The Swedish company VO Vapen, which manufactures an exclusive weapon. Today, the company produces the most luxurious hunting rifles that are made entirely by hand. All products are very limited edition: the year is only a few guns. The price of this unique weapon is 820,000 dollars, making it the most expensive gun in the world. It is more expensive than a good home.
These are retro Cosplays that range from Worldcon to WonderCon from the 1970' to the 1980's. Cosplays have been around as long as there have been fans. It appears that people have been dressing themselves up in science fiction and fantasy costumes for a long time.
A Star Trek convention in the 70s. Yes, that's George Takei judging.
Dark Phoenix looking particularly sullen. WorldCon, 80s.
Orion slave girl with some nerd at a Star Trek con in the 70s.
More 70s Star Trek. Lots of Vulcans!
Red Sonja! This particular Sonja is Wendy Pini, who would go on to illustrate the classic ElfQuest.
Elric of Melnibone and his consort Cymoril. WorldCon, 70s.
Rollerball cosplayers, late 70s.
Ming the Merciless and Maleficent. WorldCon, 70s.
Comic book and movie characters weren't the only cosplay subjects — here you can see a woman dressed as National Lampoon's comic strip character "Danger Rangerette". 70s.
Several Red Sonjas and a lucky wizard. WorldCon, 70s.
Lastly, a classic — Doctor Who, K-9, and Leela. WorldCon, 70s. Source: fanboy
These are some very funny photos of cats and dogs whispering into each other ears. Makes you wonder if they are really communicating with each other. Maybe not, but you sure couldn't tell it by looking.
This weird bazooka was created for this year's Bacon Day. A three-foot long, battery-operated weapon encased in 15 pounds of piggy goodness.
If you're not terribly impressed with the force of the Bacon Bazooka, please do keep in mind that it's firing a summer sausage here—a model rocket would yield much better results. And for those concerned about the waste of precious sizzlin strips, rest assured that all of the meat was donated and well past its expiration date.
Two young Japanese girls turn into two old Japanese men and there's a photo to prove it! A presentation of the Just For Laughs Gags. The funny hidden camera pranks show for the whole family.
A girl and her room, Photographer Rania Matar has taken dozens of pictures of teenage girls in their bedrooms, in both the US and the Middle East. More images.
In October of 2007 I was standing in front of a full house at the Yahoo Sunnyvale headquarters. I was on a mission to try to explain, with very little actual evidence, that SEO is more than just site “optimization”. I could see what was coming down the pipeline loud and clear. SEO isn’t SEO anymore, it’s different. SEO (especially for enterprise-level sites) equals a damn good product.
Here’s a slide from the presentation:
See the point here? It’s the epic frenemy battle of SEOs vs. Search Engines that whittles the SEO techniques down to what eminently points to no other option but to have a great product. What is a great product? It’s a site that people want to go to, return to, share with their networks, email their friends, etc., (aka building natural links and “buzz”). Get it? Great content and natural links and buzz = the new SEO. But it’s not actually new, it just hasn’t always been adopted very well.
Until now. Remember what it’s like when an algorithm shift changes the rules of SEO? Of course you do.
Since this timeline I threw out there in 2007, not a lot has changed on the “spammy methods” side of things (and doesn’t that just tickle the “SEO is dead” funny bone). But wait, do you know what popular widely-preached tactics since 2007 are missing since this chart? C’mon, think Panda/Farmer update. In the current days of black-hats-gone-grey, what’s the spam tactic to be battled at this point?
If you’ve ever bothered to follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines or anything that Matt Cutts has ever said anytime in the last x years, you’ll see that you, my build-content-for-search-engines friends (I still love you, you tried), have had warnings sitting out there as clear as day. Might I show you a select few?
And I quote: “Great content has to be the foundation of any good site, because mediocre content tends not to attract exceptional links by itself. And if you’re trying to get exceptional links on really really crappy content, you’re going to be pushing uphill.” “You want to have a well-rounded site, and one of the best ways to do that is to have fantastic, interesting, useful content, great resources, great information, and then that naturally attracts the links. And then search engines want to reflect the fact that the web thinks that you are interesting or important or helpful.”
But I build exactly what people are looking for in search, how can that be bad?
There’s a difference between building content to attract your audiences and building content to attract search engines. But, your audiences are doing the searches in the search engines, right? So what is the difference? Someone asked me recently why ‘content-rich’ Suite101.com was on the Farmer update loser list. Here’s exactly what I sent back to him in an email:
Its obviously created for *search traffic*, meaning the company goal isn’t to invest everything into creating something rich and meaningful for their audiences, but instead the primary goal is to create content for search traffic, THEN maybe throw a little investment into the rest of the site experience. That's a Google no-no.
When there's "shallow content", the site likely isn’t the best resource for anyone researching something through search. Do you want your search results for how to cope with your depression to be this article plastered with ads from Shauntee Jackson (mother of two rambunctious toddlers in Ft. Worth, TX) who even says in the article "I'm no expert in depression" or would you rather have a site that not only has experts dedicated to helping you learn about and cope with your depression issues, but also provides hotlines, medical information, community support and resources, maybe even tools for diagnosis or self-treatment options.
Get what I mean? Suite101, like every client that says their number one company goal is to get search traffic, is doing it wrong. Their number one goal needs to be providing value to audiences. Which in turn provides valuable content for search results. And on top of that, it provides a cleaner, less spammy and more useful web overall. Leave it to Google.
Learn from past mistakes
You’ve heard about the “quality content” mantra, right? If you’ve been in SEO for ten minutes you’re preaching it. So where did we all go so wrong? How can an entire innovative, on-the-ball SEO industry have let this go right over our heads? How can the warnings of the Do No Evil Silicon Valley giant have been so blatantly ignored as if nothing would ever come of them?
If you sit back and think about it (and if you’re old enough), you might get an eerie sense of those dotcom bubble burst days when millions of investor dollars were thrown into internet companies with no staff, no experience, no plan, and only existed as an overblown trend-following idea on paper. Some people had some new ideas and made some money online and all of a sudden everyone’s building online businesses, with dreams of (being) sugardaddies dancing in their heads, forgetting a very basic, fundamental core of a good long-term business model – providing actual value to their audiences. Shallow much?
The 2011 spin on quality content
This is the deal. We know that search engines want to provide sites that people (aka audiences) find valuable. We know that they use signals like social mentions and influence, and clickthroughs from search, and potentially dozens of other buzz-measuring indicators that go into determining if a site is something that people are really into or just some shallow content hanging around the web trying to feign legitimacy like Snooki at a Mensa convention. How to be one of those sites that people are into, that seeps of naturally linkable, sharable, emailable, tell all your friends, come hither, and come hither again content is fodder for another article. But as you create any content online ask yourself this question: “Self? How will this be more valuable to my audiences than what my competitors are doing?” If you are lucky enough to not have any competitors, then just take that part off the sentence.
But I don’t have to tell you that, because if you’re listening…
…Google already told you so.
Stay tuned for my next post on how this update doesn't just change an algorithm, it changes the web.
I'm writing to make sure that you know about an unprecedented national campaign to support our nation's military families called Joining Forces.
As First Lady, I've had the privilege of meeting with Americans in uniform around the world. These brave men and women would be the first to tell you that they don't serve alone. Every day, they are joined in service to our country by military wives, husbands, children, siblings and parents.
Joining Forces is about all of us joining together, as Americans, to give back to the extraordinary military families who sacrifice so much every day. Our motto is simple — everyone can do something. So take a moment to find out how you can play a part:
Like their loved ones, military families are proud to serve. But that doesn't mean it’s easy. Indeed many Americans may not realize how difficult it can be to have a parent or spouse deployed overseas.
That's why Joining Forces is so important. We're going to match the unique needs and strengths of America’s military families with specific ways that Americans can offer support.
So on behalf of the President, as well as the Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden, proud military parents themselves, let me offer a heartfelt thanks to not only our troops and their families – but also to the rest of you for joining forces to support them.
Sincerely,
Michelle Obama First Lady of the United States
P.S. We've created a special email list for more frequent updates about the Joining Forces campaign. You can sign up here:
President Barack Obama returns to the Oval Office through the Rose Garden after surprising students from Altona Middle School in Longmont, Colo., April 11, 2011. During his statement Friday night, President Obama mentioned a letter he received from the mother of an Altona student who worried that her son's trip to Washington, D.C., would be canceled if there was a government shutdown. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
In Case You Missed It
Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog.
Surprise! It's the President President Obama surprises students visiting the White House by dropping in on their tour.
School Field Trip to California Education Secretary Arne Duncan talks about the schools he visited in California, and how they are examples of the education system we need to keep America competitive in a global economy.
Today's Schedule
All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
9:30 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
10:00 AM: The Vice President and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar host a plaque dedication ceremony to honor Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
10:00 AM: The President meets with senior advisors
12:00 PM: The President, the Vice President, the First Lady and Dr. Biden deliver remarks at the launch of the First Lady and Dr. Jill Biden’s national initiative to support and honor America’s service members and their families
1:30 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney
2:15 PM: The President meets with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management John Berry
2:30 PM: The Vice President meets with Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya
4:30 PM: The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of Defense Gates
5:00 PM: The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of State Clinton
The internet means that many time-consuming forms of white-collar drudgery have disappeared, or at least been offloaded to cheaper people who aren't you, permitting you to spend more time on things that are actually productive and highly leveraged.
No more standing in line at the copier, trudging to the Fedex box, waiting two weeks for a letter to be returned, leaving voice mails, searching for the right person to contact, waiting months to learn a skill or a fact, discovering that a project is hopelessly broken, and on and on.
It's a little like the bump we got after the Cold War ended. The peace dividend was there, just waiting for us to repurpose our military, our military budget and our military research. We didn't. We squandered the window, wasted the money and didn't rush to fill it with the sort of top-down industrial projects (like high speed rail and efficient new forms of energy) that could have changed everything.
So, what are you going to do with the digital dividend? Cruise Facebook?
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