amcgregor · October 22, 2024 03:53
diff --git a/nft-ethereum.eml b/nft-ethereum.eml
 Howdy!

 You have me curious, thus the response. I’ll dissect the bits of this in sequence, skipping for now that there was no subject for your e-mail.

 If this e-mail address was hijacked for spam, apologies for whomever this response may have been misdirected towards. Feel free to ignore.

 > On Oct 22, 2024, at 07:36, Nycolas S...e <[email protected]> wrote:

 A supposedly professional communication from a Gmail account despite advertising a domain in the footer; not a good start, and it continues downhill from there. Every paragraph prefixed with an emoji… I am not a fresh graduate who might find allure in such.

 > I hope you’re doing well!

 Unfortunately I am not; so extra apologies for tone as I am continuing to recover from a stroke that has had me out of commission for some time now. I can only partially blame those events on my prior, high-stress involvement in Human Resources solutions development for my previous employer. Rewarding work—knowing how many people I’ve helped find gainful employment, and the challenges involved in finding solutions performing such work—but… ultimately unhealthy.

 > We’re thrilled to announce that we are launching a new Web3 gaming project built on the Ethereum blockchain, and we’re looking for talented individuals to join our development team.

 First two strikes against: “Web3” and “blockchain”. The former is vaporous—HTTP, HTML, CSS, ES6 are actual technologies—the latter actively harmful for the planet—make-work burning CPU cycles—our continued existence on this planet, and a means of fraudulent obfuscation.

 > Our goal is to create a fun, immersive gaming experience that empowers players through blockchain technology.

 Fun, and immersion, are not in any way helped by blockchain; the progressive signing/validation of which would only slow processes down. Fun and immersion are furthered by engaging and rewarding content, and for online experiences, inter-player communication and organization systems, not underlying technological means. Nobody cared what Ultima Online was powered by, just that it worked, and didn’t forget player inventories.

 > In our game, players will navigate a rich universe where they can acquire, trade, and own unique in-game assets as NFTs, while also interacting with decentralized finance features. We believe that true ownership and transparency can fundamentally change the gaming experience, and we want you to be a part of this journey.

 Third strike: NFT. You do not “own” an NFT. You own a ticket to the NFT on the blockchain, that only exists as long as the particular chain of choice continues to exist and remains accessible, and as long as your local cryptographic keys do not get lost or stolen. Digital goods such as these only provide the illusion of ownership.

 > Position Available: Blockchain Developer

 No. But please, feel free to continue reading if you’ve reached this far, as I will offer feedback on points as I go and I do sincerely hope this feedback—which I am offering without fee—are helpful, informative, or insightful for you.

 > - Develop, test, and deploy smart contracts on Ethereum tailored for gaming functionalities.
 > - Design and implement an in-game economy using custom tokens.

 Probabilistic finality adds inherent risk to the transactions committed on the chain, beyond the liability of denial of service or other service interruption or manipulation. This makes use as a backing store for gaming worlds highly problematic. It simply is NOT a database you commit transactions to which become immutable. Not really.

 > - Integrate NFT standards for in-game items, ensuring seamless user experience and ownership verification.

 There are multiple documented cases of Ethereum-backed frauds, including outright thefts, as reported by ARTnews and The New York Times re: OpenSea. “NFT” and “blockchain” are not one stop shops for security, integrity, or reliability. Even if the “cryptography” involved makes appear to be a more secure solution. HashCash, an idea predating the modern “crypto” craze, predominantly revolved around the difficulty of generating hashes with N leading zero bits as a form of rate limiting for anti-spam—nothing at all involving actual cash money. Spam control.

 > - Collaborate with game designers to implement gameplay features that leverage blockchain technology.

 Modern gameplay mechanisms typically require realtime interactions and transactional (in the database sense) integrity. This is simply not possible using blockchain-backed technologies, even if one controls the entire signing pool. There was a bit of a crisis some time ago regarding a substantial Bitcoin transaction rollback, if I recall. I can not currently imagine a feature of an interactive—let alone realtime—gaming experience that would be improved by this pair of technologies. EVE Online marketplace contract transactions, sure. Maybe. But… there’s just no real need for this resource-intensive and wasteful technology to be utilized for that.

 > - Ensure the security and efficiency of all blockchain-related components.

 What’s your target commit time, if we simply ignore the previous bullet point? Security is less problematic if it’s a closed network running on private infrastructure, especially if the “financial” aspects are segregated from the end-user interactive portions by way of simplified internally-exposed APIs, with no external command and control. Think: EVE Online market data. Though even that can (and does) provide unfair advantages to certain players with knowledge of the tooling.

 Entirely separately: putting that particular pair of requirements on a single developer is exceptionally unfair and unreasonable. Security is hard. Really hard. No, harder than that. Performance/efficiency is hard—sure, I’ve written web servers that can serve tens to hundreds of thousands of requests per second… in Python, an interpreted language… but. Blockchain is roughly equivalent to a "lament box": something that may end a civilization that discovers it. It may still do, given the unreasonable energy consumption requirements of such processes in the face of continued and unabated global warming.

 > - Proficiency in Solidity and experience in developing smart contracts on the Ethereum network.

 "Proficiency in Solidity” — at first I didn’t quite understand what this might mean, but after a quick dig, “Solidity” is being used as a proper noun, not a descriptive adjective. I see.

 > - Familiarity with ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards.

 I didn’t when I received your e-mail, I have now. The “outstanding issues” on ERC-20 are quite concerning. Even Mastodon has most of that figured out. ERC-721 has, to my surprise, an effective unique identity range. That was nice to see. The simplest example provided was ~100 lines of Python. That’s rather intense.

 > - Proficiency with tools and libraries such as Truffle, Hardhat, Web3.js, or ethers.js.

 Luckily, I am vaguely aware of these. Possibly luckily? Maybe? 🤔

 > - An understanding of blockchain gaming mechanics and player monetization strategies.

 Predatory. Like many of the “free to play” “games” out there, it seems, just more highly obfuscated. Most of the “free to play” show you ads, so it’s easy to quickly clue in.

 > - A passion for gaming and a desire to push the boundaries of what’s possible with blockchain technology.

 I love gaming. Blockchain was interesting. I have better uses for my CPU cycles, and can not allow myself to defraud others or encourage the destruction of the planet I currently require to remain habitable.

 > If you are excited about the intersection of gaming and blockchain, we would love to hear from you! Please reach out to me at Telegram or Discord or simply reply to this message to explore this opportunity together.

 I’d wish you luck, but I hope you fail.

 Dang, didn’t intend for it to sound that mean. It’s an interesting idea. I just really, really hope, for the sake of continued life, that it’s not so interesting that people give up on efficient solutions to concentrate purely on burning themselves, and their friends and family, alive.

 — Alice.

 Stages of new feature coping: 1. Love.  2. Enthusiastic love.  3. Ask for settings, options.  4. It's terrible! And you're an asshole!
	Howdy!

	You have me curious, thus the response. I’ll dissect the bits of this in sequence, skipping for now that there was no subject for your e-mail.

	If this e-mail address was hijacked for spam, apologies for whomever this response may have been misdirected towards. Feel free to ignore.

	> On Oct 22, 2024, at 07:36, Nycolas S...e <[email protected]> wrote:

	A supposedly professional communication from a Gmail account despite advertising a domain in the footer; not a good start, and it continues downhill from there. Every paragraph prefixed with an emoji… I am not a fresh graduate who might find allure in such.

	> I hope you’re doing well!

	Unfortunately I am not; so extra apologies for tone as I am continuing to recover from a stroke that has had me out of commission for some time now. I can only partially blame those events on my prior, high-stress involvement in Human Resources solutions development for my previous employer. Rewarding work—knowing how many people I’ve helped find gainful employment, and the challenges involved in finding solutions performing such work—but… ultimately unhealthy.

	> We’re thrilled to announce that we are launching a new Web3 gaming project built on the Ethereum blockchain, and we’re looking for talented individuals to join our development team.

	First two strikes against: “Web3” and “blockchain”. The former is vaporous—HTTP, HTML, CSS, ES6 are actual technologies—the latter actively harmful for the planet—make-work burning CPU cycles—our continued existence on this planet, and a means of fraudulent obfuscation.

	> Our goal is to create a fun, immersive gaming experience that empowers players through blockchain technology.

	Fun, and immersion, are not in any way helped by blockchain; the progressive signing/validation of which would only slow processes down. Fun and immersion are furthered by engaging and rewarding content, and for online experiences, inter-player communication and organization systems, not underlying technological means. Nobody cared what Ultima Online was powered by, just that it worked, and didn’t forget player inventories.

	> In our game, players will navigate a rich universe where they can acquire, trade, and own unique in-game assets as NFTs, while also interacting with decentralized finance features. We believe that true ownership and transparency can fundamentally change the gaming experience, and we want you to be a part of this journey.

	Third strike: NFT. You do not “own” an NFT. You own a ticket to the NFT on the blockchain, that only exists as long as the particular chain of choice continues to exist and remains accessible, and as long as your local cryptographic keys do not get lost or stolen. Digital goods such as these only provide the illusion of ownership.

	> Position Available: Blockchain Developer

	No. But please, feel free to continue reading if you’ve reached this far, as I will offer feedback on points as I go and I do sincerely hope this feedback—which I am offering without fee—are helpful, informative, or insightful for you.

	> - Develop, test, and deploy smart contracts on Ethereum tailored for gaming functionalities.
	> - Design and implement an in-game economy using custom tokens.

	Probabilistic finality adds inherent risk to the transactions committed on the chain, beyond the liability of denial of service or other service interruption or manipulation. This makes use as a backing store for gaming worlds highly problematic. It simply is NOT a database you commit transactions to which become immutable. Not really.

	> - Integrate NFT standards for in-game items, ensuring seamless user experience and ownership verification.

	There are multiple documented cases of Ethereum-backed frauds, including outright thefts, as reported by ARTnews and The New York Times re: OpenSea. “NFT” and “blockchain” are not one stop shops for security, integrity, or reliability. Even if the “cryptography” involved makes appear to be a more secure solution. HashCash, an idea predating the modern “crypto” craze, predominantly revolved around the difficulty of generating hashes with N leading zero bits as a form of rate limiting for anti-spam—nothing at all involving actual cash money. Spam control.

	> - Collaborate with game designers to implement gameplay features that leverage blockchain technology.

	Modern gameplay mechanisms typically require realtime interactions and transactional (in the database sense) integrity. This is simply not possible using blockchain-backed technologies, even if one controls the entire signing pool. There was a bit of a crisis some time ago regarding a substantial Bitcoin transaction rollback, if I recall. I can not currently imagine a feature of an interactive—let alone realtime—gaming experience that would be improved by this pair of technologies. EVE Online marketplace contract transactions, sure. Maybe. But… there’s just no real need for this resource-intensive and wasteful technology to be utilized for that.

	> - Ensure the security and efficiency of all blockchain-related components.

	What’s your target commit time, if we simply ignore the previous bullet point? Security is less problematic if it’s a closed network running on private infrastructure, especially if the “financial” aspects are segregated from the end-user interactive portions by way of simplified internally-exposed APIs, with no external command and control. Think: EVE Online market data. Though even that can (and does) provide unfair advantages to certain players with knowledge of the tooling.

	Entirely separately: putting that particular pair of requirements on a single developer is exceptionally unfair and unreasonable. Security is hard. Really hard. No, harder than that. Performance/efficiency is hard—sure, I’ve written web servers that can serve tens to hundreds of thousands of requests per second… in Python, an interpreted language… but. Blockchain is roughly equivalent to a "lament box": something that may end a civilization that discovers it. It may still do, given the unreasonable energy consumption requirements of such processes in the face of continued and unabated global warming.

	> - Proficiency in Solidity and experience in developing smart contracts on the Ethereum network.

	"Proficiency in Solidity” — at first I didn’t quite understand what this might mean, but after a quick dig, “Solidity” is being used as a proper noun, not a descriptive adjective. I see.

	> - Familiarity with ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards.

	I didn’t when I received your e-mail, I have now. The “outstanding issues” on ERC-20 are quite concerning. Even Mastodon has most of that figured out. ERC-721 has, to my surprise, an effective unique identity range. That was nice to see. The simplest example provided was ~100 lines of Python. That’s rather intense.

	> - Proficiency with tools and libraries such as Truffle, Hardhat, Web3.js, or ethers.js.

	Luckily, I am vaguely aware of these. Possibly luckily? Maybe? 🤔

	> - An understanding of blockchain gaming mechanics and player monetization strategies.

	Predatory. Like many of the “free to play” “games” out there, it seems, just more highly obfuscated. Most of the “free to play” show you ads, so it’s easy to quickly clue in.

	> - A passion for gaming and a desire to push the boundaries of what’s possible with blockchain technology.

	I love gaming. Blockchain was interesting. I have better uses for my CPU cycles, and can not allow myself to defraud others or encourage the destruction of the planet I currently require to remain habitable.

	> If you are excited about the intersection of gaming and blockchain, we would love to hear from you! Please reach out to me at Telegram or Discord or simply reply to this message to explore this opportunity together.

	I’d wish you luck, but I hope you fail.

	Dang, didn’t intend for it to sound that mean. It’s an interesting idea. I just really, really hope, for the sake of continued life, that it’s not so interesting that people give up on efficient solutions to concentrate purely on burning themselves, and their friends and family, alive.

	— Alice.

	Stages of new feature coping: 1. Love. 2. Enthusiastic love. 3. Ask for settings, options. 4. It's terrible! And you're an asshole!