Sometimes the beams get crossed.
I listen to podcasts, but not very many gaming related ones anymore. That was something from the 2006 to 2009, after which it faded for me.
I still listen to podcasts, though I am not sure they are what we would have called podcasts 15 years ago. Basically, every radio show now offers an recorded version of their show for listeners, and so I listen to a number of what are essentially professionally produced shows that just happened to be available via iTunes. Are those really podcasts? That word evokes a raw, amateur era of the format for me, but I suppose it is the medium and not the quality that counts.
Anyway, one that I listen to regularly is This American Life, which I have listened to since some point back in the 90s, back when I had to commute and just seemed to spend a lot more time in my car listening to the radio.
This American Life
Then I stopped driving so much… and then the show ended up on iTunes so I can listen to it at my leisure at home.
This week’s show, The Reluctant Explorer, was an odd one because it actually involved something I’ve written about before, NFTs.
In it, the creator of what is now accounted to be some of the first NFTs with the site PixelMap.io back in 2016, is convinced to bring his site back up and change the pricing because there is now a big market for NFTs.
He becomes very wealthy, very quickly… but is suspicious of the people who prompted him to jump into the market and whether or not he was used. Despite now being independently wealthy, it is down the rabbit hole to find out who was behind all of this, who really made out on the deal.
It is an interesting tale with some nice, simple explanations of NFTs and examples of how new examples on the market make money for some people, and how late comers almost always lose.
There isn’t a pro/con result at the end of the show. Ira Glass is just there to help tell the story and draw together relevant details, which includes consultation with lawyers about what is going on. But, right now, there aren’t laws or legal precedent to cover a lot of what is happening in crypto.
If there is a message in the whole thing, it is that NFTs don’t seem so bad, as long as you come out ahead and can convince yourself that everybody knew going in that it was a pump and dump scheme.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 