ferdi1

Husband, Father and Investor. Been in Crypto since 2017.
I blog about everything and everybody that is crypto; Twitter: @xrptwin

So Week 2 is a fact; are we still on track , are we slowing down, or are did we take a wrong turn. Well, in the end there is is more on that.

Has been an interesting week. Will start immediately with the weekly challenge given by Gord. I had to do 300 push-ups in a week. That is around 43 a day, was no game changer for me. I have done a couple in my life, so this was just an add on. Did this part, was done by Wednesday and had a nice Wordless Wednesday blog ..... I thought.

A week full of activities, had some serious walks, even did some stairs and watched my meals ...... almost all the time. We kinda had a little celebration on Thursday and, boy it went wrong right there.

One picture will say enough:

Cheese Fondue ..... Bread with it ...... BUT, I also had some bell pepper ....... covered in cheese of course. This kinda does not fall in any kind of diet/ change of lifestyle or whatever you are doing to change your weight ! ! ! My wife just wanted to surprise me, well, she did and I enjoyed it .....

Saturday, I was at the grandparents' house, we went for a swim in the afternoon and well, they really wanted to treat us for dinner. I told them, more lean than mean, but that is trying something that is not going to work out ! ! !

So Saturday we had a table filled with Chinese food and not the kind that is easy to digest ! ! ! Of course you gain what you put in your mouth ...... I just don't like it, to throw food away ! ! !

2 very bad evenings, had to do something about that. SOOOOO, push-ups for the remainder of the year. Starting with 10 on Sunday (November 1st) and adding 1 a day. Adds up to 2.440 push-ups for the year (70 push-ups on December 31st).

It is fun, not too demanding, everybody could do it, just put your mind to it ...... like eh NOT putting your mind to a pan of Cheese Calories ! ! !

At least 5 people are doing it .... Gord, my brother, CryptoSpace and myself.

Tweet Reactions like it doesn't bring you anything 10 a day in the beginning or I do 100 a day, all nice, it is a challenge. Let's start at some point, let's NOT burn ourselves starting with 50 or 100 on day one, let's have FUN ! ! !

So, Gord, besides the pushups per day, I would like to give you some stairs to climb. Where I had to do 200, you must be the big man climbing the stairs. I won't do 300 as that is too much of a jump from 200, so let's do 280, 40 a day, makes it easy ;–)

What happened to me doing the weight challenge ....... I hope you are a subscriber as I will write it in the Coil Subscriber Only Section ....

If you would like to spend 5 dollars a month on Coil instead of that sugar bomb of a Cookie / Candy Bar and / or Starbucks ...... go right ahead and GO GO GO

STAY SAFE

Source Header 1

Source Header 2

Read more...

Yesterday, we were in town for a while, before the mass came and we found a little item we wanted to have. Thinking about Patty with her penny shopping we came across this little thing:

A micro puzzle with plastic tweezers ! ! !

Some data:

  1. The length: 15 cm
  2. The height: 10 cm
  3. The pieces: 150
  4. The price: 69 cents

Not really a penny, but we had to take it with us .....

So this morning, we started with this puzzle. Opened the little “bottle” and put all the pieces on the table:

They were really tiny and difficult to work with, totally different then when the puzzle is a little bit bigger, but definitely fun ! ! !

To give you a little example how small the pieces are, these are Noah's hands ! ! !

So we first saw a pinkish, orange, brown house, we wanted to start with Easy as this was the first corner piece we started with

Extreme close-up of 17 pieces:

Second step was all the side pieces. Looks easy, but they broke all the time but probably if more pieces are together, it would get stronger:

Doing some air pieces, some dark pieces on the bottom, we were getting it all done:

We had been puzzled with the tweezers in the beginning, a new technique but had it down at the end. Gun little puzzle, especially it had nice distinguished colour parts. The last part, of course, had to be done with the help of the tweezers:

And there it is, a very VERY small puzzle, 150 pieces, not bigger than an open CD case:

Normal pieces beside the puzzle, only 5, to show how little the puzzle is ! ! !

DONE DONE DONE ! ! !

STAY SAFE ! ! !

So two weeks ago I started with XRPGord doing a weight loss challenge. Love it, we push each other, we are in it, ...... love it.

Well, last Monday I got a weekly Challenge from Gord doing 300 pushups, loved the challenge, and although I posted a header in the Wordless Wednesday Blog that I don't like Pushups:

Source

I actually love push-ups. Had to do these a lot when I was young and well, still do them. 2016 was my magical push-up year as I did the Push-up challenge ..... What is the push-up challenge ? ! ?

Well doing 1 push-up on January 1 and so on .... , so in a little sequence:

  1. January 1 – 1 Push-Up
  2. January 2 – 2 Push-Ups
  3. January 3 – 3 Push-Ups
  4. January 4 – 4 Push-Ups
  5. ...............
  6. February 1 – 32 Push-Ups
  7. February 2 – 33 Push-Ups
  8. ...............
  9. ...............

  10. December 30 – 364 Push-Ups

  11. December 31 – 365 Push-Ups

That is a lot of Push-Ups, but a lot of fun. You need to think big because we are talking about more than 30.000 Push-ups in total.

Well, with this knowledge I CHALLENGE EVERYBODY ! ! !

Starting tomorrow, yes, I know it is little time, I would like YOU to join me in my new challenge, this is what it looks like:

I tell you, it is a little challenge, but a fun challenge. Daily, you do NOT have to do all challenges in one run. If you have to do 60 push-ups on December 21st, you can do 3 series of 20 or 6 series of 10. This is a challenge that will make your chest, arms and neck stronger.

If you saw the challenge too late, you can still participate, but you have to make up the lost Push-Ups. So if you start on the 3rd of November, you have to do 33 Push-Ups and November 4th you go back to 13 Push-Ups.

It is only 2 months ..... DO IT , DO IT, DO IT. My Best friend Wally, let's call him Wally (real name starts with a W.), is going to do it also. And if he didn't know, he knows NOW ! ! !

Would love to see at least 2 more people doing this challenge:

XRPGord

CryptoSpace

Would love to see these two people react, and it would be amazing to see MORE people joining. 2 Months and well, while we have lockdown or most people spent a lot of time inside, why not do a couple push-ups ......

So calling on everybody doing this Challenge. A challenge for yourself ! ! !

Can it be checked you are doing ? ? ?

NO, Absolutely NOT ! ! !

If you want to fake it, that is fine, you are the only person that has to live with it, that you did something, by not doing it ! ! !

Give yourself this challenge and do it. Maybe giving yourself a little push: measure your arms, so you see how much they grow. You can fake the people you are doing the challenge with, but you cannot fake yourself ! ! !

Source

I know it is short time, we start tomorrow, but YOU CAN DO IT ! ! !

Reach out to me or reply to the below Tweet

GO GO GO

Reply to the following Tweet, you are taking on the Challenge yourself: at least starting it ! ! ! By making it public you WILL do it, be powerful, do it ! ! !

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header

Breakfast, the meal of kings, learned it from my parents: it is the best meal of the day, it makes your day go by better, faster and healthier ....... Is that true ? ? ?

Well, what has been proven, it starts your metabolism, burning calories, for the day, what you need to keep your cells going/ alive. That already is a WIN ! ! !

Besides metabolism, breakfast, if done with more than one person at the table gives you time to sit down, talk about the day ahead of you, what are the plans and it helps you getting into gear 2. In our household, we always try to sit at the table, no phones, no televisions, just sitting together, maybe some relaxing music to start the day with a smile.

Let's talk about a couple more killer reasons why you should breakfast......

Breakfast gives you the chance to get your vitamins and minerals your body needs; especially because we are sitting inside a lot nowadays, get a good meal to start hitting that day. Yes, there are loosing weight plans skipping the breakfast meal (intermittent fasting), but the social aspect, if people still want to do that with all the home office during this pandemic, is something I enjoy, talking about the coming day.

Without further ado, let's share a breakfast for champions,

Cottage cheese with fruit and nuts

We start with the cottage cheese, fresh and healthy! ! ! We sprinkle the fruit, raspberries and blueberries over the cottage cheese.

You can of course choose the fruit you like to eat, but stick to red fruits. Especially blueberries, blueberries are good for a lot of ailments:

  1. Lowering blood sugar

  2. Lowering cholesterol

  3. Reduced risk of cardiovascular disease

  4. Contains Vitamin A and C

  5. Presence of tannins in the blueberry. This has a positive effect on the digestive system.

  6. They taste good ! ! !

So that is the fruit part, throw them in, not TOO many, they also contain sugars, you don't want to have too many ! ! !

After the fruits, nuts are going to be part of your breakfast:

The nuts must be un-roasted and un-salted. So you should think of: almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans and walnuts. Nuts have iron, Vitamin B1 and Vitamin E, besides unsaturated fat. It also gives you a little bite and chew.

Finishing this meal, put some Chia Seed on top and some honey. Honey is a type of sugar but it is good for you. Chia, the ancient Mayan word for “strength” , gives you a lot of nutrients.

Putting all these ingredients together, gives you some eye candy, it is mega healthy, good taste AND quality time with the family; which should not be downplayed

Try it, it is really good. Starts of the day like a champion and you will be ready for the day that is in front of you. ENJOY

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header

Read more...

Everybody knows anybody dealing with a Covid-19 Case ! ! !

No, I do not mean dealing with Covid-19 as we all have to do this, but somebody that actually has it, or had it .... well, not me, I don't know anybody in my family / friend / acquaintance circle..... until today ! ! !

My brother in law, living in France, very near to Paris, has Corona. Felt bad for a while. Feel really bad at the moment, but is at home working on his recovery.

No problem with breathing, just massive headaches, MASSIVE headaches. That is his biggest issue. CORONA is of course the big issue, but now he has it, it mostly gives him bad headaches which influence his sleep, but also his close family. Wife (my sister) is influenced, (still) healthy, like their children ! ! !

Crazy to see it a little closer (in Paris though) ! ! ! France has some major areas that show growth in amount of cases of Corona. I got some pictures from the WorldWide Web:

Source

As you can see a lot of Corona Cases in France and also an unfortunate big number of Deaths.

Looking at the circle over France, the size is very large and the number has reached well over 400.000 cases in 1 week....

Source

[](https://www.wikipedia.org/)

New cases are going up and absolutely need to come down:

Source

The same numbers can be seen with deaths:

Source

As for my brother in law, you never know where you got it, but with all the precautions, face-mask, gloves, he did catch it.

I hope the pain stays away, the respiratory problems will not face him and the headaches, well hopefully they will get less.

As for the Netherlands, we are a little bit cut in the middle. We were warned once more last week, that we need to be more careful. If the cases / deaths do NOT go down we will have a total lockdown and that will have more impact than it already has.

Maybe it is better to have a 100% lockdown for three weeks/ one month in order to make ourselves better again. We have to take care ourselves, we have to take care of each other.

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header 1

Source Header 2

The Pay-ID initiative, that Unstoppable Domains is partnered with; talked about a lot in the XRPCommunity, should be a wider topic, in the whole banking / payments industry. It is revolutionary and thinks about the Internet in the early days.

A little history about the Internet and domains show us that the first domains were available in 1983. This was only accessible to a particular group, general public registration started in 1986. The first domain ever registered was: 1.

symbolics.com

A little list of the top 10 most expensive domain names publicly reported:

  1. CarInsurance.com — $49.7 million

  2. Insurance.com — $35.6 million

  3. VacationRentals.com — $35 million

  4. PrivateJet.com — $30.18 million

  5. Voice.com — $30 million

  6. Internet.com — $18 million

  7. 360.com — $17 million

  8. Insure.com — $16 million

  9. Fund.com — £9.99 million

  10. Sex.com — $14 million

Source

Interesting to see these prices, let's see if this will happen with the Pay ID's also.

So Unstoppable Domains, what do they do, what is it, why ? ? ?

Trying to figure it out yourself, great, getting the RIGHT story from Unstoppable Domains, even better ! ! !

So I have reached out and got in contact with Bradley Kam, who agreed to answer some questions.

Well, let's dive into it a little more. Let's ask Bradley all about it, so without further ado:

\================================================

XRPTwin:

Can you please share a little bit of your background with us ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

Definitely, and thanks for having me. I’m an entrepreneur from Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. I moved to San Francisco in 2012 to run a software company called Talkable. When I moved to San Francisco, I lived in a house called 20 Mission. It was a “hacker house” where early Bitcoin enthusiasts lived and organised meet-ups. Vitalik Buterin even gave a talk in our courtyard.

Blockchain ended up consuming me. I read the Satoshi Nakamoto white paper and had a hard time not thinking about it ever since. I stepped back from my role as CEO at Talkable to focus full-time on crypto towards the end of 2018 and started working on Unstoppable Domains.

XRPTwin:

A little introduction, can you share the beginning of Unstoppable Domains, how it all started, the vision and what the difference is between a traditional domain and a domain on the blockchain ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

We are a San Francisco-based company founded in 2018 by Matthew Gould, Braden Pezeshki, Bogdan Gusiev, and myself. We’re building domains on blockchains – we’re kind of like Godaddy for the blockchain.

The problem with traditional domains is that companies are in control of them instead of users. Worse, the current web prevents users from owning their own data, content, identity, etc. There is no permissionless innovation. Our vision is to rebuild the internet in a decentralised way where anyone can pay each other, use tools, and launch a website without gatekeepers controlling us.

Traditional domains sit on centralised servers controlled by a group called ICANN. They do not support payments natively and are not censorship-resistant. Blockchain domains, on the other hand, offer major UX improvement for payments by replacing cryptocurrency addresses with human-readable names. They are controlled by their owners and stored in their wallets, giving them full custody over their domain.

XRPTwin:

Last year, Tim Draper, raised $ 4 million dollars in a new round of funding for Unstoppable Domains, that was definitely celebrated, getting investors like Boost VC, de Ethereum Foundation and the Zilliqa Foundation? Can you share a little bit about this?

Bradley Kam:

Yes! We are honoured to be backed by Draper Associates and Boost VC. They’ve been great investors and are always there to help the company. We received grants from both the Ethereum Foundation and the Zilliqa Foundation which inspired our .crypto and .zil extensions.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

XRPTwin:

“By decentralising domain names, Unstoppable Domains has the potential to spread freedom of expression around the world. Domains are recorded on the blockchain and no one else can just take control of them” Words taken from Tim Draper, can you say something about these words ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

This is the core value proposition of assets on blockchains – they are user controlled. This is true for bitcoin, Ethereum, and for domain names. This is the most important feature of blockchain domains.

XRPTwin:

A great sentence on your website states: “Replace cryptocurrency addresses with a human readable name” that pretty much tells us a lot. Will Unstoppable Domains help with Mass Adoption ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

We hope to make crypto payments less scary by making XRPTwin.crypto, for example, your preferred payment address rather than a long string of characters. We hope to see at least 80% of the crypto market owning and utilising domains in the next 3-5 years and we are excited for this journey to continue.

Source

XRPTwin:

On your website, of course, I checked on domains:

XRPTwin.crypto = $80.00

XRPTwin.zil = $40.00

ferdi.crypto = $800.00

ferdi.zil = $250.00

Garlinghouse.crypto = taken

Garlinghouse.zil = taken

I would say that XRPTwin is me. What happens if somebody else takes it, are we going to get the same situation as the early days with web domains, that people will pay gigantic amounts of money for your domain, or does XRPTwin belong to me ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

We’ve protected hundreds of thousands of domains to prevent this problem from happening. We are trying to make sure that brand owners get their domains. That’s why we are giving them for free to those brands.

Source

XRPTwin,:

Hmmm, I guess my brand is not big enough yet, did not get THAT call yet from you ;–)

XRPTwin:

What is going to be the most amazing thing this year ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

It’s hard to pick one thing. We’ve had a lot of big things happen this year like Coinbase, Gemini Custody, and Chainlink verification. We’ve got a bit more up our sleeve, but nothing to share on that just yet ? ? ?

Source

XRPTwin:

What has been your top day/ week / month selling domains ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

In August 2020, after the news that sex.crypto sold on Opensea.io for $90k, we saw our largest increase in both domain sales and marketing awareness to date.

Source

XRPTwin:

Where is it going with Unstoppable Domains ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

To a more free, open, and user controlled internet. It’s going to take a while to get there, but we’re all going to better off because of it

XRPTwin:

Has Covid-19 been difficult for you ? ? ?

Bradley Kam:

We have grown more during Covid-19 than during any other period in the history of the business. I think Covid-19 has generally been good for the digital economy.

Source

Thank you for answering all these question, as I know you are a very busy person. Unstoppable Domains is a hot potato at the moment and I wish you guys all the things you need to succeed.

For the Coil Subscriber the interview is not over yet. I asked Bradley some more questions, but ..... only visible for the subscriber. If you want to learn more about Coil Subscriptions, please click here

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header

Read more...

The first week has started, the first week of our challenge and so far I cannot complain.

I AM DONKEY KONG, bring it GORD !

However, I must say that my wife supports me very well, she is the driving force in the kitchen. Tasty recipes, but good recipes.

I shared one of those recipes last week, a leek dish, but it was not well received by everyone ........ at least the banana as an ingredient. Again I'm not taking it either.

I certainly paid attention to what I eat, not very strictly because now and then I have deviated a bit from it, so a little sugar was consumed this week.

I already did that; a bit of running was also an option, I swim with my son every week, is more playing, but I am in the water every week.

My best friend XRPGord decided to test me, on the stairs this week. As a weekly challenge I was instructed to climb 200 flights and that was quite a thing.

Taking 200 flights at home, no option, doesn't really measure well, so I went to grandpa and grandma. They have a nice staircase, 4 floors, so I got started there on Wednesday. Was quite heavy, I noticed that I do not quite use certain muscles for what they are for! ! ! I finished that day with 63 flights, so I had a little under one third done.

Actually it made me feel pretty good. I have been dealing with back aches for a long time, recently found out it comes from my hamstrings, the part in my legs, and so I trained those very well. So, I have to thank doctor Gord for this exercise .... Thank you ! ! !

Second part of the week, it was until Saturday, I planned an extra visit with the grannies to do some more exercises. Noah loves it to go there, spoiled rotten, and YES I had some cookies also ! ! !

Noah played Rummikub, he loves it and I, I went to the staircase. It was Saturday, so things needed to be done. I had to settle some score with myself. Thursday and Friday, well those days had minimal result, so the weekend was going to be a Donkey Kong weekend. I wanted to do at least 50 flights again, so that happened.

Sunday had to be the finishing day, well, it was the last day, so it had to happen. I wanted to change the setting, so I went to Leiden, as I know there are some stairs there: De Burcht.

The Burcht van Leiden, Fort of Leiden is an old shell keep in Leiden constructed in the 11th century. It is located at the spot where two tributaries of the Rhine come together, the Oude Rijn and the Nieuwe Rijn (Old and New Rijn). The structure is on top of a motte, and is today a public park.

There are a lot of stairs:

Up:

UP:

enjoying the View:

and ....

Down Again:

It was sweating, while I was doing this, I was watching the Portuguese Formula I, so had to concentrate a lot. Breathing is tough with a face mask, so this was a tough assignment, but the result:

In total 206 Flights climbed. 200 was the task, so 200 have been done. It was a tough one, but passed. Maybe it should have been spread a little bit more, but at least it has been done.

Love it though, thank you Gord for giving me this assignment. I hope you also enjoyed your assignment ! ! !

Leaves me of course to show my weight. This was the picture of last weeks blog:

This week we have THIS picture:

A loss of 5.2 pounds; it surprised me a little, but the Gord challenge broke some sweats ! ! !

I have not seen Gords Blog yet, but I gave him the challenge to crawl, walk, run 30 kilometers. Hope he did it, otherwise he has 1 more week of doing it. This weeks challenge is easier for him:

I would like you to cook the leek recipe as this was described in my blog last week You can choose with or without bananas, but I am pretty sure, I know what dish you are going for. Looking forward to your cooking skills. Loosing weight is also what you put on your plate ! ! !

Good luck and well, ..... week 1 is a fact ! ! !

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header

A few weeks ago Noah and I had the opportunity to do a fun scavenger hunt in search of mushrooms and fungi.

That was a lot of fun, we saw more than 20 different varieties of mushrooms and fungi, only The One, that beautiful red mushroom with white dots was not present! ! !

The fly agaric did not grow where we were looking, so yes, that was bad luck! ! !

Today, mama daddy and Noah, went for a walk. The clock had gone back an hour so we were up early. Few people outside, so time to step into the boots and go into the forrest, embracing the fall with all its colours.

It was beautiful outside, temperature was fine, no people around, well a couple, playing dogs, birds, it was nice. Forgetting about everything it was very tranquil ! ! !

Just giving you a little image:

Suddenly we heard Noah, hey look daddy, this is a nice mushroom:

Not yellow, not orange, not red. Beautiful though and not only the mushroom; look at the leaves around it, the colours are amazing.

Let's look for more, as we now know what to look for and then it happened, we were in mushroom heaven:

A field, filled with leaves grass and ..... the red mushroom with white dots: the fly agaric ! ! !

Of course we had to look for leprechauns, but they had a meeting, early in the morning, so we just missed them.....

More images:

We liked it a lot, there were literally tens, twenties even more of these amazing red and white mushrooms. Not only the mushrooms were nice, all nature was looking amazing:

Next weekend we are going on another walk and I will show some more pics.

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header

My blog yesterday has caused quite a stir. This was not my intention, but unfortunately it did.

The fact that I have a certain opinion about something does not mean that I (have to) force it onto others.

Yes, I may / can tell others that it is safer to use shopping carts to keep your distance in a supermarket, in my opinion, but the truth is more think this .... government made it mandatory to have one shopping cart per shopper ! ! ! Once again, it is an opinion, my opinion and indeed not everyone's opinion.

I think I was misunderstood yesterday with the explanation in my blog. Yes, I can tell others they should stay with their cart, but I cannot force it, in other words, impose it on them. It is up to everyone to think his or her own about this.

Unfortunately, I found out about this the hard way. Yesterday, I have been called a nazi, a facist and other names that are not entirely appropriate besides the words above. This all through the medium of Twitter.

Again it is MY opinion, yes, I share it with others because I see public safety being compromised but it is everyone to do what they want with it. If somebodies opinion is different that is fine, everybody is entitled to have their own opinion; however I think it is a citizens DUTY to be there for each other, and help staying healthy.

I have spoken with Lidl, the supermarket chain yesterday and that has been very constructive. I would like to thank them reaching out. Let's see what it brings.

To make it also clear, I have not mentioned any name in my blog in order NOT, to hurt anybody. I showed my concerns and if I need to talk to the managers in person, to see if I can help with a possible solution, I am more than willing to do so ! ! !

I have not tried to force MY OPINION on anybody and if perceived like it, I have not and I am sorry if people did. I want the best for the world, for everybody and if that is not how I see it, I just have to deal with it.

STAY SAFE ! ! !

Source Header