A Guide to Zero Risk NFT Experimentation
You probably heard about NFTs by now. They are huge, with people making thousands of real USD on virtual assets, such as a screenshot of a tweet ($2,915,835.47) or the famous ol’ Nyan Cat gif (+$500,000). There are plenty of articles explaining what NFTs are, how to get into the NFT selling business, how to set up an account on the platforms etc. This is not that article.
NFTs can be worth money. NFTs can be anything. So what’s stopping us from trying to sell anything?
Stop looking at the data. Look at your users.
Trust me, I know what I’m doing
I used to be a developer. Oldskool. When we had to solve a problem, we’d dive in head first. Nothing but code. Code code code. We knew what we were doing. We knew what people wanted. Right?
Today, that’s pretty much unimaginable (except here and there, but here and there probably aren’t doing good business). UX (User Experience) design has changed the way we look at solving (digital) problems. We involve the user. First!
I spent 10 years as a developer (2003–2013). I only saw user involvement twice. My first experience was at Monumental Games, UK. We were developing MotoGP…
Slack needs no introduction. It’s the new generation’s IRC, but private, and user friendly. And perfect for business! (and more.. fun fact: our group of friends became closer again thanks to Slack).
It allows you to customize it through multiple add-ons, such as the essential tableflip add-on, or the roll bot.
This must have been my favorite project during my time at academia.
My PhD was funded through multiple (European and smaller) projects, on topics such as Learning Analytics, Digital Humanities, and Unemployment. And they were interesting: I designed data visualizations on tabletops, desktop, and mobile, I researched the user’s perception and experience… all fun and games.
But no, not games.
I’ve always had a soft spot for games. I moved abroad for two years (and had my wife give up a great job) just so I could live the dream and be a game developer (a…
As a freelancer, you kind of have to do and think of everything. My accountant is a great help, but it’s not always easy to ask the right questions. Certainly not when you’ve just made the jump into the world of freelancing (like me).
Invoicing scared me a little. The laws around it are quite strict, invoices MUST contain specific fields and words or they’re just not valid. Sure, if your customer still pays you, that’s great. But the tax man can issue fines if specific information is missing or incorrect.
As paranoid as I am, and wanting to make…
I wrote this post back in 2016 but never properly pushed it to Medium. I’ve had all kinds of commutes, ranging from 5 minutes to 2–3 hours (one way!). Years later, and I’ve seriously improved my commute: from my bed to my desk. I can’t make it any shorter than that, right? (well, if disaster struck and I couldn’t get out of bed anymore maybe, so no thanks). The answer, for me, was freelancing But more on that in another post. While I’m busy writing that up, enjoy this oldie ;)
Ok, I'm not a shy person. Not anymore. I was as a kid, I got a bit better as a teenager. I'm 37 now and I'm doing ok. I think.
I'm very extrovert around good friends. Certainly if I have had a few drinks (my voice volume goes up quite a bit, people tell me). But not around strangers. Doesn’t work well as a scientific researcher though. Put me at a conference dinner and I'll quickly grab some food and walk out again. You wouldn’t even know I was there. I suck at social networking.
Vlogging is supposed to help…
A new topic started trending in my Twitter bubble, and it awakened something in me that was dormant for years. This #GameWorkersUnite tag urging game developers to speak out about their workplace horror stories triggered some suppressed memories to resurface..
A lot has happened since my gamedev days. I moved back to my country of origin (Belgium), went back to the “regular” private sector to eventually end up in academia. While the PhD wasn’t a walk in the park either, the game studio stories are of another level.
I won’t name names or companies (not that it exists anymore)…
If you should believe the media, Deepfakes equals the end of days. Fake news, fake evidence, this technology will create a world of disbelief, blackmail,… trust goes out the window, we’re all doomed. Period.
The media likes to scare us, as, well, scary stories sell. And for once, it might actually help get the positive message across.There’s a way to use Deepfakes for good, and I’m not just talking about my wife on the Tonight show.
We believe everything
Whether it’s the news, a magazine, a book, gossip, it’s all just words, spread around, by friends or “reliable” sources. And we (should) all…
Not everyone feels like reading long scientific papers, and still, there is so much interesting stuff out there. So I’m going to try and start a new habit: turn my long tedious papers into easier to digest blog posts. What’s the point of all this science if most people don’t even read it, right? To keep you entertained, I will try to keep it short(ish), and thus I’ll be leaving out a lot of details. But if you are really eager to learn more, you can always check out the original paper!
This article is based on the paper “Learning…
