
Elon Musk sharing a toke with a Shiba-Inu representing Dogecoin (“Doge Day” meme via Twitter).
(more…)Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Honestly, I get it. I understand that new technologies come along, and people unacquainted with them will eschew them. I’ve been mixed up in high tech for almost my entire life, and I understand this. Plus, I’ve never seen myself as a luddite. It may take me a while to fully grasp the consequence of something new, but I don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to reject everything that comes along with is novel.
But here’s the thing – – – when I saw new things come out in my lifetime – – be it graphical user interfaces, or the LaserWriter, or LANs, or WiFi, or the commercial Internet, or electric cars, or the iPhone, or anything else – – no one could plausibly make the argument that one of those given things was useless and idiotic. Any reasonable person could be convinced that, yes, this new “thing” might just turn out to be important, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious as to why.
Try as I might, this still hasn’t clicked for me with crypto, which is pretty odd, since this is literally a multi-trillion dollar market now with hundreds of well-funded companies in that ecosystem. But my refusal to embrace the idea that crypto is going to change the entire universe is dwarfed by my eye-rolling about the latest extension of crypto, which is NFT. I just stumbled upon a site whose sole purpose in life is to sell digital artwork by way of NFT, and it’s quite a sight.
Here’s one auction of note – – you will kindly note that the winning bid was well over a million dollars.
(more…)A very long time ago, one of the highlights of my year was when a family friend of ours would host his annual Oscars party. He would dress in a tuxedo, and we’d all gather at his house for drinks and hors d’oeuvres as we watched the red carpet arrivals and speculated on who would win what. It was great fun, particularly since we had seen most of the movies that had been nominated.
How times have changed. Who gives a crap about the Oscars anymore? And these movies and actors — Minari? Mank? Steve Yeun? LaKeith Stanfield? — Never seen ’em, never heard of ’em. It’s no surprise then, to see the trend:
I think the Oscars are a lot like business travel. Covid changed society permanently, and it’ll never, ever really be back.
Roblox Corp (NYSE:RBLX) is a fresh name that recently hit the markets. Their business revolves heavily around user generated content in the form of kid friendly online environments. Individuals make use of an extensive but relatively easy-to-learn programming language called Lua to create their own online games and virtual spaces; with the current emphasis on teaching kids the fundamentals of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) earlier than ever, Roblox has made a real impact in furthering this learning and capturing the minds of parents, children, and educators alike.
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A Coinbase employee takes a selfie in front of the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square during the company’s IPO on Wednesday. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI.
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