The only good thing about 'AI' is that no-one is talking about the fucking metaverse anymore...

Quantum computing. It would have already been but it still has a very nerdy, no real-world application vibe.

Well the real world application is breaking nearly all existing encryption.
Criminals and spies are going to have a field day once it becomes practical.
- The new asymmetric quantum safe algos are coming though.
- With classic cryptography being broken that also opens the need for quantum cryptography and commnications. China is a bit farther ahead of us on this launching their first satellite encorporating these concepts in 2020:
  "The nation’s Micius satellite successfully established an ultrasecure link between two ground stations separated by more than 1,000 kilometers" source
  China is launching a second newer generation satellite next year. source
- It only breaks asymmetric encryption like SSL and PGP. The strength of symmetric encryption, like you have with password protected files and drive volumes, is reduced somewhat but should still be more than sufficient.
  And like the other commenter said, there are asymmetric algorithms that are quantum-safe, they just aren't in widespread use (though apparently just this year NIST announced a standard for lattice based cryptography).
- I could swear we've been preparing for that day for a decade now

Only, NFTs and Crypto are relatively accessible; anyone can get in on the game. The Metaverse is a monopoly.

The bubbles are still going, BTW. Bitcoin prices are currently higher than they have ever been, thanks to America re-electing the Fascist Orangutan.

The Metaverse is the invention of Neal Stephenson in his book Snow Crash. He incidentally also invented the word cyber space IIRC.
It's cool, I want it. Not the crap that fuckberg tries to push on people like used bubblegum but the real thing.
A shame VR makes me vomit...
- VR sickness is not a permanent thing. You can train it away. You can also just do stuff that doesn't cause it in the first place. But I recommend training it away, cuz some of the best VR content is the stuff that would cause VR sickness to people that still get it.
  
  Any advice on how? I would love to be able to play vr racing games etc
  
  It is the same thing as sea sickness and car sickness. But you have way more control over when you start and stop. So you can either go with dramamine or you can go with controlling the variables to train your brain that it doesn't need to protect you from "the poison berries". Motion sickness is caused by your eyes and inner-ears disagreeing with what is happening. Which for most of human history meant you were hallucinating from eating something poisonous and vomiting would be a good way to save your life.
  But, the brain can be trained to lessen and even completely forego this response. If you immediately stop as soon as you have the first minor symptoms, usually warm face, and then wait an hour or so and go back in. You'll steadily increase the amount of time you can play before feeling symptoms. Your brain will subconsciously reinforce that it doesn't need to protect you, whatever is going on isn't life threatening. But the opposite is also true, if it keeps going far enough that you get most of the symptoms or even do vomit, it'll reinforce to your brain that it is indeed saving your life and the response will get faster and faster.
  Dramamine can artificially slow down the response and buy you way more time to start with, which would make training it away even easier, and it's usually a very important part of training it away for sea sickness since you generally can't immediately stop being on a boat, and helpful for car sickness if you can't just have the car pull over for an hour when you feel it coming on.
  There are also usually settings in most VR experiences to reduce how much they might trigger that response. For racing games, a "lock to horizon" option can really help. There will still be some milder triggers, but getting rid of that one can buy you a lot of time.. For other games, avoiding movement that isn't coming from your body in the real world pretty much eliminates VR sickness causes. But if the game really needs artificial movement, there are settings like vignetting and having more static graphic elements added to focus on during movement.
  Eventually, with successful training, you won't need the comfort features. You'll be able to play any game for any amount of time.
  
  TY. I can give that a go then.
- Well, yes. Of course you're right that "metaverse" predates Facebook. They've successfully co-opted it by now, though; Meta is what the average person thinks of when you say "metaverse." Stephenson's was also fictional, unless you're really generous and use "metaverse" as a synonym for "the internet."
  
  It wasn't a fictional internet, but a 3D VR world.
  
  In the books, yes. It didn't exist IRL, and a poorly as it was done, FB's metaverse was (is?) a real product.
  Facebook/Meta has never had an original idea; I'm not trying to give them credit for anything. There were other VR "worlds" before FB's (Sony's, for example, which was also a failure).
  I just found out that Steve Jackson Games actually owns the trademark to the name "Metaverse." I'll bet that drove Zuck nuts.
  
  So you mean we have to make a FOSS one now :-) ?
Metaverse is just a VR implementation, like Second Life or VRChat. My point is: In a broader sense it's not a monopoly; only if you are hellbent on wanting a feature only that implementation offers, you have no choice.
- Yah, you're right. Like I said, when you say "Metaverse" most people (on the street) are going to think of Meta's. I doubt most people in even developed countries even remember Sony's failed VR world.
  Is there another networked VR world that is anywhere near as big as Meta's today? With nearly as many users (even with as much of a ghost town as it purportedly is)?
  I think you were talking about a hypothetical metaverse, whereas I was thinking about the only one that I know that has any traction - tenuous though it may be - at all, which is Meta's.

Hopefully suicide 🤞🤞