Mapping the celebrity NFT complex

2 years ago
Who doesn't love a good crazywall?

I find the world of NFT-flogging celebrities fascinating, both because of the visceral, skin-crawling embarrassment I feel when I see people like Fallon and Hilton half-heartedly try to express enthusiasm for their expensive new Twitter avatars, and also because it gives me the sense that there is something going on behind the scenes here that I am not quite privy to. Where does a person like Paris Hilton or Eminem even hear about "bored apes"? Who is recommending that they buy one? Is this really the best thing any of them can think to do with their money and fame? [...]

If you pay attention to both the Hollywood trades and the crypto press, and smoke enough weed, you can begin to pick out the contours of an expanding, interconnected, celebrity-based web3 financial-cultural complex: [...] If you have access to a free trial of some chart-making software, you can even begin to make a corkboard map of this emerging web of ownership, business relationships, and incredibly bad art.

I don't quite know what to make of this. Is it a ... scam? A dodge? A conspiracy? One of the funny things that the world of web3 seems intent on revealing is the extent to which the boundaries between concepts like "Ponzi scam," "pyramid scheme," "multi-level marketing," "conspiracy," and "just regular old financial capitalism working as intended" are not really as clear as we might like or hope. [...]

One reason the clip is so weird and funny is that it's not all that different from Hilton going on The Tonight Show and talking about her favorite penny stocks, while Fallon enthusiastically confirms that he's invested, too.

textfiles:

What you'll be seeing for the next period of time is very desperate promotion of NFTs and Crypto to wider and wider audiences, because now it's a race: Finding marks before the marks hear that NFTs and Crypto are scammed up garbage selling bridges and swamp land as get-rich.

It's going to be weirder and weirder to see how easily those nice-looking people on the tv and the movies and in the cables and the streams are made to stumble haltingly over the dumb, dumb language of NFT/Crypto, but don't worry

It'll be over soon

And we'll have right-clicked

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Today in Panspermia

2 years ago
This paper has big "they laughed at me at the institute" energy...

Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?

In our considered view the totality of the multifactorial data and critical analyses assembled by Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and their many colleagues leads to the bare minimum yet plausible scientific conclusion -- that life was seeded here on Earth by life-bearing comets as soon as conditions on Earth allowed it to flourish (at or just before 4.1 Billion years ago); and living organisms such as space-resistant and space-hardy bacteria, viruses, more complex eukaryotic cells and organisms (e.g. Tardigrades), perhaps even fertilised ova and plant seeds, may have been continuously delivered ever since to Earth helping to drive further the progress of terrestrial biological evolution. [...]

The requirement now, on the basis of orthodox abiogenic thinking, is that an essentially instantaneous transformation of non-living organic matter to bacterial life occurs, an assumption we consider strains credibility of Earth-bound abiogenesis beyond the limit. A far more plausible possibility is that fully-developed microorganisms and maybe other eukaryotic organisms arrived at the Earth via impacting comets, and these later became carbonized and trapped within condensing mineral grain conglomerates. It is now becoming amply clear that Earth-like planets and other life-friendly planetary bodies exist in their hundreds of billions and exchanges of material between them (meteorites, cometary bolides) must routinely occur.. One is thus forced in our view to conclude that the entire galaxy (and perhaps our local group of galaxies) constitutes a single connected biosphere.

Octopuses? Ancient astronauts. Or, uplifted by space viruses.

Cephalopods are also very diverse, with the behaviourally complex coleoids, (Squid, Cuttlefish and Octopus) presumably arising under a pure terrestrial evolutionary model from the more primitive nautiloids. However the genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great [...] One plausible explanation, in our view, is that the new genes are likely new extraterrestrial imports to Earth - most plausibly as an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs.

Cholera? Ok that was really from poop. But influenza? AIDS? Death from Above. Sunspots!

In the case of Influenza the sudden appearance of multiple yet patchy location strikes (many, as indicated, before the advent of air travel) cannot be explained by simple infectious person-to-person disease models. However they are more completely understandable by multiple strikes or in-falls from space at widely disparate global locations dependent on vagaries like weather, topography and geography, and in particular the periodicity of the significant correlation with the 11 year Sun Spot flare cycle. With respect to the latter correlation "..the peaks of solar activity will be expected to assist in the descent of charged molecular aggregates (including viruses) from the stratosphere to ground level..along magnetic field lines that connect the Sun and the Earth".

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Nightclub owner shakes fist at video game nightclubs.

2 years ago


"The nightclub level -- every game has one:"

It's difficult to avoid the classic trope of pushing your character through a debaucherous smoky dancefloor to hunt down some ne'er-do-well. Nightclubs are a great mechanic in the gaming world - requiring minimal set dressing and character animation. Designers can get away with putting the player in a big, wide-open space full of nooks and crannies to explore, and a harsh overbearing bass can remove the need for spoken dialogue.

Watching the videos in this article gives me three reactions:

  1. I really hate video games like this.

    Seriously, this is why I almost never play games any more. All modern games have become narrative RPGs. If I ever have to "talk" to an NPC, I'm already over it. Playing these games just feels like watching a very, very, very shitty movie with no fast-forward button. And not run-of-the-mill shitty, I'm talking like Uwe Boll or The Asylum shitty. Even watching a walk-through is pure pain.

  2. Video game architecture is as disconnected from reality as video game physics, anatomy and violence are. Maybe even moreso.

    For whatever reason (imprecision of controllers? Too much caffeine?) characters in video games move at a constant sprint, which means that the architecture has to get stretched or you're past it before you've seen it. You walk into a broom closet in a video game that in the real world would be 6'×10' and it has to be the size of a 4-car garage or you won't be able to turn around and pick the MacGuffin off of the shelf.

    That results in these video game nightclubs that all take place in spaces the size of an aircraft carrier. And looking at these scenes, they all look empty. Sure, the room is a thousand feet wide, and it probably has 2,000 gyrating NPCs in it, but they're all spaced incredibly far apart, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to move through the room with your weird little video game controller. Try to remember the last time you snaked your way up to the bar and now picture that with video game bump-bump-bump-twitch-intersect-bump-bump-bump physics.

    If you walked into any of these gigantic-yet-sparse spaces in real life, your first and most visceral reaction would be, "Wow, this place is dead. Let's go find a real party." (See also, Mola Ram's Pankot Palace and Lounge.)

    Oh, here's a bartender behind a bar wiping a glass. He's probably about to tell an important secret to a total stranger. It's 25' between the bar and the back wall. Dude that would be 36". That is basic bar service physics. But if it wasn't 25', you couldn't jump over it and hide from gunfire without your triangles ending up inside the beer cooler.

    Designing a physical space in the real world has constraints like: where are the bottlenecks; where do you want people to move quickly and where do you want them to linger; where are the good sight-lines to the important parts of the room; how difficult is it to find the restrooms; how are staff going to get a bucket over to that spill... But in video games, the only concern seems to be "go in straight line, very fast".

    Also they're way too well lit. Being able to see everything with the clarity of standing directly on the Sun is not what people want from nightclubs. In the immortal words of Prince, "Closin' time, ugly lights, everybody's inspected".

  3. Ok, fine, but after all this time, why has nobody turned my gigantic 3D model of DNA Lounge into something "playable" in any real way?

In summary, the Metaverse is a land of contrasts.

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Structure of slit-scan

2 years ago
Structure of slit-scan

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70 seconds of soothing Chinese hazmat bartender ambience

2 years ago

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The date is now Wednesday, March 704th, 2020.

2 years ago

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Neoliberal John Snow

2 years ago
The father of epidemiology, but neoliberal. Addressing preventable disease through deregulation and individualism.

This whole account is pure gold.

  • Broad street businesses were complaining so I reinstalled the pump handle.

  • There is no parliamentary solution to the 1854 cholera epidemic. Cholera will be circulating in our community for hundreds of years and we must realize a new normal of life.

  • I'm relieved to let you know that most people dying from cholera in the 1854 epidemic have multiple comorbidities.

  • I respect the individual choices of all Londoners in this 1854 cholera epidemic. If you have cholera and want to defecate in the drinking water, that is your individual freedom. If you are afraid of getting cholera yourself, simply don't drink, cook, clean, or bathe with water.

  • We've been struggling with the 1854 cholera epidemic for so long. Zero Cholera isn't a realistic goal. The parliament simply cannot allocate the necessary funds to upgrade the London sewage system.

    Look at that! The Royal Navy received a larger budget increase than requested.

  • The cholera epidemic of 1854 has split Londoners into two adversarial groups: Those who will defecate in the drinking water and those who won't. Can't we find middle ground to heal this rift, and simply drink the feces-contaminated water?

  • The 1854 cholera epidemic has disproportionately burdened the destitute. Calls for Queen Victoria to provide support for this group have not gone unheard, and she now recommends that these people stop being poor.

  • The Supreme court ruling means companies can now take down their burdensome "Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work" signs. Great news for businesses in this 1854 cholera epidemic.

  • Our restaurant industry is ready to serve you in this 1854 cholera epidemic! If you are having uncontrollable diarrhea when you arrive at the restaurant, please be sure to hold it in until you are seated at your table.

  • The 1854 cholera epidemic has been difficult for Londoners. To alleviate this burden, Queen Victoria is proud to announce that each household in London can register to receive 4 entire squares of toilet paper! Please avoid contracting cholera during the 7-10 day shipping window.

  • As I watch excrement dribble down the pantleg of the grocery clerk and expand the puddle on the floor of the produce department, I smile. Our 'Get to Work' policies allowed this boy with the sunken eyes to meaningly contribute to the economy, despite the 1854 cholera epidemic.

  • It's not an 'anti-clean-water' protest, they just oppose any mandate for the installation of sewers during the 1854 cholera epidemic.

  • You orphans have nothing to complain about. Your parents died WITH cholera, not FROM cholera. They really died from hypovolemic shock.

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Inside the White House's all-out effort to keep Biden from COVID

2 years ago
And the rest of you can go fuck yourselves, I guess:

When President Joe Biden met with U.S. governors at the White House on Monday, he was the only one given a glass of water -- lest anyone else remove their mask to take a drink. [...]

It's no surprise that unusual steps are taken to protect any president. But the strict precautions could also threaten to undercut the Biden administration's own efforts to tell Americans -- especially those who are vaccinated and boosted -- that they can get on with something closer to their normal lives in the face of the omicron wave. [...]

For months, Biden aides have fretted that the people who are most protected against COVID-19 remain the most cautious, a dynamic they view as a drag on the nation's economic and psychological recovery.

Now I'm just an unfrozen caveman -- your masks and germ theory of disease confuse and frighten me -- but maybe they are the most protected because they are the most cautious.

THE LINE IS PLEASED WITH THE TALK OF SACRIFICE.

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Xinfly All-Inclusive Male Massager

2 years ago
Finally got my emacs setup just how I like it.

buttplugio: Imagine the design considerations when this was invented.

janetlieberlu: This music is way too chill for how utterly terrifying this device is. It's all soothing phrases and then "Smear the Orange anus lubricant..." hits you...

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