Podcasts about top shots

Show Notes and Transcript Mike Yardley joins Hearts of Oak to discuss his varied background, including military service and journalism, addressing censorship in contemporary Britain, particularly concerning vaccines and lockdowns. We examine the impact of censorship on free speech, social media algorithms, and the consequences of opposing mainstream narratives.  The conversation delves into declining democracy, globalist agendas, and the suppression of individual liberties.  Mike highlights concerns about powerful entities controlling public discourse and a lack of open debate on critical issues.  We end on political changes in Europe and the necessity of open discussions to tackle societal issues, particularly the significance of critical thinking, diverse perspectives, and unrestricted dialogue to shape a better future. Mike Yardley is well known as a sporting journalist, shooting instructor, and hunter and has written and broadcast extensively on all aspects of guns and their use. His articles (2000+) have appeared in many journals as well as in the national press. He has appeared as an expert witness in cases which relate to firearms and firearms safety. He is a founding fellow of the Association of Professional Shooting Instructors, and has formal instructing qualifications from a variety of other bodies. He is listed one of The Field's ‘Top Shots.' He retired from the press competition at the CLA Game Fair after winning it three times. As well as his shooting activities he has written books on other subjects including an account of the independent Polish trade union Solidarity, a biography of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and a history of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst itself. He is a contributing author and ‘Special Researcher' to the Oxford History of the British Army (in which he wrote the concluding chapter and essays on the army in Northern Ireland and the SAS). He is also a frequent broadcaster and has made and presented documentaries for the BBC. Mike has also been involved as a specialist ballistic consultant, and presenter, in many productions for various TV companies including the Discovery and History Channels. He has re-enacted on location worldwide the death of the Red Baron, the Trojan Horse incident from ancient history, and some of the most infamous assassinations, including those of JFK, RFK and Abe Lincoln. Michael has worked a photojournalist and war reporter in Syria, Lebanon, Albania/Kosovo, Africa, and Afghanistan. He was seized off the street in Beirut in 1982 (before Terry Waite and John McCarthy) but released shortly afterwards having befriended one of his captors. In 1986 he made 3 clandestine crossings into Afghanistan with the Mujahedin putting his cameras aside and working as a medic on one mission. In the late 1990s, he ran aid convoys to Kosovan Refugees in Albania and on the Albanian/Kosovo border. The charity he co-founded, ‘Just Help,' was honoured for this work which took 300 tons of relief to desperately needy people. Connect with Mike... X/TWITTER        twitter.com/YardleyShooting WEBSITE            positiveshooting.com Interview recorded 2.5.24 Connect with Hearts of Oak... X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUK WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/ SHOP                 heartsofoak.org/shop/ *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin  (Hearts of Oak) Hello Hearts of Oak, thank you so much for joining us once again and I'm joined by someone who I've been enjoying watching on Twitter for the last couple of years and delighted that he can join us today and that's Mike Yardley. Mike, thank you so much for your time today. (Mike Yardley) Yeah, great to be here and thank you very much for asking me Peter. Not at all, thoroughly enjoyed. I thought I would But let our audience also enjoy your input. And we had a good chat on the phone the other week about all different issues. And people can find you @YardleyShooting, which introduces the question, Yardley Shooting. Maybe you want to give just a one or two minute introduction of your background. I know you've written. You have a deep passion and understanding of history, along with many other things. But maybe give the viewer just a little bit of your background. Well, I've had a wide and varied career. I studied psychology at university. I went to the army. Wasn't really, you know, content in the army. And I resigned my commission in 1980. But I was in the army at a very interesting time. Height of the Cold War. I was on what was then the West German and East German border watching the East Germans and Russians watching us. So an intriguing place. And I really left the army to become a war reporter, a photographer, particularly initially. And also I went to Poland. I was in Poland for the rise of solidarity. I brought an exhibition back to the UK, which opened at the National Theatre. And memorably with Peggy Ashcroft doing the honours at that event, and Sir John Gielgud as patron. And then I've sort of made my way as an author and as a freelance. And I've also had a parallel career as an arms specialist. I've written a, probably millions of words in that area, but I've also written the final chapter of the Oxford History of the British Army, essays within that, books on the history of Sandhurst and co-written with another ex-officer, a book about the army, lots of technical stuff, a number of technical books. And I'm very interested in mass communication. I have made in the deep and distant past, some documentaries for the BBC. I made one on the history of terrorism for the BBC World Service. I made another on the media and the monarchy for the BBC World Service. And I think they actually let me broadcast once on another subject I'm very interested in, which is doubt. So since then, I've made my living with my pen and my camera. I was in Lebanon in the the early 1980s, again, not a good place to be there. And I made several sneaky beaky trips into Afghanistan, not as a soldier, but as a journalist when the Russians were there. And that was a very interesting time too. And, you know, gave me some ideas that perhaps other people didn't have the advantage of that experience. So yeah, quite an interesting career. I'm still a columnist for one well-known field sports magazine, The Field. And I am still at it. I don't know how long I'm going to be at it for. But one of the interesting things, I suppose, for me has been the advent of social media. And I thought social media was going to give me a chance to see what other people were thinking. But as well as what other people were thinking, to give me a chance for unfettered expression. Because I think it would be fair to say that I do feel that you cannot really say what you think in modern Britain. It comes with all sorts of disadvantages. As you get older and maybe you don't need the income as much, then perhaps not as important. You know, you can harder to cancel you as you get older and you don't really care. But I do think that's an issue in modern Britain. I think since the whole advent of lockdown and all the propaganda that was associated with it, and indeed with the Ukraine war, although I'm a supporter of the Ukrainians, I was rather horrified by the extent of the propaganda campaign to get us involved, as I have been rather shocked by all the propaganda surrounding lockdown and COVID, et cetera. And one other key point of my background is that I got very badly injured after I had the vaccine. I collapsed the next day. I had the worst headache of my life. I was in bed for a month or six weeks. I got a thrombosis in my leg, tinnitus, all sorts of other shingles, all sorts of other horrible stuff. I couldn't really walk. And even as I speak to you now, I've got shingles. I've got this blessed tinnitus ringing in my head, which a lot of other people have had post-vaccination and constant headaches. So I just have to live with that now, which means that you're always having to go through that to talk to people and to get your point across. Well, I've got a feeling that we may have you on a number of times, Mike, because there's so much to unpack there. But maybe we can start with a comment you made on censorship. And certainly we've seen this over the last four years. I've noticed in different areas, but specifically since being in the media space, I think since 2020, I've certainly seen it, had seen a little bit back in my days with UKIP during the Brexit campaign also but we have the BBC in the UK I guess they are the gatekeepers of information or have been up until this point and I know they've just the BBC have just done a series on misinformation or extremism and they of someone they employ full-time to actually cover what they see as misinformation and that kind of re-galvanizes their position as gatekeepers. But what are your thoughts on censorship? And I guess where state media fit into that? Yeah, I've been listening to that BBC series, and there's quite a lot of BBC stuff in that area at the moment. I think the first thing I'd say is this. I used to be one of the main voices heard in the media talking about security and terrorism. I hardly ever broadcast now. I don't get the opportunity because I'm not on narrative. And I think that's often because I present a nuanced position. And that doesn't seem to be popular in the modern media. Is censorship a problem now? Yes, it is. It's a problem because I can't easily broadcast anymore, having spent many years broadcasting and making lots of stuff for all sorts of different programs, as well as making a few programs of my own. I can't do that anymore. I think I may have made half a dozen or seven Discovery shows as well, but the phone no longer rings. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't ring particularly because I took up a vaccine sceptical position. And this is where it starts to get, this is the stuff we should unpack because it's really interesting. I was just listening before we started broadcasting to a BBC program that was talking about Russian operations promoting the anti-vaccine position. Well, I get that. I can see that the Russians have been involved in that. And we can come back to my own Twitter account, where I see clearly that if I put up a comment that is in any way critical of the Russians, it gets no support at all. But it might get probably half a dozen or 10 times as much pro-Russian support. And I've been trying to work out what's going on with that. It's almost as if the Russians have some way of manipulating that particular platform. But on the other hand, coming back to this point about vaccine scepticism, it's not just the Russians who are promoting that. Maybe it was in their interest to do that. But there are people in the UK, myself included, who were genuinely injured by the vaccines and who want to talk about it and feel that their point of view has completely been suppressed by these big social media platforms and by the BBC. It is just a non-subject. They don't really talk about excess deaths. They don't talk about widespread vaccine injury. You hear occasionally about VITT thrombosis with young women who've had these terrible thrombosis in their brains, but you do not hear about quite widespread vaccine injury. Now, I put up a comment on Twitter, do you know of anyone who's had a vaccine injury? I had something like, well, I think two, it depends on how you count them, but something like two million views, but 6,000 replies, and listing a lot more than 6,000 injuries. Now, I'm sure you can't necessarily take that as absolute gospel, but it is indicative of the fact that many people think they have been damaged by the vaccines, but also they can't talk about it. Their doctors aren't interested in it. The BBC don't seem to be interested in it. What in a free country are we meant to do? Well, we do this. We try and get our message out by other means, but it shouldn't be like that. And this seems to be a trend, this big state authoritarianism with a much more controlled media, which is facilitated by all the digitization that's going on. That is a real issue in modern Britain? Certainly, we came across that with YouTube putting videos up, and you daren't put a video up on YouTube critiquing the vaccine narrative or the COVID narrative. But recently, there has been some change. I know that there is legal action against AstraZeneca. I think in the last two days, there have been reports of AstraZeneca admitting that it did in in a tiny amount of cases but they haven't mentioned this before there were side effects. It does seem as though either it's the chipping away of those who've been vaccine injured demanding a voice, either it's been MPs becoming a little bit more vocal, obviously Andrew Bridgen, or it's been maybe a change in Twitter and the information out. I mean how do you see that because it does seem as though the message is slowly getting out? Well, Facebook's interesting because they've changed their policy, obviously, because before I couldn't say anything, it had come up with a note. And I have in the past had blocks from both Facebook and from Twitter. And I've also had apologies from both. I've done my best, because I don't think I ever say anything that is inappropriate or improper. That still doesn't prevent you being censored today. But twice, once with Facebook and once with Twitter, I've managed to get an apology out of them and been reinstated. So this is very disturbing stuff. And we're talking about this small number of injuries that are being acknowledged are about these brain thrombosis, the VITT thrombosis, which is an extremely rare condition, to quote an Oxford medic friend of mine. You know, rare as hen's teeth, hardly affects anyone. But it seems that thrombosis more generally, DVT and pulmonary embolism, and other things like myocarditis are comparatively common, and the re-ignition of possibly dormant cancers, which Professor Angus Dalgleish has been talking about at great length. And these are subjects which should be debated freely. I mean, when you see Andrew Bridgen in the House of Commons talking about excess deaths and he's almost talking to an empty Commons chamber. Albeit you can hear some fairly vociferous shouting coming from or cheering coming from the gallery, which the Speaker or the Assistant Speaker tried to close down, but that is a bit worrying. What has happened to British democracy? What has happened to our birth right of free speech? I mean, it isn't what it used to be. In fact, not only is it not what it used to be, on many subjects, we are not free to speak anymore. Not just the ones I discussed, there are all sorts of other things which might fall within the boundaries of PC and woke, which you simply can't talk about. You might even get prosecuted in some circumstances. I mean, we're living in some sort of mad upside down world at the moment. We've watched in Scotland the SNP collapsing, not least because of some of their very wacky legislation, which has also been enormously expensive. Meantime, I'm of the opinion, and I'm not particularly right wing, but I am of the opinion that ordinary people, sometimes they just want to see the potholes mended. You know, they don't want this sort of bit of PC legislation or another. There are far greater national priorities. And I'm not saying that there aren't small groups in society that haven't been badly treated in the past. They have. I can see that. and there has been real prejudice. But I think we have very immediate problems now. And they were all exacerbated by the COVID calamity and the government's reaction to it. I mean, I'm not afraid to say, did we really do the right thing? Should we have locked down? Should we have gone ahead with the vaccines? Or would it have made more sense to have given everybody in Britain a supply of vitamin C and vitamin D and maybe just vaccinated some people? But we don't talk about these things openly. It's a very controlled environment. And I was talking to a close friend of mine who's across the water in Northern Ireland and who's a very wise and sensible guy and involved in quite a lot of official stuff there. And I said to him, what is it? What is going on now? And he said, well, if I was to sum it up simply, Michael, I'd say that I don't feel free anymore. Well, I don't feel particularly free anymore. Peter, do you feel particularly free anymore? Have you sensed a change in the last 25 years, 20 years? Certainly in the last 10 years, I have. Well, I've certainly sensed a change, and I think that some of us actually want to speak what we believe is true, in spite of what happens, and other people cower away. And I always wonder why some of us accepted the COVID narrative and some didn't. And I mean, in the UK, I've been intrigued with the, I guess, few high profile people who are willing to talk. So you've got Andrew Bridgen in politics, but in the U.S. you've got many politicians. Or in the U.K. you've got Professor Dalgleish, on with us a few weeks ago. In the U.S. you've got much higher profile people like Dr. McCullough or Dr. Malone. And even with the statisticians, you've got Professor Norman Fenton doing the stats. But in the U.S. you've got people like Steve Kirsch who are very high profile. And I'm kind of intrigued at why in the US, those who are opposing the narrative maybe get more free reign, but are lauded more, I think. And those in the UK seem to be really pushing up a brick wall every time. I don't know if you've seen that as well. Of course I have seen that, yes. And in some senses, the US is freer than the UK, and they do have a First Amendment, which means a bit. There is a lot of, America's a strange society and I went to school there so I know it quite well and although America is free on paper and although they do have a first amendment traditionally there has been something of a tyranny of public opinion, but the people that have spoken out, as far as the vaccine is concerned, and indeed about the war in Ukraine. And I think often they're saying the wrong thing on that, but we can come on to that later. But those people have been speaking out in a way that we haven't really seen in the UK, sadly. And you have to ask, what is going on? Why is that? I heard a comment by Ahmed Malik the other day. Do you know how many doctors there are in the UK, qualified medical doctors? I was stunned when I discovered how many, but I believe it's about 300,000. And I think it's something like 75,000 GPs, which is quite a lot. But do you know how many doctors have spoken up and gone counter-narrative? I believe the correct number is 10. I mean, that is extraordinary, isn't it? 10. And I mean, just from our own experience of social media. It's very, very few. And those doctors who risk it, risk everything. They risk being cancelled. They're on comfortable livings. They're on £100,000 a year plus in most cases, sometimes quite a lot more than that. If they speak out, they risk being struck off. They risk losing a comfortable lifestyle, the mortgage, possibly the family and whatever. And the result that hardly any at all have spoken out. But what we can assume is that there are many, like one particular friend I'm thinking of, who are very sceptical of what's been happening, very sceptical of the way the vaccine was launched, the lack of testing, all this stuff that we might draw attention to. And they're not necessarily anti-vaxxers. They're just people that are normally sceptical. But it seems that we're not allowed to be normally sceptical anymore. You have to follow this big state, Big Brother, 1984 line or watch out. And that really does disturb me. And I was listening, as I said, just before we came on with this program to a BBC thing on censorship, where the BBC is chastising the Russians and the Iranians, and, all sorts, the Chinese and talking about the billions that the Russians and the Chinese spread on info spend on information now, which they do. And much of it is mis and disinformation, but they do not talk about their own authoritarianism. And how they limited discussion on anything to do with COVID and indeed on the Ukraine war. And my own position, I'll just interject very briefly. I mean, I think that, Putin has to be stopped and I'm fully with the Ukraine people in what they're doing. But it's also a fact that Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, arguably more corrupt than Russia. And if we're giving them billions and billions and lots of military materiel, some of that is going to go missing. Some of that's going to go to the wrong places. And we never really discuss that. And it's not a particularly democratic place. And it's also the case that we probably pushed it politically in a particular direction because it was to our strategic interest, which is probably the right thing to do. But we can't discuss any of this anymore. And that does disturb me. Open discussion, open intellectual discussion on military matters, on health matters is becoming more and more difficult. And that's not a healthy sign, Peter. It certainly is. And actually, it's intriguing because my line would be, actually, these are, when I was younger, it would be interventionist. No, actually, it's, well, it's a separate country. They can do what they want. And if they want to have a war, they can have a war. But talking to people who have been very supportive, maybe more of the Ukraine side, talking to Krzysztof Bosak, MP in Poland yesterday. Yesterday and he was saying that Poland have given so much actually now Poland have very little to defend themselves and you look at the UK military, we didn't have much before and now it seems that we're short of munitions, short of many items and it seems that the west have poured so much into this without thinking of how to defend themselves. I mean, you understand the military side. What are your thoughts on that? Well, my thoughts at the moment, and it's been something I've been thinking about a lot recently, is that Britain is hopelessly under-defended. Our army is probably half the size it needs to be. Our navy is incapable of undertaking independent operations. It's probably just generally incapable. I think we're down to tiny numbers of jet fighters, tiny numbers of main asset ships. And we're saying, we're being told the army's around 72,000, something like that now. I think in real terms, it's actually smaller than that. And it's not big enough to meet the threat. And what's quite clear from what's going on in Ukraine is that you have to have a supply of ammunition, of missiles, of men. And this is worrying because if they came to a global conflict, it would go nuclear very quickly now, if it did go nuclear, because would our politicians actually ultimately press the button or not? I don't know. But it would have to go nuclear or something because we don't have the conventional resources. You know, they're just not there anymore. And most people have no idea of this. They have no experience of the military. But I would say that, they're talking about increasing defence spending to, you know, something under 3%. I would say that our defence spending at the moment should be probably at least 5% and maybe quite a lot more than that. This is a very, very unstable period in the history of the world. And we are not ready to meet the threat that exists. And of course, the Russians, I mean, they're routinely saying on their media that they're going to sink, you know, they'd sink Britain. They talk about sinking Britain specifically. And I don't think that they could do that. I don't think they would act on that. But we are incredibly vulnerable. We are essentially one big, you know, landing strip and It's not a good situation at all. And most people just block it. It's not that they're not worried about it, but they don't want to be worried about it. It's just one thing more and too much to think about. And they don't have any experience of the military anyway. But we're now looking to Ukraine and we're wondering, will the Ukrainians manage to hold off the Russians before the increased aid reaches them? I don't know. I don't know. No, I think the situation is not as positive for the Russians as some people might think. They do have problems. They can act at a small level. They can act operationally, but they can't necessarily act strategically. They don't have the resources to that, but they are building up resources. And I think something like, is it 30 or 40% of their available national resources are now going into defence, which is a remarkable figure. Now, they've lost a lot of men. we don't know really how many people have died in the Ukraine. It's certainly tens of thousands and maybe into the hundreds of thousands. It's a meat grinder. And the Russians, of course, just threw all their troops into this sort of first world war-like encounter. And they didn't really care about losses initially. It's not the Russian style, but also they were throwing people who'd been recruited from prisons, Pezhorin, the Wagner group, you know, many of those people were sacrificed, and I don't think anyone really cared about them in Russia very much. A dreadful situation. We won't go into the ethics and morality of that. Pretty scary, though. They will want to try and overwhelm those Ukrainian lines, and it's a huge front line. I mean, we're talking a front line, I think it's extending over a thousand kilometres or something. It's massive. They will try and overwhelm that line, and probably with the help of US and our own intelligence and a few other things, they'll probably stem the tide. But it's a 50-50. It's by no means a given. And that is worrying, because what would happen then? What would happen to the Poles? What indeed would happen to us? So yeah, good question. I was, it was fun watching the response from NATO members to Trump's call for them to actually pay the bills. Because I think it was, I remember watching Desert Storm and being just, consumed by it I guess as a young teenager and you've got the cameras following it all, now we come to whenever Britain sent tornadoes supposedly to help Israel and we were just told that's what happened, there was very little independent reporting, who knows if it happened or not. I think it was probably, it hit me, the reduction size of our military, whenever we bought, it was 67 apache attack helicopters, I think 67, wow, what are we going to do with those, I mean, half of them won't work half the time if they're in the desert with sand in their engines. But you realize that if the West do not have a strong military, then that deterrent basically is removed. And it means that other countries like Russia, who will spend more in defence, actually think, well, we can do what we like. They can do what they like because the West just aren't, one, aren't able to intervene, I guess, because of weakness in leadership, which we see in the EU, the US, Europe and in the UK, but also because of lack of military firepower. And I guess that's just a changing of the guard from the power of the West over to other centres of power. Well, I think the strategic implications of the weakness and the perceived weakness of our leadership are big. And, you know, that is in looking from Moscow. I mean, the farce we've seen in Westminster in recent years must be very encouraging to you where, you know, they have the strong, the classic Soviet era and now Russian era strongman. Putin is developing this aura as the strong man, which is a popular one in Russia. He has complete dominance of his home media, so he manages to mislead people as to what's actually going on elsewhere as well. He's looking for an external foe, an external threat, a long-time ploy of any authoritarian leader trying to make sure he stays in power. And of course, Putin doesn't have much choice, does he? If he doesn't succeed in staying in power, he's got a very scary future ahead of him. So that's another intriguing issue. The only good thing I would say, and this is, I don't think I'd like to fight the Poles or indeed the Ukrainians. They're both very, very tough nations. But where this now leads, and this is another critical question, we don't really know what's going on. When this conflict started, and I was a reporter in Lebanon, for Time, I was a photojournalist for Time in the Lebanon and we were sending stuff back that was really from the front line and it was really interesting and people, what I noticed when I went there, intriguingly to Lebanon in the 80s, was I was familiar with it all because i'd seen it all on the evening news. But I wasn't familiar with the feeling and the smell. Now, I can't say that with Ukraine, because for most of this conflict, I didn't know, and most people didn't know what the hell was going on. The quality of the reporting, I thought, was very, very poor. I've seen some better reporting since, but generally, I thought the reporting initially was awful. And there was also a tremendous amount of pro-war propaganda. I know somebody who went to the theatre in London and apparently, you know, when it came to the intermission or something, a huge Ukrainian flag came down and the whole audience were expected to cheer as we're all expected to cheer for the NHS or for all the vaccine stuff. I'm just temperamentally opposed to that sort of control, that sort of psychological manipulation. It concerns me that people should be made to support anything unthinkingly and that seems to be what's happening now and you've got Facebook for example, I mean they were at one stage I think advertising how they could turn opinion to potential advertisers and we've seen all the Cambridge Analytica stuff, we're incredibly vulnerable now to all this online stuff and the thing that bothers me if I go back to Twitter where I have something of a presence, is I can't really tell my stuff now because nobody sees it, there is some sort of censorship algorithm or something in place. I've got 77 000 followers there allegedly, I don't know how many of them are bots but sometimes it's clear that hardly anybody sees something that I put out particularly if it concerns the vaccines or if I'm making critical comment about Mr Putin. I think I blocked 2000 odd, what I thought were probably Russian accounts. But ironically, I'm actually getting taken down myself sometimes by the Twitter algorithms. I don't know who's controlling them. I don't know if they're controlled by Twitter Central or they're controlled somewhere else. But hey, I hope so. I think I'm one of the good guys. But you're not allowed to be a good guy. You've got to be a black and white guy now. That's the thing I think you see on social media, which is also meantime, in a very unhealthy way, polarizing people. It encourages the extremes. You can't be a traditional conservative very easily. You can't be a moderate very easily or a classical liberal very easily. You've got to go to one pole or the other pole. I think that's just very unhealthy. It's unhealthy apart from anything else as far as intellectual debate's concerned. Let me pick up on that with where we fit in and the ability to, I guess, speak your mind and have a position where you put your country first, which I thought was always a normal position, but now supposedly is an extremist position. But how, I mean, I'm curious watching what's happening in Europe which is me slightly separate, the European parliamentary elections and the wave of putting nations first and it's called nationalism. I think it's putting your country first which actually should be what a nation is about and the second thing is your neighbour and those around you, but we haven't really seen that in the UK. I mean do you think that will be a change of how your because Europe is really a declining force in the world, not only economically, but militarily. And of course, we haven't made the best of leaving the EU at all. We've cocked up big time on that. But then you look across to Europe and it is a declining power. And I'm wondering whether this new change, this opposition to unfair immigration. Opposition to control, central control from Brussels, wanting to put the nations first, whether that actually will be a change in Europe's fortunes. Bring me back to central control. But before we say anything else, just look at Norway. They had the wonderful resource of their oil reserves, and they spent it well. They created a sovereign national fund. And I think it means that everyone in Norway's got half a million quid or something like that. We, on the other hand, have squandered our national resources. And the country appears to be in tatters at the moment, and they can't even mend the potholes. Going to this business of Europe and the decline, yes, it's worrying that, Europe almost is losing the will to defend itself, or it seems to. But beyond that, if you look at Brexit, I mean, I was a Brexiteer, and I was a Brexiteer who could see some of the economic arguments for Remain. So again, I had a nuanced position on it. But overall, I wanted to preserve British sovereignty and democracy, and I thought it was disgraceful that we should be turning over that to some body in Brussels. But what we didn't realize, those of us who were pushing for Brexit, that the real threat wasn't Brussels, but the real threat probably was some globalist entity that we didn't even understand. And nobody was really much talking about globalism at that point. They weren't talking about Davos and all that sort of stuff. They were talking about the threat from Brussels but what we've seen since Brexit I think is an even greater threat from, I think what that Greek ex-foreign minister calls techno feudalism and the sort of, the onward march of somewhat Marxist influenced, capitalism facilitated by the whole digital deal, And you have WEF stuff where, you'll own nothing and you'll be happy, although they're withdrawing from that comment now. But who are these people? Did we elect them? We had a sort of interest in the people in Brussels, sort of, but as far as these globalist characters are concerned, they have no democratic mandate whatsoever. And that is pretty scary. Their only mandate is enormous wealth and a sort of arrogance that they know best for us, the peons, what our future should be. I do find that a bit terrifying, but I also, this is where it gets interesting, Peter, because I see where it came from. If you look at the era after the Second World War, the Americans and us, we were very worried about Soviet influencing operations. So we started to do stuff. And one of the things, the European community was perhaps one of those things, NATO was the most obvious, but there were also all sorts of influencing operations to counter the then very common, prolific, and increasingly dangerous Soviet influencing operations directed at Europe, directed at Latin America. So, for example, at Harvard, and I found this out from reading a biography of Henry Kissinger recently. At Harvard in the early 50s, they were running young leaders courses for foreign influencers. And it looked very much like the same sort of deal that the WEF was doing with everyone's Trudeau et al. They've all been a WEF young leader. Now, I would guess that that comes, that WEF stuff probably comes from Harvard or something like that via the State Department pushing into academia and then creating the WEF, maybe or having a hand in it as an influencing op. But this is where it gets really interesting. Has somebody penetrated that influencing op? Has it been turned? Whose interests does it actually operate in now? We know big money. Yeah, big money. But is it really in our individual interest as citizens of these countries and as customers of these massive corporations that seek to influence so much now and trespass onto the realm of politics and social engineering? By what right? You know, what happened to democracy? Aren't we meant to be deciding what's going on in our country, what our values are? It seems not. Democracy seems less important, I mean you look at Andrew Bridgen lecturing to an almost empty House of Commons on excess deaths and you think what on earth is going on there, what is this? I don't get it and I don't get why there is not free discussion on many other subjects in parliament now and it disturbs me. We developed this system, it's a pretty good system with faults as Churchill said, the problem with it is more the case that all the other systems are worse. And I think that's probably true. I mean, I'm a believer in democracy, but our democracy is in a pretty bad way. And it's not just our democracy, all over the Western world. We seem to have rolled over. And I do wonder to what extent the Russians, the Chinese and others have deliberately undermined us, captured our institutions, maybe captured our media. You know, these are things that one isn't allowed to say normally, but I'm saying them now. I mean, to what extent have we been captured and who by? If you saw the Yuri Bezmenov film from the 70s and 80s, have you seen that? Oh, you must, Yuri Bezmenov, about subversion and the long-term KGB operations to subvert the West. Very interesting, and it all seems to have come true. Yuri Bezmenov, you'll find it on YouTube. Yeah. What has happened to us? Our society is almost unrecognizable. Go back 20 years. I mean, think of the restrictions on driving in London, on smoking, let alone lockdown and vaccines, and thou shalt do this, and you must do that, and if you don't, we'll fine you, and you've got no power at all, and we've got complete control over your life, and it's a 200-pound fine for this and for whatever. We are so controlled and put down now. And again, I have an interesting theory and I don't get the chance to talk about it much, but I wonder if when you see a lot of crime and you see a lot of crime, particularly amongst young people, and you see a lot of strange, violent crime, I wonder if that is a consequence of too much central control. I wonder if that's a psychological and sociological consequence of a society which is becoming too controlled. And that's a subject I never hear discussed, but it's a very interesting one because I think a lot of us are concerned about crime, street crime, you know, mad people on the roads, which you see, I noticed personally, a lot more crazy driving than I was aware of maybe five or 10 years ago. But we don't discuss this stuff. We don't discuss the fact that the average person isn't really very happy now, that the average kid, this does get discussed a bit, is very anxious, maybe having treatment for this or that sort of psychological problem, that what used to be the normal tribulations of life now become things that you need to seek out treatment for. Well, maybe what you really need to do is seek out treatment for your society because your society is creating people that just aren't happy. And we should explore that. But again, that's another big subject. Well, I've been intrigued talking to friends growing up behind the Iron Curtain and talking about the Stasi or the state police reporting on people, turning everyone into informers, and then having Xi Van Fleet on the other day. And she was talking about the Red Guards, who were Mao's army, in effect, in communist China. And you realize that control whenever individuals are called out by the media because they go against the narrative. We've seen that under the COVID tyranny or seen that when Andrew Bridgen spoke the last time, the leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, warned him to be very careful of the dangerous language he is using on social media. She meant that he is saying something which is different than government, and that's not accepted. And in effect, it's the same, I guess, control as you saw under communism that we are now seeing here, where people are called out for having a different opinion and being threatened that if they continue, there will be consequences. Would you have seen that sort of control 50 years ago or before the Second World War? I mean, you know, I'm no communist, but there used to be communist members of parliament. There used to be an extremely wide range of opinion represented in parliament. Now it seems we're entering the age of the monoculture and the mono-party, and alternative opinions just aren't acceptable anymore. There is one canonized text, and you've got to repeat that mantra, and if not, you're a non-person. I mean, where did that come from? That isn't our tradition. But is that the push of the woke agenda, is it the decline of Christianity, is it weak leadership, I mean you kind of look and I want to understand where this is coming from, because if you understand where it's coming from then you can begin to tackle it. But it does seem to be many different facets of it from different angles. I think, was it GK Chesterton 'once we stop believing in anything, we'll start believing in everything' I think that is part of it, I think people don't believe in very much so they just believe in their own selfish bubble and materialism and I think this actually goes back to Oxford, I think there is actually some school of philosophy that encouraged this idea that as the old authorities declined, whether that was the the monarchy or whatever it might be, a faith in authority that you would have to find a new way of controlling the public and that the simplest way to do that was by their material self-interest and this is what Thatcher and Reagan essentially appeared to do, well actually looking back at Reagan now I actually think he said some very sensible stuff, but it appears that we were manipulated by our material desires. That replaced the old world. But it's meant that we're living in a rather scary, chaotic, morally upside down and confused world now. And it's certainly not the world that you and I remember. And it must be very scary for kids. I mean, I was speaking to a young person the other day, and I was really surprised because they told me that they didn't watch the news and they were a bright kid. And they said, well, why? They said, well, I don't want to. I don't want to have anything to do with it. And I don't want to have anything to do with history either. And I thought to myself, my God, if you have a young person who was soon to be a voting age, who's not watching any news, who doesn't want to have anything to do with history, how are they going to be able to make the right decisions for our future? And what sort of world are they living in? You know, where's their thought space now? Yeah, I thought that was very worrying. But that's, I mean, to finish on that, that's really just part of the information war because now young people get, I don't know how to define young people, but they get their information, their worldview from TikTok. So you've got the Chinese government actually pushing that and forcing that. And it is concerning whenever, from a 60 second video someone can decide what the world is and how they fit into it and that's the depth of knowledge they're going to find and I think that shallowness is where we are with the next generation coming. Yeah I mean I've got to hope that there's some young people that aren't as shallow as that and I certainly do talk to to some who aren't, I mean I've got kids of my own, four kids, and generally speaking, they're pretty switched on. We don't have the same views, generally speaking, but they're pretty switched on. But it is scary that there's a whole generation of young people that, I mean, you see them, you wander down the street, you see every kid has got, there they are, they've got the mobile phone and they're like zombies looking at the mobile phone. And it's not just kids for that matter. It's, you see middle-aged people doing the same thing. You see them sitting at tables in a restaurant and they're still tapping at the screen. Whoever controls this controls you, controls your mind, controls what you think are your opinions, because many of your opinions are not really your opinions. They're things that have been implanted in you by these massively influential modern means. Now, television always did that to a degree. The newspapers always did it to a degree. But this seems to be a more direct route into people's heads, particularly young people's heads. And that is genuinely disturbing. Now, if you look to Europe, you mentioned Europe earlier. If you look at Europe, it seems to be swaying to the right. My guess is that, Britain will probably sway to the left until maybe there's a failure of the Starmer dream after probably, they might run for two terms. And then our future is very uncertain and again, rather scary. But what I don't see is enough discussion, enough activity. I don't see a dynamic middle. Hopefully, I mean, very intriguing, isn't it? Who is Starmer? What does he represent? Is he a Blairite? So is that some sort of globalist, centrist, capitalized position? I don't know. I tend to think it is. I tend to think that's where it's coming from. It's not the traditional left. But of course, Starmer has some history of being on the left, not to a great extreme. But it is worrying that the left could still creep into power via Starmer's government. It's also a bit frightening, and am I saying this, that what happens if Starmer's government fails? I mean, as it probably will. The economics are against it. Britain is not looking in a good place at all. But what I think we need, the one thing that will save us is open discussion, proper, unfettered, open discussion about politics, about health, about philosophy, about everything else. And I try in my life in a small way to start those conversations with people. And I do it across politics. I do it across religion. I talk to almost everyone I meet, if I can, and I think I get away with it, and start bringing up some of these difficult subjects. Mike, I really do appreciate coming on. As I said at the beginning, I've really enjoyed your Twitter handle. And I know we've touched on many things on censorship, military and politics. And I'm sure we will have you back on again soon. So thank you so much for your time today. Well, I've really enjoyed the opportunity. And I'll just say this in conclusion. I've actually managed this. I've had the tinnitus and this terrible migraine all through the interview, but we got through it, which is great. I do say to people out there, do take seriously the people who tell you they've been vaccine injured because it's a big deal if you have. God bless you Peter.

"You are not prepared for what is to come." The boys dive deep into the sands of Arrakis, discussing the old and the new in Dune: Part Two. Ky feels the sand on his face, Ev obsesses over unconventional instruments, and Al hits us with his best Loire Cutler impression. Ev's score: 9.7 / Al's score: 9.7 / Ky's score: 9.4 Musical term: Double Harmonic Major Scale Instrumental Instrument: Duduk If you like what you hear, follow us on Spotify and opt-in to get notified when we drop future episodes. Better yet, get in touch and keep up with our score-settling antics on TikTok or Instagram 00:00 Kicking Off with a Banshee Cry 00:12 Hoverboard Sandworms and TikTok Trends 01:07 Diving Deep into Dune Part Two 02:12 Skipping the Intro Course: Advanced Dune Only 04:22 The Power of Pure Image and Sound 04:54 Drafting the Top Shots of Dune 12:56 The Unique Soundscape of Dune 28:21 Hans Zimmer's quest for love 34:48 Final Thoughts and Scores

We finally hit 10,000 subscribers

We dive into Team USA's weekend and the non-stop Harden vs Wade dialogue.

Slow NBA News day so we poke around the NBA Top Shot landscape.

Rudy throws a jab, Mavs tank, and the playoffs are set...sorta

Lakers fall to the clips. Bucks secure the 1. The West stays wild!

Incredible Kings/Bucks matchup. Celtics are flailing. And Hope in the Sorare streets for Game Week 41

A securities lawsuit against Dapper Labs can move forward after a federal judge said NBA Top Shot Moments NFTs satisfy the legal requirements to be considered securities. The decision is a narrow one written to apply only to NBA Top Shot Moments. The judge cited the company's control over Top Shots after they are sold, as well as specific tweets promoting the NFTs in his court filing that used emojis to suggest the assets would gain value.Guest: John Deaton, Managing Partner of The Deaton Law FirmCongress writes the laws that regulators (like the SEC) have to follow. It has never been more important for digital asset holders in the U.S. to make themselves heard.Connect To Congress ➜ https://bit.ly/CongressConect

Thread Guy is the Director of Vibes at Jenkins the Valet and a NFT Content Creator. He was first introduced to NFTs through Top Shots towards the end of 2020. After dabbling in NFTs for about a year he started the Thread guy Twitter account in August 2021 and has grown it to over 120,000 followers while becoming one of the go-to influencers in many of the NFT communities, while pioneering the idea of what a Director of Vibes may be.|Thread Guy|• Twitter → https://twitter.com/notthreadguy• Website → https://www.twitch.tv/threadguy|CONNECT WITH JAKE|• Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/jakegallen/• Twitter → https://twitter.com/jakegallen_• Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/JakeNGallen• Linkedin →  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-gall...|FOLLOW AND SUBSCRIBE THE PODCAST|• Website → https://www.jakegallen.com/• Youtube → Subscribe to this page• Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...• Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/7hQdRAz...• Google Podcasts → https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR...• RSS Feed → https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1005154.rss• Website → https://solo.to/theguestlistpod• Media Host → https://theguestlistpod.buzzsprout.com/

In today's episode, we're joined by an unstoppable woman in the Web3 space, Jayne Peressini. With a career spanning the beginning of mobile gaming to currently leading some of the biggest projects in Web3. Jayne has successfully executed career-defining problem-solving at Reddit (launching new revenue streams when there was no revenue), to DraftKings (becoming the #1 sportsbook in the US), and now as General Manager of the largest Web3 project to date (NBA and WNBA Top Shot).In the episode, Jayne shares how she has been advising and pioneering for many projects such as Crypto Kitties, Top Shots, and WNBA. She also sheds light on the authentic engagement and genuineness of working together towards common goals that come with Web3.Jayne has impressive time-blocking and escapism strategies that she lays out on coping and moving through her mental health journey as well.During the episode, she also sheds light on transparency about decision-making in regards to community, running a business in the web3 space, as well as considering IRL and NFT sport fans. Jayne advises on the importance of marketing as an investment and leveraging data as a marketing and advertising tool. Making sure that you're focused on the right types of users and as a fast sustainable growth model. We wrap up with Jayne's thoughts about moving away from tech talk and focusing on true online communities and experience use cases when onboarding new people to Web3. As well as decentralized storytelling, empowering the community to tell the project's story.Resources:Have a question, comment, or guest suggestion? Fill out this formFollow Ashley “Bored Becky” on Twitter Follow Danielle “NFTIgnition” on TwitterFollow Cara “LadyC” on Twitter Follow Jayne on Twitter Follow Jayne  LinkedIn 

This month, the duo kick things off with a recap of Jessie's recent win in the rain-soaked and muddy conditions at the Pan American Championships in central Florida. They also share insight into their training approach for upcoming matches as well as give us some updated intel on what's happening behind-the-scenes at Taurus.  Last but certainly not least, they welcome special guest and recent National Champion Michelle Viscusi. Michelle is a pro shooter, U.S. military veteran and has appeared as Wraith in Call of Duty® and on Top Shots, the History Channel's popular marksman competition series. She also happens to be one of Jessie's very best friends, so you know this episode is going to be jam-packed with exclusive content you won't hear anywhere else.

"I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I respect the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place." - Maya Angelou. Let's take a look back from the end of 2020 with the launch of Top Shots to the start of 2021 with Beeple 69mil sale at Christie's to the launch of BAYC and Veefriends in May, which led into a summer of Opensea doubling in secondary trade volume and the launch of some of our favorite projects like Lazy Lions, CryptoChicks and many more. It's also fun to throw in some of the journeys we have had with this podcast going to NYC on Nov 1st, launching the podcast and Mint 365 on Nov 11th to dropping our NFTs on Dec 12th. Yes, a lot has happened in the last 18 months, but truthfully the other way to look at it is most of these projects, tools, and communities are just now celebrating their first birthday so the next time you hear someone say you are still early... Remember how right they are as now hopefully you have a better understanding of the past so together, we can build a better future together! Don't miss the 2nd Nifty Gateway AI Art Drop happening Oct 7th at 11:11am here: https://www.niftygateway.com/collections/mint365timecapsules3 ______________________________________________________________ Learn more about the NFT365 Podcast

Plongez dans l'univers des NFT, grâce à une étude sur l'efficience du marché des "Top Shots" de la NBA. Vous êtes novice et ne comprenez rien ? Pas de soucis, je vous explique tout.

Pre-show Support the show by providing some inbound liquidity to our lightning node 02cbf971eb8b827099f3eae47ab2a7d8174fbfaef6a1357115ab7d81a545f6c900@2nkaxx55mc6mh4vdwh3eygtyt2hjyxh3vm7ge5lq5ryy2exvt2hdijyd.onion:9735 Welcome to the Bear Market If bitcoin is dead...why is the federal reserve doubling down on their FedNow (https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/feds-powell-us-digital-dollar-could-help-maintain-international-primacy-2022-06-17/) CBDC bitcoin clone? Hilarious video (https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/prepare-for-fednow/watch-get-ready-fednow-video) touting its benefits The US White House is also doubling down on CBDCs (https://www.meritalk.com/articles/white-house-placing-urgency-on-cbdc-research/) Centralized solutions enable MORE monetary policy, not less, delaying the debt crisis (https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/feds-powell-us-digital-dollar-could-help-maintain-international-primacy-2022-06-17/) Reading list for the Bear Market Mastering Bitcoin (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Programming-Open-Blockchain/dp/1491954388/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mastering+bitcoin+antonopoulos&qid=1655709032&s=books&sprefix=mastering+bit%2Cstripbooks%2C182&sr=1-1) by Andreas Antonopolus Programing Bitcoin (https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Bitcoin-Learn-Program-Scratch/dp/1492031496) by Jimmy Song Grokking Bitcoin (https://www.amazon.com/Grokking-Bitcoin-Kalle-Rosenbaum/dp/1617294640/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=grokking+bitcoin&qid=1655709080&s=books&sprefix=grokking+bit%2Cstripbooks%2C170&sr=1-1) is less technical, more like a comic A hands on course for using a bitcoin node (https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/Learning-Bitcoin-from-the-Command-Line/blob/master/01_0_Introduction.md) from the command line News Congressional Research Service releases a paper describing current stablecoin regulatory frameworks (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10753) and a followup that outlines the regulatory options (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10754) Jack Mallers gives a great interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpKa1fzEKr4) with Business Insider and they don't publish it Great response to every piece of FUD thrown at bitcoin, train up for no-coiner debates Economics Lyn Alden details the European Central Bank's monetary trap (https://www.lynalden.com/ecb-trapped/) The Federal Reserve's Plan was a recession all along (https://wolfstreet.com/2022/06/15/fed-stops-dillydallying-so-ok-maybe-no-softish-landing-markets-on-their-own/) Cisco is a tech canary, when they freeze hiring (https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/16/cisco_dials_back_on_hiring/) it's a red flag Tokenomics Celsius network halts withdrawls, appears insolvent (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/celsius-halts-bitcoin-withdrawals-what-went-wrong) and poised to take down other stealth crypto hedgefunds and lenders like 3ac (https://nitter.net/Danny8BC/status/1537224378554806272#m) Who could have known that the NBA would create huge numbers of NFTs (https://www.theverge.com/23153620/nba-top-shot-nft-bored-ape-yacht-club) to satsify demand for Top Shots, tanking their price? Lyn's post-mortem of the vurrent crypto crash (https://www.lynalden.com/digital-alchemy/) is also required reading to undrestand why all the alts go down and how that doesn't affect bitcoin's value proposition Arthur Hayes latest blog post (https://blog.bitmex.com/floaters/) is a mix of failed predictions and an attempt to pump his DEX bags Privacy DuckDuckGo searches seem to be plateauing (https://searchengineland.com/duckduckgo-drops-below-100-million-searches-per-day-385835), might just be a blip but demand for privacy seems to be a persistent issue Bitcoin Education A list of bitcoin privacy proposals (https://sethforprivacy.com/posts/proposed-bitcoin-privacy-improvements/) by Seth for Privacy Certified Bitcoin Professional test (https://cryptoconsortium.org/certifications/) Bolt Hackathon tutorials (https://www.youtube.com/c/bolt-fun) on youtube if you want to get started building on lightning Feedback Remember to get in touch bitcoindadpod@protonmail.com or @bitcoindadpod on twitter Consider joining the matrix channel (https://matrix.to/#/#bitcoin:jupiterbroadcasting.com) using a matrix client like element (https://element.io/get-started) Corrections None today! Value for Value Podcasting 2.0 to support an indepenent podcasting ecosystem (https://podcastindex.org/) The Fountain (https://www.fountain.fm/) podcast app Sponsors and Acknowledgements Music by Lesfm from Pixabay Self Hosted Show (https://selfhosted.show/) courtesy of Jupiter Broadcasting (https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/)

Ridhima Ahuja Kahn is the VP of Business Development at Dapper Labs. Her focus is helping build meaningful partnerships with the world's top IPs, creators, and social media platforms as they look to build blockchain-based experiences.Prior to Dapper Labs, she was a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) where she focused on sports, social, media & entertainment, collectibles (both in digital & physical), hospitality/travel and food.She has also spent time on the investment teams at the Hewlett Foundation & Grovenor Capital Management.- Tell me about how you shifted into this role at Dapper Labs and was the inspiration behind TopShot birthed at Dapper or was your sports background the impetus to this idea?- What does fandom look like in metaverse ? What does TopShot and Cryptokitties experiences look like there? And do you think experiences are the magic of an NFT and your utility? What do experiences look like in the Metaverse?- Flow blockchain technology is unique to Dapper, reducing the friction of Web 2 native users and Web 3 adventurers, do you think this shift in creating your own blockchain has been part of the the secret sauce for Dapper Labs?- Digital Fashion will likely see a ton of growth due to the concept of wearables and shopping in the Metaverse: Luxury brands will soar to the top fast bc of virtue signaling and the marketing machine they are built on. Can Dapper help creators or smaller brands with NFTs for this use case?- Because we are also an education platform on Culture Factor, can you define DAO  and is Dapper getting involved in the DAO space?- And what would a brainstorming session at Dapper look like in terms of iterating on best use cases, verticals or simply coming up with experiences?Ridhima Ahuja Kahn of Dapper LabsHolly Shannon's WebsiteZero To Podcast on AmazonHolly Shannon, LinkedinHolly Shannon, InstagramHolly Shannon, Clubhousehttps://youtu.be/PKCND4FqGLc#dapper, #metaverse, #blockchain, #creators, #digital, #flow, #create, #labs, #web3, #community, #physical, fashion, #technology, #experience, #nft, #brands 

Herzlich willkommen im Seniorenheim der Liga! Euer Lieblingsformat Top Shots ist zurück und jetzt, wo wir alle Positionen ausgeschöpft haben, wird es etwas spezieller. Sind wir doch ehrlich mit uns! Wir alle gehen auf die 40 zu und denken, das Leben ist bald vorbei. Aber mit 35 fängt das Leben doch gerade erst an, besonders wenn wir unsere Top 10 so betrachten! Also viel Spaß! Wir freuen uns auf euer Feedback ❤️ Musik von Ju von Dölzschen, checkt ihr hier: https://instagram.com/ju.von.doelzschen?utm_medium=copy_link Phillie Fiffla auf Twitch: Schau mit mir philliefiffla auf Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/philliefiffla?sr=a

Selling Digital Assets NFTs (non-fungible tokens) Is No Longer A Discruptive Branding Strategy But Is Now Common Marketplace Strategy What is happening in the digital and Defi world can no longer be ignored. It must be embraced and understood if a company want to keep up with the Jones' in their field. We are on the foothill of a new era. One that meshes our activities and contact into a singular stream of virtual reality. In 2008, the possibility of holding digital currency came into existence with Bitcoin. Once a concept that was held by an extremely niche community— is now a global norm. The most forward-thinking companies must be quick to adapt. First was the extinction of brick and mortar stores to e-commerce. Now, companies are acknowledging the utility of owning digital assets. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have become a part of the most disruptive branding strategies. These include shoe giant Nike, patenting their own collection of NFT sneakers, and Top Shots by the NBA. Entertainment, fashion, even real estate can leverage opportunities in the NFT realm to create value. What does this mean for the general population?

Thread Guy is a booming NFT Influencer on Twitter. This conversation is the first time he's ever revealed his true identity. Mike, began his NFT journey during the winter of 2020, simply from buying some Top Shots. Little did he know this would catapult him into the spotlight and becoming the "Thread Guy" on Twitter, posting almost 150 tweets PER DAY.|ThreadGuy|Twitter|JakeGallen|InstagramTwitterFacebookLinkedin|LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE to the platform of your choice|-Apple Podcasts-Spotify-Google Podcasts-Amazon Podcasts-Youtube (VIDEO RECORDING)

Second Week of 2022 ------

Jonny Fry is joined by James Tylee to discuss this weeks Digital Bytes newsletter featuring special guest: Nicholas Fitzpatrick, partner at DLA Piper. We Discuss: WhatsApp to offer digital payments - so is Facebook to finally get its way? - WhatsApp is to trial offering a cohort of its 2.5 billion users the ability to send, not just messages, but also to make digital payments. This potentially realises an ambition Facebook laid bare when it first revealed its digital currency ambitions three years ago. On closer inspection, if it is safer to create and issue a cash-backed stablecoin (as opposed to depositing cash in a bank) what happens to those banks relying on fractional banking, and who takes on the role of the commercial lender? Metaverse and self-sovereign identity (SSI): new superpower? - the metaverse is a new buzzword ‘doing the rounds', but what does it actually mean and how is it going to change everyday life? Besides an exciting aspect of virtual reality (VR) that everybody could at least vaguely relate to there are many other interesting developments, particularly around the digital economy and trusted interactions enabled through digital and self-sovereign identity (SSI). We explore the symbiosis of the two hottest technologies - metaverse and self-sovereign identity - and how they fit within Web 3.0. Crypto regulation varies in each jurisdiction - the rules and regulations for cryptocurrencies vary depending on the jurisdiction in which they are being promoted. There appears to be a real lack of agreement or coordination between regulators worldwide, apart from a significant number of countries expressing concern that those wishing to use cryptos cannot do so for illegal purposes - hence the need for KYC and AML verification. NFT in sports: manna from Heaven? - as the sports world has sought to recover from the financial consequences of COVID-19, two themes have emerged. First, the paramount need to secure sources of revenue and second, an urge to accelerate the adoption of technologies which offer new ways of engaging with fans in a way which is, at least partially, insulated from the vagaries of global pandemics. And so, news that the National Basketball Association (NBA- as it so often is) was a successful early adopter of NFT collectibles and is (in partnership with Dapper Labs) generating significant numbers from its early Top Shots drops, has been welcomed like the promise of ‘manna from Heaven' across the sports industry. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jtylee/message

This week we open with Amazon's new physical store, electrifying classic cars and the Pandora Papers. After our non-sponsor it's This Week in Crypto with a markets update, rumbles of regulation and a Bitcoin futures ETF. In This Week in NFTs, Jonathan is exiting Top Shots, London is the NFT capital of the world says the FT, CDBs, the seven stages of NFTs, NFTs save proper photography, Pancake Squad drops, and OpenSea competitor Infinity launches. We close out as usual with CryptoPunk or CryptoFunk. Links we mentioned: Bloom&Wild with £10 off: https://refer.bloomandwild.com/m/ol/gc6zv-jonathan-tipper London, NFT capital: https://www.ft.com/content/9c5a831f-4c3a-457f-b36e-950ba3a23b80 On Christie's NFT arm: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/118967/christies-nft-business-is-booming-despite-a-market-lull OpenSea competitor Infinity: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/119887/new-nft-marketplace-takes-direct-aim-at-opensea-with-a-token On leaving Netflix for NFTs: https://kaigani.medium.com/why-would-i-leave-netflix-to-sell-jpegs-on-the-internet-5c20623a76a5 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smalltimebets/support

sie sind die größten, die imposantesten und meist auch die stärksten Spieler auf dem Feld - Die Center. Während die Pivoten und ihre eindrucksvollen Erscheinungsbilder gerade eine kleine Renaissance erleben, haben wir uns die Frage gestellt, wer denn aktuell der beste unter ihnen ist. Ist es der DPOY? Der MVP? Oder am Ende doch ein Troll mit Vorliebe für Shirley Temples? Die Antwort erfahrt ihr hier! Viel Spaß! Musik von Ju von Dölzschen, checkt ihr hier: https://instagram.com/ju.von.doelzschen?utm_medium=copy_link

Live from Mistress Brewing ahead of the KXnO Mock Draft Party Ross and Chris start off the show interviewing Luka Garza to promote an upcoming event of his, his NFT, Name, Image & Likeness, Top Shots and his NFL fandom. Then the guys break down the Teddy Bridgewater trade to the Denver Broncos, give some NFL draft analysis and the 17 game NFL season. To finish the hour the guys talk about what a joke the Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul fight is going to be.

Live from Mistress Brewing ahead of the KXnO Mock Draft Party Ross and Chris start off the show interviewing Luka Garza to promote an upcoming event of his, his NFT, Name, Image & Likeness, Top Shots and his NFL fandom. Then the guys break down the Teddy Bridgewater trade to the Denver Broncos, give some NFL draft analysis and the 17 game NFL season. To finish the hour the guys talk about what a joke the Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul fight is going to be.

Today on Tank Talks! We have Rob Petrozzo, co-founder of Rally Rd to talk about “Democratizing investing in rare collectables.”Rob’s Background: Rob Petrozzo is the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer of Rally Rd, a platform where investors can buy and sell equity shares in collectible assets like cars, watches, sports memorabilia and art. The company aims to make investing in these illiquid assets more exciting, safe and accessible to everyone. Rally recently closed a $17 million in fundraising from some amazing backers, both strategic and financial including Porsche Ventures, the Raptor Group and Co-Founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian.In this episode we discuss:01:59 How Rally Rd got its start04:43 What it took to get to launch06:50 The decision to jump into different asset classes08:41 Fee structure and the business model10:27 How an IPO works on Rally Rd11:27 Demographics of the average Rally Rd investor13:34 The strength the assets are on Rally Rd15:32 How an asset gets sold from the market18:52 Proxy voting mechanism19:33 Partnerships and what they look like in the future20:53 The effect of Top Shots on the market22:46 Rally Rd’s plan to enter the digital collectable market24:46 NFTs and Rally Rd26:46 Working with their high profile investors29:48 The liquidity of the market32:11 Growth into intangible assets35:40 Legacy auction houses entering the market38:28 Rob’s favorite asset on the platformBook Rob recommendsInside the Nudge Unit by David Halpern Follow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Blockchain, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, NFT's - Darsh Singh, Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager at Hazoor Capital, covers it all. For those looking to learn more about this emerging sector of the investment universe, Darsh provides an in depth and thoughtful perspective. Bitcoin skeptic, crytpo-believer, or undecided this podcast has something for everyone.We dive straight into the future and philosophy of bitcoin - How valuable is digital scarcity and why use that innovation on a currency? If bitcoin becomes a digital reserve asset, will government allow it to exist? Has bitcoin reached escape velocity?  The conversation moves to other blockchain innovations in finance. What is De-Fi? Darsh digs into some of the innovative uses of smart contracts in online finance. Finally, we touch on NFT's. What is the best use case? Are the current Top Shots, Jack Dorsey tweets, or Christies art auctions an indication of the future or just another bubble?This podcast was recorded on March 12th, 2021.  The respective opinions expressed are those of Mr. Singh and the Biltmore Family Office, LLC investment team.  The opinions referenced are as of the date of this podcast and are subject to change without notice.  This material is for informational use only and should not be considered investment advice. The information discussed herein is not a recommendation to buy or sell a particular security or to invest in any particular sector.  Forward-looking statements are not guaranteed.  BFO reserves the right to modify its current investment strategies and techniques based on changing market dynamics or client needs and there is no guarantee that their assessment of investments will be accurate.  The discussions, outlook and viewpoints featured are not intended to be investment advice and do not take into account specific client investment objectives.  Before investing, an investor should consider his or her investment goals and risk comfort levels and consult with his or her investment adviser and tax professional.   Biltmore Family Office, LLC is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about BFO's investment advisory services can be found in its Form ADV Part 2, which is available upon request

After spiraling into a Top Shots vortex for the past few weeks, we breakdown the economy of NBA Top Shots and try to figure out the solvency of Dapper. We talk pack drop pricing, the sales commission, and ultimately withdrawing your #dapperbux. Follow us on social media! https://twitter.com/unrecruitedpod https://www.instagram.com/unrecruitedpodcast

Before dissecting Jason Kreis' Olympic Qualifying roster, Paul and Sam sink their teeth (yes, they share a single set of teeth) into the recent news that MLS is investigating Inter Miami's Blaise Matuidi signing from last year.Then Sam has a meltdown about NBA Top Shot.After Paul restores order, our intrepid hosts discuss MLS moments that would make great Top Shots and chat about Christian Pulisic's situation at Chelsea. Sponsors! Vuori! Receive 20% off your first purchase and enjoy free shipping and returns on any U.S. orders over $75 at vuoriclothing.com/TSS!Netgear! Find out what makes Netgear America's number one choice for WiFi at netgear.com/bestWiFi!American Giant! Get 15% off your first order when you use promo code TSS at american-giant.com! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Take of the Week UFC 259 Recap Isn't he Awesome / Weekly Callout UFC Fight Night 187: Edwards vs Muhammad Preview ...Here we go!

Episode #12 the launch of Jeremy's Wednesday chat with Harley Allaby. In "Disrupitated" we talk about topics that meet 3 requirements. 1) It's disruptive. 2) it's impact is immediate or quick and 3) we can participate with it in some way. Harley is the primary driver of these topics and Jeremy is curious. Today we talk about Top Shots collectible digital playing cards. We also tease a few of the future topics. www.liinks.co/renagency

What is NBA Top Shot? What are NFTs (non-fungible tokens)? What is digital art? All of these questions and more are answered by guest Justin Herzig, owner of $400,000 worth of Top Shots and co-founder of the Own The Moment podcast. Justin answers a lot of important questions about the craze surrounding Top Shot, NFTs, and digital art, including what exactly the user owns, concerns about market manipulation, issues surrounding a market that may be driven by quick profits as opposed to true collectors, and much more.

Everyone in the sports world is talking about them, so the guys at DFI are giving you an education on Top Shots. What are they? Where are they? Why are they? We discuss... Also, we're flexing our DFI Bets muscle and talking about DFS for the weekend! Download the app, get in the War Rooms, and join the growing DFI community!

Welcome to the very first episode of Top Shot Takes! We're diving into the NBA Top Shots world covering the ins and outs, player comps, side bets, and more.

The Alan Cox Show