Entertainment
Peter Dinklage calls ‘Roofman’ set a ‘gold mine’ for him
Parts of Roofman, the new film of Peter Dinklage, are shot on the set in a Toys “R” Us store, a chain of toy stores in Canada.
The Game of Thrones alum plays a store manager, but outside of the role, he says the shooting at the site was particularly useful for him and his cast.
Explaining why, Peter says he and his co-stars Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst are parents, so “for all of us with children, it was a gold mine because they really filled that Toys “R” Us.”
He shares the set was a renovated, though abandoned, store, “It was an abandoned old Toys “R” Us that they renovated and made it into a present day back in the film time Toys “R” Us. And yeah, that was our wrap gift.”
The Roofman’s synopsis reads that it “follows Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), a former Army Ranger and struggling father who turns to robbing McDonald’s restaurants by cutting holes in their roofs, earning him the nickname: Roofman.”
“After escaping prison, he secretly lives inside a Toys “R” Us for six months, surviving undetected while planning his next move.”
“But when he falls for Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a divorced mom drawn to his undeniable charm, his double life begins to unravel, setting off a compelling and suspenseful game of cat and mouse as his past closes in,” the logline said.
Roofman bows out in theatres Oct. 10.
Entertainment
‘Stranger Things’ star weighs in on fans’ key question
Fans believe that Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers in Stranger Things, has a crush on his on-screen friend Mike Wheeler, portrayed by Finn Wolfhard.
Now, ahead of the final season, viewers have been asking the actor whether the possible on-screen romance will happen. But the 21-year-old says he is playing coy about it.
In a post on TikTok, he says, “You guys love saying this,” and adds, “And I never listen.”
He adds, “It’s probably the most commented comment in all my late-night videos. And, I always ignore it.”
Despite not revealing anything, Noah has been teasing fans about the possibility of ‘Byler,’ which is ‘By’ from Byers and ‘ler’ from Wheeler.
“This song will be in season 5…I wonder why,” he shared in a previous post on social media, referring to Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now.
Stranger Things season five will be out on Netflix in three parts. Volume 1 will drop on November 26, Volume 2 on Christmas, and the finale will air on Christmas.
Entertainment
Saudi minister urges PIF to ease domestic spending, make way for private sector
- Minister Khalid urges PIF to make way for the private sector.
- PIF chairman said last year fund would focus on domestic projects.
- Project sits at heart of Vision 2030 with $900 billion in assets.
Saudi Arabia’s investment minister on Tuesday urged the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to ease its spending on domestic projects and make way for more investments from the private sector, as the fund prepares to draft a new strategic plan.
“It is time for us to maybe scale back on this government or PIF spend to prove and to seed some of these value chains and clusters and let the private sector start investing,” Khalid al-Falih said on Tuesday as financial titans gathered in Riyadh for the country’s flagship investment conference.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic plan has led to hundreds of billions in spending on projects that are designed to transform the kingdom’s economy away from its dependence on hydrocarbons.
At last year’s edition of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference, PIF chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan said the fund would tap more of its resources to fund plans domestically to wean the economy off oil and said the fund planned to cut its overseas investments.
But many of the plan’s flagship projects have been delayed amid low oil prices and a budget deficit that has forced Saudi Arabia to prioritise and downsize.
Saudi Arabia’s PIF, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with more than $900 billion in assets, sits at the heart of Vision 2030. The fund’s initial strategy for 2021-2025 ends this year, and it is due to announce an updated strategy.
Foreign investment into the country has grown 24% in 2024 to $31.7 billion, Rumayyan said earlier on Tuesday as he opened the event, where attendees include Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Blackrock’s Larry Fink, JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, and Citi’s Jane Fraser.
Falih later added that 90% of that foreign direct investment was into Saudi Arabia’s non-oil sector, without mentioning specifics.
“We just did a transaction here in the kingdom, and we had five times more demand than we could provide. It was for a pipeline in Jafurah, and the amount of money that was interested in investing here in the kingdom was at a record level,” Fink said on a panel.
“To me, this is just an indication of the transformation here in the kingdom, but more importantly, in the whole region, and I do believe we’re seeing more and more, as the GCC, becoming one of the major destinations for capital.”
That Jafurah deal, which raised $11 billion for Saudi state oil giant Aramco upfront in exchange for payments over 20 years to the investors, is in the exact sector the kingdom is trying to reduce its reliance on.
Entertainment
Musk’s Grokipedia challenges Wikipedia’s volunteer model
Challenging directly to the established world of online knowledge, Elon Musk’s company xAI launched Grokipedia on Monday, October 27.
Grokipedia is an AI-generated encyclopedia that developed its brand-identity as a truth-seeking alternative to what Musk alleges as the “left-biased” and “activist-controlled” wikipedia.
As mentioned on the original site, “version 0.1” went live with over 885,000 articles which is just a fraction of Wikipedia’s more than seven million English entries.
However, Musk builds its hype by citing on X (formerly known as Twitter) that “even at 0.1 it’s better than Wikipedia” and promising that “Version 1.0 will be 10X better.”
The launch builds on the years of criticism from Musk directed at Wikipedia. Musk repeatedly alleged that the non-profit free online encyclopedia is actually managed by “far-left activists” and has an “extremely left-biased” editorial content.
The SpaceX CEO previously urged his followers to defund it.
“The goal of Grok and Grokipedia is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will never be perfect, but we shall nonetheless strive towards that goal,” he added.
This declaration highlights a significant clash in how knowledge is curated.
Wikipedia, founded in 2001, is supported by a global community of human volunteers who write and edit articles following strict “neutral point of view” policy. The source of Wikipedia’s funding is majorly donations.
On the other hand, Grokipedia is entirely curated and “fact-checked” by xAI’s assistant, Grok. The approach is already under criticism as AI-based models are previously known to “hallucinate” or invent facts,
As of now, the site doesn’t enable human editing unlike Wikipedia. But Musk cited that ultimately Grokipedia will allow people to modify articles with the AI having the final say.
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