marți, 13 ianuarie 2015

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Before and After Pics of Animals Who Have Been Adopted

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 11:27 AM PST















What People Eat - From 500 to 50,000 Calories [Infographic]

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 08:39 AM PST

Some people a lot and others don't eat enough, but who would have thought that people can eat everything from 500 calories per day to more than 20,000 calories per day? Here are 49 interesting people that eat both very little and much more than a horse, compiled in visual style by Axentric.


Click on Image to Enlarge.



14 Bizarre Facts About Victorian Surgery

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 08:16 AM PST

Victorian surgical practices were strange to say the least.

















This Man Tried To Smuggle 94 iPhones

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 08:02 AM PST

Chinese border guards detained a Hong Kong resident when they noticed he was moving a little strange. The reason why he looked suspicious as he walked is because he strapped 94 iPhones to his body in hopes of smuggling them across the border.

















Local Search Expert Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Local SEO?

Local Search Expert Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Local SEO?


Local Search Expert Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Local SEO?

Posted: 12 Jan 2015 04:12 PM PST

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

How big is local SEO?

Our latest Industry Survey revealed over 67% of online marketers report spending time on local search. We've witnessed demand for local SEO expertise grow as Google's competitive landscape continues to evolve.

Last year, Moz introduced the SEO Expert Quiz, which to date over 40,000 people have attempted to conquer. Today, we're proud to announce the Local Search Expert Quiz. Written by local search expert Miriam Ellis, the quiz contains 40 questions and only takes less than 10 minutes to complete.

Ready to get started? When you are finished, we'll automatically score your quiz and reveal the correct answers.

Rating your score

Keep in mind the Local Search Expert Quiz is just for fun. That said, we've established the following guidelines to help judge your results.

  • 0-39% Newbie: Time to study up on your citation data!
  • 40-59% Beginner: Good job, but you're not quite in the 7-pack yet.
  • 60-79% Intermediate: You're getting close to the centroid!
  • 80-89% Pro: Let's tackle multi-location!
  • 90-100% Guru: We all bow down to your local awesomeness

Resources to improve your performance

Want to learn more about local search? Here's a collection of free learning resources to help up your performance (and possibly your income.)

  1. The Moz Local Learning Center
  2. Glossary of Local Search Terms and Definitions
  3. Guidelines for Representing Your Business on Google
  4. Local Search Ranking Factors
  5. Blumenthal's Blog
  6. Local SEO Guide
  7. Whitespark Blog

You can also learn the latest local search tips and tricks by signing up for the LocalUp Advanced one-day conference or reading local SEO posts on the Moz Blog.

Embed this Quiz

We created this quiz using Polldaddy, and we're making it available to embed on your own site. This isn't a backlink play - we didn't even include a link to our own site (but feel free to include one if you feel generous).

Here's the embed code:

<iframe frameborder="0" width="100%" height="600" scrolling="auto" allowtransparency="true" src="http://mozbot.polldaddy.com/s/local-search-expert-quiz?iframe=1"><a href="http://mozbot.polldaddy.com/s/local-search-expert-quiz">View Survey</a></iframe>  

How did you score on the quiz? Let us know in the comments below!


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Seth's Blog : Average is just another word for mediocre

Average is just another word for mediocre

If you think your organization needs a bigger marketing budget, maybe you just need to be less average instead.

       

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luni, 12 ianuarie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


China's Iron Ore Inventories Post Biggest Decline in Two Years; Yuan Observation; Pro-Cyclical Stupidity

Posted: 12 Jan 2015 06:45 PM PST

China's iron ore inventories have plunged like a rock as has the price of iron ore itself. Bloomberg reports Iron Ore Holdings at China's Ports Drop Below 100 Million Tons.
Iron ore inventories at ports in China fell below 100 million metric tons for the first time since February as the holdings in the world's largest buyer dropped for a seventh week to post the longest run of declines in two years.

About 71 percent of the port inventories are owned by mills and the remainder belongs to traders, Steelhome said in the report. The holdings, tallied at 44 ports, are sufficient to support steel-making in China for 30.37 days, it said.
Iron Ore Down 50% Last Year

The Australian Business Review reports Iron Ore Price Reverse Gathers Pace, With New 2 percent Decline
At the end of the latest offshore session, benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China was trading at $US68.50 a tonne, down 1.9 per cent from its previous close of $US69.80 a tonne, and just 4 per cent above the five-and-a-half-year low of $US65.70 reached just prior to Christmas.

At the start of the year optimism in the iron ore sector was beginning to grow as the commodity staged a recovery of almost 10 per cent from its December trough, but once again fears of a dead cat bounce are surfacing as oversupply worries dampen investor interest.

Iron ore lost about 50 per cent over the course of last year as surging supply could not be met by a similar lift in demand and expansion plans from major producers threaten to exacerbate the oversupply situation in 2015.

The latest price retreat weighed on industry heavyweights Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton in London trade overnight, with stock in the two miners falling 2 per cent and 1.8 per cent, respectively.

It follows a broad retreat in the stock prices of iron ore miners on the ASX yesterday, with Fortescue Metals Group sinking 3 per cent alongside heavier falls of 8 per cent and 15 per cent for BC Iron and Atlas Iron.
Yuan Observation

The plunge in iron ore (base metals in general) brings up an interesting observation.

Just a few years back, hyperinflationists thought it would have been wise for China to dump its US dollar reserves for virtually anything, but especially iron, copper, and oil. I took the other side of the debate.

Flashback November 19, 2012: How Sustainable are China's Copper, Cotton, Steel Imports? What About Chinese Purchases of Canadian and Australian Real Estate? Fresh Thinking on Balance of Payments

Pro-Cyclical Stupidity

Not only were the hyperinflationists wrong about the Us dollar (and still are), but they were moonshot wrong in regards to what China should be doing.

A few of us, notably Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets, predicted the collapse in base metals for exactly the right reason: That China's growth was poised to slow faster than most thought. And it has. And China's growth will slow still more, faster than most expect.

For China to blow its reserves on metals and oil at the peak of the market would have been pro-cyclical stupidity, but that is precisely what hyperinflationists recommended.

Somehow, hyperinflationists thought that China could keep building ghost malls where no one shops, railroads that no one uses, and entire ghost cities where no one lives, in perpetuity.

It's now obvious, China can't. Indeed, the entire global economy is slowing faster than most realize. The US and Germany most assuredly will not be immune.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Zugzwang! Spanish Radical Left Party Podemos Surges Into Lead

Posted: 12 Jan 2015 11:40 AM PST

Podemos, a Spanish far-left populist party led by Pablo Iglesias is once again in the lead the polls.



Chart from El Pais.

Elections are scheduled for November of 2015.

The surge of Posemos adds another contagion wrinkle to the German bluff that Greece does not matter. Actually Greece very much matters, but Spain would be a bombshell.

Recall that Podemos "Economic Manifesto" Calls for Debt Restructuring, Spain to Abandon the "Euro Trap".

"Spaniards should be aware that it is physically impossible that they can pursue policies that meet the national interest, within the euro as it is designed. The euro was conceived as a real trap, but nowhere is it written that people have to accept it ." said Iglesias.

Also consider Incredible Populist Positions in Podemos' "Economic Manifesto".

Fringe Political Parties

Finally, here is a snip from Biggest Bubble: Central Bank Credibility; Cautionary Tale of Global Gloom from Down Under, written earlier today.
I believe two of the alleged fringe parties are going to win the next election.


I expect wins by Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece. An outright win by the 5 Star Movement in Italy is not out of the question.

If you win, are you a fringe party?
The Troika and Germany have their hands full here if they cannot stop these movements. But the only way to stop these movements is debt relief to Greece, Spain, Portugal and budget concessions to Italy and France.

Zugzwang

The appropriate term for this situation is Zugzwang. In chess parlance, it means that it's a player's turn to move, but whatever move he makes will result in loss of position, perhaps even the game.

Here is a position of "extreme mutual zugzwang";



Whoever moves loses the game.

It's fitting the term originated in German chess literature in 1858 since it's Germany's "no-win" move to stop contagion from Syriza and Podemos.

Unlike chess, Germany can elect to do nothing. Yet, if Germany elects to do nothing, there's a strong chance Greece would then be forced to exit the euro.

So chancellor Merkel, it's your move. What's it going to be?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com