> All of their uses cases today rely on central authorities, which negate the need for the NFT in the first place.

Not really. The blockchain doesn't rely on a central authority. Each entity can publish to the blockchain *and* can read the blockchain. But they can't alter the blockchain or change history as they could in their own database.

Let's say Activision mints tokens for "Call of Duty" skins. Users can trade the tokens, blah, blah, blah, they get the skins in the game. But *anyone* else can read the blockchain.

Take a "Call of Duty" message board, completely unaffiliated with the game. Since users can prove they own a token the message board can use that information for whatever: to allow those users to have a different display or tag or access or run a poll "Who here with Skin X uses it often?" and only people who actually do have Skin X can vote.

Soon "Destiny 4: Gleaming the Cube" is released and people start trading Destiny gear for Call of Duty gear. Two different publishers. One blockchain. Fully capable of interoperability.

This is of course a trivial example. There are so many possibilities for NFTs that it's impossible that there isn't at least one that will take off. I feel like it's the 90s people telling me why email won't be a big deal or the early 2000s that movies are too big to be practical to pirate or stream.

I guess the TLDR would be: Centralized databases can be changed arbitrarily, blockchains can't.

> That's what NFTs are like to me, except they aren't even unique, not really. And everyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knows it.

Have you ever bought tickets to an event with assigned seating? All the tickets look the same, but they cost different amounts. Because you're not buying the *ticket* you're buying access to a seat and the ticket is just a token that you have indicating said access.

So none of the tickets are the same. They're non-fungible tokens. Some get you into VIP areas and free stuff and some only let you go to the nosebleeds.

Tickets can be easy to fake, though. Big games the the Super Bowl end up with a ton of people with fake tickets super pissed that they can't get into the game and don't have their cash.

So instead of using tickets as your NFT you use a blockchain NFT and app. This way the NFL issues the NFTs for the seats. When buying a ticket you can see that the NFT was issued by the NFL and is valid, then the NFT is moved to your wallet. That can't be counterfeited. No fake tickets scams.

Apply it to artwork to ensure provenance.

NFTs are tokens. That's it. Nothing special about them. Just like a car title is just a piece of paper that holds no value, but as it's a token for ownership of the actual car.

Except that NFTs are secure and can't be forged or counterfeit.

Once upon a time they had a “neutral point of view” policy. They dropped it so that editors could insert their own point of view. This ruined Wikipedia.

It's incredibly sad to watch a once beautiful thing turn into such a steaming pile of biased crap. At this point I just assume any page about anything political isn't even close to telling the whole truth; the rest of the entries are starting to become suspect as well.

He sexually assaulted an intern, got caught, lied about it under oath and only got charged with perjury. Given the power dynamics between the president of the USA and an intern there's no way the intern could reasonably consent. #metoo should be all over it.

Basically if Clinton did nothing wrong using his position of power over multiple women than neither did Weinstein. And nobody is jumping to defend him.

Don't defend rapists because of politics.

Nothing like some good ol' fashioned GPL fud. Takes me back to the good ol days.

I like how you make up an argument for your opponent and then argue against that. I wish there was a term for that.

But, if you want to join a company and one of their requirements is home searches then it's your choice. You can choose when and where to exercise or waive your rights. You may sign an NDA, which means your agree to waive your freedom of speech about certain issues.

If you want to be a foster parent, for example, you must submit to home searches.

In the future don't make up an argument to argue against. It's sad.

Your 2TB SATA example is literally what I went through last week trying to pick some drives for an external enclosure. I left and went to newegg and actually got what I wanted. I'm not sure I'd go to https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westerndigital.com... to buy a drive.

I can definitely see better niche sites with better ways to search for that type of product. Searching for computer components is different from shopping for clothing which is different than shopping for cleaning supplies.

Finally some sanity on /. political post and here I am without mod points.

This clearly screws over the people who need gig jobs the most and in the most condescending way. "You're too stupid to make decisions on your own, let the government make a one-size-fits-special-interests decision for everyone!"

I predicted it in the 1990s while talking with my roommates. Anyone involved in computers then could see where things were headed, we just didn't know how long it would be. When I could stream an mp3 from my desktop to my workstation in 1998 that the future would be a place where everything would be streamed. We applied the same thought to video, the same would happen but would take longer.

Maybe it's because I was surrounded with geeks that it was a little more normal for us, but we all the media jukebox on the net coming.

Most places have a "connect" fee and a "usage" fee. Even you generate 100% of your own energy you still pay for the connection.

No, putting a box on a porch is not "entrapment". Entrapment is more when you're being coerced into committing a crime. Nobody is making them steal that box.

If they'll steal it when given the opportunity that's not entrapment.

Time flies.

ðYZ Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated ðYZ

That was Amazons plan. It worked out well for them.

> Government enforcing laws and putting a gun in criminals faces is an undebateable good.

That is if, and only if, the laws are just. Which is most places it's mostly okay and in other places the laws are just horrible.

And what sort of "criminal" here? Someone sitting at home smoking a joint? Having an abortion after some arbitrary time or criteria? Speeding?

What about laws designed to keep the poor people poor. Is enforcing those laws an "undebatable" good?