Steve A. Becker

Which Transformer do they turn into again?

This is amazing.

www.getyourfuckingmoneyback.com

Going to make an official post later this week but next month is the deadline! Any of you cool artsy and non artsy folks interested in helping us raise money for a cool thing?

I stand in front of a floor to ceiling mirror flexing my extremely wrinkly brain and laughing menacingly as a sickly pathetic whimpering ai devotee watches in terror, crying, begging their useless computer girlfriend to protect them from my raw unfiltered creative power

Right now it'd be even more consequential to lose a couple red congresspeople. House margin is so thin that a carpool mishap from the right district could potentially re-shape western democracy.

Another favor to ask on a research project. We're wrapping up a large project on AI music. We need folks to participate in a short 10 min quiz to test your ability to distinguish between AI music & human music. Especially looking for help from musicians!
uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

If you are in Seattle, please go patronize this store because this is amazing content/promo 😂 (laughing to keep from crying, and I do kind of low-key want that orange spider plant I have never seen that before)

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DTQrTqZ...

Someone sent me this video of Trump’s goons in action today in the Twin Cities. The audio is disturbing.

The ultimate metaphoric image of big tech in 2025

This same story was used here in the states during our last election to vilify immigrants and now we have masked men conducting military raids in our streets to support an evolution of that lie.

screenshot of a tumblr post from user “wildmansters” The thing that really boils my potatoes about Al in general is that I have been a creative professional for over a decade now and the devil has ALWAYS been in the details. Big and small, I've had single-person businesses rip me to shreds over how their colors turned out on newsprint, and have worked with huge companies with THICK brand guidelines with every detail of their brand identity laid out and enforced with an iron fist. But I guess all of that stuff doesn't matter anymore? Who gives a fuck if this Al generated baby has six fingers, that mom-and-pop shop is still going to use it. That rug from Temu says Happy Thanksgivirg? Oh well haha it's just a silly funny thing now (nevermind that you never would have given a B-grade item from a craft show the same consideration). I don't actually care that the Al Coca-cola ad has a truck that changes size every scene, but I can't help but think about how, if it had been some poor underpaid artist, they would have been laughed out of the building. I don't really know how to put it in a succint way but it just feels all the more obvious how much more grace and flexibility has always been possible but never offered.

i know WHY this is but that just makes it even more of a kick in the pants lmao

Haha, the house still gets stuff for my stepdad. My parents got divorced and he moved out like 9 years ago and he's been dead 2 or 3? It's wild how the internet bots will just be set on Wall-E autopilot forever.

Don't tell me the dead internet theory isn't in full swing. Ordered business cards online 18 years ago under the name of said business. I've received physical mail for that business ever since and it's been defunct for 17 years. Until Earth stops spinning this address will receive junk in its name!

A LOT of industry folks need to take "I think there's a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit" to HEART.

Hit a hornets nest mowing today and took 5 angry zingers. Probably schadenfreude for the pushy pest control salesman whose service I was adamantly not interested in last week.

The hive mind may suggest the fields be watered with Brawndo long before all that

The cover spread from a one page zine printout. The left (back cover) features images of a scale and gavel, with notes on First Amendment and filming rights, and the advice to “shut the fuck up.” On the right is the cover, a megaphone with the title text “PROTEST SAFELY.” Behind it are faceless protestors. The subtitle notes, “A brief collection of tips from around the internet.”

A spread from one page zine printout. On the left is an illustration of a protestor with the title “What to Wear,” including a helmet, goggles, ear plugs, gloves, a mask, a backpack, and layers/long sleeves/pants. Each have additional notes explaining their use. On the right is “What to Bring,” featuring illustrations of a backpack, money, water bottles, a mask, a granola bar and bag of trail mix, a first aid kit, folded shirt and pants, and an ID, with “DIY Defense” listed underneath it showing one protestor using a luggage case, one holding a trash can lid, and one using an open umbrella as a shield.

A spread from one page zine printout. On the left is “Protect Your Identity,” advising to cover up identifying features, avoiding photography of protesters, deactivating biometric phone-unlocking tools, and writing emergency contact and counsel numbers on your arm. On the right is “Be Like Water,” the motto of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and the text “BEWARE THE BAIT” with images of a palette of bricks and a masked man holding a crowbar toward a protestor with a sign, “Psst, free crowbar?” encouraging the reader not to engage with traps and undercover agents.

A spread from one page zine printout featuring the hazards of protest opposition, including tear gas, rubber bullets, and LRAD sound cannons and flash bangs. Caution tape images accompany the text explaining the dangers of each, how to flush out eyes that have been maced/etc, and how to extinguish a gas canister with a traffic cone.

I did my best to compile as many protest safety notes as possible into a one page foldout zine! Coincidentally…it seems the file has breached containment…like it’s available for anyone to print or hand out 👀⚖️

toonyart.com/s/PSZine.pdf

Highlighted text form THE NEW YORKER The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

Reminds me of this eternal Ted Chiang banger-

I grew one from a pit for about 4 years. It got ≈3ish feet tall with multiple branches, huge leaves, inch-thick trunk with bark. Then it just didn't last in the house over winter a year ago. I guess this mid-Atlantic climate wasn't conducive.

The only inaccurate part of that dystopian Elysium prediction is that our new regime they would have the courtesy to acknowledge Spanish speakers with something other than Amerikan English instructions printed on the robot.

It's true, it can be a case of apples to oranges for sure, but I've also seen competent illustrators exist in both worlds, a lot of MTG artists also do comics covers. I'm not suggesting what you should do, just suggesting that you may have more purchasing power than you think!

most Marvel variant cover artists barely make that now from Marvel, and that's definitely a rate I've seen pros cop to for indie work. You might be able to get yourself some pretty nice illustrated covers from people in the comics world for what you are currently offering.

I will forever be a huge fan of Real Genius! Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was a good one too

For sure, gotta take them wins where you can get them! Aside from Lancaster city and a few small towns it's very rural here, and very conservative christian, so if this area can go blue it can happen anywhere.

Yeah, Lancaster City is district-13 and even with the city it's still red. Scott Martin is the republican state senator here.

Must have been E-town, school board out there is like a christian nationalist cult. There's been national mainstream news coverage about how extreme they are. Northern Lanco farmlands out in the boons are all red but not quite as bad as the PA-11 congressional district. Never gone dem in US history

2025 Lancaster County General Pennsylvania State Senate 36 Special Election General DOHQ Last Updated: Mar 25, 2025 at 9:57 PM > 95% est. reporting Candidates Party Votes Pct. James Malone DEM 26,518 50.3% Josh Parsons GOP 25,721 48.8% Zachary Moore LIB 473 0.9% Total 52,712 * Incumbent Election Date: 3/25/2025 View Full Results >

uhhhh it looks like Dems just flipped a R+17 Pennsylvania State Senate seat in Amish country…

I'm in the area and I'm surprised the dems won it at all. It's one of the most blood red areas in the county with most of school boards across those towns being 8 and 9 to 1 red. The Amish vote republican 100% and this area was a lot of Amish and none of Lancaster city.