In Microspeak, breaking into jail is an idiom that has the general sense of admitting to or possibly even creating problem by opening your mouth. The metaphor here is that you are safely outside jail, but you are for some inexplicable reason taking active steps to get yourself inside. (Remember, Microspeak is not just terms used exclusively within Microsoft, but also terms used at Microsoft more often than in the general population.)
One example of breaking into jail is saying something in a meeting that makes it sound like you are taking responsibility for a problem that is not yours.
We don’t want to break into jail on the problem of how to repair systems that are already affected.
In this hypothetical example, the team is working on a way to prevent the problem from spreading. But they don’t want to be made responsible for repairing the systems that are already affected, so they are being careful not to bring up that topic, or at least making sure that when they bring up the topic, they make it clear that it is not something they will be taking on.
Another example of breaking into jail is volunteering information that could get you into trouble.
I may be breaking into jail here, but how should we classify work items whose projected completion date is after code complete?
The person asking the question is implicitly admitting that they have work items that extend beyond code complete, seeing as they’re asking a question about what to do with them. This is probably not good news, seeing as it shows that you are going to miss your delivery dates. On the other hand, it demonstrates honesty and accountability, so this type of “breaking into jail” is usually viewed positively. It’s better to fess up to your problems sooner rather than later. We don’t want to engage the entire team in a game of schedule chicken.
Bonus chatter: It seems that there are some dialectic variations on this concept within Microsoft. One that I found particularly amusing was the idiom “Keep the in the horse.”
Weather-related construction delays have pushed back the grand opening date, initially scheduled for Dec. 10-11, according to the Memorial Park Conservancy.
The PQ had previously refused to swear allegiance to King Charles III, Canada's monarch — despite it being a requirement to sit in the National Assembly. The PQ chose to swear an oath to the Quebec people and the province's constitution instead.
That’s it, I’ve had enough of this moldy codpiece of a life. My lord can find some other indentured serf to wait on his tables, tend to his livestock, and be strapped to a pole for hours on end for jousting, swordplay, and pillaging practice. I quit!
For as long as I can remember, I’ve served my liege twenty-three hours a day, seven days a week. In my spare time, I work relentlessly on my side-hustle passion project. It’s what sparks my joy. And I’ve decided that whatever doesn’t bring me immediate joy can be discarded. So I’m breaking free from my metaphorical and physical shackles. I’ll be even happier than Robin when he steals a new hoodie.
My passion is niche, but important. I enable some of the most advanced medical procedures known to witch doctors. I source blood-letting leeches through an ethical and sustainable supply chain.
My father, Dante of the Dungheap, thinks my decision is rash. But the only thing that’s rash is his inflamed and festy groin. I’ve told him my leeches could fix that up nicely. But he doesn’t want to listen. He says I’m arrogant and shouldn’t think I’m above living in the Dungheap with my twenty-nine brothers and sisters.
Dad insists I’m too young to try something for myself. He thinks I should settle for being a serf for a reputable master with good job security and prospects. But the way he and Mum did things isn’t how the world works anymore.
I know that I’m young—I’m only seven—but I already have four years of work experience. That’s more than double my life, and I’m well on the way to half my life expectancy.
Besides, I know heaps of six-year-olds who have made their side hustle into their main hustle. For example, Beatrice of the Brambles has seed funding from her lord for building a process that recycles bloody, rusted, and discarded chain mail into reusable drinking vessels. Or Mirabel of the Moat, who runs a startup where serfs with mules deliver bread and mead to lords and ladies on demand. We didn’t choose the entrepreneurial life; it chose us.
I’m pretty sure my lord, Sir Sigbald, will take the news well. He is, after all, a crusader that believes in only doing work that adds value to the kingdom. He’s a Knight of the Kid’s table. He attends the Roundtable meetings and babysits the other Knight’s kids. He tells anyone that will listen it’s a critical role that keeps the kingdom running, the infidels in check, and the shareholders happy.
But I’m not buying into his vision any longer. I know now is the right time to quit. Sir Sigbald recently took all the serfs away on something he calls an “offsite” to discuss the new year’s house and land-keeping strategy. For over an hour, he forced us to compete to build the highest tower out of straw, chicken guts, and our own bodily fluids. We don’t need team-building exercises; we need something to believe in.
Anyway, wish me luck as I tell Sir Sigbald my exciting news. The last serf who tried to leave a life of servitude was banished to the neighboring kingdom by catapult. But if that’s the price to pay for pursuing my passion, then I’ll gladly take it.
IRVINE, CA—Calling its latest offering the ultimate innovation in Mexican-inspired fast food, restaurant chain Taco Bell announced Thursday that it had added a cheesy beef dunk tank to its menu. “At select locations throughout the country, customers can now get their Taco Bell fix through total immersion in a…
Five cars rented by President Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail for his Thanksgiving weekend trip to Nantucket mysteriously burst into flames a day after he left, with the cause of the fire still under investigation. What do you think?
We are looking for artists of all levels to create and upload a short film of 2–3 minutes to the Internet Archive to help us celebrate Public Domain Day on 20 January 2023!
Public Domain Day is a celebration of all the rich materials that will be newly available to the public free of copyright restrictions. On January 1, 2023, most works published in 1927 will ascend into the Public Domain in the United States. We want artists to use this newly available content to create short films using resources from the Internet Archive’s collections from 1927.
The uploaded videos will be judged and prizes of up to $1500 awarded!! (Please see details below)
Winners will be announced and shown at the in-person Public Domain Day Celebration at the Internet Archive headquarters in San Francisco on 20 January 2023. All other participating videos will be added to a Public Domain Day Collection on archive.org and featured in a blog entry in January of 2023.
Here are a few examples of some of the materials that will become public domain on January 1, 2023:
Movies! E.g. Metropolis, The Jazz Singer, and The King of Kings
Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
The Best Things in Life Are Free
Sleuthing the Public Domain
What can 1927 teach us about 2023?
Guidelines
Make a 2–3 minute movie using at least one work published in 1927 that will become Public Domain on January 1 , 2023. This could be a poem, book, film, musical composition, painting, photograph or any other work that will become Public Domain next year. The more different PD materials you use, the better!
Note: If you have a resource from 1927 that is not available on archive.org, you may upload it and then use it in your submission. (Here is how to do that).
Your submission must have a soundtrack. It can be your own voiceover or performance of a public domain musical composition, or you may use public domain or CC0 sound recordings from sources like Openverse and the Free Music Archive.
Note: Sound recordings published before 1923 are in the public domain. Sound recordings published later than Jan 1, 1923 are NOT public domain, even if the underlying musical composition is, so watch out for this!
Mix and Mash content however you like, but note that ALL of your sources must be from the public domain. They do not all have to be from 1927. Remember, U.S. government works are public domain no matter when they are published. So feel free to use those NASA images! You may include your own original work if you put a CC0 license on it.
Add a personal touch, make it yours!
Keep the videos light hearted and fun! (It is a celebration after all!)
Submission Deadline
All submissions must be in by Midnight, 16 January 2023 (PST)
Link all your sourced materials from 1927 in the upload description
Prizes
1st prize: $1500
2nd prize: $1000
3rd prize: $500
*All prizes sponsored by the Kahle/Austin Foundation
Judges
Judges will be looking for videos that are fun, interesting and use public domain materials, especially those from 1927. They will be shown at the in-person Public Domain Day party and should highlight the value of having cultural materials that can be reused, remixed, and re-contextualized for a new day. Winners’ pieces will be purchased with the prize money, and viewable on the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons license.
Amir Saber Esfahani (Director of Special Arts Projects, Internet Archive)
Rick Prelinger (Board Member, Internet Archive, Founder, Prelinger Archives)
The moon belongs to everyone, so says the 1927 hit musical composition, “The Best Things In Life Are Free.” We agree! In January of 2023, a treasure trove of new cultural works will become as free as the moon and the stars, and we at Internet Archive, Creative Commons and many other leaders from the open world plan to throw a party to celebrate!
Next year, works published in 1927 will join the myriad creative building blocks of our shared culture heritage. The public domain will grow richer with books from authors like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Marcel Proust, and Virginia Woolf, silent film classics like the controversial The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson and Fritz Lang’s dystopian Metropolis, and snappy musical compositions like You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream.
You can welcome new public domain works and party with us two ways:
Join us for a virtual party on January 19, 2023 at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern time where we will celebrate our theme, The Best Things In Life Are Free, with a host of entertainers, historians, librarians, academics, activists and other leaders from the open world, including additional sponsoring organizations Library Futures, SPARC, Authors Alliance, Public Knowledge, and the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain. REGISTER FOR THE VIRTUAL EVENT HERE!
The Internet Archive will also host an in-person Film Remix Contest Screening Party on January 20, 2023 at 6pm at 300 Funston Ave in San Francisco. We will celebrate 1927 as founding year of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, while watching this year’s Public Domain Day Remix Contest winning entries, eating popcorn and ice cream. Come dressed in your best golden age of Hollywood inspired costume and walk the red carpet with the Internet Archive as we celebrate the entry of “talkies” into the public domain. REGISTER FOR THE IN-PERSON PARTY IN SAN FRANCISCO HERE!
Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga has apologized for its advertising campaign that featured young children posing with teddy bears that appeared to be dressed in BDSM costumes, claiming the ads were not approved by the company. What do you think?
In this week's science news we’ll talk about Trouble at ITER, robots that build robots, air pollution, AI that classifies supernovae, a small asteroid that hit Canada, Super GPS, a new supercomputer simulation of the sun, a quantum thermometer. And of course, the telephone will ring.
Correction: Lake Ontario is of course in South-East Canada (and not South-West).
00:00 Intro 00:32 Trouble at ITER 02:29 Robots that Can Build Anything 03:50 Air pollution impairs the immune system 05:38 AI Classifies 1000 Supernovae 07:12 Small Asteroid Hits Canada 09:00 SuperGPS 10:25 New Supercomputer Simulation of the Sun 12:00 A Quantum Thermometer 14:13 Sponsor Message
The Weingarten Art Group (WAG) has issued an open call for artists living in or who are originally from the Greater Houston area to submit work to be considered for the Houston Endowment’s (HEI) inaugural exhibition.
In September, HEI moved into its new headquarters at 3683 Willia Street, west of downtown. Earlier this month, the organization announced the installation of its newly formed permanent collection, under the guidance of WAG. Starting in 2023, HEI plans to host two annual art exhibitions, each featuring works by one to three artists. The exhibitions will be held in the HEI lobby, and though the building is not open to the public, the exhibitions will be shared online and will be available to HEI visitors.
The Houston Endowment’s lobby space
The call is open to Greater Houston-area artists who are 18 years old and older. WAG has specified that artists should “submit artwork that envisions positive community change. Artwork may relate to our cultures, history, current events, infrastructure, or natural environment.” WAG welcomes submissions of artworks from a variety of disciplines, including painting, photography, works on paper, sculpture, site-specific or multi-media installations, lightworks, digital designs to be printed as vinyl wall coverings, murals, video, and new media. While a video screen can be made available, if an artwork includes sound it will only be considered if the audio can be played via headphones.
According to the online application, WAG, in partnership with HEI, will review and assess submissions based on the criteria below: – How does the proposed artwork reflect and respond to the exhibition theme? – What is the artist’s connection to the Greater Houston area? – Is the proposed artwork appropriately scaled and feasible for the site? – Do the artworks meet technical, durability and safety considerations?
Selected artists will receive awards ranging from $4,000 to $12,000 depending on the number of artists and artworks chosen. Additional funds will be provided to cover exhibition expenses including framing, art transportation, installation and deinstallation, signage, and photo/video documentation. All exhibited pieces will be returned to the artist(s) at the culmination of the exhibition.
The deadline to apply is January 8, 2023. Artists will be selected and notified by January 30. The first exhibition will be on view from April 10 through October 6. To learn more and apply visit Submittable.
It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and for the rest of the year I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
Your readers may remember me as the executive assistant who wanted advice about the increasingly obsessive behavior of their CEO. Shortly after reading your response, I began job hunting in the public sector. I was disillusioned by my recent experiences and the thought of landing a position that was even remotely similar made my skin crawl. Fortunately, I was able to land a position in my local government after a relatively brief search. I’ve been in this new position for a few months and it’s been the single most humbling experience of my life: the caliber of people that I work for and with is astonishing; I’ve never been part of a team that operates this way and it’s incredibly gratifying. However, I’ve been struggling to find my footing and rather than hit the ground running, I took two steps and face planted. I feel like I’ve gone from playing with Lego Duplo to Lego Creator Expert sets overnight — one of the many astute comments left by your readers suggested that my old job was doing nothing for my skill building and they couldn’t have been more right! However, I’m happy to say my new boss has been incredible at every turn: they understand it’s been a rough transition and they are willing to see me through. I’m learning and growing in fantastic and challenging ways for the first time in my adult career. It’s been really hard, but the kind of hard that makes a person better for having experienced it.
As you can expect, it’s been a really bitter pill to swallow, now that I have first hand knowledge of what an appropriate EA/executive relationship should look like. In an effort to insure that my ex-boss is no longer able to leverage his title and position to manipulate or out-right force women into these relationships with him, I’ve retained an attorney and am currently working through the list of options available to hold him and the organization accountable.
And I’m still married, happily for the most part (ha!)
I remain forever grateful that you responded – you and your readers showed me everything I was missing when I was too close to see.
Donald Trump hosted White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West, who has been under fire recently for antisemitic remarks, at his Mar-a-Lago estate, just one week after announcing his 2024 presidential bid. What do you think?
It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and for the rest of the year I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
First, I want to thank the commentariat for all the well wishes for my recovery and for those who shared their own stories of cancer/major illness. Reading your supportive comments got me through a difficult month. I’m six months out from surgery and just had a good scan and follow-up appointments. I’m seeing a therapist who specializes in patients who have/had cancer and have my first visit with the exercise oncology group next week. Things are looking good.
Before I get to the update itself, I also need to thank Alison who, on the day of and after my letter was posted, kindly and quickly dealt with my mental fog and opioid-induced paranoia. At my request, she made several edits to the piece (e.g. removing the word-for-word text messages I originally included) and removed my comments, which is why the comment section seems confusing. There were LOADS of identifying details in the post and in my comments, so I freaked out a little. She was great and reassured me as well as made every change I asked for.
Now, on to my update and to answer a few questions that commenters had. The flowers were purchased via a PO sent to an admin — not personally paid for by my team. More than a few descriptions of my boss were spot on: wants to be acknowledged for “kindness,” extrovert who is projecting her needs onto others, narcissist, has boundary issues, believes she is empathetic but shows it all wrong, and performative just to name a few. Several readers caught that I said these were just the texts my boss initiated, speculating that I’d been encouraging the communication. While, yes, I’d replied to her texts, I wasn’t the one to start any of the conversations. Grumpy Elder Millennial’s comment summarizes why I responded to them: “I’m guessing that OP is concerned about the interpersonal and career consequences of [ignoring them].” I also didn’t want my boss to have the phone numbers of any friends/family members (I’ll probably do this with a Google number next time), which is why she only had my number.
Now for what I did. I used Alison’s advice and some of the suggestions made in the comments to craft a reply that said I (1) was settling back in at home (I’m out of the hospital), (2) was wiped out and focused on rest/recovery (I’m exhausted and healing), and (3) would get back in touch closer to my return date when I was feeling more up to it (I’m not at work so leave me alone). I also thanked the team again for the flowers and conveyed my appreciation for their concern. My coworker (we are a team of 3) reacted with a simple heart within minutes. Boss never reacted at all — no email, no text, no call, zero reaction. I hear nothing from her until I emailed several weeks later letting her know I would be able to come back half days a week before my return date, so all the advice worked. The relationship between the two of us is fine now. She’s back to her oversharing self but not hounding me like she was when I was on leave, which I can deal with now that 90% of my energy isn’t spent healing my body from a 10+ hour surgery with a surprise organ removal.
An unrelated, final thought for the readers who didn’t understand the difference between “Did they get all the cancer?” and “How did everything go?” Although people and cancers are all different, you should really never say that. Even if the surgeon or oncologist thinks they got it all, you really have no idea until you hit a 5-year (or more) mark — or when it comes back. There is literally no way to know if they “got it all” until years later. different pseudonym’s comment sums it up nicely: “There is a difference between cancer and ‘not feeling well,’ and when you speak as though they are the same you are being cruel.”
Thank you to everyone who engaged in the comments. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it!
Join copyright scholar PAMELA SAMUELSON for a discussion with historian PETER BALDWIN about THE COPYRIGHT WARS, covering three centuries’ worth of trans-Atlantic copyright battles.
Watch recording:
Today’s copyright wars can seem unprecedented. Sparked by the digital revolution that has made copyright—and its violation—a part of everyday life, fights over intellectual property have pitted creators, Hollywood, and governments against consumers, pirates, Silicon Valley, and open-access advocates. But while the digital generation can be forgiven for thinking the dispute between, for example, the publishing industry and libraries is completely new, the copyright wars in fact stretch back three centuries—and their history is essential to understanding today’s battles. THE COPYRIGHT WARS—the first major trans-Atlantic history of copyright from its origins to today—tells this important story.
THE COPYRIGHT WARS is available to read or download from the Internet Archive, as designated by the author. You can also purchase the book in print from Princeton University Press, or your local bookshop.
It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and for the rest of the year I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
Here’s what happened. Feeling more brave after reading your and readers’ responses, first I tried a lowkey version of asking for help from HR. When I asked them about the grievance process in general (I did not provide any specifics) , they said the first step in the official company process is to talk directly with the person to try to resolve the issue one to one. They said this was true whether it was a peer or a supervisor — even though I hadn’t asked that question. Which reinforced my belief that HR protects the company, not any of the human beings in their employ. This was an effective dead end because I neither wanted to share more details with HR, nor confront the boss about the whole messed up pay-for-performance-review system.
Then I asked around to get an idea of what other employees were planning to do. A few had already made substantial “contributions” but many hadn’t done anything yet because they were feeling stuck too. I suggested those of us remaining contribute to a gift made “in honor of the Boss’s leaving the company for XYZ Corp” to a local organization that focuses on people facing food insecurity. I liked the suggested idea of making a donation to a cause Boss would find odious. But we all agreed that doing something that would ameliorate suffering in our community would be more impactful. It would be something good to come of the bad situation we found ourselves. So that’s what we did. And then we waited.
The deadline for performance reviews came and went. Cartoon Villain Boss left town for the new gig. I assumed she passed her review of me to the new boss, so she would have the satisfaction of cutting me down and forcing another person to deliver the bad news, and also poisoning the new boss about my work as an added parting-gift evil bonus.
In my first meeting with New Boss I mentioned, Lt. Columbo style, “I noticed it didn’t seem as if Former Boss uploaded my performance evaluation before she left. Wasn’t sure if you might have it?” New Boss responds “It turns out Former Boss didn’t do performance reviews for ANY of her employees!”
I was relieved, perplexed, and annoyed, all in equal measure. Reviews are tied to our annual raises, tied to advancing in the company, etc. Turns out there was an upside and a downside. New Boss made sure supervisees got the base raise, thereby immediately gaining our good will. But she told us we won’t have a performance review for another year because New Boss hasn’t supervised us until now. For some that had outstanding years, this was not great because it kind of makes it as if that outstanding work never happened.
Your advice and that of readers was of great value in terms of possible routes of action I could take, as well as providing general affirmation that the situation I found myself in was not cool.
With appreciation,
Loyal Reader, Who Now Has A New Boss Who Is Not A Cartoon Villain
It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and for the rest of the year I’ll be running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
A while back I wrote about a new hire that had a strange habit of kneeling in my office. First of all: the comments are always so unexpected. Commenters were convinced it was cultural, or that Sam was deaf or blind and needed to be inches from me to communicate, or that he was super tall or super short, or that he had some chronic wasting disease that made sitting in an office chair impossible and painful, or that my cubicle size/layout made the extra chair impractical. It really was just as simple as I suggested: a new employee just didn’t really get it.
Anyway, after I read through the response and the comments I decided I would ask him explicitly to sit in the chair. He came into my cube, and I said something like “hey dude, I don’t mean to make a big deal about this, but I’m gonna need you to sit in the chair. It’s just a little weird, especially when [president of company] walks by, you know?” He said OK (albeit somewhat confused), and sat in the chair. I had a hunch he may just be sick of sitting, so I said “you know [our company] has a bunch of extra sit-stand desks, right? You can ask for one.”
So, the next day Sam had a sit-stand desk. And then a few months later I moved cities to be closer to family. No telling if he’s gone back to his subservient ways or not.
in the horse.”
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