🚙THE GREAT SYSCA ROADIE 🚙

Oct 03, 2022

As you can see by the title of this newsy... ya gals are hitting the road! Starting on Thursday we're going on a two-week SYSCA extravaganza from Auckland to Dunedin & would love to meet as many of you as we can (more details below 🥺)

Yesterday was a chill one - I recorded an episode of Culture Vulture with Liv (in your ears tomorrow), had a LONG meeting with Rubes who has been doing ALL the roadie organising (HUGE snaps for Rubes), cooked dinner for my flat, read some more of the new Taylor Jenkins Reid book, & played some Disney Dreamlight Valley - a very typical day for Luce!!

Tomorrow won't be a typical day tho because it's MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! Just letting you know so you don't forget to buy me a present. I'll accept anything to do with Harry Styles orrrrrr you becoming a humble ✨SYSCA supporter✨ xx

THE GREAT SYSCA ROADIE
Help find Aimee!
DEBUNKED: Actor Bruce Willis Becomes First Celebrity to Sell Rights to Deepfake Firm
An update on protests in Iran
Have you seen the Tesla robot?

🚙THE GREAT SYSCA ROADIE🚙

Ok so we’ve been talking about it for so long without giving you any ACTUAL SOLID DETAILS, so here I am, bringing you everything you need to know about THE GREAT SYSCA ROADIE!

The SYSCA gals and I (and my lil brother Ben as our resident chauffeur) are making a Britz Campervan our home for about 10 days while we travel from Auckland to Dunedin meeting you all & spreading the good word about SYSCA!!

There are two parts to the roadie: the universities (where we’ll be chatting in a bunch of media lectures and hanging out with some cool clubs) & the Allpress Coffee Catch-Ups (where we literally have a space in a cafe booked for two hours for us to drink coffee and hang out.) It’s gonna be SO great and we can’t wait to meet you all!

The timetable:

Auckland: Thursday Oct 6th

10-12: Coffee catch-up at the Auckland Allpress Roastery (all welcome!)

Hamilton: Friday Oct 7th

9-11: Coffee catch-up at Scotts Epicurean Cafe (all welcome!)

Wellington: Thursday Oct 13th

12-2pm: Coffee catch-up at Egmont Street Eatery

Christchurch: Monday Oct 17th

8-10am: Coffee catch-up at Allpress Christchurch

Dunedin: Wednesday Oct 19th

7:30-9am: Coffee catch-up at Allpress Dunedin Roastery

PS this is the first time we’ve ever done something like this so we’re sure it will be full of fun and (organised) chaos!! In the event that anything does go wrong (such is life) everything will be fine as you’re just your patient and gorg selves xxx

Help find Aimee!

There is growing concern for 21-year-old Aimee Jane-Smith, who was last seen in Auckland on the night of September 30th in St Heliers.

If you any information on her whereabouts, call 111, and quote event number 2209304710.

DEBUNKED: Actor Bruce Willis Becomes First Celebrity to Sell Rights to Deepfake Firm

SO, after I'd written this, Bruce Willis came out to deny that he has sold the rights to his face, but I wanted to keep this segment in here (which I wrote in the weekend) because if things like this do start happening it's... kinda freaky.

BUT READ ON, KNOWING THAT THIS IS NOT TRUE (YET):

Ok, so by now I'm assuming that you all know what a Deepfake is - it's a super realistic fake video - and it's often used maliciously. Celebrities (and normal people) see versions of themselves in pornographic videos, or saying/ doing things they didn't actually do, and those vids, my friends, are Deepfakes (we also have a really good vid on them here.)

Anyway, it was reported (incorrectly) that Bruce Willis had just become the first person to sell his rights to a Deepfake firm, meaning they would have legally been allowed to use his voice/ likeness in films and TV shows. Bruce Willis first experimented with Deepfake tech for a commercial for Russian phone service, MegaFon, last year, and apparently was into it enough to take it further.

If Bruce HAD done this, it wouldn't have been just as a gimmick though - he recently made his diagnosis of aphasia public, which is described as a language disorder that causes issues with reading, listening, and speaking - so I guess this was a way for him to keep being 'cast' in films.

It's a super interesting and murky world we're moving into. For this unique use case, I see the appeal. Bruce may not have felt done, he probably felt that his last few years of making meaningful work were being stripped from him, and this tech was allowing him to (kinda) do something about it. In the wrong hands though, if we see film legends all begin to sell their rights to be replicated in films, will it eventually mean that there will be less work for new actors/actresses (why wouldn't you want to cast an A-lister for a fraction of the price and who won't ever need a sick day?)

An update on protests in Iran

Yesterday Iranian police clashed with students at a university in Tehran, with reports saying that they've trapped students in the car park on campus.

Videos that have surfaced on social media show students running from security forces, with what sound like gunshots in the background, and it's incredibly hard to find more information on what's happening now.

Zineb Riboua @zriboua

This is incredible, happening now, residents of Tehran are heading towards Sharif University to rescue the students from the Revolutionary Guards, Basij and Iranian Special Forces.

Have you seen the Tesla robot?

Bloomberg @business

WATCH: Elon Musk unveils Optimus robot during Tesla's AI Day 2022 trib.al/oAkNcp0

Ah yes, just what the world needs.... a Teslabot. Tesla has just unveiled their new humanoid robot and they believe they can bring it to market for 'less than $20k.' It can't actually walk yet, but it can wave, and Elon reckons it's going to be able to perform home and factory work and 'virtually end poverty.'

"Ultimately, Musk views Optimus as the savior of labor shortages worldwide and maybe even to replace labor altogether… forcing governments to offer a universal basic income in return for the displacement. As with all things Musk, that’s very ambitious."