A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted
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@HardwareGeek said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
I've never been there, but I assume it's as chaotic as other major cities.
You assume wrong.
It's even worse.
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@HardwareGeek said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
I've never been there, but I assume it's as chaotic as other major cities.
Paris is worse than most other western European cities, even marginally so than Rome and Barcelona, but Naples is still even more horrible, and I'd advise that Athens is only for people who like their cars with dents. I'm told that Cairo is much worse, but I've never been there.
Paris is the only city anywhere where I've seen people parking on the inside edge of a roundabout.
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@dkf said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
marginally so than Rome
Athens is only for people who like their cars with dents.
I don't remember much about traffic in Athens; we spent most of our time walking around the old city. But I remember Thessaloniki, where people drove on the wrong side of the road to pass traffic jams.
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@dkf said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
Paris is the only city anywhere where I've seen people parking on the inside edge of a roundabout.
Toby Fair, the only roundabout in Paris is probably this one, which you could be forgiven for not thinking it's a roundabout given it's
so largealways entirely blocked by a trafic jam.
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@remi Fun fact: I managed to visit that roundabout at the same time as the president (fully coincidental). It did not help with the traffic situation. Or the people situation.
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Oh, Ubisoft. (sad trombone noise, followed by a puking sound)
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@Atazhaia There probably wasn't a lot of traffic on the roundabout itself but yeah.
I once went to Moscow and at around midnight, getting out of a restaurant, we were walking very close to the Red Square when I saw columns after columns of soldiers and tanks and military vehicle driving in the streets, in a silent and stern manner.
I had a few seconds to start worrying and wondering what I should do if there ever was a coup, before the Russian with me reminded me that we were a couple of days before the big May parade (end of WW2 celebrations) and it was just a rehearsal. Phew.
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@remi said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
Toby Fair, the only roundabout in Paris is probably this one
No, it was the one at the Porte Maillot, and apparently that's not a roundabout any more (due to a redevelopment of some kind). What can I say? It was nearly 20 years ago.
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@dkf Stop bringing in reasonable facts into a discussion!!!11!
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@remi Well, the Place de la Concorde is a serious contender, given that it's almost a roundabout inside a roundabout.
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A couple of the cities in Ireland are so badly designed they have traffic lights on roundabouts.
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@DogsB said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
A couple of the cities in Ireland are so badly designed they have traffic lights on roundabouts.
What about traffic lights on roundabouts on motorways?
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@dkf What about motorways with at-grade railroad crossings.
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@dkf said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
@DogsB said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
A couple of the cities in Ireland are so badly designed they have traffic lights on roundabouts.
What about traffic lights on roundabouts on motorways?
Dual carriageway, definitely. I haven't seen it on motorways yet. Would not surprise me.
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Y'all just reaffirming my decision not to learn to drive.
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@Arantor said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
Y'all just reaffirming my decision not to learn to drive.
Wait until you learn that a house a mile outside your town is twice as big and a third cheaper.
That's what is getting me off my arse.
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What's your point? Move here, work from home, and get everything delivered*.
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@Zerosquare I get everything delivered. Eventually.
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@PleegWat
Is that worse then a draw bridge?
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@HardwareGeek said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
@boomzilla said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
driving directions to the Louvre.
That's crazy. Nobody who isn't local enough to already know where it is should even consider driving in Paris.
From my experience as a child, "driving" wasn't so much the problem as "parking" was.
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Mostly for the one box picture.
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@loopback0 said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
"Auction for original handwritten music sheet" is taking it to a whole new level - that could be an honest-to-goodness collector's item.
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@GOG you have to buy the tokens first before you can even participate in the auction.
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@topspin Hence the thread.
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@GOG said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
@topspin Hence the thread.
Thread?
Twitter is such an absolutely shitty medium for anything longer than two sentences, I didn't realize it's more than one post and click the image.
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@topspin I meant this thread.
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@GOG said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
"Auction for original handwritten music sheet" is taking it to a whole new level - that could be an honest-to-goodness collector's item.
So the NFT is basically just the entry ticket to be allowed to bid? That's actually not a terrible idea -- at least, less terrible than many others (OK, not a very high bar).
And that's actually also giving a somewhat usable analogy for what an NFT is: it's just a member's card to some club.
It only has a value as long as that club exists and recognises its members' cards, and you're paying for the membership which is nothing more than an entry into a ledger (the members' register) held by the club. You may get a physical card as well but your membership is not defined by that physical card, and the card itself may not even belong to you (some cards even say so... probably so that they can tell you to return the card if your membership gets cancelled?) in the same way as the NFT isn't the picture (music note, whatever) it's associated to.
What that entry into the membership's register "entitles" you to (i.e. what you "own") is only defined by what the club T&C say. So if those T&C say "list of members entitlements is exactly 0 and may change at any time", well, there's nothing wrong with that. And some people may still pay for it, if there's some sort of prestige associated to it (I think that people actually have to pay to be in the Who's Who, which is useless apart from bragging that you're in it).
The difference is that you can resell the NFT while membership usually can't, though there is nothing that prevents a club from allowing it (that wouldn't be so far away from a club with limited membership and mandatory sponsorship by another member). And presumably the blockchain thing means the membership's ledger is essentially public-but-unique, but really that's just a technical administrative detail more than a fundamental feature.
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Following on the previous post, NFTs in real world:
Imagine an art gallery (or museum), where you can pay to be the member associated with a given piece of art. So you can pay to be "Mona Lisa"-member, or "The Scream"-member. Or "random vomit-on-canvas by a 5yo"-member. You don't own the piece of art, you don't even have any specific right about it (reproduction etc.). Outside of the gallery, it's entirely possible that no one even knows your name is associated to that piece of art. The gallery can sell the piece of art if they wish to. But you've paid the gallery and the gallery has said they'll associate your name, and no one else's, to that piece of art.
There are only two things you get:
- whenever someone looks at the gallery's register, they will see your name (or some other sort of unique ID) associated to that specific piece of art;
- you can tell the gallery at any time to update the register and change the name (or ID) associated to the piece of art (i.e. you can give/sell the token).
Now remove the last point (selling the token) and this is almost the same thing as a charity that would e.g. finance buying a piece of art by asking for gifts -- probably the only significant difference here is that your name might be written next to the piece of art (e.g. "bought thanks to a gift from X"), but that's about it. And the blockchain being public means the NFT has that kind of built-in.
So an NFT is being a patron where you can resell the patronage endorsement?
Filed under: not sure if or
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@remi Probably - albeit the best kind of - because the best way to understand NFTs is by looking at those tech stocks (Google and Facebook were prime examples back in the day, though I'd have to check if they sill qualify) which don't pay dividends, and you don't get any say in how the company's run, because Zuckerboy gets 10 votes to 1 share, so you can buy 90% of the stock and he'll still outvote your dumb ass.
Owning a share in such a company confers no benefits, save one: you can try to fob it off to an even bigger sucker for more than you paid. Preferably, much more.
That only works, however, if everyone is adamant that owning Unicorn, Inc. shares is like the Best Investment Evar!!!1!, because they're gonna go up-up-up-to-the-Moon, and people buy that (and the shares).
So it is with NFTs.
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@GOG You're probably right, and that's also how they're implicitly (explicitly?) sold. "Invest now and you'll get tons of money later!"
Though by mentioning this, you're also giving a very good reason why NFTs are not dumb. There probably are some people who made a lot of money on the back of investing early in Google or Facebook. Of course there are also some people who invested in Yahoo, but hey, you win some you loose some!
They're speculative investment vehicles. As such, they're probably no more, but no less, dumb that any other speculative investment vehicles. Stocks, bonds, NFTs, same difference in the end.
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An interesting new variant of the rug pull, or a legitimate hack? You decide!
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@remi I mean, even Ponzi schemes can work out for some investors.
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@GOG Well Ponzi schemes are just another type of speculative investment vehicles.
(the "investors" being the first ones, and the "speculative" part being whether they'll get caught)
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@remi said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
Stocks, bonds, NFTs, same difference in the end.
Hard disagree. Google et al. may not pay dividends, but they're still making cash by the truck load. They may or may not be overvalued, but that's more a function of everyone putting their money in stocks because there's no other options left. Money printer go brrrr.
NFTs on the other hand are a pure speculative gamble. That some people make money with that gamble is true almost by definition, and changes nothing at all with respect to the fact that paying thousands of dollars for a receipt that you bought a copy of a number to a link to a picture is beyond retarded.
Google stock is not built on the greater fool theory, only exaggerated by it, whereas NFTs fundamentally rely on it.
And to add insult to injury, you can now buy an NFT to "own" the money printer meme: https://foundation.app/@timvanhelsdingen/~/8038
Why am I not surprised?
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@topspin god fucking damn it, someone explain to me how to set this up?
Why am I not selling NFTs to random shit myself? I'll just go through the whole Know Your Meme database and sell an NFT (or a few dozen) for each of them. I mean, it's not like I need to have come up with them myself, is it? Next I'll sell an NFT for everything said. Gold mine.
It literally seems to be "I'm selling random garbage to idiots, and either someone bites or not". There's no risk involved, other than on your morals for conning some suckers.
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@topspin said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
Google et al. may not pay dividends, but they're still making cash by the truck load.
So?
Unless some of that cash actually makes it back into your pocket as a shareholder, you might as well be holding pictures of Page, Brin and Schmidt in simian form.
Currently, it seems the only way for that to happen is for Google to buy back those shares from you. Which, I admit, is better than NFTs, but only marginally so.
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@topspin said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
@topspin god fucking damn it, someone explain to me how to set this up?
Why am I not selling NFTs to random shit myself? I'll just go through the whole Know Your Meme database and sell an NFT (or a few dozen) for each of them. I mean, it's not like I need to have come up with them myself, is it? Next I'll sell an NFT for everything said. Gold mine.
It literally seems to be "I'm selling random garbage to idiots, and either someone bites or not". There's no risk involved, other than on your morals for conning some suckers.
Because most NFTs don't make any money worth speaking of. So how long are you willing to make $0 or $1 in hopes of eventually hitting a jackpot?
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@PotatoEngineer does it matter if I sell thin air for only $1?
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@topspin there's a cost to 'mint' an NFT, so I guess you need to make sure that's small enough to risk
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@loopback0 Is peppermint required? Or spearmint will do?
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@loopback0 said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
@topspin there's a cost to 'mint' an NFT
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@topspin it's like how the guys selling the shovels made the most money during gold rushes.
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@boomzilla said in A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted:
@topspin it's like how the guys selling the shovels made the most money during gold rushes.
Or at least made money most reliably.
What's the right investment for the shitcoin era? Chip manufacturers? Video card makers? ASIC makers?
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@PotatoEngineer the power companies.