Bob McGrath, an actor, musician and children's author widely known for his portrayal of one of the first regular characters on the children's show Sesame Street, has died at the age of 90.
A Calgary man thought it'd be a nice present for his son — ordering computer parts on Amazon so his newly minted high school grad could build his own PC. But when the $690 graphics card arrived, it turned out to be a fake. That was the start of a five-month headache.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump faced rebuke Sunday from officials in both parties after calling for the "termination" of parts of the constitution over his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
As of Sunday, Héma-Québec has lifted its policy that restricts gay and bisexual men, as well as others in the LGBTQ2+ community, from donating blood for three months after being sexually active.
Early last month, the Royal Caribbean Group opened a new Port of Galveston cruise terminal and debuted a sculpture by the Texas-based husband and wife team Brad Oldham and Christy Coltrin, who make up Brad Oldham Sculpture.
Royal Caribbean’s Galveston cruise terminal
The $125 million terminal allows Royal Caribbean to bring in Oasis Class ships, some of the biggest cruise ships in the world, to Galveston. Architects Bermello Ajamil & Partners Inc. designed the 161,300-square-foot LEED-certified building.
The new sculpture, Galveston Beach Trio, pays homage to island’s musical heritage, which includes Galveston-born Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Barry White, as well as musicians Joyce Fields, who played piano for more than 18 years during Sunday brunch at the Hotel Galvez, and Joe Pena, a local guitarist known as the Granddaddy of Galveston Rock and Roll. As the sculpture features a human-sized pelican, sea turtle, and crab playing in a band, the connection between these specific musicians and the sculpture may not be immediately clear to passersby, but a nearby plaque provides details about Galveston’s rich music history.
In a press release announcing the new port and sculpture, Joshua Carroll, vice president, Destination Development, Royal Caribbean Group stated, “Showcasing the history and culture of Galveston was our top priority in establishing this art installation in our new terminal, and we’re thrilled to partner with Brad Oldham Sculpture to bring this vision to life.”
The Royal Caribbean Group worked with Houston-based Piper Faust Public Art to pull together a group of artists to consider for the opportunity. Ultimately, the design by Mr. Oldham and Mrs. Coltrin was selected. The duo specializes in narrative-based sculpture and site-specific installations that capture the character and energy of a place.
Brad Oldham and Christy Coltrin
Mr. Oldham remarked, “We are honored to create a permanent installation that cultivates the vacation vibe with an approachable music theme using native animals to make up the band. It is exciting to think that the Galveston Beach Trio may make it into family vacation pictures to capture the special time together.”
Mrs. Coltrin added, “Galveston is particularly meaningful to me because my grandfather was a 1925 graduate of Ball High School before attending Texas A&M University. He had a private architecture practice in Galveston in the 1940s. I think that he would like to know that his granddaughter helped create a sculpture celebrating his hometown.”
The online store offers shirts, mugs and other products that can be customized with an image of Pooh holding up a blank white sheet of paper, the symbol of China's lockdown protests.
The authorities are investigating the mass power outage across Moore County as a criminal act after power substations were damaged by gunfire. The county implemented a nighttime curfew.
(Image credit: Moore County Sheriff's Office/Screenshot by NPR)
In North Carolina an overnight curfew is in place and schools are closed Monday following gunfire attacks at two electrical substations in Moore County. Power is out for tens of thousands.
Good news! Today’s BMOW Floppy Emu firmware update brings support for the Macintosh MOOF disk image format. MOOF is a new disk image format for 3.5 inch Macintosh floppy disks, designed by John K. Morris, with the goal of capturing all the low-level disk information needed for copy-protected software. It’s the Macintosh equivalent of a WOZ disk image for Apple II computers. With a MOOF, you can use original floppy disks exactly as they came from the publisher, with copy protection still intact, instead of relying on cracked or modified versions. Although media-based copy protection was never as common in the Mac world as it was for Apple IIs, there’s still a good amount of early software from the era of the Mac 128K, 512K, and Plus that’s copy-protected. Most of them are 400K disks, but there are some 800K ones too. Archive.org has a collection of MOOFs at https://archive.org/details/moofaday
Understanding MOOF
A regular Macintosh .dsk or .img disk image is a byte-level representation of the logical data contained in a disk. It’s all of the disk’s sector data concatenated together into one big file. It supports normal disk behavior that’s built around a typical ReadSector() and WriteSector() API. For an 800K floppy disk, the .dsk disk image is precisely 800K in size.
A MOOF disk image is a bit-level representation of the disk as it’s physically implemented in the floppy media. It’s everything on the physical disk, including the empty space between sectors, the headers and footers, and GCR 6&2 encoded data or whatever non-standard encoding the developer may have chosen. For a MOOF that’s created using John’s Applesauce hardware, it will also correctly preserve the relative angular positions of adjacent disk tracks, and areas of the disk where there are no bits, both of which are essential for some copy-protection schemes. For an 800K floppy disk, the MOOF image is typically about 1300K in size.
I don’t recommend rushing to re-encode all your Mac disks as MOOF. For the vast majority of disks, this is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive since MOOF images are larger and more difficult to use with common software tools. But for those few Mac disks with embedded media-based protection, a low-level MOOF image is just what’s needed.
MOOFing the Floppy Emu
When people asked me about MOOF in the past, I said it was impossible for Floppy Emu to support bit-level 3.5 inch disk images because there wasn’t enough RAM to store a complete track at the bit level. So what kind of black magic makes this possible now?
To make the data fit, the Floppy Emu firmware must depart slightly from the behavior of a real floppy disk. For a real 800K disk, there’s a small delay when switching between tracks, but switching between sides is instantaneous. For a normal .dsk disk image, the Emu can support this by storing track 0 side 0 and track 0 side 1 in RAM at the same time. There’s only a delay when new data is fetched from the SD card for the next track, which mimics the delay of a real floppy drive’s mechanical head stepping movement. But for 800K MOOF images, there isn’t enough RAM to store both sides. Only track 0 side 0 is stored in RAM and there’s a delay for SD card access when switching to track 0 side 1. In theory this might cause software errors or copy-protection failures, since there’s no equivalent delay with a real disk. But in practice, I don’t think it’s a problem.
This RAM-saving trick works for 400K and 800K MOOFs, but can only be extended so far. RAM limits are one of several reasons you’ll probably never see 1440K MOOF support on this hardware. But that’s no great loss since the era of media-based copy protection had mostly ended by the time 1440K disks were introduced. All of the MOOF examples in Archive.org’s Moof-A-Day collection are 400K and 800K disks.
This MOOF implementation for Floppy Emu is read-only. A few Moof-A-Day games require writing to the disk in order to play, so although they load and run, they’re not fully usable. A writable version of MOOF support is in the works. The rare MOOFs that use pure FLUX data are unsupported by the Floppy Emu, due to hardware limitations. The only example that I know is the game OIDS.
WOZ 3.5
The MOOF format is essentially identical to the 3.5 inch WOZ format for Apple II computers, just with different metadata. That means it’s theoretically possible to add 3.5 inch WOZ support to Floppy Emu too, and that’s my hope. But it’s unfortunately not as simple as just re-using the Macintosh MOOF code: the Apple II version of the firmware is substantially more complex than the Mac version, because it supports many more types of disk emulation and disk image formats, and it’s already pushing the limits of the microcontroller’s performance and memory, and the CPLD logic chip’s resources. It’ll be a major challenge to weave 3.5 inch WOZ support into this environment.
Moof-A-Day Known Issues
Two titles still don’t pass the copy-protection check, for unknown reasons: The Ancient Art of War and The Surgeon. The Surgeon also fails its check with archive.org’s built-in MAME environment, so it’s not just Floppy Emu that has trouble with it.
Mac Vegas will silently fail to write to the read-only disk, then restart or crash when you begin a mini-game.
Some games have other requirements like only running properly on a Mac 512K, or only when the disk is in the internal drive, or they require two disk drives.
Please give this a spin, and let me know of any problems you find with MOOF support, or with other disk emulation features that might have broken accidentally.
Download the latest Floppy Emu firmware from the project page, or buy a new Floppy Emu Model C at the BMOW Store.
Calgary Transit riders boarding a CTrain between City Hall and the Downtown West/Kerby station will now be doing so in a new branded zone paid for by the Toronto-Dominion Bank.
New York City mayor Eric Adams directed police and emergency medical workers to take individuals who appear “mentally ill” into custody involuntarily for psychiatric evaluations. What do you think?
WASHINGTON—Praising the last-minute agreement to deny the laborers any sort of civility or respect, President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to avert a crisis in which rail workers might have been treated like actual human beings. “We were only a week away from a nationwide catastrophe in which we would have been…
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You know what they say, a scalper's pain is a gamer's gain (actually I just made that up), because scalpers that jumped the gun on NVIDIA's RTX 4080 have been left holding the bag and are struggling to return their purchases or sell them on the open market under their cost basis. The news comes from Reddit (via Videocardz, via Mooreslawisdead).
Retailers like Newegg remove the refund option for NVIDIA's RTX 4080, leaving scalpers scampering in the direction of third-party marketplaces
Posts on r/PCMR show that scalpers are flocking to various marketplaces like Facebook in an effort to offload their scalped stash of NVIDIA RTX 4080s. It looks like they are having trouble the inventory even at a very "generous" pricing close to MSRP ($1200). Quite understandably, gamers that were left in the lurch during the cryptocurrency mining boom are watching this unfold with glee.
Screenshot from r/PCMR
Scalpers have made an easy profit on pretty much all NVIDIA GPU launches in the recent past but it looks like it is time to face the music when it comes to the RTX 4080. This card is hard enough to move at MSRP so people that bought up the SKUs in bulk hoping to flip them for a profit are in for a rude awakening.
Interestingly, another reason why scalpers are flocking to third party marketplaces is provided by MLiD, who spotted that retailers like Newegg have removed their refund policy for the NVIDIA RTX 4080 - meaning scalpers cannot take the easy road of simply returning the product to the retailer they scalped it from. This would mean that a pricing war should soon ensue which should apply selling pressure to the RTX 4080 pricing and automatically bring it below the MSRP due to market forces.
Scalpers returning their #Nvidia RTX 4080s they couldn't sell on eBay is a big issue for retailers...
It's so big that @Newegg just removed the refund option for many 4080s!!!
The NVIDIA RTX 4080 is starting to develop quite the embattled history. First, its 12GB variant, which wasn't actually a RTX 4080 (it had lower CUDA cores and was actually in the RTX 4070 Ti class), was cancelled after not-negligible-consumer-and-media-backlash. Now it seems that the public isn't being very receptive to the RTX 4080 16GB either. Meanwhile, the RTX 4090 is selling like hotcakes and flying off the shelves even though it is significantly more pricey.
The reason might have something to do with the value that the cards offer. While the RTX 4090 offers $19.5 USD per TFLOP, the RTX 4080 only offers offers a TFOP for $24.6. This means that the RTX 4080, at its $1200 price point offers 21% less value per dollar than the RTX 4090. There is also the consideration that people who want the absolute best GPU that money can buy will go for the RTX 4090 and at $1200, the RTX 4080 is not something the mainstream gamer can afford. NVIDIA appears to have miscalculated the market depth at the $1200 price point. If you take the same TFLOP per USD as the RTX 4090, the price of the RTX 4080 should have been $949 USD, and that is the maximum price point we believe the card should have launched with.
How sweet are scalpers' tears to chad gamers?
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Sweeter than honey
Scalpers are human too, Usman.
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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. My interviewer asked “how low I was willing to go” on salary
I had a wonderful phone interview that lead to an in-person interview. Both went extremely well and the job is one that interests me.
However, at the end of the interview, I was asked for a ballpark salary requirement, which I gave along with the standard caveat that I would want to consider a complete compensation package. The hiring manager suggested I spend my weekend thinking about how “low I was willing to go.”
I bit back the urge for a snarky reply that they should spend their weekend thinking “how high they were willing to go.”
Needless to say, I sent the requisite thank-you letter and am continuing my search with other companies. Is this a new style of salary negotiating?
I don’t know that it’s a new style — there have always been companies that are pretty open about trying to lowball people — but it’s certainly a crappy one.
This isn’t a job you want (unless you are extremely desperate, and even then, you would only want it for as long as it takes you to find a better one).
Good employers do not pressure people to work for the absolute lowest figure they’d find tolerable. Good employers understand that in order to attract and keep good employees, they need to pay a salary that feels reasonably fair and in line with market rates, and that if they are blatant about their desire to cheap out on salary, they will reap the results of that in low performance and high turnover.
All that said, there’s one scenario where I can imagine an interviewers saying this without it being so outrageous: If you asked for a salary range that’s wildly above market range in your field but then added in that you’re willing to be flexible, I could imagine someone saying, “That’s pretty outside our range — we’re thinking $X to $Y. Will you think about how far you’d be able to come down and let me know?”
But if that wasn’t the context, then yeah, these people just told you that they want to cheap out on salary. And since money is probably the reason you’re interested in working in the first place, you’re pretty safe in declaring this organization Not High On Your List.
2. Should I get an educational lesson on a new employee’s religion?
I work in a small (less than 20 employee) company. We are in a moderate sized city, but a very conservative town and our company generally reflects that. They just hired a new employee who is expected to start in a few weeks. We have no concrete evidence of his religion, but his name and background suggest a particular religious practice.
At least that’s the execs’ assumption. It’s noteworthy, but I don’t plan to make any assumptions. I’m personally agnostic, and my coworkers’ religious beliefs are non-starters for me. But we’re in a meeting now getting a history lesson about this faith, their prayer practices, etc.
Is this a good idea? Is this necessary? Again, for myself it makes no difference what faith my coworkers practice, especially if we don’t even know he actually practices. But on the other hand, we do have some highly conservative (I might say narrow-minded) employees. A lesson in tolerance might not be so bad.
Nooooo, this is not a good idea. Many people would be tremendously uncomfortable to learn that their new office had held a session to educate people about their religious practices. And this is made even weirder — and frankly more offensive — by the fact that they don’t even know if this is his religion or whether he practices it or to what extent. Assuming that you know anything about someone’s faith or lack thereof based on their name is pretty gross.
I suppose in one light, it’s good that they want to be welcoming. But this is not the way to do it. If your office is concerned that people will be hostile or insensitive to someone of a different religion, they can address that by explaining they’re not going to tolerate that — and then not tolerating it. That doesn’t require a course in any particular religion. And they’re undermining their own efforts here by the ignorance involved in their underlying assumptions.
3. Will almost-floor-length hair hold me back professionally?
I have very long hair (almost floor-length when it’s down, and I keep it that length just because I like it, not out of any religious or cultural obligation). I always wear it in a conservative updo that hides the length during interviews and for the first few weeks of job-related situations because I don’t want it to be the first thing people notice when they meet me in a professional context, but it’s much easier and more comfortable for me to wear it in a braid.
Do you think letting on that I have this unusual hairstyle is something that’s going to hold me back career-wise? I love it, but it’s pretty far outside of the norm and tends to provoke a lot of questions and comments, and I would hate to have people make assumptions about me or be distracted from the quality of my work. So should I suck it up and wear it in updos at work forever, or can I sometimes go full-on Tangled at work and wear it in ways where it’s visible?
If you’re awesome at what you do, almost-floor-length hair isn’t going to hold you back. But it’s definitely unusual enough that you’re likely to become known as The Person with the Floor-Length Hair and some people will find it odd. You might be totally fine with that, but there’s also an argument for not wanting people at work to be thinking about your hair at all. It’s up to you where you come down on that.
4. My relative is angry that I backed out of an interview — after he trash-talked the job
A family member of mine offered to pull some strings and get me a job working at their place of employment. Nothing against the job, but I just never felt it was a great fit, but figured I’d apply anyway to appease this person. I applied, a few weeks went by, and I was contacted by a hiring manager and set up an interview.
The second I told this family member about the interview, they were saying things like “avoid this place like the plague,” “you don’t really want to work here,” “the place feels like a sinking ship and the new manager has no idea what they are doing,” “his place is chaotic all of the time,” etc. Since I never really felt that the job was a great fit anyway on top of this person’s negative comments about the company and the people who work there, I decided to cancel the interview for reasons of “pursing other opportunities at this time.”
Ever since I canceled the interview, even though it was done in a polite and professional manner, the person who referred me — the very same person who talked me out of considering even interviewing for the job — has been angry with me. It seems like he would have preferred if I simply no-showed the interview as opposed to canceling with 24 hours notice. He now fears that his boss will take it out on him over my cancellation. I’m not sure why he would try and talk me out of taking the job and then get angry over the fact that he succeeded or even why he would refer me to a company that he doesn’t even like working for in the first place.
Yeah, I don’t know either. And if anyone should be mad at anyone here, it’s you at him for trying to push you into taking a job at a place that he finds so misery-inducing. I’d just say, “You were very convincing that it’s not a happy place to work at, so once I knew I wouldn’t accept a job there, I wanted to be considerate of your manager’s time and not waste it.” What he does with that is up to him, but it’s a reasonable thing to say (and do). Unfortunately you can’t make people respond rationally.
Five members of the fair-right group Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other offenses in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. What do you think?
We are excited to announce the release of our report, “Securing Digital Rights for Libraries: Towards an Affirmative Policy Agenda for a Better Internet,” and the culmination of a months-long process consulting with leading experts from libraries, civil society, and academia regarding libraries’ role in shaping the next iteration of the internet. The Internet Archive did this work in collaboration with the Movement for a Better Internet, so as to help model how this community can work together towards building an internet centered on public interest values.
You can download and read the free, openly-licensed report HERE.
The consultation focused on two core questions: How can libraries (1) sustain their traditional societal function and (2) build on their strengths to support a better information ecosystem in the 21st Century? Participants discussed a wide range of challenges, including consolidation in the publishing industry, mis/disinformation, and providing equitable access to information despite these obstacles. The conversation was anchored in libraries’ traditional support of public interest values—i.e. democracy, equity, diversity and inclusion, privacy, freedom of expression, and more.
The key takeaway from this consultation process is simple: The rights that libraries have always enjoyed offline must also be protected online. The report articulates a set of four digital rights for libraries, based on the core library functions of preserving and providing access to information, knowledge, and culture. Specifically, if libraries are to continue ensuring meaningful participation in society for everyone in the digital era, they must have the rights to:
Collect digital materials, including those made available only via streaming and other restricted means, through purchase on the open market or any other legal means, no matter the underlying file format;
Preserve those materials, and where necessary repair or reformat them, to ensure their long-term existence and availability;
Lend digital materials, at least in the same “one person at a time” manner as is traditional with physical materials;
Cooperate with other libraries, by sharing or transferring digital collections, so as to provide more equitable access for communities in remote and less well-funded areas.
The report is intended as a guide for meaningful policy discussions among librarians, public interest advocates, and lawmakers. We encourage you to read it and join us next Thursday, December 8th for a webinar discussion about the report with leaders from Internet Archive, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, and the Association of Research Libraries. Come with your feedback, questions, and ideas for translating the conclusions of the report into actionable policy goals. We also encourage you to check out the Movement for a Better Internet, and join us there as we continue to work with different communities to build an internet that works better for everyone.
Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman robocalled roughly 85,000 voters across five states, falsely telling them that voting by mail would risk "giving your private information to the man."
https://t.co/aCyYIZ7nnBhttps://t.co/sjKjJGwMvz pic.twitter.com/E337vziBJU
