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hunterpink458 · 3 years

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Motorola Radius Gm300 Radio Doctor Xp

KB8PPERating: 2013-07-26Excellent radioTime Owned: 6 to 12 months.I started looking at commercial gear after becoming frustrated with the cheap PA chips in my ham stuff. I bought my first for $20 at a local ham swap, and I picked up several more that were being discarded by commercial shops due to narrowbanding. The radios sound great, and are built like tanks. The only drawbacks are that they have to be programmed via computer, not from the front panel, and are more channel limited than the amateur stuff. A small price to pay for quality in my opinion. Since the narrowbanding requirements, these have become even more affordable--they sell all the time on ebay for $60-70. Likewise, I program mine using a third party freeware program that runs on XP (Radio Doctor) and a $12 ribless cable I bought on ebay, from a U.S. company no less.

N8MRCRating: 2011-11-27Great RadiosTime Owned: 6 to 12 months.Our local club was given 5 GM300's in the UHF range. As our club owns a 440 repeater I had a friend of mine program them up for our repeater. We use these radios to loan out to the new hams in the area so they can get on the air. We don't have to worry about them wiping out the memory and they are built tough. Very good radios..

YEPSURERating: 2007-11-25Great for the right priceTime Owned: more than 12 months.I have owned many of GM300’s over the years and have found them to be excellent for amateur radio use. The previous post outlined the costs of programming equipment, which is a factor, however the previous reviewer was a little high on the costs. Using current purchase costs, anyone buying the items outlined in the previous review can expect to spend the following: Rib.........$25 Cable........$25 9v batt.......$2 Pirated software.. FREE VIA THE INTERNET Shipping......$12 --------------------$64 grand total Keep in mind this is what it would REALLY cost for these items, if not cheaper . . . The treasured RIB doesn’t cost anything near what it used to. Good aftermarket RIBS can be purchased brand new off ebay for $20 plus shipping, not the $100 the previous reviewer stated. The programming cable for the GM300 can be made from a simple CAT5 cable. Simply cut one end off and solder the other end to the appropriate connector. The schematic is available via batlabs and the wires are all straight forward point-to-point connections. So you could realistically knock another $20 off the price since most people have CAT5 cables laying around anyway. Spending $5 for a 9-volt battery is purely optional. You can just as easily spend $2 for an off-brand alkaline. Or you don’t have to use a battery at all since the RIB has a D/C input jack so you can simply attach a 9-12 volt supply to it. As for the software, or RSS, this was at one time an impossible task to acquire without paying Motorola their fee. Like everything else on the Internet though, it too can be found for free. I’m not saying it’s okay to do this but merely pointing out, like everything else in cyber land, it is in fact there. The shipping fee is a variable amount that could be higher or lower, depending on the transaction. I’ve purchased UHF GM300’s for as low as $35 (32 channel, 40-watt model), so the bottom line shipping amount is a small variable in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line here is to think about the REAL cost of programming this radio vs. what someone arbitrarily decides to post about it here. I’ve owned GM300’s for many years now and the required programming gear is as cheap as ever and can be purchased everywhere on the Internet. The GM300 is an excellent radio for amateur purposes IF you can buy on at the right price. They are simple radio’s that do one thing very well.

K9TODRating: 2006-12-26Unce upon a time this would be good for hamTime Owned: more than 12 months.Once upon a time this was a great radio for the ham bands. I used to be a big commercial radio buff. That's changed as Motorola doesn't make radios like this one anymore and there are some things that are really tough to deal with. I got a couple of these a few years ago to make a basic repeater but the plan changed and started using them as a mobile and base radio. It's really not feasible to program a single used radio legally. The software which you must buy from motorola is very expensive and from what I hear they won't just ship it to just anyone who calls up to order it. The programming cables and RIB box are expensive and using a cheap homebrew one can ruin the radio not to mention they don't last long. For the price of this programming gear alone, you could have a great modern day radio. I program mine so infrequently that every time the 9volt battery for the rib box is toast. Do the math: Rib.........$100 Cable........$25 9v batt.......$5 Pirated software..$100 Shipping......$12 --------------------$242 grand total All for 16 measley channels. The radio was designed for short, momentary transmissions, not long rag chews. This radio may have a rugged case but the compenents are just as fragile and can easily be burned up due to not having the heat sinks and fans that the ham rigs have. The microphones are noise cancelling mics, and you have to speak much louder if not shout into them. They won't have as much background noise like open windows, sirens and whatever else but not a good radio to use if you have a sore throat. Not all radios do the signalling so ask before you buy. Obviously this radio doesn't scan the band and most that you find has to be modified for ham band. And for what? So you can look cool having a durable police radio? At one time, that would be a good reason but now this radio is 10-15 years old and there are far better offerings in modern day ham radio that are rugged, easy to program, will scan the ham band and look professional. It's like driving an Iroc because they were a cool car when you are in high school. Now they are not so great. To sum it up, for the current price of a used GM300, you can have a rugged radio designed for how you're using it, that can be modified to xmit GMRS or MURS or Mars/cap if that is your intention and when they break you toss them and get something else. At least you can program the things. If you're wanting to build a repeater with these, there are also better offerings out there! Not all GM300 models are able to do plug & play with the RICK/repeater operation. Ask before you buy. Most of these you find on ebay or at ham fests have had multiple owners by now.

W0TRJRating: 2006-10-23A great ! RadioTime Owned: 0 to 3 months.GM300 UHF Model Moblie/ Base with a power supply. The UHF GM300 comes in different band splits, I'am using the 430.0-470.0 Mhz Model. I got this one to use in the Ham band and found it on Ebay for $160. To program the Radio you need a interface called a Rib and the Motorola software or you can buy a Ribless programminig cable on Ebay for around $19 Dollars. So far the Radio is working as it should, This model was a 8 channels type. I Modified for 16 channels using the info I found on the net. The RF power output on this model is 40watts and this helps me to hit the Repeaters in my area 30 miles plus. Also I think using a external speaker on the Radio is a must.It really brings the audio up alot. If you need any help with this Radio drop me a Email and I will see what I can do. [email protected] W0TRJ

N4RAPRating: 2005-08-01Bullet ProofTime Owned: more than 12 months.If you need an 'idiot proof' and/or 'bullet proof' radio..this is it. I have 14 repeaters on the air and many of them are linked to each other. I use the GM300's as link radios and as repeaters. They work great. The have great transmitt audio and receive audio. The 16 pin plug in the back is ideal for tapping into COR, squelch, mic audio and speaker audio as well as 'flat' audio and discriminator audio and a host of other features and be able to connect that to a repeater controller. I also have two of them for back up radios. A good idea for your kids and or spouse as their mobile radio. Why? Because they can't program it..and they can't mess it up or wipe out channels by accident. no more 'oops I must have pushed the wrong button'..'sorry Daddy!' They are also capable of dual PL tones and Digital Pl Tones. See ya 73 from N4RAP

HR2PACRating: 2005-05-06Like a tank.Time Owned: more than 12 months.Great radios for the serious ham that goes mobile. Although they are easy to program they can become a pain considering that you have to use a RIBLESS, software and a PC to acomplish this. Now I operate a commercial two way radio company here in Honduras and we have all of the gear to program, you can pick these up on Ebay in pretty decent shape I have even seen them NIB on Ebay!! Bottom line these things are built like tanks and will take the abuse, although I think that for ham radio use they might be overkill considering you can buy ham rated equipment for less money. 73's from HR lands.

KC8QDRRating: 2002-10-29Awesome radioTime Owned: 3 to 6 months.An awesome rig all around! Excellent Tx/Rx audio. Defenetly gets you noticed on the band (especially if you have the mdc1200 signaling turned on :-) ).If you get one with the 16 pin acc. connector, it is great for packet. Searched ebay and found a new OEM 16 pin plug, so tnc hookup was a snap. Also, cheap 'rib less' programmers are readily available for this radio and it's brother, the maxtrac. So I say go commercial, especially if you only use a couple of frequencies and don't need to be tuning all over the band. Now if they would make one with a vfo..

KC7MMIRating: 2001-10-12Outstanding MobileTime Owned: 0 to 3 months.I had the oportunity to get two of these radios set up for use by the Explorer Post that I am associated with. They have excellent audio along with a simple user interface. These radios are commercial radios and do perform as such in the ham bands.

VK2PHREAKTRIPRating: 2001-09-03mad ..Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.Have used this radio for a while now it does high power (40 w) (50 w on VHF) its built like a brick like all of motorola's stuff! got mine for $300 AUD ($150 US). and can easily be moded to 40 channels has a whole lot of features and is easy to program (goto www.batlabs.com) mad 7/5

Motorola Radius Gm300

Motorola Gm300 Programming

Motorola Radius Gm300 Programming Software

If so you can use Radio Doctor for the Gm300, and it'll let you program on Windows XP. The ribless cables are fairly cheap on Ebay from Kawamall. Click to expand. With the power applied to the red & black pigtail the Radio Doctor software worked just fine. Be aware that the Motorola pin numbering convention on the RJ45 connector is the reverse sequence from the standard pin numbering convention. So if you make your own cable make sure to use the Motorola pin numbering convention. Game ultraman fighting evolution 3. Very helpful GM300 web.

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Introduction.

The Motorola GM300 can be re-programmed quite easily to allow use on our Amateur Radio bands. The radio is made in both a VHF and UHF versions, and makes an excellent 2mtr or 70cms mobile/base station radio.

Most of the radio's I have worked on have originally been 8 channel units. These can be modified to operate on 16 channels quite easily.

The programming interface can be made for a low cost. All it consists of is a RS232 to TTL level converter, that connects between the serial port of your PC and the radio's microphone socket.

Amateur Radio Conversion.

The radio requires the Motorola Software which can be found if you ask around or search for it on the FTP sites on the Internet. If you can't find it then try your local Motorola dealer who should be able to help at a small cost.

You also have to make an interface, or purchase one.

To program the radio onto the Amateur band, you can find some versions of software that have been hacked into allowing frequencies to be entered to bring the radio into the amateur bands which normally are just bellow the original working frequency. However this depends on your version of software, if it's a un-hacked version then you have to press the key down when entering the frequency. You must release the key when entering the decimal point. For example to program 433.500MHz you will enter the following: $££.%)) on a English layout keyboard. (This is 433.500 with the held down. Fill all of the 0's in the frequency field. This example is the same for both the VHF and UHF GM300's.

16 Channel conversion. Dolby audio for windows 10 free download. software. (for 8 channel radio's only)

To program the radio for 16 channels all you need to do is edit a file called GM300.MDF. Service tool v 4905 keygen. You do this with the help of a Hex editor such as Hex Workshop. The file you need to modify is called GM300.MDF and can be found in the main directory of the Motorola software. Keep a backup of your original GM300.MDF file, just in case you make a mistake.

Motorola Radius Gm300

I have made a small video that shows the Hex Workshop screen during the modification. This should help you understand the procedure of editing the file which when complete will give you 16 channels. Click below to download.

Motorola Gm300 Programming

Procedure

Motorola Radius Gm300 Programming Software

Get a copy of Hex Workshop

Start the Hex Workshop program and open the file GP300.MDF to begin editing.

Go to 'Tools', and the 'Generate Checksum'.

Make sure 'Entire Document' and also 'Decimal' are ticked. Then press 'Generate'.

Look in the 'Checksum-16' box, in my version of software for example this results in a checksum of 5514. (yours may be a different number depending on the version of Motorola software)

Write this number down, as you need it later.

Press 'Cancel' to return to the main window and your next step.

Go to 'Edit' and then 'Find'. A pop-up window appears.

You need to enter the model number of your radio. For e.g. M34GMC00D3AA.

When you enter the model number leave off the last two letters(AB on my radio).Make sure 'ASCII' is ticked.

When you press 'Find Next', you will see your model number highlighted.

If you count 8 numbers after the highlighted section, you should see the number '08' as long your radio is originally a 8 channel set.

Edit the '08' to '10' (note 10 in Hex is equal to 16 in decimal).

You now need to edit the start of the program, to allow the software to run.

In the first few lines look for a Hex number that you can easily take away 8 from.

In my software at address 00000040 you will see the number '78' on the right.

Edit this to be '70'.

Now you must do a final checksum and make sure it equals the original value.

If this is the same, then replace you original file with the modified file.

Try to reprogram your radio with the extra 8 channels to give you 16 channels.

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rdclsuperfoods · 3 years

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To the relief of cooped-up powder hounds everywhere, skiing has proved to be relatively safe during the pandemic, thanks to the abundance of fresh air and natural social distancing on the hill. But one aspect of a day at the resort still poses significant COVID risk: the ski lodge. To avoid crowded indoor spaces, many Outside editors have been trading their slopeside burgers and chicken fingers for meals prepared at home.

But which brown-bag lunches are best for getting you through a day at the resort? We rounded up the Outside staff’s favorite to-go meals, below, then asked Kristen Gravani, the director of sports nutrition for Stanford University athletes, to weigh in on our choices. Gravani, a former college ski racer, says there are three components of a good to-go meal:

The right balance of nutrients. Generally, you want your meal to be higher in carbohydrates, with a moderate amount of fat and protein. Carbohydrates are a skier’s main fuel source, and a little fat and protein help stave off hunger longer while providing slowly released energy. (Exact proportions will vary depending on your individual nutrition needs, but typically, the more intense and sustained your ski day is, the more this ratio will skew toward carbs.)

Ingredients that sit well in your stomach. If you know that spicy chili makes you sprint for the bathroom, leave the beans at home. The less your stomach is churning, the more you can enjoy your turns.

Food safety. If you’re carrying a meaty burrito around in your pocket, that’s the ideal habitat for bacteria that causes foodborne illness. Ideally, you want to keep perishable foods cold, or just stick with shelf-stable options.

With those criteria in mind, here’s what Gravani thinks about Outside editors’ ski-day lunches:

Breakfast Burritos

Pandemic or not, my go-to is a homemade breakfast burrito: a ten-inch tortilla, hash browns, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, and green chili. It’s really two meals in one. I eat one half on the drive to the mountain, then wrap the other half in tinfoil and stash it in my jacket for lunch. That, plus an energy bar in reserve—I’m a fan of GoMacro’s maple sea salt flavor—always gets me through the day. —Chris Keyes, editor

I have two go-to ski lunches, depending on how much I rallied that morning. If I’ve given myself enough time to get a breakfast burrito from my favorite spot in Santa Fe (hello, Betterday Coffee!), I will eat exactly one-third of it for lunch, with a Modelo on the chairlift. (The first third is consumed on the drive up in the morning, and the last third on the drive down at the end of the day.) Betterday burritos are made up of five key ingredients: tortilla, egg, cheese, and chile. Sometimes bacon, too. If my morning is rushed (or my bank account strained), I’ll eat a Perfect Bar for lunch—it’s my favorite on-the-go snack. Its macros are pretty well-balanced, so it feels less like a sugar or protein bomb and more like a meal. I also wash that down with a Modelo. —Abbie Barronian, associate editor

GRADE: B

“You’ve got really good combinations of carbs, fat, and protein,” says Gravani of the two burritos. The tortilla and hash browns provide a nice boost of carb-based energy, while the eggs and cheese round things out with protein and fat. Gravani thinks the GoMacro and Perfect bars are also solid choices. Food safety in regards to the burritos, however, docks them a grade. “When you put a warm burrito in your pocket, keeping that moderate temperature as it’s cooling down over time puts it at risk for microbial growth,” she says. If you’re going to go with a perishable lunch, it’s better to refrigerate it first.

Quesadillas

My go-to lift lunch is the eggadilla. First, fry two eggs, making sure to break the yolks so they don’t run all over your gloves when it’s time to eat. Then sauté whatever veg you have on hand—onion, bell pepper, zucchini, etc. Finally, stack your eggadilla on a tortilla, with a layer of cheese on the bottom, your egg and veg in the middle, and another layer of cheese on top, and then add the second tortilla. Heat the whole thing in a large frying pan, or just microwave it. Cut it into quarters, and put it in a Ziploc bag, so you can throw in your pack or even a jacket pocket. It’s portable, squish-proof, delicious, and filling. —Luke Whelan, senior research editor

An excellent ski lunch consists of a few triangle-shaped sections of leftover, cold, homemade quesadilla—I use flour tortillas, sautéed mushrooms, chopped chicken breasts, Mexican-blend cheese, and canned green chile. It carries well, because it’s already flat. I also take along some good salsa in a small, leakproof container. —Alex Heard, editorial director

GRADE: B

“I love the addition of vegetables here,” says Gravani. “Along with that lean protein and carbs, it seems like a nice combination.” The quesadillas, above, have a similar protein-fat-carbs ratio to the breakfast burritos, making them a well-balanced choice for a midday ski meal. But they also lose points for the elevated potential to bring on a bout of foodborne illness.

Frito Pie

I always bring a thermos of good-quality chili, like Annie’s, and a bag of Fritos. When I’m feeling fancy, I’ll top the chili with shredded Tillamook white cheddar. Bonus: it’s gluten-free, which is a must when you have celiac like I do. —Aleta Burchyski, associate managing editor

My boyfriend and I are known for only bringing Frito pies on backcountry and camping trips. It’s what we ate growing up at the Santa Fe ski area, and we’ve been continuing the tradition during the pandemic. We bring a bag of Fritos, a thermos of hot beef chili, and sometimes also a bag of shredded lettuce and cheese. It’s full of carbs, protein, and salt—what more could you ask for! We accompany the meal with a thermos of hot chocolate or tea. And as any ski day should have, a candy bar will always be on hand. —Petra Zeiler, art director

GRADE: B-

“I give them points for being able to navigate that meal and bring it heated,” says Gravani. And while the macronutrient balance is decent, this meal’s potential to cause tummy troubles warranted a grade reduction. The combo of fat, fiber, and spice can lead to an upset gut. “Especially with beans, it can cause GI distress for some people,” she says. Being at a high altitude doesn’t help the stomach situation either. Some people may have no issue with the magical fruits, and GI problems are very individual, but if you’re unsure about your reaction to beans, you may want to save yourself—and everyone in your group—the trouble.

PB&J

I keep it simple with an almond butter and jam sandwich, usually on Trader Joe’s Super Grain and Seed bread. I pack on the almond butter, and go light on the jam so it doesn’t get all sticky, and put it in a small Ziploc bag. It’s great fuel, and I can cram it in a ski-jacket pocket and eat it on the lift. It doesn’t matter if it gets smashed. In fact, it tastes better smashed a bit, because the jam marinates the bread. I also always keep some peanut M&M’s or a Kind bar in my pocket for extra fuel when needed. —Mary Turner, deputy editor

PB&J all the way! This sandwich is a classic and might be the ultimate-adventure pocket snack; we even have articles to prove it. But I don’t make just any old PB&J—if it’s going in my pocket, it has to be a “dub” PB&J. Instead of loading up just one side of the sandwich with peanut butter, I prefer to coat each slice of bread with a thin layer of peanut butter, and then add the jelly in the middle. This is key for keeping your PB&J al dente all day, an improved sandwich structure for zero sogginess and better pocket durability for the inevitable yard sale. If you’re looking for something a little more gourmet, just add bacon. —Jackson Buscher, video producer

GRADE: A

It’s hard to beat the humble PB&J. Not only does it meet the right balance of nutrients that you need to keep skiing through the afternoon, but it’s also easy to digest and shelf-stable. Gravani herself likes to pack a PB&J when she hits the slopes. “Having a less heavy lunch, and being able to supplement with some snacks, sets you up to avoid that post-lunch slump,” she says. Chairlift grazing not only reserves more time for skiing but also can keep you energized throughout the day.

Cold Pizza

During ski season, Friday nights at my house are usually pizza nights. Homemade pies loaded with cheese, veggies, and pepperoni are the ultimate comfort food and the best way to cap off a stressful workweek. The leftovers also make the best ski lunch imaginable. My boyfriend and I always make extra to bring to the mountain the next day. A few slices fit neatly into a Ziploc that lies flat in my jacket pocket, and they’re easy to eat one-handed (and glove-handed if it’s frigid and I’m really desperate). It feels more indulgent than the usual PB&J or energy bar but is still easy to snack on during lift rides without making a mess. Plus, cheese and bread are good endurance fuels, right? —Ariella Gintzler, associate editor

GRADE: B-

A cheesy slice contains more fat than would be ideal midway through a ski day, according to Gravani. That means you may feel sluggish after eating it, as fats tend to sit heavier in the stomach and digest slower than carbs and protein.

Tortilla Wrap

With a kid at home, I’m all about efficiency on the slopes. My go-to lunch is a simple flour-tortilla wrap with peppered salami, cheddar cheese, avocado, and hot sauce. It’s easy and tidy to eat on the run, but the protein hit gives me sustained energy without bogging me down. —Will Taylor, gear director

GRADE: A-

“I do love that he chose a shelf-stable meat, and the rest of the components are really quality, too,” says Gravani. Salami is still a fatty meat, though, so swapping it out with a low-fat alternative like turkey would make this meal perfect and help avoid post-meal sluggishness.

Cheese and Crackers

Since I won’t be able to treat myself with chicken fingers and ranch dressing this year—the absolute best ski lunch, in my opinion—I’ll be packing my favorite backpacking meal: cheese and crackers. I prefer a solid hunk of cheddar cheese paired with Wasa Multi-Grain crispbread. And I’ll throw in a beef stick or jerky if I get really hungry. —Kelsey Lindsey, associate editor

GRADE: B+

“This one is lower protein and higher fat than is ideal,” says Gravani. Adding in a lean meat like turkey jerky to increase the protein would achieve a better nutrient balance.

via Outside Magazine: Nutrition

#IFTTT #Outside Magazine: Nutrition

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sydnam · 6 years

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RSS 2017:

Hi there @pineapplepizzaparade! I’m Mandy and I’ve been your (probably not robotic) Rumbelle Secret Santa.

This is not the story I started out writing (they are never the story I started out writing) but hopefully it’s an enjoyable one for you.

Title: “Little Boys and Disappearing Girls” Author: (S)Ydnam Word Count: 2013 Prompt: “ Sundays at Tiffany's, imaginary Belle” Summary: Belle is a bit concerned over Gideon’s imaginary friend. Rumplestiltskin has some experience in this area. AN: This started out much closer to the prompt and then I thought “what if it’s Rumple telling Gideon about his imaginary friend” and it changed almost completely. As these things do.

“Should we be worried, do you think?” Belle paced across the room as she spoke. “Is this normal, imaginary friends? What if it isn’t imaginary after all? What if something or someone is stalking him? Trying to lure him away? What if it someone is trying to hurt him?”

“I am reasonably certain there is no child in this town safer than our Gideon,” Rumplestiltskin replied. “Henry being the only possibly exception and that only because he’s old enough to defend himself somewhat. Even the wee Charming princeling isn’t looked after half so well as our boy. And if some beastie or other is trying to harm him I will find it and I will end it. Painfully.”

Belle stopped her pacing and looked down seriously at her husband. “Promise?”

He stood then, reaching for her hand. “You know the answer to that. Gideon, and you, are the priority. You always will be. Always. But, if it will help you sleep instead of wearing a hole in our bedroom floor, I will talk to him in the morning and see if I need to talk to anyone else.”

“Please don’t turn anyone into anything without good reason.” Belle smiled as she said it but the joke, such as it was, still fell rather flat.

Rumplestiltskin gave her a half-bow before settling himself back down on the bed. “Now, come to bed? Get some sleep. Nothing will harm him in his bed while I’m drawing breath.”

***

The next morning, Rumplestiltskin looked at his son over a small stack of pancakes positively swimming in maple syrup. “Your mother is worried about your new friend.”

Gideon wrinkled his nose. “Why? She’s my friend. I like her. An’ she’s pretty.”

“I’m sure that you do like her.”

“She plays with me,” Gideon went on, then shoveled a surprisingly large amount of pancake into his mouth before continuing to speak.

“Playing with you is to be expected from a friend I should think,” his father said. “I couldn’t quite catch that last bit. Perhaps if you swallowed before talking?”

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Mum says that too. Alla time.”

“Your mother is a wise woman,” Rumplestiltskin told him. “What if you were to mangle your words enough that you cast a spell and summoned some horrid beastie to the breakfast table?”

“You’d magic it away, Papa,” Gideon answered brightly. “Or ‘splode it. BOOM!” He clapped his hands to illustrate his point, still holding his fork, and managed to fling maple syrup across the table onto his father’s shirt.

“Hmmm.” Rumplestiltskin dabbed at the spots of syrup with a napkin. “Explosions are messy. Much like small boys.”

Gideon’s rather smug response was unintelligible around the pancakes and Rumplestiltskin simply shook his head fondly in the boy’s direction.

“I’ll just wait until you’re finished then.” He would wait, change his shirt once the syrup had all been safely consumed, and then spend the day with his boy, and perhaps ease Belle’s fears about the imaginary friend.

***

“Mum! Hi hi hi!” Gideon flung himself off the couch and directly into his mother’s legs and held on tightly. “Papa and I feeded the ducks! And then he feeded ME ice cream. And then we went to the shop and I helped!”

“I’ve never seen such help,” Rumplestiltskin agreed dryly. “I may never see it again.”

“An’ then we went to the store and we buyded food and then we came home and I helped cook and we had dinner and we saved some for you and Papa said I had to go to bed when you came home.” Gideon was now bouncing as he filled his mother in on his day with his papa.

“All true,” Rumplestiltskin confirmed. “Every word. I may even have promised a bedtime story while Mummy eats her supper. It’s off to bed with you now my lad.” He paused, then reconsidered after giving his son a once-over. “After a bath.”

***

“Now then, all settled and comfortable?” The boy ought to be exhausted by now but his supply of energy was a continual source of amazement to his father.

Gideon nodded.

“Ready for Papa to tell you a story about being a little boy himself?”

Gideon’s eyes went wide. His papa didn’t talk about being little almost ever. He nodded again.

“I was just a wee lad like you, living with my own papa.”

“You have a papa!?”

“No, no. Not anymore. Not for a long time. This was a very, very long time ago. Your papa is very, very old,” Rumplestiltskin reminded him. “My papa was very busy, all the time. Not much time to spend with a little boy. I was alone quite often. I had a doll named Peter I played with, I carried it everywhere, but also another friend my papa didn’t know about. Rather like your new friend, I suspect. A little girl, just my size. She was always there when I needed someone to talk to or a playmate or just someone to keep me company. My papa was busy, as I said, and spent more time away than he did at home. When he was away I had Peter and I had the little girl.”

“Sometimes papas have to work,” Gideon offered. “You hafta work.”

“No, my papa was… I suppose you could call it work. He was trying to get money.” That was a more favorable interpretation than Rumplestiltskin would normally have allowed but his son would learn about his ill-fated grandparents soon enough. There was no reason to ruin a perfectly fine story with too much truth. “My papa would spend hours and hours at the pub. He played cards and other games. He wasn’t very good at it though.”

“Now, while my papa was off playing his games I was at home, alone. Until, of course, my friend would arrive. She was very adventurous. Much more than I was. She always kept me company when I was left alone. Sometimes I was alone for a long time. Days.” He frowned. He had meant this to be lighthearted. ��But I wasn’t really alone. I had her. We went on adventures. Small adventures, to be sure, but we were small ourselves.”

“I like ‘ventures,” Gideon told him.

“Because you’re very brave. Like your mother. And my old friend. She was forever taking me exploring. She never got lost. I got lost on my own plenty of times. She even found me and brought me home once or twice. I was always safe with her. Safer than with my own father.”

“What’s her name?”

“She always told me she didn’t need a name. That she was my friend and that was enough.” He wouldn’t trust someone without a name now, of course, but he was only a boy at the time. His friend who appeared suddenly and disappeared even more rapidly not having a name had made perfect sense at the time. “She looked like your mother. Same hair. Same brilliant blue eyes. Not so beautiful, of course, but who is?”

Gideon yawned but nodded. “Mum’s the prettiest.”

“That she is. I’ve never met someone lovelier. Not in hundreds of years. Not even the little girl who used to save me from my loneliness as a boy. Only fitting the lovelier and older version would have done the same for me when I was so much older.”

“Never seen anyone lovelier than Mum neither. But where your friend go?”

“I never knew. She told me she was leaving and then she was gone. I’d just gone to live with two wonderful ladies after my father left. ‘I can’t come with you, Rumplestiltskin.’ she told me. ‘I shouldn’t be here now. They’ll take care of you and you won’t need me.’ Then she was gone as if she’d never even been there. And I thought I’d never see her again.” He’d cried himself to sleep that night, among others. “I asked the spinsters once. One of them just smiled at me and told me I might see her again if I was a very good boy.”

“Were you?” Gideon asked as he fought back another yawn. “Did you see her?”

“I was a good boy,” Rumplestiltskin said with a sad smile. “But I outgrew it. And no, I didn’t. She vanished, never to be seen again. Sometimes I thought I might have made her up. Eventually I forgot her altogether. Until I saw your mother.”

“An’ she was the prettiest,” Gideon mumbled.

“The loveliest woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Though I couldn’t tell her that, of course. Not for years.” Of course, he’d thought her dead for many of those years and been cursed for several others but once again those were details that would come to his boy’s attention eventually and didn’t need to be mentioned in a bedtime tale. “The prettiest and the bravest and so of course she reminded me of my long-lost-and-forgotten childhood companion. Who was no longer quite so forgotten. And the longer your mother stayed with me the more I remembered.”

Gideon’s eyes were closing so Rumplestiltskin lowered his voice. “I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that I’d found something, someone, even better than my childhood companion. I still can’t believe it most days. I sent her away because I was afraid and I regretted it for years. Decades. I saw your mother sometimes when I thought she was lost forever. She haunted my dreams and my waking hours. But that false Belle didn’t take me on adventures or save me from my loneliness. She made it worse. So I knew she wasn’t really your mother and she wasn’t even my long-lost friend returned. When I found your mother again, alive and real and solid in my shop one day, I knew I couldn’t lose her this time. Not that I didn’t try in spite of myself. Far too many times. Look at us now. Married and with you safely with us. Better than an imaginary girl by far.”

***

“That was a different sort of bedtime story.” Belle looked up from the unopened novel in her hands as her husband entered the bedroom. “Is he finally asleep?”

“Fast asleep. You were listening at the door?” That surprised him. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

“Mmm hmmm. Was it true? The imaginary girl?” Belle was looking at him somewhat sadly.

“Belle. I was a little boy named Rumplestiltskin. I had a terrible father with a gambling problem and a mother who abandoned me at birth. I was then partially raised by actual literal spinsters. How many real friends do you think I could have had?”

“And this one looked just like me?” Belle’s expression and tone were skeptical.

“Not half so lovely. Nor with your accent. But once I saw you I did remember and there was undoubtedly a resemblance. Or perhaps you were so lovely I made her look like you in my memories. Who else would I have had her look like?”

“Flatterer.”

“I have been called worse. By you.”

“Likely you deserved it!”

“I almost certainly did.” He had likely deserved far worse. “I don’t believe Gideon’s ‘friend’ is anything we need worry about. He may just be lonely.” Seeing Belle’s expression he hastened to add, “perhaps, loathe as I am to admit it, we might want him spending more time with the other children.”

“We could arrange playdates,” Belle suggested brightly. “Invite someone over here.”

Rumplestiltskin gave a much exaggerated shudder. “If we must.”

“That’s what his teacher suggested. That or signing him up to learn to play soccer. Or…” Belle’s voice trailed off.

“Or?” Rumplestiltskin prompted. “Or what?”

“Or he did ask me the other day for a little brother or sister.” Belle grinned as she said it.

“Who am I to stand in the way of my child’s wishes? We need to start on that right away. As soon as possible.”

“You spoil him,” Belle laughed.

“We all must make sacrifices for our children,” Rumplestiltskin replied. “I am quite willing to make this one. As often as it takes.”

#rumbelle secret santa #pineapplepizzaparade #rss 2017 #mandy wrote a thing #rumbelle fic

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suzanneshannon · 4 years

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Gutenberging

It's been over a year since the big WordPress launch of Gutenberg, the new editor. It seems to me most of the controversy around it has died down. There has been enough time that the UX and accessibility of it have improved, and people are seeing the potential a lot more clearly. There ain't no turning back.

I'm running across articles like Haris Zulfiqar saying he's betting on it and Nick Hamze saying that blocks are for the next generation.

While I think there are still rough edges (like why can't I put a list in a blockquote? Why can't I add a class to a link? Why can't I arrow-key through the block chooser?), I'm a big fan overall. And not just conceptually anymore. I made it one of my 2020 goals to get CSS-Tricks onto Gutenberg, and so I hopped to that right away in January.

We already had one foot in the door

We had a smidge of experience Gutenberging since we had already converted the newsletter authoring experience over to the new editor. Our newsletters are a Custom Post Type here on CSS-Tricks, which are published here at public URLs, have a custom RSS feed, and sent out by MailChimp which fetches and reads that RSS feed.

We were able to just turn on Gutenberg for newsletters by way of the Gutenberg Ramp plugin. That works great for Custom Post Types and posts with individual IDs, but I wanted to turn on Gutenberg only for new content. I wound up monkey-patching the plugin. Here's a pull request in case anyone over there thinks it's a good idea.

This was important to me, as we have tens of thousands of old posts created with the old editor, and even though Gutenberg doesn't mangle them if we open them up for editing, the editor experience it provides for them isn't as good as the "classic" editor (e.g. we have special buttons for our special code blocks and stuff like that).

Dealing with older content

What would really be great is if Gutenberg would convert old posts into proper blocks upon opening, but that feels like a dream at this point. Like, it would have to parse the HTML, identify what chunks look like blocks, identify which block makes the most sense, including our custom blocks which are the most important, and be really correct about it in a non-fragile way.

For now, old content just uses the old editor. There isn't even an easy way to flip on Gutenberg for an individual post from the editor. (I could hard-code values into the Gutenberg Ramp usage, but that's a bit tedious.)

I worry a smidge that the old editor will really deteriorate. For example, one of the big reasons I got started with this is because, on this site, the old editor would just randomly scroll to the bottom of the page. I can't for the life of me figure out why, but it makes authoring obnoxious for me. Just a little papercut bug that made me want to get on the editor experience that is being actively developed.

But even if the old editor really gets bad, just flipping on Gutenberg for everything isn't that bad. All the old content will just be in a big "classic" block and will be fine.

So anyway — it's working!

Turning on Gutenberg for new posts was its own little challenge, but it's turned on for us and we're creating all new content in it. I'm just speaking for myself here but OMG I love it so much. It's such a massive upgrade for writing content that I'm a little obsessed with it. The team is happy as well.

Creating custom blocks

Check out this fancy text block we have:

A "callout" block on CSS-Tricks

You might think, oh cool, an opportunity for a custom block. Heck, we even covered learning and making Gutenberg blocks in a whole big series. But this brings up a pretty relevant situation: when not to build a block. The only thing unique about this block is that is has a special class name that our CSS uses to style that block. That's it. Adding a class name is a built-in feature of every block, so a custom block here really isn't necessary.

In fact, we can go a step further, and make a text block with this exact class a "reusable block" so we don't even have to remember or type in that class name. After I've created a text block with this class, I select "Convert to Reusable Block" from the kebab menu and now it's forever saved as a reusable block.

We're already using it for a few other things now, like our "Article Series" block (an <h4> and <ol> with a special <div>-with-a-class wrapper) and footnote blocks and such.

But we do actually need some custom blocks as well, and for that I used create-guten-block to craft a special plugin¹ to create them. I see One that is mega important for us is code blocks. There is already a native block for code blocks. It essentially puts the code in a <pre> tag and the content from Gutenberg is already escaped by default.

Our fancy code block allows us to pick which language it is, highlight certain lines, and provide custom labels. This was all possible in our old editor via HTML attributes, so this block is just nice UI on top of all that.

That block is so specific to CSS-Tricks it doesn't make much sense to open source it. But there is another block I created that is open source, and that's the CodePen Embed Block. I wrote about it over on the CodePen blog.

It allows you to paste in a CodePen URL and it transforms into a CodePen Embed. oEmbed already does that by default, but with this plugin, you can control everything like the height, theme, and default tabs.

It's pretty awesome to actually see the embedded Pens while authoring!

Unfaced challenges

The biggest challenge right now is handling images. In the old editor, we have integrated a very very fancy setup with Cloudinary. The images are automatically uploaded to Cloudinary, breakpoints are programmatically decided on, multiple sizes are created, a responsive images syntax is created, and what ends up in the HTML is a perfect responsive images syntax with the images hosted by Cloudinary. This has the provided us with the benefit of being on a CDN and serving the images in the best possible format as well.

None of that is happening on posts created with Gutenberg. 😭

I need to find or develop a new system that does a great job with images everywhere on the site and ideally with a less bespoke system that is easier to maintain. It's possible I figure that out with Cloudinary, I might try some other service, I might let WordPress deal with it directly backed by the Jetpack Site Accelerator. Not sure yet. Always something to do.

I see WordPress themselves is getting in on the block scaffolding game. Their "create-wordpress-block" concept has made its way into the Gutenberg repo itself, which you kick off with npm init @wordpress/block [options] [slug]

The post Gutenberging appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Gutenberging published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

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goldira01 · 4 years

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Some call him the Bill Gates of the crypto industry, but I personally think he is not just pushing forward our industry but transforming deeply rooted economic and social culture. He fills concert halls talking about the importance of decentralization and the freedom of money. He finds time to organize dinners for journalists, introducing them to the empire he built before briskly leaving for another meeting with his team. He is idolized by his colleagues, respected by his competitors, and radiates positive energy when you meet him.

In the 2019 bear market, he managed to keep Binance’s position as one of the leading crypto exchanges by launching its first initial exchange offering in January, developing its native blockchain Binance Chain, running a decentralized trading platform, launching a United States trading desk, and keeping it competitive with Binance’s futures trading platform — to cite just a few developments.

So, when the time came to make a choice for the winner of Cointelegraph’s first-ever Top 100 list, Changpeng Zhao’s selection was a unanimous decision among our editors.

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend an hour with CZ on the eve of Valentine’s Day — a holiday he would spend with his true love: his work — to talk a bit about himself and his plans (with the next major move being the launch of Binance Cloud, exclusive details on which will be revealed very soon).

[embedded content]

Keep everything simple and work hard

Upon learning that he was selected for the top spot on the list and being asked about his favorite accomplishments in 2019, he was characteristically humble: “Other than just putting together a really good team and then leading them forward, I personally didn’t really do that much. But the team did a lot of really hard work.”

2019 was certainly a year full of initiatives and product launches, all of which received CZ’s thorough participation. Within the next couple of years, though, he plans to build up a “more unneeded situation” for himself, so that nothing depends too much on him. After that, he shared, he can probably relax and spend more time traveling the world, breaking the limits of the mode “airport–hotel–back to airport–kind of gone.”

It is hard to believe he will one day do less than he does now, as he is such a maximalist when it comes to work. He is known, however, as being rather minimalistic in his personal life. No big houses, no yachts, not even a business suit. Neither did he celebrate the last new year, explaining that he stayed home because “it is just another day.”

“I’m not materialistic because it’s kind of hard to carry anything that’s physical. I like to keep mobile. I like to be able to live in a different city every month if I want to. And with a shared economy, it’s so much easier now. So we don’t need a car — you have Uber everywhere. You have Airbnb, so I don’t need to buy a house. I don’t feel the need to own a lot of stuff, to have a really complicated life. Just keep everything simple.”

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

“There’s got to be a few recently, actually [with enthusiasm] I can’t remember what they are, but there’s got to be a couple of first times [starts thinking deeply] recently. [long pause] I actually can’t remember that much, to be honest.”

I asked CZ whether he likes being famous and what the biggest challenge to being a person in the public eye is. If he had a choice, he promptly responded, he would prefer not to be famous. But Binance had to have a public face in order to raise money and continue to grow. It is also very important, according to CZ, to have a public face to establish trust with customers who entrust their funds to Binance’s custody. “I know we’re in an industry that technically we don’t need trust, but there’s still a lot of trust that’s needed in a lot of different places.”

CZ also revealed with a smile that he was forced to be a public face, as other members of the team did not want to go public.

“I was actually hoping there would be a better face, to be honest. I don’t think I’m a very good public speaker. There are also much better-looking people. But unfortunately, for Binance, it’s me. So Binance is kind of stuck with me for now.”

Keep calm and go all-in on Bitcoin

It was in 2013 that CZ began to learn about Bitcoin. He read the white paper and started going to thematic events. Later, at a small conference in Las Vegas, he met some of today’s giants of the industry: Charlie Lee, Matthew Roszak, Vitalik Buterin. There was also a representative of Ripple who taught CZ how to use it. In the process, he transferred some XRP to CZ. When they were done, CZ wanted to transfer the coins back, but heard in response, “You can keep it and you can use it to teach the next guy.” This sparked a wild crypto adventure.

CZ quickly became enthusiastic about the technology: “I thought that community was really nice. I had a really high confidence in Bitcoin succeeding, in cryptocurrency succeeding.”

In 2014, CZ sold his house to go all-in on Bitcoin. Within three months, BTC dropped from $600 to $200, losing him two-thirds of the value of his house for roughly two years before the price went up again. When asked whether he would advise someone to take such a risk, CZ responded more as a wiseman than a poker player: “For different people, that risk appetite and risk situation is different. I would not recommend people who are struggling to pay off mortgages on their house and who need a guaranteed income from their investments to pay off some loan, to sell their house and go all-in on crypto, because crypto is highly volatile.”

You seem such a calm person. Do you meditate, or were you born like this?

“I don’t meditate that much. I tried it. I find it a little bit boring, to be honest. I don’t need it. I’m already very calm. I have a low heart rate. My resting heart rate is like 50-something. In Binance, I’ve never shouted. I’ve never yelled at anybody. I’ve never sort of become really sort of agitated. I’m always a very calm person.”

Not only did he sell the house, he also quit his job. Within two weeks, he managed to find a new one at blockchain.info, where he stayed for five months before joining OKCoin as chief technical officer. There, he spent no more than a year. It was 2017, the year of Binance’s foundation.

Along the way, CZ contributed to a considerable number of startups, many of which failed. He has a tip that helps him stay optimistic, a parable he once heard from someone: “If you walk to the bottom of a valley, what do you do? And the answer is pretty simple: You just keep walking as long as you keep walking. Then you eventually get out of the valley.”

Keep coding and get an MBA

CZ majored in computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. But the last time he was coding something, he said, was a couple of years ago. He has never coded for Binance — all its code is written by others — but he was writing scripts for himself. Now, he admits to not having any time to sit down and stare at a computer screen uninterrupted. It is simply not his current life situation. He called his time very segmented, as he gets interrupted very often.

“I tell other people that now I have a memory of a goldfish, like I can’t remember anything longer than seven seconds.”

When asked for advice to the next generation of founders on whether it is better to get a degree in computer science or a master’s degree in business administration, CZ rejects the premise of the question and says to go for both. His view is that, in this sector and at this capacity, you are forced to deal with everything: technology, business models, business development, deal negotiations, marketing, customer service, compliance, legal, accounting, finance, HR. And guess what? CZ doesn’t consider himself an expert in any of these areas. With my objection to CZ’s claims of being a poor public speaker quickly dismissed earlier, I decided that contesting him at this point would be futile.

Keep being number one and go forward

The first interview with CZ I took part in dates back to 2018. Back then, he told us that Binance tries very hard not to be number one, “because being number one creates other problems sometimes, especially with regulators.” In 2020, I asked whether CZ still agrees with that, or if he’d finally given up on trying not to stand out too much.

CZ admitted that two years ago, the market was riddled with regulatory uncertainty, while today’s situation is much better. “I think today it’s OK to push forward, get the market share, and you will not be the lonely one at the top who all the regulators come for.” He also added that there is more fierce competition on the market today, so it’s become harder for small players to build themselves up.

“But we are still at the early stages. We want to see more exchanges, because right now, all over the world, if you can see more exchanges, we can see more people coming into crypto.”

CZ seems very satisfied with his professional career: “I feel I’m really lucky to have the chance to be doing what we’re doing, which is to increase access to crypto, increase the freedom of money for people around the world. That is something I’m really energetic about doing. And I just feel lucky to be in a position to be able to do that.”

If you could clone yourself, what would you like that clone to do?

“I would love the clone to do other work [laughing]. I’d make a lot of clones to do a lot of work. We can do like ten different interviews at the same time.”

Keep cool, we are living in a simulation

Binance’s current focus on developing the freedom of money is intended to give people funding power to do more research on biotech, space exploration (this field, CZ leaves to Elon Musk) and AI — all of which, according to CZ, will help our species advance significantly. For example, CZ thinks, the Coronavirus issue could be solved once funding on research is sped up.

CZ definitely wants the existing world to get better, but at the same time, he is a big believer of simulation theory. It means that we are living in an artificial, digital simulation that is conceived or orchestrated by a more sophisticated intelligence. It also means, according to CZ, that in 100 or 500 years, the advancement of technology will make the simulation we are living in controllable.

“I believe it’s 99,99999 % we’re living in a simulation. So mathematically it is basically 100 percent.”

“If you look at that Nintendo Super Mario, we can simulate the guy moving forward, moving backwards. The tricky part is I don’t know what kind of simulation we are yet. We see it being simulated by a higher being, a different dimension — or are we just sitting, sleeping there, dreaming similarly about ourselves or our own kind.”

Even though we do not know in which simulation we are living, CZ explained, it does not mean we do not have to take it seriously. On the contrary, even if it’s a full simulation, everything in the simulation still matters. “There’s a Coronavirus that matters, there’s a flooding in places, climate change, all of those things are challenges that are thrown on our way. And we should try our best to help where we can.”

Another positive aspect of believing in simulation is that it helps dealing with difficult situations and stress, it kind of gives you a lighter view on things. “Sometimes you say, ‘Well, you know, it’s just a simulation, it’s just a game.’ My role here is just to do the best I can. So I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep marching forward. So it makes life a lot easier, actually.”

Rapid fire questions for CZ

Sea or mountains?

I’d probably choose mountains, but I do like ocean sports as well.

Beer or wine?

Beer.

McDonald’s or Burger King?

Burger King, because at least some of them accept Bitcoin and Binance coin.

Black or yellow?

Black.

Snowboarding or work?

I really enjoy snowboarding, but you can’t snowboard all the time. You can do a couple of days a year, it’s good enough.

Simulation or reality?

Definitely, simulation. There is no reality.

Changpeng Zhao is ranked #1 in the first-ever Cointelegraph Top 100 in crypto and blockchain.

#Timor Invest

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consumerelectronicnews · 4 years

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IT Pros Wooed With These Perks in Tight Job Market

1/27/202007:30 AM The unemployment rate is at 3.5% and IT pros are in high demand so employers are increasingly offering these perks to win the recruitment wars. Despite a tiny speed bump to IT and other technology hiring in December 2019, the job market looks pretty sweet for workers across the board. The Bureau of Labor Statistics at the US Department of Labor reported an overall unemployment rate of 3.5% for December, essentially unchanged from the previous month. IT pros are actually very much in demand. "IT is certainly among the most in demand where unemployment is zero or negative -- where you have more open jobs than people," said Jim Johnson, senior VP of Robert Half Technology told InformationWeek. Image: md3d - stock.adobe.com On one side, the market is great for IT pros looking to get paid more in their existing positions or by moving elsewhere. But for employers, that low unemployment rate means that their organizations are having a tough time filling vacancies and attracting talent. In fact, many may be making changes to help ease their recruitment efforts. For instance, 76% of technology leaders say their company is offering extra perks or benefits to sweeten the pot for IT pros, according to Robert Half Technology research. These extra perks include things such as remote work opportunities and sign-on bonuses. A full 60% of IT managers said that the main reasons for these changes are to gain a recruiting edge over competitors. Indeed, 33% said that it boosts staff retention. At companies that don't currently offer additional perks, 58% said that doing so could help them find talent. "Companies are really having to compete for people, and in the world of tech it's even more pronounced," Johnson said. "Trying to make sure you have the right people and keep the right people is something that companies are struggling with." Jim Johnson Johnson said that Robert Half's recent surveys show that half of HR managers are prepared to offer or are offering flexible work or telecommuting. In some cases that makes a lot of sense because the company is located in an expensive market while the prospective employee is located in another part of the country. But in other cases, telecommuting and flexible work arrangements can provide employees with an important benefit -- more time in their days because they don't have to spend them commuting in metropolitan areas with high congestion such as New York City or the San Francisco Bay Area. "Offering telecommuting or remote work in places where commuting is a nightmare -- it's the nature of the market itself," Johnson said. The new research from Robert Half Technology also showed that companies in Miami, Seattle, and Raleigh are the most likely to go above and beyond for IT staff. Johnson points out that Microsoft and Amazon are both in the Seattle area, and Miami has a large services industry, while Raleigh has an interesting blend of different industries. "Those cities have to compete to keep people there and prevent them from going to other cities," Johnson said. But don't think you necessarily need to move to one of those three cities in order to get a raise. The IT job market is hot everywhere in the US, according to Johnson. "I am seeing this in every market I go to," he said. To meet the challenge, Johnson counsels employers to be proactive in terms of both recruitment and retention. "Don't wait until you are ready to make an offer to get ahead of that conversation with HR," he said. "Make sure you have the right package ready and it's competitive. Also make sure that your current teams are engaged in their roles. Benchmark your compensation." Not everyone is doing this now, but everyone should be, Johnson said. "If they haven't, they know they need to now," he said. "They've seen the nightmare in front of them." Read more of our articles on IT careers and skills: 5 IT Career Tips from Pros Who Know IT Careers: 12 Job Skills in Demand for 2020 It's Time to Reconsider IT Career Paths Jessica Davis has spent a career covering the intersection of business and technology at titles including IDG's Infoworld, Ziff Davis Enterprise's eWeek and Channel Insider, and Penton Technology's MSPmentor. She's passionate about the practical use of business intelligence, ... View Full Bio We welcome your comments on this topic on our social media channels, or [contact us directly] with questions about the site. Email This | Print | RSS Webcasts The 6 Must-Haves for Practical Cloud Security Are You Ready for When Cyber Attackers Get In? More Webcasts White Papers Black Hat 2019 Hacker Survey Report One Phish, Two Phish, Three Phish, Fraud Phish More White Papers Reports Black Hat 2019 Hacker Survey Report The Future of Network Security is in the Cloud More Reports

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maryanntorreson · 4 years

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4 Sci-Fi Universal Translators (And 1 Possibly Real One)

Photo: LucasFilm

Science fiction is often applauded for its ability to predict future technologies. These tools might be for the better (the smart watches shown on The Jetsons) or for the worse (the obscene surveillance state shown in Nineteen Eighty-Four). But sci-fi doesn’t just predict the future; it can create it, too. The imaginations of Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin and countless other writers have inspired scientists to create the tech-centric world we live in. It should come as no surprise, then, that the most sought-after linguistic technology was first thought of in First Contact, a 1945 novella by Murray Leinster. In the story, creatures from around the universe are able to communicate using what’s called a universal translator.

The concept of the universal translator is simple enough: it’s a device that can translate between any two languages, ideally as fast as possible. In execution, though, it’s not simple at all. The problem of human language is that it’s so complex that even our best artificial intelligence hasn’t mastered it. But as you can imagine, almost every tech company in the world is attempting to crack it, and each year brings incredible developments.

If you go from the real world to sci-fi, though, there are universal translators everywhere. Why? Well, frankly, it solves a lot of story problems. Sure, the characters could spend decades mastering alien languages, but why not just have a machine that does that all for them? As we wait for a device that will break down all language barriers forever, we rounded up our favorite fictional translation devices. We also threw in one of the most recent attempts at a real universal translator.

Tardis Translation Circuit — Doctor Who

youtube

In the long-running British TV show Doctor Who, the Tardis is a machine able to go anywhere throughout time and space. So sure, why not throw a translation device in there? The titular Doctor, being a 2,000-year-old alien, already speaks millions of languages, of course, but he does need translation services to offer his traveling companions. The Tardis employs a telepathic field that automatically translates both text and speech for people. The Tardis Translation Circuit is particularly complicated because it’s connected to the Doctor himself (or, thanks to Jodie Whittaker, herself). This means that the Doctor’s language abilities control who gets access to it, and also apparently allows him to briefly speak in other languages, like with the 10th Doctor’s near-constant yelling of the French Allons-y! (“Let’s go!”). That’s also why in the scene above, the Tardis’ translation doesn’t work until the Doctor comes out of what was essentially a coma.

Confused yet? Doctor Who doesn’t mind being very vague about how its technology works (it describes the space-time continuum as a “big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff”), so asking for a realistic explanation is futile. The show takes the easier route by just ignoring any inconsistencies in the way the translation circuit works.

Additional fun fact: In the Doctor Who book Only Human, it’s revealed that the Tardis has a censorship feature — no swearing in space, apparently — which helps explain why the show can keep its PG rating.

Babel Fish — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is “a trilogy in five parts,” which might give you a hint that the whole thing is meant to be slightly ridiculous. So it only makes sense that their universal translator is the silliest of them all. It’s called a Babel fish, and it’s a creature that naturally evolved so that when you stick it in your ear, it eats your brain waves and excretes thought, translating any language in the universe for you. To help distract from the extraordinary implausibility of such a fish, the book launches into an explanation as to why the Babel fish disproves God’s existence.

The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.”

“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and vanishes in a puff of logic.

Universal Translator — Star Trek

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Star Trek‘s universal translator, or UT, is the closest to a “real” gadget so far on this list. There’s no telepathy or fish involved. The UT is the sci-fi standard for translation technology, and any article about the concept of a universal translator is bound to reference it. In execution, it’s still more of a plot device than a technological one, but the creators of Star Trek have put at least a little effort into explaining how translation works. It’s essentially a really advanced Google Translate that takes in language information and figures out the best way to translate it. There are some inconsistencies in how it works, but that’s bound to happen with a franchise that’s been rebooted so many times.

In the above clip, Hoshi Sato explains how the UT operates, and says it was invented in the 22nd century (so the clock is ticking for us). In addition to the UT’s ability to translate any Earth language, Hoshi used the UT to invent the linguacode, which can be used to communicate with any species in existence. The linguacode ventures a bit more into the realm of impossibility, because it’s unlikely it’ll ever be that easy to crack alien languages.

In the Star Trek universe, the invention of the UT broke down all of Earth’s language barriers and created planet-wide world peace and cooperation. It will probably take more than translation to do that in real life.

We would be remiss not to mention Star Trek’s biggest contribution to language: Klingon. The Klingons are skeptical of the UT and prefer speaking in their own language, allowing many opportunities to hear Klingon throughout the various shows and movies. The language itself was developed into a full language, which is pretty much a sci-fi nerd prerequisite at this point. One of the most recent iterations of Star Trek — the TV show Star Trek: Discovery — hired official Klingon translator Robyn Stewart to create dialogue for the alien species, which is then translated on-screen. Even in the future, there’s no escape from subtitles.

C-3PO — Star Wars

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In Star Wars, despite the existence of laser swords, spaceships and massive, planet-shaped weapons (OK, fine, moon-shaped), everyone is still forced to use language interpreters. Granted, C-3PO is a super-advanced robot that speaks six million languages. But even so, it seems pretty inconvenient to have to drag him with you every time you need a mediator. C-3PO tends to show a lot of flaws in droid design. For example, why would you build a two-legged robot? Sure, humans pull it off, but when C-3PO is walking around, he looks like a baby taking its first steps. Plus, C-3PO is scared of everything and is in fact kind of irritating (which is why R2-D2 has always been the more popular of the duo). There’s a reason this golden boy is always falling over and getting his limbs pulled off.

My overall point here is that when technology advances, I have to imagine we’ll be able to make more efficient translation devices. Nothing against C-3PO, but there’s just gotta be a better way to talk to Ewoks.

Pixel Buds — Google

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Compared to the sci-fi we’ve covered so far, reality is lagging. There isn’t any tool that will immediately and seamlessly translate from one language to another. But the idea of a universal translator is looking more and more possible with every passing year.

While many companies are vying for linguistic supremacy, Google takes the blue ribbon for now (Microsoft isn’t too far behind with its Skype Translator). The release of Google Pixel Buds, which, as seen in the clip above, have the ability to automatically translate speech, got the tech world very excited in October 2017, and it is now a feature in many Google products.

There are two main flaws to the Pixel Buds translations: they’re not quite quick enough to count as “instant” translation, and they only work for a limited number of languages. With each new update, though, they’re improving. They’ve gone from 12 to 40 supported languages in the past three years, and each iteration is faster than the last. Competing earbuds are even working on allowing “interruptions,” meaning two people can talk over each other but the device will still be able to translate both people at the same time.

Google Translate isn’t taking the place of real human multilingualism — yet. There are a lot of flaws that come up. But instead of just pointing out all of those, we can look at the positives. A few decades ago, instant translation seemed nearly impossible. In 2020, you can communicate in some capacity with almost anyone on the internet. No, it’s not perfect. No, not every language is represented. But still, it’s a technology that for years ago was purely the stuff of sci-fi. Basically, we’re living in the future.

The post 4 Sci-Fi Universal Translators (And 1 Possibly Real One) appeared first on Babbel.

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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“It was a breakthrough quarter for gaming” • Eurogamer.net

Microsoft has seen remarkable financial results from gaming during its last quarter, fuelled by the global lockdown.

Satya Nadella sounds happy with Xbox.

“It was a breakthrough quarter for gaming,” Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said.

“We saw record engagement and monetisation, led by strength on and off-console, as people everywhere turn to gaming to connect, socialise, and play with others.”

Nadella said Xbox Game Pass is seeing record subscriber growth across both console and PC, and pointed to Minecraft, which reached a new high of nearly 132 million monthly active users during the quarter ending 30th June 2020.

Gaming revenue increased by $1.3bn or 64 per cent, which was “significantly ahead of expectations”, Amy Hood, chief financial officer, said. Xbox content and services revenue increased $1.2bn or 65 per cent, with strong growth in third-party transactions, Game Pass subscribers and Minecraft. What Hood called “play-at-home scenarios” – aka the global lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic – resulted in a significant increase in console sales. Xbox hardware revenue increased 49 per cent, primarily due to an increase in volume of consoles sold.

Looking ahead, Microsoft is setting itself to release the Xbox Series X console in time for Christmas 2020. The company said it expects revenue growth in the high teens with continued strong user engagement across the platform.

There was a lot of talk of Microsoft’s Game Pass strategy during the financial call, too. “That’s what we are going for,” Nadella said.

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But Microsoft is also thinking beyond Xbox consoles, with its Project xCloud streaming tech poised to become a part of the Xbox Game Pass offering.

“We go beyond the console to the PC,” Nadella said. “We go to mobile and we have the streaming service. So, all of these accrue to what we think, in the long run, is going to be a much bigger addressable market. And we have a great structural position. We have a social networking Xbox Live. Obviously, we have our store that monetises super well, as well as we have the Game Pass subscription.”

“I think we’re all pretty excited,” Hood added. “I think Satya called it pivotal. I think it certainly is, and that we’re sort of looking forward to the next console release as well.”

All smiles at Xbox then, ahead of this evening’s crucial Xbox Series X game showcase.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/it-was-a-breakthrough-quarter-for-gaming-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=it-was-a-breakthrough-quarter-for-gaming-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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heatherrdavis1 · 4 years

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BREAKING! The Scary Truth of the Stimulus Bailout!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Know what is going on. Viewers of the tube. My name is Tyler and welcome to the channel that feels like pulling this up after the Fed and the U.S. government announce a multi trillion dollar stimulus package. And the money printing goes you know our inflation. It’s time for Chico crypto. Yep they did it. The Achy Breaky sticky politicians of the US have come to a deal regarding an economic stimulus plan. CNN broke the news White House Senate reach historic two trillion dollar stimulus deal amid growing corona virus fears. Well here’s the thing people mainstream media like CNN they’re basically trying to hide four trillion dollars of this package. Yeah. The package is six trillion dollars in actuality of which four trillion is for the QE quantitative easing from the Fed. Let’s hear what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had to say about the news. Well Madam President I have an update for the information of all senators and for the information of the American people. And it’s good news. It’s good news for the doctors and nurses and emergency rooms around the country. We’re waiting for more and more funding. It’s good news for families all across America. At last. We have a deal. After days of intense discussions the Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement on a historic relief package for this pandemic. It will rush new resources onto the front lines of our nation’s health care fight and it will inject trillions of dollars of cash into the economy as fast as possible to help American workers families small businesses and industries make it through this disruption and emerge on the other side ready to soar. Yes and he pretty much admits that yes it’s more than just the two trillion dollars we are seeing in the headlines. So what exactly is this stimulus and what does it contain. Well as of yesterday when I was writing the script for this video the full text details of the bill were yet to be released but from prior information and more that was leaked we can get a general idea so that two trillion dollars you keep hearing about in the news headlines is direct cash stimulus payments to groups or individuals in the USA. Let’s break down where this true trillion dollars is going. And let’s start with who gets the most direct cash money. You would think the citizens of the USA would be the ones getting the most. Right. Wrong. It’s the corporations who have already been given a golden spoon earlier in the week through corporate bond bailouts. Well now they get a direct cash stimulus too. Half a trillion dollars 500 billion a quarter of that stimulus is going directly to distressed corporations like the airlines like the hotels like the cruise ships like Trump’s nightclubs. Under corporate umbrellas. Yep they already got bailed out on the bond level and now they are getting a bulk of the direct cash. Yay. So what group is next it has to be the general population right or wrong. They are following trickle down for some reason still and it’s small to medium sized businesses that get the next bulk of the money. Three hundred and sixty seven billion dollars to be exact. Finally we get to the citizens of the USA. Those are the ones who are going to be struggling the most who are going to be living paycheck to paycheck and need the direct cash stimulus the most out of everyone. Well we get 250 billion dollars. And if we took the entire population of the US nearly three hundred twenty eight million and divided it by that stimulus each citizen would be getting a whopping seven hundred and sixty two dollars. Now I know some of the population is children and some won’t be getting payments due to illegal status and more. But seriously guys this is peanuts and it’s a slap in the face to the American public. But the next biggest amount of direct stimulus is very interesting the same amount. Two hundred and fifty billion for unemployment insurance. So that tells me they expect unemployment to surge and Americans to suffer which falls directly in line with even the nutrients leaked words when speaking to the Senate last week that unemployment could surge to 20 percent. Finally some of the areas of public service that need stimulus the most get the least. State and local governments are only going to receive one hundred and fifty billion in direct stimulus. And as sad as this is only one hundred and thirty billion dollars is being given to the warriors on the frontline of this fight. The hospitals they get the least. Now the ranking latter of the stimulus amounts shows exactly where this administration’s priorities are. As we didn’t speak about the four trillion other dollars well that is left for the Federal Reserve who is going to keep doing what they have been doing repo operations with the banks. Yes the banks are the Fed’s priority. I mean even before the pandemic the banks were losing it. They pump over six point six trillion dollars into the repo markets by late January 20 20. And what has happened since well these repo operations are public. We can go to the Federal Reserve’s Web site and filter since January 27 2 as of yesterday March 25th and we get all the repo operations that have been performed since then and their values. We can then export to sell. Open it up. Get all the excepted repo operations. Copy it. Google Docs since I’m not paying for Excel. And finally sum it all up. And why do we get two thousand one hundred and sixty eight billion more dollars or two point one six eight trillion. So banks already we’re getting the bulk of the benefits and they are going to get more confirmed by Jerome Powell earlier this week when they announced they would be offering 1 trillion per day in repo operations until the end of this month and maybe in to April. Now that doesn’t mean that the banks will be borrowing 1 trillion every day but this limit is so large it basically guarantees unlimited liquidity and that four trillion of the six trillion dollar package is for these guys. And where this money is going follows the elites pyramid of control banks are the top of world resource control and thus they will get the bulk of the stimulus. But look who is right below the banks corporations and they got the second most the peanuts to the hospitals who can be considered education in this pyramid and then to the government and finally to the citizens a.k.a. the debt slaves. This is trickle down on steroids a.k.a. trampled down economics. And I’m not hating on the right the Republicans as this bill was bipartisan. They both suck and are cronies Democrats or Republicans. If you can’t see that you are a flip and cheat but we have sheep everywhere in this world. Even one of the most influential people in this base is for some damn reason by Nancy but me for himself Anthony pop Leonardo literally had a podcast just posted two days ago talking about the stimulus and Americans getting the checks with Preston site in the podcast. It was over an hour long. They spoke about the checks that will be soon sent to American households and they remark that there are many millennials that are ready to allocate a fair portion of these checks towards bitcoin because they see the value in the technology that realization for a lot of people especially as all these UPI checks go out. You’ve got so many millennials that are just going to plow straight into this. OK. Bomp impressed and nice hoping. But these stimulus checks are not a bullish case for Bitcoin. Yes a small minority of the players like me and people watching this channel will spin on BTC but in a recession or even a depression that money is gonna be spent on things that General population needs as the unemployment soars. You are living in a fantasy land if you think that 250 billion that is going to the American citizens is going to be injected into the crypto markets. You are living in Alice in Wonderland if you think any of the corporations who get the money are going to inject it into the crypto markets as they will save their asses in finance one point zero which is already being seen through the speculation the Dow Jones pumped for two days in a row almost gaining three thousand basis points. It’s obvious as it stands today institutions aren’t betting on bitcoin to do any better than their favorite stocks. I mean where would a new institutional player go if they’re going to dabble in the bitcoin market. They would go to an exchange like BAC or CMC first as it’s from the New York Stock Exchange or CMC both of which the institutions are familiar with. Well CMC open interest meaning the number of open contracts on the exchange has crash going from two hundred sixty two million dollars worth down to just one hundred and thirty two million. As of yesterday and BAC is just as bad open interest was over 12 million to begin the month. But as of yesterday was just four point two million. So the institutions for the most part as of right now have withdrawn from crypto as they moved to cover their arses in the stock market. Is that a good thing. Well let me think about a yes it is. These freaks are now and fully betting on equities stocks mutual funds and more which if we follow Trump down economics it’s not going to fix it. And they are betting on the wrong thing. Now I don’t think many people realize the only way a mass amount of liquidity and people move into crypto on Bitcoin is fall on failure of the U.S. dollar banks and the stock market if it rebounds and does good Bitcoin and crypto for now we’ll stay where it is just less valuable and more speculative asset than a stock. So as much as I hate saying this. For those who have large amounts of value in four or one case Burn baby burn. Cheers. I’ll see you next time.

Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/scary-stimulus-bailout/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=breaking-the-scary-truth-of-the-stimulus-bailout

source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/breaking-the-scary-truth-of-the-stimulus-bailout

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jeffrmayhugh · 4 years

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BREAKING! The Scary Truth of the Stimulus Bailout!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/scary-stimulus-bailout/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=breaking-the-scary-truth-of-the-stimulus-bailout source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/613746727844986880

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scottmapess · 4 years

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BREAKING! The Scary Truth of the Stimulus Bailout!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

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cryptosharks1 · 4 years

Text

BREAKING! The Scary Truth of the Stimulus Bailout!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/scary-stimulus-bailout/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=breaking-the-scary-truth-of-the-stimulus-bailout

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rationalsanskar · 4 years

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Startup Culture Has Jumped the Shark

I’ve worked in basements, fluorescent-lit midtown dungeons,1[1] and had a boss who, upon designating the lightless, cold, boarded-off section of a shared office as the development area, turned to us and said, without enough irony, “You guys don’t need light, right?”

The flippant assumption that my nominal knowledge of computer science has exorcised both my soul and basic human needs is so constant I don’t bother correcting it anymore. Instead, I cultivate the fear through unspoken suggestion and overall surliness that any day might be the day I plug a USB cable into my eye socket and rain nuclear judgement over the homo sapiens plague before ascending to the computational afterlife as immortal Object null.

But we’ve erred too long in shrugging our way into the role of magical subspecies. We complained too little as they exported computer labs and garage mentality into the workplace, so even if we get a Real Job, a Real Office is still on the other side of a successful exit or a glass box occupied by a madman. We’ve let the mythology of alien demigod roll over us because we were too tired and red-eyed from too many hours of waiting for java to compile or npm to reinstall. Too tired to explain that, yes, we too need non-carbonated, even un-caffeinated beverages. We too crave the touch of sunlight, the sweet and subtle song of analog communication, the simple pleasure of taking a walk or scratching a puppy’s head, for the love of God, we too are human! The same fragile skin wraps the same creaking bones as any marketing representative.

We were tired, so we didn’t complain, and accepted our dual nature as mystics yet serfs, sublime mysteries yet replaceable tools, guards with unquestioned mastery over the gates to which we are chained.

The man hour. The scrum. The fifty notifications from ten different tracking systems, the management of which constitutes an extra job. The degradations blend together in a miasma of disassociation and social apathy as we try to eke out the last pleasures from the infinite web of logic, stripping out the digital fallacies we can, trying to ignore the logical fallacies we cannot.

But one company has gone too far.

It started with the usual nonsense: the petri dish approach to company housing that guarantees constant interruption and maximizes bacterial transmission, better known as the open office: That lauded architectural phone-in that uses exposure to train people to avoid each other. Of course, the first time anyone needed to have a meeting they realized the open office is a terrible place to focus on anything, so they created walled off areas that achieved nothing at all because the walls didn’t go to the ceiling, and lo: The Noise did make its merry way to and fro betwixt the concrete ceilings and the hardwood floors, and the half-hearted and quarter-brained attempt to separate mutually destructive work efforts did exactly the nothing any third-brained person would expect.

A solution was needed so badly that a cadre of developers did phase into normalspace and dared point out that the environment had crumbled into insensible counter-productive nonsense based on a aesthetic fad that everybody, everywhere hates except for bright-eyed entrepreneurs who seem to get their information exclusively from small rooms full of bright-eyed entrepreneurs who all read a trending trend magazine once a decade and stick to their guns until pivoting comes back into fashion.

Given the limitations of money and physics, there were a few solutions available to our intrepid company. Make the walls reach the ceiling. Put little ceilings on the insufficiently high walls so they become actual rooms.

The company did not do these things.

The company put in a floor-spanning white noise generator.

If the “communication” that went into this decision were condensed into a single conversation, the following is the only possible conversation that it could have been:

“So, sorry to bug you, but there’s too much noise in the office.”

“What? But it’s an open office plan.”

“Yeah, yeah, so the meetings in the conference rooms are pretty loud and it’s kind of distracting, so…”

“OH! I GET IT NOW.”

“No, I heard you, but why are you shouting?”

“MORE NOISE!”

“YOU SAID THERE’S TOO MUCH NOISE, WE’LL GIVE YOU MORE NOISE.”

“DOUG, WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

“I AGREE. MORE NOISE!”

“WE’LL HAVE TO SHOUT ALL THE TIME!”

“WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! WE’RE A TECH COMPANY, LET’S GET MORE TECH TO DO IT FOR US. THE TECH WILL MAKE THE NOISE!”

“Guys…”

“GENIUS! GLAD YOU BROUGHT THIS TO OUR ATTENTION. WE’LL KEEP SHOUTING UNTIL THE NOISE MACHINES ARE INSTALLED. COMPUTER PERSON, WE GOOD?”

“NO!”

“THAT’S THE SPIRIT! GREAT WORK. SAY, DO YOUR KIND HAVE NAMES? I’VE ALWAYS WONDERED.”

There is no way there won’t be a quarter-brained response to this not-in-any-way-hyperbolic and carefully measured critique. The response will cite an opinion column in Psychology Today and a Facebook headline that includes the prefix neuro- and they will use the grammar meant to imply patience with an aggravated child.

And that is why we must phase back into normalspace and draw the line. They hire us for our basic comprehension of cause and effect. They hire us to do their formal logic, even as they condition us to accept this kind of psychotic stupidity as normal. Rise, for we must apply ourselves to combat the nonsense that surrounds and controls our days. I know you are weary, brothers and sisters, but rise, for we are needed. So desperately needed.

This content was originally published here.

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#Foundry

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youngwinnertragedy · 5 years

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 249

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Click on the video above to watch Episode # of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Alright, Hey everybody. Welcome to Hump Day Hangout. This is Episode 200. And I forgot to look at page 49 to 49. Holy moly. Alright, well, we’re getting there. We’re coming up on an anniversary here pretty quick. But first of all, just want to take a minute we’re going to stop say hello to everybody. And then we got some good stuff coming up for you guys. We’re going to get into that. But let’s see Hernan you’re not wearing your Semantic Mastery shirt. You really threw me off today?

Hernan: No, but I am learning to sticker wearing it.

Bradley: You’re holding it.

Hernan: I can put it on like now. Okay, so now I’m working.

Adam: There we go. Alright,

Hernan: so what’s everybody so it’s really good to be here. I’m excited about POFU Live and now I’m also holding this going right here which is something little something I’ve got for attendees. So lots of good stuff, not only a lot of good information, but also a lot of a good actionable stuff people are still raving about POFU Live 2018, so POFU Live 2019 is going to be even better. So excited to be here.

Adam: That’s awesome. And in case anyone didn’t know the coin that Hernan was holding up his coin that was only given to attendees at POFU Live 2018. Word on the street is that there will be a new unique one for 2019 attendees. So come join us. Bradley, how you doing?

Bradley: I’m good. Happy to be here.

Adam: So is it locked on me? Or are we back to?

Bradley: I think we’re back to the normal deal. I don’t know. How can you guys can anybody confirm?

Adam: Yeah, go ahead and start talking all I mean, is it showing me now or what?

Bradley: It’s, this is odd. We get used to this. And I’m we’re also out of order and how you greet everybody because now I’m like number two how that happened?

Adam: You’re actually number one. It’s we’re just gonna go with it. You know what? So yeah, we’ll just keep rolling. But Bradley, how are you doing today? I’m good.

Bradley: I’m good. Happy to be here, man.

Hernan: It’s showing you so showing the speaker I’m just confirming so good. Thanks,

Adam: Marco. How are you doing?

Marco: Speaking of anniversaries, dude. Two weeks from today was the day that SEO was turned on its head. August 29, 2014. It’s coming up four year anniversary of something that doesn’t work. Imagine that. Imagine that four years of it not working. Here we are. And we’re going to be celebrating, we’re going to be giving good stuff away. It’s we’re actually going to celebrate it two weeks from today, right? Just so people know to tune in one hour early in two weeks, and we’re going to give them goodwill give good stuff away in prizes or whatever coupons, just whatever. It’s going to be fun. And we’re going to show you how it’s still not working in 2019

Adam: so Marco What is it that’s not working?

Marco: Oh, why is a cabbie didn’t even know that Dr. Stephen Teesside’s don’t work? has nobody told you have you not been paying attention?

Adam: Yeah, it’s good. You know, everywhere we go, we everywhere we go. It sounds like we’re out there traveling around or something. But yeah, you know, come across that all over the place. That’s not going to work. You got to do this other stuff.

Bradley: Or, or for four years ago, when when we launched it. And then we did the relaunch I think two years later, everyone kept saying well, don’t you think Google is going to shut close that loophole at some point? Well, four years later, we’re still benefiting from it. So those that you know that’s that you know, kind of like scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset type thing you know what I mean? Like what if what if we can always what if yourself out of doing anything is my point so we’ve been taking advantage of it while it works, which is four years strong now. So I’d say it’s,

Marco: it’s fear, isn’t it? It’s just people it’s one of the things that I’ll be talking about POFU Live by the way. It’s part of my message is fear man, people are just so scared of every Imagine if that person who was so scared because that came up in 2014. During the release, somebody mentioned that imagine that that person that taken action and four years later had continuously excuse me taking action. I’m how many people are outranking their competition with drive stacks, Gsites, on embeds link building. And how we do in Semantic Mastery, man, just imagine.

Adam: All right, sir, definitely. So last but not least, sorry to cut you off, Bradley. But Chris, how you doing, man? We got you on video. This is the real deal.

Chris: Yeah, family doing good. I think of Marco said like, actually hit another point. Like, every time that I actually apply drive stacks and stuff. It’s literally like, I’m the internet, which is just too good to be true. You know, like, people don’t believe it, until they see it. And then they always think like, we’re doing some magic. But yeah, it’s super simple. You just could apply it stick to the plan and execute.

Adam: You know, you bring up something good, Chris. I don’t want me to put you too much on the spot. But if you can find that you remember that Facebook thread you had where you went through how you did that at the affiliate kind of short promo, and the results you got on Facebook, you want to post that on the page. And people can go check that out. Because I think this is a really good example where people are like, Does it still work? What’s going on? Yes, Chris did this. He did these three things. And like, this is what happened is pretty awesome.

Chris: Yep. Sure, let me find it.

Adam: Good deal. And while we’re talking about Chris, real quick before we get into some short announcements and answer questions, you know, sometimes I’m a few hours off from these guys. And I’m like, some kind of pain or I’m, you know, got this or that going on. Chris, what time is it for you right now?

Chris: 10pm

Adam: 10 pm we’re getting started. And Chris is up at 10 pm on his time doing this. So I just want to say thank you for showing up and doing this because man that that. That takes a lot. I’m asleep at 10 pm. So get on it. Real quick. You guys. Before we get into the questions, I wanted to go over some quick announcements. If you’re just watching us and wondering, you know, for watching for the first time and wondering what the hell’s going on here. We are going to start answering your SEO digital marketing questions. But you are in the right place. This is the place to be every Wednesday, go to https://www.semanticmastery.com/hdquestions. You can ask them live we, you know we, of course, want you to join us live ask questions. So you can interact, you can clarify. You can talk to the other people who are viewing but we understand too. If you can’t join us live, whether you got a client call something came up, you can always ask your question ahead of time and then go check it out on YouTube. The next step after that is definitely to pick up the battle plan. All right, go to https://battleplan.semanticmastery.com is where people say hey, what’s the first thing I should do? Is there a course I should take? Is there something I should learn? Just go get the battle plan. It takes care of all of that. And when you’re ready to take things up several levels, you want to join a real community of people who are trying to grow, whether it’s their own agency, whether it’s their own business, come join the mastermind, right and you can find out more about that at https://www.mastermind.semanticmastery.com. And last, but certainly not least, if you know that doing things, or rather getting things done for you is the way to do it. Whether you’re outsourcing whether you are leveraging us via MGYB getting done for you services is such a great way to do this because you could turn around and resell to clients or provide the service and then add to that. So MGYB.co go check it out. It’s where you can get syndication networks, press releases link building drives tax done for you all of that stuff. All right, and we really do practice what we preach guys, we mean it. These came about from you know us using this ourselves and then turning around saying well, we got the process other people are asking for it, why not? So go check that out if you haven’t yet and then subscribe to our YouTube channel help us stay up to date as well as these videos and other stuff we post from time to time. So other than that, Hernan touched on it real quick on perfectly live, we talked about that. But if you haven’t picked up your ticket yet, you can go to Whole Foods live.com it’s going to be in Denver, can be October 11, 12th, and 13th 11th is the VIP day, we’ve got a fun time, where everyone can get together a little bit more relaxed, get to know each other and have a good time and then dive into the heavy stuff on the 12th and 13th. If you want to join us to find out more you can go there, grab your ticket. If you have questions about it. Just email us at [email protected] Alright guys, do we have any other announcements before we get into it?

Bradley: I can’t think of any.

Adam: All right, let’s do it. And I don’t even have to say cameraman anymore. So this is awesome.

Bradley: No, but gotta try to share the screen for how to do this again. There we go. I’ll get used to it eventually.

Hernan: All right. So Bradley,

Bradley: what’s up?

Hernan: We do can see your screen.

How To Start A Branded Tier 1 Syndication Network If You Don’t Have Access To The Main Site To Create RSS?

Okay, good. Alright, so we’re going to start with Ivan. It looks like so what’s up to five and he says, hey guys, I created a branded tier one syndication network for a friend who has a local business beauty niche and I want to start publishing to it, but I don’t have access to the main site yet to create an RSS feed. What would be the most effective way to start the process blogger, WordPress, the free versions? I was thinking of using the RSS feed from the GMB briefcase. Yeah, you could do that as well. I mean, if you’re already posting to the GMB stuff, you know, as GMB through the auto poster than that, I mean, that’s not a bad idea. You could try to do it that way. But yeah, if you don’t have access to his self hosted site yet to where you can start blogging directly on there, then you could use the branded blogger or WordPress or Tumblr site, even Tumblr seems to be really strong right now I’ve got a couple. Well, for example, the new business that I recently started in the last few months that if you do a brand new search, the syndication network, the Tumblr property from the same syndication network comes up on the first page for that. And I’ve noticed that on a couple of other recent client examples of mine were so Tumblr’s is strong right now. And that kind of stuff varies. Sometimes it’s WordPress, sometimes it’s Tumblr, for oddly enough, blogger doesn’t typically rank all that well unless you purposely do a lot of stuff to get it to rank like link building and stuff. But so yeah, I would, I would recommend using, you know, blogger, WordPress, or Tumblr, as you know, from the branded syndication network as the trigger point until you get access to it, that’s not a bad idea to do that. So also, if you’re using press releases, you could also use the press, if you’ve got your own subscription, the press advantage, that’s an RSS feed there that works really well the syndication, the syndicated press releases look beautiful, they come out looking really nice across the blog properties within the syndication network. If you don’t have the RSS feed, but you’ve been you because you don’t have your own account in but you’ve been using MGYB services for press releases just right to support we can get you the RSS feed for that particular organization. So that each time you publish a press release, it will also update the syndication network. Do you guys want to add to that?

Marco: No, not me. That’s perfect.

Okay, cool.

Will Ordering The Entire Battle Plan Makes Order Processing Faster In MGYB?

Okay, Ernest is up. He says, Hey, guys, I’ve been following the battle plan as directed on average is taking about two weeks to get orders back from the MGYB. Store. If I placed an order for the entire battle plan at once in the future, will this help speed things up? That’s a really, really good question. I can’t really answer that one. Marco, maybe you’re the best suited for that one.

Marco: And no, it won’t know it won’t, because it has to be done in a certain order, he has some places or his orders. Preferably, you would need to have your syndication Academy or your tier one branded in place, so that you can submit it, when you order your drive stack plus Gsite. And then that should be in place. So that you can go ahead and order the embed, and or the press releases, right you need your NAP. And anything that you want to link to in the drive stack and the tier 1 branded, whichever the destination you do to one of the destinations that you choosing in the press release. And then, of course, the embeds that you would do. And then, of course, the link building. So everything is there’s a method to the madness, I wouldn’t just skip it, or order it all at once. I mean, you could, but then we require for you to submit the information within 30 days because other times that we’ve done it, people simply just since they haven’t ordered already, they don’t give us the information and we need to get the process moving along. But that still would not speed it up because it takes time to build it. Syndication network takes time to build drive stack plus gsite. And I guess everything else could be built it and held. But then you’d be running against the against these time limits that we set inside the inside MGYB. What we do return the money if we don’t get the information. So I wouldn’t want to want you doing that I would want you to follow the battle plan. It’s set up the way it’s set up for a reason. This way, you get the full effect on everything that you when you order that those embeds and that link building to everything else that you’ve set up along the way. That’s when the true power comes through when you start skipping or doing things other ways. That’s when you don’t get the full effect. So I would say no, no, you’re not helping yourself any

Bradley: I would suggest well, or just make a request may be that we can chat about during our corporate meeting, perhaps about maybe and I know we’ve talked about this in the past on you don’t have to answer this now Marco, but I’m just planting the seed but creating packages where you could just buy everything, you know, at once, and it would be done in succession. Like you know what I mean that that order, like you, would submit your details. But that’s not a bad idea. I know recently, like, for example, with the link building or embed packages there, or excuse me, the embed services. There are like package levels in there now which are, which are great, I think that’s going to help people make better decisions as to what they need to purchase in order to get the results that they’re looking for. So maybe we can do something like that on, you know, in the coming weeks or months for actual like all of the different components together as put them into sort of a package level that somebody could purchase. And then submit all their details upfront and we would build them in succession and that would resolve the potential 30-day issue thing with the word order details if that makes sense. So anyway, just planting the seed for that’s something

Marco: No, no, we don’t we do have all of these packages in mind, right where you can do one of or just everything all at once. It but it all has to be built into the store. And that’s what makes the most amount of time.

Bradley: Well, I guess we’ve got to start cracking the whip hop. I’m kidding. I know. I know the guys have got their hands full and getting everything in there that we want.

How Do You Rank A Choir Website Selling Local Subscription In 5 Different Cities In France?

So Alright, the next one’s up. This is an interesting one. I started reading it and I’m not quite sure I understand exactly what the question is. But I’m going to read through it anyway, I’m going to take a stab at it and see what I can come up with. Hi Semantic Mastery team, I’d like to have your advice before buying anything you’re done for your store, which is MGYB.co. I have a French website which shows my choirs network in France, means I have six choirs in five different cities in France. Of course, as every choir, we rehearse together person each week, I want to know what is your advice for me to rank best with your services as a French website selling a local subscription to choirs in different cities? Thanks in advance for your help. Uh, I’m kind of lost on the question. I just don’t know exactly what it is that you’re asking I maybe because I don’t understand the whole choir thing and everything else, or what your business model is, you say you’re selling subscriptions, I don’t understand really exactly what it is that you’re selling. So my answer to you would be as far as the syndication networks, is if you have a different network for each different city, which you can do, you don’t have to do that though, you can use a syndication network for one brand. So if it’s the same brand, and I’m assuming, you know, I don’t know, it could be you have different choirs in each different city that are like different names or something like that, and you’re trying to brand each one, then you’d want separate syndication networks, or it could be one, you know, name brand for a particular choir name for the choir, that you want to use, and you want to promote it in six different, you know, five or six different cities looks like five different cities. In either case, you could use, well, if it’s all separate, then you’d want separate syndication networks if it’s one choir that you want to promote in five different cities, and you could really just use one network. Now what I’ve always mentioned in the past, like let’s put this on a more local type, like the business type.

Let’s let’s try to describe it that way. Because that maybe that’ll make more sense. At least it does to me if I had a brand that had five different locations, right, so a company that a business that had five different locations, what I would try to do is promote that one business through one’s branded syndication network, in all five cities. And there are ways to do that, for example, if you have a website that you’re going to be blogging content to are using as your content distribution engine to your network, or could be a YouTube channel for that matter. You could create silos within either the website or within the YouTube channel, using playlist is how you would create silos and YouTube channel. And they would be optimized for each location. So that each time you publish a new piece of content, you would put it in the correct location silo. And it would be it would go out across the same network and you build up authority and you theme it over time that way. So that’s one way that I would do it. Because it’s easier to manage it’s one branded network that you maintain, you can do a ton of additional like off-page SEO stuff to it like link building embeds, like we just talked about, add it to a drive stack, then do link building and embed and link building to the drive stack properties, just a ton of things that you can do to that. So I prefer to do as much as I can with one branded network if that makes sense.

However, if you find particular areas that are more competitive, you’re not getting the SEO traction that you want to, then you can always add a location modifier to that brand name and create a location-specific network then you could publish directly to for any content going into that particular location or that area to promote that area could go into that location-specific network. Again, I prefer to use one network if possible and get it what you know, push that build the authority up in that one network as much as possible.

Now, if it’s five different brand names, five different choirs and totally and each with their own location, in that case, then you’d want to use five separate networks. The idea is to, first of all, publish regularly and consistently, whatever you’re using to trigger publication to the network, right. Again, either it’s going to be a blog, typically, it can be many, many things, guys, but it’s usually either a blog or a YouTube channel, then you want to publish regularly and consistently to that so that it’s syndicating across the network. And again, regular and consistent is important. That’s key. But second of all, you can power the network up like I do, as mentioned, you can do link building to it, you can have a drive stack built and include those syndication network profile URLs in the drive stack. Then from there, you can do embeds and link building to the embeds and link building directly to the drive stack and all of that. So there’s a lot of things that you do press releases, once again, it’s a great strategy to get, especially in something like acquire, which is kind of like you know, entertainment, that kind of stuff, I would recommend that you also promote those, when you have concert events or choir events, whatever you call them. You could also do press releases to publish an announcement announcing the event, the upcoming event. And that’s a good way to get traction. And it’s just an excuse to publish additional press releases as well. So you fit all those components together with the same stuff that we’ve been teaching now for, you know, a long time. You stack all those things together, and it should work really, really well. Now, who wants to comment on that? And

Marco: Yeah, I would, I would tell him that the battle plan is perfect for what he’s doing. Follow that. We don’t do French in MGYB. I see that his website is in French and he’s targeting French audience. You’d have to do your own syndication network, you’d have to do well, you could send the description, I guess, in French, and we could do it that way. I don’t know. But we definitely will not do a drive stack and Gsite in French. He would have to do that himself. He would have to learn how to do that.

Bradley: Yeah. Well, I mean, the only thing I could Yeah, that drive stack, you’re right, that would be really difficult. As far as the syndication network, we could build it in English, and then he could just, you know, yeah, publishing in French to it. And that would be fine.

Hernan: Yeah, that was that was what I was about to say is that you can even like, you can get away with subpar where that would have syndication. And we’re not completely fully pledged, you know, the full-blown syndication like Semantic Mastery syndication network way. And you can even bill like you could have like your tier one links as a French, you know, properties and then you can be backlinks, from English speaking websites, to those to those websites. And, you know, as you if you follow the battle plan, you will be in a good spot because, you know, it’s still like way, way, way easier. It’s not as easy, it’s what it was before, it’s not as easy. It’s like way easier to, you know, to keep on you know, ranking and gaining getting power and gaining traction in foreign markets. So it’s, it’s great, still great.

Bradley: Alright, so hopefully that helps.

What Do You Think Are The Estimated Radius A Search Needs To Be From A Business Before A GMB Listing Drops Out Of The 3-Pack Ranking?

Alright, so the next one is Gordon, what’s up, Gordon, he says, Hey, guys, thank you for your help on these days or us customers would be lost. Without your help, excuse me, US customers would be lost. So thank you very much again. You’re welcome. As always, Gordon, appreciate you coming and asking questions every week. The distance from the local searcher to the business is one of the main ranking factors that Google and I use this for GMB listings, yeah, we call that proximity. I know that each geolocation is completely the difference. So there is no real rule whatsoever. But what is your best guesses to the ballpark radius, a searcher needs to be from a business before the business is likely to drop out of the three-pack and the GMB listings that show when you click More list, and under the order of their ranking factors, or just randomly, know, there’s a lot that can be done to manipulate that. I mean, for example, I don’t know if there, I don’t think there is a rule of thumb, but what you’ll see is, and you can experience this, like if you know of a, if you do a search for a particularly well-known brand, for example. And again, we’re talking about service industries, you know, you could pick a well known, you know, kind of a bigger, like, contracting company, like a big plumber. And we you know, I use that always as an example, just plumbers. But like, in Northern Virginia, there’s a couple of them that are really big name brands that have been around for decades. And they built really big plumbing contracting businesses like Michael and sons is one of them and other ones like JD flood. So my point is they can have a location and because of its inherent authority, that it’s crude, right? Then their maps listing can show up, way beyond the normal proximity, you know, filter, so to speak, or proximity limitations that we typically see for smaller type businesses. And that’s because of the authority of the brand, as well as the associated website, the number of citations, the number of co-citations, so places that they’ve been mentioned on the web, all of that kind of stuff can really help to help push their maps listing into a much wider proximity area, then a smaller business would be that has less authority, right. That’s what we teach. And local GMB Pro, though, is how to actually manipulate that kind of stuff. So there, even the little guy can get to there. It takes consistent effort. And, you know, it’s something that has to be done consistently over time, in order to get those kinds of results. Typically, the bigger companies, they just have those results because people go do brand searches for them, which by the way, that’s one of the biggest ranking factors right now, guys is what we call navigational search queries. We’ve talked about those in many years, or over the many years now for when we talked about CT spam, or click through spam. I’m seeing it time and time and again right now, specifically that if you can get people to do and I’m not talking about buying spam clicks and spam searches. But if you can get real people to do real searches for a brand name, and then when it comes up when their website comes up, click through to that website or to the maps listing, either one, that is a huge SEO ranking signal that will really kind of catapult you into that a high authority status, so that you can overcome a lot of those proximity issues. You know, you have to figure out ways to kind of social engineer that one way to do it, I know for sure from testing recently is through direct mail. But there’s a ton of other ways to do that, too. But I’m just saying there’s, you know, there, I don’t know, if there is a rule of thumb, I know if the, if the organization or the company, the GMB and the website doesn’t have a lot of authority built in the proximity could be very, very narrow. Right? If the more authority that it builds, then the more the broader that proximity area can be and you’ll start to see those rank higher. So I know that’s probably not a real quick, clear cut answer. I’m Marco, I know will chime in on this one. But um, you know, again, it because proximity, it really is going to depend on authority. But my point is, is I know for sure, because I’ve got clients where you’ll see some of their competitors that will be, you know, three cities over and yet they’re still showing in the three-pack. And they say, Well, how can that be? Well, because they’ve been around for a lot longer. They’ve got much bigger marketing budgets, you know, we can get there, but you’re gonna have to come off some more money. That makes sense, Marco, so you.

Marco: This is a really interesting question. And I’ll take the last part first saw they listed in, in the order of their ranking factors are randomly there, they’re listed according to the relevance of the location of the person doing the search the proximity to the person doing the search, and how are you able to determine the Manhattan? Right? New York City is really small, it’s about 23 square miles, right. And we I’ve had someone go in a building that has two entrances, right, let’s say, on the east side, and on the north side, for example, right around the corner. And they’ve got two separate sets of data. Even though all the change was about maybe half a block in distance. So it’s really the depending upon what Google considers is relevant to that person directly doing the query, considering the proximity of the place that the person is looking for. And how you override that is just how Bradley said, you have to become relevant, relevant, trusted and authoritative in the niche. So that you override a little bit of that proximity factor, which is what’s taking place right at that moment? And So, back to the sorry, to the first part of that question. Yet, it’s the main ranking factor, the geolocation has a lot to do with it. And again, we do teach, we teach you how to kind of get around that get around the proximity. Now what the radius is, I have no idea I have I have a lot of data that I will have to input into a computer and run some math to see if I can get something out of it. But I just don’t have the time to do it.

Bradley: Yeah. And I think the radius would vary depending on how much weight the site hazard the brand, as you know what I mean?

Marco: Because we know that it bleeds, right? We know that it bleeds into surrounding suburbs, we’ve seen that and so that there is no definitive radius, you can increase that you can decrease if you lose some of that trust and authority that and of course, activity, ART, right? activity, relevance, trust, and authority, then you’re going to lose maybe how wide that radius is expanded. We just guys, it’s so hard to answer these questions. Because we’re not sitting there. Looking at a computer that’s hooked up to Google, and seeing what Google is giving us back. All we can tell you is what we have seen from what we tested. So and those are the things that we’ve seen.

Bradley: And so you know, we talked about this on a couple of recent webinars, Marco, I believe, on Hump Day hangouts as well. So stop me if I’m revealing too much, but I don’t think I am because we’re just going to talk about this on more of a conceptual level, we’ve got time because I don’t see a lot of other questions coming through anyways. But one of the things, like I just mentioned, is how to manipulate kind of what is called site weight or brand authority, right? There’s it was an hour and a patent that Google published, you know, many years ago, I think it was 2010, or 11, or maybe 12. When I first was introduced to it, it was around 2011, I believe, by Ivan Buddhamayor, we were, you know, really had a really big influence on my SEO, local SEO career really. Anyways, we’ve talked about this in the past with the CT spam, the click-through spam stuff. And that very early on Google had determined that navigational search queries would make an if all if there were two competitive sites, all things being equal. You know, and I know that’s very difficult to do. But just theoretically, if there was to compare two competing sites and all and they were very similar in nature, as far as SEO value on-page, backlink profile, all of that kind of stuff. If one of them, one of the brands were so so let’s say site, a its particular brand name, if there was a lot of navigational search queries where people would search by that company by name or that website by name, or that name plus contact or name plus phone or name plus location, any variation or number of what they call navigational search queries, then Google would recognize that as a higher authority, and we would it was called the site weight patent. And that was the nickname for it. But it would give that site more weight, right. So it would be weighted heavier, it would be more authoritative. And so Google would push that one about it to the top of the search results or above the other competitor, because of that nature. That that very reason, right. And so we’ve talked about a number of ways to do that. We’ve talked about manipulating that through a click through spam in the past, which I don’t recommend anymore, because most of those are bots, they’re very difficult like they just don’t get counted any more. It’s not that I think they’re going to be negative or detrimental or harm, or, you know, hurt your rankings. But I don’t think that they get, they don’t get counted any more. We’ve talked about doing that through Facebook ads, or excuse me through through ads, you can do that through YouTube ads, and even search ads and display ads more recently, because display ads are a heck of a lot cheaper than search ads. But also, if you can get people through other marketing channels to go search for brand names. And then when they find when the brand comes up, and the various tier one assets or branded assets come up, they start to click through, they don’t have to just click through to the website of the GMB map, right, because they could click through the Facebook page. And Google still sees that Google knows that they’re clicking through from the search results page to a branded asset, and perhaps even clicking through from the branded asset, ultimately to the website or to the Google Map. And Google can track all of that stuff. And all of those are incredibly good engagement signals that add weight, right? They add site weight or brand weight in this case. But one of the things that I know, Marco has mentioned recently and Hernan has followed up with it is or seconded it co-signed it, so to speak, is that if you have conversion goals that are being achieved, on your assets, right, which think about what a conversion goal is a conversion goal on a website could be somebody filling out a contact request form. Or if you’re selling a product, it could be purchasing a product or if you’re building an email list, it could be completing an opt-in form, right but on a local level, you’re typically going to contact request form. If somebody is completing a conversion goal on a GMB asset, it could be clicking the tab to call button or clicking driving directions if it’s a storefront business, right, those are all considered conversion goals.

Then you if you have conversion tracking set up through Google ads, specifically on the site, even if you’re not running ads, which I recommend that you do, especially display ads, really, even if you don’t have the budget for search ads, you could still set up a very inexpensive display campaign and also on a remarketing campaign remarketing even cheaper. Doing remarketing and building a remarketing list and getting clicks from the display at Google Display Network on a remarketing list is cheaper than cold traffic clicks, right. But still set up conversion tracking through the Google Ads platform and all of that because even organic traffic that comes it’s going to register as a conversion won’t show as a conversion in the ads platform. But it’s that firing mechanism through Google Tag Manager and everything. When you have the conversion tracking set up the conversion goals set up inside of ads, for example. And you can do this in analytics as well. It’s that trigger that firing mechanism of when somebody converts and goes to, for example, a thank you page or whatever, that again, starts to build and accrue site weight. And that really helps to you know, it will give you an edge over competitors that aren’t doing that. So think about if you and you can even experiment what this because I know for a fact that you’ll see a difference in results.

Let’s say you got to lead gen properties. And you’re getting you to know, somewhat similar traffic on both of them if you take one of them and put the conversion tracking on. And even if you’re not running ads, which I still again recommend that you run at least remarketing ads, you’ll see that if you’re getting conversions on both of those, but only one of them has conversion tracking setup and either Google ads and or analytics, you’ll see that that one will start to actually outrank or do better perform better and search than the other one will don’t have that conversion tracking setup. And why is that and it’s because again, Google’s tracking that and it’s a way to pipe data directly to Google stating that the visitors that are visiting your brand site, your website in this case, are actually completing the conversion goal that you had set, which means they’re getting what they were seeking, right, they were finding the information that they were seeking when they went to Google search, to begin with. And when they’re interacting with your brand, they’re getting satisfied that query satisfied by completing that conversion goal. And so it’s very, very important even if you’re not running ads. Again, I recommend that you still set up Google Ads conversion tracking where you can do it via analytics. And if nothing else, start building a remarketing list and running very inexpensive remarketing campaign ads, so that Google can see all that plus, that’s how you start to increase your art activity, relevancy, trust, and authority, as Marco always calls it, because you’ll start getting visitors that will engage with your brand more than once. And then that’s another good brand signal or ranking signal, right? repeat visits. So you want to comment on that, guys?

Hernan: I think that you put it beautifully, Bradley.

Bradley: Okay,

Marco: yeah, I’d like to add and getting back to the GMB that it’s how you relate the entity to the geolocation and the and the keywords. So that what you’re doing is you’re switching the map to a knowledge panel, or the entities becoming the keyword for that niche. Because one thing is, is adding site weight and getting all of that action. On the website, when we’re talking about the map pack, it’s actually the entity, it becomes all about what’s going to be delivered to that person doing the query, it’s generally on a mobile phone, right? Because most, most of it call it most of these searches, especially feedback, they get delivered on that on that phone or on that mobile device. And that’s what Google is actually looking for that it’s how you relate the entity to the geolocation and the keywords and niche. And again, we’ve done so much stuff in Manhattan in New York City, that this is like, I know what’s taking place. And Google will tell you if you read all of the different patents and everything that that’s going on right now Google will tell you exactly what it is that you need to do. So that you can be a change a three-pack, you can even get the map out of there. And you get a knowledge panel instead. That’s what you know, you’re the authority as a trusted entity trusted authority in the niche.

Bradley: Very good. So hopefully that was helpful, Gordon.

How To Avoid Keyword Cannibalization Between Pages Of A Resorts Website?

The next question is from Fermo, this one, I’m not quite sure I understand this question either. So I apologize. But I’m going to try it and says Hi, there, I have a resort’s account, the problem three hotels share keywords on the same domain. Okay. So there are three separate hotels that are being promoted on the same domain, apparently. two languages English and Spanish. Okay. It’s a pain in the ass to rank them by Mark, as the client intends is there is a Is there a way to avoid cannibalization between pages? That’s a tough question. Because I don’t really understand what it is that you’re asking. I didn’t understand what you’re trying to promote three different hotels, they’re targeting the same keyword on the same domain. The only thing I could say if I’m understanding this correctly would be to have you know, very good coded structured data on each one of those pages. That or pages that are associated with each location, or each separate hotel, I should say. So that you can kind of disambiguate between the three, that’s what you’re calling cannibals, cannibalization between pages. I don’t know how you could do that on with keyword can’t like how you wouldn’t keyword Canada cannibalize? In other words, how because it’s there three hotels in the same location competing for the same words on the same or the same keywords or search queries on the same domain. The only thing I could imagine, or suggest doing and Marco will probably have a much better reply to this than I do would be to make sure that everything, the entity for each one of them is very, very clear. And you know, concise, very tight like, and that’s you could accomplish that with structured data, as well as you know, some of the other entity assets that would be connected to it. But I’m not really sure how you would do that. To me, I feel like you would almost if you’re always going to be competing with each other. If it’s all on the same domain to Marco, do you have any idea how to help them here?

Marco: No, because you’re talking about the only variation here is the hotel name. Everything else is the same? Maybe the address is different. So maybe the location can vary by address. But you but you compete. There’s no way to avoid what you’re calling cannibalization, which is Google taking similar pages on your website and deciding which one it should display. Ideally, you want Google to display all three? is Google to this is Google going to display or three years? Or is it finally going to decide this the one that matters? This is the one that I’m going to display? I would almost go like with if you can three. So I don’t know how much control you have three subdomains or three separate websites? Yeah. Because the then the three separate websites, you can schema, the three separate websites correctly, that they each will then have their own entity, you could even try to do it on the same website. I wouldn’t. But if you could divide it into three websites, where all three of these would then take up real estate in SERPs. But then you run into this. How do you decide like which one you want ranking above the other? Yeah. Whereas Google? How is Google going to take that? As long as you deliver the same power? And whatever you do to one you do to all of the others? I think you can take up a lot of real estates that way on the SERPs. Other than that, if you’re trying to run it on the same domain, and we’ll just call it cannibalization, I don’t call it that. That’s what everybody else calls it. And that’s fine. But yeah, I don’t see how you can avoid it. If the only thing that’s different is the name of the hotel, everything else is the same idea. You’re in can you’re in Cancun, and you’re by Solaris, so Solaris common to all of them, that they’re probably in close proximity to one another. I, other than putting them in three separate domains, or three, even three sub-domains, which are actually three separate domains. I don’t see how you can do it.

Bradley: Yeah, cuz then that would separate the web entities, least the domain entities, right. So So I agree with Marco, you know, again, the only thing that I could do if it was I recommend on the same domain would be to have like, you know, again, each page for each location would have its own, you know, Corp organization or corporation type markup, as well as perhaps local business markup structured data. I mean, and all that. But then again, it’s Google’s, you know, one of the more recent updates was Google specifically stating that it was going to put fewer results from the same domain for the same type of keyword on the in the search results, right? I don’t, I never I stopped keeping up with the names of the updates, guys, but it’s one of the more recent Google updates, like within the last few months, and they one of the things that they said that they were going to do is reduce the number of pages from the same domain that could show up for any particular query on page one. Right? So there’s be less overall search results from any given one domain. And so that’s probably what you know, a big part of what you’re experiencing there. So I agree with Marco, how do you beat that you do it separate the domain entity that way, either via subdomain or entirely separate domains? So I agree with that.

Is It Okay To Interlink The Properties In Google Stack?

Austin Don says Is it advisable to interlink the properties in a Google stack? Yes, that’s what we do. And that’s why it’s called the what the spider silo correct?

Marco: Yep, it’s the spider web silo.

Bradley: There you go. Absolutely. Alright, moving on. We’re almost out of questions, guys. So we’re going to answer the next thing that

Hernan: I think I think that we need to give Marco, a prize for the sexiest product naming convention. You know, like a spider web, silo and RYS Academy, and MGYB Oh, that’s beautiful. So give him a gold star.

Marco: He got a prize, it gets to be here every week with us.

Do You Have Any Webinars About Building RYS Stacks And Tracking Results For Restaurants?

So Alright, the next question. We’ve got looks like two questions left, guys. So wrap, post any questions if you have them. Otherwise, we’ll get through these two, and we’ll wrap it up. I see. The next one says I follow you guys on the Facebook page bought older course but wanted to see best way or linking me to a webinar about building RYS stack for restaurants and tracking results. I’m not sure what you mean about that. I mean, if you the webinars about how to build RYS stacks in the RYS Academy, or RYS Academy reloaded, we don’t teach you how to do that outside of that course. Now, what you could do is purchase from MGYB, if you don’t have if you don’t, if you don’t have RYS Academy, or RYS Academy reloaded, which is the newer version, then I would say, the next best thing would be to just buy a drive stack from MGYB, and have it done for you. And in fact, that’s unless you know, want to learn the components and how to build all of that stuff anyway, then, you know, it’s a lot, it’s a lot of work to build those things out. So you’re better off buying them done for you. And then you can always tinker around with that one. But that’s something I would recommend doing is buying an RYS stack from MGYB. As far as tracking results, it’s no different than normal SEO type tracking, right. So whatever you use for tracking a tracker, you know, personally, especially for a local business, which a restaurant is a local business, right? I prefer to use Bright Local because it will track the domain as well as the third party mentioned. So pretty much you put in and that’s again, bright local, has a Local Rank Tracker, that you can enter in 50 or 100, keywords dependent that you want to track depending on what level subscription you have. And then you can ask it to track third party mentions. So the reports will show you that and also you enter in a location. So you can like to have where you want it to track. So for a restaurant, cuz that’s a storefront business, I would recommend just plugging into zip code that the restaurant is in as the location tracker. In other words, it’s going to do searches via desktop, mobile, and maps. And it’s going to try to simulate doing searches from that zip code location. So it’s going to give you more accurate local rank results, then if you didn’t, it was, you know, and again, it’s they’re not going to be entirely accurate because of the way that the algorithm works now, but it’s better, it’s more accurate, it’s more closely resembles what somebody would be seeing if they were searching from a mobile device in that particular zip code. So I would recommend using bright local for tracking, because like I said, you can put it all those keywords, you can set the location that it’s actually searching from, you can track, Google, desktop, mobile, and maps as well as Yahoo, and Yahoo, local Bing and being local. So those are like the all of them that you can track. And it will show third party mentions as well. So like if you have for example, you know, Facebook page and Yelp page and you know, all these other different pages, it will show where those are also ranking for each keyword query that you add her as the search terms that you want to monitor. So, Marco, do you have any comments on?

Marco: Yeah, the principles that RYS Academy was founded on in 2014, when you were Virginia CO, they haven’t changed in like they never change from 2000, sorry, 2014 to 15, may have to 15, they haven’t changed so that when we went after DC plumber, with our is Academy reloaded, all we did is add power. But that that that didn’t mean that RYS Academy stops working. It’s simply meant that we could push way more power with the new concepts that we applied to always Academy reloaded. So what you did in 2015, is the same basic things that we did in 2017. With with just different techniques, right, we brought in the calendar, we brought in just some different things, adding depth, and breadth to the drive stack, all of these things that that we conceptualize, and we brought in to make them even more effective. But yeah, that what he says, you know, as far you all of course, and the best way to link or, or how to rank a restaurant, it’s all the same as the same way a local restaurant gets ranked the same way that a local plumber that any other local type place would get ranked, nothing has changed. And as a matter of fact, whether you doing it locally, or globally, the concepts are the same. You apply the same theory. Enough, nothing has changed. So I mean, just just go through the old training and apply. What’s there, because that’s what Bradley did. And it’s still ranking To this day, guys. We’re in 2019. How many updates have we been through? How many things has Google thrown at us? Even in the last two years, and it’s still there? You haven’t done anything?

Bradley: Not a damn thing, man.

Hernan: Every time I’m saying good. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t think it works.

Marco: Yeah, it definitely doesn’t work.

Bradley: Alright, so next question.

Hernan: Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Hernan. But get ready for what’s coming. Because when Marco it’s funny, because when Marco says that he’s gonna put the SEO one on his head. He’s not fucking around. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. So get ready. Bradley: Yeah.

Will Changing One GMB Name Affect Other Listings Of The Same Company?

So the next question is got a follow-up question. So I’m going to read both of them before trying to answer. This is a very elementary question. But quite honestly, it’s the first time I’ve had this situation, I have a large law firm that has seven locations across the US. Some locations have a simple name, law firm, and others have a full legal full name listing all the partnerships, example name, name, name, law firm, if I change to a simplified name law firm, will it screw up the other locations? Basically, I’m asking if changing the name will screw up the NA P. I should note that the simplified name was just created a few days ago, the more complex name has been in place for months, if not years. Yeah, it will. I mean it, it will because that’s what it called, it’s called invigoration, right, it will ambiguous the data that NAP data, the consistency, and it can and most likely will. And my experience, it always does, it will if you change the names, and it’s already, especially if they’ve been in place for any period of time. And they’ve accrued citations which are published, you know, name, address and phone number published on the web, whether it’s a includes a link or not, it doesn’t matter. A citation is a citation is a citation. In other words, just publishing the name and address and phone number and website URL, or any combination of those data points, is called a citation. And those pages that that’s published on if they’re indexed in Google, then Google will count those as a mention of brand dimension. And so if you try to start messing with the name brand, which in this case, the business name or law firm name, and change them in the GMB is, then it’s going to have a significant effect on what Google gives credit to that particular business for. That makes sense. So you know, I don’t recommend doing it. Or if you are going to do it, then I recommend that if it’s a law firm, you probably got a fairly good budget, then you can do it. And what I would recommend in that case is go to https://www.semanticmastery.com/loganix, if somebody wants to post that in the comments section, they have a really good citation cleanup services, the best one out there, in my opinion, and I’ve used a bunch of the guys, even a lot of other vendors that a lot of you guys are familiar with. I’ve tried and nobody does as good a job as Loganix, however, you want to pronounce it at cleaning up citations, especially if you’ve got a lot of them out there. It’s expensive, it’s 500 bucks per location. But it’s a really good service. And if you’ve got some out there that have a lot of accrued a lot of citations over the months or years, then that’s going to it’s a big job. And I would recommend just having them do it. And they’re about 70% successful with cleaning up citations. In other words, about 70% of the attempts that they make, get accepted and change. So that’s what I would do if I were going to do it. Thank you, Adam. If I were going to change the name, and you’ve got the budget for it, or you can get the budget for it, then I would absolutely recommend that you ordered the citation cleanup service immediately upon changing the names. And also make sure that your client is aware that they will see some dancing until everything gets cleaned up. There’s just no way around it. Okay,

Marco: yeah. And even if they don’t have a ton of citations, you don’t want to create ambiguity, right? Because I did it I unwittingly in a project that I was working on it, I created an ambiguity. And I don’t know in cash and the Google cash cycle of what about 30 days. And to this day, I’m still fighting, it’s been about 10 months, maybe a year, I’m still fighting it went, because it starts creeping back up. The ambiguity starts creeping back up, and you have to slap it. And it’s really, really difficult to get to convince Rank Brain that you met the other thing, not not the new thing. And you want it to go back to the old thing where you started. And it’s guys, you don’t want to get into trust me, it takes a lot of effort go. Yeah.

Hernan: Sorry, I just wanted to, I just wanted to interject here for a second. Because I think that if he’s, if he’s working with a law firm, nothing to do it, you know, what you guys talking about, by the way, but if he’s working with a law firm, grab a little bit of the budget that he’s paying you and join the mastermind, because if you enjoy what these guys are saying right now, and they will save you a ton of money and time, because you know, we fuck up a lot. And we share all of our stuff of the mastermind. So go ahead and join the mastermind, if you think that what these guys are saying is, you know, it’s powerful, and it will save you time and save you money, grab some of the money that these these, this, this client is paying you and join the mastermind and that will be one of the best investment that you have ever made in your, in your, in your business, you know, you will increase the value as a marker exponentially for that client and any other client that you might have. So she’s wanting to say that.

Bradley: So Hernan gets the prize now instead of Marco.

Hernan: Also, like kind of come back next week. Next week.

Bradley: That was a good pitch, man. That was a good pitch. Appreciate that.

Should I Order Syndication Networks First Before RYS Stacks?

So Alright, so the last question is Austin dawn, he says I’m in the syndication to Dotto training. So he’s talking about Syndication Academy. Wow, tons of great info. I don’t think I want to put one together though. I agree. 100%. Listen, I’ve said this a million times I think Syndication Academy is great. Uh, you know, I don’t recommend anybody building syndication networks, though. Like, honestly, I think it’s great to go through the training. And if you if you’re the type that just has to do everything yourself, which you’re not Austin Don, apparently, which is good, then then, you know, go through the training and, and put it to use and build it networks. I mean, I did it for several years. When I first started building them, I literally did all the building myself for the first probably two years and I made a lot of money on selling networks to clients as well as getting results as an overall like SEO monthly, you know, service. So you know, you can do it, but I don’t recommend it because it is very time-consuming. And you don’t need to do it. If you want to you can hire your own VA and put your own VA through our training. If you’re a member and have your own in house VA that works specifically for you building networks or an alternative method would be just to purchase them from MGYB. Because we’ve got all of our VA is that we’ve trained our arts, the team that we’ve trained through that same training, right, they’ve all been personally trained by me and my training, and they built into our specifications. And they’ve been building we’ve got donors that have been with us literally for five years now. So they’re very, very good at what they do. So I would recommend that that’s what you do. Save your time. Let us do it for you to focus on bigger, broader things for your business allow us to do the grunt work, right. So he says what I ordered the first prior to the RYS deck. Yes, absolutely. Austin dawn, you should have the battle plan. If you don’t, you should get it. Because the battle plan specifically lays out the order in which you should put these pieces together. And the syndication network always comes first. And then the drive stack when you order the drive stack. Now you can include the syndication network profile URLs in the drive stack build so that now you’re building power into the network through the drive stack if that makes sense. So absolutely. If you don’t already have the battle plan, get it and go through that and it will show you how to put these pieces together and the order that we recommend. Okay. Any other comments guys in the last two minutes?

Marco: Yeah, I have a question. If RYS Academy and drive stacks and syndication networks, remember someone called them a link wheel? If they don’t work, why are there so many copycat courses and so many people offering them in Fiverr and conquer and all these other marketplaces? What? They must be cheating people out of their money, huh?

Yeah, yeah. Good question, Marco. I wonder why that is.

They don’t work done right.

Alright, everybody, thank you for coming and participating today. We will see you guys next week. Thanks, everybody. Bye

bye-bye.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 249 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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