I hope you’ve been following The Mandalorian on Disney+. Wether you have (or have not) seen the show yet, matters not. All you need to know is, Baby Yoda, (or as he is officially known, The Child) is pretty much the cutest thing ever to grace the Star Wars universe.
What happens when you combine stellar baking artistry and a love for the cutest alien sidekick ever? You get a Raspbaby Yoda. Get it?
You can follow this incredible pie artist here on Instagram (via u/ThePieous on Reddit).
On Monday, Lil Bub’s human, Mike Bridavsky, shared the sad news on social media, along with a side-by-side photo composite featuring the first and last photo the two took together.
Per the post, Lil Bub was born in June 2011 and passed away on Sunday, Dec. 1. She was born with several genetic anomalies, including a rare bone condition called osteopetrosis, disproportionately small limbs, a lack of teeth, and an extra toe on all four paws. According to Bridavsky, before she died she was battling an “aggressive bone infection.”
Rest easy Lil Bub, you showed us love and you will be missed ????. Lil Bub passed away at the young tender age of 8, but may she will live on forever in our hearts.
Some 20.8 million records, within 18GB of data, were exposed on an unsecured server located in Miami, Florida, which appears to be owned by an Ecuadorian company, according to the researchers. The entire population of Ecuador is 16.6 million; the difference can be accounted for by way of duplicated records and others which are not related to citizens of the South American country.
Terrible news. You read that correctly. The entire population of Ecuador has now been put at risk of identity theft. This was about on par with the Experian Breach that exposed 15M consumers accounts which including social security numbers and tax information.
At this point, the entire country of Ecuador should declare identity bankruptcy (that should be a thing), and re-issue everyone new personal identification secrets and give everyone affected notice. Oddly enough, this leaked private information also included Ecuador’s favorite squatter, Julian Assange.
From Andy McNamara, Editor-in-Chief at Game Informer:
Yesterday, as part of a GameStop restructuring plan, our parent company eliminated the positions of about 120 employees across its various offices. We lost seven members of our team – our cohorts, compatriots, and friends. They shaped us and made us who we are today, just like every member of the Game Informer team who passes through this company.
Welp. That sucks. I haven’t visited a GameStop in years. Probably won’t visit one ever again to be honest. That’s not out of spite either. Hell, I barely play video games these days at all. Let alone buy used games or consoles. I’ll tell you what definitely do — read Game Informer online.
I have a deep suspicion that these layoffs (or any others that follow in the coming 90 days for that matter), have to do the damned inverted yield curve:
So for the curve to invert implies that investors are forecasting that something unusual will happen. Something that will push future interest rates down low enough to justify long-term yields being low despite the risks. Something like a future collapse in private sector investment demand that makes government borrowing cheap. Or something like a series of Federal Reserve moves to try to reduce interest rates and spur more economic activity.
In other words, a future recession.
And, indeed, if you look at the historical track record, every time the two-year/10-year inversion has happened, a recession has followed.
Sigh. We’ll know if we’re in a recession in 6 months. The winds of change are pretty good that Trump will astroturf the U.S. economy in an ego-driven, exploitative ego-driven (and as a reminder, 100% totally avoidable) trade-war with China.
Regardless, GameStop is shitty business, even if Game Informer is a great online and print publication. It’s umbilical cord to GameStop is financial poison. The parent company that manages the magazine is just absolutely terrible. The level of incompetence mismanagement is gargantuan. They closed hundreds of stores in 2012. GameStop was caught intentionally deceiving customers in 2017, and the company has been trying to sell itself to private equity firms for pretty much half a decade. Perhaps, instead of peddling snake oil — they should hire back the seven game journalists, and should spin off the publication wholesale to someone who cares. Microsoft, The Verge or shit, even Rooster Teeth are all wealthy contenders happy to expand their media empire. Literally anyone would benefit from the editorial prowess Game Informer brings to the gaming beat.
Verizon Communications Inc. has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion.
Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 staffers, the companies said. Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook, Reddit and other services.
This is a shocking acquisition. No doubt, this a good move for the preservation of blogs. I firmly believe Automattic will be a better steward of creators than Verizon (or was it called Oath?) would’ve been. I have long awaited the day where Tumblr and WordPress have publication parity. This has to be really excited for everyone at Tumblr. I mean this even has Tumblr veteran Marco Arment pumped:
Edit: it appears that Marco Arment deleted this tweet:
This is pretty cool. Can’t think of a better owner today than Automattic for Tumblr’s huge creative publishing community.
Marco Arment
Now the hard question — what about the adult content ban? For now, it seems the ban stays in place. But, it’s really unclear if Matt will ever changed the policy. Regardless, the blogs at Tumblr will live on under the safe and profitable umbrella of Automattic.