In the 10 years since Chris Torres created Nyan Cat, an animated flying cat with a Pop-Tart body leaving a rainbow trail, the meme has been viewed and shared across the web hundreds of millions of times. On Thursday, he put a one-of-a-kind version of it up for sale on Foundation, a website for buying and selling digital goods. In the…
Tag: Baseball
A photonic curveball has real-world examples in soccer, baseball
Have you ever been amazed by a curveball goal scored by Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo? Then you have—possibly without knowing it—been exposed to the Magnus effect: the fact that spinning objects tend to move along curved paths. In a new publication that appeared in Physical Review Letters this week, Robert Spreeuw shows that the same effect occurs to…
OpenStreetMap is Having a Moment
Joe Morrison: The first time I spoke with Jennings Anderson, I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. I mean that genuinely — I did not believe him. He was a little incredulous about it himself. I felt like he was sharing an important secret with me that the world didn’t yet know. The open secret Jennings filled me in on…
Major League Baseball Games are Experiencing ‘Drone Delays’
CBS Sports reports:
Wednesday’s game between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays was stopped in the bottom of the first because of a “drone delay.” After the second base umpire pointed to something in the sky and motioned for teams to leave the field, the cameras picked up an identifiable flying object hovering over the field during the game. CBS…
MLB Teams Explore Using Cameras To Detect Maskless Fans at Games
The baseball season has started with eerily empty stadiums, but some teams are exploring high-tech ways to verify that people in the stands are taking health precautions, a possible step toward bringing fans back. From a report: Several Major League Baseball teams have held talks with a California startup called Airspace Systems that develops technology to detect whether people are wearing…
Japan Acted Like the Virus Had Gone. Now It’s Spread Everywhere.
After initial success, Japan is facing a reality check on the coronavirus. From a report: The country garnered global attention after containing the first wave of Covid-19 with what it referred to as the “Japan Model” — limited testing and no lockdown, nor any legal means to force businesses to close. The country’s finance minister even suggested a higher “cultural standard”…
NBA is Using Microsoft Teams To Brings Virtual Fans Into Its Real-World Games
When you tune into a National Basketball Association game after the league restarts its season on July 30 following a shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic, things will look a little different. From a report: There won’t be empty stands and fake crowd noises like we saw this week at the season openers for Major League Baseball. Instead the NBA will invite…
Did Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘quick eye’ help him capture Mona Lisa’s fleeting smile?
The famed Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci may have had the “quick eye” possessed by top tennis and baseball players, which enabled him to see and capture the enigmatic half-smile of the Mona Lisa. Source: https://www.livescience.com/leonardo-da-vinci-quick-eye-mona-lisa-smile.html
Can Stadiums Replace Fans With Cardboard Cutouts and Avatars?
A new article on The Hustle tries to explain why sports stadiums are suddenly full of fans made out of cardboard:
Back in March, a German filmmaker and soccer aficionado named Ingo Müller was sitting at home, complaining to his wife about not being able to attend the matches of his favorite club team, Borussia Mönchengladbach. “She said, ‘If you’re really pissed…
Acura Invents Airbag That Works Like a Catcher’s Mitt
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Cars, trucks, and SUVs are safer today than they’ve ever been, but with 22,891 recorded U.S. passenger vehicle fatalities in 2018, it’s obvious we still have some way to go. That’s where today’s invention comes in — it’s a new kind of airbag developed by Acura, designed to reduce brain injuries in…