Cowboy Who?

This annual art sale and fundraiser has gone the way of the pandemic extension. Red Dot is usually a one-night event, where attendees buy tickets to enjoy a party and purchase the works on view. 

“Last year because of COVID we extended the show two weeks. This year we did it for the length of an exhibition. We want the same amount of people that would come to Red Dot usually to be able to see the show over time,” says the space’s Curator and Exhibitions Manager Jacqueline Saragoza Mcgilvray.

Mcgilvray calls the show a “small survey of San Antonio artists,” but it feels much grander than that. Painting, sculpture, video, and other mediums get their limelight at Blue Star Contemporary, the anchor space to the Blue Star Arts Complex in San Antonio’s Southtown neighborhood. Cathy Cunningham-Little’s Flight continues the artist’s experimentation with dichroic glass to create a wall work that appears as a deconstructed stained glass piece.

Jason Willome showed what has to be my favorite painting I’ve seen in 2021. A phthalo green coats the canvas, and is interrupted by a coral sludge. Slim trees are created out of  by scrapes that reveal the full tonality of the green in Willome’s painting. It evokes a martian forest, covered in interstellar ash. The dotted, dim sky suggests space or snow. It looks just like an extra-terrestrial colony would feel: ambitious with a toxic glow. 

Of the work’s desolate environment, Willome said, “a lot of the things I’ve been working on have things to do with traces of humanity, without any people in the picture.” Here, the artist has captured the human experience of life in 2021.

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Ursula Zavala: Reforma, at Not For You Gallery, December 3–18, 2021.

Gallery co-owner Ursula Zavala presents a fanciful installation environment at Not For You Gallery, which is contained within a studio complex on the second floor of the Blue Star Arts Complex. Intended as an “epilogue” to the artist’s fall exhibition with Clamp Light Studios (also in San Antonio), the air of celebration was present for the December 3rd opening. San Antonio is already a festive place, so it’s saying something that Not For You Gallery’s opening reception had the most levity per square foot during the city’s bustling First Friday art walk. A large paper-mache pull string piñata beckoned attendees to take a chance on opening it up by yanking on ribbons that were attached to its sides. Plush hearts spilled out after it had been successfully opened, and were available for sale individually. A checkerboard pattern adorned both the tablecloth sitting under a large, sculptural, fabric cake, as well as the background of the childlike flower paintings on the walls. Zavala’s lighthearted show hits home on the theme of ambivalence; it’s hard to choose what to feel when times are so full of consequence.

****

Hopscotch, Permanent Installation.

Hopscotch is not quite an art gallery. Its pitch-black sub-level complex is broken out into cubicles, which each contain experiential installations that often incorporate new media elements. It opened its doors in October of 2020, and welcomes visitors from mid-morning to nearly midnight most days. Like an art gallery, there were light crowds and plenty of viewing room. Unlike a gallery, however, there are no overhead lights. 

The experience of Hopscotch is mostly linear, but not entirely. After acquiring tickets at the front desk entrance, visitors travel down a flight of stairs, below street level, where the majority of the installations sit. There is a central area at the beginning of one’s tour, where an LED ball pit glows, ready for visitors to jump in. Color Therapy by Austin’s Polis is a room that has a ring of illuminated fabric stretched around the perimeter, and is also accessible from this central hub. After these two exhibits, the remainder of Hopscotch’s offerings follow a walking path, which is an unadorned hallway that leads the viewer between the space’s exhibits, before returning upstairs to conduct a final immersive moment: Light Lines, an installation of electroluminescent wires that hang from the ceiling continue the walking path. Eventually, the visitor is led to the gift shop, which is adjacent to the bar at the entry lobby.

I think there is a slight disconnect between Hopscotch’s experiential spaces and its passthrough spaces. This is not a request for immersive or experiential spaces to cover every square foot of the building in holographic foil, but a simple reminder that a club quickly becomes an empty room at a certain occupancy.

A few of the installations are software-based, which allows for the viewer’s actions to be interpreted and re-broadcast onto a screen, as in VJ Yourself by Playmodes, a team of artists and designers based in Barcelona. For the piece, the viewer stands on a well-lit section of floor, which illuminates their figure so it can be captured by a camera. The live video is projected on the wall in front of the viewer, and their movements become scrolling textures that play out on a time-delay. It certainly passes the time.

Hopscotch is a very attractive prospect to all working makers. It’s an interesting space in downtown San Antonio that hosts permanently installed media works, serves light bites, and can accommodate small events. The venue certainly has a vision for how it would like to engage the public with art — it has the essence (and the possibility) of being a mini museum. The work on view could use a little bit of the space’s enthusiasm, too.

****

Lone Star Art District 2nd Saturday Art Walk, December 11, 2021.

The galleries and studios at the Lone Star Art District are smart to hold their monthly art walk on the weekend following Blue Star Arts Complex’s First Friday event. Absent from the Lone Star viewing experience is the extreme congestion and parking woes of First Friday. The similarities extend to the vendors selling decorative wares, and the studio artists showing their spaces to the public.

During December’s Second Saturday, AJ Rodriguez displayed prints of photos and the drawing studies he produced from them, compared side-by-side in each piece. The collection of photos, first taken during the initial shutdown of the pandemic, became the source for pastel drawings, which have been collated to show the comparison between source material and creative output. The compositions reflect each other in a surprisingly beguiling way; it can be difficult to determine which party of the image is photographic at first glance. 

The International Sculpture Center took up space in the Lone Star Studio Annex to show work by the ISC 2021 Student Sculpture Award winners, Hanna Makkonen and Stephen Abernathy. Makkonen’s works are bronze bodily forms, while Abernathy’s pieces prefer to comment more deliberately on current American conditions. A handheld phone (the analog kind) is attached to a stone boulder by its own cord, and a military-issue Bible is lit from below by the illuminated pillow it sits on.

****

Jolie Holland at Echo Bridge, December 12, 2021.

When Jolie Holland’s battery-powered amp gave out at her performance underneath San Antonio’s Echo Bridge on the south side of town, she improvised with a joke about two whales meeting at a bar. One whale says to the other, “Ooooooh,” a single syllable stretched out over a comically long meter. These words, meant to distract while the battery could be replaced, were watery and indistinguishably amorphous, like the river that stood between her and the audience. A showing of work by anonymous artist Wynn Doe sat along the wide-walled pier on the audience’s side, a light visual art accompaniment to the performance event.

Local artists Justin Parr and Jeff Wheeler have been conducting performance events, ranging from experimental to musical, at this unlikely amphitheater since March of 2021. A few shows into the year, the city of San Antonio shut the performances down, before promptly returning to offer the artist duo the appropriate permits to keep the shows going. The city seemed to recognize that Parr and Wheeler were conducting cultural programming that they would otherwise spend administrative time and dollars to put together. Parr and Wheeler are both multi-hyphenate powers in San Antonio; Wheeler is the Creative Director at Space C7 South Side Living + Maker Spaces, and Parr has run Fl!ght Gallery for 20 years. A Sunday performance matinee is a relatively modest feat compared to their breadth of exhibition experience.

Shows at Echo Bridge, conveniently at the edge of Tandem Coffee’s property, happen monthly and seat approximately 100 attendees. Be vigilant though, the limited capacity means that tickets sell out quickly.

The Echo Bridge mailing list may be joined at TheEchoBridge@aol.com

****

William Sarradet is an Assistant Editor for Glasstire.

Send event submissions to eventstx@glasstire.com following our submission guidelines here.

The post Reforms and Echoes: Recent Exhibitions and Events in San Antonio appeared first on Glasstire.

The iconic portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have been touring the United States since June 2021. Starting in Chicago, a city in which the Obamas have deep and significant roots, the portraits have been to New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. They will be ending their U.S. tour at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) in April, before heading back to their home at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

The Obama portraits are significant for many reasons. Gary Tinterow, Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, at the MFAH remarked in a statement, “Not only do these iconic portraits feature history-making subjects, but they were created by groundbreaking artists.” The National Portrait Gallery worked with the White House curatorial staff and considered the Obama’s interest in modern and contemporary art when choosing Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley to paint the portraits of Ms. and Mr. Obama, respectively. 

Ms. Sherald and Mr. Wiley were the first African American artists commissioned to create official portraits of a U.S. President and First Lady. And, aside from Elaine de Kooning’s portrait of John F. Kennedy and Chuck Close’s portrait of Bill Clinton, the works are markedly different in style from all past presidential portraits in the Portrait Gallery. Most of the works are traditional in setting and style, featuring men wearing black suits who stand or sit in stately poses.

In a video released by the National Portrait Gallery, Taína Caragol, Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Latinx Art and History, talked about the two paintings: “Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley are artists who are firmly rooted in portraiture, but they tweak that tradition. And this is what’s fascinating about these portraits, that they stand not only as documents of the historical presence of the Obamas, but also as contemporary works of art. There is an artistic vision that is expressed through them. And that artistic vision has very much to do with the commitment of Kehinde Wiley and of Amy Sherald to create a space for people of color.”

MFAH visitors can see the portraits in a show that is included in the cost of general admission to the museum from April 3 through May 30, 2022. The exhibition will include audio-visual elements and educational programs. The Obama Portraits, an illustrated book, will also be available in the MFA Shop. 

The post Michelle and Barack Obama Portraits Come to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this Spring appeared first on Glasstire.

This is a story of a small e-commerce merchant who signed up for Amazon Pay: a payment processing service similar to PayPal that leverages customers’ existing Amazon accounts. It all seemed so promising. Amazon Pay would provide an easier checkout experience for my customers, with the shipping address and payment details already filled, and I’d save a small amount in transaction fees. What could go wrong? But six weeks later, Amazon has $2300 of my money with no way for me to access it, and their support has been maddeningly worthless. I can only hope that a public shaming will spur somebody at Amazon to take notice and intervene, otherwise that money may just be gone.

I created the Amazon Pay account on November 29, and configured my business bank account info so I could receive electronic disbursements. This is a normal business checking account at a normal US bank, using US dollars, and that works fine with other payment processors like PayPal and Shopify Payments. I entered the bank’s ACH routing number and my account number, which ends with the digits 622. Soon I was able to receive payments in my store using Amazon Pay, and everything seemed good.

The problem started on December 8, when Amazon Pay attempted the first disbursement to my bank account. I received a failure notification by email:

“Your most recent transfer of funds in the amount of $XXX was not successfully deposited into your bank account on file (ending in 622). The funds were returned to us, and we have removed the current bank account information from your account.”

Amazon Pay’s merchant support was unable to explain what went wrong. They sent me some generic troubleshooting info. It’s not clear why they couldn’t provide any specific details about why this transfer failed. The generic info suggested the routing or bank account numbers might be wrong, so I re-entered the numbers again, being extra careful to get them correct. Then I waited a week… and the exact same thing happened. This same dance played out five more times on December 16, 17, 18, 20, and 21. Each time Amazon Pay attempted a disbursement to my bank, then a few days later I got the same email saying the money wasn’t successfully deposited to my bank account ending in 622, and “we have removed the current bank account information from your account.”

On December 23 I contacted my bank and gave them the trace IDs for all the failed transfers. My bank determined that the account number was wrong on every transfer. All the failed ACH transfers used an account number ending in 62 instead of 622: the last digit of the account number was missing!

Armed with this information, I returned to Amazon Pay merchant support, and here’s where I really started to get frustrated. I discovered that my original support case had been unilaterally closed without resolution, because five days had passed since the last reply, and apparently that’s their support policy. It’s not possible to reopen or reply to a closed case, so I had to create a new case and explain the issue all over again. This did not go well. Imagine this support exchange happening slowly by email over a series of two days:

Me (paraphrasing): I’m still having trouble with disbursements. You closed my last case number XXXX about this issue, so I had to create this new case. My bank says the last digit of the bank account number is missing on all the ACH transfers from Amazon Pay, but the bank account number is correct in my Amazon Pay settings.

Amazon Pay: To receive disbursements, you need to set up your bank account info in your Amazon Pay settings. You do not have a bank account configured in your settings.

Me: Please see attached screenshot showing my bank account info is already set up correctly. I have already done this several times, but every time there’s a failed disbursement attempt, Amazon Pay removes my bank account information. The fundamental problem is that the last digit of the bank account number is missing in all of Amazon’s ACH transfers. Please look at the ACH transfers yourself to confirm.

Amazon Pay: To receive disbursements, you need to set up your bank account info in your Amazon Pay settings. You do not have a bank account configured in your settings. The screenshot you sent doesn’t show what account it’s associated with so we can’t tell anything from that.

Me: The bank account info has already been entered. I’ve attached a full-page screenshot showing this. The deposit method isn’t assigned, because every time there’s a failed disbursement attempt, Amazon Pay removes my bank account information. Please respond to the fundamental issue of the missing digit in the ACH transfers. Here are all the trace IDs again. You can verify them yourself.

Amazon Pay: Your bank account may not be compatible with our system. Your account needs to be ACH-ready. Please contact your bank.

Me: Yes it’s ACH-ready, it’s a standard business checking account at a USA bank, and I’m already receiving ACH transfers there from PayPal and Shopify. I mentioned all this already in the first case that I opened, that Amazon Pay closed without resolution. You still have not addressed or even mentioned the fundamental problem that I’ve asked about four times now, the missing digit in the ACH transfers. Kindly investigate why this digit is missing in all the ACH transfers from Amazon Pay.

Amazon Pay: I understand that you are having problems with your bank account. Thank you for your continued patience. At this time I am working with our internal team to reach a resolution on your case.

(five days later) Me: Has there been any progress on this? I’m still unable to access the funds in my Amazon Pay account.

Amazon Pay: I understand that you are having problems with your bank account. Thank you for your continued patience. At this time I am working with our internal team to reach a resolution on your case.

(five days later): Case closed with no further response from Amazon. Can’t reopen or reply.

Now I was really upset. Since I couldn’t reopen the old cases, I opened a third case to explain the issue with failed disbursements and the missing account number digit, all over again.

Amazon Pay: To receive disbursements, you need to set up your bank account info in your Amazon Pay settings. You do not have a bank account configured in your settings.

Me: Oh my God not again.

I was able to reach a phone support agent, and told him I just wanted to close my Amazon Pay account and get a final payout by paper check, since they seem unable to resolve the problem with electronic transfers to my bank. I was told they can’t do it. Basically the options were 1) electronic transfer to bank, or 2) electronic transfer to bank.

I asked the phone agent to review the previous case, and see what information the “internal team” had found before that case was closed. There was none. All the discussion from the previous case was essentially gone and worthless.

So I went through all the same conversation again with the phone agent, arguing about why my bank account info wasn’t set up in my Amazon Pay settings. I gamely played along while he had me delete my browser cookies and other irrelevant troubleshooting. Since closing the account didn’t appear to be a viable option, I tried once again to delete and re-enter all my bank account info. The phone agent insisted that everything would be OK now that I’d entered my bank account info, and I would receive a disbursement within the next few days. He didn’t seem to understand or care that I’d already been through this same loop several times before without success. Skeptical, I thanked him and hung up. I then received a follow-up email:

Amazon Pay: I understand that you would like to know how you can see the transaction and how disbursements work for the Amazon Pay platform. If you want to find your transactions coming from Amazon Pay just remember to switch from “Amazon.com” to “Amazon Pay (Production View)”. You would be able to see that next to your Seller name and the USA flag where there is a scroll down. etc…

What the actual fuck?! What is this and how is it relevant in any way? Is Amazon Pay’s merchant support even staffed by human beings, or is it all just chatbots and GPT-3-driven natural language text generation? Amazon needs to understand that merchants have many choices for payment processing, including PayPal and traditional credit card processors, who have professional support staffs to respond to account problems in a timely and constructive way. Many people complain about PayPal, but at least PayPal’s support team responds to me with useful and relevant information that answers my questions. After a month of trying, I’ve failed to get anyone at Amazon Pay to even acknowledge my problem with the missing account number digit, let alone give me any constructive help. Their merchant support seems designed to frustrate merchants into simply giving up and going away. I’ve lost $2300 thanks to Amazon Pay, with no further options I can see for resolution. Meanwhile Amazon Pay has been removed from my store, and I will not be reactivating it. Good riddance.

Or, someone. Also, a monobeast... wait, what happened to the monobeast?

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The Art of Becoming a Multimillionaire Real Estate Investor
Cherwenka
2018

Submitter: This book came from my public library. (In fact, it was purchased as a memorial book.)

So, I came across this gem in my business section. I think the back cover speaks for itself: body builder to stripper to real estate agent who then marries his “African American Wife.” There’s a lot going on here. I’m also confused as to whether this is a book about real estate investing, a biography, or a gospel. Take your pick! In fact here’s more.

Holly: Is Magic Mike doing a bicep pose, or punching her in the breast? This is a really odd choice for a memorial purchase. I’d like to have met the person it was purchased in memory of (and maybe the librarian who chose it, too).

The post Millionaire Real Estate Stripper Gospel appeared first on Awful Library Books.

The parents of the Michigan school shooting suspect ignored numerous warning signs that included hallucinations, animal torture and obsession over guns and Nazi propaganda, prosecutors say.

(Image credit: Carlos Osorio/AP)

Justices seemed more open to the vaccine mandate for almost all workers at hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical providers receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funds.

(Image credit: Evan Vucci/AP)

"The Naked Time" was either the fourth or the seventh episode of "Star Trek," depending on whether you adhere to broadcast order or production order. For the record, true Trekkies go by production order, while total losers go by broadcast order. In the episode, Kirk, Spock, and Lt. Disposable beam down to the planet of Psi 2000, only to find the planet's small research team mysteriously frozen to death. While there, they also contract a mysterious virus, which they take back up to the Enterprise. The virus, which spreads through touch, causes the infected to behave like they're drunk, lowering inhibitions, and inspiring unruly behavior among the crew.

In one of the episode's most famous scenes, Lt. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), with his inhibitions lowered and his jersey joyously jettisoned, has given into his hidden D'Artagnan fantasies, taking up a rapier and charging about the hallways of the Enterprise, challenging crewmates to duels. The scene became so notorious and iconic that it inspired a swordfighting sequence in J.J. Abrams' 2009 "Star Trek" film, wherein Sulu (now John Cho) grapples with a baddie on a laser platform. 

"The Naked Time" is also actor George Takei's favorite episode.

The Sword Scene

Takei tells this story in a video interview with the Television Academy: The writer of "The Naked Time," John D.F. Black, originally intended for Sulu to take up a Samurai sword. When visiting the "Star Trek" set, Black told Takei about his plans. Takei was diplomatic about it, pointing out that a samurai sword was "ethnically consistent," seeing as Takei was of Japanese ancestry. But he also had a suggestion. Takei, a 20th century man, didn't play samurai as a kid, recalling, rather, that he and friends would play Robin Hood in his backyard, inspired by the 1938 film "The Adventures of Robin Hood." His mom even made him a Robin Hood costume. Takei says he got to play Robin Hood because it was his backyard and he had the costume. The other kids had to be the other Merry Men.

Sulu, Takei figured, was raised in the 23rd century, and wouldn't necessarily be inspired by samurai either, so he suggested to Black that Sulu have a rapier instead. Takei, game and energized, would duel his way into one of the series' more notable scenes.

Actors Are Masters At Everything

Could George Takei fence? Well, in his words, yes. But, as we learned from the recent film "Licorice Pizza," if you ask an actor if they can do something, they will automatically say yes just to get the role. To quote Takei: "You never ask an actor if we can do anything, because if it's related to the part, we are masters at it. I said [to the screenwriter, about fencing] 'Oh, it's my favorite sport! I used to fence when I was young!" 

Takei then arranged to take his first formal fencing lesson at Falcon Studios on Sunset Blvd., and Takei's instructor, by magical coincidence, was Ralph Faulkner, the fight choreographer for "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and Basil Rathbone's fight double in that film. "The Naked Time" not only permitted George Takei to display his fencing skills and relive an actual childhood play scenario of his, but put him in contact with the very swordfighter he grew up watching. 

It's no wonder "The Naked Time" is Takei's favorite episode.

Read this next: Star Trek: The Next Generation's 10 Best Episodes

The post The Lie That Led to George Takei's Favorite Star Trek Scene appeared first on /Film.

Snap is a software packaging and distribution platform for Linux developed by Canonical, creators of Ubuntu Linux. Snap applications are more portable than traditional Linux software, and most of them are containerized to prevent some common security issues. However, Snap also has plenty of problems, which might be the reason Canonical is experimenting with a new architecture.

Canonical talked about “the future of Snapcraft” in a new blog post (via omg! ubuntu!), which mostly involves breaking up the Snap framework into smaller and modular components. There aren’t any firm details about what the end result will look like, or if it will be better for the average person installing and using Snap applications. However, it should make creating and maintaining Snap applications easier for app developers and Canonical, which could potentially free up time for Canonical to focus on other aspects of the Snap framework.

Canonical said, “The basic concept revolves around breaking Snapcraft apart – into smaller, even more modular and reusable components that can be utilized across a range of different products. The common foundation for this effort is a set of Craft Libraries, as we have already discussed in the Craft Parts blog post. The theory calls for the use of a generic parts builder based on craft-providers and craft-parts, with added Snapcraft functionality as a separate layer.”

Snap packages are definitely an easier way for applications to be distributed on Linux, as they don’t have to rely on the system’s own package manager, which isn’t always the same across different desktop Linux distributions. For example, if you wanted to make an app for Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux, you would have to maintain three entirely different distribution methods (PPA, RPM, and Pacman). By comparison, Snap apps work on nearly every modern Linux-based OS: Ubuntu, Arch, Debian, Fedora, Majaro, Pop!_OS, and others.

Snapcraft has been criticized over the years for a variety of issues. Custom repositories or app servers are not supported, so all software has to be distributed through the Canonical’s own Snap store, and Canonical has not released the source code for the Snap store servers. The centralized model isn’t popular with everyone, especially as Canonical has slowly replaced core applications in Ubuntu with Snap versions (such as Chromium). Linux Mint blocks the installation of Snap applications entirely, and some other distributions have endorsed Flatpak as an alternative. Canonical’s blog post didn’t mention anything about supporting third-party stores and repositories.

The post Canonical is reworking Snap application packages on Linux appeared first on xda-developers.

The HandyKey Twiddler is a handheld chording keyboard, serial mouse, and motion-control input device all in one! Despite the steep learning curve, it's even somewhat enjoyable to use here and there. And playing motion-controlled DOS games is just a trip, if nothing else.

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#LGR #Retro #Oddware

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What if we stopped basing our math on numbers and started basing it on FRIENDSHIP?

Today's News:

The Golden Girl had a golden ale named for her at the pub in Mineral Point, Wis. Now the brewery is using its "buy a beer for a friend" system to support animal charities in White's honor.

(Image credit: Commerce Street Brewery)

Almost one year after a historic power failure, the state’s natural gas system has been tested by a far milder cold spell. Some energy experts say it did not pass the test.

While we’ve been discussing periodic cold fronts, record warm Decembers, and everything else over the last month or so, we have been quietly amassing a rainfall deficit in the Houston area. Since November 1st, Houston has officially seen just under 6 inches of rainfall, about 5.96″ to be exact. Normally over that span we would have received roughly 8.5 inches of rain. The last 30 days in particular have been pretty rough all across Texas with a handful of localized exceptions.

We’ve received about half our normal rainfall over the last month, and other parts of Texas are seeing it even worse. Yesterday’s Drought Monitor placed parts of the Houston region into drought for the first time in quite some time. That’s why this weekend may seem a little out of place with our recent stretch of weather, as there will be bonafide rain chances for most of the area. However, because of the scattered nature of the rain this weekend, many of you seeking some water will be left thirsty once more. There are more rain chances in the forecast after this weekend, however.

Today

There shall be no rain for today, however. Most areas should see sun to start today, but look for clouds to try and build in from the south this morning and afternoon. The chilly morning and some clouds will limit how warm we get today, with highs likely only in the mid or upper-50s.

Saturday

For those of you trying to make outdoor plans for this weekend, basically, you’re going to have live with at least the chance of showers and storms all weekend. It’s unlikely to rain more than a few hours at a time in any given location, but trying to time exactly where and when it rains will be somewhat difficult in this setup.

For Saturday, I would expect to see showers and storms develop around sunrise southwest of Houston, toward Matagorda Bay or out along US-59 toward Victoria and Wharton. Those storms would spread north and east through the morning and into the afternoon. Not everyone will see rain all day on Saturday, and there’s a chance some folks may not see much rain at all. But for those that do see rain, it could be heavy, as the amount of moisture in the atmosphere this weekend will be near record levels for early January.

So, localized street flooding is a definite possibility for those that see more persistent showers on Saturday.

In addition to the rain, severe weather is a possibility. While we are not expecting a significant severe weather outbreak, the atmosphere will be capable of allowing storms to briefly rotate on Saturday, which could lead to a couple tornado warnings in the area.

The Storm Prediction Center has us in a “marginal” risk for severe weather, or level 1 of 5 on Saturday. I don’t want you to worry too much about this, but just be aware of the chance and stay plugged in this weekend.

Outside of the rain, look for lots of clouds and skyrocketing humidity. It will feel quite warm and humid by Saturday afternoon, with highs well into the 70s and overnight lows barely budging just under 70 degrees.

There is a definite signal in the models that we could see showers and storms persist or even expand on Saturday night into early Sunday morning, so that’s something to be aware of as well.

Sunday

Modeling is all over the place on details for Sunday’s outlook but the story should be: A healthy chance of storms in the morning, followed by a cold front sometime Sunday afternoon or evening. Once again, heavy rain is possible in spots before this all slides to our east in the afternoon. In general, expect decreasing rain chances from about midday onward.

Once all is said and done, we should expect some places to see as much as 2 to 3 inches of rain or even a bit more, an average of about a half-inch to inch across the area, and, yes, certainly some folks that see less than that. It will be quite variable.

Sunday’s high temperatures could approach 80 degrees depending on how exactly things play out. This would be our first shot at 80 since way back on New Year’s Day.

Next week

Behind Sunday’s front, look for a return to more “Houston-winter” type weather. Morning lows on Monday should be in the 40s and low-50s, warm to near 60, and then drop into the 40s and 30s on Monday night. Expect another cool day Tuesday with highs only in the 50s and nighttime temperatures back into the 40s again. We will likely see another warming trend with more moisture back in the picture later next week. With that comes rain chances, but details are uncertain this far out.

As Eric has alluded to this week, I too am fairly optimistic that the next front should pass before next Sunday’s Houston Marathon. A lot can change between now and then, but if you’re looking for minimal humidity, you are setup nicely right now. I would anticipate race temperatures mostly in the 40s based on the current model scenarios, but again, it’s still a bit too soon to get too specific. Stay tuned!

Expanding Turing’s Law

Pardons are now available for anyone in the U.K. convicted for homosexual activities under previous British laws.

A new amendment to the nation’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill broadens the range of pardon-eligible offenses to any charge related to consensual same-sex sexual activity. Previously only people in England and Wales convicted under nine specific since-repealed laws, including anti-sodomy measures, could apply for a pardon.

The pardon program is commonly referred to as Turing’s Law, after famed British mathematician Alan Turing. Turing became famous for breaking the German Enigma code during World War II but was later chemically castrated by the state as punishment for homosexual activity.

On the 4th January 2022, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced an extension to the ‘Disregards and Pardons scheme’, which will see the pardoning of thousands of LGBTQ+ people with historical criminal convictions that punished their sexuality.https://t.co/UPDP5x9FR7

— Manchester Pride (@ManchesterPride) January 6, 2022

“It is only right that where offenses have been abolished, convictions for consensual activity between same-sex partners should be disregarded too,” U.K. home secretary Priti Patel told PA Media. “I hope that expanding the pardons and disregards scheme will go some way to righting the wrongs of the past and to reassuring members of the LGBT community that Britain is one of the safest places in the world to call home.”

The expansion of the Turing Law’s purview also focuses on those who died with similar convictions. The nation previously extended posthumous pardons to thousands of individuals convicted under the repealed laws in 2017, modeling the measure on Queen Elizabeth’s posthumous pardon of Turing in 2013. Under the new amendment, anyone who passed away with charges related to consensual same-sex sexual activity previous to the laws’ repeal will receive automatic pardons. That same action will be extended to anyone that died up to 12 months after the legal changes.

“Parliament Has a Duty”

House of Lords members Lord Michael Cashman and Lord Lexdon championed widening the scope of those eligible for pardons, with both advocating for the bill’s expansion in 2021. “The disregard and pardon schemes in England and Wales are significantly flawed because they encompass only a small fraction of the laws that, over the decades and centuries, have immiserated the lives of gay and bisexual people,” Cashman said in November. Lexton also expressed displeasure at the specific focus of the disregard program, calling it “an affront to gay people.”

The House of Lords duo and University of York sociology Prof. Paul Johnson partnered to advocate for the new amendment and celebrated the news. “We have been pressing the government since 2016 to widen the disregard and pardon schemes through which individuals reputations can be fully restored. The government has now pledged to bring forward amendments to legislation which is currently before the Lords,” the trio said in a joint statement.

Breaking news: 6 years work by Lord Lexden, Prof Paul Johnson of Leeds, & me to widen pardons & disregards for historical homosexual convictions to become law. UK did so much wrong; reputations & lives can finally be uplifted. So much more to do. Enormous thnx to @SusanBaroness

— Michael Cashman (@mcashmanCBE) January 4, 2022

“Parliament has a duty to wipe away the terrible stains which they placed, quite wrongly, on the reputations of countless gay people over centuries,” they added. “In a matter of weeks, legislation will be in place to enable thousands of gay people to whom grave harm was done to wipe their records clean. We are delighted our long campaign will at last bring many gay people, both living and deceased, the restitution they deserve.”

Former Royal Air Force soldier David Bonney, who believes himself to be the last person jailed for being gay, told the BBC that pardoning affected individuals “could be sorted within a couple of years” thanks to the now-broadened bill. “They’ve got the records, they know who we are,” he added.

The U.K. decision spotlights the use of anti-sodomy legislation to effectively criminalize LGBTQ people as multiple legal challenges to similar laws in the U.S. remain ongoing. Lawsuits in Idaho, Montana and South Carolina challenging parameters of those laws are currently pending.

Pardon: Previously on Towleroad

Photo courtesy of Tess Reddington/Creative Commons

After conservative backlash, Cruz took to a FOX News show — whose host also lambasted him — to backpedal from comments he made during a congressional hearing.

This post, can I tell interviewers my hobby is drinking, going from scruffy to polished at work, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. Can I tell interviewers that my hobby is drinking?

I noticed that a relatively common interview question is “Do you have any hobbies? / What do you do on weekends?” Or even, “How do you relieve stress?” My answer is: Drinking. And it’s not binge drinking. I truly enjoy tasting different whiskies. I will go to bars specializing in whiskies or hang out with friends to sample and discuss whiskies. If I want to shake things up, I change to wine, or craft beer, or rum, or cognac. When I got stressed at my previous job, I often poured myself a glass after office hours. (Strictly never drank during working hours nor come to work drunk/hungover. And I know drinking in the office on a semi-regular basis is not great, and I won’t do it at my next job.)

I know telling interviewers I drink as a hobby/to destress can be a polarizing answer. So should I be honest? Or just make up some other hobby/destress method?

Saying one of your hobbies is whiskey tasting isn’t likely to be a problem; that doesn’t imply problem drinking anymore than “I’m really interested in wine” would. But saying you drink to destress definitely is a problem answer that you shouldn’t use; it’s too likely to raise serious red flags. And because you’ve paired those things together, I worry a bit about whether you’ll be able to talk about the former without touching on the latter too. If you can keep it to the hobby realm, great. But otherwise I’d steer away from it.

2. Will I look silly going from scruffy to more polished at work?

I’ve worked for a company for eight years and over this time my performance has been up and down due to mental health issues. Not everyone knows this about me, but everyone has seen this manifest in how I look.

I feel my outward appearance and what people expect of me performance-wise has become defined by my worst self, not who I am as a person. I’ve fallen into a rut of wearing all black, casual, ill-fitting clothes, no makeup, and frizzy air-dried hair scraped back in a ponytail.

Meanwhile, my actual performance has raised significantly, yet I’m constantly overlooked and underestimated and even demoted.

My fear is I’ll be seen as haughty and laughed at if I suddenly start coming into work looking decently groomed, something I’ve not done in a very long time. Part of me says they will get used to it, but I worry I will relapse and just look like a childish idiot still learning to play dress-up at 37. Consistency seems an important part of professionalism, so a relapse would only further highlight my flaws.

Logically this outlook seems silly as the business highly values appearance. I feel like I’m tying myself in knots from a fear that I need to reframe. Can you help?

You’re not going to be seen as haughty for using the same grooming standards as the rest of the office, especially in a business that highly values appearance! And you’re definitely not going to be laughed at unless you work with the top 1% worst tier of shockingly terrible people. It’s just not a thing most people would find funny or mockable.

They’re likely to notice, but that’s okay! You might get some comments about how you’ve changed your look or stepped up your game — but that’s people trying to be nice, not trying to give you crap. You can just say, “Thanks for noticing” or “Yeah, switching things up” or “Felt like stepping it up” or any other response you’re comfortable with. It’s not likely to be a big deal, and any comments probably won’t last longer than a few weeks.

I understand your worry about consistency, but I think you’re probably putting too much weight on it and you’re better off elevating your appearance when you can, even if it’s not all the time. That said, you might make changes with sustainability in mind (for example, if you can pick between a low-maintenance routine and a high-maintenance one, it might make sense to go with the lower-maintenance one for now while you’re getting used to this new you).

More broadly: Sometimes when you’ve been somewhere for a long time and people know you one way, it can be hard to get them to see you differently once you’ve changed, especially when something like a demotion is in the mix. If you keep feeling overlooked and underestimated, it might be that a fresh start somewhere else would change that … and moving on after eight years wouldn’t be an odd choice at all.

3. My boss blames me for not helping a customer on my day off

I work as a cashier at a wholesale club. One day it was my day off so I wasn’t working and came in with my friend to go shopping. A customer came up to me and asked if I worked there and if I knew where the rugs were. I told her that I wasn’t working right now and that I didn’t know where the rugs were but the lady at the podium could help her. I directed her to where the worker was, only 12 feet away. The customer said, “Okay, thank you” and left.

Two days later, my boss tells me that the customer complained about me to three workers and it reached the home office saying how I was unhelpful. My boss told me that it was my fault for not helping her more even though I was off duty and didn’t even know where the rugs were. I think my boss is unfair for taking the customer’s side and I’m afraid that this will be on my record and used as an excuse to not raise my wage. Was I in the wrong? I’m starting to really resent my boss because it’s not the first time he’s taken an unreasonable customer’s side and he has also disrespected me before. I’m considering quitting because of him.

Your boss is being ridiculous, as was that customer. You don’t need to work on your day off and it should be fine to politely direct a customer to the right person for questions.

That said … in retail there is sometimes a thing about this, even though there shouldn’t be. Some customers take “I’m not working right now” as a brush-off from a store employee — they hear it as more like “I’m on a break and I won’t be bothered to answer a question that would take five seconds.” So ideally you would have skipped over that part and just directed her to the person who was on duty. But shouldn’t be a big deal that you didn’t, and a customer who complains to three people about that is a jerk. And your boss could have just said, “Hey, here’s better language to use in the future.”

4. Can I turn down a farewell happy hour from my company?

I’m leaving a small company because the management refuses to respond in any meaningful way to instances of both overt and more subtle sexism and homophobia. My manager has explained that the company will be hosting a farewell happy hour for me, which I do not want. (I do not like most of my coworkers, for the reasons referenced above. I don’t want to waste my energy on being polite to them any longer.) Is it a bad idea for me to tell my manager I would prefer the happy hour be canceled?

You don’t have to have a farewell happy hour. An easy way to address it would be to say, “With the current Covid numbers, I should pass on the happy hour but thanks for suggesting it.” Or you can say your schedule won’t allow it, unless she’ll just try to hold it during the work day. Alternately, it’s okay to say, “I appreciate the thought, but those aren’t my thing and I’d prefer not to have one. I’ll plan to say goodbye to people individually instead.”

People at the Copyright Office seem to get mad at me every time I suggest that the Copyright Office is captured by Hollywood, and pointing out how top officials there all seem to bounce back and forth between the Copyright Office and Hollywood.

That's not to say there aren't some good people there, because there are. But the organization is dominated by former (and, if the past is any indication, soon to be again), lobbyists and lawyers of the biggest copyright abusers on the planet. So it's difficult to take the Office seriously as a steward for the public good (as they are supposed to be), when it's currently headed by the former top lawyer at IFPI, who, before that, was the top IP lawyer for Time Warner. And, when she then decides to hire Disney's top "IP lawyer" to become General Counsel of the Copyright Office (as has just been announced), it becomes really difficult not to be cynical.

This is what regulatory capture looks like.

But even worse, actions like this are why the public doesn't believe in copyright. Over and over again all we see is abuse of copyright, and then the government puts the same people who have abused copyright in charge of copyright at the Copyright Office, it makes the public cynical and (reasonably) distrustful of the intentions of the Copyright Office. That's disappointing, as there are plenty of people who have expertise in copyright law who would be great for the Copyright Office. But, for some reason, they never get hired into the top jobs unless they've spent time working for one of the giant Hollywood or recording industry organizations.

After lawmakers passed a law about how racism was to be taught in Texas schools, Essence Preparatory in San Antonio was sent back to the drawing board.

Fredericton's Victoria Circle is getting some appreciation across the pond — from the United Kingdom's Roundabout Appreciation Society.

Authorities say they've solved a publishing industry whodunit with the arrest Wednesday of a man accused of numerous literary heists in recent years, allegedly impersonating others in the industry to amass a veritable library of unpublished works.

Generally, seeing art on a computer screen is never as good as seeing art in real life. At Glasstire, we’ve always espoused this statement, and I do firmly believe it still. However, there are certain times when seeing an artwork online — and the capabilities offered by digital technologies — comes close to eclipsing the live experience.

Maybe this isn’t for me to judge, as I’ve never been to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, but the institution’s recent online offering of a 717-gigapixel (that’s 717,000,000,000 pixels) image of Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Night Watch (1642) is very compelling, and perhaps even better than seeing the nearly 15-foot-wide canvas in person.

There’s been a lot of work done on and press about the painting recently. In June of last year, Artnet News reported that, with the help of artificial intelligence, museum experts were able to reconstruct missing sections of the painting, which were lost after the work was trimmed so it could fit inside Amsterdam’s Town Hall in 1715. This was just the latest revelation during the Rijksmuseum’s ongoing effort to conserve and restore the painting, which began in 2019. Likely because the piece is so well-known (and because the public wouldn’t want it to disappear for years into a back room), conservators worked on the painting in a glass chamber, in full view of the public.

The process of how this 717-gigapixel photo came to be is stunning, and the level of detail it makes legible is more stunning still. See information about the process below, via the Rijksmuseum. And see (and zoom into!) the photo here.

This is the largest and most detailed photo ever taken of a work of art. It is 717 gigapixels, or 717,000,000,000 pixels, in size.

The distance between two pixels is 5 micrometres (0.005 millimetre), which means that one pixel is smaller than a human red blood cell.

The team used a 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS-camera to make 8439 individual photos measuring 5.5cm x 4.1cm. Artificial intelligence was used to stitch these smaller photographs together to form the final large image, with a total file size of 5.6 terabytes.

The post Here’s a 717-Gigapixel, 5.6-Terabyte Photograph of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” appeared first on Glasstire.

A year ago today, I stood outside the east side of the U.S. Capitol, with the Supreme Court building directly behind me, and watched as hundreds of insurrectionists climbed the Capitol steps and flooded inside the building. Today, I’m staring at a photograph I took of that moment, time-stamped 2:08 p.m. There’s an American flag flapping directly above the building’s Corinthian columns and beneath the overcast winter sky. At least a dozen more such flags are being held by members of the crowd on or near the staircase. They’re everywhere. I had not noticed those American flags at the time.I failed to notice them because at that moment, it did not seem to me that I was in America anymore. The tableau of unrestrained mob…View Original Post

The post Texas Contributed More Than Just Rioters to the January 6 Insurrection appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Cruz was objecting to certifying Arizona’s election results when the Capitol was overrun. His speech that day and his misleading comments that cast doubts on the election led to calls for his resignation.

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The path to emotional freedom lies in accepting that you will completely blow it no matter what.

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Biden blasted former President Donald Trump in an address from the U.S. Capitol on the anniversary of the insurrection.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is expected to appeal the decision to the Texas Supreme Court.

This post, updates: I used to drink on the job with my new boss, the pushy mother-in-law, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

1. My new boss is someone I used to drink on the job with

Monica started yesterday and one of the bosses gave her a tour and did brief introductions. When she got to me, she said “Nice to meet you.” I just said “Thank you, you too” because what else could I say in the moment? She said she would be having brief meetings with each of us individually that afternoon in her office just as more of a get to know you thing. I felt I had to say something, because when/if she realized who I was I didn’t want to look underhanded by not correcting her.

So as soon as I went in I said “I just want you to know we actually used to work together! Years ago…at Central Perk…” She said “Oh that’s right! I thought you looked familiar.” She was all smiles, asked how I’ve been, then we turned to work matters.

At this point I’m not entirely sure if she actually does remember me and this signifies it’s all water under the bridge and she’s fine and I’m fine? Or if she just doesnt actually realize yet?

I know my anxiety is over-fuelling this. But I will just continue on as if all’s great unless she brings it up.

2. My pushy mother-in-law got a job at my company

I brought my concerns to my boss, like you suggested, and he was helpful in setting up measures to protect privacy for both of us. It’s certainly not perfect given the nature of our jobs (she has to be able to see my wage, no real way around that), but he set up the HRIS so she couldn’t see my performance reviews and I was given a different contact person in HR for benefits/payroll/maternity leave. We both seem to be good performers which really brings the awkwardness potential down a few notches, as does my working remotely.

However, my boss left just before I left for maternity leave, we had a reorganization, and now we’re on the same team and reporting to the same boss. New Boss and Grandboss have other managerial issues like not giving timely instructions/feedback, micromanaging, and unrealistic expectations about availability, and are also not so great with understanding familial boundaries. But I think starting off on a good foot with the help of Old Boss set us up for success. I’m glad to say that my work stress largely consists of ordinary things like having a not-great chain of command and pandemic childcare instability, and working with my mother in law barely registers.

3. Babysitting job is aggravating my chronic pain

Thank you so much for your helpful words and the readers’ advice! While I did end up babysitting for the family throughout the summer part time, the other nanny really stepped up to the plate and took over more hours. I did ultimately end up applying for jobs in my tangentially related field as soon as the school year began. Thanks to other helpful tips from your site, I rocked the interviews and got a job offer the next day, making twice my current salary and with full benefits! While I loved teaching, this job will be much easier on me physically and mentally, and is in the field I am going for a Masters in. I had let the nannying family know I was looking, and was able to give them the same month-long notice I have given for my current job (due to a set start date at the new job,) so I am hopeful they will be able to hire someone new soon. They have already made postings online and scheduled some interviews, so it seems like there are concrete steps in place to fill the gap I leave.

I was nervous about using a mobility aid in my interview, so I took my cane instead of my usual wheelchair, but to their credit the new job was lovely about making accommodations and seems to have no issue with me using my chair or sitting down most of the day! (It is an office setting, so much less physical than chasing after preschoolers.) Thank you so much for all your advice and words of wisdom — I finally feel like things are making a turn for the better!

4. Meetings that keep running over our scheduled time (#5 at the link)

This is pretty low stakes, but I was the letter writer who supported a group whose meetings routinely ran over by 30 minutes to an hour (or more). I had asked for some strategies on ending or exiting a meeting that I wasn’t facilitating.

Well, not long after you published my letter I was in a meeting that finally drove me over the edge. Someone scheduled a 30 minute meeting at the very end of the day. A key person didn’t join, but we proceeded anyway. With 5 minutes left in the scheduled time, this person finally logged in and the host started the meeting over!!!!

At that point I decided that I was just going to tell people that I have a hard stop in nearly all cases, and they can follow up with me later if they discuss something that needs my input or attention. It ended up being a fairly moot point because a few months after that I transitioned to supporting a different group in my organization, and they start and end meetings on time. Thank goodness.

“My low-skilled workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe-shine people, those who work at Dunkin’ Donuts — They don’t have the academic skills to sit in a corner office.” — New York City Mayor Eric Adams, 1/4/22

I’ve learned a lot about this great city and its resilient people in my first week as mayor. Though the world and this country remain in crisis as the pandemic drags on, I strongly believe in the will of all New Yorkers to rise to the occasion and keep our city afloat.

Now more than ever, we need low-skilled, easily replaceable employees to return to work immediately. If they fail to do so, our city, economy, and society will swiftly crumble. These workers do not possess the academic skills to sit behind a desk. We need them to make the coffee and shine the shoes of the important, educated workers who sit behind desks and send typo-ridden emails for eight hours a day.

This is the only way the New York City economy stands a chance.

For example, if an accountant and a barista switched places, society would collapse. The accountant would become so overwhelmed by the high volume of orders that he would confuse the regular milk with the oat milk, thus putting real milk in a highly lactose-intolerant crane operator’s latte.

A few hours later, the crane operator, sixty-two feet in the air, feels a sudden rumble in his stomach that alerts him to the danger below. Unfortunately for the city, the toilet also lays far below. It’s too late. The crane careers into a pole that is attached to a wire that is attached to a switch that controls the city’s main power grid. The crane operator walks away without a scratch. The entire city plunges into darkness.

The barista would be totally fine as an accountant. They majored in accounting at NYU.

If a street cleaner and an investment banker switched places for a day, complete chaos would ensue. First, the investment banker has never held a broom before. She thinks a dustpan is a new shoe from Balenciaga. Which it is, but that’s not the point here. Think Eighth Avenue is already kind of dirty? We’re just getting started.

As the investment banker turned street cleaner fails to do her job, a man is walking down the street, trips on a discarded New York Times, and badly sprains his ankle. The man? Tom Holland. With Spider-Man out of commission, all of Hollywood is out of a job. Never mind that the streets of New York are still filthy.

The street cleaner turned investment banker just yells “stocks” over and over until his voice is hoarse. He gets promoted the next day, quits, and then retires to a mansion in Scarsdale.

If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a fish to do data entry, you soon realize that a fish really cannot sit in a corner office and you may have taken this metaphor too far.

This is precisely why uneducated workers with no practical skills must put their health at risk for the greater good of our city. They cannot sit in a corner office. They need this. And we need them, even though we aren’t offering them any other protection or benefits aside from devaluing their integral importance to the daily functioning of our society.

Don’t be selfish and put your health above that of the city that’s doing nothing to help you.