As we all know, by the year 2360, Earth had reached a level of development in which commerce as we know it had fundamentally changed. It was a post-scarcity paradise. Individuals instead challenged themselves to purposes that benefited others.

So my question to my comrades is this: what sort of Soviet-style awards would our crew have? Obviously Picard would have a Hero of the Federation or two. And Dr. Crusher would have a People's Doctor of the Federation.

Build-a-bear - yes the actual company and not a generic competitor - has a section for 18+ they call "After Dark".

Now this is all actually pretty tame stuff. They don't sell little accessory dildos. But they have some interesting choices.

Would you like your bear to have some exciting underwear?

Or a cute little crop top expressing a specific inner feeling?

Maybe your bear is a hot stylish mature bear.

And of course to help everyone relax into the evening, you could provide martinis, or maybe something for special occassions.

Also... I have questions.

But at least we can all engage in that greatest of nerd arguments, weighing in on a debate of leader versus leader.

The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday the interest rates on federal student loans for the 2024-2025 academic year.

The interest rate on federal direct undergraduate loans will be 6.53%. That’s the highest rate in at least a decade, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. The undergraduate rate for the 2023-2024 year is 5.5%.

For graduate students, loans will come with an 8.08% interest rate, compared with the current 7.05%. Plus loans for graduate students and parents will have a 9.08% interest rate, an increase from 8.05% now. Both of those rates haven’t been as high in more than 20 years, Kantrowitz said.

The rise in interest rates could complicate the Biden administration’s efforts to get the student loan crisis under control and relieve borrowers of the pain of interest accrual, experts say. Even as millions of people have benefited from recent debt relief measures, new students will be saddled with more expensive loans for decades to come.

In honour of the late great Roger Corman, I've queued up some amazingly cheesy movies from his oeuvre, playing right now. I haven't seen most of them myself. Should be fun!

She Gods of Shark Reef. The Los Angeles Times film reviewer at the time said that this movie had only two things in its favour: it's in colour, and it's only 63 minutes long.

Creature from the Haunted Sea. This one doubles as a feel-good movie where Cuban counter-revolutionaries get got by a monster at the end and it's portrayed as a positive outcome.

War of the Satellites. A cheaply-made, quickly-made bit of schlock intended to cash in on Americans' paranoia about Sputnik.

Battle Beyond the Sun. This is actually a Roger Corman distributed English-dubbed and re-edited version of the 1959 USSR film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebo_Zovyot.

Of course this is nothing from the official admins of the hextube. This is just me being bored and slightly sad about Mr. Corman's passing and wanting to enjoy some schlock.

Researchers have mapped a tiny piece of the human brain in astonishing detail. The resulting cell atlas, which was described today in Science1 and is available online, reveals new patterns of connections between brain cells called neurons, as well as cells that wrap around themselves to form knots, and pairs of neurons that are almost mirror images of each other.

The 3D map covers a volume of about one cubic millimetre, one-millionth of a whole brain, and contains roughly 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses — the connections between neurons. It incorporates a colossal 1.4 petabytes of data. “It’s a little bit humbling,” says Viren Jain, a neuroscientist at Google in Mountain View, California, and a co-author of the paper. "How are we ever going to really come to terms with all this complexity?"

The brilliant team name is courtesy of emizeko, I claim no credit for that.

Amazing movie, I highly recommend watching it if it comes to a theatre near you. It's worth the effort.

This actually has a real-world purpose. I'm going to get a custom baseball jersey made with the player name "KINSEY" and player number "03" to wear during pride events this coming june. I just need a good team name for it.

Over 400 artists, bands, and entertainers sign an open letter denouncing anti-trans legislation and policies. Of course like any open letter or petition it's just symbolic. But it was heartwarming to see that Fred Penner and the two surviving members of Sharon Lois & Bram were among the signatories.

Have you ever wanted to watch a low-budget, kid-friendly, Canadian TV series from 1971 that spoofs the classic Universal monster movies?

Have you ever wanted it to have host segments by Vincent Price himself?

Enjoy!