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Category: Odds and Ends

Odds and Ends 

FIFA pro banned from all EA games following threatening rant

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An Important message regarding FIFA player Kurt0411. pic.twitter.com/RcHu1hMCup — Electronic Arts (@EA) February 24, 2020 In the statement, EA outlined why it took this drastic step. It noted that threats against employees and other players earned Fenech a partial ban in November. The severe new ban, according to EA, was earned through Fenechs abusive and threatening messages, that have crossed a line of decency. The company did not point to any specific messages from Fenech, but his Twitter page is filled with expletive-laced messages aimed at EA. We will not…

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Before Trick Shots on the Internet Became a Thing, There was This Guy in 1950

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‘Ambidextrous’ Andy Varipapa (March 31, 1891 – August 25, 1984) was a legendary bowler known for his incredible trick shots. Varipapa was considered to be “the greatest one-man bowling show on Earth”. Beyond his trick shot exhibitions, Varipapa was a solid professional bowler. In 1947, at the age of 56, he won the prestigious BPAA All-Star competition (predecessor to the U.S. Open) in a gruelling 100 game format, making him the oldest winner ever. He became the first to win two years in a row when he repeated in 1948.…

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Gentoo Penguins May Be Affected By Human Noise Too

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We’ve sailed the seas for many millennia, yet it’s only relatively recently that we’re learning of the life beneath our boats. Little is known about the underwater hearing of Antarctic gentoo penguins, a species well adapted to life both above and below Earth’s waters.  To explore the hearing of these peach-feet waddlers, a team of scientists from the University of Southern Denmark and the German Oceanographic Museum played noise to penguins in a pool enclosure at the Odense Zoo, Denmark between July and October, 2018. The sound was played to seven…

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Court says YouTube isn’t subject to First Amendment scrutiny

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A federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed claims that big tech companies like Google and YouTube were subject to First Amendment scrutiny because they are a private forum, not a public one. A three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle unanimously ruled in favor of Google and YouTube to uphold another courts dismissal of a case brought against them by conservative group PragerU, who claimed that the video-sharing platform was devaluing conservative content. Despite YouTubes ubiquity and its role as a public-facing platform, it remains…

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National Weather Service Snaps Ice Volcanoes Erupting On The Shore Of Lake Michigan

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On the shores of the Great Lakes in North America, a truly peculiar phenomenon takes place. Given the right conditions – when waves hit ice gathered on the shore, for example – “ice volcanoes” can form, erupting water and slush through the frozen surface of a lake. The National Weather Service of Grand Rapids posted a few photos and a video of the ice volcanoes erupting at Oval Beach on February 16. The feature might be unfamiliar to many but they are not a rare occurrence and have been studied in detail…

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Boston Dynamics unveils OTTO Motors collaboration to bring our robot overlords to the warehouse

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Boston Dynamics, the undisputed heavyweight of technical robotics wizardry, unveiled a new collaboration with the warehouse autonomous material handling and transportation technology developer, OTTO Motors. Over the past year Boston Dynamics has moved from building the stuff of robotic uprising nightmares to more mundane warehouse automation technologies with its Pick computer vision system. Today, the company unveiled some footage from its proof of concept trials with OTTO Motors to automate the logistics space. It’s part of a concerted effort to focus the company on revenue generation alongside revolutionary robotic innovation,…

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Applications are open for the latest Disney accelerator program

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The Walt Disney Company is now accepting applications for its 2020 Disney Accelerator, the company said today. The accelerator accepts 10 growth-stage startups for a three-month mentorship program that provides access to the creativity, imagination and expertise of Disney — including unique access to Disney’s leadership team. “We created the Disney Accelerator six years ago to explore the incredible innovation that could occur between The Walt Disney Company and companies working on the forefront of technology,” said David Min, vice president, Corporate Innovation, The Walt Disney Company, in a statement.…

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Combing the Beach for Stones and Reorganizing Them Into Something Beautiful

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Jon Foreman is a creator of various styles of land art, be it with stones or leaves, inland or on beaches. He has even created works in derelict environments using materials such as broken glass or ashes and general debris. The scale of his work varies massively; he may use stones or driftwood to make something small and minimal. Otherwise he may be seen drawing massive scale sand drawings up to 50 metres across. Most often the weather and immediate climate will make his work disappear (be blown down/washed away…

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Man Asks NASA If They Still Punish Animals By Sending Them To Space, Gets Brilliant Response

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A man actually received a response for a brilliant spoof letter to NASA. Twitter comedian Sir Michael sent a letter to NASA headquarters to ask whether they still send animals to space as a punishment for misbehavior, before including a list of animals (and their crimes) that he thinks should also be banished to space. “Dear sir/madam,” the letter reads, “My name is Michael and I have been reading on Facebook about early NASA missions in which animals were sent to space as punishment for misbehavior. How come you stopped doing…

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NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is coming to TC Sessions: Space 2020

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This year marks our first-ever TC Sessions: Space event, and what better way to kick things off than with the head of NASA: Administrator Jim Bridenstine will join us onstage on June 25 in LA. NASA has been more open than ever before to working with startups and entrepreneurs, and we’ll hear directly from the administrator why that’s the case, and what kind of opportunities might be open to founders in the future. Administrator Bridenstine took over leading the U.S. science and space agency in 2018, and has been leading…

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DSP Concepts raises $14.5M for its Audio Weaver platform

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DSP Concepts — a startup whose Audio Weaver software is used by companies as varied as Tesla, Porsche, GoPro and Braun Audio — is announcing that it has raised $14.5 million in Series B funding. The startup’s goal, as explained to me by CEO Chin Beckmann and CTO Paul Beckmann (yep, they’re a husband-and-wife founding team), is to create the standard framework that companies use to develop their audio processing software. To that end, Chin told me they were “picky about who we wanted on the B round, we wanted…

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Gentle Giant Lays Down to Let Human Friend Treat His Injured Eye

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A touching moment was caught on film at an Elephant Sanctuary in Botswana, as Jabu lets his human friend treat his injured eye with an antibiotic ointment. Elephants are so majestic. Read more: https://twistedsifter.com/videos/elephant-lays-down-to-let-human-friend-treat-his-injured-eye/

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Just One Trip On Magic Mushrooms Can Improve Long-Term Mindfulness

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Just one trip on magic mushrooms could be enough to experience a long-term increase in mindfulness and openness, according to a new study. Using brain scans, they were even able to pinpoint the serotonin receptor in the brain that appeared to be responsible for these long-term feel-good changes. While only a small study, this new research is one of the first to confirm the long-touted idea that just a single psychedelic experience with magic mushrooms can help to improve peoples’ mindfulness. Reported in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers from Copenhagen…

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