It’s been 100 years since the Tulsa race massacre, one of the worst acts of racial violence in US history. Commemorations honoring the victims have not only brought more attention to the atrocity; they have also revealed a deep national divide over what justice looks like, and whether reparations should be part of it.
Eleodoro Lopez is the chef and owner of Elio’s Wood Fire Pizza, a Neapolitan-style pizza food truck that serves gourmet wood-fired pies on the streets of Los Angeles. In a street food market saturated by tacos, Eleodoro had the idea to stand out by serving the food he knows well, based on his background working in Italian fine dining and bakeries. Eleodoro, who comes from Guatemala and began his culinary career in Mexico, made his way to California to find a better life for himself and his family. He began to find success with his wood-fired street food pizzas, using only the finest Italian ingredients like San Marzano tomatoes and 00 flour. He serves his pies with arugula, prosciutto, burrata, pepperoni, calabrian chilies, and more.
The GameStop frenzy on Wall Street has investors, and much of the internet, enraptured — not unlike a good horror movie. Everyone knows doom is just around the corner for some key players; a lucky few will emerge stronger; and the monster might be subdued but will ultimately come back for a sequel.
The popular Reddit page WallStreetBets is fond of targeting short-sellers. If you’ve ever played craps, these are the guys betting against the table, and their tactics, while often lucrative, have burnished their reputation as bloodsuckers and other, unpublishable, names. (More on that later.)
It’s not hard to understand why someone would short GameStop, however. The company is expected to lose money this year and next. Sales growth is sluggish because gamers no longer need to go to the mall to buy games or consoles. That said, some investors have argued that GameStop was seriously undervalued, especially when video games have become staples of the stay-at-home pandemic era.
The GameStop stock surge began for a legitimate reason: The company announced on January 11 it had added three new directors to its board, including Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen. Investors liked that Cohen brought digital experience to the table, something the largely brick-and-mortar GameStop desperately needs, as video games go digital and malls continue their unending slump into irrelevance.
GameStop’s stock rose a little less than 13% that day. But this wasn’t a normal, momentary stock surge. Two days later, it rose 57%. Then 27%. The next week, it surged 10% twice and 51% another day. This week, it rose another 18% then 93% and more than doubled today.
The reason is two-fold, both of which are far removed from anything related to the company’s fundamental strength: Investors following the Reddit group bought a ton of GameStop options, and short-sellers had to buy shares to cover their losing bids.
On Wednesday, while all three major stock indexes tumbled, GameStop finished up a mind-boggling 134%.
For perspective: One year ago, a single share cost about $4. It’s now $200.
Options are bets investors place on a stock, allowing them to buy (a “call” option) or sell (a “put” option) at a particular price. That allows people to wager on whether a stock will rise or fall.
Investors can place relatively inexpensive options bets and sell those options as they rise in value when the stock price gets closer to their wager. Although buying and selling options isn’t the same as buying and selling stocks, big options volumes can drive a stock up or down, typically because options traders buy or sell the stock itself as a hedge.
In the case of GameStop and other stocks targeted by WSB, traders keep buying options, forcing the investors selling those options to hedge their bets by buying up GameStop stock.
WallStreetBets, which has more than 2 million followers, is littered with posts cheering the stock gains and no small amount of righteous indignation.
“What I think is happening is that you guys are making such an impact that these fat cats are worried that they have to get up and put in work to earn a living,” a moderator in the group posted this week.”That fuzzy sensation you are feeling is called RESPECT and it is well earned. Wall Street no longer dismisses your presence anymore.”
Elon Musk appeared to join the pile-on Tuesday with a single-word tweet — “Gamestonk!!” — that linked to WallStreetBets. Tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya dipped his toe in the frenzy, buying call options on Tuesday but closing his position Wednesday, he told CNBC. Palihapitiya said he would donate his profits to charity and defended the retail-investing phenomenon playing out on Reddit.
“Instead of having ‘idea dinners’ or quiet whispered conversations amongst hedge funds in the Hamptons, these kids have the courage to do it transparently in a forum,” he said. “What it proves is this retail [investor] phenomenon is here to stay.”
The GameStop saga is a battle of new school vs. old school, amateur vs. professional, rebels vs. the establishment. At the moment, the kids are winning. But, like all bubbles, this one’s going to burst at some point.
Source: CNN Business
Reddit has acquired Dubsmash, the lipsyncing video app which launched in 2014 and was largely supplanted when TikTok showed up.
Announced via Reddit’s blog on Sunday, the annexing of Dubsmash’s 12-person team to Reddit’s 700-strong horde is the popular website’s first major acquisition in its 15-year history.
While the financial terms of the agreement haven’t been disclosed, Dubsmash will be keeping its own platform and separate branding. Dubsmash’s Android and Apple apps will continue to operate as normal, with its video creation tools simply integrated into Reddit’s infrastructure.
Reddit currently allows users to upload and livestream videos, however its editing capabilities are somewhat lacklustre — a problem this acquisition hopes to address.
“The transition to video will be bigger than the transition to mobile,” Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said, speaking via the Wall Street Journal. Which sounds fake, but okay. Pivots to video historically haven’t worked out well, but perhaps the distinction between editorial and user-created content will yield better results.
Dubsmash went through a slow decline in the wake of its 2015 popularity boom, before revamping itself in 2017 to stage an unlikely comeback. While still not as successful as TikTok, the short-form video app established a significant audience by focusing on the one demographic still using it — Black teenagers in the U.S.
As such, both Reddit and Dubsmash’s acquisition announcements heavily emphasised the diverse, underrepresented creators who use the app. According to Reddit, a quarter of Black teens in the U.S. use Dubsmash, while 70 percent of users are women or girls.
“By joining forces with Reddit, we expand our ability to serve the creators that represent the lifeblood of Dubsmash, helping them connect, share, and deepen their impact on culture,” wrote Dubsmash co-founders Suchit Dash, Jonas Drüppel and Tim Specht. The trio further reaffirmed their goal to “[create] a safe and welcoming platform for underrepresented communities.”
“Both Reddit and Dubsmash share a deep rooted respect for how communities come together,” said Huffman. “Dubsmash elevates under-represented creators, while Reddit fosters a sense of community and belonging across thousands of different topics and passions.”
Source: Mashable
In this clip, Faizon Love and Vlad continued their discussion about Bruce Lee and Michael Jai White. Faizon reiterated that martial arts is more about skill and technique than brute strength, which he thinks would pose an impediment for Michael if he were to fight someone like Bruce Lee. Faizon also pointed out that Bruce Lee deserves his respect for teaching martial arts in Oakland during the height of the Black Power era which wasn’t the environment for someone who couldn’t hold their own.
Separate Section Clothing has rolled out their Fall 2020 Collection! Check out some of the flame I worked on.
A lineup you won’t want to miss out on! We are so excited to welcome Loose Leaf Boba to the market, their boba is made with real ingredients and they have a culturally inspired menu that’ll keep you coming back for more. Their “Soft Opening” hours are happening now through September 11th. Visit them 7 days a week from 12pm-8pm. September 12th will be @looseleafboba GRAND OPENING day where 100% of profits from that day will go towards Feeding America. To top it off, they will also be having a Chinese Lion Dance Show, first 100 people get 1 free Original Milk Tea or Thai Tea or 1/2 off any other drink, next 50 guests can get any drink 1/2 off, and so many more deals so stay tuned!
Since Chicken Strip is trending on Twitter (Ross Stripling), I’d just like to settle the debate on ppl saying boneless wings are “like chicken nuggets”— They’re more like mini chicken strips because you can still see the muscle of the breast. Nuggets are grounded, reshaped, chicken mush!
But what makes it all worse is that one of the things Eater has done is help push a kind of restaurant consensus around that monoculture, which goes a little like this: notable chef, must speak English, must be media-savvy, must have design-driven dining room, must kowtow to the scene, must have small plates, must push diverse histories through French ricers, must have toast points, must love dogs. Eater’s not alone in doing this — plenty of others do, too (including Grub Street). But the result is a formula that has basically condo-ized New York’s food culture with some ultimately pretty conservative, even intolerant, values. Which means maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’s a penitent skinhead near the top of Eater’s food chain. But it is a reason to try and shake things up. Food is so essential to our lives and social ecosystem that this news should be a signal not just to question the people in these positions of power but to question the positions themselves.
Source: Grub Street
Minneapolis police officer Jason Anderson has been cleared in the wrongful death trial of Fong Lee. The jury at the U.S. District Court in St. Paul found Anderson did not use exessive force, and therefore no damages will be awarded to Fong Lee’s family.
Officer Andersen shot and killed Lee, 19, on July 22, 2006. Some video of the incident was captured on surveillance cameras Cityview Elementary School in north Minneapolis.
The 12-member jury deliberated for roughly six hours between Wednesday and Thursday, after hearing five days of testimony.
During his closing argument Wednesday, Assistant City Attorney Jim Moore played an image at the start of the chase, asking jurors to look in the very lower right corner of the screen as Lee begins to run from police.
He said, “It looks like a gun to him.” Moore also told jurors they may not see the gun in other images because Lee may have had it cupped in his hand.
Lee’s family had argued their son was unarmed, and alleged police planted the gun.
Before deliberating, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson instructed the jury to first decide, unanimously, whether Andersen used excessive force. If they decided he did not, they would return with their decision. If they decided he did, they had to decide if he was malicious in his use of force, and if so, how much to award the Lee family in damages.
Statement from Police Chief Tim Dolan
Officer Andersen acted with courage and integrity in fulfilling his duty to serve and protect the people of Minneapolis. Unfortunately, in return, the department and Officer Andersen have had to endure highly inflammatory accusations that have unfairly caused hardship for him and his family. We are pleased that Officer Andersen has been vindicated, and now hope that we can all move forward and heal as a community.
