Okay, welcome back guys Let's pick up from where we stopped. So chapter 8 this chapter is talking about restoration of the ministry of the teacher now. It's got a lot of people from the new the early church the New Testament church and what happened after The Apostle Paul what happened to the ministry and how the The ministry of the teacher continued on past Apostle Paul and after the disciples and all of that so now there are a lot of people that who may You may it may sound new to you, but So what I thought was I'll just you know present the notes so that we can you know this be on the same page and right so chapter 8 The restoration of the ministry of the teacher, so I've just highlighted Things that are important And so let's go through this chapter, right Okay, so just to put a little bit of a background Apostle Paul has moved on Timothy has taken over the church so the next line of leadership Timothy Titus They were all there and slowly they have moved on as well So we don't have an account of what happened after that What happened to the churches, you know, there were plenty of churches in Asia Minor the church in Jerusalem and So what happened to those churches? Did they just dissolve and just go away or was there too much of persecution that everything stopped? So we'll see that God raised up men and women of God who Continued the ministry of teaching and preaching the word of God right so the Canon is our standard or the rule of faith and Christian teachers You know all through from the New Testament whose documents will have been survived for us Who wrote directly after the New Testament period are known as? Apostolic fathers, so after the New Testament period there were God raised up Christian leaders and teachers to continue writing and Teaching the word of God and they published something called as the Apostles Creed in 80 150 and I'm sure most of us may know it Says I just know potions of it. I believe in God the father I believe You know that whole creed there. I believe he was resurrected. He died. He rose again He seated in heaven and one day he will soon come again you know, but later on this Apostles Creed was tweeted and Added a lot of things were added to that creed by the Roman Catholic Church, so it was around after this the early church you came the dark ages where the Roman Catholic We did this in Revival's visitations and moves of God as well The Roman Catholic Church came into being and we saw that there was no kind of teaching There was no work of the Holy Spirit. Nothing was going on. It was just a form of religion, right? But this was written before that right right now Let's look at a few people that God raised up to continue this ministry of teaching Did okay, right? That's how his name is pronounced, but some of them say the dark Was an early church teacher and he thought about leadership about baptism about prayer The Lord supper and Christian morality Right and then Clement of Rome. I'm sure we all have heard of this Clement of Rome The epistle to the Corinthians right now Clement of Rome what he did was he he if you read about his life, he goes on to Corinth and You know after the whole time and Aquila Priscilla was there and then newly Few more leaders were raised up in Clement of Rome He felt that he should go into Corinth and he again taught a lot about Immorality and how holiness is important, right? So just like how Apostle Paul Roared epistles to the church in Corinth Clement of Rome also wrote Epistles to the church in Corinth, right now. We don't know if it's exactly the same church Most probably there may have been plenty of new churches as well that have started around Corinth But he did write to the Corinthians, right? he addressed the current using his using Clemens name, but Not, you know, not from him is what's mentioned here Christian sermons he wrote to them. He wrote to them mostly about integrity and holiness Clement of Rome again, he also was I Don't know how but he was martyred for Christ Clement of Rome and those Ignatius There are seven letters that he has written and all these letters talk about teaching And ministering of the word he you know Ignatius spent a lot of time on Teaching the attributes of God Now we must understand that new believers were added into the church many of them Were just, you know, the Holy Spirit came into them. They were changed. They became new believers But they didn't know about God about his attributes about his nature And so Ignatius was the one who you know wrote about the attributes and he wrote seven letters to different churches and What does it show the ministry of teaching continued on? It's not like Apostle Paul wrote letters and then everything was stopped. No Ministry continued. It's just that the Holy Spirit shows These letters of the Apostle Paul to be in the New Testament, right? And then Papias and Irranius UCB is these are all, you know Writers and teachers and these are wonderful men of God because you know, just like it is said that Irranius Was a wonderful apologist, right? He was a very very learned teacher Wonderful apologist he would stand and just like how Apostle Paul would you know stand how he stood at Marsville and In Aeropagus in the book of Acts when he went into Athens, he stood there and he gave a defense for the gospel Irranius was a man who was a great apologist. He had a very high learning Again If I'm not wrong Irranius also was martyred for Christ and UCB is then came Barnabas And he attacks Judaism and he was heavy on the Old Testament prophecies episode of Diognetus argues about paganism and Judaism. Now, what is paganism? Now we must understand that there were Gentiles who believed and worshiped other idols and other gods and There were Jews who still followed the law, right? So they were still doing sacrifices as for the Old Testament Old Covenant and the requirements to the Old Covenant, but what epistle of Diognetus says is he says anything that has taken Priority to the Lord Jesus Christ becomes a pagan thing, right? So he talks about paganism Judaism and he talks about Forgiveness of sins redemption So now it's not like he's you know, these people are not just preaching a sermon They have written about it. They've Extended common trees written about it. So for example They would write a Bible verse and they would explain it in the writing Right and and this history proves that they have all of these material, right? They they probably verses on water baptism or you know, we know that Apostle Paul's writings are very high And so people like Iranious were you know, they would write it and then interpret it and Try to teach the people through their writing Right. And so we see the ministry of teaching continuing on then Polycarp of Smyrna Now he wrote the epistle to the Philippians it is said that During this time the Philippians were going through a lot of persecution right Philippi being Asia Minor was you know part of the Roman colony They were going through a lot of persecution right and poor and polycarp. He writes to them Now I'm not talking about one letter. Okay, like how Apostle Paul wrote right be strong even through no He's writing to them about the word the teaching of the word Right and if you go online go to Google, there's a lot of material that you can you know see about them, you know polycarp wrote a lot about you know redemption of sins and You know the after life, what do we how how as believers what happens to us? Right, we are no we're not at the flesh, but we're of the spirit So there's a lot of emphasis on that right And polycarp again was martyred for Christ right and then Many many many other writings right recognized apostles and their writings Became the rule of faith for Christians in the New Testament So we see that you know this whole aspect of the ministry of teaching did not stop And it will not stop Till the end of times Teaching is a ministry that will continue right God will raise up leaders right and and And the wonderful part is these were people who were highly intellectual So this is a very important thing that we must learn that It's not that we choose ministry because okay, I just want to be a teacher No, the there is a lot of effort Involved in being in the ministry We need to be able to teach people and if we have to Teach people we must be ready To go through that season of learning we need to spend time and God When we need to hear from God And next class we'll talk about you know some of the ways that practical tips on doing a ministry of a teacher Uh, so we see here God used even tertulium and origin Uh, here these two here market, but tertulium and origin were great great writers wonderful writers that they said that Um, uh, tertulium and origin had such a high understanding that they were compared to apostle paul in his in their oratory and writing skills very brilliant in their material Right and iranias again grew up in smirna. He was an asia minor disciple of paulic up He he he becomes later on people of apostle john uh, and he was a People of apostle john and he what did he write here? He writes two important works demonstration of the apostolic faith against heresies And uh, and he wrote You know god is a loving creator Against gnosticism Now we know that Greece was asia minors full of the gnostic beliefs. What is gnostic? Uh, gnostic is simply uh, you know some some random belief systems believing in the stars believing in the moon believing in nature In uh all kinds of things right gnostic Belief systems, so he wrote against it right He thought about pasturing shepherding the flock um incarnation Angels the devil the word the holy spirit humana humanity incarnation redemption church growth spiritual growth and Irenaeus again did a wonderful work of writing all these Now why are we learning this? Why why must I know about all these people? I know that I have to teach so I will prepare and teach Now the reason we're learning about this is because we we want to see that god Can use people And will use people to continue what he has started Right now even now when we look around us, right? There are so many probably bible colleges and universities christian universities and um, you know Ministries that have their own bible colleges. It's wonderful, right? But here's the thing we must make sure that the doctrine is right Right make sure that the word of god is the foundation And so if we go on i'm trying not to spend too much time on this It's just for us to know that you know god is working right even through the dark ages. He was working You know clement of alexandria born in Athens was a philosopher supreme In alexandria in egypt. He was an intellectual man Uh was a thinker. He was a scholar. He used greek philosophy To make the point of christ Now who did that? Who brought out these kind of things, you know greek philosophical Understanding pagan intellectuals to talk to them the great apostle paul So we see this You know, it's like a cycle One leader then another teacher teachers teachers and it's it's just continuing on We see a rapid effect And that's why we saw right very important in chapter seven raise up other leaders Who can do the same thing or better than what we have done? And clement of alexandria very intellectual was able to use greek philosophy to bring out the scriptures and with this It is historical proof That many people came to christ through these teachings and preaching Now it's important to understand that yes, the holy spirit was working But god is not a god who we can put you know We can put him in a box and say only if people are healed They will become believers or only if people You know hear a prophetic word word of knowledge about their lives. They become believer. No A proper effective teaching of the word of god From god's word Can touch people's lives and change And now look at look at us right we every time we go to the scripture we read it. There's something inside us Right, the holy spirit ministers to us Right, so so we must come out of that mindset. Okay. I have to see dreams visions or I have to see healing miracles only then No, uh, I'm growing in the lord. No It is the word Right and so we see here all these leaders Did they not emphasize on healings and miracles? We don't know But what was their main intention? We need to see people Growing in the word of god And protecting them against heresies against Gnosticism against the works of the devil So we have to teach them How to live a holy life How to overcome the things of the enemy and so they write So teaching is very very very powerful You know when we teach people And you're teaching from the word of god that word can really grip their hearts. It can change all to the course of their life So that is why when you and I get opportunities we never take it lightly Prepare well Plan well Practice well Right, uh, when when you get an opportunity to teach Maybe in places and you know it one week ahead Prepare well Prepare points prepare things. You know, you know, we saw how jesus set the example, right? He had Taken put in parables told these You know, when you put your heart and your soul into something that you'll want to do It will minister to people's lives Right, uh, so if you know that you're going to teach and preach somewhere Prepare well be well prepared Now it's not like these people, you know Iranious and Clement of Alexandria were like, okay, I have nothing to do So let me just go and uh, you know stand and talk about jesus. No, they were learned scholars Right, so how much more we must also, you know pursue that Now all of us may not be be scholars or become scholars But we all can teach the word Same word, right? We can teach the word Look at this to thulian and from cartage north africa converted in rome when he was 40 years old Wrote in defense of christianity Uh in the rhetoric of a lawyer So he wrote a case You know like a lawyer, no totalian was a lawyer. He wrote a case Okay, this is you know, if you see these lawyers how they write cases. It's it's really interesting. They'll put the whole uh The case study they put What is the wrong? What is the event? What is the place? Well, what was wrong? What should have been done and what can be done? And so it's like a thesis So thulian does that he writes a complete defense for christianity for example Right, he's writing now in africa. We know that During those times it was more of gnostic gnostic beliefs and uh, uh, there was there was belief on you know, uh The stars they they believed in the moon as a god and so all of those things So picture this thulian sitting there and he's writing a thesis And he's writing and saying you people believe in all of these diseases Okay, this is what jesus is. This is what god is. This is what jesus did for us and so Through this we can find salvation and when we are saved these are the things that happen So he's writing it as a thesis like a case So now it's up to you. What do you want to do? Do you want to Choose this or do you want to choose this? Right and so there was again the ministry of teaching and He wrote against the heretics of the roman catholic church Right now. This is the 16 almost the 16th century Uh, the roman catholic church was taken has taken You know prominence. They they said no only one bible It should be in the church Everyone come and listen to them Right and the pope is higher authority than the bible is also So there was a lot of heresies in the church The thulian again writes against all of this he defends and he says this is not right Right, uh, we all have faith. We all need to be willing to you know The holy spirit is for all of us and all of us must be willing to uh No, uh, read the word and grow in the word of god and one of the main Topics that he also wrote about was trinity Because trinity was something was a debatable question during those times not only for the catholics But also for those who are out of the faith right from gentile believers uh, you know What is what is the trinity? How it came into being how the trinity is portrayed in the word in the gospels um one nature in three persons Uh, right and and we see that this ministry continued And then finally origin a disciple of clement of alexandria, right? North african born north North africa of christian parents His father was killed during a period of persecution when he was a teenager He wanted to offer himself as a martyr, but his mom stopped him He trained under the bishop of alexandria started a school of christian philosophy Right, uh, and he was also Racious writer. He wrote a lot large amount of literature large amount of commentaries, right? So If you go to google right now, right? Uh, even the time that we are in right now I'm going to stop presenting If you go to google There are plenty of commentaries that we see around us Right? Let's go to google you have so much information right some of the you know david gizik's Uh commentaries and all these commentaries so much of information available But remember that time there was nothing There's no google no internet nothing And so they the believers would use their commentaries Their learnings and their writings Most probably what would have happened was Churches would get copies of these writings And they would study it and the leaders of the church would study it And they would teach it in the church So we see that in this way The ministry of teaching was restored Right now did it completely die away? No But god restored it to fullness And then if you see after this as well Slowly the ministry of the teaching comes lesser But then in the early You know 16 1960s 50s and 60s the teaching ministry again begins to rise With a lot of wonderful men and women of god starting universities bible colleges Uh And then the 70s the 80s the whole You know there was at one place there was a lot of the prophetic and healing that was happening But on the other side there was also the teaching of the word of god Wonderful universities were you know well established and raised up With one sole purpose to teach people the word of god Right, so it's wonderful to see that uh, you know when the holy spirit gives us this gift It's not going to be withdrawn just like that because god has given to us So you just want to encourage all of us, right? Um You may if you're getting opportunities to teach Do it with all your heart Prepare well If you haven't got opportunities yet and you're waiting for your opportunities It's all right become A student of the word of god Like just keep reading keep learning And I always tell uh, you know people Yeah, especially the uh Those who are you know younger and Uh, I tell them, you know when when we were growing up We didn't have access to google and all of that it was not easy. Of course google was there, but We would have to go to an internet parlor, which was very You know who's going to do all of that, right? uh, but now it's all At our fingertips, right? It's all at our fingertips. You just Even if you go on to the phone You have so much available online and thank god praise god for all that is available online, right? Some of the materials that I use is eastward Uh, let's go there. They have plenty of uh commentaries there in eastward, um, you it's a paid subscription, but then uh, let's put that in eastward It's a paid subscription. Then we also have uh, uh free even then there is Yeah, I'm just putting a few that I remember uh, and there's there's lots. There's lots online. There's Um There's a nice, uh, I don't know if the app is there, but it is a paid Service again where you can you know see a lot of material preach at dot com So these are all wonderful places where we can just learn so much Right, uh, so I want to encourage each one of us. Uh, Don't be satisfied. Okay three hours of bible college. Oh, finally i'm done today Now, uh, don't don't don't have that attitude, right? So we just continue to learn Ask questions continue to you know ask questions to yourself Uh, you know go through sermons read sermons listen to sermons You know, one of the things I do is even at when I go to We just put that thing here This is again another wonderful Is where we get a lot of good material So you can download their pdf's and there's a lot of uh, you know There are sermons, but there are also teachings on topics right topical sermons and word studies character studies Now all these things these studies as you study it it will help you right Now Let me give you this example, right? I was reading the book of acts After becoming a believer and all of that Reading the book of acts and nothing was going into my head So what is this, you know, suddenly there's somewhere suddenly there's somewhere everything is like It's like a story, but where where is what like I think was a lining Now as a student of the word of god, I had to do something I'm just giving this example right you can think of other things that Come to your mind I said, okay, I want to learn possible polls missionary journeys How am I gonna do that Now I didn't have uh, you know, I didn't go to google and I could not do that But what I did was Like this is just an example, right? Not saying you have to do the same thing. You can just do it on excel and word document all that So I bought a chart Read a big chart And I divided it I said Paul's missionary journeys one two three four And so I began to read the book of acts. I said, okay first missionary journey He went into galesia What are the churches in galesia? So I wrote down. Okay, this one two three four five church is okay So what he does after that he comes back to Jerusalem. Okay And then in each column also Uh, when did he go with whom did he go and what was the result of that missionary journey? Right. So each column has its own first missionary journey second third finally the Visitor room And after doing that things became clearer Right and and there came a point where I just knew first he went here with these people. These are the two second he went here These are the places these are the churches So what happens when we put these extra efforts as a teacher? Right When you begin to teach people, you'll know, okay, this This is it. This is how I thank, you know, even now I'm just picturing that chart and I still have it with me Oh, and it's really helpful because now who told me to do it? Nobody Right. It was something that I thought to myself. What if I get an opportunity to teach? Right in the future, right? What if I get an opportunity to teach? So I should know this and then Even the levitical offerings go back to the level. Okay, all the offerings I put there why Those offerings are for the sin offering the guilt offering the peace offering the crane offering All those offerings for it Just study about what if I get an opportunity to teach Right, so I must be ready right and I can always go back and refer to it and So we must have that desire As students of the word of God Only when we are a student we'll be able to teach it to others right And so next class we'll talk about the practical keys of doing the Doing the ministry of a teacher, but I want to ask you Maybe some of you here are already teachers What are some of the challenges you face as a teacher? Maybe some of you can share. What do you think are, you know, some of the challenges That you have faced and How do you feel that you can you know improve just for us to I can share with mine. Okay. I'll start with mine. One of the challenges I faced was As a teacher I had to always, you know I could not just stay around What what what I'm talking like the topic, right? So if I'm talking about Worship right if I'm teaching about worship, so I can't just say okay worship is this and then there's always good to Like one of the challenges I faced was I had to go to different materials from different sources and You know going into the Greek and the Hebrew and all of it Uh, it was a challenge initially Initially, I thought oh man, this is like how am I gonna remember the words and You know, so it was quite a challenge and and so I had to overcome it by understanding that Unless I know the background of something I've not be able to effectively deliver it So what what are some of the challenges that you may have faced? Or you are facing right now In terms of the teaching ministry Any of you would like to share I know that john is a his fostering our church at APC mangrove John you want to share something? any any anything that you went through or you feel that Especially I also know that you take the Wednesday bible studies. So you're teaching there. So you want to share your thoughts I'll come back. Okay Now it is thinking. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is anybody else Anybody else? Maybe you're yes lubega. Go ahead In years pastor and the class I've been a teacher since 2000 But um, number one if you want to make it as a teacher Number one know your audience Know your audience is very important Uh, when you know what level what are the expect what your audience are number one is to know your audience number two Just as you said you must know your content. Yep Know your content very well because you might be talking in front of people who actually know more than you know, yeah, because Because you're standing on the pulpit does not really mean that you're the fountain of knowledge Yeah Some people when they are uh, they are conducting lessons or when they are in church They think that they know almost everything yet If this is just a privilege good has given you you are the one standing today But it doesn't really mean that you know more than everybody there. Yes, so you must You must talk what you you know, you must make research In a nutshell, I can say that being a teacher Can be concluded in one word. You must prepare There is nothing that replaces reparation reparation. Yes, so Yes, Lubega, I wanted to ask you this Uh, are you can you hear me? I'm hearing you pastor. Yeah. Yeah. So in 20 years I'm sure over the years you have grown as a teacher. You have learned from your mistakes What were some of the challenges that you faced like? Uh, you know, uh, you felt that hey, I I can do better in this or uh, what were some of the challenges that you faced? Uh, and when you know communication just like any other form of communication teaching Uh, I mean the you know part of I think 33 percent of communication is wide from 67 percent are known towards our gestures How you move your how you dress? How you move your body language? How there's so many things But number one the problem I faced as a teacher from the onset Because I was not here to graduate by then I was just conquered in my my senior six but um one of the greatest challenge is When you're standing in front of the audience is there is audibility you have a problem over of talking when people are not hearing you or the There is also stereotyping in communication whereby as you stand in front of people The the first two three days when you talk to them, they will now Stereotype you whenever you stand up people will say is going to mention this and this and this This is where nicknaming comes in They make name you they will call you different names when you don't you know So you must avoid manualism when you're in front of people Like so many people when they're in front of people they like to Speak a sentence and then they go over they go above us. Uh, they say uh, they get a given word That people will always know that when he has posted is going to do this. So Those are some of the challenges.  I always know that I don't you know anything. I just prepare every day in Uganda In rwanda and Uganda we usually say that You are best You are best Someone is the one you are going to preach So you should not always use experience saying that these are people I'm used to them Prepare prepare Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think that was spot on Um, you know, I'd like what you said the bigger, you know, sometimes we as leaders and teachers We may take it for granted in the sense that hey, I've I've taught this for Five years 10 years and I know my audience. I know that they're gonna listen. I know that they're not going to come up with questions So I know that you know, uh, they're level of understanding if they're so Let me just go above their level of understanding and this I know that no questions now That's uh, the heart is not right there, right? So we must prepare Even if we have done it Or you thought that same chapter a hundred times you still prepare because god can Our preparation is always very very important and uh, no, and I like what you said the bigger, you know Just because we are there teaching doesn't mean that we know everything but You know, and and I've always Felt that also because as a teacher, I know that there are many of them In our church who are way ahead Uh, in terms of their understanding like in the sense that they're all, you know, heads of i.t. companies divisional heads Way above, you know in terms of uh, you know, uh Management administration administrative plans, but What le biga said was it is because the grace of god that you are there standing in front of them It's not something that we must take pride in say hey, but when you say god You give me the opportunity to teach people Your word and the other side of the and the congregation of the heroes may be way ahead In terms of their speaking in terms of the eloquence in terms of their english or the the language proficiency In terms of their understanding capability. They may be way ahead But it's the grace of god God has chosen you to stand before them So how much more We must take this as an honor and prepare well The more we don't prepare and we try to go do something it We're taking it for granted Okay. Thank you so much le biga. You know good to hear from Someone who's been a teacher since 20 years. Yeah Okay, uh Anyone else would like to share yeah, john go ahead. Yeah, so I remember when I started Teaching or preaching One of the feedbacks I got in 2009 that time One of the feedbacks I got was my rate of speech was very high okay, so so And my body language was not very great. So my pastor's uh pastor and my pastor's wife told about this and I Look, so I started working on it. So how did I do it? I stood in front of a mirror and started seeing Um, uh and worked on the body language. How do I move my hands? How do my how do I lift my eyebrows? All those things I started working looking in the mirror and uh rate of speech I started recording in phones and Just go back listen to it and see how How well I'm communicating. So still improving still working. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm not saying I'm I've reached there, but still doing the same Yeah, thank you john. Yeah, that's that's again very important. Thank you john you know, I did that when And I still do it at times, you know last week was we were talking about faith and science and it had a lot of You know the sermon and sunday here at apc faith and science so so I remember just you know praying and tently and then just Just reading about all those people who are scientists and those who are who don't believe in god and those scientists Who believe in god their thoughts and videos kept listening to them on youtube And then you know added material to what was already there and began to preach it in front of the mirror and It was more of a teaching sermon. It was not a preaching sermon So we thought right so I prepared the whole thing and I stood and I think about two or three times I you know tried to share the whole sermon In front of the mirror and it's really helpful Now sometimes we may feel okay. I've got content. That's more than enough Right. Yes, that's priority, but it's also Are the way of communicating imagine I have like really good content, but I don't communicate it the right way Right I lose the essence of this of the teaching right so content Communicating it in the right way body language again important I can't go there and just say okay today. We're going to be talking Nobody's gonna listen. They'll say hey, what happened? No pastor or teacher has become very tired and it's better. We all go home So we don't want that feeling right? So yeah, thank you john for sharing that Isaac says I have not yet started teaching, but I will I would like to engage myself and you cause how can I go about it? Yeah, so I'll just give you a couple of Instructions and we will also look at it next week practical keys to doing ministry One is Isaac um if you're talking about teaching the word of god just just get into the word Just keep reading keep Diving into things go Go the extra mile of learning the history the background Right, uh, what kind of audience? Just go deeper right just keep reading you have to be a good reader If you're not a reader then ask god to give you that interest to read He will he will definitely give it to you right and I always say this to people You know, I was never a reader But now I just love to read right so god puts that it's not about me, but god puts that into people uh So so ask god to give you that ability and that interest to read so get into the word now with online You can just go all the commentaries. I've mentioned here go and you can you know research study Uh, you spend more time in god's word two is even as you're doing that ask the holy spirit to You know, he's your guide. He's your teacher. So to bring the revelation Uh, when he does it's it's powerful, right? Uh, you know, sometimes sermons teachings you may understand and we forget about it But a revelation stays inside right even to the end of life it stays inside us, right? Uh so Do that and then eventually stay faithful Wherever you are Ask god for opportunities. It may be small opportunities. Maybe in a small group or with a couple of friends Uh, so do your best even in the in the little as the bible word says be faithful and small and he'll give you bigger things So start small Look for opportunities be willing and then eventually god will even as you're faithful and small god will give you bigger opportunities, but remember that And the bigger opportunities comes The higher the responsibilities, right? Uh, so you need to push your game up even more, right? So so it's basically like this, right? We were initially we had only Dth course Then we came up with a bth course. So the moment I knew okay, I'm going to be teaching third years I knew that I have to spend more time Right, I have to spend more time in the world and these this is for third year And there's this whole feeling now imagine we start masters praise god Hope we start but if you start masters, I gotta get back into the word and there's so much, right? Uh, so just continue learning Isaac. I think I start off small. It's okay I remember initially we started off. We were about Maybe nine ten students less than that as well. So It's okay to start small God will give you opportunities as well as you grow I hope that helps I said, thank you. Lou Bega says prayer and fasting Yeah, thank you pastor. Thank you most welcome Isaac Lou Bega says prayer and fasting for your teaching ministry is also very important. Yes. Yes prayer and fasting. Yes Okay, so it was a good class good questions and we continue to do this even as we Continue our Sessions in the coming weeks as well. We open to questions. Let's leave time for questions as well uh Yeah Lou Bega's comment again says stay humble always be honest During your teaching session if a question comes out of your knowledge or experience Tell them the true don't cook answers in front of the audience. Yeah Don't basically Lou Bega saying if you don't know something be okay to say no, I don't know Uh, and a very important aspect of a teacher is to be teachable, right? So you can always say I don't know I'll come back with you for the answers so Right, so it's wonderful. It's wonderful praise god that god has given all of us Uh, this opportunity to teach this word of god freely given we all must use it Uh to build people's lives, right? Let's close in prayer. Maybe one of us can close Anybody can close Please go ahead Father in the name of jesus we want to praise and thank you this moment We appreciate the opportunity that you have granted us To gather here and learn in your word Father, we pray Lord committing ourselves into your hands once more We ask for your grace in the name of jesus That will be great teachers Not in word, but in deed.  We pray amen Amen. Amen. Thank you lisha. Thank you everybody. Have a great week ahead. I'll see you next thursday. God bless Thank you


I guess this is one of the things I was kind of pondering on and I'm still I was going through the Facebook ads course so I'm still I'm still going through that course I don't know if this question would be I'm pretty sure it would be answered like as far as like to try to build your audience like instead of like pushing a particular video like if you were to do like Facebook and IG ads I know how there's ads that you can kind of push people to actually go to like a particular site or there's just ads that you know I'm saying you kind of like just do for like a video and they just you know I'm saying watch the video and I guess like they can still click to go to the website but like as opposed to the other ad I think it only lets you use like a website and like a picture I don't know the names of those two ads so I'm just like trying to describe in the best I can the best like the two types my question would be like what would you feel like in your opinion would be the best to start off with like to try to just build your audience like would it be to have like a particular video and you know push that video with one of those ads or to you know have it like have a place where you're sending your audience and use that ad to try to get more people to actually you know I'm saying go to the music or go to you know I'm saying your website got you one it wouldn't be the website to I would commit to one or two strategies which is kind of what you said and the video views so with the video views is yo I'm going to run these ads and I'm trying to get people to watch as much of this video as possible YouTube is literally Facebook is literally optimizing for the type of people who watch videos all right so when they in of course more likely to watch your particular video and once you run that and you get as big of an audience as possible remember this is about video views so it's not necessarily gonna give you the most followers or anything's like that click-through is any that's not what you're really looking at you just want as many people to watch as possible and get a feel for that and then the big the greater power is after you get that many people to watch that much of your video for one if they do like it there will be some people that start to filter in but building as big of a database of that so you can come back with another video which is okay they watch at least 50% of this video and now I got hopefully let's just say a hundred thousand people who watched this video and now I'm targeting these people with my second video so if they watched that much of the initial video when they're more likely remember me to they probably lie certain extent and now I'm going to give them something else and I want to make sure these same people see it and that's that strategy and that's and of course you can keep going down that funnel but that's committing to that strategy not just running it once running it once is cool but having snippets or multiple videos and even when we when we talk about one video break it down into some 30 seconds so bam I hit them with two 30 second snippets from the exact same music video two different snippets from the exact same music video you understand so hitting with the video views and then maybe for the second one if I'd have it on have the video on YouTube when I said they watched 50% or of the 30 of the 30 second snippet the first one then I double back right and then I hit them with a traffic add that's the one that leaves people to other sites leading to the YouTube video targeting the people from the um that's where I'm looking for targeting people from that first video right who watched for a percentage of that first video you can do that or you hit them with another video view add of that same thing right and understanding data from yes and it's a long it's it's it's not even a long-term strategy it's just a strategy and strategies take longer to play out than most artists realize so understand you're pushing people down the funnel remember it takes like oftentimes like it I don't even want to say just a it might take 10 15 times 20 times for people to see you online before they passively say who is that person sometimes you got people that you just know like celebrities or whatever you just know their name you know their face and you still don't really know much about them but you've seen them here and there multiple you see them with this artist you've seen them in these others other situations and you still haven't actually gone to actively see who they are or check out their show or their music whatever they got going on even if you get specific to the sales process typically it takes about seven to eight like that was the the constant thing that was sold to people about right context before you actually start to convert people so you want to get yours closer to the sales process but that just means you have to get seen multiple times before you can expect people to convert a lot of artists think oh i'm gonna get this one video out or just one snip it out randomly and then i'm gonna get people to convert and become fans off of that one that's it's possible but it's not something that you should just expect all the time especially when we're talking about coming from running your ads and you're indian you don't have all these other platforms that'll be showing you in the pr and all that other stuff so they expect to think about it this way remember we got the i'll just pull it up see right so when you look at the marketing funnel think about it this way right we have the whole awareness and consideration and all that that basic stuff in conversion essentially what's happening in this process when we think about oh i hit them once bam the first time they're aware of me then i hit him second time and i hit him a third time and these are just retargeting in with the ads so that's literally pushing them down this funnel right because you first you're aware of me but also think all right awareness consideration conversion loyally i have like that is not just three that doesn't mean it's just three videos you might take three four videos or three touch points of them seeing you just to get pushed into consideration all right but it's still every single contact you're slowly moving them more and more down the funnel and of course you want them to go down that funnel as quickly as possible that's all about who the particular audience you're targeting is and the quality of the content and how it's packaged and presented to them but that's how you have to think about the ads so that's the video views ad though right and then the other one is like traffic straightforward we're essentially saying hey i see you here i mean i want you to look at me here but really i just want you to go check me out on this other website so i'm advertising on instagram or facebook but i want you to check out this youtube video you know what i mean and what you that's what facebook is going to optimize for not people who are likely to watch the video to the fullest extent or not just new new people or any of these other types of things is going to optimize for people who are most likely to click an ad all right and of course if you do the audience right likely to click your ad so the whole point of this one is now okay i got this video on youtube on youtube and i'm thinking i want to leave people directly to youtube it's a it's a different mentality one is pure i want people to see this video and really experience and take in my brand and hopefully they flip off of that the second one is more with the whole mentality of i want people to actually see this youtube video and i want hopefully i get that same thing from just running the video views ad but i want it to happen on my youtube video right and it's because obviously there's a lot of branding and cloud and things associated with the youtube video but people are doing the same thing off of facebook videos alone and it's possible to do the same thing and then you first you have it on youtube and then that starts to convert eventually because people are going to wonder where it is how do i find it and when they do their normal watch feature i mean they're a normal watch period but those are the main two things i hope that helped you like just from that breakdown in the description if you need any other clarity on that then we can get into that


I got a little worried about Charlie. I didn't want to confront him with it. I mean, we've been pals for a long time, so I went to the doctor and I said, Doc, I've got this wonderful partner, but I think maybe his hearing is going on him. And what should I do? He says, well, you stand across the room, talk to him in normal course of tone of voice, and let me know what happens. So the next time I was with Charlie, I stood across the room and I said, Charlie, I think we ought to buy General Motors at 35. Do you agree? Not a flicker. I go halfway across the room. Charlie, I think we ought to buy General Motors at 35. Do you agree? Nothing. Get right next to him in his ear. Charlie, I think we ought to buy General Motors at 35. Do you agree? He said, for the third time, yes.


These are obviously very upsetting and hard times. We'll take the chance here not to so much talk about the earthquake, but more about how we came to where we are today. It's kind of fascinating actually, because it's important to remember under which circumstances the AKP governing came into power. The party was founded in 2001 and they came to power one year after the foundation of the party in 2002. And it's very important to understand the backdrop of this for everybody, I think, because they came at the aftershock of two maybe very important events. One was the 1999 earthquake that was a major earthquake that caused up to 18,000 deaths officially, most probably more. And of course, on the backdrop of a major economic crisis that Turkey went through in 2001. Already, the Turkish government was in crisis as a backdrop to the Asian market crash. And that was made, so there was already negotiations, loans from the IMF, and then came the 2001 crisis, which crashed the economy and got rid of the government at the time and bought in the elections then in, that bought in Erdogan. So there was austerity, deflation, very hard times for everybody, big crisis, reeling from the earthquake, reeling from economic pressures. And now if this tune is kind of sounding similar, it's because ironically, this is also exactly how it is today. The Turkish economy has been suffering and people have been suffering from high inflation for quite some time now. And there's been now a major earthquake. So it's interesting how things turned out. Adon's governments came on this backdrop as anti-Austrian. And we will build, build, build with this type of very specific developmentalism because, you know, the AKP is Justice and Development Party, this very new liberal developmentalist ideas with private partnerships. Adon, although came as a populist leader, he was in no way like left populist as we would understand it. He was basically the revenge of the old Islamic oligarchy against the secular oligarchy of Turkey, not so long after, you know, AKP became construction and construction became AKP. They grew a massive class around construction industry. So this is what makes also this crisis so remarkable. Also, the government has made very strange claims trying to clean themselves, protect themselves of this very obvious truth that everybody knows is by saying that, oh yeah, like 98% of the buildings that collapsed were before his time or some strange, like ridiculous number that nobody was like, that things were more than two seconds can believe. This is the backdrop. And now I'd like to also talk a little bit about what happened after the earthquake. It was extremely delayed responses. People were devastated for two days. There was almost no aid coming to these regions.  And the state was almost like, but with all us, this kind of public structures and institutions and aid has almost been a forgotten concept because for them the state was like construction, building, military power, intrusion and nothing, all this thing of care and maintenance has been long forgotten although Erdogan had came into power by criticizing the previous governments on their failure on the 1999 earthquake. And we also saw the typical cronyism and corruption in the, what very little institutions that were left like the search and rescue institutions were filled with party members and their relatives with mostly that were like lack of any kind of expertise and showed on the ground, nothing was planned. It was really surprising, the scale of the chaos and the confusion almost of the state. So since there was no state, it was people and solidarity that was trying to prevail and this also panicked and scared the government for some reason because I guess like polarization has been such an important part of their body politic for such a long time. At the height of the second day where people were really communicating through social media, trying to organize their own aid, their own extraction teams, the government decided to close the social media and internet. So like it was really incredible to witness what the few reflections of the state has. Just block social media, do PR, try to, I mean, they already own all the, have all the media. So the emperor has no close moment. And the other shocking thing was the absence and very delayed response of the army. So normally in big catastrophes as we most of us seen during floods and fires in our inquiries and even in COVID here in France, for example, field hospitals, army. And, you know, because the roads were closed, the things you think that material, the army house could have been directed this regions, but the army was not deployed for an unquestionable amount of time. And I remember one of the interviewees in Marash said that the first time I heard a helicopter sound was the helicopter that brought Erdogan to the region. A reminder that we are NATO's second largest army. This is insane. We have all the army power and determination to affect Kurdish region in our own territory in Iraq. And of course in Syria, they needed the army. The army was not deployed. The only solution the whole time is the government officials saying on screen say, oh, don't worry, we construct in one year, we will construct everything back in one year, which terrified people even more because extremely handle developmentalism and urbanism and urban sprawl that the AKP had directed had caused, had played such a big part in this disaster. And the state was somehow thinking this would reassure people while it frightened and angered them even more.


Welcome back. It's so plus politics. The Independent National Electro Commission has announced that it discovered over 1.3 million invalid registrations in the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise the commission also set the figure amounted to 44.6% of the 2.5 2 3 million completed registrations of the INAG Chairman Professor Mahmoud Yacoubou said this during a press conference in the nation's capital Boudja according to him the figure was from completed registration studying from June 2021 to January 14 2022 while describing the development as worrisome the INAG bus cited multiple registration failure of the automated biometric identification system an incomplete Data as the reasons for the invalid voter registrations Yacoubou also said Infraction happened the infraction happened in all the states of the Federation. I would like us to discuss this is I'm glad to say Professor Sokoya, who is the National Electro or the National Commissioner of Information and Voter Education at INAG? Mr. Sokoya, thank you very much for your time Thank you so much These are indeed warring statistics I saw the the the infographic that I like put up and I think I like has been doing well in getting these Infographics up so that it can be easy for the public to understand and I saw it Entry my what's up this morning this afternoon and I was shocked to see 44.6% Nationally and please take us through the reasons I know that this has been put out by the National Chamber But please take us through the reasons why we're having these number of invalid registrations Well, it's really not new Since the Commission introduced the biometric voter registration exercise and we've been having invalid their registrations if you recall in 2019 when the Commission in 2011 I beg my pardon in 2011 and when the Commission concluded the voters registration exercise We discovered a total of four million two hundred and thirty nine thousand nine hundred and twenty three invalid registrations Now as we were heading towards the 2015 general election We also carried out the CVR and that brought the total figure of registered voters to 69 million 720,000 350 and it went down, you know, because previously what we had was 73 million 528,040 Now just before the 2019 general election The Commission also conducted the CVR exercise and we registered a total of 15 million 317,872, but out of this number we had a total of 1,034,141 invalid registrations And that brought the total number of registered voters for the 2019 general election to 84 million Now for this particular exercise, we started on the 28th day of June 2021 we had a two-track process one One track involved physical registration, which we did in our state and local government offices Why the second track involved a pre-registration using our online portal So it is a combination of all these registrations That's led to this particular figure you are seeing now most of these invalid registrations came from one persons who lost their PVC's and rather than going to go and report that they lost their PVC's They went and registered a fresh the second relates to persons whose PVC's have been damaged Rather than report damage PVC they went and registered a fresh The third involved registrants who Wanted to transfer from one state to the other rather than engage in transfer. They registered a fresh unfortunately for most of these people we have a more robust Cleaning up system involving an automated biometric identification system app is which no not only identifies Your printer print but also identifies your facial and so wherever you are wherever you have Around to whichever state we approve to it is able to identify you So this accounts for some of these multiple registrations that we have had and it's a really really unfortunate Indeed really unfortunate like you said. I'm just going through the the infographic and I'm seeing that Miss a quote. I don't know if you've noticed what I'm sure you have and that we have All the high The states that are above 50 percent In terms of the invalid votes In in the southern part of the country and what trying to create a situation of north versus south here But it's just what I've observed and most of them are in the Niger Delta So we're looking at by also state with sixty seven point one percent invalid registrations Cross river state south south again Fifty one point three percent you have Delta state fifty point one percent and you have river state Fifty three point two percent these are in the south south now one the southeast Which is the second highest a boy state sixty point one percent is anything around surrounding this Well, you know this particular figure represents the figure for the first and second quarter of the registration process the severe process which the first quarter Run from 28th day of June 2021 to 21st day of September 2021 Why the second quarter of the severe run from 4th of October? to 20th December 2021 and ending on this fourth The figure we have as at the 14th January 2022 now We have done the third quarter voters, which is severe and now we are in the fourth quarter. So the figures Keep keep fluctuating, but what is important? What is fundamental and what is troubling is that we have invalid registrations in all parts of the country as the chairman pointed out No part of Nigeria. No state of Nigeria is immune from this voters registration exercise But as you see the voters registration exercise you can see that the figure the figure we have for the second Third quarter is different from the figure We have for the second quarter and it will definitely be different from the figure. We are going to have for the For the fourth quarter for the fourth and last quarter and for this fourth and last quarter We have devolved the registration process to the registration areas And you know we have 8809 registration areas in Nigeria and we are devolving on a rotational basis from one Restoration area or what to do to the other and so the figures we keep on fluctuating and keep on changing But I can watch to be emphasized on what is fundamental and what is valley is the fact that the Invalid registrations cost across all states of Nigeria. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Cui So are you saying that this this figures I'm reading out are for just two quarters or they are for Exactly that just for the first and second quarter We are we are yet to clean up the data for the for the third quarter and the fourth quarter is Presently ongoing and we end on the title day of June 2022. Okay. All right. So this is us at 14th January 2022 Okay, I'm also seeing that we have 2.5 3 or 5 2 3 million registrations Bearing in mind the the population of the country What struck me when I looked at this this these figures in the morning was that I thought it would be higher Yes, that is our expectation, you know, but without sounding pedantic and without being pedantic, you know that Sometimes we Nigeria's we leave everything to the last moment if you go to our registration centers now Especially at the state local government and the and the registration area levels You will see that the search has started because people know that we are in the last quarter of voters registration exercise And I can assure you that when we get to two weeks to the end of this particular exercise You will see a deluge and so it's consistent with the way we do things in this country They in fact that these voters registration exercise has been ongoing for nine months But if you go to the special areas now you will see the surge of people coming to register because we are in the last quarter So I can assure you that this figure will we jump As we proceed them towards the finishing line of this as severe. It's really sad sad reality I mean we're seeing this last-minute attitude with the national identification Number and sim card linkage and we just hope that our compatriots can learn to do things early enough I would I was going to ask, you know, is it an egg is not, you know, enlightening the public enough But I'm aware of the efforts that an egg has made to put information out through different means So I would ask that question. And so why are people still not? Doing the right thing you're talking about those of Losia PVC's going to get new cards Those who have damaged PVC's going to get new cards Those who have a wish to transfer from one place to the other just walking in and doing their registration, you know So what should the right thing? What should be the right thing in these three scenarios so that people do not Keep keep you know putting up putting up invalid registrations. What do they need to do if your? PVC is lost that's number one and you want to you know replace it if you get a new one If your PVC is damaged and you want to get a new one Or if you'd like to transfer you're pulling in it from one location to the other Well, you see you don't really need to do much if you have lost your PVC What you need to do is to get an affiliate from the court indicating that you have lost your PVC And the moment you come with that particular affiliate What we now do is to call up your data because your data already exists on our database We already have your data we call up your data and then input the fight that you have lost your PVC And we schedule you for another permanent voter scan But if you go and start a fresh registration at the end of the day Our cleaning up process will show us that you registered before and we would delete you and Your second registration will be invalid If your PVC has been defaced The only thing you need is to report that your PVC has been defaced and it is no longer readable and it's no longer Usable we will print a new one for you. You really don't need to do anything If you have moved from one state to the other the only thing you need to do is to report that you have moved from one state To the other and that you want to transfer your your pulley unit and your PVC to a new location And we would just transfer you to a new location You don't have to go and begin to carry out registration afresh that you know some Nigerians do not really want to Just go to the court to go and get that particular feed of it and pay the token fee that they normally pay in court And then we also found out that there were some Nigerians that Some couldn't remember which one whether during their previous registration They use their surname first or they use their first name first and so on and so forth So because they couldn't remember they just simply say oh no since I can't remember Let me just go and register first so that I don't engage in Geopardy, but at the end of the day you get into Joe into jeopardy So what you need to do is to go and do the right thing those who we have asked those we have Classified their registrations as invalid. They are previous registrations as the valid So what they need to do is to go back to our annex state or local government office or to the special areas And do the right thing and then we will validate the right thing they have done But if they persist in doing the wrong thing thinking that we are not going to be aware of it our processes have become robust Our identification system identifies both the fingerprint and the facial so no matter how you want to be the system The system will not allow itself to repeat. All right interesting before we go I'd like to bring up the very fortunate development that has emanated in the last few hours in in emo state today with your continuous voter registration exercise We hear some activity some violence in Iheite Obama local government area of emo state Can you tell us what what happened in emo state? Well, I you know That from the 11th day of April This year we devolved the permanent the continuous voter registration exercise To the registration area levels of what you call what what level at on a rotational basis So some of our staff we are doing the CVR in Iheite Obama Local government more particularly in where they call in Iheite in PU004 in Amacahia what are a zero two when They were attacked by some unknown government Unfortunately, one of our staff by name no Korea Anthony Lost lost lost his life in the process. He has been moved to the to the mall and then the remaining two staff That we couldn't locate initially have not been located. They have injuries But I'm very stable condition. So that is the situation as of today and so many of the Potential registrants that we are we are injured in the process. Oh my oh my Consequently we have suspended the registration process in Iheite Obama local government sincere condolences, mr. Koei to to you I neck indeed the family of This this individual on walk Korea Anthony as you said who was shot by gunmen So this is a suspension of the exercise in that local government area or in the entire evil state we suspended the Registration in that particular local government prior to this even proud to this particular period The Commission was not doing CVR in also and also local government and in Japan local government While in the East or West or low and Haji a local government. We are doing the CVR only in our state and local government offices And it's really very very sad development And if you look at the figures that we have been releasing you can see that the figure for him or state It's either the last in the Federation or the second to the last and it's a very very unfortunate Development we feel that people who want to register should be allowed to register and exercise their democratic franchise at the right time Interesting. Thank you very much. First of all, Koei, you definitely will be having you on this program In subsequent weeks as we look at what's happening as we come down towards the 2023 election So thank you and for joining us and for the good work you're doing. I really appreciate this opportunity And thanks for staying with us right here on plus politics to round up today's show Nigerians tell us their opinions on Bola app it in a ball running for presidency plus politics returns tomorrow. I'm Kofi Bartels. Good night Hey, it's majority that can carry default. Not only me We should run for the president. I Don't think Anybody needs but There's going to be an issue most especially legal states wish I know The capital it unknown capital it are noting no option for him to run Still same people same You still gonna take us back So we just want to move forward. There's a lot of youth That can rule the state and I can make things Happen better. There are at least a lot of youth Tunnel as rule legal state I Mean I believe my in my own opinion. I believe you want to go up there again, but Is it's all that's always all the ready let the youth This one of the youth rule laws and let's see how the difference between the youth and the adult Yes, I mean to move around for presidency. It's from Nigeria.


Coming up on DTS, Microsoft fights harassment in the metaverse, NFTs are great and can help your movie watching. Also, NFTs are bad and steal your art. It's gonna be a roller coaster, folks. DTS starts now. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, February 16th, 2022 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. In Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Our is a longer version of this show called Good Day Internet and you can get that at Patreon.com slash DTNS. Big thanks to our top patrons, including Johnny Hernandez, Hi-Tech Oki, and Logan Larson. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Meta changed the name of Facebook's news feed to Just Feed. Hold on to your butts, everybody. The company says that the change reflects the diverse content people see on their feeds, which is kind of a good point, it's not always just news. A Facebook spokesperson said that the name chain change does not otherwise change the app experience. I thought it implied that they feed upon you. Oh, well, you're not wrong. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn unveiled the bill for the Kids Online Safety Act in the United States of America. If passed into law, this would require online platforms in the U.S. to give parents of children under 16 the tools to track screen time, that become the law at a certain size, opt out of autoplay video and modify content recommendation algorithms, let the parents modify those content recommendation algorithms. Bill also requires platforms to prevent promotion of self-harm and provides for a research program to look at the effects platforms have on minors. In its Q4 earnings report, Roblox lost 25 cents per share with revenue up to 20% on the year to 770 million. You might say, well, that sounds good, right? Well, they both missed analysts estimates. Daily active users increased 33% rather on the year to 49.5 million. CEO David Bazuski said that the company remains very gentle on monetization to focus on quality user growth with no plans for advertising or 3D shopping. Shopify had record-setting earnings and beat expectations that got hammered in the stock market too. You just never know. OM Digital Solutions released its first camera since acquiring Olympus, the OM-1. This use is a stacked CMOS sensor, a first for micro four thirds. It can shoot up to 10 bit 4K 60 frames per second video and up to 50 frames per second stills with auto focus and auto exposure. It's also IP 53 rated for water and dust resistance. It's available for pre-order now for $2,200 shipping in early March. Google announced on Wednesday it will bring its privacy sandbox to Android. Privacy sandbox is Google's project to replace third-party tracking. Right now, Google's investigating something that calls topics as that replacement. We detailed how that works on our January 25th show. So please go and listen back if you'd need a little bit more information. Google says it will replace the current Android advertising ID that identifies an Android device with whatever it ends up using for privacy sandbox. That means no more cross-app identifiers. This is similar, not identical, but similar to what Apple's done with iOS. Advertisers have at least two years to get ready for the change. So it's not happening tomorrow, but it is happening. Facebook VP of product marketing, Graham Mudd, tweeted that Google's approach was encouraging.  All right, tell us some good NFT news, Sarah. All right, we got some good NFT news, particularly if you like movies. Cinemarket is a film sales platform that uses a blockchain to manage film sales rights, like royalty payments and distribution. It's not that sexy blockchain company and you might not have heard of it because it's not selling you collectibles. It's engaging in something useful even if it isn't generally headline grabbing outside of its particular industry.  Cinemarket is launching Cineverse. The idea behind Cineverse is to let said filmmakers who are participating sell films to the public as NFTs. You might scoff, but before you do, this could be a smart move because the idea is that you get the advantage of a decentralized secure contract. So when you buy a movie from Cineverse, that movie is yours because it's on a decentralized blockchain, nobody takes your access away from that. You can also resell it or give it as a gift. But what if the company goes away and the blockchain goes offline? Cinemarket's CEO, Adrienne Lugal, says that within two years, he hopes they won't even own Cineverse and it will be run by an independent foundation run by the community. A lot of NFT related companies do sort of say that they hope this happens. He told Variety, quote, to have a proper decentralized platform, you can't have a Netflix or Google controlling it. So you might say, why would Cinemarket do this? What's in it for them? Because then it would make its money from the licensing deals that we talked about earlier. In fact, with a functioning NFT blockchain, resales of movies can still deliver royalties to those filmmakers instantly and that benefits Cinemarket's main business as well, helping filmmakers manage all of those royalty rights. In theory, everybody kind of wins here. Also data on how films are selling and where they're selling can obviously be useful for filmmakers as well as marketing campaigns. Cineverse had a soft launch on Wednesday in Berlin and will launch for real during the Cannes Film Festival on May 21st. Now with the caveat that content makes or breaks this idea, if you don't get films that a lot of people wanna see, this is never gonna get a lot of momentum. But that aside, this idea has great bones. The idea, this is what NFTs and blockchains are good at. Go listen to our know a little more about blockchains. They're good at being really hard to change, really hard to mess with. Unlike centralized databases, they're much harder to alter without permission. They're really good at tracking who owns a thing. The NFT system application of blockchains are very good at saying, okay, you own the thing. And if you transfer that ownership, one of the previous owners can still get a cut that can be led into NFTs. So the idea that you could resell a digital product kinda sounds silly in an infinitely copyable universe, but this makes it worth something. It makes it so that somebody might be willing to sell, let you resell something because they're gonna get a cut of it later on. It probably would need some kind of digital rights management and I don't love that aspect of it. I'm interested in how that would be handled here, but maybe it can work without it. And the idea of saying, hey, you know what? Apple can't suddenly lose the rights to something and take it out of your library in the cloud because they don't have the rights to show it to you anymore, that's hugely appealing. So I don't know, maybe they could get an Amazon or an Apple or somebody to use the system if it got enough momentum. But to me, this is an excellent application of blockchain and NFT. It just needs the start, right? It needs the beginning. Yeah, and it needs, like you said, a library, the library of movies that people care about, which, you know, there's another difference between this and a standard NFT pitch is that this is a copy of a film and you know that. This isn't like the only print and you're the only one getting it and now you own Terminator 2 and nobody else can have it. So it's a little different in that regard. It also strikes me as the only people that seem to be, I don't know, getting the money early in this process are the ones that are playing middleman and Cineverse is a middleman in this case. OpenSea is a middleman in the NFT world and others in other crypto markets are playing middleman. That seems to be what everybody's hurrying up to be in position to do. And I feel increasingly more every day that that's counter to the whole idea of a digital. That's why Cinemarket said and we'll have to see if they mean it when they say it but that's why they said in two years we don't wanna own Cineverse. We don't wanna be the middleman. We wanna be handling the backend rights of this. We'll make our money there. This would be a lost leader for them. Yeah. The other issue is you mentioned it very briefly but I'll just reiterate real quick here. It would probably need some sort of digital rights management which nobody loves to hear that but also that's kind of the problem with all of this anyway when there's no digital rights management there's no way to not just copy it and give it to a million people whether it's an NFT or if it's not it kind of doesn't matter because it's copyable. And if it becomes not copyable then what's the value in owning it and not being able to use it the way you wanna use it. I think those questions still need to get answered. There's some value to access to be like, oh you've got a really good locker that's got reliable access since you can always get your copy of it because you've got the NFT that lets you in the locker. There are things other than strict DRM that could be used there. But yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. Yeah, that's kind of a weird thing. We'll see how it pans out. Let's talk a little bit about the metaverse or as some have defined it.  But Microsoft offers something called Alt Space VR which has been in operation since 2013. A lot of people didn't know this. I didn't know this till we were prepping for the show. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2017. You can access it with Vive, Oculus, Windows mixed reality gear like the HoloLens for example as well as with Windows and Mac OS desktop apps. Wednesday Microsoft announced several safety precautions it's adding to Alt Space VR but you have to ask yourself, why is that important to do right now at this stage? Well, harassment in VR worlds has gotten much attention lately. There was an incident in meta's horizon worlds which I spent a ton of time in the last three weeks. There was a groping incident there and I watched a groping incident of my own happen in a fake bar in a virtual world and it was very awful and uncomfortable. We'll get more into that in a second. But anyway, this was reported or one of these was reported back on the 26th of November. One of the most recent reports was from researcher Jane Munchen Wong who had to block somebody who forced kissed her avatar in horizon worlds. A thing you can't do anymore but again, we'll get to that. There have been reports of harassment in Alt Space over the years as well going back as far as 2016 and harassment in VR really isn't a new problem. If anything, it's just an extension of the harassment we've all enjoyed in 2D space for a long time. But anyway, here's what Alt Space VR is doing. Alt Space is shutting down the campfire, news, and entertainment that other social, that other social hubs are sort of famous for. These were open spaces meant to help newcomers learn the world, anybody could enter them, come and go in as they please. Alt Space will also be turning on by default a user safety bubble, a thing that keeps other avatars at a distance which you can turn off if you want to. But by default, it would be on. This is now also part of Horizon Worlds. People entering an event will be muted by default. So that's another change. And in the coming weeks, Microsoft will require Microsoft accounts to access Alt Space VR. That brings Microsoft's family safety feature for managing kids accounts as well. So they're going kind of overboard, not overboard. I think they're going bored. This is what should be happening to put in some of these protections. Here's the thing though, here on the news about somebody said a mean thing to me on a message board anymore, because we're sort of past that and we don't think about it anymore. But because this is so new and because it's high profile, you're going to start hearing about it happening in these virtual spaces. And having witnessed one of these myself, I hated it. It was awful.  And I got out and did something else. Their system, as it was constituted that day, they hadn't put in the personal bubble stuff yet, but it was basically relatively easy.  There's no sound and you're now given, okay, here's a list of all the people in the room. You can choose who you want to block or report or various ways of taking care of the situation or you can just straight up, this is when I can just leave. I think those are pretty strong already. I think they could even be better. And I think some of the stuff being on by default is better. I think what Microsoft's doing here is smart, but yeah, it's like meat space, maybe worse than meat space. Some people are willing to say and do things in an environment where they're autonomous or nobody knows who they are, there's anonymity in there and they're willing to do some gnarly stuff, so I'm all for these precautions. Yeah, I was thinking about how much this would bother me if something harassment wise happened to me as an avatar in any of these spaces and pretty sure it would be upsetting, but why is it more upsetting than if somebody's mean to me on Twitter or otherwise just being a jerk to me in a way where I can block them or I can ignore or I can take action, there's all sorts of things that we're all kind of used to doing and harassment is certainly a problem that hasn't gone away, but this is different and it's different because sure, I am in VR world, I know the difference between VR world and as you call it, it's got the 2D world, but it is supposed to, even if it's in a cartoonish way or in a fun fantasy way, representing your person and yes, you might be alone as I am in my garage playing VR games all the time, but if you feel violated, you feel violated in a different way than just saying, I don't like this Reddit group, I'm gonna get out of here and that is something that these companies really need to figure out and I definitely think that alt spaces is making some good moves here to protect folks, but it might be darker before it gets lighter. Yeah, maybe, I mean, I'd actually answer your question directly about what's different and I think we all probably know, but there's an intimacy to there being a physicality of a person in front of me now, they've got a face, their mouth is moving in sync with sound, they make expressions if they laugh in real life, I'm hearing the audio of them laughing and I'm seeing it, the avatar smile and the eyes crease and these human motives that we on the internet just do as a quick smiley face, these are happening in real time with real people and they sound like they're right there next to you. Well, and that's supposed to be, that's the point when things are going well, you go, wow, look at us, we're all in a bar together, this is super fun until something happens.  That's right. It's the same. There's a term for this that I can't remember, maybe somebody can remind me, where we extend kind of what we consider us and I've read about this in relation to road rage. One of the reasons that road rage happens is because we stop thinking of ourselves as ending and start thinking of the car as us. And so when other cars cut you off and do things, they're doing it to you. It's very personal. They're not doing it to the vehicle you're in. And I think there's probably a similar thing happening even more so with these virtual worlds because this has now become you.  In fact, if anything, there's nothing to even really, for lack of a better way of saying this, you're not really grabbing anything because the way the mechanics in the world work, at least now currently constituted, and this will only get better, but it's not like you can really do much.  And it's really disconcerting because if you were in a real space. The attention are always, always the worst parts. Yeah. Even in the physical world. Yeah. I totally agree. So they're replicating, you know, the magic of VR has us double edges. And this is the other side of it. I really hope that these kind of moves by the companies ahead of the big rush toward this will, well, you know, I think this is really good and important. I feel like Meta's doing a little bit of, not backtracking, but they're kind of, you know, like, oh shoot, we didn't think of that. They're kind of having a moment while it's in real time. But it's good to see Microsoft thinking. I was saying like, oh, it's too bad. We didn't have previous virtual worlds we could have learned from. Like all space VR was having problems like this back in 2016, 2018. Second life was having problems with this well before. It's not like the problems knew. It's not like it just happened for the first time in November. It's just finally getting attention.  And I don't know. The more responsible we're going in, we can be the better. Give us all the tools. Give us the protection that we can use for ourselves. And it'll be a better ride. Hey, if you can remember what that phenomenon I was talking about is, or you got any other thoughts on this, I'm sure you do. Send us an email. Our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. One of the criticisms lobbed at NFTs is that they can be counterfeit. Anybody can mint an NFT for anything. So somebody could take a podcast I made, mint it as an NFT and sell it without my permission. That's a problem with any art, including physical art. You know, there's counterfeit sneakers, counterfeit paintings. So the counter argument to this is that as long as you are buying from a reputable marketplace, then you won't be supporting counterfeiters. Just like with real art and collectibles, you need to use authorized sources. eBay and Amazon, for instance, have put in places ways to verify that you're buying a real collectible or an authentic pair of sneakers or trading cards or art even. So NFT marketplaces, they're gonna do the same thing, right? There'll always be a small amount of criminal behavior out there, but a real life marketplace can keep that to a minimum and criminals can be caught and driven into the shadows. So a digital marketplace will be able to do that as well. So goes the argument. That argument, however, hinges on marketplaces being able to, you know, do that. So far, they haven't proven themselves very good at doing that. More than one artist, Scott Johnson among them, has received messages claiming to have taken their art, minted NFTs without their permission, and offering to sell them to the original artist in order to give them back control of their own art. Now, a lot of these are spam. Some are even phishing attacks, but some of them involve NFTs minted on mainstream well-known NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. Ajatrir says that her art has been created without her permission on OpenSea 86,000 times. The Verge has a really good article digging into this called the counterfeit NFT problem is only getting worse. They describe the rise of bots that will scrape an artist's website, automatically generate listings on OpenSea and elsewhere, then take advantage of something called lazy minting, which lets you list an NFT for sale, but not mint it on the blockchain until it's sold. That means that you don't get charged, so you can freely create mass listings with your bot at no cost. That's spam, folks, email it and cost you anything. Some folks are fighting back, DeviantArt created an image recognition tool called Protect that will notify users if their work is listed on an NFT marketplace, but their action then would be to file a takedown request and the USDMCA process, for instance, requires artists to file a takedown request for each infringement. In Audra Ture's case, that would have meant 86,000 separate requests, which is impossible for a human to do. So as the Verge also notes, developers at Math Venture Partners created something called Sniffles NFT, which is an image recognition tool that also can automatically issue takedown notices. It's not widely available yet. It's in beta tests with 20 artists, but that's some progress. However, as these requests are starting to flood into NFT marketplaces, the marketplaces are getting slower to respond to the request because they're getting overwhelmed with requests for the takedown. Sometimes they'll take weeks, sometimes they just don't respond. Even some big companies are getting infected. Nike is suing a streetwear reseller called StockX for issuing NFTs for Nike shoes. StockX says, these are receipts for purchases. You can trade them for shoes. Nike asserts, you're using our trademarks without permission and you can't redeem these NFTs for shoes yet, so they're not receipts. So what about the platforms? Are the platforms taking any responsibility for this? OpenSea says that it's committed to fighting plagiarized works and estimates that 80%, it admits, 80% of NFTs created with its free minting tool are plagiarized works, fake collections and spam. So it tried limiting that tool to 50 items, cut down on the spam, but still let people mint a lot of stuff for free. That got a lot of backlash from NFT enthusiasts and OpenSea immediately changed course. So you can still mint freely. A marketplace called SENT halted buying and selling of most NFTs on its platform February 6th because it said plagiarized NFTs had become a fundamental problem. Rarible has moved to a human moderated verification system that asks sellers to link to social media accounts and prevents NFTs from non-verified sellers from showing up in search. They self-report a 90% drop in fraud reports since they did that, so that's good news. And the folks buying sniffles NFT are considering building a reputation system on a blockchain that would verify legitimate creators and collectors that marketplaces could take advantages of. Others are pursuing class action lawsuits. John Niemeister, who worked as an artist on the game Smite, is putting together a class action lawsuit on behalf of artists. Others have just taken to supporting, say, for marketplaces. Audra Treer just doesn't list on OpenSea anymore. She moved her art to an invite-only marketplace called Foundation. And that's the hope, Scott, is that the pressure gets put on the marketplaces because there is competition, because there is choice to be like, if you're just going to allow fraud, I'm definitely not taking my legitimate business there. Yeah, I have some hope that this free and very open and very Wild West market will take care of itself because ultimately, artists aren't going to take it anymore and eventually they'll find ways of not letting their stuff get taken advantage of. But as somebody who's been approached twice with somebody claiming to have minted my own work and wanted to sell it back to me, it put me in this thought pattern of like, well, NFTs are just terrible then, and that's the end of it. But as time has gone on and I've done a lot more thinking and digging, it's far more complicated than that. Basically, for me, it comes down to this. If these platforms that are, again, these middlemen we talked about earlier, the ones that handle the transactions that list your stuff, that make their money because you list it there, sold it there, and maybe re-listed there, they need to work not with the masses of people who are trying to sell this stuff or at least not equating those people with the artists because they're not the same people. They need to work with artists to figure out solutions to all of this, not with the masses of people who are trying to make money right now because again, the artists and those making their quickest buck at the moment are not the same people. You saw OpenSea Cave, right? In that exact situation that you're describing. It's exactly the same, yes, it is exactly that. And so we all just kind of feel like, look, for years, people would take something of mine and make a mouse mat out of it and try to sell it on some site somewhere. And for years, I would be told about it because someone on Reddit found it and contacted me and I'd say, all right, well, let's go after the place and say, if we can get it to take down and they always take it down and it's fine and you just sort of move on. But now the stakes have been upped. It's now a thing that is made legitimate and made solid. Literally, we call it minting. It's being minted for all time in eternity in a format that should matter, it should matter more how the artist is involved in this transaction than ever before. And instead, it feels like it is, they're the ones getting completely left in the dark and the art that's getting used or being scraped from them is just being pushed out there willy-nilly and they've got no say or no control over it at all. If that doesn't change at a very fundamental level, I don't think this is sustainable. So I think all of these people you mentioned, all of these middlemen, they have to figure out a way to work with artists and be less concerned about what the buyers and sellers want and more concerned about the origin of the work that has value. And then maybe we see some improvement in the space. I mean, this is no different than what social media faced with moderation. Moderation wasn't new. People figured out moderation on Usenet in the 90s. When I worked at Tech TV and then when I worked at CNET later, we had very good moderation of our forums and then social networks got greedy because they're like, but moderation is expensive at scale. And we got so many users if we don't do moderation, maybe they can self-moderate. Yeah, that's what we'll do. And we've all seen that that has had its own problems. So we're at the same point with NFT marketplaces, which is y'all need to figure this out now or you're just setting up the exact same problem that social networks have gone through in not being able to manage things at scale. And that's what we're seeing. Yeah, not trying to act like one of their parents or anything, but look, open sea or whoever else this might be, you have an opportunity to become the place that figures this out and leads the rest of this industry in the right direction. So do that. It might mean slower growth, which I know is anathema to this blockchain NFT buzz. But- Exactly, exactly. But I think they can do it. It will work out better in the long run. It didn't take long to- I think they can do it. And I think skeptical artists and skeptical buyers and skeptics all over the place will come a long way around here, way of seeing things if you can show good faith in this way. And I think it can be done. It's gonna be big though, cause it's at scale and it's hard that I get it. They'll get there. Well, I have some pretty good news for those of you who are interested in going to space. Would you like to hear it? I would. Virgin Galactic announced it'll sell tickets to the general public starting on February 16th, not just Elon Musk or, I don't know, other really rich people. But there is a tiny catch. You still have to be pretty rich because the tickets cost $450,000 and you have to put down a $150,000 deposit to save your spot. Let them know that you're legit and you're good for it. But if you do have that kind of money, you do get a 90 minute ride from Spaceport America, starts in New Mexico, goes to the edge of space, including what Virgin Galactic calls its signature air launch and a Mach 3 boost. You got weightlessness. It's fun. Look at Earth from afar. That's your thing. The tickets include several days of astronaut training. You get a spacesuit from Under Armour that's conformed to your body and a membership in the future astronaut community. I'm also proud to announce the new $900,000 level on Patreon. The reward which will be, you get to go to space with me because that will cover two tickets. I was trying to think of what would be, what would be the price that I would go to space? Yeah, you're against space. I am anti-space for myself. I want all of you to go to space if you want to. You got the money, great. It's a little, you know, cost prohibitive for most. I'm not going, although everything has a price, right? So like, I don't know, $5 million. I'll think about it. Like if you got $5 million.  So we have a $900,000 level for me. Then we have a $5 million level to send Sarah to space. Yeah, I mean listen, I could pay some bills with that money. Yeah, I'll get on adding those to the Patreon as soon as we're done. Thank you, appreciate that. We also appreciate all of the patrons who have supported us for a really long time and we'd like to extend a special thanks today to Sam Leung, who's one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS. Thank you, Sam, for all the years of support. Yay, Sam! Sam deserves a presentation. You sure do. Sam, if you want to go to space, I won't be there with you, but I support you in all ways possible. Scott Johnson, also, we love your support. Let folks know where they can keep up with everything you're up to these days. Well, sure. Some of these issues we talked about today, but mostly as it appears or how it works with gaming, especially, I don't know how the metaverse is shaping up and how NFTs might work in gaming. If those are things you want to hear other extended conversations about and just good coverage of the game's business in general, it's a bunch of shows for you over at frogpants.com to check out. So I recommend you do. Go check it out. That's frogpants.com slash podcast. And for everything else, you can find me on Twitter at Scott Johnson. Well, always a pleasure to have you with us, Scott. Good conversation today. Reminder for folks, we are live. Monday through Friday, 4 30 PM Eastern, 2130 UTC. We're on demand, but if you can join us live, we'd love to have you. More info at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Back to it all again tomorrow with Justin Robert Young and Lynn Feralta. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.