Tag: Internet

Caesars Superdome renovations include upgraded Wi-Fi, cell service

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on renovations for the Caesars Superdome. One point of emphasis? Upgraded Wi-Fi and cellular service:

New Orleans Saints fans will soon get their first up-close look at extensive renovations to the Caesars Superdome, which has seen $560 million in work to upgrade the venue’s facilities over the last few years.

While this work has touched all aspects at the stadium from new field-level suites to improved concessions offerings, more-spacious atriums and concourses and smoother crowd movement, today we’re getting a look at the infrastructure behind cell service and Wi-Fi Internet access. Anyone who futilely tried to call their ride while navigating the crowded, sloping concrete ramps that mazed through the Superdome before knows that struggle.

“The usage of technology by our fans as part of their gameday experience and their demands will continue to increase,” Team president Dennis Lauscha told the Saints website. “It is important to provide the strongest and most reliable connectivity for our fans as possible with the Caesars Superdome transformation project. With these upgrades, we will offer a guest experience that features the most effective wireless technology available.”

An array of 16 new MatSing MS-48H180 antennas has been bolted to the Superdome roof and painted black to avoid standing out to the naked eye; each weighs about 600 pounds and is rated for hurricane-force winds. A matching set was installed to the building’s interior, complimenting the 200 extant antennas, creating a mesh that is expected to improve cellular service as the Saints’ season continues. The setup is designed for “high-density environments” and can be tweaked by engineers as they gather data on how and where the heaviest usage occurs.

Improving cell phone service is just part of the project. Making wireless Internet access more convenient is part of their ambitions, too. The Superdome has added 2,500 new Wi-Fi access points all throughout the venue to creative more comprehensive coverage for fans, media, and the teams themselves. Keeping people connected with reliable service is a major boon.

So these are big steps in the right direction — towards a goal of keeping the Caesars Superdome in its place as a world-class venue for sports and entertainment. The goal is to continue hosting Super Bowls (including this year’s championship game), ambitious tours by superstar musicians like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, and major events like Wrestlemania, Monster Jam, and the NCAA basketball tournament, just to name a few. These upgrades help ensure greater longevity for the Superdome and avoid a costly new stadium construction. Hopefully the Saints and the Superdome officials can get a deal pushed across the finish line to keep the team playing there for the decades ahead.

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Australian Olympic break dancer Raygun gave the internet a perfect new meme with her viral performance

Raygun is an icon.

In case you missed it, the International Olympic Committee introduced breaking, or break dancing, as a new sport for the 2024 Paris games. There was a lot of excitement during the first day of action, but one breaker got everyone’s attention.

MORE: 10 mind-bending photos of breaking, the new sport at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Australia’s Raygun, a 36-year-old dancer, took the internet by storm with her moves and just overall vibes in the competition. Despite not scoring a point in her three matches in pool play, Raygun won everyone over with her presence on the stage.

Naturally, her routine became an immediate and amazing meme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chargers social media seeks assistance to win 2023 Webby Awards

The Chargers’ social media team took to Twitter to ask for help from fans in their pursuit of a 2023 Webby Award.

The highly-skilled members of the Chargers’ social media department took to Twitter on Wednesday to ask their fans for help in their pursuit of two 2023 Webby Awards.

The annual honors recognize “excellence on the internet” according to the Webby organization’s website, and Chargers’ social media certainly fits that bill.

This year, the team is up for two awards, one for their popular anime schedule release in the general viral videos category, and another for their Youtube channel in the sports series and channels division.

Known for their creative approach to team coverage, Los Angeles’ social media team is among the most fun to follow across the NFL, and never take themselves too seriously. These awards, however, would be a great feather to put in their caps ahead of the 2023 season, and they are taking their contention for first place seriously.

Fans will have the deciding vote in choosing who wins or loses these key categories, so all of the Chargers faithful are implored to cast their ballot for Los Angeles before the polls close later this month.

The Cat Lawyer has been Milkshake Ducked

This was perhaps the most predictable turn of events ever.

Yesterday you might have seen the fun story about Cat Lawyer, the lawyer who didn’t know how to turn a cat filter off his Zoom and then was forced to take part in a legal proceeding while appearing as a small kitten. Or smol kitten, I believe is the technical internet terminology.

Well, in perhaps the most predictable run of events I’ve ever witnessed, it turns out that Cat Lawyer is Bad.

Cat Lawyer has been Milkshake Ducked.

If you don’t know what Milkshake Ducked means, that means you’ve probably avoided the broken internet discourse for a long time and I tip my cap to you. But to catch you up, Milkshake Ducking relates to this tweet:

The idea being that anyone the entire internet loves at any moment will inevitably be discovered, often quickly, as being not all that lovable.

The funny thing about this instance of internet celebrity is that *in real time* people were anticipating Cat Lawyer’s eventual downfall.

What does this all mean? I have no idea what this means. It means nothing. It means we’ve been so trained by this years-long cycle of internet discourse that we know exactly what’s going to happen before it happens. We over-hype a person (or possibly duck), we make a realization about said person/duck, we flame said person/duck, then we counter-argue that it’s stupid to get mad at the person/duck, and then we wait to do it again.

I’d like to blame this on the pandemic or 2020 amirite or whatever but I honestly think this is just what we do now. This is our demented internet community’s sport of choice. Wheeee.

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This kid making his first catch is the only thing you need to see today

WHOLESOME INTERNET CONTENT ALERT

Making your first catch doing anything related to sports is a legitimate benchmark moment of any childhood.

For months, maybe even years, you’ve been getting pulverized by a baseball. Or maybe even a football. Potentially a basketball, too.

Everyone keeps telling you to keep your eyes on the ball, but as far as you can tell, you are already. What does that even mean, anyway? You don’t know. You just want to know what it feels like to cleanly catch a sports ball in glove or in hand.

When you do it? Man, your whole world changes. You can see that moment for this kid here. He was working on catching a baseball with his dad and he finally got it. They caught it on camera.

The joy here from both the boy and his dad are priceless.

This. Is. The. Best. And it’s the most wholesome internet content ever.

Shouts to this kid and his pops. Keep making those catches, my guy.

The spamming of police and right-wing hashtags by K-pop stans, explained

Explaining the bizarre deployment of K-pop stans, who are overwhelming pro-police and right wing hashtags.

Welcome to FTW Explains: a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world.

This week we saw massive protests across the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, who died after a police officer in Minneapolis sustained pressure to Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes. The officer, Derek Chauvin, has now been arrested on third-degree murder charges.

One of the more bizarre subplots of the week has been the activation of K-pop stans on the internet for progressive causes during the protests. The story is very of the internet and a bit confusing even for people who spend Way Too Much Time Online, so we’re here to explain it all for you.

Let’s dive in:

OK, so who is involved here?

K-pop stans.

What is K-pop? And actually, uh, what are stans?

K-pop is shorthand for a genre of popular music based in South Korea. Stans = devoted fans. The name which is derived in part from an Eminem song about a fan who crosses the line into obsession.

K-pop stans are devoted fans of pop bands in the genre such as BTS or BLACKPINK.

K-pop stans have gotten known in internet circles for peculiar, some might argue aggressive ways of expressing their extreme fandom. One way they show their devotion to these bands is by taking over hashtags and posting dozens, if not hundreds, of videos and GIFs of the bands, even if the hashtag is completely unrelated to the band itself, or even K-pop generally.

Got it. What does any of this have to do with the protests?

Some members of the K-pop community have basically chosen to weaponize their intense, collective fan power to overwhelm hashtags that are typically reserved for content that is either pro-police or pro-right wing.

They’ve also started inundating apps that were built by police departments to allow citizens to report crimes.

What do you mean by “overwhelm” and “inundate?”

Basically, a hashtag is only as effective as the content that is organized under it. We saw unintended consequences of that very this this week with the #BlackoutTuesday movement that saw the #blacklivesmatter hashtag, which normally serves as a way for protestors to communicate and share information, overwhelmed with all black squares. Anyone who usually used the hashtag to keep informed on the movement couldn’t use it — there were just black squares everywhere.

K-pop fans have taken that power to the other side. Hashtags or apps that authorities may try to use to track protestors is now unusable, as it’s just packed to the gills with videos of Korean pop stars or memes.

Where have they deployed their spamming?

One place they activated was against the Kirkland, Washington police department, which asked users to use the hashtag #calmkirkland to report incidents “related to public rioting or looting.”

This is just a glimpse at posts tagged with the #calmkirkland hashtag on Wednesday morning:

K-pop fans have also inundated the #bluelivesmatter hashtag, as well as an online portal the Grand Rapids police department set up to report picture or video evidence of “unrest.”

This all seems very complicated and confusing.

Welcome to 2020!

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Trump’s executive order on social media platforms, explained

Understanding the executive order that was sent out about social media platforms.

Welcome to FTW Explains: a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. This isn’t really a sports story but as denizens of the internet we feel this applies to us, and want to break it down for you. 

On Wednesday evening the White House announced cryptically that they would be releasing a new executive order targeting social media platforms. On Thursday, the order came out, and … it was a bit confusing.

So let’s get to the bottom of the executive order issued by President Donald Trump, which on its surface appears to be an order for agencies to look into the possibility of these companies being held legally responsible for content posted to their platforms, but is much more likely about a personal feud Trump has with Twitter.

Yeah. It’s a lot. Let’s answer your questions.

So, this is embarrassing, but: What’s an executive order?

Not embarrassing at all! Glad you asked. An executive order is a directive issued by the President of the United States. It’s a power given to him by the Constitution as the overseer of the federal government. It’s not quite a law, as it doesn’t have the approval of Congress, but it is enforceable, and can be overturned by a judge.

OK, got it. What’s this particular executive order about?

It’s about social media platforms. Trump claimed the order would be a “big action” and some wondered if he would try to shut down social media platforms for not, in his mind, giving equal treatment to conservative voices (or, more importantly, himself).

It didn’t turn out to be that.

So what is it?

In essence, the order would limit legal protections for social media platforms if they don’t adhere to standards of neutrality.

What are “standards of neutrality?”

Unclear. The order doesn’t really specify. They’re just supposed to be generally fair, to the President, one would sort of have to assume.

Why do these companies need legal protections?

So, this all stems from definitions of “platforms” vs. “publishers.” Social media companies have long maintained that they are platforms, i.e. just a space where free ideas can flow.

This would mean that they are NOT responsible for anything posted on their platform. If they were defined as a “publisher,” it would certainly be different.

Basically: Right now, if someone uses Facebook to, say, libel someone, the person posting could get sued for libel, but not Facebook. Trump’s executive order aimed to weaken those legal protections, by having agencies look at whether platforms could be sued for content posted on their site.

How is that even enforceable?

Basically, it’s not. It’s Trump commanding people to look into something. But it’s pretty clearly a shot across the bow of social media companies, by threatening a legal protection they’ve existed under for their entire existence. If Facebook or Twitter can be sued for anything posted on their platforms, they’d be sued nonstop.

So what’s this actually about?

It sure seems to be about Trump being mad at Twitter. The company made the controversial call this week to start issuing fact checks or labeling warnings on certain tweets from the president. The platform isn’t deleting the tweets, but it is putting notes above them explaining why the President is lying or, in a tweet early Thursday morning, “glorifying violence.”

This ticked off Trump mightily, and shortly thereafter the order came. The executive order mentions Twitter numerous times, despite Facebook and YouTube being larger platforms.

How will this end?

Eh, who knows? Most likely it will be forgotten and moved on from, unless someone in the U.S. government decides to make the case that social media companies can be held legally responsible for the content published to their platforms, in which case, I can’t even wrap my head around the litigation that would happen there.

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It’s 2020, and Nick Saban just started using e-mail

Nick Saban didn’t have internet access in 2020. Seriously.

In 2020, we’re not quite the Jetsons just yet but we’re getting pretty dang close to it.

We live in an age where most of the global population is carrying around a piece of the internet in their hands via their smart phones. They’ve become an essential part of our every day functionality, for better or worst.

Well, for everyone except for Nick Saban apparently. He refuses to touch technology. Until now, that is.

Coronavirus has turned the entire world upside down, and that includes Nick Saban. One of the things in his life that has changed, apparently, is that Saban finally has an e-mail address.

Seriously. Before a few weeks ago, not only did this man not have an e-mail address, he claimed to not even have internet access. In 2020.

“I don’t know of any outside noise. I don’t have internet. I don’t have Twitter. I don’t read the paper. So I don’t know.”

No. I don’t know how this is possible. I’m just glad that he’s finally caught up to the rest of us…sort of? Welcome to the 21st century, Nick Saban.

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