The secret life of crisp flavourings
Grand Theft Auto VI is on its way.
Hello,
The Grand Theft Auto VI trailer came out this week and it’s a massive deal. GTA has been a cultural phenomenon since the 90s when the first instalment, made in Dundee, started causing moral panic, everyone worried that life would imitate art. Fortunately, it’s played in the third person which I think gives one a sense of perspective.
It’s the most successful entertainment franchise of all time by a country mile. GTA V has sold 190 million units to date and generated $9 billion to date. To put that into perspective, the most successful album of all time, Thriller by Michael Jackson, sold around 50 million units and Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time generated $2.9 billion.
It makes sense from a consumer perspective at quite a basic economic level. You get potentially hundreds of hours of entertainment from a game whereas you can only watch Avatar so many times before you lose it.
It’s fascinating how an entire entertainment format has developed in just a few decades. It’s only really Generation X and down who grew up with them and it has gone from being seen as a slightly frivolous if not downright immoral pastime to a fairly major cultural component.
Anyway, we haven’t got time for games right now, there’s stuff happening.
I guess it was the weather,
Hugo
Chief of 5 Stars Stuff
The Business of Stuff
The Stuff
Google’s Gemini demo is a bit dodgy 😬 - the tech company launched its new language model this week which it claims is significantly better than GPT-4. The demo video is impressive but it turns out it was not conducted in real-time and some of the images were doctored to make them look better.
China is building loads of nuclear reactors 🪫 - atomic energy is back in fashion as the world looks to move away from fossil fuels and China is leading the way with the first fourth generation reactor entering commercial operation this week. The rest of the world isn’t expected to bring similar reactors online until the 2030s. China wants to build Saudi Arabia’s first civil nuclear reactor and their current offer is 20% cheaper than rival bids from France and South Korea.
There’s a massive shortfall in rocket capacity 🚀 - despite huge demand from companies wanting to launch satellites, the only real contender at the moment is SpaceX as all the other commercial programs are lagging behind. I’m pretty impressed anyone manages it. When you decide to launch a rocket it must be like when you decide to tidy the house, you only realise the enormity of the task about halfway through and it’s too late to change your mind.
Making crisp flavours is a secretive business 🥔 - turns out it’s the same handful of companies who make the majority of flavours. How crisp companies choose and develop those flavours is a fascinating story, told in depth by Amelia Tate in this article. Did you know that the most popular Walkers flavour in the UK is cheese and onion whereas in Thailand and Vietnam, it is crab and seaweed?
Maccies to open new cafe concept in the US ☕ - fed up of watching Starbucks have all the fun with the lattes, McDonald’s is launching CosMc’s, a retro-style cafe where you will be able to buy a pretty random selection of drinks and snacks, aimed at inducing a mid-afternoon insulin spike. The pilot site is opening in Chicago with ten more planned for next year in Texas. Where else?
Krispy Kreme opening in France 🍩 - I’ll be honest I’ve got my doubts about Krispy Kreme’s viability outside of the US. A few have popped up in London and the reality is there’s too much competition on the coffee front and most people are at least vaguely aware that daily doughnuts are no bueno. On top of that Paris also has one or two decent pastries I’m told. You heard it hear first, short DNUT (this is not financial advice).
Cameo is being used to make Russian propaganda 🇷🇺 - Elijah Wood and Mike Tyson are among a number of celebs who have been duped into making videos on Cameo for the Russian government. They were asked to make videos for someone called ‘Vladamir’, asking them to seek help for their substance misuse problems which were then doctored to make them look like they are about Zelensky. Proper 2023 propaganda that.
EU agrees AI legislation 🇪🇺 - a provisional deal has been reached to regulate the development of AI, with disclosure requirements for general-purpose language models but a more rigorous regime for high-impact models. The legislation will not take effect until 2025 at the earliest. Regulatory bodies are trying to balance the need to manage what is seen as a dangerous technology with not falling behind from a technology perspective. The risk is more regulations means more money is spent on lawyers rather than engineers.
Ango-American shares sink as they scale back operations ⛏️ - it must be a real bummer when you have to mine less to save money but mining stuff is how you make money. The reality is that demand for minerals such as platinum and diamonds has weakened due to the economic downturn and it's bloody expensive to get them out of the ground, particularly with the old inflation being what it is.
SantaCon invests in exactly what you’d expect 🧑🎄 - each year tens of thousands of people dress up as Father Christmas and get really drunk at a ‘charity’ event called SantaCon. Said charity, however, spends a huge amount of its money on Burning Man art installations and crypto rather than donating it to good causes. Not that hula hooping is a bad cause, it’s just not actually charitable.
Quote of the week
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here.” - Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland