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Geek

The Dark Side of the NFT Community: Why We Need to Step Back and Smell the Flowers

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have taken the digital art world by storm. However, the rapid rise of NFTs has also brought forth a dark side – toxicity within the community. Many individuals, known as “degens,” have become obsessed with buying and selling NFTs, often engaging in aggressive and competitive behavior that can be harmful to others.

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Geek

Remembering the days we used to review WiFi hotspots

I’m reposting a piece I wrote together with Eva Gubat from 2006. This was a time when the blue & black Linksys routers were a status symbol at home because the “next frontier” was being able to add WiFi to your home. It was the age of Apple’s iBooks and PowerBooks — of being able to flex working from a coffee shop. I remember browsing PinoyExchange or MaPalad and the forums would have a list of “friendly” establishments that had free WiFi and allowed you to plug your laptop.

Many phones didn’t have WiFi back then so getting online on a portable device meant having to use a PocketPC or something that ran Palm OS. These were the final days of Symbian S60 and Nokia, which Steve Jobs would then deliver the final blow with the launch of the first iPhone a few months later.

This piece was part of an ongoing series that featured such friendly establishments offering free WiFi. Tech magazines at the time didn’t cross into lifestyle, but publishers soon realized that it was the lifestyle sections that attracted the budgets, so we had to be fashionably geek. Oh how times have changed.

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Geek

What marketers can learn from GoTyme Kiosks

If you’ve been to a Robinson’s in the past few weeks you may have noticed an ATM-like kiosk with the “GoTyme” branding. For the unfamiliar, GoTyme is one of the newer digital banks in the Philippines forged as a partnership between the Gokongwei Group (hence Robinson’s) and Tyme.

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Geek

I asked ChatGPT if AI will be the future of tech reviews

I asked ChatGPT if AI will be the future of tech reviews. This is what it said:

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Geek

Resetting my brain with Solitaire (and other classic games)

This afternoon, I introduced my kids to Battleship. It was a game I played as a kid in the 80’s. We didn’t have the ABS plastic set, as most kids during these times transcribed their imaginations into paper. The grid notebooks were the best for Battleship of course — but it was also easy to cheat, as we would often draw odd shapes (an Aircraft carrier shaped like an L!) to confuse our opponents.