TL;DR

Have we figured out yet whether Cloud’s arms are... augmented... in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth? Jay and I were just talking about a very important investigation he conducted back in the day.

In the middle of the NBA playoffs, Eric Lewis was suspended for allegedly responding to criticism of himself and other refs on a “burner” account, despite a policy barring referees from discussing officiating without approval. The 19-year vet had just refereed game one of the Western Conference finals, and even LeBron James took note.

Now, as The Athletic and NBA.com report, everything has come to a close with this statement by the league:

NBA referee Eric Lewis has informed the league office that he is retiring, effective immediately. In light of his decision, the NBA’s investigation into social media activity has been closed.

It hit me that Twitter is dead, so the word “tweet” is fair game now! It wasn’t even Twitter’s word to begin with. So I have reversed her reversal, editing this just-published post of mine four times to just call them tweets. Zuck tweeted. Mosseri tweeted. I will be tweeting again too, just as soon as Zuck and Mosseri let me tweet from the web!

For anyone who hasn’t canceled Max yet, a documentary later this month will dive into the story behind Bishop Sycamore, an alleged Ohio high school program that was mostly a front for a traveling football team.

It stumbled along until 2021 when things fell apart after a 58-0 loss in a nationally televised game on ESPN, and the Ohio Department of Education called it a “scam.”

Remember when we we shared the utterly infuriating elevator buttons stationed in our very own offices? They’ve been vanquished!

Now, instead of every soul aboard a crowded elevator stabbing a keypad in disbelief, a single tap and a single touchscreen press simultaneously summons the elevator, programs it to visit the appropriate floor(s), and points YOU in the right direction. And friends, the doors... they open instantly. Smartest elevators I’ve ever seen.

By the time I click, the email’s usually gone. It’s fascinating how Google can reach into your inbox to delete stuff.

But I can testify that the Dick’s keep getting through Gmail’s spam filters — they’ve seemingly been penetrated for good.

After David wrote that the Vision Pro is Apple’s secret TV project, I’ve seen many people say some variation of “watching TV is a group activity.” Is it?

Sure, I might be in the minority of viewers tuning in solo for F1 streams at 3AM, but ABC has killed the TGIF TV programming block three times in the last 25 years, and in Entertainment Weekly’s oral history, Family Matters co-creator Michael Warren explained why it was canceled the first time in 1997:

Households started getting two TV sets, and mom and dad started saying, “We don’t want to watch Family Matters. If you guys want to watch those, you can go to your room and watch your own TV.” And when the kids went in the other room, they didn’t watch those shows. They watched Friends.

In the era of phones and iPads, I wasn’t aware that we’d changed back?

DEVITO: We deteriorate.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Except in some fantasy. When people talk about, “I will see them again in heaven,” it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t.

DEVITO: No.

“Liz, what does this have to do with tech?” Nothing, hope that helps.

Also: cloud, plane, oval, and left. What else?

(It appears some of these swipe type pictograms were uncovered in 2019 by a “Jack Lance,” who, I’m reading, was quite the puzzler.)

It’s hard to pick a favorite bike build at The Q YouTube channel. The split wheel one? Square wheels? The bendy, locky one?

For the intersection of people who love engineering, bikes, and ASMR. Go watch.

Nilay typed it this morning in Verge Slack, and I’ve been privately chuckling all day.

Yes, I know it’s technically now called “Google Fi Wireless,” and that the addition of the word “wireless” helps get straight to the point. It’s way more practical than letting people confuse Google Fi with Google Fiber! And yet I continue to LOL.

It doesn’t matter how fast you twist — the creme will stick to one side 80 percent of the time, they found.

Unfortunately, the MIT study results weren’t replicated by the Netherlands’ University of Groningen, but that may be because the Europeans twisted by hand, while the US researchers twisted via machine.

His shares are reportedly worth about 880 million euros ($936 million). Despite being “not a big beer drinker,” it’s a 2007 investment in another brewery, Femsa, that has brought Heineken into the Gates investment fold.

It’s an interesting arrangement, considering the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation-sponsored study released last year laying out both potential health risks (particularly for people under 40) and benefits from alcohol consumption:
These findings highlight the need for tailored guidelines that discourage alcohol consumption among young people, as well as alcohol control policies and interventions that are targeted especially towards young males.

A Ponzi scheme that has nothing to do with the blockchain? How quaint.

Reva Joyce Stachniw, 71, of Galesburg, Illinois, and Ron Throgmartin, 59, of Buford, Georgia, along with a co-conspirator, ran a Ponzi scheme by fraudulently representing to victims that their investments were backed by short-term investments in Stachniw and Throgmartin’s cattle and marijuana businesses.

The victim-investors gave the conspirators money based on false promises that their investments would be used for legitimate activities related to those businesses. In actuality, the funds were used to pay earlier investors.

Satirical conspiracy theories aside, stuffed birds really are being turned into drones for surveillance purposes.

A team of researchers designed the “ornithopters” to resemble a flying bird in hopes they can be used to stealthily study wildlife — and maybe spy on people and foreign militaries. The team acknowledged to New Scientist that it should “look into research policies for dealing with dead birds before getting more ambitious,” though.

Not quite, but this miniature resin printer created by My N Mi is surprisingly fully-functional and capable of producing delicate, detailed prints despite measuring just 18 x 31 x 41 millimeters (seen via The Awesomer).

That’s about the right size for a typical dollhouse FYI, and it's giving me the same vibes as those addictive miniature-cooking videos.

The community over at Stripperweb has questions for the forum's anonymous owner after a banner appeared last week announcing that, for reasons unknown, it would be shutting down on February 1st.

Described as the “Holy Grail of strippers’ knowledge,” some sex workers are offering to buy the site, while others have swiftly learned Python in order to preserve the forum's vast resources and history.

Yeah, but what about “the college-educated” bastards?

Coder Sébastien Matos has created an interactive webpage that faithfully recreates the scrollbars of various operating systems from the last 30 years (seen via Creative Bloq). Which is your favorite? I’m now hunting for extensions to give my scrollbars an updated (or retro) look.

When software controlling the decade-old “green lighting system” at Minnechaug Regional High failed in August 2021, the lights permanently stuck in their default “on” position, and the school couldn’t track down the original installer’s new owners to fix it.

Now, the issue should finally be resolved over the February break after upgrades, including a new server, control boards, and, yes, a remote override switch.

Was on a Superior Court Clerk’s Office records request (PDF) for theft charges against this guy who allegedly decided Office Space was a good inspiration for a real crime.

The cops say he edited code on an e-commerce site’s checkout basket to redirect shipping fees on some orders to his personal account. And what did he do with the money?

When asked where the money now is, he stated it was “gone.” He clarified that he had used the money to invest in stock options, particularly GameStop stock options, and reiterated that all the money was now gone.

When my friend told me about his New Year’s resolution, I immediately decided to join him: every time he gets a marketing email he doesn’t want, he takes a few seconds to unsubscribe from it.

For the past few days, we’ve been like Legolas and Gimli comparing how many lists we’re no longer on. I know that the spam will inevitably creep back throughout the year, but for the next few months it’s going to be a lot easier to keep my inbox clean.

If you’re looking for a resolution, maybe join us and give this a try.

A lot of things are powered by computers, even retail signage. It’s an easy thing to forget, that is, until they stop working as intended. I adore seeing glitchy displays and kiosks at stores. I especially love seeing the many, many people who walk by them, not seeming to notice or care.

I hope you saw at least one sign that was on the fritz during your holiday travels. If you have a particularly good one to share, send a pic to my email: cameron.faulkner@theverge.com