It’s the final round of the Worst Boss of 2022 voting. We’ve narrowed the pool from eight nominees to two (see results from the first round and second round). The two finalists go head-to-head below.
Voting is now closed. The results in this round were:
In the classic Macintosh world, 400K and 800K floppy disks use GCR encoding but 1440K disks use MFM encoding. The BMOW Floppy Emu disk emulator has supported 1440K MFM disk emulation for years, and I thought I knew everything about how it worked. Recently I dug into Mac MFM again, while adding support for in-emulator formatting of disk images, and discovered some bad assumptions as well as some critical but undocumented behaviors of the Macintosh-Sony high-density floppy drive – or at least behaviors not documented anywhere that I can see.
I’ll gloss over most of the errors and misunderstandings in my MFM design, but there were many of them. One of the biggest was using the wrong sync byte value in some places: $AA instead of $4E. Fixing this was surprisingly difficult, due to a design practice of repeating a single $A nibble value to create the $AA sync byte, which wouldn’t work for $4E.
Index Pulses
The most interesting discoveries were related to how the Mac-Sony HD floppy drive handles index pulses. Yes that’s right, index pulses. If you’re like me, you may have thought that Macintosh floppy disks are all soft-sectored and don’t use index holes. That’s true, the disks don’t have any hard indexing mechanism, but the high density drive does. For every rotation of the disk, the drive’s index signal pulses briefly high.
But where and how can the computer read this index signal? Some readers may know that 3.5 inch Sony floppy drives have 16 internal 1-bit state registers, whose values can be read by the computer by selecting a register using the CA2, CA1, CA0, and SELECT I/O signals. This table is from Inside Macintosh Volume III:
You’ll find very similar tables in a few other sources, like the IWM documentation for Linux on Mac 68000. The Floppy Emu’s 3.5 inch drive emulation is built around this table – it emulates these registers. There are registers for things like motor on, write protection, and step direction… but I don’t see anything about index pulses.
Well, it turns out that this table is only valid for 400K and 800K floppy drives, but I’ll be damned if I can find a good source that documents the differences for other types of drives. Based on some old cryptic notes, and a logic analyzer trace of the disk I/O signals while a Macintosh LC formats a real 1440K floppy, I was able to conclude that the 0111 TACH register is actually an INDEX register for 3.5 inch high density Sony drives operating in HD MFM mode. I think I may have seen documentation of this somewhere in the past, but can’t locate it now. Floppy Emu doesn’t emulate this INDEX behavior at all, and it’s not needed when reading or writing a disk, but it turns out that it’s crucial when formatting a disk.
Reading While Writing
While examining the logic analyzer trace from the Macintosh LC as it was formatting a disk, I noticed something else curious. The computer sometimes asserted the write-enable signal for much longer than a single rotation of the disk, which is all that should be needed for a single track. Sometimes it was almost two rotations of the disk. I also noticed an odd pattern reading the RDDATA0 and RDDATA1 registers while writing to the disk. What should the read data even be, in the middle of a write operation? I’d never thought about it before, and don’t know of any software that might attempt to do it. But I noticed there was always a single 0 to 1 transition on RDDATA somewhere in the middle of the write, occurring at different times after the start of the write for each track, but always appearing about 200 ms before the end of writing.
For a very long time, I simply wrote this off as an unimportant detail, but eventually I realized that the step transition on RDDATA while writing is the INDEX pulse. I’ve never seen this behavior documented anywhere, but after reviewing the logic analyzer trace it was undeniable. The computer begins to format a track by writing a continuous string of sync bytes, while simultaneously reading RDDATA0 or RDDATA1. When it sees a low to high transition there, it knows it’s the index pulse, and it begins writing the first sector beginning just after that spot. From there it continues to write all the other sectors, ending the write operation just before the index pulse is due to appear again. Finally it checks the index pulse again, this time by reading the INDEX register the normal way at 0111. If everything checks out OK, then it steps to the next track and repeats the process.
This was my ah-ha moment, when all the pieces suddenly clicked into place and I could understand why the computer was responding differently to the Floppy Emu during formatting than it did to a real drive. Now I need to make additional firmware modifications, and try to get Floppy Emu to emulate this same behavior.
This story was originally published by Global Press Journal. Global Press Journal is an award-winning international news publication with more than 40 independent news bureaus across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Ten minutes away from downtown Ciudad Guzmán, the municipal capital of Zapotlán el Grande, is a small century-old ranch, where fruits and vegetables sprout from the ground and fall from the trees—a picture of biodiversity fast fading from the western state of Jalisco. Ranch owners Rogelio Trejo and Yaskara Silva, who inherited the land from Trejo’s parents, have seen this change take place. Once upon a time, sage would turn surrounding mountains into a sea of blue-green. Now, there are avocado farms as far as the eye can see.
Mexico is the world’s seventh-largest agricultural exporter, with agro-industrial exports expected to reach $46 billion in 2022, the highest in 30 years. Among its most significant exports is avocado, of which it is the world’s top producer. Consumed locally for millennia, in recent years avocados have skyrocketed in popularity outside of Mexico—especially in the neighboring United States, which consumes three out of every four Mexican avocados sent abroad. During the Super Bowl alone, according to one 2020 estimate, U.S. football fans eat their way through 7 percent of annual consumption in a single day. Until this year, all avocados exported from Mexico to the U.S. came from a single state: Michoacán. This summer, however, Jalisco became Mexico’s second supplier to the lucrative market—an occasion described by Governor Enrique Alfaro as a “historic day for Jalisco, and its countryside.” Small farmers in the state, however, faced with the consequences—environmental and otherwise—of increasing avocado production are far less enthusiastic.
“This December, we noticed there were no corn leaves for making tamales because corn is no longer being cultivated,” says Carmen García, a feminist popular educator, referring to Zapotlán el Grande. In 2021, more than 57 percent of farmed land in the municipality was taken up by avocado orchards, accounting for more than a fifth of the state’s total avocado output. Jalisco ranks second in avocado production in Mexico, and although it lags far behind Michoacán in terms of total output, it is where production is growing faster than anywhere else. According to data from the government’s agriculture and fisheries information portal, avocado cultivation increased by 527 percent between 2012 and 2021.
Jalisco ranks second in avocado production in Mexico, and it is where production is growing faster than anywhere else.
Farmers are experiencing the effects of this expansion in multiple ways. According to a study by Alberto Gómez Tagle of Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas Hidalgo in Morelia, avocado farms require four to five times as much water as an equivalent area of pine forest. When avocado trees are irrigated, because their roots are relatively horizontal, water is less likely to seep into the subsoil—in other words, an avocado tree can replenish only a fraction of soil moisture compared to a pine tree. Silva and Trejo’s well, which they use to water their farm, would typically accumulate 3 to 4 meters of water. Now, a meter is a bounty.
“Last year, we lost our first harvest of vegetables due to lack of water,” Silva says.
“Ecological agriculture is inextricably linked to the right to healthy food,” says Jaime Morales, an agroecologist and founder of an agroecology training center in Jalisco state. The expansion of industrial agriculture—boosted by state and taxpayer money, he says—and the accompanying threat to family-owned small farms is endangering this right in a country where more than 55 percent of rural households are food insecure.
Locals also point to changing climatic conditions, which they say are a result of changes in land use. Zapotlán el Grande, located in southern Jalisco, among the foothills of Nevado de Colima and near the Sierra del Tigre mountain range, used to be cool and abundantly rainy, García says. Less than a decade ago, maximum temperatures tended to be in the high 20s Celsius; this May, however, temperatures touched 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). Indeed, according to one analysis, Zapotlán el Grande experienced the greatest growth in avocado production between 2009 and 2018—from 2,400 tons to almost 37,000 tons—and, in the same period, ranked ninth out of 125 Jalisco municipalities in terms of most tree cover lost.
As avocado production in the municipality shot up by 509 percent between 2010 and 2021, crop diversity plummeted. In 2010, farmers in Zapotlán el Grande grew 39 types of crops, whereas, in 2021, they cultivated just 15 different crops in the area.
“Many medicinal plants are burning up, such as mullein, arnica, and sage,” Silva says. Native fruit trees—such as tejocote (Mexican hawthorn), apples, pears, plums, pomegranates, black cherries, and blackberries, some wild and some cultivated—are also disappearing, García says.
In neighboring Michoacán, 30 percent to 40 percent of recent deforestation was driven by avocado production. In Jalisco, agricultural expansion is the second-greatest cause of deforestation. In both Jalisco and Michoacán, it is illegal to cut down trees to cultivate avocado, but if land is burned, then a change of land use is permitted. Thousands of hectares of trees have been set on fire in the mountains around their ranch, Trejo says. Later, avocado orchards were installed. According to official data, 14 percent of avocado orchards in the state are on land previously destroyed by fires.
“Many medicinal plants are burning up, such as mullein, arnica, and sage.”
Jalisco’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development did not respond to requests for comment.
Néstor Rodríguez, who grew up in San Gabriel, a municipality within a protected natural area next to Zapotlán el Grande—Parque Nacional Volcán Nevado de Colima, which has the second-highest number of hectares of avocado crops in the state—says he began to see avocado orchards spring up in place of forests six years ago. “I consider it a crime that, out of human voracity or economic interest, they are destroying a forest that took hundreds or thousands of years to develop,” he says.
One avocado cultivator in Zapotlán el Grande, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, says he pivoted to growing the fruit because it is more profitable than corn. (In 2018, the production value per hectare of avocado trees was nearly four times as much as a decade earlier.) “But there is also a big difference in the investment,” he says. As a result, many of the avocado orchards in Jalisco do not belong to small farmers from the state—rather, says Everardo Pérez, director of a development research center, locals rent their land since they cannot afford the necessary inputs. Cultivators from Michoacán began arriving here to plant the fruit around the year 2000, says the anonymous avocado grower—before that, he adds, there was only one avocado orchard in all of Zapotlán el Grande.
“If you want avocado, you need to have a deep well because there are no rivers here in the municipality,” he says. His own well is about 200 meters (656 feet) deep. “I’ve heard of some wells that are as deep as 1,000 meters [3,281 feet].”
Meanwhile, Silva, whose well now struggles to collect a minuscule fraction of that depth, has a message for avocado aficionados. “I would like us to embark on a silent strike against avocados,” she says. “Because this industry is destroying us.”
The final game of the 2022 World Cup on Sunday is set to be its most thrilling. Defending champion France takes on Argentina as Lionel Messi seeks the one trophy missing from his glorious career.
(Image credit: Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images)
BOSTON—Emphasizing that it was not just vulgar, but also a serious food safety hazard, representatives from America’s Test Kitchen Thursday begged middle-aged women to stop sending them panties. “While we appreciate everyone’s clear enthusiasm for the show, we cannot have our audience members routinely taking off…
As the culture wars continue to escalate, many have cast the “woke mind virus” as public enemy No. 1. The Onion asked conservatives to explain how woke culture is destroying America, and this is what they said.
MILFORD, CT—Rolling out the new mental health initiative at locations nationwide, fast food chain Subway announced this week that it had implemented a mandatory 72-hour psychiatric hold for anyone thinking of ordering a sandwich from one of its restaurants. “For their own safety and the safety of those around them,…
Some local leaders say they worry the changes violate state law, while residents who supported decriminalizing marijuana say the pushback disrespects democracy.
People are gathering indoors for the holidays, and there's been an uptick in COVID-19 cases. The federal government says you should test often to try to prevent the spread of the virus.
One thing about Mo, a limited series that debuted on Netflix last month, is that it’s fast. Think diction-of-“Mattress Mack” fast. Fast in doling out gags that at minimum will redden your face and dramatic beats that address the tragicomic reality of people who call the United States their second home.
Minutes into the pilot, the lead character, Mo, a semi-autobiographical role played by Houston comedian Mohammed Amer, is placed on a riches-to-rags journey where he goes from a senior staffer at a cellular shop to a jobless Palestinian immigrant. Having no work permit is the reason cited. But what can he do when the only way to get it is to have his asylum case heard, though it’s been stalled in immigration courts for 22 years? Both heartaches and laughs ensue.
Meanwhile, for me, a realization strikes: I know this story. So many in Texas have lived or are living in this uncertain state of undetermined status. I, too, have known what job insecurity looks like. At one time, a now-defunct media station on Houston’s Bellaire Boulevard considered me essential for pitching and hosting a show—one about movies. But then I had to leave because of my short-term work papers. Since no one else could pick up the slack, the show was ultimately written off. It remains stunning to think all it took to upend my life was three letters. For me it was issues with OPT (the Optional Practical Training program, open to students before or after graduation); for Mo it was ICE (the threat of a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
Yet, as bitter as Mo’s departure from his main hustle is, there is a hilarious parting line he delivers to his boss (played by Bassem Youssef) that sprinkles in some sweetness: “How will you run this place? It’s my place—I mean, it’s your place, but I run it.”
I reckon this is the magic of Mo. It offers flashes of hilarity, but it is more than comedy. It also highlights a very particular limbo of immigrants that I find other scripted series rarely address so directly. It doesn’t take long for the show to have me feeling that the somewhat fictional Mo and I are offshoots of the same tree.
Mo highlights a very particular limbo of immigrants that I find other scripted series rarely address so directly.
In attempting to explain the deep connection I felt, I initially thought the answer was the setting: Houston. In lieu of, say, Los Angeles’ weather and New York’s art scene, Houston has an ability to make starkly different pieces and peoples seem cohesive—at times almost interchangeable. But it turns out our bond goes beyond geography and into identity, from where I am to who I am. Like Mo, I’m just one of many navigating life in the U.S. without the ability to truly check off the “all American” box.
Of Mo’s three listed focuses—“two cultures, three languages, and a ton of bullshit”—the last initially seems most apparent. Creators Ramy Youssef (of Hulu’s Ramy fame) and Amer mine many funny scenarios for Mo, who aside from being an asylum-seeker is also a trunk merchant, a lean addict, and a son (his mom, Yusra, is played by Farah Bsieso). Yet those pivots are also how the show builds its sturdiest link to the “not quite American” reality that Mo and I and many other Texans share. It sure is refreshing to see filmic art that speaks this truth.
Another familiar moment for me is in episode four, titled “Moola,” where Mo finds out that his girlfriend Maria (played by Teresa Ruiz) is being snubbed by her (thankfully short-lived) business partners, her of-Indian-descent friend Shila (played by Kausar Mohammed) and Shila’s affluent white husband Glen (played by Grant Redmond). During the couple’s house party, Shila is seen tasking Maria with chores like a master to a maid.
Left to right: Farah Bsieso as Yusra, Omar Elba as Sameer, Mo Amer as Mo in episode 105 of MO. Courtesy of Netflix
This sequence, though filled with over-the-top amusement, prompts me to reflect on times I felt I had to roll along with demeaning demands to reach certain goals or risk being seen as the troublesome minority. Believe me, I wanted to let that particular newspaper editor know that I found his remarks at my English being “obviously of second-language level” offensive. But it was either go along and finish the internship, or perhaps see it cut off halfway and then—surprise—“fall out of status.” For immigrants in the United States, visa conditions—often referred to as “status”—are the reason they can stay.
To rescue Maria from the Shila-Glen danger, Mo exits the ornate house party scene after dropping a funny truth bomb on Shila: “You haven’t been Indian since 2009.” How I wish I could have channeled Mo’s truth-telling nature, or that there had been a figure of his kind, to relieve me from the Vietnamese equivalents of Shila— people so clouded by their proximity to privilege, access, or power that they made the air nearly unbreathable.
Certain moments in episode six (“Holy Matrimony”), where Mo and his childhood friend Nick (played by Tobe Nwigwe) prepare Hameed (played by Moayad Alnefaie) for his wedding to a blonde, are also sobering.
Albeit unpleasant, I find jealousy is commonplace among immigrants, and the areas it can invade include looks, health, wealth, property, family, and legal status. I was once—or still am—trying to deprogram myself from such comparative resentment should I learn of a fellow Vietnamese who had better success in love or at work. Over a celebratory dinner or drinks, I would be the one with the dour attitude, much like Mo who can’t stop doubting Hameed’s marriage (“love as real as her hair”) even when everyone else has gone all in.
Fortunately, Mo comes to see that in the end, Hameed’s union is both the fulfilling of an objective—gaining legality—and the result of bona fide chemistry.
But, let’s say your reason to tune in is to tune out reality, Mo will still welcome you with pure entertainment. Note, however, that you will always feel balanced after a gag, fully earthbound after giggling all the way to cloud nine. Or vice versa.
Mo Amer offers Lori Z. Cordova some hummus in a scene from Mo. Courtesy of Netflix
Even when packed into one fast-paced exchange, the laughs don’t lose their flavor. Check out this one in the pilot when Mo reacts to a supermarket employee (played by Lori Z. Cordova) asking him to sample chocolate hummus:
Mo: “You know what you just did? You just insulted my grandmother. Yeah. ‘F*** your lineage, to hell with your culture.’”
Supermarket Employee: “Lo siento, I did not know hummus was Mexican.”
Mo: “It’s not Mexican! It’s Palestinian.”
Then, less than a minute later, there’s a shootout. This is America. And as Mo, who was grazed by a bullet, is about to be transported to the hospital, he shouts: “I’m refusing medical attention! I’m uninsured. I’m not paying $5000 for an ambulance ride.”
Have I told you that immigrant life in the U.S. is, generally, a tragicomedy waiting to be told?
Granted, Mo is mainly a fictitious creation, but he and his journey demonstrate with great flair and plenty of fun how to face matters when many in immigrant communities—especially my own—would prefer to instead apply the “stay down, stay quiet, stay fine” adage. As such, thank you, Mo, for letting me know myself better and be a bit braver as I continue life in my “home away from home.”
The Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs (MOCA), in partnership with the Houston Public Library System, has announced a call for artists and art teams to create a public art work for the new Montrose Library.
Rendering of the exterior of the Montrose Library. Courtesy of the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
Currently under construction, the Montrose Library will be housed in the Montrose Collective mixed-use facility located at 1001 California St. in Houston. The library will have accessible technology and will feature designated areas for reading, children, teens, and meetings. The goal for the public art piece is to represent the story of the historically LGBTQIA+ Montrose neighborhood while referencing the library collection, services, staff, and community. Additionally, artworks should incorporate themes related to literacy, courage, soul, and collaboration.
In a press release announcing the call, Mayor Sylvester Turner said, “Integrating a new library location into a mixed-used development is a big step forward in meeting communities where they are. This artwork will live in the new Montrose Library to showcase the vibrant character and history of the area and to highlight and celebrate the rich diversity of our Houston neighborhoods.”
The artist selection process will be managed collaboratively by the Houston Arts Alliance (HAA) and MOCA. The indoor public art piece can consist of relief or sculptural elements, light-based media, and non-traditional installations, as well as murals and 2-dimensional works. The $85,000 budget will cover all costs needed to bring the work to fruition, including proposals, artists’ fees, design, engineering, permitting, insurance costs, lighting, software, travel, fabrication, and materials.
The call is open to artists and teams who are 18 years of age and older and living or working in the U.S. To learn more about and to be considered for this opportunity, submit your qualifications and artwork samples via the HAA Submittable page. The application deadline is Monday, January 9, 2023 at 5:00 pm.
For the first time, HAA will offer support for applicants who are Spanish-speakers. Para asistencia en espanol, haga clic aqui.
On November 1, 2022, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art announced on its website and social media platforms that it has closed until further notice.
The announcement, signed by the museum’s staff, begins with a note about co-founders Ann and James Harithas, and nods to the forward-thinking exhibitions hosted by the institution over the past twenty years. It also mentions the end of the recent exhibition, Clark V. Fox: Subversion and Spectacle.
Murals on the exterior of The Station Museum of Contemporary Art, 2020-2021.
The renowned Houston-based artist Mel Chin echoed these sentiments about the museum. He told Glasstire: “The Station was the true alternative to the status quo, dedicated by Jim Harithas to be fearless in the face of injustice and political oppression. He brought the intellectual critical discourse to be placed before the most diversified audience, local to international. The underrepresented or undiscovered voices of protest, of Palestinian, Iraqi, LGBTQ, POC, from the Indigenous to the local were presented without compromise. The Station organized some of the most compelling, elegant and transcendent exhibitions in the city, pushing whatever was necessary to honor and elevate the voices of artists. The openings were always free and a blast.”
As Mr. Chin mentioned, the museum presented the kinds of shows that one couldn’t find elsewhere in Houston. Exhibitions often highlighted either a cohort of local artists, like Friendly Fire, the 2016 show of work by Regina Agu, Noah Edmundson, Robert Hodge, Jesse Lott, Gabriel Martinez, Lovie Olivia, Forrest Prince, Kaneem Smith, or a group of artists brought in from elsewhere, as in PARALLEL KINGDOM: Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia.
The museum didn’t pull punches. On its website, the Station says its exhibitions “question our society’s morality and ethics,” and that the institution “embraces the idea that art plays a critical role in society as an agent of creativity and civil discourse and as a resource that deepens and broadens public awareness of the cultural, political, economic, and personal dimensions of art.”
Because of its fearlessness, the Station wasn’t without its controversies. In 2017 protesters gathered in opposition to Andres Serrano’s exhibition at the museum, saying that his photo Immersion (Piss Christ) was blasphemous. For another exhibition, the Los Angeles-based artist Cassils held a “Houston Piss Drive,” for which they collected urine from the community. With the closing of the museum, Houston loses a private institution that, because of its role in the community, could present the kind of exhibitions that look past market trends and donor affinities.
According to the museum’s website, the Station will be on hiatus from both exhibitions and public programming until further notice. Updates and information will be provided by the museum on its website.
“Twitter has suspended an account that tracked the location of Elon Musk’s private jet. The suspension comes despite Musk last month tweeting, ‘My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.’”— CNN, 12/14/2022
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I believe that our freedom of speech must be protected at all costs, and that it must be universal, and that it must be nonpartisan, and that it must also get to mean whatever I want it to mean at any given time, depending on how I feel that day.
Free speech is the backbone of our country and its democracy. Without it, we plunge into autocracy. And so it must be more than simply allowed—it must be held up as a beacon for the rest of the world to witness. We must always put free speech first. Just as long as I personally get to decide at the very last minute what constitutes free speech.
Let me give you an example. Live location data is readily available for all legally registered aircraft in the sky at any moment. Freedom of speech lets you track and report this data in real time. However, I just decided that it actually doesn’t allow that, because I just remembered that I have a plane. See? I just changed the meaning of free speech. It’s so easily manipulated—and that’s why I love it.
You might say, “That’s not free speech anymore. You can’t just change the definition of a core tenet of our democracy based on how you, personally, feel affected by it.”
And to that, I would say: “You are no longer allowed to speak, according to the latest update I just made to the meaning of free speech.”
You see, freedom of speech is something I never fully understood, so I decided that instead of learning more about it, I would understand it by just making it up as I go along. To me, freedom of speech is more cooking than baking—it’s forgiving, and you don’t really have to follow the directions. They’re more like guidelines! After all, that’s what our constitution is full of: guidelines. The Bill of Guidelines. The Eighteenth Guideline. Guideline vs. Guideline.
So enjoy the unfettered access to freedom of speech that I so generously offer you. But make sure you stay up-to-date on my latest definition of free speech, which I may change at any time. And rest assured: it could truly change at any moment, to anything. Who knows! Maybe one day I’ll simply decide free speech means you can only speak if you’re paying me eight dollars a month.
Lows this morning have generally fallen in the 40s, which is fairly typical for December. We’re going to see more or less winter-like weather for at least the next 10 days, with the possibility of a light freeze for inland areas on Sunday morning, and colder weather still later next week. It’s really time for that winter coal, y’all!
Thursday
This will be a prototypical winter day in Houston, with highs in the low 60s, sunny skies, and light winds. Skies will be clear tonight, with lows dropping into the mid- to upper-40s in Houston with cooler conditions further inland.
Friday
As high pressure moves off to the east we’ll start to see the return of some atmospheric moisture, and as a result clouds will start to build in during the morning, or early afternoon hours at the latest. Look for highs in the mid-60s. There is a slight chance of some light rain as a reinforcing cool front moves into the area on Friday evening. Otherwise expect lows in the mid-40s.
Saturday
Skies will clear out on Saturday, likely during the morning hours, in the wake of the front. This will be a clear, cold day, with highs likely topping out in the mid-50s. Clear skies and decreasing winds will allow for optimal cooling conditions on Saturday night, and some outlying areas are likely to see a light freeze. At this time I believe the Houston metro area will remain just above freezing, however.
Low temperature forecast for Sunday morning. (Weather Bell)
Sunday
This will be another chilly day, with highs in the 50s most likely. Winds will revert to come from offshore pretty quickly, however, so we’ll start to see some clouds, and by Sunday evening skies should be mostly cloudy. Lows will drop into the mid-40s.
Monday
In response to increasing moisture levels and a low pressure system, we’ll see elevated rain chances on Monday. For most of the area I don’t think the rain will start until at least sunrise, and perhaps a bit later. Accumulations will probably be greater closer to the coast, where 1 to 2 inches is possible, with isolated higher totals. Skies will otherwise be cloudy, with highs likely topping out in the upper 50s.
NOAA rain accumulation forecast for Monday and Monday night. (Weather Bell)
Next week
We’re expecting conditions through the middle of next week to support high temperatures in the upper 50s to low 60s, with overnight temperatures generally in the 40s. The global forecast models are still strongly suggesting that a robust front will arrive with Arctic air around Wednesday or Thursday, causing temperatures to plummet a day or two before Christmas Day. Unfortunately, at this range, we don’t have the greatest of confidence in how cold things will get. The range of possibilities is this: lows might get as cold as the upper teens or they might only drop into the mid-30s. I’d lean toward a light freeze in Houston at this time, but my confidence is not particularly high. There also is a non-trivial chance of snow—at this point I’d give the metro area perhaps a 10 or 15 percent chance of a White Christmas.
I ended up getting a job offer from the competitor, but turned it down. They seemed just as hectic and missing work/life balance like the current job, so I figured I’d stay with the dysfunction I knew rather than throwing myself into new dysfunction. The competitor also wasn’t going to offer a salary to make the new dysfunction worth it.
At the end of August I was contacted by a former colleague, “Dave,” and was asked if I was interested in a position at the new company he was working at. I went for an interview, and then was given an offer that would involve a much shorter commute, and 33% salary increase. It seemed like a good match for my skills and good group of people. The new company is in the same industry but not the exact angle as the old one (think teapot painting vs teapot molding) so I’ll get to learn something new. I got an official offer letter on Tuesday, and decided to accept and tell the current job I was resigning at the end of the week.
I was working out of a field office, and on Wednesday morning I was asked to come into the main office that afternoon to meet with my manager about an upcoming project. Since I wasn’t intending to stay for the upcoming project, and I would be face to face with my manager, Wednesday quickly turned into the day to tell the news! I reread your advice, drove the hour to the main office, prepped in the car, and headed in to my meeting. I decided before going in that I didn’t want to be talked into staying. I told my manager “Matt” that I was resigning, and he was surprised. Matt asked me where I was going, and what they were offering me – I told him, figuring I knew I wasn’t staying but maybe it would help them with some market research and push them to better compensate my soon-to-be-former coworkers. He asked why I was leaving, and told him that I appreciated working with him and I learned a lot, but the 1 hr+ commute was getting to me and it was time for me to expand my horizons. Matt kept asking variations on “well what if we made you a higher counter-offer?”, but tellingly never addressed the commute, work/life balance, etc. I kept answering with that I had already made a decision that was best for me, and I’d accepted the new offer but will work hard to transition in the next two weeks. My manager Matt called the CEO “Mike” into his office, and we had the same conversation again. Mike the CEO did eventually end it by telling Matt to stop with the what-ifs, and wished me luck going forward. And that I thought was that.
The first week of my notice period, my manager Matt asked me to continue to work on the upcoming project without someone to transition it to, rather than wrapping up a project that I was working on that was ending. That didn’t make sense to me, and I discussed that with Matt, but hey, I’m not the boss.
Then at the end of the week, the CEO Mike asked to take me out to breakfast and billed it as an exit interview. I couldn’t really say no. We got to the restaurant, and Mike starts launching in about why I should stay! He told me realized they made a mistake, they were going to change this, that, and the other thing, he had a whole 5 year plan to make everything better, and on and on. Mike said that he had asked me to keep working on the upcoming project during my notice period because he was so sure he could convince me to stay! Based on how previous promises were not fulfilled, I didn’t really believe what he was promising now. He told me “this family is like a company and I’m just trying to look out for what’s best for you,” which we all know is a great sign. He was also trying to convince me that it really was no big deal if I turned down the new offer after already accepting and setting a start date. I had no intention of changing my mind and staying, but I listened politely and told Mike I’d think over what he said. When I got back to the office, I discussed what happened at breakfast with a coworker who had worked with Mike for a long time. She suggested that I wait until Monday to tell Mike that no, I’m really leaving, so that it looked like I “thought hard about it over the weekend” so to save face a bit for him.
So Monday morning, I went and talked to Mike, and told him again that I was really leaving. He seemed to accept it this time, and again wished me luck. And this time I really thought that was that …. BUT!
Monday afternoon we held a retirement party at a restaurant for a long time coworker. Dave, the former coworker who recruited me to the new company, was invited. I noticed Dave walk in to the party, and walk out not that long after, but I didn’t really think about it. Dave called me later that afternoon to tell me what happened. Dave walked into the party, and Mike made a beeline to him. Without any small talk, and in front of a bunch of people, Mike berated Dave about “how could you steal [me, the letter writer] away!” and how horrible he was. Dave got himself out of that conversation, and decided he wasn’t going to stay at the party to be talked to like that and left (and I don’t blame him!). Dave had still been doing a lot of favors for Mike and others at the old job, and now is less willing. So turns out I’m not really the one who has to worry about burning bridges….
I’ve been at the new company for about a month now. I’m still working on learning the ropes, but I’ve gotten good feedback so far and think I’ll get the hang of it! It was a lot of drama, but I made the right choice.
I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.
1. Can I ask my boss to deny my vacation request so I don’t have to go home for Christmas?
I recently graduated from college and moved out of a fairly precarious home situation into an awesome apartment in a neighboring state and a perfect first job.
The holidays are approaching and I have Monday and Tuesday of Christmas week off but not the rest of the week. I’ll go home for that long weekend, but my parents expect me to request the rest of the week off (I have a very good PTO package so I’ll have the days available). However, I want to be back in town right away due to the aforementioned rocky home situation. They’ll try to make the unilateral decision about my vacation time so I can’t really just flat-out refuse to stay home if it’s an option. I don’t want to lie to my parents (tell them my vacation request was denied if I haven’t asked/was given a go-ahead), but can I get my boss to refuse to give me that time off?
Note: I know this home situation may raise some red flags, but my question is more focused on the vacation requests with my boss, not those issues.
Well … in theory you can ask your boss to do that, but you shouldn’t.
If you do explain the situation to your boss and ask her to deny your vacation request, a lot of bosses would say something like, “Feel free to say we needed you here if you want to.”
But you’re going to make yourself look a lot more like a kid to your boss if you do this, and you don’t want that. You want your boss to think of you as an adult (which you are!).
Plus, if your goal is to not lie to your parents, this isn’t going to accomplish that. Even if your boss does what you’re asking, that’s not a real vacation denial. It’s a charade that you requested. So if you then tell your parents that you couldn’t get the time off, it’s still going to be a lie — even if your boss went through the motions of denying the time off at your request. (That’s actually part of the reason that this will make you look less mature to your boss — because it’s an odd sort of game-playing.)
But if you don’t want to spend that whole week at home and you don’t want to have to debate it with your parents, you’re allowed to just tell them that you can’t get the whole week off, without involving your boss at all. “I can’t get those days off” is a time-honored way of getting out of plans that people don’t want to make. And yes, it’s better if you can be honest and up-front with your parents, but it’s really common to have family dynamics that make that tough to do. And people who try to unilaterally control other adults’ vacation time forfeit their right to honest, forthright answers.
Hopefully at some point in the future you’ll feel comfortable asserting yourself with your family about this kind of thing — and hopefully you’ve resolved to get yourself to the point in the future — but if you’re not there right now, you’re allowed to use the “have to work” white lie.
I’m a college student putting a resume together for the first time and your blog has been a huge help. There is, however, one thing I am unsure of. That’s if I should include my fanfiction on my resume.
I’ve published over 83,000 words of fanfiction in 2015 alone. One of my works is in the top 2% of all stories in its fandom, which I am of course very proud of.
However, I’m worried that listing this will weird out employers or come off as unprofessional or out of touch. I also know that if I list it more vaguely (not calling it fanfiction or mentioning where online I publish my work), it’s likely to come up in an interview. Would a hiring manager be alarmed by an applicant including this in a resume? Or is it not that big of a deal?
I wouldn’t include it. Fanfic has enough of a bad reputation with enough people — it’s marginalized, at best — that while some hiring managers might find it interesting or take it as evidence of writing skills, there’s too high a risk of many others seeing its appearance on a resume as a negative. There are also copyright issues with a lot of fanfiction, and if you get a hiring manager who’s attuned to that (for example, me), you risk raising their hackles on that front.
If you want to demonstrate writing skills, there are lots of other ways to do it — with your cover letter and writing samples, for instance.
3. Owner wants staff to call him Mr. ____ “until they earn his respect”
I recently heard a weird request from one of the owners of the company for which I work. He had a discussion about respect with the sales people. One of the results of this discussion was that the sales people could no longer refer this owner as Bruce, which they had been calling him that for years now. He wants them to refer to him as Mr. Springsteen, until he tells them otherwise. Apparently once they earn his respect they can go back to calling him Bruce. In the mean time failure to call him Mr. Springsteen means a person could be sent home early.
I personally think this is beyond bizarre and has actually led me to respecting him less. Because if you are playing respect games…well I’m not going to really respect you anymore. Is there a good reason behind something like this that I’m missing? Or do I work with a loon?
4. Employee reported her coworker for a Facebook photo that showed some skin
My coworker, “Kara,” reported our coworker “Sally” to the manager of our organization for having a Facebook profile photo that Kara felt was inappropriate and reflected poorly on the organization. The photo showed a strip of Sally’s bare skin, but there was no reference to our organization visible in the photo or in the caption. (Her back faced the camera, and she had a fur over her shoulders. You could see a portion of her back and part of an armpit, but not as far down as her waist. According to Sally, she was wearing a halter top that wasn’t visible in the photo. According to the Kara who reported it, it was a topless photo. She claimed to know this because she overheard the other employee discussing the photo shoot in their shared residence.)
Our manager directed Sally’s supervisor to speak to her about the photo. The supervisor did so, although she felt that the photo had no bearing on our organization and was not inappropriate.
I will soon become the supervisor of both Kara and Sally. Sally expressed concern about being able to work productively in close proximity to Kara and stated that the reporting of the Facebook photo to our manager had been very upsetting. Due to the nature of our work, these employees not only work together but also live in close proximity to each other, and it is difficult to establish solid boundaries between work and personal lives. I want to ensure that Kara does not continue to pass information about the personal lives of her coworkers on to the manager of our organization when that information has no impact on work performance. Unfortunately, this behavior seems to be condoned by the manager. What is the best way to manage this situation?
This is none of Kara’s business. Who cares if she had a halter top on or not? The photo was of a piece of her back. It’s hardly scandalous.
Your real issue here is your manager, who thought this was an appropriate thing for the organization to involve itself in. I want you to tell Kara that you want her to focus on doing her work and that it’s not appropriate to make this sort of complaint, but before you can do that, you need to get aligned with your own boss about that — because you don’t her to undermine that message, and it sounds like she might. I’d say this to your boss: “I feel strongly that Sally’s photo didn’t cross any lines, and that it was none of our business. I want to discourage Kara from interfering in her coworkers’ private lives in the future, and I want to make sure that we’re on the same page about that.”
5. How to deal with coworkers who are annoying about Christmas
Through no fault of my own, I am serving a term on our organization’s Social Committee. It’s time to organize the annual “holiday” party, and it’s not sitting right with me. I could use some perspective!
In the first planning meeting, while discussing dates, I suggested we hold it in January, as people tend to have more free time then, plus “it’s less alienating for people who don’t celebrate Christmas.” That suggestion was quickly shot down.
The rest of the meeting was full of phrases like “Let’s go traditional with the food, since I like a traditional Christmas, I mean holiday” and “Oh we can’t do that because Christmas offends some people.”
I celebrate Christmas! I like Christmas! But I feel weird about celebrating Christmas at work. Not everyone celebrates, some people prefer to celebrate somberly or privately, and for some people, the last few months of the year in general bring up painful memories.
It really rubs me the wrong way that an event ostensibly organized as something fun for all employees can actually be a source of unhappiness and exclusion for anyone who doesn’t adhere to a particular (religious) custom. Is there anything I can do to promote a spirit of inclusion or is this just something we’re stuck with in modern-day America?
Ick, yeah. If you’re up for it, I would say this: “If we truly value a diverse staff and an inclusive workplace, this is the kind of thing that matters. No one here has said that Christmas offends people. The issue is that acting as if everyone celebrates Christmas can alienate people and make them feel invisible, and that’s at odds with our commitment to diversity and inclusivity. That’s it. Let’s please not set up straw men that aren’t actually in play here.”
MISSOULA, MT—In a display presenting a rich, detailed portrait of their family histories and ancestral lineages, website GeneologyMe.com shows its users a chart of which dead people busted loads inside which other dead people, sources confirmed Thursday. “It turns out I hail from a long line of Irish people who,…
Today we’ll talk about the 50-year anniversary of Apollo’s blue marble, the Square Kilometre Array, talking to robots, the Yellowstone volcano, nanoparticles that help with carbon capture, a forest bubble – on Mars, a new method of spacecraft propulsion, tests for cancer, earthquake tracking from space, and of course, the telephone will ring.
00:00 Intro 00:36 Record Resolution for Blue Marble Simulation 03:41 Construction on Square Kilometer Array Begins 05:11 Talking to Robots in Real Time 06:08 Magma Under Yellowstone 07:21 Nanoparticles for Ocean Fertilization 09:01 Nature Reserve on Mars 10:50 New Method of Spacecraft Propulsion 12:35 New Non-invasive Cancer Test 14:29 Earthquake Tracking form Space 15:45 Morning Brew
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly eight months since I wrote that letter. And what an eight months it has been – especially for the ex-boss!
Fortunately, blocking her seemed to do the trick, and I haven’t heard another word about her insane request for me to pay two months of HER cell phone bill. Of course, I have blocked her everywhere imaginable, but I also assume someone finally convinced her she had no leg to stand on. But I also found out that MONEY (or lack thereof) may have been the reason she was pushing me to pay the bill.
I decided to reach out to the two former employees that I mentioned had left to start their own business right before I was hired. And boy, did I get a LOT of info. We had shockingly similar stories about the level of crazy with the ex-boss, and that was helpful to me in recovering from the toxicity and guilt about what happened after I left (and yes, I did seek therapy about it!) I know a lot of people thought I was nuts for staying for two years, but these two guys? One was there for ten years and the other for 12!!
Most interestingly, I found out they had offered to buy the business from her when they left. They offered her a very fair price, and the clients would have transferred to their new company (given they were doing all the work for them anyway, it made total sense). The ex-boss was pushing 65, so it was reasonable she might want to retire. Per her usual MO, she reacted with emotion instead of thinking it through, got completely offended and fired them on the spot. Within a few hours, she re-hired them knowing she needed them to stay out their final weeks so she could get her act together (which included hiring me). When they eventually left, three clients decided to go with them to their new business. Over the course of the two years I worked there, two more got fed up and left for their company as well. They then had five of the original client list.
Fast forward to a month after I quit. What I was sure would happen had happened. On the day I left, the company still had 12 clients. Just four weeks later, they were down to THREE. Two of the 12 left as soon as they heard I had quit. Six more left within a month and went to the company of the two former employees – the same employees who had tried to buy her out. The ex-boss could have been paid and retired peacefully. Instead, she let her pride prevail, and two years later, she had lost 11 clients to their company anyway – and they didn’t have to pay her a dime. She’s apparently had to get temp jobs because she isn’t making enough to live on with just three clients. It’s honestly sad.
The only thing I’ve heard from her (sort of?) was about a month ago. She mailed our company a box of cookies with a note wishing us “well in your future endeavors.” First of all, WEIRD given there’s no longer any association between our two companies, but even MORE weird – our employees work remotely, and she knows that. How was it supposed to work with this box of cookies? Were we supposed to mail each employee a cookie? My boss ended up giving them to her partner. A couple of weeks later, ex-boss texted my boss to ask if she had gotten the cookies. Since my boss didn’t immediately text to GUSH with appreciation over a random box of cookies, ex-boss apparently assumed I hadn’t let anyone know they were received (because I’m a terrible person).
There are truly hundreds of crazy stories I need to write down from my time there. I once mentioned I’d never been to New York. Ex-boss suddenly decided we were going TOGETHER for a weekend (at the height of the pandemic, might I add), that she was paying for it and we would be staying with some friend of hers that I didn’t even know. I declined the offer (multiple times). She said she understood but called me a week later to rant how upset and hurt she was that “you don’t want to go to New York with me!!!” Or the time I went to her house to help her fix a computer issue – while she stayed in her bedroom napping!
BUT! I made it out alive! My hair is growing back. I am beyond happy at my new company, love my boss and co-workers and even got a promotion that starts in January! And without that crazy job, I never would have met my current boss. So at least there’s a silver lining!
Derrick’s heart stopped when telling his friends it’s not actually pronounced Bar-ce-lona, but Bar-THe-lona, and yes, he’d been there.
Miriam slipped in the kitchen and died after “accidentally” leaving her LSAT scores open on the table for her roommates to see.
Austin was hit by a car while crossing the street diagonally—yes, the hypotenuse is the longest side of a right triangle, and he knew it—and staring at his phone display of an image of himself rock climbing shirtless, while considering “accidentally” sending it to the woman he just met at Starbucks.
Chad’s car rolled over him while installing his new TruckNutz on the hitch of his lifted Raptor after telling a neighbor to “be a lion, not a sheep.”
Betty died of an aneurysm in the self-checkout lane, while ringing up her organic avocados as lettuce.
Tony was struck by lightning while telling his neighbor that it’s not Frankenstein, in fact, but Frankenstein’s monster.
Erica drowned at a rec center pool after asking the lifeguard if it was okay to swim four miles for the third time in one week because she was training for a triathlon. Oh, had he never done one? You have to be in amazing shape, and she just wants to check when they close because she’ll be a while, and she’ll need some aminos before the swim because her body is like a microchip, and she is just doing some biohacking to make sure she wins, and has the lifeguard really never tried a triathlon? Because she is happy to get them started on their next super-rewarding race, and the culture is way supportive and not at all toxic!
Janine fell through an open manhole cover when texting her friends she got the Wordle in two tries—yet again.
There was an announcement of an all-day Microsoft-internal conference featuring a project I will call Project Enzyme. The announcement went like this:
The Project Enzyme Forum is our flagship community conference that brings together engineers, project managers, data scientists, and designers from around the company to learn about Project Enzyme and get a first look at some of the exciting new improvements in the platform.
Senior leaders will share their vision for Project Enyzme and how we can use it to create the next wave of cutting-edge products and experiences. Other senior leaders will participate in a panel discussion. Discover what Project Enzyme is, why its important, and where it can take you next.
With access to 20+ technical sessions and hands-on labs, you will learn practical information about Project Enzyme that will help you do more today and prepare for tomorrow. Track topics include Fundamentals, Data Science, App Development, Software Dev Lifecycle, and Future of Project Enzyme. Browse the content on demand and at your leisure on the Project Enzyme Forum page after the conference.
Expand your network and your perspective on what is possible. Our live Q&A sessions with Project Enzyme experts will let you collaborate with thousands of peers from around the world, as well as with the Microsoft engineers behind Project Enzyme.
They also included an agenda:
Opening keynote: The future of Project Enzyme.
Project Enzyme overview.
Lunch break.
Connect with the Experts: Live Q&A.
VP panel discussion.
Closing remarks.
Nowhere in the lengthy announcement does it say what Project Enzyme is.
I guess the Project Enyzme Forum was a rousing success, because they held another one the following year. This time, they also included a link to the project home page, so I took a peek. It’s a very pretty home page, but nowhere does it say what Project Enzyme does. It appears to store data and have APIs for reading and writing that data. But there must be more to it than that.
Oh look, they have a page where they show some sample apps. Maybe from reading the samples I can get an idea of what it actually does.
Data processor – Type 2
A hello world Type 2 sample that shows how to query data and do some processing.
Remote data processor – Type B
A hello world Type B sample that shows how to query data and do some processing.
Web service – Type 2
A hello world Type B sample that shows how to query data and do some processing.
Container discovery processor – Type 2
A hello world Type B sample that shows how to query data and do some processing.
Remote container discovery processor – Type B
Discovery processor – Type 2
Not only are these sample titles and descriptions unhelpful, they appear to be wrong! It seems that all of the samples have exactly the same description, except for (1) the ones with no description, and (2) the ones which say that they are Type B even though the sample title says that they are Type 2.
It seems that Project Enzyme is just some sort of secret club that puts up posters just so they can brag about their exclusivity.
Bonus chatter: I sent email to the Project Enzyme team saying, “It would be nice if somewhere in the announcement it said what Project Enzyme was. It may be obvious to you but I bet its not obvious to a lot of people.” They were kind enough to reply: “Thanks for the feedback. Did you register yet? Hope to see you there!”
Apparently they want me to register for something just to find out what it is.
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