Happy Tuesday, gamers, you probably clicked on the title thinking about the mysterious BALL., and why so many users (i. e. two) have set it as their profile picture.
So, with no further ado, check this out: The Las Vegas Sphere.
Or simply Sphere, I guess. It's a big arena in Las Vegas that's shaped like an orb. It's got arrays of LEDs on the inside and outside to display a whole bunch of stuff. They do concerts in there, with U2 performing the first concert in the venue.
And if you're wondering why there's a giant glowy orb in Las Vegas, lemme ask you this: Where else would you put it?
Las Vegas is weird. There's a city in the American desert, it's got restaurants and hotels and golf courses, F1 is there, Battlebots is there, but the big thing about it is that it has casinos. (Mostly in the hotels.) In the US, every state sets gambling laws, and Nevada has loose laws that they're incentivized to keep loose due to how lucrative gambling is. Gambling is so lucrative, that hotels tend to sell drinks at a loss because the gambling is more important. A bunch of physicists did talks there and since they're physicists they know how probability works so they didn't gamble but they bought lots of drinks and when they were done with the talks the city. um. told them to never come back.
Wait, did I say "golf courses"??
If you've ever poked around Vegas in a satellite map, you'll know that it's full of golf courses for some reason. Most of them are clumsily interwoven with houses but the one that catches my eye every time is that clump of splotches in the north west there (that's the top left if you forgot your directions).
That's the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort and let it be known that I hate it. I have never been there and never intend to go and don't know anyone who's ever been there but I hate it regardless. It's so aesthetically ugly on the map and I shudder to think how much water it takes to keep a golf course with all its fairways and roughs and greens and water hazards operational in the middle of the fucking desert.
I guess it's a rich people hobby. Gotta gamble thousands and then do a couple legs of golf without having a private flight between, y'know? If I had that kind of money I would mostly buy art of my fursona.
The Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort has an app.
I'm getting sidetracked right now, so let's turn our focus back. Roulette wheels are wild because they're so blatantly biased. The zeroes on them are loser squares. Neither odd nor even, neither red nor black, belonging to none of the rows or columns or groups that the other numbers belong to. And yes, zero is mathematically even, but the casino cares not for your math as this is a realm where the 38 values are treated as 36. The wheel is not 50% red and 50% black because there are two squares that are neither! The house bias is so obvious and transparent that it undermines the rest of the casino. Slots and craps hide their odds behind opaque chances and rules, while roulette stands proud, with its little green squares skewing the odds for all to see.
So yeah. Vegas is weird. So you might be wondering, after all that, what does this hsve to do with the mysterious BALL.? And, of course, the answer is obvious:
Nothing.
It was a buoy that washed up on the shores of Hamamatsu, Japan in 2023.
So, with no further ado, check this out: The Las Vegas Sphere.
Or simply Sphere, I guess. It's a big arena in Las Vegas that's shaped like an orb. It's got arrays of LEDs on the inside and outside to display a whole bunch of stuff. They do concerts in there, with U2 performing the first concert in the venue.
And if you're wondering why there's a giant glowy orb in Las Vegas, lemme ask you this: Where else would you put it?
Las Vegas is weird. There's a city in the American desert, it's got restaurants and hotels and golf courses, F1 is there, Battlebots is there, but the big thing about it is that it has casinos. (Mostly in the hotels.) In the US, every state sets gambling laws, and Nevada has loose laws that they're incentivized to keep loose due to how lucrative gambling is. Gambling is so lucrative, that hotels tend to sell drinks at a loss because the gambling is more important. A bunch of physicists did talks there and since they're physicists they know how probability works so they didn't gamble but they bought lots of drinks and when they were done with the talks the city. um. told them to never come back.
Wait, did I say "golf courses"??
If you've ever poked around Vegas in a satellite map, you'll know that it's full of golf courses for some reason. Most of them are clumsily interwoven with houses but the one that catches my eye every time is that clump of splotches in the north west there (that's the top left if you forgot your directions).
That's the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort and let it be known that I hate it. I have never been there and never intend to go and don't know anyone who's ever been there but I hate it regardless. It's so aesthetically ugly on the map and I shudder to think how much water it takes to keep a golf course with all its fairways and roughs and greens and water hazards operational in the middle of the fucking desert.
I guess it's a rich people hobby. Gotta gamble thousands and then do a couple legs of golf without having a private flight between, y'know? If I had that kind of money I would mostly buy art of my fursona.
The Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort has an app.
I'm getting sidetracked right now, so let's turn our focus back. Roulette wheels are wild because they're so blatantly biased. The zeroes on them are loser squares. Neither odd nor even, neither red nor black, belonging to none of the rows or columns or groups that the other numbers belong to. And yes, zero is mathematically even, but the casino cares not for your math as this is a realm where the 38 values are treated as 36. The wheel is not 50% red and 50% black because there are two squares that are neither! The house bias is so obvious and transparent that it undermines the rest of the casino. Slots and craps hide their odds behind opaque chances and rules, while roulette stands proud, with its little green squares skewing the odds for all to see.
So yeah. Vegas is weird. So you might be wondering, after all that, what does this hsve to do with the mysterious BALL.? And, of course, the answer is obvious:
Nothing.
It was a buoy that washed up on the shores of Hamamatsu, Japan in 2023.
