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Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

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Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#261
post #3

Cited in the article: https://twitter.com/crypto_birb/status/1721222853394121193 "Thanks for great apefest logistiscs guys @yugalabs & @BoredApeYC. Incredible event and met plenty of amazing people. Still, as dozens of others, I’ve almost lost sight this night." I mean, c'mon. "Thanks, incredible event, it almost blinded me"?

This is peak bagholder psychology lmfao

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#262
Are people still talking about BAYC? Wow. I thought that was over.

In case you weren't aware, BAYC is full of Nazi symbolism [1]. Now there are two groups who use Nazi symbols:

1. Actual Nazis; and

2. Suburban Ohio 14 year olds and NEETs who are 4chan edgelords and groypers.

I suspect the Nazi influence on BAYC came from the second group.

NFTs are a scam to sell crypto, which is also a scam. NFTs are like Inception-level "we must go deeper" scams. Can we move on yet?

This symbolism is pervasive and you start to see it everywhere. Some examples are:

- comments of "well well well" (left on videos fitting an alleged racial stereotype by white supremacists);

- use of three nested parentheses (eg "(((Julie)))", you'll see it all over Twitter);

- the sonnenrad (or "Black Sun") [2];

- the totenkopf [3];

- usernames or references to the numbers 88 or 1488;

- usernames or references to the numbers 1350 or 1352. This isn't a Nazi reference but it's common among white supremacists.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRPHZQFuT24

[2]: https://newrepublic.com/post/174753/its-confirmed-team-desan...

[3]: https://www.hillsdale.net/story/news/politics/county/2023/02...

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#263

There's no reason the party with unsafe UV lights had to be a crypto-party. While I'm no NFT bagholder, it bothers me that the article is mostly about dunking on cryptobros than talking about the dangers of hazardous lighting rigs at a show. At any event, how is an attendee supposed to assess such a thing? It's not like you can DYOR.

> At any event, how is an attendee supposed to assess such a thing? It's not like you can DYOR. That's why I think the cryptobro angle is relevant to the story, because assessing trust in the folks putting on a conference is the way for attendees to figure out if they're likely to be blinded by the lighting or face other issues. And the type of people the whole cryptocurrency and especially NFT scene attract seem at…

> That's why I think the cryptobro angle is relevant to the story

That's an interesting perspective, and reminds me a bit of the "libertarian paradise" at the end of http://bitsim.beepboopbitcoin.com/ . But the fact that it's framed more as a dunk than as genuine sympathy for those affected reminds me of other anti-crypto reporting like "Line Go Up" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g ). Which makes it really hard to recommend it as a way to break people out.

Given a choice between reporting which mocks crypto victims and reporting which might actually help get people away from the rigged casino, I'd prefer to see articles aiming for the latter.

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#264

There's no reason the party with unsafe UV lights had to be a crypto-party. While I'm no NFT bagholder, it bothers me that the article is mostly about dunking on cryptobros than talking about the dangers of hazardous lighting rigs at a show. At any event, how is an attendee supposed to assess such a thing? It's not like you can DYOR.

Bring sunglasses (and ear protection while you're at it) when going to a concert.

I can't stand the mixing at many concerts unless I wear earpro, but thanks for the reminder.

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#265
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto on the whole is a scene where Sam Bankman-Fried was considered very smart while he was busy conducting the most inept financial crimes in modern history. The bar is low indeed.

We - humans - could have had digital money - fast and fee-less, micro-transactions, decentralization, secure, anti-spam. Everything Bitcoin claimed to want to be. Instead we - the tech community - got smug about scams. People here get smug even toward the victims of scams. The attitude has been 'Who gives a flying fuck about the details of any crypto tech, or the potential of digital money'. 'It's all a scam, so I do…

It isn't just the tech illuminati who associate Bitcoin with scams. Everyone in our neighborhood now knows that it's a regular occurrence for older people to get emergency calls from the "gas company" and rush to the corner store's Bitcoin kiosk so they can pay and not get their gas shut off.They then realize it was a scam and post on Nextdoor, Facebook, etc. While I know that cryptocurrency is not a scam, and while I know that such scams pre-exist Bitcoin, that is absolutely the perception that it's getting in our community amongst non-tech people.

Your edit, BTW, is interesting. You tar all the responses with the same brush, "missed the point", "lack all imagination", and then accuse them of having a condescending tone? Do you have a sense there might be a two way street? While you do have a point, there's a lot of reasons why human dishonesty, e.g. scamming, prevents us from having a great many nice things that we could otherwise have.

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#266

Green lasers. Not the first time ive seen this sort of thing. Green lasers are made by running an IR laser through a crystal that doubles thier frequency, shifting IR into what we see as green light. But go cheap on the crystal and a green laser pumps out invisible IR possibly in a slightly different direction than the visible beam. Your eyes dont even blink because they dont see the IR. You dont notice the damage an…

Source for "green lasers"? All the reporting I've seen says that they used disinfectant-grade UV lamps as blacklights. https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1721602536225091716

Here's some informed speculation and commentary/explanation from a radiation safety expert:

https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2023/11/ultraviolet-rant/

"Having now had a chance to take a look at the likely culprit, assuming a repetition of the previous incident, all I can say is You Completely Irresponsible Fucks. I am having flashbacks to yelling at Naomi Wu for irresponsible deployment of germicidal UV designs in 2020."

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#267
post #45
post #3

Cited in the article: https://twitter.com/crypto_birb/status/1721222853394121193 "Thanks for great apefest logistiscs guys @yugalabs & @BoredApeYC. Incredible event and met plenty of amazing people. Still, as dozens of others, I’ve almost lost sight this night." I mean, c'mon. "Thanks, incredible event, it almost blinded me"?

It's a matter of taste, of course, but the event does not look incredible to me. https://twitter.com/slandermepls/status/1721352598945677544

Imagine going to the event and all you have to look at for the entire show is hideous monkey "art". If this is what the people like then maybe they didn't deserve to have eyes in the first place.

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#269
Normally HN is HN. In these comments HN is Reddit: cheap sarcastic “haha I’m smart they’re dumb” jokes.

Very little curiosity or intriguing anecdotes, just “I was smart enough to identify NFTs were a scam from the get-go, so now enjoy your eye damage losers”.

It’s a cheap way to feel good about oneself, but it makes us look like what our detractors say we look like.

Re: Bored Ape conference attendees wake up with eye pain, vision loss

#270

Green lasers. Not the first time ive seen this sort of thing. Green lasers are made by running an IR laser through a crystal that doubles thier frequency, shifting IR into what we see as green light. But go cheap on the crystal and a green laser pumps out invisible IR possibly in a slightly different direction than the visible beam. Your eyes dont even blink because they dont see the IR. You dont notice the damage an…

The article seemed to suggest UV not IR before the paywall cutoff. Is this from the article or are you speculating?

It is clear that these morons didnt understand anything about stage lighting risks. They obviously just went with whatever light sources gave the best bang for the buck. Cheap green lasers, cheap high-power UV lamps, no respect for best practices. I bet that a close look at the stage structure would reveal other shortcomings too.
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