Cowboy Who?

Maura is totally an essential worker!!

Today is the 10th anniversary of the 3DS’s release in the Japan and, while the Switch has certainly captured our hearts these past four years, Nintendo’s 3D handheld still left quite an impression over the past decade. The system might have ceased production just last year, but the titles will live on forever in our hearts. So in honor of its great games library, we here at Engadget have put together a list of our favorite 3DS titles and what they meant to us.

Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

My love for the Ace Attorney franchise waxed and waned year to year while waiting for the next installment after Apollo Justice. There was no way I’d miss the titles released for the 3DS, though, and I snapped them up as soon as they became available. While neither game quite captured my heart the way the first four did, I prefer Spirit of Justice over Dual Destinies, because it finally showed us what happened to Maya Fey.

In Spirit of Justice, Phoenix Wright’s former assistant was (again) accused of a murder she didn’t commit. The spirit medium got caught up while studying in the country of Khura'in, and Wright (of course) takes up her defense. To me, it seemed very fitting for Wright to reunite with his old friend that way — after all, they met in the first game when he acted as her defense lawyer after she was accused of killing her older sister (and Wright’s boss) Mia Fey.

Spirit of Justice introduced a new mechanic called Divination Séance, where you could see the victim’s final moment through their eyes, performed by priestess Rayfa Padma Khura'in. It took a while to get used to, since you had to examine the victim’s vision, as well as Rayfa’s interpretation of the scene, at once. That said, you get used to it the longer you play. If anything, my biggest gripe with the Ace Attorney 3DS titles is that they’re not quite as difficult and challenging as the first four games. — Mariella Moon, Associate Editor

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

I’ve written about Animal Crossing a lot in the past year because I do love New Horizons, but I also still have warm feelings about its predecessor on the 3DS, New Leaf. One thing I’ve always maintained over the years is that Animal Crossing works better on handhelds, so New Leaf was a nice return to the format after the disappointing City Folk.

But that doesn’t mean New Leaf didn’t learn anything from City Folk. A lot of the more interesting features were carried over into the new game, including a strip of shops you could visit and fun characters like Kicks. But it also introduced new locations like The Roost and the Happy Home Showcase for even more activities to wile away your time. Most notable was the return of the tropical island where you could vacation and catch rare bugs — the predecessor to the Nook Miles Tours of New Horizons.

While I’ve appreciated the quality of life improvements in New Horizons (especially the character customization), there’s a lot I miss about New Leaf, like the Gardening Store and Club LOL. And Brewster, of course. I need my caffeine fix!

However, I don’t miss the mean-spiritedness of New Leaf. Jack took my favorite shirt and replaced it with rags, and I’m salty about it eight years later. — Kris Naudus, Buyer's Guide Editor

Fire Emblem Fates

I adored Fire Emblem Awakening, but I’d still pick Fates as my favorite 3DS installment of the franchise. Yes, Awakening was the game that saved Fire Emblem, and a lot of people consider Awakening’s story to be the stronger of the two. But it’s hard not to get attached to a game and its characters when you spend over 300 hours playing a title to completion.

Fates was the first FE title with three storylines — each a full-length game on its own — featuring the same characters. You’ll have to buy each route separately, though, unlike Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the Switch, which is sold as a single game. 'Birthright' was the easiest route of the three, though achieving victory in the battlefield almost always meant killing all the enemies on the map. I personally prefer the 'Conquest' story and characters, but it has more challenging victory conditions and a darker theme compared to Birthright that may not be the best starting point for beginners.

Choosing between Birthright and Conquest means picking between your birth family and adoptive family, so you’re getting two different sides of the story. The third route, 'Revelation,' ties things together and sheds light on the remaining mysteries in the game, including the identity of the true enemy. At this point in time, Three Houses has already taken the top spot in my list of favorite FE titles, but Fates will always have a special place in my heart. — MM

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

The first Zelda game that hooked me was Link’s Awakening on the original Game Boy. While I loved Ocarina of Time and almost every entry in the series since, after the release of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (my two least favorite games), I felt like a lot of Zelda fans were begging for the formula that A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening hewed to. A Link Between Worlds was the game we’d all been waiting for.

Pitched in Japan as a literal sequel to A Link to the Past, booting up Between Worlds is an immediate nostalgia hit to anyone familiar with the SNES and Game Boy era of the series. Of course, Nintendo rarely gives fans exactly what they want, always trying to subvert its well-established formulas in some way. While the most memorable mechanic was the ability to merge into walls, in retrospect the game made genuinely interesting use of both the 3DS’ stereoscopic display and its StreetPass system. More than anything, though, it’s just Zelda at its non-linear, exploratory best. — Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Persona Q isn’t exactly considered a classic, but for people who love the Persona series, it’s unmissable. And when Buyer’s Guide editor Kris Naudus asked me to nominate some titles for this article, it was the first game that came to mind. While its combat, lethargic storytelling and stylish presentation tick all the Persona boxes, it’s the map mechanic that’s so memorable to me. Pulled straight from developer Atlus’ Etryian Odyssey franchise, it has you literally drawing out the dungeon map with the 3DS’ stylus, putting an additional layer on top of the often-laborious act of dungeon crawling. While I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, it feels like a game that could only have worked within the unique form factor of the DS family. — AS

Pokémon X & Y

Between two generations and four mainline games, the 3DS had a lot to offer to Pokémon fans. But the one I kept coming back to was the game that reintroduced me to the series: Pokémon X and Y. Not a popular choice among longtime fans, I know, but as someone coming back to the franchise after a long break, it was an easy one to love.

It was the first mainline game to move to a 3D battle system, with all 721 Pokémon modeled with personality and style. Then there was the charm of Professor Sycamore, Lumiose City and the other inhabitants and locales of the Kalos region. The French inspiration of X and Y translated into some of its best features. Some people might not have liked Mega Evolutions, but no one was happy when Game Freak didn't include player customization in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. That same inspiration helped produce some memorable Pokémon as well. Who can forget Furfrou, the poodle-like Pokémon you could take to a groomer to give it different coat trims.

I spent countless hours playing X and Y at a time when I was underemployed and taking care of a dying parent. More than anything, I'll remember the comfort it gave me at a time when I needed it most. — Igor Bonifacic, Associate Editor

Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology

I first played Radiant Historia for the DS and fell in love with the characters, story and the game’s time-traveling mechanics. When the expanded remake came out for the 3DS, I snapped it up and was thrilled to realize that the game truly was as good as I remembered. The new features added to the 3DS version, including voice acting, made the game even richer.

I loved the redesigned artwork Atlus did for Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, even if a lot of old fans were unhappy with the change. And I definitely appreciated the new route made for the 3DS. In the game, you play as the protagonist Stocke, who can use the power of a magical tome called the White Chronicle to travel across multiple timelines.

'Possible History' is the name of the additional timeline, and it features a mysterious new character named Nemesia. It’s not quite as long and as robust as the other routes, and it may not be enough new content to convince you to buy the game again if you still have the old version on DS. However, it does let you explore 'what if' scenarios and leads to a brand new ending. — MM

Tomodatchi Life

I don’t really know where to begin with Tomodatchi Life. Imagine directing a reality TV show starring the Miis of your friends, family and invariably some sort of hideous monster. And having no control over what they do. I think I played it for a month straight and then never touched it again, but that month was the weirdest, most special time. Watching my brother (‘s Mii) attempting to woo my then-partner (‘s Mii), only for the human embodiment of a Tic Tac to come along and spoil the party… yeah it’s something. Something special, something unique and, for now, something that you can only experience on the 3DS. (Please give me a sequel, Nintendo.) — AS

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D

Before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gave us an almost endless world to explore in a portable console, there was Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. A port of the 2012 Wii title, it was the first 3DS game I played that made me marvel at what was possible on a handheld system. It was so epic, it couldn't even run on the original 3DS — it was exclusively built for the New 3DS, which featured more RAM, a faster processor, more stable 3D and a second analog stick (that was admittedly more of a nub).

While I never fell in love with Xenoblade as much as I did with its spiritual predecessors (the mind-bending Xenogears and the Xenosaga series), playing it on the 3DS almost felt like I was breaking the laws of physics. It featured an open world that had you facing off against enormous enemies in fast-paced combat, and the title was filled with cinematic in-game cutscenes. You could tell the textures were a bit too muddy and low-res, but that didn't matter much. It was a deep JRPG I could play anywhere!

Xenoblade Chronicles was also a great introduction to the New 3DS, a console that fixed almost all of the problems I had with the original. I was one of the unlucky few to buy a 3DS at launch for $250. The 3D was wonky, the early games weren't super compelling and, as if to rub salt in the wound, Nintendo dropped the price of the console to just $169 a few months after launch. And no, the 20 free games didn't really help much, especially since they didn't carry over to my new system. I'm still mad about it. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Editor

Zero Escape series (Virtue's Last Reward/Zero Time Dilemma)

I have a confession to make… I haven’t actually finished Zero Time Dilemma. But in my defense, both it and Virtue's Last Reward are very time-consuming games thanks to their branching narratives where the split is part of the main story. That is, you will need to play through several possibilities or timelines, if not all of them, to reach the true ending of each game.

At least both titles let you jump around in the story, so you’re not forced to rewatch the same dialogue scenes over and over again. Which is a lifesaver when the characters can be rather… wordy. If you’re big into metaphysics and time travel mechanics these are the games for you. They also have pretty great characterization that will definitely keep you guessing who you can trust and who will inevitably betray you… which in some cases is the same person.

Aside from the intriguing (and often confusing) story, the puzzles you’ll have to solve are probably the biggest draw of the series. They aren’t too hard, but not that easy either — your calculation and deduction skills will be tested and you may be tempted to pull up GameFAQs from time to time. I certainly did, if only to figure out how to unlock all the different timelines. — KN

Ten years ago today the 3DS debuted in Japan. It followed the DS family and the big selling point for this third generation of Nintendo’s dual-screened systems was the addition of 3D graphics. And yet, what people remember most about the 3DS isn’t that feature; in fact, many folks just turned the 3D off once the novelty wore away. For myself and many others, the most memorable feature was StreetPass. Yes, StreetPass.

In case you’ve already forgotten, StreetPass was a social feature built into the handheld where, once it was enabled, allowed the 3DS to passively exchange information with other systems in the immediate area. Players could create a Mii character that would travel to other handhelds, and could then be used by the other player (and vice versa) within several games within the Mii Plaza and beyond. The dungeon-crawler ‘Find Mii’ was probably the most famous of these since it was included with the system, but I was particularly enamored of some of the ones you could purchase, like gardening title ‘Flower Town’ and ‘Feed Mii,’ a cooking simulator.

Nintendo

If you really have no strong feelings about StreetPass, it’s likely you’re one of the many people who got little use out of it. The feature worked great in densely populated areas like Tokyo, but less so in a country like the United States where most people drive to work.

I live in New York and until recently I was a regular commuter on the subway. During the heyday of the 3DS, I could expect to pick up a handful of StreetPass tags daily, loading them into my system and going through Puzzle Swap and other games on the way home from work. The gameplay wasn’t very deep, but it didn’t really have to be — it was perfect for a few minutes distraction on public transportation. Inversely that made it terrible for people who didn’t take public transportation, as their 3DS time was more likely to be at home, directly competing against consoles and computers with deeper gameplay. The Mii Plaza games just came across as shallow in comparison.

Jessica Rinaldi / reuters

However, gamers are usually ripe for a challenge and, for many, StreetPass became a pastime in itself. My ex and I used to head out to McDonald’s on specially-announced ‘StreetPass Weekends’ to grab the Miis of celebrities and Nintendo employees from the stores’ SpotPasses, and sometimes we’d walk past playgrounds and gyms in the hope that teens would have a 3DS stowed away in their bag. Living in the same city as the Nintendo World store was a big plus. Airports were also a bonanza, especially internationally — my ex even lent me his 3DS on one of my solo trips to Europe, so I could snag him foreign StreetPasses. So I was carrying around two systems in my backpack for over a week, and I managed to link up with people from countries like Austria and Slovakia.

Of course, all of this paled in comparison to the bonanza that awaited us in the 3DS’s home country of Japan, specifically in Tokyo. The two of us would get on the metro and the notification light would go off; a train would pass in the opposite direction and the light would go off again. Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara ended up being a bonanza; we walked outside the store around noon and found a specially-designed area (with signage!) for StreetPass exchange. Dozens of people sat or stood in the area, loading up Miis, playing through the mini games, and then loading up even more. Once the deluge slowed to the trickle my ex walked around with his 3DS to grab any we missed and several Japanese people laughed out loud, because well, he’s a bearded white dude with a bearded white Mii.

Kris Naudus

This kind of joy of connection wasn’t something that people outside of Japan got a lot of mileage out of, unless they were the very specific kind of gamer who took their 3DS systems to conventions. Conventions were the mother load for StreetPass collection, from comic conventions like San Diego to video game-themed shows like PAX. In those cases the 10 StreetPass-at-a-time limit seemed less ambitious and more stingy as standing in one place for a few minutes could yield dozens, if not hundreds of tags. You could easily spend the whole event just clearing out your queue, and I did in fact, pass a lot of time on long lines or in boring panels doing just that.

Unfortunately, Nintendo realized the potential of these gatherings too late. While it did use events like PAX to release new Puzzle Swap art, the company didn’t introduce features catered toward dedicated StreetPass collectors until 2016, five years into the system’s lifespan — and one year short of the release of its replacement, the Switch. At that point you could pay to upgrade your StreetPass queue to 100 slots, allowing you to passively gather StreetPass tags at events and play with them later. This was a paid feature which certainly limited its appeal, but the kind of people who would take their 3DS to large events, and the kind of people who would go to video game shows, period, are also the type who wouldn’t mind coughing up an extra $10 for the convenience of better StreetPass management (probably also the type who pay for Pokémon Bank).

Boston Globe via Getty Images

In the end I built a collection to be proud of: 50 states and territories in the US (only missing North and South Dakota), all of Canada, 30 prefectures of Japan, and parts of dozens of other nations, including Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Mexico, Brazil and South Korea. I’ve also collected almost every possible birthday too (another feature added as a premium later on). And of course there are the Miis themselves, 3,660 tags of all variety of body shapes and colors and costumes — the more dedicated StreetPassers would even use the customized greeting to tag the events they were at, so you know you grabbed this Mii from New York Comic Con or that Mii from PAX South. In a way my Mii Plaza serves as a sort of digital passport, of the countries I’ve visited, the events I’ve attended and the people I’ve encountered, if only fleetingly. I love my Switch, but I miss the challenge and community of the 3DS StreetPass system.

If you go to Task Manager’s Startup tab, it lists the programs that are registered in the Startup group or the Run key to run automatically when you sign in. But you might see an entry called simply Program, with a blank icon and no publisher. What is this thing?

This thing is a program that registered itself incorrectly.

Command lines consist of a program name, a space, and the program arguments. If the program name contains spaces, then it needs to be enclosed in quotation marks. Otherwise, the first space is considered to be the end of the program name. What you’re seeing is a program that resides somewhere in the C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) directory, but they forgot to quote their program name. As a result, the space after Program is considered to be the end of the program name, which is why it shows up as just Program in Task Manager.

The program does manage to run because the CreateProcess function does autocorrection, but Task Manager doesn’t do the same autocorrection, so it thinks that the Startup program is C:\Program.exe.

The post Why does Task Manager tell me that I have a Startup program named Program? appeared first on The Old New Thing.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
'This way of thinking bonds works great everywhere except anywhere in or near the middle of the period table'

Joys of Jell-o Gelatin
General Foods Corporation
1981

We haven’t posted a Jell-o book in ages. As a Midwesterner, I can appreciate the sophistication of Jell-o cuisine. My mom would put marshmallows and fruit cocktail in ours. (Our family lived on the edge.) This book kicks Jell-o to the next level with the multi-colored layers on the front cover. Pretty darn sexy, right?

Having been in the awful library book business for enough time, these Jell-o cookbooks are pretty similar in terms of recipes. Check them out here, here, here, and here. Molds of Jell-o and other congealed matter were pretty popular in the 60s and 70s. I can’t think of a church potluck, party, or any gathering that didn’t have at least one Jell-o mold. That said, I know I have never seen one of the “savory” Jell-o dishes at a potluck. I am quite sure that if I had actually seen one of these dishes, let alone tasted one, I would still be suffering from the trauma.

However, if you feel brave, give one those “salad” or “savory” recipes a try.

Mary

The post Jell-o Rides Again appeared first on Awful Library Books.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been heavily criticized after last week's winter storm left more than 4 million Texans without power for several days.

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

This post, update: my new team is taunting me because I have a nut allergy , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer whose new team was taunting her because of her nut allergy? She had repeatedly found Snickers bars lined up on her desk, and her manager knew and wasn’t stopping it — and thus become a Worst Boss of the Year nominee. Here’s the update.

I just wanted to say a massive thank you for your advice. I genuinely was going to quit a job that I have been in for years and that I love over it. Your advice and comments from readers gave me the confidence to tackle it.

I did approach HR, who advised me to speak to my boss if I felt I was being bullied. Obviously that wasn’t feasible as the boss was fully aware of what was going on.

I scheduled a meeting with the head of site who is second-in-command to the CEO and laid out everything that been happening — the bullying, but also the toxic environment.

I was promoted to implement training and coaching because the department wasn’t performing and it was having a knock-on effect on other departments and ultimately customers. He wasn’t aware of any of the issues with the department — it’s a small department which has flown under the radar for years.

He promised me the situation would be investigated and to log every single incident in an email to him personally. I felt incredibly stupid having to send email after email listing the many incidents that occurred. But I logged everything.

He came in personally one morning to catch the person putting the nuts on my desk. She was fired instantly. It was the boss’s right-hand woman who believed she should have got the promotion not me, and this was her attempt to make me leave.

The boss was suspended pending investigation. It turns out that for the last four years, he has not been doing any paperwork — return to works, 1:1’s, PDP, CPD’s, nothing. During the investigation, they also looked into staff turnover and there have been numerous accusations of bullying which have been ignored and a high number of staff have quit. He resigned last week before they could fire him, and I know it’s unkind but I’m absolutely thrilled!

It’s been hard work making changes within the department. There has been some pushback and major changes have needed to be made. Two staff have quit because they now actually need to perform. But we have two staff from different departments and a new manager who are all incredible. The head of site has been incredibly humble about it, which I did not expect. He apologized and acknowledged this should have been picked up years ago and assured me that going forward the business will be putting more measures in place to ensure it can’t happen again.

Cheers to my best friend Koko for her brilliant observation.

Our 8th most-read article of 2021.

Originally published February 22, 2021.

Not only am I VP of Reproduction for this household, but I’ve also been the end-user of this Small Child for over three years now. I’m going to give it to you straight. The user experience is terrible. Overall, the Small Child is under-designed, unintuitive, and frequently fails to meet even the most relaxed ease-of-use standards. As you may know, the other stakeholder and I are aiming for a 2022 launch of v2.0. I’ve gathered you here today to provide detailed feedback on the ways the Small Child UX design could be improved for future iterations.

Storytelling

Industry experts agree that UX storytelling gives a product a considerable competitive advantage. Users now expect personalized and memorable experiences told in a thoughtful design narrative. Well, let me tell you what. This particular Small Child only tells one story repeatedly, and it’s about the time she fell on an escalator and hurt her bottom at Bed Bath & Beyond. UX storytelling should be persuasive, empathetic, and spark imagination! Future child iterations should focus more on context and narrative structure and less on cheese snacks and Band-aids.

Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

This Small Child has no clear sense of hierarchy in either the visual or navigational sense. When it comes to troubleshooting, it is nearly impossible to find the information you need quickly. For example, last night the Small Child stood emitting a high-pitched scream in her bedroom. I tried to quickly arrive at a solution in a natural, organic way. Is the Small Child in pain? Is the Small Child hungry? It took more than twenty earsplitting minutes to learn the Small Child was angry that Flappy the Elephant didn’t pick her up from school. I explained that Flappy is seven inches tall and has no central nervous system, but the Small Child was inconsolable. Future child iterations should include a focused effort on problem-free navigation with fewer operational and cognitive costs.

Visual Balance

Famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe pioneered the less-is-more tenet of visual design. How he’d weep if he could see how cluttered and over-decorated this Small Child is. It’s got unicorn print pants, a shirt that says THE FUTURE IS FEMALE, a llama sweater, three hairclips in three different colors, and a raincoat (also unicorns) in a region that’s experiencing crisis-level drought conditions. If you try to remove even one of these visual elements, the Small Child emits a high-pitched scream, and you’re right back to the troubleshooting issue that I’ve already described.

Copy

UX-focused writing should be clear and concise. I didn’t think simple language would be a challenge for a three-year-old. But this Small Child is in a Mandarin-immersion preschool, and the guiding voice reads like, “Strawberry yogurt 头 肩膀 膝盖 脚 mommy NOW!!” Here’s another alarming example. One night last week, the Small Child stood in my bedroom doorway at 2 AM and said, “There’s a man with no face in my room… again.” I’ve been in the business long enough to know that there’s one word you do not want to describe your UX copy, and that word is “terrifying.”

Journey Mapping

This is the area where the Small Child could use the most improvement. There are just so many pain points creating an unsatisfactory user journey. The child goes limp when you try to lift it. It goes stiff when you try to change the clothes. It poops after it gets into the bathtub, but before it reaches the toilet. The tone and voice lack consistency, jolting from jubilant to irate in just a few clicks. This Small Child won’t open its mouth for a toothbrush, but won’t close it during my cousin’s wedding ceremony. It’s as if this Small Child was not designed with accessibility in mind.

Don’t let this feedback overwhelm you. However, I feel like even the most basic user testing in the design phase could have mitigated most of the issues I’ve described. As we push forward to the next iteration, let’s find ways to incorporate data-driven design elements to create a more compatible user-centered child experience.

On our Patreon page: An interview with Leslie Ylinen about writing this piece.

I am still perplexed and confounded at how many people seem to think that Facebook is the one at fault for blocking links to news in Australia. Again, the law (that was about to be approved by the Australian Parliament despite Facebook warning them months ago that it would be forced to block news links if it went forward in its current form) would have been a disaster for the open web. And that's even if you believe that Facebook itself has been a disaster for the open web. You can say that Facebook is the worst company in the world... and still recognize that this was the right move.

The law mandated that if Facebook had any links to news, then it had to negotiate a deal to pay certain news organizations (mainly Australia's largest news organizations, where Rupert Murdoch is the dominant owner in a news industry that is one of the most consolidated in the world). If Facebook and Murdoch couldn't reach an agreement, then they had to go to binding arbitration in which an arbitrator would simply tell Facebook how much it had to give Murdoch and other major media owners. Some have argued that this is not a tax, but... having the government step in to force a company to pay money for doing business is, by any normal definition, a tax. Though, this is actually worse than a tax, because it's not putting the money into the hands of the government to be invested in public works. It's going to one of the richest people in the world. For what? For failing to adapt to a changing market.

As we noted a few years ago, it's truly stunning that Murdoch, who has spent much of his life going around the world preaching the gospel of "free market" and deregulation, completely changed his tune when he completely misunderstood the internet, and saw multiple internet investments disappear. So he turns around and demands that the companies who actually innovated simply have to give him money? That doesn't sound like a free market. It sounds like welfare for a billionaire who's upset he's not even richer.

Even so, the most bizarre thing about last week's story is how many Facebook haters who have insisted for years that Facebook "killed" the news business were absolutely apoplectic that Facebook was getting out of the news business entirely. You'd think they'd celebrate. Facebook can't keep killing the journalism business if it's not in that business any more.

The other bizarre reaction -- which filled my Twitter feed to a point of ridiculousness for days -- was the claim that Facebook was somehow "blocking important news" in Australia, including news about the pandemic and vaccines. Except... it wasn't. No news was "blocked." Just links to news on Facebook. All of these news organizations have websites. And many have apps. And they all still exist.

Indeed, the most amusing thing in all of this is that people in Australia are suddenly discovering that they don't need Facebook for news. The Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) saw its own news app shoot to the top of the Apple App Store charts in Australia. Ironically, the original draft of this stupid law was so biased towards Murdoch that it originally excluded ABC from getting any money, and was only added later, after some folks pointed out how blatantly corrupt it was to leave them out and just funnel more money to Murdoch. But it's not just ABC that has benefited. In a Reuters story, News Corp's executive chairman in Australia, Michael Miller, admitted that direct traffic to their websites was way up as referrals from Facebook disappeared:

“Definitely referral traffic was nonexistent ... while at the same time direct traffic to our websites was up in double digits,” he told the inquiry.

That... seems like a good thing? But, of course, this was never actually about helping news organizations like this. It was always about the cash transfers. Because immediately after Miller admits that direct traffic to their websites is way up, he demands that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) "scrutinize Facebook's move."

I mean... what the fuck is going on here?

Rather than having Facebook mitigate your traffic, which is what you've been complaining about for years, the company has exited the space, leading to a massive jump in direct traffic. The reaction here shows pretty clearly that the problem is not Facebook. The problem is that News Corp. and other Australian news organizations are too lazy to actually do anything with all of this direct interest. Facebook just dumped a direct connection to users right in these news organizations' laps -- removing Facebook as a middleman -- and the news organizations' response is... to blame Facebook and try to get the Competition authority to go after them. For what? Helping them? This whole thing is so bizarre.

The same Reuters report notes that traffic from Facebook to Australian news sites plummeted after the ban, as you'd expect. But, again, isn't that what all the Facebook haters wanted in the first place? To get Facebook out of the news intermediary business?

It seems the truth is pretty self-evident: this was all a greed play. They just want Facebook's money, but they don't want to actually do the work to earn it.

It's early days, but NASA's latest mission to Mars has been a successful one thus far. After providing photos of Perseverance's safe descent to the surface last week, the agency has revealed footage of the critical moments of the landing: the moments when the rover touched down.

The footage starts when Perseverance is seven miles above the surface. During the video, you can see the rover's heat shield, which protected it during its entry into Mars' atmosphere, falling away.

“For those who wonder how you land on Mars — or why it is so difficult — or how cool it would be to do so — you need look no further,” acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement. “Perseverance is just getting started, and already has provided some of the most iconic visuals in space exploration history. It reinforces the remarkable level of engineering and precision that is required to build and fly a vehicle to the Red Planet.”

The rover was also able to capture the first audio recording of sounds from Mars. Although the microphone didn't pick up anything usable during the descent, a 60-second recording that the rover transmitted on February 20th included a few audible seconds of a breeze.

NASA livestreamed a briefing in which officials and scientists discussed the video and images that Perseverance has captured in its first few days in the Jezero Crater. NASA has collected more than 30GB of data from the rover so far, including more than 23,000 images from the descent. You'll be able to download some of the raw images from Perseverance from NASA's website today.

The rover will be looking for signs of the rover of ancient microbial life in the crater, which used to be a river lake. Perseverance will collect samples once it finds promising places to drill. The plan is to undertake another mission in 2026 to bring the samples back to Earth.

T-Mobile is introducing a plan later this week that will almost entirely do away with throttling. Its new Magenta Max plan includes unlimited premium data and unlimited video streaming at 4K. It also comes with 40GB of high-speed tethering data (T-Mobile will throttle your devices to 3G speeds after you go over that limit), in addition to perks like complimentary Gogo in-flight WiFi and international roaming in 210 countries.

T-Mobile

All so-called "unlimited" plans in the US (and some other parts of the world) currently throttle customers after they go over their monthly data allotment. T-Mobile claims it won't do that with Magenta Max, whether you're using the plan to access a 5G or LTE connection to its network. The company says it's rolling out the plan to "show what a truly powerful 5G network can do for consumers."

Magenta Max will replace the carrier's existing Magneta Plus plan on February 24th. For a limited time, T-Mobile says you can get the plan for $47 per month — but that's if you have three lines on your account already and you take advantage of its autopay promotion. Single-line customers can look forward to paying $85 per month with autopay. Alongside the plan, the carrier is introducing a promotion for those who want to switch. If you come with your own device to the carrier, it will port your phone number for free. Additionally, current AT&T and Verizon (Engadget's parent company) customers can get up to $650 in the form of a prepaid card when they switch over.

Regular Magenta customers can also look forward to something new. The plan now comes with 100GB of premium data, up from the 50GB it has come with since 2017. It now also includes 5GB of high-speed tethering data, up from the 3GB it came with previously.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed sweeping criminal justice legislation Monday that also requires police agencies to equip officers with body cameras and sets stricter rules for their use of force.

You may have added your work account to your Windows 10 home computer so that you could access work resources from home. And your organization may have imposed a strict PIN complexity requirement like “Must be at least 20 digits which may not occur anywhere in the decimal expansion of π.” But now, you’ve removed that work account from the PC (say, because you shifted to using a different PC as your your work-from-home primary computer), yet the system won’t let you switch back to a four-digit PIN. When you try to change the PIN, it tells you that it fails to meet the PIN requirements of the work account that you already removed.

What you need to do is remove the PIN entirely, and then re-add it.

For some reason, the PIN complexity requirements are remembered with the PIN, so changing the PIN will still need to conform to the complexity requirements. But if you remove it, and create a new PIN, then the new weaker requirements are used.

When you remove the PIN, you get a stern warning that this will invalidate your fingerprint and other credentials. And that’s my guess as to why the PIN complexity requirements are still enforced: Because the complex PIN is being used to protect some resources, and switching to a weaker PIN would leave those resources at greater risk. Instead, you have to delete the PIN (losing access to those resources entirely), and then create a new PIN (which will not have access to those sensitive resources).

Though it would be nice if they explained that and told you to delete the PIN and recreate it to avoid the old requirements.

The post How do I reset my PIN complexity requirements after removing a work account from Windows 10? appeared first on The Old New Thing.

From anecdotal evidence, French is a very fragile language: The slightest deviation in grammar or pronunciation renders the language utterly incomprehensible.

Example 1: The wife of my friend the rocket scientist studied French in school and loved all things French. He agreed to go on a bicycle tour of France with her. (This is known in the business as being a good husband.)

As they cycled past a small town, they spotted an ice cream stand. My friend was volunteered to be the one to buy the ice cream. He approached the woman and said, “Une vanille et une chocolat, s’il vous plaît.“

The women sternly reprimanded him with a pointed finger. “Ce n’est pas français.” (“That’s not French.”)

My friend collected his thoughts and gave it another try. “Une vanille et une chocolat, s’il vous plaît.“

The woman gave the same reply. “Ce n’est pas français.“

He returned to his wife, who had been observing the transaction from afar. She asked, “What did you say to her? … And what did she say? … That should have worked. Let me try.”

His wife approached the woman and said, “Une de vanille et une de chocolat, s’il vous plaît.“

The woman looked right at my friend and punctuated her statement with an accusatory finger: “Une de vanille et une de chocolat!“

Example 2: One of my friends grew up in the English-speaking portion of Canada but learned French as part of the standard academic curriculum. During a trip to France, he got caught in an unexpected downpour and found a shop that had umbrellas. He went to the lady at the desk and asked to buy a “parapluie” (umbrella).

The woman could not understand what it was he wanted to buy.

He repeated his offer to buy a “parapluie“.

Once again, the woman did not understand what it was he wanted. My friend left the shop empty-handed.

My friend later checked his pronunciation with some native French speakers. Apparently, he did not pronounce the second “p” with a strong enough puff of air. This tiny mistake rendered the word completely incomprehensible. The contextual clues of a rainstorm were apparently of no use whatsoever.

Example 3: One of my friends grew up as a native French speaker in Canada¹ (though he is now a United States citizen). He was on vacation in France and observed at the next table some Japanese tourists trying desperately to place their order in French. They consulted their phrase book and did their best to ask for some water. “Eeeooouuuuu?” Unfortunately, Japanese vowels and French vowels do not line up perfectly, and the waiter professed that he was completely unable to understand what they were trying to say.

Example 4: One of my colleagues went to school in Montreal, so he speaks French reasonably well. He was at a restaurant in France, and he asked to see the wine list, “la liste des vins.“

The waiter was perplexed and replied in French that he didn’t understand what my friend said.

My colleague repeated his request to see “la liste de vin,” and the waiter once against apologized in the most polite terms possible for his inability to derive any comprehensible meaning from the seemingly random stream of syllables emanating from my colleague’s mouth.

My colleague rephrased his request, asking to see, you know, the piece of paper that enumerates all the wines available for purchase so that it may be consumed in conjunction with the meal.

And then a grand epiphany struck the waiter, and he dramatically announced, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. La carte des vins!“

My conclusion from these stories is that French is a very fragile language.

The Académie Française is the organization in France which is vested with official authority for matters relating to the French language. It was formally established on February 22, 1635. Happy birthday, Académie Française. Maybe you can work on making your language a little less fragile.

¹ He tells me that as a child, he learned English by watching He Man and the Masters of the Universe.

The post French is a very fragile language, or at least it seems so from the stories I hear appeared first on The Old New Thing.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley turned away people because they could not prove they live in the United States. Proof of residency and citizenship are not required under state rules.

(Image credit: Callaghan O'Hare/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Cristian Pavon died last Tuesday, when the local temperature was 12 degrees, according to a relative who set up a fundraising page for his family.

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It was nice to have a weekend where we didn’t have to think (or, frankly, write) much about the weather, and rather to just enjoy it. Sunshine, warmth, and mild weather all were tremendously welcome after Houston’s winter week from hell. Fortunately, there is more generally mild weather ahead and we really have no major concerns to highlight for you at this time.

Monday

A cold front pushed through Houston during the overnight hours, bringing down dewpoints and temperatures in its wake. Since this is not a particularly strong front, we still expect high temperatures today to rise to around 70 degrees, with mostly sunny skies. Winds will be moderate, out of the north at about 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight will be the coldest of the week, and perhaps for quite awhile across the region as we experience a warming trend going forward. Lows will drop to around 40 degrees in Houston, and perhaps a degree or two colder in outlying areas. No one should see a freeze.

Tuesday

This should be another absolutely splendid day, with highs of around 70, or a bit warmer, and a lot more sunshine. Later in the day winds will turn more southerly, and that will begin the process of bringing more humid air into the region. Lows Tuesday night will be a 10 degrees warmer than Monday night.

Wednesday

By Wednesday morning I suspect we’ll start to see widespread sea fog developing as warmer air moves over colder bays and waterways. This could be a problem for several mornings through the weekend. Highs on Wednesday should reach the middle-70s despite increasing cloud cover, and lows in Houston may not drop below 60 degrees overnight.

Thursday and Friday

The end of the work week is somewhat uncertain given that the next cold front it scheduled to push toward Houston on Thursday, but stall somewhere. It might get all the way to Interstate 10, but I think the front will stall north of there. Accordingly, rain chances will be better along and north of I-10 on Thursday and Friday. Even then, accumulations should be only on the order of a quarter inch of rain. Depending on which side of the front you fall, highs will either be in the 60s (well inland) or upper 70s (most of Houston, probably). Nights in Houston will probably stay in the 60s.

Saturday and Sunday

Right now I don’t see much of a pattern change for the weekend. I think most of the region will be pretty warm, in the 70s at least, without much of a cooldown overnight. Rain chances will be on the order of 20 to 30 percent, and for the most part I think we’ll just see a lot of clouds.

Is winter over?

I really don’t want to tempt fate here, but the next 10 days or so do look pretty warm. If you’re looking around the killing fields—I mean, your garden and landscaping—you may be wondering if its safe to plant. If you live south of Interstate 10, I would bet heavily against seeing another freeze this season. But for inland areas, it’s just too early to offer such a guarantee.

And besides, it may be too early to determine whether some of your plants are truly dead. I like this advice from Texas A&M Agriculture Extension agent Larry Stein, who told the Houston Chronicle, “Obviously, we’re going to have some kind of damage, but the extent of it won’t be known for a while. We tell people to learn to like ugly. Basically, leave it ugly for a while … to give the plants time to recuperate and actually see the full extent of the damage.”

Love, Actually

LAURA LINNEY’S CHARACTER: Want to have sex, hot guy from my office?

HOT GUY FROM HER OFFICE: Sure!

LLC (answering her phone): Hey, babe. Uh-huh… hh-huh… okay.

HGFHO: Oh, dear, this sounds important. Should I leave?

LLC (hanging up phone): Nah, that was just my brother. He sews clothing out of curtains and wanted to tell me about the new shirt he made. Now, where were we?

Titanic

JACK: Promise me that you will survive, Rose.

ROSE: Are you kidding? I’m toasty warm in this waterproof coat you sewed for me out of the ship’s sails!

JACK: Oh, hey! That’s great.

ROSE: Right? Hey, come on up the raft! There’s room enough for two!

Chinatown

LAWRENCE: Forget it, Jake. She learned how to sew in seventh grade, made herself some dungarees out of the bedroom curtains, moved out when she was 14, and now makes a good living tailoring for Saks while looking after her younger sister/daughter.

JAKE: Is that an improvement, though?

LAWRENCE: Well, also, Roman Polański didn’t direct this film.

JAKE: Perfect.

Any James Bond Film

BOND: Hello there, sexy lady in a bikini.

SEXY LADY: Can you help me whipstitch this buttonhole?

BOND: Oh, I bet I could help—

SEXY LADY: It’s not a euphemism; I just need you to hold these pieces together while I stitch around the cut. I’m making myself a long, opaque muumuu.

BOND: Are… are these my curtains?

SEXY LADY: Pass me the seam ripper.

The Sound of Music

CAPTAIN VON TRAPP: Do you mean to tell me that my children have been roaming about Salzburg dressed up in nothing but some old drapes?

MARIA: Yes, and having a marvelous time!

BARONESS: I completely approve! This shirt is a repurposed curtain, too!

MARIA: Oh, Baroness, you sew? A needle pulling thread? What a connection I feel to you! (moves slightly too close) Perhaps you could help me solve the problem called… bosom darts?

BARONESS: (also moves slightly too close) Somehow, I suspect you will never be a nun.

CAPTAIN VON TRAPP: Hey, hello, girls, are either of you…

BARONESS: I think I hear the children calling you, Georg.

MARIA: (to Baroness) Can I invite you up to my room for some tea?

BARONESS: A drink with jam and bread? Oh, hell, yes.

MARIA: (yodeling) Odl lay odl lay odl lay! Hoo!

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I stopped hand-fonting ages ago due to handcramps, but somehow I failed to put tau in my digital font.

New comic!

Clearance level access at the Federal Bureau of Control has nothing to do with job title or function; it is awarded by defeating a higher-clearance employee in single combat and taking their badge. Please don't tell me how to run my organization, because it is already perfect.

“This and That” is an occasional series of paired observations. See past “This and That” posts here. – Ed.

Today: wraps. Neighbors try to prevent their plants from freezing and inadvertently give a nod to the works of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

A wrapped plant in a neighbor’s yard.

Christo, The Reichstag building in Berlin, 1995.

A plant wrapped in plastic to prevent freezing during the ice storm that hit Houston the week of Feruary 14, 2021.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris, 1975-1985.

****

No matter how original, innovative or crazy your idea, someone else is also working on that idea. Furthermore, they are using notation very similar to yours.
– Bruce J. MacLennan

The post This and That: Christo and Jeanne-Claude & Freeze-Prevention Wraps appeared first on Glasstire.

Dominion is seeking damages of $1.3 billion. According to the complaint, Lindell knowingly spread disinformation that Dominion's voting systems rigged the 2020 presidential election.

(Image credit: The Washington Post/Getty Images)