The US, UK and EU are just puppet states under the global puppet masters. Of course they want to destroy the current America to rebuild it in their dystopian image. You only need to look at the destruction of California and some other states to realise this. In the meantime they are killing the population with lethal injections and poisonous food. When they own all the assets, and have got rid of most of the cannon fodder population, they will build an AI automated world. There are many of us who want to be outside this rebirth, and I like to thin k I am one of them.

Bring back Tman. It was much more fun talking about him, than talking about not-so-Franky.

I thought there was a global panic over egg supplies. Not so long ago they were rationing sales. This morning I bought some boxes of 6 big and fresh eggs for just 21 pence. The normal price is £1.40. It just shows how food prices and distribution is being manipulated to rip us off. That is if we aren't aware and exploiting the situation for our own benefit. The eggs were on sale at a m ajor Asda supermarket in Hampshire, England.

Sorry I haven't posted any updates. I've been doing a lot of reading about YouTube monetisation, traffic building, and their draconian policies. I'm starting to feel that YT is going the way of Bud light, and trying to destroy the business by enforcing the will of the banking/pharma elite. I guess it is a reasonable platform to experiment with video production, but the way it is at the moment, it doesn't look as if it is a viable long term project. Some content producers arfe reporting a reduction of 80% in their revenue, and that will make it difficult to start a new channel. They are also promting a payment service to gain traffic, and that will reduce quality in my opinion. I certainly won't consider paying for traffic, that was the reason I gave up on using the Bravce browser and it's monetisating community. I guess I'll look around for some of the newer "uncensored" platforms, and especially those that are Bitcoin friendly.
I'm getting fed up with all the rubbish/noisy adverts that YouTube is pushing, and I'm concerned that those are being added to videos without any reward for the ciontent producer.  YouTube is constantly pushing an ad free premium service that I need to pay to join. I'm reluctant to do this if all the decent content producers are leaving the platform. What do you guys think? Is YouTube losing its dominant position?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdKRx30s6sk

This year's cheese rolling contest put a bit of a strain on the emergency services. It's one of England's quaint old traditions. Heve you got anything like that in your country?

Van living is a massive niche on YouTube. I did a search for "van life", and the first video was on a channel with 691k subscribers. It doesn't just address people living in a van, but also people who would like to be living in a van or mobile home. Then there are all the weekenders who own a campervan, and there is a cross interest with boat dwellers and digital nomads. It's really a very interesting community if you can avoid the druggies and the alcoholics.

There are some uinteresting niche topics as well like LoRa.

I've started these threads as preliminary research before starting a YouTube channel. I've flirted with the idea for some time, but I've only recently firmed my resolve. The replies I have received have given me the chance to hone and modify my ideas, and, as I am a typical Gemini, I'll probably create a channel with a hotch potch of ideas. These include.

- A lifestyle blog about living in a van as an 81 year old man.
- saving classic cars in association with my Save Old Cars site.
- A layman's introduction to Bitcoin ( but I wont be discussing alts, as I don't know anything about them ).
- Running a full Bitcoin node on a laptop computer in a van.
- How to eat healthily on a budget.
- Avoiding muscle loss as you age.
- Natural alternatives to damaging and destructive pharmaceuticals.
- Vehicle maintenance when you are living in a field, or on a beach.
- Tips to help you live on a low income.
- Managing your finances without a fixed address
- Hedgerow cooking
- Drone photography
- Treasure hunting with a metal detector.
- Practical preservation and regeneration of the environment.
- Dash cam photography
- Restoring antique tools and machinery.

There are probably a load more, but hose will do for a start.

In my opinion, the only sensible debt reduction method is to make sure you don't incur any penalties first, and then pay off the debts with the highest interest payments next. Any other strategy just means that you are adding to the debt with higher interest payments. The real answer is to avoid debt in the first place. Go out and mow someone's lawn or collect scrap metal, or do some other job to get the extra cash. It also helps to reduce your outgoings. There is an old adage " A penny saved is a penny earnt". It shows how old that is by the reference to pennies. Don't buy unhealthy McDonalds rubbish, but cook some real food, it's cheaper and better for you. Cut out cigarettes and vaping stupidity, and reduce your alcohol consumtion as well - you'd be shocked if you worked out how much you spent on those if you are a heavy user.

Nobody ever seems to mention the current practice of shaving off genital hair. I think that encouraging people to appear to be prepubescent is sick, but I seem to be in a minority over this. Personally I like mature hairy women, but maybe that is a function of my age. I also think boys should be boys, but if this was universal, then where would we find ballet dancers. I thought that castrati didn't exist any more, but I gather they are still created in some cultures.

I think I was just throwing up a possibility to try to avoid the hijacking of an extremely advantageous medium of exchange by purveyors of rubbish. Their aim seems to be to disrupt the Bitcoin concept, and to scam the gullible users of the system.

A property in Google GA4 analytics is a web site, or collection of web sites ( sort of ). You have to choose a category for a property, and I forgot to check if you can have more than one cartegory. Van dwelling may not be a financial category in Google's eyes, even though it is in the eyes of most van dwellers. You can have more than one property in a Google account. I can't be more informative, as I'm struggling a bit with the concept of GA4. It seems to be more oriented towards the selling of ad space, and that is not relevant for me. Well not at the moment anyway.

I took note of all the various comments in my recent threads, and many thanks for those. I'm planning my YouTube channel at the moment, and it seems to me that a dedicated Bitcoin channel is not a good idea. I very rarely watch them any more, as they seem to be contradictory, and often over complex, and many of them seem to show a lack of understanding of the purpose and technology behind Bitcoin. There seem to be 3 main categories of Bitcoiners ( apart from undecided newbies of course), and these are speculators, businesses and weath protectors. I don't want to target the speculators, as those are either gamblers or highly technical statisticians. My advice to business users is to embrace Bitcoin as an efficient means of international payment, but they may be advised to sell their Bitcoin receipts to avoid losses as a result of its volatility. My target audience is van dwellers, and others living offgrid, and who are considering Bitcoin as a form of saving and wealth protection.

So, should I accept that Bitcoin has now become an established medium of exchange and savings, and just include videos about it in a general offgrid camper channel?  The alternative would be to create a dedicated Bitcoin channel, and thus have to compete with all the established Bitcoin channels. I've also got a problem with the new GA4 Google analytics. Should I include my Bitcoin websites in my Offgrid Camper property, or, again, would it be better to have a financial property for Bitcoin? My preference is to keep things simple, and include bitcoin in the broader social channel in both instances.

I'm surprised that this thread is still running. I bet "not so" Frankly is loving the publicity.

ps. Don't forget the ignore button guys.

Well just as you guys probably expected, Jetty didn't win anything this month. The £50 win was an unexpected bonus, as my expectation was two or three £25 wins this year, so I only need one more win before next January to meet my expectation. Of course the romantic in me thinks it will be a lot more than that. but the pragmatic realist believes that I won't win anything. I guess this is the fun of these bonds - the inner conflict between the pragmatist and the romantic. My first reaction today was to buy a few more, but, folowing my self-made rule from my card playing days, I stopped myself from chasing losses. It's an interesting attitude, because if I follow my logic, then I should reinvest any winnings to get the extra month on the new investment. Instead I let them pay me the £50, and then promptly invested another £500, and had to wait the extra month for that to be included. I guess I'm a bit of a control freak, and like to review any decisions at the time. Somehow, just letting them add winnings to the pile doesn't seem like winning. No doubt an accountant would disagree with me though.

I'm still a bit undecided about the short term price movements for Bitcoin. I can see reasons for all three directions, but one thing is certain, it won't be going backwards. I have picked  up some copper plumbing waste in the last couple of weeks, so maybe that is where I spent my £50. Despite being a Bitcoin maximalist, I believe that you should diversify your savings, and hard metals ( gold, silver and copper are my preferences) are one interesting investment, provided you have safe storage for it. I lost a few £thousand worth of copper when I had a thief break into one of my garages a few years ago. Being a Bitcoin maximalist means that I'm not interested in any of the alts, and secretly I consider fiat to be an alt in practice.

Well today is the day for the June draw. It's 9am here, so it is probably a bit early for the results, but I thought I'd look anyway. I don't expect to win, even though it is my birthday month. Just after I posted that I was on a roll, everything seemed to turn down, and I haven't found any more money. I even forgot to turn of the battery in my mouse, so that was flat this morning. For the statisticians - The £500 block that I bought is not eligible for a prize unti next month. The £50 win came from a £900 block that first went into the draw in Februarty. A much larger block that went into draw in January hasn't won anything so far. Should I win this month, then I'll edit this post later today. Faiuling that, I may let this thread decay, unless there is some interest in keeping it alive in the forum.

Well one of the things about being over 80 is that I've been around for a while. I started on "computers" with an IBM 421, and punched cards and plugboards. I moved on to programming an IBM 1401, and then spent many years as a systems prommer on IBM 360 computers, and part of the time was for the London Stock Exchange during the big bang. I'm way behind on the inner working of Bitcoin, but I think I have an unusual over view and appreciation of Bitcoin as it fits into the world economy. I suspect comments on this may get a few views, especially from those viewers who shut off when the see over technical videos from people who don't really seem to understand the magic of Bitcoin, but just trot out the standard lines about permissionless, and decentralised etc. The commednts in this thtread have reinforced my opinion that one has to be circumspect when discussing Bitcoin on YouTube, especially when comparing it to CBDCs. I'm a bit diredt, so I can see me getting into trouble with  this, especially if I start talking about the fake vaccines as well.

Yesterday I helped an elderly friend and his neighbour sort out their gardens. Gardens is perhaps misleading, as they both have over 2 acres. My help was really just collecting a load of scrap metal, and some vintage garden tools, and bits from the garage. If I had thought about it, I could have filmed that, as salvage hunter videos seem to get a few thousand fews on YouTube. One of the things I collected was a hedge trimmer on a stick, and the motor looks to be in good condition. Restoring that is probably worth a video, although a long reach hedge trimmer may not be top of the essential tools list for a van dweller. I also picked up a couple of vintage Volvo bits, as my friend had an estate Volvo many years ago. One is the retractable cover to conceal items behind the rear seat, and that is in good condition. They seem to be selling for £40+ on Ebay. The other is a wire mesh dog guard, but that has a lot of surface rust. I might throw that up on Ebay for auction, as it is probably a rare item. I've also started another web site - Save old cars , and I am concerned that I may be trying to do too many things contemporaneously.

With regard to monetisation, cars and financial videos seem to attract higher paying adverts. Health is another one, but I will need to be careful with that, as I am opposed to the poisons of big pharma, and the SAD ( standard American diet).

I started to think about starting a YouTube channel about a couple of years ago. My idea was to speculate to see if I could win a million to buy some woodland. I wanted to use the channel to discuss speculations where the initial investment was protected, or if there was a loss, there was a reasonable expectation of recovering the loss through associated actions. For example, I looked at scratch cards, and at the time it looked as if there was an expectation to "win" at least 70% of the investment. I thought that I may be able to recover the 30% loss by asking for winnings in commemorative £2 coins, and sell those, and also to build a channel to gain a bit of income. I spent quite a lot of time investigating this, and watching a number of the scratch channels. I didn't ever buy any cards, and I won't now. It looks as if the "winning" expectation is down to about 40%, and a loss of 60% is too much to recover. I bought some premium bonds, and I started a thread about this. You don't lose the principle with this savings bond, and just gamble with the interest. I'm getting impatient now, and I'm considering selling some low value property that I own, and trying to crowd fund a larger woodland area. Many of the people who have embraced the van life are extremely protective of the environment. I suspect they would welcome the chance to relax in a quuiet woodland community.

I haven't found many van dwellers who own Bitcoin, although many of them seem to have heard of it. Most of their information seems to come from the mass media, hearsay, or over-technical YouTube channels that they don't understand.

I'm not very concerned about privacy. I decided very early on that it was best to use the system, rather than try to fight it. My biggest fear is that someone will break into the van, and try to steal some of the contents. This is one reason why I bought a 2005 Convoy with a tatty body. All of my tools were bought from car boots, and I store my cash reserves elsewhere. However, creating videos may draw attention to the equipment I may have in the van. If I'm using the Volvo, then I take most of the kit with me, but potential thieves may noit be aware of that. I guess I will need to install an updated alarm system at some stage.
 
Current news.
I added Bitcoin Patron and Bitcoin Uncovered to my Google analytics properties, and it has reported that there are some issues with reading the sites with mobile phones. Both sites were created quickly a few years ago. It looks as if I will have to choose soome responsive templates or add a CMS to the site. Please note I won't use Wordpress for a variety of reasons. These update may have to wait a month or so.

I'll create a few videos later this wekk to experiment with the software. I haven't created any videos for YouTube before, so it will be an interesting experience and learning process. The firsat videos are unlikely to be exciting. I'll probably borrow a dog and take it for a walk. I'll also do a walk round of my Volvo, and later the van when I have cleared it out. It's probably worth doing a general intrioduction to Bitcoin, and I could do that whilst sitting on the beach, or by the lake. I've also got a drone, but I need to get some more experience flying that. I'll try to work out a way to incorporate Bitcoin into some drone footage. Maybe I'll fly to a bright future with a Bitcoin mountain ( I wish ).

The main site  to support my channel will be Offgrid Camper and I have installed Drupal on there. I'm still mulling over the structure I want to use, but one of the advantages of Drupal is that it is extremely flexible, and very easy to make site wide changes without having to rewrite each element.

One of the problems I've encountered as a digital nomad is the blocking of some of my sites on restaurant Wifi, and there seems to be no logic to this. It can also be difficult to maintain a Bitcoin node, as some restaurants restict Internet port access. I could tether a mobile, but I don't think this is a viable method to synchronise the blockchain. I did start a thread about doing this on the Huawei i5 notebook I bought recently. It came with Windows installed, and I plan toi replace that, and I'm considering using Kali Linux. I'll carry on experimenting with video creation under Windows for a couple of weeks, but it is already starting to annoy me with it updates and attempts to control me. I haven't yet checked to see if I can add a second SSD. The i5 version of the Matebook is the lowest spec. and I'm hoping that the haven't economised by blanking the second slot on the motherboard.

Thanks for the kind comments, and you guys confirm what I suspected. It looks as if it would be best to start the channel with a variety of topics other than crypto, and introduce crypto later on. I've installed OBS studio, and that seems to be working, so I think the first few videos will have to be me talking in the Sainsbury's cafe. First I'll need to have a shave, and see if I can iron out a few wrinkles. Then it's chat about why I got out of bricks and mortar living, and why I bought an LDV convoy van to convert, rather than a prebuilt motor home. I'll also mention why I believe my 1988 Volvo is better for the planet than a new electric vehicle.

It seems you can pick up a quarter of a million views over a year just by filming a Volvo 740 and talking about it. I suspect that is only if you have an established channel though.

I'm aware that there is a lot of educational stuff about Bitcoin, but most of it is a load of claptrap imho. That includes some from people who purport to be senior specialists. For example, very few people understand how a vurtual asset like Bitcoin can also be a hard asset like a house ( which is actually a virtual asset in the UK ). There is also too much emphasis on the technical aspect, and too much repetition of trite comments like "Bitcoin is decentralised". Explanbation of this is frequently ignored. I'm not too hot on the inner wheels and cogs of Bitcoin, but I hope I understand its aerodynamics, safety record, and fuel economy.

I suspect that Youtube will never include Bitcoin in its monetisation, but we can live in hope. One way to gather Bitcoin would be to have a merchandising plan with Bitcoin payments. However, I wonder if there is a danger in the heavy promotiuoin of Bitcoin. Youtube may have a vested interest in minimising its use.