One of the early computer programming languages was actually called Machine Language.
The acronym of my first computer language was SOAP: Symbolic Optimal Assembly Program.
Symbolic because you didn’t have to remember the actual machine code, instead of “10” you wrote “AU” Add Upper.
Optimal The IBM 650 had a magnetic drum memory. SOAP figured out the execution time of “AU” Add Upper and placed the next instruction in just the right place for optimal access timing.
Assembly because it assembled your code into working machine language.
The IBM 650 was vacuum tube based and one of the difficulties technicians faced were intermittent tubes failures, the things would connect and disconnect as they warmed up and cooled down. IBM provided technicians with rubber mallets to tap the doors to break these failing tubes. One day a client called IBM to report that the technician had gone mad, he was kicking the computer! He was told not to worry, this was standard procedure when they forgot to take along the rubber mallet.
Now you know why the primary use of computer manuals is to bash the computer.
My responsibility to myself is a constant education in this space.
Since much of the focus in this thread has been on digital copies…
Found this today, the Foundation is central to storing the artworks working regardless of the selling platform.
"After you’ve uploaded an artwork, your files will automatically be sent to IPFS (InterPlanetary File System). What does this mean?
Foundation is a non-custodial platform which means we don’t hold your artwork or funds in a centralized server. Instead, all of the artwork is hosted on IPFS, a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed for sharing data in a distributed way. Learn more about why we use IPFS and what it means for creators.
When you upload an artwork, a canonical version is mapped to the token that lives on the blockchain and it can’t be touched or altered. The file itself is then hosted on IPFS to ensure that it will live on forever as well."
One of the early computer programming languages was actually called Machine Language.
And it’s still in very common use - it’s what the computer actually runs. (The program that is in that form sometimes being an interpreter that executes some other code that’s in a virtual-machine language.)
However, there are some very good reasons why approximately nobody actually programs in machine language (or virtual-machine language). One of them is that practically anything you write will be a valid instruction, but not necessarily the instruction you intended. - and getting the instruction you intended is often a difficult and error-prone process. Writing in an advanced language, that has to be compiled or interpreted, is easier and less error-prone, and the compiler or interpreter adds a very useful layer of error-checking.
Particularly if that language mandates explicit variable declaration - so, brilliantly, the trend is to prohibit explicit variable declaration. Guess what sort of language I refuse to program in.
(For those who don’t understand that: imagine your program contains 19 references to a variable named “index” and, due to a typo, one reference to “idnex”. In a language that requires explicit variable declaration, one of those references to “index” will be a statement that just announces “I’m going to use a variable named index” (and maybe tells what sort of data will be in it - most likely a 32-bit integer). But there’ll be no such statement for “idnex”. So the compiler or interpreter will STOP, point at “idnex”, and tell you there’s something wrong.
But in a language that doesn’t require explicit variable declaration, the compiler or interpreter will instead create another variable, named “idnex”, and probably initialize it to zero. And your program will, often, run just fine - but it won’t correctly do what you intended.)
"After you’ve uploaded an artwork, your files will automatically be sent to IPFS (InterPlanetary File System). What does this mean?
Foundation is a non-custodial platform which means we don’t hold your artwork or funds in a centralized server. Instead, all of the artwork is hosted on IPFS, a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed for sharing data in a distributed way. Learn more about why we use IPFS and what it means for creators.
When you upload an artwork, a canonical version is mapped to the token that lives on the blockchain and it can’t be touched or altered. The file itself is then hosted on IPFS to ensure that it will live on forever as well."
I’m inferring from this text that ownership of the NFT grants access rights to the art via this file system? Is that right?
Most of the NFTs I’ve seen so far are naked grifts. This would actually have some value. How much would depend on the art, of course.
NFT has the illusion of scarcity since someone lays claim to the title of the original, but since you can make 10,000 perfectly identical copies, is it really scarce? 1,000,000?
This is not the only issue. It’s not even the biggest issue. NFTs also have the illusion of “price”. Usually the price of something is set by what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller, but for art, since it is subjective, a “base” of sorts has to be set by how others price similar works. So the NFT creators, almost all involved with crypto, and thus having lots of spare “coins” around, came up with a nifty trick to create “base” price histories. It goes like this:
Person A sells an NFT to person B for $100k
Person B sells an NFT to person C for $100k
Person C sells an NFT to person A for $100k
Now what happened here? Obviously there are now 3 NFTs with a clear price history of having sold for $100k each. And people across the world who want NFTs can see that price history because they make the transactions public (usually on a blockchain like etherium). But note that no money actually ever changed hands in setting this “base” price history. It’s all smoke and mirrors. And since it’s all on the blockchain, it could be anywhere in the world (and IS in many places around the world), and there is no real authority to regulate any of it.