vineri, 25 mai 2012

Video: "We Are Not Meant to Walk This Road Alone"

The White House

Your Daily Snapshot for
Friday, May 25, 2012

 

Video: "We Are Not Meant to Walk This Road Alone"

This week, the President announced a major new initiative on food security, hosted the G8 and NATO summits, gave the commencement addresses in Joplin, Missouri and at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and traveled to Iowa to urge Congress to act on the "To Do List," invest in clean energy, and extend the Production Tax Credit that has bipartisan support.

Check out this week's edition of West Wing Week:

Video: "We Are Not Meant to Walk This Road Alone"

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog:

President Obama Talks #CongressToDoList on Twitter
President Obama engages with the American people on Twitter about a to-do list for Congress that’ll create jobs and help the middle class.

Photo Gallery: Thirteen Presidents Mark Memorial Day
Explore a selection of Memorial Day photos and speeches from the holdings of the Presidential Libraries of the U.S. National Archives.

Hanging out with Small Business Administrator Karen Mills
SBA Administrator Karen Mills, and the four winners of the National Small Business Week Video Contest, participate in a Google+ Hangout.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

8:00 AM: The Vice President hosts a breakfast meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Italy David Thorne at the Naval Observatory

11:00 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

11:45 AM: The Vice President and Dr. Biden deliver remarks to surviving families left behind by our nation’s fallen military heroes at the 18th Annual TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar and the Good Grief Camp in Arlington, Virginia WhiteHouse.gov/live

WhiteHouse.gov/live Indicates that the event will be live-streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live

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10 Myths That Scare SEOs But Shouldn't - Whiteboard Friday

10 Myths That Scare SEOs But Shouldn't - Whiteboard Friday


10 Myths That Scare SEOs But Shouldn't - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 24 May 2012 03:04 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

In this week's Whiteboard Friday, we'll be tackling some SEO myths that might scare you but shouldn't. From keyword density to reciprocal linking, lets set the record straight about some of the myths out there. After watching what are some myths that don't scare you and why? Enjoy your weekend!



Video Transcription

Howdy SEOmoz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to address some of the myths that form in the SEO world that get people really scared and worried and asking questions in Q&A and on Twitter and on forums going, "Hey, wait a minute. I heard that this is a problem. Is this going to cause something bad with my site?" Let me put these to ease and try to explain each one. We've got ten. Let's get to them.

Number one: I'm worried because I have too many links pointing to my site from one particular domain. Maybe it's a site-wide link. Maybe they just embedded you in their blogroll, and it's linking to you. This isn't a problem unless the links are coming from a highly manipulative source, in which case you'd hope they weren't linking to you anyway. But I wouldn't stress too much about it. I'll get to people pointing bad links to you in a second. If you have 80,000 links pointing to you from one particular site, don't stress. This isn't going to kill your SEO. It's not the end of the world. If there's a good, editorial, natural reason why those links should exist, it's probably going to help you. What it won't do is help you 79,000 times more than if you just had a few pages on there, but it will help. It's not a terrible thing. Don't panic. I would almost never worry about this unless the links are from particularly terrible, spammy pages, in which case you might sort of worry, right? People have been worried particularly with Google's Penguin update that, "Oh, the links that I have might be hurting me." Great. Okay.

If you bought those links and you did it in a manipulative way, you acquired them somehow, fine. Contact those people. Please tell them to take those links down. If other people are just building spammy links to you, do not sweat it.

Sweat earning great editorial links. Great editorial links, a fantastic site, great user experience, tremendously valuable content that people don't want to live without, and building a real brand on the Internet, those things will protect you far better from spammy links than trying to contact webmasters one by one and get them to take down your link profiles. There are cases where you might need to do this if you have done or someone else has done bad linking on your behalf in the past, but these are rare. They're few and far between. I'd worry much, much more about building up a great site.

Number three: My keyword density is too high. I don't know where this concept came from. I know years ago people worried about keyword density as in the percentage of keywords on a particular page that are my target phrase that I'm trying to rank for. That's a good search engine signal, and I should try to make my keyword density 2.78%. No. A) You don't need to worry about that, and (B) you also don't need to worry about too high. There was then this myth that, oh wait, if my keyword is too high a percentage of the content on the page, maybe they won't use it for ranking, but they'll flag it for spam. Years ago Bing did say, "Yes, keyword density, we might look at that as a signal of how we do things." If you're writing content naturally and you've got a great user experience, and it just so happens that you have an e-commerce product page where the title is the name of the product and then the product description contains the title twice, and that's just how it goes and that's natural and it's in the headline, and it happens that, oh no, my keyword density here is 30% or 40%
of the text on the page, don't panic. That's okay. That's a fine thing.

As long as you're doing things naturally, you really never need to worry about keyword density. It's when you're doing manipulative kinds of things and building pages just to rank and stuffing them with keywords, then you might start to get into danger territory. But even then, keyword density is probably not the way to measure it. Measure it by looking at the page and being logical and saying, "Does this look like a great page for users?" If not, "Wait a minute. Is the word on here four times, and I only have ten other words? Oh no." Don't panic.

Number four: Other sites are scraping your site or your blog - your RSS feed is the most common way - and then republishing it elsewhere. Not only should you not panic about this, but I might say you should be a little proud of this. This mean that great, the Internet has discovered you. They've decided your RSS feed is good, useful, and worth copying and reposting. If they're reposting other places, 99% of the time they're also linking back to anything that you link to, including your own site. So having your blog picked up and scraped is just fine. Some of these, yes, they're spammy, manipulative, and junky. Don't worry. Google's not going to hold that against you. It's not your fault. Every site on the Web has this. Literally SEOmoz, I think, is copied by 200 plus different aggregators who all republish our content, maybe more than that. Don't stress. Don't worry about it. What you can do, what you should do, is make sure that those links that you've got are absolute links, so that when they're copied and picked up, they point back to your site. That's a great way to go. But don't panic about this. A lot of these uses are also legitimate.

Number five: What if Google sees my analytics because I'm using Google Analytics, and then they see that my engagement rates are low? I have a high bounce rate, low time on site. Are they going to punish me for low engagement and give me a penalty? No, they are not. Don't panic about this either. Number one, Google has promised that the Google Webspam Team and Search Quality Team do not get data directly from Google Analytics. In the aggregate, they might be using it to inform some things, but they are not looking at your site's analytics and saying, "Oh, let's punish that guy. Let's punish him for having low engagement, low time on site." They might see that people are bouncing off your page and back to the search results and being unhappy and those kinds of things. But if you're delivering a good user experience, if you're delivering a great answer to simple questions, your bounce rate is going to be high, and your engagement and time on site is going to be low because you've answered the user's query very quickly. Think of Q&A sites that are essentially answering dumb, simple questions like: What year Franklin Roosevelt was born? Oh, good, it was this year. Good, I'm out of here I'm done. You're gone. Don't worry about this low engagement, low usage. And don't worry about Google seeing into your analytics. They're not going to penalize you for it.

Number six: If this link is reciprocal, meaning I link to this site and they link back to me, will I get penalized for it? Does it lose its value?
Should I not link to the places that are linking to me? What if the New York Times links to me? I want to share that article with all my readers and say, "Oh, look, the New York Times covered me." But I don't want to make it a reciprocal link. Stop worrying. This is not a big concern. You don't need to worry about reciprocal links from this perspective. Years ago, there was this practice, and it still exists a little bit, where people would create pages and pages of links. They'd all point to their friends who they found on the Web. Their friends would all point back to them, and reciprocal links became a bad word because it was a spammy tactic that the engines had a pretty easy time identifying. But if you're just sharing the stuff that's sharing you, this is a fine thing to do. Don't panic. Don't worry that just because you're linking to something, the link back won't count.

Number seven: I'm linking with non-ideal anchor text. Is this going to hurt me? I have this page and I want to point to it internally or externally with a link, and I wanted it to contain this anchor text, but it's not as user-friendly and I'm worried people won't click through on it, or it seems a little manipulative, or I just can't get my product team to buy into that. It's okay. Don't panic. Don't worry about that either. In fact, there's a lot of suspicion in the SEO space right now that Google is looking at exact match anchor text and saying, "This stuff is not natural. This isn't normal. Why are people linking like this?" If you have an opportunity where it fits well with user experience, fits well with the content, and the anchor text makes sense, great. Fantastic. Take that opportunity. Earn that link. But don't stress if many of your links are pointing with a brand. This is again part of that density myth, where people think, oh, wait a minute. If 100 links point to me but 50 of them don't have my anchor text, then I won't rank for that. This is not a problem. You're going to be just fine. Don't stress.

Number eight: There are links in my footer. I have a footer on my website. I've got links in there. Are those going to negatively affect me? I've heard lots of bad things about footer links. Most of the time, this is not a problem. Again, it goes back to the same thing that we've been talking about throughout this Whiteboard Friday, which is if you're doing it for good user experience. If we take a look at one of my favorite footers, which is on Zappos.com. They have a great footer. It's long, it's lengthy. It almost feels too long, but it has fun stuff in there. It makes me like the company even more. It links to a lot of good things. Great, no problem. However, if you're stuffing tons and tons of links and you've got a footer that, oh here's an exact match anchor text; there's another exact match anchor text; there's another exact match anchor text; and I've got a big old list of them, and it goes all the way down my footer, you start to look like you're manipulating the search results. We've actually seen people who've pulled these or made their footers look more natural and more user-
experience centered, the penalties will actually be lifted. So it looks like Google algorithmically penalizes people for tons of stuffing and bad keywords in the footer. But just because it's in the footer doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. Don't stress just because of this word footer and footer links.

Number nine: Will URLs without keywords prevent me from ranking well? I don't know where this myth came from, but there's like this world of, "Oh, look, it's /123 or /?ide=7 instead of /keyword which I wanted to rank for."
This is not a tremendous problem. Certainly if you can get to the point where your URLs are keyword friendly and they're static, that's good. That's best practices. You want to make it so that when someone reads your URLs offline or sees them in an email or a tweet, they go, "Oh, I bet I can guess at exactly what's on that page," and that's a wonderful thing. Yes, when people copy and paste those URLs, the keywords will be in there. That's nice. But this is not going to prevent you from ranking. You see tons of pages that rank very well that do this. I would not stress about this. I wouldn't necessarily jump through tons of hoops to have all your URLs rewritten. It can be a big engineering effort. Sometimes it pays off. When you're doing a site redesign anyway, go for it. But I wouldn't make that the centerpiece of your SEO campaign. Oftentimes, this is not going to move the needle as much as you think it will.

Number ten, our last one: What about link bait? I'm worried about link bait and content marketing efforts and building this great content stuff, having a blog, having infographics, and having these cool videos, because they're not my product pages or sales pages. Won't Google eventually penalize for this because they don't want to see people just engaging in producing great content and earning links to their site? No. Google and Bing have both stated very specifically that they love this practice of content marketing, of doing great stuff on the Internet, even if it's only partially or semi-relevant to your particular niche or industry or customers. This is like saying, "Hey, I have a business that hosts a bunch of events. I have a business that donates to charity. I have a business that is one of the best employers in the state." It is interesting and does cool stuff outside of our pure product and sales process. That is a good thing. That is a great way to earn branding and awareness and attention. It's a great way to do well in social media and earn a following there. It's a great way to have content that's spread throughout the Web. It will help with SEO because of the rising tide phenomenon, which is essentially your site is this ship sailing on the ocean, and as the tide rises from all the links that are pointing into you, essentially your domain's link juice rises and authority rises, all the pages on there will perform slightly better. Google is not going to take away this power and essentially say,
"Oh, you know what? We're only going to count links to the exact page and we're only going to count them exactly this. We don't want this concept of domain authority." They love the concept of domain authority because they love the world of brands and branding. I would not stress that your content marketing and link bait efforts are going to be penalized or devalued. In fact, I would continue to focus on them. And if you can find ways to make the audience overlap well with what the people are actually buying, that's even more fantastic.

I hope you've enjoyed this Whiteboard Friday. I want you to de-stress, stop worrying about some of these myths that I know are popping up all over the place. Stop being scared of words like footer links and footers and URLs without keywords and keyword density. Just because these words are out there, just because they're causing problems for some people who are doing things in a spammy, manipulative way, doesn't mean every SEO needs to stress about them.

All right, everyone, I hope you've enjoyed this Whiteboard Friday. We'll see you again next week. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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Seth's Blog : The tyranny of low price

The tyranny of low price

If you build your business around being the lowest-cost provider, that's all you've got. Everything you do has to be a race in that direction, because if you veer toward anything else (service, workforce, impact, design, etc.) then a competitor with a more single-minded focus will sell your commodity cheaper than you.

Cheapest price is the refuge for the marketer with no ideas left or no guts to implement the ideas she has.

Everyone needs to sell at a fair price. But unless you've found a commodity that must remain a commodity, a fair price is not always the lowest price. Not when you understand that price is just one of the many tools available.

A short version of this riff: The low-price leader really doesn't need someone with your skills.



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joi, 24 mai 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Spain Plans to Merge All Nationalized Banks Into Gigantic Bad Bank; Merging Small Cesspools Creates Bigger, Deeper, Smellier Cesspools

Posted: 24 May 2012 12:21 PM PDT

After repeated denials of the creation of a combined "bad bank", Spain's economy minister Luis de Guindos is discussing creation a public body merging all the smaller bad banks into one gigantic bad bank, equivalent to 20% of the entire Spanish banking sector.

Courtesy of Google Translate from Libre Mercado, please consider large public bank under state control.
The Government is considering the possibility of creating a public bank that brings together institutions nationalized by the state, which include BFA-Bankia, Caixa Catalunya and Novacaixagalicia, Europa Press reported financial sources.

The Ministry of Economy examines delaying the auction and Caixa Catalunya Novacaixagalicia, waiting to know the binding offers to be submitted to the process of awarding the Catalan and that, if adopted, will be very tight.

The department headed by Luis de Guindos is aware that the latest sanitation requirements established by the Government through new provisions on healthy property portfolio have cooled the already low interest of potential buyers.

The economy minister said on Wednesday in the House of Representatives that after the nationalization of Bankia has opened a new stage in the Spanish financial sector, and that the Government weigh all alternatives before the next auction.
Merging Small Cesspools Creates Bigger, Deeper, Smellier Cesspool

Bear in mind that Bankia, one of the banks in this cesspool merger was formed on December 3, 2010 as a result of the union of seven failed Spanish financial institutions.

In 2012, Bankia was the third largest lender in Spain and the largest holder of real estate assets at 38 billion euros. Bankia is once again in trouble, along with Caixa Catalunya and Novacaixagalicia.

Allegedly the merger of three cesspools into a bigger, deeper cesspool will make the water drinkable. I have news for Luis de Guindos: It won't.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List


Containment Theory Blows Sky High: German Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 45; French Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 44.4, Sharpest Contraction in 3 Years

Posted: 24 May 2012 10:10 AM PDT

The Pollyannas who thought the European recession would be short, shallow, and contained to the periphery have another thing coming. All three ideas were downright silly as I have long stated.

French Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 44.4, Sharpest Contraction in 3 Years

Markit reports French private sector output falls at sharpest rate for over three years.
Key points:

  • Flash France Composite Output Index drops to 44.7 (45.9 in April), 37-month low
  • Flash France Services Activity Index unchanged at 45.2
  • Flash France Manufacturing PMI falls to 44.4 (46.9 in April), 36-month low
  • Flash France Manufacturing Output Index declines to 43.6 (47.5 in April), 36-month low

Latest Flash PMI® data signalled that the decline in French private sector output accelerated further in May.





Marked declines in activity were recorded in both the manufacturing and service sectors during May. In the former, output decreased at the fastest pace in three years, while in the latter the rate of contraction was unchanged from April's substantial pace.

Lower activity reflected a further marked reduction in new business during May. The latest drop in new work was at a rate broadly unchanged from April's three-year record. Panellists commented on weak market demand, lower client activity levels and economic uncertainty as factors leading to the latest fall in new business. Manufacturers reported a particularly sharp reduction in new orders, with the latest decline the fastest for just over three years.

Outstanding business fell at the sharpest rate since July 2009, with declines recorded in both manufacturing and services. Employment also decreased at a faster pace in May, with the latest drop the sharpest for over two years. Job shedding was broad-based across both sectors, with manufacturers indicating the steeper decline in payroll numbers.
German Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 45

Markit reports German private sector returns to contraction.
German private sector returns to contraction. Manufacturing output falls at sharpest pace for nearly three years, offsetting resilient services growth.

Key points:

  • Flash Germany Composite Output Index at 49.6 (50.5 in April), 6-month low.
  • Flash Germany Services Activity Index at 52.2 (52.2 in April), unchanged.
  • Flash Germany Manufacturing PMI at 45.0 (46.2 in April), 35-month low.
  • Flash Germany Manufacturing Output Index at 44.6 (47.3 in April), 35-month low.

Manufacturers in Germany pointed to a drop in output for the second month running, and the rate of reduction was the steepest since June 2009.

May data highlighted divergent employment trends across the manufacturing and service sectors. Net job hiring returned to the service economy, but manufacturers signalled the greatest degree of workforce reduction since February 2010.


German private sector input cost inflation was robust and slightly faster than in April, while output charges increased at the sharpest pace since July 2011. The indices measuring inflationary pressures also showed a divergence between manufacturing and services during May.

Manufacturers reported the lowest level of input price inflation for four months, but service providers signalled a much sharper rise in their cost burdens over the month. Moreover, output price inflation in the service economy hit a 14-month high, while factory gate price inflation across the manufacturing sector was the weakest since November 2011.
European PMI Plunges

For a look at the European PMI in general please see Eurozone PMI Disaster - Worst Downturn Since Mid-2009, Manufacturing and Composite at 35-Month Low; Expect Numerous GDP Downgrades, Missed Budget Targets

In  the above link I stated "Europe is in a full-blown recession and for the first time in about a year we did not see any Pollyanna comments from Markit economists. Perhaps the news has sunk in that as I have repeatedly said, this recession will be long and deep and Germany would not escape."

More Pollyanna Comments from Markit

I spoke way too soon. Check out this nonsense from Tim Moore, Senior Economist at Markit on the German PMI report:

"Services growth held its ground during May, highlighting resilient domestic demand, but weakening manufacturing output brought the German economy at large into mild contraction for the first time since last November. The underperformance of manufacturing relative to services has not been as extreme since the low point of the recession in early 2009, with a key driver then as now being a steep downturn in export sales. May's drop in manufacturing production was the steepest in nearly three years, and the current period of falling new orders now almost matches the length, though not the depth, of the contraction in 2008/09.

"Continued service sector growth and job hiring is therefore providing an important counterbalance to manufacturing weakness. May's upturn in service providers' confidence about the year ahead outlook is especially encouraging given the headwinds facing the manufacturing sector and ongoing worries among firms about how the euro crisis will play out.
".

Service Sector Sap

Please, spare me the sap about service sector confidence in the face of severe manufacturing weakness, plunges in new orders, and an overall collapse in the European economy. The German service sector is going to follow manufacturing in due time, probably sooner rather than later.

Every step of the way pollyannas cling to the slightest hope that somehow Germany is going to avoid a recession or will decouple from the European economy. Mathematically it is nearly impossible.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List


Eurozone PMI Disaster - Worst Downturn Since Mid-2009, Manufacturing and Composite at 35-Month Low; Expect Numerous GDP Downgrades, Missed Budget Targets

Posted: 24 May 2012 08:35 AM PDT

Markit Reports Eurozone PMI Suffers Worst Downturn Since Mid-2009
Flash Eurozone PMI

  • Composite Output Index at 45.9 (46.7 in April). 35-month low.
  • Flash Eurozone Services PMI Activity Index at 46.5 (46.9 in April). 7-month low.
  • Flash Eurozone Manufacturing PMI at 45.0 (45.9 in April). 35-month low.
  • Flash Eurozone Manufacturing PMI Output Indexat 44.7 (46.1 in April). 35-month low.

The Markit Eurozone PMI® Composite Output Index fell to a near three-year low in May, according to the preliminary 'flash' reading which is based on around 85% of usual monthly replies. The index fell for the fourth month in a row to 45.9, down from 46.7 in April, to signal the fastest rate of decline of private sector economic activity since June 2009. Output has fallen eight times in the past nine months



Activity fell at the fastest rates for seven months in services (and the second-fastest in 34 months), while manufacturing production dropped at the steepest rate since June 2009. The goods-producing sector posted the stronger overall rate of contraction.

Incoming new business in the Eurozone private sector declined for the tenth successive month in May. Moreover, the pace of contraction was the fastest over this sequence, and the strongest since June 2009. Manufacturers continued to post a steeper drop in new orders than their service sector counterparts. France posted a steeper drop in new business than Germany, while the rest of the Eurozone continued to see a stronger average rate of decline than the 'big-two'.

Reflective of the sustained fall in new workloads, private sector firms in the Eurozone continued to post declining outstanding business mid-way through Q2. The rate of decline was little-changed from April's 33-month record. By sector, manufacturing and services registered broadly similar rates of contraction. The 'big-two' both posted weaker falls in backlogs than the rest of the Eurozone.

Private sector employment in the Eurozone declined for the fifth successive month in May. The rate of job shedding was close to April's 26-month record, but modest overall. This reflected a return to workforce growth in Germany, albeit at a marginal rate. Jobs were cut for the third month running in France, and for the twelfth consecutive month outside the 'big-two' on average.

Commenting on the flash PMI data, Chris Williamson, Chief Economist at Markit said: "The flash PMI indicated that the Eurozone downturn gathered further momentum in May, with business activity and new orders both falling at the fastest rates for just under three years. "The survey is broadly consistent with gross domestic product falling by at least 0.5% across the region in the second quarter, as an increasingly steep downturn in the periphery infects both France and Germany.
Full-Blown Recession

Europe is in a full-blown recession and for the first time in about a year we did not see any Pollyanna comments from Markit economists.

Perhaps the news has sunk in that as I have repeatedly said, this recession will be long and deep and Germany would not escape.

Expect Numerous GDP Downgrades, Missed Budget Targets

All GDP estimates from the Eurozone to-date have been pure bunk. Expect numerous downgrades after this disastrous report. If countries are to meet debt-to-GDP targets still more austerity measures will be forthcoming which will mean more layoffs, higher unemployment, and lower revenues.

In short, Spain, France, Italy will find it impossible to meet budget targets as the recession picks up steam.


Containment Theory Blows Sky High

For a look at just released PMI reports from Germany and France, please see Containment Theory Blows Sky High: German Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 45; French Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 44.4, Sharpest Contraction in 3 Years

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List


Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Homemade Magnetic Levitating Bed

Posted: 24 May 2012 11:25 AM PDT

Reddit user with the nickname 'mememetatata' built this awesome levitating bed using plywood and hockey puck sized rare earth magnets. With $1,000, he built this floating bed that can comfortably sleep one person upto 250 pounds due to the fact that two people would make the rig collapse.

Building the frame of the levitating part of the bed. Fits a twin sized mattress. It's 74 inches long and 38 inches wide.


Another angle


Put in the slats that will keep the magnets in place


Put the magnets in and closed it up


Highly technical drawing of one of the corners of the main thing


Making the frame of the lower platform. It is 8 feet long and 7 feet wide


Another angle


Due to bad packaging in the magnet shipment, two of the magnets got stuck together. This is incredibly bad news because there are several hundred pounds of force holding these together now. After a lot of raging and angrily emailing the company that I got the magnets from, I realized that a rubber glove I was handling the magnets with was stuck between them. It provided a gap of around 2mm. I used scissors to pry this open and stick successively larger things inside.


Got a pen in (I taped around the pen so that the splinters wouldn't get everywhere if the pen shattered, which it did ;D)


Three pens and a spacer


Two spacers and a pen


I was worried that the pens would fall out and I would lose all of my prying progress, or that all of my spacing would fall out and they would be entirely stuck together with no gap, in which case they would be entirely and impossibly stuck together (many hundreds of pounds of force holding them together, these are solid neodymium rare earth magnets the size of hockey pucks). I used screws, which since they are magnetic, stood no chance of falling out! They also worked pretty well to prop them apart.


Two spacers


I stomped on the spacers to jam them and a pen in. I then replaced the pen with a third spacer and got them unstuck!


Slight damage. Essentially only aesthetic. Tests I did confirmed that the magnets were for all intents and purposes entirely functional.


Finishing up the base.


Put it all together. Steel cable tethers the top bed to the bottom base. Had to do some math to determine how long the cable needed with how high I calculated that the bed would float. I got this stabilization system (and most of the idea of the bed!) from this bed which is a much larger scale, much more expensive version http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hgI5jSC3NwY#t=94s


View underneath the platform


The steel cable goes into the platform where it is attached and screwed in.


Complete bed! Although I haven't yet put on the trim and nice looking parts, or put on a clear coat of paint to make it shinier/cleaner looking.


Sexting and the College Student [infographic]

Posted: 24 May 2012 10:25 AM PDT

For most college students, sexting is no big deal. In fact, as many as four out of five engage in sexting. But sexting can lead to more than just embarrassment -- it can lead to legal consequences, especially if a minor is involved. The problem with sexting doesn't end there. It has become an epidemic among college students, which can lead to other problems too.

Click image to see a larger version.

Via BCO