"At least once a year, I like to bring in some of my Kevin's famous chili. The trick is to undercook the onions. Everybody is going to get to know each other in the pot. I'm serious about this stuff. I'm up the night before, pressing garlic and dicing whole tomatoes. I toast my own ancho chiles. It's a recipe passed down from Malone's for generations.
It's probably the thing I do best."
Of the 200+ cold opens on the American version of "The Office," that of the 26th episode of season 5 takes the cake – or the pot. "Casual Friday" begins with Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) of accounting at Dunder Mifflin (Scranton branch) gleefully bringing his famous chili into work. As Kevin's voiceover describes his process, things go horribly south and the pot ends up upside down on the floor by reception, spilling forth its contents like pig's blood in "Carrie."
We missed National Chili Day by a bit, but in most parts of the country it's still chili weather, so Peacock's decision to share Kevin's recipe, albeit in a stealthy way, is a welcome one. All nine seasons are ready for your viewing pleasure on Peacock, and if you're already signed up for the subscription service, there's a little treat waiting for you in the mumbo jumbo of the official Terms and Conditions.
Hawkeyed TikTok user McKenzie Floyd is credited with posting a video on the app pointing out the recipe hidden in plain sight, in the Peacock text of terms and conditions. AV Club reports that the user's boyfriend is one of those folks who actually reads the T&C before checking the box and moving on. She asks why it's necessary to include the recipe, though the answer should be painfully clear: because good chili should be spread around like holiday cheer. A good chili recipe is as good as tomato-based gold: it's always a treat to find out what the "secret" ingredient or technique is that takes the taster straight to Flavortown. Some swear by a spoonful of bacon grease in the mix, others claim that a splash of sherry or a pinch of cocoa powder is the magic element – Kevin's chili success relies on sweating the onions. Whatever the lynchpin may be, the final product is a labor of love. One bite, and the angels sing, which makes Kevin's saga all the more tragic.
For Sale: Floor Chili, Never Eaten
Kevin's is a horror story, through the lens of those of us who only excel at one thing. Look at this doomed man, grinning ear-to-ear as he carts in the pot. He's a little tired, because he stayed up late prepping all of the fixings. He toasted the chiles, maybe directly over the stovetop because that's how his pops taught him to do it. Maybe he hand-ground the herbs with a mortar and pestle whilst listening to The Police – Season 2's "Casino Night" revealed that he's in a tribute band called Scrantonicity. His eyes are stinging from the chopped onions, but it'll be worth it when Michael Scott (Steve Carell) gives a firm thumbs up of approval once he gets a spoonful.
Kevin treks up the stairs, struggling but taking care not to spill a drop. But terror strikes: he overcorrects after an adjustment and flips the whole shebang over just as his voice asserts, "I'm serious about this stuff." Shock gives way to desperation as we witness a grown man going through several stages of grief over tumbled food. Baumgartner nails the scene, heaving his shoulders and breathing with the urgency of someone trying to un-spill their milk. Pam's paperwork is another casualty in the debacle, as Kevin swipes whatever's handy to scoop the chunky treasure back into its container. The biggest casualties of the spill, however, are the new wave of parishioners who would have been led to the cumin-specked light of Kevin's chili gospel.
Thankfully, we have the recipe for ourselves now. Here it is for your enjoyment:
Kevin's Chili Recipe
Ingredients:
1 lb. 85/15 lean ground beef
1 (12 oz.) coarsely chopped yellow onion
1 (15 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
2 (about 1 oz.) dried ancho chiles
1 cup water
2 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Toppings of your choice (shredded cheese, scallions, etc.)
Instructions:
Combine beef and onion in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Sauté until meat and onion are browned (the trick is to undercook the onions).
Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, toasted ancho chilis, and water.
Season with chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and ground black pepper to taste.
Boil on a low-heat.
Simmer for 15 minutes while covered.
Add the toppings of your choice (shredded cheese, scallions, etc.).
The other day I tried running NSNIPES, a multiplayer networked game that came with old versions of NetWare. The game worked fine, but I couldn’t get out of it. Esc did nothing, any “usual” combinations like Alt+X, Alt+Q or similar had no effect. So I found the game documentation (because of course it was documented in NetWare reference manuals just like any other program shipped with NetWare), and learned that to quit the game, one has to press Ctrl+Break.
Only pressing Ctrl+Break elicited no reaction from NSNIPES. But then I noticed that pressing Ctrl+Scroll Lock did. So… why is that?
There are really two mostly separate questions. Why does NSNIPES treat Ctrl+Scroll Lock as if it were Ctrl+Break, and why does actual Ctrl+Break not work, or only works very intermittently? Let’s answer that one at a time…
Finding the answer to the first question is pretty easy. The original PC had a Scroll Lock key (scan code 70 decimal or 46 hex). When pressed together with the Ctrl key, the Scroll Lock key functioned as a Break key because that’s how the PC BIOS treated it.
The Enhanced 101/102-key keyboards added a separate Pause key; the key is special and when pressed together with Ctrl, it produces a sequence simulating the press and release of a key with scan code 46h but prefixed with E0h. When the key is released, no further scan codes are generated. The Pause/Break key is the only key on a standard keyboard which behaves in this manner.
The 1986 PC/AT BIOS and later systems only trigger Ctrl+Break functionality when the E0h prefix is seen. Older BIOSes ignore the E0h prefix and trigger Ctrl+Break in response to both Ctrl+Break and Ctrl+Scroll Lock.
OK, so that probably explains why NSNIPES reacts to Ctrl+Scroll Lock, but not why it misses Ctrl+Break. Or at least misses Ctrl+Break most of the time.
As it turns out, NSNIPES has its own keyboard interrupt handler (IRQ 1) and completely bypasses the system BIOS. The strategy NSNIPES uses is not unreasonable: The program keeps an array reflecting the state of all keys indexed by their scan code, which is updated by the interrupt handler and periodically checked by the main routine.
The problem is apparently that the main routine does not run in a tight loop and “only” checks the keyboard state several times a second. If the user pressed and released a key really quickly, NSNIPES might miss it. That does not happen in practice because human fingers aren’t that fast.
But microcontrollers simulating human fingers are. Remember the Ctrl+Break key behavior which simulates both a press and a release when it is pressed? This poses no problem to the system BIOS which keeps track of the current modifier key state and processes each scan code as it comes in.
But NSNIPES is different. The simulated key press/release sent by Ctrl+Break on an Enhanced keyboard is fast (somewhere in the range of several milliseconds), much faster than a human. If the NSNIPES game loop does not happen to check the keyboard state in the brief instant between receiving the 46h scan code indicating a key press and the C6h scan code indicating a key release, it will completely miss the key.
And of course the reason why Ctrl+Scroll Lock actually works in NSNIPES is because it behaves like other keys, meaning that it does not send the key release scan code until after the user actually physically releases the key. Hence NSNIPES has enough time to see it pressed. And because NSNIPES is old, it has no special logic for Enhanced keyboards; as far as it is concerned, Ctrl+Scroll Lock is Ctrl+Break.
1. Can I ask my employee to use chat instead of calling every time?
I am a middle-manager with a small team. We are mostly working from home, and going into the office one day a week.
One of my team members calls me several times per day. Sometimes they will call me 10 minutes before our scheduled catch up, and often this is for no good reason at all — for example, to say they are moving meeting X or to give me an update that could easily have waited until our weekly meeting.
Their calling me disrupts my work flow and makes me waste time making small chat. 99% of the time they could have simply sent me a message on the instant chat instead of calling. How can I approach this in a sensitive way, given that we are all WFH and perhaps they want to show they’re working hard, or simply that they prefer to call over instant messaging?
Be straightforward! “I’m usually juggling a lot during the day and the phone breaks up my focus in a way that IM doesn’t, so could you default to IM’ing me instead of calling unless it’s one of our scheduled calls or an emergency?”
If you weren’t already doing regularly scheduled calls with them, I’d suggest that you start that (and would point out that small talk has value when you’re building relationships with people you manage) … but it sounds like you do have scheduled catch-ups. As long as you spend some time on softer relationship-building stuff in those conversations, it’s reasonable to more assertively manage interruptions the rest of the time.
2. Bad writing in hiring emails
Today, I received an email from a company I applied to a couple of months ago asking me if I was still interested in a position. Twice, the sender used the possessive “your” when they should have used the contraction, and they used a question mark to punctuate a sentence that clearly was not a question.
I found it really hard to take this person seriously and really wanted to forward the email to their manager (whom I found on the company’s website). Should I say something to the sender? Or should I just let it go? Am I being a snob?
I say this as someone who cares a lot about good writing: You need to let it go, and also reconsider not taking seriously someone who makes mistakes in their writing. Loads of people are smart and talented at all sorts of things but not at writing. That’s no reason to respect them less, just like you (presumably) wouldn’t respect a good writer less if they struggled with, say, physics. Forwarding the correspondence to their manager when you don’t even work there would be so weird that it would reflect more poorly on you than on them!
3. Should I remove a social media post at the request of someone in it?
I’ve been managing social media and marketing for a small business – let’s call it Winterfell – for about one year. I accepted the tasks as a favor for the owner, Ned, who is family. I have no background in either of these categories, and I have no similar experience to help me navigate the request I’ve received: Another contractor, Arya, has asked if I would remove a social post that includes her photo.
Several months ago, Winterfell participated in a fair. Arya had recently won a local award for the type of work she contributes to the business, and would be attending the fair as a promoter of Winterfell. Ned wanted to highlight Arya as a draw for Winterfell’s presence at the fair. Arya had shown an aversion to social media – she does not have profiles on social platforms, and her website is not easily located – so I asked if she was okay with this plan. When creating the social post that announced Winterfell’s participation in the fair, I included Arya’s photo from her website. I showed her the proposed post, and she confirmed she was okay with it. With her approval, I made the post live across our social platforms.
This week, Arya asked if I would remove the post from one of our social profiles. She stated that she didn’t like to keep her photos on social media for very long. I’m frustrated because I specifically asked and confirmed whether she felt okay having her photo included in the post. Additionally, the wording of her request makes me think Arya might believe the post is only on this one specific social platform.
Arya had little to no professional experience when she joined Winterfell. Ned indicated he’d like me to mentor her, but I’ve found it difficult to get a read on her comprehension via email only. I’ve been offering support and guidance when I can and being sensitive to her situation and learning curve, but the whole thing has me aggravated.
My instinct is to not remove the post from any platform, because doing so would 1) remove the announcement of the event / details / Winterfell’s participation, and 2) create a gap on the profiles (we don’t post very often). However, knowing Arya’s preference is having no social media presence, should I remove the post while explaining that this is a one-time allowance of a request that affects the business, and that such a request cannot be fulfilled again?
Remove the posts, because it’s crappy to keep up someone’s photo after they’ve asked you to remove it. Remove it from all your social platforms, not just the one she knows about, since it seems clear she doesn’t want it up at all. Put up new posts without mentioning her if you’d like to, so the details of the event are still available. This shouldn’t be a big deal.
From there, you can explain to Arya that in the future, she should tell you from the outset if her permission is only good for a specific period of time since you don’t typically remove posts. But I would not frame it as a “one-time allowance”; that’s excessively stern when it doesn’t need to be. She’s also a contractor, not an employee, and she did you a favor by letting you use her as a draw. You don’t want to sound like you don’t realize this.
(Speaking of which, any chance Arya is illegally categorized as a contractor? It’s pretty odd to be asked to mentor a contractor, unless they’re actually an employee who’s being illegally handled as a contractor.)
4. Coworkers and eating disorder recovery
I’ve struggled with an eating disorder for years. At my toughest point, I was severely restricting food, working out to the point of exhaustion, and doing intermittent fasting. While I’m doing better, I don’t always allow myself to eat meals, and if I do eat, my schedule is very different due to the fasting mentality that persists. I’m typically eating breakfast when my coworkers are getting ready for lunch. I have a full team of mental and nutritional professionals helping me sort this out, but it’s a slow process.
For the past several days, my new coworker Sheila has commented that she has noticed that I eat later. Or questions if I’m taking a “working lunch” when really, I’m working through my breakfast because we get 30 minutes for lunch and I prefer to take that time off with my lunch not breakfast (if I eat lunch, that is). I have to eat my meals in the kitchen because we’re in a cold climate and protocols prohibit me from eating meals at my desk.
Having my eating habits seemingly under the microscope is not helping me on my path to recovery. I’m not close enough to Sheila to disclose this info to her (nor do I think I need to). I’m not her supervisor, but I rank above her in the company and frequently project manager her and act in a superior role within our department and I don’t want things to be weird. We’re a small organization with no formal HR.
How do I handle this? My supervisor is Sheila’s supervisor’s supervisor, if that matters. My supervisor is familiar with my mental health journey but doesn’t know anything about my ED. I’m a fat woman, so I don’t present like most people think of when they think ED.
“I really hate having people comment on my meals — I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t.” If it happens after that (which would be Sheila taking things to a truly problematic level of pushy, so hopefully this won’t be necessary): “Wow, you have commented on this a lot, even though I’ve asked you not to. What’s up?”
Things shouldn’t need to be weird but if they get that way, Sheila would be the one making them so, not you.
5. Putting undocumented clients at ease more quickly
I am a partner in a small professional firm. Sometimes we have clients with undocumented employees or what we call “off the books owners,” as undocumented people can’t/won’t be partners in a business. This is where my dilemma lies.
The other day, I was in a meeting with a new client with three partners. We were in there for an hour and I couldn’t figure out why they had come to me. They hemmed and hawed but eventually disclosed that two of the partners received their legal citizenship during Covid. They had been reporting everything under false Social Security numbers for them for years and now needed to change. They wanted my advice about how to do this. I assured them there was no judgment here and we had dealt with this many times. I went over how to fix this and thought that was it but instead it felt like the meeting just started. There were a lot of needs related to their undocumented status and we spent 45 minutes going through them. This is a common occurrence as a lot of undocumented people have an understandable fear of contacting anyone in authority. I often am asked to handle matters like this that can be terrifying for those who have had to hide most of their lives.
The nature of my job is I must bill them for the entire meeting. That seems wrong to me but what I “sell” is my knowledge and my time. Most of the first hour was them feeling out if they could trust me with their issues around being undocumented. I can’t overlook time that would have otherwise been spent on another client, but I feel like I’m billing them for getting to know me. I’m pretty adept at putting clients at ease enough to tell me their issues within 10-15 minutes normally, but with undocumented clients, it usually takes 4-5 times longer to get them to open up.
Do you have any suggestions for language I can use to speed up the process? Obviously, I can’t start every meeting with, “By the way, this is a judgment-free zone. If you are undocumented, please tell me now so I don’t have to bill you for the time it takes for you to be comfortable.” I have done this sort of work for years and I have never found the right words.
Can you give a brief intro to yourself and your firm at the start of these meetings and, as part of that, mention that one of your specialties is helping individuals and businesses navigate issues related to being undocumented? You’d presumably also mention your other specialties, but by stating clearly and right up-front that it’s work you do a lot of, you might be able to help people feel more at ease more quickly.
I’m currently searching for a new job, partly because my company has been fully remote for the past two years due to Covid and this doesn’t align with my career goals (there is a hands-on component to my work that I want to focus on developing). However, one thing that’s been a blessing with WFH is not having to be at work when I’m PMSing. The pain, the irritability, the exhaustion are all so much more manageable when I’m in my own space. The hiring managers I’m talking to all say they are flexible about letting their employees WFH about one day per week. But I’m not sure how specifically ask if that can include 3-5 days of menstrual strife per month.
Assuming I’m lucky enough to get an offer, I’d like to feel this out with my future boss. Do I just … ask if I can stay home when I’m having bad menstrual symptoms, matter-of-fact and proud? Do I arrange this as a medical accomodation with HR? For what it’s worth, I suspect that the level of period-flu misery I deal with is not normal, but my doctor’s advice hasn’t helped much and I don’t have any formal diagnosis. From talking to people at the places I’ve interviewed with, the actual WFH and flexibility aspect won’t be a big deal. But my field is heavily male-dominated and I just feel so weird about the whole thing.
And the second:
I have a health condition that appropriate medication has been wonderful at treating. Unfortunately, the new drugs react to estrogen and each month I have a day or two when I’m effectively not medicated at all. My productivity goes down the toilet; I’m distracted, lethargic, and in pain. I’m working with my doctor to fine-tune my treatment, but it will be trial and error for a while; in the meantime I just need a day or half-day of rest. The rest of the time, I’m a high-performing senior specialist in my field.
How do I explain this without essentially sending my boss/es a Special Red Letter every time I’m on my period? Do I need to avoid any specifics if I’m asked about my sick leave? I can say “it’s related to treatment of a health issue that is otherwise under control; taking a day or half day regularly helps minimize any disruption” but surely the monthly pattern is a giant clue as to what’s happening.
I’m not ashamed of needing medical treatment. My managers value me and my work gets done. I hope the pandemic has made people a little more comfortable acknowledging their colleagues have flesh-and-bone bodies. But periods and hormones are so fraught and taboo — especially at work — that I genuinely don’t know if it’s better to be matter-of-fact about it or literally never mention it. What do?
The answer to both of these: “I have a health condition that flares up about once a month.”
For the first letter-writer: “I have a health condition that flares up about once a month for three to five days. I can work through it, but it’s much easier to manage if I can work from home those days. You mentioned people often work from home once a week. Would you prefer I save my work-from-home days up to use them all that week, or would it be okay to do a weekly remote day, plus the three to five days a month this comes up?” … and then possibly, “Would it make sense for me to do this as a formal accommodation with HR so there’s a record of it in case anyone has questions in the future?”
For the second letter-writer: “I have a health condition that flares up about once a month and I typically need a day or half-day of rest when it happens. What’s the best way to handle that?”
To be clear, not specifying that it’s menstrual isn’t about periods being shameful or taboo. It’s that you never owe your manager personal details about your health. You also wouldn’t need to specify that you were getting chemo, or infusions for Crohn’s, or any other recurring medical need. You just explain it’s medical and ask for the accommodation you need.
If your employer wants to do it as a formal ADA accommodation, they can ask for reasonable documentation about the condition and how it affects you — but even then, they’re not entitled to lots of details, just documentation from your health care provider that you have a covered disability, its functional limitations, and the sort of accommodations required. In most cases that should go through HR, not your direct manager.
And sure, the monthly pattern could be a clue about what’s happening. But lots of other things can happen on a similar pattern (like if you had a monthly medical treatment that you then needed to recover from) … and ultimately it doesn’t really matter if your manager figures it might be period-related. The specifics of what you’re dealing with medically don’t need to enter into the discussion.
Perhaps you can help me figure out how to best approach this strange situation at my office. I’m a senior (male) engineer in my late 30s. Recently my company hired a new college grad as a junior engineer. So far this young man seems reasonably competent on a technical level, but he has some mannerisms that I can only describe as strange. Let’s call him Sam.
I am usually the lead engineer on projects which means I’m responsible for all design decisions and thus I often have people in my cubicle to go over designs, give direction, check calculations, etc. When Sam comes into my cubicle he will opt to walk past the extra chair … and he kneels. I don’t mean he puts one knee down and jots down a quick note from a quick question. Sam will kneel down at my desk with both knees and a straight back for an extended period of time.
The posture and body language of it all makes me a little uncomfortable. This is especially true when I turn my body towards him to have a conversation when we aren’t focused on a piece of paper. Just imagine you are sitting in an office chair, you turn your body to talk to someone, and they are there facing you on their knees. It has like a corporal punishment, suggestive, or submissive vibe to it and it’s just strange.
I’ve tried saying things like “This might be a while, so grab a chair” or “Jeez, seeing that makes MY knees hurt, haha. Why don’t you take a seat?” … all to no avail. He just says things like, “No, it’s OK” or “my knees are fine” or “I like to kneel sometimes.” There is no indication of discomfort due to sitting in a chair. He goes on runs as exercise so I don’t think he has any hidden issues that make sitting tough (he sits at his desk just fine). I think he just doesn’t mind kneeling and he doesn’t see it as strange behavior in an office.
But it happens daily. I’ve mentioned it to a couple colleagues and they have noticed, but they don’t seem to care as much (they also don’t work with him as much). I think HR would be overkill, and I would hate to go to his manager over something like this.
For what it’s worth: I’m not a manager, this is his first office job, and he doesn’t seem to have any difficulty sitting at his desk or in his chair. I have also seen him sitting (not kneeling) in the offices of managers and VPs, but that could be due to the layout of those spaces.
With that I have two questions:
1) How much of my discomfort is my own baggage? I’m not blind to the fact that his posture is almost certainly innocent intent. 2) What can I say to get this guy to just sit in a damn chair?
I used to work with someone who did this to me too! Like Sam, he was young and a recent grad, and I think he just didn’t realize it was odd. He also used to call me Ms. Green until I told him repeatedly to stop. (But he was lovely and I’m still in touch with him to this day!)
I don’t think your discomfort is misplaced. Someone kneeling on your office floor once wouldn’t be that big of a deal (maybe they’re just pausing for a second to write something down, but then it turns into a whole conversation and they’re comfortable where they are), but doing it daily is A Lot. And yes, it feels really subservient — there’s a ton of imagery and baggage in our culture associated with kneeling. If it’s something that Tom Wambsgans would make Greg do on Succession, it’s a safe bet that you don’t want people walking by to think you’re doing it to Sam.
But I also think it’s more easily dealt with than you realize! You’ve tried hinting (“seeing that makes my knees hurt”) and you’ve tried suggesting (“this might be a while, so grab a chair”) so it’s time to get more direct. The next time he starts to kneel, say this: “Actually, would you take that chair instead? It feels odd to have someone kneeling in my office.” You can replace that last sentence with “it’s going to look odd to anyone walking by” or “the last thing I need is people thinking I make junior staff kneel when we talk” or whatever explanation you’re comfortable using.
Also, though, might anything about the configuration of your furniture be in play? You said you’re in a cubicle so I assume the chair is reasonably close by, but if it’s not, moving it nearer your desk might help. Or hell, it could be the opposite — if it’s right by you, maybe that’s weirding him out or feels too close for Covid and so putting more distance between the chair and your desk could help. Either way, though, you’re going to have to get more direct and just tell him clearly that the kneeling feels odd and to please sit in the chair instead.
Let it be known that “my coworker is doing something relatively minor but still quite odd” is my favorite kind of letter.
Submitter: This explosive title came in a box of donations. [From the back cover, image below:] “Simply follow this procedure step by step, and before you know it you’ll be blasting away like Rambo on a good day.” I think this is the same imagination that has been taking place in our bathrooms lately. Easy to say this went to recycling bin.
Holly: The good news is that WorldCat doesn’t show any library holdings for this book. The better news is that its subject heading:
Bazookas — Design and construction — Amateurs’ manuals
only matches this one title in WorldCat. Apparently no one else cashed in on the lucrative publishing industry of DIY bazooka manuals.
I know we’re Awful “Library” Books, but indulge me in this one anyway. It’s too good to pass up. And by good I mean awful.
When you announced that our presentation on Genghis Khan would be a group project, I knew that I would do all the work and my partner (Mark, cc’d) wouldn’t help and still get a good grade. That’s why I wanted to call out which parts of the group project were mine.
I made the PowerPoint, which included details on the rise of the Mongolian Empire; Mark made the “poster” with the shrimps taped to it. And when I finished talking about each slide, Mark would point to a shrimp and say, “That’s-a-what this one represents.”
Genghis Khan is one of the most vicious conquerors who ever lived, and I feel like Mark’s shrimp analogies fundamentally confused the other students (and, frankly, me).
Honestly, calling what he made a “poster” is generous. It was just a bunch of shrimp taped to, as I’m sure you noticed, a Subaru mailer. And at the end of class, when we were supposed to turn in our work, Mark carefully peeled the shrimp off his poster and said, “My dad needs this mailer back because he is looking to buy a used Impreza.”
I painstakingly fact-checked our presentation, going so far as to get an appointment with the Mongolian embassy and training with a linguist to ensure we correctly pronounced the Mongolian words. I made detailed notecards for Mark to read, but he instead improvised random “soup facts” in the voice of a loud-mouthed Italian “soup chef” named “Buppi de Beppo.” And when I tried to steer our presentation back on topic, Mark would randomly interject with things like “Gabagool!” and “That-a fact is like-a the soup zuppa toscana: extremely rich!”
Unfortunately, he was getting laughs from the class, which egged him on, even though he was disrespecting the millions of people decapitated by the ruthless Mongol cavalry. A fact that I’m worried got drowned out by Mark screaming, “Get outta here!” to anyone who raised their hand.
Kind of unrelated, but Mr. Donatello, our drama teacher, has asked Mark to stop doing this character. He says that Mark “relies too heavily on a somewhat problematic Italian accent,” a “bastardization of the restaurant name ‘Buca di Beppo,’” and his “overwhelming and frankly absurd knowledge of soups” for laughs. Had Mark taken these notes, he might not have ruined our presentation by screaming, “Marone! You need borlotti beans for authentic minestrone flavor—Khan’s favorite Italiano zuppa!”
I tried really hard, Ms. Rako. I would even go to Mark’s house to work on the project, and he wouldn’t help, because he was reading soup fact books to have “funny zingers” for his improv class. While I worked on the one-page handout for everyone, he practiced doing a chef’s kiss in his mirror, saying, “It’s-a-me, Buppi de Beppo.” And ultimately, I’m saddened that we couldn’t share this important piece of history with the class without Mark repeatedly screaming, “Fuhgeddaboudit!”
“Forgetting” is the opposite point of history class, Ms. Rako. Your class.
I appreciate your consideration in giving us separate grades.
Thank you for understanding and for being my favorite teacher. You make me a better student and citizen, and again I’m sorry about Mark and the shrimp smell that now permeates your hallowed classroom.
“Senator Tom Cotton refused four times on Sunday to condemn or even comment on Donald Trump’s repeated praise for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine. ‘If you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic,’ Cotton told ABC’s This Week, ‘I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians.’” — The Guardian, 2/27/22
- - -
Thanks for inviting me on your show to talk about the situation in Ukraine. You might think it would be easy for me to condemn Trump for praising Putin as “savvy” and his violent maneuvers as “genius” since I am no fan of Vladimir Putin and have fiercely advocated for a stronger American response to Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation. But I must stick to my metaphorical guns and commit to my seconds-long-held practice of not speaking on behalf of other politicians.
Well, not all politicians; in fact, I will speak on behalf of pretty much any politician when push comes to shove. I will analyze, attack, and question the judgment of President Biden, his entire administration, any Democrat in Congress, NATO, most of my colleagues in the Senate, and anyone actively holding or pursuing any state, local, or federal government position, just to name a few.
You keep badgering me to comment on whatever it was that Trump said, and I keep ignoring you. Aren’t you tired? Look, Trump’s comments and I are just two ships in the night: I do not see them, hear them, or acknowledge their existence even if I do see and hear them.
Remember when I denounced my colleagues’ plan to object to certifying the 2020 Electoral College results, and Trump tweeted at me? A public presidential rebuke, woof. That’s not a doghouse any self-respecting, calculating Republican wants to be in. Fortunately, nothing came of that, as there were bigger fish to fry come January 6th. What’s that? How do I feel about the Capitol Insurrection now? You almost got me there! I would never, ever, ever speak on behalf of another politician, myself included.
It’s like Schrödinger’s Cat, in the sense that I will never give you a straight answer, and we may or may not all be dead already anyway. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. This is a truism by which I have always abided and did not make up moments ago to avoid answering your question.
Look, here’s how I navigate every interview. Before answering any questions, I T.H.I.N.K.:
Is it about TRUMP? (If yes, then I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians.)
Is it HATEFUL? (Depends on whether my rebuke of it will risk losing the backing of my richest supporters.)
Does it involve something potentially ILLEGAL? (If yes, then it depends on whether it involves a Republican or a Democrat.)
How will it benefit me to say something, or preferably NOTHING? (If there is no clear personal gain, then I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians.)
And, finally, will the press KEEP inviting me back to their shows if I ignore their questions and push my own agenda? (If the last answer is yes, which it always is, then again, I stick with my firmly held belief of not speaking on behalf of other politicians whenever I do not want to do that.)
Hope that clears things up. Lines must be drawn, and I draw mine by refusing to say anything about Trump praising Vladimir Putin, the dictator waging an illegal war whom I have openly condemned on many occasions. So again, if you want to know what I think about Trump’s comments, sit back while I change the subject and avoid speaking on behalf of another politician, something I have always done. After all, there is a special place in Congress for those who remain neutral in a time of crisis. That’s what I always say—at least, what I might theoretically say, depending on who’s asking.
Anyway, thanks for having me on your show. I look forward to joining you again next week.
Now that society is collapsing, Everything Is Terrible! is reborn with their new and fantastical expedition into found footage... but this time the adults can stay home! EIT! has unearthed thousands of forgotten DVD & VHS tapes aimed at yesterday’s youth to bring you their most mind-melting movie to date. Watch in awe as all colors of the rainbow join forces to destroy the tyranny of adult civilization once and for all! All of your oldest friends will be there; skateboarding web-surfers, rapping math equations, gigantic baby ducks, and maybe even a wizard or two! And what EIT! show would be complete without a live experience that makes the Ice Capades look like a stupid piece of trash! Finally, an all-encompassing extravaganza created for kidz... by kidz!
Enlarge / The new version of Dishy McFlatface. (credit: Starlink)
SpaceX is sending Starlink user terminals to Ukraine after a request from a government official. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, used Twitter to make a direct plea to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday, writing:
@elonmusk, while you try to colonize Mars—Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space—Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand.
About 10 hours later, Musk responded, "Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route." A bit later, Fedorov sent a tweet thanking Musk and another tweet thanking Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, "for swift decisions related to authorization and certification that allowed us to activate the Starlink in Ukraine."
We asked SpaceX for details on how many Starlink user terminals are being sent to Ukraine and how they're being distributed and will update this article if we get any information. Starlink was recently used to provide broadband in parts of Tonga that were cut off from Internet access by the tsunami.
Enlarge / A worker walks near a Toyota Motor Corp. Crown vehicle manufactured on the production line of the company's Motomachi factory on July 30, 2018, in Toyota, Japan. (credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
The world's largest automaker is suspending production at a third of its factories, according to Reuters. Toyota says it will temporarily stop making cars at its Japanese factories after one of its suppliers was hacked.
The supplier in question is called Kojima Industries, which makes composite and plastic parts for Toyota, both for car interiors and also parts for Toyota's hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles. Reuters quotes a Toyota spokesperson who described the event as a "supplier system failure."
Consequently, on March 1, Toyota will halt 28 production lines at 14 factories across Japan.
100 Best Careers for the 21st Century: 2nd Edition
Field
1999
Submitter: I found this book while weeding my high school library’s non-fiction section. It was published in 1999, and may have been correct at one point, but now all the information is outdated, from the earnings to the tips on how to get the job. I will give it credit in the technology section. They say that it is growing so fast that it’s good to keep as up to date as possible with information in that field, however it seems they didn’t predict how prevalent the internet was going to be.
Holly: Submitter chose the perfect two careers to include (images below): travel agent and print reporter. Those jobs have changed drastically in the last two years, let alone the last two decades.
Now that society is collapsing, Everything Is Terrible! is reborn with their new and fantastical expedition into found footage... but this time the adults can stay home! EIT! has unearthed thousands of forgotten DVD & VHS tapes aimed at yesterday’s youth to bring you their most mind-melting movie to date. Watch in awe as all colors of the rainbow join forces to destroy the tyranny of adult civilization once and for all! All of your oldest friends will be there; skateboarding web-surfers, rapping math equations, gigantic baby ducks, and maybe even a wizard or two! And what EIT! show would be complete without a live experience that makes the Ice Capades look like a stupid piece of trash! Finally, an all-encompassing extravaganza created for kidz... by kidz!
Typically when we talk about 'accuracy' as it relates to retro gameemulation, it's about how closely modern software can replicate the functions of retro hardware, exactly as those machines worked back in the day. But when we start talking about light guns, 'accuracy' gets a whole new meaning, and it turns out that sometimes the only way to improve accuracy is to reduce accuracy.
This month's 0.241 MAME release includes a number of improvements to NES emulation, as well as the technologically-related Vs. System and PlayChoice-10 arcade machines. The devs note that "you’ll have a better experience with the Zapper light gun" in this update, which means we're seeing patch notes like "made Zapper light gun sensor fuzzier".
"The real Zapper wasn't even close to pixel-accurate (as you would expect from low-cost 1985 tech), so this was a case of MAME being 'too good'," as MAME developer arbee37 explains in a Reddit post. "Tests on hardware done by the NESDev people have shown how good the Zapper actually is, and MAME now conforms to that."
Everyone's favorite quiet little mountain town in Colorado is celebrating this year. After the highs and lows of an unprecedented $900 million deal that renews the series up to a 30th season (and an abbreviated 24th season, due to the ongoing pandemic), "South Park" returned to Comedy Central earlier this month for its landmark 25th season. And to mark the occasion, the satirical animated series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone decided to get fancy.
Since last month, the South Park Studios YouTube channel has been releasing special orchestral renditions of classic songs from the show's extensive songbook. They kicked things off with the opening theme song, followed by "Jackin' It In San Diego" from season 16, "Gay Fish" from the season 13 episode "Fishsticks," and arguably one of the most memorable songs from the series to date, "Kyle's Mom" from season 1 and the Oscar-nominated feature film "South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut."
Now, they've released another delicious track for fans to have themselves a time.
Packed Full Of Goodness
For the latest installment of this campaign, the 30-piece orchestra dug out a fan favorite "South Park" tune from the second season that was originated by a beloved staple of the show's early years. The next song in the program is "Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)" by Chef.
Originally appearing in the 1998 episode "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls," the song was performed by the legendary Isaac Hayes. The award-winning musician and songwriter voiced Chef from the show's debut in 1997 to the end of the ninth season in 2006. Through his departure was surrounded by controversy, "South Park" and its creators still paid tribute to the original cast member by dedicating an episode to him after his death in 2008, and they continue to honor him today with this soulful performance.
Interestingly enough, while the song was a hit in America, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway, "Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)" was Hayes' only number one hit in the UK. This is especially mind-blowing when you think about his massive song catalogue with hit songs by Sam and Dave, Dionne Warwick, and himself. It was almost the Christmas #1 single in 1998, but Hayes was beat out by The Spice Girls by only 5,000 copies.
With so many songs left from throughout the show's run, who knows what "South Park" song this orchestra will tackle next? While we anxiously await the next installment of this YouTube series, fans should remember two things: First, new episodes of "South Park" will resume on Comedy Central on March 2, 2022. Second, a monumental 25th season? "The Simpsons" did it.
Valve is no stranger to experimenting with different hardware to operate its extensive library of computer titles. From the Steam Link to the Steam Machine, there have been a variety of hardware products to bring the PC experience to a different platform. However, neither Valve (nor have most PC hardware manufacturers) attempted to breach the portable market, at least not at the price point that Valve is pushing their first generation of Steam Deck devices. Imagine being able to have an entire back catalog of Bethesda or Square Enix titles at your fingertips at cheaper than an Xbox Series S and monitor, but with the bonus of being able to take it on the go. Valve sent over a 256GB Steam Deck unit for our review, putting a $529 piece of hardware in our hands and allowing us free reign to play around with it as we see fit.
At a glance, the Steam Deck is an impressive piece of hardware crammed into a portable device with a 7" touchscreen that caps out at 800p. There will always be the naysayer asking why Valve didn't go with a 1080p IPS screen. Honestly, the level of performance that the Steam Deck puts out across the array of titles I've tested makes me glad the resolution is set the way it is. I'd take a locked 60 frames per second on an 800p screen over a fluctuating 45-50 fps on 1080p any day of the week. To power that 800p display, the Steam Deck is powered by a Zen 2 'Aerith' CPU that can put out up to 3.5Ghz across four cores and a 'Van Gogh' GPU that operates up to 1.6Ghz across 8 CU.
To keep the heat down and increase battery life on the go, Valve has implemented system-wide limiters to limit the TDP from 3-15W at a push of a button as well as the option to set a manual fixed GPU clock or even artificially limit the frame rate to 30 FPS across the board. These options are all as simple as pressing the Quick Access button (located below the right trackpad) to bring up the Performance and quick menu overlay.
Not wanting gamers to settle on just one control scheme, Valve has implemented a wide array of control options that go above and beyond the standard Xbox-style controls. Trackpads on either side of the screen can function as mouse input, while four grip buttons on the backside of the Steam Deck can be freely remapped. Both analog sticks also feature capacitive touch, something I accidentally discovered when testing Dark Souls III and noticing that the gyro would kick on to aim the camera whenever I laid a finger on the right analog stick. Holding down the Steam button activates another range of optional controls, such as turning the right analog stick into a mouse cursor or pressing Steam + R1 in combination to quickly screenshot your display.
The Steam Deck simply feels natural in my hands, with the sloping sides on either side fitting into the contours of my hands. A somewhat sore spot for the controls is in the directional pad. The d-pad has some wiggle to it as it rolls around atop the silicone membrane; otherwise, it feels good for navigating menus and even hitting the corners when rolling quarter-circle motions in Street Fighter. All of the primary buttons you need are easily within reach with Steam Deck in hand, while the Steam and Quick Access keys are both far enough to prevent accidental input during gameplay.
Navigating the Steam Deck is intuitive and straightforward when all you want to play is already installed. The opening screen holds your Recent Games all lined up in a horizontal carousel with clear marks for the Verified status in the corner. Going down on this page also displays updates to the games and software installed as well as a quick glance at the newest items on the Steam store, including a few key sales. Pressing the Steam key brings up the main overlay where you'll have access to the rest of your Library, the Store, Friends & Chat, Media, Downloads, Settings, and Power. Trying to navigate through the Store with merely the gamepad controls is an exercise in patience to track down what you're looking for, but thankfully a search bar on top of the screen makes it simple to look for. If you're not sure what you're in the mood for, the Store page opens with a Great on Deck carousel to look for games that pass all of Valve's compatibility checks to play on the Steam Deck with no headache.
Forza Horizon 4 benchmark
To the casual user who merely wants to take their Steam library on the go, the Steam Deck is nothing short of an incredible value. Other competitors have been in the portable gamepad PC space for years, but none have hit the aggressive pricing that Valve has hit with the Steam Deck. Look at the Aya Neo, a device that starts at $900 for comparable specs to the Steam Deck. Look at the GPD WIN Max 2021, coming in at nearly three times the price of the Steam Deck. Even look to the modest number of laptops with discrete graphics cards that barely come close to matching the technical specs of the Steam Deck. By releasing their hardware at a price on par with the next generation consoles and allowing players to access their libraries of hundreds, if not thousands, of Steam titles, it's nigh impossible to come across a better value in video gaming.
The Steam Deck falls behind in its ease of use for the average consumer, though. If all you're looking to do is have a way to play Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on the go, a title that's among the select number of Steam Deck-Verified titles, it's a simple process. Find the game in your library, click Download, and simply jump into the game as Valve configures the game and gamepad profiles automatically. But what if you find that the controls aren't to your liking, or perhaps you want to enable/disable gyro support for moving the camera? That requires jumping into menus outside of the game to configure the gamepad and make it work. For fully Verified games, it's an easy process to change around as you see fit. Even the controller configuration menus are presented with simple, easy-to-follow guidelines. Want a configuration that a friend recommended over Valve's official offering? Simply drop down the list of available options. Don't like gyro aiming, or want to put those four rear buttons to use? All of those tweaks are easy to set up and save on a game-by-game basis.
Manhunt
For titles that aren't fully Verified on Steam Deck, usually, there's more work to get these games up to snuff. Much of my testing was going through a library of fighting games to ensure that these games would work and perhaps become my new way to host friendly matches on the go without lugging around an entire console and monitor. Just running through a quick list of things that worked: Street Fighter IV and V? Both excellent. Melty Blood Type Lumina? No issues. Guilty Gear Strive? Plugging in an arcade stick into my makeshift dock worked just fine, matches played great (over WiFi, of course, so I'm sure my opponent was cursing my connection status) yet trying to navigate and manipulate the lobby menus meant getting off my external controller and using the Deck controls to move around the lobby and set up my next match. Then again, Strive was not among the elite number of Verified titles available ahead of the Steam Deck's launch, and that very well could change between today or when the first Steam Deck units start making their way to customers.
It's difficult to quantify just how many games work and didn't work on the Steam Deck because that number changed daily during my two weeks with the portable console. TItles that wouldn't work one day would magically work without issues on the next experimental build of Proton. Persona 4 Golden was a title I checked daily; it wasn't until late last week that the game would get past the initial black screen loading sequence and get into the game. It's currently flagged as Non-Compatible, yet I've had no issues jumping in and playing at a comfortable framerate.
Forza Horizon 5 sign-in issue.
Even titles you wouldn't expect to run are suddenly compatible with the Steam Deck. One title that Valve recommended to look at was Rockstar North's Manhunt, a PC game that has notoriously not been compatible with operating systems newer than Windows 7. I thought I would take a look just to see how it worked on a Linux system instead. Needless to say, the game would run and hold a decent frame rate, but all of the controls were incorrectly mapped. Moreover, it was impossible to even finish the tutorial and achieve your first kill. As Manhunt didn't natively support controllers in its first release, this would be an instance where Valve's controller mapping setup to mimic keyboard commands would be ideal.
At the same time, Forza Horizon 5, currently flagged as Unknown in terms of compatibility, would install to take up a not-insignificant chunk of my 256GB storage, only to find out that the game loads just fine but without the ability to sign into a Microsoft account, thus locking myself out of being able to actually play the game or even use it for benchmark testing. In this instance, the separate login app simply would not open up on the Steam Deck.
One of the Steam Deck's sore spots is in its battery life. Valve's included a 40Whr battery inside the Steam Deck that advertises a 'two to eight' hour battery life. To test this, I had a look at Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in the opening stage and held down the right analog stick to rotate the camera. At standard video settings and 100% brightness, I achieved 2:31 in battery use before completely draining the battery. Implementing a limit down to 30 FPS via the Steam Deck quick menu boosted the battery life to 4:02 with no other changes made. Similarly, I ran a YouTube live stream of lo-fi beats to relax/study to at 100% brightness via the recent update that installed Google Chrome as a non-Steam app and achieved 5:58. Reducing the screen brightness, disabling WiFi/Bluetooth, and playing less intensive games could all help lengthen the battery life. Still, they're all a significant decrease from the eight hours Valve promised. However, with the frequency of these constant updates, I would not be surprised to see it improve further before the first retail units make their way out to consumers.
Across the board, Steam Deck hits all the marks for a product line in its infancy that only has the potential to grow upwards. As Proton support grows and more titles become Verified over time, I honestly believe that the Steam Deck has the potential of carving out the portable PC market in a way that its predecessors have attempted. This is Valve's chance to break through to the mainstream audience and establish a brand new hardware line for the company, and it's made a lasting first impression on me. As the compatibility catalog grows in size, I won't have any reservations about throwing a Steam Deck in my carry-on luggage instead of a Nintendo Switch. I'll just have to remember to pack a spare battery or two for those longer flights.
Gas prices over $5 a gallon displayed at gas stations in Mill Valley, California, on February 23 amid the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Russia’s war is going to make gas and a lot of things more expensive.
The conflict has roiled global markets, causing stock market turmoil, sending oil prices higher, and injecting even more uncertainty into an already off-balance worldwide economy. It’s also sparked concerns that inflation, already running hot, could run even hotter.
In the United States, the Consumer Price Index, which measures the average change in prices consumers pay for goods and services, was up by 7.5 percent over the past year in January. That’s a 40-year high. The hope was that inflation would soon start to come down, and that factors driving it, such as high gas prices and supply chain woes, would finally pass. Now, it appears that the situation could be quite the opposite.
“What we’re observing is essentially an energy price shock and a financial markets shock that comes on the back of this already concerning inflation environment, an environment in which global supply chains are already stressed and in which there is already some degree of uncertainty as to the outlook,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. “It’s not just a shock in isolation, it’s a shock in that context.”
Russia is one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the world, and any disruptions stand to have a major impact on prices — disruptions we’re already seeing. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced that the US would ban imports of Russian oil, natural gas, and coal. The United Kingdom has said it will scrap Russian oil imports as well. These maneuvers prompted a spike in oil prices, which have already been on the rise, and the situation is sure to have ripple effects across the global economy.
In early February, JPMorgan analysts projected that disruptions to oil flows from Russia could push oil prices to $120 per barrel, which, indeed, it already has. (For context, oil was priced in the $60 per barrel range a year ago, and started 2020 in the $70s and $80s.) Some analysts have warned that worst-case scenario oil prices could hit $200, and Russia has warned that $300 oil prices could be on the horizon, depending on what Europe, which is much more reliant on Russian oil and gas than the US, does.
In the US, Russian oil made up about 3 percent of shipments in 2021, according to Bloomberg, and when you include other petroleum products, that rises to 8 percent. That’s not a ton, but it’s not nothing, either. Major oil companies, such as Shelland BP, have said they’ll stop buying oil and gas from Russia and curb business with the country, which is causing volatility and prices changes as well. Europe is starting to move away from its dependence on Russia, too.
Americans — already dealing with high gas prices and annoyed at the rising costs of heating their homes — are in for a bumpy ride. Gas prices matter not just for people filling up the tanks of their cars but also because of shipping and transportation. The conflict could also translate to high diesel prices and jet fuel for airplanes. “The inflation machine is just not going to slow down,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
According to AAA, the average price of gas nationally is $4.17 a gallon, up significantly from $2.66 a year ago. That number now stands to climb even higher, especially as the summer months approach, which will put more people on the road. As the New York Times points out, the last time gas prices were so high was during the 2008 financial crisis, when — adjusted for inflation — a gallon was priced at about $5.37.
Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at accounting and consulting firm RSM, told CNN in Februarythat the Russia-Ukraine conflict could push inflation to 10 percent year over year, driven in part by gas. By his calculation, an increase in oil prices to $110 could increase consumer prices by 2.8 percent over the course of a year. Alan Detmeister, an economist at UBS, told the New York Times that oil at $120 per barrel could mean inflation at 9 percent in the coming months.
“It becomes a question of: How long do oil prices, natural gas wholesale prices stay elevated?” he told the Times. “That’s anybody’s guess.”
In remarks at the White House on Tuesday, President Biden acknowledged that the Russia-Ukraine conflict and measures the US and Europe have taken to push back against Russia will be felt domestically. “This decision today is not without cost here at home,” he said, referring to the Russian oil ban.
The Biden administration haspromised to try to protect Americans from a spike in gas prices. Over the weekend, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told CNN that the US is “talking to our European partners and allies to look in a coordinated way that prospect of banning the import of Russian oil while making sure that there’s still an appropriate supply of oil on world markets.”
Still, the options on oil supply are limited, at least in the immediate term. “The president has insinuated that he’s got it, he’s going to do everything he can,” said De Haan in February, but it’s not clear what other strings Biden can pull on. Striking a new nuclear deal with oil producer Iran could help, but it’s no silver bullet, nor is it clear it’s very likely to happen. “It’s no Russia, in terms of oil supply,” De Haan said. The US has also begun weighing whether it could look to Venezuela.
Higher oil prices could dampen on economic growth. People and companies having to spend more on oil and gas could reduce spending in other areas, and that could cut into GDP. By one estimate, a long-term increase in gas prices could cost the typical household in the US $2,000 per year.
There are other areas where the Russia-Ukraine conflict could show up in consumer prices. Russia is the largest wheat exporter in the world. As the Times notes, Russia and Ukraine make up 30 percent of global wheat exports, and Ukraine is also a major exporter of corn, barley, and vegetable oil. Disruptions to any of that could lead to disruptions in the commodities markets, therefore pushing up prices eventually at the grocery store. The conflict has caused wheat prices to surge. Bloomberg reported in February that the Biden administration isn’t yet going to impose sanctions on Russia that would impact aluminum, which would throw a wrench in the global supply, though aluminum and metal prices have already gone up.
“It’s a combination of a set of commodities that are being produced either in Ukraine or Russia that have been affected,” Daco said. He warned that if further sanctions are imposed on Russia, it could affect aluminum and commodities prices even more. “It’s a wide spectrum of agricultural, energy, and other commodities.” On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning the exports of some commodities, which could have major global ramifications.
I took a brief moment from the news in the last hour … Big mistake.
This will have a dramatic impact on inflation, global value chains, growth and could cause a global recession. https://t.co/SP8YnMc9Q7
Reuters reported that the White House has warned the microchip industry about the possibility that Russia will curb access to some of the materials it sources from Ukraine and Russia and to look into diversifying the supply chain. A chip shortage and kinks in the semiconductor supply chain have contributed to higher prices and challenges across a number of industries, including cars and phones.
To be sure, there’s still plenty of uncertainty around what will happen in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its economic consequences. Brusuelas told MarketWatch in Februarythat the inflationary pressures depend “on the severity of sanctions and what happens on the ground.” The US and Europe have hit Russia with severe sanctions that will devastate the Russian economy and likely have a widespread impact on economic conditions around the world. In other words, economic uncertainty, including inflation, is probably not going away anytime soon.
In the United States, this will be a headache for the Federal Reserve, which is already on track to likely start to raise interest rates in an effort to combat inflation and otherwise roll back some supports for the economy.
“Energy prices mean that inflation is going to stay well above the Fed’s target in 2022, and that’s going to stiffen the Fed’s resolve to normalize monetary policy this year,” Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, told Vox. “Inflation was drastically above the Fed’s target in 2021 and had looked like it was about to slow in 2022, but the surge in energy prices caused by the invasion is going to keep inflation higher for longer.”
Adams did, however, note that the US economy is quite strong at the moment, despite inflation. Jobs are coming back, and supply chain problems are being worked out.
“The big picture is that the US economy is strong and is well-positioned to absorb a shock like higher energy prices or disruptions to commodity supply from the Russia-Ukraine war,” he said. “We’re in a better position to absorb this shock than, for example, in 2006-2007 when energy prices were jumping but consumer balance sheets were much more stressed than they are today.”
Still, for Americans already navigating inflation, the current crisis is likely going to push prices up before they come down.
Update, March 8, 2022: This story was updated to include new economic developments stemming from the war in Ukraine.
US soldiers training in Germany on January 27, 2022. | Armin Weigel/Picture Alliance/Getty Images
Nuclear weapons are containing the Ukraine war. They also helped cause it.
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait in a naked war of territorial aggression. The next year, the US and an allied coalition intervened under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, repulsing the Iraqi invasion. Today, as Russia is engaged in a similar aggressive war against Ukraine, there is no similar American effort in the offing — even as Ukrainian leaders have pleaded for Western assistance.
There are many dissimilarities between the situations in 1991 and 2022, but the biggest one is this: Saddam Hussein, rather famously, did not have nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin has approximately 6,000 of them. And that makes all the difference.
Both before the invasion and afterward, the Biden administration has consistently ruled out the deployment of US troops. “Let me say it again: Our forces are not — and will not — be engaged in the conflict with Russia in Ukraine,” the president said in a Thursday address. Despite the warnings of American involvement from commentators on the Trumpist right and “anti-imperialist” left, there are no signs of this policy changing. Nuclear weapons are the chief reason why.
The logic of mutually assured destruction that defined the Cold War still works, to some degree: Russia’s arsenal makes any direct intervention in Ukraine riskier than any rational American leader could tolerate. In a sense, then, Russia’s nuclear weapons make it less likely that the conflict will kick off World War III.
But in another sense, Russia’s nuclear arsenal also helped create the conditions where Putin’s invasion could happen in the first place.
Political scientists call this the “stability-instability paradox,” the notion that nuclear deterrence has had the paradoxical effect of making certain kinds of conventional warfare more likely. Russia can be relatively confident that the United States and its allies won’t come to Ukraine’s defense directly, because such a clash carries the threat of nuclear war. This could make Putin more confident that his invasion could succeed.
Putin himself has suggested as much. In his speech declaring war on Wednesday night, he warned that “anyone who would consider interfering from the outside” will “face consequences greater than any you have faced in history” — a thinly veiled threat to nuke the United States or its NATO allies if they dare intervene.
“This is about the clearest evidence I have ever seen for the stability-instability paradox,” Caitlin Talmadge, a professor at Georgetown University who studies nuclear weapons, writes of Putin’s speech. “Putin’s behavior suggests that revisionist actors [can] use their strategic nuclear forces as a shield behind which they can pursue conventional aggression, knowing their nuclear threats may deter outside intervention.”
The nuclear balance between the United States and Russia, one of the Cold War’s defining features, is coming back to the forefront of international politics. We can only hope that things don’t get scarier from here.
How nuclear weapons make US involvement in Ukraine unthinkable
Nuclear weapons are the only weapons humanity has yet devised that, deployed at scale, could swiftly wipe out our entire species. The risks of conflict between two nuclear-armed powers are so great that virtually any rational leader should, in theory, seek to avoid one.
This is especially true of the United States and Russia, who together control an estimated 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads. The issue is not merely the size of their arsenals but also their structure — both countries have robust “second strike” capabilities, meaning each can sustain a devastating nuclear first strike from the other side and still retaliate. The US and Russia maintain second strike capabilities in part through the so-called “nuclear triad”: bombers armed with nuclear bombs, submarines equipped with nuclear missiles, and land-based missile launchers.
The result is that neither the US nor Russia can hope to “win” a nuclear war. Even if one nation struck first, decimating major military bases and population centers, the other would still be able to launch a devastating nuclear counterattack on their enemy’s homeland from (for example) submarines out to sea. The only way to win is not to play.
This appears to be the reason the Biden administration has been so adamant on avoiding any kind of involvement in Ukraine; the risks of any direct intervention are far too high.
Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images
An image of an American nuclear test in 1954.
For Putin, the Ukraine war seems to fit the bill. A significant US or NATO intervention in the conflict would, by sheer fact of geography, pose a threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian homeland. Were it to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor, Russia could very conceivably use its nuclear arsenal against its NATO enemies.
“Their nuclear strategy envisions possible first use if they are losing a conventional conflict or facing an existential threat,” Nick Miller, an expert on nuclear weapons at Dartmouth University, explains.
We have no guarantee that deploying US troops to Ukraine would, in fact, lead to nuclear warfare. But the risks would be high, very likely exceeding the most dangerous moments of the Cold War, like the Cuban missile crisis. There are scenarios where you could imagine an American leader launching a conflict with a nuclear power — if it was necessary to protect the US homeland, for example — but defending Ukraine, which isn’t even a formal US ally, simply isn’t one of them.
How nuclear weapons helped make the Ukraine war possible — and could make it much worse
Some leading scholars look at the logic of deterrence and conclude that nuclear weapons are actually a good thing for the world. This “nuclear revolution” theory, most commonly associated with the late political scientist Kenneth Waltz, holds that the spread of nuclear weapons will spread peace by expanding deterrence. The more countries can make aggression unthinkably risky, the less likely war will become.
The evidence for this theory is spotty. While nuclear deterrence does seem to have played a role in preventing the Cold War from turning hot, examining other cases — including smaller nuclear armed states like India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea — leads to a much more complicated picture.
The stability-instability paradox is one of these complications. In its most classic form, the paradox argues that two countries with nuclear weapons can be more likely to engage in small-scale conflict. Because each side knows that the other doesn’t want to risk a wider war given nuclear risks, they can feel more confident engaging in smaller provocations and assaults. What looks like nuclear stability actually breeds conventional instability.
Ukraine is not a nuclear state, but the NATO alliance has three of them (the US, Britain, and France). Because NATO states don’t want a wider war with Russia, one that carries a risk of a nuclear exchange, they’re less likely to intervene in a conflict they might otherwise join. Putin knows this; his public threat to use nukes against any intervening country suggests he’s counting on it.
So what we’re seeing is a kind of twist on the classic paradox: Putin is relying on nuclear fear to allow him to get away with invading a country (Ukraine) that a nuclear-armed third party (NATO) might otherwise want to defend.
This dynamic is familiar from the Cold War; it’s in part why the Soviets could send troops to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to suppress popular anti-communist uprisings without real fear of Western intervention.
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A Soviet Army unit in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
To be clear, the stability-instability paradox is not an ironclad law of international relations; scholars disagree about exactly how frequently it actually causes conflict. But neither is nuclear deterrence: There are several near-miss examples where a nuclear exchange was just barely avoided.
In 1983, for example, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was alerted by an early warning system that a US nuclear strike was likely incoming. Had Petrov informed his superiors of that message, it’s very likely they would have launched missiles in response. Yet Petrov and his staff correctly concluded this was a false alarm and chose to say nothing — potentially saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives.
Nuclear deterrence depends on both sides having good information and making rational decisions. But in a conflict like the one we’re seeing in Ukraine, taking place near the borders of NATO members, the risks of accidents, misperceptions, and miscalculations inches incrementally higher. For example, says Miller, “you can imagine a Russian jet straying into NATO airspace accidentally” and sparking a wider conflict.
Without a NATO presence inside Ukraine, the risks of such a disaster remain extremely low; Miller cautions that “both sides have a strong incentive to avoid direct conflict and avoid minor incidents escalating.”
But the fact that we’re even talking about it illustrates how nuclear weapons, by their very nature, make the world a riskier place. While they likely are playing a major role in keeping the US out of the Ukraine conflict directly, they helped create the conditions where Russia could launch the war in the first place — and, in the very worst case, could escalate to complete disaster.
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