Twitter users @tthirtle asked why Windows 95 setup goes through three operating systems: MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and then Windows 95. Why not go from MS-DOS straight to Windows 95?

Here’s another good question. Why does Windows 95 setup use 3 different UI’s. DOS,Win3.x,and Win9x?

— Thomas (@tthirtle) July 7, 2024

Windows 95 setup could upgrade from three starting points: MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, or Windows 95. (Yes, you could upgrade Windows 95 to Windows 95. You might do this to repair a corrupted system while preserving data.)

One option is to write three versions of Windows 95 setup: One for setting up from MS-DOS, another for setting up from Windows 3.1, and a third for setting up from Windows 95.

This was not a pleasant option because you basically did the same work three times, but implemented separately, so you have to do three times the coding.

A better option is to just write one version of Windows 95 setup and use it for all three starting points. So now you get to choose the platform on which to base your code.

From	App type
	MS-DOS	16-bit GUI	32-bit GUI
MS-DOS	•
Windows 3.1	•	•
Windows 95	•	•	•

If you write Windows 95 setup as an MS-DOS app, then it runs on all three platforms. That’s great! You need to write only one setup program. The downside is that it’s going to be a text-mode setup program, which looks ugly and gives a poor initial impression of what is supposed to be a brand new GUI world.

At the other extreme, you can write Windows 95 setup as a 32-bit GUI program, but that means that if the user is starting from MS-DOS or Windows 3.1, you have to install Windows 95 before you can run Windows 95 setup, which is a bit of a catch-22.

In the middle is the happy medium: You can have the MS-DOS setup program install a minimal version of Windows 3.1, just barely enough to support what the 16-bit GUI setup program needs.¹ This tiny version is small enough to be copied and installed off a small number of floppy disks. Once that’s done, boot into the tiny version of Windows 3.1 and run the 16-bit GUI setup program.

Okay, so now we have three setup programs. The first one is used if you’re installing from MS-DOS: It installs the tiny version of Windows 3.1, and then boots into Windows 3.1 to continue to the next step.

The second setup program runs as a 16-bit Windows app, either in the miniature copy of Windows 3.1 (if the user is upgrading from MS-DOS), the real copy of Windows 3.1 (if the user is upgrading from Windows 3.1), or the real copy of Windows 95 (if the user is upgrading from Windows 95). This second setup program is the one that does almost all of the real work: It does the initial interaction with the user to gather information about how to install Windows 95, like asking which optional components to include, and does hardware detection to decide which drivers to install.² And then it copies the drivers and Windows 95 files onto the system, migrates your old settings to the new operating system, and boots into Windows 95.

The third setup program runs as a 32-bit Windows app. It is running in the real Windows 95 system and does some final steps that require operation a live running system, like installing printers.

Starting from MS-DOS →	Install mini Windows 3.1			MS-DOS app
	↓
	Boot into mini-Windows 3.1
	↓
Starting from Windows 3.1 →	Gather information			16-bit Windows app
or Windows 95	↓
	Detect hardware
	↓
	Copy drivers and Windows 95 files
	↓
	Migrate settings and configure drivers
	↓
	Boot into Windows 95
	↓
	Final setup			Windows 95 app

So that’s why Windows 95 setup is really three setup programs chained together. It allows a single copy of the code to be used for all three of the installation scenarios. Each program takes you one step closer to the goal. And everything got implemented only once.

¹ There was existing precedent for a tiny version of Windows that is barely enough to run a single program. The original Windows version of Microsoft Excel came with a runtime version of Windows 2.1, so that customers who didn’t have Windows could still use Excel.

² This hardware detection code that Setup uses is the same code that runs when you do hardware detection from within Windows 95 itself, so even that code needed to be written only once. It did have some runtime checks to change behavior slightly depending on whether it’s running in Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, but the vast majority of the code is identical.

The post Why did Windows 95 setup use three operating systems? appeared first on The Old New Thing.

Short-term certificates can only take a few weeks to get but don’t always lead to better earnings or higher degrees.

Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits, and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.

See other Five-Minute Tours here.

Mokha Laget: Inclinations at Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston. Dates: September 7 – October 26, 2024.

The post Five-Minute Tours: Mokha Laget at Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston appeared first on Glasstire.

Day 1:

It is nearing 2 am and I cannot find a stopping point. I am sitting on the floor of my temporary living room, cross-legged at the coffee table, obsessively — no, maniacally — focused on fashioning paper marigolds. I am in southern Spain where the sunshine is bright and constant, the smell of sea salt is always in the air, there is always a light breeze to kiss the cheek, and the Mediterranean waters lap crisp and chilly against the toes. It is a place where the sun rises at a civilized 8:30 am and at night the street lights emit a soft glow diffused by the humidity in the air. 

I should be sleeping — I should have been asleep hours ago — but the repetitive task at hand has begun to consume me. With the looming deadline, I am charged with making as many paper marigolds — or cempasúchiles — as I can to fill a room. 

I don’t usually travel this time of year. I prefer watching the seasons change between holidays with the sunny mornings turned rainy evenings as the clouds roll into the shallow Mexico City skies overhead. I love when the bright yellow and orange cempasúchiles and fluorescent pink and yellow fuzzy terciopelo flowers that leave a trail of black seeds in their shadows, begin to appear all over the city. I love witnessing the energy of the city shift to death, and thus, life, as we all collectively prepare to receive our loved ones. 

But cempasúchiles are hard to find in southern Spain, and the tradition of receiving death in order to honor life doesn’t exist in the same ways. So here I am, the second night in a row sitting on my floor in Alicante, feet under the coffee table, “Loot” playing in the background, fashioning flower after paper flower. 

I have a lot of dead people. 

Every year in the fall I commit to staying home in order to build an altar that honors those dead people. Every year it seems to grow bigger, both in size and in the number of photos placed on it. 

They say that to love is to grieve, and as I construct my altar I grieve for those I have lost. It is not just about placing a photo next to a flower or lighting a candle, it is about the nostalgia that hits like a punch to the gut, the memories that come flooding in the form of tears as each photo is placed, each flower arranged, each object curated. 

It grows bigger and bigger as the memories become more distant, the sounds of their voices more intangible, their warmth of body and skin non-existent, the sounds of laughter but a faint echo. 

Day 2:

I am sitting in a restaurant in Alicante. My deadline is approaching rapidly and the overwhelming feeling of not having enough is weighing on me. This year it will not just be my altar, but a large one for all our friends and family and ‘friend family’ in Alicante, and we will all gather together to receive our dead, share stories, shed tears, and with a little luck, share some tequila too. 

Armando is with me, Vinayak will soon join us. They are my rock and my mountain and the reason I am not in Mexico — because if anyone knows the benefits of running it’s the two of them, and sometimes one must run in order to heal. 

We are the only ones in the restaurant, and as we chat I pull out stacks of tissue paper and fuzzy green pipe cleaners. We learned how to do this in elementary school in Texas. They will never be the same, they will never share the same fragrance of proper marigold petals, and the greens will never be as thick or wild, but they will suffice, and sometimes, when you are on the opposite side of the world, to suffice is just enough. 

It’s a metaphor really, because these days all I can seem to do is to suffice. 

So we sit at a table opposite each other, joined by Vinayak, and we drink our coffee, cava, and tea, we eat our salads and cheesecake, and we pull apart thin sheets of bright orange, yellow, and green tissue paper. At some point the Spanish waitress comes by and admires our handiwork, and I pull the sheets apart with more fervor, more gusto. 

Day 3: 

It’s an easy technique, one that requires only a few cuts, and it can work easily in an assembly line if you can gather enough people with enough interest. 

Tissue paper in Spain is called “silk paper” or papel sede, and it comes in packs of singular colors — orange, yellow, white, green, purple, blue, etc etc — with ten sheets that measure 50 x 66 centimeters. The sheets are all folded together into long and narrow plastic packaging, which is actually quite convenient. I recommend pulling the tissue paper out and leaving it intact with the folds. What I have learned is, if you cut along the folds you get the perfect amount of sheets in the perfect size for marigold making. 

We learned this technique as children in elementary school in Texas. Every year we all sat at our desks and made flowers and celebrated whatever politically correct version of Día de los Muertos was acceptable, depending on how separate church was from state at the time. I don’t remember much beyond making flowers, which probably meant we were entering an era of political correctness that was less about honoring ancestors and more about the obligatory box checking of cultural diplomacy required of a place considered a border state. 

I mostly remember the repetition. 

Once the paper is cut, take ten or so stacked sheets and fold them accordion style along the short edge. Before folding, make sure the stack of tissue paper is laying so the short edge is nearest the body. Then fold the edge over tightly, no wider than the tips of the fingers, and flip the entire stack over and repeat. 

Fold, flip, fold and flip, then fold and flip again until the entire stack of tissue paper is one long thin strip of folds. Take a green pipe cleaner and tightly wrap it in the center, creating what will become the “stem” of the flower. 

Once the pipe cleaner is wrapped around the folded paper, hold the paper so the “stem” is down, then gently fan out the stacked sheets from each side of the pipe cleaner. At this point it will look nothing like a flower — more like a bad, indiscernible craft item. 

Once each side of paper has been fanned out, begin to painstakingly separate each thin, individual sheet of tissue paper by pulling them carefully from the outside, working your way in towards the base or the green “stem” of the pipe cleaner. The base will become tight as more pages are separated, the density will grow, some pages will tear, some will warp and fold in on themselves, some will be an absolute failure. But do not fret. Continue to pull and separate, because each imperfection adds to the paper illusion of the real marigold, and after all, nothing in nature is ever really perfect. 

When each sheet has been separated you will end up with a poofy, puff of paper. This poof puff is the artificial and handmade version of a marigold, a beautiful, imperfect flower of dense, technicolor petals. If you’re lucky, and if you’ve spent enough time making marigolds, they will serve as the formal invitation for your beloved ancestors to pop in for their annual visit, even if you are far away from home. 

Day 4: 

Once again I am sitting on my floor in Alicante, cross-legged at my coffee table, “Loot” playing in the background, and I am beginning to question my marigold-making capabilities. 

Perhaps “capabilities” is too strong a word. Perhaps I am beginning to doubt the speed at which I can produce the number of marigolds necessary to create the altar necessary to call my own deceased and those receiving invitations from my friends as well. This has grown into a symbol for all of us, a quotidian, baroque mass of orange, yellow, purple, and pink density meant to be an invitation. 

Perhaps I have instead planted a seed of martyrdom, a sort of “self-flagellation via green pipe cleaner” because more than anything I need to believe that I will be visited this year. 

I must be visited this year. 

Because this year, more than any other year, I need to be surrounded by the love of those that I have lost, because this year I have never felt more untethered. 

Day 5:

Five days have passed and I have a respectable mound of paper marigolds growing. I have been to the Asian retail store every day, the one that sells all the random home goods like paper thin bath towels, Tupperware that will always stain. The store where rolls of plastic in all levels of texture, color, and overall gaudiness are available, where anyone can find the cheap shower curtain of their whimsical dreams, and where every single fabric flower except a marigold is sold. 

They are also open during the Spanish lunch and siesta times between 3-5 pm, the window of time after which I have spent hours working, have eaten lunch, have had a cup or two of cava and either need to sleep until the next day or wander aimlessly for fear of sleeping until the next day. They recognize me as I walk in because every day for the last four days I have purchased an obscene amount of pipe cleaners and tissue paper. 

I have a mission. I have a goal, and the owners of L’Estrella Home are an essential part of attaining both. 

Days 6-7: 

I am in Madrid, and I brought a massive bag full of pre-folded tissue paper pre-wrapped with pipe cleaners. I am here with Armando and Vinayak who are taking their undergraduate study abroad students through Madrid for the weekend. There are only 20 of us including Armando, Vinayak, and myself and the bus had plenty of space, Wi-Fi, and TVs with streaming services and moved over the smooth Spanish highways like a hovering spaceship. Normally it’s a three hour drive to Madrid from Alicante, but our hovering spaceship made it in a little more than four. We were dropped at the Puerta de Toledo, walked our bags up the hill to our hotel, checked in, regathered, and walked further up the hill to the Museo del Prado where together we will see and talk about the work of Goya. 

The Prado is a spectacular place. Standing in the gallery surrounded by Goya’s black paintings is always a gut-wrenching experience. The horror is visceral, and the paint applied with what I imagine to be an emotion-fueled frenzy. The ceilings in the gallery are low and create a cave-like effect. It’s claustrophobic and terrifying. 

We often talk about the impulse to create, the impulse to put our pain into words or images, to find some sort of catharsis and community within what hurts. All I can think about is how our histories are cyclical, and how violence just continues to evolve and reveal itself in different ways with different technologies. We talk about the impulse to create through the pain, and perhaps this is the metaphor I have needed in my compulsive flower-making. This is my catharsis, my therapy — an obsessive rerouting of time, focus, and energy in something mundane in order to heal. 

From the Prado we all walk together into the Plaza del Sol, ground zero, the point of origin and the heart of the city. We turned a corner, and another one, we walked through the maze, the throngs of tourists attempting to enjoy marcha much too early, and just out of nowhere, tucked between many entryways, clusters of people, and fluorescent lights we turn left into a doorway and make our way up the stairs to a large table already set for all of us. 

We shuffle around the table trying to settle into our appropriate spots, somehow extra chairs are removed, and somehow another table added, followed by more shuffling as everyone scoots their heavy wooden chairs about an inch to the right to make more space. Waters are procured, wine makes its way to the table and bathrooms are sought out, two floors below. Once everyone is finally settled I make my way down the steep and winding staircase from the second floor, to the first floor. As I took the final step down I glanced up and stopped in my tracks. I think the world stood still. I think I stopped breathing, because sitting there at a table tucked between the front door and the window was my maternal grandmother drinking a cup of cafe con leche, as casual and comfortable as ever. 

My maternal grandmother passed away in May of 2023. 

I did a double take and she was gone. In her place was an older woman who looked nothing like my grandmother. There was no cup of coffee, and the world started moving again. I smiled and continued my way down the stairs. She was there, she had been there and I had no doubt of it, and it would have been the most natural thing in the world to sit down next to her, order my own cafe con leche and do everything I could to make her laugh, because she had an infectious laugh. 

It was an apparition of her. It was her way of showing me she would always be with me. She was a woman that rarely left the border region of South Texas, but she had followed me to Madrid and it would always be our own little secret. 

It warmed my heart that she was living this adventure with me. 

I cried tears in front of Guernica the next day. I have seen the piece many times, but visiting it again after a year of incessant and stubborn traumas changes it. Perhaps it’s better to say that through the course of the year I have changed enough to allow the piece to really penetrate my own veneer. 

I cannot identify with seeing the violence of war by any means. But through the last year I feel like I have been fighting for my life. Getting out of bed every day has required all my might and will. Some days — weeks, in fact — I have actually not left my bed. On more than one occasion I woke up with my face covered with the wetness of the tears I cried in my sleep. I have often wondered when the tides will turn. When the final funeral will be the final funeral for a while, when a return to the states will be celebratory and not traumatic, when there will be no more fires, when falling in love will mean a singular love and not the astonishment of a man who is actually married with a laundry list of lies that follows his every footstep. 

One day there will be a day that’s a little easier. 

Day 8: 

We piled into the bus and made our way out of Madrid. It rained nearly the entire drive. 

We all made paper Marigolds that afternoon on our way back to Alicante. We pulled out paper petals, separated sheets, and filled a bag that would eventually become an altar. 

Day 9:

The altar is built. It has three tiers covered with textiles borrowed from Armando who has saved them from his time living in both India and Mexico. There are plenty of paper flowers. The time has come to add the photos and the things they loved alongside them. It has become celebratory now, and the ofrenda is delightfully large and continually growing. 

There is a small bottle of Cava for Aliana. Nana Resendez gets a pack of bingo cards. There is a can of Coca-Cola, a cigarette, and a Budweiser that I miraculously found plus the mercado for Latin American products. Nana Moody will have a crocheting needle. Tomorrow I will hunt for a piece of wood for Sam, a carpenter, family friend, and father figure. 

Placing the photos on the altar is always the hardest part for me. That’s when the tears come, when I can recall the stories and reminisce about their lives and how they shaped and molded me. Now an entire continent away, I have been more determined than ever to acknowledge their lives within their deaths. Together we will light the 130 candles and we will wait. 

Day 10 [the day after]:

I stayed up all night waiting, lighting and relighting candles, crying real, fat tears. It’s hard to imagine love without heartbreak. I hope that changes one day. 

I take the flowers off the altar one by one. The ritual is done, and somehow I feel like I have shed a full skin. 

 

The post The Aztec Marigold appeared first on Glasstire.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

We interviewed a candidate for a part-time position who had been out of our line of work for 10 years. I interviewed her because she had some other things on her resume that seemed really interesting (from a business she’s been running with a family member). Still, we are a quickly-changing industry and it is unusual to grant an interview to someone who isn’t up on the latest developments. So I thought she would be happy when we decided to check references and most likely offer her the job.

However, she told us she could not provide any work-related references — none at all — because (a) the ones from our industry were too old; and (b) it was important that nobody she deals with via her current business knows she would be also working for us, as they had to be under the impression that she is at her online job and available to them at all times. She offered us two personal references, both close friends. We asked again for anybody who could speak to her work ethic, attitudes, demeanor, etc. (a vendor, for example, if she’d rather not have customers know). She again refused. So we moved on with another candidate.

The other candidate is great, but I can’t help but wonder how the first person thought this would work if she did get the job. Is it normal for people who are running small businesses and have a side job to maintain this kind of secrecy between their two jobs? She did not even name her business on her resume — just put “family business” and mentioned the key elements of it. I figured out what it was as I am interested in the topic her online platform covers. They have a solid platform, but she’s not running Microsoft. Why the secrecy? Would people she deals with for her online business care if she had a job with us a few days a week? How could it possibly be damaging?

The best explanation I’ve come up with is that she is embarrassed that the business is not as profitable as she would like, which I assume is why she interviewed with us. But that is such a normal thing in family businesses, it’s hard for me to see how it could be important enough for her to lose a job over. What’s your take?

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.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Can you be fired for making a pass at your boss’s spouse?

I am a longtime watcher of the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful and recently a plot line came up that I thought would be fun to run by you!

On the soap, Steffy runs Forrester Creations (an international fashion house that seems to only have three rooms in its office space). She has long-standing enmity with her stepsister Hope, who is the main designer of one of their fashion lines. Steffy and Hope have fought over men in the past (and have been married to and had children with the same guy), and Hope is now single and was crushing on Steffy’s husband, Finn (who’s a doctor but seems to spend a lot of time at his wife’s work). She made a pass at him at a non-work event and he turned her down, but everyone found out. Steffy told Hope that if she made another pass at Finn, she would be fired.

Hope moved on to a new guy (Carter, who’s the COO — this place has terrible work boundaries) and while attempting to have sexy times with Carter at work, she accidentally ended up in a compromising position with Finn in her lingerie due to mistaken identity. Steffy walked in on them and fired her on the spot, despite Hope saying it was a miscommunication and she wasn’t attempting to seduce her husband.

Many of the characters are saying it’s wrong for Steffy to fire Hope for a personal non-work reason and I’m wondering how you would advise Steffy or Hope if they wrote into you!

Of course it’s reasonable to fire your sister for continually hitting on your husband. There is no obligation to continue to employ a relative who tries to personally betray you in that way. Steffy would also be on solid ground in firing Hope for stripping down to lingerie at work and attempting to have sex in the office, regardless of who she hoped to have the sex with.

It would also be reasonable, and legal, for Steffy to fire Hope if Hope tried to kidnap her child, was secretly sheltering an evil twin, or was blackmailing their long-lost uncle after he came out of a coma. (I watched Days of Our Lives as a child; I know how this works.)

2. Volunteer dropped the ball and wouldn’t respond to any messages

I belong to a professional organization that has a national branch as well as state chapters (sometimes more than one per state). For my state, we have three chapters and we hold one large statewide conference every year. I am a chair of a subcommittee of the main chapter. These aren’t paid positions (it’s more something that looks good on resumes).

The same woman has always handled our submission to the statewide conference every year. This year, she was going to record a podcast with former chairs of our subcommittee and then post them to the chapter’s social media so everyone attending the conference (not just our session) could listen. (She also hosts a professional podcast related to our profession in her spare time.)

About a month before the conference, we still had no work product from her, despite this starting three months prior. She emailed a week or so later, saying she had never imagined her work would be this busy this year, but she would make the deadline.

So we went on to assign co-hosts to eight tables, telling the co-hosts where the podcasts would be posted and to listen so they would be able to help direct any conversations.

Not only did this woman not post anything to the social media accounts until the morning of the conference, she would not answer any phone calls or emails asking where these podcasts were, or what she needed help with, despite several of us inquiring.

I’m wondering how we could have best handled this situation. Looking back, I think more check-ins might have helped, especially with hindsight, knowing we should have taken stuff off her plate. I just don’t know how to handle it when people are not answering any communication — for all we know, she could have had a family emergency and not been able to handle any of this, so we were also worried.

Yes, more check-ins! If you’re counting on having something by a particular date, you don’t want to just leave it for months and not check in until the end; you want to check in at least a few times throughout so that you can ensure things are on track and course-correct if they’re not.

If someone in this context (an unpaid volunteer) isn’t responding at all to inquiries, then at some point you assume they’re not doing the work and make other plans — and you let them know that with a message like, “Since we haven’t hear back from you about X, I’m guessing you don’t have time to do it this quarter. Because we’d need know for sure by the 15th, if we haven’t heard from you by next week, we will assume X isn’t happening this year and will make different plans.” And then the next week, if you haven’t heard from them, you send another message confirming that you’re moving forward without their work on X.

3. My coworker road-raged at me and now she’s trying to be BFFs

Last year I was involved in a road rage incident. I cut someone off (not my proudest moment, mea culpa) and she followed me closely, occasionally pulling up next to me at intersections to scream threats and obscenities at me, until I pulled into the parking lot of a police station. I made a report but there was never any follow-up. It was really scary, but I was unharmed.

Recently, I changed jobs. On day one, I was being introduced to my new team, and wouldn’t you know it, the woman who road raged at me is on my team! She didn’t recognize me at first, but a few days after I started, she told me she’d recognized my car in the employee parking lot. She apologized and let me know that the incident had been part of a very low point in her life that she’s been working hard to recover from. I thanked her for apologizing and have since been polite to her at work.

However, she seems to have gotten it into her head that this has brought us closer together, and is now making overtures of friendship towards me (asking for my socials/contact info, asking me to hang out after work, etc.). I appreciate that she apologized but I’m really not interested in being her friend. I’m worried that not going along with this will set her off somehow. What do you think is the best way forward here?

Treat her like you would any other colleague who was making social overtures you weren’t interested in — meaning set clear boundaries and politely decline: “You’re kind to ask but I keep work and social media separate.” / “I’m not able to socialize after work.” / “No, thank you, but I hope you have fun if you go!” / etc. Alternately, you can say more directly, “I appreciate your apologizing for what happened last year, but I prefer to leave it there and simply work together as colleagues.”

It sounds like you’re worried about a volatile reaction because you’ve already seen her have a volatile reaction once before. Hopefully we can take her at her word that she’s working hard to not repeat that behavior, and she has more incentive not to blow up at a colleague than at a stranger … but if she does blow up again, you’ll have more recourse this time and can escalate it to your employer to manage.

Related:
I don’t want to be friends with my coworker

4. How to ask people who want free advice to pay me for it

I am a technical expert in a niche field and have accumulated some contacts from a previous position who I assisted with some brief, but free, advice in the months after I left, knowing that it was very hard to fill my spot. My previous employer hasn’t replaced me in a year (and counting).

Things were quiet for some time but they came back with a very big issue and copied a number of high level staff, attached documents, and asked me for help beyond a few quick questions. I’ve also had other people I’ve previously worked with ask me questions regarding my expertise to use for their own jobs for paying work for other clients. This is work I would need to be paid for, not free advice.

How do I either politely deflect freeloaders who are profiting off my niche experience, or potentially broach a discussion of having them pay a consulting fee? I was a public employee previously, but I am not willing to work for free now that I have moved on to another position, but am interested in a consulting side job.

“The scope of this is more than I could answer quickly, but we could set up a short-term consulting agreement if you’re interested in that.” Include an estimate of what you think they’d need and what you’d charge.

Alternately, if you’re not interested in doing a particular piece of work even if you’re paid for it: “The scope of this is more than I could answer quickly. I sometimes do this kind of thing on a consultant basis but realistically wouldn’t have the time to take it on right now — my apologies!” If you can easily refer them to someone else who might do it for pay, refer them for the good will it will generate on both sides.

5. “Gotcha” instructions in an applicant’s cover letter

I’m a hiring manager for the first time and wading through applications and cover letters. Today one of the letters had a postscript: “I’m not sure if recruiters read these until the end. If you did, write ‘Booyah’ at the beginning of my follow-up email. Because you did what most don’t!”

I understand that job seekers are frustrated with the rise of AI and job application systems that seem like black holes. But yes, a person reads the applications at least some of the time — especially at smaller places, or for jobs where writing is important. And I’m not sure if there is a job or company where a statement like that would help your case for getting the job. At the very least it seems like a big risk to turn people off.

I put this applicant in the no pile for not only this reason, but wonder if I should respond, not with “booyah” but with some version of feedback that their P.S. was unprofessional. Or is it not worth it and I should just move on and let them get the form rejection email?

It’s not worth it. They’ll figure it out from the lack of employer response, or they’ll find the one employer who thinks it’s amazing, or they won’t figure it out and will just stay bitter … but it’s not your job to coach them. (I understand the impulse! I used to have it myself. To the point that I started a blog to try to help. But it’s really not your job.)

Interestingly, occasionally employers have used this tactic too — including instructions in ads like “please put ‘kumquat’ in the subject line of your email in order to be considered.” It’s as infantilizing (and a bit insulting) when they do it too.

The 19-year-old bride and 20-year-old groom were married Sunday in a union that really only makes sense when you learn he is in the Marines. 

The post Bailey Pinski and Michael Bowers appeared first on The Onion.

BOULDER, CO—After he single-handedly transformed what was once a humble get-together into a full-on rager, bystanders reported Wednesday that double-jointed man Greg Thiede has blown the fucking roof off the party by doing weird things with his arms. “Whoa! The cracking noises coming out of this guy’s elbows and shoulders are taking this party to the next fucking level,” reported one enraptured party guest, amazed by Thiede’s ability to capture the attention of an entire room full of party guests as he bent his ultra-flexible limbs into an array of never-before-seen contortions. “Things were winding down, so I was about to start heading home, but then Greg started doing some cool stuff with his finger joints. Next thing I knew, he was bending his arms fully backwards, and my mind was blown. Fucking insane. I’ve never had more fun in my life.” At press time, guests were whipped into an ecstatic frenzy when Thiede moved on from his battery of arm and hand tricks and began to stuff his entire fist into his mouth.

The post Double-Jointed Guy Blows The Fucking Roof Off Party Doing Weird Arm Things appeared first on The Onion.

LOS ANGELES—Emphasizing that he treated the 20-year-old the same as any other rookie, Lakers power forward LeBron James denied Wednesday that his son Bronny received preferential treatment when he lifted him up to dunk. “Yes, he’s my son, but in no way do I favor him when I give him the ball, help hoist him up, and then walk him to the rim so he can score,” said the four-time NBA MVP, adding that his teammates were likely just jealous that when Bronny gets put back down, everyone cheers and tells him how amazing he is at basketball. “At the end of the day, my son worked hard to get where he is, and he’s earned the right to ask Daddy for ‘uppies.’ I get that people might think it’s unfair that I lift him backwards for reverse dunks, spin him around for 360 dunks, and even hold him above the basket to block shots. But I’d do that for anyone. Just ask Anthony Davis.” James also told reporters that if his teammates did not stop bullying his son, none of them would be invited to get pizza and ice cream after their next game.

The post LeBron James Denies Son Receiving Preferential Treatment When Being Lifted Up To Dunk appeared first on The Onion.

Dave Ward will be inducted into the Lone Star EMMY 2024 Gold Circle this coming Saturday, November 23, at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in San Antonio."I am deeply honored that The Lone Star EMMY's has chosen to induct me into their Gold Circle," Ward told mikemcguff.com. "It is heartwarming to be recognized by my colleagues, and I am grateful."According to the Texas EMMY chapter's

The post Orgasm Pretty Good appeared first on The Onion.

The post Taylor Swift Arrested On Weapons Charges After Federal Agents Raid Tour Bus appeared first on The Onion.

It’s me, that woman you barely remember from your tenth-grade homeroom who keeps turning up on your Facebook page like a cold sore. Before the election, I mainly posted wine o’clock memes and pictures of my grandbabies; I never publicly declared who I was voting for. But I can say it loudly and proudly now: I voted for Trump. And I’m tired of all the fearmongering I’m seeing from libs like you.

It’s been over a week since Harris conceded, and you’re still ranting and sharing gloom-and-doom articles. People are too focused on the negative! Trump will make inflation vanish completely. He’ll bring down the price of eggs and gas, and we’ll have more money in our pockets to buy cheap fast fashion made in Chinese sweatshops. Those tariffs he promised are going to work wonders.

I don’t understand why people like you think the outcome of one election is the end of the world. Sure, Trump favored an abortion ban in 2016 and appointed several of the conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. But he said this year that he’s leaving it up to the states, and if there’s one thing Trump is known for, it’s his honesty. Also, newsflash: You and I are well past the age when we must worry about such things. And since we live in a blue state, our daughters will probably be fine.

The sun will still rise and set every day, even if the ACA no longer covers your chronic health conditions. President-elect Trump has concepts of a plan that will make it even better, so why are you panicking? And if it ends up costing you more, or if you do lose coverage altogether, well, maybe that will encourage you to lose a little weight and exercise more. Once RFK Jr. takes fluoride out of the water and bans vaccines, this rise in chronic illness we’re seeing will vanish like magic.

Why can’t we just agree to disagree? Demonizing Trump voters like me only leads to toxicity, and it’s bad for your health to be so agitated. Let’s find a way to unite so that this ugliness doesn’t surface again when we head to the polls in four years. And if your worst-case scenario comes to pass—that this was the last democratic election we’ll have in this country—think of how stress-free you’ll be then. For now, maybe just pop a Xanax and have a little faith.

I personally believe we’ll continue to have elections. We will elect Trump in 2028 and in 2032 and, God willing, every four years as long as he shall live. Or perhaps scientists will find a way to preserve his body and stop aging so that he can be our leader until the literal end of the world, which I know you think will happen soon because of climate change, and if you genuinely believe that, why are you so worried? You’ll only have, what, twenty years or so of authoritarian rule before life becomes nothing but fleeing fire and flood. It’ll be like those Irwin Allen disaster movies we loved as kids! I personally think it’s awesome that my house in Central Massachusetts might be waterfront property sooner rather than later.

Anyway, don’t let politics ruin your relationships. Just because some people in your life may have voted for a guy who talks creepily about his daughter, brags about grabbing women by the pussy, and promises to protect women whether they want it or not—that was our vote and our choice. If you really care about women having autonomy, you should stop questioning our decision to elect a guy who wants to take it away.

Take a few deep breaths. Step outside and look for beauty in nature. Touch some grass. If you see a rainbow, don’t post a photo of it, because my MAGA friends associate them with the LGBTQ crowd, and frankly, I don’t want to get on the wrong side of those I voted into power. They can be a little intimidating, but you know, that kind of turns me on. Was it Sylvia Plath or Kimberly Guilfoyle who said that every woman adores a fascist?

So yes, I voted for Trump, but it was only about the economy. And immigration. And what I’ve learned about transgender people from J. K. Rowling’s Twitter feed. It’s nothing personal.

No response? Wait, are we no longer Facebook friends?

Well, that seems extreme.

Toy manufacturer Mattel said it deeply regretted an error on the packaging of its Wicked movie-themed dolls, which mistakenly linked toy buyers to a pornographic website. What do you think?

The post Mattel Accidentally Links Porn Site On ‘Wicked’ Doll Packaging appeared first on The Onion.

SEATTLE—Phasing into our reality with instructions for the new cooking technique, J. Kenji López-Alt returned from the Beef Dimension with a previously unknown sear method that was beyond human comprehension, sources confirmed Tuesday. “I have glimpsed the cosmic dance of the meat and the stovetop and borne witness to beef’s true nature,” said the chef and bestselling author of The Food Lab, who reportedly caused those around him to grow concerned as he jabbered incoherently about mountains of non-Euclidean tri-tips that needed to be cooked on high for both an instant and a thousand eternities. “Oh, you fools, unaware that your pathetic, comforting doctrine of ‘rare, medium, or well-done’ is a lie protecting your fragile consciousness from the culinary tips and tricks that exist beyond the grasp of your minds. I fear humanity will never realize its folly, never tremble before the awesome and terrifying power of beefdom. All hail the cast iron! All hail the oil!” At press time, a screaming López-Alt was seen writhing in agony as his entire face reconstituted into a half-pound porterhouse.

The post Kenji López-Alt Returns From Beef Dimension With New Sear Method Beyond Human Comprehension appeared first on The Onion.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Explaining that the emotional state can be a legitimate and even healthy reaction to certain stimuli, a study published Tuesday by Harvard University psychiatrists found that anxiety is a natural response to suited men wearing shades and closing in on you from all angles. “It appears that nervous feelings and an elevated heart rate provide real benefits when a shadowy G-man locks eyes with you on the street, presses his earpiece, and begins striding toward you as several of his colleagues emerge from the faceless crowd,” said the study’s lead researcher, Professor Marisol Rucinski, adding that a spike in cortisol from realizing dark-clad agents have cut off all avenues of retreat can actually help fleeing individuals pull themselves up a dangling fire escape as several black SUVs screech to a halt beneath them. “If your anxiety persists as relentless government operatives burst out of stairwells to pursue you across a rooftop while helicopters whir overhead, you should try to remember that there’s nothing wrong with you or your emotional response. Those heightened adrenaline levels are just your body’s way of preparing you to make the 12-foot leap to the next building so your pursuers can’t bag you, force a shock collar around your neck, and take you to the kind of clandestine facility people don’t escape from.” At press time, a supplementary study found that anger is a perfectly natural response for government agents finding their target’s trail has gone cold at an open storm drain.

The post Study: Anxiety Natural Response To Suited Men Wearing Shades Closing In From All Angles appeared first on The Onion.

Buying clothing you’ll enjoy and own long-term can reduce the amount that ends up in landfills. Here are tips for finding your personal style:

• Use color analysis to determine if you’re a winter, spring, summer, or climate apocalypse.
• Put together a fun mood board based on the Book of Leviticus. 
• Walk in and out of the dressing room until your friends stop frowning and shaking their heads “no,” and start smiling and shaking their heads “yes.”
• Take inspiration from your favorite celebrities who have a similar $100 clothing budget. 
• Rules are just rules, but as a general guideline, you should never clash superhero characters.
• Be honest and ask yourself if your ass really is worthy of the term “Juicy.”
• Go to a department store and tell the salesperson that you just woke up on a Mediterranean fishing vessel with no memory of who you are, and you need help putting together an outfit. 
• Don’t follow trends too closely, but remember that each gaffe you make shaves another decade off your social relevance.
• Look glumly into your closet and put on whatever is clean.

The post Tips For Finding Your Personal Style appeared first on The Onion.

OKLAHOMA CITY—In an effort to provide all developing fetuses in the state with a thorough grounding in Judeo-Christian values, a new bill was signed into law Tuesday that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every womb in Oklahoma. “With this landmark law mandating the Ten Commandments be hung on every pregnant woman’s uterine wall, Oklahoma pushes back against attempts to secularize our wombs,” said Gov. Kevin Stitt, explaining that the law will order healthcare providers to install the clearly visible intrauterine religious doctrine as soon as possible after conception, with both women and their doctors being subject to fines for failure to comply. “As a foundational text, the Ten Commandments have played a profound role in the way our society handles women and pregnancy. This law merely acknowledges that. If the virtues that Oklahomans hold dear are to thrive moving forward, then it’s important that God’s law as revealed to Moses be the first thing our embryos see when they develop eyes.” At press time, several pregnant Oklahoma residents had reportedly died due to complications arising from the posting of the Ten Commandments.

The post Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb appeared first on The Onion.

Kincardine, ON – Local man Allan Terry has expressed his belief that the Democrats need to improve their messaging and policy efforts if they want to win the next Presidential election, charmingly revealing that he thinks there will be another fair and free Presidential election in his lifetime. “Clearly Democrats need to totally reshape their […]

The post “Democrats better get their shit together before the 2028 election,” says adorable friend who thinks there’s going to be a 2028 election appeared first on The Beaverton.

Without cigarettes, I would not have survived my childhood. My mother smoked a pack a day—more than a pack when our circumstances grew dire, and/or she was bound to the state via a prison cell, a mental ward, or the welfare office. Bump that pack up to a pack and a half. She could only buy them pack by pack. Never could afford the savings bundled in a ten-pack carton. She took it day by day, every night, making sure she set aside at least one to have with her morning cup of Folgers.

Without the snug fit of a cigarette between her index and middle fingers to weigh her down, my mother’s anxious thoughts would’ve carried her away, mistrals of the unfortunate winds careening through both the front and the back door and every closed window of the house, leaving my mother heels over head in a heap on the floor. When the dust devils whirled in, kicking up crisis after crisis, it was hard to hold steady. A cigarette gave her something to hold on to, something to wield as a weapon—a sword and shield made of smoke to choke out despair.

Unless you’ve spent years sitting across the kitchen table from a chain-smoking mother inhaling and exhaling her breakfast, you won’t be able to tell the difference between the curls of smoke and the piercing rays of morning sunlight. For those of you who are unfamiliar, I’ll tell you the difference between the two. Let’s begin with the smoke. The smoke is essential. It was invited in. The click of the lighter ignites a holy flame. The sage is lit—inhaled, exhaled like a call and response. The first prayer is an invocation, and the ashes fall to the tiny ashtray on the altar of the kitchen table. The smoke is the Chosen One. The sunlight is an invader. Its radiance is superfluous. Its purity cannot help calm my mother’s nerves. Sure, it brings light, but my mother is well acquainted with the darkness. She has twenty-twenty night vision. She finds no ceremony in the sun rising. It ushers in responsibility, not ritual. The sun rising is only a reminder of all that she wasn’t able to accomplish, all that she wasn’t able to afford the day before.

All across this country, morning after morning, there are versions of my mother waking up beneath rafters of despair to sit at kitchen tables sanded down by worry, varnished with loneliness. Being able to decipher which part of each atmosphere is smoke and which is sunlight can win you an election.

When culturally elite minds laughed at Donald Trump’s orange skin, or his failed hair transplant, or his saggy suits, or the way he held a glass of water, or the way he danced like he was jerking off clouds, or the way he stood like a stuffed penguin, he placed his hurt feelings onto the real grievances of rough-and-tumble Americans. He used their backs to grind his axe.

When we cracked jokes and sent memes of him trying over and over again to say the word “origins” but couldn’t, when we guffawed over his suggestion to inject ourselves with bleach to kill COVID, when we rolled our eyes because he didn’t know that nuclear weapons won’t stop a hurricane or that Korea was never a part of China, or that the president of the United States is also the president of the Virgin Islands, we were guffawing and rolling our eyes at people like my mother who also might not have known those things.

Remember those NFT trading cards of Trump as a superhero, as a champion boxer, as a bronco-riding rancher, as an astronaut, as a sheriff in a white coat coming to save the day? They worked like icons of saints, painting a vision of a savior that so many of the working poor have been waiting for. They’ve been praying and praying for Jesus to return, but shit… he’s taking his sweet old time getting around to rapturing them up into paradise. But here’s Trump in flesh and blood right here and right now. His streets may not be made of gold, but his toilets are. For many people, that’s close enough.

We the people of the culturati who start our mornings grinding our IPA-soaked Himalayan coffee beans aged in bourbon barrels, watching the smoke rise from our Chemex pour-overs, sunlight kissing the steam rising from our oat milk lattes, can comfortably sit at our quartz, granite, marble waterfall kitchen island and judge Trump all we want. We think he cares. But this is a man who didn’t care when the entire UN laughed at him. He took it on the chin. “I didn’t expect that reaction,” he said, “but that’s okay.”

Trump takes our ridicule and puts it in a blender with the grudges of blue-collar, pack-a-day workers. He sifts our insults into the bones of Americans who also feel insulted by us—we, the educated—who got an A+ on this American experiment. He cashes in all the fucks he gives alongside them when they cash their paychecks at their Walmart or a check-cashing place (which, of course, is conveniently located right next door to a smoke shop). He uses the barbs we throw at him and makes a coat of chain mail for the ones who feel just as rejected as he feels. He wields their pain like a blade to part the smoke from the sunlight, slicing despair from reality. Then he peddles his wares to those who are a paycheck away from any number of possible deaths of despair.

Have you noticed how Trump doesn’t stride to the podium like a God, but shuffles up to it as if the weight of the whole world is on his shoulders? He leans on the podium like he’s just received more bad news on his way to the rally, and then he sighs, and then he promises:

“You want a life that looks like mine? Ladies, you want be a hot piece of ass like my wife? You want to be taken care of by a man who knows how to turn a buck into a million dollars? Fellas, you want to be a man who’s a man and not a pussy? You want to stop apologizing for being a man? You want to date a hot piece of ass like my daughter? You want a private jet? You want a mansion like mine? Do you want more than a welfare check? You want to be a winner and not a loser scraping the floor for crumbs? Well, have I got just the thing for you: drink this… wear this… buy this signed and sealed promise. Let me tell you a story about a guy I know—big guy, rich guy, strong guy—who bought and sold and sold and bought… you won’t believe how big this guy’s dick is… this big strong guy who I knew when he was nothing, but now he’s worth a billion. You could be too. I got what you need. I got what you want. I alone can fix it. I made this for you. I’m giving you the deal of a lifetime on this 24K gold-plated, genuine red cotton, American-tough, American-built, American-made sneaker, watch, Bible, insurance, vitamin, USDA Angus beef filet mignon, Ivermectin, picket-fence-American-dream… Whatever you want, I got it. I can make it better.”

Let me tell you, despair can be a beautiful unifier, especially when that despair is hard-earned by factory lay-offs, train derailments, car boots, contaminated water, power outages, convictions, foreclosures, and, yes, cancel culture. When the despairing hordes of the disparaged inhale and exhale in unison, their curls of smoke rise and collect into a cloud hefty enough to knit its own silver lining. No other billionaire has ever spoken to them before. No politician has ever said, “You got a raw deal. Let me fix it.”

I would not have survived my childhood without cigarettes—but also, I would not have survived without Blackness floating like dust particles through the sun-glazed nicotine haze. Despair is long-reaching and, like everything else, turns to dust you can’t rid yourself of. But Blackness is more enduring than mere despair—at least my mother’s brand of Blackness was: Marvin Gaye on the record player and ham hocks cooking on the stove and the smell of Blue Magic permeating our hands and our hair and the sound of cards being shuffled for a game of spades at the rent parties she threw at the end of the month. Blackness as thick as that is infinite. It won’t check its coat at the door for the promises of some traveling salesman’s snake oil. It won’t fall for his sleight of hand. It wants nothing to do with whatever ails him.

More than seventy-four million Americans voted for a flimflammer, a felon, a grifter. They bought the Goldschläger snake oil he was selling. But not all Americans are equal, and most Black people—especially Black women—did not buy his sales pitch. It’s not because we’re less broke. Many of us have memories of our mothers selling their food stamps in exchange for cash to use for gas money to get them across town to their job, trading cigarettes for a ride to the store, saving the cigarette butts for rainy days when there was no money for the phone bill or the light bill. Despair comes in many hues and colors. One shade of despair does not fit all. The moment he said, “Make America Great Again,” Black women like my mother tsked and said, “Say what? What does he mean by again? Again? Again when? For who?”

If you don’t know what it’s like to live in a home built on cigarette smoke, you will point your finger and blame and blame and blame. But you won’t ever see the sunlight for the rage clouding your vision. It’s really simple. Most Americans who love Trump are white folks who have about as much as my mother did. They want what they feel is owed to them. And who are we to blame them? Who are we to judge how they pay for their bread?

Trump understands there’s a simple remedy for this: Ask desperate Americans with lungs filled with despair, “How much do you need?” Then, promise to give it to them. If Democrats did this, perhaps they could free seventy-four-million-plus Americans to vote for their conscience over their needs. Of course, they will still vote for Trump, because what those voters hate more than their own despair is living in an America that grows three shades darker year after year.

Today's links

• Boss politics antitrust: Trump will use Xi Xinping's "anti-corruption" playbook.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2009, 2014, 2019
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Boss politics antitrust (permalink)

Xi Jinping inaugurated his second term with an anti-corruption purge that ran from 2012-2015, resulting in a massive turnover in the power structures of Chinese society.

At the time, people inside and outside of China believed that Xi was using the crackdown to target his political enemies and consolidate power. Certainly, that was the effect of the purge, which paved the way for reforms to Chinese law that have effectively allowed Xi to hold office for life.

In 2018, Peter Lorentzen (USF Econ) and Xi Lu (NUS Policy) published a paper that used clever empirical methods to get to the bottom of this question:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181222163946/https://peterlorentzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lorentzen-Lu-Crackdown-Nov-2018-Posted-Version.pdf

Working from the extensive data-files published during the corruption trials of the purged officials, Lorentzen and Xi Liu were able to estimate the likelihood that an official had really been corrupt. They concluded that overwhelmingly, the anti-corruption purges did target corrupt officials, some of them very highly placed.

But when they considered the social graph of those defenestrated officials, they found that they came from blocs that were rivals of Xi Jinping and his circle, while officials who were loyal to Xi Jinping's were spared, even when they were corrupt.

In other words, Xi Jinping's anticorruption efforts targeted genuinely corrupt officials – but only if they supported Xi's rivals. Xi's own cronies were exempted from this. Xi did use the anticorruption effort to consolidate power, but that doesn't mean he prosecuted the innocent – rather, he selectively prosecuted the guilty.

Donald Trump will be America's next president. He campaigned against "elites" and won the support of Americans who were rightly furious at being ripped off and abused by big business. The Biden administration had done much to tackle this corruption, starting with July 2020's 72-point executive order creating a "whole of government" approach to fighting corporate power:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Trump will have to decide what to do about these efforts. It's easy to say that Trump will just kill them all and let giant, predatory corporations rip, but I think that's wrong. After all, the Google antitrust case that the DoJ just won started under the last Trump administration. Trump also sued to block the absolutely terrible merger between Warner and AT&T.

I think it's safer to say that Trump will selectively target businesses for anticorruption enforcement – including antitrust – based on whether they oppose him or suck up to him. I think American business leaders know it, too, which is why every tech boss lined up to give Trump a public rim-job last week:

https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/i_wonder

Trump killed the AT&T-Time Warner merger to punish CNN. He went after Google to punish "woke" tech firms. That doesn't make AT&T, Time Warner or Google good. They're terrible monopolists and the US government should be making their lives miserable.

Trump will not need to falsify evidence against corporations that are disloyal to him. All of America's big businesses are cesspits of sleaze, fraud and predation. Every merger that is being teed up now for the coming four years is illegal under the antitrust laws that we stopped enforcing in the Reagan era and only dusted off again for four years under Biden. They're all guilty, which means that Trump will be able to bring a valid case against any of them.

This will create a trap for people who hate Trump but don't pay close attention to anticorruption cases. It's a trap that Trump sprung successfully in his first term, when he lashed out at the "intelligence community" – the brutal, corrupt, vicious, lawless American spy agencies that are the sworn enemies of working people and the struggle for justice at home and abroad – and American liberals decided that the enemy of their enemy was their friend, and energetically sold one another Robert Mueller votive candles:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Over the next four years, Trump will use antitrust and other corruption-taming regulations to selectively punish crooked companies. He won't target them because they're crooked: he'll target them because they aren't sufficiently loyal to him.

If you let your hatred of Trump blind you to the crookedness of these companies, you lose and Trump wins. The reason Trump will find it easy to punish these companies is that they are all guilty. If you let yourself forget that, if you treat your enemy's enemy as your friend, then Trump will point at his political rivals and call them apologists for corruption and sleaze – and he'll be right.

It is possible for Trump to fight corruption corruptly. That's exactly what he'll do. But just because Trump hates these companies, it doesn't follow that we should love them.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Sculpture BM 414162522242621331 https://chrisbathgate.blogspot.com/2024/11/sculpture-bm-414162522242621331.html

• Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress [Full Show] 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9gayNy5Rg (h/t Sal Fadhley)

• A cat lady's survival guide for the second Trump administration https://www.salon.com/2024/11/07/a-womens-survival-guide-for-the-second-administration/ (h/t Dan Savage)

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This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Labels may be losing money, but artists are making more than ever https://web.archive.org/web/20091115091151/http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/11/12/do-music-artists-do-better-in-a-world-with-illegal-file-sharing/

#15yrsago Internet ghost-towns: the blocked IPs where the bad guys used to live https://web.archive.org/web/20110810225715/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/11/a_year_later_a_look_back_at_mc.html

#10yrsago Stories are a fuggly hack https://locusmag.com/2014/11/cory-doctorow-stories-are-a-fuggly-hack/

#10yrsago Ambulance takes comatose, insured woman to “wrong” hospital, drives her to bankruptcy, too https://web.archive.org/web/20141112070957/https://www.channel3000.com/news/woman-taken-to-wrong-hospital-faces-bankruptcy/29648000/

#10yrsago ISPs caught sabotaging their customers’ email encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/starttls-downgrade-attacks

#10yrsago Redskins owner sues Native Americans who testified on racism to Trademark Office https://www.techdirt.com/2014/11/11/redskins-decide-that-suing-offended-native-americans-should-really-help-their-case/

#10yrsago Peak indifference-to-surveillance https://memex.craphound.com/2014/11/12/peak-indifference-to-surveillance-2/

#5yrsago ​Twitter is awash in disinformation bots tweeting lies about the Kentucky gubernatorial election results https://web.archive.org/web/20191111073836/https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/newselection2020/close-election-in-kentucky-was-ripe-for-twitter-and-an-omen-for-2020/ar-BBWyujk

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• International Cooperative Alliance (New Delhi), Nov 24
  https://icanewdelhi2024.coop/welcome/pages/Programme

• ACM Conext-2024 Workshop on the Decentralization of the Internet (Los Angeles), Dec 9
  https://conferences.sigcomm.org/co-next/2024/#!/din

• IA et “merdification“ d’internet: peut-on envisager un nouveau web? (Remote), Dec 12
  https://www.unige.ch/comprendre-le-numerique/conferences-publiques1/cycle-5-2024-2025/ia-et-merdification-dinternet-peut-envisager-un-nouveau-web/

• ISSA-LA Holiday Celebration keynote (Los Angeles), Dec 18
  https://issala.org/event/issa-la-december-18-dinner-meeting/

• Cloudfest (Europa Park), Mar 17-20
  https://cloudfest.link/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Enshittification Was a Choice (SOSS Fusion)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSelmMUO0c

• Maximum Iceland Scenario – Data Caps, 3rd Party Android Stores, Nuclear Amazon (This Week in Tech)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5MkCwktKz0

• Speciale intervista a Cory Doctorow (Digitalia)
  https://digitalia.fm/744/

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Latest books (permalink)

• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Today's progress: 790 words (80230 words total).

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: Spill, part four (a Little Brother story) https://craphound.com/littlebrother/2024/10/28/spill-part-four-a-little-brother-story/

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

Headlines

• Tropical development is likely in the western Caribbean later this week or weekend.
• Potential exists for some higher end development initially with heavy rainfall a threat in Central America.
• From here, a several day ramble across the southwest Caribbean, a track northeast through the Antilles, or an eventually track north and northeast toward Florida are all possibilities.
• Interests in Central America, specifically Honduras, Belize, and Nicaragua, as well as in Cuba, the Greater Antilles, and Florida should monitor this system going forward.

Next storm up could be problematic

The next name on the tropical storm list is Sara, and we may see that one by the weekend. I will warn you right out of the gate that this system, assuming it develops, will have a fairly high ceiling in the first few days, and there are model solutions that eventually bring it north toward Florida. It is far, far too early to speculate on exactly what this will ultimately do, but unfortunately if you live on the west coast of Florida you should be monitoring future updates on this.

Right now, the system is still just a tropical wave. I would suspect this gets Invest status later today or tomorrow morning.

The environment over the next couple days as this area comes west will be fairly pristine for tropical development. With an abnormally strong ridge of high pressure over the Eastern U.S., this will promote generally low wind shear. A weak trough of low pressure in the upper atmosphere will erode that ridge, but it will be too soon to “pick up” this tropical wave and carry it away to the northeast. The ridge should rebuild itself and at least for the first several days of its life cycle, whatever becomes of this wave is likely to meander around the western Caribbean.

Once that little trough, or what we call a “short wave” merges with a stronger trough off the East Coast (blue at the end of the loop above), the question will become whether or not its strong enough to “capture” the Caribbean system and force it northeast away from Central America and into the Atlantic. Odds of this happening don’t seem terribly high, but we should know in a couple days if this is a realistic possibility.

If that doesn’t happen, then we are probably looking at some potentially serious problems in the southwest Caribbean, either via a strengthening storm and/or a significant rainfall event for Honduras, Nicaragua, or Belize.

The sea-surface temperature environment in the western Caribbean is potent for November, near 2023’s record and well above normal for even September. In other words, there will be plenty of fuel available for development.

If there’s a negative for development, it may be the amount of dry air available over the Gulf. By the time we get to this weekend, a substantial push of drier air in the wake of a cold front will infiltrate almost the entire Gulf of Mexico. If this system can close itself off and insulate against the dry air, it’s not a problem. But much like Rafael, if left at all exposed, it could eventually just get choked off from moisture allowing it to essentially self-destruct. There’s a wide variation in potential outcomes here.

So how could Florida be at risk? If this gets left behind and just festers in the western Caribbean, it could eventually get drawn north next week, which could pose a threat to the Florida coast. That’s a week or more away, so no one can really speak confidently on this topic. But it would be wise to continue monitoring the situation with this storm in the coming days.

So bottom line? A system is likely to develop later this week. There are many plausible options for development, but one thing is certain: There will likely be very good conditions for development in the early days late this week. From there, a meandering rain producer in Central America, a quick exit northeast across the Antilles, or an eventually track north and northeast into Florida are all plausible options on the table right now. We will continue to watch things.

Nondescript white room with no doors or windows whatsoever! Don’t worry about inquiring. If it’s a good fit, you will wake up here!

Reference #197622

The post No Doors appeared first on The Onion.

It’s been a tough stretch, and it’s not looking like it’s going to get better any time soon. I know that for months we’ve been saying, “We’re not going back,” but actually, I am. I’m headed back to 2014. Hop in, if you want to join me.

If you’re asking, “Why 2014, exactly?” then clearly, you don’t remember all of the great things about that year. Like how you can grow a mustache and wax the ends so they curl up. Or pair it with a beard and a manbun. Or get a tattoo of a mustache on your finger, so when you hold it up under your nose, it looks like you have a mustache. That shit never gets old.

When we get back to 2014, we’re going to write a lot of fanfic. We’re going to wear outfits that make people wonder, “Hipster or Amish?” We’re going to eat salad out of mason jars and make our own kombucha. We’re going to knit giant scarves. We’re going to play ukeleles.

It’s going to be fantastic.

Could your apartment use some new decorations? May I recommend chevron or ikat throw pillows, or a rose gold and marble end table? You can put a couple of succulents on it. In the bedroom, you literally cannot go wrong with collages of instant camera photos, accessorized by swags of twinkly lights.

They have shockingly cheerful music in 2014. “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, “Bailando” by Enrique Iglesias, “Best Day of My Life” by American Authors, “Counting Stars” by OneRepublic, and “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift, which is exactly what we’re going to do.

Were there trends that you missed out on back in 2014? Like a feather tattoo with birds flying off the ends, using that loopy Live Laugh Love font, or going to a club dressed as though you were about to share a PowerPoint presentation? Or going to a club, period? Do you wish you’d tried out overalls, hope, personal boundaries, or saying “bae” or “YOLO”? Maybe you just want to watch a television show with 23 episodes, as nature intended? Now is your chance!

I can’t literally time travel, but I can control my mindset, how I live every day, and the media I consume, which is almost the same thing.

Going back to 2014 means not spending too much time on social media. True, you might’ve done this ’14, but in 2024, they are much more fine-tuned to serve up the world’s most hateful takes and horrific content in order to keep you huddled next to it, liking and downvoting posts, arguing with strangers, hating most people, and scrolling for comfort in vain. You will never cultivate a 2014 mind that way.

Cutting your time on those by 50 percent, 90 percent, or altogether has its drawbacks, of course—for the billionaire owners, who are selling your attention to advertisers. You are Mark Zuckerberg’s oil deposit on the ocean floor, and he does not give a fuck about oil spills. If his algorithms abet a genocide in Myanmar, violence in Ethiopia, or a civil war in the United States, so be it. The man spent around $50 billion on a “Metaverse” and virtually (ha) nobody cared, so he’s got to make that up. Elon Musk’s father owned an emerald mine, but on Twitter, you are Elon Musk’s emerald mine. Any pain you share there, he monetizes, plus he thinks it’s hilarious. He enjoys strip-mining your one wild and precious life almost as much as TikTok does, and that’s saying something.

So yeah, if you spend less time on their apps, that’ll suck for them. For you, though, it’ll be amazing.

If you want to read, you can read blogs, magazines, and books. If you want to chat, you can do it REAL LIFE. Where? Bars. Book clubs. Cafés. Random events at your library. You can use Meetup.com to meet new weirdos. This is going to sound wild, but you can talk to your actual neighbors. Bring them some cookies or ask them over to have a beer on your deck. Or even visit a church, if there’s one nearby that suits you.

Anyone who thinks I’m joking about all this has not seen me frolicking around in a high-waisted ModCloth dress with owls or foxes or some other cute shit printed on it, but believe me: you will.

I admit that I don’t have the same body that I had in 2014. But you know what? I can get back there. I can walk a lot, go to the gym, and maybe even run a 5K. Those things are good for my mental and physical health, which makes them the opposite of doomscrolling.

So let’s do this. Let’s head back to 2014. But let’s also get involved with ways to make this world a better place. Maybe we’ll do some new ice bucket challenge, which actually increased Americans’ overall charitable giving in 2014. Like I was saying, rage-posting on social media is the opposite of that. People who don’t like you love to see you do it, and will vote for the person who makes you the angriest.

You can get involved behind the scenes with organizations, causes, or random acts of kindness. You can volunteer at charities or join grassroots political organizations. This is another way to meet people IN REAL LIFE. People need your positive words and actions more than ever, and—who knows?—along with green smoothies and galaxy-print leggings, they might eventually lead us to a new Best Year Yet.

Unbelievably, President-elect Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet, and he’s already solved so many of the problems he talked about on the campaign trail. Almost as if they were never there at all. I’m so glad I voted for him.

I was really outraged about inflation. But miraculously, today I woke up in Trump’s America, and the average worker’s paycheck goes further than it did pre-COVID. Not only that, but the United States is ahead of every developed economy in recovering from the pandemic. I don’t know how Trump pulled that off so fast. Tariffs?

I guess businessmen just know how to run the economy. That must be why, when I checked yesterday, the stock market was at an all-time high, and unemployment was under 5 percent. What a turnaround from America’s catastrophic economic decline under the Democrats. And all the more impressive given that Trump got it done over a weekend at Mar-a-Lago.

It seems President-elect Trump works so fast that illegal migration at the US-Mexico border is now at levels below when he left office, a mere negative two months into his second term. At first, it seemed almost unbelievable. But my eyes confirmed the numbers. Walking around my local Costco, there were none of the roving hordes of terrorists, MS-13 members, and escaped serial killers that Lyin’ Kamala had chauffeured past Border Patrol. Zero. It’s almost as if they were never there.

And I can’t help but notice that since November 5, no one has eaten my cats.

I don’t mean to gloat, but yesterday I also went to our state’s last abortion clinic, and I shrieked, “This is the Trump era! You can’t execute babies after birth anymore!”

And guess what? They haven’t.

Thank you, Mr. President-elect.

And abroad, Trump is already keeping our military strong and making our “allies” pay up. Apparently, all non-US NATO countries are raising their defense spending, and since the election, I haven’t seen a single electric tank. Quite an improvement from November 4, when the US was spending 75 percent of its GDP on United Nations DEI training, and Europe’s contributions to NATO consisted of a Nissan Leaf and two camouflage rape whistles.

Plus, I don’t even remember the last time a cabal of pizza-loving devil worshippers from the Clinton Foundation abducted my son.

I guess when you roll up your sleeves, cut through the red tape, and reject the woke mind virus, you can really solve a lot of problems that are based in reality.

And thank god we’ve finally regained our senses about gender. I don’t want my ten-year-old daughter kickboxing against men or getting top surgery from her school nurse without my consent. But now that Trump has done… whatever he’s done, those problems are nonexistent.

We weren’t safe under the Democrat Party, but Trump is already bringing back law and order. I just checked, and law enforcement budgets are growing, which is such a welcome reversal from when Joe Biden abolished the police, appointed George Floyd FBI director, and declared it legal to murder white people. Talking to my friends, it almost feels like since we elected a law-and-order candidate, crime has dropped to a fifty-year low. Well, not literally, but you get my point.

Oh, and best of all, elections are super fair and not rigged anymore!

The post Expert Explains Why, Essentially, You’re Fucked appeared first on The Onion.

The world’s first wooden satellite was launched into space in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars exploration, with scientists studying whether the material might help reduce the creation of space junk. What do you think?

The post World’s First Wooden Satellite Launched Into Space appeared first on The Onion.