Sources: Padres' Marcano faces ban for betting (espn.com)

The potential ban of Marcano comes in the wake of the NBA handing down a ban to Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for disclosing confidential information to bettors, limiting his participation in at least one game and betting on NBA games while playing in the G League.

Lifetime Ban.

It was only a matter of time, in this current environment where in-game announcers report on current odds for games, until we heard those words again.

Lifetime Ban for betting on baseball.

This story is both shocking and unsurprising.

It will be important to keep track of this and other stories relating to athletes gambling on their sports because I think MLB and the sports media industry will do everything in their power to downplay them. Indeed, ESPN kind of checked its swing in its reporting, so far, on the story about Tucupita Marcano – the linked article doesn't link to the original report from the Wall Street Journal about Marcano and, perhaps more interestingly, links to the ESPN team page for the Toronto Raptors in the text above about the NBA ban for Jontay Porter instead of linking to an ESPN story about that ban. At least it doesn't link to a page showing the current odds on Thursday's opening game in the NBA Finals.

Despite their efforts to downplay it, fans – and gamblers – can't ignore it.

I think we can at least rely on ESPN to announce the presence of sports betting every time it takes the field. Completely ignoring a story like this would destory any bit of news credibility the network has left. It still fashions itself as a news outlet on some level. Make no mistake, though, ESPN will not give us detailed, in-depth reporting as individual gambling stories appear in the coming years. That would be actual journalism, something the entertainment network abandoned a long time ago.

And if there's any doubt about that, consider this – SportsCenter ran a segment on the Marcano story below the fold this morning. Think about that. SportsCenter, the flagship current news program on the leading sports media network made a programming decision to push a report on a potential lifetime ban in Major League Baseball, something that hasn't been an issue in decades, to the back half of the show the day after the story broke. And this when the NBA and NHL playoffs, the two major sports events in the United States right now, are paused for a few days before the respective finals get underway later this week. There's literally nothing happening in either playoffs right now.

Journalists would pursue the Marcano story vigorously and give it the proper spotlight on the front page and as a lead story on SportsCenter. ESPN, of course, views it differently. After all, it operates ESPN Bet, its "official sportsbook." The network clearly stands to benefit from starving this story, and any story about problems arising from sports gambling, of oxygen. The problem for us, as news-hungry sports fans, is that the network, as the 800-pound gorilla of sports news, has its hand tightly gripped on the valve controlling flow.

Maybe we'll get a 30 for 30 documentary on the whole thing in a few years.

Surely that will save face.

It’s getting cheaper to filter carbon dioxide out of the air (theverge.com)

Climeworks says its Generation 3 DAC plants can bring the cost of capturing CO2 down to $250--350 per ton by 2030, although there are additional costs for permanently sequestering the CO2 underground or under the sea so that it doesn't escape back into the atmosphere. Across the industry, the goal is generally to get down to around $100 per ton to make the technology affordable enough to deploy widely.

Baby steps.

Uber Planning to Add Mini Games to iPhone App to Play During a Ride (macrumors.com)

By offering games in its iPhone app, Uber would provide passengers with a convenient way to stay entertained during a ride.

What ever happened to just staring out the window and thinking about stuff? Maybe it's just me.

Elon Musk ordered Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips reserved for Tesla to X and xAI (cnbc.com)

Fleming, who frequently represents public company investors in shareholder disputes, said that in such situations, other executives would be in the best position to make decisions, while those who are conflicted should abstain. “That has not historically been the path that Mr. Musk has chosen for himself,” Fleming said.

Musk seems to pooh-pooh the redirection of chips from Tesla to X, explaining that "Tesla had no place to send the Nvidia chips to turn them on, so they would have just sat in the warehouse."

Is that enough to stave off a shareholder suit? Pass the popcorn. 👀🍿

Intel CEO Takes Aim at Nvidia in Fight for AI Chip Dominance (yahoo.com)

“Unlike what Jensen would have you believe, Moore’s Law is alive and well,” he said, stressing that Intel will have a major role to play in the proliferation of AI as the leading provider of PC chips.

I found myself thinking of the death cart scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as I read this. The frail old man in the scene pleads "I'm not dead" in hopes of avoiding being flung onto the pile of corpses on the cart. His relative bribes the worker, who then clubs the old man to death. Ultimately, the relative slumps the dead man onto the pile and life goes on.

It feels like Intel is slung over the shoulder of the chip industry right now, claiming it's not dead. Hopefully it avoids the club and the old man finally gets to take that walk he mentioned.