#Professor Bork Bork

[phantom-of-the-ruckus]

Can you draw Rosco as a human and Riley Ruckus as a dog?

PROFESSOR BORK BORK AND WOOFLEY !!!

Thank you for your request, Anon! I always wanted to draw human Rosco some day but for some reason I never got to do it hahaha

I did try to keep Rosco's goofy and adorable essence the best I could, and I hope you lke it ^^

Anyway, many thanks for the opportunity and letting me Draw professor Bork Bork himself!

[cannibal-nightmares]

more work doodles and whiteboard Soul (reupload)

[gentlethorns]

i love poetry!!!!!!! i love poetry i love poetry i love poetry. it's just incredible to me how you can make music without ever touching an instrument. that the instrument can be the sound of the words you write clamoring together in the mind. literally incredible

[robertreich]

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?    

One man is especially to blame for why corporate power is out of control. And I knew him! He was my professor, then my boss. His name… Robert Bork.

Robert Bork was a notorious conservative who believed the only legitimate purpose of antitrust — that is, anti-monopoly — law is to lower prices for consumers, no matter how big corporations get. His philosophy came to dominate the federal courts and conservative economics.

I met him in 1971, when I took his antitrust class at Yale Law School. He was a large, imposing man, with a red beard and a perpetual scowl. He seemed impatient and bored with me and my classmates, who included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham, as we challenged him repeatedly on his antitrust views.

We argued with Bork that ever-expanding corporations had too much power. Not only could they undercut rivals with lower prices and suppress wages, but they were using their spoils to influence our politics with campaign contributions. Wasn’t this cause for greater antitrust enforcement?

He had a retort for everything. Undercutting rival businesses with lower prices was a good thing because consumers like lower prices. Suppressing wages didn’t matter because employees are always free to find better jobs. He argued that courts could not possibly measure political power, so why should that matter?

Even in my mid-20s, I knew this was hogwash.

But Bork’s ideology began to spread. A few years after I took his class, he wrote a book called The Antitrust Paradox summarizing his ideas. The book heavily influenced Ronald Reagan and later helped form a basic tenet of Reaganomics — the bogus theory that says government should get out of the way and allow corporations to do as they please, including growing as big and powerful as they want.

Despite our law school sparring, Bork later gave me a job in the Department of Justice when he was solicitor general for Gerald Ford. Even though we didn’t agree on much, I enjoyed his wry sense of humor. I respected his intellect. Hell, I even came to like him.

Once President Reagan appointed Bork as an appeals court judge, his rulings further dismantled antitrust. And while his later Supreme Court nomination failed, his influence over the courts continued to grow.  

Bork’s legacy is the enormous corporate power we see today, whether it’s Ticketmaster and Live Nation consolidating control over live performances, Kroger and Albertsons dominating the grocery market, or Amazon, Google, and Meta taking over the tech world.

It’s not just these high-profile companies either: in most industries, a handful of companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

This corporate concentration costs the typical American household an estimated extra $5,000 per year. Companies have been able to jack up prices without losing customers to competitors because there is often no meaningful competition.

And huge corporations also have the power to suppress wages because workers have fewer employers from whom to get better jobs.

And how can we forget the massive flow of money these corporate giants are funneling into politics, rigging our democracy in their favor?

But the tide is beginning to turn under the Biden Administration. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are fighting the monopolization of America in court, and proposing new merger guidelines to protect consumers, workers, and society.

It’s the implementation of the view that I and my law school classmates argued for back in the 1970s — one that sees corporate concentration as a problem that outweighs any theoretical benefits Bork claimed might exist.

Robert Bork would likely regard the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts with the same disdain he had for my arguments in his class all those years ago. But instead of a few outspoken law students, Bork’s philosophy is now being challenged by the full force of the federal government.

The public is waking up to the outsized power corporations wield over our economy and democracy. It’s about time.

[thoughtportal]

It sounds weird to say that carrots are having a moment, but social media has catapulted the humble root to a status resembling stardom. Anecdotal evidence suggests online carrot recipes trail in popularity only those for potatoes and brussels sprouts among vegetables, and Pinterest numbers support that: recipe searches for honey balsamic carrots on the platform are up 75% this year, while queries for roasted parmesan carrots skyrocketed 700%. Fresh carrots are an expanding $1.4 billion U.S. market, andAmericans are expected to consume 100 million pounds this Thanksgiving — roughly five ounces for every human being in the country.

At least 60% of those carrots are produced by just two companies, Bolthouse and Grimmway, both of which were acquired by buyout firms, in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

“There’s only two sources,” Adam Waglay, cofounder and co-CEO of Bolthouse owner Butterfly Equity, told Forbes. “We joke around — it’s kind of like the OPEC of carrots.”

Cartels are less funny for neighbors of the two producers in Southern California’s Cuyama Valley, who are calling for a boycott of Big Carrot over the amount of water their farms are sucking out of the ground. In 2022, Bolthouse and Grimmway together were responsible for 67%, or 9.6 billion gallons, of the area’s total water use. Local residents said they expect their wells to dry up if the carrot farms continue to use as much water as they do — Grimmway CEO Jeff Huckaby told Forbes his company has already reduced the amount of acreage it farms — and the two carrot producers have joined forces to defend their thirst in court. That worries local residents, who say they lack the deep pockets needed to wage a prolonged legal battle.

Cattle rancher Jake Furstenfeld places a boycott sign in New Cuyama, California in September.Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo

Water fights like this can take years to resolve, and often become a way to delay cutbacks, Karrigan Bork, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, told Forbes. “You see these rights again and again get trimmed back by the state or by courts,” Bork said. “In some cases, your savvy water users recognize that, and for them, just delaying that trimming back is a success, and the longer they can do that, the happier they will be.”

Price Concerns

Waglay uses the word “duopoly” to describe the two companies. Such market consolidationoften leads to higher prices, and the government has for years used increased consumer prices as an indicator of possible unfair competition. The U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to comment on any antitrust issues.

Since 2019, carrot producer prices have increased more than 40%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, outpacing the 22% inflation in the U.S. economy.

Carrot Top

Prices are near their highest since 2019, when Bolthouse was acquired by a private equity firm. Grimmway changed hands a year later.

Huckaby, the Grimmway CEO, told Forbes that the costs of a number of inputs have gone up, too. Packaging, fertilizer and fuel prices have all risen at a higher rate than inflation, he said, and California’s minimum wage has increased 27% since 2018. At $15 an hour, it’s the second-highest in the country.

Still, the carrot business has been a lucrative play. Total U.S. production value has increased 34% since 2019.

Duopoly Origins

Bolthouse, founded in 1915 in Grant, Michigan, started selling carrots packed in cellophane bags in 1959. In the 1970s and 1980s, production was centered around Bakersfield, California. After Bakersfield farmer Mike Yurosek invented “baby carrots” in 1986, consumption soared.

In the 1990s, Bolthouse ballooned into the largest carrot operator, reportedly shipping some 80% of California’s carrots. It amounted to half the U.S. carrot market in 1992, followed by Grimmway, founded by brothers Bob and Rod Grimm in 1969, and Yurosek’s family-owned outfit. Grimmway eventually bought out Mike Yurosek & Son. The carrot crop is now the tenth-biggest commodity in California, where one-third of America’s vegetables are grown.

Today, the industry’s growth could be limited by dwindling water supplies in the drought-prone Cuyama Valley, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles and 90 miles west of Bakersfield. But the companies behind the duopoly aren’t giving up without a fight.

Both businesses, which own their own manufacturing, are hitting a similar point in their ownership lifecycles. Private equity-backed businesses typically change hands every three to five years. In 2019, Butterfly Equity acquired Bolthouse from publicly traded Campbell Soup for $510 million in cash. A year later, Grimmway was acquired by Teays River Investments, a Zionsville, Indiana-based investment firm, for an undisclosed amount. That means both businesses are in the sweet spot of what most investors consider the hot time to unload an investment or take it public.

Los Angeles, California-based Butterfly has sold only one of its investments, an organic protein company called Orgain, acquired by Nestle Health Science in February 2022 after two years of Butterfly ownership. Grimmway is Teays River’s only current investment after exiting two others in 2019 and 2013. Teays River held those investments for eight years and one year, respectively.

Grimmway’s owner, which according to Pitchbook has $1.38 billion in assets under management, is backed by pension funds including the public employees of the states of Maine and Oregon, Texas teachers, the New York state Teamsters union and the Producer-Writers Guild of America.

Butterfly Equity, by comparison, has $4 billion in assets under management and is backed byexecutives of private equity giant KKR, where Waglay worked for eight years. The firm has done eight deals in the eight years since it launched. Butterfly also owns America’s largest striped bass farm, the largest free-range egg company, an avocado oil maker that controls 60% of the market, and a large whey protein manufacturer.

Water Rights

Bolthouse and Grimmway started working with each other in a way that competitors rarely do. They filed a lawsuit together in 2021 in Kern County, California to ask a court to decide how to split up the water of New Cuyama, where they farm.

What’s happening in Cuyama Valley is an example of the kinds of water fights that are surfacing across California. Farmers of a variety of crops there have depended on irrigation for decades. Those years of pumping water and spraying it over crops through sprinklers or complex drip irrigation systems have had drastic implications, including threats of land sinking, a receding water table that makes it tougher to dig wells and the threat of some of them drying out.

That’s why water use around New Cuyama could get reduced by two-thirds over the next two decades. To bring the region back to a sustainable level by 2040, water cuts of 5% started this year and will continue each year going forward. The Cuyama basin currently has an annual water deficit of more than 8 billion gallons, and much of the area’s carrot farmland may have to be taken out of production. Some experts say Bolthouse and Grimmway would have to reduce their water consumption by about double what the city of Santa Barbara, California uses annually.

But water-efficient sprinklers can only save so much. The carrot companies’ lawsuit has forced area farmers, ranchers, residents and even the area’s public school to rack up legal bills. In response, a coalition of locals launched a boycott of carrots in July. The boycott’s goals: for the companies to drop the lawsuit, pay all legal fees and to reduce the amount of water they pump. One flyer the boycotters distributed suggests a Thanksgiving recipe for brussels sprouts instead.

Both Bolthouse and Grimmway lease farmland rather than own it. They recently withdrew from the lawsuit, though the companies that own the farmland are still in it, and what the judge decides will dictate how much the companies are able to farm there in the future.

Expanding Elsewhere

Huckaby said the carrot boycott has taken aim at Grimmway and Bolthouse because they’re easy targets. Only 3,700 of the 13,000 acres that Grimmway leases in the Cuyama Valley are being farmed, according to Huckaby. “We cut way back and we cut way back and we cut back and no one else did,” he said.

The companies may have to find new farmland to grow carrots. The average American now eats roughly seven pounds of the fresh vegetable every year, with consumption up 2% so far in 2023, according to NielsenIQ.

Grimmway has already expanded its farming operations outside of California with facilities in Florida, Washington and other states.

Butterfly’s Waglay doesn’t deny that water is one of the biggest barriers that his investment in Bolthouse faces. “Water challenges,” he said with a sigh. “This asset has great access to water, but it’s going to get worse and worse, and you need to be planning for that and trying to work on ways to minimize that. That’ll be a long-term challenge.”

California water fights often result in residents and smaller business owners getting “outgunned in the courts by large commercial actors,” Pomona College environmental analysis and politics professor Heather Williams, an expert on water issues, told Forbes. The lawsuit is among the first of many, she said.

“It’s put into motion a race to the basin — pumping as much as you can, and putting that into production,” Williams said. “Water is property in California. It’s what a rational actor acting on behalf of investors is going to do. If they’re playing this game, they’ve got to play hard.”

Grimmway and Bolthouse can move on, said Williams, unlike most of the residents in New Cuyama. “These are their homes, their small farms. If the well goes dry, it’s worth basically nothing,” she said. “They can’t pay lawyers for ten years of litigation.”

[aching-joints]

Oh, won't you kiss me on the mouth and love me like a sailor? And when you get a taste, can you tell me what's my flavor? I don't believe in God, but I believe that you're my savior

finally

siiiiiiiiigh

i'm still not happy but ig lesson learned, don't clean CC folder ever

i hadn't checked on him since Ronan seemed fine when I checked on him in CAS, so imagine my surprise when i pull this mans into my main fam and he's naked, bald and his face was all messed up

i went thru a few variations since his face got all borked up too bc i 1000 IQ'd and purged some presets and then the slider purge, sigh, it took yonks, it's kind of hard to get a face correctly based off of old screenshots (sigh)

some of them made me sit there n it made sense why Nicholas' was Alana's rebound, lol (they both look great w/ a clean shaven head honestly chefs kiss tho, love it, was tempted to almost keep him that way) (also same face syndrome?????? 🫨🫨🫨🥲🥲🥲🥲)

this mans was endearingly named by my husband too

HE'S GEORGE 🤌🤌

George is a Molecular Biotechnology Professor. (yes I allowed my husband to pick this, it's so specific and now i have to wonder if he reminds him of someone every time i see George in-game 😵😵)

George is a recovering addict. George is kind of a selfish ass bc he's willing to lead people on for his own need to be desired. But he's pretty committed to Ronan now that they’re married.

[drunkkenobi]

Happy Ghost Files premiere week! Have some numbers.

Puppet History was weird this season! The Wu Zeitan episode blew up very quickly, that's easily the fastest growing PH ep ever, but nothing else was even close. With it, the opening weekend average is close to last season's (which averaged ~445k openers) at 466k, but without it, the average was 399k. Do people miss Professor's hat this much? Do they crave lore? I dunno! But the show still does very well, so I don't want to imply that it doesn't, but I did find this season's numbers odd as hell.

Everything else is trucking along at pretty consistent growth within series. Mystery Files grows around 20k per ep per week, Ghost Files at ~50k per ep per week and everything else is much lower. The people demand files.

They haven't done a lot of one offs this year but this new Steven one did pretty good. Nothing crazy but the one-offs aren't consistent and for a sponsored vid, I think that's just fine. I do miss Steven terribly so always happy to see him.

Ghost Files premieres this week! I'm excited for the show and for the new schedule. The Debriefs averaged around what the Post-Mortems always did, in the 1 million range, so I'm very interested to see how they do with the Friday spotlight and with longer videos.

As of today, August 21, 2023, Watcher has 2.71 million subscribers and 331,435,296 views. With the Youtube shorts, the number of videos and averages per video are borked, unfortunately, but nice to have some posterity with these.

[eirinstiva]

All the world's a stage: His Last Bow

Today I received the last story of the year from my dear friend Watson. Did he write it? Apparently he didn't. It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Billy again? Mycroft Holmes? We don't know, but at least I'm sure the author wasn't Sherlock Holmes because there's not a single cry of "my Watson would do this better". We know our drama queen. My theory is that Mycroft wrote it after hearing Sherlock and John talking about this case, and then ACD edited it.

[ID: Cover of The Strand Magazine vol. 65, no. 321, September 1917. And illustration of a street in navy blue. Crossing the middle of the page there's a red band with Sherlock Holmes profile that says "Sherlock Holmes outwits a German Spy]

There are many reasons of why I love this story: Holmes has the chance to use chloroform:

[ID: Sherlock Holmes (as Altamont) with a goatee, using chlorofom-soaked rag to sleep Von Bork. Illustration by Alfred Gilbert]

Holmes and Watson working together once more:

[ID: Holmes and Watson walking Von Bork slowly. Illustration by Alfred Gilbert]

Holmes in disguise with longer hair and a horrible goatee, the references to professor Moriarty, colonel Moran and Irene Adler Norton, Martha the housekeeper (Mrs. Hudson? I don't know) there's a cat! but what I really like is how Sherlock Holmes used all his knowledge, talent and expertise to work as a spy.

This is his last case. This is his last play. That's why the title of this story has been translated into Spanish as Su último saludo en el escenario, El último saludo (as in my copy of Todo Sherlock Holmes) or La última reverencia. The detective works incognito for two years: he changes his appearance, he speaks with American accent and he travels to another places. Sherlock is an actor and all the world is a stage, and for his last show he calls his friend Watson to work with him at his side for the grand finale. Holmes takes the time to drink wine with Watson and to talk about everything and nothing while Von Bork is tied (somebody is third-wheeling here, or as we say in Chile, Von Bork is playing the violin). The detective takes the chance to steal £500, use his own book Practical Handbook of Bee Culture as a decoy, and make a dramatic identity reveal because Holmes loves to be dramatic, and he really loves to be dramatic when Watson is at his side. The previous short stories are the evidence.

What happened after this? my friend Doctor Watson answer this question in the preface of the book His Last Bow:

The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn tha he is still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has refused the most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined that his retorement was a permanent one. The approach of the German war caused him however, to lay his remarkable combination of intellectual and practical activity at the disposal of the government, with historical results which are recounted in His Last Bow. Several previous experiences which have lain long in my portfolio have been added to His Last Bow so as to complete the volumen JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

It's been a year since Letters from Watson reunited old and new fans to read the short stories on Sherlock Holmes and next year it's time to read the novels!

[slasheru]

Slasher U Update Roadmap: End of 2023!

Holy crap, it's been a hell of year, hasn't it?! Slasher U Act 1 came out at the end of April 2023 and there's been SO MUCH that's changed!

Things that were added in post-launch Slasher U Act 1 updates:

Sawyer's entire romance arc, storyline, and hookup/makeout games

Outfits

Bartending

The ability to talk to Dark Tate post-coitally

Butterflies and crows (fighting crows used to crash your game)

The entire good UI

Characters including Cliff, Stitcherella, Jennykind, Paisleigh, Tanya, and I'm pretty sure Kennedy was a very early addition, too

And that's not counting the tweaks, fixes, and content! In the interest of continuing to Ship of Theseus this game into the best dating sim ever (no biggie, right?), I have the following updates planned before the end of 2023 for Act 1!

Accessibility settings: A way to opt out of minigames with a random roll based on your personality stats (different stat per minigame as appropriate!)

Refining the places you can get personality points in Act 1

Customization: Cane accessories! These will run on a different band than outfits so you can mix and match them/equip them alongside outfits!

Finance: I made everything in the game on the pricey/"realistic" side and the money you get from gigs relatively low because A) college and B) i kind of thought it would both be funny/reflective of shitty college jobs AND a nice incentive to grind some minigames but. I think the economy needs a bit of a fix, right? ;) (in the meantime, try typing InfiniteMoneyVent with the caps correct in the Cheat Codes menu when you're in-game! Your wallet will be a little fuller!)

There are 27 major bugs left in the list for me to tackle as of now, most of them are routine but there are 3 or 4 harder ones to tackle (naming save files is being a beeeetch specifically because afaik Wolf wipes any additional system string variables even if you specify a larger variable count list? My engine just is like "naw actually I'm not saving that"?)

Prior Planned Quality of Life Stuff: Either a way to name your save files OR a way to make your character name appear under your save file (this used to happen but there was a bug where all names would default to your last used character name)

WHITE WHALE HOLY GRAIL I'm still trying to fix the text box bug! This actually isn't borked in the vanilla version of the WRPG engine but I can't fucking figure out how to fix it with the way I've set up the UI (I think? I THINK?!). This is realistically the last bug to get fixed due to my own ineptitude, so I'm hoping to A) make autosaves automatically turned on and B) making Data 1's save slot unusable so it's reserved for autosaves!

There's ALSO a couple content updates for Act 1 still (nothing major, except for, uh, ONE MAJOR THING, haha):

The Truth or Dare minigame/scenario is now going to be included in the Act 1 game, but take place after the Act 2 bumper (post-murder-attempt)

This is already in there but the preamble for Dark Tate's continuing storyline, and Laila's Act 2, activates after the murder attempt

I'll be adding Hex, Juno, and Sawyer's Act 2 lead-ins, plus regular Tate's lead-in, as I work on Act 2

Resolving the storylines (or, if you're being a Chaotic Evil type of player, ruining everyone's life) with story choices/quests for non-dateables: Act 2 will include more Sawyer/Horsemike story, and personal quests for Melyssa, Professor Plutonium, and partially Veronika/Archibald (theirs will continue into Act 3)

Maybe I'll let you fight crows again. MAYBE.

I'm ALSO working on Act 2, which has a lot of new features (notably permanent cosmetic upgrades like a piercing system and tattoos) as well as new content (obvi lmao), but I really want to find a way to offer early access passes to folks who didn't make it to the Crowdfundr (maybe via Patreon)?

Here are some Act 2 features that I'm excited to include/are already being worked on (you'll recognize a lot of these from fanvotes!)

Piercing/Tattoo Parlor

Headless Horsemike one-off hookup minigame

Tate's movie date (yes it's scripted and implemented, it'll be in the next Act 2 update lol. I KNOW I KNOW :D )

Being able to run the speakeasy/sex dungeon as a little moneymaking game in and of itself (well. More for the speakeasy. The sex dungeon is mostly for sex. You're welcome, Sawyer Enjoyers)

Being able to gift outfits to dateables

I'm personally super hype for Tate's storyline (which also involves some other students?? ooo????) and how that's going to mechanically shake out, PLUS, tattoos. Oh my god. TATTOOS GUYS. Plus, the piercing system works like IRL-style - you have to get pierced, then buy jewelry for your piercing if you want to replace your starter/healer gear! I'm a big fan of body mods IRL and having a more realistic piercing/tattoo system was important to me!

Can't wait for next year AND to bring y'all more Slasher U!!!!!!!!! Making video games is literally my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world and I can't imagine doing anything else with my life :')))) (one day I'll be able to do this FULL-full time instead of on top of reviewing medical documents and drawing IP comics for Big Corpo)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE BEST FUCKIN' 6 MONTHS OF GAME DEV I COULD EVER FUCKING ASK FOR!!!!!!!!!! You guys rule :')))))))))))

xoxooxoxoxoxox, Professor Plutonium

[holmesillustrations]

Vote for your favourite, the top 9 will proceed in the bracket. Since theyre all different shapes and sizes, make sure to click into the full views!

Paget Eliminations // Other Artist Eliminations

Full captions and details for each illustration below the cut:

[‘28’ painted on the Ferrer's ceiling] Charles Doyle, Study in Scarlet (1888 Ward, Lock & Co. Novel) Characters: John Ferrer

[Moriarty at 221b] Harry C. Edwards, Final Problem (McClure’s) Characters: Holmes, Moriarty

Collier’s Cover FD Steele, Priory School (Collier’s) Characters: Holmes

"Dr. Leslie Armstrong" FD Steele, Missing Three-quarter (Collier’s) Characters: Dr. Leslie Armstrong

"The tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered into the room." Arthur Twidle, Bruce-Partington Plans (The Strand) Characters: Holmes, Watson, Mycroft

"Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket." Alec Ball, Lady Frances Carfax (The Strand) Characters: Watson, Holmes, Schlessinger

"You think, then, definitely, that Barker and Mrs. Douglas are guilty of the murder?" Frank Wiles, Valley of Fear (The Strand) Characters: Watson, Holmes

"Holding either arm, the two friends walked him very slowly down the garden path." Alfred Gilbert, His Last Bow (The Strand) Characters: Watson, Von Bork, Holmes

"The Professor spat out some atrocious word at me and hurried on down the staircase." HK Elcock, Creeping Man (The Strand) Characters: Prof. Presbury

"There was a crash as Holmes' pistol came down on the man's head." HK Elcock, Three Garridebs (The Strand) Characters: Evans, Holmes, Watson

[Holmes writing] FD Steele, Blanched Soldier (Liberty) Characters: Holmes

[Lion] FD Steele, Veiled Lodger (Liberty) Characters: Lion

[paradoxlemonade]

just learned that "bork" is an actual term in american politics (a nominee rejected from the supreme court/interest groups trying to prevent a nominee from getting onto the court) and now I'm realizing that I'm probably going to hear my very offline and normal government professor say the word bork tomorrow and I'll need to act normal afterwards

[phantom-of-the-ruckus]

Hi sorry I've seen you're packed with requests but can I request more of professor bork bork (humanized Rosco) but like after the fire when all the puppets go crazy please 🥺

sorry for the delay!

i needed some time off from drawing + I was busy, but thanks for requesting!!!

Here's Mad Doctor Professor Bork Bork!!

Since he's a scientist, he takes Riley's place. I wanted to do something unique for his mask with stitches as his mouth, it's like Riley's unmasked.

I do think he has a more agressive behavior like in Game Rosco, but its kinda his alert form or his way of protecting himself after the madness of the fire.

He is still caring and very loving to Riles.

I gave him a Freddy Krueger's type of claw that he made for himself in ref into how Riley brought Rosco to life!

Art Requests: Are closed

[blsm-m]

circleYeast is best known for its role in producing flaky bread and foamy beer, but it can be used for a variety of purposes. Jeff BoekeA geneticist at New York University and his team are utilizing yeast as an artistic medium in the lab: Instead of pens and paintbrushes, these scientists are using genetics, genomics, and synthetic biology to transform yeast cultures into vibrant works of art.NYU Langone Health geneticist Jeff Bork continues to study yeast in scientific and artistic applications.Jeff Boekeof Yeast Art Project It began life as a serendipitous spinoff project from Professor Bork's "Constructing a Genome" course at Johns Hopkins University over a decade ago: students learned how to construct synthetic DNA, and this educational exercise also served as the foundation for a broader project: constructing a complete genome. Synthetic Eukaryotic Genomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Known as Sc2.0.1As an aside, students have used the same technique to genetically modify yeast to produce beta-carotene, making the yeast more nutritious and changing its off-white color to shades of yellow and orange. This change in pigment inspired several of Boeke's students to explore the artistic side of yeast.They modified the yeast and used biopointillism to create living works of art on agar canvases: a robot placed yeast dots, or biopixels, on agar plates. Their first piece, a homage to Natty Bo, the mascot of Baltimore brewery National Bohemian, featured three colors and a resolution of 384 biopixels. This artistic direction became an unexpectedly fun side project for Boake and his team.Continue reading below...Aleksandra Udzińska leads the Yeast Art Project, creating intricate artworks that draw inspiration from a variety of locations. Boeke Lab, NYU Langone Healthwhen Aleksandra UdzińskaAfter Boake’s lab supervisor, joined the team, she eagerly embraced the opportunity to experiment with her students to add even more color to these designs. Inspired by their enthusiasm, Boake is pursuing the project as a creative way to foster curiosity and engage the community in learning about genetic engineering and microbiology.Sampling from natureTo expand the color palette beyond white, yellow, and orange, the researchers took an ingenious approach. Combined Yeast Golden Gate Cloning And that A multipurpose gene assembly system A technology that combines transcription units to manipulate yeast and express a target gene.2,3 Inspired by nature's vibrant colors, the researchers inserted a variety of genes: the bacterial pigment violacein produces green, deep purple and almost black yeast, while a gene encoding a pigment from a sea anemone produces a blue color and a gene from a coral creates a pale purple.The researchers created a palette of pigmented yeast with about 35 colors.Boeke Lab, NYU Langone HealthBy adjusting the number of active genes, “we can play around with the combination of gene promoters and terminators to change the shade of a particular color,” Udzińska explains.The initial three-color palette quickly expanded to nearly 35.Udzińska also noted the challenges of creating new colors. "We also played with the idea of ​​mixing two different yeasts, like yellow and blue, to create green," she added, but these combinations did not produce dramatically different results. She found that using violacein-producing yeasts alone was better suited to achieving the natural greens characteristic of recreating timeless artworks. Draw with pixelsUdzinska used nine yeast colors to create a painting of Pablo Picasso's Girl in front of the mirror.Aleksandra Udzinska, Boecke Lab, NYU Langone HealthSince Nathi Boe, Boake's lab has drawn digital inspiration from famous artists such as Pablo Picasso and Johannes Vermeer. Recently, Udzińska has been using artificial intelligence (AI) to explore other art styles, such as street art graffiti. In this approach, an image is fed into a program that assigns a color and generates a grid of pixel instructions for the Labcyte Echo 550 liquid handler, originally designed for DNA construction.

The machine uses sound waves to launch precise 2.5-nanoliter droplets onto an inverted agar plate, creating a coloring-book-like image of up to 25,000 biopixels. The yeast-coated plates are incubated at 30 degrees Celsius for several days, after which the researchers refrigerate them to enhance color saturation and prevent overgrowth. Some of the artwork is three years old, but the images are recognizable despite being blurry.The process of creating these yeast canvases takes a lot of trial and error to perfect. "The challenge is that some strains grow faster than others, so we've learned to compensate by making some colors more concentrated than others," Boake said. But Boake believes the time and effort it takes to craft these masterpieces is a worthwhile endeavor for their working yeast.My favorite thing in the lab is Vincent Van Gogh's Starry night.Aleksandra Udzinska, Boecke Lab, NYU Langone HealthYeast art exhibitionAs the team has incorporated more colors and intricate designs, their work has garnered recognition. Since 2016, East Art Project has won science art competitions and appeared on magazine covers. The team will also exhibit their work at the grand opening of the New York Academy of Sciences headquarters in 2023, but the fingers of curious onlookers kept defacing the ephemeral artworks. So Udzińska decided to cover them in epoxy resin to extend the artwork's lifespan. Researchers have found that Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring Delicate yeasty colour. Aleksandra Udzinska, Boecke Lab, NYU Langone HealthFor Boake, yeast art is an exciting mix of science and art, and he has received funding to support education. Boake's group sends these strains to high schools and undergraduate science programs to teach students about genetic modification through hands-on workshops. "A lot of people really respond to this work and say, 'Oh, that's so interesting,' because you can make art with genetically modified yeast that produces such beautiful colors," Boake said. He's excited to see the project progress, and said he's still figuring out the final design, but hopes to work on an image of 100,000 biopixels.ReferencesRichardson SM, et al. Design of a synthetic yeast genome. Science. 2017;355(6329):1040-1044. Agmon N, et al. Yeast Golden Gate (yGG) S. cerevisiae Transcription Unit. ACS Synthetic Biology. 2015;4(7):853-859.Mitchell LA et al. Versatile Gene Assembly System (VEGAS) S. cerevisiae. Nucleic Acid Research. 2015;43(13):6620-6630. Continue reading below...

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Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?    One man is...

New Post has been published on https://robertreich.org/post/744315857923080192

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?    One man is...

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?    

One man is especially to blame for why corporate power is out of control. And I knew him! He was my professor, then my boss. His name… Robert Bork.

Robert Bork was a notorious conservative who believed the only legitimate purpose of antitrust — that is, anti-monopoly — law is to lower prices for consumers, no matter how big corporations get. His philosophy came to dominate the federal courts and conservative economics.

I met him in 1971, when I took his antitrust class at Yale Law School. He was a large, imposing man, with a red beard and a perpetual scowl. He seemed impatient and bored with me and my classmates, who included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham, as we challenged him repeatedly on his antitrust views.

We argued with Bork that ever-expanding corporations had too much power. Not only could they undercut rivals with lower prices and suppress wages, but they were using their spoils to influence our politics with campaign contributions. Wasn’t this cause for greater antitrust enforcement?

He had a retort for everything. Undercutting rival businesses with lower prices was a good thing because consumers like lower prices. Suppressing wages didn’t matter because employees are always free to find better jobs. He argued that courts could not possibly measure political power, so why should that matter?

Even in my mid-20s, I knew this was hogwash.

But Bork’s ideology began to spread. A few years after I took his class, he wrote a book called The Antitrust Paradox summarizing his ideas. The book heavily influenced Ronald Reagan and later helped form a basic tenet of Reaganomics — the bogus theory that says government should get out of the way and allow corporations to do as they please, including growing as big and powerful as they want.

Despite our law school sparring, Bork later gave me a job in the Department of Justice when he was solicitor general for Gerald Ford. Even though we didn’t agree on much, I enjoyed his wry sense of humor. I respected his intellect. Hell, I even came to like him.

Once President Reagan appointed Bork as an appeals court judge, his rulings further dismantled antitrust. And while his later Supreme Court nomination failed, his influence over the courts continued to grow.  

Bork’s legacy is the enormous corporate power we see today, whether it’s Ticketmaster and Live Nation consolidating control over live performances, Kroger and Albertsons dominating the grocery market, or Amazon, Google, and Meta taking over the tech world.

It’s not just these high-profile companies either: in most industries, a handful of companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

This corporate concentration costs the typical American household an estimated extra $5,000 per year. Companies have been able to jack up prices without losing customers to competitors because there is often no meaningful competition.

And huge corporations also have the power to suppress wages because workers have fewer employers from whom to get better jobs.

And how can we forget the massive flow of money these corporate giants are funneling into politics, rigging our democracy in their favor?

But the tide is beginning to turn under the Biden Administration. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are fighting the monopolization of America in court, and proposing new merger guidelines to protect consumers, workers, and society.

It’s the implementation of the view that I and my law school classmates argued for back in the 1970s — one that sees corporate concentration as a problem that outweighs any theoretical benefits Bork claimed might exist.

Robert Bork would likely regard the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts with the same disdain he had for my arguments in his class all those years ago. But instead of a few outspoken law students, Bork’s philosophy is now being challenged by the full force of the federal government.

The public is waking up to the outsized power corporations wield over our economy and democracy. It’s about time.

[lycocarpum]

my professor finally uploaded the shit i'm supposed to do this week but the particle simulator he wanted me to use was borked so we had to figure out an alternative and this man emails back So Slowly

screaming

[longsean22]

And now there’s a second part to this

Continuation of AU in which Ozpin reincarnates in the body of Zwei instead of Oscar because it’s a terrible idea and I love it.