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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Scripto Enterprises Inc. | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Industry | |
| Founded | January 1, 2014 |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | U.S. |
| Key people |
|
| Products |
|
Number of employees | 9 (2024) |
| Website | www |
Scripto Enterprises Inc. is an American computer software company based in Studio City, Los Angeles. It offers screenwriting, television production, and narrative video game development software. The company was founded in 2014 by comedian Stephen Colbert, former The Colbert Report writer and coder Rob Dubbin, and Colbert's wife Evie McGee Colbert. The company offers a screenwriting software, also called Scripto, a cloud based collaborative writing platform, developed to address shortcomings in the writing program they were using at the time. The software is used by shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Daily Show and SNL's Weekend Update.
In 2010, Rob Dubbin was a writer for The Colbert Report. To develop its scripts, the show used the Electronic News Production System (ENPS), a suite developed by the Associated Press, which was originally created to be used by news programs and journalists. Host Stephen Colbert and the writing staff were often frustrated by the program, as it did not allow for work to be made by several people, on a document, at the same time. Dubbin described the AP software as "almost more [...] like a networked Word document".[1] Because of the scripted comedy format of the Report, they needed a different workflow than what the ENPS offered. The need for a new software became evident after a mishap on the show, where a script originally featured a joke involving a real life goat, a significant production expense. The bit was cut during revisions, but the production team was not made aware beforehand, and booked the goat anyway. They only realized once the animal was on its way to the studio.[2][1] At the end of that year Colbert and Dubbin first discussed making a bespoke drafting program for the staff.[3]
In 2011, Aside from his writing duties, Dubbin started the process of creating an alternative inspired by Etherpad, with him and Colbert splitting the costs to hire a team of outside programmers.[3][1][4] Following a friend's advice, Dubbin posted a banner ad on Reddit saying The Colbert Report was looking for programmers, among the people who responded were Paul Ford and Aaron Swartz.[1][4] A rough version of the software was introduced slowly and used on the show, "Once every couple weeks, we fixed the thing that went horribly wrong", Dubbin said.[3] By 2013, the software was stable enough that it was used daily for the last two years the show was on the air.[3][1]
Their first outside show to use the software was Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, after one of The Colbert Report producers had left the show to work on Last Week Tonight, and had recommended Scripto to the staff.[1][3] At that point, Dubbin saw that other shows were getting interested, and in January 2014, Colbert, Dubbin, and Colbert's wife, Evie McGee-Colbert, founded Scripto Enterprises Inc. as a way to commercialize the software.[1] Scripto's first employee was programmer and media critic Rusty Foster, who joined the staff at the suggestion of Ford, in January 2014.[3][5][6] Dubbin said of Foster, "He became sort of the eyes and ears person for all the other shows that were gonna start to use it". That year The Daily Show also incorporated Scripto.[1][3] Foster noted the software was not SaaS at first: "The first batch of clients got two servers each. It wasn't a cloud thing. We installed a pair of physical servers in their studio".[3][7]
When Colbert replaced David Letterman as host of The Late Show on CBS he took the software with him. Dubbin also joined the show through pre-production, and the first season of the show, but left in late 2016 to focus on his job as CEO of Scripto.[1][8] By late 2015 other shows had licensed the software, including: Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and The Jim Jefferies Show, among others.[3] An ad for the company ran during the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, which Colbert hosted, and the software itself was used to write the script for the ceremony.[9]
By late 2017, Dubbin, Foster and their team were beta-testing a new scriptwriting software named Showrunner.[3] The software intended for scripted television, was described by Dubbin as an alternative to Final Draft, "People work in more collaborative teams. They work across the country from each other. There are more people working remotely. And that’s true for creative projects in addition to technological ones. We wanna make a product for those people. So we’re working on it".[1] In 2019, the company hired Alice DuBois to supervise the development of Showrunner, overseeing product and project management, among other things.[10] During the pandemic Scripto was benefitted by the lockdowns as the platform allowed many companies to work remotely.[7] In late 2020 Foster left the company, of his exit, he said: "Like, if the servers at the Late Show die in the middle of the production day I get a text, and it's very stressful. It's been very stressful for a long time. And it came to a point, at the end of last year, it's just like: I can't really do this anymore".[4][11]
The company struggled during the 2023 WGA strikes, as every production was shut down. After a strategic review, advisor Ethan Jacks suggested they branch out into media outside of variety television. All of three founders agreed with the vision, with Dubbin stepping down as CEO but remaining in the company as head of video games.[7] In April 2024, media entrepreneur Josh C. Kline was named CEO of the company.[12][7][13] Kline said that the company was now licensing Scripto to video game and podcast studios, as well as award shows such as the Clios and websites like The Bleacher Report.[12] The company is also studying adapting the service for live events, such as theater, and content creation,[13] as well as how to incorporate integration systems and AI into the platform. Scripto has signed partnership agreements with Adobe and AWS, to develop those strategies.[7][14]
Scripto has received funding from the venture capital companies Bloomberg Beta, Calm Company Fund, and angel investor Dan Bomze.[15][16]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Scripto is an American brand currently owned by Calico Brands. The original manufacturing company was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1923 by Monie A. Ferst. At one time the largest producer of writing instruments in the world, now Calico Brands markets butane lighters under the Scripto brand.
Workers for the Scripto company in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, held a labor strike from November 27, 1964, to January 9, 1965. It ended when the company and union agreed to a three-year contract that included wage increases and improved employee benefits. The strike was an important event in the history of the civil rights movement, as both civil rights leaders and organized labor activists worked together to support the strike. Scripto produced writing implements and lighters in the 1960s. Its main production facility was based in Sweet Auburn, an African-American neighborhood of Atlanta, and the company's workforce was primarily made up of black women. Since 1940, there had been various attempts to unionize the factory, including an effort by the United Steelworkers in the 1940s. By and large, unionization efforts were supported by members of Atlanta's black elite and by black church leaders in the area, who believed that a union could help improve the working conditions and wages for the workers. In 1963, the International Chemical Workers' Union (ICWU) was able to unionize the plant. This came during the civil rights movement, and union organizers succeeded in part by tying their union drive to the larger fight for civil rights that was occurring throughout the country and especially in the southern United States, where the plant was located. Following the unionization, the ICWU sought to secure a labor contract with Scripto, but the company instead challenged the union in court, arguing that the union election had been unfair. After the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the company, they remained reluctant to negotiate with the union, and negotiations continued into November 1964. The main point of contention regarded wage increases, as the union wanted an eight-percent raise across the board while the company pushed for a four-percent wage increase for "skilled" employees and a two-percent raise for "unskilled" employees. The union argued that this was racially discriminatory, as almost all of the factory's white employees were considered skilled and nearly all of the African American employees were considered unskilled. On November 25, the day before Thanksgiving, many workers gathered and announced plans for a labor strike. Working over the holiday to prepare picket signs and coordinate logistics, they began their strike on November 27, with about 700 workers performing a walkout. From the onset, the strike had the support of several civil rights organizations, including the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Operation Breadbasket, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the latter of which was led by Martin Luther King Jr. King was an avid supporter of the strike, as many of the strikers were congregants of his Ebenezer Baptist Church, and he helped coordinate a nationwide boycott of Scripto products. However, as the strike continued, both the union and company remained at an impasse in negotiations, and eventually, King began to negotiate in secret with company president Carl Singer over an agreement to end the strike. After several weeks of discussions, King agreed to call off the boycott if Singer agreed to give the striking employees their Christmas bonuses. This deal, which was made without the knowledge of the union, was announced on December 24 and saw an end to King or the SCLC's involvement in the strike. Union representatives were upset with King's actions, which some historians say may have constitute an unfair labor practice. However, by this time, the union's strike fund had been nearly depleted, and without the SCLC's support, they were willing to negotiate a compromise with the company. On January 9, 1965, the union and company signed a three-year labor contract that saw an across-the-board wage increase of $0.04 per hour for every year of the contract. Additionally, workers improved employee benefits, such as additional vacation days and increased pay for working afternoon shifts. In the aftermath of the strike, King received criticism from many different groups for his involvement, including labor activists and business leaders, and as a result, King and the SCLC refrained from involvement in another major labor dispute until the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968. Meanwhile, the company and the union developed a better relationship and jointly worked on a replacement to the "skilled"/"unskilled" system that had been at the root of the labor dispute. However, in 1977, with the Sweet Auburn facility considered outdated and the company facing increased competition, Scripto closed the plant and relocated to another facility in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The plant was eventually demolished and today the site is a parking lot for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park. Discussing the strike in 2018, historian Joseph M. Thompson stated that, while it is primarily viewed by historians in the context of King's involvement and the larger civil rights movement, it also represents a longstanding history of labor organizing among African American women in Atlanta, comparing it to other events such as the 1881 Atlanta washerwomen strike and saying, "Within this broader context, the 1964 Scripto strike looks less like a product of the midcentury civil rights movements and more like a victory in the long fight for black women's economic rights in Atlanta".
Scripto Enterprises Inc. is an American computer software company based in Studio City, Los Angeles. It offers screenwriting, television production, and narrative video game development software. The company was founded in 2014 by comedian Stephen Colbert, former The Colbert Report writer and coder Rob Dubbin, and Colbert's wife Evie McGee Colbert. The company offers a screenwriting software, also called Scripto, a cloud based collaborative writing platform, developed to address shortcomings in the writing program they were using at the time. The software is used by shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Daily Show and SNL's Weekend Update.
Rusty Foster (born July 1976) is an American media critic and programmer. He has been described as "something of a Zelig-like figure in internet history, popping up in key roles at various stages in the web’s development." He is the author of Today in Tabs, the founder of Kuro5hin, and the creator of Scoop, a collaborative media application used by several websites. He also helped develop Scripto, the screenwriting software company founded by Stephen Colbert. In 2013, his Facebook account was subject to a "prank" reporting him dead, drawing the attention of several major news outlets. Since 2013, Foster has written occasionally for The New Yorker magazine.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
