#Rowen #RoninWarriors

I'm the Phantom Mountie! I'll let you go and you won't know. #CowboyWho

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

1. My well-intentioned coworker keeps commenting on my phone calls

I sit in a bank of cubicles with a young colleague in his first ever job. He’s very sweet and well-intentioned, but his efforts at making conversation are making me a little uncomfortable. For context, I am about two levels above him in our hierarchy, but he’s in a completely different business group and our work has no overlap whatsoever. I do not know anyone else on his team — we sit in an “miscellaneous overflow” section of the office (which is not ideal, but not currently changeable).

Every day, he comments on how many meetings I have and what my schedule looks like. He’ll say things like:
–“You haven’t had many calls today! That’s unusual!”
–“You’ve had a busy day. What was that, four calls? Five?”
–“Sounds like you’ve had a lot of surprise calls today. How many of your calls were scheduled?”
–“Two calls already this morning! I’m guessing you’ll end up with five or six today.”

I genuinely think he’s just somewhat awkwardly trying to make conversation, but it’s exhausting to have my schedule scrutinized every day. He’s even commented on the contents of my calls a few times.

I’d love a kind but firm script to explain to him that sometimes in an open office, the polite thing to do is to pretend you can’t hear what’s going on around you. I’d love to not take these calls out in the open, but that’s not an option for me. Please help me put a stop to these comments!

Aw, yeah, he’s trying to connect and not realizing this isn’t the way to do it.

Try this: “I know you’re being friendly, but I’d prefer not to have my calls commented on this way. It’s easier in an open office if we maintain the illusion that we have some privacy, despite being in a fishbowl. Thanks for understanding.”

If you think he’s a nice guy and you want to reinforce that it’s not personal and you don’t hold it against him as long as he stops, look for a few opportunities to interact with him warmly about something more appropriate afterwards (which could even just be a warm “good morning” or “have a good weekend” or similar).

2. Asking an employee to accept a demotion or be fired

We have an employee who has been with our company for about 18 months. While he is a great person and always willing to help out anyone, he is not good at his job and frequently makes the same mistakes over and over again. We have tried everything, but you can’t teach somebody to have greater attention to detail and he doesn’t appear to get the seriousness of the issues when the mistakes are pointed out to him.

I’m a manager in the company but not his manager. We are an extremely small office, and the company owners leave it up to myself and one other staff member to hire the support staff (of which he is one). They are tired of the errors because they are costly and want to let him go, but they are willing to leave it up to us as to how to manage the situation. We would rather move him into another position that is currently open. We know he would be really good at it as he has demonstrated his ability to do some duties of this job, as it is currently not filled so he steps in and covers the gaps. His salary would not change even though this would typically be a lower-paying position.

Bottom line, we don’t want him to lose his job but we don’t know how to broach the change in position without him feeling embarrassed and not valued. It’s because we value him that we want him to remain with the company, just not in his current position. Can you suggest ways of making this offer that can get across if he doesn’t accept it, he will most likely lose his job? I can see how being offered this other position may be a bit embarrassing for him, as it will appear to everyone that he wasn’t qualified for the job he was doing.

Does he know he’s been struggling with the job or will he be blindsided by it? Hopefully he’s been getting feedback all along and is aware there have been problems, and you can be straightforward: “We’ve talked a lot about the need to be more careful in your work and not make errors like X and Y. We haven’t seen the improvement we need, and we’re at the point where we can’t keep you in this job. However, we’ve seen you stepping in to help with the Z job, and you’ve done a great job with that work. We think that could be a really good fit, and we’d like to move you into it, if that’s something you’re interested in. Your salary wouldn’t change.” If he says he prefers to stay where he is, you’d say, “Unfortunately, we can’t keep you in your current job because of the mistakes we’ve talked about. If you don’t want to move to the Z job, we wouldn’t be able to keep you on — but we think Z could be a great match if you’re interested in it.”

Don’t get into trying to manage his emotions about a potential switch. He may not feel embarrassed by it at all, but if he does, that’s something for him to work out on his own. Your role is to be straightforward about the situation and what his options are. You can do that kindly and with empathy, but if you worry too much about embarrassing him, you risk softening the message in ways that ultimately will make the situation harder for him (because he won’t understand the reasons for what’s happening, or at the extreme end could even miss what you’re saying entirely).

3. Talking about my non-compliance with our in-office policy in my annual self-evaluation

I have been employed for just over five years at a government agency. I started full-time in-office, spent a few years mostly remote, and am now expected to be back in the office three days a week.

Fine. The trouble is, I can’t seem to get myself in more than twice, due to some physical and mental health issues (for which I have never sought formal accommodation), family obligations, and to be frank, personal preference. I am an individual contributor, and although in theory I’m senior enough to be a resource for newer employees, in reality most of the time in the office I’m totally alone and don’t get why I have to be there other than team optics.

I have a wonderful and accommodating manager, but there are pressures from above. We are about to undertake “annual” evaluations for the first time in a few years, and my dilemma involves how honest to be in the self-evaluation portion to be submitted in advance. I have approached my employer regarding my willingness to go hourly, about 30 hours (I could still manage my current workload if all the performative stuff were trimmed), but so far no go.

There is a section I have to fill out regarding my adherence to attendance and telework policies. I should get a zero! But I can’t say that. In person with my manager I can be pretty frank, but I don’t want to overly criticize myself in a written record. Should I continue to just say I’m managing okay, or take this as an opportunity to say, this isn’t working for me?

You should not give yourself a low rating for attendance and adherence to telework policies. You should reinterpret that question in your head to, “How is my attendance and in-person presence jibing with the needs of my job?” and answer that instead. If your boss wants to argue it differently, let her — but don’t go out of your way to ding yourself in a formal review for something you don’t actually think should to be a strike against you.

Whether or not to raise the fact that the schedule isn’t working for you is a separate issue. You might choose to have that conversation with your manager in conjunction with review time, but keep that separate from any self-assessment ratings you’re putting forward.

4. Job application wants me to share “different pieces of my identity”

I’m curious about your opinion of a question in a job application I came across. At the bottom of the page, they provide these instructions for the cover letter:

“Please include the following in your cover letter: How will the different pieces of your identity contribute to this team and work? Please share as much detail as you feel comfortable sharing to help us create a team that represents a diverse set of identities.”

That question feels weird to me. It feels like an invitation to declare things that a person wouldn’t normally declare in the job application. Since it’s so vague and leaves it up to the applicant what they choose to include, I’m guessing it’s legal? I think the organization probably has good intentions, but it’s really put me off of applying.

It’s legal for them to ask it, but it would be illegal for them to factor into their hiring decision any information about protected characteristics that you shared in response to it (i.e., anything about your sex, race, religion, national origin, age if 40 or older, or disability).

The legal way to create a diverse team is by ensuring that they recruit a diverse pool of applicants and by working to counter bias in their hiring practices, not by considering the demographics that any individual candidate would bring. The former is legal (and good practice); the latter is illegal.

Because of that, the question is pretty problematic.

5. What does “upon resignation” mean?

What exactly does “upon resignation” mean if there is a notice period? For example, if the contract says “you must hand in your keys upon resignation,” does it mean “hand in the keys along with the resignation letter” or “hand the keys over when you walk out the door on your last day”?

Typically it means “upon your actual departure from the organization,” so on your last day.

The post well-intentioned coworker keeps commenting on my phone calls, accept a demotion or be fired, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

DURHAM, NC—Threatening to have his client sit out the rest of the academic semester unless he was paid what he’s worth, Cooper Flagg’s agent Austin Brown negotiated a 10% increase Monday in textbook buyback value for the NCAA star from the Duke University bookstore. “This Intro to Psychology textbook is top-of-the-line, and we aren’t budging on this, so don’t spit in our face with this weak-ass $25 offer when you know Cooper is worth $27.50,” Brown said to an English literature grad student working part time at the bookstore, explaining that Duke must not understand the asses Flagg puts in seats if they aren’t will to accept a macroeconomics textbook that is clearly only lightly used. “I will burn your whole life down okay? I will go scorched earth. Who the hell has heard of Duke University anyway? I hear North Carolina is paying $40 for Earth: A Physical Geology. It still has the accompanying CD-ROM in the back, for Christ’s sake. This is the 2018 edition, and these babies are still crisp as the day he got them. That better become $44 real quick, or we’re walking. And at least look my client in the face while you’re trying to fuck him.” At press time, Brown had also secured Flagg a complimentary third taco and fountain drink at the Duke dining hall.

The post Cooper Flagg’s Agent Negotiates 10% Increase In Textbook Buyback Value At Duke Bookstore appeared first on The Onion.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 31 U.S. children is diagnosed with ASD, also known as autism spectrum disorder. The Onion dispels the common myths surrounding autism.

MYTH: Autism is caused by vaccines.

FACT: There is no scientific evidence that the microchips inside vaccines are linked to autism.

MYTH: All autistic people are good at math.

FACT: All autistic people are good at Wave Race 64.

MYTH: Bad parenting causes autism.

FACT: Bad parenting causes people to believe that bad parenting causes autism.

MYTH: Only boys can be autistic.

FACT: Girls were given access to the spectrum in 1983.

MYTH: There weren’t autistic people in the past.

FACT: Who do you think categorized all the bugs? 

MYTH: All autistic people have a special skill.

FACT: Autistic people are often just as useless as the rest of us.

MYTH: Autistic people will use martial arts to kill my family.

FACT: The Accountant and The Accountant 2 are works of fiction.

MYTH: Some people with autism may never work.

FACT: That’s awesome, good for them.

MYTH: You should have been much, much nicer to your classmates with autism growing up.

FACT: This one checks out, actually.

The post Autism: Myth Vs. Fact appeared first on The Onion.

#Rowen #RoninWarriors

There heads dropping foward, every muscle relaxing, relaxing, until finally they're in deep, deep sleep. #CowboyWho

In his first news conference since the federal election, the PM laid out his approach to talks with his US counterpart.

President Trump says the famous island prison off San Francisco is to be reopened to house "ruthless and violent" offenders.

The president blamed foreign-made movies for the American film industry's "very fast death".

Londoner Elizabeth Tamilore Odunsi, 23, was discovered with multiple stab wounds at her flat in Houston.

Residents approved incorporating a patch of land as the new municipality in an election on Saturday.

The image, shared by White House social media accounts, comes as Catholics prepare to pick the next pontiff.

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I don't know why either, but it was fun to draw.

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I don’t know who issues Barista’s Licenses. There’s probably an ombudsman of some sort. But based on the brutally burnt dark mass-market roasts available at the majority of UK high street coffee chains, I’d rescind most of them as a matter of course and make people reapply for them. I realise that most baristas are only working with the beans supplied, but someone has to take a stand.

The post The genuine article appeared first on Bad Machinery.

NBC News:

When Welker tried to point out what the Fifth Amendment said, Trump suggested that such a process would slow him down too much.

“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said. “We have thousands of people that are — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he added.

“But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Welker asked.

“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

The oath of office, which Trump has now taken twice, is “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I’ll repeat what I wrote a few weeks ago when the Chinese government correctly mocked Trump’s tariffs as “a joke in the history of world economics”: Democrats and all other Trump opponents should repeatedly call into question Trump’s mental fitness for office. Don’t (just) argue that he’s trying to subvert the Constitution as a WWE-style authoritarian, but argue (also) that he clearly doesn’t even remember the oath of office. He’s in early dementia. Trump’s father was suffering from severe dementia when he was Trump’s age. Throw Biden under the bus: remind people that we just saw what happens when a mentally enfeebled 80-year-old^* serves as President, and that under Trump it’s far worse. Biden was sleepy but steady; Trump is agitated and erratic. Only some dementia sufferers act lost and confused — others act out in anger and belligerence. Trump is in the latter group. He doesn’t remember the oath of office.

* Keep calling him “80”; make his sycophants correct you that he’s “only” turning 79 in June.

Trump, showing off to ABC News’s Terry Moran the historical copy of the Declaration of Independence now hanging in the Oval Office:

Trump: Of course, you have the Declaration of Independence.

Moran: What does it mean to you?

Trump: Well, it means exactly what it says. It’s a declaration. It’s a declaration of unity and love and respect. And it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.

Watch the clip. A transcript doesn’t do justice to just how clear it is he has no idea what it means. I keep mentioning that Democrats should hammer, every day, the argument that Trump is way too old and now suffering from dementia. It’s just good politics. But I think it’s actually true, too. Mark my words, by the time he gets toward the end of this second term they’re going to have to somehow try to keep him away from microphones. You can’t get out of the fourth grade without being able to describe what the Declaration of Independence means.

by Cassandra Jaramillo and Lizzie Presser

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Texas Senate has unanimously passed legislation that aims to prevent maternal deaths under the state’s strict abortion ban.

Written in response to a ProPublica investigation last year, Senate Bill 31, called The Life of the Mother Act, represents a remarkable turn among the Republican lawmakers who were the original supporters of the ban. For the first time in four years, they acknowledged that women were being denied care because of confusion about the law and took action to clarify its terms.

“We don’t want to have any reason for hesitation,” said Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, who authored the state’s original abortion ban and sponsored this reform with bipartisan input and support. Just last fall, he had said the law he wrote was “plenty clear.”

The bill stops short of removing what doctors say are the ban’s biggest impediments to care, including its major criminal penalties, and doesn’t expand abortion access to cases of fetal anomalies, rape or incest. Sen. Carol Alvarado, the Democratic lawmaker who co-authored the bill, said that its limits were a “real hard pill to swallow” but that it could still make a difference. “I believe this bill will save lives,” she said.

ProPublica’s reporting showed how doctors in states that ban abortion have waited to intervene in cases where women ultimately died of high-risk complications.

To address that problem, Senate Bill 31 states that a life-threatening medical emergency doesn’t need to be “imminent.” It also says doctors can terminate ectopic pregnancies, which occur when the fertilized egg implants outside of the uterine cavity. It would allow for a pregnant patient to receive cancer treatment, Hughes said, even if doing so threatened the viability of a fetus.

The bill also clarifies that medical staff or hospital officials can discuss termination with patients without violating a provision of the law that criminalizes “aiding and abetting” an abortion. It had been unclear to doctors whether simply discussing the option could lead to steep criminal penalties; patients have reported not being able to get straight answers from their providers about their prognosis and options for treatment.

It remains to be seen how the bill, if made law, would be interpreted by doctors and hospitals, and whether risk-averse institutions would still delay care during pregnancy complications.

Many reproductive rights advocates are skeptical given that the bill does not explicitly address many high-risk pregnancy complications. The most common one in the second trimester, previable premature rupture of membranes, or PPROM, occurs when someone’s water breaks early. In these cases, the chance of the fetus surviving is low, but delaying a pregnancy termination leaves the patient at risk of infection, which can lead to sepsis, a potentially deadly condition. Since the state banned abortion, lawyers at many hospitals across Texas have advised physicians not to empty the uterus until they can document signs of infection — an indication of a life-threatening emergency.

The death of Josseli Barnica, which ProPublica reported last year, reveals the dangers of forcing miscarrying patients to wait for care. Diagnosed with an “inevitable” miscarriage at 17 weeks, she showed symptoms similar to PPROM without an official diagnosis — her water had not yet broken. While stable, she was made to wait 40 hours until the fetal heartbeat ended before doctors induced delivery. She later died of sepsis, which medical experts say she likely developed because of the wait.

In addition to documenting cases in which women died of sepsis, ProPublica has shown how rates of the potentially deadly complication spiked by more than 50% statewide in second-trimester pregnancy-loss hospitalizations after Texas banned abortion.

Officials with the Texas Medical Association, the Texas Hospital Association and major anti-abortion groups — Texas Right to Life, Texas Alliance for Life and the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs — told ProPublica they believed that this bill would now allow doctors to offer a termination at the point of a PPROM diagnosis, before infection set in.

Dr. Zeke Silva, chair of the Texas Medical Association’s Council on Legislation, included PPROM on a list of potentially life-threatening conditions he believed may fall under the bill’s clarified exception. The list, which is not exhaustive, includes preeclampsia, renal failure, liver failure, cardiac disease, pulmonary hypertension and neurological conditions. He added that decisions to intervene because a medical condition could be life-threatening “are, by definition, subjective, based on multiple clinical considerations” and must be based on “sound medical judgment.”

However, ProPublica spoke with six legal experts who said they were unsure whether hospitals, wary of litigation or penalties, would interpret the bill to mean that doctors can offer a termination to patients with PPROM.

Some PPROM patients can remain pregnant for weeks and not develop infections, while others can contract an infection and deteriorate very quickly, noted Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “I could see some doctors saying this means, ‘I have more leeway to intervene in all PPROM cases,’ and others saying, ‘I still don’t know, so I’ll wait until signs of infection.’”

The largest association of OB-GYNs, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in an emailed statement that it did not support the bill: “This bill would keep Texas’ abortion ban in place and we strongly oppose the abortion ban and will continue to do so.”

Yesterday, the Texas Senate also passed Bill 2880, which would authorize civil lawsuits against anyone in or outside of Texas who distributes or provides abortion medication to someone in the state. It is expected to face pushback in the state House.

The Life of the Mother Act now goes to the House, where it must be voted out of committee before it heads to the House floor. Both chambers would need to agree on a final version before the governor could sign it into law.

For years, North Korea has been secretly placing young IT workers inside Western companies. With AI, their schemes are now more devious—and effective—than ever.

Poorly maintained sewers can have disastrous consequences, but regular inspections can be time-consuming, expensive, and dangerous. The solution: subterranean dung drones.

News outlets tend to highlight the first 100 days of a new administration, and they like to show the changes with charts. It gives a feel for a true direction instead of empty claims and where we might be headed for the next few years. This time around was no exception.

For Bloomberg, Mark Niquette and Gregory Korte charted the economy, which is complex and can’t be shown with a single metric, so they showed several, such as inflation expectations:

For Axios, Jacque Schrag and Natalie Daher used a timeline of events, color coded by type:

Irineo Cabreros and Aatish Bhatia, for NYT’s the Upshot, used eight charts, closing with approval rating:

Not to be outdone, the Washington Post used ten charts and made sure to number them. On executive orders aimed at the bureaucracy:

Financial Times (paywalled) also went with ten charts to show the first 100 days. Reuters used 47 photos instead.

I am sure there were many more, but you get the picture.

Tags: economy, government

Here are my experiments with "Vibe Coding", ie using AI to write all code for you without reading or understanding it yourself. I used gemini+cursor, claude code, and openais codex. I programmed a souped-up version of langton's ant, as well as a personal website. Then I let AI Agents loose on my machine to make art and destroy my computer.

TLDR: Vibe coding is fun and fast, but sloppy and insecure.

~ MY LINKS ~
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emergentgarden
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/emergentgarden
Langton's Ant Colony: https://evolvecode.io/turmites/index.html
Emergent Garden: https://emergentgarden.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/max_romana
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emergentgarden.bsky.social

~ MUSIC ~
My music boy: https://youtube.com/@acolyte-compositions?si=2P97LlROhNgQYOa-
https://youtu.be/QcKhPLxrUWM?si=PHmCg7wsFzuXda3u

~ OTHER LINKS ~
Crappy Plane Game: https://fly.pieter.com/
Langton's Ant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton%27s_ant
Turmites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmite

~Timestamps~
(0:00) Code that Vibe Codes
(2:33) Coding with Cursor
(3:52) Langton's Ant Colony
(14:20) Final Program
(15:36) Reading AI Code
(17:19) AI Agents
(19:04) Please Nuke My Computer
(21:43) Final Review

Land of the Primordial Machine p.5-6

...

delirious mage is approached by a mechanical arm and machine sentience

Mage is lying on the hood of the car. Mechanical arms are using scissors to remove her jacket. Her arm is still missing.

OpenBlade: "You've done this a lot?"

The mechanical arms belong to a vintage fully sentient MilTekBot holding a spare limb, dressed in a leather jacket.

MilTekBot: "No."

On his face screen a MilTek manual is printed:

Miltek Archive
14.5 Limb replacement

14.5.1 What are nerves?
One might think that the nerve endings of human bodies are not too dissimilar to circuitry of a common computer. One would be wrong.

https://analognowhere.com/_/snishe

• archive
• support/store

OTTAWA – Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has announced that he will run in a by-election in the conservative stronghold of Battle River-Crowfoot, after being told that he could not run in his preferred area of deep-red rural Texas. After losing his Carleton, Ontario seat of 20 years, Poilievre announced that newly-elected Battle River-Crowfoot MP Damien […]

The post Poilievre to run for by-election in safe rural Alberta riding, after rural Texas riding not available appeared first on The Beaverton.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating two leading toothpaste makers over their use of fluoride, suggesting that they are "illegally marketing" the teeth cleaners to parents and kids "in ways that are misleading, deceptive, and dangerous."

The toothpaste makers in the crosshairs are Colgate-Palmolive Company, maker of Colgate toothpastes, and Proctor & Gamble Manufacturing Co., which makes Crest toothpastes. In an announcement Thursday, Paxton said he has sent Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to the companies.

The move is an escalation in an ongoing battle over fluoride, which effectively prevents dental cavities and improves oral health. Community water fluoridation has been hailed by health and dental experts as one of the top 10 great public health interventions for advancing oral health across communities, regardless of age, education, or income. But, despite the success, fluoride has always had detractors—from conspiracy theorists in the past suggesting the naturally occurring mineral is a form of communist mind control, to more recent times, in which low-quality, controversial studies have suggested that high doses may lower IQ in children.

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Under President Trump, the Food and Drug Administration may no longer approve seasonal COVID-19 vaccines updated for the virus variants circulating that year, according to recent statements by Trump administration officials.

Since the acute phase of the pandemic, vaccine manufacturers have been subtly updating COVID-19 shots annually to precisely target the molecular signatures of the newest virus variants, which continually evolve to evade our immune responses. So far, the FDA has treated these tweaked vaccines the same way it treats seasonal flu shots, which have long been updated annually to match currently circulating strains of flu viruses.

The FDA does not consider seasonal flu shots brand-new vaccines. Rather, they're just slightly altered versions of the approved vaccines. As such, the regulator does not require companies to conduct lengthy, expensive vaccine trials to prove that each slightly changed version is safe and effective. If they did, generating annual vaccines would be virtually impossible. Each year, from late February to early March, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization direct flu shot makers on what tweaks they should make to shots for the upcoming flu season. That gives manufacturers just enough time to develop tweaks and start manufacturing massive supplies of doses in time for the start of the flu season.

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