TXFM interview
The band are interviewed in advance of their show at The Workman’s Club in Dublin. On the death of Prince:
There is a real sense of: will those icons of that level exist again? When I was young I used to get on the bus, go to town, buy an album, read the sleeve notes on the way back. You’d listen to it from start to finish. But music is so accessible now. It’s very difficult for bands now to glue onto people, and get fans for an album. Things like YouTube and iTunes are good, but the drawback is that the listeners switch on, they listen to you, but just as quickly they switch to something else. When we do connect we feel more privileged, but it hard to see somebody being that level again.
White: McGregor will fight again
In an interview on The Jim Rome Show, White talks about McGregor’s retirement announcement.
We’d been going back and forth over this whole press conference and commercial thing. He’s young, he’s emotional, and I believe that’s what that was. Do I believe he’s retiring? I don’t. But if he is, I wish him well. Conor McGregor will fight again I believe. He’s a young guy, he’s a proud guy, he’s very opinionated. I think yesterday his tweet was out of frustration and not the true desire to retire…You can’t not show up to promote your fight. Especially it’s UFC 200. We’re spending like 10 million dollars in commercials and advertising and everything else, and he’s the main event, and he’s not going to be a part of it? It doesn’t work that way.
White also says reports of McGregor wanting $10 million to fight at UFC 200 are false:
That is a flat out disgusting lie. It’s a lie. Conor McGregor has never agreed to fight then come back and ask for more money. He’s never done that. He’s not like that…I’m not mad at Conor McGregor at all. I have no ill-will towards him whatsoever. Listen, he’s a big boy he made a decision not to fight at two hundred he knows what that means to him. Listen, I got three months to go and a lot of people who want to fight on it.
Guardian interview
Keys is interviewed by The Guardian.
It’s fairly common knowledge at this point that this was a very heavy-handed prosecution. We have a real shot of narrowing the applicability of the law so that this doesn’t happen to anybody else. Regarding assertions that his crimes constituted terrorist acts, he added, “I think that anybody who has met me, anybody that’s followed my work would highly dispute that. I didn’t ask for this fight, this fight came at my door. It was an opportunistic prosecutor that seized the moment…Being able to continue working is very important to me. I’m not going away soon.
Schilling: Diaz ‘humbled, humiliated’ McGregor
In an interview with MMA Underground Schilling talks about Diaz’s approach to fighting McGregor.
There is no way that any consummate professional is going to go out there and blow his wad in the first round – unless you’re Conor McGregor and you go out there and blow your wad in the first round…So, Nate’s game plan was to go out there, not get knocked-out, but not waste any energy, and pick up as the rounds went on, because you have to go five rounds. You look at Nick and Nate’s style of fighting – they don’t ever do that well in the first round. They set a pace and then they drown you in it and then by the third, fourth round, guys are shooting for takedowns because they can’t stand getting hit anymore.
On the upcoming UFC 200 fight:
It’s going to be the same fight. I think it’s so obvious the holes in Conor’s game, they were all over the place. I think the skillset that Nate has is far superior to Conor’s and Nate having a full training camp is just way different…if you’re in there with someone you look up to, and you’re intimidated by, and you’re scared of, and talking all this sh-t about, your adrenaline is going to get (expletive) really bad and you’re going to try and knock him out in the first round. And, you’re going to lose like it did the last time.
On McGregor’s “humble in victory and defeat” attitude:
No, he got humbled, and humiliated. There is a big difference between being humble, and being humbled. There’s a big difference.
Johnson: I like everything about McGregor
In an interview with Heavyw8 News, Johnson praises McGregor.
I like Conor McGregor, ‘The Notorious’, I wish I took that name. I like it. I like everything about Conor McGregor…I like what he’s doing for the sport of UFC as well and I hope he doesn’t lose because it’s a fickle world. One minute everyone’s on your back, you’re the flavour of the month, you take a loss, everyone writes you off, but he’s done a lot for the sport of the UFC so far. You can’t fault him after losing, it’s how he gets back up and I think so far he’s done unbelievably well for the sport of UFC and I just hope he continues that.
Business Insider interview
Highfield says that he hopes i readers don’t notice the difference when they pick up the paper when it publishes. He says the company isn’t even running an advertising campaign to mark the relaunch.
That’s going to be the number one objective: to a reader, all those names you know and love, and the design, and the layout — everything should be the same. If there’s anything that’s not the same, I want it to be better.
Highfield says that the inews.co.uk site will not have clickbait and will have a revenue model that will focus mostly on sponsorship and native advertising.
We will be no going after traffic for the sake of traffic. I think we will be very true to the paper and therefore create a clear proposition that we think does not exist in the UK: there is not a politically independent, concise, quality read online and I think that will find a market. We’re not trying to be The Guardian, or BBC Online, or be an Independent.co.uk — I think that would be foolish. What we are going to try to do is stick very closely to the brand values of the i: a quality, concise daily digest, updated continually but at any one moment, when you go to the site, the idea is the matrix will give you everything you need to know to be informed on the day. I think that possibly flows better to the zeitgeist than the acres of never-ending content.
On competition:
We have 900 journalists [across the Johnston Press group] who in turn have a network of thousands of bloggers and contributors… in terms of our reach, we already have a network of thousands of people who write for us in a professional capacity, and that’s bloody hard to undermine.
Lanesplitter AMA
Marquez answers questions from Lanesplitter readers. His favorite track:
MM: Austin is actually one of them, but I also love Phillip Island and Aragon. I like the left turns, because I grew up riding flat track, and they all have many different types of sections and corners. Lots of elevation changes.
LS: Are you a fan of the many rider aids like wheelie control, traction control etc? Or would you rather it be all down to the rider?
MM: The bikes we ride are developed for them. So you have to use them, if you were to take them out you’d have to redesign the bikes. But the aides are for safety. If you tried to use them to make you fast, you would not.
LS: Would you like to run the Isle of Man TT one day?
MM: Yes, but only for fun, not for race.
Plans to take group upmarket
Highfield talks about his plans to to take the regional newspaper group upmarket. The company will increase the number of ABC1 readers from 2.5 million to nearly 3 million with his acquisition of i. He says he won’t increase to cover price (the paper cost 40p and sells 270,000 copies/day).
Two numbers keep sticking in my head. We have got 9 per cent of daily newspaper circulation and 3 per cent share of national advertising revenues in print. I think the pendulum will swing back to quality. Advertisers want quality audiences in print and online, and that is what we can deliver. Our strategy of moving ever-more upmarket has got to be the right one.
Highfield also dismisses the suggestion that quality is suffering because of cuts to Johnston Press journalists.
If you ask them ‘Do they produce better content than they’ve ever done?’, I’d hope they’d say yes. [Social media, reader-generated content and real-time analytics mean the editorial product has] probably never been of a higher quality. [But] the economics do not allow you to employ the same number of people as 20 or 30 years ago.
Manager: McGregor would have fought at 155 or 170
McGregor’s manager says McGregor initially asked for the UFC 200 fight with Diaz at 170 pounds — the same weight as UFC 196. Then, after listening to Coach Kavanagh and the rest of his team, McGregor said he’d be willing to do it at 155.
At the 11th hour, before we signed the bout agreement, [McGregor] said, ‘Look, I’m hearing everybody. If everybody wants to do 155, fine. Let’s do 155’. The contract was already written at 170. And so, in Conor’s defense, he really didn’t give two sh*ts. He really wanted it at 170, because he wanted to prove he could beat him there…Conor is his own CEO, but intelligently he listens to the people around him and then makes his own final decision.
The fight will be at 170. Attar also says the rematch is not about McGregor wanting to avenge his only loss in the UFC.
For him, that loss in itself, because of how he was performing until it went the other way is yet again fueled by his own self-belief system, confidence and desire to want to continue to push the envelope with his athletic ability and his skills, no matter who is in front of him. It happens to be the guy who beat him. He wants to put the same canvas up and paint a different picture for the audience to watch.
Attar says that immediately after the loss to Diaz, McGregor watched the fight on his phone with his coach around 20 times on a loop, even before the press conference started.
[He’s] obsessed. Obsessed with it.
Bjornsson: I was ‘gentle’ with McGregor
In an interview with Men’s Health, Bjornsson talks about his sparring session with McGregor, before his victory against Jose Aldo. He says he had to be careful not to injure McGregor.
I was in Ireland shooting for Game of Thrones and my friend [Icelandic UFC fighter] Gunnar Nelson was training in Dublin with Conor. I asked if I could check out a session. I knew he had a big fight coming up, so I was gentle with him.
McGregor:
We squared off as if we were gonna do it. Then all of a sudden, he’s bouncing and I’m bouncing. Next thing you know, we’re having a full, bareknuckle body shot fight.
Rossi: I was ‘screwed’ by Marquez
In an interview with Motosprint, Rossi says he had no choice but to speak out against Marquez after Sepang 2015.
I have thought long and hard on what had happened. I also thought that perhaps it would have been better not to do it, but I had to, because I had realised that I was screwed. It would have been already difficult to beat Lorenzo in a normal situation, but when Marquez went against me, I realised I got screwed. With that press conference, more than trying to intimidate Marquez, I tried to call for the attention of race direction, in order to sort out this thing. We had tried to talk to race direction, but they didn’t listen to us, so I tried this other way. I think they underestimated the problem, because what happened is something no one had expected: I didn’t, and neither did they, so when we told them, they looked at us wondering ‘what’s behind this?’ It could have been avoided by talking together in Malaysia.
While he expects to maintain a working relationship with Lorenzo, Rossi still wonders about Marquez’s tactics.
It was completely clear what his intentions were, with the Valencia race [when Marquez finished second to Lorenzo] being the cherry on top. Anyway… it is not very important, in the sense that our relationship, after what had happened, can never be restored. We’ll have to be only rivals, but I would like us to be able to focus on that, more than on nonsense such as ‘let’s shake hands, let’s not. I prefer doing real things, that’s the way.
Redbull interview
Marquez talks about his preparation for the 2016 season with Redbull.com.
I try to give 100 percent in every season, but this season comes with bigger challenges, especially because we didn’t nail the championship in 2015. I have to work harder…At the tests in Malaysia and Australia [in February] I focused on my physical condition and tried to adjust and understand the new bike’s electronics, and find the balance in the set-up of the bike…I know this season will be difficult, but of course the first race is very exciting. It’s always different, and here in Qatar, it’s very special…I’d say Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa are my main opponents this year, but you never know who else could surprise you.
His favorite quote:
No pain, no gain!
‘Dungeons & Dragons helped Witch Hunter role’
In an interview with The Daily Star, for the DVD launch of The Last Witch Hunter, Diesel says he was banned from going to the gym by his director, so that he could look more like he’d been born back in the 13th century.
I haven’t come across that in a long time. They said that I could look strong, but I could look a little bit more everyman too. I think some directors just want me to go against type – it’s how they want to play with my characters.
He also says his lifelong love of Dungeons & Dragons helped him in the role:
I’m a huge fan of Dungeons And Dragons and I even wrote the foreward for its 30th anniversary book. It’s something that was a big part of my life and it’s probably affected the way I approach making and producing movies. It played a huge part in this film; I haven’t done anything in the fantasy genre before…Well, I was raised by a mother who was an astrologer. And I believe you have to be receptive to all kinds of things and that includes the supernatural. I believe that my love of fantasy and Dungeons And Dragons allows me to be open-minded.
UFC 196: Backstage interview
McGregor is interviewed backstage, after the fight, by Fox Sports.
It stings real bad..I’ve been on the end of many defeats in my life and I rose back. I will not shy away from it. I will not make excuses for it. I will assess it and come back…I misinterpreted his efficiency. I blew out and he did not. He went into autopilot, while I panicked a little bit.
On Jose Aldo:
I’ve seen the Jose thing. He can celebrate through another man’s victory, but at the day when we faced he was unconscious. That’s not the sign of a true champion…When I defeated him I showed him respect. Maybe I’ll go back down and shut him up one more time.
UFC 196: Octagon interview
Diaz and McGregor are interviewed directly after the fight. Diaz:
I’m not surprised…I know it was gonna be a slow start for me…He had some good punches, and he landed them, so good on him…I’m an athlete, a warrior, we should all be ready to fight, even on our worst days.
McGregor:
I took the chance going at 170. I felt I took him in the first round…but I was inefficient with my energy. I’m humble in victory and in defeat…I took a chance, came up weight, it didn’t work out. I’ll face it like a man, like a champion, and come back and do it again.
LAist interview
Sulkowicz talks about her upcoming show in LA’s Chinatown. On the creation of multiple 3D figure of her image:
The idea is that I’ve been so widely publicized in the media, which was completely unexpected and unprecedented for me. I’ve seen my image become so mass-produced. Now, if anyone wants to mention anything about campus rape, they’ll invoke my name even if I’m only marginally related to what they’re talking about. My image has sort of become this currency that you use if you want to talk about anything related to these topics.
On her appearance with Emmatron, her life-size robot that answers question on her behalf:
I’ll be there during gallery hours every day that it’s open, and I’ll just be doing my thing. You can come talk with me. You can ask me whatever you want. [Emmatron] is a separation between me as a human being versus this sort of way that people can treat me as if I’m a robot when they ask me very repetitive, insensitive questions…The truth is that I was never able to cope [with Internet harassment]. It’s not like any amount of support was going to cancel out that people were Facebook messaging me to kill myself…It’s been fun to record these questions for Emmatron, and I think that she’ll be fun to play with, if you know what I mean. She’ll have fun things to say. Hopefully, the end result is lively and entertaining, but I’m also trying to drive home a serious point.
Pope ‘has awfully big wall’
In an interview with CNN’s Cooper, Trump says the Pope’s comments were probably overblown by the media.
I didn’t think it was a good thing for him to say, frankly. I don’t like fighting with the Pope. I don’t think this is a fight…I think it was probably a little bit nicer statement than was reported by you folks in the media. Because after I read it, it was a little bit softer…I think that he heard one side of the story, which is probably by the Mexican government…But the bottom line is we’ve got to have a border, we’ve got to have security. We have tremendous illegal immigration in the country. He also talked about [how] having a wall is not Christian. And he’s got an awfully big wall at the Vatican, I will tell you.
City AM interview
Highfield says of the £24.4m acquisition of the i newspaper from Evgeny Lebedev. He intends to build the brand’s digital presence, increase the distribution of the print edition, targeting small- and medium-sized retailers like post offices and newsagents, and expand to all areas of the UK, including Northern Ireland, where the paper is not currently sold. He will improve editorial by taking 17 existing members of staff and hiring others to form a team of 50. The paper will also draw content from Lebedev’s The Independent’s website and the Evening Standard for £850,000 a year, as well as from Johnston Group’s regional papers. Highfield says that the purchase is about building scale for Johnston Press and attracting bigger advertising. He says scaling by acquiring small regional media groups would have taken a long time and been very expensive.
We are in one quarter of the country and we want to be in all of it, not least because this is a scale game and we wanted to go after more national advertising revenue and have a bigger train set across which to offer our digital services. I’ve always had a fundamental belief that video didn’t kill the radio star. New technology comes along, but it rarely wipes out what came before it. I think people will still want print for many years to come.
Obama has done ‘a lousy job’
In Beaufort, SC, Trump responds to President Obama’s comments saying he will never be president.
He has done such a lousy job as president. You look at our budgets. You look at our spending. We can’t beat ISIS. Obamacare is terrible. We’re going to terminate it. We’re going to absolutely terminate and replace it. I mean you look at everything. Our borders are like Swiss cheese….You’re lucky I didn’t run last time when Romney ran because you would have been a one-term president.
Tech should train minority talent
In a panel on diversity at the Upfront Summit, Carter asks: What if we started treating computer science in the same way we treat athletics? Carter compares basketball’s feeder system to the hodge-podge landscape of tech recruiting. Despite the number of jobs available to skilled and talented programmers, there’s not a nationwide program to identify young talent, develop it, sponsor it with big names and scholarships, and lift kids out of unfortunate situations along the way.
In the NBA, there’s only room for 450 jobs. In tech, it’s exponential.