruction of the original physical books as part of the digitization process, a limitation we believe could be harmful if broadly applied to libraries and archives.

What It Means for Libraries

Libraries rely on fair use every day. Whether it’s digitizing books, archiving websites, or preserving at-risk digital content, fair use enables libraries to fulfill our public service missions in the digital age: making knowledge available, searchable, and accessible for current and future generations.

This decision reinforces the idea that copying for non-commercial, transformative purposes—like making a book searchable, training an AI, or preserving web pages—can be lawful under fair use. That legal protection is essential to modern librarianship.

In fact, the court’s analysis strengthens the legal groundwork that libraries have relied on for years. As with the Google Books decision, it affirms that digitization for research, discovery, and technological advancement can align with copyright law, not violate it.

Looking Ahead

This ruling is an important step forward for libraries. It reaffirms that fair use continues to adapt alongside new technologies, and that the law can recognize public interest in access, preservation, and innovation.

As we navigate a rapidly changing technological landscape, it’s more important than ever to defend fair use and support the institutions that bring knowledge to the public. Libraries are essential infrastructure for an informed society, and legal precedents like this help ensure they can continue their vital work in the digital age.

MADISON, WI—Warning that each new iteration of dummy seems to be more witless than the last, a team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin stated Monday that they were no closer to uncovering where their friend Lisa Pullman finds these bozos. “Despite years of extensive research, we still lack even a rudimentary understanding of how Lisa meets these absolute duds,” said Professor Robert Sforza, who coined the term “circus paradox” to describe what he calls the “never-ending clown car of idiots, losers, and sociopaths” his friend keeps bringing around. “She’s attractive and generally well-liked, which makes it difficult for us to determine where in the world she’s finding these bizarre specimens. We’ve searched for a pattern, but there’s simply no way to predict what kind of crazy weirdo Lisa is going to bring with her when our group of friends goes out. She claims she met the last guy in line at the Home Depot, which is, like, come on girl. She brought him to a dinner party, and we think he stole some of the silverware.” Sforza added that without more support from the scientific community, he fears the question may not be solved in Pullman’s lifetime.

The post Scientists No Closer To Uncovering Where Friend Finds These Bozos appeared first on The Onion.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Taking a deep breath and straightening his back, Yo-Yo Ma finally worked up the courage to tell his parents that he was quitting cello, sources confirmed Friday. “Mom, Dad, this is it—I quit,” said Ma, who exhaled and then winced as his parents immediately reacted to the consequential words by simultaneously exclaiming “But you love cello!” and “Is this a joke?” “You always say I love cello, but that’s not true. You guys love cello. I hate cello. If there was any instrument I wanted to play at all it would probably be the drums. Please, please just let me speak. I’m done. No, I won’t give it ‘just a few more decades.’” At press time, Ma was reportedly back in his bedroom practicing cello after being chewed out by his parents.

The post Yo-Yo Ma Finally Works Up Courage To Tell Parents He Quitting Cello appeared first on The Onion.

New comic!

If it takes longer than a couple of seconds to Ascend through something, I start to get a little nervous.

Hey, it’s Lion Buscaglia.

In brief: Tropical Storm Barry is a disorganized mess that will be inland over Mexico later today as a heavy rain producer. Another area to watch has now been formally identified in the NE Gulf or SW Atlantic. Tropical Storm Flossie is expected to become a hurricane in the Pacific. And we have some new information on the loss of critical satellite data today, which is important to include in our understanding of what’s happening.

Tropical Storm Barry

This post from hurricane researcher Andy Hazelton about sums up newly formed Tropical Storm Barry.

Barry is one of those “tropical storm in name only” systems. It’s about as disorganized a storm as we’ve seen lately.

Based on observations of wind direction and speed from an Air Force Reserve Reconnaissance in the system this morning, Barry got the upgrade. So it’s not like they’re just making this up out of thin air. But I think it’s safe to say than 100 years ago, it would be unlikely that this storm would have gotten a name.

Whatever the case, Barry will scoot inland tonight. We’ll see if both Andrea and Barry combined can add up to 24 hours of cumulative tropical storm intensity for the season. Heavy rain is expected in Mexico from Barry with flooding possible.

Otherwise, Barry should be fairly efficiently wiped out once over land.

Northeast Gulf of Mexico or Southwest Atlantic

Models continue to hint at an area of disturbed weather emanating from a decaying cold front somewhere between the northeast Gulf and southeast Atlantic later this coming week.

Models are not exactly eagerly advertising a system here, so 20 percent odds of development seem more than reasonable at the moment. That said, there has been a consistency over several days now that suggests some sort of system could develop in that area over the July 4th weekend. In most cases, ensemble agreement is modest at best, intensity looks modest at best, and there is still more support for nothing formal than something even at this point.

After last season’s successes, we’ve taken to integrating some of the AI forecast models more into identifying some of these possible risks in the medium-term, and in this case the European AIFS model seems to have modest support for a somewhat disorganized system near northern Florida. Other AI models are similar. The ICON (which also performed well in 2024) is a little more all over the place, but it also shows development risks in that same general area.

Bottom line: Something could develop, but right now the ceiling seems fairly low. We’ll continue to monitor through the week as models should hopefully latch onto expectations more.

Pacific Tropical Storm Flossie

In the Eastern Pacific, the storm we had mentioned as likely yesterday is now Tropical Storm Flossie today.

Flossie should pass far enough off the Mexican coast to avoid most hurricane impacts onshore. That said, a tropical storm watch is posted along a good chunk of the coast. And heavy rain is certainly a concern between Guerrero and Jalisco, where upwards of 10 inches (250 mm) may fall locally.

Behind Flossie there is another system that may develop well offshore of Mexico later this week. Busy busy continues!

Update on SSMIS data

Back on Friday I discussed the news about the DoD satellite data that was about to be abruptly on Monday. That is still happening, but the reality of why it is may be a bit more nuanced than just data being cut off. I just want to be clear that when we live in a questionable information environment, this is what tends to happen (and I even said it on Friday that something gets declared, there’s outrage, and then it’s pulled back). The transparency we’ve gotten from elected officials has been on the decline for years and certainly seems to be at its low right now. So in that “vacuum,” we can only really speculate. And while we all have our own opinions on the current state of affairs, it’s of utmost importance to be clear about what’s going on.

Anyway, a LinkedIN post from Jordan Gerth (you should not need a LinkedIN account to view this), who is a satellite expert that I know personally and have very high esteem for suggests that, while this is certainly a suboptimal decision, it is well within the realm of what was expected at some point. It’s just unfortunate that it’s hitting when it is and with such little advance notice. This is an important perspective to include in this story, and I encourage you to read his brief comments. It surely does not take away from the true fact that the overall weather infrastructure of the country has been degraded in the last 6 months, but with this particular decision, the blame does not fall at the feet of anyone in particular. It still creates a very big problem we need to manage this year and possibly beyond until we can get more instrumentation into space.

Daisie and the smith set out into the world. Years ago, I used to enjoy the comic Magic Whistle by Sam Henderson, and you should absolutely consider this a tribute and a salute.

The post The opposite side appeared first on Bad Machinery.

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