Phillip Baker

Shaxs from Star Trek Lower Decks is pictured. He's a cartoon, because Lower Decks, besides deserving another 37 seasons, is a cartoon. Shaxs is a big burly man wearing his gold Star fleet uniform and also an apron over the front like he's doing some sort of art project or baking a nice sourdough. In each hand he's holding a broken bottle like that thing you do where you take a bottle and break off the bottom and then use it as a weapon. His eyeballs are bulging large his brow is furrowed and he looks absolutely unhinged with rage and anger. Closed caption reads, "Fighting fascism is a full time job!"

Mortgage rates were supposed to come down. Instead, they're rising. Here's why Mortgage rates are ticking up, even after the Federal Reserve has started cutting interest rates. Here's why, and where rates — and home sales — could go from here.

Mortgage rates are ticking up even after the Federal Reserve has started cutting interest rates. Here's why, and where rates — and home sales — could go from here.

Shoot didn’t read to the bottom and see my post was redundant…

I dunno, when I read this I immediately thought of Elon so maybe it’s a pretty prescient idea of what power does to you.

Datacenters to emit 3x more carbon dioxide because of generative AI Carbon capture outfits could be making up to $45B, say analysts The datacenter industry is set to emit 2.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide between now and the end of the decade, three times more than if generative AI had not…

Datacenters to emit 3x more carbon dioxide because of generative AI

A fluffy Norwegian forest cat naps with his head on a book in the dim sunlight on a bed.

Nothing like a good book to induce a nap!

DS9 scene. Rom is a Ferengi hero, with a large bald head and giant ears and lobes that sort of connect to make a unibrow and a ribbed pine cone looking nose. He's wearing a jacket that looks like those lick and stick backsplash tiles you can get at Lowe's. He's pictured here standing in a corridor, talking to someone and holding/reading a PADD. Closed caption reads, "Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains."

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The Online AI Guys Are Starting to Go Mad AI influencers are falling for hoaxes and scams as they wait impatiently for superintelligence to arrive.

“For the online community of people unsettled, excited, and obsessed by the last few years of AI development, though, this growing space between big AI models is creating a speculative void, and it’s filling with paranoia, fear, and a little bit of fraud.”

(A LOT of fraud).

The worst ST writers could think of was society setting people aside with the (false) idea they were being cared for. Reality is just keep moving them along so their someone else’s problem

Newsom vows to take away funding from cities and counties for not clearing encampments California Governor Gavin Newsom has a message to local governments: clear homeless encampments now or lose out on state funding next year.

Our timeline is a much darker one than Star Trek's prime timeline where the Bell Riots occur.

Shaxs from Star Trek Lower Decks is pictured. He's a cartoon, because Lower Decks, besides deserving another 37 seasons, is a cartoon. Shaxs a big burly man wearing his gold Star fleet uniform and also an apron over the front like he's doing some sort of art project or baking a nice sourdough. In each hand he's holding a broken bottle like that thing you do where you take a beer bottle and break off the bottom and then use it as a weapon. His eyeballs are bulging large his brow is furrowed and he looks absolutely unhinged with rage and anger. Closed caption reads, "Fighting fascism is a full time job "

Benjamin Sisko saying "Sanctuary District? What year is this?"

Bernardo Calvera saying "same year as it was yesterday, 2024."

It's now 70 days until the Bell Riots.
#StarTrek #BellRiots✊🏿

Times Alert: A Christian Agenda Louisiana’s governor wants his state to be at the forefront of a national push to advance laws with a Christian worldview.

Describing Christian Nationalism as simply “Christian” is a baffling editorial choice but certainly one Christian Nationalists would approve of

“Left lifeless??”

I’m sorry but who gave the ok on this actual advertisement from pop corners!? Nightmare stuff

the right wing is so enthusiastic about cops harming and arresting college kids and faculty because they’ve been waging an intellectual war against them for so long and their blood-thirst finally has a physical outlet

Riot police are the embodiment of "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have"

Posts like these that claim amphetamines aren’t habit forming are just utterly fucking deluded. I get it, I’ve had an ADHD diagnosis for about 39 years. I’ve taken adderall therapeutically. But to pretend you can’t abuse amphetamines is just ludicrously incorrect.

So it’s a state in which the police rule?

Wonder if there’s a shorter way to say that

A headline from the points guy: "How to get from O'Hare international airport to downtown Chicago" An image of the city from the Chicago River is featured with the headline

Follow the obvious signs which say "Trains to City" and take the damn Blue line you goobers

It's impossible to avoid the fact that much of the way we have structured our society is actively hostile to young people and to the work of education. Teachers and professors have been tasked w mitigating the harms of this reality, but we can no longer even pretend to do so. It is unsustainable.

This is going to sound more flip than I mean it, but when I was a kid I watched the Blues Brothers running Illinois Nazis off a bridge and the Nazis on Hogan's Heroes being pathetic dimwits every damn day, and I do feel like we need to get back to constant, vicious cultural ridicule of open racists.

Domestic Textile Industry Crashing Because of Trade Loophole The ‘de minimis’ exemption allows Chinese e-commerce companies Shein and Temu to deliver hundreds of millions of packages of cheap clothing without tariffs or inspections.

Shein & Temu are now the leading online-only clothing platforms. They exploit a loophole to ship direct from China without tariffs or inspections. As a result, 8 U.S. textile plants have closed since September.
From me on the de minimis debate:
prospect.org/economy/2024...

The debate over Fed policy, especially about when to start cutting rates, seems to have become disconnected from the reality of rapid disinflation. Thinking about it reminded me of ... an experience I once had on a cycling trip 1/

“When you don’t have test scores, the students who suffer most are those with high grades at relatively unknown high schools, the kind that rarely send kids to the Ivy League...The SAT is their lifeline" www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/b...

Features a new study by my colleagues tinyurl.com/satvshsgrades

Tedward is maximizing the holiday break

Baby tech has come such a long way in the last few years! I was living through the dark ages…

Someone else already did this in the comments but it’s deeply funny to me how true this is, as literally shown by asking Chat-GPT what the poem is about.