Central Perk

marți, 28 septembrie 2010

Damn Cool Pics

Gun Size Matters
High-Speed Photography by Alan Sailer - Part 2
35 Kit Kat Varieties From Around The World
Aging Male Celebrities
Bathing Suits for People who Are Afraid of Sunburns
Real Life Pac-Man
The World's Most Dangerous Sports

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 02:08 PM PDT

From the guys who made The rocket jump, here comes the next episode.

High-Speed Photography by Alan Sailer - Part 2

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 12:22 PM PDT

Here we've got a set of new high speed photos created by an American photographer Alan Sailer.

Previous Part:
High-Speed Photography by Alan Sailer.

35 Kit Kat Varieties From Around The World

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 04:19 AM PDT

These Kit Kat candy bars are from several countries around the world and mostly from Japan. There is something for every person with a sweet tooth here.

Bubblegum Kit Kat (Japan)

Strawberry Kit Kat (Japan)

Candied Sweet Potato Kit Kat (Japan)

Apple Vinegar Kit Kat (Japan)

Sweet Corn Kit Kat (Japan)

Watermelon & Salt Kit Kat (Japan)

Potato Kit Kat (Japan)

Salt & Caramel Kit Kat (Japan)

Muscat of Alexandria Grapes Kit Kat (Japan)

Toasted Soy Flour Kit Kat (Japan)

Pumpkin Kit Kat (Japan)

Green Tea Kit Kat (Japan)

White Chocolate Espresso Kit Kat (Japan)

Apple Kit Kat (Japan)

Red Beak Soup Kit Kat (Japan)

Caramel Macchiato Kit Kat (Japan)

Pineapple Kit Kat (Japan)

Chestnut Kit Kat (Japan)

Blood Orange Kit Kat (Japan)

Cantaloupe Kit Kat (Japan)

Kinako Ohagi Kit Kat (Japan)

Black Sugar Kit Kat (Japan)

Cookie Dough Kit Kat (Australia)

Cookies & Cream Kit Kat (Australia)

Ginger Ale Kit Kat (Japan)

Mango Kit Kat (Japan)

Royal Milk Tea Kit Kat (UK)

Blueberry Cheesecake Kit Kat (Japan)

Banana Kit Kat (Canada)

Caramac Kit Kat (UK)

Soy Sauce Kit Kat (Japan)

Veggie Kit Kat (Japan)

Honeycomb Kit Kat (Australia)

Fruit Parfait Kit Kat (Japan)

Tiramisu Kit Kat (UK)

Aging Male Celebrities

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 02:38 AM PDT

Kind of sad, but every one is getting older.

Alec Baldwin

Ian Torpe

Val Kilmer

Mickey Rourke

Brendan Fraser

Russel Crowe

Richard Gere

Roger Moore

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Pierce Brosnan

Clint Eastwood

Rod Stewart

Bathing Suits for People who Are Afraid of Sunburns

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 02:25 AM PDT

Every one hates sunburns. But when you are wearing such a costume you are 100% safe.

Real Life Pac-Man

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 02:16 AM PDT

What would a Pac-Man look like if it was real?

Related Pac-Man Posts:
Things that look like Pac-Man
Pac-Man Christmas Tree
Original 1979 Pac-Man Drawings by Toru Iwatani

The World's Most Dangerous Sports

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 01:49 AM PDT

Defining the world's most dangerous sport remains a tricky subject, mainly due to limited data and a reluctance among organizer's and participants to publicize deaths in their sport.

If an activity involves being exposed to the elements or using special equipment on an inherently incontrollable and unpredictable environment, we're classifying it as a dangerous sport. Here are ten of the most dangerous sports:

Click image for larger version.

Source: termlifeinsurance
More Infographics.

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

The Danger of Overdoing SEO

Posted: 27 Sep 2010 05:14 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

During my first few years in the SEO field, half of the sites I'd visit - those my SEO brethren in the forums or over email owned - were what today we'd probably call "over-optimized." They tended to have features like:

Keyword after keyword stuffed into the title element of every page
Overly-lengthy and keyword rich URL strings
Page filled with "SEO'd" content that was never intended to be a focus for visitors
Backlink profiles that lacked a single high-quality, "editorial" link

At its best, our profession is about making amazing things that people are asking to see (via their search queries in the engines) and then marketing it in the most optimal ways. At its worst (excluding the crap-hat junk that doesn't even deserve to be called "SEO"), it looks like this:

Keyword Stuffed Page

There's a gigantic gap between this type of "SEO" and the industry's best practices, but the individual recommendations and changes are so subtle that it's not surprising many practitioners go a bit overboard. After all, the process of starting SEO often looks like:

Week 1: Notice in your analytics that search sends awesome traffic and start optimizing some meta tags (since you heard that's what SEO is about) by putting more keywords in them
Week 2: See that those changes have had no effect, so begin doing some light reading on the topic
Week 3: After you've glossed over a few SEO resources (perhaps not necessarily the best ones), start "optimizing" pages by filling the tags you've heard were important with your keywords, changing your internal links to be keyword-rich, placing more keywords on your pages in every conceivable tag and location, maybe even optimizing for some wholly bunk metric like the average keyword density of the top 10 ranking pages
Week 4: Possibly see a bump in some rankings and, tragically, inheriting confirmation bias, convincing yourself that the strategy has worked and that it needs to be repeated.
Week 5-20: Struggle with and eventually give up on SEO, or skate by on the fringes with equally poor quality linking practices that get many/most of your pages penalized but maintain rankings on a few

This pattern (or some similar variation) has played itself out in 9/10 stories I hear about folks who've jumped into the waters of SEO haphazardly - and honestly, it's hard to blame them. The engines provide just enough information to keep webmasters curious but unsatisfied. Many of the sites and pages that rank well do actually employ pretty spammy SEO tactics, making it hard for those trying to learn SEO by reversing their competition's success (temporary though it may be).

This doesn't just apply in the on-page world.

If you haven't yet read it, this thread from Reddit - My Job Was to Game Digg - and this one on Hacker News about it, are excellent examples of the perception problem that social media pushes for SEO have caused. This comment, in particular, stood out to me:

Comment about Mint.com on Reddit

As you can see, the web's social voters and contributors have a passing tolerance for the "right" kinds of optimization, but a zealous abhorrence for those that violate their sense of propriety. Even if Google doesn't worry about "off-topic" linkbait, linkbaiters themselves should have cause for concern.

The engines aren't going to take it.

More and more, though, the engines are fighting back against this through changes like the Vince update (and subsequent focusing on brands as a way to sort out the web's "cesspool"). We've also recently seen a dramatic increase in the aggressiveness with which Google will change you titles, descriptions and negatively alter the rankings/visibility of sites that step over this line.

In the long run, it's hard to imagine Google allowing poor results to flourish - especially those who garnered rankings through manipulation. Those sites and pages that follow every single optimization tactic, from internal links to massive keyword focus to "perfect" anchor text in their off-site link building are going to stand out like sore thumbs to the engines. Sites that build pages designed to attract links with little to no relation to the host site will struggle against the biases in the social media world.

And sites/pages that abuse these practices (both on and off-page) are going to have a terrifically hard time earning "natural" links. The organic sectors of the web tend not to link out to those types of sites/pages if they can help it.

It might sound ironic, but there's an art to under-"optimizing" in order to achieve true "optimization."

Do you like this post? Yes No

Daily Snapshot: New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama greets small business owners after signing the Small Business Bill in the East Room of the White House, September 27, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

View more photos.

Today's Schedule

In the morning, the President will meet with a family at their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico and hold a discussion on the economy with families from the area. In the afternoon, the President will travel to Madison, Wisconsin and attend a DNC finance reception at the Concourse Hotel in Madison. Later the President will deliver remarks at a DNC rally at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

All times are Eastern Daylight Time

12:00 PM: The President meets with Albuquerque family

12:15 PM: The President holds a discussion on the economy (audio only)

2:00 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks at a DNC rally

2:00 PM: Benefits of the Affordable Care Act: A Conference Call with Nurses (audio only)

2:20 PM: The President departs Albuquerque, New Mexico en route Madison, Wisconsin

3:00 PM: Open for Questions: Promise Neighborhoods

4:35 PM: The President arrives Madison, Wisconsin

5:30 PM: The President attends a DNC finance reception

7:00 PM: The President delivers remarks at a DNC rally

8:20 PM: The President departs Madison, Wisconsin en route Des Moines, Iowa

9:15 PM: The President arrives Des Moines, Iowa

Indicates Events that will be livestreamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Seth's Blog : Accounting for taste

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Accounting for taste

Taste is the ability to select, combine and create experiences that the tribe likes--before they know that they like it.

John Waters, the filmmaker many accuse of having bad taste actually has great taste--according to a small tribe of people. He establishes a look and a feel and a story that (for this group) is then emulated.

Successful chefs like Thomas Keller invent restaurants and the dishes they offer--and are then rewarded for having the good taste to make precisely what we like. But of course, the 'we' isn't everyone.

Martha Stewart, according to a larger group, also has good taste. She's not merely copying what came before (that's not nearly as difficult or as valuable)... no, she's staying half a step ahead of her tribe, establishing the standard as she goes.

Great graphic designers have good taste. They understand how to use type and imagery to create objects and advertising that resonate with people likely to buy. Copying a book cover or a business card or a mayo label isn't good taste, it's copying. The difficult work is doing a new thing in a way that people who have never seen it before will 'get it'.

The other difficult work: understanding that your standards might not be the standards of the tribe you're seeking to connect with. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's in bad taste. If the market respects the creator, takes action and then adopts the work, it's in good taste.