BOFH: 'What's an NFT?' the Boss asks. In this case, 'not financially thoughtful' BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "These NFT things," the Boss says, attempting a smooth segue from our topic to his favourite – how to make cash with no effort. "Yes?" "What are they exactly?" "Non-Fungible Tokens." "Yes, I know that, but what does it mean?" "I think the main thing is that it's non-fungible." "You …
Have you checked the basement carpark recently? I should go down there now and have a quick look, see if there are any clues. Don't use the lift though. Or the stairs, come to think of it... No, on second thoughts, ask someone else to pop down there, tell them they're looking for old safes, bags of quickline, carpets, suspiciously burnt out vans...
Um, you didn't tell them to do that in the lift right? Or any areas with cameras or listening devices? Or near anywhere that serves bhajis?
Actually just make a run for it. It's the only way to be safe. No! Don't use the main door! That'll probably be booby trapped. No! Not the carpark either. Stay out of the lift! What he'll never suspect iis if you head for the fifth floor. Now, see that open window there? The one just above the conveniently placed skip? Climb out of that. I'm sure you can find a drainpipe to slide down. Watch out for the brackets that have been cut through... Oh never mind, I'm sure you'll find them yourself...
"The other day I came across an article on how to dd an old SCO disk and turn it into a VM. I think I'll dic out my old dual boot SCO laptop and try it for old times sake."
I did that with my Amiga 1200 during lockdown. Good luck and have some nostalgic fun!
(ok, I'm using an emulator, not a VM, before the pedants jump in!)
And even the torched cash example has been done before, over 25 years ago.
There's nothing new in the world, especially when it comes to art and gullability.
Stephen King released a book in which the ink began to fade when the page was exposed to air, meaning that it could only be read once, so technically, when you bought it it wasn't fungible, but if you read it and skipped two pages then technically it will be unique but the only way to prove it (short of an xray/mri scan) would be the open it, wiping that last pair of pages.
Yes, sleepless nights in Sillycon Valley, and surely that is VERY non fungible. Have it for (enter value here) in bitcoin.
Remember, it only has value if you can get someone to pay for it, or someone thinks it is worth something in exchange.
And then there is paper money......
I've got to go to bed. ZzZzZ...
That was the NFT Magic Roundabout accurately well described to a Mr T. Was a Friday the 13th ever better servered?
And definitely worth at least another one of these Register favourites ------------------------->
Cheers/На здоровье/干杯/Zum Wohl/Sláinte.
This post has been deleted by its author
Not quite. What you do is put the url
"https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/13/bofh_2021_episode_15/"
on a blockchain, and sell that token-containing url to someone.
And because it is on a blockchain, rather than a common garden email or tweet or something like that, then somehow through the magic of blockchains it is worth a lot of money.
They get arrested for merely stepping on a note to stop it blowing away
True if caught and in the case of the previous king completely deservedly, but he was most likely to pardon the culprit. In the case of the current king one would wish it were his actual face and he is most unlikely to pardon anyone caught.
I prefer the cash vs car model since they are both things you can easily imagine being lent.
If I lend you a tenner I expect £10 back a week (or whatever) later. It doesn't have to be the same tenner - wouldn't be much use if you couldn't spend it. Another tenner will do. Doesn't even have to be a tenner, two fivers work equally well. Money is fungible.
If I lend you my car then I expect MY car back. Another car is not acceptable, even if it is the same make, model, age, mileage etc. I expect the specific, individual car back. Cars are NOT fungible.
If I lent you my car, I'd be perfectly happy to get a Bugatti Veyron back a week later (assuming in one piece), which I could then sell and buy a coupe of houses and a new sensible car.
So, my car is quite fungible, as long is it gets exchanged for one of significantly greater value.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinuos
Thats the current name they are using, and after change of ownership, they are back at lawsuits again. Latest was in March 2021, against IBM and Redhat.
Wonder if I will need to top up more pop corn for this show or will it be dead for sure soon.
It was by the standards of the time - it predates Open Source as a term. Back then Open was generally understood as Open Systems - the important thing was vendor interoperability rather than source code.
Do have fond memories of it, OpenServer was never cutting edge but had a degree of polish that modern Linux distros can only dream of. Of course once it was sold to Caldera who became the "new SCO" and kicked off the lawsuits development slowed to a crawl and bitrot set in, particularly in respect of modern hardware support.
I suspect the FreeBSD kernel is simply an acknowledgement of that, things had decayed to a point there was simply too much work to do. A free kernel with the SCO userland on top does make sense to me for stuff that can't be migrated but I haven't really touched it in anger for twenty years now.
"had a degree of polish that modern Linux distros can only dream of"
I wouldn't go as far as that but if SCO had cut prices back in the '90s it's quite likely that Linux would never have become more widespread than, say, Reactos. At the time is was a well established server running on affordable hardware and capable of running a small business, especially when combined with Informix. A lot of small businesses did indeed run on it and, in turn, provided at least part of the income of freelancers such as myself. Fond memories indeed.
"if SCO had cut prices back in the '90s it's quite likely that Linux would never have become more widespread than, say, Reactos."
I'd expect Linux would still be popular. The computer club at my university had a few modest second-hand UNIX workstations. Even to install basic GNU tools, we had to port code and hack around weird sometimes failing hardware. NetBSD was available and FreeBSD existed, but Linux offered something different. It not only ran on modern PCs, but was very easy to take apart and hack on, with an enthusiastic community finding new ways to use it. I think that being able to easily hack on and contribute source code really made Linux take off.
In a master stroke of genius not only did Simon exchange the real money for some vaguely passable forgeries that he ran off quietly on a few reams of that plastic impregnated "long-life" paper bought a few years ago to print "permit to work" and "storage permits" for contractors working in outdoor/harsh environments, you know, the stuff certified for cleanroom use, but that the "Sustainability Champions" managed to get banned due to the high plastic content (so now they have to print new permits every time it rains) and has been sitting quietly in the corner of the paper store for the last 5 years, but he also videoed the whole shebang, including a running commentary, of 'How the boss burned two grand' which he then auctioned off as an NFT and made a further £20k from.
"it's generally only illegal to counterfeit if there's an intent to use it in commerce"
As far as I know that's the opposite of how it works - counterfeiting is an offence, as is passing counterfeit notes.
Apparently people who make props for films have a problem with this, because money that looks real on-screen is generally comparable to counterfeit notes.
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