Numlock News

By Walt Hickey The video game business can be a difficult one, but it’s reassuring to know that first-time developers are able to take their ideas and build a loyal following. For instance, a teenager from New Hampshire launched This Game Costs $10, and seeing the potential in the format and realizing that the maximum price in the Steam store is $200, followed it up with This Game Costs $200.

By Walt Hickey Kimberly-Clark relies on wood fiber for most of its core products, from Scott paper towels to Huggies diapers to Cottonelle toilet paper, and after years of R&D, the company is prepared to reveal what it believes may be a future source of fiber: hesperaloe. In early tests, the plant’s fibers have been capable of swapping in for wood fiber in those paper products, and the fibers are both stronger and softer at that, not to mention less environmentally damaging.

By Walt Hickey Welcome back! Spider-Man: Brand New Day smashed even the highest of expectations, making $355 million from 4,487 theaters in North America, the second-largest debut in box office history and just $2 million behind the record held by Avengers: Endgame.

By Walt Hickey This week, I spoke to Jack Raines, author of the book Young Money: A Field Guide to Wealth and Purpose in Your Twenties which is in stores this week. Jack and I worked together at Sherwood News where he was responsible for someof myfavorite stories, he has had a longrunning newsletter about money and has always had some fascinating ideas. The book is available wherever books are sold, and he recorded an audiobook available wherever you get your audiobooks.

By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! A production company is suing Netflix, alleging that Netflix compromised the sale of a World War II spy thriller starring Nicolas Cage when it lost an unencrypted master copy of Fortitude as it was stolen from Netflix’s office last month. Netflix is arguing that it doesn’t bear responsibility for the loss of the film because there was no encryption involved.

By Walt Hickey De Beers could sell for $1 billion, a steep decline for the diamond monopoly once valued at $18 billion. As it stands, the leading bid for the Anglo American subsidiary is from Global Diamond Consortium, which is a group that includes the governments of Namibia and Angola, which would pay $750 million upfront and then $250 million later.

By Walt Hickey FIFA has, over the course of its history, been the Manhattan Project of corruption, pushing the boundaries of what is possible and weaponizing what grifters from just a generation earlier considered only theoretical. That legacy may very well continue as FIFA announced that it is looking to create a new entity: FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), within which the global soccer governing body would place the revenue-generating enterprises like media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships.

By Walt Hickey The Emmy Awards are actually controlled by two separate organizations that have, for decades, been embroiled in an at-times acrimonious East Coast/West Coast feud.

By Walt Hickey Welcome back! The Odyssey has made $639.6 million worldwide, of which $284.4 million was made domestically, $353.2 million abroad, and $140 million from IMAX. Still, a controversy has emerged: Universal contracted with the nonprofit Värmlands Vikingcenter in Sweden to borrow their boat Glad av Gillberga as one of the escort vessels in the Ithacan flotilla depicted in the film, paying a rental fee of $41,000.

Photo by Madison Olling on Unsplash By Walt Hickey This week, I spoke to Fola Akinnibi over at Bloomberg who wrote New York, City of Scaffolding, Tries a Glow-up.Here is what I wrote about it: Building owners, particularly in New York, install scaffolding and sidewalk sheds as safety measures when possible facade issues emerge.