~$26.7k: The hammer price of a rare Star Wars toy. Made by Palitoy in 1978, the Jawa figure is believed to be one of 10-15 such toys in existence. The vendor once worked at Marvel UK and was gifted a number of Palitoy figures, including another Jawa toy that previously nabbed ~$33.9k at auction. We wish we had that kind of luck.
45m: Views an explicit AI-generated image of Taylor Swift received during the 17 hours it remained on X. The bogus images reportedly originated in a Telegram group where users were able to bypass Microsoft’s text-to-image generator’s protections against creating pornographic images. Microsoft is now investigating, X has disabled search results for the singer’s name, and the incident has reignited concerns around nonconsensual and explicit AI-generated content.
1T+: Number of cicadas that could emerge in the US this year thanks to Brood XIX and Brood XIII, which emerge from underground every 13 and 17 years, respectively. The last time this happened was in 1803, and it won’t happen again until 2245.
25%: How much investment banking bonuses dropped for work completed in 2023, per Wall Street consultancy Johnson Associates. This follows a disappointing 2022, but a great 2021 in which business was up and other expenses had dropped due to the pandemic. Now, as one expert put it: “Flat is the new up, and that’s if you had a solid year.”
