Art is Dangerous

Art is dangerous.

— Picasso

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital deed. 

With it, you can prove you own the "original" of a digital asset (as opposed to a copy). 

An NFT is not the original—that's something else; a GIF, for example. 

But by owning the NFT, you hold the key to the kingdom.

By owning an NFT, you have owner's "bragging rights," plus the creator's permission to display his original asset on a screen; and, as importantly, you have a meter that tracks every copy of the asset that's ever existed or will exist.

You can also sell your NFT on the $25 billion secondary market for NFTs, if you want to cash out of it.

A year ago, the Charleston graphic artist Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million, still the record price for an NFT. 

Purchase of the NFT gave the buyer ownership of a digital collage Beeple titled Everydays.

$69 million. 

That's a hell of a lot to pay for the digital key to a GIF—even a GIF by Beeple—considering the danger inherent in an NFT. 

Lose the password and you lose everything. 

NFT owners have already forgotten their passwords; accidentally thrown them away; erased the disks holding them; and been victimized by hackers, who erase the passwords or steal them and hold them for ransom.

You can also lose the "original." 

The website hosting that GIF can disappear for any reason, at any moment. 

The NFT owner is left holding only a 404 message.

Insurance companies think fine-art NFTs are, in fact, extremely dangerous.

They want NFT owners to minimize the danger not only by safeguarding their NFT passwords, but by hosting the digital assets the NFTs unlock on their own servers.

They also want redundant, foolproof backup systems in place.

Insurance companies want owners as well to avoid transactions involving middlemen—art dealers—who could bungle data storage and handling.

I'm no Luddite, but I think owning original artworks on canvas, board, metal, and paper beats owning an NFT hands down.

Art is dangerous; owning it shouldn't be.

Above: Everydays by Beeple. GIF. Ding Dongs by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas. Originally priced at $69 million, Ding Dongs is on sale for only $580 and comes classically framed.

Learning the Lindy

In the mid-1980s, my ex-wife and I got it into our heads we should learn ballroom dancing and enrolled in a 12-week class.

The instructor was a world-class dancer, as graceful and lithe as Gene Kelly. He showed no sympathy or patience for plodding, lubberly clodhoppers like me.

He devoted the class to a single dance, the Lindy, insisting that, if you learned its steps, every other ballroom dance would come easily. 

(For you squares, the Lindy, named for aviator Charles Lindbergh, is a swing dance made popular during the Jazz and Big Band eras. It's better known today as the Jitterbug.)

The Lindy proved too much for me, as it turned out. 

By the end of the class, I not only failed to learn it, I failed to learn any discernable dance step—and nearly forgot how to walk.

Technophobic seniors—of whom there are millions—should heed my experience.

To participate fully in today's world, you need to dance with technology; but you don't have to master the digital equivalent of the Lindy.

For a tech clodhopper, that's a fool's errand.

Instead, just learn how to open a PDF, for example; download and install an app; click through a website; and post on Facebook or Instagram. 

Those steps will do nicely. 

Technophobic seniors are legion: one-third of American seniors—over 18 million people—have never used the Internet, according to Pew Research Center, and two-thirds have never used social media. Of those who do, one-third say they have little or no confidence in their ability to navigate digital technology.

I've encountered my share of these technophobes working as a volunteer for several nonprofits and can tell you their digital incompetence really gums up the works.

I can't imagine how it must gum up their lives, when you can't pay a bill, retrieve a document, order a prescription or make an appointment without using some company's portal.

Technophobic seniors say laptops, tablets and smartphones are too hard to use and that the Internet is an unfathomable labyrinth.

And there's truth to that.

But there are IT and digital literacy crash-courses galore for seniors at public libraries, churches, community centers, storefront academies, and two-year colleges; and, during pandemics, there friends and family members willing and able to tutor.

After all, you don't need Gene Kelly to teach you a few basic steps.

NOTE: If you know a technophobic senior, please print this post and hand it to him. You'll be doing all of us a favor.

In Your Face

Retailers have found a new way too get in shoppers' faces: facial recognition.

Macy's, Lowe's, Ace and Apple are among the retailers identifying shoppers' faces, Axios reports.

The sannning technology lets them catch chronic shoplifters.

More than three dozen advocacy groups want to ban it.

Good luck with that.

Retailers could use facial recognition technology to "personalize" shopping.

They could use it, for example, to push digital coupons to shoppers as they enter a store; improve the merchandise displays based on foot traffic; and streamline shopping (China's Alibaba assigns robots to follow loyal shoppers around, performing the role of "automated shopping carts").

But US retailers don't; they use it for store security.

Axios says they'll soon introduce other "biometric" technology in stores.

One interprets facial expressions; another detects sweat; and another senses an elevated heart rate.

Retailers will know not only that you have shoplifted, but that you're about to do so again.

The Suspense is Killing Me

On a technical note, Google will suspend its Blogger email delivery service on Wednesday. (Blogger is the platform I use for Goodly.)

Beginning July, Goodly subscribers will receive emails from me weekly. 

Each will contain links to my newest posts.

Sadly, several great blogs that I read have decided to shutter due to Google's short-sighted move.

The lesson for content producers: don't build your house on "rented" land.

Why Google is suspending Blogger's email delivery service is a mystery, until you realize that shareholders are nervous about the company's profitability.

It's plowing billions into more servers and "moonshots" such as the driverless car—billions it may never earn back.

Will Blogger go on the cost-cutting block next?

Above: Paranoia by Gregory Guy. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 18 inches.