It has been a wild week for the stock market, with amateur traders from Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets subreddit battling traditional investors. The past several days have been full of massive swings in stocks like GameStop and AMC and app-fueled drama that’s sparked a larger debate over the nature of Wall Street as a whole.
But if you were hoping to kick back this weekend, relax, and enjoy a classic business movie about shark-like investors and over-confident Wall Street executives, you’re probably out of luck. Nearly every major finance film isn’t available to stream right now in the US (at least, not at the time of publication of this article), thanks to the capricious nature of the streaming marketplace, the increasingly fragmented libraries of studios, and the byzantine licensing deals that regulate what you can stream and where.
This week’s short stock drama have you hankering for The Big Short? You won’t find it on Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Max. Right now, you can stream it with ads on Crackle, of all services. Paramount (which distributed the film) might be saving it for Paramount Plus, which is set to launch in March, but that won’t do you any good this weekend. Instead, your only option is to buy or rent it — which, it seems, many people are doing, given that the film has shot to the No. 3 spot on iTunes.
Maybe the ups and downs of the stock market reminded you more of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, chronicling the rise and fall of investor Jordan Belfort. But the Paramount film is nowhere to be found on any streaming platform. So unless you’re willing to pony up some actual cash to buy or rent the film (which, like The Big Short, is shooting up rental charts), you won’t be enjoying Leonardo DiCaprio’s profanity-fueled chest-thumping either. The same applies to 2000’s Boiler Room, which is also absent from any streaming service.
20th Century Fox’s Wall Street is — predictably — not on Disney Plus to stream, but it’s also not available on Hulu or any other service. If you are looking for a financial film to watch this weekend, though, the sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, is on Amazon Prime. There’s also Margin Call, which is streaming on Peacock (for now).
But the dearth of classic Wall Street films isn’t a unique issue. It’s one that streaming services have been grappling with in recent years, as big players like Netflix and Hulu have been less encompassing and streaming services have focused more on building up libraries of original content. There was a similar issue during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of viewers looking to watch Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film Contagion were frustrated that the film wasn’t available to stream anywhere.
The fact that iconic Wall Street films will similarly miss the big moment around ambitious investors and skeevy short selling is indicative of a bigger problem with streaming in 2021, one that will likely continue to get worse as more and more studios continue to reclaim their content for their own services.
Then again, it’s almost fitting that the only way to watch The Wolf of Wall Street or The Big Short this weekend is to pay a little extra cash back into the big financial machine.
The resulting “sPot” features both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, allowing it to connect to both wireless speakers and headphones, in addition to a color display and 1,000mAh battery. If you’re an audio purist, you’ll hate this next part: the headphone jack at the top of the device is for show and doesn’t work. At the heart of the device is the $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W. There’s also a motor that creates haptic feedback when using the click wheel. For charging the device, there’s a Micro-USB port. While we would have preferred a USB-C connection, Micro-USB is definitely an improvement over Apple’s 30-pin connector (remember those?).
All told, all the components set him less than $100. Coming in at $40, the most expensive part was the color screen Dupont used to replace the iPod’s original display (the 4th-generation model was the last one to ship with a monochromatic screen). Part of the reason it was so expensive was that most manufacturers don’t make displays that small anymore since even the smallest smartphone screen is bigger than anything that came with a click wheel iPod. The fact the device works so well came down to a bit of luck. Dupont found a decade-old Hackaday article that details how one of the connectors inside the iPod work. That allowed him to make the click wheel play nice with all the other components.
The programming powering the sPot is a mix of software Dupont wrote himself and an app called Raspotify, which allows a Raspberry Pi computer to access the streaming service through the Spotify Connect API. The front-end interface he coded even allows the sPot to search for songs — though as you might imagine, with no touchscreen keyboard, it can take a while to input even a couple of characters.
If you have an old iPod sitting unused in a drawer somewhere and want to take on the project yourself, Dupont has uploaded a detailed overview to Hackaday. He’s also in the process of uploading the software he wrote for the project to GitHub.
The Baseball Hall of Fame will announce its 2021 class Tuesday night. Notable names like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen are among the players on this year’s ballot, but it’s possible no players will be voted in this year. The full 2021 ballot can be viewed here.
The rules: A player is eligible to be placed on the ballot after five years of retirement. Players getting at least 75 percent of the returned ballots from qualified BBWAA voters gain entry to the Hall of Fame. Those who get below five percent fall off the ballot. Those between five and 75 percent can remain on the ballot for up to 10 years. BBWAA members who are active and in good standing and have been so for at least 10 years can vote for anywhere from zero to 10 players each year.
And here are the details for the selection show:
2021 Baseball Hall of Fame class announcement
Time: 6 p.m. ET
Date: Tuesday, Jan. 26
TV channel: MLB Network (coverage starts at 3 p.m. ET)
Live stream: fuboTV (try for free)
Below are six storylines to watch for as the vote totals get unveiled Tuesday night.
(NOTE: When talking about “early returns,” I’m generally referencing the indispensable Vote Tracker from Ryan Thibodaux and his team.)
1. Penultimate chance for big-name trio
The top three candidates on the ballot this year among holdovers are Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. The on-field resumes, in terms of the stats, say Clemens and Bonds are among the very best players to ever play while Schilling is a legitimate Hall of Famer.
And yet, here we are.
Bonds and Clemens are both tied to the use of performance-enhancing drugs in addition to being accused of serious off-field indiscretions. Schilling got less support in his early years on the ballot and as things have lingered he’s made his road incredibly difficult with inflammatory rhetoric.
Last year, Schilling got 70 percent of the vote while Clemens was at 61 and Bonds checked in at 60.7.
The modest gains of Clemens and Bonds in recent years suggest they’ll fall short again. Schilling has already shown losses this time around from people who used to vote for him.
The best bet is none of the three make it, judging from early returns.
This is the ninth time on the ballot for all three, setting them up for one last go-round on the 2021 ballot.
If they do miss, it’s likely that no one makes it …
2. It could be empty class
It is rare to have a ballot where the BBWAA doesn’t elect anyone, but it’s not without precedent. The last time there were no players voted in via this method was 2013. It also happened, in reverse chronology, in 1996, 1971, 1965, 1960, 1958, 1950 and 1945.
This election has a very good chance of joining that group with no players getting 75 percent of the vote.
Take note that this would not mean a totally empty ceremony in Cooperstown this summer, assuming the COVID-19 situation gets under enough control to have one. That’s because the 2020 ceremony was canceled last July and that class has Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller still getting enshrined this year.
Still, if there’s no BBWAA class for 2021, it would be the first totally empty class since 1960. I’ve already expanded on the history behind this here.
3. Will any first-timers survive?
Let’s keep in mind that it’s incredibly tough just to make it onto the Hall of Fame ballot before we soak in the sentence I’m about to write. A player has to be in the majors for 10 years and even then he is not guaranteed to make it on. Dan Uggla, C.J. Wilson and Adam LaRoche were among the players eligible for this ballot who were excluded. Again, please keep that in mind when I say the following:
This first-year class was one of the weaker ones we’ve seen in recent memory. It’s possible every newcomer becomes a one-and-done.
Early returns suggest there’s a chance that Mark Buehrle gets above five percent, though he has little hope of getting all the way to 75 percent, even if he gets 10 years. He’s likely the only one with a chance to remain for a second year and even he could miss the cut.
Torii Hunter and Tim Hudson also have seen enough early support that there’s a shot they hit the five-percent mark, though the smart money is on them falling well short.
Aramis Ramirez, Shane Victorino, A.J. Burnett, Barry Zito, Nick Swisher, Dan Haren, Michael Cuddyer and LaTroy Hawkins will definitely fall short in their one chance. To reiterate, that’s far from an insult. It’s a great compliment to their admirable careers to get on the ballot.
4. Who has momentum?
We’re now past the part of the falling short and falling off guys and moving into what the returns mean for future years. For Hall of Fame junkies like myself, this is the fun part.
It’s possible the following players have enough momentum to believe Cooperstown is within reach.
Scott Rolen is in his fourth year on the ballot and it looks like he’ll break 50 percent after debuting with just 10.2 percent. He got a touch over 35 percent last year and a move to over 50 with six years left means he’s a good bet to make it eventually.
Todd Helton went 16.5 percent and then 29.2 percent in his first two years. Especially with Walker now in and hopefully the Coors Field stigma starting to wear down a bit, look for another big jump. If he moves to over 50 or even just 40-plus percent, the odds of making it soon would be great. I doubt he’ll need all 10 years, but still keep an eye on his percentage.
In his first three chances, Billy Wagner was between 10.2 and 11.1 percent. Then he went to 16.7 and 31.7. This is his sixth try, so it’ll still be a tall order, but another big gain on the percentage front would give Wagner a real shot here with four years left. Again, keep an eye on this one. I’d say he needs to see at least 40 and probably even closer to 45 percent to feel optimism of eventually enshrinement.
Gary Sheffield went through five voting cycles not even getting 14 percent of the vote, but jumped to 30.5 percent last year. He only has three chances left, so it’s still an uphill battle, but getting up into the mid-40s would be reason for hope — and we all know “hope is a good thing,” as Red once learned.
Andruw Jones‘ first two years showed 7.3 and then 7.5 percent, but he went up to 19.4 percent last year and it looks like he’s primed to make another significant jump. With six years left and a possibly surging vote percentage, seeing something 30-35 percent here would lead me to believe he’s on track.
Andy Pettitte went from 9.9 percent to 11.3 percent and needs a much bigger boost than that moving forward for a shot. He’s more of an “old-school” candidate than many on here and that means he could end up showing much higher than we’ve seen on the publicly made ballots so far. If he cracks 20 percent here, he’s a legitimate candidate moving forward.
Bobby Abreu got just 5.5 percent of the vote in his first try last year, but there seems to be a bit more movement toward him. Keep an eye out here. Might he jump to close to 15 percent? If so, chances move into realistic long-shot territory.
5. Who’s losing steam?
On the flip side, Omar Vizquel seems to be losing what looked like a Hall of Fame trajectory in voting. In just three years, Vizquel went from 37 to 42.8 to 52.6 percent, but he’s showing a decent number of lost votes so far. Vizquel is currently under investigation by Major League Baseball over domestic violence allegations.
6. And who is stagnating?
The following players seem to be just treading water until their 10 years on the ballot are up.
Manny Ramirez has two PED-related suspensions from his playing days and in four chances on the ballot has only increased his percentage from 23.8 to 28.2. There seems to be a plateau in there for players connected to PEDs and given that he’s the only one on this ballot with a PED suspension, it’s likely this thing is just playing out as a formality. If he somehow moves up over 35 percent I’ll pay more attention.
Jeff Kent through six cycles never cracked 18.1 percent, but did rise to 27.5 percent last year. Early returns suggest he’s not going to make another big dent, though, and there are only two years left after this one.
Sammy Sosa is on his ninth ballot and last year topped out at just 13.9 percent. He might go up, but he’s not getting close to the needed 75 percent.
There you have it. You are now ready to see the full voting results on Tuesday evening with a good idea on what it all means past the rudimentary “who is in and who is out?” We’ll have full coverage on the fallout after the vote is unveiled.
Popular VTuber and Twitch streamer CodeMiko is known for her creative streams that allow viewers to get involved by influencing parts of the broadcast. She uses her setup and virtual character rig to engage with her audience—which averages nearly 8,000 viewers per stream—and fellow content creators through various segments and interviews.
The Technician, or the developer behind Miko and the stream, does all of the coding, engineering, and rigging herself and is always pushing the level of interactivity with the broadcast forward, describing it as “a quasi interactive, RPG.”
The nature of some interviews, however, has led to Twitch banning Miko from the platform, including two short-term suspensions in September 2020. She found herself suspended from the platform yet again when her account was banned on Jan. 19—this time for two weeks. Neither Miko nor Twitch clued the streamer’s audience of nearly 360,000 followers in to what caused the ban.
Following her third ban, Miko spoke with Dot Esports about what led to the suspension, how she approaches content creation, and her future plans, including details about her return stream planned for Feb. 5 at 2pm CT.
You said you had more details about why your channel was banned and it wasn’t because of your usage of the word “simp.” What was the reason this time? How long is the ban?
Miko: It was not because of the word simp. It is a long story, but the short of it is, I messed up when I was chatting with a friend and fellow streamer and kind of got lost in the moment.
Was it something specific that broke the Twitch Terms of Service?
So I have this interview content and basically feature other streamers. During an interview, they often share things with me and send it to me to show on stream. So they will share it and I will put it on screen.
At this particular moment, we were talking about female harassment online and I asked her what was like the worst comment she had ever received. When I saw the email, it was pretty bad and was more like a threat than a comment. From my experience, threats are almost never from a user’s actual email address, but when I threw up the screenshot, that is basically what got me banned. I violated terms [of service] around privacy.
Obviously, my friend didn’t mean for this to happen, she is very sweet, and I think we both overlooked it because we were so focused on the threat of the email, but I learned my lesson.
What made this ban different from the two your channel was given in September?
Yeah, those were also little slip-ups. It is unfortunate, but I just have to be more careful with things like that and work to prevent them from happening in the future.
My content isn’t about that stuff, it is about the innovation behind livestreaming and I just want to show what I can make and the innovative side of my stream. I’m actually really excited about coming back because I have been using this time to work on some new stuff and it has been good.
The suspension is horrible, but at the same time it has kind of given me this time to really really work on my stuff and I am really excited to show it off when I come back.
How has Twitch been communicating with you since your ban?
I am getting myself an account manager and I think that will help a lot when it comes to communication with Twitch. Once I get one, I hope communication will go a lot smoother in the future.
Are you going to approach streaming any differently when you get back?
I want to focus more on the innovative side of my content and really push more in the direction of creating fun things to drive that live interaction, in terms of mini-games I can play with chat and the guests during our interviews. I imagine it will be like my interviews but on steroids.
Basically, I want to focus on adding more interactive aspects to chat that will help the humor of the interviews and situations within the interviews and just adding a lot of color to the content.
I am always super excited for new stuff. Currently, I was only working on interview content, but now, I am going to implement game show aspects to it as well. I have been going head-on with the live, interactivity part of it. I am planning my return stream to have big streamers that I have worked with and making it into a really fun event.
I am also just planning out my everyday content as well and it will have different things other than interviews.
You touched on it a bit there, but with how you have been working on your content during the ban, what are your plans for your return stream?
I want to have it be a big game show with my big streamer friends and I am going to hype it up! It will be something that has never been done before on Twitch, in terms of like how I am going to run my version of the content.
Twitch has done game shows before, but they have done them in a way that is very 2D with cameras and an overlay type of thing where it is flat. But with my VTuber capabilities being in the 3D space I can have it feel more like they are actually inside a studio.
In my interviews, the streamers come in on a monitor and that is how I interview them, but this way I am going to do this by giving them robot bodies but their heads will be like the computer screen. So they will have certain controls for how they can move their robot bodies and it will feel like they are more inside the space because they will have additional elements that are used in game shows, like a podium and there will be camera cuts to the streamer with their face on the robot head. It will just feel a lot more immersive that way.
They will be able to interact with a wheel that they spin, there will be animations, so when they spin their character spins the wheel we can still see the streamer’s expression because their camera is being fed on the PV screen of the robot. Stuff like that is what my game shows will feel like and chat can always throw fun things at us during the show to throw the streamers off or make things happen to the avatars. I’m excited to debut this when I come back.
Your content has picked up dramatically in recent months. How have you been able to grow your channel? What have you been doing that you feel works?
I have been streaming since the end of March beginning of April and throughout those first few months, it was just me trying new things every day. My schedule used to be really crazy, where I would go to sleep at around 9pm, wake up at 2am, dev until 12pm, and then stream. I would stream for like four or five hours and then eat and do some other stuff and then repeat all over again.
During that time, it was very rough developing because I would quickly code things in to just see what would happen in chat. It was just testing as I went because there was no rulebook when it comes to that kind of live content that tells you stuff like “chat prefers when they can spawn random things, mini-games, and interaction that is more in the background.” I had to figure out what chat likes in that interactive space because there have been a lot of things that have worked, but a lot of things I have built I have had to scrap because in my head it worked, but when I tested it out live, chat just got really bored.
Those early months were a lot of RnD and trying to figure out how I could have fun with chat. And then I got to the point where I was doing interview content, just over a Discord call, and I noticed that chat really liked just sitting and watching me talk and interact with another person while being able to affect the interview in various comical ways. So I just pushed that more and created a new environment for it with the TV and format I use and chat really liked it.
It did really well so I decided to stick with that for now, but I am still researching and developing more things that I can do. One of the biggest projects that I have is I want to create an RPG world where Miko can go on adventure and the bosses would be like big streamers, and chat and Miko have to work together to defeat the boss, like Hasan [HasanAbi], maybe it would be a giant Hasan.
It is a process that I am constantly going through and that idea might not even end up working. Chat might not feel like it is fun and, in that case, I will scrap it and try something new, but it has just been an ongoing development process and I think that is what I enjoy the most. I love making things and seeing if they are fun, and if they aren’t fun, I scrap it. If it’s fun, I keep it, and I just keep going like that.
Other than chat liking the content, what made you pivot so hard into interviews on stream? What was the idea behind it?
Before I started the interviews I would just talk to chat all the time, but having another person that I could interview, I don’t know. I just feel like my content became funnier because I could bounce off of someone, what they said, create more humor with that back and forth. It just led to more funny moments and chat really liked the interactivity with the streamer I am interviewing. I think it kind of created a very fun, sometimes chaotic, sometimes more serious atmosphere.
When I interview someone I can figure out where their comfort level is, which I do ask them prior to the interview what they are comfortable with sharing and not sharing and if they are okay with me occasionally trolling them on some things, all of those things. Some streamers I take a very laid back approach and we can be more calm or serious to have a nice talk, but with others, I know they are all for being trolled and the humor part of it so I can mess with them a little bit and it becomes a fun back-and-forth.
Overall, the interview format was just really fun, and was doing really with chat so I decided to keep going and innovating with it.
What are your thoughts on the growing impact of VTubers and similar styles of creators becoming more common in streaming and content creation, specifically as it starts to expand into Western markets more and more?
I think it’s great! I really like the creative side of Twitch, and it is really exciting to see different content creators try new things and bring new, innovative content out because it just shows that you can do really cool things with just livestreaming.
I feel like it makes the future of entertainment in this livestreaming and digital format really exciting. So I hope it keeps expanding and more new things pop up on the creative side of Twitch.
The time has finally arrived for one of the most anticipated rematches in recent memory. Nearly seven years later, Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier will link up once again in the main event of UFC 257 on Saturday night in the U.S while competing in the wee hours of the morning from Abu Dhabi. McGregor successfully returned to the Octagon in January 2020 by stopping Donald Cerrone after nearly 18 months away.
In the time since the first meeting in 2014, so much has changed. Poirier made the leap up to 155 pounds immediately after the contest and began a torrid run through the division, amassing an impressive 10-2 record with wins over the likes of Eddie Alvarez, Justin Gaethje, Anthony Pettis and Max Holloway. McGregor, meanwhile, went on the collect both the featherweight and lightweight titles before a one-off boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017, which he lost by TKO.
Plus, former Bellator MMA lightweight champion Michael Chandler is set to make his promotional debut when he takes on Dan Hooker in the co-main event. Chandler held the Bellator belt on three different occasions and is widely considered one of the best success stories in promotional history. Now, he begins his attempt to claim UFC gold when he takes on the powerful kickboxer from New Zealand, who just lost a decision to Poirier last June in a Fight of the Year contender.
Can’t get enough boxing and MMA? Get the latest in the world of combat sports from two of the best in the business. Subscribe to Morning Kombat with Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell for the best analysis and in-depth news, including reaction to Friday’s weigh-ins and updates to the main card below.
Below is all the information you need to catch UFC 257 on Saturday night.
How to watch UFC 257 prelims
Date: Jan. 23 | Location: Etihad Arena — Yas Island, Abu Dhabi Time: 8 p.m. ET Channel: ESPN | Stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
How to watch UFC 257 main card
Date: Jan. 23 | Location: Etihad Arena — Yas Island, Abu Dhabi Time: 10 p.m. ET Stream: ESPN+ | Price: $69.99
Now, here’s a look at the UFC 257 main fight card and betting odds via William Hill Sportsbook.
UFC 257 main card, odds
Conor McGregor -310
Dustin Poirier +250
Lightweight
Dan Hooker -140
Michael Chandler +120
Lightweight
Joanne Calderwood -120
Jessica Eye +100
Women’s flyweight
Amanda Ribas -330
Marina Rodriguez +260
Women’s strawweight
Makhmud Muradov -140
Andrew Sanchez +120
Middleweight
Who will win McGregor vs. Poirier 2, and how will each fight end? Visit SportsLine now to get detailed picks on every fight at UFC 257, all from the incomparable expert who’s up more than $22,000 on MMA in the past 23 months, and find out.