Сartoon Cats on the Blockchain
I
Think about collecting.
aa) What
can people collect? Take 3 minutes to write down a list of objects or items
people can collect. Compare your lists with other students.
b) Do
you collect anything? If yes, what is it? Do you know anyone who is a
collector?
c) Study the definition
of the word collectible:
collectible “an object that is collected; especially one other
than such traditionally collectible items as art, stamps, coins, and antiques”.
What object can be collectibles?
What collectibles are worth large sums of money? Where can people find and buy
collectibles?
d) Look at the examples of
collectibles below. Match the images and the names of collectibles. Which of
these items (if any) would you like to collect?
1. Beanie Babies (a line of stuffed animal toys created by Ty Inc. popular in 1990s. The toys are stuffed with
plastic pellets (called “beans”) but not with soft stuffing. That is why Beanie
Babies felt flexible.
2. Baseball
cards.
3. Marvel
Avengers Age of Ultron Toys.
4. Comic
books.
5. Porcelain
dolls.
6. Celebrity
autographs.
II What
can people collect in the digital age and the era of the Internet? Share your
ideas with other students in short (5 minutes) discussion in pairs.
III Look
at the image below. The image shows a new collectible. What do you think it is?
Would you like to collect such items?
IV Study the active vocabulary and focus on
Ukrainian equivalents of English words.
cartoon карикатура
viral вірусний
blockchain блокчейн
spark запалювати
craze захоплення
apparently
очевидно
cryptocurrency
криптовалюта
collectible предмет колекціонування
cap завершувати
generation
покоління
breed розводити
trait риса
entirely повністю
found засновувати
convince переконувати
loyal вірний
community
спільнота
contest конкурс
ugly потворний
V
Watch the video and fill in the gaps with the words from the list. There are
some words you don’t need to use.
Allow; cryptocurrencies;
services; digital; sudden; Generation; combination; interesting; favourite;
ways; virtual; game; alleviated; entirely; royal; users; complex; cartoon;
company; dog; person; loyal; third party; breed; cheapest; more; baseball; found; ugly; traits; engineering; investing; try;
holding; outside; find; silly; billions; created; mechanics; digital; right;
cat; show
When I 1)______ you what I’m 2)______,
some of you might see a simple 3)______. Some of you might see
a 4)______ piece of 5)______. You’d both be 6)______. Meet Genesis, the first
Cryptokitty. She’s not alone. All of a 7)______,
cryptokitties are everywhere.
-“Cryptokitties” “Cryptokitties”…
- “The viral blockchain-based 8)______ that sparked a global craze
for 9)______ cats.”
-
“It’s a picture of a 10)______. And
apparently someone bought one for $100,000!”
You’ve probably heard of 11)______ - but these are
cryptocollectibles. They’re like digital beanie babies or 12)______ cards. It sounds 13)______,
but Cryptokitties is testing a profound idea: Can a 14)______ good be…rare?
Every 15 minutes, the 15)______ Axiom Zen releases a new
cryptokitty that only one 16)______ can
buy. And they’ll do that until November 2018, when they’re capping these “17)______ Zero” kitties at 50,000. But
there are already 18)______ cryptokitties
than that, because unlike baseball cards, you can 19)______ them.
- The game is that there are 20)______ of different possible
combinations of 21)______. And so
you can decide which 22)______ of
traits is 23)______ to you and you can go out
and try to 24)______ a cat that has
that combination and buy it. Or you can 25)______
and find a combination that no one’s 26)______
before. And through our breeding 27)______
you can come up with new combinations of traits or, if you’re lucky, even new
traits 28)______.
That’s Layne Lafrance and Dieter
Shirley. They both helped 29)______ Cryptokitties
in November 2017. And they’ve convinced a 30)______
group of 31)______ to spend more
than $23 million buying and breeding these 32)______
cats. In just a few months, a whole community of 33)______ _____ sites and 34)______ formed around cryptokitties.
-
You can do youngest first, 35)______ first. See, like $10 bucks. And
as I mouse over, this is a plug-in I found.
-
We are trying to find new 36)______
to play with these Kitties 37)______
of the main game. So we’re starting with contests! Derpface is possibly one of
my 38)______ kitties because he is
just so unbelievably 39)______.
VI Watch the video and answer the
questions.
1 What is a Cryptokitty? Are
Cryptokitties popular today? Why or why not?
2 In what way are cryptokitties similar
to cryptocurrencies?
3 What company created Cryptokitties and
how long would their project last?
4 Why are there already more than 50,000
Cryptokitties in the world?
5 What can users do when they want to
play Cryptokitties game?
6 What traits can users change or
control in their Cryptokitties? Can users create their own new traits?
7 What kinds of services exist around
the Cryptokitties?
8 Why are contents important for
Cryptokitties community? What kind of contests can there be?
9 How much can people spend on a
Cryptokitty?
10 What idea are Cryptokitties trying to
test?
V
OVER TO YOU. Look at the images in task 3 or search for Cryptokitties online.
Think of the appearance and traits that you would like to see in your own Cryptokitty.
Describe the looks of the kitty to other students (the colour, the shape of the
eyes, etc.) You can create a (digital) drawing of your Cryptokitty and show it
to other students. What is special about your Cryptokitty. Think of a short
backstory (5-10 sentences) about the character and life of your Cryptokitty.
VI
Study the active vocabulary and focus on Ukrainian equivalents of English
words.
adorable чарівний
gene ген
define визначати
physical
appearance зовнішність
feature особливість
template шаблон
attribute характерна риса
offspring потомство
algorithm
алгоритм
reproduction
розмноження
demand попит
scarcity дефіцит
brand new абсолютно новий
accessible
доступний
infinitely
нескінченно
entertainment
розважальний
scarce рідкісний
decentralized
децентралізований
transaction операція
fraud шахрайство
piracy піратство
ledger гросбух
VII
Watch the video again and choose the correct
option to complete the sentences.
The traits/brakes/taints that made Derpface the ugliest Cryptokitty - even though, I mean, I think he’s adoring/boring/adorable - are baked into his mode/code/road. See, this is what Derpface
and Genesis both really look/book/cook
like. The “genes” in their code definite/definitive/define their physical appearance/appeared/disappearance on 12
features, based on a temple/template/plate by a human designer/designed/sign. They call those
creature/teacher/features…. Cattributes, Cattributes are
the visual/visibly/invisible
attributes of the cat. Like fuss/mass/us, these cats can also carry traits in
their code that only show up in
their offspring/spring/offset. But
the general/apologetic/genetic algorithm that drives
cryptokitty reproduction/reproduce/producer
— that’s kept secretly/secret/secretive.
-
When the
cats are breeding/feeding/bleeding
together the secret sauce imbues/combinations/combines those elements to make with a
certain amount of... well we can’t really tell you much about that. But! They
are combined/outbound/mind.
And people spend a lot of honey/money/ sunny on the chance to get their dream cat. Pride/price/prime depends on the
generation number/numerous/mumble
and on what traits are in high demand/in
high demanding/in high damage. In other words, popular Cryptokitties earn
high prices the way collectors/collectibles/collection always have: scarcity/sacristy/city. And what’s so
interesting about this is that digital scarcity is blend in/brand new/brand mow.
-
Before
the computers/computed/computing
came along if you had a thing, only you could have that fling/bling/thing and no
one else have that thing unless you gave it to the other person/personal/parson in which case you would no longer have it.
But that
completely arranges/changes/change is when goods become
digital and progressive/accessible/accessed
online.
-
Every
time you give somebody data on the internet/Ethernet/net
it’s a copy. I think the sort of reckoning we had in the 90s and early 2000s
was how do we live in a world where everything can be copy it/coping/copied
infinitely and you know and what’s going to happen to the music industry? What’s
going to happen to the news/few/mews
and entertainer/entertainmententertained industries? And we’ve seen it all play
out.
But Cryptokitties can be scarce because of the technical/technically/technology they’re built on. They’re
using a blocking chains/ blockchain/
locked change. Specifically, the Ethereum blockchain, so you have to buy
them with “ether”. But you might also be family/familiar/famously with the original, Bitcoin.
A blockchain provides a central/digitalize/decentralized system for recording
transactions, making fraud and piracy a lot harder.
- And so the essence/absence/sense of blockchain is that we have -whether you
want to say a look/book/hook or
people refer to it as a badger/larder/ledger.
And they would say, “Hey, you know you know Bob has this, Alice has that.” And
then everybody gets a copy of that book. And if someone/sometimes/no one comes along and says, “No Alice doesn’t
have that.” People can point to their own poppy/copy/copied
of the book and they can say, “No, no, no you’re wrong/strong/long. I see right here in this in my copy that Alice
has this.”
- When a kitty is born and it’s beautiful/beauty/helpfully and I love
it, there’s something very special about knowing that it belongs to me and no
one else and no one can take it.
VIII Watch the video and answer the
questions.
1 What controls the way Crypotkitties
look?
2 How many features do Crypotkitties
have and how are these features combined (randomly, by the user, by the
designer, by the game)?
3 What are Crypotkitties’ attributes
called?
4 How are features changes when kitties
reproduce?
5 Why can Crypotkitties be expensive?
What does their price depend on?
6 How was the world changed when the
goods became accessible online?
7 What is blockchain?
8 How can blockchain prevent fraud and
piracy?
9 How is blockchain connected to
Crypotkitties?
10 What type of blockchain do
Crypotkitties use?
IX
OVER TO YOU. Find out more about blockchain, Ethereum blockchain, and the code used to give Crypotkitties
new traits or change their traits. Share your findings with other students. How
would you go about changing the code to influence the “genes” and create your
perfect Crypotkitty? Will it be easy for the users to understand how to make
such changes? How would you make the changing the Crypotkitties’ “genes” easier
or more enjoyable?
X
Study the active vocabulary and focus on Ukrainian equivalents of English
words.
actual фактичний
physical object фізичний
об’єкт
copyright
авторське право
own
володіти
trade міняти
collector
колекціонер
artwork витвір мистецтва
cute милий
unfortunately
на жаль
mature зрілий
robust надійний
complicated складний
But the truth is, it’s not 1)________ yours. You own the 2)________ for
that cat, but not the actual 3)________.
-
In the case of 4)________, they have sections in their terms of service
that say that they 5)________ all of the images, all of the 6)________ elements
and that they have the 7)________ to use them however they want. That you
actually have no 8)________ to use them in any way.
That’s not so
different from a 9)________ card.
-
If you have, say, a Topps
baseball card and it has the player’s 10)________ on it – say Barry Bonds, and
a 11)________ of Barry Bonds on it - you own the 12)________ object but you
don’t own the copyright. Owning the physical 13)________ doesn’t give you the
right to print up other 14)________ but it does give you the right to trade
your card to someone else or to sell it to a 15)________.
But for Cryptokitties...
-
If they decide they want to, say, 16)________ the artwork or if they
sell the 17)________ to someone who wants to pull the artwork offline and use
it only in their new Cryptokitties movie series, they could do that. And you’d
be left just with this string of 18)________ and numbers on the 19)________ with
no art attached to it at all. So I think that’s a fundamental 20)________ between
real-world collectibles where you have the object and they can’t take it 21)________
from you and a 22)________ collectible. We really really, really wanted to put
the art in the blockchain, because our users, I think most of them conceptually
23)________ that what they own is sort of some numbers, in a blockchain. But
what you think you 24)________, what you think of as your, 25)________ is that
picture of the cute little guy with the funny eyes. And unfortunately, the
decentralized systems are just not 26)________ enough to support art in a robust
way.
Cryptokitties are 27)________ and complicated and they show that we
still have a ways to go until we can really keep a 28)________ collectible like
we can a baseball card.
XII Watch the video and answer the
questions.
1
Do people who buy Cryptokitties own actual images?
2
Do players have the right to use Cryptokitties the way they want? Why or
why not?
3
What do owners of physical objects actually have: a collectible or a copyright?
Are Cryptokitties similar or different from for example baseball cards when
it comes to copyright?
4
Can collectors of physical objects like baseball cards trade their physical
objects? Can owners of Cryptokitties do the same?
5
What will happen if the company that works with Cryptokitties today is sold or if there
is an idea to create a movie about these characters?
6
Which collectible can be taken away from the owner: a physical or a digital
one?
7
What do owners of Cryptokitties rally own? Do they own images and the rights to use them?
8
Are their mature and robust mechanisms to support collectors of digital items
today?
XIII
OVER TO YOU. Suggest a way to protect the rights of the owners of Crypotkitties.
What should be done to guarantee that the digital cat they bought would still
belong to them in the form of an image (not as lines of code only)?
XIV Vocabulary
focus. Study the words and word combinations, check your understanding
using flashcards, practise
their translation, spelling. Check
your knowledge in the test. Play matching
vocabulary game (match words to their
translations to make cards disappear) and save the planet from asteroids by typing in correct translation of the words.
XV
OVER TO YOU. Work individually. Think of a digital collectible that can be an
alternative to Cryptokitties and that people would like to buy. Prepare a short (5
minutes) presentation about your digital collectible: its name, what makes it
special, what would people be able to do with it (trade, take part in contests,
change appearance, breed, etc.).
