GREEN BAY, WI—Completely ignoring a tackle for loss on the field, Fox Sports NFL announcer Tom Brady began to break down exactly why the jiu jitsu instructor now dating his ex-wife would never be able to please her. “Just look at this guy, from a physical and a mental standpoint, he just doesn’t have what it takes and he lacks the patience to find her erogenous zones,” said the seven-time Super Bowl champion, cutting off play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and drawing his ex-wife’s body on the screen to point out exactly where her most sensitive areas were actually located and stressing how jiu jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente’s martial arts training makes him ergonomically incompatible with Gisele. “He’ll almost certainly start kissing on her shoulders and work his way up to her neck while slowly sliding his hand down her thigh, but that won’t even make my former wife even remotely aroused. Hey, Joaquim, good luck making the mother of my three children moan while you futilely pull her hair and gently pinch her nipples! Get real.” At press time, the former quarterback was criticizing the Valente’s over-reliance on encouragement to form a healthy, supportive relationship with Brady’s children. 

The post Tom Brady Breaks Down Exactly Why Jiu Jitsu Instructor Could Never Please Gisele appeared first on The Onion.

Our friends at 270 Reasons are gathering a polyphonic orchestra of brilliant writers, teachers, doctors, filmmakers, artists, and citizens of all kinds to weigh in about their plans to vote this November. These opinion essays run the gamut from advocacy for basic human rights to acutely personal mini-manifestoes. Read the rest over at 270 Reasons.

Because There Are No Rights, No Freedoms
That Some Extremists Won’t Try to Take From Us

When Kamala Harris says we must “turn the page,” women know this is far more than a slogan. It’s an imperative that every woman recognizes.

We know that Vice President Harris is right to say we’re not going back to the political landscape Donald Trump has dominated for the last decade. We’re done with that. And we’re not just turning the page, we’re writing a new chapter—switching to a whole different book.

Kamala Harris understands what it means to be denied representation, agency, and bodily autonomy. She has faced disrespect and discrimination from the moment she’s walked into a room—as have so many of us.

Kamala Harris knows, as we know, that there are no rights, no freedoms, that some extremists won’t try to take from us. When Kamala Harris talks about issues, she’s connecting her own lived experiences to what we’re experiencing ourselves. Watching her speak at rallies these past few weeks has been a revelation—how wonderful to see such an impassioned, forceful defense of our core values and priorities for the future.

I’m excited to support Kamala Harris and candidates for the US House and Senate who will give her the effective majority she needs. I know this election will depend on turnout—and that’s why I’m working to help women break turnout records in every state.

Christian F. Nunes is the president of the National Organization for Women.

Read more essays (with new ones added every day) at 270reasons.com.

The arguments here represent the opinion of the authors and not necessarily those of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund.

This article introduces projects available in Flathub with installation instructions.

Flathub is the place to get and distribute apps for all of Linux. It is powered by Flatpak, allowing Flathub apps to run on almost any Linux distribution.

Please read “Getting started with Flatpak“. In order to enable flathub as your flatpak provider, use the instructions on the flatpak site.

These apps are classified into four categories:

• Productivity
• Games
• Creativity
• Miscellaneous

AppFlowy

In the Productivity section we have AppFlowy. This is a privacy-first open source workspace for your notes, tasks, databases, and more. I use this application offline, and I know a lot of people may complain about the need to create an account and cloud sync, but it works very smoothly. Their features are:

• 100% control of your data
• Download and install AppFlowy on your local machine
• You own and control your personal data
• 100% data control You can host AppFlowy wherever you want
• No vendor lock-in
• For those with no coding experience, AppFlowy enables you to create apps that suit your needs
• It’s built on a community-driven toolbox, including templates, plugins, themes, and more
• Faster, more stable with support for offline mode
• It’s also better integrated with different devices
• Moreover, AppFlowy enables users to access features and possibilities not available on the web

It offers a lot of AI features and synchronization with the mobile app, that requires an account on the website. The free tier is up to 2 users. You can check it out on their website.

You can install “AppFlowy” by clicking the install button on the web site or manually using this command:

flatpak install flathub io.appflowy.AppFlowy

Flood It

In the Games section we have Flood It. This is a game with the simple premise of flooding the entire board with one color in the least amount of moves possible. Challenge yourself with this simple, yet addictive strategy game, where you need to flood-it as efficiently as you can! It’s a puzzle to pass time. Personally I’ve spent a lot of hours solving Flood It puzzles.

You can install “Flood It” by clicking the install button on the web site or manually using this command:

flatpak install flathub io.github.tfuxu.floodit

Dosage

In the Miscellaneous section we have Dosage. Easily manage track medicinal treatments with Dosage: notifications, history, multiple doses, flexible frequency, customization, stock monitoring, and duration control.

Features:

• Define the start and end dates
• Get reminders at the right time
• See which medications you took, skipped or missed
• Multiple doses with different times
• Every day, specific days, cycle or just when necessary
• Give a shape for your treatment
• Monitor your stock and get reminded when it’s low

You can install “Dosage” by clicking the install button on the web site or manually using this command:

flatpak install flathub io.github.diegopvlk.Dosage

Bambu Studio

In the Creativity section we have Bambu Studio. Bambu Studio is a cutting-edge, feature-rich slicing software for creating cross section slices for 3D printing. It contains project-based workflows, systematically optimized slicing algorithms, and an easy-to-use graphical interface, bringing users an incredibly smooth 3D printing experience.

You can install “Bambo Studio” by clicking the install button on the web site or manually using this command:

flatpak install flathub com.bambulab.BambuStudio

5-Day Uncertainty Track last updated Mon, 04 Nov 2024 12:01:43 GMT


Wind Speed Probabilities last updated Mon, 04 Nov 2024 09:29:00 GMT

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

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

1. How can I ask out our general manager?

How do I get ahold of someone who works in the offices where I work to ask them out? Her position is GM. I’m intending to ask her if she’d like to go for a coffee or walk on the beach one day after work just to get to know each other. I’d also like to invite her out for lunch for my birthday, which falls on a Sunday in December.

I work in the warehouse downstairs. She works in the offices upstairs when office protocol and company policy won’t let me ask her these questions. I do see her now and then in the carpark when I’m unloading trucks, but she goes straight upstairs through the main building entrance while I’m unloading trucks at the loading area, which is away from the office carparking area.

I’d also like to ask her if there’s a chance of adding her on messenger and Facebook.

What should I do? I’m thinking wait until I see her next in the carport and talk to her before she goes upstairs to the office. I shall never forget the smile on her face when I met her when she was introduced to each worker in the warehouse.

Please do not ask this woman out. She’s there to do her job, it doesn’t sound like you have any reason to believe she has romantic feelings toward you (or even anything more than professional acquaintance feelings), and your office policy prohibits it. She can’t date someone in her chain of command and, even if you’re not in her chain of command (although if she’s the GM, you probably are), she’s there to do her job, not to be hit on by coworkers. It would be different if you didn’t have the chain of command issues and she was sending active signals that she returned your interest.

Active signals that the person returns your interest are an absolute prerequisite for asking out anyone at work. (Smiling at you doesn’t meet that bar; that’s normal professional warmth when being introduced.)

2. My coworker sucks at his job and I rely on him for support

I have been struggling with my coworker, “John,” for over a year. He provides targeted support for a project that I manage and I communicate with him directly regarding associated tasks. I do not manage him, but am senior to him.

Issues include:
• Poor email management. While he occasionally responds immediately, he most often doesn’t acknowledge or reply to my emails at all. When reminded (repeatedly) of outstanding items, he often cannot locate the information sent or only partially responds
• Failure to take responsibility for tasks I have handed off. This includes me having to chase him for weeks for basic requests, having to routinely resend “lost” information, and requiring extensive editing of sloppy work due to poor attention to detail and failure to incorporate all communicated information.
• Refusal to allow for sufficient review time, despite repeated requests. For example, I asked for three business days to review a biannual report. The distribution date is set months in advance so it is a matter of time management on his part. He provided five business hours for review, failed to incorporate any of the information I sent three weeks prior, and the overall quality was poor.

I initially thought there might be a mismatch in communication styles so I have tried other approaches — instant messaging, phone calls, and stopping by his office. I have also offered to use other platforms, like Teams, and even mild shaming by asking about outstanding items in small group meetings. After the biannual report, I scheduled a one-on-one meeting and had a candid and direct conversation about the issues outlined here (all of which had been previously addressed). I also invited him to give me feedback. It was a professional and respectful conversation. He responded cheerfully and acknowledged the issues. Nothing changed in a meaningful way.

John and I are both managed by Jane. Jane has been my manager for five years and I have a lot of respect for her. She has confirmed that everything I have asked from John is reasonable and within his responsibilities. She acknowledges that other team members have given her similar feedback, though she seems pleased with his performance in other areas of his work. She has spoken to John more than once about these issues and is aware that performance has not improved.

I have successfully worked with a variety of personality types and varying levels of competence but I’m frankly baffled by this situation. I would love to take a huge step back but do not know how to do so without failing the client by allowing late, incomplete, incorrect, and sloppy work to go out. It is exhausting to have to fight for the smallest thing and I find myself stewing over this dynamic. Despite how this letter sounds, a relatively small amount of my day-to-day work should involve John and I am spending a disproportionate amount of time and energy managing this situation.

You need to go back to Jane and pose this question to her, because it’s her job to handle it. You were right to try what you’ve tried, but at this point you’ve exhausted your options and if it’s going to get resolved, it’s going to require Jane’s involvement.

Lay out for her everything you’ve tried and use the words you ended your letter with — “I am spending a disproportionate amount of time and energy managing this situation.” Then say, “I’m at the limits of what I can do on my own to resolve this, and I’m at the point where I need your help. How do you want me to handle this?”

Also, start cc’ing Jane on messages to John, especially anything reminding him that you haven’t heard from him, a deadline has been missed, or his work is missing key elements, so that she’s seeing exactly how often it’s happening and is pulled into it each time, which should make it harder for her to ignore.

3. Saying no to a job opening because of moral concerns

I am in the throes of an expansive job search and thus am networking quite broadly. Several times now, I’ve avoided conversations about the reason I was uninterested in a particular job so as not to offend or create a negative interaction.

What is the proper way to politely decline these suggestions without a long explanation of “why” while maintaining the positive relationship?

For example, it has been suggested that I work for the Department of Corrections or become a police officer and I have many reasons those aren’t the right job for me. I’ve also been introduced to people who work for a marketing agency that produces provocative political ads. Even if I was on the same “side” as that agency, I would still not want those jobs. These examples have been suggested by neighbors who I see regularly and I want to keep a friendly relationship.

A few options, depending on what you feel like:

• “Thanks, I’ll check them out.” (That doesn’t obligate you to do anything more with it and if they follow up, you can say, “That kind of work isn’t a great match for me, but thanks for thinking about me.”)
• “That’s not a path I’m interested in, but thank you!”
• “I don’t think that’s the right match for me, but thank you.”
• “Interesting, I’m not sure that’s for me but I’ll think about it.”

Ideally, follow any of these with a quick topic change.

4. Can a referral “save” my application after I’ve been rejected?

I was the victim of a layoff about a year ago, and I’ve been job searching since then in a tough market. Whenever I see an opportunity that I think would be a good fit, I first apply through the company’s official portal, then I reach out to anyone in my network who may be connected with that company/team. However, it can take a little time to pull the connection levers, between reaching out to someone I may not have spoken with in years and asking them, in turn, to connect me with someone in that company who they may not know very well.

Several times now, I’ve been in the process of trying to leverage connections when I received an automated rejection email for that position. Can an internal endorsement or referral that arrives after the ATS may have already rejected me “save” my application and put me back into contention?

Potentially. It’s unlikely to save your application if you’re not a strong candidate, but it’s more likely if you’re clearly very qualified and someone looks at the application with new eyes and realizes that (for example, if HR is rejecting people they shouldn’t reject because they don’t have a nuanced understanding of what the hiring manager is looking for) or if one of the people in that chain of contacts has a lot of influence.

5. How to apply for a job (internally) that I am not sure is even open

I am an office clerk at a law firm and heard from one of the legal assistants that they’ll be moving to a different internal position early next year. (They mentioned they were taking training and I asked what it was for, and then they told me they’re getting the position because the current person is retiring.)

I am not sure if the firm is even going to hire for their assistant position, but I’d love to throw my hat in the ring. I’d love the pay bump and hybrid options, and I have an MLIS degree that I’d love to put to good use.

Problem is, I don’t know if this assistant moving is even public knowledge beyond the people in the department they are moving to. I was told (literally) quietly, so I get the vibe most people don’t know. And again, I’m not even sure if they’re looking to replace this assistant at all, or if I have a shot at it. I also have not been here that long (less than a year), but when I had my three-month check-in several months ago, my boss told me I could let her know if I was interested in any positions at the firm, because she assumed I didn’t want to be a clerk here forever. And I know a few people have moved to other jobs in this firm, so I at least know internal transfers are A Thing here.

But I need to know how to ask, and who to ask. And I’d also not like a courtesy interview — so if they don’t think I’d have a chance, I want to know right away, not just get an interview because I work here. I’ve been burned by courtesy interviews in the past, not knowing they were a courtesy, and honestly that hurt worse than not getting the position.

Go back to the assistant who told you they’re moving and ask if they know whether the firm plans to fill the job they’re leaving because you’d be interested in applying if they do. They will probably know but if they don’t, ask them whether it’s okay for you to ask their manager about it (it almost certainly will be since their manager surely knows they’re transferring, but you can ask to be sure).

And then you’d talk to the manager for that position and say you understand Jane is transferring and you’d love to be considered as a replacement, and ask what the next steps are. As part of that conversation you can ask about the profile of candidates they’re looking for, and you can describe a little about your background and ask if it makes sense to throw your hat in the ring. But beyond that, you can’t really prevent the possibility of a courtesy interview; there’s always a chance of that when you apply internally and it’s better to find a way to be okay with that than to search for a way to preclude it altogether.

ATLANTA—Holding their hands up to their mouths and giggling as their eyes darted from side to side, the nation’s impish swing voters announced Monday that they had a little surprise in store for everyone. “Tee-hee-hee! You’d like to know who we think is the candidate of change in these troubled times, wouldn’t you?” said registered independent Wren Mogley, who spoke at a press conference held by mischievous undecided voters from across the country, letting a puckish grin twist up from the corners of his mouth before he ducked behind the podium, his cheeks blushing red. “You’ll never guess what tricks we fickle rascals have up our sleeves! Our minds flit ever so unexpectedly from one candidate to the other and then back again. Who oh who will we fancy on Election Day? La, la, la, la, la—the entire country is at our mercy!” According to political analysts, the twinkle in the eyes of the nation’s impish swing voters suggested most would probably forget to go to the polls.

The post Nation’s Impish Swing Voters Announce They Have Little Surprise In Store appeared first on The Onion.

KANSAS CITY, MO—Forging an unlikely alliance with the “dorky” team statistician, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce reportedly enlisted a nerd Monday to help him pass NFL concussion protocol. “I can do all the physical stuff like balance just fine, but when they get to all those tricky questions like ‘What year is it? What month is it?’ I totally blank,” said Kelce, who promised the shy social reject that in exchange for helping him pass the memory assessment known as Maddocks’ questions, he would introduce him to Taylor Swift’s friend Sabrina Carpenter. “You’re kind of a dweeb, but also a genius. With the help of someone as smart as you, I bet I can totally remember the name of the stadium we’re at. And if all else fails, you’ll have to dress up as me and just take it for me. Don’t do too good though, or they’ll know it’s not really me.” At press time, the nerd was drilling Kelce by repeatedly asking “What day is your birthday?” while the panicked All Pro tight end shouted back “I don’t know.”

The post Travis Kelce Asks Nerd For Help Passing Concussion Protocol  appeared first on The Onion.

ATLANTA—As part of a public campaign to prevent the state’s residents from being turned away at the polls, Georgia officials reminded voters Thursday that they would need to bring two forms of weapon to their voting place in order to intimidate election workers. “Access to poll workers will only be guaranteed to those who arrive with two different types of weaponry suitable for terrifying these volunteers into compliance,” read a statement by Gov. Brian Kemp, which explained that any Georgian who failed to make a sufficiently menacing display of arms would be removed from the premises and excluded from harassing election staff for the 2024 election cycle. “Citizens must brandish an automatic or semiautomatic rifle with a magazine containing at least 30 rounds, and they must also flash or wave around a qualifying sidearm, such as a Glock, revolver, tactical knife, baseball bat, or brass knuckles. Please note: Pepper spray is no longer accepted as a valid form of intimidation.” Kemp’s statement also included a reminder that anthrax-laden ballots must be received by Election Day in order for threats-by-mail to be counted.

The post Georgia Officials Remind Voters To Bring 2 Forms Of Weapon To Intimidate Election Workers appeared first on The Onion.

The post Poll Watcher Slaps ‘I Voted Sticker’ On Bump Stock appeared first on The Onion.

American voters are approaching the 2024 presidential election with deep unease about what could follow, including the potential for political violence, attempts to overturn the election results, and its broader implications for democracy. What do you think?

The post Nation Braces For Potential Post-Election Violence appeared first on The Onion.

New comic!
Today's News:

Maybe it's because modern apps like Cornell Lab's Merlin Bird ID makes identification accessible to new potential bird enjoyers?

Maybe every else finally caught on that spotting a new bird satisfies the urge to catch them all?

Maybe my age cohort is just old people now. 

Our election forecast model is the most rigorous data-driven tool available. It aggregates and weighs polls, draws on fundamentals like the economy, validates forecasts based on complex statistical vetting, and generates thousands of Bayesian election simulations to explore the likelihood of every possible outcome.

Based on that, I can tell you with 100 percent confidence that there is a 50 percent chance of any goddamn thing happening.

There are many vibes-based hacks out there. But if you subscribe to my website, I will debunk this ridiculous wish-casting that tries to convince you anything is possible and give you a complex quantitative analysis of why anything is possible.

I’m begging you, innumerate rubes, to take a single class on statistics and probability. A 50/50 forecast really means no outcome should surprise you. That’s also what a 60/40 forecast means. And also what a 75/25 forecast means. My models can really only tell you who will win when it is so overwhelmingly obvious that you don’t need a model.

Your “takes” merely amuse me. You childish morons. You absolute idiots. Anyone who has looked at the data and isn’t a complete dunce can be 1,000 percent certain in the deeply held knowledge that the future is uncertain and unknowable.

Ah, I see three new polls have come in. Based on our supercomputer-powered analysis, this has moved the forecast from 50/50 to 53/47! Please read my X thread, join our live blog, and tune into my interviews on CNN, MSNBC, and ABC for breaking segments where I explain to you infants why this shift is completely meaningless.

My forecast is the best there is, but you can’t ask it to tell you the future. It is best used for other key insights. For example, having crunched the numbers across seven billion data points, it turns out that swing states are important.

Don’t go to that other election forecaster. They are cherry-picking doofuses. Their simplistic methodology produced a 66 percent likelihood for Harris, which is laughable compared to my bleeding-edge algorithms, which produced a 50 percent likelihood. Their projection is absurd, mine is correct, and they both mean the same thing.

Without a grounding in data, we are lost. Pundits will focus on any number of squishy variables: “enthusiasm,” “the ground game,” “feelings.” We must find the signal in all this noise. And the signal is that no one should be surprised if next week we wake up in a Fury Road–style hellscape where we hunt each other’s children for their precious lifeblood.

Or not that.

History? Political science? Campaign strategy? This is all snake oil. Rigorous statistical analysis is our guiding light; otherwise, we would be lost without a map. By using our complex forecasting, you now have the perfectly optimized map, which you should look at but not base your navigation on, and which, in this case, is blank.

I am very smart.

Perhaps Harris wins. Perhaps Trump wins. I am here to tell you with absolute confidence that we exist, like Schrödinger’s cat, in a universe where both have won, and neither has won. If this surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention. In 1 percent of simulations, Trump and Harris settle the presidency via cage match. In 2 percent of simulations, they open a quaint bakery in Vermont for dogs with Jill Stein, RFK Jr., and Tony Hinchcliffe.

Will those things happen? Probably not. But maybe. The numbers never lie, and there’s a 50 percent chance of anything happening. But more importantly, whatever happens, there’s a 100 percent chance I was right all along. I love my job.

The group of 111 doctors cited recent ProPublica reporting on two pregnant women who died because doctors did not provide lifesaving care.

Headlines

• The Caribbean disturbance now dubbed Invest 97L is likely to become a depression or tropical storm in the next 24 to 36 hours.
• It will reach Jamaica later tomorrow, then Cuba, then the Gulf on Wednesday.
• From there, uncertainty is very high, with models spread out all across the Gulf of Mexico both in terms of track and intensity.
• While wind shear is still expected to generally protect the northern Gulf Coast, this system should probably still be watched over the next 5 days to see how forecasts evolve.

Rafael on the horizon in the Caribbean

Last week we expected Patty to develop in the Caribbean by today or early this coming week. Patty front ran us all by forming way out in the northeast Atlantic. While that storm is not a land threat right now, what develops in the Caribbean likely will be.

The disturbance has been dubbed Invest 97L for now, and it will likely become a tropical depression or tropical storm tonight or tomorrow. Its first stop on tour will be in Jamaica probably tomorrow afternoon. Tropical storm conditions and torrential rain are a good bet there.

From there, 97L or Rafael will likely continue northwest across Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico by Wednesday. Once in the Gulf, Rafael’s motion will be dictated by the upper pattern which features weakening high pressure near Florida. This will steer Rafael to the northwest into the open Gulf but as the high falls apart, it’s likely that the motion becomes slower and more erratic. This is why the forecast out 5 to 6 days with respect to likely Rafael’s track is very uncertain.

The good news is that wind shear in the northern and western Gulf is expected to be decent, which should allow for weakening before it does whatever it will do. However, there is a fair bit of uncertainty with all this admittedly. It is November, and you expect November things to happen here normally. But this is not a normal year. The Caribbean remains at near record warm levels, which is to say warmer than normal for any time of year, let alone November.

The Gulf is at near record warm levels for the date as well. So from an ocean support standpoint, this system will have a good bit going for it given the time of year. Could Rafael become a hurricane? Absolutely. Could it ultimately threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast? Certainly, though I would not call that “likely” at the moment, and the most aggressive modeling seems to be the GFS, which has historically had a bit of a tough track record in the autumn in the Gulf. But the bottom line is that this will be a system that merits attention, first in Jamaica, then Cuba, and then for the Gulf Coast. We’ll see where things point tomorrow.

Additional development is possible in the western Atlantic over the next 10 days, but nothing has the robust agreement we see with Invest 97L right now.

A Republican member of the media regulatory agency said the appearance broke rules around equal time for candidates.

In our first 15 years, we proved there was a successful model for public service journalism. Now we want to reach new readers, bridge divides and thrive as technology shifts.

5-Day Uncertainty Track last updated Sun, 03 Nov 2024 11:42:38 GMT


Wind Speed Probabilities last updated Sun, 03 Nov 2024 09:22:58 GMT

SEGA's arcade classic Congo Bongo was ported to various home computers, and the IBM PC was not left behind. The IBM PC port (on a self-booting) floppy disk was quite well done, in fact, and seems to be the only port that includes all four levels from the original arcade game. Nowadays, it can be played in DOSBox in glorious 4-colour CGA.

It can be quite a tricky game to play, so I've created a little patch for the two versions most commonly found on the internet. Congo Bongo is often found as a raw disk image (CONGO.IMG), or as a slightly patched disk image that is then loaded on real DOS with a simple launcher .COM file (CONGO.COM and GAME.DAT). This patch is a trainer for the game that enables infinite lives. Even this does not make the game easy by any stretch of the imagination, but at least you don't have to start over from the beginning when you run out of lives.

Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump said Texas had fixed an error with voting machines, but Patrick quickly said there was no problem to fix.

Under the Whitmire-backed proposal, traffic lanes on Montrose Boulevard would be widened to 12-feet each, with medians narrowed and cut into for turn lanes. Sidewalks would only be four-feet wide, trees removed, and potentially the speed limit raised.

Headlines

• We are getting a clearer picture of the Caribbean development potential this weekend and next week, with a disturbance possibly developing as it approaches Jamaica from the south Sunday or Monday.
• From there, it should turn west or west-northwest, threatening Cuba, the Cayman Islands, and perhaps the Yucatan as a tropical system.
• As it likely tracks into the Gulf next week, it will encounter hostile wind shear that should weaken it considerably.
• A tropical wave is also producing heavy rain and flash flooding in Puerto Rico.

Caribbean system starting to come into better focus

Our potential system in the Caribbean continues to see support grow for its organization. The NHC is up to 70 percent odds this morning, and it’s possible those increase further today.

Thunderstorms remain broad and disorganized today in this region, so I think we’ve got at least a couple days before anything happens here. Modeling seems to agree that a piece of the Central American Gyre (CAG) will break off north of Panama tomorrow and track generally northward toward Jamaica. I doubt we’ll see rapid development here, but it is possible that by Monday, we have a depression or something close to that near Jamaica.

This is good model support, though the details and specifics are always tricky. But support from the ensembles and most operational guidance now exists on this as the most likely outcome through Monday evening. From this point, the system will likely begin to be steered by high pressure anchored over Florida. This should turn it northwest and then possibly due west toward the Yucatan. This will be the timeframe that is most critical in terms of potential impacts for Cuba, the Cayman Islands and Mexico. Most modeling keeps the system in check, only strengthening it a bit, but there are a handful of models that are aggressively intensifying this as it comes northwest.

By next Wednesday, we should have a tropical system somewhere between Belize and Cuba. From here, the future track of this system becomes uncertain. High pressure should allow the system to keep going west or west-northwest into the Gulf of Mexico. But by late next week, assuming it starts to turn more northerly, it’s going to get hammered by wind shear. So even if it does come northward toward the central or eastern Gulf of Mexico, it is likely going to deal with November headwinds which should keep its intensity in check. So, for now, we continue to suspect that this won’t be a big concern for the U.S. Gulf Coast. But you should check back in later this weekend or early next week just to make sure. For areas between Belize and Jamaica, including Cuba, this will be a system to watch closely through the weekend. We’ll keep you posted.

Elsewhere: Flooding in Puerto Rico

The NHC is highlighting two other areas, one north of the islands and one near the Azores. Neither has much more than a 10 to 20 percent chance of development and none are a serious concern, although heavy rain in Puerto Rico has been causing flash flooding concerns, and additional rain will continue to cause flash flooding in the eastern and northern portions of the island.

Most of this should hopefully ease up over the weekend.

Today's links

• Bluesky and enshittification: No one is the enshittifier of their own story.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Hoisted from the comments: Smart stuff from readers.
• This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014
• 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.

---

Bluesky and enshittification (permalink)

I would like to use Bluesky. They've done a bunch of seriously interesting technical work on moderation and ranking that I truly admire, and I've got lots of friends there who really enjoy it.

But I'm not on Bluesky and I don't have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this in 2023: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/06/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again/

When a platform can hold the people you care about or rely upon hostage – when it can credibly threaten you with disconnection and exile – that platform can abuse you in lots of ways without losing your business. In other words, they can enshittify their service:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess

I appreciate that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, has evinced her sincere intention never to enshittify Bluesky and I believe she is totally sincere:

https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-wont-enshittify-ads/

But here's the thing: all those other platforms, the ones where I unwisely allowed myself to get locked in, where today I find myself trapped by the professional, personal and political costs of leaving them, they were all started by people who swore they'd never sell out. I know those people, the old blogger mafia who started the CMSes, social media services, and publishing platforms where I find myself trapped. I considered them friends (I still consider most of them friends), and I knew them well enough to believe that they really cared about their users.

They did care about their users. They just cared about other stuff, too, and, when push came to shove, they chose the worsening of their services as the lesser of two evils.

Like: when your service is on the brink of being shut down by its investors, who demand that you compromise on privacy, or integrity, or quality, in some relatively small way, are you really going to stand on principle? What about all the users who won't be harmed by the compromise, but will have their communities and online lives shattered if you shut down the company? What about all the workers who trusted you, whose family finances will be critically imperilled if you don't compromise, just a little. What about the "ecosystem" partners who've bet on your service, building plug-ins, add-ons and services that make your product better? What about their employees and their employees' families?

Maybe you tell yourself, "If I do this, I'll live to fight another day. I can only make the service better for its users if the service still exists." Of course you tell yourself that.

I have watched virtually every service I relied on, gave my time and attention to, and trusted, go through this process. It happened with services run by people I knew well and thought highly of.

Enshittification can be thought of as the result of a lack of consequences. Whether you are tempted by greed or pressured by people who have lower ethics than you, the more it costs to compromise, the fewer compromises you'll make.

In other words, to resist enshittification, you have to impose switching costs on yourself.

That's where federation comes in. On Mastodon (and other services based on Activitypub), you can easily leave one server and go to another, and everyone you follow and everyone who follows you will move over to the new server. If the person who runs your server turns out to be imperfect in a way that you can't endure, you can find another server, spend five minutes moving your account over, and you're back up and running on the new server:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/04/pick-all-three/#agonism

Any system where users can leave without pain is a system whose owners have high switching costs and whose users have none. An owner who makes a bad call – like removing the block function say, or opting every user into AI training – will lose a lot of users. Not just those users who price these downgrades highly enough that they outweigh the costs of leaving the service. If leaving the service is free, then tormenting your users in this way will visit swift and devastating pain upon you.

That not only helps you steer clear of rationalizing your way into a bad compromise: it also stops your investors and other people with leverage over you from pressuring you into taking actions that harm your users. These devils only sit on your shoulder, whispering temptations and threats because they think that you can make things worse without spoiling their investment. They're not cruel, they're greedy. They will only insist on enshittification that they believe they can profit from. If they understand that forcing you to enshittify the service will send all your users packing and leave them with nothing, they will very likely not force you to wreck your service.

And of course, if they are so greedy that they force your hand anyway, then your users will be able to escape. Your service will be wrecked and you'll be broke, which sucks for you, but you're just one person and your pain is vastly outweighed by the relief for the millions of people who escape your service when it goes sour.

There's a name for this dynamic, from the world of behavioral economics. It's called a "Ulysses Pact." It's named for the ancient hacker Ulysses, who ignored the normal protocol for sailing through the sirens' sea. While normie sailors resisted the sirens' song by filling their ears with wax, Ulysses instead had himself lashed to the mast, so that he could hear the sirens' song, but could not be tempted into leaping into the sea, to be drowned by the sirens.

Whenever you take a measure during a moment of strength that guards against your own future self's weakness, you enter into a Ulysses Pact – think throwing away the Oreos when you start your diet.

There is no such thing as a person who is immune to rationalization or pressure. I'm certainly not. Anyone who believes that they will never be tempted is a danger to themselves and the people who rely on them. A belief you can never be tempted or coerced is like a belief that you can never be conned – it makes you more of a mark, not less.

Bluesky has many federated features that I find technically admirable. I only know the CEO there slightly, but I have nothing but good opinions of her. At least one of the board members there, Mike Masnick, is one of my oldest friends and comrades in the fights for user rights. We don't agree on everything, but I trust him implicitly and would happily give him the keys to my house if he needed a place to stay or even the password for my computer before I had major surgery.

But even the best boards can make bad calls. It was just a couple years ago that we had to picket to stop the board of ISOC – where I had several dear old friends and comrades – from selling control of every .ORG domain to a shadowy hedge-fund run by mustache-twirling evil billionaires:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/how-we-saved-org-2020-review

Bluesky lacks the one federated feature that is absolutely necessary for me to trust it: the ability to leave Bluesky and go to another host and continue to talk to the people I've entered into community with there. While there are many independently maintained servers that provide services to Bluesky and its users, there is only one Bluesky server. A federation of multiple servers, each a peer to the other, has been on Bluesky's roadmap for as long as I've been following it, but they haven't (yet) delivered it.

That was worrying when Bluesky was a scrappy, bootstrapped startup with a few million users. Now it has grown to over 13 million users, and it has taken on a large tranche of outside capital:

https://fediversereport.com/on-bluesky-and-enshittification/

Plenty of people have commented that now that a VC is holding Bluesky's purse-strings, enshittification will surely follow (doubly so because the VC is called "Blockchain Capital," which, at this point, might as well be "Grifty Scam Caveat Emptor Capital"). But I don't agree with this at all. It's not outside capital that leads to enshittification, it's leverage that enshittifies a service.

A VC that understands that they can force you to wreck your users' lives is always in danger of doing so. A VC who understands that doing this will make your service into an empty – and thus worthless – server is far less likely to do so (and if they do, at least your users can escape).

My publishing process is a lot of work and adding another service to it represents a huge amount of future labor:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two-decades/#hfbd

But I would leap into Bluesky and gladly taken on all that extra work, every day – if I knew that I couldn't get trapped there.

I don't know why Bluesky hasn't added the federation systems that would enable freedom of exit to its service. Perhaps there are excellent technical reasons to prioritize rolling out the other systems they've created so far. Frankly, it doesn't matter. So long as Bluesky can be a trap, I won't let myself be tempted. My rule – I don't join a service that I can't leave without switching costs – is my Ulysses Pact, and it's keeping me safe from danger I've sailed into too many times before.

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Vanishing Culture https://blog.archive.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Vanishing-Culture-2024.pdf (h/t Chris Freeland)

• The Rookie: W. Kamau Bell on Olivia Rynberg-Going of the DOJ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/rookie/ (h/t James Boyle)

• Hey Brendan Carr, Next Time Link To Our Article That Proves You’re Full Of Shit, Coward https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/24/hey-brendan-carr-next-time-link-to-our-article-that-proves-youre-full-of-shit-coward/ (h/t Gregory Charlin)

---

Hoisted from the comments (permalink)

Tallsimon on "Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon": When you “vote with your wallet” you try to control for some future outcome, but if your wallet isn’t big enough to survive losing a big bet, then you are constrained to go with a certain outcome. That can be an outcome that is certainly worse for you. The rational, measurable cost of the randomness can be so high that taking a loss makes sense.

https://chinwag.pluralistic.net/t/pluralistic-conspiratorialism-as-a-material-phenomenon-29-oct-2024/1356/4

---

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago Diebold voting machines hacked https://web.archive.org/web/20041102084048/http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78#breaking

#15yrsago Newspaper columnist quits over paywall https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/media/02elderly.html

#15yrsago Congressional record exposes military officers to identity theft, covers up https://web.archive.org/web/20100506125320/http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/foia/gov.ftc_20081117_from.pdf

#15yrsago Hallowe’en night out as floppy disk and XKCD Cory https://www.flickr.com/photos/24876360@N03/4068253019/in/photostream/

#15yrsago Mechanical computer uses matchboxes and beans to learn Tic-Tac-Toe http://shorttermmemoryloss.com/menace/

#15yrsago Elegy Beach: sequel to Ariel, a sword-and-sorcery post-apocalyptic adventure story about the reinvention of software in the age of magic https://memex.craphound.com/2009/11/02/elegy-beach-sequel-to-ariel-a-sword-and-sorcery-post-apocalyptic-adventure-story-about-the-reinvention-of-software-in-the-age-of-magic/

#10yrsago UK cultural institutions leave their WWI cases empty to protest insane copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20141105051638/http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/news/campaign-free-our-history-reform-copyright

#10yrsago FBI secretly seeking legal power to hack any computer, anywhere https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/29/fbi-powers-hacking-computers-surveillance

#10yrsago 42 rich white people account for 1/3 of Super PAC spending https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/whos-buying-midterm-elections-bunch-old-white-guys/

#10yrsago Philadelphia schools have $5/student/year for supplies https://www.salon.com/2014/11/01/we_must_still_hate_our_kids_philadelphia_and_education_reformers_fight_demented_war_on_elementary_schools/

#10yrsago Mechwarrior dad/baby costume https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIln1LTtvzc

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
  https://tusconscificon.com/

• 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/

---

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/

---

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#/.

---

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

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Friday's progress: 848 words (76255 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/

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

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

Thank you for your email. This is an automated response to let you know that I will be away from my desk on Wednesday, November 6.

As you may be aware, the presidential election in the United States could be decided by the evening of November 5, and I will be up all night either panicking or celebrating, depending on which way it goes.

Or the election will not be decided by the evening of November 5, and I will be up all night panicking.

If the election is decided by the morning of November 6, I will not be at my desk, because I will be curled up on the floor weeping. I am not sure whether my tears will be tears of joy or tears of terror, but they are almost guaranteed to flow, and therefore, I will not be at my desk. Maybe I will be under my desk, but I definitely won’t be at it.

If the election is not decided by the morning of November 6, I will still not be at my desk due to the aforementioned panic. Maybe I will still be in bed. Maybe I will be merry-go-rounding through the drive-thru of my local Taco Bell, trying to drown my angst in a cascade of nachos. Maybe I will be at the local dog park, trying to become one with the grass as the puppies frolic around me. Who knows? Not me. But what I do know is that I will not be at my desk.

Basically, you can assume that until we have results, I will not be at my desk, nor should you want me to be. I assure you that this is for the best, since my being at my desk will not make your day better, but it could easily make it worse. My anxiety will almost certainly leak out, and it could infect you too. Then neither of us will be at our desks.

At this time, I am unable to give a concrete estimate for when I shall return to my desk. In one scenario, I will collapse in a puddle of relieved exhaustion for one day but will return to my desk on November 7.

In another, I may never return to my desk. To make it clear, I do not prefer this scenario, but one candidate has made it clear that he intends to seek retribution against his critics. While I’m not sure just how high on the list of critics I am, I have definitely shared some unflattering memes about him on social media over the years and don’t want to chance it. I’ve never really looked into how to change my identity and flee the country before, and I imagine it takes some time and a substantial amount of effort. And I need to at least prepare for the possibility that I will have to do this at some point. Therefore, I will not be at my desk.

I may also need to look into robbing a bank since this job doesn’t pay change-my-identity-and-flee-the-country wages, which will take even more time and effort. So I will not be at my desk.

Other things that could eat up the time I would otherwise spend at my desk: figuring out how to homeschool my kids in preparation for the Department of Education being eliminated; stocking up on supplies for every natural disaster I can think of, and outfitting some sort of Batmobile-like all-weather vehicle / storm shelter (using money that I do not have from the aforementioned bank robbery that I have yet to plan) since I can’t imagine that severe weather is going to get better in this scenario, but we also won’t get weather warnings anymore since NOAA is going away too; learning self-defense in case we find ourselves living in The Purge; and maybe cramming in some lessons on Duolingo, since I’m guessing that if I do have to flee the country, speaking more than one language may be helpful? Unfortunately, I remember very little of the two years of French I took in middle school.

Oh, I should probably also start downloading and hiding all the media I love before the book bonfires start. I probably should finish the most recent season of Heartstopper while I’m at it before it becomes illegal. Come to think of it, I may watch that at my desk, but we both know that doesn’t count as actually being at my desk.

Anyway, all that to say, I will be away from my desk on Wednesday, November 6. Depending on how things go, I will respond to your email when I return on Thursday, November 7, or possibly never.

If this is an emergency, please contact my assistant, who may or may not be at her desk either. Alternatively, feel free to join me in screaming into the void because, seriously, WTF.

TORONTO – An exasperated Toronto has offered to start calling Ontario Premier Doug Ford “Mayor”, thus satiating his lifelong yearning for the job, if he just stopped trying to ruin the city and got back to the job of managing the rest of the province. “To be honest, I give in,” said the actual mayor […]

The post Torontonians offer to let Doug Ford wear “Mayor” sash if he just leaves them alone appeared first on The Beaverton.

PALM BEACH, FL—Asserting that the pair had not been close “for decades” prior to the financier’s death, Donald Trump admitted Friday that his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was severed after a dispute over dibs on the former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump. “We had a very good time for many years, but it was unfortunately Ivanka who drove a wedge between us,” said the Republican presidential nominee, who explained that his friendship with the convicted sex trafficker “fell to pieces” after the two men failed to strike an agreement over who would get to pursue Trump’s eldest daughter. “He didn’t want to share. I didn’t want to share, either. We were very competitive that way. I said any future daughters could be his, but I think he knew I was bluffing. Besides, it’s not like anyone wanted Tiffany.” Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign denied Trump had just said those things.

The post Trump Admits Relationship With Epstein Severed After Dispute Over Dibs On Ivanka appeared first on The Onion.

BRYANT POND, ME—Describing the moment as a “transformative experience” that inspired him to embrace God and read the Bible, a piss-soaked Tucker Carlson claimed Friday that a demon had urinated on him while he was sleeping. “One moment I was asleep in bed, and the next, my boxers were absolutely soaked with what could only be the urine of an evil spirit,” said the former Fox News host, who added that while he did not previously consider himself a religious person, everything changed when he woke up to a rush of hot liquid covering his groin. “Lying there, I felt this terrible pressure in my bladder, almost as if a demon was sitting on it. Then it unleashed a torrent of urine that drenched my pajamas and my mattress, which still bear the scars.” At press time, Carlson claimed that embracing God had successfully helped ward off every evil spirit except for the one that occasionally visits him and covers the inside of his underwear in semen.

The post Piss-Soaked Tucker Carlson Claims Demon Urinated On Him While He Slept appeared first on The Onion.

---

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section or find Observer political reporting here.

The post Loon Star State: Ken Paxton’s Voting Police appeared first on The Texas Observer.

In The Weird and The Eerie (2016), the vital text by the late Mark Fisher, the cultural critic distinguishes the implications of these descriptors in compelling clarity. To Fisher, the weird summons its head-turning spell from wrongness: “A weird entity or object is so strange that it makes us feel that it should not exist, or at least it should not exist here.” (Fisher, 9). Far from false, “the weird thing is not wrong, after all: it is our conceptions that must be inadequate.” (Fisher, 9). To comprehend these aesthetic terms, one must untangle a weird presence from an eerie absence: “The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or there is nothing present when there should be something.” (Fisher, 9). In other words, the weird represents an impossible reality whereas the eerie alters our sense of the familiar: think about the weird green glow of radioactively tinted sunlight illuminating the eeriness of an empty amusement park. 

Fisher traces the emergence of such themes to progenitors of science fiction like HP Lovecraft and HG Welles as early as the 1920s. In the wake of World War One, millions of traumatized Europeans reported collective fits of disillusionment and dread. Such trepidation defines the hair-raising potential of the weird and the eerie. These uneasy auras align not so much with horror as they do with strangeness. This war-induced trauma ignited several burning modern questions: how did it objectify soldiers as ghosts-in-the-machine, as pawns used to operate the instruments of death personified in objects like the German Siege Gun, Big Bertha? Amplified by the Industrial Revolution, the personification of objects — or the personalized marketing schemes intent on seducing the public — merged with viewing people as dispensable items: think of the heightened allure of the 1950s and 60s cult of the celebrity, that put-on-a-pedestal mentality glorified in mass media and Pop Art. 

The main protagonist in Rachel Rossin’s Haha Real — the immersive installation currently inhabiting Houston’s historic Buffalo Bayou Cistern until November 10th — assumes its form in a digital reincarnation of The Velveteen Rabbit, among the artist’s favorite childhood stories. Written in 1922, Margery Williams’ existentially coded children’s tale plants the paradigm-shifting seeds of the aforementioned idea of mechanized personhood. As indicated on the exhibit’s introductory wall panel, the relationship between this soul-softening short story and Haha Real is that of a hit single and dystopian remix. 

Its central premise orbits a boy and his toy rabbit. Outshined by his mechanical cohort of fellow toys, the lonely rabbit fades into the background as the boy diverts his attention to the whizzing energy of these modern marvels: 

For a long time [the rabbit] lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. 

As prophesized by the worn and wizened Skin Horse — the oldest toy and would-be-sage of the collection — the rabbit receives life-altering news: “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” One imagines the possibility of the rabbit’s vindicating clapback: “Eat [this] heart out you mechanized monsters!”

Submerged in the absence of its original presence, Haha Real lies eerily submerged in the depths of the infamous Cistern, the cavernous vessel formerly housing Houston’s public drinking water. Although the exhibit alters this intended context, such a liquid connection remains, if only for the aesthetic and sonic effect submerged in the ten-inch pool of water flooding the pit of its central concrete basin. This visual and auditory effect hinges on yet another relationship, that of water as a reflective surface for both light and sound. Upon entering—but before descending—into the bowels of the Cistern, the accompanying tour guide casts ambiguous light on Haha Real’s core ethos: how does its subject matter, message, and immersion in such an uncanny environment question the nature of reality? Essentially: how does it distinguish the reality of subjective experience?

If this cavernous-vessel-turned-exhibition space reads as eerie, then its visual and verbal contents read as weird once we accept the surrounding space as the site of our momentary reality. Perceptively, aesthetically, and mythologically…what’s real in here isn’t real out there, but here, our aesthetic perception of Haha Real’s morphing mythology continually questions the degree of such realness. Rossin’s chameleon-like rabbit morphs from flickering flame to windswept foliage, from placid bunny to rabid rabbit, from delicate sparks to all-consuming blaze. 

The installation’s amorphous antagonist assumes its eerie form as the Cistern itself, like a Brutalist iteration a la Shirley Jackson’s slim but striking horror classic, the gothic novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959). As if its neon emission of blood-red light, the brooding swells of its sinister soundscapes, or the equally jarring omission of any light at all wrapping the audience in darkness isn’t enough, it doubles in size when one observes its mirror image reflected onto the water, a hellish basement clone rendering escape in any direction impossible.  

Submerged in a sonic soup, Rossin cues these ethereal visuals to a weightless soundtrack. This carnivalesque discography haunts the Cistern—or “psychological theater” as Rossin puts it—with a spooky soul. Bouncing melodies of electrified synthesizers float through the air, the narrator’s uncanny timbre wafts and echoes and swirls, but everything eventually drifts downward, grounded in darkness at the shallow foot of the Cistern’s pooled floor. 

Even when everything else falls silent, as the Cistern bathes in blinding black, a barely perceptible gurgle of water lurks somewhere far beneath in the darkness below. Swapping dramatic fizzle for poetic fade, Haha Real concludes with the glow of a single digital candle, a last light of consciousness flatly flickering on a circular screen until it fades to black, all of which “feels a little bit more like a dream.”

 

Haha Real is on view at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern through November 10. Soundscape composed by Frewuhn.

The post Review: “Haha Real” at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, Houston appeared first on Glasstire.

Our friends at 270 Reasons are gathering a polyphonic orchestra of brilliant writers, teachers, doctors, filmmakers, artists, and citizens of all kinds to weigh in about their plans to vote this November. These opinion essays run the gamut from advocacy for basic human rights to acutely personal mini-manifestoes. Read the rest over at 270 Reasons.

Because on January 6, I Was More Afraid Working at the Capitol
Than During My Entire Army Deployment to Iraq

Before I begin, I need to acknowledge the sacrifices that five officers on January 6 made on that day.

It is with honor, and a heavy heart, that I come before you to tell you my story, from painful, firsthand experience, of what happened that terrible day at the Capitol.

Even though there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there is a continuous and shocking attempt to ignore or try to destroy the truth of what truly happened that day, and to whitewash the facts into something other than what they unmistakably reveal: an attack on our democracy by violent domestic extremists and a stain on our history and our moral standing here at home and abroad.

When I joined the Army and Capitol Police, I took an oath to defend the Constitution. I did so with duty in my soul, and I still feel it.

To Donald Trump, I ask: Why don’t you?

On January 6, 2021, I fulfilled my oath to defend the United States Capitol and members of Congress carrying out their constitutional duties to certify the results of the November 2020 presidential election.

To be honest, I did not recognize my fellow citizens who stormed the Capitol on January 6 or the United States they claimed to represent. When I was twenty-five, and then a sergeant in the army, I had deployed to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom. But on January 6, for the first time, I was more afraid working at the Capitol than during my entire army deployment to Iraq. In Iraq, we expected armed violence, because we were in a war zone. But nothing, nothing prepared me for January 6.

The verbal assaults and disrespect we endured from the rioters were bad enough. I was falsely accused of betraying my “oath” and of choosing my “paycheck” over my loyalty to the US Constitution—even as I defended the very democratic process that protected everyone in that hostile crowd. The rioters called me a “traitor,” a “disgrace,” and shouted that I (an army veteran and police officer) should be “executed.” Some of the rioters had the audacity to tell me that it was “nothing personal,” that they would “go through” us to achieve their goals. Others used more menacing language: “If you shoot us, we all have weapons, and we will shoot back,” or “We will get our guns.” “We outnumber you. Join us,” they said.

But the physical violence we experienced was horrific and devastating. My fellow officers and I were punched, pushed, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants, and even blinded with eye-damaging lasers by a violent mob who apparently saw us law enforcement officers, dedicated, ironically, to protecting them as US citizens, as an impediment in their attempted insurrection. The mob brought hammers, rebars, knives, batons, as well as bear spray and pepper spray, to try to accomplish their insurrectionist objectives. The rioters also forcibly took our batons and shields and used them against us. I was particularly shocked at seeing the insurrectionists violently attack us with the very American flag they claimed they sought to protect.

The rioters were vicious and relentless. We found ourselves in a violent battle in a desperate attempt to prevent a breach of the Capitol Building. When I tried to help an MPD officer, I fell on top of some police shields on the ground that were slippery because of the pepper and bear spray. Rioters started to pull me by my leg, by my shield, and by the gear straps on my left shoulder. My survival instincts kicked in, and I started kicking and punching. I was finally able to hit a rioter who was grabbing me with my baton and then stand. I then continued to fend off new attackers as they kept rotating after attacking us.

What we were subjected to that day was like something from a medieval battlefield. It was a prolonged and desperate struggle. I vividly heard officers screaming in agony and pain just an arms-length from me. I, too, was being crushed by the rioters. I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, “This is how I’m going to die, trampled defending this entrance.”

After order finally had been restored at the Capitol and after many exhausting hours, I arrived home at nearly 4:00 a.m. on January 7. I had to push away my wife from hugging me because of all the chemicals that covered my body. I couldn’t sleep because the chemicals reactivated after I took a shower, and my skin was still burning. I finally fell asleep two hours later, completely physically and mentally exhausted. Yet by 8:00 a.m. that day, I was already on my way back to the Capitol.

Many of my fellow Capitol Police officers, as well as MPD officers, suffered terrible physical injuries from the violence inflicted on us on January 6. I sustained injuries to both of my hands, my left shoulder, my left calf, and my right foot. I have already undergone fusion surgery on my foot, and I was just told that I need surgery on my left shoulder.

We officers risk everything to protect innocent people. President Trump summoned our attackers and incited the insurrection. He betrayed us.

But despite being outnumbered, we did our job. Every member of the House of Representatives, senator, and staff member made it home safely. Sadly, as a result of that day, we lost officers—some really good officers. But we held the line to protect our democratic process, because the alternative would have been a disaster. We are not asking for medals or even recognition. We simply want accountability and justice.

For most people, January 6 happened for a few hours that day. But for those of us who were in the thick of it, it has not ended. That day continues to be a constant trauma for us literally every day, whether because of our physical or emotional injuries, or both.

There are some who expressed outrage when someone simply kneeled for social justice during the national anthem. Where are those same people expressing outrage to condemn the violent attack on law enforcement officers, the US Capitol, and our American democracy?

On January 6, I nearly died protecting the Capitol, and I will do it again for our democracy. The way to preserve it is to elect Kamala Harris, our first female commander-in-chief.

Sergeant Aquilino Gonell is a former Capitol Police Officer, US Army veteran, and immigrant from the Dominican Republic who risked his life defending the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Since then, he has testified before Congress about his experience that day and is the author of American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy.

Read more essays (with new ones added every day) at 270reasons.com.

The arguments here represent the opinion of the authors and not necessarily those of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund.

Here are two things that are not secrets, but play into this story. First, it’s known that Google and Russia have had an acrimonious relationship for some time. Between various threats from the Russian government to ban Google and/or YouTube here and there, typically because the country doesn’t like Google’s decisions over what content to block or allow, and Russia’s more general heartburn over speech it doesn’t like, the two entities tend to butt heads frequently. Second, Putin’s stranglehold on his government, forcing it to operate at levels high and low according to his own personal whims can produce government actions so absurd that they would be funny were it all not so terrifying.

So, it’s a mixture of those two truths that generate absurd activities such as the Russian government issuing a fine on Google for literally more money than even exists in the world.

Google reportedly owes the Kremlin more than 2 undecillion rubles — a 2 followed by 36 zeroes — after refusing to pay fines that are now accruing for blocking pro-Russian channels on YouTube. The virtually unpronounceable penalty amounts to $20 decillion — or around $20 billion trillion trillion. That dwarfs the size of the global economy.

At $110 trillion, according to International Monetary Fund figures, world gross domestic product looks modest in comparison. Google parent Alphabet, meanwhile, has a market value of around $2 trillion.

There’s a Dr. Evil joke in there somewhere, but I’m not going to bother. The problem with a fine like this is that it’s so absolutely absurd, so over the top, that it is rendered meaningless. To be clear, Google is not under any kind of actual monetary threat here. Google has had a relatively muted presence in Russia after the country’s unilateral invasion of Ukraine. Google’s child-company in Russia filed for bankruptcy long ago, due to the Russian government seizing its money and assets. YouTube and Google search still work in Russia as of today, though this fine appears to be a step towards restricting access to Google sites in Russia in the future.

Even the Kremlin kreatures have acknowledged that this fine has no practical application when it comes to hurting the company.

Asked about the lawsuit during a call with reporters Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that he “can’t even pronounce this figure right” but said that the eye-watering sum was “filled with symbolism.” Google “should not be restricting the actions of our broadcasters on its platform,” he added.

CNN has contacted Google for comment. In quarterly earnings published this week, the company referred to “ongoing legal matters” relating to its business in Russia.

“Civil judgments that include compounding penalties have been imposed upon us in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts, including those of sanctioned parties,” Google said. “We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect (on earnings).”

Which is how, in the end, this fine serves to do nothing beyond being a public demonstration as to just how completely corrupt the Russian government has become. The fine is meaningless, save as a justification to further restrict the internet access of Russian citizens.