New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

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Discussion: I am no longer certain kitties are a type of cat.

Today's News:

Blacula is rising from the dead once again. A Blacula reboot is in the works at MGM, which is teaming up with Bron and the Hidden Empire Film Group for a “modern reimagining” of the 1972 Blaxploitation horror classic.

Variety reports that MGM, Bron, and Hidden Empire Film Group’s Deon and Roxanne Avent Taylor are teaming up to reboot Blacula, a modern reimagining that will pick up where the original saga left off with 1973’s Scream Blacula Scream. It apparently will be very timely, taking place a metropolitan city post-coronavirus pandemic.

Here’s the description for the Blacula reboot, per Variety:

Blacula is an ancient African prince who is cursed by Dracula after he fails to agree to end the slave trade. Blacula is entombed and awakens 200 years later ready to avenge the death of his ancestors and of those responsible for robbing his people of their work, culture and heritage as they appropriated it for profit.

Deon Taylor (the Hilary Swank-starring erotic thriller Fatale) will direct the Blacula reboot, from a script co-written with Micah Ranum. Roxanne Avent Taylor is producing the movie on behalf of Hidden Empire Film Group. Aaron L. Gilbert will produce on behalf of Bron, with DJ Holloway managing the project.

“Blacula is arguably one of the most prestigious Black franchises and so important to the culture as it birthed a groundswell of Blaxploitation-horror films, which changed the game for how our people were seen on the big screen,” Taylor said in a statement announcing the new project. Taylor emphasized the importance of the original Blacula, which was directed by William Crain and starred William Marshall as the African prince who gets turned into a vampire by the legendary Count Dracula:

“Growing up in Gary, IN, I loved watching Blacula and was so proud that William Marshall was a fellow Gary native. It’s mind-blowing that this franchise never got the energy or appreciation that other genre films received over the years, but this reboot is about to change all that. Thank you to Aaron, Brenda and team Bron as well as everyone at MGM for joining us on this adventure. We promise to bring new life to the iconic ‘Blacula’ character that will resonate with audiences worldwide!”

Looking Back at Blacula

Originally released in 1972 by American International Pictures, Blacula was a low-budget horror movie that unexpectedly turned into a box office sensation, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year. It was hailed for its majority-Black ensemble, led by Marshall and including Denise Nicholas and the late Vonetta McGee and Thalmus Rasulala, and has been embraced as a touchstone of Blaxploitation cinema.

Despite its campy-sounding name, it was not a satire but a straightforward horror film, inspiring a wave of Blaxploitation-themed horror movies that would follow. It also spawned a sequel Scream Blacula Scream in 1973. The movie was later acquired by MGM through the studio’s acquisition of Orion Pictures.

The post ‘Blacula’ Reboot Will Resurrect the Legendary Blaxploitation Horror Character appeared first on /Film.

On Monday, the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), issued a plea for help. The grid was once again running short on power and to avoid blackouts, the state’s least understood, most hated entity needed Texans to once again curtail their electricity usage. As ERCOT explained, some 11,000 megawatts—enough to power more than two million homes—had inexplicably tripped off-line just as the heat of summer started to set in across the state. ERCOT vice president Woody Rickerson said in a statement that it wasn’t immediately clear why so many generating plants had “forced outages,” meaning they needed unplanned repairs, and then noted that “this is unusual for this early in the summer season.” What’s not unusual is the number of high-profile…View Original Post

The post What Is Wrong With the Texas Grid? appeared first on Texas Monthly.

In an overwhelming bipartisan announcement yesterday, the United States Congress passed a bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Celebrated as a Texas state holiday since 1980 — the 1865 proclamation made on Galveston Island by Union Army General Gordon Granger, ordering the freedom of more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas — Juneteenth is commemorated in Texas cities across the state.

No one may be more in the mood to celebrate than Opal Lee of Fort Worth. The 94-year-old has sustained a five-year campaign to make Juneteenth a national holiday, and has since been dubbed the Grandmother of Juneteenth. The annual 2.5-mile walk will again take place this year, marking the 2.5 years it took for the original national emancipation news to reach Texas. As Opal Lee and others gear up to celebrate this year, here are some of the highlights of Juneteenth celebrations across Texas this weekend.

 

Austin

Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow
Saturday, June 19
Bullock Texas State History Museum

“Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow is a traveling exhibition organized by the New-York Historical Society. The exhibition explores the national struggle for full citizenship and racial equality that unfolded in the 50 years after the Civil War.”

 

The Struggle and the Glory: the American Experience
June 9 – September 5
Neill-Cochran House Museum

“This exhibition captures the struggle and glory of living life as an African-American in the United States throughout history, along with the artist’s faith in the dream of equality and opportunity for all. We share that faith and we support all the people who are working so hard today to make the dream a reality.”

 

Cey Adams: Limited Release of New Works
June 19
West Chelsea Contemporary

“On Saturday, June 19, West Chelsea Contemporary Editions is set to release its first limited run of new works with legendary contemporary artist Cey Adams. Adams worked in close collaboration with master printer Gary Lichtenstein to create three new screen-prints, each a continuation of his American flag series.”

 

Black Art WKND Debuts Futur Noir
June 19, 12PM -June 20, 5PM
Cloud Tree Studios & Gallery

“Futur Noir introduces the world to a wave of new Black creators that will disrupt and reconstruct a new future in the art world. Cloudtree Studios & Gallery is proud to be occupied by this group of young creatives over the course of Juneteenth.”

 

Dallas/Fort Worth

Nasher Public project: Lauren Cross:A Moment of Silence / Let Freedom Ring
June 19 – September 19
Event: June 19, 8:30AM
For Oak Cliff: 907 East Ledbetter Dr.

“The Nasher Sculpture Center announces its second offsite Nasher Public project: Lauren Cross’s A Moment of Silence / Let Freedom Ring, presented in partnership with For Oak Cliff, an organization and community center that works to liberate the South Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff from systemic oppression. A Moment of Silence / Let Freedom Ring will be on view from June 19 – September 19, 2021.”

 

Houston

 

“Join us this Saturday 10am -2pm for performances, food truck, and an arts market! We are delighted to have The Outspoken Bean as one of our dynamic performers! Outspoken Bean is a performance poet, writer, compassionate mentor, electric entertainer, and educator. Bean was recently named 2021 Houston Poet Laureate.

“Children’s Museum is proud to celebrate and honor this historic day with line dancing, spoken word poetry, interactive activities and so much more!

2021 Third Ward Juneteenth Celebration
June 19, 2- 8PM
Eldorado Ballroom Parking Lot: 2310 Elgin St.

“Join Project Row Houses and Emancipation Economic Development Council for a lively event to celebrate Juneteenth! Meet us at the Eldorado Ballroom Parking Lot to enjoy music, engage with artists through fun activities, eat delicious foods from local food trucks, and shop local Black owned businesses!”

 

Community Artists’ Collective: My Mirror is Fine
June 12 – July 30
Community Artists’ Collective

“Six Texas artists explore their self-identities through a series of individual styles, techniques and motifs in My Mirror Is Fine, opening Saturday, June 12, at The Collective. Houston artists Lauren Janelle, Alexis Pye, Matthew Napoli and Mathieu Jean Baptiste join San Antonio’s Cassidy Fritts and Mauro de la Tierra for the group show, which runs through July 30.”

Galveston

Juneteenth Legacy Project ‘Absolute Equality’ Mural Dedication
June 19, 11:30AM
22nd and Strand Streets

The new mural, on the Mitchell Historic Properties building (owned by the family of the late Cynthia and George Mitchell), supplements the historical marker plaque on the site where Granger issued the proclamation more than 150 years ago. During the Memorial Day Weekend holiday, Samuel Collins III, co-chairman of the Juneteenth Legacy Project, along with members of the organization, walked with Fort Worth activist Opal Lee on part of her journey to advocate for Juneteenth to be a national holiday.

San Antonio

 

The Future is Freedom Juneteenth Celebration
June 17, 6:30 – 10PM
Hopscotch Museum

“Join Black Freedom Factory in liberating community for a Juneteenth Celebration that will celebrate the past, present and future of grassroots organizations that continue to build pathways toward freedom. Enjoy live music, artists, vendors, and food at the brand-new, interactive museum: Hopscotch San Antonio!”

Did we miss your event? Please share information below!

The post Juneteenth Celebrations Across Texas This Weekend appeared first on Glasstire.

Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas this week. For last week’s picks, please go here.

1. The Big Show
June 19 – August 14
Lawndale Art Center (Houston)

“Lawndale is pleased to announce the artists and Preview Party for the 2021 iteration of The Big Show, our ambitious annual exhibition of new work by artists practicing within a 100-mile radius of Lawndale. For the 2021 exhibition, juror Cecilia Fajardo-Hill selected 212 works by 182 artists from over 500 submissions.”

2. Third Ward Juneteenth Celebration 
June 19
Eldorado Ballroom (Houston)

“Join Project Row Houses and Emancipation Economic Development Council for a lively event to celebrate Juneteenth! Meet us at the Eldorado Ballroom Parking Lot to enjoy music, engage with artists through fun activities, eat delicious foods from local food trucks, and shop local Black-owned businesses!”

For more Juneteenth celebrations across the state, please go here.

3. Cheryl Donegan: Doomscrolling
June 18 – July 23
Blind Alley Projects (Fort Worth)

From Blind Alley Projects:

“Doomscrolling by New York artist Cheryl Donegan comprises a series of long paintings on paper drop-cloths, which swag from the front window to the back wall of the gallery. Appearing as colorful abstractions, their motifs are taken from the floor plans of shuttered shopping malls, relaying Donegan’s deep interest in consumer objects, crafting and low-end design. The gesture of draping the interior of the exhibition space in the narrow, fabric-like material playfully references the architecture of a fashion runway within a space too diminutive to hold it, while the act of obscuring the front window of the gallery—the only way to see into the space—suggests the demise of some retail enterprise. Under the banner of ‘doomscrolling,’ the masochistic act of scrolling through bad political news on a digital gadget, Donegan cleverly pegs the exhibition to other realms of blighted hope and promise.”

 

4. Benjamin Terry: Bits and Bobs
May 22 – June 22
Galleri Urbane Dallas

“Dallas-based artist Benjamin Terry returns for his third solo exhibition with the gallery. Following a postponed exhibition that resulted in a virtual presentation in 2020, Bits and Bobs exhibits the progression Terry’s painting has taken over the last year and a half. In this body of work, the artist strays from the strong narrative approach that has driven his past installations in favor of a more formal investigation of his work. Terry takes a decidedly intuitive approach to his newest paintings while further establishing an aesthetic that obscures the boundary between clumsy and sophisticated.”

To read a Glasstire review of Terry’s exhibition by Michael Frank Blair, please go here.

5. Community Collaboration: Nao Bustamante Speculum Salon and Workshop
June 17
Artpace San Antonio

“For her International Artist-in-Residence Community Collaboration, Nao Bustamante invites the public to join her for a discussion on women’s health and the troubled history of the design of the speculum (a medical instrument used to investigate body orifices). Attendees will create their own clay speculum redesign prototypes that may be featured in Bustamante’s residency exhibition. Nao Bustamante is an internationally renowned artist, residing in Los Angeles, California. Bustamante’s precarious work encompasses performance art, video installation, filmmaking, sculpture and writing.  To register for this event, please go here.”

The post Top Five: June 17, 2021 appeared first on Glasstire.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

On getting bullied when I was five:
“We do not fight with our hands; we fight with our words. Let me help you brainstorm. What does your bully hate about herself?”

On wanting a Tweety Bird shirt when I was ten:
“Oh, sweetheart. Yellow is not your color.”

On buying Dr. Martens in high school:
“I thought you had a boyfriend?”

On my prom date:
“If that boy tries to get you to do something you don’t want to do, you tell him, ‘MY FATHER WILL.’”

On dating in college:
“Sleep with everyone. You will not be hot forever.”

On finishing in fifth place at a speech tournament:
“You’re just like your dad: never coming first!”

On moving home:
“I want you in bed by 12 and home by 2.”

On getting dumped:
“Honey, just go get another one. They’re everywhere. And to repay me for that advice, you will be my date to drag brunch because I know you’re now free on Sunday morning.”

On working in a shipyard in San Francisco:
“What is a machinist and why would you want to do that?”

On getting a dog:
“He will make us look so cute on Fire Island!”

On gay marriage:
“I want you to do a reading at my wedding. But I should tell you that I didn’t invite your other dad.”

On my coming out:
“We always thought you gave off bisexual vibes.”

On wearing a puffy vest:
“We always thought you gave off lesbian vibes.”

The Education Department says it's approving 18,000 loan forgiveness claims for borrowers who attended the for-profit college chain, which had exaggerated graduates' success rates in finding jobs.

(Image credit: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

In a new book, Bryan Burrough and co-writers Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford challenge the historical lore of the Alamo — including the story that Davy Crockett refused to surrender.

(Image credit: Jill Torrance/Getty Images)

June 19 is a commemoration of the end of chattel slavery in the United States, marking the day enslaved people in Texas were finally freed — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

(Image credit: Evan Vucci/AP)

A true romantic



View Comic!

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It's too bad about one through five. I would've liked to do more experiments.

Today's News:

Our 10th most-read article of 2021.

Originally published June 17, 2021.

Barenaked Ladies: You like craft beer.

Sleater-Kinney: You like craft beer and claim you were into it “before it became such a thing.”

Soundgarden: You wear an apron that says SUN’S OUT, BUNS OUT when you barbecue.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: You pretend your spouse picked out the “Live, Laugh, Love” decor in your living room.

Dave Matthews Band: After three IPAs, you look around dramatically and, after deciding the other parents are “cool,” pull a joint out of the bowler’s cap you wear unironically and sing-ask, “Who wants to burn one down?”

Green Day: You constantly mention to the kid who caddies for you that you used to caddy at his age, yet he does not bother to conceal his loathing for you — what gives?

Gin Blossoms: You spend a lot of energy concealing your jealousy of your spouse’s relationship with your Alexa.

Oasis: You quiz your family during holidays about the shitty craft beer podcast you do with your high school friend TJ to see if they actually listen.

Sublime: You continue to quote Fight Club long after everyone else grew out of it.

Breeders: You have no idea when or how to clip your hedges or prune your trees or mow your lawn, so you just copy whatever your neighbor Todd does, and Todd is starting to notice and get weird about it.

Third Eye Blind: You didn’t care about women’s rights until you had a daughter.

Juliana Hatfield 3: You wear an apron that says GRILL SERGEANT when you barbecue.

Toad the Wet Sprocket: You work out obsessively under the guise of “needing to stay healthy for the kids,” but really just want people to comment on how ripped you are so you can avoid thinking about your ever-closer proximity to old age, decrepitude, and death.

Candlebox: You get pouty if anybody fails to make a big fucking deal when you cook something.

Counting Crows: You started coaching your kid’s soccer team to make the other kids’ parents fall in love with you, but it didn’t work.

Silverchair: You “accidentally” leave out the Windex after cleaning so everyone knows you did a chore.

Pearl Jam: You put political signs in your yard, less out of conviction and more in the hopes of starting fights with your neighbors and breaking the cruel monotony of your pleasant existence.

Smashing Pumpkins: You wish you were the kind of person who could fall asleep at night without having flossed.

Stone Temple Pilots: You don’t wear sandals because you’ve always thought your feet were weird, but now they actually are weird because of the years of blisters from boat shoes.

Lit: After moving out to suburbs, you feel a certain freedom that had been lacking in the city, and you wonder if maybe you never really liked the city and only lived there because Spin implied that’s what cool dads do.

Limp Bizkit: Your Twitter avatar is a picture of you hugging your adorable toddler daughter. You also send unsolicited dick pics to every young woman who “likes” one of your tweets.

Sugar Ray: You don’t even like craft beer but you end up drinking it a lot because you don’t want to disappoint anyone who assumes you do.

Hootie & The Blowfish: When your family goes to Olive Garden every Friday at exactly 6 pm, you promise yourself you’re going to try something different this time but end up getting the Chicken Marsala again because it’s dependable and, at your core, you value dependability above all things.

Foo Fighters: No matter what you do, you’ll never be as good as your spouse’s dead first husband.

Live: You post long, pseudo-spiritual messages on LinkedIn about the transformative power of the continuing education classes you’re required to take to keep your real estate license.

Lemonheads: You spend an average of 14.5 hours on the golf course each week, not because you love golf, but because you really can’t stand spending time with your family.

Nirvana: You love craft beer but pretend not to because you can’t bear the thought of being like all the other bored suburban dads.

I just asked for a trim...

Microsoft today announced an all-new version of its Whiteboard application. The focus of the new app is hybrid work, even though that was, more or less, the focus of the old one. Microsoft Whiteboard is an app that does exactly what it sounds like, but people can collaborate on the whiteboard in real time.

First up is new collaboration features like Collaboration Cursors. You can see what other people are doing while they’re doing it, and you can see their cursor being dragged around the screen. With several people working at once, it’s sure to make for a very busy screen. There’s also a new Laser Pointer feature for presenting, a Follow Along feature that’s meant to cut back on distractions while presenting, and there are new Templates.

That’s not all, because there’s a ton of new stuff being announced today. This is all about “rich and interactive content”. This can include Collaborative Diagrams, which are made by drawing them. You can add images, and you can add documents too; or if documents are too formal, there’s a Notes Grid feature that lets you organize notes into an auto-layout grid. And of course, it wouldn’t be a modern collaboration platform without Reaction Stickers.

There’s a new Fluent Toolbar, which is pretty much a visual redesign. In fact, if you want to look at visuals, you’ll notice some rounded corners. You’ll also see the new Creation Gallery in the image above, and it’s meant to have a more responsive design.

Another big design change is that Microsoft is promising a Single Unified User Experience. This is a big deal and a big promise, because Microsoft Whiteboard is available on Windows, iOS, Android, the web, and more, so there are a lot of design languages that it currently follows.

The next thing that’s new is that Microsoft wants to improve inking with a mouse, mainly because not everyone has a pen. Remember, Microsoft Whiteboard is meant to scale from smartphones to a big Surface Hub, and everything in-between. It automatically smooths the ink when you use a mouse now, but if you do have a pen, there’s pen support for Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams now.

And that brings us to the last new group of features that Microsoft announced, which is better Microsoft 365 integration. It’s in the Share Content experience in Teams Meetings and it’s now in Teams Channels & Chats, and you’ll even find your whiteboards on Office.com.

Microsoft says that you can start using the new Microsoft Whiteboard today.

The post Microsoft redesigns Whiteboard with a focus on hybrid work appeared first on xda-developers.

Good morning. On Wednesday I wrote that it seemed likely the Gulf of Mexico disturbance was going to track east of the Houston region, and now I’m confident that will be the case. As a result, while the Houston region may see some modest rain this weekend, and some higher tides, we should escape significant effects from the tropical system. I’ll discuss this more below.

Thursday

Houston’s high temperature topped out at 97 degrees on Wednesday, and I think we’ll be just a shade lower than that today, with highs generally in the mid-90s across the region. Speaking of shade, you’d better finds some, because skies will be mostly sunny. Winds will be light, out of the east. Clear skies may allow temperatures to drop into the mid-70s overnight.

Friday

Friday will start out a lot like Thursday, but as the tropical system begins to lift north into the central and then northern Gulf of Mexico, we may see some rain chances along the coast. Galveston probably has a 40 percent chance of seeing some light showers during the afternoon, with lower chances inland. Otherwise, highs for much of the region will likely be in the mid-90s, with partly to mostly sunny skies.

Saturday and Sunday

The region’s rain chances will probably be highest on Saturday, with perhaps 40 percent coverage of light to moderate showers due to the tropical system. Chances are highest to the east of Interstate 45, where some coastal areas closer to Beaumont and Port Arthur may see 0.5 to 1 inch of rain. Skies will be partly to mostly sunny when it’s not raining. Rain chances are lower on Sunday, probably in the 20 percent range. Look for highs in the low- to mid-90s both days.

Next week

By around Monday, a late season cool front is expected to move into northern Texas. While I don’t think it will bring much dry air to the Houston region, it should bring increased rain chances to our region from about Monday night into early Wednesday. It’s too early to say much about accumulations, but certainly an inch or so of rainfall would not be unwelcome after our recent heat spell. This may also push highs into the low 90s for a few days—also not unwelcome.

Tropics

The disturbance in the Southern Gulf of Mexico remains a blobby mess, but it should begin to get better organized today, and then start to lift northward. All of the reliable model guidance now brings a tropical depression or weak tropical storm toward Louisiana, with a likely landfall late Friday night or on Saturday. As the storm will probably be sheared, its major rainfall will come to its east, likely over New Orleans, and the coastal Mississippi and Alabama regions. I’d expect 5 to 10 inches of rainfall across widespread areas there, with higher local totals. This is definitely something to consider if New Orleans or travel along Interstate 10 is in your plans this weekend. The good news is that the tropical system should move a little faster than previously anticipated, meaning conditions along the Gulf coast should begin to improve by Sunday.

I’ve discovered something very useful about the signal glitching problem with Yellowstone: I can reproduce the problem (or a form of it) without booting a disk, and even without any disk drive attached. After many hours, I think I’ve narrowed it down to this:

If the CPU reads the value $FF from any location in Yellowstone’s RAM, it might cause a glitch on many different signals simultaneously.

Reading $FF from Yellowstone’s ROM doesn’t cause any trouble. Reading other values with seven 1-bits from Yellowstone’s RAM may cause a glitch, but it’s less likely than when reading $FF. Reading values with six or fewer 1-bits from RAM doesn’t seem to be a problem.

I wrote a tiny program to store $FF in RAM and repeatedly read it back in a loop, and then examined a variety of board signals while the program was running. There were nasty glitches everywhere. But when I zoomed out the time scale, I noticed that the glitches appeared in regular clusters. And zooming out still further, I made this discovery about the behavior when continuously reading from Yellowstone RAM:

Glitches appear in a roughly regular pattern with a 16.5 ms period. Within that pattern is a second pattern with a 62 us period.

Yup, it’s a 60 Hz pattern with a 16 KHz pattern overlaid. Smells like NTSC video! But I don’t think it’s literally video interference, as I’ll explain in a moment. My guess is it’s an issue with data bus traffic related to the Apple IIgs video refresh.

One more important detail:

Glitches appear almost immediately after the ‘245 is enabled to drive the data bus, and can continue for a long time (hundreds of nanoseconds).

 
Speculation and Guesses

I’m pretty confident about everything up to this point. The rest is an educated guess:

When the ‘245 is enabled to drive a $FF value onto the data bus, it somehow causes signal integrity problems elsewhere. This might be due to undiagnosed bus fighting, but my hunch is that it’s actually due to the capacitance of the Apple II data bus. From what I’ve read in a few reference books, the bus has a pretty high capacitance, and this is a “feature” that holds the last value on the bus even after nothing is driving it anymore.

If the last value on the bus was 00000000, and the ‘245 tries to drive 11111111, there will be a brief rush of current while the bus capacitance is charged up. But the bypass capacitor on the ‘245 should handle this, I think. Adding more / different capacitors to the ‘245 on my board didn’t seem to help.

I suspect the real problem might be exceeding the maximum ratings of the 74LVC245. It’s a 3.3V chip with 5V tolerant inputs, but the output voltage is only safe to VCC + 0.5V. If the chip turns on its outputs to drive 3.3V onto the data bus, but sees there’s already 5V there, the absolute maximum rating will be exceeded. Maybe this results in 5V feedback back into the 3.3V power supply? Which results in horrible glitching everywhere else?

The Apple II video circuitry uses the data bus to read video memory, in between each 6502 or 65816 CPU cycle. That means the last value on the bus will be determined by whatever the video circuitry just read. This would explain why the glitching appears to follow a pattern with a frequency that matches NTSC video.

 
Holes in the Theory

This sounds sort of plausible. But when I measured the 3.3V supply with an oscilloscope, the few swings I saw didn’t seem large enough to cause problems like what I’m seeing. Maybe I need to look harder.

This theory also wouldn’t explain why glitches sometimes continue for hundreds of nanoseconds. Surely the parasitic bus capacitance should be fully charged or discharged in less time than that? Maybe it induces some kind of unwanted oscillation in the voltage regulator or other components?

The biggest flaw with this theory is that it doesn’t explain why the glitches only happen when reading from RAM, not ROM. The RAM and the FPGA (which contains the ROM) are connected in parallel to the ‘245. From the viewpoint of the ‘245, outputting a $FF byte from RAM is identical to an $FF byte from ROM.

 
RAM Supply Current Spikes

The SRAM datasheet reveals that the chip’s supply current is 85 mA when /CS is asserted, but as low as 2 mA when /CS isn’t asserted. My design is constantly switching /CS on and off for RAM accesses, so that’s going to create a very spiky current demand.

As before, I think the bypass capacitor on the SRAM should handle the spiky current, and adding more capacitance there didn’t seem to help my prototype board. So this doesn’t quite fit, but it’s the only reason I can think of why RAM access would behave differently from ROM access.

 
Confirming and Maybe Fixing

Putting everything together, the theory looks like this: when the ‘245 drives 11111111 onto the data bus, it creates a whole lot of power supply noise, possibly due to exceeding the output voltage maximum rating. Normally this noise isn’t enough to cause problems, but if the SRAM /CS is asserted a short time earlier, it will also create a supply current spike when that 85 mA load is switched on. The combination of these two effects is what pushes the Yellowstone board over the line into glitching territory. And the glitches continue for a couple of hundred nanoseconds, because of… reasons I don’t know.

When I write everything out, this theory actually sounds pretty shaky. But it’s the best I have right now.

What evidence would help prove or disprove this theory? Better measurements of the 3.3V supply? Bus voltages? Current into and out of the ‘245? Some of that would be difficult to measure.

Assuming this theory is right, how might I fix it? It seems like the exact type of problem that bypass capacitors should help solve, but so far I’ve seen no improvement when adding extra bypass caps. Maybe I need to try harder, with different capacitor values and in different locations on the board.

Another fix might be to replace the 74LVC245 with a 74LVT245. It’s basically the same chip, but with a higher current drive and with outputs that are safe up to 7 volts. If I’m causing problems by exceeding the max output voltage of the 74LVC245, swapping for the LVT should resolve it.

Other options might be to use a dual-supply 74LVC8T245, or to add series termination resistors, but both of those ideas would require designing and building a new board revision. Without more confidence that it would actually fix the problem, I’m reluctant to do that yet.

It's all about the air.

Link to Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3rncxf4Or8

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This post, my ex-boss is using my firing as content for her company social media pages , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

My former boss is using my firing as content for her social media pages, including recording herself singing songs about it.

The background: I worked for my boss for five years and now see the MOUNTAIN of red flags I ignored because I was desperate to break into the field — behavior like not getting me the training I needed, demanding I be on call 24/7 and drastically underpaying me, constantly hiring consultants that gave horrible advice and then getting upset with my performance when I had to scramble to fix the damage the contractors had done. I knew something was up when she hired someone else last year and promoted them to be my manager after about two weeks on the job (that’s a different story). It was a small business in a very big but niche market. I’m now well known in this field due to working for her for so long.

She fired me out of the blue last month citing multiple confusing and wacko reasons; everything from my personal life being a “mess” (I’m undergoing medical treatment for a rare disorder that I was only recently diagnosed with but I never missed work for it and didn’t even use the business health insurance) to an error a contractor made three years ago, to not capitalizing a letter in an email, to my inability to fix a software glitch that I had no control over. While I see now the mountain, nay, planet full of red flags that popped up over the course of our relationship, I’m still struggling with having been fired from a situation that was so unhealthy and beating myself up for staying so long.

I don’t follow her or the business or my coworkers on social media, but since I’ve been fired she’s been making Tik Toks, Instagram reels, Facebook videos, and other pieces of content about “letting toxic people go,” and lip-synching to a popular pop song that uses the words “sociopath” with captions about doing the right thing for your business and firing the “dead weight toxic employees.” I’m the only person let go from the business, so yes, she is talking about me. People who knew I worked for her brought this to my attention now that I’m trying to start my own company. Did I mention we’re adults with families and responsibilities, not teenagers?

All of my hirable experience and expertise is related to working for this person and I don’t know how to feel or move forward. I’m obviously not going to respond or lurk on her social media pages, and I’ve asked the friends we have in common to stop telling me and not get involved. I do need some things from her social media as portfolio examples for potential clients, so I can’t help but see some of it and it opens the wounds again.

How do I move forward freelancing and starting over professionally while knowing I’m getting partially dragged through the professional mud? She owns the business so she can behave any way she wants.

What’s she’s doing is so over-the-top odd and unprofessional that it’s going to reflect terribly on her and not at all on you. She is lip-synching to pop songs and singing about firing people! This is not normal behavior, it makes her look ridiculous and unhinged, and if anything, it’s likely to hurt her business. Would you do business with someone you saw doing this — would you think they were likely to treat you and your projects professionally and with sound judgment, and that they would be pleasant to work with? Or would you recoil and run far away? Most people would recoil and run.

Frankly, a lot of people who see this won’t necessarily even connect it with you. They might know you worked there but they won’t know she fired you. And especially assuming that they see you as a level-headed, reasonable person, they’re not going to immediately assume, “Oh, this must be about Jane Mulberry, of course!” They’re going to think, “WTF is this and why is it here?”

But even if people do realize it’s about you, it’s going to make them horrified for you — because you’re clearly being targeted by someone out of her gourd. To the extent that this makes people feel anything in your direction, it’ll be sympathy. No one is going to watch these Tik Toks or Facebook videos and think, “Oh, this is valuable information about Jane Mulberry, I’d better not work with her. These lip-synched lyrics indicate she’s a sociopath!” They’re going to think, “What the hell did I just see and what is wrong with ExBoss?”

Seriously, what your boss is doing is highly likely to destroy her reputation with any reasonable person. Let her destroy it. It’s never fun for someone else’s drama to splash on you, but it’s so clearly about her and not you.

Don’t give it another thought other than as a story you will enjoy telling in a few years when the sting is gone.

This post, are all jobs bad? , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

Are all jobs… bad? Because right now I’m looking around and feeling very hopeless about the idea of having a job that checks all the boxes: 1) pays well (or just a living wage), 2) isn’t totally toxic and/or managed by total clowns, 3) allows you to have decent work-life balance, and 4) isn’t totally racist and/or isn’t actively making the world an actively worse place. 

Our prospects just feel… bleak. A few examples of what I’m seeing/hearing from friends:  

Tech: pays well, but is morally bankrupt
Startups: often managed by people who purport to have high-minded visions or progressive values, but then it inevitably comes out that they are abusing their employees and are run by a low-key cult leader
Media: under the influence of self-important clowns, is basically crumbling (these things are related, I think)
Law: pays well, but the hours seem truly miserable
Nonprofits: often chaotic and not necessarily good to employees, despite the fact that they are supposed to be good??? 

And the thing is, even if you find a good role, or manager, or company, it kind of feels like you’ve got, at best, 2–3 years before a re-org or shareholder meeting upends the whole thing and you’re either taking a pay cut, getting laid off, or being managed by someone who probably should not be a manager. And even if another job might be marginally better in one way, it’s hard to want to make the leap to something new after you’ve been burned so many times. In those cases, it often feels like the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. 

As you can probably tell, my peers and I are feeling very pessimistic about the state of things, especially after the events of 2020 exposed just how messed up and fragile our systems in the U.S. are, and how many businesses are willing to throw their employees under the bus for the sake of profits. So: Are there any good jobs? Or are we simply doomed? 

You can read my answer to this letter at Vice today. Head over there to read it.

The shift in health policy in most of the U.K. reverses a decades-old rule that limited donor eligibility on perceived risks of contracting HIV/AIDs and other sexually transmitted infections.

(Image credit: Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Juneteenth is an annual celebration held on June 19 to commemorate the end of chattel slavery in America.

(Image credit: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum via AP)

This Yellowstone glitching problem has gone from puzzling to frustrating to potentially project-ending. I’m still not exactly sure what’s going wrong, let alone how to fix it, and I’ve nearly exhausted all my troubleshooting ideas. In the hopes that maybe the problem could be explained by damaged hardware, I assembled an entirely new Yellowstone card from spare parts, but it fails in exactly the same way as the original card. Grrrr.

Let’s review the facts here. In limited testing, Yellowstone appears to work great on the Apple IIe for controlling any type of disk drive: Smartport drives like the Unidisk 3.5 or Floppy Emu’s hard disk mode, dumb 3.5 inch drives like the Apple 3.5 Drive, and 5.25 inch drives. On the Apple IIgs it works for Smartport drives and 5.25 inch drives, but dumb 3.5 inch drives almost always result in a crash while booting the disk.

The immediate cause of the crash looks like this: While the computer is executing code from the Yellowstone’s onboard ROM in address range $C800-$CFFF (which is actually internal FPGA memory), the card suddenly thinks it’s been deactivated and that it’s no longer in control of that address range. So it stops outputting bytes, the CPU reads and executes random garbage bytes, and there’s a crash. Yellowstone thinks it was deactivated because it thinks the CPU put the address $CFFF on the bus, which deactivates all peripheral cards. But that’s not true.

For unknown reasons, this problem only ever occurs during a clock cycle when the CPU is reading from Yellowstone’s SRAM chip, although I don’t have any idea why that’s relevant. Nor can I explain why it only happens for 3.5 inch disk drives, and only on the Apple IIgs.

At first I thought it was a clock glitch on Q3 causing Yellowstone to incorrectly see and react to a phantom $CFFF address, and I captured some Q3 glitches with the logic analyzer. But then I started noticing other glitches on other signals, some of which appear tens of nanoseconds before the Q3 glitch. So it’s more likely that the Q3 glitch is a symptom of some other problem, rather than the root cause.

My best guess (but only a guess) is there’s a problem with the 3.3V power supply, and some transient noise on the supply is inducing glitching in multiple locations. With an oscilloscope, I observed a few instances where the 3.3V supply very briefly swung as high as 3.84V and as low as 2.76V, at the same time the data bus driver was enabled. But I’m a bit suspicious of those numbers. My oscilloscope always seems to show wild ringing on signals, no matter what project I’m working on, so I’m thinking that’s at least partly the result of my probes or the way I’m taking the measurements. I made several changes to the bus driver, including advancing and delaying the enable timing, and adding more bypass capacitors with various values, but nothing seemed to make a difference in preventing the glitches.

Without being able to clearly characterize exactly where and when the problem is occurring, my hopes for fixing it are low. I still don’t know whether what I’ve observed on the logic analyzer is the cause, or only a symptom.

The bad news is that I’m running out of ideas about what else to try. This train is headed down the wrong track, and the next stops are Frustrationville, Dead-End Town, and Abandon City.

Shelby Houlihan says her positive test for the steroid nandrolone followed a visit to a food truck for a pork burrito, and is pointing to studies that show nandrolone occurs naturally in some pigs.

(Image credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

This post, update: I accidentally threw a sandwich and it caused a work crisis , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, where all month I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer whose coworker accidentally threw a sandwich, which hit their elegant, frosty grandboss, leaving an oily splotch on her suit? The grandboss mistakenly thought a different coworker, Renton, had patted her on the ass … and then when Renton was gone for two days, the office rumor mill was speculating that he’d been sent for mandatory harassment training as a result. (It’s hard to briefly summarize the details of this letter in all its glory; you should read the whole thing.) Here’s the update.

Things rather sorted themselves out. Diane (the owner of said sandwich) was very much uninclined to rectify the situation, so I spoke to Renton on my own. He burst out laughing at how terribly ineptly we handled it and he explained that he was actually on a new roster, which was why he was missing for those days I erroneously assumed he was out for “rehabilitation.” So he was in training, basically, to learn how to deal with idiotic situations. *blushes, looks around sideways*

I distanced myself from Diane, and Renton and I have actually become good friends — we snuck out for some afternoon footie today (AHEM. The Euros have started, people, don’t get salacious!) because PATIOS ARE OPEN! So I lost and gained a friend, but I have, I think, better judgement now on how to deal with absolute ridiculous happenings. I’m still pleasant with Diane, but this changed my view of her a bit, to be frank. She still uses our dictionary as a sandwich press, and FrostyBoss has worn the suit since. (I cannot lie: I had been charting her outfits. We’re talking Excel spreadsheet. So now I have wonderful ideas around how to “dress for the role you want, not the role you have”! ….I just need about an extra 40% salary increase to achieve it!) So I think it’s all good?

I also started to chat with a couple of our more chatty folks, and tried to downplay the rumours by saying that didn’t sound like Renton AT ALL, and everyone I spoke to agreed with me, and between that and our being mates and him being tagged for a seniorish role, it died off well quick. Now the big question is who on earth would have started such a ridiculous story? This might be me showing my immaturity again, but … I just rather nope out of those blathers, and say I’ve got some revision to do!

Thank you for the advice, and also to the commentary for the laughs.

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