In what I hope will be the start of a regular series, here's a personal selection of what's been written about on Mirror in the last seven days – plus a little something from elsewhere on the internet.
This week I've gravitated towards posts on politics and culture, but I want to immerse myself in the broadest variety of what's on Mirror. Do drop me a line (hello at impossible-object dot io) if you publish something in the next week – I'd love to take a look.
Liminality
https://keeks.mirror.xyz/l5qX3iWbrypYEyGd7GHywnJXDHG10ZtfAl6qf8-O1vg
"In response to COVID, we've all mapped out our work schedules, habits, and rituals to adjust to working, schooling, and living at home. As I thought about how we're all experiencing this collective moment, comforting friends, sharpening our Twitter fingers, and grieving lost ones, the word liminality came to mind. Since then, I haven't been able to get the word out of my head, so I looked it up, like listening to the end of a song to resolve the tension."
$NOVEL
https://emily.mirror.xyz/0AFENlMKv9amUC1OJIZY26udpISw_raXkoEcvelPvzg
"Welcome to a new experiment: using crypto to crowdfund my new novel, working title BURN ALPHA. The supporters of $NOVEL would be the first of their kind, since no other novels have ever been created this way, in the history of literary culture :)
Usually, novelists go to great lengths to fund their own novel-writing process by working other gigs, selling commercial writing, or – in significantly fewer cases – getting an advance from a publishing company. All of these methods have drawbacks, in the forms of limited time or limited creative freedom for the author. On top of that, the process of creating these works of art goes on behind a veil of secrecy, away from the community that will ultimately enjoy the final product. As an author and publisher, I’d like to change all that. This crowdfund will take us one step closer to a better future for writers and readers everywhere."
Left and Right in DeFi
https://g.mirror.xyz/KJFMrrKHwv2pAygNy3WFEcICSgHISOPn8EWeJYR_YOc
"There are two cultures in the DeFi space. Not a perfectly clean divide, but as much of two cultures as you can have.
Let's call one side Left and one side Right.
On the Left side, we have heavyweight American protocols like Compound and Uniswap. The leaders of these protocols have Twitter profile photos of real people with real names. They're polite and articulate. They're from Wharton and Columbia and they live in NYC or SF. They're backed by a16z and USV. They're audited by Trail of Bits and never require more than one or two revisions. You get the idea.
On the Right side, we have international heavyweights like Aave, Yearn, Synthetix and Chainlink. Many of the Twitter personalities here are more likely to be anonymous. Their grammar often seems full of intentional mistakes. They have armies of green frog followers. They're scorned as "toxic anons"."
NFTs are about more than art
https://j.mirror.xyz/2j2iAo4su48mkfZoGWHZCMVkmPi8mE_YOyyMWrNPAX4
"NFTs are about proven ownership of something digital, and what that unlocks for the owner. Right now, we're in a phase where the main thing people "unlock" by owning an NFT is simply the clout or recognition of ownership. So everyone is scrambling to figure out what it might be valuable to own from this point of view: art, tweets, essays, etc. (and who knows, maybe a lot of that is actually right).
My main point is: I think where things will get interesting is when ownership of an NFT unlocks abilities besides just recognition or resale value to the owner. Of course, recognition and resale value will always be part of owning an NFT, but I don't think it's the full picture."
Convex Mirror
https://www.thejaymo.net/dimensino/
Check out Jay Springett's Dimensino series, "an ongoing webscrapbook [e]xploring the emerging Dweb (Web3) ecosystem, the #supportnet, and the coming ‘Metaverse’."
Impossible Object publishes innovative books and uses a blend of both legacy and crypto workflows to create new kinds of book. https://www.impossible-object.io/.