Five Links #058

Real estate nature; kind pistols

Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash

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Demonic Real Estate ..

We have been looking around at properties lately. Nothing serious. We don’t really have any money, but who knows, maybe these interest-rate rises will force everybody to sell at once and we will pick us up a bargain.

It’s incredible though the prices people are asking. Literally millions of dollars for a house. I think to myself, who are these people that can pay so much?

But then, Perth Western Australia is a pretty nice place to live. We don’t, for example, have evil vultures that vomit acid and shit everywhere while congregating to plan the opening of some daemonic portal.

So that’s nice.

Buzzards that vomit when threatened and leave piles of acidic dropping have invaded a small town and nobody knows why

(via MacStories)

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Pistol Pete ..

While I’m on a zoological theme, I don’t know why but I was delighted to learn of the exploits of the pistol shrimp. What a cool little dude. Pew pew.

The Pistol Shrimp

(via r/todayilearned)

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Pretty Ones and Zeros ..

This is another one of those stories that sounds ridiculous to anybody who grew up playing online games in the early 2000s because it’s just so obvious.

Those people know, for example, that online games nearly always have a hacking problem. It’s just seeing as part for the course. And often the problem manifests in the form of a duping bug. That is, a bug which allows players to duplicate items outside the game rules.

The first Diablo game had one of these duping bugs for example. It became so prevalent that the game’s in game currency – gold coins – held no value. Instead, players traded In the game’s most powerful items, because the duping bug meant they could be wisely distributed instead of being restricted to only the most dedicated players.

If you wanted someone to help you with something, that would cost an obsidian ring of the zodiac. Not in the market for an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac? Perhaps you’d like this Godly Plate of the Whale.

The interesting thing about the story however stems from the fact that now games have added a real-life currency component. So, when a person exploits a duping bug to gain in-game power, that can be translated to a real life monetary value. And when that end-game power is reverted by the game administrators, the management consultants can purport to assign a real-world monetary value to the reversion.

All this means Blizzard naively sends a $35,000 bill to players for pretty ones and zeros.

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It’s only natural ..

I enjoyed this article, which argues that although trolls are baying to throw stones at anything you might create and share publicly, that reality shouldn’t stop you from creating and sharing anyways.

It’s in their nature - and you should embrace it.

Those of us who have been around since the early days of boards and forums are the OG web natives, and have the scars to prove it. We remember the days the web was far more real and raw. To be honest, and not to go all Pinker on you, it feels like digital conversations have tamed a bit over the last two decades even while some hem and haw about how polarized we are online, it’s nothing like the former wild west days.

And

What this means is if you are actually unique and sharing ideas that are interesting and have personality, they inevitably will be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. Along with that – some will love, some will hate – but that’s the nature of doing something personal.

And

The reverse of this is also true and why so much of the web is unreadable, most don’t share anything with personality that actually speaks to anyone. That takes time and effort, the antithesis of the spam/content mill strategy. I’d argue the Twitter “thread bros” fit this category. Same with AI copy. They’re all trying to take cheap shortcuts making it clear they don’t care. This sort of work requires personality if you hope to actually influence anyone. Why else should anyone really care? Why would they take it seriously? This lack of personality and humanity backing it is also the reason no one reads most warmed over opinion media: they try to appeal to everyone, and upset no one. You might as well not even publish.

Don't feed the trolls: never take unconstructive criticism personally

(via How About This)

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Hostile workplaces, sexual predation, and tempestuous bosses ..

I’m running out of words, and so I will present this one without comment.

What Ellen’s Kindness Concealed

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Bennett

bennettgreen.com