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NFT Trading Volumes Collapse 97 Percent From Peak Earlier This Year

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Sidhartha Shukla, reporting for Bloomberg:

Trading volumes in nonfungible tokens — digital art and collectibles recorded on blockchains — have tumbled 97% from a record high in January this year. They slid to just $466 million in September from $17 billion at the start of 2022, according to data from Dune Analytics. The fading NFT mania is part of a wider, $2 trillion wipeout in the crypto sector as rapidly tightening monetary policy starves speculative assets of investment flows.

I’m tempted to say this is the least surprising market collapse in memory, but it’s obviously coming as an unpleasant surprise to some people.

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mxm23
742 days ago
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All those numbers are fiction because of wash trading?
West Coast
mxm23
742 days ago
Or whatever you call selling to yourself to pump the price.
joelowrance
743 days ago
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My chimpanzee with a train conductor hat jpeg isn't worth millions?
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Asking Scientists Questions

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'Does the substance feel weird to the touch?' is equally likely to get the answers 'Don't be ridiculous, you would never put your hand near a sample. We have safety protocols.' and 'Yeah, and it tastes AWFUL.'
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joelowrance
799 days ago
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1 public comment
JayM
798 days ago
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Heh
Atlanta, GA
Nezchan
798 days ago
The real question is, did he actually get that plutonium?
jlvanderzwan
797 days ago
Depends. If whatif2 has a chapter that involves plutonium we know for sure that he did. If it doesn't we know for sure that he did.
zippy72
782 days ago
I want to know what it was they said tastes awful. Actually, wait, maybe I don't.
craigwhitekkc
770 days ago
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marylin145
655 days ago
If you are looking to buy Bitcoin or some lesser-known crypto assets, then you surely can create a new Coinbase login profile using which you can buy, sell, transfer, or trade a wide range of crypto assets on the go. The main reason why you should invest through Coinbase is because of its easy usage. https://sites.google.com/bitlogins.com/coinbasecom-login/home

Apple TV+’s “CODA” Wins Oscar for Best Picture, a First for a Streaming Service

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Apple Newsroom:

Apple tonight made history after “CODA” landed three Academy Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with wins for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Siân Heder. The winners were revealed this evening at the 94th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

“CODA” is the first motion picture starring a predominantly Deaf cast in leading roles to win Best Picture; Troy Kotsur is the first Deaf male actor to win Best Supporting Actor; and writer-director Siân Heder earned her first-ever Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

I didn’t watch the show, but I’ll bet this is all anyone is talking about regarding the Oscars today.

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joelowrance
929 days ago
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Yes - this, not Will Smith and Chris Rock is what people are talking about today.
xadammr
929 days ago
That's the joke.
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U.S. Senate Approves Bill to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent in 2023

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Reuters:

The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to make Daylight Savings Time permanent, a move supporters say would make winter afternoons brighter and end the twice changing of clocks.

The measure still needs approval from the U.S. House of Representatives and the backing of President Joe Biden. On Sunday, most of the United States resumed Daylight Savings Time, moving ahead one hour. The United States will resume standard time in November 2022.

Finally.

(Grammar note: Pluralizing the “saving” in “daylight saving time” is so common that it’s now accepted (and apparently either house style at Reuters or the mistake slipped past their copy desk), but formally, it’s singular. My mnemonic: there’s only one “s” in “DST”.)

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joelowrance
942 days ago
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The bipartisan victory we all want to see.
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The Twitter Hate Machine

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“Maple Cocaine”, in a now famous tweet over two years ago:

Each day on twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.

Twitter is a machine for directing self-righteous anger, and it fires all day, every day, whether the targets are deserving or not.

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joelowrance
1263 days ago
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Apple Is Adding Two New American English Voices for Siri

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Matthew Panzarino, writing for TechCrunch:

Apple is adding two new voices to Siri’s English offerings, and eliminating the default “female voice” selection in the latest beta version of iOS. This means that every person setting up Siri will choose a voice for themselves and it will no longer default to the voice assistant being female, a topic that has come up quite a bit with regards to bias in voice interfaces over the past few years.

As Panzarino notes, in some countries, like the U.K., Siri’s default voice is male, not female. So “Why is Siri’s default voice female?” is not applicable worldwide. And my hunch has always been that the defaults in each country were selected by perceived quality. But making this an explicit choice during setup is the right answer — take the question of cultural bias out of the equation.

I believe that this is the first of these assistants to make the choice completely agnostic with no default selection made. This is a positive step forward as it allows people to choose the voice that they prefer without the defaults bias coming into play. The two new voices also bring some much needed variety to the voices of Siri, offering more diversity in speech sound and pattern to a user picking a voice that speaks to them. […]

“We’re excited to introduce two new Siri voices for English speakers and the option for Siri users to select the voice they want when they set up their device,” a statement from Apple reads. “This is a continuation of Apple’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, and products and services that are designed to better reflect the diversity of the world we live in.”

Here’s a screen recording I made of the new lineup of voices. Both new voices are very good. Interestingly, in addition to adding the two new voices, the Siri preferences no longer label any of the voices as “male” or “female” — they’re just “Voice 1” … “Voice 4”. That makes it harder to remember which one is which, but, it opens the door to nonbinary voices in a future update. There’s no reason Siri’s voice needs to be decidedly male or female. The “diverseness” of the two new voices is subtle, but they don’t label them as such. You either hear it or don’t. The same could be true for the gender of future new voices.

(I wonder too if the order is randomized? There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to how mine are ordered, and randomizing the order would further eliminate bias before each user makes their choice.)

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joelowrance
1291 days ago
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Press Release: The world's least reliable digital assistant can now disappoint you with four voices.
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