Cowboy Who?

Happy Tuesday to all. It’s very early in hurricane season, but at the very least, we’re trying to make sure you have a reason to check us out each day with something interesting. Today we’ll have the first of four parts on the seasonal forecasting challenge for this particular hurricane season. We’ll discuss the forecast today, El Niño tomorrow, water temperatures in the Atlantic on Thursday, and then the risks regarding the season on Friday.

One-sentence summary

No meaningful tropical development is expected over the next week or so, though a system near the Azores Islands has a very low chance to briefly become something before the weekend.

Happening now: Strange system swirls near Azores

The fact that we’re even discussing the Azores in June is pretty ridiculous. Storms simply do not form here this early in the season. There’s an argument to be made that maybe 40 or 50 years ago, in this same scenario, we actually would not be talking about the Azores because the technology to monitor these things has improved so much. So in 2023, we can tag disturbances and even name lower-end systems that would not have had that done “back in the day.”

Regardless, it’s impressive and looking at satellite this morning, it’s evident that we have a system out there, however when you go “under the hood,” this is technically not a tropical or subtropical system at this point.

In a future post, we’ll get into the technicalities of these things; what is subtropical versus tropical versus extratropical or cold core versus warm core and why all these things matter meteorologically. The bottom line on this particular disturbance is that it has about 24 to 36 hour window to develop some warm core (tropical) characteristics, as it is moving over an area with sea surface temperatures that are anywhere from 2°F to 5°F above normal.

That said, the current 10 percent probability offered by the National Hurricane Center seems fair, as the water is still fairly cool for true tropical development here.

The medium range (days 6-10): Still quiet

There’s nothing new to add in this period today, so we’ll keep this simple. All’s quiet.

Fantasyland (beyond day 10): No changes in thinking

Yesterday’s post discussed why things may become more favorable for something later in the month. Nothing has changed today regarding that topic. The GFS operational model continues to spit out a somewhat spurious looking system around days 13-16. It continues to be mostly on its own bringing it northward toward the Gulf, lacking any real meaningful ensemble (multiple runs of the same model with tweaks) support for that at this time. We will get into the operational versus ensemble model differences sometime soon.

The 2023 seasonal outlook Part 1: The forecast

Alright, let’s talk the seasonal forecast. We will break this out into four parts over the coming days so as to not inundate you with too much stuff at once. Today, we’ll explore the forecasts. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss El Niño. On Thursday we’ll look at water temperatures across the Atlantic basin. We’ll wrap things up on Friday by putting this all together and discussing the risks.

The caveat I have to start with: Seasonal forecasts are mainly scientific research exercises. You should prepare each season as if it will be the one where a storm strikes. Below average seasons can be bad ones too. Last year was near average and produced Hurricane Ian. 1992? A pretty quiet season, but it produced a storm named Andrew. 1983? One of the quietest hurricane seasons on record. It produced a storm named Alicia for Houston. So whatever you see with respect to seasonal forecasts, it’s honestly not exactly useful information. Fun information? Sure. Useful? Not so much. Got it? Great.

The consensus for the upcoming season is “near average.” What does that mean? A consortium of AXA XL (a reinsurer), Colorado State University, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center have been aggregating seasonal hurricane forecasts for a few years now. These forecasts come from the private sector, government agencies, seasonal models, and universities. They have a great site where we can get almost a consensus forecast for the upcoming season, as well as see the outliers (what we refer to as an “ensemble forecast” in meteorology). The consensus for this season (which is two storms deep as of today) is for roughly 16 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes, which is near what an “average” season would produce.

I personally tend to put a bit more weight on Colorado State and NOAA’s outlooks because they’ve been at it for a long time, and they offer a good deal of insight into their processes. I will also speak highly of Weather Tiger, run by Dr. Ryan Truchelut. He also has a tropical newsletter, focused on Florida a lot but no less interesting that you may want to add to your repertoire. In my work in the energy industry, I have also crossed paths with CWG (Commodity Weather Group), Maxar, and Atmospheric G2 who all do good work in this space. You do this long enough, and you can find reasons to like or dislike any given forecast. Whatever the case, feel free to explore the individual forecasts there, but the consensus (16/7/3) is about as good as it gets right now.

That said, it’s complicated. Tomorrow, in part 2, we’ll talk about El Niño, and what it may mean for the season ahead.

Good morning. Before jumping into today’s post, I want to thank our long-time sponsor, Reliant, for their kind words about our new Atlantic hurricanes site, The Eyewall. Please check out their message at the end of this post, which has some good ideas about preparing for the 2023 Atlantic season in Houston. As a reminder, Reliant has sponsored Space City Weather since 2017—helping us keep the lights on literally and figuratively.

Tuesday

Following fairly widespread storms on Monday, the atmosphere remains disturbed today. As a result we should see another round of showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon hours today. However, I think coverage and intensity will be a bit less, with perhaps 50 percent of the region seeing rainfall. Partly to mostly cloudy skies this afternoon should limit high temperatures into the mid- to upper-80s. Winds, outside of thunderstorms, should be light. Lows tonight will drop to around 70 degrees.

Wednesday

This will be a bit of a transition day, with some scattered showers and thunderstorms, and partly sunny skies. Look for high temperatures near 90 degrees.

Thursday and Friday

As high pressure moves in, temperatures will go up. And truth be told, we’re going to flip a switch and go into full-on summer, with mostly sunny skies and highs in the mid-90s. Nighttime temperatures will be noticeably warmer too, bumping up into the mid-70s with that sultry humidity you know and either love or loathe. (Yes, some people do love the Houston humidity). Rain chances each day will be about 10 percent with the afternoon sea breeze.

Saturday and Sunday

More of the same. We’re taking highs in the mid-90s, sunny skies, and humidity.

Next week

Not to end this forecast on too much of a downer, but there is some question about how much hotter it might get next week. The upper 90s, probably. It’s a tiny bit early for 100-degree heat, but certainly not unprecedented. It will feel like a blowtorch regardless. Welcome to summer 2023, y’all.

Sponsor message

Congratulations to Eric and Matt on the launch of The Eyewall to bring the same no-hype forecasts we value so much here in Houston and Southeast Texas to even more coastal residents. At Reliant, we’re honored to have supported Space City Weather since 2017, keeping the site free and available to everyone year-round! Along with our fellow Houstonians and local businesses, their forecasts keep us informed and prepared in both calm and stormy weather.

As we’ve now officially entered the 2023 hurricane season, we want to remind readers that Reliant stands ready to support Texans and help prepare for any storms that come our way. Especially early in the season, it’s important to take the time to protect your family, home, and business in advance. Reliant’s Severe Weather Prep Checklist is a good place to start.

Here are a few other tips to keep in mind as you prepare:

• Reliant offers a wide range of backup energy solutions to help you ride out the storm. Have power at the ready — at home or on the go — with Goal Zero portable charging products. They can charge everything from phones to fridges and even life-sustaining medical devices.
• Be prepared in case of an electricity outage. Your utility company (like CenterPoint in the Houston area) maintains the power lines, utility poles, and other electricity infrastructure necessary to deliver the power you purchase from Reliant to your home. Contact your utility company to report an outage or check the status of a repair.
• Check out more preparedness tips and recovery resources at ReliantStormCenter.com. The site provides resources for before, during, and after a storm, including preparedness checklists and evacuation routes, weather and power outage updates, flood maps, safety tips, and more.

Just like the summer heat, storms are a part of life in Texas, so being prepared is critical. Like everyone else, we are hopeful this season will be a quiet one, but come what may, Reliant and Space City Weather will be here for you.

After about one month of dating, Taylor Swift and English singer-songwriter Matt Healy have officially called it quits. The Onion asked Swifties how they felt about the artist’s latest high-profile breakup, and this is what they said.

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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 first job isn’t what I signed on for and there’s no communication

I graduated college in the midst of the pandemic — May 2021 — and got a salaried job in my field a year later. The problem is, this is my first “office” job, and it’s work from home.

I was hired as a database analyst. Three months in, I was handed billing, and now that’s what I do full-time. I don’t mind that so much, but the bigger problem is that I don’t communicate with anyone else at the company practically at all. I’m not in digital meetings very often — around once every two months or so — so I can’t ask casual questions or even get to know my coworkers or boss. I don’t even receive replies to my emails half the time, and even those are really short and to-the-point. Is this … normal? Should I talk to my boss about this? I’m really confused and stressed and I don’t know what to do.

Yes and no. It’s very normal for email replies to be short and to-the-point. But if you’re asking direct questions in those emails, only hearing back half the time isn’t. And signing on for one job and being given a completely different one isn’t normal either, particularly if it hasn’t even been acknowledged and discussed.

My bigger concern is that this just doesn’t sound like a great job for you because you’re so isolated. I don’t love fully remote jobs for recent grads for this reason! When you’re new to the workforce, a ton of learning happens just by being physically around your coworkers — you end up picking up an enormous amount by hearing how someone more experienced handles a difficult call with a client, overhearing them hash out a problem in the cubicle next to you, or just being able to stick your head in someone’s office to ask a quick question. When junior hires are fully remote, both they and their managers need to work really hard to counter that disadvantage — and it doesn’t sound like your company is doing that at all.

Definitely start with a conversation with your boss — both about the fundamental change in your job (do you want the billing work?) and about the communication challenges. But unless your boss is very responsive to that and you see real changes, this is a reasonable thing to switch jobs over.

2. I’m being followed by security guards at work because I carry pepper spray

I am a top performer at my company. I carry pepper spray on my keychain. One of the managers asked me about the pepper spray hanging on my belt during my last shift. I said it was for stray dogs and wolves, and he said I should keep it away. I put it immediately in my locker. But when I walked into my shift today, right away I was called into my floor manager’s office and they told me to get rid of it because it poses a potential threat.

Then, in the middle of my shift, two security guards came to the floor to follow me. After my shift, I went to see my friend on her floor, and a manager and a security guard were following me.

The managers are very passive-aggressive and my job is hard enough without the security guards following me. I’ve also been warned I could be subject to random bag checks “if necessary.” I think their reaction was blown way out of proportion and very anxiety-inducing. Should I contact HR?

It’s very understandable for them to tell you that you can’t carry pepper-spray while you’re at work. But if that’s the requirement, they should simply tell you that and then enforce it. There’s no need to have guards following you! (Of course, that assumes there’s not more to the story, like if you locked it up the first day but refused to lock it up after that and were hostile when you were told to — but if that were the case, having guards accompany you as you go about your job would still be a really weird response.)

I wonder if there was some miscommunication somewhere, especially if you know your manager to generally be a rational person. Why not go back to her now, say you will be diligent about locking up the spray before your shift starts and won’t have it on the floor, and ask if there’s something more she needs you to do? If the problem continues after that, it’s definitely time to talk to HR, but have a real conversation with your boss first.

3. Accidentally played a few seconds of porn at work

I work as a lawyer in a government agency. While I have my own office, due to how our desks are set up and the thin walls, you can hear just about anything that goes on in the adjoining office.

I was scrolling on my phone this afternoon, and my volume was on, as I had previously been listening to a podcast. A pop-up came up and started, well, automatically playing a clip of extremely explicit content. I managed to close it after a couple of seconds, although it felt like an eternity. I’m reasonably certain my coworker in the next office heard it, although she often wears earbuds so I’m not positive (and I’m too horrified to ask/afraid of getting in trouble with HR or something). I don’t know if I should apologize and potentially draw attention to it, or just pretend it didn’t happen. What should I do?

Ignore it, wipe it from your mind, and move on. Most people have had the experience of something like that popping up when they didn’t expect it, and it’s unlikely that your coworker thinks you were intentionally watching porn at work. If it had gone on for a really long time before you noticed or something — like minutes, not seconds — it would make sense to pop your head in there and apologize. But a few seconds is well within the bounds of “pretend nothing happened and don’t risk making it even weirder by mentioning it days later.”

4. I reported my manager for racism, but HR won’t tell me what they’re doing about it

I reported my manager for being racist (she made racist comments about our staff behind closed doors), and the claim was substantiated. However, HR says they cannot tell me the specifics of what they are doing or the repercussions for her, due to confidentiality. I was told that they “have taken measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen in the future.” Can you please help me understand the confidentiality surrounding this issue especially if I was directly involved in the events I reported? I’m really struggling to accept this outcome.

That’s pretty typical for this sort of investigation. Workplace investigations and disciplinary actions are generally kept confidential because of employee privacy. That’s a principle that’s easy to understand when the issue is something like an employee’s work quality, but can feel less appropriate when there’s an wronged party or parties who have a legitimate interest in knowing whether the problem is truly being addressed … and that can be especially frustrating in a situation like yours, where you don’t know whether the consequences for your manager were proportionate and effective or whether they were a meaningless slap on the wrist.

Ultimately you have to think about how much you trust your company to handle something like this correctly — and you can also watch to see if you observe real changes post-investigation or not.

5. I’m supposed to delegate more of my work … but how?

In my career, I’ve always been the person other people assign work to to get it done. My current workplace is small and family-owned. Over the years, my workload has expanded and it’s getting impossible to get it all done without a lot of overtime.

I’ve been told I need to “delegate more,” but … how exactly does delegating work? It’s never been explained to me when I’ve asked. I don’t know what tasks I have the right to delegate, who I’m supposed to delegate to, what other employee even has the knowledge/skills to do the task, or what their desk looks like so I’m not overtaxing them with the reassignment.

My position doesn’t really have an equal. Nobody else does what I do. So am I supposed to take someone who’s never done this task before, train them, and hand off that task? Am I supposed to automatically know how this works? Is this something everybody else understands and I’m just missing it from my workplace education and need to catch up? How IS it supposed to work? What do I have to know to be a successful delegator?

I’m not thrilled that your manager isn’t helping you with this, because you can’t delegate without the authority to delegate. That authority can come from being someone’s manager, being above them in the hierarchy and knowing they should be handling X, or being told by your own manager or theirs that you can delegate X to that person. Without someone granting you that authority, it doesn’t really work — you can’t go around assigning tasks to people if they don’t know you have the authority to do that (or unless it’s obviously a natural fit with their job).

So the first thing is to go back to your manager and ask for guidance on what you can delegate and to who. If they’re vague, ask for specifics. If needed, use the words, “I don’t have the authority to assign work — unless you want to give me that — so I want to work out with you exactly what I can delegate and who has the skills and bandwidth to take it on.”

Once that’s in place, here’s some advice on the logistics of delegating — but get the clearer authority first.

CALDWELL, ID—Hyperventilating in panic from the end credits of one show to the opening theme of the next, local man Ferris Temple confirmed Tuesday that he was frightened after momentarily being forced to engage with reality in between TV episodes. “It was horrifying just sitting there with only the contents of my own…

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A mountain of unused fast fashion clothing items in the Atacama Desert in Chile has grown so large that satellites have captured clear images of it. What do you think?

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Despite portraying himself as a paragon of free speech, Twitter owner Elon Musk has repeatedly given into the requests of powerful autocratic regimes to silence their citizens. The Onion asked Twitter users how they felt about Musk’s censorship, and this is what they said.

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New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Thirty people in the U.K. could soon receive $1,983 each month if the trial (PDF) by independent think tank Autonomy secures funding. The basic income payments are estimated to cost 1.15 million pounds through the duration of the two-year project. During this time, researchers would assess the impact of the UBI cash on the lives of participants. A separate group who won't be receiving the money each month will be monitored through one on one interviews, focus groups and questionnaires to understand the difference in their experiences. The trial is two years in the making. Dialogue with local communities during that time found strong support for UBI and informed how the trial was planned. It focuses on two areas in the U.K., one in East Finchley in the capital of London, which is often associated with a higher cost of living, and one in central Jarrow in the northeast of the country. Local citizens would be able to put themselves forward to take part in the trial and participant selection would be random. Autonomy has said they would work to ensure the trial group is representative, however. "All the evidence shows that it would directly alleviate poverty and boost millions of people's wellbeing," said Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy. Stronge believes changes to the world we live in could also be a key driver in the adoption of UBI. "With the decades ahead set to be full of economic shocks due to climate change and new forms of automation, basic income is going to be a crucial part of securing livelihoods in the future," he said. A UBI could even impact the way people feel about work, some research suggests. In 2022, 19% of Americans said it would ease their frustrations with their jobs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A wayward Cessna Citation business jet set off military and defense alarms in the national capital area, before the plane crashed in Virginia. But big questions remain.

(Image credit: Erin Edgerton/AFP via Getty Images)

Thousands of low-income, Latino residents in Texas still do not have safe drinking water. In one El Paso colonia, some residents are using solar distillation to generate water from the air.

Editor’s note: This is part of Drifting Toward Disaster, a Texas Observer series about life-changing challenges facing Texans and their rivers. 

Mary Kelleher knew she was moving to a floodplain when she bought a farm on Fort Worth’s east side in 2003. But the risk was worth it. “I just fell in love with it because there was still so much country over here,” she said.

She did not expect that, nearly two decades later, the 100 acres she loved would nearly cost her her livelihood, propel her into public office, and drive her to become a flood control activist.

At first the high-water incidents were about what she’d expected for a floodplain: manageable if you prepared. Her house was on a high point on the property, safely away from flood-prone areas.

But the water rose faster than usual in 2010, killing some of her livestock and ruining thousands of dollars of equipment. “Our sheep were down by the barn, and they got confused. Instead of running to the house and up to high ground, they ran toward the water,” she recalled tearfully. “I still have nightmares about watching the sheep wandering off [into the water] and never coming back up.”

What’s more, the water didn’t return to normal levels for about eight months.

Tropical Storm Hermine played a major role in the flooding, local officials told her, adding it would never happen again. But massive flooding did happen again, just two years later. This time, there was no tropical storm to blame. Instead, many local people blamed the water release policies of the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD). On the strength of outrage over those policies and others, Kelleher was elected to the district’s board the following year.

“When I needed help from my elected officials, they looked the other way. I ran for election so no one would have to experience that at the water district,” she said.

“When I needed help from my elected officials, they looked the other way. I ran for election so no one would have to experience that at the water district.”—Mary Kelleher

For many years, the TRWD was a little-known, uncontroversial agency that provided water to numerous Tarrant County cities and was responsible for flood control for 11 counties in North Texas.

But critics charged that the agency had gone astray from its flood control mission, was riddled with nepotism, and was abusing its eminent domain powers to carry out its billion-dollar Trinity River Vision project, ostensibly designed to improve flood control but also to remake about 800 acres north of downtown into a San Antonio Riverwalk-type development.

Opponents question whether the project, which has gone by several names over the years, will improve flood control at all, although its continually increasing price tag and increasing focus on economic development has eaten up federal funds available for actual flooding problems in the area. They object to the water board’s practices in forcing some private owners to sell their land for the project, and then reselling the land to private developers. Since the project started, three new bridges have been built over dry land (where the river is supposed to be rerouted), plus one apartment complex, a brewery and a drive-in movie theatre in the area the water district has dubbed “Panther Island.”

A broad coalition of opponents recruited Kelleher to run. They ranged from billionaire hotelier Monty Bennett, a major conservative Republican donor in Dallas who joined the fight when the agency tried to  put a pipeline through his East Texas ranch, to former state Representative Lon Burnam, once named the most liberal member of the Texas House.

Burnam joked that he’s had issues with the water district since the 1970s when he drove from Austin, where he was studying at the University of Texas, to vote for a pro-environmental candidate running for the board. However, the Fort Worth native found out he didn’t qualify to cast a ballot: His parents’ home in Benbrook, a Fort Worth suburb, was not part of the patchwork map of areas included in the water district’s boundaries.

Two decades later, in 1996, Burnam won election to the Texas House from a Fort Worth district that included downtown and the future Panther Island. While in the House, he filed numerous bills to reform the TRWD.

The agency is also a textbook tale of cronyism: U.S. Representative Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, is one of the project’s biggest advocates and also the mother of J.D. Granger, who served for years, until 2022, as executive director of the Trinity River Vision Authority (TRVA), an unelected board that acts as a buffer between the public and the elected water board. Then-TRWD General Manager Jim Oliver also landed his nephew Matt Oliver a gig as TRVA’s communications director.

Kelleher is warm, joyful, and tough. Working in juvenile services for Tarrant County for two decades, she saw many harrowing cases. But her first term on the water board often brought her to tears.

She was officially censured by her board colleagues. Jim Oliver stonewalled her when she asked for agency records. Her relationships with other board members were fractious. Still, Kelleher inched the board toward further studies of flooding in other areas of Fort Worth, not only in downtown and the other places that the agency had treated as priorities.

“The water district started taking a much more proactive approach. If they knew that a lot of rain was coming, they would discharge depending on the levels of the lake,” she said.

Her critics still sought revenge. She was defeated in 2017, placing fourth among five candidates. But Kelleher ran again and won in 2021.

These days, the board sometimes has a kumbaya feel, with Kelleher often voting with the board majority. But she still dissents sometimes, usually objecting on eminent domain and equity grounds to what her fellow directors want to do.

Doreen Geiger is a longtime Democratic activist in Fort Worth. She’s also a founder, with Burnam, of the Water District Accountability Project, monitoring the agency’s dealings. They are regular visitors at the TRWD’s monthly board meetings.

Geiger has been a fan of Kelleher’s since she met her in 2013. “Mary is the best one on the board for a lot of reasons. She’s not there to financially benefit. She cares about water, flooding and good governance,” she said.

“Her being there has been critical,” Burnam said, although he thinks she’s been too quiet in her second term.

Geiger hopes more members like Kelleher will be elected in May to the two at-large seats (of five) that are up for election. Members serve four-year terms, and elections are staggered. Kelleher is up for reelection in 2025.

For Kelleher, the top concern is not the next election but making sure North Texas has the water resources it needs and the policies in place to control flooding.

“Water—you can’t live with too much of it, but you can’t live without it. I mean, it’s just probably the most important natural resource that we have,” she said. “We have to be good guardians of it.”

The post A Watchdog in the Water Wars appeared first on The Texas Observer.

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Hovertext:
I originally had a hamster but that seemed mean.

Today's News:

The conspiracy-peddling nonprofit made loans to founder Catherine Engelbrecht and issued contracts to longtime director Gregg Phillips that may have violated state and federal law, a watchdog complaint filed with the IRS alleges.

DES MOINES, IA—Speaking at a kickoff rally shortly after launching his candidacy, former Vice President Mike Pence told supporters Monday that his decision to run for president came after God convinced him he could get a six-figure speaking deal from it. “I asked the Lord in a moment of prayer whether running for…

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CUPERTINO, CA—Muttering “Come on, come on” under his breath as he attempted to bind the two objects together, an unprepared Tim Cook was frantically taping a battery to a pair of sunglasses ahead of his keynote at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, sources confirmed Monday. “I’ll call them, uh, the all-new…

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Copr is a build-system for anyone in the Fedora community. It hosts thousands of projects for various purposes and audiences. Some of them should never be installed by anyone, some are already being transitioned to the official Fedora Linux repositories, and the rest is somewhere in between. Copr gives you the opportunity to install 3rd party software that is not available in Fedora Linux repositories, try nightly versions of your dependencies, use patched builds of your favorite tools to support some non-standard use-cases, and just experiment freely.

If you don’t know how to enable a repository or if you are concerned about whether is it safe to use Copr, please consult the project documentation.

This article takes a closer look at interesting projects that recently landed in Copr.

chatGPT-shell-cli

This year it seems that anywhere you look, ChatGPT is there. This time we have a lightweight ChatGPT and DALL-E client, written in Bash, called chatGPT-shell-cli. Look for the “Commands” section at chatGPT-shell-cli for usage. This Bash script can be especially useful for systems without standard dependencies such as Python or Node.js.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides chatgpt-shell-cli for Fedora 37, 38, Fedora Rawhide, RHEL8, RHEL9, and others. To install it, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable kylegospo/chatGPT-shell-cli
sudo dnf install chatgpt-shell-cli

Note that an OpenAI API key is required to use this script. You may create an account and get a free API Key at OpenAI.

Hyprland

Hyprland is a beautiful looking compositor for Wayland. It provides dynamic tiling with multiple layouts, smooth animations, and endless customization options. Similarly to Sway or i3, it has a simple configuration file that doesn’t require you to know the programming language it was written in.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides Hyprland for Fedora 37, 38, and Fedora Rawhide. To install it, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable carlwgeorge/hyprland
sudo dnf install hyprland

Wezterm

Wezterm is a modern terminal emulator that runs on all the major operating systems. It has built-in support for terminal multiplexing, rendering images, emojis, GPU acceleration, and many more features.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides Wezterm for Fedora 37, 38, and Fedora Rawhide. To install it, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable zjlin/majesty-dubbed-skyline
sudo dnf install wezterm

htpdate

htpdate is a time synchronization client for the HTTP Time Protocol (HTP). Is it better than Network Time Protocol (NTP) which is used in Fedora by default? It is not! You should use NTP if you can. However, NTP sometimes doesn’t work because of proxy or firewall restrictions. That’s when HTP and htpdate become very useful.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides htpdate for Fedora 37, 38, Fedora Rawhide, Fedora ELN, RHEL8, RHEL9, and others. To install it, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable whitehara/htpdate
sudo dnf install htpdate

A lawsuit is asking the state of Texas to clarify what exactly the exceptions written in the law entail.

Good morning. Welcome to the first full week of The Eyewall, now a true tropical site since we had our first storm. A quick reminder, you can subscribe to our daily emails or reach our social media sites at the right on a desktop. If you’re on your phone, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see the sign up form, as well as links to our social media sites just above the bottom. Facebook, Twitter, and the Gram are fully functional now. Still some work to do with TikTok. We’ll get there.

We’ll start this week by tying a closure ribbon around Arlene. It’s somewhat instructive to just look at how much rain has fallen over Florida for the last week.

A nice reminder for hurricane season that impacts from storms are not always straightforward. While there has not been any real widespread flooding in Florida, there have been a few wild storms and certainly some localized flooding over the last week tangentially associated with Arlene. The highest June 1 through June 4 rain total I found in Florida as of yesterday morning’s CoCoRaHS reports was just shy of 8 inches of rain near Parrish, FL, which is just southeast of the Tampa Bay area in Manatee County. It should hopefully be a bit of a calmer week across Florida this week.

One-sentence summary

The tropics look fairly inactive over the course of this week, with little to watch.

Happening now: Not much

It’s quiet out there. Whatever is left of Arlene is getting funneled east and north toward a rather beastly upper level low that’s expected to pester coastal New England and Atlantic Canada through the week with rain chances and cooler than average temperatures. This is not a tropical feature, but it’s nonetheless interesting.

The National Hurricane Center has also tagged an area way, way out in the Atlantic south of the Azores for a 10 percent chance of development. That would be bizarre, but as of now it’s not a high probability risk. Aside from that, there’s nothing out there that’s a candidate for development this week.

The medium range (days 6-10): Still expected quiet

Not a lot to speak of for the next forecast period from the weekend into next week. The New England upper level storm exits, and another may try to follow suit for the Mid-Atlantic. The basin itself looks pretty quiet, which begs the question: Where should we be looking for development in June anyway?

When we think about early to mid June, we think about two areas mostly: The Gulf and the northwest Caribbean. Though the map above cuts off in 2015, you get a pretty good idea of what history favors. In that sense, Arlene was not exactly abnormal. By far, the highest density of development in mid-June, however is the northwest Caribbean. So if you want to look for something, look there. Which brings us to…

Fantasyland (beyond day 10): Maybe watching the northwest Caribbean

So, if you are an avid model watcher, you may have noticed the last few runs of the GFS operational model picking up on what I derisively refer to as a “scareicane” on days 14-16 of the model run. The reason I call it that is because the GFS model in particular is notorious for taking relatively minor disturbances on day 10+ and inconsistently blowing them up into scary looking Gulf or Caribbean storms. In other words, if it looks crazy on day 15 or 16, it probably is.

That said, if you dig a bit deeper, there is some reason to at least pencil in the June 20th (or later) period as one to perhaps watch for our next development window. As you can see above, there is support for lower than average surface pressure in the northwest Caribbean in about 2 weeks, but nothing that exactly stands out. However, we’re going to have a pattern more favorable for rising air, an ingredient tropical systems like, begin to move toward the eastern Pacific and perhaps far western Caribbean, or so it seems, around that time. Usually, when I see these signals in the modeling, it means that there may be something to come, but the GFS operational model is probably a solid 7 to 10 days too quick showing it out there. Judging by the potential for some of these better ingredients lagging the end of the run by a few days, that makes sense here. So that pushes us out closer to June 25th, give or take. A somewhat better signal appears to show up in the Pacific, so we’ll probably see something attempt development there before our next chance on the Atlantic side. That said, wind shear looks to remain quite strong, so as of now, all of this falls very much under “curiosity” more than concern.

In sum: Conditions may begin to get a bit more favorable for some sort of tropical system by late June, but it’s best to ignore any operational models showing rogue day 14+ hurricanes right now, as that is a very unlikely outcome. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

In the meantime, please feel free to comment or drop us a feedback form to tell us what you like or dislike about these daily outlooks. You can expect this sort of update each weekday morning through October or November, with more frequent updates when there are storms threatening land. Feedback is always valued, but especially so right now as a new site. Thanks for your early support!

Good morning. So far we have eased into summertime this year. For the entire month of May, temperatures ended up slightly below normal. And the first several days of June trended cooler as well. That party, I am sorry to say, should end this week.

By Thursday or Friday, as high pressure builds over the region with a warm southerly flow, I expect high temperatures to reach the mid-90s and stay there for awhile. This will be the beginning of what I like to call “Mid summer” in Houston, the second of our four phases of summer.

Monday

But we’re not there yet. In the absence of high pressure, and with a moderately disturbed atmosphere, we’ll see decent rain chances for the next few days. The potential for showers and thunderstorms will be highest today, with 60 to 70 percent coverage during the afternoon and early evening hours in Houston. Rainfall amounts will be highly variable, but on average most locations should pick up 0.25 to 1 inch of rain, with perhaps areas south of Interstate 10 seeing slightly higher accumulations. As these storms may be hitting about during rush hour, take a little extra care in getting home this evening. These showers, along with mostly cloudy skies, should limit highs to the upper 80s. Rain chances are lower overnight, with lows falling to around 70 degrees.

Tuesday

This day should be similar to Monday, in terms of showers popping up during the afternoon hours. However, I expect less coverage of storms. Skies will be also be partly sunny, so highs may nudge up to 90 degrees in some locations.

Wednesday

This is a bit of a transition day. We’ll still see some showers, but as we’re moving to a hotter and less rainy pattern, look for partly to mostly sunny skies and highs in the low 90s.

Thursday and Friday

Rain chances will fall back to about 20 percent each day, with just a slight chance of a sea breeze shower in the afternoon. Otherwise expect mostly sunny skies and highs in the low to mid-90s.

Saturday, Sunday, and beyond

The forecast period from this weekend into the middle of next week simply looks mostly sunny and hot, with high temperatures in the mid-90s. While we can’t entirely rule out rain chances, the pattern does not look to produce much in the way of precipitation. As I said at the outset, summer proper is on the way.

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

A reader asks:

My team recently created a new position. A colleague from another department got wind of this and asked when I planned to advertise the vacancy. I’m in no hurry to fill the position, so I said “hopefully by the end of the year.” He let me know that his wife is very qualified for the position and that I should consider her. I haven’t even written the job description yet, so it’s impossible for him to know whether or not his wife is qualified for it. A few days later, he asked if I’d advertised the position yet and said to keep him posted because he wants to make sure his wife gets in. A day or so after that, he handed me her resume and assured me again that she’d be the right person for the job (remember the job doesn’t even exist yet).

Here is where I should tell you that this particular colleague has been an unkind, uncooperative, disrespectful, manipulative pain in my backside the entire time we’ve worked together. I would never accept any professional advice from him, least of all give him input on my hiring decisions. If I hired his wife, I would not put it past him to utilize their relationship as leverage in unprofessional ways.

The wife emailed me a day or so later and informed me that she already has a job, but is considering changing fields and asked for an appointment so that I could tell her more about the [non-existent] job to help her “determine if it would be a good fit” for her. I was half-amused, half-incredulous and had 30 minutes to spare, so I accepted the appointment. The entire interaction was underwhelming. She’d ask vague questions like “so, what does your department do?” and expect me to expound for her. She didn’t dress professionally, obviously hadn’t browsed the website before coming in, etc.

I did eventually post the position, the wife applied, and it turns out she is actually an intriguing candidate on paper and has perhaps the most relevant experience of all the applicants. I haven’t begun interviewing yet, but my initial instinct is not to touch her with a 10-foot pole (because of the husband) and that instinct is reinforced by the “informational interview” we already had.

On the one hand, perhaps it isn’t fair to allow my opinion of the husband to impact the wife’s candidacy. But on the other hand, she involved her husband in her candidacy from the beginning, so I don’t think she can reasonably expect her candidacy to be evaluated in a vacuum. Hiring her could turn out fine. But it could also be a complete disaster, and I’m very concerned about the latter coming true (and have good reason to believe it could). Where do you stand on this?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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

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

1. I’m in trouble for occasionally arriving a few minutes late

I recently quit the worst job I ever had, in favor of one I like quite a bit better. Mostly.

But my new job has a very perilous commute, involving two sets of train tracks, a drawbridge, and a four-mile stretch of single lane traffic with no turn-offs. This means that if anything goes a little bit wrong, I can end up very late to work. On a good day, it takes 15 minutes to get there. On a bad day, it takes over an hour.

I’ve been here for three months, and there are no complaints about the quality of my work. On the contrary, I’ve received a lot of praise! However, today my manager sternly pulled me aside and I received my “fourth and final” talking to about my “frequent lateness.” Apparently it’s becoming a “morale issue” and other coworkers — I’m 100% confident I know which, by the way — are starting to complain to her about my “excessive tardiness.”

What does that look like? Well, I’m supposed to be there at 8:00. Once a week, maximum, I will maybe clock in at 8:01. Every other day, I’m there at 7:55 at the latest, usually closer to 7:45-7:50. I leave my house at 7:00. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve showed up later than 8:04, and when that has happened I always make sure to call my boss as soon as I know that, say, a car is on fire on that one-lane road, or the drawbridge is up. Even then, the latest I’ve ever clocked in was 8:07, which I think is pretty good with that commute.

I don’t really know what to do about this. The problem is threefold. One, I have at least one coworker who is so unbelievably obnoxious that she is monitoring my time clock or desk and complaining to my boss without talking to me first, Two, my boss is encouraging and enabling this kind of behavior and penalizing me for it. Three, the idea that this company encourages such micromanaging that they do not even allow for a single minute of wiggle room.

I’ve managed people before, and if one of my employees complained to me that one of her colleagues, who was otherwise good at their job and frequently worked late, was routinely clocking in one minute late, I would tell her to mind her own business. But since I’m not the manager, what am I supposed to do about this? I don’t know how to talk to my manager about it and this is honestly making me so upset that I want to start job hunting again.

Are you in the kind of kind of job where being a few minutes late is genuinely an issue (like you’re supposed to cover phones that start ringing exactly at 8:00, or where you need to unlock a door at that time or similar)? If you are, you might need to start leaving 10-15 minutes earlier (since it sounds like that would make the issue go away).

But otherwise, getting a “final warning” about your “frequent” lateness when your “lateness” has mostly been one minute, plus a few instances where where you were four to seven minutes late, is ridiculous.

Is your sense that your boss is aware of what your “lateness” actually looks like, or is she just hearing other people say you’re late and assuming it’s something more severe? Ideally you’d go back to her and say, “I took what you said really seriously and looked at my login times for the last several months to find the lateness you were talking about. Most days I’m early. Once a week, maximum, I am one minute late. There were four times when I was late by four to seven minutes. Given the unpredictability of the route I need to use to commute, I’d be grateful to have a 10-minute grace period if you agree it’s not affecting my work.”

But unless your manager wildly misunderstood what was being reported to her or the work truly needs precise to-the-minute punctuality, this kind of focus on a minute here and there (less time than many people spend getting settled at their desks in the morning) bodes badly for the culture there.

2. Would it be strange to weigh my food at a business lunch?

I hope you will help me and my husband settle an argument. I am in Overeaters Anonymous and have a lunch coming up with my boss’s boss. I need to bring a scale to weigh my food as part of the program. My husband thinks that will be off-putting for my skip level boss. I just plan to say I have a food plan from a nutritionist and it requires me to weigh my food. It’s true and I don’t think anyone would care. What do you think?

I’d love to say no one will think anything of it since how you manage your food and your health is no one else’s business. But in reality, enough people would have a negative take on it that I’d avoid doing it at a business lunch.

To a lot of people, it would make an odd impression and your boss’s boss could think it shows strange judgment to do at a business meal. She might also worry about you doing it if you ever dine with clients.

Is there a compromise that could meet your goals without bringing the scale along, like looking at the menu beforehand so you can select something likely to fit your program or even calling the restaurant ahead of time to figure out the best way to stick to your nutritional goals while you’re there?

Again, ideally people shouldn’t care, but it’s definitely not a “no one would care” situation.

3. My company won’t let me take a year-long leave-of-absence

I have been with my employer for 10 years and, in general, like my job and have been a top performer for my entire tenure. I am at the maximum vacation day allotment and logistically at the top of my career path as a department manager. I work in financial services. My mom recently passed at 65 and I am now thinking about some of my life choices.

My husband and I purchased a travel trailer. I really want to travel the U.S. My thought was to take an unpaid leave of absence for a year. I intend to come back and then continue to work for another 10 to 15 years. My employer will not allow any unpaid time off. Is this uncommon? I don’t want to have to quit and then get rehired and have to start all over again. My employer doesn’t offer a pension, so that is not a consideration, and I would pay my medical expenses out of pocket.

Your employer’s approach is definitely typical. It’s not realistic for them to hold your job open for a year, so they’ll have to replace you — and they may or may not have an opening that fits you when you return. If someone is an absolute superstar, sometimes they’ll be able to negotiate something like this … but more typically, you’ll be told that you’re welcome to contact them when you return and see what they have open, but that they can’t guarantee anything. (Plus, there are a lot of things that could change during your time away — restructuring, a new manager, different business needs, budget cuts — so it’s understandable that they don’t want to lock themselves into an arrangement that might not make sense for them in a year.)

4. How do I prevent future employers from finding out about my personal tragedy when they google me?

In my field, it’s pretty normal and expected to have a personal website that people can look at to see your work, get in contact with you, etc. In order to find other people’s websites, I usually just type the person’s name into google. I have a really unique name, which means that googling my name also pulls up stuff I don’t want associated with my professional life.

Specifically, I coordinated a couple of GoFundMe campaigns for a close relative’s medical bills related to a terminal illness and later for their funeral. Due to the amount raised and the uniqueness of my name, those GoFundMe campaigns are within the first couple of results that show up when you google my name. I do not come from wealth, and while campaigning for my relative’s bills I wrote very personal pleas for assistance. I am incredibly thankful for having been blessed with a terrific personal network that shared those fundraisers all over social media and for all the donations we received during what was an incredibly difficult time for my family.

However, as a very junior person in my field, I worry that having those GoFundMe’s associated with my name will harm my career. I worry I will always be associated with a personal tragedy that will distract from the quality of my work and prevent myself from being taken seriously by future employers and peers. How do I minimize the harm that this can cause to my career? Should I give future employers a heads-up? Would I be expected to talk about it? How should I go about discussing it, if I need to bring it up?

You don’t need to worry about this at all. It’s not something you need to disclose, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll be asked about it; in fact employers aren’t likely to think about at all. When employers google candidates, it’s really common to come across this sort of thing, and it doesn’t seem strange or forever connect the person with a personal tragedy or anything like that. It’s clearly something private, and it’s about a very normal part of life.

It’s similar to finding someone’s wedding registry or marathon times — obviously far more sad, but in the same category of personal life stuff that’s normal to have out there and which no one will think has any bearing on your candidacy or work. Don’t worry about it at all. (And I’m sorry about your relative.)

5. How to tell my boss his second-in-commands are making it impossible for me to do my job

I’ve only been employed at my current company for about three months, but so far the director has been really impressed with me and already has offered me a promotion, which is great!

Everything was going well until the director (who is the owner) went on a month-long paternity leave and left his two bumbling second-in-commands in charge. One of them is just plain useless and is happy to collect his pay and not do a whole lot else, whereas the other is incredibly two-faced, power-hungry (he’s fired two people in the week that the director has been on leave), and just generally doesn’t see value in my area of the business (except it’s a legal requirement, so it’s not really relevant whether he sees value or not).

Yesterday, I received an email from the director asking for an updated timeline on my team’s progress. He also said that he’s unhappy with the meetings that he scheduled between myself and the second-in-commands to create a new documentation suite constantly being cancelled. The reason they get cancelled is because his goons never show up! I’m actually currently typing this out in the boardroom where I’ve been sitting waiting for them to show up to a critical meeting that was due to start half an hour ago. I’m aware of how bad this looks on me, and I know I need to clue him in, but how do I do that without looking like a tattletale?

You definitely need to let him know so he doesn’t think you’re to blame. Just be matter-of-fact about it: “I agree — we’ve had several meetings scheduled but they haven’t shown up. I’ve been following up to reschedule, but if you can let them know you’d like them to prioritize it, it might help.”

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

A reader writes:

When the pandemic began, I was the member of my team who volunteered to go to the office to check the mail and do tasks that could not be done at home since I live alone, live closest to the office, tend to have the most tasks that cannot be done remotely, and liked the change of scenery a day or two a week when everything was locked down.

My company fully reopened offices two years ago, but only required coming to the office if you had reason to do so. My boss loves working from home and only requires the team to meet in person maybe once a month.

The rest of my team, including my boss, has developed a habit of asking if I can do certain tasks for them when I’m next in the office; I have only unexpectedly seen a member of my team at the office five times since March of 2020. It has gotten to the point that I spend more time doing favors for everyone than I do my own work when going to the office.

So tonight I had the straw that broke the camel’s back incident. My team was supposed to meet at the office tomorrow, but the boss sent a text message around 8 p.m. to the team saying that because two teammates have been sick and another is on vacation, she was canceling the in-person meeting and that we only had to go to the office if we needed to. Within 10 minutes, I got texts from each of my teammates (directly, not on the group chat) and my boss, asking if I could do X, Y, and Z for them. I got on the group chat and responded: “Since everyone on this chain sent a message to me implying that they also have things to do there, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the office tomorrow.”

I should emphasize that I have not just been letting this stew for the last couple of years. I have let my teammates and my boss know that this has been irritating me and I was able to set the boundary with my teammates to not expect me to make special trips to the office for them since it fully reopened; I only would go there if I have work to do, and they would have to take care of their own emergencies. However, I am pretty sure that is why everyone sent their requests to me, including the boss, off of the group chat. For my teammates, it was so the boss didn’t see it, and for the boss, it was so that the team didn’t see it.

It’s been an hour and I have not gotten a single reply from anyone on the group chat or directly. I have a feeling that there is another group chat going that I am not part of. I guess that I will find out tomorrow whether or not I’ll be seeing my team. Either way, I have no intention of doing their work when I go to the office tomorrow. I am wondering if I handled this right, or if there may have been a better way to go about this.

I can see why you’re fed up — especially if things have gotten to the point that you’re spending more time on other people’s work than your own. But the solution to that was exactly what you’ve already done: talk to your boss about it and ensure you’re empowered to decline to do everyone’s in-office work for them. Now you just need to start holding firm to that boundary.

In this case, why not reply to each person who asked you to handle their work and say, “I can’t do that — I’ll be busy with my own work tomorrow. As a reminder, I’m no longer available to cover other people’s in-office work; you will always need to come in to do that yourself.”

Your boss’s request to do work for her while you’re there requires slightly different handling, but that could just mean saying, “I had set aside tomorrow to work on X. We had talked about me no longer covering other people’s in-office work since it was starting to take up all my time and keep me from my own job. I can do this tomorrow if you want me to bump back X, but I’m concerned about backsliding into the pattern we were trying to avoid.”

I don’t love the message you sent to your team instead of those options. Writing “since everyone on this chain sent a message to me implying that they also have things to do there, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the office tomorrow” is a bit scoldy/schoolmarmish, when you could have simply set your own boundary and held to it. I can understand why you said it — you’re frustrated and feeling taken advantage of, and what you wrote certainly isn’t an outrage or anything like that. But to me it indicates that you’re still choosing frustration rather than the much simpler option you’ve been given: the ability to say no.

You don’t need to get involved with whether people show up when they need to or as frequently as they need to. You just need to hold your own boundary, which is to decline to pick up their tasks. How they handle it from there is up to them; you’re not responsible for that.

(By the way, you also have the option of telling people you don’t plan to be at the office on the day they’re asking about, which will be even harder for them to argue with. If you wake up and decide you’ll go in that day after all, so be it.)

Residents of Sesame Street,

Thanks to all of you who have stopped by these past two days to say hello, howdy, or hola, and then asked for honey. Thank you also to our repeat customers who came in the next day saying greetings, or good day, and then asked for grapes. Your combined ability to use the same letter of the alphabet in your salutations and searches for items is truly impressive.

Each of you has also been incredibly kind in welcoming us and asking questions. All sorts of questions. Questions that our experienced retail grocery team has never had to answer before. So while we try to remain as helpful as possible, please be patient if we cannot answer questions such as how bubbles are formed, why people have different hair colors, and how butterflies fly.

What we can easily answer are questions related to our items. For example, how much does this loaf of bread cost? Or how many loaves of bread do we have left? In fact, there is absolutely no need to have to count each individual loaf of bread. No more “one loaf of bread, two loaves of bread, three loaves of bread.” We’re not sure why this method of stock inventory was used for Hooper’s items, but from now on our team is more than happy to just tell you the number.

Along with the positive changes, we want to address some more drastic changes that may affect your Hooper’s Store experience. The most significant change is our price strategy. Hooper’s Store, as the name implies, is a business. Yet our accountants have calculated that Hooper’s is generating exactly ZERO DOLLARS OF INCOME.

We do not mean Hooper’s is taking in less revenue than it spends. We mean that by every standard metric there is to measure economic exchange, it appears Hooper’s has never traded actual money for goods. Meanwhile, Hooper’s costs are at an all-time high. For example, we calculate Hooper’s is spending forty-one times the amount on cookies as our next busiest store.

Now, we are not accusing anyone in the community of theft. No, the financial records contain drawings of items you have been generous to give the owners, Alan and Mr. Hooper, over the years. Things such as balloons, numerous large foam letters of the alphabet, and even an entire extra ledger for hugs. While we are sure the former owners appreciated your gifts, as of today, we are now only accepting US currency and major credit cards for our goods.

In addition, we wanted to highlight three policies that we are also putting into effect immediately:

• No more free cookie samples.
• Youths under the age of thirteen must be accompanied by an adult. There is no exception just because the child is red. Or a furry monster. And no, kid monsters wearing gray wigs, a cane, and speaking in low muffled voices do not count as adults.
• For hygiene and safety purposes, no individuals are allowed to live in our trash cans.

Finally, please note tomorrow morning we will be closed as we are removing the old “HOOPER’S STORE” sign and installing a new one with our corporate name and logo: “WHOLE FOODS.”

Sincerely,
Amazon.com, Inc.

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