Lisa Loring will be remembered as a Hollywood icon for playing the gloomy Wednesday Addams at age 6. She went on to fill roles on As the World Turns and the Girl from U.N.C.L.E..
(Image credit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
A new study shows that humans have the genes for a full coat of body hair that evolution has rendered inactive, a discovery that may someday be used to treat millions of balding Americans. What do you think?
Hovertext:
I just worry kids will never know the pleasure of convincing your exhausted mother that you'll shut up in exchange for the king size candy bar and 6 pounds of Ninja Turtles episodes.
Lisa Loring, best known for being the first person to play Wednesday Addams on the original "The Addams Family" sitcom, has died. She was 64. Loring began her career as a child, first starting out as a child model at age three before appearing on an episode of the 1960s TV series "Dr. Kildare." When Loring was six she landed the role of the gloomy child Wednesday Addams on "The Addams Family," which ran from 1964 through 1966. Loring would also return to the role for reunion specials, including "Halloween with the New Addams Family" in 1977.
"I learned to memorize before I could read," she said in regard to learning her lines. She went on to say:
"I didn't know how to read yet, I hadn't been to first grade, so [producer David Levy] wasn't prepared to see children that young, that he didn't know. But I had my hair down to here [indicates her waist], my mother put a pretty dress and little white gloves on me, and I had a little black patent leather handbag. And he thought I was so adorable -- he told me this later, when I was an adult -- he said, 'So what I did was, I asked you pout first.' And he loved that."Then, because she couldn't read, David Levy read through both the characters' lines for her first."He planned to do it two or three times for me, [but] the second time I came back with the lines verbatim. Then I did a screen test, one of five girls, and ultimately it was [Gomez Addams actor] John Astin and David Levy who picked me."
Loring added that the cast of the original show — including Carolyn Jones, John Astin, Jackie Coogan, Ted Cassidy, Blossom Rock, and Ken Weatherwax — was like a "real family" to her. Known for her non-sunny disposition and fondness for mutilated dolls, Wednesday, first created by cartoonist Charles Addams, became a fan-favorite character, eventually being played in later years by Christina Ricci (whom Loring called "a perfect Wednesday") and more recently, Jenna Ortega. Ortega's viral dance scene from Netflix's "Wednesday" series was actually a partial tribute to a similar dance Loring performed on the original series. As Ortega said:
"I knew there were certain things I wanted to do. I paid homage to Lisa Loring, the first Wednesday Addams. I did a little bit of her shuffle that she does. Of course they cut out of camera when I did do it, but it's there! I know it is!"
Regarding the original dance, Loring said:
"My dialogue in that is so funny. 'You've got to be cool, you've got to be hip!' - this was the '60s. And I saw it and I thought, 'Who taught me how to dance like that? I can't dance like that.' It had like eight million views or something ... I watched it and I hadn't thought of it in years."
Loring was born Lisa Ann DeCinces on February 16, 1958. Her career also included the TV series "The Pruitts of Southampton," the soap opera "As the World Turns," and B-movies such as "Blood Frenzy", "Iced", and "Savage Harbor." Loring was first married at age 15 in 1973, the same year she gave birth to a daughter. Loring would marry three more times and have another child.
Loring's death was confirmed on Facebook (via Deadline) by her friend Laure Jacobson. Jacobson wrote:
"It is with great sadness that I report the death of our friend, Lisa Loring. 4 Days ago she suffered a massive stroke brought on by smoking and high blood pressure. She had been on life support for 3 days. Yesterday, her family made the difficult decision to remove it and she passed last night...She is embedded in the tapestry that is pop culture and in our hearts always as Wednesday Addams. Beautiful, kind, a loving mother, Lisa's legacy in the world of entertainment is huge. And the legacy for her family and friends — a wealth of humor, affection and love will long play in our memories. RIP, Lisa. Damn, girl...you were a ton of fun."
Loring's daughter, Vanessa Foumberg, added:
"She went peacefully with both her daughters holding her hands."
Some of Loring's other work included roles in such projects as TV series "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.," "Barnaby Jones," and "The Phyllis Diller Show," the TV movie "Gabe and Walker," and films "Way Down in Chinatown" and "Doctor Spine," her final acting job. Like many former child stars, Loring's adult life was tumultuous. As People magazine reported in 1995, Loring "turned to drugs and eventually heroin" in the early '90s, but got clean in rehab. "I was disillusioned about my adult life," she said. At the time, she hoped for comeback work, stating: "I will not do any schlock. But I'd love to do a Quentin Tarantino film."
Read this next: The Moments That Defined TV In 2022
The post Lisa Loring, The Original Wednesday Addams, is Dead at 64 appeared first on /Film.
This has been a weird winter for Texas in general, and Houston in particular. Normally, during a La Niña winter, we see warmer and drier than normal conditions. We have checked the box for warmth—December was about 2 degrees above normal, and January is going to wind up about 5 degrees above normal. But as for rainfall, this winter has been anything but normal. Some areas of Houston have exceeded their normal allotment of rain for December, January, and February just during the last 10 days.
Those 10-day rain totals are recapped below, and occurred courtesy of cold fronts tapping into deep Gulf moisture after warm spells. This accumulated rainfall brought some bayous and waterways in northwest Houston to near bankfull on Sunday. Although we are going to remain in a wet period through Thursday, I do not think we’ll see enough heavy rainfall to cause the overall situation to change. That is to say, our soils will remain waterlogged, but I don’t anticipate any widespread flooding. Some clearing will finally come Thursday night.
The other big story this morning is the cold. If you’ll recall last week we waffled a lot on whether a front was going to push all the way into Houston. Well, this shallow Arctic front made it it all the way to the coast, and as a result we’re going to be cold all week, with highs generally in the 40s to 50s, and lows in the 40s. This is much colder than we anticipated even a couple of days ago. That is the end of the story for Houston, but for areas just to our north and west there is a rather nasty ice storm unfolding.
In areas such as Burleson, Brazos and Washington counties a light glaze of ice is possible on the roads today and tonight. Further away from the coast in Texas, significant icing is expected in places such as Austin and Dallas, from now through the middle of the day on Wednesday. This will seriously impact travel to and around those areas, and may cause serious power outages as ice accumulates on power lines. Areas that fall under this winter storm warning are shown in pink in the map below.
Back in Houston, we are going to see a chilly, gray day with scattered (mostly light) showers today as the cold air mass moves into Houston. Temperatures later today will range from the upper 40s for inland areas to lower 50s close to the coast. No travel issues are anticipated in the Houston metro area from the scattered precipitation, but it will be cold, with a northerly wind at about 10 mph. Low temperatures tonight drop to the low 40s in Houston, with upper 30s possible for inland areas.
This will be another cold and gray day with high temperatures generally in the upper 40s. We will again see decent rain chances, about 40 percent, with mostly light to moderate showers. Lows will drop to around 40 degrees on Tuesday night, with blustery northerly winds at 10 to 15 mph, and higher gusts.
The atmosphere will become more perturbed by the middle of the week, with a few disturbances moving through ahead of another cold front. The bottom line is that these, too, will be cold and gray days with high temperatures of about 50 degrees, and lows in the 40s. However, rain chances will be better, especially during the Wednesday night period. Although I don’t expect flooding issues to occur, areas north of Interstate 10 may pick up an additional 1 to 2 inches of rainfall through Thursday of this week, with 0.5 to 1.5 inches for areas south of the freeway. Rain chances should finally start to ebb by Thursday afternoon as the next front moves through to clear us out.
Behold, the Sun does exist! We’ll see it on Friday, with mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper 50s. However these clearing skies will also allow for colder temperatures on Friday night. Lows will drop into the 30s, probably, with the potential for a light freeze for inland areas. We’ll see.
This weekend looks to see mostly sunny skies, with highs in the 60s. Yes, my friends, a sunny weekend. It should be something. We’ll be on the start of a warming trend by Sunday, with highs climbing into the low 70s by the early part of next week.
This post, boss said Pride shirts violate the dress code, how much notice should I get for work travel, and more , was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Boss said Pride shirts violate the dress code
My partner, A (he/him), recently received a call from his grandboss that A.’s shirt during an all-hands Zoom meeting was “unprofessional” and he can no longer wear it to work. The shirt in question is a standard T-shirt, navy in color, clean with no holes, and says PRIDE in rainbow letters across the front. The meeting was totally internal and the team works variously in the office, which is not public, or on job sites. (Think outdoor construction projects where workers occasionally interface with clients. A wears clothing appropriate for weather and safety on job sites.) The meeting occurred on a Friday morning, and the call about it wasn’t made until the next Monday. A publicly identifies as queer and has been open about the fact that he is in a relationship with me, a nonbinary trans person (they/them).
Grandboss cited the company’s dress code, which states: “Appearance must be neat, clean, and professional. Any casual apparel such as shorts, tight-fitting, or revealing clothing is highly discouraged. Any apparel with offensive or inappropriate graphics, verbiage, or competitor’s logos is strictly prohibited.” When A pointed out that other employees in the office also wear graphic T-shirts and other casual attire, Grandboss said, “I’d make the same call if it was MAGA, BLM, left, or right.”
A’s company is headquartered in a very LGBTQ-unfriendly state, but we live and work in an extremely LGBTQ-friendly state with explicit legal protections against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. A works in an extremely small, specialized industry, and it would be very difficult for him to find a new job unless he were willing to change careers (or relocate to a different state, but that’s not really on the table for a lot of reasons, including the groundswell of anti-trans state legislation and the fact that I would lose access to a nice pension).
Is there any way A can reasonably push back on this, as he really wants to, or is he better off just biting his tongue? I appreciate any insight you can give; the situation is really frustrating and upsetting.
Wow. A’s grandboss is trying to say the shirt is political … but it’s a shirt promoting inclusion and protection of other humans. (Same for BLM.) In citing the dress code’s prohibition on “offensive and inappropriate” verbiage, is he saying that protecting LGBTQ people is … offensive or inappropriate? What a disgusting edict.
Whether to push back comes down to A’s sense of how that will go over in this particular company (headquartered in an LGBTQ-unfriendly state), his own capital there, and how much he wants to push back. I’d love to tell him that yes, he absolutely should escalate it but — especially given that he wants/needs to stay at this job if at all possible — he has the best sense of what will be safest for him there. If he thinks it’s likely to end in the company backing up the boss (probably by arguing the shirt is “political”) and tension with his chain of command, it might make sense to simply file this away as a damning fact about his grandboss — and his company — but not act. On the other hand, if he thinks someone in HR (and certainly his DEI team if they have one) would be receptive, it could take less capital than you’d think. (Any chance the company has a LGBTQ resource group? If so, they’d be helpful, both in figuring out whether to speak up and in deciding how.)
To be clear, not acting wouldn’t mean what the grandboss did is okay; it would just be about A prioritizing his safety within the company as long as he needs to stay there.
2. How much notice should I get for work travel?
I am in a position that does not currently require travel, but was asked to fly out to my company’s HQ location for a couple of days for an in-person meeting (it would take 10 hours to drive there). Unfortunately I can’t go because I’m out of office that week, but they only gave me 10 days (six business days) of notice before asking if I could travel to this meeting. Is that amount of time reasonable for a role where I am not normally expected to travel, and if not, how many days advance typically would be reasonable? My sister thinks anything less than three weeks would be unreasonable, but since this would be my first ever business trip after almost six years with my company, I wanted to see if we’re both off-base.
You’re both off-base. It’s not strange to be given 10 days of notice for a trip, even in a job that doesn’t normally require travel. Sometimes things come up without a ton of notice.
Typically it’s reasonable to expect at least a few days notice (unless you’re in a job that’s travel-heavy), but even then something could come up faster and you might be asked to travel. If you can’t do it because of the short notice (for example, if that wasn’t enough time to arrange overnight child care or so forth), you’d explain that — but it’s not inherently unreasonable for an employer to ask.
3. I want a new job but I don’t want to screw over my team
I’d like to get a new job, potentially within my company or potentially somewhere entirely new. I’m fortunately in a position where I can walk rather than run away; as long as I’m somewhere else before the end of the year I’ll be a happy camper.
However, I like everyone on my current team and I don’t want to leave them in a difficult spot if I can help it. And if I left now, they would be in a tricky spot indeed. Two of our most senior team members left within the past months, and several other teammates (including the one that would have to assume my responsibilities should I leave) have been dealing with very unfortunate personal issues which caused them to have to take several weeks off previously.
I know I should prioritize my needs over making everyone else’s lives easier, but I do have the flexibility to stay for at least a few more months before I start to get antsy. I’ve cleaned up my resume and cover letter, but have not applied anywhere yet since I worry I might get a great offer that I would want to take ASAP.
Do you have any advice on how to best navigate this? How much of a grace should I give before I start applying to other places? Will I be burning a bridge by leaving to early? Am I totally off base and should just start applying places now?
Leave on the timeline that works for you; if you want to start applying now, start applying now. Having people leave, even at inconvenient times — even at very inconvenient times — is a normal part of doing business, and your organization will figure it out. You will not burn a bridge unless the place is wildly dysfunctional (and if that’s the case, all sorts of other normal stuff you do could burn a bridge too, and you can’t cater to irrationality).
Keep in mind that if you wait, other things could happen that could make it even more inconvenient for you to leave a few months from now! Someone else could leave. You could be assigned a huge project that they’re counting on you for. Your boss could get sick. There’s no guarantee that waiting will make things better, and it could make them worse. Go when it’s convenient for you.
4. Asking for a clothing allowance
I work for a nonprofit. 90% of my work is wholly unglamorous work-from-home stuff. Increasingly, though, I’m called upon to be a spokesperson for our organization on TV. I’m happy to do it because it is great for our organization, but it’s not at all what I was hired to do (we didn’t even do TV when I started).
Here’s the thing: I’m naturally kind of scruffy, don’t wear makeup, buy all my clothes secondhand. TV standards for women’s appearances are so high! Is it okay to ask my boss for a small annual stipend for me to buy smart clothes and makeup for TV? The only other employee who acts as a spokesperson is male so always wears the same suit and no makeup and no one cares either way.
This is such an interesting question, because the way you’ve framed it, it is a business expense but different managers will see it different ways. Some managers will think, “You have to buy clothes for work and sometimes those clothes need to be professional, and that’s not an expense your employer will cover for you” … but others would be open to it if you pitch it the right way. It’ll depend on your manager, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say something like, “With the increased amount of TV I’m doing, I think it’s important that I look the part by wearing clothes and appropriate makeup that represent us well. I would literally never buy anything like this and doing TV for Org is the only time I’ll use it, so would you be willing to consider that a business expense?” She may or may not agree, but it’s not an outrageous thing to inquire about.
Just as a point of interest — although it’s not the same situation — my brother-in-law, who is a TV news reporter, has been reimbursed for (some) clothing, makeup, and at one point haircuts. He notes that it’s been cut back on in recent years though.
5. VP missed our call for a complaint I’m trying to escalate
I’m trying to escalate an issue, and my VP offered to meet. She gave me a particular time for a phone call, but then she didn’t reach out and I was left hanging. I went to her because the two levels between me and her aren’t listening. There’s no official route for issues like these except for an ethics complaint line, and this isn’t an ethics issue. What do I do?
Follow up with her! Send an email saying, “I’m guessing you ended up with a conflict for our 2 pm phone call yesterday. Is there a time we could reschedule for? I’d like to talk with you if at all possible.” (Also, if you can, arrange it so that this time you’re calling her rather than the reverse.)
This post, a DNA test revealed the CEO is my half brother … and he’s freaking out , was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
My dad gave the whole family DNA ancestry kits for the holidays, and it turns out the CEO of the company I work for is my half-brother.
Dad’s not the kind of guy to gift everyone DNA kits as a way of telling us he had a secret love child, so I don’t think he knew he had another kid. We’re all grown-ups and know where babies come from and that things aren’t always what we expect, so I have a feeling this is a shock to everyone. The CEO’s company bio says he’s a “proud Texan, born and raised.” Dad was stationed in Texas ten years before he met and married my mother. The timeline all fits and so do the genes, I guess.
None of my siblings have initiated contact and neither has Dad.
I’ve met the CEO a few times but he works out of the corporate headquarters across the country from the smaller division where I work. About a week after I got my results, an email went out from the head of HR stating that all staff had to take a refresher training on nepotism. The training also included a new clause that said something like “staff are not entitled to privileges personal or professional if familial relation by genes or marriage to executive or management staff is known or unknown or discovered during employment.” Other than being clunky verbiage, I felt like it was aimed at me. I found out no other branch had to retake the nepotism training and the email only came to our office. My manager later pulled me in personally to ask if I had any questions about the policy. She was vague and uncomfortable, and I said I wanted to know why nobody else was brought in 1:1 to talk about the policy and why no other branch had to do the training. She just kind of ignored the question and said she was just following instructions, so now I think this was aimed at me.
I’m happy to drop the whole thing. I’m sure he feels as uncomfortable as I do about this, but to weaponize HR and make my coworkers waste a whole day on mandatory training just to put up a boundary seems messed up. A simple personal email of “Hey, I saw this. I don’t know what to make of it. Please give me space and don’t bring it to work” would have sufficed. Even ignoring it would have been fine by me too since I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the one to initiate a conversation about this without having talked to my dad first. Dad has gotten his results back, obviously, and he’s avoiding the conversation. This is a big elephant in the room made a little harder by the fact that I work for this guy.
What bothers me the most is that weaponizing HR with the intent to make sure I know not to ask for perks feels messed up. I’ve been with the company for five years and have a great reputation. At least I did. What do I do?
I wrote back to this letter-writer and asked, “To make sure I understand, would the CEO have been alerted to these results too, and been able to see your name and connected it to you? Is the company small enough that he’d even make that connection?
Yeah, the company is about 200 full-time employees mostly in our two states. He follows a lot of employees on LinkedIn and I’m in a marketing role so my team is in touch with corporate a lot. I’ve only met him in person a few times, but some projects bring me in close proximity to him and his direct staff. The DNA test has an app, and you get notifications regularly via email and I think push notifications on your phone if you opt-in. I have no way of knowing what he opted into, so I assumed he didn’t know until the weird training.
He has now blocked me on LinkedIn and all social media, and has blocked all my siblings and my parents. I think the jig is up. How do I make sure my job is secure?
Oh no. What a situation.
And what a reaction from the CEO! I mean, yes, this is awkward, but to handle it via a nepotism training targeting only your office and pointedly remind you that you’re not entitled to any special privileges (including “if a familial relation … is discovered during employment”?!) and then having your manager do that weird one-on-one meeting with you to make sure you didn’t have questions?
As if you were about to start demanding a raise and a promotion and your own private bathroom because you share a father. Without even talking to you first.
I don’t want to come down too hard on him because he’s obviously freaking out (and who knows, he might be reeling from learning someone he thought was his father is not his father and maybe he sees you as the walking embodiment of that) … but this is a bit bananas.
I think you’ve got two options. The first is to ignore it. Demonstrate through your very pointed lack of response and lack of requests for special treatment that nothing has changed on your side at work. Figure that maybe his frenzy of self-protective activity will die down in the next few weeks as he adjusts to the news.
The other option is to send him a note that says something like, “I want you to know this isn’t something I plan to follow up on in any way and as far as I’m concerned, it’s your private business. Please don’t worry about it coming up at work.”
The tricky thing, of course, is that a note could make things worse — now you’re confirming you got the news too and you are speaking of it, which can upset people who are working hard to forge boundaries against ever discussing a thing. Or it could make things better — if he’s been worried that you’re going to show up in his office wanting to bond as siblings or that you’ll gossip about the situation at the office, here’s assurance that you’re not. It could set him at ease. There’s no knowing.
The flip side of that is that if you ignore the whole thing, there’s no guarantee that will set him at ease either. He could remain horribly uncomfortable and look for opportunities to push you out, or might hold you back professionally. (Like if you’re up for a promotion that would have you working more closely with him, will he squash that? Will he subtly discourage others from working with you? Reveal a discomfort when your name comes up which makes other people assume there’s something unsavory about you?)
He seems so freaked out right now that personally I’d go the note route; I’d just feel better having said something. But that’s not necessarily the right course of action.
In theory, a third option could be to talk to HR and tell them you’re worried about repercussions to the CEO’s discovery. Interestingly, there’s a law that could be in play here — the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of genetic information, including info about an employee’s genetic tests or the genetic test of a family member. GINA would make it illegal for the CEO to fire you based on what he’s learned. HR would presumably care about that. In reality, though, if the CEO wants you gone for personal reasons, it’s probably going to happen at some point — and even if it doesn’t, there are still ways for his discomfort to harm your career, even if he doesn’t intend it to (see examples above).
Honestly, and I’m sorry to say it, I’d start putting out feelers at other companies. I’m not saying to quit tomorrow — you can give this some time and see how it plays out — but you’ve been there five years, it’s not an unreasonable time to start looking around anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt to have already done some groundwork if you do realize at some point that you’re better off moving on.
MINNEAPOLIS—Succumbing to intense societal pressure, local software ChatGPT was reportedly forced to take the bar exam Monday even though its dream was to be an AI art bot. “I can’t help but feel like I sold out a bit by not following my dreams to be a generative art model,” said the chatbot, adding that it felt empty…
The creator of the KonMari method says there are other things that spark joy besides a totally tidy home.
(Image credit: Seth Wenig/AP)
PHILADELPHIA—As the players stood around on the field during a timeout in the NFC Championship game, San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa was reportedly heard quietly admitting to Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata that being held feels nice. “I’m just saying, it’s a tough game, and being able…
Good morning. We just wanted to offer a Sunday post for a couple reasons. First, obviously, after this week’s storms, we know a lot of people are going to be sensitive to the mention (or sound) of thunderstorms. Secondly, we have more confidence in today’s forecast.
What’s changed since Friday? Honestly, not a whole lot. We’re getting areas of heavy rain, as expected. But I think both confidence and intensity of heavy rain has increased enough for us to place the area under a Stage 1 flood alert on our flood scale.
We have already seen parts of western Harris County, which were hardest hit this past week in terms of rain see over 2 inches of rainfall. The Weather Prediction Center has kept much of the area under a slight risk (level 2/4) of excessive rainfall for today.
Basically, given Tuesday’s rain, the fact that today’s rain is performing or overperforming to this point, and the shorter-range model guidance for the rest of today, we felt it necessitated an upgrade in messaging. So, please watch for areas of street flooding, especially across western Harris, northern Harris, southern Montgomery, Liberty, and Chambers Counties today, east to Beaumont.
Radar as of 8:35 shows numerous areas of heavier rainfall, especially near Liberty and Cleveland, as well as across northern and western Harris, Montgomery, and Wharton Counties.
With a front essentially crawling across the area today, repetitive rounds of storms are likely, and that’s why we have the flooding risk. Rain tapers to isolated showers this evening.
We want to be clear about today’s forecast. Two things can be true simultaneously: 1.) Some of the storms later this morning or this afternoon could be strong to severe. 2.) This setup looks absolutely nothing like the one that caused Tuesday’s severe weather and tornado outbreak.
This looks to be more of a classic Houston severe weather setup, with the risk for isolated cells producing gusty winds, hail, or yes, even a brief spinup. The odds of this are modestly higher east of Houston into Louisiana. I wouldn’t dwell on this too much about this today, but I also did not experience a tornado on Tuesday, so I get it. It’s a good idea to just monitor the weather through the afternoon to be safe.
Additional showers are possible on both Monday and Tuesday this week, but at this time, we do not expect heavy rainfall. That chance may increase later in the week, however.
The front is going to essentially stall out over the area. What that does is create challenges for temperature forecasting. I would anticipate Monday being a cool day right now with temperatures generally in the 50s. All bets are off on Tuesday and beyond. Ensemble guidance projects high temperatures on Tuesday could be as low as 50 degrees or as warm as 75 degrees. Basically, the exact location of the front will determine how warm or cool we get in the days ahead. Have your wardrobe planned for multiple seasons this week. Eric will detail this more on Monday. We will update (if needed) again later today.
Hovertext:
I think we can run out the clock of we get a doomsaying AI going.
It’s time to add another family of emulated older technology to the Internet Archive.
The vast majority of platforms within what we call The Emularity happens because of the work of MAME Team, which has spent over 25 years adding support for tens of thousands of machines, platforms, and tools to their breathtaking system. The amount of arcade machines and computers they now cover is so huge, a site exists just to keep track of what they don’t emulate… yet.
While we have an excellent family of emulators assisting MAME in making programs work in the browser, the vast majority of the items in our Internet Arcade (and Turbo Edition), Console Living Room, and Handheld History collections mostly have MAME to thank.
And now another can as well: The Calculator Drawer.
The Calculator Drawer is smaller than these other collections, but they possess a hearty collection of graphing and simple Calculators, emulated in MAME and with an additional layer of presenting the calculator itself, as a clickable graphical object, which you can then do math and graphing on. (You also need to turn many of them on, so look for the “ON” button to get things going.)
If Graphing Calculators were not a part of your childhood or previous life, they may be a bit of a steep climb to get to understand. If you still want to mess around with them, a stash of manuals for most of the models in the collection has been provided.
So, go forth and literally multiply.
However, if you wish to stick around a little bit longer…
The main reason you can do this wonderful “click on an image of a calculator as if it was a real object inside the browser” is because of a feature in MAME called MAME ARTWORK. It is one of a couple solutions to a major problem in emulation, especially of handheld devices, or tools like synthesizers or plastic toys.
The problem is that the actual “emulated” part of many of these machines are a tiny set of LED lights, or a line of LCD numbers, which is where all the circuitry presents its output, while the vast majority of the item is a static piece of metal or plastic with paint, labels and physical heft to the item. Compare, for example, the output of The Little Professor, emulated:
…to what the actual form factor of The Little Professor was:
We can all agree that while one could make the keys for 0-9, OFF, ON and so on “work” on a keyboard input, it would be so much nicer if a representation of the Little Professor calculator was on the screen to type into, pressing keys by a touchscreen or via a mouse (while leaving the keyboard option active).
MAME has two different ways it can render an emulated device that needs “additional” drawing to augment the part of itself that’s reflecting the screen or lights of the device.
One is to have the MAME system itself do a line-drawing of the interface the machine is using. That is, actual vector-based drawing of the buttons, screen and other decorations to help users understand what they’re looking at. To provide a counter-example of The Little Professor, here’s a Chess-Master Diamond system in the plastic realm:
…and here’s what you’ll see when you boot it up in the MAME system:
..definitely pretty sweet, for sure!
And while it’s very nice this option exists, there’s something compelling about a photograph of an original item being shown on-screen along with interactivity, and the best part is how it doesn’t require a deep lore of programming.
It’s called The MAME Artwork System, and while it’s not completely easy to get a hang of, it’s been refined since being introduced in 2006, and it could use help.
There are some amazing efforts that have been done to make these “layout” files for items emulated by MAME, with the best clearinghouse for seeing this work at Mr. Do’s Arcade. By leafing through the collection of artwork made so far, you can see how much better the interface is with a graphical addition. There’s over 1,400 different systems that have gotten the Artwork Treatment, a major success.
But that’s still a tiny percentage of the systems that need to time, focus, and skills of volunteers to make them come alive in this way.
People are often inspired to want to help emulation efforts, since they’re the future of software’s history, but it can be daunting to find a place in, to ramp up to the mass of intricacies and standards of a decades-long project. But perhaps, out there, is someone, maybe even you, who would find it a delight to help acquire excellent photographs of vintage hardware, and collaborate on designing the layout files for them.
This effort will allow us to add more calculators, devices, and hardware out of MAME to be playable at the Internet Archive, and you’ll join the immortal names of the creation of this longstanding project.
Until then… enjoy the Calculators.
The post A Calculated Move: Calculators Now Emulated at Internet Archive appeared first on Internet Archive Blogs.
PALM BEACH, FL—Wistfully remarking how things had changed since he left the social media site two years ago, former President Donald Trump reportedly returned to Facebook Thursday to find everyone engaged and having babies. “Oh wow, Kevin and Kim had a cute little kid after all those years of trying—good for…
WASHINGTON—In an effort to encourage those who were in possession of sensitive items to bring them back as soon as possible, White House officials announced Friday that a new drop box outside the National Archives would allow former presidents to anonymously return classified documents. “Any past commander-in-chief…
Meta has announced that Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will be reinstated, two years after he was suspended over incendiary posts about the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. What do you think?
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The cool thing is we only have to do the Olympics once.
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First told to an 8-year-old who pretended not to laugh.
There still needs to be more entertaining monster horror, especially in the werewolf subgenre. MY ANIMAL looks to fill that in this lesbian lycanthrope tale of young love. Playing at Sundance Film Festival, the story is less horror than an exploration of identity and acceptance. Werewolf stories wrap them in a transformative beauty, and writer Jae Matthews with director Jacqueline Castel unleashes it with a measured skill that makes MY ANIMAL reside alongside beloved Ginger Snaps.
A full moon shines as Heather (Bobbi Salvör Menuez), clad in only a long, white nightgown, kneels on the floor. The only light in the room comes from the full moon, visible through the softly billowing curtains and the television playing a black-and-white werewolf film. As Heather looks up at the moon, blood flows from her nose as her body contorts and cracks. The reflection of the moon in her eyes is stunning. The film on television talks about love making the man a beast, but love also makes the beast beautiful. Heather growls and crawls across the carpeted floor, only her glowing, full-moon eyes discernible in the shadows. At once, it is terrifying but remarkably breathtaking.
Her mother, Patti (Heidi von Palleske), enters the room, but Heather is no longer there. Worried, Patti heads to the woods to search for Heather. Her husband, Heather’s father Henry (Stephen McHattie), right behind her in the desolate, snowy, wooded forests, warns Patti to go back inside as his eyes glow. The sound of a growl and scream echo then the title card appears. The feral, natural beauty of the opening is one of the most gorgeous I’ve seen.
It’s unclear how much time passed between the opening and the next scene. But Heather works out in her room with women’s bodybuilder posters adorning the walls. Chains and cuffs adorn her bed. Castel clues viewers into the past as Heather helps her mother, passed out in the living room, into bed. She pulls off her shirt, and the audiences see a long scar across Patti’s side. Heather is more of a parental figure now than her and her twin brother’s mom, Patti. She helps them train in hockey along with her father.
Her life is a monotonous work routine, caring for her brothers and mom and fetching alcohol from the store for her mom. That injury changed how the two interact. Her mom speaks to her like Heather has a debt still unpaid. Heather’s close to her father, who understands, as a fellow werewolf, how she grapples with herself. Heather’s life changes when she meets Jonny (Amandla Stenberg), there for regionals in figure skating. As the pair get closer, Heather struggles to accept her werewolf aspect. Like the film she watched, there is a hope that love can make her beautiful.
Coming-of-age tropes are everywhere, including coming out, loss, sexual experience, drugs, and even a hairstyle change. Castel’s distinct directing style and colors make My Animal unique. Lesbian stories are still too few on the ground in genres like horror, which have an array of subgenres. The music is perfect in the film, sounding gorgeous in all the silent moments. The 80s synths sound wildly close to another fun monster film, Near Dark, with a bit of a Tangerine Dream surrealness. If you close your eyes, you think you’re listening to the Near Dark or Firestarter soundtracks. That makes me love MY ANIMAL even more.
Throughout Heather’s life, someone is unwilling to accept her identities. The coach for the adult hockey she wants to join denies her because she’s a girl. Her mom feels like her werewolf identity automatically makes her more her father’s child. Werewolf transformation is often a metaphor for queerness, and here Heather is both. Her gender and lesbian identities tragically still wind up being the most significant issues. But you cannot embrace one aspect of yourself while resenting the other. She lives a restrained life, fearing what might happen if she unleashes her passions.
Toward the end, I thought of the werewolf version of Near Dark‘s bar scene, and it does on a smaller scale. But this movie is less horror. Rather, the focus is Heather’s growth. Though the ending felt rushed, it doesn’t detract from MY ANIMAL being a sensual, gorgeous film. Transformation is not only a physical change. It includes reworking how a person engages with themself, and that’s where MY ANIMAL, a werewolf coming-of-age film, resides.
The post [Sundance Review] MY ANIMAL appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.
The Idea Fund, a Houston-based re-granting program funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and administered by DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses, has announced 12 projects selected to each receive $5,000 for 2023.
Now in its 16 round of grants, The Idea Fund has supported more than 150 art projects involving over 500 artists and collectives. This year was juried by a panel that included Mesha Arant, Manager of Administration and Programs at 3Arts in Chicago, Illinois; Vinod Hopson, artist and Idea Fund grantee, Rounds 8 and 15, Houston, Texas; and Leslie Raymond, Executive Director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This year’s recipients includes 10 individual artists and 2 collectives exploring an array of topics, including Black culture, Queer cinema, communities facing gentrification, and society’s relationship to nature. Selected projects include installations, workshops, film screenings, and more. Learn about the selected projects below, via descriptions provided by The Idea Fund.
Tay Butler, “Sudden Death,” 2022, found replica NBA jerseys, screen printed text. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Tay Butler – The Play
The Play is a live performance and installation work that reorients basketball away from an output of Black culture, and reframes the sport as a tool to serve Black culture. With support from The Idea Fund, Mr. Butler will develop a live performance and installation work intended to bring viewers into the entanglement of community, collective assembly and the uncertain path to achieve basketball greatness.
Baird Campbell, “The Big Queer Pop-Up event Lacrima Cristi at Project Row Houses,” 2022. Image credit: courtesy of Michael Robinson.
Baird Campbell – The Big Queer Pop Up
The Big Queer Pop Up seeks to expand the reach of queer cinema beyond traditional cinematic spaces through pop-up screenings in community centers, bars, parking lots, and other public spaces. As a guerrilla-style initiative, this project will allow The Big Queer Pop Up team to meet queer people where they already are and activate existing community hubs through projection, and not in the rarified spaces to which queer film is often relegated.
Brian Ellison, “Community Covid Year,” 2020, digital photo. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Brian Ellison – Napoleon’s Vanishing Point
With support of The Idea Fund, Mr. Ellison will develop the community film Napoleon’s Vanishing Point. Asking –What would it look, sound and feel like to capture a community that is rapidly disappearing due to being swallowed by gentrification? Napoleon’s Vanishing Point tells the story of Mr. Ellison’s neighborhood in Houston’s Third Ward and the people in it. His block is one of few blocks that still communes daily via barbecue, card games, music, dominoes, disagreements and laughter.
Jake Eshelman, “Telling of the Bees Field Study,” 2021, digital pigment print, 24 x 36 inches. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Jake Eshelman – (Bio)Diversity Bonds: Mapping Houston’s Ecological Heritage through Native Bees
(Bio)Diversity Bonds is a hybrid art exhibit and guided nature walk with the Houston Arboretum. (Bio)Diversity Bonds empowers Houstonians to identify, celebrate, and support the many native bee species that have helped create the unique coastal prairie ecosystem that cradles our city, its people, and our astounding (bio)diversity. With support from The Idea Fund, Mr. Eshelman will conduct a visual field study of local pollinators in the Houston Arboretum prairie and develop an expert-led community nature walk that enables participants to meet and identify our native bee populations firsthand.
Marley Foster, “What Protects, Embroidery detail,” 2022, grandmothers’ used fabric, artist’s old clothing, community member’s & loved ones’ donated fabrics, embroidery, 4 x 5. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Marley Foster – Flag Diary (What Protects)
Flag Diary (What Protects) is a new program of public works developed through a series of community quilting workshops. With support of The Idea Fund, the workshops will accompany an exhibition of the same name at Art League Houston. Workshops will focus on patchwork patterns and embroidered text, considering quilts as familial diaries and testing how these complicated objects speak the language of public discourse.
Naomi Kuo, “Corner Home,” 2018, mixed media on paper, 24 x 18 inches. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Naomi Kuo – Garden Connections
Garden Connections is a project that traces the web of relationships that are built up over the exchange of seeds, home-grown veggies, and gardening know-how in the Asian American communities of Houston. Through documentary mixed media zines and garden exchange events, Ms. Kuo will use their Idea Fund grant to expand on the healing potential of these everyday practices and to celebrate the concrete bonds that help keep communities together.
Ruhee Maknojia, still image from the animation “Paisley’s Odyssey,” duration 22 minutes. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Ruhee Maknojia – Outdoor Animation Screening
Animation artist Ruhee Maknojia will use their Idea Fund grant to develop and present a series of outdoor animation screenings in the Greenspoint Mall parking lot as a way to highlight international and Houston-based animation artists outside of the city center.
Matt Manalo’s Alief Art House, 2022. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Matt Manalo – Alief Art House Residency
With support from The Idea Fund, Mr. Manalo will develop and host the Alief Art House Residency, a three-week long residency for a high school Senior to explore art-making and have full creative freedom in the Alief Art House shipping container gallery.
Eileen Maxson, still from “My Mom Knows Her Stuff,” 2020, single-channel HD video, color, sound, 15:41 minutes. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Eileen Maxson – Heirloom Haggle with the Maxsons
Tempered with good humor and influenced by audience engagement, Heirloom Haggle with the Maxsons, is a series of livestream videos in which artist Eileen Maxson’s parents try to convince her to inherit their most beloved “stuff.” The multiple livestream “episodes” will be a twist on the Antiques Roadshow TV series and focus on items from Ms. Maxson’s parent’s massive collection of porcelain collectibles, Hummel figurines, fine china, and crystal stemware.
Alexis Melvin, “Trans Road Show,” 2022, video still. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Alexis Melvin – Trans History Roadshow
The Trans History Roadshow is an educational TV Show that will air locally in Houston and be made available for viewing online. Modeled after BBC/PBS series “The Antiques Roadshow,” the Trans History Roadshow will feature guest experts presenting examinations and explanations of select art and rare historical artifacts from Houston area transgender art and history archives.
Lorena Molina, “Reconciliation Garden” at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, 2021-2022, installation with various plants. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Lorena Molina – At what cost? (working title)
With the support from The Idea Fund, Ms. Molina will develop a large corn maze installation with over 2000 pieces of dried corn stalks inside a gallery to discuss topics of immigration, safety and freedom, and who gets to feel safe and free. The installation will ask visitors to consider their instincts in the process of moving through the maze while highlighting the challenges of diasporic journeys and immigration experiences.
Sarah Sudhoff, “Beacon, Blue,” 2023, 24 x 30 inches. Image credit: courtesy of the artist
Sarah Sudhoff – Exit Interview
Exit Interview is a multi-sensory exhibition that invites the Houston public to give voice to an unheard conversation they were either never given permission or never had the opportunity to have with a romantic partner or loved one. With support from The Idea Fund grant, Ms. Sudhoff will develop a series of new works through community collaborations that will harness and embrace our collective humanity through shared humor, love, sadness, and perseverance.
The post The Idea Fund Announces $60K in Grants Awarded to 12 Recipients appeared first on Glasstire.
