Play ball!

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: Budget airlines continue to struggle; AI titans explore putting data centers in space; Say goodbye to brown M&Ms; and the Rocky Horror Picture Show is heading to the Sphere!

Let’s get into it!

Elon Musk is now a trillionaire, thanks to the enormously successful SpaceX initial public offering. It generated trillions of dollars in new capital for the company to spend on previously unfeasible initiatives.

Those plans undoubtedly include the company’s xAI engine, which needs—pardon the pun—astronomical amounts of compute power. Given SpaceX’s nearly unmatched capabilities in space exploration, it’s possible they will explore launching data centres in space.

In fact, some believe that’s been the plan all along.

“That is the big, long-term play,” Duncan Davidson, a partner at Bullpen Capital, said on CNBC’s The Exchange, leading up to the IPO.

SpaceX has already indicated such intentions, previously filing an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to launch a network of one million satellites that would serve as foundational pieces for data centres in low-earth orbit.

Time likely won’t tell if AI data centres in space become a reality, but will tell when such an initiative becomes a reality. After all, what else is one to do with several trillion dollars?

Mars is relaunching M&Ms in August to commemorate the candy’s 85th anniversary, and the relaunch coincides with the removal of artificial dyes from the chocolatey delight’s exterior shell.

Due to cost constraints of replicating certain colors without using artificial dyes, packages will no longer include brown and blue M&Ms, ironically making the candy compliant with an old rule placed in concert contracts by Van Halen.

In the ‘80s, the band was touring with complex light show technology, and in order to make sure the promoters at each venue understood that complexity and the resources it demanded, Van Halen wanted a way to ensure they’d actually read the contract.

According to a 2012 David Lee Roth interview, he included a stipulation in the rider that appeared around the middle of each contract. It stated the venue must provide bowls of M&Ms, but under no circumstances should they include brown ones.

"If I came backstage, having been one of the architects of this lighting and staging design, and I saw brown M&M's on the catering table, that guaranteed the promoter had not read the contract rider and we had to do a serious line check," Roth explained. 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been screened and performed pretty much everywhere, so why not add to the list by going where every performer and artist aspires to appeat days: the Vegas Sphere.

Critics may take issue with it, but what don’t critics take issue with? Many even found ways to lambaste the decision to screen the Wizard of Oz at the Sphere—an undertaking that involved nearly $100 million in retrofitting efforts to get the original film to fit on the enormous, nearly 360-degree collection of ultra high-definition screens, complete with 4D ergonomics and the creation of an actual tornado in the room.

Rocky Horror wasn’t particularly beloved outside the U.K. after its initial run. While it succeeded in the upstairs venue at the London Royal Court Theatre when it debuted in 1973, and then ran for nearly 3,000 shows across multiple venues, it only had a 9-month stay in Los Angeles in 1974, and just 45 performances on Broadway in ‘75.

However, its film adaptation turned its fortunes in North America, leading to cult classic status and a Broadway revival in 2000 and 2025, the latter of which received nine Tony nominations this year.

The date is ‘78

We’re taking a look at major hits, headlines and stories that were goin’ down during this week in 1978 with today’s trivia!