The first official results of the 2020 census are in—and Texas has plenty to brag about. It grew more than any other state over the last decade, according to figures released by the Census Bureau on Monday. There are now 29,145,505 Texans, though as I type this another thousand migrants are surely packing up their belongings in Los Angeles, Lucknow, and Leon. That’s up from 25 million in April 2010, an increase of 15.9 percent, or four million—more than the total population of Oklahoma (which once again makes one wonder why UT has lost two-thirds of its football games against the Sooners over the past two decades). The only other states to exceed Texas’s population boom, in terms of percentage growth, were Utah (growing by…View Original Post
In 1929, a used-car salesman in Waco named Edgar Lee Torrance opened what would become the first motel chain in America. With its cheesy white-stucco wink to the Alamo’s facade, Torrance’s Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts featured individual carports for guests, telephones in each room, and “a Beautyrest mattress on every bed,” according to newspaper advertisements. The chain’s eventual expansion to twenty courts in six Southern states predated the nation’s first Holiday Inn, which didn’t open until 1952, and Howard Johnson’s, which was founded in 1954. Torrance helped cement Texas’s reputation as a state in love with its open roads and far-flung destinations. The marketing slogan was Torrance’s idea of Texas shorthand: “Remember the Alamo Plaza.” By the latter part of the twentieth century, travelers associated…View Original Post
Mortal Kombat 2021 is finally here, so here's my review. Hunted by the fearsome warrior Sub-Zero, MMA fighter Cole Young finds sanctuary at the temple of Lord Raiden. Training with experienced fighters Liu Kang, Kung Lao and the rogue mercenary Kano, Cole prepares to stand with Earth's greatest champions to take on the enemies from Outworld in a high-stakes battle for the universe. This was released in theaters and on HBO Max, where I watched it.
Crew: Jon Jafari - Director/Editor/Writer Sergio Torres - Director of Photography/Line Producer/Creative Andrew Reynoso - Key Grip/Creative Lewis Bown - Editor/Writer Maria Alexandria - Special Effects/Makeup Charlotte Jafari - Production Assistant
Internet and Personal Computing Fads
Bell, Berry, and Van Roekel
2004
This was actually a fun book, from a historical perspective. At the time, this would have been an excellent addition to a public library collection. It’s an accessible book geared to those just stepping into the Internet. Is it relevant for today’s library users? Not really. If they ever do an updated version though, I will buy it for my library.
I remember recently talking to a young professional about the integration of technology in libraries. Most folks were okay with the OPAC since they had been around a long time. The Internet, databases, email, and basic technology support were well beyond some of the old school library types. There was a lot of resistance and discounting of computer based research.
Before the world of Awful Library Books, Holly and I spent a ridiculous amount of time presenting on how technology was an integral part of reference service. During a Q and A, I remember one particular woman squaring off with Holly about this “kind” of reference work was NOT what she signed up for her. Her response was “then you will never work for me” and suggested she wouldn’t last long as a librarian, because tech was here to stay. #goodtimes
This here’s a tale for all the teachers Gradin’ those papers in the empty bleachers Try to turn Zoom bugs into features Lookin’ for the choir but just findin’ preachers
Okay, professor, here’s a good stressor Figuring out which evil is the lesser: Students walk by and they should have a mask But you’re part of cancel culture if you even ask
Next day’s meeting, Dean is bleating Hard to crack a joke with six-foot seating Who’ll teach a course for an extra grand? And now you hear crickets, so you raise your hand
Class of seven? Sounds like heaven But you need to keep your hours at the 7-Eleven Their health plan helps you keep your groove So come on, Doc, and bust a move
If you want it, we’ll cut it. You want it? Baby, we’ll cut it. (Just bust a move.) You want it? We’ll cut it. You want it? Baby, we’ll cut it.
You’re on a mission, and you’re wishin’ Folks would shut up about the cost of tuition Everyone you know thinks you got cash But your last full meal was a can of hash
Per a funny meme, it would certainly seem You could do way better outside of academe But your dad says that it’s even worse out there So you mash a lemon Claw and drown your despair
Now the president’s full of hesitance The school just lost a third of non-residents You’re sittin’ there, hoping that you don’t convulse, While Admissions tryna bag anything with a pulse
The dean’s pedantic actin’ hierophantic Trying to sound calm, but it just makes you frantic You gotta find a scene where things improve So what comes next? You bust a move
If you write it, we’ll cite it. You write it. Maybe we’ll cite it. (Just bust a move.) You write it? We’ll cite it. You write it, maybe we’ll cite it.
None of our classes offer free passes We work all year to wash up the masses You want to have your students in a face-to-face But first you gotta put ’em in your contact-trace
Used to be the thrill of us now it breaks the will of us So damn tired of sayin’ “it’s in the syllabus!” You never thought you’d be the type to whine But an Alt-Ac job is looking mighty fine
Plagiarism, canon schism No one understands your take on presentism You want to help your buddy push her paper through But she’s starting to suspect that you’re Reviewer 2
Vodka tonic, act sardonic Just to hide anxiety that’s chronic With all of this stress, it might behoove Yourself to finally bust a move
If you want it, no budget. You want it? Baby, no budget. (Just bust a move.) You want it? No budget. You want it? Baby, no budget. (Break it down for me, fellas.)
Your mentor Sherry has a load to carry She needs help right now or she’ll be buried She really is hopin’ you can make it there ‘Cause in the fall semester, she’ll be the new chair
You say, “See ya — love the idea!” And roll to the campus in your ‘05 Kia Working the committee gonna make you dizzy But the guys can’t help because, of course, they’re busy
Used to be fanatical, dreaming of sabbatical Now a weekend off is something radical Sometimes teaching is a painful death But you tap a box of wine, and you catch your breath
Next, some hater, legislator Cuts your program funds, and so you crater You know deep down you got nothing to prove So hit your CV, and you bust a move
You don’t want it? Well, you bought it. (Just bust a move.) You don’t want it? Well, baby, you bought it. (Move it, boy.)
It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly.
So let’s take some of the mystery out of salaries. Fill out the form below to anonymously share your salary and other relevant info. (Do not leave your info in the comments section! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.)
Submitter: Aside from the fact that the book cover is wearing out and the pages smell from 40+ years of age, the 70’s clothing made a book with a serious topic somewhat laughable because it looks so dated. Dad in particular is rocking some rad tight jeans, Beatles boots, and an epic ‘stache. Plus, note the photo where Dad comforts Mom as she cries about Grandpa. The book says it looks like Dad is about to cry too, but it rather looks like he’s taken comfort from the open beer bottle sitting on the floor next to him. Not the imagery you’d probably see in a realistic photo book published for kids today.
Holly: This absolutely screams 1979. That girl is now in her 40’s or even young 50’s and her parents are pushing 80. I’m curious about the text in the book, since the submitted pages are only pictures. Is it comforting or just weird?
Many folks have installed X servers and X410 on their Windows 10 machines and hacked together very nice X Server set ups with WSL over the years. However, that support is now official and coming to Windows very soon. It's already in Windows 10 Insiders Dev and is in builds 21364 or higher. (Run winver to see what version of Windows you have.)
If you want to try it out, all you have to do is run "wsl --update" from and command line and you're set. If you have 21364 already but you don't have WSL installed, it's even easier to get started now. (Full details on GitHub as the whole thing is open source as well!)
wsl --install -d Ubuntu
The best part of all this is that you just install Linux GUI apps in your distro with apt install like you would already, and they'll show up automatically in the Windows Start Menu!
Even better, if you have a nice GPU, you can run WSLg on a system with virtual GPU (vGPU) enabled for WSL so you can benefit from hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering. You can find preview driver supporting WSL from each of our partners below.
Here's the Dolphin Emulator running on my Surface Book 3 laptop on the NVidia vGPU at ~60 fps.
You can even run Chrome, Edge, or Teams under Linux on Windows 10 with WSLg.
This is more than just X Server support. The community is moving towards Wayland as a simpler X, but there's also Weston to consider as a great compositor to build on. Weston already had a RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) backend and could use with with FreeRDP. But windows already has Windows Virtual Desktop that uses RDP RAIL (Remote Application Integrated Locally) as well as VAIL (Virtualized Application Integrated Locally) for optimizing transport over VM (local) boundaries vs network ones. There's an amazing blog post on WSLg Architecture here by Steve Pronovost.
All this means more than just X apps, WSLg works with OpenGL apps and works amazingly on systems with a GPU that supports WDDMv3.0. The preview drivers linked to above will eventually ship in Windows Update automatically when all this is generally available.
The Ubuntu on Windows Community Preview will only be available through this link to the Microsoft store. You will not be able to find the Community Preview just by searching in the Microsoft Store.
And finally, here's some answers to some of your "ya but you can do THIS?" questions about running Linux GUI apps on Windows 10.
Can you run The Gimp under WSLg?
Yes. Do know that things in WSLg look best under round number DPI scaling. I'm at 200 here. It'll look back at 175% or something fractional unless you explicitly turn on WESTON_RDP_DISABLE_FRACTIONAL_HI_DPI_SCALING=true in your /mnt/c/ProgramData/Microsoft/WSL/.wslgconfig. But trust me, stay with round numbers.
Can you run Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) to run Windows under WSLg under Linux under Windows?
Absolutely. Here I'm running Internet Explorer (after installing Gecko) under Wine under WSL in Ubuntu on Windows. Why not?
How fast is it? Here I'm running Windows 3.1 emulated within Javascript using PCJS under WSLg within Edge for Linux on Windows 10. It's very fast.
Does PulseAudio work?
Totally does. Out of the box. The genius of the architecture is that there's an already setup WSLg System Distro (this means it's more robust and you can't mess up the settings and accidentally break something) that has everything prepped and working.
Conclusion
If you don't like this or you think this is silly to you, then you likely don't have a problem that this solves for you. For me, this just makes my Windows machine an amazing Linux desktop on top of being a great Windows 10 desktop machine, without the overhead or hassle of a Linux VM. WSLg will let you run other IDEs such as gedit, JetBrains based editors, gvim, etc., to test, build, and debug your Linux applications in a high performance manner. You can also run VS Code on Windows like I do and use VS Code Remote to talk to WSL/Linux.
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A) Yes, because I’m ready to get back out there and start partying again!
B) Yes, because I am haunted by the prospect of accidentally killing my parents or saddling my children with lifelong health complications.
Does your arm hurt?
A) Yup, right where I got the shot.
B) Yup. Both arms, actually. A few days ago, I lifted something that weighed more than two pounds.
If you have a headache, is that unusual for you?
A) Yes, it’s unusual: I rarely get headaches.
B) I have continuously recurring headaches that I escape only in sleep. Unclear whether they’re overlapping successive tension headaches, or if it’s because I’ve accumulated lowkey addictions to so many substances that at any given moment I may be experiencing withdrawal symptoms from caffeine, ibuprofen, alcohol, and/or sugar.
You may be feeling fatigued—not ordinary tiredness, but a profound, bone-deep weariness, like you’re clothed in a suit of chainmail, or like the air has suddenly become as heavy as a truck pressing you into your couch. Even to reach your arm toward the adult sippy cup on the coffee table to briefly wet your parched lips would take the concentrated effort of 1,000 Hercules. When’s the last time you felt this way?
A) Never.
B) At around 8:30 p.m. the night before I got the vaccine. And the night before that, around 8:30 p.m. And the night before that, around 8:30 p.m. And the night before that, around 8:30 p.m. And the night before that, around 8:30 pm.
Are you experiencing muscle aches?
A) Yes, I’m so achy.
B) Yes, but to be fair, I think that’s the literal definition of what muscles are? The achy things all over your body?
Are you experiencing unusual nausea?
A) Yes, I usually only feel this nauseous from hangovers due to my awesome social life.
B) I am nauseous, but it could be because I ate some fried food yesterday. Fried food upsets my stomach. So does spicy food. So does too much fiber. So does not enough fiber. So do fresh fruits, especially citrus. So does too much sugar—also artificial sugar. Also, dairy upsets my stomach. And tomatoes. But yeah, I am experiencing nausea.
Are you experiencing brain fog?
A) Yes! I just said, “Water, can you hand me my Dan?” when of course I meant, “Dan, can you hand me my water?” LOL.
B) Sure, but that could be because of my age. I’m… oh, wow, I always forget exactly how old I am, haha. Somewhere between 38 and like 56, I think? Let’s see, my kid is—what? 8?—and we had her when I was… wait, was I 35 or 45? Shoot. I remember thinking at the time that I was too old to be having a kid, but would I think that when I was 35? Or 45? Anyway, what was the question again?
- - -
ANSWER KEY
Mostly A’s: You have mild side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. They should subside within the next day or so.
Mostly B’s: You’ve been alive for at least 40 years. Congratulations on getting the vaccine, which comes with a free 24-hour excuse for feeling like the complete fucking garbage you always do.
I’m a divisional manager. I manage several smaller teams and report to the manager of our entire department. Several years ago (before I worked here), one of the teams won the lottery as a group. The entire team played except for Mary. Mary was invited to play but chose not to. After the win, everyone quit, including the manager.
In the years since the win, Mary has moved up to team manager. The lottery money has been a problem for her former team members and manager. One died from an overdose and another is in prison.
Our department is expanding, and some of Mary’s former team have applied to work here, citing financial issues and the need for an income. The departmental manager, Jon, has said he wants all of them to work on Mary’s team. Mary and I both think this is a bad idea. Mary thinks her old team will be bitter about having to come back to work and to have her as manager (when they left, she was entry-level and the most junior person on the team). A few of them have publicly expressed bitterness and regret about spending all the money and needing to work again. There are spots on other teams they would be qualified for, but the spots on all the teams are entry-level only. Jon said he doesn’t think that Mary managing some of her old team members will cause conflict, but Mary and I both disagree. Do you have any idea how I can approach Jon with these concerns?
I answer this question — and four others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.
Other questions I’m answering there today include:
Client asked me to disclose the salary of someone I recommended
New coworker dresses much more nicely than me
My employee communicates terribly
Should I tell my new boss about a personal problem that’s affecting my work?
There is a mode you can activate in Ring Fit Adventure that lets you finish an exercise's full set of reps even if you've already defeated a foe, which is, I guess, something you can do if you want to inflict as much pain as is possible on every involved, yourself included.
WHO: Two pairs of whooping cranes, one of the world’s most endangered birds. WHAT: The animals are laying eggs in Texas—on private land in Jefferson and Chambers counties, east of Houston—for the first time since the late 1800s. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Every fall, the world’s last self-sustaining migratory flock of wild whooping cranes descends on the marshes of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. One of only two crane species native to North America, the whooping crane is the continent’s tallest and rarest bird: five feet high with crisp white feathers, a red-capped head, and a ratcheting, mournful call. The wild flock’s 506 birds spend the winter in the 115,000-acre refuge, fattening up on blue crabs, clams, and fish, before traveling back to northern Canada…View Original Post
The first official results of the 2020 census are in—and Texas has plenty to brag about. It grew more than any other state over the last decade, according to figures released by the Census Bureau on Monday. There are now 29,145,505 Texans, though as I type this another thousand migrants are surely packing up their belongings in Los Angeles, Lucknow, and Leon. That’s up from 25 million in April 2010, an increase of 15.9 percent, or four million—more than the total population of Oklahoma (which once again makes one wonder why UT has lost two-thirds of its football games against the Sooners over the past two decades). The only other states to exceed Texas’s population boom, in terms of percentage growth, were Utah (growing by…View Original Post
In 1929, a used-car salesman in Waco named Edgar Lee Torrance opened what would become the first motel chain in America. With its cheesy white-stucco wink to the Alamo’s facade, Torrance’s Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts featured individual carports for guests, telephones in each room, and “a Beautyrest mattress on every bed,” according to newspaper advertisements. The chain’s eventual expansion to twenty courts in six Southern states predated the nation’s first Holiday Inn, which didn’t open until 1952, and Howard Johnson’s, which was founded in 1954. Torrance helped cement Texas’s reputation as a state in love with its open roads and far-flung destinations. The marketing slogan was Torrance’s idea of Texas shorthand: “Remember the Alamo Plaza.” By the latter part of the twentieth century, travelers associated…View Original Post
WHO: Two pairs of whooping cranes, one of the world’s most endangered birds. WHAT: The animals are laying eggs in Texas—on private land in Jefferson and Chambers counties, east of Houston—for the first time since the late 1800s. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Every fall, the world’s last self-sustaining migratory flock of wild whooping cranes descends on the marshes of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. One of only two crane species native to North America, the whooping crane is the continent’s tallest and rarest bird: five feet high with crisp white feathers, a red-capped head, and a ratcheting, mournful call. The wild flock’s 506 birds spend the winter in the 115,000-acre refuge, fattening up on blue crabs, clams, and fish, before traveling back to northern Canada…View Original Post