Latest Stories from Charlie
Club Quarantäne offers virtual Berlin club nights during lockdown
The website lets clubbers queue up, visit bathrooms, and even get turned away by bouncers, all to raise money for charity. Are you missing the sticky and cramped dance floors of nightclubs? Craving the heavy bass beats of an underground DJ? While I can’t promise you’ll be able to do the real thing outside anytime soon, a team of European promoters and creators have banded together to launch ‘Club...
Matrix director confirms the film is a transgender allegory
Lilly Wachowski, co-director of the Matrix films, says the film originally intended to reflect transgender experiences more explicitly - but the ‘world wasn’t ready for it’. The Matrix was considered a sci-fi classic almost instantaneously when it was released in 1999. Neo’s journey from average office worker to all-seeing oracle within a simulated reality was considered ground-breaking for its visual designs, cyberpunk aesthetic, and wildly imaginative narrative. If you weren’t...
How the Big Mac Index helps to value currency
Economics can be a tricky thing to get your head around, but comparing prices of Big Mac’s around the world can help. This week, The Economist published its yearly Big Mac Index, which compares prices of McDonald’s favourite burger between countries and values their currencies accordingly. The report suggests that New Zealand’s currency is weaker than it should be and that China’s GDP is bigger than the World Bank...
Darcy Bourne is one of many black athletes pushing for change
Martin Luther King III posted an image of Darcy holding a protest sign. It’s one of many efforts by black female athletes to change the conversation around racism and prejudice. Darcy Bourne is an 18-year-old professional hockey player for the Great Britain Elite Development Programme. She went viral in early July when she was photographed during the London Black Lives Matter demonstrations. An image of her holding a protest sign...
Disney, LiveNation, and others are making huge losses in 2020
The live entertainment industry has been hit extremely hard by coronavirus, so much so that it’ll likely take years to fully recover - though streaming is on the rise. Disney has reported that it made a net loss of $4.72 billion in the last financial quarter, a rare dip in profits for the company. In the same period last year it earned $1.43 million in net income, making this an...
Spotify’s latest revenue figures prove it’s not fairly paying artists
Over 90% of streams on Spotify are only generated by a pool of 43,000 artists, making it impossible for millions of others to ever receive fair compensation. Is it time for a change? Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has been hit with criticism in the last week for telling artists that they can no longer afford to record an album ‘once every three to four years’ if they want to stay...
Twitter’s new audio feature will transform it, for better or worse
Heated political discussion is no longer confined to your phone’s keyboard, as Twitter begins to test out new audio tweet features for iOS. You only need to browse Twitter for five minutes to notice that it’s a very political space where anyone can argue via aggressive tweeting and reactionary gifs. This defining quality is somewhat of a double-edged sword. While it’s useful to keep informed via other perspectives outside of your...
Recycled pianos used to create new theatre space in Glasgow
Pianos have been dismantled and sliced in a hut in Springburn to create a brand new theatrical and musical space. They might not be the first thing you’d associate with construction, but it turns out pianos can be very useful when creating new spaces for the arts. A steel hut in Springburn that was intended to be demolished has instead been transformed into a new theatre space for town residents...
Halo Infinite’s reveal proves that Xbox isn’t doing enough
The big reveal for Halo’s next instalment showed off lacklustre graphics and dated gameplay. It’s clear that Microsoft isn’t keeping up with Sony. Microsoft premiered eight minutes of brand new campaign gameplay from its upcoming Halo reboot, Halo Infinite, yesterday evening as part of a livestreamed reveal event. We also got a glimpse of a handful of new smaller, indie titles, as well as the announcement of a new...
Coronavirus causes huge growth in demand for trustworthy news
Questionable news sites have seen a drop in clicks while more traditional outlets have enjoyed fresh popularity, though whether it lasts after the pandemic remains to be seen. The Economist has published new figures that show many of us flocked to mainstream news websites from early March onward at the height of the Coronavirus panic, suggesting that demand for less legitimate sites slows down in moments of crisis. These figures...
