Just Call Me Mike

By: Michele Schirru
  • Summary

  • Ciao amici, welcome to the channel!

    My name is Michele but… just call me Mike! 😉

    Of course, I'm Italian - I come from Sardinia.

    This is the youtube channel for those who speak english and are keen to pick up some Italian, want to feel themselves a little bit more Italians and essentially wanna be part of a community of Italian culture lovers. 🇮🇹

    In this channel, I vlog about my passions and whatever I find interesting. Lifestyle, business, tech, digital, tennis, music and so on...

    Everything started quite randomly, I was looking for a way to continue practicing my english, at the same time I came to know that Italian was the fourth most studied language around the world.

    Bingo, I knew what to do: here we are. 🔥

    If you love the channel, please subscribe and join the community!

    Please speak to me at wannabeitaliano@gmail.com
    Copyright Michele Schirru
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Episodes
  • I know the secret to a long life (not what you think)
    Apr 22 2022
    When I hear talking about slow living I can immediately relate to it.

    I grew up in Sardinia, a magical land in the middle of the Mediterranean sea - by the way, Sardinia is part of Italy but it seems like an independent continent.

    Geographically, culturally, socially: we experience the beauty of being an island that is far enough from everyone around.

    Typical colours and atmospheres are never forgotten by the lucky visitors that come around; easy to remember the heat, the sea, the blue sky.

    People come to discover Sardinia as travellers but then they fall in love, every time they come back they discover new stories, traditions and beauties.

    But I started talking about slow living, and Sardinia has a lot to do with it.

    Everything here is slow, everyone has plenty of time to do what they like and enjoy. This is found in life expectancy as well.

    The Blue Zone areas

    In the last 20 years or so, scientists have started to talk about Blue Zone areas… Sardinia is part of it.

    According to Wikipedia, Blue zones are regions of the world thought to have a higher than usual number of people who live much longer than average. They are:

    Okinawa (Japan); Sardinia (Italy); Nicoya (Costa Rica); Icaria (Greece); and Loma Linda (California, USA)

    As far as Sardinia is concerned, this might come from the rare genetic M26 marker, being an Island it has been easier to preserve it and keep it in the territory.

    Clearly there is no single answer and we can’t simplify or generalise.

    Most of our people run a very traditional healthy lifestyle. Times are changing of course, but sardinians still hunt, fish and harvest the food they eat.

    We stay close with friends and family throughout our lives, we laugh and drink wine together. Every day there is a good occasion to celebrate.

    Key elements for a long lasting life

    Diet

    The classic Sardinian diet consists of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables and fruits.

    A research found that sardinian centenarians mostly ate whole grains and meat was only consisting of 5% of their diet.

    Put family first

    Sardinia’s strong family values help assure that every member of the family is cared for.

    It is obvious that people who live in strong, healthy families suffer lower rates of depression, suicide, and stress.

    Take a walk


    Sardinians walk and exercise, in general, and this is particularly true for shepherds.
    They stay out all day and work to a great extent.


    Drink a glass or two of red wine daily


    Sardinians drink wine moderately, a glass or two of red wine on a daily basis.


    Laugh with friends


    They gather in the street each afternoon to laugh with and at each other. Laughter reduces stress and makes people happier…


    This is what I could call an escape

    I tried to escape from it, but I now understand that I belong to this place.

    Everything here is slow, I hated it. I could not bear the slow pace everyone had in doing everything, weeks or months to complete a single task.

    Italy is here, but Sardinia is like here.

    I went to the UK, then in Denmark, the system was so much better in many cases, everything was functional and fast.

    But then I came back for good, this is where I’m born and where I live with my family.

    I don’t know if I will one day be a centenarian, the lifestyle is changing for us as well.

    The blue zone area might just be gone with my grand dad generation, even small towns in the middle of nowhere have remained the same.

    Young generations left and moved to the main cities, attracted by job opportunities and better lifestyles.

    But for sure I know that over here there is a secret to a long life, it comes to us to decide whether we want to give it a chance or not.
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    8 mins
  • Tennis Star hosts first Metaverse tennis tournament
    Mar 16 2022
    This is seriously happening: I’m going to compete on a Metaverse tennis tour of tournaments. No bullshit, all 100% true.

    This has become reality thanks to the @ballman project, a collection of digital tennis players who can compete in Metaverse tournaments and let owners earn money while they play.

    And the man behind all of this is… Stan The Man! Of course, together with a wonderful team of experts that have made possible for the technology to give birth to this project.

    The NFT open series is a series of virtual tennis tournaments designed for the ballman community.

    On Opensea there are plenty of Ballman NFTs still on the market and I truly believe there will be a lot going on, that’s why I decided to purchase one.

    Obviously this is not to be seen as my advice, you must carry out your own due diligence and carefully consider your situation before doing anything about it.

    But in all cases, let me know your thoughts in the comments below, have you bought one? Why did you do it? What are your expectations?
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    9 mins
  • Metaverse explained: the future of the internet.
    Mar 5 2022
    You might not believe this but this word isn't yet in most of the dictionaries we use.

    How do you define a word that isn't even in the dictionary? We are talking about the word Metaverse.

    What exactly is the Metaverse? Well, there is no single answer, it basically depends on who you ask.

    For someone, the Metaverse is the convergence of the digital and the physical, for others it represents a desire to go into a new world that's like the real world in every way, but somewhat better.

    We agree on one thing: the Metaverse is a powerful mix of different immersive experiences that humans can breathe on a multilevel space.

    Let’s be honest, many of us were amazed at the news that Zuckerberg announced at the end of 2021: Facebook has started transitioning to a Metaverse company.

    Right, but what exactly is the Metaverse Facebook is referring to?

    According to him, “It's a virtual environment. We can be present with people in digital spaces, and you can kind of think about this as an embodied internet that you're inside of, rather than just looking at.”

    Defining a new term and this new scenario ahead is not easy to explain, but let’s try this way.

    In Web 1.0, we had the Internet, which connected us to information at unprecedented speeds and scale.

    Web 2.0 connected people through the Internet, which gave us the social media platforms we all know.

    Web 3.0 is about connecting people, places and things. Sometimes these people, places and things can be fully virtual or synthetic, while at other times they can be in the physical world with a level of augmentation.

    The term was coined by Sci-Fi writer Neil Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, the Metaverse as an escape from reality. But does it have to be an escape, or can it be more than that?

    The Metaverse represents this desire to go into a new world that's like the real world in every way, but better, where we're powerful or free or whatever else.

    But to get there we need technologies that make it possible to empower this vision, whether that's the computing that is required or the blockchain to provide an economic backbone and give us the ability to buy and sell and trade.

    But let's talk about the underlying technology for a moment, because even though it's not the same thing as the Metaverse, it's important to understand how we get there.

    When most people think of the Metaverse, they think of virtual reality.

    Headsets like those produced by Oculus have become less heavy and cheaper over the years.

    VR is an entry point in one of the enabling technologies, but it's not the only one.

    Things like VR, AR, 5G are getting faster. Computing power is getting faster.

    But the pandemic has poured gasoline on anything and everything digital. And what we saw through this is that people were not only just spending more time online, but spending time in these new worlds that were also emerging at this point in time.

    While it's important to understand the hardware, as I mentioned before, the hardware isn't the whole story. It's the vehicle that gets us there.

    But where exactly is there?

    We're living in unprecedented times and we are somewhat pioneers, leading the way for the birth of future developments that will become ordinary life for our growing children.

    This is the future of the internet.

    If you love the channel, please subscribe and join the community!
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    11 mins

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