According to Wiki cosplay was invented in the '70’s by Japanese women who liked to dress up as “Loli Goths”. Whether American SF fans appropriated the idea or came up with it themselves I don’t know.
At the risk of getting dragged to the Pit, I must admit that LGBTQIA+ got me confused me after T.
Back in the early 90s, I was one of the most socially progressive guys among my friends.
- Gays ? Of course they have the right to be together and show it in public. Married ? Sure.
- Lesbians ? No, they don’t need a real man to teach them what is good. I’m certain they’re doing just fine without one.
- Bisexual ? Well, I’d never have sex with a man, but I’ve met some who were undeniably very handsome. Not my thing, but I can imagine the appeal of swinging both ways.
- Transsexual ? If that’s what rocks their boat, OK.
My motto was “as long as we’re all having fun and no one gets hurt, go ahead.”
Then came more and more words with increasingly obscure meanings to me. Non-binary. Genderqueer. Transgender. Cisgender. Pansexual. Omnisexual. Asexual. Two-Spirit. Polyamorous. Intersex.
OK, we’re all different, we all have different views on sexuality and we should all be respected. That’s a given (or it should be). But to be honest, I avoid these terms as much as possible because I’m afraid of involuntarily using the wrong one and offending people. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to refer to myself.
My motto is still “as long as we’re all having fun and no one gets hurt, go ahead”. But I admit that all these subtleties are lost on me, and I did try to educate myself on these issues several times.
The most usual for “traditional” gender/sexuality identifications would be cisgender, heterosexual male/female. But I’ve almost never needed to specify that.
The thing is, NFTs as we see them currently are the very beginning of a very different way of doing things. First off, it’s like saying that anyone who buys a limited edition lithograph of an oil painting is stupid because “anyone” could have one. Or there could be non-limited editions of it. I have a poster of “Starry Night” I picked up (framed, even) at a thrift store for five bucks–does this mean the original is only worth that? No, because different versions with different scarcities of art works have always had different price tags and nothing substantially changes just because the art in question is digital. There’s a digital NFT Wu Tang Clan album out there that’s been sold for millions–the owner might let you listen to it but you can’t have a copy because that violates the ownership contract.
Which brings us to the next use case for NFTs. Seen the discussion about HBO MAX and Disney fridging content they own but don’t feel like making available? Not only can YOU not see it, but the artist who made that content can no longer get residuals because the entity that bought it is taking it out of circulation. What about instead when an artist makes a song or a cartoon or a game they sell it as a blockchain NFT such that ownership vests in the person that buys it from them but the contract is written such that each time the property changes hands the artist gets a cut? Better for the artist because instead of some noncreative middleman pocketing all proceeds the person who actually made it happen gets paid. Dunno about you but I’d feel a lot better about paying for a streaming service if I knew the artists were getting paid a slice of my subscription payment.
NFTs are just like any other form of ownership and payment–you use digital money all the time and have no problems with the unreality of it. That dollar bill you used to buy a candy bar, that’s just a physical representation of an abstract construct and has no intrinsic value other than what we all agree it’s “worth.” Expanding the concept out to broader categories of “unreal” things is not a big stretch–and when it’s regular people agreeing things are worth something without some overarcing authority vetting and validating I personally think that’s a better way to go. Gatekeeping only enriches those who grab control of choke points and is a big cause of a lot of societal ills. Make it harder to create choke points and things flow more freely. I see that as beneficial. You might disagree. Time will tell who’s right.
I’m amazed at how many things I’ve never heard of are Big Things to other people. But more power to them.
I totally get what you’re saying. Sometimes I feel very out of it.
Pictures of your feet or it never happened.
Never mind. Too late.
I enjoyed how this comment was right below the picture of men wearing their pants below their butts.
This has almost never been the case for American professional sports. Even in the 1860s, the most successful clubs were not made up of home town heroes.
That might be one of the many factors influencing the American taste for high school and college sports.
I didn’t even know how to spell it, but my only knowledge of the term was with respect to fictional characters who were depicted as class-conscious bourgeois strivers.
I can see original Van Gogh’s at the Philly Art Museum. A poster is smaller, flat (Van Gogh’s work is amazingly swirled and ridged and literally deep).
A digital copy of a digital work is indistinguishable from the original. I sold a Magic card for $500. I sold a KISS trashcan for $125 (or was it $175?). These things are mass produced, but now relatively rare. If I swap one for another in the same condition, nobody would notice or complain.
(What’s “twitch”?)
I don’t get lining up for a simple breakfast. I see people ten deep at indifferent coffee shops like Denny’s at 11:30 a.m. It’s just a mediocre breakfast, folks! I like to eat out, but sheesh, I wouldn’t wait in a long line even for foie gras or prime ribeye.
In the very early days of the NFL (i.e., the 1920s), teams often featured many local players, but that was likely because a lot of the team started out as local club teams, or “company teams” (sponsored by a local business, and primarily made up of employees). But, that era didn’t last long, and it was, indeed, a long time ago.
Now, it’s also true that, even years later, even if an NFL or MLB team’s players weren’t originally from the area, some of the players chose to make a full-time home in the area – staying in the area during the offseason, and even choosing to retire there after their playing days ended. But, I don’t know how common that actually was (or still is).
I don’t get anymore…
When I was younger, I could hardly wait to get the new Hardy Boys book - or similar series. So I would have been the perfect audience for Harry Potter.
And when the Harry Potter books first come out, I wanted to see why it was generating such a stir. So…I read it and WHAT a disappointment. As far as I could tell, this was just like every other “British lad goes off to boarding school, has a rough time, and makes good” with a bit of magic jargon thrown into the mix.
I guess that my tastes have changed. (I’m still glad that it gives younger folks a chance to get into reading.)
As I said, you can agree or disagree but like it or not NFTs and blockchain are here and use cases are being explored. Digital artwork is the simplest and most prevalent artform to experiment with NFT minting and blockchain contracts but make no mistake, there’s plenty of new stuff lined up behind that. And a digital copy of a digital artwork without the watermark is a difference, is it not? Ask Deviantart if anyone makes money off of strictly digital artworks because they do, and NFTs and blockchains make it harder to weeze other people’s stuff. Then ask Stream if it’s possible to make money from selling strictly digital games.
Ever watch a sporting event?
A digital watermark can be removed by somebody with the right skill. The now watermark-less work can be distributed over the internet.
Cleophus convinced me that blockchains are largely useless.
As for ‘people are making money’ people made plenty of money off of tulip bulbs and Beanie Babies too- and then the bubble burst.
I did too. A new sport! What shall we call it? Saggy ass?
The what now? You mean the two Moties books he wrote with Pournelle? 
I can’t throw a javelin 85 meters. I can’t drive a quarter mile under 4 seconds. I can’t row as fast as ordinary people run etc. etc. I don’t even have the equipment or the arenas to do those things. So, I sometimes find myself watching sports, and marvel at the superhuman effort and the splendid trappings that go with it.
I can start a video game of whatever ilk, anytime, on a whim, and excel in it with practice, sitting in my living room. And yes, there are competitive gamers who would beat me to a pulp, figuratively.