Friday Hodgepodge

Four Amusing Things

1. Say that I "just don't get" NFTs if you wish, but you'll have to convince me that the idea of a fantasy NFT trading league doesn't sound a bit ... recursive:

Participants in the new NFT fantasy league can pretend-buy NFTs, and those with the best simulated portfolio performance win prizes.

"Fantasy Flip is a way to have fun in a bear market," Flip co-founder Brian Krogsgard, who goes by Ledgerstatus on Twitter, told CoinDesk. "Most of us are too poor to be spending the [ether] we have left on huge sweeps, but we still want that sweet adrenaline rush of flipping JPEGs. It's fun for folks who want to participate in NFTs but can't do so with big money."

This platform, Flip, was launched in April, according to the article, and we cling to the faint hope that said launch was on the first.

2. Curious about a tweet showing a van emblazoned with numerous assertions that "Birds aren't real!," I learned of the older Bielefeld Conspiracy.

Fans of Poe's Law will love what I found:

The theory poses three questions:

• Do you know anybody from Bielefeld?
• Have you ever been to Bielefeld?
• Do you know anybody who has ever been to Bielefeld?

A majority are expected to answer no to all three queries. Anybody claiming knowledge about Bielefeld is promptly disregarded as being in on the conspiracy, or having been themselves deceived.

I think that the analogy of a "real" conspiracy theory to a fake one can serve as either a way to help believers see the error of their thinking, or as a sort of Turing test for possession of an active mind in addition to permitting silent self-amusement.

3. A satirical want-ad for a Seminar Napper reminds me of several promising candidates I observed during my grad school and post-doc years:

Requirements: Must be a >50 year old white male who likes to sit in the front row of auditoria, enjoys napping and can smoothly transition from REM sleep to clapping. Must be short enough to fit in our department's main theater chairs without too much head bobbing and should not snore too loudly (occasional transgressions will be overlooked).

...

Applicants should provide three letters of reference that will attest to their utter inability to remain conscious for an hour at a time in a darkened room. Evidence of this, including video or personal seminar notes that scrawl off the page after two lines, should be included in the application package. Interviews will be conducted during the upcoming departmental seminar.

This also brings back other humorous grad school memories and some interesting good advice.

Image by Luca Galuzzi, via Wikimedia Commons, license.

4. The following quote might cause me to reconsider having Climb Mount Everest on my bucket list, if it were there in the first place:

It may be the most iconic modern Everest photo since 2012, when Ralf Dujmovits captured another "conga line" of climbers ascending the Lhotse Face. [bold added]

Conga line of climbers!?

The included pictures make that former realm of the odd daredevil look like a mere amusement park.

I'm not enough of a misanthrope to rule something out based just on the crowds, but I am the type who needs to factor something like that in to my expectations.

-- CAV