Discussion The Random Discussion Thread

[Dard Ball Get]

I've spent 20 years in tech and startups, this is a useless tech. Worth watching this - very long though:

Point us in the direction of some useful tech

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I've spent 20 years in tech and startups, this is a useless tech. Worth watching this - very long though:

But i got some secret information , when Dick Smith accidentally left the microphone on he said.......

 

[SaintsSeptember]

For Sale , Unique Art of a Lego Essendon Player with a huge syringe in his arm.

 

[Noidenous]

For Sale , Unique Art of a Lego Essendon Player with a huge syringe in his arm.

 

[George]

I watched that last night actually

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

It's basically only allowed through a loophole but countries are very slowly catching on and banning it.

I've seen the Train Sim stuff, isn't that the one with literally thousands of dollars worth of individual trains and stuff if you went and bought them all?
If you're into that I don't think that's necessarily too bad, just go pick and choose what you want and you get what you pay for. Certainly not predatory like loot boxes or pay to win stuff.

Yea it is. At last count it was over 10k. You'd be a fool to buy it at full price though.

 

[gringo2011]

Not all NFT’s are jpegs
Huge utility and will certainly be commonplace in all peoples lives moving forward.

I'm old and don't get it so hate them.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I'm old and don't get it so hate them.

The gist that i took from that amazingly long you tube, which must be close to the number of words per hour record, but thank god he was talking fast.

Crypto has no value over and above what they think people might pay for it.
Most people didn't buy Crypto in the beginning unless they wanted to have untraceable funds for drugs online.
If someone paid $4.00 for Crypto and they are selling it for $4000, the one paying $4000 for it is a sucker, or he can find a bigger sucker willing to pay $4000 000 for it which will make him a shrewd operator, and the new sucker will need to find someone to pay even more for it.

Its incredibly bad for the environment.

Like all good scams, those who get in early do well, and use their success to convince others they can do well too. Just like every pyramid scheme.

 

[bergholt]

The gist that i took from that amazingly long you tube, which must be close to the number of words per hour record, but thank god he was talking fast.

Crypto has no value over and above what they think people might pay for it.
Most people didn't buy Crypto in the beginning unless they wanted to have untraceable funds for drugs online.
If someone paid $4.00 for Crypto and they are selling it for $4000, the one paying $4000 for it is a sucker, or he can find a bigger sucker willing to pay $4000 000 for it which will make him a shrewd operator, and the new sucker will need to find someone to pay even more for it.

Its incredibly bad for the environment.

Like all good scams, those who get in early do well, and use their success to convince others they can do well too. Just like every pyramid scheme.

Ignore the environmental stuff because that's solvable.

But the rest of your post is spot on. NFTs/smart contracts have no fundamental value. They add nothing above and beyond storing the same thing in a simple database (which would cost about 5 orders of magnitude less) - except that they enable financial speculation. Enabling financial speculation means that they can fit seamlessly into a financial hype cycle which then creates a bubble.

That's not to say people can't make money out of them, of course some ordinary everyday people will luck into a huge windfall by getting a BAYC or CryptoPunk early or whatever. Most likely you won't though, because by and large all they're good for is funnelling people's cash into the pockets of people who are already rich, because they're the ones who have most control over the hype cycle, and can get in early on airdrops, and pump and dumps.

Cryptocurrency (as opposed to NFTs) isn't quite so bad imo. It's useful for cross-border payments even if the wild swings in value make it pretty annoying to hold for more than five minutes. Hold a diversified portfolio of crypto if you want, sure. If you're lucky you'll make good returns on it, but don't bother looking at the fundamentals of the projects because it's only luck and hype that determines which ones go to the moon. Plenty of actually useful crypto projects don't make anyone money - I'm still holding THETA just in case one day people realise that it's actually really useful. My fault for paying attention to fundamentals rather than just buying DOGE or SHIB or something.

But yeah, there's very little fundamentally useful about this stuff. My bias is that I bought BTC at single figure dollars (lost that when Mt Gox collapsed), bought it again at 150 and sold it around 1000. I've made money from it. Other people will too. But most will lose a lot in the long run, into the pockets of people who are already rich and this is making richer. Don't put in more than you can afford to lose.

 

[bergholt]

Point us in the direction of some useful tech

Don't know what that means, but https://www.canva.com/ is pretty useful. Sydney based company currently valued at $40b. Great founders, great idea, great execution. (I take no credit, I just have a small number of shares bought a long time ago.)

Best way to get access to deals like that is to put some cash into Home | Blackbird Ventures or AirTree Ventures | Home or Square Peg. Unfortunately in Australia that means you have to count as a "sophisticated investor", which is kinda bullshit but is what it is.

 

[Chef Ratts]

Looks like they finally traded Ben Simmons

 

[Chef Ratts]

BREAKING: Simmons saga over as Aussie traded in blockbuster deal that will ‘destroy NBA’

Andrew Jackson from Fox Sports
February 11th, 2022 7:18 am
Ben Simmons is on the move.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news on Friday morning, revealing that Simmons is on his way to Brooklyn along with Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two-first round picks.

Brooklyn, meanwhile, is including Paul Millsap in the deal along with superstar James Harden.

While there had been plenty of talk of a potential Simmons-Harden trade this week, Wojnarowski reported it got real on Friday morning.

“The Nets will get the Sixers’ 2020 first-round pick unprotected with a right to defer until 2023 and a 2027 first-round pick protected 1-to-8,” Adrian Wojnarowski reported.

“The 2027 pick would roll over to 2028 protected 1-to-8 again. The pick turns into two seconds and $2M in 2029.”

“The Nets are including Paul Millsap in the deal too, sources tell ESPN.”

Wojnarowski then revealed the Nets planned to use the first-round picks to make more moves before the deadline closes.

Appearing on NBA Today, Wojnarowski said both teams had been actively negotiating ahead of the deadline, with disagreements over the extra pieces that could be added to a deal.

The Sixers had been adamant Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle were not available and it seemed like the latter’s inclusion could be key to getting a deal done.

Instead, both sides were able to agree to a blockbuster deal that will shake up the NBA.

Harden had long been considered one of Philadelphia’s top targets in any potential Simmons trade alongside Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal.

It is quite the transformation for Philadelphia, who will now have one of the league’s best one-two punches in Harden and Embiid.

Given Embiid’s strengths in the post and Harden’s lethal threat in isolation, the Sixers should not have too many problems putting up points.

While there could be concerns about Harden’s willingness to let the offence run through Embiid, it seems he was growing tired of having to carry the burden at Brooklyn.

But with Simmons no closer to returning to the court and Embiid in his prime, the Sixers simply felt they needed to make a move now in a bid to win the title.

There were differing views in the NBA world on just how successful it will be.

“Frankly, I think waiting to trade for James Harden this summer would be a terrible trade and a terrible idea,” Tim Bontemps said on the Lowe Post podcast.

“I think it is insane that they might wait to do that. James Harden went to 2-for-11 last night against the Kings and scored four points and they lost to the Kings. James Harden does not look like a top 10 player in the world anymore.

“He doesn’t look like a guy that I want to be paying $50 million when he’s 36.”

Kendrick Perkins though boldly declared the Harden-Embiid duo will “destroy the NBA”.

Both Philadelphia and Brooklyn are in contention for the title despite the latter dropping nine straight games to fall into eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

Harden had forced his way out of the Houston Rockets in a four-team megadeal at the start of the 2021 season, seeing him join Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irvings at the Nets.

It was a stunning power move that seemed destine to end with Brooklyn taking out the championship but early chemistry issues and injury concerns complicated matters.

Most recently, Durant has been dealing with a left knee injury while Irving is only a part-time player due to his refusal to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Reports suggested that played into Harden’s growing frustrations at Brooklyn given he had signed up to be part of a title contender.

Instead, he found himself as the centrepiece of an underperforming squad with uncertainty surrounding its two other biggest names.

Simmons should be a brilliant fit in Brooklyn provided he is in the right head space, with the defensive versatility to immediately make a difference.

He will also have less pressure on the offensive end with Durant and Irving leading the team in that respect.

There were reports late last year that Simmons wanted to be traded to a team with the offence built around him but for the time being, he may be better off without the added scrutiny that comes with that role.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Ignore the environmental stuff because that's solvable.

But the rest of your post is spot on. NFTs/smart contracts have no fundamental value. They add nothing above and beyond storing the same thing in a simple database (which would cost about 5 orders of magnitude less) - except that they enable financial speculation. Enabling financial speculation means that they can fit seamlessly into a financial hype cycle which then creates a bubble.

That's not to say people can't make money out of them, of course some ordinary everyday people will luck into a huge windfall by getting a BAYC or CryptoPunk early or whatever. Most likely you won't though, because by and large all they're good for is funnelling people's cash into the pockets of people who are already rich, because they're the ones who have most control over the hype cycle, and can get in early on airdrops, and pump and dumps.

Cryptocurrency (as opposed to NFTs) isn't quite so bad imo. It's useful for cross-border payments even if the wild swings in value make it pretty annoying to hold for more than five minutes. Hold a diversified portfolio of crypto if you want, sure. If you're lucky you'll make good returns on it, but don't bother looking at the fundamentals of the projects because it's only luck and hype that determines which ones go to the moon. Plenty of actually useful crypto projects don't make anyone money - I'm still holding THETA just in case one day people realise that it's actually really useful. My fault for paying attention to fundamentals rather than just buying DOGE or SHIB or something.

But yeah, there's very little fundamentally useful about this stuff. My bias is that I bought BTC at single figure dollars (lost that when Mt Gox collapsed), bought it again at 150 and sold it around 1000. I've made money from it. Other people will too. But most will lose a lot in the long run, into the pockets of people who are already rich and this is making richer. Don't put in more than you can afford to lose.

So if you could associate a cryptocurrency with the Kardashians that would probably be the one to do well.

 

[George]

Looks like they finally traded Ben Simmons

Might start watching the sport again now, thank god for that

 

[Ephemeral Hope]

I'm old and don't get it so hate them.

Was she having a stroke

 

[George]

The losers that have been here more than 5 years will now have a new shiny badge.

 

[Noidenous]

The losers...

Must be why I don't have one.

 

[George]

Must be why I don't have one.

The quota was 5 years and 5000 posts...I'll get that fixed for ya

 

[StFly]

Why the Allies colours though? As if I we need more reminder of blokes named Jarman.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

The losers that have been here more than 5 years will now have a new shiny badge.

Easy to spot the little badge collecting scout nerds then. If their chin or lack there of wasn’t already a give away.

 

[George]

Easy to spot the little badge collecting scout nerds then. If their chin or lack there of wasn’t already a give away.

I look forward to more of your chinless posts

 

[Noidenous]

Easy to spot the little badge collecting scout nerds then. If their chin or lack there of wasn’t already a give away.

Welcome to the club.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

Pretty spectacular sunset in the Isa last night. Just thought I’d share it.
It looks apocalyptic and I take it as a portent of great things to come for the Saints.

 

[gringo2011]

View attachment 1326848

Pretty spectacular sunset in the Isa last night. Just thought I’d share it.
It looks apocalyptic and I take it as a portent of great things to come for the Saints.

That looks apocalyptic, what a colour. I remember those red sunsets in Thailand, they look insane. Nice garden too, I though Isa would be all red sand.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

The losers that have been here more than 5 years will now have a new shiny badge.

Most of it spent in my 20s which comes to an end in April. What a waste of my life.