Damn Cool Pics

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• Pencil versus Camera by Ben Heine - Part 3
• Painted Eye Makeup
• Iceland's Grimsvotn Volcano Erupts Again
• What Are The Hardest Languages To Learn? (Infographic)
• Playing with an Otter
• Graffiti in Advertising
• Inside Nike CEO Mark Parker's Office
• Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 20

Pencil versus Camera by Ben Heine - Part 3 Posted: 25 May 2011 05:40 PM PDT These are a unique combination of an artist's sketch and a photograph. Some of the sketches blend in with the photograph and others humorously complement them. In either case they are very amusing and interesting. The artist Ben Heine is simply a genius. Previous parts: Pencil versus Camera by Ben Heine - Part 1 Pencil versus Camera by Ben Heine - Part 2

Painted Eye Makeup Posted: 25 May 2011 03:23 PM PDT Close your eyes and let the professionals apply incredible eye makeup. The result might be as fantastic as these eye makeup masterpieces. Source: katiealves.deviantart

Iceland's Grimsvotn Volcano Erupts Again Posted: 25 May 2011 02:30 PM PDT Iceland's most active volcano, Grímsvötn, erupted on Saturday for the first time since 2004, hurling a plume of steam and ash nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the sky. People living next to the glacier where the Grímsvötn volcano burst into life were most severely affected, with ash blocking out the daylight and smothering buildings and vehicles. Iceland also closed its main international airport and canceled domestic flights on Sunday, and aviation officials will be closely monitoring European airspace for the next few days. The outburst is the volcano's most powerful since 1873 -- stronger than the Eyjafjallajokull volcano which caused trouble last year -- but it may not cause the same degree of upheaval. Scientists say the type of ash being spewed out is less easily dispersed and winds have so far been more favorable than during last year's blast. Gathered here are a handful of images taken in the land of fire and ice over the weekend. Image source: (STR/AFP/Getty Images) Image source: (NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response) Image source: (AP Photo/Jon Gustafsson) Image source: (© Gunnar Gestur) Image source: (© Jóhann Ingi Jónsson) Image source: (© Jóhann Ingi Jónsson) Image source: (AP Photo/Halldora Kristin Unnarsdottir) Image source: (Reuters/Jon Gustafsson/Helicopter.is) Image source: (© Gunnar Gestur) Image source: (© Eggert Norðdahl) Image source: (Reuters/Ingolfur Juliusson) Image source: (Reuters/Ingolfur Juliusson) Image source: (Reuters/ Ingolfur Juliusson) Image source: (Reuters/ Ingolfur Juliusson) Image source: (Reuters/ Ingolfur Juliusson)

What Are The Hardest Languages To Learn? (Infographic) Posted: 25 May 2011 02:07 PM PDT This simple chart shows the process of studying foreign languages. It explains which languages are too difficult to master, how much time it requires to finish the studies and how many native speakers are in the world. It is common sense that many Romance languages are gauged as "easy," based on their similarity to English, but I was surprised that Russian is only "medium." Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean comprise the list of "hard" languages to learn for native English speakers. More Infographics. Click to Enlarge. Source: voxy

Playing with an Otter Posted: 24 May 2011 10:54 PM PDT An otter at Sea World in San Diego has fun with an energetic toddler. Which is what otters really are underneath that fur!

Graffiti in Advertising Posted: 24 May 2011 08:49 PM PDT Graffiti and street art are a great source of inspiration for creativity. Graffiti in advertising began to be used only in the early 2000′s. After gaining widespread popularity and relative legality, graffiti has found its niche in brands promotion.

Inside Nike CEO Mark Parker's Office Posted: 24 May 2011 07:36 PM PDT Mark Parker's office on Nike campus, is full of paraphernalia. It's a visual overload when you first walk in. It's not exactly the office you'd expect a top CEO to have, but when you consider that Parker started out as a designer for Nike over three decades ago, it makes a bit more sense. Parker is all about visual stimulation and inspiration. One of his mantras is "Be a Sponge." And it's obvious that he lives by it. He also lives by the idea that collaboration is key and that design is the foundation of any company's success. We know that Nike serves the athlete, but over the past 10 or more years, it's been serving a few contemporary artists and designers as well, like Hiroshi Fujiwara, Futura, KAWS, Marc Newson, and coming up, Tom Sachs. Sources: fubiz, whitewallmag

Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 20 Posted: 24 May 2011 06:42 PM PDT Need a distraction from work? Here is the best way of taking a pause while working. Simply go through our new selection of hilarious demotivators.You can also check out the previous part of Funny Demotivational Posters in case you haven't seen it yet. Related Posts: Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 1 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 2 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 3 Best Demotivational Posters - Part 4 Best Demotivational Posters - Part 5 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 6 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 7 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 8 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 9 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 10 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 11 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 12 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 13 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 14 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 15 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 16 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 17 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 18 Funny Demotivational Posters - Part 19

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SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

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How SEOmoz Gained 1000s of Visits from Google News (You Can Too) Posted: 24 May 2011 02:10 PM PDT Posted by Cyrus Shepard Consider this image below from the SEOmoz Google Analytics account. Behold a sight rarely displayed in SEO blogs.  Notice the similarities to a typical Kansas highway. Both are dead flat, contain no peaks or valleys, and are traffic free. Such was the sad state of SEOmoz’s referral traffic from Google News prior to April of this year. In truth, SEOmoz didn't really pursue traffic from Google News for several reasons. Google News never sent us significant traffic in the past In our minds, we don't consider ourselves a "news" organization Unlike news organizations, SEOmoz doesn't drive revenue through advertising What Changed Our Minds? In April, Rand’s post on White Hat SEO went nuclear. The blogosphere exploded with commentary and traffic poured in from all corners of the Internet. We recorded 8000 visits from Google News the first two days alone.  The drought was over. But why that particular post? Rob Ousey from Distilled pointed out that the few SEOmoz posts included in Google's News index all had one thing in common. They each contained a number in the URL. For example: ../blog/white-hat-seo-it-fing-works-12421 ../blog/google-told-you-so-12428 ../ugc/dissecting-local-seo-via-competitive-analysis-12284 Given the way Google News indexes content, this makes sense: “Display a three-digit number. The URL for each article must contain a unique number consisting of at least three digits… Please note that this rule is waived with News sitemaps.”    - From Google (publishers) Help Our indexation was pure accident! By default, most SEOmoz blog URLs don't contain numbers.  We decided to dispose of our previous perceptions and chart a proactive course in gaining visits from Google News. Here's how we did it - and how you can too. 1. Are You Newsworthy? Yes You Are You no longer have to be a big news player (or a spammer) to find your way in Google News. Google clearly states both blogs and news organizations alike qualify for inclusion. Ask yourself the following questions. Consider yourself a candidate if you meet the following criteria. Do you discuss current events? Is your content timely? Do you offer commentary? Is your blog itself newsworthy? These are some of the same qualifications that make for great content in any context. The number of categories in Google News is staggering. It includes topics as varied as business, education, humor and even ice hockey.   There's room for everything in Google News. Love to write about hair? Yep, there's news for that. Don't sell yourself short. If you’re not already producing newsworthy content, you should. 2. Qualify Your Site Not everyone gets in Google News automatically. To see if you're already included in the index, perform a “site:” command within Google News using your domain. In our case, SEOmoz was already included. If Google hasn’t included your site in its news index, you can request inclusion. Rand addressed how to improve your chances of appearing in Google News in a recent PRO Webinar. He recommended improving your site's substantive metrics, including such factors as the number of inbound links and subscribers to your blog. Having a good user interface can also help. Again, even if getting in Google News isn't your focus, these are the same benchmarks for increasing your visibility on the Web in any market. 3. Get Your Content Indexed Google keeps it's news index separate from it's regular web index. Just because Google crawls your site and you appear in search results, doesn't mean your content is included in Google news. There are two ways to get your content included in the index: 1. Number your URLs (see above) or 2. Create a Google News Sitemap. The sitemap contains a number of advantages over simply numbering your URLs. Sitemaps allow you to tag your article with proper titles and publication dates. In addition to categorizing your content more accurately, sitemaps also give you the ability to annotate your content with metadata such as keywords or stock tickers. The downside is news sitemaps can be complicated to build if you lack development skills. Google dictates that your news sitemap should only contain articles published in the last 24 hours. So you'll want an automated system. In our case, Casey Henry was able to build a custom sitemap generator that met these specifications. If you run a blog using a third party platform, a number of good solutions exist for Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and more. 4. Rise to the Top A number of great articles have been written about how Google News works and how to get indexed. Indexation relies on several factors: Topic Factors – How hot is the story topic? Last week it was The Governator, but it could be anything, even kittens. Story Factors – How relevant and fresh is your specific content to this topic. Publication Reputation – Sort of like Domain Authority, except specific to news publication. Timing is key to Google news. Paraphrasing from Rand's aformentioned webinar: "If you break a big story first, you can see more traffic than you ever imagined from the first page of Google News." But timing a great story is hard to predict. What you can control are a number of on-page factors that improve your chances. For example, adding a good photo next to your headline increases the likelihood of Google displaying the photo, which also helps your CTR. Adding a unique video to your post (along with maintaining an active video sitemap) also improves your chances of rising to the top. Other best practices to consider include titles, article text, and more. This great interview with Josh Cohen highlights many of these techniques. 5. What About the Results? After we added a sitemap, Google News became the 4th largest referring traffic source for SEOmoz, bigger than Linkedin, StumbleUpon and Hacker News (but significantly behind Twitter, Facebook, and Google Image search.) In the last month, three different posts received over 1000 extra visits. Our future posts are "primed" for more. To be fair, this isn't a huge amount of traffic for a site like SEOmoz. The traffic has a high bounce rate and low conversion rate. That said, SEOmoz has not changed its content one iota to gain more traffic from Google News. We don't "chase the algorithm." Were we to optimize our content towards this goal, our traffic would undoubtedly rise higher.  Got a success story or more tips? Please share in the comments below. Do you like this post? Yes No

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Announcing Next Generation Fuel Economy Labels

Wednesday, May 25, 2011   The President and his Administration have made it a priority to protect consumers against rising gas prices. Earlier this year, he announced a plan to reduce our oil imports by a third by 2025 -- leveraging domestic resources while reducing the oil we consume. And he has taken steps to invest in new technologies and more efficient transportation initiatives that are already helping us move towards this important goal. Today, as part of these efforts, the Administration introduced next generation fuel economy labels that will empower car buyers with better information about what they will spend or save on fuels costs when looking to purchase a new vehicle. The new fuel economy labels will still provide the same familiar and important information about city and highway mileage for new vehicles, but now for the first time, they will also include comparable fuel economy and environmental ratings for all new vehicles, including advanced technology vehicles like electric cars and hybrids. The new labels underscore the benefits of the historic passenger car and truck fuel economy rule adopted under this administration by the EPA and DOT in 2010 that will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program and reduce fuel costs for the average consumer by $3,000.  The bottom line is that these labels will help people make more informed decisions when they're buying a car, so that they can save money at the gas pump. Learn more at www.fueleconomy.gov. Car buyers can expect to see the new labels early next year when 2013 model vehicles hit the showroom floors, and possibly even earlier on some vehicles, but you can get a sneak preview of the new design here: Additionally, as part of Administration efforts to make sure that the government is leading by example when it comes to fuel economy standards, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. General Services Administration and White House Council on Environmental Quality came together this week to announce another major step in boosting clean energy technologies in our Federal fleet. President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum that will implement new Federal fleet management practices to further the Administration's goals to cut oil imports by one-third by 2025 and to put one million advanced vehicles on the road by 2015. In tandem, GSA launched a historic Electric Vehicle Pilot program that will put the President’s plan into action and place alternative fueled vehicles into the Federal fleet in cities across the country.  White House Highlights Saving You Money at the Pump and Protecting the Air We Breathe May 25, 2011 New fuel economy labels will help consumers get the best deal and protect the environment. Generation Fuel Economy Labels Arm Consumers with Information They Can Use May 25, 2011 Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson introduce a new fuel economy labels that will empower car buyers with better information about what they will spend or save on fuel costs when looking to purchase a new vehicle. Driving our Nation Toward America's Clean Energy Future May 24, 2011 Today, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, U.S. General Services Administrator Martha Johnson and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley came together to announce another major step in leading by example and reducing our dependence on oil by boosting clean energy technologies in our Federal fleet. America’s Home Energy Education Challenge May 24, 2011 It can be quite a feat coming up with new and exciting ways to engage our young folk when it comes to energy and science, but the Department of Energy and the National Science Teachers Association have put together a new challenge to ignite that spark. Protecting Families at the Pump and Expanding Responsible Domestic Oil Production May 17,2011 Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, discusses the Administration’s policies to support safe and responsible domestic oil and gas production. Weekly Address: Expanding Responsible Oil Production in America May 14, 2011 As part of his long-term plan to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, President Obama lays out his strategy to continue expanding safe and responsible domestic oil production. Working with Communities to Restore a Healthy and Prosperous Gulf Coast May 12.2011 CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley travels to Mobile, Alabama to participate in the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force public meeting and discuss the Administration's work to protect and restore the Gulf Coast. Weekly Address: Clean Energy to Out-Innovate the Rest of the World May 7, 2011 Speaking from a hybrid vehicle transmission company in Indiana, the President explains how investments in a clean energy economy are the only solution to high gas prices in the long term The President on Jobs & Gas Prices: Read His Remarks, Download the Graphic May 6,2011 Speaking at a hybrid vehicle transmission plant in Indiana, the President explains how these kinds of industries will not only help get gas prices down in the long term, they'll provide the next generation of jobs. The 'America's Next Top Energy Innovator' Challenge Begins Today May 2, 2011 Starting today and until December 15, start-up companies can apply for one of the Department of Energy's thousands of unlicensed patents for greatly reduced cost and paperwork. Weekly Address: Ending Taxpayer Subsidies for Oil Companies April 30, 2011 At a time of high gas prices and massive oil industry profits, the President renews his call to end the $4 billion-per-year subsidies for oil and gas companies and invest in clean energy. Get Updates Sign up for the Weekly Energy and Climate Agenda. Stay Connected       Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr iTunes         This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111