1. PSAT tutor

2. ACT proctor

3. Buying and selling GameStop index funds while I’m trying to collect the fucking homework

4. Youth soccer camp coach

5. Piano lessons and biweekly plasma donations

6. Wedding photographer

7. Wedding violinist

8. Lifeguard

9. Cadillac car salesboy

10. Running a literacy enrichment program for underserved youth

11. Running a multilevel marketing cannabis empire over Facebook and LinkedIn

12. Waiting tables

13. Instagram influencer for athleisure wear

14. Teaching ten- to twenty-minute online ESL courses to Korean adults (who may confess to opening a second savings account to hide money from their spouses before hitting on you from many time zones away) back-to-back-to-back for six consecutive goddamn hours

15. Scooping water ice at Rita’s, which pays a better hourly rate than the above

16. Summer curriculum alignment for your own school admin, who still pay you less than the Rita’s down the street

17. Streaming Fortnite on YouTube for six thousand teenage followers

18. Building decks for peers who are somehow independently wealthy, probably due to one of the following: a trust fund, a spouse with a trust fund, a spouse who works for Raytheon or ExxonMobil, a portfolio of Apple stock from 2003

19. Extreme couponing

Side Hustles of My High School Students: 3, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15, 17
Second Jobs of My Teacher Friends: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, 19
Both: 12

WASHINGTON—Candidates for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination were reportedly racing to fulfill the participation requirements after the Republican National Committee announced Monday that it was setting the cutoff for the first debate at a minimum of 20,000 ethics violations. “In order to qualify,…

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FT. LAUDERDALE, FL—Stressing that he was eager to learn more about his soon-to-be new home country, Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi admitted to reporters Monday that he didn’t even know where America was when he signed to play there. “When I first heard about the deal, I couldn’t tell you what the U.S. was, where…

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Some of the comics are written just so Corey Mohler will look at his screen, shake his head, and sigh.

Today's News:

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

A reader writes:

My supervisor and I both work hybrid schedules and she lives in the same neighborhood as me. Recently we were on a work call and she said, “You know, I almost just popped by to talk about this in person with you at your house.” She went on to say it is her “right” to show up unannounced to meet about work inside my private residence anytime she wants. “We’re both working from home today and that’s what working from home can mean, I think.”

She hasn’t actually done it yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens sometime soon.

If she shows up, I don’t think I could stomach letting her in. I bought video doorbells so I will know who is at the door.

I reviewed our employer’s HR policy on remote work and it does not say anything about this one way or the other. I don’t think there is any policy my employer has that could offer me some protection but I assume I have a broader legal right to privacy in my own home. I live in the United States.

I really need to find a new job as this isn’t the only situation where she has shown disregard for boundaries and made me feel disrespected.

Your employer could legally require you to allow meetings in your home if they chose to, but it would be incredibly unusual — and it’s pretty unlikely to happen. My bigger concern is that if your manager does come by unexpectedly and you don’t answer, will she use that as a reason to cast doubt on whether you’re really working at home and thus tell you to work from the office more?

You could try heading this off entirely by saying, “I don’t know if you were serious the other day when you mentioned dropping by my house, but I’m not set up to have guests here. I also don’t answer the door when I’m working since it’s usually salespeople. But if you want to set up a meeting at a coffeeshop or something, let me know.”

If she pushes this bizarre idea of her “right” to stop by unannounced, feel free to use any white lie that makes your life easier — your spouse or roommate also works from home and doesn’t want guests there; you could get in trouble with your landlord, HOA, or homeowners insurance for conducting business out of your house (you’d have to be careful with the nuance of this since you’re currently working from there, but there could be a way to finesse it); or anything else that works.

And if she does show up unannounced, feel free to ignore the doorbell since you already told her you don’t answer the door while you’re working. If she calls and says she’s at your door, meet her outside (close the door behind you!) and say, “Like I said, I’m not set up to have guests inside right now” or “my spouse is on a work call and we can’t have visitors” or whatever else you’re comfortable with.

Also, her initial suggestion that she pop over since she lives nearby is a little oblivious but not an outrage on its own. But insisting that it’s her “right” to do it is so aggressively weird that I’m wondering what else is going on with your boss — that isn’t something you would hear from an otherwise decent manager.

It might seem like everybody hates meetings, but organizational psychologist Steven Rogelberg calls them a "fundamental essence of being a human" and says we need to find ways to make meetings better, rather than eliminating them entirely.

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

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

1. My employee wants cash because she missed a group lunch

I am in the CEO-like position for a small local government (I oversee everything in the organization and report to a board of five who have no day-to-day authority). We have 18 full-time employees and a total of about 50, including permanent part-time and seasonal workers.

In April, as a thank-you for Stress Awareness Month, I organized a lunch from a local restaurant for employees who RSVP’d to the event. Being a local government, the entity can’t pay for this, so the money came out of my own pocket. I did not tell any of my employees this.

One part-time employee, Jill, was not scheduled to be at work this day. Historically employees who are not scheduled do not come in for these types of events, although sometimes do attend and are welcome to do so. Jill had a conflict and was not able to make it into the office for the lunch.

She later asked me to purchase her lunch another day, and I was taken aback! I know I should have said something then, but I didn’t. Three months later, she asked me to buy her lunch again, and when I said I wouldn’t be there on that day, asked for cash instead. I was left speechless.

I’m getting conflicting advice, including telling her “no” after I thought about it to not allow precedence, to getting her a gift certificate to the restaurant, to just buying her a meal. I’d appreciate any thoughts you have!

Whoa, no, don’t get her a gift certificate or buy her a meal. You paid with your own money for an appreciation lunch for staff who could attend. That does not obligate you to buy separate meals for people who couldn’t be there. That would be true even if the organization was paying, but it’s doubly true since it was your own money.

In this case, it might help to tell Jill you paid out of your own pocket. I’d say it this way: “I think you misunderstood the event. I paid for this out of my own pocket as a treat for employees who could be there, but I’m not in a position to buy separate meals for everyone who didn’t attend.” You might add, “You’re always welcome at this kind of thing even if you’re not scheduled to work that day, but we don’t provide make-up meals to people who miss the event.”

2. My teenage employee’s mom keeps contacting us

I am the owner of a small retail shop with one part-time manager. Most of our employees are teenagers. Our standard employment policy is no-call/no-show results in termination. We recently hired a new employee, Katie, who has had much difficulty picking up the job and performing the job to standards. We intended to have a 30-day review with her to highlight areas of improvement needed. Katie’s mother recently called the store and said Katie broke her phone and could not access the app to get her upcoming schedule. We provided the schedule in writing to the mother (through text) and let her know the schedule could also be accessed on the computer. Katie no-showed for that next shift and the manager messaged her, resulting in no response. Her mother called the store a few days later and said Katie would not be able to work her next scheduled shift due to a family vacation. The manager informed the mother that Katie had already missed a shift and we would take her off the next shift. We haven’t scheduled her since since due to the no-call/no-show, and we removed her from our scheduling app.

After two weeks pass, her mother again calls to get the upcoming schedule. The manager informs her Katie has no scheduled shifts. Katie texts me later that day letting me know she has a new phone and can’t access her schedule. Shortly after, her mother texts me and says Katie will be unavailable to work this weekend due to another family vacation, but Katie can’t access to the schedule and she hopes she is not terminated and that we can work something out.

Since Katie was already a poor performer who probably wasn’t going to make it, I don’t want to bring her back. Do I simply respond to Katie that no-call/no-show has resulted in termination? Do I owe any response to her mother? Or do I need to give a second chance since she’s just a kid with a broken phone and an overbearing mother who schedules a lot of last-minute vacations?

You’re certainly justified in deciding not to bring her back, based both on her not showing up without calling and her struggles with the job itself. If you go that route, you can just respond to Katie to let her know that because she no-called/no-showed for a shift, you’re not going to keep her on. If you wanted to give her another chance, I’d recommend telling her that you’ll give her another shot, but that you need to go over the store policies and your expectations around scheduling first (including that she needs to be the one communicating with you, not her mom).

Either way, you don’t need to communicate with her mom. If her mom contacts you again, you can say, “Katie will need to call me directly; while we made an exception when her phone broke, generally we need to talk with employees directly rather than through their parents.”

3. How to respond to “I’ve never had Covid”

I have a question about something that seems like it should be increasingly rare but is continuing to come up. Often in both my personal and professional life, I’m still encountering people who, when Covid comes up, will say “I’ve never gotten covid, I’ve been really careful” in a tone like you’d say you’ve never returned a library book late.

I do understand that people have extremely serious reasons for needing to avoid Covid to, you know, stay alive (though I’m not sure that’s the demographic always making these comments) and that you do need to have been quite careful to have avoided it thus far. But I’m frustrated with the implication that I got Covid because I wasn’t being careful. I’m a healthcare worker and got Covid seeing a patient in a nursing home experiencing an outbreak. I was also 34 weeks pregnant and obviously had my own reason to want to not get it. I ended up delivering early (capstone to a very difficult pregnancy doing an intense job with non-stop nausea all three trimesters). Everyone is fine! But obviously the “careful” thing touches a nerve. It’s almost never patients saying it, it’s mostly my own acquaintances and external people I work with who are only tangentially connected to the healthcare system.

Is there a way to respond that acknowledges both their reality and mine? Am I a little too sensitive to a well intentioned comment?

Well, maybe a bit, but very understandably so! For a response, how about, “It’s tough in healthcare”? Or, “Yes, I’m extremely careful as well.” Or, “That’s great, you’ve been very lucky.”

4. My team used to be awful; we’re treated like we still are

I am the director of operations at an educational technology company. I took this role from another role in the company due to a significant gap and performance issues in the department. Unfortunately, the department has a multi-year history of poor performance, mistakes, lack of reliability, and so on. My team and I have spent the last year working incredibly hard to create scalable, repeatable processes and execute reliably, and it has worked! We have gone from a 60+% error rate to a 2-8% error rate in most areas that we can measure.

However, when inevitable errors do occur, other departments react as if we were still in the old days. I have coached my team that it will take some time for us to flip the narrative; however, they find it exhausting and demoralizing to have fingers constantly pointed at them anytime something doesn’t go perfectly. Sometimes feedback is expressed very unprofessionally (yelling, name calling, etc.). Is there anything further that I can do to help dampen this response and shield my team so we can continue pushing hard for process improvement?

Well … that historical 60% error rate is astoundingly high (as you clearly know) so it’s no surprise that other teams are fed up, especially if they’ve raised the issues previously and nothing was done until recently. But yelling and name-calling is unacceptable, regardless.

Can you talk to the managers of the teams that are responding that way? You’re going to need to convince them that (a) you fully understand the frustrations from earlier and (b) you are on it now, but their employees are yelling at your staff and calling them names and that can’t happen. Ask to collaborate to figure out how to ensure they’re getting what they need without abusing your team. For example, is it feasible to have other teams’ feedback go exclusively through you for a while? Can you set up an easy way for people to escalate things to you if they’re not getting what they need, so that you can quickly step in and solve it? People tend to yell when they’re frustrated and don’t see other options; if you can be that other option — because they know they can come to you and you will ensure the problem is solved — that could help significantly. It means you’ll need to be really hands-on for a while, but that’s likely to be crucial in resetting people’s assessment of your team. Those other managers need to be part of your solution though, because they need to use their authority to make it clear to their people that yelling/name-calling isn’t acceptable.

I will say though … an 8% error rate is still really high in most types of work! I know you’re working on it, but it’ll probably help to communicate that more improvement is still coming, assuming that it is.

5. Ghosted after second interview

I reached out to marketing agencies in my city to offer my services on a freelance basis and expressed interest in part-time or full-time opportunities should they arise. One firm that got back to me was a small creative firm that I did some work with previously. Their project manager, Abby, said they were looking to hire a creative position full-time and asked if I was interested. I said yes, and waited a few days for the job description to be ready. It was pretty vague and filled with marketing lingo but the job seemed like it could be a good fit and I set up an interview.

My first interview was with Abby and the owner (Cal). We talked for three hours! They loved me! After the interview I was more excited about the opportunity and expressed my interest in a follow-up email, at which point Cal asked for my salary requirements. I told them I was interested in hearing their ballpark number first (especially as we had discussed full-time versus part-time, or a more flexible schedule), but he pushed and I gave him a breakdown. I told him that I would be open to negotiating that number for the right job and was open to exploring how else we could still work together if the numbers couldn’t work. Cal responded, “You’ve alluded to this potentially not working out a couple of times. For clarity, are you saying you wish it wouldn’t work out?” I was kind of shocked. I explained that I found salary conversations super awkward and also wanted to be flexible. He responded, “I was kinda messing with you ;) I totally understand how awkward that can be — been there. Abby will be in contact soon to arrange a second interview.”

The second interview was with the entire team and went well. We had a great discussion and some of the team members alluded to me having the job already. I left, followed up, then heard nothing for 2-3 weeks. I followed up again and was told they were still looking at resumes and would be in touch. After a little longer, I reached out again, and Cal said, “I’m sorry we have been radio silent. Things have been an ebb and flow of craziness and we are still in the process of conducting some interviews. At this time we are not in a position to make a decision, and we completely understand your needs. I would not want our chaotic schedule to hinder you from considering other options. We will be in touch as soon as we can, with the mindset of chips falling where they may. Thank you for being so patient with us!” I never got a response after that. It doesn’t appear that they hired anyone new from their website, but I don’t know for sure.

I’ve moved on, but I am still so angry and frustrated about this. What happened? I feel disrespected and somehow (though I’m not sure exactly how) taken advantage of. I don’t have many options to work with firms to do the kind of work I am good at and am resentful that they made this so awkward for me. I know at this point, there’s no point in reaching out again, but I have wanted to tell them how shitty this is (I won’t, but I want to). Am I justified feeling this way? Is this a normal hiring practice? Do you have any sense of what in the world went wrong?

This is pretty common. It’s rude to ghost you after two interviews, but really, really common. It sounds like you were thinking the job was closer to a done deal than it was, and it can help to remember that no matter how well interviews seem to go, anything can change and you never have the job until you have a formal offer. They can like you and think you’re great and still end up hiring someone else or no one at all. That can happen because they decide they’re looking for something slightly different, or someone else is more strongly matched with what they want, or they reshuffle things internally, or someone else brings a skill that they didn’t even know they were seeking but realize would be helpful, or tons of other reasons.

I don’t think they disrespected you, really! They should have gotten back in touch whenever they made a decision (whether that decision was to hire someone else, or just not to hire you, or to put the whole thing on hold, or whatever happened). But it’s so common for employers to view hiring as “we’ll tell you if we want to move forward, but otherwise assume we’re not” that there’s not a ton here to be angry about. If they had strung you along through even more interviews and work samples and blah blah blah, then yes. But two interviews isn’t such a huge time investment that this is an outrage.

I would try to see it as disappointing more than disrespectful.

Leaders of a Hollywood’s actors union have voted to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades, shutting down production across the entertainment industry after talks for a new contract with studios and streaming services broke down. What do you think?

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THE WORLD WIDE WEB—The existence of shared communal truths was dealt a critical blow at approximately 10:07 a.m. Monday, sources reported, when the last factual piece of information was deleted from the internet. “This morning, an anonymous editor changed Muhammad Ali’s actual birth date on Wikipedia to the wrong…

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CHICAGO—Remarking on her unusually pale skin and tired eyes, marketing department head Larry Kilmartin asked a female employee at Claremont Industries Thursday if she’d like to go home and put on some makeup. “You’re looking a bit rough, Sarah, so feel free to take part of the day to go home and freshen up with some…

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You can tell Purah invented it because it's got "Purah" in the name. Checkmate, archeologists.

It's a hot topic.

Oh, wanna learn about high pressure sodium lamps? Have I got a video for you.
https://youtu.be/U1dMlVwUsrA

What about that weird fluorescent adapter thingy?
https://youtu.be/JFJO3emhOyY

Technology Connextras (my second channel where stuff goes sometimes)
https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnextras

Technology Connections on Mastodon:
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This channel is supported through viewer contributions on Patreon. Thanks to the generous support of people like you, Technology Connections has remained independent and possible. If you'd like to join the amazing people who've pledged their support, check out the link below. Thank you for your consideration!
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Cloth Dolls
Judd
1990

I know libraries have lots of books and price guides on a variety of hobbies. I really have a hard time with weeding these things. Usually they circulate quite a bit, but they hang around forever. I am assuming that these older books are used for identifying collectibles rather than getting a valuation. Anyone have any insight into maintaining and weeding books on collectibles?

Regardless, I am curious about how collectors store these dolls so they don’t stare at you in an evil way.

Mary

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

The protesters called House Bill 2127 the “law that kills” and said it will leave those who labor outdoors at the mercy of their employers.

In the packed cafeteria of Pugh Elementary School Tuesday evening, Houston Independent School District (HISD) Superintendent Mike Miles worked hard to sell his wholesale campus reform program, called the New Education System (NES), to a resistant crowd, some holding signs that read “Our Children, Our Schools.” Miles boasted that 57 campuses had voluntarily opted into the program. 

“They love this,” Miles said. “That’s why teachers at 57 schools volunteered.”

As part of the state’s takeover of HISD—which ousted an elected school board and replaced its leadership with a board of managers and a superintendent handpicked by State Education Commissioner Mike Morath—Miles has previously said that 150 HISD schools would be under the NES by 2025. In March, the Texas Education Agency seized control of HISD, citing past failures to meet state standards at one high school. In addition to the schools that opted in, another 28 were required to participate because the schools are elementary and middle schools with students who “feed into” three high schools with lower accountability ratings. 

NES originates from the Third Future Schools, a charter school network Miles founded. It requires teachers to teach from a scripted curriculum. The district will decide campus schedules, staffing, and budgets. Students who are considered disruptive are pulled out of the classroom to attend via Zoom. In addition, Miles has promised teachers support for grading, making copies, small-group instruction, and a stipend of $10,000. Salary schedules for teachers at what he calls “NES-aligned schools,” or those that opted in, will remain the same while teachers at NES-mandated schools receive a salary bump and have to reapply for their jobs. As part of the sweeping changes, last Friday Miles eliminated up to 600 administrative positions from the central office. 

Since the Texas Education Agency appointed Miles to lead the school district, he has faced community protests by citizens opposed to the state agency’s takeover. But he has maintained that schools are embracing his changes. 

But interviews, email correspondence, and audio recordings of campus meetings that the Texas Observer obtained contradict Miles’ public relations message that there is widespread teacher support for his program. Teachers, parents, and community members from nine of the 57 schools we spoke to said they had no opportunity to weigh in; teachers were threatened with losing their jobs if their campus did not join the program. 

“Our hours will change. Our schedules will change. Our curriculum will change. But we have no input in it,” said Michelle Collins, a teacher at DeZavala Elementary School. “Neither do parents.”

According to the state education law, a Shared Decision Making Committee (SDMC) composed of parents, community representatives, teachers, other campus personnel, and a business representative is required to be “involved in decisions in the areas of planning, budgeting, curriculum, staffing patterns, staff development, and school organization.” 

While Miles has publicly asked principals to obtain school input, SDMC committee members from five schools in the program confirmed with the Observer that they never met to discuss the issue. SDMC members and teachers from other schools reported that even when they did meet, they did not have a vote in the decision. One teacher said their staff voted not to opt in, but then later saw their school’s name included in the list of 57 schools in the news. 

In an audio recording of Wainwright Elementary School’s SDMC meeting held July 10 and shared with the Observer, Principal Michelle Lewis told committee members, “If you’re not willing to dive in and do this with us, then this is not the campus for you.” No teacher representatives attended the meeting. 

Revere Middle School Principal Gerardo Medina did not consult with the school’s SDMC committee or with teachers. In lieu of discussion, he sent out an email on June 29  to campus employees informing them of his decision to join Miles’ NES-aligned program. 

“If you decide this is not something you want to commit to, you will be allowed to transfer,” Medina wrote. 

This gave teachers only a few days before this Friday to decide if they want to continue to work within the district. To avoid losing their state teaching certification, they have up to 45 days before the first day of school to withdraw from their contract. Miles, however, has said teachers can continue to transfer within the district after the deadline. 

HISD sidestepped parents and teachers’ complaint that they were not included in the decision making, and responded to the Observer via email, saying, “Principals at the 57 NESA schools were asked to consult with their teachers, faculty, and staff prior to opting in and after doing so, were ready to take bold action to improve outcomes for all students and eradicate the persistent achievement and opportunity gaps in the district.”

During campus meetings about Miles’ NES program, teachers raised common concerns: staffing shortages, staffing, and program cuts, longer work hours, and the loss of autonomy to tailor their curriculum to diverse students. 

Miles has promised teachers they could focus all their time on instruction. But parents and teachers the Observer spoke to questioned if there were enough teachers, particularly certified teachers who are trained and have accreditation, to fill those positions when the district has struggled to fill vacancies. 

“I cannot see how any of that is actually going to come to fruition when you can’t find classroom teachers in a regular situation,” Collins said. 

Ellen, a teacher at M.C. Williams Middle School, who requested we use her middle name for fear of retaliation, said her school recently lost five teachers to other NES-mandated schools offering higher salaries. They still have uncertified teachers filling vacant positions. 

Elective teachers also expressed concerns about losing their jobs. While Miles has promised that existing magnet and elective programs will not be supplanted by NES’ “dyad program” of uncertified, independent contractors teaching music and art, a school staffing model Miles provided principals shows that the number of elective teacher positions are limited according to the school population. For example, campuses with 450 to 600 students will only have six elective teachers, including P.E. teachers.

Additionally, teachers expressed misgivings about working longer hours—at least 5 hours more per week are required under the program—even with the promise of a $10,000 stipend. Juan Carlos Suarez said his principal at Bonner Elementary did not tell the staff about the longer workday. 

“They only gave us the schedules for the kids, which is shorter,” Suarez said. He added that teachers were told students were not to have any downtime. “To not give kids any downtime, for them to be productive every single second, or have any breathing room, it’s like we’re training them to be prisoners.” 

Teachers reported feeling pressured by potential job loss to get on board. Echoing what Miles told school principals at a meeting last Thursday, teachers shared that they were told that if any school in their elementary to high school feeder pattern did not meet the state’s standards, then all schools would have to be reconstituted. Like the 28 schools mandated to join Miles’ NES program, campus employees would have to reapply for their jobs the following school year. 

“The threat was if you’re not opted in, and your school becomes NES mandated, your faculty has to go through the whole rehiring and interview process all over again,” Collins said.

Wainwright Principal Michelle Lewis said in the audio recording, “We have been promised we do not have to reconstitute. … You gotta buy into what we’re doing to keep the job.”

Parents and teachers we spoke to expressed that, with all the required changes, they felt ill-informed and ill-prepared for the next school year, which begins in six weeks. 

“How are we trying to roll this out in August when we can’t answer any questions related to the day-to-day functioning of a building,” Collins said.  

Ellen reiterated Collin’s concern: “We have no idea what we’re walking into when those doors open.”

The post Teachers Strong-Armed to Get on Board with Houston Schools Takeover appeared first on The Texas Observer.

LOS ANGELES—Putting down their picket signs and picking up knives, striking SAG-AFTRA members announced Friday that they would disfigure their gorgeous faces if a contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers was not reached by midnight tonight. “Good luck finding your next heartthrob when…

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New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Taylor Taranto, the accused Capitol rioter arrested while looking for the Washington, D.C., home of former President Barack Obama, was indicted on felony firearms charges and four misdemeanors.

(Image credit: Alex Brandon/AP)

Here’s a new firmware update for the BMOW Floppy Emu disk emulator! This update has several small improvements and fixes for the Emu’s Apple II disk drive emulation modes.

 
Overrun Errors in GS/OS

The new firmware resolves a problem that could cause a “Fatal Error: Overrun” on the Apple IIGS with GS/OS. This error would appear when using Smartport hard disk emulation mode, with more than one hard disk image mounted, if you repeatedly exited and re-entered GS/OS (by exiting to BASIC or another ProDOS8 application).

I call the issue “resolved” rather than fixed, because the root cause is still not clear. What I found is that when exiting GS/OS for the second time, the computer sends a Control packet to the second hard drive (the non-boot drive) with a control code of $40. I haven’t found any documentation about this particular control code or what it’s intended to do. Other control codes are used for functions like ejecting removable media or resetting the disk drive. This particular Control packet has a very large data payload attached – about 1500 encoded bytes or 1300 real data bytes – which was overflowing the Floppy Emu’s receive buffer. Anyone have a guess what the control code $40 might mean?

 
Dual 5.25 Inch Drive Automount

In Dual 5.25 Inch Floppy emulation mode, automount of the most-recently-used disk now works for both drive 1 and drive 2. Previously only drive 1 supported automount.

 
Directories with Hundreds of Files

This firmware also fixes a UI problem that would occur if the current directory on the SD card had more than 212 files. Very large directories would exceed the memory capacity of the Floppy Emu, causing incorrect UI behavior. The new firmware will warn you if there are too many files and then limit the directory listing to the first 212. To avoid this, it’s recommended to use a hierarchical directory structure instead of flat directories containing hundreds of files each.

 
Get the New Firmware

You can download the latest Floppy Emu firmware from here. As always, I appreciate your feedback on firmware updates, whether it’s a problem report or just a “works great for me” confirmation. Enjoy!

LOS ANGELES—Shedding new light on the failed negotiations that led to the SAG-AFTRA strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers released a statement Friday that claimed actors were drastically overreacting to a proposal allowing studios to start manipulating performers’ limbs using mechanized cords…

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Honestly, if you think Present is bad you should've seen Past!

Today's News:

The forecast is unmoved by the pleas of those of us looking for change. Simply, there is no realistic opportunity for relief showing up in modeling over at least the next week and perhaps 10 to 12 days.

Here are rain chances over the next 7 to 8 days based on our interpretation of the European and GFS modeling:

There is one wrinkle in the forecast, and that comes on Sunday. A disturbance tracking into the Great Lakes may help erode the northeastern periphery of the ridge of high pressure juuuuust enough to perhaps allow for a weak disturbance to set off a few showers or storms from the northwest.

This seems most likely to occur in Louisiana, but I would say if you live in Liberty County or closer to the Beaumont area, your chances look marginally better than zero for a cooling downpour on Sunday.

But other than that, there’s no reason to make this forecast more difficult than it needs to be. Roughly 100 during the day, roughly 80 at night, copy, paste from now through late next week. Heat Advisories are likely most days with at least a slight chance of us getting put back under an Excessive Heat Warning again at some point. Is there a chance something unforeseen presents itself before next weekend to help cool us a bit? I guess so, but I don’t see where that comes from right now. So expect another week of the same.

It’s the nights that hurt

Throughout this long hot summer, currently the 6th hottest on record, we have set a total of zero record high temperatures at Bush Airport. But we’ve managed to set (or tie) 10 record warm minimum temperatures as of yesterday. How have other parts of Texas fared?

Most places have seen more nighttime low warm temperature records than daytime record highs in Texas. I omitted cities in the Panhandle and East Texas, as they’ve generally seen a bit less heat versus the south, central, and western parts of the state. Del Rio has had a hellacious summer, with 40 percent of their nighttime warm low records since June 1st set or tied this summer alone. Dallas and Houston stand out as the only two cities with no record highs (officially). Dallas largely escaped the worst of the June heat. If we take a look at this chart in a month, I expect that we would see a continuation of this trend of nighttimes being worse relative to normal than days.

Let’s look at this another way. The magic number in Texas for a really gross overnight is about 80° or so. Here is a look at how many 80° nights have occurred in 2023 so far (plus what’s forecast through next Thursday), compared to the annual record for nighttime lows of 80 or warmer.

In San Angelo, Abilene, and Dallas 2011 remains the benchmark summer for nighttime lows of 80 or warmer. Given the relatively cooler June, Dallas has a very long way to go. With more heat, San Angelo or even Abilene could come closer, however. Houston’s record of 26 overnights of 80 or warmer was originally set in 1962, but we should be only 5 days away from matching that by this time next week. For El Paso and Midland, their previous records look to be toast. El Paso’s was set in 2020 and Midland’s occurred previously in 2011. Austin and San Antonio should not be terribly far away from breaking their records for most 80 degree nights. Austin’s record was set in 2019 and again in 2020, while San Antonio’s stands from 2010.

Why does this all matter? Because heat becomes an exacerbated health and infrastructure issue when we do not cool off at night. Air conditioning units have to work harder. If poor climate controlled homes don’t cool down properly, then people (especially the elderly) become more vulnerable to heat illness. You’re simply being exposed to hotter temperatures for longer stretches of time. This is why we emphasize checking on the vulnerable. Don’t forget pets too.

The reason for so many record warm lows outpacing record highs varies from place to place. Some of it is attributable to the urban heat island effect and population growth and sprawl. Locally, the warm Gulf is likely a contributor as well, helping to increase humidity and raise the “floor” that temperatures can feasibly drop to overnight. But it does not explain these extremes entirely. Warming nights (and the warming Gulf) firmly fit the science behind climate change. Yes, that’s part of the reason too. When you put it all together it is making for a pretty rough summer, even by our hearty Texas standards.

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