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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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Meta announced today that it will offer people a tool called AI Studio to build virtual characters with custom personalities, traits, and interests—including ones based on their own personalities. If you're a creator, you'll also be able to have your digital doppelgänger interact with fans in the DMs.

“Every creator can build an AI version of themselves or an assistant that their community can interact with,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a SIGGRAPH conference fireside chat with Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the chipmaker at the center of today’s artificial intelligence boom thanks to its all-important GPU chips.

Meta says AI Studio will start rolling out to Instagram Business account users today and will be made available to all Meta users in the US over the next few weeks. The tool will be accessible at ai.meta.com/ai-studio and through the Instagram app, but it also will be possible to access the chatbots through WhatsApp, Messenger, and the web.

Zuckerberg said that he expects users to create custom AI chatbots for entertainment or as personal support tools—for example, role-playing how to ask for a raise or navigate an argument with a friend. “You can basically role-play that and see how the conversation will go, and get feedback on it,” he said.

The company says AI Studio will let users limit who their chatbots interact with and prevent them from discussing certain topics. The AI Studio usage policy prohibits users from representing real persons other than themselves. It would also place off limits historical persons, religious figures, mass murderers, or “objects that could be considered hateful, explicit or illegal.”

In a blog post, Meta touted several chatbots built by celebrities, including “Eat Like You Live There!” a chatbot for dining recommendations made by chef Marc Murphy, and “What Lens Bro,” a bot for photography made by photographer Angel Barclay. It said that several Instagram personalities—Chris Ashley, Violet Benson, Don Allen, and Kane Kallaway—had made chatbot versions of themselves.

Meta's AI Studio handbook says that users can customize a chatbot by providing a detailed description, along with a name and image, and then specifying how it should respond to specific input. Llama will then draw on those instructions to improvise its responses. Meta says Instagram users can “customize their AI based on things like their Instagram content, topics to avoid, and links they want it to share.”

Over the past year, Meta has become an AI success story thanks to its decision to offer robust AI models for free. Last week, the company released a powerful version of its large language model Llama, providing developers, researchers, and startups with free access to a model comparable to the powerful paid model behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The company says its new chatbots are all based on the latest version of Llama.

And yet Meta has struggled to find the right tone and niche for its own AI offerings. Last September, the company launched a range of AI chatbots loosely based on real celebrities. These included a fantasy role-play dungeon master bot based on Snoop Dogg, a wisecracking sports bot based on Tom Brady, and an everyday companion inspired by Kendall Jenner.

These bots failed to become big hits, however, and Meta has retired them. Jon Carvill, a spokesman for Meta, said the company had learned from the earlier experiments. “AI Studio is an evolution,” he said.

There is plenty of evidence that users may find fully customizable bots more compelling. A company called Character AI, founded by several ex-Google employees who helped make breakthroughs in AI, has attracted millions of users to its own custom chatbots.

Zuckerberg also touted other new open source AI advances from Meta at SIGGRAPH, held in Denver this year. The company has developed a new tool for identifying the contents of images and video called Segment Anything Model (SAM) 2. The previous version is widely used for image analysis. Meta says SAM 2 could be used to more efficiently analyze the contents of video, for instance. Zuckerberg showed off the technology tracking the cattle roaming his Kauai ranch. “Scientists use this stuff to study coral reefs and natural habitats and evolution of landscapes,” he told Huang.

Earlier in the day, in an on-stage interview with WIRED’s Lauren Goode, Huang said he would “absolutely” want a “Jensen AI” that knows everything he’s ever said, written, and done. “You’ll be able to prompt it, and hopefully something smart gets said,” he said. He could force stock analysts to pepper the bot—instead of him—with questions about the company. “That’s the first thing that has to go,” he said with a laugh.

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camrensrealbish · 4 years ago

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Ss really dont see it bro. They use her and it's always her sm for pr stunts. And boom in the next few min or day thay announce he's latest projects. So far something related to music. Something with nasa. Something for tv with Andrew. Also their are rumours something for snl. As for Camila no words about anything. Throughout this pr she has been working for the movie. No music related things from her really. That lorial thing is still on hold. So yay couples goal whan the guy benefits more.

With NASA?!

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways the Crossover Almost Happened

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Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, the game that really kickstarted the fighting game genre, has turned 30 this year. To celebrate, Ryu and Chun-Li are appearing in Fortnite. It’s par for the course for Ryu, who has been in so many crossovers to fight everyone from everywhere. Ryu has crossed over with the cast of Tekken, the guys from King of Fighters, the Marvel superheroes, just about everyone under the Nintendo banner, GI Joe, Power Rangers, and even Family Guy for some odd reason. Ryu and Street Fighter have crossed over with nearly everyone.

Yet for some reason, the number one dream fighting game match-up has never happened. Yes, we’re talking about Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat. These two giants of the fighting game industry have never exchanged blows despite being household names from the very beginning of the fighting game boom of the early 1990s.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some close calls or that they haven’t brushed shoulders in the past…

The Beginning of the Rivalry

The first iteration of Street Fighter II came out in February 1991. This was the sequel that made good on the promise of the 1987 original, which had great ideas that it couldn’t really execute. It would be bold to say that Street Fighter II perfected the formula, but it was such an improvement that it’s still incredibly playable to this day. It was a lucky break for Capcom, who would go on to milk the game’s success with several new editions of the title, from 1992’s Champion Edition all the way to 2017’s Ultra Street Fighter II: Final Challengers for the Nintendo Switch.

If you’re a fighting game aficionado, you know the history. The success of Street Fighter II sparked a boom for the fighting game genre. In Japan, SNK released Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting right on the heels of Capcom’s hit, while Alpha Denshi gave us World Heroes in ’92. Meanwhile, in America, Midway Games was planning its own Street Fighter II competitor, which was originally meant to be a tie-in game for the movie Universal Soldier starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. When that project fell through, Midway turned to the much gorier Mortal Kombat, a fighting game that digitized actors instead of sprites, an innovative approach to animation at the time.

Released on October 1992, Mortal Kombat was a major hit, and Midway quickly put out a sequel, Mortal Kombat II, six months later in April 1993. The third game would be out two years later. Mortal Kombat was speeding through its early days with cabinet after cabinet, while Capcom was focused on re-releasing newer versions of Street Fighter II. After making bosses playable, adding new characters, and tossing in other bells and whistles over the course of various upgrades, the studio concluded the game’s original run with 1994’s Super Street Fighter II: Turbo.

That meant that at a time when the internet was in its infancy, these two popular franchises were mainstays of print gaming magazines. Announcements, previews, reviews, secrets, tips, and so on. If your early ’90s magazine didn’t have at least a page dedicated to Street Fighter and/or Mortal Kombat, then get your eyes checked because you weren’t looking hard enough.

In 1992, Electronic Gaming Monthly famously pulled an April Fool’s Day gag on readers where they took the Street Fighter II mistranslation, “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance,” and insisted it was a reference to a secret boss fight that involved working your ass off in the game in a way that was outright impossible, making your way through the game as Ryu without taking a single hit until your battle with M. Bison (and that was the “easy” part). The joke led to many stressful nights for gamers, who were finally told the truth about the hoax the following December.

But Midway took the idea of a secret boss more literally. Using the Sub-Zero/Scorpion ninja sprites, Midway introduced a green-clad fighter named Reptile, a seriously difficult opponent that you could only fight in arcade mode under some seriously ridiculous circumstances. Reptile was added in the 3.0 version of Mortal Kombat, making him the first secret boss in the genre’s history.

Capcom would eventually catch up with Akuma, a character extremely similar EGM‘s design for Sheng Long, in Super Street Fighter II: Turbo. By then, Midway had thrown in three more secret boss fights for Mortal Kombat II, and even SNK had already introduced Ryo Sakazaki as a secret final boss in Fatal Fury Special.

Brushing Shoulders

The Mortal Kombat series really thrived as a gorier and campier alternative to Street Fighter II‘s more fundamental approach to the genre, but that didn’t stop Midway from taking a couple of jabs at Capcom. In-game, secret characters would occasionally pop up before rounds and say something cryptic for the sake of helping the players figure out how to unlock their fight, a nod to the Sheng Long joke. But there were more direct pokes at the competition. For instance, Jade would occasionally appear for the sake of asking, “CHUN WHO?” and vanishing. Midway also included “RYU” as default initials on Mortal Kombat II‘s high score board. Cute.

Meanwhile, Capcom stoked the fire with a commercial for Street Fighter II: Champion Edition for Sega Genesis. It featured a security guard at a toy store coming across a box for the game. Blanka’s arm would thenreach out and grab the nearby box for Mortal Kombat and crush it into smoldering trash.

But it wasn’t all jabs. The two companies crossed paths in other interesting ways. In 1993, Malibu Comics published a Street Fighter II series for only three issues before having to drop it because Capcom was unhappy with Ken Masters’ grisly fate in the story. Around the same time, Malibu also launched a Mortal Kombat series, and the publisher would actually batch issues of both series together and send them to vendors.

Games

The Strange History of Street Fighter Comics

By Gavin Jasper

Games

The History of Mortal Kombat Comics

By Gavin Jasper

Hasbro double-dipped when it came to action figures too, releasing sets for both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, complete with weapons and special vehicles. But while Street Fighter characters were treated like part of the GI Joe line, and were even featured in commercials where they all hang out and beat the crap out of Duke, Mortal Kombat was kept separate from Hasbro’s most popular figures.

Nintendo also used both franchises as major selling points for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES ports for Super Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II both played big parts in Nintendo’s Play It Loud ad campaign. One such commercial even had a guy getting a massive Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat tattoo on his torso.

But the closest thing we’ve ever gotten to a real crossover between the two games was through their Saturday morning cartoons. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm were both released as animated follow-ups to their live-action movies, although they were directly inspired by the games themselves. On Nov. 16, 1996, both series, as well as Savage Dragon and Wing Commander Academy, took part in a long-forgotten crossover event based around a hero named the Warrior King and his search through the multiverse for a special orb that controls the weather.

The Warrior King played a major role in his Street Fighter episode as the romantic interest of Chun-Li, while in Mortal Kombat, he merely made a quick cameo as a shadowy figure running through a portal. Regardless, both stories involved the villains (M. Bison and Shang Tsung) wielding the same mystical orb.

No, the crossover ain’t much, but that’s still more than what we got in Wreck-It Ralph. Although the Disney movie featured M. Bison, Zangief, Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Cammy, it didn’t bring in any official Mortal Kombat characters to face them. Instead, the movie included “Cyborg,” a blatant Kano knockoff with the same cybernetic eye, goatee, and zest for heart-ripping. Why didn’t Disney just use Kano? Probably because he’s a Warner Bros. property. Still, missed opportunity.

Copying Test Answers

The video game adaptation of Street Fighter: The Movie will always be a fascinating novelty. Released in 1995 in arcades, the game not only copied Mortal Kombat’s digitized actors but it actually featured Jean-Claude Van Damme, the actor Midway had been unable to secure for its own Universal Soldier tie-in years earlier.

Interestingly, whenever Capcom sets out to make a totally new Street Fighter game, the studio usually chooses to go in a new art direction. Street Fighter V is the exception, although Capcom did initially start with a more photorealistic art style before nixing it and going with “Street Fighter IV but extra.” So, when Capcom tapped Incredible Technologies to put together the video game version of Street Fighter: The Movie in 1995, it was at a time when the publisher was also considering using the digitized Mortal Kombat style for Street Fighter III. Thankfully, Capcom decided not to go in this direction.

Midway hilariously dipped its toe in Capcom’s waters a bit more blatantly in 2004. Mortal Kombat: Deception introduced a fighter named Kobra who was supposed to be the latest human POV character, only evil. But Midway initially named him “Ken Masters” due to his physical similarities to the Street Fighter character. The studio included “Ken” in a beta version of the game provided to the press, with the express direction NOT to mention the character.

Guess what happened next. A German publication posted the images of “Ken Masters” anyway, suggesting Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter was finally happening. Sadly, no, this was not a teaser for the long-awaited video game crossover. It seemes Midway just hadn’t come up with a proper name for “Ken Masters” yet.

Capcom did throw in a cute reference to Mortal Kombat in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The game featured Nathan Spencer, the Bionic Commando, whose cybernetic arm could shoot out like a grappling hook and grab opponents from far away. When doing that to yoink an enemy towards him for a haymaker to the face, he’d quote Scorpion’s famous “GET OVER HERE!” Nice.

Not the Right Fit

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon admitted in 2008 that he’d tried to make Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter happen at one point but Capcom wasn’t interested.

“I’ve always wanted to cross MK over since about MK4, or something like that. I’m a big fan of all of the other fighting games, Street Fighter, Tekken. I always thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have MK vs. SF and MK vs. Tekken? We pursued some of those ideas to the extent we could but we always ran into some kind of road block and couldn’t do it.”

A full-on roster vs. roster situation was out back in the ’90s, but these days, guest characters are a normal part of fighting games. Tekken 7 alone includes representatives from Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, Final Fantasy, and The Walking Dead. Mortal Kombat and Injustice have gone all over the map with their DLC choices, including slasher villains, ’80s action heroes, Spawn, Hellboy, and even the Ninja Turtles. When a fighting game announces a new season of DLC, you usually know to expect at least one crossover character to be included in the package.

For 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11, Boon reached out to Capcom once again. Wouldn’t it be neat if a Street Fighter character got in on all the gritty time-traveling action? While we don’t know which character Boon was interested in using, many fans theorize Akuma would have been the perfect fit. But Capcom said no.

Here’s what former Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono had to say about it:

“It’s true that a proposal for a Street Fighter character in Mortal Kombat was rejected by Capcom, but it wasn’t me personally! There were many people at the company that felt that it wasn’t a good fit for our characters. I actually met Ed at the Brazil game show and spoke to him personally about it. So it’s true – but I didn’t make the decision!”

So why didn’t it happen? Probably because Mortal Kombat 11 is banned in Japan due to all the gore and extreme violence.

“I understand why people want it,” Ono said at the time, “but it’s easier said than done. Having Chun-Li getting her spine ripped out, or Ryu’s head bouncing off the floor…it doesn’t necessarily match.”

Maybe one day. For now, we’re left waiting for Ryu to finally get over here.

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Special thanks to tabmok99 for helping with this article. You can check out his Mortal Kombat know-it-all YouTube channel here.

The post Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways the Crossover Almost Happened appeared first on Den of Geek.

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lonelypond · 5 years ago

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Moonlight Becomes You: Midnight Apocalypse Dance Party, Ch. 13

NozoELi, NicoMaki, KanaMari, YoshiMaru, Love Live/Love Live Sunshine, 2.5K, 13/?

Summary: The party continues, Eli has a conversation or two, and Nico and Maki flirt over a pool table.

Party On

Eli wondered how she had gone from Irish dancing in the huge, floor to ceiling window extravaganza that had turned out to be Nico’s feral DJ’s MANSION to the cold, windy beach at its base, in the middle of three women who didn’t read unfriendly but were as serious as Eli had ever seen anyone.

Kanan stepped forward, what looked like a fur coat over her arm as Yoshiko hovered to her right bouncing and You stood quietly next to Eli, occasionally shifting her hat’s position.

Kanan spoke, her voice carrying easily over the waves, “I want you to know exactly why I understand, Eli, and I hope you can trust me without worry.” Kanan wrapped the coat around her shoulders and in a blink and a shimmer there was a large sea lion in front of Eli.

Yoshiko’s voice boomed next to Eli, startling the dancer, “We are all glorious, mythical beings trapped in the mundane interactions of the dusty mortal path.” Yoshiko stepped forward and huge black wings unfurled, one brushing Eli’s cheek with a burning tingle as Yoshiko launched herself from the ground, sand flying everywhere.

You chuckled, a quiet friendly vibe, “Well, I’m mostly mundane.”

The sea lion barked a laugh and rolled toward the water, it seemed to have a wounded flipper. That made sense, Eli realized, Kanan had her arm in a cast. And were sea lions really that big? Kanan looked 8 or 9 feet long.

“Yohane descends to the mortal realm. Beware thou impure of intent” was announced above Eli’s head, the flier’s voice somehow merging with the wind in a way that Eli felt it reverberate in her bones, but then the dark haired woman blew the mood as she nearly tilted into Eli on her landing as the soft, shifting sand threw off her footing, “Damn it. Why can’t the ground just stay still.”

You was bent over, laughing, and Kanan stood, once again a human, “You really should be used to beaches by now, Yoshiko.”

“Yohane.” Eli suspected the dark haired woman had tried to thunder from her rising stance, but it came out a bleat of complaint.

Eli was still processing the ease of Kanan’s transition, “You can control it. How?”

Kanan shrugged, her long hair whipping around in the wind, and Eli felt like she was standing in a scene out of time and that a Chumash sewn plank canoe might be seen on the horizon at any point. Kanan swept down into a move Eli recognized from the choreography she was learning. “It’s who I am. Both. That what’s the dance is. Between. Together.” Kanan smiled, “That’s probably why I felt like you understood on some level.”

“But I don’t.” Yes, Eli could hear the tears in her own voice and the anger. But why should she hide her emotions, here on this beach, with women as impossible as her? It was so easy for everyone but Eli, she thought as Yoshiko-hane furled her wings away so they became invisible. Never losing control, even between willing transformations. But Eli had never wanted this. Any of this. To be torn. To be what and not who.

“Eli?” Kanan’s voice was gentle, worried.

Eli spun and sprinted down the beach. Yoshiko bent to follow, but Kanan reached out a hand, “Let her alone.”

You was watching the sea. “Tide going out.”

Kanan stared into the night, “She just needs to think.”

“Thinking is the gate to…” Yoshiko swept up her arms, but Kanan interrupted her.

“Not all of us act before we leap.”

“Good thing too.” You elbowed Yoshiko, “Some of us need to keep watch. On the ground.”

There was an unsettled moment, a gathering of power around the frowning fallen angel, a darkening of the night as a cloud passed over the moon, but then the brightness returned.

“And you, my friend, are a fierce guardian.” Yoshiko pulled You into a bro hug.

“Would be nice not to be needed.” You kicked at the sand.

“We’ll change that, one day.” Kanan hugged herself, looking after Eli. “We start by taking care of one person at a time.”

“Yeah.” You met Kanan’s glance, “Time to go get her.”

“Yeah.” Kanan took off after Eli at a slow jog.

“Let’s get back to the party before Hanamaru wanders down here.” You pivoted on her heel.

Yoshiko shoved her hands in her pockets, kicking sand in front of her, “Zuramaru has far too many snack options to go anywhere for at least an hour or so.”

Even though her life wasn't what anyone would call easy or settled, You loved her friends. They always made her laugh, even on the darkest nights.

###

Nico’s baked pasta had been a bigger hit than she’d anticipated and Maki and Mari were now having a standoff over the remnants. Nico would be flattered, but it was getting tiring, suddenly having Mari Ohara stick her spoon in everything Nico wanted.

“This sauce is DREAMY.” Mari fluttered her eyelashes, spinning, hugging the spoon to herself.

“Nico knows.” Nico caught Maki’s glance and rolled her eyes, but couldn’t keep the hungry homeowner’s attention as Maki swept in for the last bite of pasta, but was blocked with a clink as Mari pulled the dish away and curled up on the couch next to where Nozomi was dealing out cards for Hanamaru.

“Divination by poker deck?” Mari asked.

“War.” Hanamaru giggled as she grabbed Nozomi’s latest play.

“Let’s play poker.” Mari suggested.

Maki had moved to the pool table, leaning with a cue in hand, “No chips.”

“I’ll keep a tally in my head” Mari winked.

Maki huffed and turned away.

“Where did Eli go?” Nozomi wondered.

Nico picked up the brownie platter and dumped it in the middle of the card game. Eli and Kanan had wandered outside half an hour ago, Eli looking lost. But while Nico might go out there after her in another 5 minutes, Nico was certain Eli would want Nozomi distracted.

“I’m sure Eli will be right back so if you want some more dessert you’d better get it before then. Chocolate lasts two minutes around her.” Nico spun, hand on her hip, dialing up the flirt, “Then you can watch Nico beat everyone’s favorite DJ at pool.”

Maki snorted, “Not happening.”

Nico slid toward Maki, socks making the glide smooth, pulling up to a stop right under the taller woman’s nose. Maki startled, loosened her grip on the pool cue, and Nico pulled it away, “Bet on it?”

###

Yoshiko was on the couch, half asleep, arms around the snuggling, murmuring warmth of Zuramaru, who was watching Nozomi deal out Tarot cards, with Mari kibitzing, while Nico and Maki discussed shots and angles. In this striking home, here was a patch of cozy that somehow soothed any qualms the world outside might be trying to crash through Yohane’s barriers. Yoshiko still had dreams about the colors and the depth and the cutting cold of her former celestial neighborhood, the beauty that was both breath and burn. But Zuramaru was home, it had taken Yoshiko no time to realize that. Her only fear was that she would not have the time to fully express to Hanamaru her gratitude. But for now there were moments like this, quiet contact bringing Yohane to earth, dulling the echoes of warning choirs.

###

Eli stared into darkness. It was too cold to be this dramatic but she didn’t know how to go back, how to start a normal conversation. Then Kanan’s voice startled her.

“So, no family support, right?” Kanan settled gracefully next to Eli, leaving two hands of distance so Eli didn’t feel crowded.

Eli inhaled, closing her eyes as the cold, wet air lumped in her lungs, as heavy as the memories she had to fight, “My grandmother...my grandmother taught me to tame…to stay hidden.”

“My family…” fondness warmed Kanan’s response, “My grandfather taught me that there was twice the joy, living in two worlds.”

Eli shook herself, she couldn’t imagine...no, that wasn’t possible, “I’m just not there.”

“Have you ever tried…” Kanan could see Eli dancing, memories of rehearsal, of the talented precision machine that Eli forced herself to exist as fumbling, the stiffness where one state refused to meld smoothly into the next. Maybe if they rehearsed in the pool, Eli might understand, Kanan thought, dump the dancer in fluidity, force her to float. And maybe if Eli understood, that would help her with this.

Eli’s response was hesitant, evading Kanan’s unfinished question. “Mari? How did she find out?”

“We met on the beach as children. Then as teenagers…” Kanan curled up, smaller and surprisingly sad, “she left, I asked her to." Kanan was silent for too long, but Eli didn't know how to push more, "Eventually, she returned and demanded” Kanan lifted her head, “we tell the truth about our feelings. So we did.” Kanan leaned back, Eli was almost shivering, but Kanan was as relaxed as if it was a breezy summer afternoon. “You’re not alone, Eli. There are people like us, people sharing worlds everywhere. And allies, like You, Mari, and Nico.”

Eli leaned her chin on her knees, “Nico’s amazing.”

“Yoshiko runs a weekly group, CRAAVI. We could go to a meeting together sometime. Or you could bring Nico. There’s always friends and family helping.” Kanan started to get up, “I’ll bring some info to our next rehearsal, okay?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Kanan squeezed Eli's shoulder, “Don’t stay out here too long. People are waiting for you inside.”

People were waiting for her inside. Nico...and Nozomi. Eli smiled, remembering their ride here, the drive had been mostly quiet, Nozomi mentioning places she liked to frequent as they drove by them, coffeeshops, art galleries, tiny theatres, a very old, very dramatic church. Nozomi had no trouble keeping up a stream of chatter, even drawing a few of Eli’s favorite restaurants out of her. It had been the most normal thing in Eli's life since she couldn't remember when, just chatting. She wanted more.

###

Nico was winning. And grinning. And so so annoyingly sexily smug that Maki just wanted to throw everyone else off the balcony and see what else Nico could do with a pool table. But Nico kept glancing at the door. And there was no sign of Eli. And the last person Maki wanted to be thinking about now was Nico’s randomly viciously roommate, but she was.

Nico stood up after sinking a nice bank shot into a side pocket. Maki had gotten closer and leaned in, enjoying Nico’s jump as Maki’s hair brushed Nico’s cheek.

“Hey, Nico?” Maki’s voice was soft, the conversation obviously private. Nozomi had drifted out somewhere and now Yoshiko and You were entertaining Hanamaru and a Mari cuddled up on Kanan by telling stories illustrated with with grand gestures. You seemed to be some kind of tilting...penguin?!?

“Hmmmm.” Nico hummed a question and Maki’s focus snapped back.

“If you want to check on Eli, I’ll make sure you get some privacy.”

As grumpy as Maki was about either of them remembering Eli’s existence, the way Nico brightened at that offer made Maki want to reach out and hug her. Instead Maki turned back to the table, “I’ll just finish you off and…”

Maki watched Nico out of the corner of her eye, noticing where Nico’s gaze lingered. Maybe she should invest in some very closely tailored shorts.

“Ha! Nico took it easy on you.”

“Sure.”

Maki nailed the shot, then bowed. “Who’s next?”

That caught Mari’s attention. Maki enjoyed the flash of discontent on Nico’s face as the blonde squealed and jumped up, “My turn, my turn.”

“No bet.” Maki insisted, stroking the velvet, watching Nico nod and duck out to the balcony.

Mari shook her head, choosing her cue. “That’s no fun, Your private number if I win, I delete DJ Diamond Princess as a contact if I lose.”

A pause, then reluctant agreement. After all, Maki could always just set up a new account. New phone, just for Nico, maybe matching, Nico would probably love it if Maki got them matching charms...moving on automatic, Maki collected the balls, racking them loosely, as she considered.

###

Eli still couldn’t believe Nico knew anyone who owned a house like this. Metal and glass bright against the darkness of the sky, as Eli approached she could see the shapes moving around inside.

“Eli?” Nozomi’s voice came out of the darkness.

“Hi.” Eli heard herself sound...eager.

Nozomi almost rushed Eli, almost hugged Eli, almost...both she and Eli stepped back, eyes locked.

“Kanan said you were getting cold out there.” Nozomi held out a jacket between them, “I thought you might need another layer.”

Eli took it, hugging it to her chest, savoring the warm sweet friendliness rising from it as she relaxed.

“Those work better when you put them on.” Nozomi chided, a gentle tartness that brought heat to Eli’s cheeks.

“Ha.” Eli laughed and shrugged into the coat. It was a little loose, so not her style, but so warm.

“Hey, Eli…” Nozomi managed confident, shy, and confiding as she settled Eli’s collar, “the party seems to be all danced out by now and I was…”

“Eli!” Nico was there, a little out of breath, “Nico couldn’t find you. This house is…”

“Amazing.” Eli chuckled as Nico got caught staring back over her shoulder, probably wondering what Maki was doing at that moment.

“Yeah, that.” Nico smacked Eli on the arm, “But how are you supposed to keep track of anyone?”

“You better get back before you lose your DJ.” Eli bumped Nico with her shoulder, a silent thanks for looking out for her.

“Thought you might need my car keys. Maki’s got a spare bedroom I can crash in tonight. Her mom’ll be here in the morning to check on our rescue and I want to know she’s all right.”

“Who, Maki?” Nozomi couldn’t resist, a bite in her tone.

“Yeah, Maki. And Dia.” No spark from Nico, just serious consideration. “Nico can’t believe what a crazy day it’s been.”

“Truth.” Eli sighed. She knew she’d be exhausted once she actually got somewhere familiar.

“We all just need a few minutes of quiet.” Nico muttered, mostly to herself, right hand pointing and sweeping, drawing out some thought half spoken, “without anyone dropping in. Then practical Nico resurged, “I have to grab my go bag, then you can have the car.” Nico started toward the garage”

“I’ll be right there.”

Nico waved as she bounced toward the garage.

“Guess it’s time to call it a night.” Eli started to take off Nozomi’s coat, “I had a lot of fun.”

“Keep the coat.” Nozomi’s arms were wrapped around her torso, but her eyes were serious, and she was so solid, rooted, and tall that Eli felt safeguarded, no tension in the air. “I’m going to take you out for the best chocolate cake in LA day tomorrow so you can return it to me then.”

Eli didn’t have to think about that. Her reply was an instinct, “I’d love to.”

A/N I have visited family, thrown a party, cast a show (Arsenic and Old Lace). First rehearsal is tonight but I miss writing so here you are.

#NozoEli #NicoMaki #more tags later #Love Live #Love Live Sunshine #Apocalypse Midnight Dance #cheers

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keepingupwithlinmanuel · 6 years ago

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LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA TRIBUTES MOBB DEEP WITH THE JUNE #HAMILDROP ‘BOOM GOES THE CANNON…’

Future EGOT-winning actor Lin-Manuel Miranda — that Oscar is coming, bro! — is back with the latest edition in his monthly Hamilton-themed #Hamildrop series. For the month of June, legendary Queens rap duo Mobb Deep are the starring guests, featuring one of the last recordings Prodigy was able to record with Havoc before his untimely passing exactly one year ago this week on June 20, 2017.

“Boom Goes The Cannon…” also marks the first official posthumous release for Mobb Deep since Prodigy’s passing, so the song acts as both a honorary tribute and another flex of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s amazing knowledge and respect for Hip-Hop culture.

Here’s what [Lin-Manuel] had to say about the latest #Hamildrop in the official press release:

“I paid homage to Mobb Deep in ‘Hamilton ‘ by having Alexander Hamilton quote one of Prodigy’s most immortal lyrics: ‘I’m only 19 but my mind is old…’ They are New York hip-hop legends…I feel so humbled and grateful that Havoc and Prodigy not only came to see us at the Rodgers in 2016, but were inspired to create this track before Prodigy’s untimely passing last year. Their lyrics, as ever, paint a vivid picture of friendship and solidarity in the face of overwhelming odds. I’m unbelievably proud to present new Mobb Deep music in 2018. This one’s for Queensbridge.” — Lin-Manuel Miranda

The song originally came together when [Lin-Manuel] invited both Prodigy and Havoc to the wildly-popular Hamilton play to get a look at how they inspired the Hip-Hop-themed Broadway production, which resulted in the production of “Boom Goes The Cannon…” as a tie-in to the performance of “Right Hand Man.” The standout verse of course comes from the dearly missed MC, as he raps effortlessly from the perspective of George Washington.

For Havoc, the opportunity was a huge honor. Here’s what he had to say in the same press announcement:

“It was an honor being part of the ‘Hamilton ‘ project just on the strength alone. I’m a huge fan of the musical; I am a history buff so it was right up my alley. This being one of the few last recordings I did with Prodigy definitely holds a special place in my heart and always will when I hear the record. Releasing the record now at this time of year after the passing of my partner in rhyme, Prodigy, is a great way to pay homage to him and continue not only Mobb’s legacy, but his as well. He’ll forever be my ‘right hand man.’” —Havoc, Mobb Deep

#lin manuel miranda #the source #hamilton #hamildrops #mobb deep #articles #twitterico

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taroshi-chan · 6 years ago

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For @doggy-yasha (I'm sorry its reeeeeally late!)

Pairing: Kaiba x Atem

Word Count: A lot, but probably not enough

---

"Oh, my Pharaoh, how could you be so wanton in your affections?!"

"Well, I-"

"The whole palace is in an uproar! Rumors are floating around like restless spirits-"

"Heh, spirits..."

"What?"

"Ahem, as I was saying, my sun and moon, there are rumors spreading about your...ah..transgretions...and they keep getting worse! No one knows who this mystery woman was, and she just disappeared after such a rousing...erm...engagement....and the speculations keep escalating and-!"

Atem smirked inwardly at the mistake. How anyone could mistake the king of thieves for a woman was beyond him, especially when his good-for-nothing Priest blabbed about, as he had so kindly put it, the Taking of his Royal Bottom.

He was sure he could hear the spirit skrieking in utter rage from...well..wherever he was now.

Oh right, still getting scolded...

"-and I hope you will be behaving yourself from now on, my imperial child of gods, for this is a shameful display and if you are not careful, you will incur the displeasure of your ancestors, may they rest in eternal peace in the great unknowable afterlife. Ohh, but what a mess this is, i truly do not know what we shall do with you-"

And so it continued. He didn't feel ashamed though. He just felt ....slightly aroused.

An ancient memory of long lean limbs and eyes as dark and unforgiving as the Nile washed over him as he pretended to listen and humble himself before his advisors. He couldn't help himself; his mouth widened in an anticipatory grin.

---

An immense wave of satisfaction rolled over him as he basked in the glory of his own brilliance.

"Kaiba wins!" Boomed the voice of the announcer; another victory in his incredibly deep pockets.

He walked briskly over to his opponent but instead of shaking his hand, spat the word "dweeb" at him and kept on walking.

His opponent, who could have been no older than 6, burst into tears.

"Mr Kaiba," the announcer began, "perhaps you should show a little more respe-"

"Tears are for the weak," Kaiba retorted before snatching his trophy from the man's hands.

It had been his 118th victory but he still felt empty. There had been no challenging duels since he left. The Other One. To be fair, he had been duelling mostly children since that time; what with the loss of souls from his last tournament and the unwillingness from the rest to lose what remained. Nerds, the lot of them.

Though his emptiness had begun to bother him lately. His wins held no meaning anymore, no gadget or gizmo he created thrilled him and even his Blue Eyes, while he still loved and cherished them, had begun to become in his mind just a set of cards.

And he had this terrible gaping slightly tingly itch deep down in his-

A mighty roar unleashed itself from the depths of his aforementioned pockets. He reached in and brought out his custom made Blue Eyes phone and brought it to his ear...

"Bro! The preparations have been completed!"

...which was a mistake. Mokuba may be older now, but his voice could still hit those piercing notes when he was excited. Which was entirely too much.

Kaiba held the phone at arms length, sure his brother could still hear him. "Huh, that was faster than I anticipated. Ill be there shortly."

"Great! See you soon."

He shoved his phone back into his pocket and allowed himself a small chuckle. Things were finally looking up.

---

"You're fired."

"W-what did you-"

"I said you're fired, now get out of my city!"

The now jobless man, thoroughly confused and more than slightly afraid, grabbed his briefcase and exited the building hastily.

Mokuba sighed. While he was glad of the effectiveness of adopting his brothers persona, it was still challenging for him to make these kinds of decisions.

Well...not in this particular case. The man in question, Bob McQueen, had been harassing his brother's pretty young assistant, Penelope. With pictures...of his family trips! Outrageous! Unacceptable! Nobody cares if your kid saw a dolphin, Bob!

Really, the man had to go.

A ~ding!~ broke through his thoughts as the elevator doors opened to reveal a world weary Big Brother.

"Bro!" Mokuba excitedly chimed, catching the latest trophy from his brother's low bally pitch.

"Bro." Kaiba monotonously agreed. They bumped fists.

"Now that that's over with, tell me..." He paused to sit at his desk, leaning forward to steeple long fingers together, " Is it truly ready?"

"The thing?"

"Yes, the thing"

Mokuba grinned sunnily at the older man, "It's ready."

#fanfiction #ygo #yugioh #yugioh fanfiction #pharaoh atem #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #anfksbsiajdbusjd #it's so dumb

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Why These C.E.O.s Got Paid More in the Pandemic Pandemic pay packages The Times’s David Gelles gives DealBook the backstory to his recent front-page article about rising C.E.O. pay during the pandemic. Companies battered by the pandemic are handing out enormous pay packages to their C.E.O.s, highlighting the sharp divides in a nation on the precipice of an economic boom, but still wracked by steep income inequality. Executive compensation has, of course, been soaring for decades now. Chief executives of big companies in the U.S. now make, on average, 320 times as much as the typical worker. In 1989, that ratio was 61 to 1. In years when the profits are flowing and unemployment is low, such disparities are often explained away. But in this pandemic year, corporate P.R. teams are bending over backward to justify their bosses’ big paydays. When I reached out to the companies mentioned in my article for comment, they responded with infographics, statements from board members and urgent requests for off-the-record phone calls. Here are three of the common tactics they employed: Don’t believe your eyes: A Hilton spokesman stressed that the figure in its latest proxy filing did not represent take-home pay for Chris Nassetta, because the company restructured several stock awards. “Said directly, Chris did not take home $55.9 million in 2020,” the spokesman said. “Chris’s actual pay was closer to $20.1 million.” Hilton lost $720 million last year. An AT&T spokesman emphasized that while John Stankey was awarded compensation worth some $21 million, that wasn’t what he was “paid,” noting that this includes stock awards that may not be realized. Stankey’s actual take-home pay, the spokesman added, was closer to $10.4 million. AT&T lost $5.4 billion last year. It could’ve been even more: Boeing wanted to make clear how much money Dave Calhoun “voluntarily elected to forgo to support the company through the Covid-19 pandemic” — some $3.6 million, according to a spokesman. Nonetheless, Calhoun was awarded $21.1 million last year, while Boeing lost $12 billion. Disney stressed that “the impact of the pandemic on our businesses led to a meaningful reduction” in executive pay, noting that executive chairman Bob Iger, who was awarded $21 million last fiscal year, gave up his salary for much of that time. Disney lost $2.8 billion in the period. The great man theory: Starbucks, which awarded Kevin Johnson $14.7 million, was among many companies making the case that their C.E.O. was essential to future success. “Continuity in Kevin’s role is particularly vital to Starbucks at this time,” said Mary Dillon, a member of the compensation committee. The company made a $930 million profit in its latest fiscal year, down three-quarters from the previous year. And General Electric sent a 487-word defense of the $73.2 million package awarded to Larry Culp, arguing that he was uniquely equipped to revive the ailing industrial conglomerate. “The board sees Larry Culp as essential to G.E.’s transformation,” a company spokesman said. The company turned a $5.2 billion profit last year, helped by restructuring measures that included reducing headcount by more than 20,000. Read the full story here. HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING A deep split in pandemic fortunes highlights an uneven global recovery. On one hand: The E.U. could let vaccinated Americans visit this summer, bringing much-needed tourism revenue to the region. (One potential hangup is a rising number of people who aren’t getting their second doses.) On the other: India will receive emergency medical supplies from the U.S. as it reports half of all new Covid-19 cases worldwide. Netflix had a big night at the Oscars. The streaming company won seven Academy Awards last night, the most of any studio, but again fell short in its quest to win Best Picture. (That went to Disney, whose Searchlight Pictures’ “Nomadland” won the big prize; Disney won five awards over all.) AT&T’s Warner Bros. won three Oscars, while Amazon took home two. An activist investor steps up its challenge at Exxon Mobil. Engine No. 1 argues in a new presentation that the oil giant faces an “existential business risk” because it is not taking bolder steps to move away from fossil fuels, The Financial Times reports. (Exxon and other major producers are set to report earnings this week.) A group of 30 big companies launches an initiative to hire ex-convicts. About 70 million American adults have a criminal record, complicating their ability to get work and entrenching poverty. “Business has an important role to play in making it easier for people with criminal backgrounds to get back on their feet,” said JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, a co-chair of the Second Chance Business Coalition, which was announced today. Elon Musk is hosting “S.N.L.” Yes, really. The Tesla chief is scheduled to host “Saturday Night Live” on May 8. (We bet S.E.C. officials will be watching.) John Authers of Bloomberg Opinion has an interesting take on it: The Tesla chief’s antics are doing more to encourage adoption of green technology than any amount of environmentalist scolding. The ‘massive threat’ in a ‘measly’ Supreme Court case Today the Supreme Court will hear a case that could upend American politics. It has largely escaped attention because it’s not obviously political at all. “Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez” involves a fight over California’s donor disclosure requirements for charities and “may seem like a measly spat over state nonprofit rules,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, told DealBook. “But a massive threat lurks within.” Today in Business Updated April 23, 2021, 1:31 p.m. ET Nonprofits want more donor anonymity. Americans for Prosperity Foundation is a “social welfare” nonprofit arguing that the right to anonymous assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment extends to donor data. Critics say that a ruling in favor of the Koch-funded charity would allow more untraceable money to flow through groups designed to mask the outsize role that a few wealthy players have in American politics. If A.F.P.F. wins, “special interests will have a free pass to rig our democracy from behind a veil of secrecy,” Whitehouse said. Companies secretly influence politics with “dark money” donations that are deliberately opaque. Basically, some “social welfare” groups are quasi-political yet don’t have the same reporting requirements as explicitly political groups. Similarly, trade groups take corporate donations and pass them on, obscuring the sources. “The importance of dark money in society, the scope of it, is something people don’t really grasp, but it impacts everyday life,” said Anna Massoglia, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics. A decision is expected around late June. Notably, the court took the case on Jan. 8, two days after the Capitol riot prompted a reckoning over corporate political donations. Both the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers filed briefs supporting A.F.P.F.’s case for anonymity, and Allen Dickerson, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, argued the same in a Wall Street Journal op-ed yesterday. “What a gift she’s given them by this crazy way of giving.” — Marti DeLiema, a professor of social work at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, on how the billionaire MacKenzie Scott’s unorthodox method of philanthropy — emailing groups out of the blue — has created a cottage industry of scammers. Bain is buying $1 billion worth of desserts Bain Capital Private Equity is buying Dessert Holdings in a deal that DealBook hears values the company at about $1 billion. Dessert Holdings makes “Insta-worthy” cheesecakes and other desserts through three brands: The Original Cakerie, Lawler’s Desserts and Atlanta Cheesecake. The company, which sells to retailers and restaurants, was created through acquisitions led by its prior owner, Gryphon Investors. The dessert conglomerate emphasizes the “wow factor” of products like tuxedo truffle mousse cake that are made to look good on social media. A sweet deal? In-store bakeries have held up well during the pandemic, while restaurants are expected to rebound post-Covid. There could be more consolidation in the industry, with George Weston announcing in March it plans to put its bakery business — which includes Wonder Bread in Canada — up for sale. Over the years, Bain has invested in a number of food service and restaurant brands, like Dunkin’ and Domino’s Pizza. It plans to develop “new and innovative products” as well as pursue more acquisitions after the Dessert Holdings deal, said Adam Nebesar, a managing director at the private equity firm. Trevor Lawrence is getting paid in Bitcoin As cryptocurrency goes more mainstream — thanks in part to the recent public listing of Coinbase — blockchain businesses are hustling for brand recognition. “We’re really trying to get our name out a lot,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, the C.E.O. of FTX, a crypto exchange that competes with Coinbase. One of FTX’s companies, the investment app Blockfolio, has signed an endorsement deal with Trevor Lawrence, the former Clemson quarterback and presumptive number-one pick in this week’s N.F.L. draft, DealBook is first to report. The quarterback’s first payment was made exclusively in crypto tokens transferred directly into his Blockfolio account. “Trevor was excited about crypto,” Bankman-Fried said. “That’s what drew us to him.” The company wouldn’t disclose the terms of the multiyear agreement, but a spokesman noted that the “signing bonus” was already worth more on Sunday than when it was deposited on Friday night. Future payments will be made in whatever combination of dollars and crypto Lawrence chooses. “Crypto is on a lot of people’s minds,” Bankman-Fried told DealBook. The 29-year-old billionaire founded FTX in 2019, and said he regrets spending his early years “playing video games.” Now, he’s trying to make up for lost time and the “low name recognition” of his crypto brands by hitching their wagon to bigger brands. FTX recently agreed to pay $135 million for the naming rights to the N.B.A.’s Miami Heat arena for 19 years. THE SPEED READ Deals ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, has reportedly delayed plans to go public because it hasn’t devised a corporate structure that would win approval from Washington and Beijing. (South China Morning Post) A close look at the efforts by the Carlyle Group’s C.E.O., Kewsong Lee, to catch up to his private equity rivals. (WSJ) Politics and policy The law firm Jones Day has rehired at least seven lawyers who worked in the Trump administration, cementing its status as a top outpost for Republican legal experts. (FT) Advisers to wealthy Americans are studying various strategies to minimize the hit from the Biden administration’s proposed tax hikes. (Bloomberg) Tech Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant, reportedly plans to offer employees zero-interest loans backed by their stock options to bolster morale. (Bloomberg) The culture of Travis Kalanick’s food-delivery start-up, CloudKitchens, is said to closely resemble the “bro-y” early days of Uber — and it’s losing workers as a result. (Insider) Best of the rest Honda said it expects all cars it sells will be electric by 2040. (Bloomberg) One of the men who created the “Yale model” of endowment investing says the strategy is past its prime. (FT) An eye-opening look inside the “slander industry.” (NYT) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Orbem News #CEOs #Paid #Pandemic

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vice-s-assistant · 7 years ago

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Super Fight-U-Ary Day 14: The Competitive ARMS Race

At EVO Japan, the first EVO tournament held abroad this year, there was one game that seemed a bit off there.

ARMS, Nintendo’s oddball first party fighter for the Switch.

ARMS was a really odd choice for EVO Japan. It was its first real major tournament appearance. The Competitive ARMS does indeed exist but lacks the vocal booming voice like Smash has. Still, ARMS is Nintendo strangest reach into modern competitive fighting games.

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From its premier trailer, ARMS makes sure to grab you and never let go. The game’s presentation was on point and one of the strongest from the Switch’s launch window line up. Its stylish characters and booming soundtrack draw you in. To me, ARMS has a style similar to Sega games. It clean, modern looks doesn’t fit with a traditional Nintendo game. However, the Sega feel doesn’t just come from the look but also the gameplay.

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Yes, at the basic level, you could say that ARMS is just a glorified version of Wii Sports Boxing. However, ARMS has much more depth than that. The best way to descibe ARMS’ gameplay is with another similar game, Sega’s Virtual-On series.

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ARMS focus its combat in closed 3D arenas that are many characters in the character themselves. The gameplay focus on various, well, ARMS with unique abilities. ARMS can be different for both hands, giving way to totally unique combinations and approaches to combat. Central to this strategy is the characters themselves, armed with their own unique abilities. From armor, double jumps, and even extra arms (?), each ARMS combatant has their own abilities that make even mirror matches unique experiences. It's that depth that Nintendo has been trying to turn into its first steps into fully supporting its strange fighters.

Unlike Smash Bros, Nintendo did not hesitate on what to call ARMS: It was a fighting game. Surprisingly, it made sure to promote the heck out of it being a fighter: Having a whole Nintendo Direct for it, its own Twitter account, even tournaments (albeit still kind of a casual affair). Speaking of tournaments, the ARMS Invitational held at E3 2017 marked the quite premiere of Nintendo Versus, an official Nintendo Twitter account for competitive Nintendo games. The ARMS Invitational was its first big tweet. This wasn’t Nintendo’s first appeal to the competitive crowd. ARMS through the months after its release received many updates, adding new characters, ARMS, and stages-all for free! It received many balance patches and even enhancements, such as the ability to have a third Switch to spectate local 1 VS 1 matches, help make ARMS far easier to view for streams.

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ARMS is in a weird place right now. Before EVO Japan, ARMS dropped its latest character into the game, Dr. Coyle. It was also ARMS last character, as Nintendo simultaneously announced that no more new content would be added to the game, except balance patches. ARMS had the most support Nintendo has ever really given its fighters. Smash usually is left to its own devices, sans a few big tourneys where Nintendo shows up for support (Genesis and CEO for example). ARMS on the hand had new characters and balance patches to keep it fresh. Still, Nintendo never went out of its way competitively push ARMS, leaving it to its own devices. Thus, ARMS still struggles to find its competitive footing. With Nintendo not putting any more character into the game, the Competitive ARMS scene will have to really reach to find new players.

#Super Fight-U-Ary #ARMS #Virtual-On #Alternative Fighting Games #My Written Work

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freenewstoday · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/01/04/quibi-is-dead-but-roku-tv-may-resurrect-its-content/

Quibi Is Dead, but Roku TV May Resurrect Its Content

Quibi was the biggest bust of the streaming boom. But it has something Roku wants — more than 100 original programs.

Quibi, which announced that it was closing six months after a much-hyped introduction, is in talks to sell its content to Roku, the streaming device maker with a streaming app of its own.

The deal is close to completion, said one person with knowledge of the discussions, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Quibi and Roku declined to comment.

Started by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, who raised more than $1.75 billion from major Hollywood studios and other investors, Quibi was a quixotic attempt to capitalize on the streaming boom. Its shows, chopped into installments no longer than 10 minutes, were meant to be watched on smartphones.

The approach assumed that people wanted this kind of viewing experience to help them through their daily commutes or while they were in line for coffee, but the coronavirus pandemic meant that potential customers were out of their on-the-go workday routines when the platform went live in April.

Mr. Katzenberg blamed the pandemic for Quibi’s quick downfall, while others cited its unusual format and some of its creative choices, including a show starring the Emmy-winning actress Rachel Brosnahan as a character obsessed with her own golden arm.

Business & Economy

Updated

Jan. 4, 2021, 1:47 p.m. ET

Still, Quibi won two Emmy Awards in the short-form category, for the actors Laurence Fishburne and Jasmine Cephas Jones in the series “#FreeRayshawn.” Two of its other shows scored nominations: “Most Dangerous Game,” which starred Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth, and a reboot of the comedy “Reno 911!”

That’s where Roku comes in. The company needs material for its Roku TV app. And Quibi, which has not yet gone dark, will soon have plenty of material that could go unseen.

Complicating the talks, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is Quibi’s unusual business strategy. Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman didn’t pursue ownership of the platform’s content, instead buying exclusive rights from creators to stream their shows for seven years. The arrangement was attractive to producers, who retained the right to later resell the shows to another service, such as Netflix. It is unclear how a sale would affect the rights of content producers.

Roku, known primarily for its easy-to-use streaming devices, generates almost two-thirds of its revenue from its media division. Roku TV, a free, ad-supported streaming channel, offers movies and shows made by other companies, without a significant lineup of its own original content.

Despite the relatively low cost of digital platforms, streaming bills are starting to add up as the digital media industry matures and expands. The average household pays for only three services at a time, and exclusive content on a free app is likely to attract an audience.

The latest entrant, Discovery+, a platform built on 55,000 hours of unscripted shows, went live on Monday, arriving in the wake of Peacock from NBCUniversal, HBO Max, Disney+, AppleTV+, Paramount+ and Hulu — all ambitious streaming services now playing catch-up with Netflix.

Roku has become a streaming force by exercising its distribution power — it claims 46 million accounts — to lift its media business. After a long disagreement, Roku recently forged a deal with AT&T to carry its HBO Max service. Roku wanted more access to advertising inventory on AT&T’s forthcoming ad-based streaming platform as well as rights to Warner Bros. content.

Source

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markvillacampa · 4 years ago

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Week 39, 2020

NVIDIA to Acquire Arm for $40 Billion, Creating World’s Premier Computing Company for the Age of AI

NVIDIA - September 13, 2020 - 6 min

This purchase will deeply influence the future of computing. We probably won’t see the effects for 5-10 years.

Nvidia’s Integration Dreams

Stratechery by Ben Thompson - September 15, 2020 - 19 min

Great overview of the NVidia-ARM acquisition with historic and industry context.

SiFive hires Qualcomm exec as CEO for RISC-V alternatives to Nvidia-Arm

VentureBeat - September 17, 2020 - 5 min

RISC-V is an instruction set architecture, just like ARM, that companies can use to build chips. The biggest difference is price: while manufacturers need to pay royalties to ARM for using it’s architecture, RISC-V is completely free.

An update for our TikTok family

TikTok - September 20, 2020 - 3 min

The USA-TikTok saga is closer to an end:

“Both Oracle and Walmart will take part in a TikTok Global pre-IPO financing round in which they can take up to a 20% cumulative stake in the company. We will also maintain and expand the US as TikTok Global’s headquarters while bringing 25,000 jobs across the country.”

How a marked-up term sheet and messy rollout threw TikTok deal into disarray

Reuters - September 23, 2020 - 5 min

Some of the terms of the deal are not 100% clear yet:

“ByteDance said it would hold an 80% stake in TikTok Global itself, until it launches an initial public offering in the next twelve months, and that it would then gradually reduce its stake.”

“Oracle said on Monday that ByteDance would not have a stake in TikTok Global, and that it would be ByteDance’s investors who would be awarded the remaining 80% stake.”

Building YouTube Shorts, a new way to watch & create on YouTube

Youtube - 3 min

YouTube is launching their TikTok competitor, called Shorts.

Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features

TechCrunch - September 14, 2020 - 5 min

“The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation.”

The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke… Is Now Officially Broke

Forbes - September 15, 2020 - 7 min

“It took decades, but Chuck Feeney, the former billionaire cofounder of retail giant Duty Free Shoppers has finally given all his money away to charity. He has nothing left now—and he couldn’t be happier.”

Delivery Hero strengthens its global footprint and acquires Glovo’s operations in Latin America

Delivery Hero - September 16, 2020 - 5 min

The deal is valued at €230M.

Will Smith and Airbnb team up so fans can now stay at the ‘Fresh Prince’ mansion

The Loop - September 14, 2020 - 4 min

Stripe Workers Who Relocate Get $20,000 Bonus and a Pay Cut

Bloomberg - September 15, 2020 - 3 min

A classic carrot and stick strategy. Relevant comic strip.

Opendoor, a Leading Digital Platform for Residential Real Estate, Announces Plans to Become Publicly-traded via Merger with Social Capital Hedosophia

Businesswire - September 15, 2020 - 11 min

“The transaction values Opendoor at an enterprise value of $4.8 billion, and is expected to provide up to $1.0 billion in cash proceeds”

Chamath launches SPAC, SPAC and SPAC as he SPACs the world with SPACs

TechCrunch - September 19, 2020 - 2 min

Chamath Palihapitiya is behind last year’s Virgin Galactic and now Opendoor’s SPACs. And he’s planning more.

Buffett-backed Snowflake’s value doubles in stock market’s largest software debut

Reuters - September 17, 2020 - 3 min

“Snowflake shares started trading at $245 apiece on Wednesday, more than double its $120 IPO price, and closed up 111% at $253.93 to value it at over $70 billion.”

Amp It Up!

Linkedin - May 13, 2018 - 17 min

This 2018 essay from the CEO of Snowflake’s reads like an alpha business bro parroting the same old startup advice down to Steve Jobs quotes. You will probably not learn anything new, but it serves as a good primer into the mind behind the biggest software IPO pop ever.

Uber backup driver charged in fatal 2018 self-driving car crash

The Verge - September 16, 2020 - 2 min

Uber is throwing under the bus the backup driver that was overseeing the self-driving car when it hit a cyclist.

The TinySeed Investment Thesis — TinySeed: The Startup Accelerator for Bootstrappers

TinySeed - 15 min

“We believe investing broadly into the earliest stages of the Independent SaaS market — specifically, the set of B2B SaaS companies who are not necessarily reliant on traditional venture capital — can provide venture returns with less than venture risk.”

Zwift, maker of a popular indoor training app, just landed a whopping $450 million in funding led by KKR

TechCrunch - September 16, 2020 - 3 min

The exercise-at-home market is booming, and this Peloton competitor is cashing in.

Affirm Raises $500M Series G Round

Affirm - September 17, 2020 - 2 min

The company, founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, offers a point-of-sale (POS), buy now, pay later (BNPL) service.

Klarna raises $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation

TechCrunch - September 15, 2020 - 3 min

“Klarna’s main product is an alternative payment method on e-commerce platforms. It lets you buy now and pay later over three or four installments with 0% interest.”

Evernote’s CEO on the company’s long, tricky journey to fix itself

Protocol - September 16, 2020 - 10 min

Evernote’s CEO on how they had to undergo a 18-month deep code rewrite that was the root of many of the product’s longstanding issues. Technical debt is real and it can undermine your company. Now, they’ll try to take on note-taking newcomers like Roam and Notion.

Chime is now worth $14.5 billion, surging past Robinhood as the most valuable U.S. consumer fintech

CNBC - September 18, 2020 - 4 min

“In this latest round, a Series F that raised $485 million, Chime more than doubled its valuation from December and is worth almost 900% more than just 18 months ago, when it hit a $1.5 billion valuation.”

How does the laser technology in EUV lithography work?

Laser Focus World - August 29, 2019 - 12 min

There’s a new laser technology for semiconductor manufacturing that’s been in the making for quite a while but could signify a big leap in the industry.

The Era of Visual Studio Code

Roben Kleene - September 21, 2020 - 18 min

Great overview of the history of text editors and why Visual Studio might stay at the top for a while.

Nikola shows the tech hype cycle can’t stop worshipping founders

The Verge - September 25, 2020 - 7 min

The founder and CEO of electric truck company Nikola resigned after a report last week suggested the company has overstated the technological capabilities.

The company’s shares fell 33 percent in two weeks.

My semiconductor conspiracy theories

‌Aishwarya Nagarajan - September 20, 2020 - 8 min

The case for how a semiconductor fabrication company in Taiwan could spark the next world war.

How we used data to design modern record certification plaques

Sony Music Data and Insights - September 21, 2020 - 5 min

“Record labels regularly present their artists with recording certification plaques to celebrate milestones in the journey of a song or an album.”

Sony redesigns the record certification plaques for 2020 using data science.

Microsoft Pledges to Get Gaming Service on iPhones

Bloomberg - September 21, 2020 - 1 min

Following Apple’s AppStore rules, Microsoft said they’s bringing xCloud to iOS. We’ll see what the implementation finally looks like, as the rules estate each game needs to be submitted separately as an independent app.

Microsoft is acquiring Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax

The Verge - September 21, 2020 - 2 min

“Microsoft has agreed to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Doom and Fallout studio Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion in cash”

Zynga co-founder’s Playco is already a mobile gaming unicorn

TechCrunch - September 21, 2020 - 3 min

I’m always wary of startups with huge valuations pre-launch. Specially if it’s in the gaming industry where it’s virtually impossible to predict what users will like next.

QR codes bring helpful context to the Apple Store experience

9to5Mac - September 21, 2020 - 3 min

There’s a bigger pandemic trend of using QR codes to create contactless experiences. They mainly substitute shared pieces of printed text (e.g. restaurant menus) and, in this case, shared objects.

Gig Economy Company Launches Uber, But for Evicting People

Vice - September 21, 2020 - 6 min

“The website also featured a quote, attributed to The New York Times […] A search reveals this phrase hasn’t appeared in the Times. The company did not respond to requests for comment or a source for this quote, but the mention of the Times has since disappeared from its website.”

“At the time of writing, Civvl and OnQall did not return requests for comment, but did appear to block the author’s IP address from visiting OnQall.com. ”

This is what I call culture-market fit.

Creating Your Own Widgets: A New Category of Apps Emerges

Macstories - September 21, 2020 - 16 min

Since iOS 14 was launched, there’s been an outpouring of apps to customize your home screen, and videos to tech you how to. Turns out people like to customize the devices they use for most of the day.

On Widget Shaming – 512 Pixels

512 Pixels - September 23, 2020 - 2 min

On the other side, people are critiquing many peoples home screens as lacking “taste”. But taste is subjective.

Following TechCrunch reporting, Palantir rapidly removes language allowing founders to “unilaterally adjust their total voting power”

TechCrunch - September 21, 2020 - 2 min

“Palantir has now filed a sixth amendment with the SEC just a few hours after it filed its previous amendment, and the company has removed all references to this special mechanism from its SEC filing.”

Aston Martin reveals first racing simulator: The AMR-C01

Aston Martin - September 14, 2020 - 4 min

If you’ve always wanted to feel like James Bond while driving an Aston Martin from the comfort of your home, this is your opportunity. The experience can be yours for a mere $75k. But be quick, units are limited to 150.

Microsoft says it detected active attacks leveraging Zerologon vulnerability

ZDNet - September 24, 2020 - 2 min

The Zerologon vulnerability is one of the worst in recent times. Update your Windows machines.

Daniel Ek will invest over $1 billion in European moonshots

Protocol - September 24, 2020 - 1 min

More European startups success stories will hopefully help fuel 🤑 the European tech ecosystem.

Anduril among companies tapped to build the Air Force’s ‘internet of things’ for war

TechCrunch - September 24, 2020 - 3 min

The Ex-Oculus founder military drone company is among the ones chosen by the Air Force as supplier.

Also, “Internet of things for war” is dystopian AF.

How Twitter Survived Its Biggest Hack—and Plans to Stop the Next One

WIRED - September 24, 2020 - 14 min

The most surprising takeaway is many Twitter employees were not using physical 2-Factor authentication (using a physical USB key instead of a SMS or TOTP code).

Spotify, Epic, Tile, Match, and more are rallying developers against Apple’s App Store policies

The Verge - September 24, 2020 - 3 min

They’re calling themselves the Coalition for App Fairness, and their aim is to “create a level playing field for app businesses and give people freedom of choice on their devices.”

Ring’s newest security camera is a $249 autonomous indoor drone shipping in 2021

TechCrunch - September 24, 2020 - 4 min

Amazon announces new cloud gaming service called Luna

The Verge - September 24, 2020 - 3 min

Amazon is joining Google Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud in the cloud gaming space.

Expanding to the US

Index Ventures

Index Ventures, one of the biggest VCs in Europe, is launching a guide for European startups to expand to the USA, based on experiences from some of the biggest success stories like Spotify.

Amazon disavows $500 “Prime Bike,” says it has no formal connection to the product

The Verge - September 23, 2020 - 2 min

Not even Amazon can police Amazon for Amazon counterfeit products.

Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla’s top exec pay going up 400%

calpaterson.com - September 22, 2020 - 11 min

Journalists Are Leaving the Noisy Internet for Your Email Inbox

The New York Times - September 23, 2020 - 6 min

I wonder if Substack is simply subsidizing a few tens of creators to build momentum and absorb the long tail of writers that will not make a fulltime income in the platform but will increase their bottom line.

Twitter to start testing voice DMs

The Verge - September 23, 2020 - 1 min

▶ ◉──────── 02:37

Microsoft’s Edge browser is arriving on Linux in beta next month

The Verge - September 22, 2020 - 1 min

This is the first time a Microsoft browser will be officially supported in Linux.

Old television kept wiping out village’s broadband for 18 months

CNN - September 22, 2020 - 2 min

“For 18 months, residents of a village in Wales have been mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed every morning.”

“Now engineers have finally identified the reason: A second-hand television that emitted a signal that interfered with the connection.”

Russia wants to ban the use of secure protocols such as TLS 1.3, DoH, DoT, ESNI

ZDNet - September 22, 2020 - 3 min

Following in China’s steps. This is proof the latest security protocols work well to prevent espionage.

Recurring Revenue: The Rise of an Asset Class

Medium - September 21, 2020 - 15 min

Apple CEO Impressed by Remote Work, Sees Permanent Changes

Bloomberg - September 22, 2020 - 2 min

“Cook said he doesn’t believe Apple will “return to the way we were because we’ve found that there are some things that actually work really well virtually.””

Apple is unique among big tech companies in their adamant reject of remote work. But it looks like hell just froze over.

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Scarlett Johansson and Disney Legal Battle Is About More Than Black Widow

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It was the shot heard around the internet: Scarlett Johansson, the star of eight Marvel Studios movies and the face of Disney’s biggest summer release, Black Widow, filed suit against Disney over an alleged breach in her contract. The immediate firestorm in the media—and more tellingly on social media—was intense.

Some have likened Johansson’s lawsuit to actors standing up to studios’ viselike control over contracts during Hollywood’s Golden Age (more on that in a bit); others have treated it as tantamount to betrayal of their favorite purveyor of superhero content. But perhaps no reaction was larger than that of Disney itself. While Johansson alleged she extracted “a promise from Marvel that the release of the picture would be a theatrical release”—thereby acting as the bulk of her salary due to the star having a profit participation clause—“[Disney] nonetheless directed Marvel to violate its pledge and instead release the picture on the Disney+ streaming service the very same day it was released in theaters.”

In addition to Disney’s public response being shockingly scathing, it also largely seemed to evade Johansson’s legal assertions. Instead the studio aggressively targeted Johansson’s character, seemingly shaming her for daring to bring up profits during such troubled times.

“The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote the company which reopened its theme parks in July 2020. The response also went on to note Johansson already earned $20 million in upfront salary on the film.

The intended effects of these criticisms were clearly to vilify a star who headlined Disney’s biggest franchise of the last decade and cast a cloud of suspicion around her in the courtroom of public opinion. Any perusal of Twitter these days will show its effectiveness. Or as a statement from Women in Film, Los Angeles, Reframe, and Time’s Up accurately noted, “[Those criticisms attempt] to characterize Johansson as insensitive or selfish for defending her contractual business rights. This gendered character attack has no place in a business dispute and contributes to an environment in which women and girls are perceived as less able than men to protect their own interests without facing ad hominem criticism.”

The fact that those criticisms have been so effective at swaying public opinion, particularly in the fan community who is largely most concerned with the accessibility of the next Marvel movie, is as disheartening as it is distracting. Because what’s at stake here is more than Johansson’s ability to receive any sort of percentage on the revenue Disney is generating from its $30 “Premier Access” paywall; rather it’s the entire talent pool of the moviemaking industry trying to find out where they stand in a marketplace that is increasingly transitioning to streaming, come hell or high water.

The full ramifications are only starting to become apparent. Or as THR editor Matt Belloni broke in his newsletter over the weekend, after Johansson’s lawsuit, and after Cruella became the first live-action 2021 film that Disney unceremoniously put on Disney+, star Emma Stone is “currently weighing her options” in terms of suing the House Mouse. According to the same source, Emily Blunt might also be considering similar action depending on the current rollout of Jungle Cruise. Meanwhile Dwayne Johnson was conspicuously enthusiastic on social media about Jungle Cruise’s box office performance this morning.

These early cracks in what could quickly become a PR nightmare for Disney signal a battleground that’s been approaching the industry ever since WarnerMedia announced Wonder Woman 1984 would be released in theaters and on HBO Max last Christmas. At the time, Warner Bros. allegedly paid both Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins undisclosed eight-figure sums to offset the loss of theatrical profit participation they would’ve earned had Wonder Woman 1984 opened under normal circumstances. However, when WarnerMedia in the same month shocked the industry with the unilateral decision to release their entire 2021 film slate in the day-and-date format simultaneously, the blowback was fearsome.

That’s because in addition to damaging filmmakers’ artistic vision for movies designed specifically for the big screen—Dune director Denis Villeneuve even wrote a passionate op-ed about it—the decision completely upended the way talent earns money off studio films. Yes, this includes stars with $20 million upfront paychecks, but it also affects below-the-line people too.

“It creates a financial nightmare,” Judd Apatow told Variety last year about the now quaint seeming WB/HBO Max deal. “Most people are paid residuals—they’re paid back-end points. What they get out of it for years and years of hard work is usually based on the success of their films. And so now what does it mean to have a movie go straight to streaming? How do they decide what to pay you? Do you have a contract that allows you to negotiate, or is it really just up to them at this point? It raises thousands of questions, which I’m sure are very complicated.”

We’re now seeing those complicated questions spill over into the courtroom. For all the tumult WarnerMedia unleashed by blindsiding their talent with last December, the company has spent months trying to untangle the damage for at least A-list talent, signing undisclosed and fiscally hefty deals with stars and filmmakers ranging from The Suicide Squad to The Little Things. Apparently the studio is still in negotiations with Legendary Pictures for all the money the production company could stand to lose from a muted theatrical release of Dune in October.

But Disney, according to Johansson and her talent representation at CAA, has strikingly not made any such overtures to their A-list talent being blindsided by Disney+ reshuffles. Which in turn raises the question if that’s how they treat Oscar winners like Stone, and longtime franchise stars of billion-dollar Disney franchises like Johansson, how do they treat the below the line people who can’t afford to publicly take this to court?

What we are seeing is a debate over what role the actual creative talent behind the films you love has in profit-making in the 21st century. Disney has been at the forefront among Hollywood studios in cultivating a direct-to-consumer model via Disney+, and yet even when they add a luxurious surcharge like $30 on top of that subscription model, they are treating it as separate from the older system of how talent along all tiers is paid.

So Johansson stars in Black Widow, which has the biggest box office opening since the pandemic began with $80.4 million. But as Disney crowed that same weekend, the studio made another $60 million on Disney+ surcharge fees, which is likely worth more than the $80.4 million box office bow after theaters get their cut—and that $60 million came at the expense of theatrical tickets, particularly when easy access to HD pirated copies of Black Widow are factored in. Hence how even though the Marvel movie opened bigger than F9, the theatrical-only Vin Diesel movie has earned about double what Black Widow did at the global box office.

Currently, Disney is saying Johansson—and by extension anyone else with a residual deal—should not be able to dip into that $60 million revenue from the opening weekend…. even though at least in Johansson’s case she was contractually promised an exclusive theatrical window.

In many ways, this mirrors the 1980s and ‘90s home media boom from first VHS and then DVD. It created a whole new revenue stream for Hollywood in the home media market. As Matthew Belloni has also noted in his latest newsletter, talent agencies like CAA are all too aware of how stars were shut out of the home media market which, for a time, doubled or even tripled studios’ profits. Now the streaming revolution has come, and talent is not keen to see that happen again.

Johansson being a big enough star to actually be the first to refuse to rollover on this is, indeed, reminiscent of Olivia de Havilland in Hollywood’s Golden Age. In 1943, de Havilland was at the end of her seven-year contract with Warner Bros. and a contentious relationship with WB head Jack Warner. Despite becoming a star under the WB system, de Havilland’s biggest successes were when she was loaned out to other studios—as WB controlled her career under an ironclad contract, as was pro forma at the time. Meanwhile in WB movies, de Havilland was often cast as a thankless love interest. As her star stature rose, her willingness to turn down many of these roles grew. As a consequence, Jack Warner suspended de Havilland for six months and, at the end of her contract, revealed the studio expected her to stay on the WB lot for another six months to make up for lost time and revenue.

De Havilland sued Warner Bros. in the same Los Angeles County superior court Johansson has now filed suit against Disney, and after a successful litigation and WB’s subsequent appeal failing, “the De Havilland Law” essentially ended a studio’s ability to control stars’ lives and careers like they were pampered indentured servants. In response WB attempted and failed to blacklist de Havilland.

It appears that once again, Hollywood is on the precipice of a turning point.

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michaelbennettcrypto · 4 years ago

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SaTT Token Is Now Available for Trading on BW.com and Uniswap!

In the last few months, SaTT has been one of the most prominent upcoming blockchain products on the market. After the highly successful ICO that saw the native SaTT project token raise over $1 million in 48 hours as well as hitting its soft cap within a week and now more than $7 million, the project has been getting more visibility. In one of the latest of these moves, the project has been listed on various cryptocurrency exchanges for active trading.

The first of these exchanges is UniSwap, on which the token was listed on September 24, 2020. It had previously been announced that users of the token would be able to make deposits for trading purposes in the coming days and it seems that this has now come to successful fruition. SaTT’s trading volume is booming on both exchanges which seems to observe a huge interest from the community.

The ICO and Token Sale

As previously mentioned, the SaTT project has been rather successful in the ICO market. The ICO first launched two years ago but picked up significant traction in the last few weeks after the project itself was revised and improved upon. It was able to raise $1 million within 48 hours and its soft cap target of $3,360,000 was met within a week.

As of now, the total amount raised by the ICO is more than $7 million and this is particularly remarkable considering the fact that the ICO market itself has been rather dormant in the last few years. As many crypto users and enthusiasts may recall, there was a time when ICOs were the most common way for new projects to raise funds, especially from the year 2016 to 2018.

However, that period of time was also plagued by many fraudulent or poorly executed ICOs and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States was even forced to get involved and is prosecuting cases to this day. As such, the ICO market seems to have fallen out of popularity with many declaring it completely dead. The success of the SaTT ICO shows, however, that the market is not truly dead and responds well to quality projects.

BW Listing Announcement

UniSwap is not the only exchange that the SaTT token has been listed on. It was announced on September 20, 2020, that the token is now listed on BW exchange and a huge airdrop of SaTT is currently ongoing. BW is famous for being one of the top three mining pools in the cryptocurrency business in its early days and is one of the biggest exchanges in the market. The management of BW has spoken else about the listing expressing excitement at the development.

“The SaTT marketplace is going to disrupt and solve the problems of current advertising transactions with the blockchain,” declares Cathy Zhu, BW’s Global CEO. “We are looking forward to working with the SaTT team and introducing SaTT to more users.”

There has also been gratitude expressed by the management of SaTT itself regarding the project listing.

“SaTT is delighted to be partnering with BW to offer premium crypto exchange services for our community,” chimes in Gauthier Bros, SaTT CEO. “With 21 million registered users and 6 thousand daily active users, we are confident that BW can meet our liquidity needs and provide competitive market pricing for the SATT token.”

About SaTT and its Business Model

The SaTT project has been heralded as one of the most innovative within the cryptocurrency industry and it stands for smart advertising transaction token and allows advertisers to buy advertising services on a DApp. This helps streamline the process of advertising between influencers and advertisers themselves while being able to instantly reward the influencers while tracking the effectiveness of their campaigns. With influencer marketing being a $1 billion business and the advertising industry going more digital, we can expect to see more from this project in the future.

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dippedanddripped · 5 years ago

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This past January, Buffalo native Alvin Worthy, known throughout the music world as Westside Gunn, expedited his passport in order to attend Paris Fashion Week. At 37 years old, it was his first time leaving the United States. His Griselda Records collective provided the soundtrack for Virgil Abloh’s Off-White™ Fall 2020 preview and Westside was as at home as ever sitting front-row for the festivities.

He was so inspired by the trip that he booked some extra time in the City of Lights to record a new project, motivated even more once Abloh confirmed that he’d like to create the cover art. What resulted was Pray for Paris, a project that manages to balance the boasts of aspirational opulence attained with some of the grimiest street rap in the industry today.

Westside Gunn has never pursued subtlety, which is more apparent than ever on his latest record. Pray for Paris opens up with a recording of the auction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” painting at Christie’s New York, which sold for a record $450 million USD. As the gavel announces the final sale, it’s clear that Gunn is positioning his latest creation as a rap album of bespoke luxury.

Abloh’s cover art, a photoshopped reworking of Carvvaggio’s 1607 oil on wood painting, “David with the Head of Goliath,” adds the burden of Westside’s three chains around the conqueror’s neck. The aesthetic audacity aligns perfectly with Westside Gunn’s past hand-painted album covers, which alternate between vintage wrestling references, faceless FLYGOD fashion poses in Balenciagas and an unapologetic Hermès-rocking Hitler with his third eye stamped on his furrowed brow.

Jacopo Raule/Getty Images

There’s a moment on last year’s WWCD album where the vision Worthy has been plotting out over the past decade, even before he was Westside Gunn, comes to fruition. Rapping alongside brother Demond “Conway the Machine” Price and cousin Jeremie “Benny the Butcher” Pennick, his voice rings in the “Dr. Bird’s” chorus in an antagonizing echo. “Told Virgil write ‘BRICK’ on my brick,” he yells, essentially speaking their eventual collaboration into existence.

Even years before the “Dr. Bird’s” chorus, before the Shady Records and Roc Nation deals, and before his Griselda crew was captured at Kanye West’s Wyoming ranch, Westside was pulling inspiration from Abloh’s initial foray into fashion, PYREX VISION. “It’s not like I’m just supporting him now because of Off-White™ or Louis Vuitton, like all of a sudden I got a record deal and I can afford it. No, his first shirt was on my back,” he said.

Gunn fights against what he perceives as the limitations of being labeled a rapper. It’s a line straight out of Kanye’s big book of philosophy and even something Tyler, The Creator mirrored in his post-GRAMMYs speech. “I don’t even wanna be considered a rapper. I bring so much more to the game,” he told HYPEBEAST. “I love art, fashion, design, executive producing, putting songs together with the skits — all of that sh*t I love more than actually rapping.”

For someone who doesn’t consider himself a rapper, Westside Gunn managed to curate one of the year’s best rap albums, creating a world where he’s at its very center, surrounded by some of the most talented veterans in the hip-hop world today.

Westside revealed that he had been battling a coronavirus diagnosis shortly after the release of Pray for Paris. He joined HYPEBEAST to talk about his recent recovery following his first time out of the country, maintaining his FLYGOD status and the creativity that sparked his collaboration with Virgil Abloh.

HYPEBEAST: First off, how are you feeling? Where are you in the process of recovering from COVID-19?

Westside Gunn: I’m feeling good, man. There’s people dying from this sh*t and it did its little tornado tear-down but I’m building back up. I’m losing my mind because I ain’t smoke in weeks. But everything is just a process and I’m trying to get strong again.

We’ve been working and honestly I’m more motivated. I needed this project because this sh*t just got me more focused and looking forward. I’m not just sitting here on some pitiful sh*t.

What was the inspiration behind the title Pray for Paris?

Just the way I killed [Paris] Fashion Week. You had to pray for everybody in Paris the way I was doing it, man. People there, especially the paparazzi, they didn’t know who I was, but they knew who I was after Fashion Week. It was a dope experience. It was the first time I ever left the country.

I went out there with all my jewelry on with my big security guard from Buffalo. I had like four or five people out there with me. It was really last minute. Every show I went to I got dressed up in one-of-one pieces, so it was like FLYGOD on steroids. Just pray for that country man.

How do you feel about hip-hop’s cultural influence in the fashion world right now?

I think it’s beautiful. I was actually doing fashion first. Griselda Records came as a spinoff from my fashion line. To see hip-hop being accepted so much in fashion now is great, but I’ve been fly my whole life. I was designing jean suits and sh*t in high school. I always was ahead of the game when it came to fashion. Even when it comes to the Virgil connection.

I sent him pictures of me in 2013 when he did PYREX VISION — his first introduction to the fashion world and I was supporting him then. I always say, it don’t matter what you buy, it’s gotta be in you. I love looking on Instagram and seeing what everyone’s doing with their style because at a point in time, it felt like I was the only person doing that type of sh*t. So now that the hip-hop community is accepted by certain brands, it’s pushing the culture forward.

Virgil created the cover art for this project, too. How’d that collaboration happen?

When I was out in Paris, after all the fashion shows and all the partying was over, I still had three days left. I was so influenced by everything that took place that I went into the studio. I was with Virgil the night after I first recorded and I was like, “I already knocked out three, tomorrow I’m gonna finish the rest.” Virgil told me, “This sh*t is crazy. If you do that, I want to do the cover.” So of course, who would say no to that? It actually inspired me to record more because if he did the cover, it’s gonna be a different kind of crowd that actually listens to this.

This is gonna gain more fans for Westside Gunn on a fashion tip. It’s like I’m not even a rapper, I’m an artist. I don’t even wanna be considered a rapper. I bring so much more to the game. I have an ear for production. Some people are just rappers. That’s what they do: they’re good at rap. But I love art, fashion, design, executive producing, putting songs together with the skits — all of that sh*t I love more than actually rapping.

“I always been a supply and demand guy. I was in the streets, I lived by it.”

There’s no mysterious book of rhymes of Westside Gunn or a file of 10 unreleased Westside Gunn songs. Everything I’ve ever recorded is out. You can be like, “Yo, let me hear some new sh*t.” My new sh*t is Pray for Paris. There’s no song that’s just sitting in the computer, bro. Rapping is like the tenth thing on my list I do. But it’s important because everything else that I do before I rap inspires those raps.

You’ve always made sure that your Griselda merch and vinyl releases have incredibly limited runs. Have you looked to any brands for inspiration on keeping supply vastly lower than the current demand for what you create?

Even when I was doing clothing and I wasn’t rapping, I knew that I was doper than the majority of the game. There was a void and I wanted to fill it and bring a balance of the underground culture, the boom-bap culture, people say “backpack rap” or whatever you want to call it — I knew there was something missing.

Everyone wanted to be more from the south, or like Chicago drill music when that became big. People in my lane weren’t popular, they weren’t getting those looks. People always wanted to push forward the popular sound, what’s in the clubs and what’s on the radio. I always been a supply and demand guy. I was in the streets, I lived by it.

You gotta think like a street corner hustler back in the day. Like six, seven people be on one corner or in the projects and they gone fight for the same fiend. And I was like, “Why do that? I can go to a whole other city with no competition and make triple.” I applied my street methods to hip-hop and fashion. You give a crackhead free crack, that’s the best crack they ever had. They gone do anything to come back and get that again.

It was like, “Okay, everybody want to listen to this, but I’m about to make this popular.” It’s really like the dope game.

You linked with Tyler, The Creator on this record, both as a producer and as a featured artist. What was it about his energy that you gravitated towards?

Tyler is somebody who I respect because he’s himself. He don’t give a f*ck. A lot of people be scared to be themselves. In this game there’s a lot of make believe bullsh*t, man. A lot of these people that you see, well they not like that in real life.

With Tyler, he’s himself at all times. He don’t care who in the room. It could be the toughest dudes in the room and he might rap some off the wall sh*t and tell another dude that he’ll kiss him. If you know him, you respect it because that’s him. He’s a good dude with good energy.

As you can see, he killed the project on both levels, on rhyming and production. I’m thankful for that. I actually hit him to congratulate him on the GRAMMYs and that’s when he said he was making a beat for me. When he came to bring me the beat, he heard what I was already playing and he started rhyming.

You also connected with The Alchemist and featured veterans like Freddie Gibbs, Roc Marciano and Boldy James. How competitive were you when trading bars with those guys over The Alchemist’s productions?

Alchemist is Griselda, man. You know how Mobb Deep was always Havoc and Prodigy? The Alchemist was their third unofficial member. Basically what Alchemist was to Mobb Deep is what he is to Griselda right now. He was already a legend before he got with us and now he’s a part of the Griselda sound. Him working with Boldy, now that’s extended family. Because before I was on him, but I wasn’t on him. When I was listening to [The Price of Tea In China] I was like, “Dude is incredible. He remind me of like a Detroit Benny.” It was so vivid.

I always was a fan of Gibbs and I’ve been doing sh*t with Roc Marci for the last five years straight. Benny [The Butcher] went on tour with Gibbs so you build these relationships. Then when it comes time to start painting these pictures, you go to your family and you go to the best. The first time I heard The Alchemist beat [for “$500 Ounces”] the first person I thought of in the world was Gibbs.

“With Tyler, he’s himself at all times. It could be the toughest dudes in the room and he might rap some off the wall sh*t and tell another dude that he’ll kiss him.”

With me, it’s never competitive. I go on the beat and just do me, man. That’s never been my thing to compete. I was the guy who early on pushed Benny to be like, “Yo, I’m about to just sing a little hook that’s catchy that people gone remember from me, but I need you to spit 100 bars straight of the craziest sh*t you can think of.”

You have songs like “Shower Shoe Lords” and things Benny was performing for the first year and I wanted to see him kill it, not see who was better on the mic. I know what he can do and I want him to shine. Now look at Benny today.

There always seems to be a fork in the road when major labels and additional management step in and alter an artist’s course. Even after Shady Records and Roc Nation, that hasn’t happened with Griselda. How have you managed to maintain that vision?

One thing for sure, these guys been around me my whole life. And Daringer been in my life for too many years, man. This is family and family is first. Of course people have their misunderstandings and little arguments but when you a real family, that sh*t don’t mean nothing. Everybody’s grown. At the end of the day, we here for the culture. We know what we signed up for.

This sh*t was all written. We gotta remain strong because what we’re doing is legendary. We from somewhere where nobody ever came from. We also all slept in a cell. We lost key members of our crew. We almost lost Conway. We dealt with the shootings. So now it’s about giving the world some of the illest hip-hop of all time.

Is there any advice you would give to your younger self about maneuvering through the industry?

Don’t rush. Everything’s gonna happen organically. I’m very blessed. Even with a few bumps in the road, I learned from them so it could never happen again. I take the good with the bad. I’d tell myself to let everything happen organically and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

Four years ago, Griselda was still considered just underground boom-bap and nobody was really listening. Today we’re spoken of from every big name you could possibly think of. There were a few moves I made prematurely around three years ago. Those things can still come back to haunt you to this day but you live and you learn, man. You keep working.

You have your own day in your home city now, too. The Mayor of Buffalo declared August 28 as Alvin “Westside Gunn” Worthy Day. What are your plans for celebrating this year?

I’m trying to put a wrestling ring in the middle of the hood. I might have nWo [New World Order Wrestling] come out. My love for wrestling is next level. I’m not saying I’m the king of the city or any of that sh*t, but I have the most influence and me having my own day makes me want to give back.

Of course I want to do a concert but who knows with what’s going on in the world right now. This corona sh*t got everything backed up. We might still be in the house during my day. But God-willing if everything clears up and I can do something, I wanna do it for the streets because that’s where I’m from. They’ve backed me and showed me love.

How did your love of wrestling help inspire your career as a rapper?

It came natural. One thing about Westside Gunn, since my first project in 2012, Hitler Wears Hermès 1, you always gonna get art, you always gonna get wrestling. It’s the same thing you’re getting in 2020. My first album cover was an art piece, this cover’s an art piece.

“We all slept in a cell… we almost lost Conway. We dealt with the shootings. Now it’s about giving the world some of the illest hip-hop of all time.”

There’s wrestling on the first [album] and there’s wrestling in this one. I can only be me. I’m only giving the world pieces of who I am. I grew up watching wrestling and I just incorporate everything in my life into my music.

Outside of Pray for Paris, there’s been some rumors about you teaming up with Madlib for a collaboration. Any updates?

Only update I have is that it’s still happening. Everything’s just a chapter right now. After the Pray for Paris chapter I need to give the world part eight of the Hitler Wears Hermès series and then I’ll give you the project with ‘lib. That’s a lot for 2020, but you’ll definitely get all of them.

The Griselda Records lore of the past half-decade plays out like a movie. Let’s say a Griselda major motion picture comes out. Who’s directing?

Sh*t, me. (Laughs). I was there. Nobody knows the story more than Westside Gunn. Of course I could easily say Hype Williams because he hasn’t done one since Belly. We could do some sh*t like Belly in 2022 or 2023. I love how Hype did that one, I love how Dame Dash did Paid In Full — that’s one of my top five movies because that story was so incredibly shot.

Especially being from the streets and knowing the story. I’m not gonna say no Scorsese or some sh*t like that. The reason I say me is because I have the confidence. I feel like I’ll be able to capture Griselda like how Dame and Hype captured their’s.

#griselda records #westside gunn #fashion blog #music blog #pray for paris

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beochanpaiseanagustaifeala · 7 years ago

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🎩🛍️🌈🐍HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!🎩🛍️🌈🐍

It’s my first Villainous fanfic, enjoy!

The camera flicked on, recording the speech being made by a mysterious figure in a fancy Victorian suit with green, glowing teeth and a monocle gleaming in the moonlight shining through the windows of his semi-darkened office as he sat there on his desk breaking the silence with: “Salutations, sinners….this is the one and only Black Hat introducing the latest must-haves for perpetuating evil into this putrid world, for starters, we’ll be showcasing our latest and so-far greatest hero repellent in our catalog this year…”; he was awaiting among his (closest to being) trusty minions to bring this so-called “repellent” into the room for two minutes as he started losing his temper.

“I said, we’ll be showcasing our latest and so-far greatest hero repellent in our catalog this year!” he said louder, then muttering: “What is taking that useless Dr. Flug so long?”

Finally, out from the door came a squeaky, fragile young man in a lab coat, a t-shirt with an airplane on it, a regular pair of sweatpants and sneakers stumbled to his boss with a rather dangerous machine gun with some magenta lights peaking out of it in some areas; “Took you long enough.” said Black Hat, glaring at him as he snatched the machine gun away from his arms and shown it off to the rolling camera as his voice boomed: “With the all new Ametralladora-geddon, whose purpose is to shoot the most dangerous, toxic, flesh-burning acid at your enemies and they’ll be reduced to a pile of melting cheese!” after reading such dialogue from behind the camera, he snarls: “….wait, who the dickens wrote that as part of my script? I’ll fire the nitwit who sent me this B-movie grade garbage and improvising my lines next time!” following that was a faint sound of crying in the back; “I thought i-it was pretty threatening…” Dr. Flug squeaked, fidgeting his fingers hoping it would calm down his insane boss but to no avail; “AS IF! I feel utterly humiliated saying that trash, now let’s just get on with showing what this thing of pure cruelty was made for instead of WASTING TIME AND FILM ON MINDLESS BANTER!” Black Hat roared so loud to where Dr. Flug almost felt as if he was blown back a couple inches from him.

“Observe…” Black Hat started, aiming at a planted pot on a coffee table with a tiny pink rose blossoming for the first time in it’s short life, with a little butterfly gliding onto one if it’s petals, what a sight indeed….until a cackling Black Hat shot the ammo at them like a naughty child with a regular ol’ red rider aiming at a small forest creature; both the flower and the butterfly melted into a glowing magenta pile burning onto them as painfully as possible while the compound bubbled and fizzled into a pile of heated dust and as you can imagine, Dr. Flug was horrified at what he was forced to create for this maniacal man, feeling guilty over the fact some other twisted freak would buy this thing and hurt an actual hero doing their job and saving an innocent person, only for both of them to meet their doom….but then he remembered how this was the only job he was able to get in this deadbeat town to support his ill mother and distraught father, as the market didn’t pay their employees squat and the local greasy spoon was about to be shut down for hazardous conditions…..ironically the sadist who wants to reek havoc and woe upon others was the one who made sure there was enough of a salary and a safe, clean workspace for his employees to get behind.

Speaking of which, guess who wasn’t done yapping about a what-should-seriously-be-illegal abomination at the screen? “But that’s just getting to the basics of what this gun can do!” he pointed to a button near the trigger of the gun and blurting out: “THIS button can shoot non-stop acid as you please!” and with that, he pressed it and pulled the trigger for the second time, aiming it at an entire bush of pink roses swarmed by butterflies, the results where as pretty as you expected it to be; this sent the gothic fruitcake into a frenzy of psychotic laughter echoing in his office…..kinda the norm ‘round here actually. “Own this draconian device for the reasonable price of $700 dollars!” he announced before he added: “End Scene!”, indicating it was the very end of the commercial; “Reasonable my butt.” Dr. Flug muttered in his head, almost starting to laugh because his boss was that much of a loon but didn’t want to push his temper either. “Now put this back in with the other Ametrala….geo….? Ametralladoor…….? Ametralala-geo….? OH, FORGET IT! Just put this back in with the other guns!” he barked out at the hapless minion, scaring him into a hurry to put it back as he zoomed out of the office and to one of the storage rooms where the other products from this strange company where being produced.

Meanwhile, Demencia and 505 where fooling around with laser tag lights of all things throughout the entire HQ, apparently it was a treat between the two after Black Hat gave them their first pay check; innocently the confounded couple of the chromatic frolicked with the toy guns, almost as if they where dancing frantically as they where literally bouncing off the walls. Oh, how unfortunate was Dr. Flug when he got caught in-between the action of the duo’s game, where he bumped into Demencia and fell flat on his face on the cold floor.

“Flugster, you okay bro!?” Demencia called out for her coworker in a cartoonishly painful state; “I’m fine….” He faintly called out to her, almost as if he needed help getting up. 505 saw the Ametralladora-geddon Dr. Flug dropped on the floor during his fall, and just-so-assumed it was an extra fancy laser gun! Highly amused, the excited bear decided to test it out by aiming it at Demencia, unknowingly putting her life on the line but lucky (or UNluckly), Dr. Flug noticed and immediately panicked: “Wait, PUT THAT DOWN, IT’S DANGEROUS!” and pushing Demencia out of the way to take the bullet, er, glop for her. poor poor 505 and Demencia helplessly saw their friend lose half of his face to the compound and his screams of agony only amplified the effect of guilty over their tomfoolery gone horribly wrong….and that’s why Flug wears a paper bag over his head!

#villainous #cartoon network #cn #beochan: paisean agus aiféala #cartoons #animation #fanfic

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wineanddinosaur · 5 years ago

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The Armagnac That’s Sneaking Into ‘Bourbon Porn’

It was early 2018 when the orange-waxed necks, with wooden placards on twine hanging from them, first started appearing on social media. If you spend any time trolling bourbon geek accounts on Instagram, or private groups on Facebook, you’ll recognize the repetitive set of images continually populating your feed: Pappy and the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, of course; Weller, Willett, and Blanton’s, too, and maybe even dusty vintages of Wild Turkey.

Over the last couple years, however, distinct orange-waxed bottles of L’Encantada Armagnac — yes, Armagnac — have begun edging their way into these #bourbonporn posts. How did they get here?

“This stuff tastes more bourbony than other brandies,” explains Steve Ury, who runs the Serious Brandy group on Facebook. “But, of course, once it became popular it sort of developed its own hype.”

Neither Armagnac nor the more prevalent Cognac have ever really been able to capture the modern bourbon drinker’s imagination. Many enthusiasts find them a bit bland, or overly “grape-y.” That’s because both are, of course, grape-based brandies from their eponymous regions in France.

Armagnac has been produced in Gascony, in southwest France, since at least the 13th century. Notably, compared to Cognac, it’s an “earthier”-tasting spirit, as its producers are often much smaller, less technology-advanced grape growers and winemakers who distill their excess fruit via a traveling alembic still that bounces from farm to farm.

That’s especially true in the case of L’Encantada — “The Enchanted One” — which isn’t an Armagnac producer per se, but instead a label that bottles Armagnac from around a half-dozen very tiny estates. At first, it hardly even planned to be a legit business — in 2012, Vincent Cornu, a local caterer and Armagnac nut, was approached by a widow who wondered if he wanted to buy her late husband’s casks.

He did, and Cornu, his wife Christelle, and friend Frédéric Chappe thus formed the “L’Encantada Social Club,” as they jokingly dubbed themselves. They soon started knocking on farmhouse doors throughout the region looking for more Armagnac casks to buy. Many of these “estates,” like The Bidets, a family-owned property that grows grapes and grain while also breeding animals, are run by humble farmers who might distill only a few barrels of Armagnac per year, aging it in their barns, basements, or garages. For many of them, the casks act as a bit of a “retirement fund,” but they were certainly never meant to become an international sensation.

“But as bourbon became more and more difficult to buy — most of us are ‘old hat’ bourbon guys with huge collections from back when it was readily available — we started exploring other spirits,” says Paul Schurman, a Canadian spirits collector living in Switzerland.

When he says “us,” he’s referring to the private, online whiskey group known as 1789b of which he is a longtime member. In 2015, Ury, a fellow member, turned Schurman onto more whiskey-like Armagnac and he began seeking them out. Schurman ordered a couple of bottles of L’Encantada Domaine Lous Pibous 1994 online from Paris’s acclaimed Maison du Whisky, and immediately realized he’d found a big winner.

When he sent one to Ury, he was likewise blown away. A lawyer by day, then living in the Los Angeles area, Ury might have been the first American to really fall for L’Encantada, writing about it on his blog in the summer of 2016. He particularly loved its unique flavor profile, which he knew was atypical for Armagnac.

Photo credit: L’Encantada Armagnac

“Most Armagnac is aged in used oak and then re-racked and such during aging,” Ury explains. “The Pibous is aged in new oak and then they just let it sit. The result is an oaky, high-proof Armagnac that tastes a lot like… bourbon, really good bourbon.”

Both he and Schurman couldn’t help but compare it to the 17- and 18-year-old Bernheim “wheaters” that Willett had released in the mid-2000s, “the kind you don’t get any more,” Ury wrote on his blog at the time. If those Willett bourbons were now selling on the secondary market for thousands of dollars, here was an unexpected replacement, for a mere €90 a bottle.

“After tasting this, I had one thought,” Ury wrote of the Lous Pibous 1994. “We have to get more.”

Unfortunately, L’Encantada wasn’t distributed to the U.S. So, Schurman and Ury decided to try to import a few L’Encantada casks themselves, partnering with two other whiskey enthusiasts, Daniel Walbrun and Steve Neese, and dubbing themselves “The Brandy Brothers.” It wouldn’t be easy at first; Cornu spoke spotty English, and had never actually sold an entire cask. In fact, he’d never been able to penetrate the American market whatsoever. His problem was, he was trying to sell atypical Armagnac to typical brandy drinkers — not bourbon geeks.

“It was so off-profile to what Armagnac people liked,” explains Schurman. “But anyone who liked a George T. Stagg or a Weller [bourbon] would love it. Sometimes, they wouldn’t even know it was an Armagnac.”

Still, Schurman knew that even if he was keen on this spirit, it was still quite a financial risk to buy three entire Lous Pibous barrels — a 1993 vintage (Cask 124) and two 1996s (Casks 187 and Cask 188) — or around 1,000 bottles-worth.

He shouldn’t have been concerned. Fellow 1789b group members would snap up almost all of the bottles before they ever hit store shelves at K&L Wines, the local California retailer they had to use to get L’Encantada imported into the States. Word of L’Encantada quickly spread within the insular bourbon community.

“We knew these were special, but they were still Armagnac, a spirit which I love but which has limited appeal in the U.S.,” wrote Ury.

Ury never expected “the enchanted one” to blow up the way it has, but maybe he should have. L’Encantada bottlings check all the boxes for the American bourbon geek: single casks, barrel-strength, unfiltered and unadulterated; and lavishly packaged with wax-dipped necks, wooden hang tags (listing vintage year), and the requisite, dignified boxes. They are also exceedingly rare, with around 300 bottles per release; and, as for now, they are relatively cheap, especially compared to still-booming bourbon. (Ury doesn’t quite agree with my assessment, saying, “Maybe, but other brandies have those things.”)

L’Encantada bottlings quickly became a cult phenomenon among the bourbon community. A feeding frenzy followed. As demand begat supply, more releases entered the market. The Brandy Brothers brought in three more casks, K&L purchased two more for the store, and other retailers across the country began grabbing any barrels they could. Notably, Astor Wines & Spirits in Manhattan, and the esteemed Lincoln Road Package store in Hattiesburg, Miss., long famous for astute single barrel offerings, were among those to snatch up barrels.

“We weren’t selling much Armagnac at all — one or two in the store. But those were usually 80 proof and mellow,” says Jamie Farris, the owner of the Lincoln Road, whose first two L’Encantada casks were a Domaine Le Frêche and a Lous Pibous. He’s since acquired three more. “[The L’Encantada] are bigger, bolder brandies than you’re used to.”

As early as the summer of 2018, the Manhattan Wine Company’s newsletter, in lauding L’Encantada, purported that Your New Favorite Brown Spirit is Not from Kentucky. Around the same time, the acclaimed PM Spirits teamed up with L’Encantada to release XO, a blend of four L’Encantada casks (two Lous Pibous, as well as Del Cassou and Bellair estate), and up to that point, their most widely accessible release. In announcing the release, PM Spirits founder Nicolas Palazzi explained:

“L’Encantada is the darling of bourbon whiskey clubs, offering power, richness, and excitement for whiskey drinkers looking to explore.” While Astor Wines, in introducing the XO, cheekily noted: “Bourbon what? Pappy who?”

Nevertheless, while the online cognoscenti will surely be pissed I’ve blown up their latest love, for the most part L’Encantada still hasn’t fully made it into the mainstream of moneyed bourbon neophytes calling around to stores looking for “the Pappies.” PM released a Lot 2.0 of XO last summer, and I still see bottles of it on shelves. Likewise, single cask bottlings of L’Encantada can still be found in certain stores as well, though the prices have steadily been creeping up, with most selling for around $200 to $250 these days, double or triple what they were just a few years ago.

But, of course, those prices still aren’t at bourbon levels where new bottles of Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old hit the market at an asking price of around $2,000. Nonetheless, if most bourbon drinkers had never even tasted an Armagnac a year ago, now a good number are obsessed with at least one brand of it. A year or two from now, we all might be kicking ourselves for not capitalizing on it.

“The bourbon guys wanted something different,” Farris says. “And it filled that void. Something different, but a better value. You can’t find a 23-year-old bourbon for 200 bucks these days.”

The article The Armagnac That’s Sneaking Into ‘Bourbon Porn’ appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/lencantada-armagnac-bourbon-bros/

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