Temple Times is a weekly-ish countercultural newsletter published by n0madz that focuses on Paper Buddha’s Temple community, technology in web 3.0, and whatever the hell “culture” is.
🌞Happy Day, Fellow Blockchain Explorers 🖖
This edition of Temple Times is brought to you despite illness, blockchain blockages, and a solar flare that temporarily wiped out communications with our future news publishing partner, The (Future) News Report.
Continuing to expand our social reach on and off the chain, I’d like to welcome a few new subscribers to the experiment that is this platform, newsletter, series of ramblings, and interconnected hidden meanings that is N0 MAD NEWS and TEMPLE TIMES. We’re just getting started, and I appreciate you more than you know. 🧩
If you haven’t subscribed, please do so, and I’ll comp you access to all the content. If you have subscribed and enjoyed reading, please like, share, and interact whichever way you’re most comfortable - no pressure!
Also, on the administrative side, I’ve temporarily paused all subscription activity for the newsletter until after April 18th, so that our paying subscribers aren’t being charged during this period of personal unrest (AKA IRL work currently absorbs my very being). Thank you for understanding and joining me on this journey 🙏
Cheers
n0madz
⚠Proceed with caution⚠
📰 General news
Paper Buddha and FromDarkness’s epic animated collab Cosmic Crusaders closes today in roughly 4 hours.
GeekMyth and LaserLewDude drop an epic collab, Burn, that leaves this degen wanting more (specifically more eth for purely selfish reasons so I can scoop one for myself!). Laser-enhanced visuals are provided by LaserLewDude, and filthy beats by none other than GeekMyth.
Naomi Olson Seaspiration celebrates collage art, the primal power of the sea, and the inner and outer strength of the female form with her latest artwork Sea Her Rise. Currently listed on Makersplace for .15eth, this artwork deserves a good home.
In my own life the Sea has been a powerful force of creativity, healing and transformation. Time and time again, I have risen from the ashes of personal trauma and crises by immersing myself in the ocean and living by the Sea.
Parrott drops his second track, When I’m With You, on Sound.xyz, and I can confirm that it’s a certified banger. I challenge you to listen without headbanging along to the beat. It is currently listed for 0.5eth on public sale.
Chemical Messiah (aka TheDirtGod) celebrates his 2-year anniversary with MCMLXXXVI, an open edition that closes later today. If you’ve collected any of his art, you can scoop a copy for yourself. Minting for only 0.01986 eth.
Here is a quick recap of some other blockchain-related news:
Ordinals on BTC were and continue to be something you can spend money on.
Paper Buddha drops his first Ordinal Pepe Buddha on gamma.io. The lucky collector, WCH Designs, fought hard and secured Pepe Buddha during the auction.
Coinbase releases information on their Ethereum layer-2 network, Base, alongside a free mint through Zora that currently has more than 370k minted at the time of writing.
🐇Random Rabbit Hole🎩
24/7 generative television is now was a thing.
Nothing Forever, created by Mismatch Media and Watchmeforever, is was a channel on Twitch that streamsed generative content in the style of the popular sitcom series “Seinfeld.”
Since we initially discovered this rabbit hole, the stream has now been shut off and banned from Twitch due to a transphobic joke that the AI worked into the comedy.
Here’s a Reddit thread covering the details behind the ban, along with the usual Reddit gold nuggets that can be discovered in the comments section.
From the Wikipedia page for Nothing Forever, here are the details behind the suspension, which is highly illuminating since the AI model in this case is partly to blame for the introduction of potentially offensive material:
On February 6, 2023, the Twitch channel for Nothing, Forever received a 14-day suspension, with the developers attributing this to an unspecified piece of standup dialogue. Twitch did not give a public reason for the suspension, but users in the stream's Discord suspected it to be due to a transphobic and homophobic joke that had been delivered by the Feinberg character shortly before the suspension.[4] During a stand-up scene with Feinberg, the character began making a series of offensive jokes, including comparing the state of being transgender to mental illness and references to the gay agenda. The AI then observed that "no one's laughing", and abruptly stopped the routine.[15] In a statement to The Washington Post, Hartle expressed embarrassment about the incident.[16]
According to Mismatch Media, OpenAI's primary model for GPT-3, Davinci, had been experiencing outages that were disrupting the broadcast so the creators switched over to Curie, a less sophisticated model also from OpenAI. That model produced the offensive content. Since then, the creators have said they resolved the issue with Davinci and will not be switching back to Curie as a fallback in the future.[4]
Mismatch Media announced that the show would eventually return and implement additional "guardrails" to prevent inappropriate content, stating that they "feel very strongly that it’s our duty as people in the generative space to do this as safely as possible". They also hoped to eventually introduce ways for the Twitch chat audience to safely interact with the show and shape its contents, as well as plans to create a platform "within the next six to 12 months" that allows others to create similar shows.[17]
This may be the first recorded instance of AI censorship. The world we live in, people, SMH.
Classifieds: Space Castles 4 Sale
Formerly the headquarters of the now-defunct federation of galactic peacekeepers, this castle is currently listed at foreclosure prices.
Interested buyers should note that this castle requires all owners to sit through mandatory training videos (lasting up to but not exceeding one-hour duration) on a regular and recurring basis.
Suppose the owner(s) fails to comply with this requirement. Then, the castle reserves the right to relegate said owner to any of its numerous space turrets specially designed to house unwilling guests indefinitely.
All this being said, this castle really wants everyone to get along and doesn’t think it’s too much to ask to have its owners sit through monthly training videos.
*The listing agent notes that mandatory attendance of the training videos is on a monthly schedule based on the old money Earth calendar; the videos follow the celestial lunar program in which one hour is equivalent to a fortnight in Earth terms.
Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time, I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the N0 MAD NEWS writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.
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