Aug 28, 2017 Anyway, this old-Mac-dog wields Tilt Brush, a common tool for 3D painting, as if he’s the protagonist in the classic children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon, using it to create miniature. So it has been awhile since I wrote on the blog. This is partly because of the problems we have been having with our server holding the class back from its full potential. Nevertheless here is.

The first thing you notice after strapping on a CEEK Virtual Reality headset is that the seats in its simulated theater are empty, which is an eerie approximation of the atmosphere in shuttered concert venues and movie houses around the world. A product that was designed to simulate a commonplace, but often inaccessible, consumer experience — like attending a Lady Gaga concert at Madison Square Garden or witnessing U2 wow thousands at Rose Bowl Stadium, both CEEK offerings — has suddenly become its closest real-world designate.

This was not what the company’s founder and CEO, Mary Spio, had in mind when she launched CEEK in 2015. The venture was an entrepreneurial step in her career, which began with training as an Air Force engineer and evolved into groundbreaking work as a satellite-communications designer for NASA and Boeing. (The tech she helped pioneer for the latter was commercialized by Lucasfilm in the Star Wars franchise.)

Ideally, CEEK — which boasts proprietary tech and streaming capabilities and is blockchain-enabled — would gradually be embraced by both artists and the public as a way to augment their relationship to live entertainment. If she built it, Spio reasoned, content partners and consumers would come. And over its five-year existence, they have. Shows, one-off performances and interviews from the likes of U2, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus and Megadeth are streamable in 2D via their website and can also be viewed through the CEEK app in 360 mode, as well as with its VR headset. But it's been a slow burn.

First Match Mr. Mac's Virtual Existence Key

“The idea was initially that this is something that could just augment things for [the artist], not replace the communal, in-person experience,” explains Spio, who was born in New York and raised in Ghana and currently resides in Chicago. “Think of bands like Guns N’ Roses. They would sell out a million tickets in 24 hours. Or Adele, who was selling 100,000 tickets and 10 million people tried to buy them. This is a way to extend the reach. But it was not a real consideration for a lot of artists because they were thinking, ‘Well, I'm doing just fine.’”

Then in March, performances spaces closed indefinitely, and interest in CEEK accelerated. Existing partners like Bon Jovi and Demi Lovato contacted Spio, eager to quicken the pace with which they could roll out VR offerings, and the number of outside queries from potential new clients swelled.

Related: What It's Like to Live and Game Together Around the Clock

As Spio surmises, “Now, once [artists] get to experience it, they realize, ‘Hey, I have fans that might never be able to see me.’ It has them looking at where the void is right now and seeing a real revenue generator — that they could still reach a million people who are paying to come and see their concert.”

Not all artists needed such convincing. Legendary standup comedian D.L. Hughley — who along with Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer, comprised one-fourth of iconic late-'90s touring outfit the Kings of Comedy — is always eyeing ways to be innovative, and CEEK was on his radar long before comedy clubs started closing their doors as part of stay-at-home orders. He’d already inked a deal with Spio for real-time VR broadcast of an upcoming series of dates, an endeavor that has since been reimagined as a single, first-ever, virtual reality standup show, CEEK VR Presents: The Laugh Experience, which will stream on CEEK.com and through its headset (by way of the CEEK app) on May 15 at 9 p.m. While he's rolled with the punches, Hughley certainly didn’t anticipate the special doubling as a bellwether for how his medium might survive in the coming months and maybe beyond.

“I didn’t know this would take social distancing to its natural conclusion,” he deadpans about the newly streamlined Laugh Experience experiment. “But whenever there are times like this, innovation and technology spring forward. [CEEK] has a chance to become imbued in the nation’s psyche at a time when things were changing, and become something that was comforting and that changed the landscape. We don’t know what will be after this, but one thing it doesn’t hurt to have is the ability to see things at a safe distance, and I think this is all of that.”

Related: How a Mid-Size Wrestling Company Made Major Adjustments in the Empty-Arena Era Toll house cookies mr. mac's class 2019 20 online.

Spio, in turn, credits Hughley with keeping things laid back as they approached the project with an entirely new sense of urgency and unprecedented set of challenges. “As a comedian, he's always making light of things,” confirms Spio. “He's very flexible and adaptable.”

Still, once they agreed the show must go on, there was the inescapable fact of how that could happen with Hughley, and audiences, locked down at home. As Spio recalls, “The conversation had a turn to, OK, now we kind of have to speed up the home-studio component of this because you can't actually even be out on the road.”

While there had been an eye on those kinds of developments down the line, CEEK suddenly had to “build on the fly and test out everything and get it out” to Hughley almost overnight, Spio says, still somewhat in awe that it all came together.

Laughing, Hughley remembers when something resembling a “spy briefcase” arrived at his door. “My wife was like, ‘I'm not gonna open that till I find out what it is.’ It was real Mission: Impossible-type shit. I was like, ‘Goddamn, they ain’t playing.’”

He would have ordinarily had his more tech-savvy daughter assist, but she was isolating in a separate location. So Hughley waded in solo. “This is how simple it was,” he says. “I did it without having to call anybody,” with an emphasis on the “I,” suggesting he’s not normally self-sufficient when it comes to putting together sophisticated audio-visual accompaniment to his sets.

Like everyone else who relies on the connection between performer and audience, Hughley is hopeful that he’ll packing ampitheaters again soon, but he also knows The Laugh Experience represents an opportunity to make history in a historic time. “It’s very important that it gets the launch it deserves,” he says. “Because people are always going to want to be entertained, but they want to do it in a way that’s safe.”

It’s not the mission Spio set out upon when she took CEEK to investors, but it’s apt that a woman who helped satellites send messages from outer space would be in a position to make our future visible now.

“Running this business suddenly has a different calling than it might've before,” she acknowledges. “We've had to accelerate and run faster, but now we're capturing the demand that’s there, and it's wild.”

Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith is without question the best at his position, but can he outshine his quarterback Mac Jones to win the Heisman Trophy?

The Heisman Trophy has always been the plaything of running backs and quarterbacks. Those power positions have combined to claim it 89 times, with the passers dominating since 2000 with 17 wins, and they're well on their way to another, with Florida's Kyle Trask and Alabama's Mac Jones leading the way with less than two weeks before ballots are due.

Receivers face an uphill battle to get some love, and in an era where the guy getting them the ball has been the center of attention, it takes something Herculean to change that narrative.

DeVonta Smith has entered the chat.

The Alabama football senior wide receiver has been nothing short of spectacular, or in Heisman vernacular 'outstanding.' He leads the nation in receiving yards with 1,305, is tied for the most touchdowns at 15 and is second in receptions (80) and yards per game (145.0). He made a mockery out of LSU in the Crimson Tide's 55-17 rout last weekend, setting a Tiger Stadium record for an opponent with 231 yards and reached the end zone three times on eight catches.

Does DeVonta Smith have a shot at making Heisman history?

The debate over the nation's top pass-catcher begins and ends with Smith and he'll likely end up with the hardware to prove it with the Biletnikoff Award. But the 'best receiver in the country' has rarely been enough when it comes to the Heisman and it is only heightened in the case of Smith, whose quarterback may wind up winning it.

Only three wide receivers have won the trophy, Nebraska's Johnny Rodgers in 1972, Notre Dame's Tim Brown in 1987, and most recently, Michigan's Desmond Howard in 1991. That's it.

Add Yale's Larry Kelley (1935) and Michigan's Leon Hart (1949), both of whom won as tight ends, if you'd like to expand the circle of pass-catchers, but they were awarding the Heisman for 21 years before the first wide receiver (Oklahoma's Tommy McDonald in 1956) cracked the top three and 37 years of the trophy's existence before Rodgers won it in '72.

As much as there's been a golden age for wideouts and this trophy, it began with Brown's win, then three years later Notre Dame's Raghib 'Rocket' Ismail finished second behind BYU quarterback Ty Detmer, and the next season, Howard claimed the award.

Since Howard's victory, 20 wide receivers have finished in the top 10, but they've rarely been factors. Only two had more than 19 first-place votes: Pittsburgh's Larry Fitzgerald with 253 in 2003 as runner-up and Alabama's Amari Cooper with 49 when he came in fourth in 2014.

In the age of finalists (1982-on), just six have been invited, with Oklahoma's Dede Westbrook in 2016 the most recent, and his situation is the closest we've seen to what likely lies ahead for Smith, who should challenge for a spot in this year's virtual ceremony,

Twice a school has had both a quarterback and a wide receiver finish in the top 10 in voting, with Texas Tech's Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree finishing fourth and fifth, respectively in 2008, but neither of them reached New York, with only three players earning invites that year. That has been Westbrook alone, as he was joined by Baker Mayfield, with the passer coming in third, while Westbrook earned just seven first-place votes in taking fourth.

But what Westbrook experienced is only amplified with Smith, as his quarterback is more than a legitimate threat to win the Heisman. FanDuel's latest odds have Jones in the lead at -135, with Trask second at +110. Smith, meanwhile, is fourth at +3000, putting him behind those SEC passers, Ohio State's Justin Fields (+2000) and Clemson's Trevor Lawrence (+2000).

No matter how eye-opening the stat lines and no matter how jaw-dropping the highlights – that one-handed catch in Baton Rouge was an all-time kind of grab – there's no defying those odds. Smith is not going to win the Heisman, but he could well make a run at coming in third.

Hard to look cooler than DeVonta Smith does making this catch.

(Via Getty) pic.twitter.com/KOSdapQMhA

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— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) December 6, 2020

If the SEC Championship Game stands as a duel for the trophy between Jones and Trask, then surely it could serve as reinforcement for any voter to give the third spot on their ballot to Smith. This doesn't have to be followed by the assumption that a teammate is stealing votes from another, either, because we're amid a vote that is running low on real challengers.

Lawrence has No. 2 Notre Dame looming and remains a threat, but he's missed two games due to his positive COVD-19 test and Fields is playing an even further truncated schedule than the Big Ten was already affording him. Those preseason favorites lost their luster, largely to factors outside of their control. Meanwhile, among the other nine players earning Heisman odds, the Fighting Irish's Ian Book (+6000) doesn't have the numbers – he's 30th in total offense – Iowa State's Breece Hall (+20000) leads the nation in rushing but has done most of his damage against unranked teams (146 yards per game compared to 111 vs. Top-25 opponents) and Miami's D'Eriq King and BYU's Zach Wilson (both at +20000) have all faded.

That leaves Smith among those very few players still in the mix. Full disclosure: in 12 years of voting, this writer has never had a receiver in his top three, but with so many flawed contenders, Smith makes a compelling case to change that.

There's an argument to be made, and it's a valid one, that if Jones isn't even the best player on his own team, how is he the Crimson Tide's clear Heisman contender?

Let's not make this a diatribe about how we watch football or how the credit for an offense's production is given, but the reality is the focus and the accolades have largely gone in the quarterback's direction. In those rare times when passers and pass-catcher have shared the limelight, it's not the receiver who wins out (see Crabtree and Westbrook), no matter how undeniable the talent.

Smith isn't going to change that line of thinking, but his continued dominance could still help Alabama make history. No team has ever had both its quarterback and a wide receiver finish in the top three in voting. Doing that ina season when his quarterback has become the front runner would become among the most impressive feats for a position that has long fought for the Heisman spotlight.

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.