Disclaimer: I haven’t owned a television since giving away a TV/VCR combo for free on Craigslist sometime around 2003. But this Numpty Bunch doodle works better with a big screen concept than a laptop screen. My dad, however, in his retirement, has a huge, high definition TV I wouldn’t have envisioned as being a normal consumer product during my childhood (back in the ’80s), when commercials were opportunities for snack or bathroom breaks.
These days the only tv show we occasionally watch is Top Chef Canada via the Food Network website. My sons and I discuss the copywriting and other aspects (e.g. cringiness) of the many mainstream media ads that we must endure between segments of the show, which is sponsored by Interac Flash, paper towel companies, and more.
Lately, I’ve almost completely dropped Netflix because listening to BitCoin podcasts and videos on YouTube (usually audio only) is more than enough infotainment. Now I’m so far down the Bitcoin rabbit hole that The Numpty Bunch (via Isaac Morehouse) is one of my favourite niche-within-a-niche channels. You know it’s been a long journey when you can follow an entire hour of fairly niche big block Bitcoin conversation, including references to old Bitcoin conference panels on the topic of Turing completeness or a fiery speech once given in Arnhem.
The numpties are basically a group of friends who meet online to discuss Bitcoin and record their conversations because … why not? The regular four numpties are: Isaac Morehouse (who incidentally writes a great personal blog), Steve Patterson, T.K. Coleman, and Deryk Makgill (who as far as I know is/was curating this site). The reason I find their discussions to be mostly palatable is because they respect each other and therefore are able to discuss contentious ideas (and sometimes people, because guys apparently can gossip too) without becoming offended when there’s a difference in opinion or perspective. The Numpty name, I believe, was inspired by a trolling comment which was intended to be an insult, but we can see how that turned out. The Numpty Bunch is a hilarious name for the show, really just a semi-regular ongoing conversation between friends, which formerly had no name. I hope that The Numpty Bunch is added to the very prestigious (wink wink) list of BSV companies and projects which is maintained by the creator of Peergame. The most recent episode features Jack C. Liu of RelayX as a guest who snuck in to make a special announcement so apologies to Deryk who is missing from this particular doodle because he was presumably busy that day.
This week I was quite excited to hear the announcement that Streamanity.com, the BSV-based video platform, had been acquired by RelayX. As mentioned in the featured Numpty Bunch conversation, the platform formerly known as KeyportTV has been around since the days of Bitcoin Cash (BCH). One reason why I was more inclined to follow the BSV side of the BCH-BSV split was because of the potential of this consumer app for video content to seamlessly enable earning via micropayments (which at the time used Cashport by HandCash, which has also since been reworked and rebranded to HandCash Connect).
As a consumer, I’ve used Streamanity to mostly watch The BSV Business Show and Bitcoin Stuff, Daniel Krawisz’s channel. When MetanetTV was getting started, I watched many thoughtful interviews by MADinMelbourne from the first Cambrian dev bootcamp. And a nod to Bitcoin Sofia, who has some interesting and analytical videos too (some from BCH days).
As a creator, I’ve posted two very short and simply animated videos, mainly to test the platform and its user friendliness. I’ll leave the topics of pricing and price discovery, on which I am definitely not an expert, for another day.
Jack C. Liu of RelayX gives credit where it’s due, to Sumanth Neppalli and Shravan Shandilya (the founders of Streamanity) who worked hard to create and enhance the platform, including features such as making clips with revenue share and boosting videos to enable free views.
Anyone interested in the utility of BSV should be looking forward to the business development and evolution of Streamanity. Immediate improvement has already been noted as the requirement to create an account to view videos has been removed. Jack C. Liu and his team undoubtedly have visionary plans.
Addendum: The Numpty Bunch (with Deryk)
