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Using gamification to re-engage your workforce
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:51 AM PDT
| Using gamification to re-engage your workforce Posted: 31 Oct 2013 12:35 PM PDT Engaged employees are clearly more valuable to your company than disengaged ones. According to a Gallup poll, disengaged employees cost American employers about $350 billion dollars each year. According to Mario Herger, a leading gamification expert: "When studies show that over 70% of employees are not engaged at work, and everything else has failed, businesses need to look at industries that successfully manage to engage their users. One of them is the game industry, and this is why gamification is such a crucial concept for making work more engaging and fun." More than 70% of the world’s largest 2,000 companies are expected to have deployed at least one gamified application by year-end 2014. Most companies who attempt to implement a strategy centered on gamification fail to do so in an effective way. In the same study by Gartner, they predict that 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily due to poor design. Gamification's main objective is to make working and learning in the workplace more fun, thus increasing productivity. Productivity isn't the only byproduct of using gamification in the workplace, but this strategy is also proven to increase engagement, commitment to the job, and motivation. The idea of "winning," whether it be a promotion, new job, social status, virtual goods, or an extra vacation day, works well in keeping your workplace happy, but only works if implemented successfully. The secret behind gamification is applying a game element to a non-game setting. By doing this, companies are able to generate amplify engagement and drive business objectives in the workplace. A well-designed gamification platform is about to leverage the ability to overcome challenges. Applying game mechanics have been associated with basic human desires and when combined contribute to a fully engaged and stimulating work environment where your employees are able to feel a sense of accomplishment. Using gamification to re-engage employees is not an easy task. There are several moving pieces that need to be developed and explained before a strategy like this is implemented. Have a measurable goal: Most companies forget this first and crucial step in the process. Unless you've developed a clear objective for implementing a gamification strategy your company will get very few benefits, if any at all. Focus on encouraging certain behaviors in your workplace. For instance, if you're looking to develop backlinks to your site, increase engagement on social sites, or make twenty sales calls in a day. Having a clear objective will jumpstart your gamification strategy and make sure it's developed successfully. Reward a current behavior: When you start this strategy it might get some time getting used to by your employees. Focus on a behavior that is already in practice and slowly implement new behaviors that you want to see in your employees. Measure your success: Create benchmarks and measure where you want to be by quarter or every six to 12 months. This will help you determine if your strategy is successful or not. Make it fun: Gamification is all about creating a fun work environment. Open it up to social environments, or your company's intranet. Promote it all over the company and use it as a tool that your employees will take great pride in being No. 1. People inherently like to win and by making it social they're able to compete against their fellow co-workers. Use these best practices to help develop a gamification strategy that fits your company or department. Make sure that you're building a strategy that will promote fun and healthy competition. Does your company use gamification in the workplace? Are you looking to implement a gamification strategy? Why or why not? Karthik Manimozhi is president and COO of 1-Page. Prior to 1-Page, he worked at SAP for 13 years in various sales and business development leadership roles across Europe, Middle-East, and North America. In his last role, he was head of channel development for North America, where he was responsible for channel strategies, partner recruitment, and indirect revenues.
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Be curious, not furious
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:49 AM PDT
| Be curious, not furious Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:31 AM PDT "Be curious, not furious" was originally posted on April 6, 2012. I have a friend who is exceedingly nice. She once listened to me tell her all about a person that I considered to have behaved inconsiderately. In response, she asked me why I thought that person had acted in that manner; I told her I didn't know. She advised me going forward to "be curious, not furious." Dealing with detractors is par for the course when you participate in public forums, whether online or offline. Jason Falls offers advice on how to handle different types of people including "offended publics, disgruntled stakeholders, competition, trolls and turds," with the additional insight that The difference in a troll and a turd is that a turd identifies him or herself with a name and/or email address. They're accountable, but still being a pain in the ass, mostly likely just because they like being a pain in the ass. 
I've dealt with a lot of turds over the past nine years. Time and time again I see individuals attempt to build themselves up by tearing other brands and people down. These detractors seek attention and validation. They exhibit low self-esteem and will take whatever feedback they can get, positive or negative. Comments like "you're so smart" are what they expect. Comments like "you're wrong" are often interpreted as a lack of intellect of the commentor. When you set raw emotion aside and think through a situation, sometimes surprising outcomes emerge when dots start getting connected. I've seen: - A blogger who publishes disdainful criticism of a company's social media campaign, who then contacted the firm in private to be hired as a consultant and fix the "problems."
- An individual who applied for jobs multiple times and was never hired, writing positive content about a company prior to asking for a job and then negative/critical content about the company after it declined to hire.
- A person who believed him/herself owed money in a business deal, despite having no documentation. S/he was not simply handed payment of an arbitrary sum and has since taken to acting as a subtle detractor of the company.
We'd all like everyone to be positive all the time, but the halcyon days of riding the social media cluetrain are long over. I don't know if money is the root of all evil, but it quite often lies at the root of why detractors behave the way they do. Next time you see a heated online exchange -- whether you're directly involved or not -- be curious, not furious. What you discover may surprise you. Tweet | You are subscribed to email updates from Being: Peter Kim
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5 Reasons You Should Rebrand Now
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:42 AM PDT
| 5 Reasons You Should Rebrand Now Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:28 AM PDT It is important to understand what we mean by "branding" before diving into the warning signs. I would like to take an excerpt from one of my favorite branding books, Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe. The book is still a staple to understanding the concepts of emotional branding and marketing, even though it was written over a decade ago. "Branding is not only about ubiquity, visibility, and functions; it is about bonding emotionally with people in their daily life. Only when a product or a service kindles an emotional dialogue with the consumer, can this product or service qualify to be a brand." A rebrand is about redesigning and rewriting your story. It isn't enough to hire an agency to deliver new colors and a "cool new logo." It is about redefining why you do business. It's about changing with the consumer both technologically and commercially. So what are the five warning signs your business may need a rebrand? 1. Your logo resembles your eighties glamour shot. You all know what I'm talking about… that embarrassing photo with the big hair and bright clothes. The glamour shot didn't work in the eighties and it doesn't work now. If your brand is outdated it may be time to invest in a rebrand. This doesn't have to be a logo rebrand as much as a story rewrite. 2. You are still using the tagline "Best Customer Service." You must move from building an identity to having a personality. Having the "best customer service" does not differentiate you from the competition. Everyone has the best customer service. It is about not focusing entirely on brochures, direct mail, and banners but driving towards the customer experience. Do you have the best experience than any other brand? Are you the go-to choice? Want an excellent example of a brand pushing the boundaries of experiences and service? Just look to your local Starbucks. Employees are trained to remember names, drinks, and overall preferences of customers walking in the store. They are committed to the overall experience of each store instead of building a great ad campaign. Actions speak much louder than words. 3. You must advance to reach new audiences. Phil Daniels of Tactic Marketing said it best, "As a company grows, its brand can change and stand for something different from its humble beginnings. Brands advance to reach new audiences; the challenge is to introduce a position that resonates and connects with them." The saying "change or die" works pretty well here. You must advance your brand look and story to be innovative in the digital world of today. 4. You start statements with "we think" or "I imagine" when discussing strategy. You believe your opinion is more important than the market. I always like to say that data beats opinions. If you are using past experience and subjectivity to keep your old brand, it may be time for an upgrade. 5. Your business plan should be poised towards the future. MBC Strategic says, "Revisit overarching goals to see where you are generating the most results. Examining sales and market share can provide significant insight into business success. The degree at which you meet your business goals can be a direct result of your marketing and communications efforts." If your brand does not align with business goals each side will falter while moving through the fast-paced business world. Your core strength (brand) is important to fully reach your customers. If you fail to reach and communicate your core strength to your customers you will fall short. Remember, the term rebrand does not necessarily apply to design changes. It is much more than that. It is about the consumer experience and the story around that experience. Your customer is your best sales person, do not let them go silently into the wind. They will give you your brand and your voice.  | You are subscribed to email updates from
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Protect Your Business From the Big-Data Demon
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:38 AM PDT
| Protect Your Business From the Big-Data Demon Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:01 AM PDT As Halloween looms over us, vampires, horror-movie slasher Jason, and curfew-less kids aren't the only villains you need to worry about. This year, to score quality leads that turn into opportunities, you'll need to know how to avoid the Big Data Demon. A lot of discussion has taken place about the implications of the ever-increasing amount of data for organizations, and whether this will help or hinder marketing and sales. To ensure that Big Data is an asset to your organization, you need to start by finding the right strategy. Adjusting the Tuner to Find Meaning in the Noise Information without context is simply noise—just like the crackling and broken snippets you catch when the radio isn't tuned to a station—and it can cause great confusion. Similarly, your silos of data, waiting to be leveraged by some brave salesperson or marketer, are merely full of noise that scare and haunt your execs. Marketers and salespeople have access to piles of data from the company website, Twitter, LinkedIn, marketing automation tools, CRM solutions, and more. And it's all collected with the hope that one piece of data will click and your salesperson will have the silver bullet he or she needs to win the deal. But this is neither a reliable nor highly effective way to ensure marketers and reps have the insights needed to intelligently talk with customers and prospects about their pains and needs. Big Data Is an Invaluable Treasure No one can make the argument that information is useless or worthless. Knowledge is power. The data that marketing teams constantly draw from the field means the difference between a well-executed campaign with a clear vision of a target persona and a blind grab at a faceless audience. Additionally, according to Forrester, only 17% of sales reps are securing a second meeting. Just think how this number might increase if salespeople were armed with information about their prospect—especially before a first call or meeting. To get a handle on the data, and protect your organization from the Big Data Demon, consider implementing the following strategies. 1. Identify the Components of Your Selling System To have success using Big Data, you need to understand each step of your sales system and what information is relevant to your marketing and sales reps at these stages. Just like the older kids pointing new trick or treaters towards the houses with the best candy, your reps need to be able to provide direction—from the lead at the edge of your funnel to your prospect signing on the dotted line and becoming a customer—and deliver the most relevant information to help them make a purchasing decision. By identifying each of these stages, you will have greater awareness of what your prospect is focused on, and quickly sort through the relevant data to pinpoint which pieces of info will be the sweetest. Additionally, CRM solutions are a vast trove of information that will enable you to have these more relevant conversations. However, to quickly sift through the information, be sure that you are frequently updating the files with accurate information. Also, don't be afraid to employ another tool that helps manage the CRM data and pushes relevant information to you as needed. 2. Segment Data Into "Fun-Sized" Bites To ensure that you are able to have relevant conversations at each stage of the sales cycle, you need to know what your prospects and customers are looking for. Start by having candid conversations with them to gauge what kind of answers they're generally looking for. Then, segment your relevant data (from Twitter, LinkedIn, CRM, and marketing automation tools, etc.) using these identified needs, the stages of the sales cycle and the traits of your prospects' personas. Doing this will give you fun-sized bundles of information to use as you design and tailor marketing and sales collateral to create better, more relevant content. 3. Analyze the Results, Replicate and Refine Another way to ensure Big Data doesn't become a demon you have to ward off is to take a step back and look at your marketing and sales universe holistically. Use the trail of data from each sales cycle to reverse-engineer your successful ones. There's no need to re-create the wheel and sift through each piece of data every time. By analyzing the marketing and sales behaviors and conversations that were successful, you can refine and replicate them for similar prospects and customers. Remember: Data is a powerful tool when viewed within the proper context. Always strive to tighten the frame within which your company looks at its data, from having a greater awareness of the stages of your sales cycle to breaking down the data into fun-sized bites, to analyzing the collateral and conversations that were effective so you don't have to start from scratch. Big Data can be a demon or an angel; it's up to you. Take the necessary steps now to ensure that you've got the right strategy in place to prevent your sales and marketing teams from being buried alive. |
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How to Use the Mirroring Technique in Online Conversations
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:37 AM PDT
| How to Use the Mirroring Technique in Online Conversations Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:07 AM PDT In psychological circles, mirroring is a subconscious reaction between two people who are very close. Basically, mirroring is when two people who are in conversation mimic one another's body language, facial expressions, or conversational style. Have you ever looked up in a meeting and seen everyone on your side of the table with their hands folded in the exact same manner? 
Closeness and rapport is what we all want from our online efforts. Mirroring happens naturally when rapport exists, but it can also be helped along by proactive mirroring. Ham-handed sales dudes have been using the “mirroring technique” for years, but we don’t have to resort to cheesy parroting of whole sentences. Judicious use of the mirroring technique can enhance your online conversations - If you’re writing a blog post, reflect the topics that your readers express the most interest in.
- If you’re a sales person, include the same language in your response that your prospects use in their inquiries.
- If you’re in customer service, repeat the issue back to the customer so they know you understand their problem.
- If you’re an entrepreneur seeking partners or investors, sync your tone with the individual with whom you’re speaking.
- If you’re a marketing communications professional, use language that reflects the terms and phrases familiar to your audience or industry.
The key is to be natural, and not force it. Have you ever tried using mirroring to strengthen rapport with your customers, readers, or partners?
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Open thread for night owls: How blogger Duncan Black made expanding Social Security respectable
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:20 AM PDT
- Open thread for night owls: How blogger Duncan Black made expanding Social Security respectable
- Economics Daily Digest: Low Taxes Carry Heavy Burdens
- Initial unemployment claims continue post-shutdown drop to 340,000
- New gun carnage study: 500 children and teens die each year, another 1500 are hospitalized
- House-Senate committee negotiating farm bill and food stamps is ... not inspiring
- The scariest Republican Halloween costume ever
- TransCanada CEO admits Keystone foes have slowed project's approval
- Obama administration breaks through years of delay on new worker protections
- 'It's the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Immigration'
- Liz Cheney very upset the 'radical' Obama won't let insurance companies scam customers, or something
- Coddling those immigrants
- The Republican argument for ENDA: At least it's not marriage
- EPI: Plutocratic attacks on wages, workers and unions all part of a concerted corporate effort
- Reminder for people getting those letters from their insurers: You're not their captive anymore
- Sen. Rand Paul dismisses plagiarism charges, possibly because he does not know what it is
- House Republicans announce how many days they'll work next year (hint: not very many)
- Midday open thread: 25% of Americans would buy legal pot, Hallmark edits 'Deck the Halls'
- It's a banner day for Senate Republican obstruction
- GOP senators more afraid of Ted Cruz than he is of them
- Poll: Repeal Congress, not Obamacare
- Cory Booker sworn in as U.S. senator, immediately confronts obstructionist GOP filibuster
- Mel Watt faces filibuster, Senate faces nuclear option
- Don't care that food stamp cuts will make kids hungry? Think about the economy.
- Poll: Public hates everyone in Washington, most of all the GOP
- Who did they get to fix the Obamacare website?
- Paul Ryan starts budget negotiations by going after Social Security and Medicare
- Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Choose Your Own Polling Adventure in Virginia!
- Daily Kos Radio is LIVE at 9am ET!
- Cheers and Jeers: Thursday
- Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The public's sour mood about DC
| Open thread for night owls: How blogger Duncan Black made expanding Social Security respectable Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:30 PM PDT At Pacific Standard, David Dayen, himself one of the finest bloggers on the left, writes about the renowned Duncan Black, aka Atrios, in How a Frustrated Blogger Made Expanding Social Security a Respectable Idea: | One of the more influential letters to the editor in American history appeared on September 30, 1933, in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. It was penned by a broke citizen named Francis Townsend, a one-time hay farmer, dry-ice manufacturer, real estate agent, and physician living in Southern California. His letter pitched a simple idea for how to end the Great Depression: The government should send $150 a month to every American over the age of 60 as a reward for a life of toil. Doing so, he argued, would stanch mass poverty among the elderly and kick-start the economy with new spending. The elderly doctor's message spread like wildfire. "Townsend clubs" sprang up across the nation, gathering at least 1.5 million members in the first couple of years. By 1935, 56 percent of Americans favored adoption of the so-called Townsend plan—influencing the establishment of the Roosevelt administration's Social Security Act that same year. […] Duncan Black's neighbors probably can't hear him tapping away on his laptop in his Philadelphia row house, but he has been doing his best to become Townsend's modern heir. An economist and former college professor, Black—who goes by the pseudonym "Atrios" online—is one of America's most popular political bloggers; his typical output consists of short, snarky quips on the news from a liberal perspective. But in late 2012 he embarked on a sustained crusade, on his blog and in a series of columns for USA Today, to inject a single idea into America's policy discourse: "We need an across-the-board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20 percent or more," he declared in the opening of a column for USA Today. "We need it to happen right now." The proposal was not exactly attuned to the political winds in Washington. Indeed, for anyone inclined to think in terms of counting potential votes in Congress—especially this Congress—the idea of expanding Social Security is the epitome of a political non-starter. Black's proposal was attuned, however, to a mounting pile of research and demographic data that describes a gathering disaster. The famously large baby boom generation is heading into retirement. Thanks to decades of stagnant wages and the asset collapse of the Great Recession, more than half of American working-class households are at risk of being unable to sustain their standard of living past retirement. To put it even more starkly, according to research by the economists Joelle Saad-Lessler and Teresa Ghilarducci, 49 percent of middle-class workers are on track to be "poor or near poor" after they retire. There is very little safety net left to break this fall. The labor market for older workers is bleak. Private pensions are largely a thing of the past. Private savings are so far gone that some 25 percent of households with 401(k) and other retirement plans have raided them early to cover expenses, and a growing number of Americans over age 50 find themselves accumulating, not settling, debt. On the whole, 401(k)s have proved a "disaster," as Black puts it, one that has enriched the financial sector but lashed the country's retirement security to a volatile stock market—and left 75 percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 with less than $30,000 in their accounts. What's left? Social Security. Though it was never meant to be a national retirement system all by itself, that's increasingly what it has become. For Americans over age 65 in the bottom half of the income distribution, Social Security makes up at least 80 percent of retirement income. And yet, when Social Security has been in the news in recent years, it has usually been because someone wants to cut it. […]
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Suppressing the vote: | The late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist cut his political teeth suppressing the vote in Arizona. It was an issue at his confirmation hearings, but it didn't prevent his being seated. One of the more under-reported stories about the stolen Florida presidential election of 2000 was the racist and partisan purging of legitimate voters, to suppress the Democratic vote count. And in Florida, it didn't end there. […] We later found out that the Bush White House had been replacing U.S. attorneys for refusing to play along with their attempts to intimidate voters. In 2007, the Republican Secretary of State of Louisiana purged tens of thousands of mostly minority voters, without going through proper procedures. This year, groups tied to Koch Industries are continuing their efforts to suppress the vote in Wisconsin, where a champion of campaign reform may lose his Senate seat to a climate denierand enabler of pederasts. |
Tweet of the Day:  The Christian right hates Halloween. Not because it's pagan, but because it involves handing out free food. — @TheTweetOfGod
On today's Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin recaps the Sebelius appearance on the Hill, the continued debunking of ACA "horror" stories, and the latest polling. We were joined by Joan McCarter, discussing the "can you keep" your crappy insurance flap, the next Senate nominations standoff, NSA snooping (including brain-shattering statements from House Intel chair Mike Rogers), and the Food Stamp Cliff. Tired of "sexy" everything costumes (including "Sexy Hamburger")? Tired enough to say a website featuring better costumes for women & girls should get $10,000+? And from Joshua Holland at BillMoyers.com, "The High Cost of Low Taxes."
High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.
 | | Economics Daily Digest: Low Taxes Carry Heavy Burdens Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:48 AM PDT By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal Click here to receive the Daily Digest via email. The Great American Ripoff: The High Cost of Low Taxes (Bill Moyers) Joshua Holland argues that low taxes in the United States translate to hugely disproportionate out-of-pocket costs for things that would be covered by the social safety net in other countries. That also means there's nothing to catch people in crisis. End Corporate Welfare for McDonald's. Better Yet, Raise the Minimum Wage (The Guardian) Sadhbh Walshe looks at the latest story about McDonald's workers seeking public assistance, which revolves around a phone call to its McResource line. She argues that if McDonald's needs to refer their workers to Medicaid and SNAP, they should be paying better wages. Another Temporary Funding Bill? (MSNBC) Jane C. Timm reports that a grand bargain is pretty much out of the question, and at least one Senator thinks that a continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year is likely. That would bring us to a month before the 2014 elections, which would be rough timing for a budget fight. C.F.T.C. Approves Tighter Commodity Trading Rules (NYT) Alexandra Stevenson reports on new rules from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, designed to protect client money from brokerage firms going bust. After a 2011 case that left customers $1.6 billion short, the need for these rules is pretty clear. Paypal to Government: Be More Like Us (WaPo) Lydia DePillis examines a report from Paypal that suggests how government should handle the mobile payment industry. The company calls on regulators to throw out their old methodology, which she thinks is hugely unlikely. The New Futurism (The New Yorker) James Surowiecki looks at human-capital contracts, which allow people to raise funds for businesses or education in exchange for a percentage of future earnings over a number of years. The principle is similar to income-based repayment on student loans. New on Next New Deal Maine's Lobster Industry is Dying, But Government Can Help Save It Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network student John Tranfaglia calls for government intervention in Maine's lobster industry. Instead of criticizing the Canadian government for subsidizing lobster processing, Governor LePage should figure out ways to attract lobster processors to Maine.  | | Initial unemployment claims continue post-shutdown drop to 340,000 Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:45 AM PDT The government shutdown plus delays caused by California's upgrading its job-related computer operations have skewed the numbers of first-time claims for unemployment compensation during the past few weeks. Even with those situations cleared up, Thursday's announcement of initial claims needs to be viewed cautiously. For the week ending Oct, 26, seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment compensation fell to 340,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported. That's down 10,000 from the previous week's unrevised figure of 350,000. For the comparable week of 2012, claims were 367,000. The four-week running average—which analysts prefer because it flattens volatility in the weekly numbers—continued to show the impact of the government shutdown, rising to 356,250, up 8,000 from the previous week's unrevised average of 348,250. Despite the surge of unemployment claims accompanying the two-week shutdown, the average of first-time claims over the past three months is 329,000, well below the 360,000 average for the past 12 months. During the past four decades, the best one-year period for initial claims was August 1999-July 2000 when the weekly average was 285,000. Job growth for that period averaged 223,000 a month. For both state programs and federally funded emergency unemployment compensation extensions that were instituted because of the Great Recession, the total number of people claiming benefits for the week ending Oct. 12 was 3,896,214. For the comparable week in 2012, there were 5,035,367 persons claiming benefits in all programs. As I've previously noted, the steady fall in overall claims is partly a result of people getting jobs, exhausting their benefits or leaving the workforce altogether. As I've also written previously, before the Great Recession, economists had seen first-time weekly claims of 400,000 as a predictor of healthy job growth. But that gauge has been revised downward to 370,000 in the past couple of years. And with first-time claims well below even that level for the past year, job growth remains tepid. For the past 12 months, the average monthly increase in jobs has been 185,000, but in the past three months, it's been only 143,000 even as first-time claims have fallen more than 30,000 a week below their 2012 average. Thus, unless the increase in hiring starts rising substantially faster, first-time claims have become a poor predictor of job growth. The continuing weakness in job growth helped persuade the Federal Reserve Board Wednesday to continue its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program known as QE4, the fourth round of so-called quantitative easing in the past three years. The bond buys are meant to keep interest rates low and boost investment to produce jobs and keep the economy from slipping. But about half the buys are tied to banks' mortgage-backed securities, many of which remain in the toxic asset category. Thus, whatever else QE4 is doing, it's partly an on-going bail-out of the banks.  | | New gun carnage study: 500 children and teens die each year, another 1500 are hospitalized Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:33 AM PDT Freedom: Every year, 500 children and teenagers are killed from gunfire and another 7,500 kids are hospitalized from gun injuries, according to a new study from doctors who reviewed a decade's worth of hospital pediatric records. The study on gunshot wounds (GSWs) is online at the American Academy of Pediatrics, and here is its conclusion: Hospitalizations and in-hospital deaths for children with GSWs are increasing. Currently, over 7,500 children are annually hospitalized for GSWs, including over 500 in-hospital deaths. While recent policy proposals to limit military-style semi-automatic assault weapons are important, handguns remain the leading injurious agent and may be a more efficacious target. Household gun ownership and safety practices vary widely by state. There was a significant relationship between %-household gun ownership and %-GSWs occurring in the home. The relationship was dose-dependent with safety measures (any As Rebecca Leber of ThinkProgress notes: Other studies confirm the link between the rate of gun ownership, and lax laws, to the rate of gun violence. But fewer than 20 states make adults criminally liable for allowing children access to guns, as others have moved to weaken regulations. Of course, none of this matters to the ghouls of the gun industry and their unofficial PR wing at the NRA. The human toll is but collateral damage.  | | House-Senate committee negotiating farm bill and food stamps is ... not inspiring Posted: 30 Oct 2013 08:45 AM PDT  Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) As the House and Senate conference on the farm bill—including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—begins, attention is turning to just who is on the conference committee. The committee has 41 members and is chaired by Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), chair of the House Agriculture Committee. Other notable members include South Dakota Republican Rep. Kristi Noem, who:
[...] knows how important getting disaster relief is to her state. Ranchers lost tens of thousands of cattle to a blizzard that roared through the state earlier this month, and these ranchers have been unable to obtain federal assistance. Noem, who favored allowing the government to shut down as a way to put a cap on federal spending, believes that the federal government should assist ranchers following this natural disaster. Riiight. So, hypocrite. Also, Noem's family has a farm that's gotten millions in subsidies. Also representing House Republicans on the committee is Rep. Steve Southerland, who pushed a work requirement for the House food stamp-slashing bill even in cases where there are several jobseekers for every job and no job training programs available. The Democratic side, unfortunately, includes Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who was a key voice in the Senate bill making $400 million a year in cuts to food stamps. Stabenow's line is that she's just trying to prevent fraud and abuse—not mentioning that the food stamp fraud rate is around one percent. When the Senate passed its bill, Stabenow's spokesperson also had something to say about lottery winners on food stamps—something that happened once, as far as we know, and which was a felony under current law. So while Stabenow says Senate Democrats won't accept much more in the way of food stamp cuts than they've already made, she's not exactly an inspiring champion for the program. Democrats need to not try to sound all Republican-Reasonable by spouting on about virtually nonexistent fraud. The economy still sucks. There are still around three jobseekers for every available job. The minimum wage leaves many families below the poverty line despite full-time work. Food stamps are a tiny bit of aid helping families put enough food on the table in these terrible circumstances. That's a principle Democrats should be defending and expanding, not buying into the idea that if they just cut a little they'll somehow be able to persuade Republicans not to cut a lot.  | | The scariest Republican Halloween costume ever Posted: 28 Oct 2013 04:18 PM PDT Via Living Blue in South Carolina:
So we know what Republicans are considering going out tricking (and not treating) as. How about the rest of you? Or do you have more suggestions for costumes for our conservative friends?  | | TransCanada CEO admits Keystone foes have slowed project's approval Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:13 AM PDT Lisa Lerer and Jim Snyder report: TransCanada Corp. (TRP) chief executive Russ Girling acknowledged that opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline have slowed its approval, though he said his company remains committed to the project. "There's no question that the noise outside is having an influence on the process," he said today, in an interview in Washington. "The project has been hijacked by activists that are opposed to the development of all fossil fuels." [...] "Nobody is going to pack up their tent and leave," he said. "We will get through these hurdles. The marketplace will determine whether these projects get done." Girling met with State Department officials Tuesday and expressed his frustration with an approval process that has lasted five years. The State Department is reviewing the project because the pipeline would cross the U.S.-Canadian border and thus requires a presidential permit. President Obama must base his decision to grant or reject a permit on whether the pipeline is in the "national interest." If the president does approve the pipeline, those widespread protests Girling took note of could be small potatoes. Thousands of people have already been arrested in anti-Keystone XL protests. More than 76,000 activists have pledged to engage "in acts of dignified, peaceful civil disobedience that could result in my arrest" to stop the pipeline from being built. Some critics who aren't in the fossil fuel companies' pocket, like Jonathan Chait, argue that the Keystone opposition has been a waste of activists' time because the impact on the atmosphere from burning that oil is relatively small. But that perspective ignores the fact this battle is just one of several meant to keep as much fossil fuel in the ground as possible. Keystone would carry as much as 830,000 barrels of petroleum—diluted bitumen—from the Alberta tar-sand deposits to Texas gulf coast refineries. Many environmental advocates view exploitation of the vast tar sands as disastrous for the planet because those deposits cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional sources of oil. Approval of the pipeline would not only speed up that exploitation but also provide impetus for extraction of even dirtier petroleum, such as the oil shale deposits in the Green River formation of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The State Department is said to be looking into how much oil might be moved by rail instead. Railroads have vastly expanded how much oil they now move. In the first half of 2009, oil shipments by rail totaled 5,358 carloads. In the first half of 2013, they soared to 355,933 carloads. Moving oil by rail generally costs significantly more than moving it by pipeline, but adding terminals and other infrastructure for rail is far quicker and cheaper than building a pipeline. Most of the rise in moving oil by rail has occurred to move oil from the booming production in the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana. The State Department might conclude that saying "no" to the pipeline wouldn't greatly affect Canada's ability to transport tar-sands petroleum. That is so, even though industry experts say rail will not replace pipelines:
"We remain very, very confident that rail is here to stay as not a replacement for pipelines, but as a supplement to pipelines," Stew Hanlon, president of Gibson Energy Inc., a logistics company, told investors in August about a Canadian loading project. A report and recommendation from the State Department could be presented within the next few weeks.  | | Obama administration breaks through years of delay on new worker protections Posted: 29 Oct 2013 11:10 AM PDT  Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and President Barack Obama In the three months since Labor Secretary Thomas Perez was confirmed—but not only because of him—the Obama administration has moved forward on a series of new rules to protect workers' safety and wages and promote hiring of veterans and disabled workers. The rules that have been instituted include guidelines for government contractors that seven percent of new hires should be disabled people and eight percent should be veterans and the inclusion of home care workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, entitling them to minimum wage and overtime protections starting in January 2015; a proposal to update silica dust regulations is in a public comment period. While Perez has presided over the burst of activity, it's not that his predecessor, Hilda Solis, was any less committed to improving conditions for workers:
"What has changed is [the Office of Management and Budget] and [the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs]," [the AFL-CIO's Peg] Seminario said. "I think what this represents is Howard Shelanski coming in and making a determination that they're going to do their job." Shelanski, a lawyer and economist, was recently confirmed as the administration's regulatory czar after OIRA had been without an administrator for almost a year. Roadblocks can be set up in so many different places, so confirming a high-profile job like labor secretary isn't the only thing that needs to happen to make the government function really well. Even with Shelanski's confirmation at OIRA and nearly five years of Obama-appointed labor secretaries, after decades of research and years of delay on the silica dust rule, its public comment period has been extended, with big business arguing furiously against the life-saving regulation. Those years of delay have let low-road businesses off the hook for investing in safety, but they've also killed a lot of workers. Hopefully Perez and the Department of Labor will be able to reduce the backlog of needed worker protections substantially more between now and 2016.  | | 'It's the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Immigration' Posted: 29 Oct 2013 11:54 AM PDT  'Murica, that's why. Anti-everything conservative gadfly Phyllis Schlafly, who is not dead, continues to not be dead. In a radio commentary today Schlafly – who previously argued that the Bible's mandate for "compassion" doesn't apply to immigrants – commemorates the anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty by declaring that the statue "has nothing whatsoever to do with immigration." Instead, she argued, "people who had nothing to do with this great gift from the French were allowed to paste a plaque on the base of the statue with a quotation that has misrepresented the statue as an invitation to open immigration." "Remember, it's the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Immigration," she concludes. At least she didn't declare it to be the Statue of Screw You. Give the crew at the Value Voters Summit a few years and they'll have Ted Cruz launching faux filibusters demanding they rename it exactly that.  | | Liz Cheney very upset the 'radical' Obama won't let insurance companies scam customers, or something Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:06 AM PDT I don't think Liz Cheney, spawn of Darth Cheney, has much of a chance of making the Senate, but we really ought to keep her around somehow. She's just so precious. Liz Cheney hit President Barack Obama over the rollout of Obamacare, saying he lied that insurance policies wouldn't be canceled and that he's heading toward a single-payer system. "It's a strong word in politics to say somebody lied, but that's absolutely what this president has done time and again, is lie to the American people and frankly hope he wouldn't get caught," Cheney said Wednesday on Fox News's "Hannity." […] "I really believe this president, he's the most radical man who's inhabited the Oval Office," Cheney said. Setting aside the radical, because hmm, and setting aside the secret plan to move to a single-payer system, because I wish, Liz, this new maudlin concern over insurance companies discontinuing old policies seems a bit of a stretch even for the professional taffy-pullers of the conservative talk-show circuit. There are only two reasons an insurance policy would be "cancelled" by an insurance company as the Affordable Care Act takes effect. One, because the old policy was so tightfisted or otherwise borderline-crooked that it is no longer legal to sell the thing. Or two, because discontinuing insurance policies is what insurance companies do, all the time, and it has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act and everything to do with a particular insurance company wanting to squeeze profits in particular ways. Things may be different for others, but on the individual market I can't recall ever having an insurance policy for longer than a few years. We would dutifully pick one. We would pay the ever-increasing premiums for a few years. We would get a nice letter from our insurance company (coughBlueCrosscough) informing us that they are discontinuing that policy because reasons and that we were free to choose their new collection of policies, all notably more expensive than the last one. A cynic might surmise that this was an ongoing effort to dodge California rules about how much an insurance company is allowed to raise premiums on existing polices each year, since there's no rule about simply discontinuing those old policies and shuffling customers off into higher-margin plans. A cynic would be a damn smart fellow, in my book. So the issue here seems to be either that we're pretending that the normal, jerkish behavior of insurance companies constantly canceling and reissuing polices is somehow the fault of President Barack Obama, or that we have a genuine, deep-seated outrage over insurance companies no longer being able to sell people scammy, near-useless policies because by God, insurance companies should have the right to scam whoever they want. Do I have that right?
 | | Coddling those immigrants Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:50 PM PDT 
(Click for larger image)
 | | The Republican argument for ENDA: At least it's not marriage Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:59 AM PDT  C'mon, guys. ENDA is only about workplace discrimination, not anything like love. The upcoming Senate vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act presents Republicans with a tricky problem: Do they vote against a very popular bill, alienating young voters in particular, or do do they piss off their bigoted base by saying no, it shouldn't be legal to fire people because they're gay or transgender? With every Democrat in support and two Republicans—Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois—having cosponsored the bill, while two—Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—voted for it in committee, ENDA is potentially just one vote shy of a filibuster-proof majority. Republicans are, predictably, looking for ways to weaken it, invoking all their favorite buzzwords like "religious liberty" (despite very broad religious exemptions already in the bill) and "states' rights," but they face some pressure from within their own party—and pressure with an interesting message:
[Former Sen. Norm] Coleman added, "Some of us aren't there on marriage equity, but there's no reason we shouldn't be there on nondiscrimination. We're the party of Lincoln. It's our roots." [...] ... the American Unity Fund, founded by major GOP donor Paul Singer, has hired two former GOP lawmakers as lobbyists — Coleman and former New York Rep. Tom Reynolds — to press Republicans to back the plan. Reynolds is making clear that this issue isn't the same as gay marriage — an issue he opposed when he served in Congress — saying the bill eliminates only "workplace discrimination." That's right, the message is "hey, at least it's not marriage!" That's inspiring, isn't it? Marriage equality is, of course, mostly out of the hands of Congress, being fought in the states and the courts. But what a perfectly Republican way to sell the basic principle that employers shouldn't get to fire or refuse to hire people because they're LGBT.  | | EPI: Plutocratic attacks on wages, workers and unions all part of a concerted corporate effort Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:42 AM PDT The 2010 congressional victory of the Republican right has mostly meant gridlock in D.C. But the tea-party wave that year also gave Republicans monopoly control in 11 states, and there's been plenty of action in those, much of it directed at undermining workers' rights and workers' compensation, including their pensions. Nothing is more harmful to workers than when plutocrats and their legislative marionettes are feeling their oats and turning greed into law. As Gordon Lafer, an associate professor at the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center, puts it in the Economic Policy Institute's new 75-page briefing paper—The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards, 2011-2012:
The state-by-state pattern of public employment cuts, pension rollbacks, and union busting makes little sense from an economic standpoint. But it becomes much more intelligible when understood as a political phenomenon. [...] [T]he most striking feature of the pattern of state legislation—relating not just to union rights but also to a wide range of labor and employment standards, as will be outlined in greater detail later in this paper—is the extent to which similar legislation has been introduced, in largely cookie-cutter fashion, in multiple legislatures across the country. Lafer does a fine job of examining in detail how and why the anti-worker, anti-union, cookie-cutter legislation engendered by these associations and lobbying groups came into being in many states whose histories and fiscal issues were so very different. Unfortunately, the big hole in his analysis is the lack of any recommendations about how to stop this legislative trend and reverse it. This "phenomenon" he describes didn't spring up haphazardly. It's a product of efforts by the Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business, National Association of Manufacturers, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Tax Reform, and Americans for Prosperity. They drafted or supported legislation designed to smack public employees and their unions. But their objective wasn't restricted solely to those targets. Devastating as these assaults have been, they're just practice. Like plutocrats of every era, today's are determined to give all workers a beating. Legislation introduced or passed in several states extended well beyond the public sectors including cuts in the amounts, duration and eligibility for unemployment insurance, blockades to better safety and health standards, even attacks on child labor laws. For some details and additional analysis, please read below the fold.  | | Reminder for people getting those letters from their insurers: You're not their captive anymore Posted: 30 Oct 2013 02:31 PM PDT In an excellent post on the Republican attacks on Obamacare "rate shock," Brian Beutler makes a point that hasn't been talked about enough. [I]t's important to distinguish complaints about cancellation notices from complaints about rate shock. Critics of the law have done their level best to create the impression that everyone who's received a cancellation notice has experienced, or will soon experience, rate shock. But it's not true. Some people who receive these notices will be pleasantly surprised to find that the most similar new plan offered by their current provider is actually cheaper than their old one. Others will be told that a similar plan will cost more. What they won't be told, because insurers don't want to downsell or advertise for their competitors, is that they're likely to find a different plan available through their state exchange that's closer to the same price or cheaper. If they can't find a cheaper one, then there's a decent chance that federal subsidies will reduce their out-of-pocket costs. It's only the remainder—and it's likely to be a small remainder — that genuinely will have no choice but to either pay more money (in some cases significantly more) or pay a fine and go without coverage. Insurers are sending out these letters, telling people they'll be automatically enrolled in other, more expensive plans. They're not telling people they can shop around for a better deal. Which is precisely the point of the health insurance exchanges. These insurers are betting that people will go the route of least resistance, and just fork up the money for the plan they're being pushed toward. Of course insurers are doing that! They're going to squeeze whatever extra money they can get out of people because that's what they do. No one is actually losing their health insurance, a fact that Republicans in hearings and conservative commenters (and bad reporters) aren't talking about. They're also not talking about the fact that people now have options, in lots of states, lots of options, and they don't have to take what their current health insurer is selling.  | | Sen. Rand Paul dismisses plagiarism charges, possibly because he does not know what it is Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:41 AM PDT Sen. Rand Paul got caught lifting bits of his speeches directly from Wikipedia articles about the things he was referencing. Not the biggest thing in the world, but he is determined to not understand what the problem might be: "I didn't claim that I created the movie 'Gattaca.' See, that's what's absurd about this. The plot line from 'Gattaca' belongs to one person, the guy, the screenwriter, and I gave him credit for that," Paul said. Paul said "a lot of people" work on his speeches so he can't pinpoint one person responsible for the writing, and he dismissed the attacks as coming from "haters." Paul is confused. Nobody is pretending Sen. Rand Paul claimed that he wrote the movie Gattaca; people are pointing out that Sen. Rand Paul's speech referencing the plot of Gattaca just happens to be a near word-for-word lift of the Wikipedia article about Gattaca, and further pointing out that that's not very ethically nice, and is definitely gawd-awful lazy. (As we can see here, the next step will be to blame it on an intern.) I'll be honest here: I don't care. Didn't respect Rand Paul before, not possible to respect him less now. It did, however, remind me of Paul's recent recollections of his med school years:
He went on to describe studying for a pathology test with friends in the library. "We spread the rumor that we knew what was on the test and it was definitely going to be all about the liver," he said. "We tried to trick all of our competing students into over-studying for the liver" and not studying much else. "So, that's my advice," he concluded. "Misinformation works." So Sen. Paul spent his years in higher education trying to screw other students and even now has never really grasped the problem with plagiarizing other people's work. The guy must have been a real hit with his professors. I'll give him this, though: He's really got the Randian mindset down, the mooching little parasite.  | | House Republicans announce how many days they'll work next year (hint: not very many) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 12:30 PM PDT House Majority Leader Eric Cantor just announced that House Republicans plan to work a grand total of 113 days next year. In other words, less than half as many as everyone else with a job, or:
Their motto should be: "Doing nothing without really even trying, but somehow we found the time to shut down the government anyway, so 'In Ted Cruz We Trust'."  | | Midday open thread: 25% of Americans would buy legal pot, Hallmark edits 'Deck the Halls' Posted: 31 Oct 2013 12:00 PM PDT | | It's a banner day for Senate Republican obstruction Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:19 AM PDT  President Obama announcing his nominations to the D.C. Circuit court. Senate Republicans filibustered two of President Obama's nominees today: Rep. Mel Watt to be head of the Federal Housing Finance Administration with a 56-42 vote, and Patricia Millett to the D.C. Circuit court, 55-38 with three present votes. This was in part filling the Republican promise to blockade all of President Obama's nominees to the D.C. Circuit court. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed to bring the other two nominees to the floor, in an escalation of the nominations fight, which Republicans are waging for the most dishonest of reasons.
"This week, Sen. Reid has teed up President Obama's court-packing plan for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a court that some people call the second most important court in the nation," Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters. "The last thing we need to do when money is tight ... is throw more money at unneeded judges on this court, in an attempt to simply pack the court in order to tilt that court ideologically in a way that favors the big government agenda of the Obama administration." "We intend to stop it," he said. Cornyn's court-packing claim is misleading -- it is a reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's attempts to expand the size of the Supreme Court; Obama merely wants to fill vacancies on the appellate level. But he repeated the talking point in multiple op-eds recently, laying the groundwork for a mass filibuster and pressuring GOP senators not to allow Obama to fill any of the three vacant seats on the D.C. Circuit court. Republicans gave few reasons for opposition Rep. Mel Watt's nomination, though Wall Street's opposition is well-known. But they made history: This is the first time since 1843 that a sitting member of Congress has been filibustered for an executive appointment. But wait, there's more. Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are threatening Janet Yellen's nomination to the Federal Reserve over, what else, Benghazi. McCain insists that this behavior, as well as the just-completed Republican filibusters, doesn't blow up the agreement senators came to earlier this year to end filibusters on some of Obama's executive branch nominees. As usual, John McCain is full of shit. Prior to the Millett vote, Reid was non-committal about whether this would make him go nuclear: "I'm not going to talk about hypotheticals. [...] I don't know why anyone would vote against her." But he is bringing the other two nominees to the floor, and voted against cloture on Millett so he can bring her back. Additionally, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Judiciary Committee, reiterated the nuclear option threat at the outset of debate on Millett's cloture vote. And if it comes to it, Reid has key support: Vice President Joe Biden, who said "I think it's worth considering" changes to the Senate filibuster rules after the vote. There's one way to end this, and all Democratic senators have to be behind it. Email your Democratic senators, telling them Republican obstruction of judicial nominees must stop—even if that means using a simple majority of senators to change the rules of the Senate regarding the filibuster of judicial nominees.  | | GOP senators more afraid of Ted Cruz than he is of them Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:50 AM PDT  "And then I told Mitch that I still wasn't going to intervene in his primary, and he thanked me profusely." At a closed-door lunch meeting of Senate Republicans Wednesday, the freshman conservative told his colleagues that he would not intervene in their 2014 primary fights or fundraise for the controversial outside group [The Senate Conservatives Fund, or SCF]. Cruz added that the SCF's decision to try to defeat sitting GOP senators in their primaries was its alone, according to several people familiar with the session. As you may recall, two weeks ago the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's tea party-backed primary opponent, Matt Bevin, and just yesterday, they began airing anti-McConnell ads. McConnell, not surprisingly, welcomed Cruz's pledge to steer clear of his primary, but not without suggesting that Cruz had dragged his feet for too long:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Cruz that Paul took such an action six months ago, but he thanked the Texas conservative for doing so. Other GOP senators also thanked Cruz, sources say. But while Cruz apparently wanted his colleagues to see his words as an olive branch, his spokeswoman made it clear that the substance of Cruz's position on groups like SCF or primary challenges against incumbents has not changed: "He'll continue working with them [SCF] to promote common conservative policies but not get involved in their endorsement or fundraising decisions," Frazier said. "SCF's organization is not just about primary politics but promoting conservative causes that Republicans across the spectrum can support." As Cruz's spokeswoman pointed out, Cruz has never been involved in the SCF's endorsement decisions, so his position on the group is the same as it's always been. Moreover, long before the shutdown Cruz said that he wouldn't be getting involved in incumbent primaries, so what he said in private was nothing new. If Cruz followed Sen. Rand Paul's lead and endorsed McConnell's renomination, that would have been a big change. But that's not what he did, and the fact that his colleagues were nonetheless grateful that he's continuing to stay on the sidelines shows that they are more afraid of him than he is of them.  | | Poll: Repeal Congress, not Obamacare Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:55 AM PDT  Less popular than Obamacare. The public pretty much hates all of Washington, D.C. (and why not?), but Obamacare is basically holding its own, with no public panic yet. That's what the latest NBC/WSJ poll finds. Thirty-seven percent see it as a good idea, versus 47 percent who see it as a bad idea. That's down from the 38 percent good idea, 43 percent bad idea in the previous survey. [...] In the poll, 37 percent say that the website woes are a short-term technical problem that can be fixed, while 31 percent believe they point to a longer-term issue with the law's design that can't be corrected. Another 30 percent think it's too soon to say. Which makes Obamacare, again, more popular than Republicans. By 15 points. The polling questions don't delve into whether people are opposed to Obamacare because it does too much or too little to reform the nation's health care system, but it does once again show a plurality that thinks the law just needs minor adjustments to work better. That's 38 percent of those polled, as opposed to 28 percent who think it needs a major overhaul and 24 percent (not coincidentally, about the same amount as still like Republicans) who think it should be repealed. Compared to the 74 percent who essentially think Congress should be repealed because it "is contributing to problems in Washington rather than solving them," Obamacare is doing pretty well with the public.  | | Cory Booker sworn in as U.S. senator, immediately confronts obstructionist GOP filibuster Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:36 AM PDT Vice President Joe Biden swears in former Newark Mayor Cory Booker to the United States Senate shortly after 12 PM ET on Thursday: 
Booker's introduction to the lunacy of Senate procedure was swift: Immediately after being sworn in, the Senate turned to a cloture vote aimed at defeating the GOP's filibuster of Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Even though 56 senators voted to confirm Watt, Republicans were able to block his nomination because it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. With Booker in the Senate, there are once again 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans, but the filibuster means that despite having a 10 seat majority, Democrats can't actually run the senate—unless they do the right thing and pursue the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster altogether. If Booker supports such an effort, it will be his biggest act of heroism yet.  | | Mel Watt faces filibuster, Senate faces nuclear option Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:32 AM PDT  President Obama announcing Rep. Mel Watt's nomination. The Senate is once again flirting with the nuclear option on the filibuster for nominations. The first one up is Thursday with a cloture vote to move forward the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt to head up the Federal Housing Finance Agency. If Watt's nomination is blocked, Reid will probably move on to the nomination of Patricia Millet to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. If Watt's nomination is approved, the Senate will probably move to the debate on his nomination. Watt's nomination is by no mean assured, though it should be helped by the support of Cory Booker, who will be sworn before the vote. But the animosity that Wall Street holds against Watt jeopardizes his confirmation.
Sources familiar with the talks said Watt is still at least two votes shy of 60 with North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr the only Republican who has publicly voiced support for the nomination. The sources, however, declined to say who beyond Burr they expect to vote for Watt. At least seven Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Tim Scott of South Carolina — said on Tuesday they have not decided how they will vote. All of these senators remember very well the nuclear option threat Reid was ready to carry through with this summer, when Republicans relented and allowed a number of President Obama's executive nominations to go forward. Reid didn't pull that threat away, instead expressly telling Republicans that he was going to keep it in his back pocket ready to use whenever necessary. Now might be that time. 9:36 AM PT: And he was filibusters. Reid didn't move yet on nuclear option, but the Senate has moved directly on to the Patricia Millet nomination, so it could get interesting.  | | Don't care that food stamp cuts will make kids hungry? Think about the economy. Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:10 AM PDT  The thing about cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—whether the benefits cuts that go into effect November 1 or the $4 billion a year in further cuts that House Republicans are pushing—is that if you're a House Republican, you don't care about the people who will be left hungry. You don't care about all of the people whose employers pay them so little that government assistance is the only answer for survival. You don't care about all of the milk, broccoli, bananas, eggs, and spaghetti that people won't have to feed themselves and their kids starting this week. You don't care that half of all children get food stamps at some point during their childhood, and half of all adults get them sometime between ages 18 and 65. Because if you're a House Republican, screwing poor people—children, adults, working, unemployed—is pretty much an article of faith. So here's another argument: Food stamp cuts are bad for the economy and for small business owners, as well as for long-term health care spending:
Economists have found that every dollar of SNAP spending generates roughly $1.70 in local economic activity. The USDA has calculated that food stamps generate an even bigger bang for the buck. So pinching food stamp recipients will ripple into the broader U.S. economy. Among other effects, that could dent revenues for the nearly 250,000 groceries and supermarkets around the country that accept SNAP payments, potentially affecting everyone from store workers and truck drivers delivering food to consumers, as food sellers raise prices to offset the loss of revenue. Meanwhile, research suggests that reducing food aid could not only increase hunger, but also undermine public health. In a six-year study, Children's HealthWatch, a nonpartisan pediatric research center, recently found that young children in families that got SNAP benefits were at significantly lower risk of being underweight, which is linked with poor nutrition, and of developmental delays. That jibes with research by Northwestern University economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. She has found that since food stamps were introduced in the 1960s, women in the program have seen a reduction in low-weight births and a decrease in infant mortality. ::Breaks out in bitter laughter:: I'm sorry. What was I thinking? House Republicans don't care about small business owners, either. Or the economy, except as it relates to the biggest corporations and the wealthiest individuals. And if you don't actually care about human consequences, long-term health care spending on things like low birth-weight children is only something you worry about if you actually intend that they should be taken care of. So, again, not a House Republican concern. The rest of us should be scared, though.  | | Poll: Public hates everyone in Washington, most of all the GOP Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:30 AM PDT  "Mission accomplished!" The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: President Barack Obama's approval rating has declined to an all-time low as public frustration with Washington and pessimism about the nation's direction continue to grow, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Just 42 percent approve of the president's job performance, which is down five points from earlier this month. By comparison, 51 percent disapprove of his job in office -- tied for his all-time high. But while the president's numbers are nothing to brag about, the GOP's numbers are absolutely awful, even by comparison: The public's view of the Republican Party has reached another all-time low in the survey, with 22 percent seeing the GOP in a positive light and 53 percent viewing it negatively. According to the poll, an amazing 53 percent of the public had a worse impression of congressional Republicans after the government shutdown than before it. Only 9 percent had a better impression. President Obama also fared poorly on this metric, with a 41-21 split, but he's not on the ballot in 2014. One of the few groups in Washington to remain in positive territory: federal employees, who were seen positively by 36 percent of the public and negatively by 26 percent.  | | Who did they get to fix the Obamacare website? Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:50 AM PDT 
Tom the Dancing Bug, by @RubenBolling. BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK to see Tom the Dancing Bug every week! Members of the elite and prestigious INNER HIVE get the comic emailed to their inboxes at least a day before publication -- and much, much MORE! JOIN or DON'T.
 | | Paul Ryan starts budget negotiations by going after Social Security and Medicare Posted: 30 Oct 2013 09:48 AM PDT | | Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Choose Your Own Polling Adventure in Virginia! Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:00 AM PDT  Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. : • VA-Gov: It's "Choose Your Own Adventure" day in the Old Dominion. If you think Ken Cuccinelli is a radical extremist who wants to ban birth control and had a shutdown-shaped anvil dropped on his head by his fellow Republicans in D.C., turn to page 15. There, you find a Roanoke College poll showing Cuccinelli trailing Terry McAuliffe 46-31, with Libertarian Robert Sarvis at 9. That's widened considerably from a 41-36 T-Mac lead earlier this month. If you think McAuliffe is a sleazy businessman and Democratic hack who's only in contention thanks to the Gang of Five, turn to page 4. There you see Quinnipiac University featuring McAuliffe ahead just 45-41 (and Sarvis again at 9), down from his 46-39 edge just a week ago. Turn to page 6: You hear staccato bursts of gunfire and smell the unmistakable odor of smoldering ruins all around you. Wondering where you are, a pasty man with crazed eyes scurries past, clutching gold bricks to his chest. "Welcome to Mogadishu!" he exclaims. And suddenly it hits you: You're in a Randian paradise, which is why the Libertarian candidate is at 12 percent according to Hampton University (with McAuliffe somehow still ahead 42-36). As you get struck down by a bullet yourself and draw your last breath, you finally figure out who John Galt is. Turn to page 7: You reluctantly reach your hand into a dark recess, trying but failing to ignore the ectoplasm coating the cavity. You make contact with something disturbingly plastic that you sense could change at any moment. Grasping at this hideous horror, you tear it from its moorings to expose it to the harsh light of day. "McAuliffe lead shrinks 10 points!" it shrieks. "Up just 43-36! Was up 17 just a week ago!" Disgusted, you unclench your fist, allowing Rasmussa, the shapeshifter from the fevered depths of Wingnuttia, to fall to the ground, whereupon you stomp it to death—but knowing it will resurrect itself by next week. Turn to page 18: Your vision is blotted out by a psychedelic wash of colors, and you hear trippy sitar music off in the distance. Nothing really seems to make sense here: Gravity's a mess, and even time doesn't seem to be flowing in a forward direction. That would help explain why, with less than a week to Election Day, a cackling John Zogby is telling nobody in particular that 18 percent of voters are still undecided. Laughter envelops you and you wake up giggling, realizing it was all just a hilariously bad dream. No matter what, though, one thing is for certain: Ken Cuccinelli chose wrong.  | | Daily Kos Radio is LIVE at 9am ET! Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:30 AM PDT
Daily Kos Radio's Kagro in the Morning show podcasts are now available through iTunes. I'm just gonna leave this bit here. Hold on, let me fix this part... Joan McCarter returns to the show for her regular Wednesday a special Thursday appearance, and that's always good news! And this part, I could just leave in permanently... We'll start things off with Greg Dworkin's news, polling & punditry roundup, as usual, and then launch into the unknown, arriving accidentally at a coherent thesis by 11:00. And this part comes out after today... Oh, and if you want to catch that CREDO Mobile deal (and help support the show by doing so), time is running out! Their special offer ends on Oct. 31! As for the rest of it, well, we'll talk about some other stuff happening in politics that wouldn't otherwise make any sense all by itself, but which magically becomes clear when you listen to #KITM! We're LIVE at 9:00 a.m. ET with Kagro in the Morning, thanks to NetrootsRadio.com. Listen LIVE here: The Daily Kos Radio Player Click this Link to Listen on your iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media Player Can't see the live stream and/or podcast players in these posts? Do you use NoScript or something similar to control Javascript? Want to? Remember to enable Libsyn and Shoutcastplayer, and you'll see our players every morning! Or if you prefer, why not download the Stitcher app on your favorite mobile device, and search for the Netroots Radio live stream? And hey, when you do, be sure to sign up with the promo code DAILYKOS, and earn Daily Kos Radio $1 in the Stitcher affiliate program! Please do remember to "favorite" us while you're at Stitcher. We're bouncing up and down in the rankings these days, and the more of you who help us, the more listeners out there who'll find us on the Stitcher network. Miss our last show? You can catch it here: Need more info on how to listen? Find it below the fold.  | | Cheers and Jeers: Thursday Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:18 AM PDT From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE "Even witches have to have pockets." The Wicked Witch of the West chats with the Nicest Man of the Neighborhood...
Happy Halloween. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
 | | Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The public's sour mood about DC Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:30 AM PDT  Does your US representative deserve to be reelected? Yes 29% / No, give new person a chance 63% (NBC/WSJ, 10/25-28) http://t.co/... — @pollreport : Mr. Obama's job approval fell to 42%, with 51% of respondents disapproving of his performance as president. That marked a drop in his approval rating from 47% in early October and 53% at the end of 2012. At the same time, more Americans now view Mr. Obama negatively than positively, for the first time since he emerged as a national political candidate. In all, the poll of 800 Americans captured an extraordinarily deep and widespread public distaste for the two political parties, those parties' leaders and the state of politics in the nation's capital... "Americans are voicing their frustration at a Congress that cannot keep the government open for business and an administration that cannot get health care open for enrollment," Mr. Hart said. Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducts the survey along with Democrat Fred Yang, described the findings as a "shock wave" that showed the depth of "anger and frustration with everybody in Washington." Greg Sargent: The political read on Obamacare among Republicans has for years been premised on the idea that the American mainstream views it as the unequivocal catastrophe and threat to American freedom that GOP lawmakers have long claimed it to be. It's long been my belief that the middle of the country views the law in more nuanced terms, is willing to give it a chance to work, and sees it as better than the GOP alternative, which isn't a serious alternative at all. Today's findings — fewer than a third agree with the GOP view that the current problems reveal it as an unsalvageable disaster — would seem to be in sync with that. Of course, if the website doesn't get fixed by the end of November, and problems persist into the new year, all bets are off. In the long run, all that matters is whether the policy works. More politics and policy below the fold.  | You are subscribed to email updates from Daily Kos
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Razer unveils lineup of Battlefield 4 branded gaming peripherals and accessories
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:18 AM PDT
| Razer unveils lineup of Battlefield 4 branded gaming peripherals and accessories Posted: 01 Nov 2013 02:56 AM PDT Razer has been making some very interesting gaming peripherals for a long time including a number of mice and keyboards designed specifically for gamers. We talked about the new Razer Tartarus gamepad in August. Razer has announced a new series of Battlefield 4 themed gaming peripherals and accessories designed for fans of the video game […] | | Pyle PSWP25 4 GB waterproof MP3 player has swim fitness functions Posted: 01 Nov 2013 02:38 AM PDT Pyle has unveiled a new audio player designed specifically for active users called the PSWP25. The audio player is available in multiple colors including black, blue, and green. No matter which color is chosen, the audio players all have the same functionality including 4 GB of integrated storage. The audio players can play MP3 tracks […] | | Dell UltraSharp 32 UP3214Q and UltraSharp 24 U2414H monitors now available Posted: 01 Nov 2013 02:18 AM PDT The first time we heard about the new Dell UltraSharp 32 UP3214Q monitor was back in July when word of the high-resolution device for surfaced. Dell has now announced that monitor and its UltraSharp 24 U2414H monitor are available to purchase in China right now. Unfortunately, there’s no indication of when these high-resolution monitors will […] | | Ematic unveils Genesis Prime XL tablet with 10-inch screen and Android 4.1 Posted: 01 Nov 2013 02:01 AM PDT Ematic has unveiled its latest Android-powered tablet called the Genesis Prime XL. The tablet offers access to Google Play offering books, movies, music, and other content there to enjoy. The tablet is fitted with a 10-inch capacitive multitouch screen. The screen has a native resolution of 1024 x 600. Ematic fits the Genesis Prime XL […] | | Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is official name of Elon Musk-inspired startup Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:27 PM PDT The startup behind the Elon Musk-originating Hyperloop has announced its official name: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. The company had revealed its ambitions to make the Hyperloop a reality back in September of this year, and has since traversed a fair bit in the few short weeks it has been working on its plans. The HTT started […] | | Anonymous gets it hackles up, threatens Singapore’s government Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:30 PM PDT Anonymous has involved itself in a variety of squabbles and issues, the latest of which involving censorship in Singapore. The hacking collective has created a video threatening the People’s Action Party government of Singapore, something following on the heels of an alleged attack on the nation’s infrastructure by one hacker referred to as “the messiah”. […] | | Rockstar consortium sues Google, Samsung and more over Nortel patents Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:15 PM PDT The consortium that outbid some big-name companies, Rockstar, to grab the Nortel patents up from a bankruptcy issue, has filed patent lawsuits against a variety of companies, among them being Google, Samsung, and Huawei. There are seven companies in total, and all of them are accused of various patent violations. Thus far, none of the […] | | Nexus 5 camera sample shots appear on Google+ Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:57 PM PDT The Nexus 5 has been covered forwards and backwards today, but the camera has gotten little attention. In past weeks, some images popped up here and there online from those who had their hands on the smartphone already, but most had been pulled for various reasons and we’ve seen little produced by the camera. Now […] | | Hangouts SMS support doesn’t work with Google Voice Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:35 PM PDT Earlier this week, Google announced a Hangouts update that brings SMS functionality, which is nice but unfortunately comes with a snafu. According to Nikhyl Singhal, who took to Google+ today, there are some issues to be ironed out with Google Voice, and for the time being neither of the two aforementioned Google services will be […] | | Android scored record 81% market share in 2013 Q3 Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:04 PM PDT Strategy Analytics has released its third quarter Android smartphone shipment numbers, and in them we see a new victory for Google’s mobile OS: a record 81-percent global market share, something it has scored in light of BlackBerry and Apple failings. Microsoft has also had a strong third quarter, with the numbers showing a doubling of […] | | Nexus 5 subsidized pricing marches with mid-tier Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:14 PM PDT The Nexus 5 pricing has been the subject of many rumors, all of which can be put to rest now that Google has made the handset official. The handset is listed now in the Google Play Store, where we see that many of the rumors has the price spot-on or very nearly so, and now […] | | Android 4.4 KitKat release starts November: Nexus first Posted: 31 Oct 2013 01:35 PM PDT Last night, a long bit of details on Android 4.4 KitKat appeared online via a confidential document that has leaked, and a few hours later on this fine Halloween Google rolled out the red carpet for the Nexus 5 running the next OS iteration. We’ll be seeing the Nexus 5 on November 1, and not […] | | Android 4.4 KitKat guide to what’s new: SlashGear 101 Posted: 31 Oct 2013 12:41 PM PDT The newest version of Google’s mobile operating system is on the way to devices of all kinds in the very near future, bringing a load of updates for the back end as well as the front in Android 4.4 KitKat. This version of the software brings changes first to the Google Nexus 5, made by […] | | Nexus 5 release set for November 1st Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:15 AM PDT It’s a Happy Halloween today as Google releases information on the Nexus 5, their newest in a line of devices running with their own brand of pure Android. This device works with Android 4.4 KitKat, a cross-branding effort with Nestle aimed directly at this candy-laden holiday. Release of this smartphone is preceded by details about […] | | Nexus 5 official with 5-inch display and 4G LTE Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:03 AM PDT Today the Google Nexus 5 has been made official, readied for the Google Play store with LG as a manufacturer and a two-tier system in place. This smartphone works with a 4.95-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel display (that’s Full HD 1080p) with 445 PPI (pixels per inch). Inside you’ll find Android 4.4 KitKat readied for […] | | Moto X camera app now on Google Play Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:42 AM PDT Those of you with a hankering for trying out the camera experience included with the Motorola Moto X will now find it in app form on Google Play. Of course just because the app is available on Google Play doesn’t mean its out there for everyone. On the contrary – this app only works with […] | | Verizon Ellipsis 7 tablet first in line of “value category” products Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:39 AM PDT This morning a note has been passed from the inner Verizon meetings sanctum which suggests that the Ellipsis 7 will be the first device in a range of products from the carrier. This device – titled Verizon Ellipsis 7 in full – will be the first in a line of Ellipsis products, Verizon describing this […] | | iPad Air release puts Apple Store down as Retina mini seeks date Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:23 AM PDT The iPad Air is coming to the Apple Store this Friday, and ahead of its launch some countries are finding the online iteration of the retail giant going down – with the prerequisite “we’ll be right back.” Meanwhile the Retina iPad mini’s release date – while not officially noted by Apple yet as such – […] | | Ingress beta open to all: Google’s game sticks with Android Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:55 AM PDT This week the folks at Google and Niantic have released their cages from the “closed beta” edition of Ingress to allow this augmented reality game to all. The game remains in “beta” mode, though we’re essentially seeing the entirety of this environment’s gameplay live right this minute. This game will be available to iOS users […] | | Nike FualBand Android support explained by lack of Bluetooth LE Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:44 AM PDT But wait a second, you might be saying – am I not holding a device in my hand right now with Bluetooth 4.0 and the capability of working with Bluetooth LE technology? Likely you are. Nike’s comments this week suggest that they’re not entirely confident that enough Android devices out in the wild work with […] | | FAA gives OK to mobile devices during entire flight Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:22 AM PDT Today the folks at the regulatory department for the air – the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – have given the green light for all-flight-long mobile device use for passengers. This OK extends to airlines across the United States starting as soon as tomorrow. A note from the FAA gives few restrictions to this new allowance, […] | | EA cancels free to play Command & Conquer video game Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:21 AM PDT We’ve been expecting a free to play Command & Conquer video game to come from EA for a long time. The first time rumblings surfaced that a free to play title would be coming to the franchise was back in December of 2011. That game has been in development, but EA has now announced that […] | | Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser space plane damaged during first test flight Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:48 AM PDT Back in December of 2012 NASA awarded a total of $30 million to three different private space companies. Each of the three companies received about $10 million and included Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada Corp. So far, SpaceX has been the most successful with its Dragon capsule already having traveled to the ISS. The company […] | | Research suggests the human brain is more powerful than previously thought Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:22 AM PDT Scientists have been studying the human brain for decades in an attempt to understand how the brain can do what it does. Scientists have made a very interesting discovery suggesting that the human brain may be significantly more powerful than previously believed. The image you see below may look like Christmas decorations, but it’s a […] | | Pink Samsung Galaxy Note 3 launches in the UK Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT When Samsung originally unveiled the Galaxy Note 3 smartphone it launched in black and white colors around the world. Samsung did originally show off a pink version of the phone, but that device has yet launch. That’s changed with the pink version of the Galaxy Note 3 available to purchase in the UK starting tomorrow. […] | | iON Air Pro 3 Wi-Fi ruggedized video camera can survive 49 feet of water Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:50 AM PDT iON America has announced the launch of its third-generation wearable high definition video camera. The camera is called the iON Air Pro 3 Wi-Fi and it has a 12-megapixel image sensor. The camera is one of the most water resistant action cameras around able to shoot video at depths of up to 49 feet. The […] | | AT&T gives 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3 to Galaxy smartphone buyers for Christmas Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:30 AM PDT AT&T has announced a new special offer for the holiday season for shoppers looking for a new Samsung Galaxy smartphone. The offers were available starting yesterday and one will see buyers get a free seven-inch Samsung Galaxy 3 tablet with the purchase of a qualifying Samsung Galaxy smartphone. Customers will need to sign up for […] | | Earth-like Kepler 78b exoplanet under scrutiny from scientists Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:17 AM PDT Scientists have discovered an interesting exoplanet about 700 light years away from the Earth residing in the constellation Cygnus. The planet is called Kepler 78b and is similar in mass and size to the Earth. Scientists also believe Kepler 78b is composed of rock and iron, just like the Earth. One member of the team […] | | Skyrunner all-terrain flying car uses a Ford EcoBoost engine Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:47 AM PDT When most of us think of flying cars, we probably immediately think of complicated vehicle such as the Aeromobil flying car or the offerings from Terrafugia. It can be years before those complicated flying cars are available to purchase and drive on roads around the country. A company called SkyRunner has announced the official introduction […] | You are subscribed to email updates from SlashGear
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Video: The Year Without Pants lecture (@Google NYC)
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:06 AM PDT
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MSDN Blogs - MSDN Blogs
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT
| MSDN Blogs - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Learn more about the MSDN Blog Platform at the MSDN Blogs - Help blog! Provide Site Feedback on MSDN Blogs | | Blogs - ASP.NET Weblogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT There are times when you need to reverse proxy through a server. The most common example is when you have an internal web server that isn't exposed to the internet ... | | Blogs : The Official Microsoft IIS Site Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Read or subscribe to IIS blogs. Bill Staple's blog and other Microsoft IIS team blogs. | | .NET Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT The .NET blog (AKA: dotnet blog) discusses new features in the .NET Framework and important issues for .NET developers. | | Developer Tools Blogs - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Search this blog Search all blogs. Related resources. Visual Studio Developer Center Visual Studio Product Website; Buy an MSDN Subscription; | | MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT To follow up on our announcement of releasing Rx 2.1 , we'd like to let you know what changed in this release. We have updated the Reactive Extensions for .NET ... | | MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT In case you are capable of the German language, Christian Binder has posted an interview with me taken during TechED 2009 in Berlin, and we augmented it with an ... | | MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT This morning, Mozilla shared their feelings on IE9 with a post that claims to answer the question, "Is IE9 a modern browser?" While they grudgingly concede that ... | | The Silverlight Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Silverlight Show: Windows 8 and the future of XAML Part 7: The application lifecycle of Windows 8 applications | | Terry Zink's Cyber Security Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT A blog about fighting spam and malware by a member of Microsoft Forefront Online Security anti-spam team | | Windows PowerShell Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT This post is a part of the nine-part " What's New in Windows Server & System Center 2012 R2 " series that is featured on Brad Anderson's In the Cloud blog. | | Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Official Microsoft Developer Network blog providing the latest news and information about the operating system. | | MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT My name is Jeff Cardon. I'm a member of the Microsoft OneNote team and I'd like to share some of the tips and tricks that are available in this fantastic product. | | Matt Harrington - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Office hours: in-person help for US developers working on Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps | | The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Troy Martin is puzzled by the remark in this knowledge base article that says No 16-bit code can run, except for recognized InstallShield and Acme installers (these ... | | IEBlog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Microsoft corporate weblog about the IE browser. | | Official T4 team blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT T4 stands for Text Template Transformation Toolkit and is Microsoft's template based text generation framework included with Visual Studio. | | MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT Jensen Harris' blog about the Microsoft Office user interface | | MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT We're putting this blog (Data Access blog) into suspended animation. That doesn't mean we will stop blogging about ADO.NET and data access stuff, or that we'll take ... | | The Visual Studio Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:05 AM PDT The Visual Studio Blog. The official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team | You are subscribed to email updates from Search Msdn
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Friday Five: “Terkel 2.0”: Fascinating Glimpses Into Workaday Lives via Reddit’s AMA
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:04 AM PDT
| Friday Five: “Terkel 2.0”: Fascinating Glimpses Into Workaday Lives via Reddit’s AMA Posted: 01 Nov 2013 12:00 AM PDT Phil Gomes In his groundbreaking book Working (later made into a musical), author and broadcaster Studs Terkel captured the first-person perspectives of dozens of working Americans. The subtitle of the book conveys its promise perfectly, though perhaps not all that concisely: "People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do." Standing for "Ask Me Anything," the Reddit AMA subreddit gets much of its mainstream and online-community attention thanks to Q&As with celebrities. (And, once, POTUS.) Most striking, however, is the enthusiasm for hearing from people who either have interesting jobs… or at least have found ways to make them so. This maps well to a consistent finding that we see in the Edelman Trust Barometer year-over-year: high levels of trust in accessible, non-executive experts as well as "the person most like yourself." This Friday5 looks at Reddit through the lens of "Terkel 2.0"—AMAs that appear to have a spirit similar to Terkel's book. (Warning: The language used by the hosts and participants in these AMA sessions can sometimes be vulgar and/or offensive to some, much like Terkel's book. Quotes are presented below with very minimal spelling/grammar fixes.) 1. Vacuum Cleaner Technician Most recently, I was struck by the attention given to a vacuum cleaner technician, where the discussion ranged from the arcane, to the nerdy, to the positively inspiring: I am a 17 year old that sat here for an hour reading this whole AMA, then went and told my mom all about my new vacuum knowledge. I’m not sure whether to take that as good or bad. It sounds like you have an open mind, that you’re willing to expand. Don’t stop. That was the most motivating thing I have heard all day. thank you. You’re welcome. I am happy to know I helped at all. 2. Software-Engineer-Turned-Cook at Double-Michelin-Starred French Restaurant Reading these perspectives, you often get to see the unexpected ways that two very different jobs end up having similar characteristics in the ways that count. Take this perspective from a software developer who decamped to France to become a cook. Have you found any unexpected parallels between being a software developer in the US and a kitchen worker in France? Absolutely. I did a bunch of fire-fighting so to speak [at Salesforce.Com], as in a customer-facing bug that needs to be fixed now. There’s the same adrenaline rush as sending an order out, and perfection is an absolute necessity. You can’t cause a regression or different bug when pushing out a fix, and you sure as hell can’t send out sub par food. I also think the cleanliness of the kitchen can be tied to good design pattern use and clean comments in code. If a kitchen is not clean, its hard for multiple people to work there and [put] out amazing food. If code is sloppy, it might work for the author, but for others to maintain it is impossible. Both are necessary and should be evaluated before accepting a job in either fields: maintainable code and a spotless kitchen. 3. Shark Diver, Seal Island, South Africa Everyone loves Shark Week, right? This AMA got readers up-close-and-personal with someone just crazy enough to spend an awful lot of time with these dangerous sea creatures. Should you want to go into a similar line of work, user "jemfrim949" has some advice. How did you end up working with sharks and what school/training did you need? it was a pretty cool little journey. I went to school for Marine Zoology and in my final year I saw an advert for a great white shark internship in Mossel Bay, South Africa and signed up for it about 4 seconds later. While I was down there Chris Fallows and team came to mossel bay to film a segment for Ultimate Air Jaws. I was fortunate enough to spend the entire time working on the shoot with them and got to know chris and monique well. At the end of the shoot they offered me a job to come work for them in False Bay (Cape Town) and the rest is history. 4. Spanish Cardiac Surgeon, Specializing In Removing Hearts for Transplant Many times, these AMAs evince a true passion for one's craft, even when that craft may be an uncomfortable subject like cardiothoracic surgery. This one AMA from a heart transplant surgeon in Spain ranges from the macabre and gut-wrenching to strangely light moments like this one: Would you say your job requires a lot of heart? depends from where you are looking, some people have told me it requires having no heart 5. Hydroponic Gardener, McMurdo Station, Antarctica Some jobs have every potential to leave you lonelier than the Maytag repairman. Others keep you surprisingly busy and occupied, such as a gardener—yes, gardener—stationed in Antarctica just a five-hour flight from New Zealand. How do you pass the time? I can’t imagine Antarctica is very… action-packed. a common misconception, i am so busy i keep wondering when my life will slow down here. we work 6 days a week 9 hours a day. there is a recreation coordinator that has a ton of stuff planned out during the week nights and our one day off (sunday) for us to do if we so choose. i go to the gym regularly, go to yoga 3 times a week after work, hang out with my friends, knit, play wii, take photos. just last week we had a big fashion show to show some of the new styles of clothes that would be coming out in the station store, so that took up a lot of time preparing for that. on top of all of that, there is a coffee house that shows movies and has great coffee and hot chocolate drinks, and a bar. Do you have any favorite AMAs in the Studs Terkel vein? Sound off in the comments. Written by Phil Gomes | | Using Social Media to Respond to Product Recalls Posted: 31 Oct 2013 12:56 PM PDT Dan Webber Look at any Facebook wall or Twitter feed and it's likely you will see at least one post about a bad product experience, or worse, a mention of an injury caused by a faulty product or recalled item. Social media allows consumers to quickly and publicly discuss product problems—and federal regulators are listening. Though a general increase in oversight by regulators should not be ignored, the ubiquity of social media has contributed to a significant increase in recent years in the number and magnitude of product recalls. The FDA and USDA report that on average, 30 recalls occur every week in the U.S. and according to AIG, an average of 22 recalls occur every week in Europe. With recalls come litigation and uncertainty and panic from consumers, as well as public demands from consumers for companies to not only fix the problem but compensate affected consumers. The level of public awareness and concern will drive the significance of a recall, but it is important to keep in mind that in the U.S. the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) not only holds companies liable for the issues that lead to a recall, but for the effectiveness of the recall effort itself. In order to effectively incorporate social media into recall communications, it is vital that response teams build an integrated plan beyond a simple Facebook post or Tweet. Below are a few tips to keep in mind. 1) Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Rapid response teams need to prepare in advance and think across multiple social media channels to make sure they are fully covered online. This includes developing an early warning monitoring system that looks for early signs of product complaints and failures, developing toolkits to help guide a rapid respond process, training community managers, identifying who will approve statements and posts; classifying what digital channels will be used in advance (e.g., a dark site or where statements will go on web assets, social media, etc.), determining who controls those channels and making sure they understand the rapid response process, and perhaps developing dark posts. 2) Establish an online beachhead. Make sure you have a place online where you can create a clearinghouse of information. This might be a blog, web page or even a full micro site. This should serve as a, education resource for media, consumers, regulators and others interested in the recall and should help address misinformation, simplify complexities, answer questions and provide additional resources. 3) Drive people to the beachhead. This isn't "Field of Dreams." Just because you build an online clearinghouse doesn't mean traffic will come. A variety of techniques can be used here, including posts on a company blog, Facebook, Twitter or other social channels, but it's important that consistent keywords and messages are used across platforms to help with search engine optimization. Paid media is an option as well. It will be important to be measured in your outreach approach and to strike a balance between creating the right amount of awareness and "findable content" versus creating too much attention, thus making the issue a bigger deal then it needs to be. Be mindful of any other promotions or online activities currently running and determine whether they need to be postponed immediately. 4) Fight the urge to go on lockdown. After you get information posted and broadcasted through the right channels, establish a regular response cadence. There's no need to respond to everything, but identify the types of posts, questions and comments that would benefit from a response and keep the lines of communication open. It is important to have clear internal guidelines on what can be said and what is off limits. Allow fans to continue to post and provide them a forum to engage. If you go on lockdown it's likely to create a story in itself and could lead to a missed opportunity to engage with stakeholders. Recalls create brand uncertainty and can cast a negative light on a company. However, if handled properly, a company's response can help reinforce brand affinity and bolster competitive advantage. How has your brand responded to recalls on social? Editor’s note: This post is part of #recallawareness month, led by blog.consumerbell.com. Image credit: Les_Stockton Written by Dan Webber | You are subscribed to email updates from Edelman Digital
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5 Plugins to Keep Your WordPress Blog Secure
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 03:01 AM PDT
| 5 Plugins to Keep Your WordPress Blog Secure Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:52 PM PDT 
Because WordPress is the most popular CMS platforms on the Internet today, many hackers have consolidated their efforts toward only hacking or spamming WordPress websites. As a result, millions of WordPress blogs and websites are hacked each day, leading to lost work, irreparable damage to search engine ranks, and putting visitors and users in danger of having their own information hacked as well. Below are five plug-ins that can be used to increase WordPress security for your blog. If you also want to check out anti-spam plugin, check out the post: Top 5 WordPress Plugins to Kill Spam
Sucuri Sucuri is a paid service (and accompanying plugin) that works by installing a web application firewall which will protect your site from unauthorized access attempts and attacks. The system works with other data, allowing bad IP addresses to get blocked for all Sucuri users, even though only one client may have gotten attacked. This keeps the blocks IP list up to date. Sucuri also use is integrity monitoring, audit logs, and activity reporting. Pricing starts at $89.99 per year for one website and scales in price to cover additional websites as needed. Limit Login Attempts This free plug-in will allow you to limit the number of login attempts via the normal login or cookies. The plug-in can notify you by email of suspected malicious attempts and also allows the option for logging. AntiVirus Many hackers and spammers work from a different side instead of attempting to log into your site maliciously. Many spammers offer free WordPress themes, which come loaded with malware or spam. This plug-in is also free and scans your theme templates for malware and inserts of spam. Once detected, it sends an alert in the admin bar and can send you an email notification after each daily scan. Besides themes, it also scans database tables. BBQ: Block Bad Queries Another spammer action is to send malicious URL requests to your website in an attempt to hack it. The BBQ plug-in is free and easy to use. It is based on the 5G/60 blacklists and blocks a wide range of malicious request. It also scans all incoming traffic to catch all requests. WordFence This all-in-one security plugin was created after its developer was hacked in 2011. The free version features scan and repair capabilities for payment plug-in files and can also scan for malware and several well-known backdoors into WordPress website. It also includes the complete firewall, enable strong passwords, and track IP’s to their source. The premium version is $39 per month and includes all the free features, as well as others like cell phone signing, remote scans, and scheduled scans. The post 5 Plugins to Keep Your WordPress Blog Secure appeared first on The Blog Herald. | You are subscribed to email updates from The Blog Herald
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Last Stand at the Derpamo
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 01:49 AM PDT
| Last Stand at the Derpamo Posted: 31 Oct 2013 01:40 PM PDT | | Drop What You're Doing and Look at This Chart Posted: 31 Oct 2013 12:15 PM PDT | | Another Angle on the Story Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:21 AM PDT There's been so much misinformation swirling about plan cancellations and rate hikes (along with a lot of these that are real and affecting certain people adversely) that it is kind of hard to keep up. But TPM Reader JP focuses our attention on something that I think he is correct is getting very little attention ... Read More → | | Prime On Mobile Posted: 31 Oct 2013 11:12 AM PDT One of the most frequent questions we've gotten about the relaunch of TPMPrime is why it's not available yet on our smartphone mobile site. Well, it's about to arrive. More after the jump. Read More → | | Canada Got Game After All the Fail? Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:23 AM PDT This is out of the blue. Here at TPM or at least at my desk we'd basically forgotten about crackhead Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto. Basically a bad memory when we thought Canada really had it in him/her? to really roll in the international scandal world. But after all that, maybe it's actually going to happen. The police now have the goods, include THE TAPE. So here's the deal. Read More → | | It's a Living Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:12 AM PDT | | Hiring: Publishing Assistant Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:06 AM PDT We're hiring a Publishing Assistant to work with our publishing and sales team in our New York City office. If you're interested in learning the nuts and bolts of running a digital news site from the ground up in one of the most innovative digital news operations in the country, this is the job for you. See the full listing after the jump. Read More → | | Learning The Lesson Too Well Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:00 AM PDT | | If We Can't Have It, You Can't Have It Either Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:58 AM PDT There's a lot of backstory to today's showdown in the Senate over President Obama's nominees to DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Sahil Kapur reports on much of it here. There's no question that the showdown implicates the filibuster, or the abuse thereof by minority Republicans. We have more on the historical trendlines on the filibuster of judicial nominees here. But there's more to this particular face-off than the usual opposition to judicial nominees or the fight over whether the use of the filibuster has crippled the Senate. In this case, the underlying battle is just as if not more important than the supposedly larger issues it implicates. Read More → | | That Hurts Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:49 AM PDT New radio ad by Mitch McConnell's Tea Party challenger features clips of Democratic Sens. Reid, Durbin, and Schumer praising McConnell for helping to end the government shutdown.  | | Always Looking Ahead Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:42 AM PDT Mitch McConnell concedes HealthCare.gov will eventually be fixed and labels calls for Kathleen Sebelius' resignation a "distraction."  | | Out With The Old Opportunism, In With The New Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:37 AM PDT Republican opportunism over the problems with HealthCare.gov was always going to have its limits as an effective strategy. The problems will eventually be fixed, and more importantly the critique -- you should be able to access this terrible program more easily -- had a built-in dissonance. That's why this week's attack line about you're not really able to keep your old individual insurance plan resonates more, even if its disingenuous and is predicated on the ridiculous notion that most people with individual plans actually like their plan. You could see the shift in GOP strategy pretty clearly during yesterday's grilling of Kathleen Sebelius on the Hill. The hearing was ostensibly about the HealthCare.gov problems, but the focus was on President Obama's "you can keep you plan" promise. Dylan Scott was there and filed this report.  | | Peak Weiner Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:50 AM PDT | You are subscribed to email updates from Editor's Blog
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Want to Make Money From Your Blog? Get a Sponsor
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 01:48 AM PDT
| Want to Make Money From Your Blog? Get a Sponsor Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:26 AM PDT  Yesterday I wrote about how you can increase your chances of getting paid for the content you create. How to monetize a blog is one of the most requested topics among the #Blogchat community, so today I wanted to talk about another option for making money from your blog:
Getting a sponsor. The problem that many bloggers run into is that they want to start making money as soon as they launch their blog. Which is understandable, but they simply don’t have the large platform and readership that most advertisers are interested in. Years ago I was approached by one of the major blog ad networks about having them place advertisements on my blog. At the time (this was 2009 or so) they told me that a blog had to have a minimum of 800,000 monthly pageviews before they could accept them. I had about 1% of that at the time. Many bloggers will add Ad Sense ads or something similar to their blogs as a way to generate revenue. The problem is this usually gives them pennies at best, and ends up detracting from the reader’s experience and clutters up the content on the blog. But a sponsor can be a much better solution. First, it gives you control over who the sponsor is. You can bring on someone you are comfortable, and that’s a good fit for your blog’s focus, and your readers. Second, you have control over what the sponsorship entails. Third, if you’re smart you can work with the sponsor to enhance the experience on your blog, not detract from it, which is what a lot of ads do. While I don’t have sponsors here, I have been selling sponsorships at #Blogchat for the last 3 years. It’s worked out pretty well for everyone. Here’s the framework I follow with #Blogchat and you can easily do the same with your blog. First, make sure the sponsor understands what the sponsorship does and does not include. I have created a special page for sponsoring #Blogchat so that potential sponsors know what they are getting. You should do the same for your blog. Think about what you can offer sponsors. Will they get exposure on your blog itself? As part of the #blogchat sponsorship, I give sponsors the option to have an ad on the right sidebar, and 1 sponsored post for the month of their sponsorship. I also promote the sponsor here and on Twitter. I let them know the bare minimum of exposure they will get but I always try to go a bit above that so that they will be pleased with the coverage they are getting. Second, make sure the sponsor is a good fit for you and your audience. This is highly subjective and you will have to figure out what works for you and your audience. Basically I have two rules for potential #Blogchat sponsors: That they understand that they cannot use the #Blogchat chat itself as a promotional tool, and that their sponsorship doesn’t detract from the #Blogchat experience. As I tell any potential sponsor, if the #Blogchat community is upset with the experience of the chat based on a sponsor’s involvement, then that makes both myself and the sponsor look terrible. And yes, I have turned down sponsors that wanted to use the chat itself as a promotional tool for their business. My suggestion is that you not promote a sponsor on your blog to the point that the sponsor is overshadowing the content. If that happens then your readers will notice and likely be disappointed. Third, create a win-win-win situation. This is where you need to get creative. You want to find a way for the sponsorship to benefit three parties: 1 – Yourself 2 – The sponsor 3 – Your audience If you can bring on a sponsor and have all three parties benefit, then you’ve hit a home run. First, think about what you want. Do you want cash? Do you want a product? Do you want a service? Again consult yesterday’s post for some great ideas on how to get paid. Second, explicitly ask the sponsor to tell you what they want to happen as a result of the sponsorship. Do they want to drive traffic back to their website? Get more downloads of their new white paper? Encourage more free signups of their new software product? Ask them to tell you what they want, because that will greatly influence how the sponsorship is structured. Finally, how will your readers benefit? At bare minimum, you don’t want the overall experience on your blog to suffer as a result of the sponsorship. The last thing in the world you want is for someone to read your blog on November 1st and think ‘Aw shit, he’s got another sponsor!’ You want them to either not notice the sponsor is there or (the best alternative) you want them to be excited that the sponsor is involved! When I bring on a sponsor for #Blogchat, I am always careful to think about how the community will benefit as a result. For example, when I bring on a sponsor for #Blogchat, the topics get set for the entire month at the start of the sponsorship because I work with the sponsor to cover topics that interest them, that will also appeal to #Blogchat. So there’s one benefit. Another is that each sponsor gets a guest host, so #Blogchat knows if we have a sponsor for the month, they also get an expert guest-host. Finally, the sponsor will frequently offer #Blogchat members a special deal or discount on a product. For example, this month’s sponsor, AllergEase, created a special offer to give away its product for free to #Blogchat members. How to Get Started Landing Sponsorships on Your Blog 1 – Create a page spelling out exactly what a sponsor gets. Here’s mine for #Blogchat as an example. This communicates to potential sponsors that you are accepting sponsors, and tells them exactly what they will get. 2 – Figure out who your ‘ideal’ sponsor would be. For example, if you are a tech blog focusing on startups, then tech startups. If your blog focuses on parenthood, especially new parents, then a company that makes products for toddlers and newborns might be a good fit. 3 – Do your research and figure out if these companies are active on social media now, and more importantly if they are already working with bloggers and doing sponsorships! From the above example of a parenting blog, let’s say you do some checking and uncover that Graco is currently sponsoring other bloggers (I have no idea if they are), then you could reach out to them and let them know that you are offering sponsorships on your parenting blog and explain to them how it would be a good fit for their brand. 4 – Focus on the win-win-win. Figure out how a sponsor’s involvement on your blog will enhance your blog, not detract from the experience you have. What do you get from the sponsorship, what does the sponsor get, and what do your readers get? If you are willing to do your homework and some leg-work, you should be able to start getting some sponsors for your blog. Something else I have noticed with #Blogchat is that it is MUCH easier to sell sponsorships when you are selling sponsorships. I went all year without selling any sponsorships to #Blogchat, then suddenly over the course of 3 weeks I sold the sponsorships for September, October and November. So if you can ever start getting sponsors on your blog, it become much easier to keep getting them! If you accept sponsors on your blog, what has worked for you?   | | Join Me Next Week in Huntsville for #SoMeT13US! Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:15 AM PDT I am really excited about this event! Next week from Wednesday through Friday I’ll be in Huntsville, Alabama for the Social Media Tourism Symposium. I’ll be joined by some of the top social media marketing speakers including Jay Baer, Sheila Scarborough and Tom Martin, among others. In fact, both Sheila and Tom have spoken at SoMeT before and both just raved about the event and the group running it. That was what really got them on my radar and got me interested in wanting to speak there. This will actually be my 3rd tourism event to speak at this year in Alabama. I have to admit, I absolutely loved the experience of speaking at these events. Here’s what I’ve noticed (and I was talking about this yesterday to a friend in this space): Many of the ‘national’ social media events have basically become social events. You go there, you re-connect with old friends, maybe meet a speaker or two you want to, and just ‘hang out’. There’s not a lot of common ground among the attendees, other than the social media tools. But with the tourism events I’ve spoken at, the attendees are all coming from similar backgrounds. As a result, the attendees are engaged in a higher-level conversation, the topics are more focused on strategy and execution versus the tools. Personally, I loved the experience I’ve had at these events and expect an even better one at #SoMeT13US next week. And I want you to join me! Unfortunately, registration ends tomorrow but you still have time to get in if you hurry. I’ll be keynoting Friday morning presenting Think Like a Rock Star and will also be on hand to sell and sign copies of my book! Oh and the opening night party will be at what has to be the coolest venue ever for an opening party (and this is from someone that’s been to an opening party at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame), the US Space and Rocket Center! 
You can register here, hope to see you next week! Pic via Flickr user bryce_edwards  |
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[music] Sky Ferreira - 24 Hours
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 01:45 AM PDT
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What Scares an SEO? BCI Goes All Out for Halloween
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 01:40 AM PDT
| What Scares an SEO? BCI Goes All Out for Halloween Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:19 PM PDT What Scares an SEO? BCI Goes All Out for Halloween was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips. It’s Halloween and everybody’s feeling festive, including BCI. Skilled as he is at wrangling the search industry’s most famous Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird, it only made sense that Bruce Clay dress up as a circus ringmaster — that and that fact that “someone has to wrangle all of these clowns,” he said (joked?). 
| “Halloween has been a part of our company culture since its inception. It’s an opportunity to do what you don't normally do and be creative outside of the box, and to just have fun with the people you work with.” — Bruce Clay | The people at BCI are, indeed, having fun. Costumes around the office include a life-size taco, Princess Leia, Pocahontas, Gumbie, a terrifying clown, a giant baby, a cruise director, a gaucho, Indiana Jones and even the PBS painter, Bob Ross. Check out all the costumes in our Flickr set:
What Scares an SEO? In keeping with the Halloween spirit, I asked the BCI team "What scares an SEO?” This is what they had to say: "Google." – Maryann Robbins "The disappearance of analytics." – Matthew Young "Automated/spun content. Purchased links. Rapidly approaching deadlines. And spiders – real spiders, not the search engine types." – John Alexander "A client who is not yet converted to the BCI methodology." – Luke Bowen "Waking up one morning to find all the rankings have tanked and not knowing why." – Paula Allen "Manual action penalty from Google causing rankings and organic traffic to vaporize." – Ty Carson “I’d think a swarm of Cuttletts would be pretty frightening. You’ll know what this means if you’ve ever been to a search marketing conference.” — Virginia Nussey "Negative SEO – that's kind of frightening, because no matter what you do, there could be negative forces out there working against you." – David Vasquez "Having a client tank in the rankings." – Robert Meinke “The most frightening thing for an SEO is finding all your clients top keywords sandboxed to page three.” — Bradley Leese “Manual penalties.” — Michael Shore "Not getting a client to rank when they think they should." – Gary Luke “The inability to implement due to technology constraints” — Robert Esparza “Bad developers and splogs” — Micah Albert “Link pruning.” — Nagmeh Jafazadeh “Clients who make changes to their websites without consulting with us. Especially dramatic changes like a homepage redesign.” — Rob Ramirez “A sudden newsflash across the Internet that Google has made a significant update.” — Justin Moreau What Scares Bruce? "The future of search can be scary when you start to wonder if Google will just take over and cause no one to ever need a website again. Clients that don’t understand SEO can often be pretty scary," Bruce said.  Bruce was featured as the “Sub-Mariner” in Search Engine Journal’s “SEOs Halloween Assemble: The League of Extraordinary SEO.” But SEO itself? Bruce isn’t intimidated: "I personally don't find SEO itself scary – Hummingbird wasn't scary, Penguin wasn't scary, Panda wasn't scary. Those things don't scare BCI." Bruce's fearlessness is in part, no doubt, why he was listed as one of Search Engine Journal's "SEOs Halloween Assemble: The League of Extraordinary SEO." SEJ chose Bruce for the role of "Sub-Mariner" due to his status as an SEO founding father, his myriad speaking engagements and his thought-leadership (documented in countless magazines, newspapers and books). What scares you? Share your worst SEO nightmare in the comments! | You are subscribed to email updates from Bruce Clay Blog
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Grab Your Branded Google+ Custom Url
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 01:35 AM PDT
| Grab Your Branded Google+ Custom Url Posted: 31 Oct 2013 10:44 AM PDT Now is the right time to grab Google+ custom urls for your brand’s Google+ page. Google has revealed that they are rolling out custom urls to all eligible pages and profiles over the week … and you should hurry to get you favorite custom vanity url which will gives solid branding. If you are late, someone […] | You are subscribed to email updates from Quick Online Tips
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Google Serves Up Some Halloween Fun
Posted: 01 Nov 2013 01:34 AM PDT
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Accelerating Technology Change and Continuous Learning
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:34 AM PDT
| Accelerating Technology Change and Continuous Learning Posted: 30 Oct 2013 02:12 PM PDT At dinner last week, my long time friend Dave Jilk (we just celebrated our 30th friendship anniversary) tossed a hypothesis at me that as people age, they resist adopting new technologies. This was intended as a personal observation, not an ageist statement, and we devolved into a conversation about brain plasticity. Eventually we popped back up the stack to dealing with changing tech and at some point I challenged Dave to write an essay on this. The essay follows. I think he totally nails it. What do you think? People working in information technology tend to take a producer perspective. Though the notion of a “lean startup” that uses both Agile and Customer Development approaches is ostensibly strongly customer focused, the purpose of these methodologies is for the company to find an maximize its market, not specifically to optimize the user experience. The following is an observation more purely from the perspective of the consumer of information technology. On average, as people age they resist adopting new technologies, only doing so slowly and where the benefits compellingly outweigh the time cost and inevitable frustrations. This resistance is not necessarily irrational – after a number of cycles where the new technology proves to be a fad, or premature, or less than useful, we learn that it may behoove us to wait and see. We want to accomplish things, not spend time learning tools that may or may not help us accomplish something. Consequently, for many decades the pattern has been that technology adoption is skewed toward younger people, not only because they have not yet built up this resistance, but also because they are immersed in the particular new technologies as they grow up. But something new is happening today, and it is evidence of accelerating rather than merely progressive technology change. Discrete technology advances are giving way to continuous technology advances. Instead of making a one-time investment in learning a new technology, and then keeping up with the occasional updates, it is increasingly necessary to be investing in learning on a constant, ongoing basis. I will provide three examples. First, application features and user interfaces are increasingly in a state of continuous flux. From a user perspective, on any given day you may connect to Facebook or Gmail or even a business application like Salesforce.com, and find that there are new features, new layout or organization of screen elements, new keystroke patterns, even new semantics associated with privacy, security, or data entered and displayed. This is most prominent in online systems, but increasingly software updates are automatic and frequent on mobile devices and even full computer systems. On any given day, one may need to spend a significant amount of time re-learning how to use the software before being productive or experiencing the desired entertainment. My mother is 86 years old. For perspective, when she was 20, television was a new consumer technology, and room-sized digital computers had just been invented. She uses the web, Yahoo mail, and Facebook, impressive feats in themselves for someone her age. But every time Yahoo changes their UI, she gets frustrated, because from her perspective it simply no longer works. The changes neither make things better for her nor add capabilities she cares about. She wants to send email, not learn a new UI; but worse, she doesn’t really know that learning a new UI is what she is expected to do. Middle-aged people like me are better prepared to cope with these changes, because we’ve gotten used to them, but we still find them frustrating. Perhaps it is in part because we are busy and we have things we need to get done, but it is interesting to see how much people complain about changes to the Facebook interface or iOS updates or what have you. We can figure it out, but it seems more like a waste of time. Young people gobble up these changes. They seem to derive value from the learning itself, and keeping up with the changes even has a peer pressure or social esteem component. Yes, this is in part because they also have fewer responsibilities, but that cannot be the entire explanation. They have grown up in a world where technology changes rapidly. They didn’t just “grow up with social media,” they grew up with “social media that constantly changes.” In fact, not only do they keep up with the changes on a particular social media service, they are always exploring the latest new services. Several times a year, I hear about a new service that is all the rage with teens and tweens. A second example that is more esoteric but perhaps a leading indicator, is the rise of continuous integration in software development, not just with one’s own development team but with third-party software and tools. No longer is it sufficient to learn a programming language, its idiosyncrasies, its libraries, and its associated development tools. Instead, all of these tools change frequently, and in some cases continuously. Every time you build your application, you are likely to have some new bugs or incompatibilities related to a change in the language or the libraries (especially open source libraries). Thus, learning about the changes and fixing your code to accommodate them are simply part of the job. This situation has become sufficiently common that some language projects (Ruby on Rails and Python come to mind) have abandoned upward compatibility. That’s right, you can no longer assume that a new version of your programming language will run your existing applications. This is because you are expected to keep up with all the changes all the time. Continuous integration, continuous learning. Older coders like me view this as a tax on software development time, but younger coders accept it as a given and seem to not only take it in stride but revel in their evolving expertise. My final example, a little different from the others, is the pace of client device change. From 1981, when the IBM PC was introduced, until about 2005, one could expect a personal computer system to have a lifespan of 3-5 years. You could get a new one sooner if you wanted, but it would have reasonable performance for three years and tolerable for five. By then, the faster speed of the new machine would be a treat, and make learning the latest version of DOS, and later Windows, almost tolerable. Today, five years is closer to the lifespan of a device category. Your recent smartphone purchase is more likely to be replaced in 2017 by a smart watch, or smart eyewear, as it is by another smartphone. You won’t just have to migrate your apps and data, and learn the new organization of the screen – you will have to learn a new way to physically interact with your device. Hand gestures, eye gestures, speaking – all of these are likely to be part of the interface. Another five years and it is highly likely that some element of the interface will take input from your brain signals, whether indirectly (skin or electromagnetic sensors) or directly (implants). When you say you are having trouble getting your mind around the new device, you will mean it literally. The foregoing is primarily just an observation, but it will clearly have large effects on markets and on sociology. It suggests very large opportunities but also a great deal of disruption. And this transition from generational learning to continuous learning is not the last word. Technology will not just keep advancing, it will keep accelerating. As the youth of today, accustomed to continuous learning, reach their 40s and beyond, they will become laggards and slow to adopt in comparison with their children. Even continuous learning will no longer be sufficient. What will that look like? The post Accelerating Technology Change and Continuous Learning appeared first on Feld Thoughts.  | You are subscribed to email updates from Feld Thoughts
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Pinterest Becomes a Better Place for Discovery With Related Pins
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:34 AM PDT
| Pinterest Becomes a Better Place for Discovery With Related Pins Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:00 AM PDT 
Pinterest has been busy this year adding features to make itself more useful. On Friday it announced a partnership with Getty Images to provide image data. This week it announced a new "related Pins" feature. The idea with related Pins is to help users discover more of the things they like and related pins will be delivered based on other Pins users have saved and liked. "So if you've been collecting recipes for your big holiday feast, we might show you a related Pin for fool-proof pie crust, or the perfect double-stuffed sweet potato," the blog announcement says. According to the blog post, the feature will roll out slowly to "make sure you like what you see." Users can also give pins the thumbs up or thumbs down and feedback will be used to control what related Pins show up in the future. This feature reminds me a little of the Music Genome Project from Pandora where music discovery was facilitated based on the kinds of music you liked and listened to previously. "If you like the Pin (and we hope you do!), give it a thumbs up and we'll keep showing you similar stuff…And the more thumbs you give, the better your related Pins get," the blog post says. In terms of becoming a more useful place for discovery, it seems like Pinterest is on the right track. Nice to see a social network growing up while still being conscious of the users base that made it what it is today. Featured image credit: mkhmarketing New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | | Social Media Newsfeed: Facebook Earnings Call | Lawsuit Against Twitter Posted: 31 Oct 2013 01:00 AM PDT Click here to receive the Morning Social Media Newsfeed via email.  3Q Earnings Call: Facebook Revenue Up 60 Percent, Reaches 1.19B Monthly Active Users (AllFacebook)
Facebook reported its third-quarter earnings at the close of business Wednesday, posting revenue of $2.02 billion, up 60 percent from $1.26 billion in the year-earlier quarter, and GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income of $425 million, or $0.17 per share, compared with a net loss of $59 million (-$0.02) in the third quarter of 2012. According to the company, its revenue from advertising was $1.8 billion in the third quarter of 2013, up 66 percent from the prior-year period. Inside Facebook Mobile advertising revenue accounted for 49 percent of all accounting intake. Facebook now has 1.19 billion monthly active users (MAUs), 728 million daily active users (DAUs), 874 million mobile MAUs and 507 million mobile DAUs. The New York Times Facebook said prices for mobile ads remained high, and users were clicking on them in their news feeds more frequently. That bodes well, analysts said, for its smaller rival, Twitter, which takes a similar approach to mobile ads and is preparing to sell stock to investors in an initial offering as soon as next week. Forbes Although investors initially were wowed, during the earnings call chief financial officer David Ebersman mentioned a couple of facts that appeared to spook investors and eliminated most of that 15 percent jump. For one, he said Facebook would not increase the number of ads its users see in their newsfeeds, as it has in recent quarters. Ebersman also cited a decrease in the number of younger teens using the service daily.
Two Investment Firms Almost Sure They Remember Being Hired to Sell Twitter Stock (Bloomberg)
This lawsuit against Twitter is pretty hard to follow, but don’t let that keep you from enjoying it. It seems that two investment advisers, Continental Advisors SA and Precedo Capital Group, sued Twitter because, let me see if I can get this right, a company called GSV Capital asked Continental and Precedo to sell some Twitter shares, and Continental and Precedo were pretty pretty sure that Twitter was really running the sale, though they never talked to anyone at Twitter, it just felt that way, you know, just sort of a Twittery vibe about the whole thing, blue birdies in the air and so forth. Social-Media Themed Costume Ideas (SocialTimes)
Nearly 70 percent of typical costume-wearers admit social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest impact their costume choices, according to a survey done by Savers/Value Village. "Nearly half of them say they get inspiration from looking at their newsfeed, like photos of what others wore," shares Sara Gaugl, Savers spokesperson. "Nearly 40 percent say they put in more effort to wear something different every year because they know pictures of them will be posted on social media." Kickstarter's Executive Exodus: One Cofounder Departs, Another Steps Back (VentureBeat)
Cofounder Charles Adler is leaving the New York-based crowdfunding website, Kickstarter CEO Perry Chen revealed in a blog post Wednesday. "Charles has long been itching to move with his family back to Chicago, and now that timing is right," wrote Chen. "He'll be sorely missed, but he'll stay connected as an advisor as he explores new adventures." NBC Shows are in the Midst of a 'Smirk Off' Competition on Tumblr (LostRemote)
NBC shows are taking a short break from competing against shows on other networks. Instead, they have been competing against each other in a friendly "smirk off" across their Tumblr accounts. Report: The NSA is Spying on Data from Google and Yahoo, too (BetaBeat)
Cue Silicon Valley brick-shitting: The latest batch of Snowden leaks suggest the NSA is hoovering up massive amounts of Google and Yahoo data, snatching it off the connections between their various worldwide data centers–without their permission. The project is called "MUSCULAR," in case "PRISM" wasn't Ludlum-y enough for you. Social Media Feeds Motorcycle Madness (The Wall Street Journal)
The scene is a familiar one in suburban counties around New York City, where the tense and sometimes dangerous relationship between bikers and drivers has been revving for years. Officials said the problem has been exacerbated in the past several years by helmet-camera technology and social media. Big Four Wireless Carriers are Failing to Connect with Consumers on Social Media, Study Says (SocialTimes)
According to a study by Interakt Digital Marketing, many wireless consumers turn to Twitter for answers to their customer service needs. And they expect those answers to come quickly. Facebook May Start Logging Your Cursor Movements (ars technica)
Facebook is considering collecting yet more data from users in the form of tracked mouse movements, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal Wednesday. Your scrolls, your hovers, your highlights, your right clicks: Facebook wants them all. New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | | Sign Up Now and Save $350 on the Inside Mobile Apps Conference in NYC Posted: 30 Oct 2013 02:00 PM PDT 
Mediabistro's two-day Inside Mobile Apps conference will be held in New York City on December 3-4, 2013. Register before November 6th to save $350 on registration fees. The theme of this year's conference is "Investigating Monetization in Top App Platforms," with the show offering in-depth discussions and analysis on topics including monetization, design, marketing and growth. The conference focuses on mobile platforms like iOS and Android, but will also analyze continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | | Big Four Wireless Carriers Are Failing to Connect With Consumers on Social Media, Study Says Posted: 30 Oct 2013 09:00 AM PDT 
Social media has long been a place where consumers turn to rant about their customer service woes. While some brands have done well at adapting to the new reality, others…not so much. According to a study by Interakt Digital Marketing, many wireless consumers turn to Twitter for answers to their customer service needs. And they expect those answers to come quickly. Indeed, two-thirds of customers from the big four wireless carriers — AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — expect an answer in less than three hours. Unfortunately, T-Mobile and AT&T are the only carriers who seem to have a real handle on how to meet this demand, averaging 35 minutes and 32 minutes respectively. Sprint was just over the expectation with an average of three hours and six minutes. Verizon was the biggest offender with an average response time of over 20 hours, the study says. We could say that the microwave culture of instant gratification makes for unreasonable expectations. However, the report also indicates that one-third of consumers believe their wireless networks oversell and under deliver. While AT&T may have the fastest response time, the study says that two-in-five consumers think AT&T service is "inconsistent" with the brand image. T-Mobile fared best with only one-in-four customers reporting the carrier service is inconsistent. The study also indicates that the big four wireless carriers have a hard time engaging with consumers on social media. The top three reasons people follow brands on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms is for promotions, company news and customer support. Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed say they unfollow the brands because they find the content unengaging. According to the study, "These findings should sound an alarm for the carriers and any brand that interacts with consumers through multiple channels and touch points." In fact, more than one-third of consumers have already switched carriers due to failure for the brand to deliver. Another 12 percent of consumers are considering making the switch because of these inconsistencies in service and failure to respond quickly enough to customer service concerns. The problem for consumers is that if they do decide to switch carriers, they may just be trading one company with poor service for another. Photo credit: fireflythegreat New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | | Social-Media Themed Costume Ideas Posted: 30 Oct 2013 07:30 AM PDT  Halloween is tomorrow. Do you know what you are going to wear? Are you are a procrastinator who could not decide on a costume? Or did you just decide today that you want to dress up?
Nearly 70% of typical costume wearers admit social media like Facebook and Pinterest impact their costume choices, according to a survey done by Savers/Value Village. "Nearly half of them say they get inspiration from looking at their newsfeed, like photos of what others wore," shares Sara Gaugl, Savers spokesperson. "Nearly 40% say they put in more effort to wear something different every year because they know pictures of them will be posted on social media." continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | | [Infographic] How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile Posted: 30 Oct 2013 06:00 AM PDT LinkedIn might not be going to way of Facebook and Twitter with ads in the newsfeed. That doesn't mean the social network for professionals doesn't offer marketing products. It does and according the Q3 earnings announcement, those products made up about 23 percent of it's revenue. The bulk of LinkedIn's revenue is from what it refers to as Talent Solutions, which made up nearly 60 percent of the company's revenue for Q3, with premium subscriptions accounting for the rest. For recruiters, LinkedIn has become a great hunting ground of sorts. If you apply for a job, you can almost be certain the potential employer is going to look at your LinkedIn profile. Even if you don’t pay for a premium account, according to Neal Schaffer, Editor-In-Chief of Maximize Social Business, smart professionals should consider the LinkedIn profiles “the front page of the website of you.” "Whatever activity you do on LinkedIn, it will always lead people back to your profile," he says. Indeed, there is some debate about LinkedIn being a new digital version of the curriculum vitae, which means it needs to be complete and optimized for maximum exposure. Schaffer also provides 17 tips that include: -
Using professional looking photo -
Using your professional names -
Including a professional headline -
Including your location -
Aligning with your industry -
Customizing your LinkedIn URL -
Posting regular status updates -
Including a professional summary -
Connecting with past and present employers -
Making good use of keywords -
Establishing credibility with recommendations -
Embracing endorsements -
Embracing the visual -
Making yourself easy to contact -
Joining relevant groups -
Making smart use of the "sections" -
Building a robust network The folks at Visual Loop compiled these tips into an infographic for those who are visually inclined. In addition to the 17 tips, there are a few stats. Only 50 percent of LinkedIn profiles are complete and less than half of all users update their profiles regularly. Interestingly enough, the average number of endorsements is about five, so anyone with more than that has the potential for standing out. Here's the infographic. 
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | | Susumo Azano Divulges Rules for Social Media Marketing Posted: 29 Oct 2013 12:05 AM PDT Susumo Azano is one of many entrepreneurs that realize the potential that lies behind social media marketing. Having started his own company back in the late 90s, he did not have the same advantages that entrepreneurs have today. In 2013, social media profiles have become abundant and a vast majority of Internet users are on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, GooglePlus, or some other networking site. These sites were once used by college graduates to communicate with each other, and have since become a helpful tool for the wise entrepreneur. Even though social media marketing is like shooting fish in a barrel, that does not mean that its usage will guarantee success. In fact, Susumo Azano reveals a few important rules to remember when utilizing social media for marketing. continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.  | You are subscribed to email updates from SocialTimes
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Salesforce.com adds private storefront option to AppExchange (Rachel King/ZDNet)
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:32 AM PDT
| Salesforce.com adds private storefront option to AppExchange (Rachel King/ZDNet) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:05 AM PDT | | No U.S. Action, So States Move on Privacy Law (Somini Sengupta/New York Times) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:30 AM PDT   Somini Sengupta / New York Times:
No U.S. Action, So States Move on Privacy Law — State legislatures around the country, facing growing public concern about the collection and trade of personal data, have rushed to propose a series of privacy laws, from limiting how schools can collect student data to deciding whether the police need a warrant to tap cellphones.
| | Google Fiber app gains new DVR features, now on iPhone and iPod Touch (Nicole Lee/Engadget) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:55 AM PDT | | Twitter Stays Mum on Profit on Roadshow Ahead of IPO (Bloomberg) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:30 AM PDT  Bloomberg:
Twitter Stays Mum on Profit on Roadshow Ahead of IPO — Twitter Inc. (TWTR) sought to drum up investor interest this week for its initial public offering by talking about mobile growth and advertising capacity. Notably absent from the list: profits. — At the money-losing company's roadshow meetings … | | Coast Guard visits mysterious 'Google barge' (Michael Winter/USA Today) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:15 AM PDT  Michael Winter / USA Today:
Coast Guard visits mysterious ‘Google barge’ — Agency mum on trip and San Francisco vessel's purpose, citing “commercial confidentiality.” — CONNECT — SAN FRANCISCO — The Coast Guard on Wednesday visited the mysterious “Google barge” floating in San Francisco Bay … | | New FAA Guidelines Permit More Device Use, All The Way From Take-Off To Landing (Darrell Etherington/TechCrunch) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:15 AM PDT | | Pandora for Android adds Chromecast streaming (update: iPhone too) (Richard Lawler/Engadget) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:50 AM PDT | | Ex-NSA Contractor Snowden Finds Computer Job in Russia (RIA Novosti) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 06:25 AM PDT | | Why are Internet startups raising so much, so fast? (Dan Primack/Fortune) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:50 AM PDT  Dan Primack / Fortune:
Why are Internet startups raising so much, so fast? — Snapchat, Pinterest and Nextdoor are all raising money before the ink is even dry on their last VC checks. Why? — FORTUNE — Pinterest last week announced that it had raised $225 million in new funding, just eight months after raising $200 million. | | Google DNS Departs Brazil Ahead of New Law (Doug Madory/Renesys) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:05 AM PDT  Doug Madory / Renesys:
Google DNS Departs Brazil Ahead of New Law — In response to recent NSA spying allegations, Brazil is pressing ahead with a new law to require Internet companies like Google to store data about Brazilian users inside Brazil, where it will be subject to local privacy laws. | | Flurry in 400K apps, tracks 1.2B devices a month with a reach greater than Facebook or Google (Parmy Olson/Forbes) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:40 AM PDT | | Future Internet aims to sever links with servers (Phys.org) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:15 AM PDT  Phys.org:
Future Internet aims to sever links with servers — This is a diagram showing how information would be shared on the PURSUIT Internet, compared with the present architecture. Credit: Barney Brown, University of Cambridge. — A revolutionary new architecture aims to make the internet more … | | Top Reviewers On Amazon Get Tons Of Free Stuff (Lisa Chow/NPR) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 01:20 AM PDT  Lisa Chow / NPR:
Top Reviewers On Amazon Get Tons Of Free Stuff … You're on Amazon.com. You're buying, say, a toaster, and you're checking out the customer reviews. You assume the people writing these reviews are people like you — people who wanted a toaster, went online and bought one. | | After Walt Mossberg and David Pogue: Waiting for the Next Great Technology Critic (Matt Buchanan/New Yorker) Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:55 PM PDT | | Google sticks with VP8, opposes Cisco's push to make H.264 the default codec for WebRTC (Janko Roettgers/Gigaom) Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:50 PM PDT | You are subscribed to email updates from Techmeme
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pgBadger 4: Brand New Design, Time Period Exclusion and more !
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:32 AM PDT
| pgBadger 4: Brand New Design, Time Period Exclusion and more ! Posted: 30 Oct 2013 05:00 PM PDT Paris, France - October 31th, 2013 DALIBO is proud to announce the release of pgBadger 4, a PostgreSQL performance analyzer, built for speed with fully detailed reports based on your Postgres log files. This major version comes with a bunch of new features including a complete overhaul for the HTML reports, some new statistics, compatiblity with PostgreSQL 9.3 and Time Period Exclusion... Better Reports / Improved user experience With a full rewrite of its graphic design, pgBadger has now turned the HTML reports into a more intuitive user experience and professional look. Every statistic report now include a key value section that shows you immediately some of the relevant informations. Pie charts have also been separated from their data tables using two tabs, one for the chart and the other one for the data. Tables reporting hourly statistic have been moved to a multiple tabs report following the data. This is used with General (queries, connections, sessions), Checkpoints (buffer, files, warnings), Temporary file and Vacuums activities. PostgreSQL 9.3 compatibility and new stats Recent PostgreSQL versions add additional information about checkpoint, the number of synced files, the longest sync and the average of sync time per file. pgBadger collects and shows these informations in the Checkpoint Activity report. There's also some new reports: - Prepared queries ratio (execute vs prepare)
- Prepared over normal queries
- Queries (select, insert, update, delete) per user/host/application
- Pie charts for tables with the more tuples and pages removed during vacuum. The vacuum report will now highlight the costly table during a vacuum or analyze of a database.
The errors are now highlighted by a different color following the level. A LOG level will be green, HINT will be yellow, WARNING orange, ERROR red and FATAL dark red. Some changes in the binary format are not backward compatible and option --client have been remove as it was replaced by --dbclient for a long time now. Time Period Exclusion If you are running a pg_dump or some batch process with very slow queries your report analyze will be annoyed by those queries taking too much place in the report. Before that release it was a pain to exclude those queries from the report. Now you can use the --exclude-time command line option to exclude all traces matching the given time regexp from the report. For example, let's say you have a pg_dump at 13:00 each day during half an hour, you can use pgbadger as follow: pgbadger --exclude-time "2013-09-.* 13:.*" postgresql.log
If your are also running a pg_dump at night, let's say 22:00, you can write it as follow: pgbadger --exclude-time '2013-09-\d+ 13:[0-3]' --exclude-time '2013-09-\d+ 22:[0-3]' postgresql.log
or more shortly: pgbadger --exclude-time '2013-09-\d+ (13|22):[0-3]' postgresql.log
Exclude time always require the iso notation yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss, even if log format is syslog. This is the same for all time related options. Take care that this option has a high cost on the parser performances. Links & Credits DALIBO would like to thank the developers who submitted patches and the users who reported bugs and feature requests, especially Keith Fiske, Marco Baringe, Herve Werner, Den Untevskiy and Mael Rimbault. The new HTML report was designed by Art Is Code. pgBadger is an open project. Any contribution to build a better tool is welcome. You just have to send your ideas, features requests or patches using the GitHub tools or directly on our mailing list. - Download : http://dalibo.github.io/pgbadger/
- Mailing List : https://listes.dalibo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pgbagder
About pgBadger: pgBagder is a new generation log analyzer for PostgreSQL, created by Gilles Darold (also author of ora2pg, the powerful migration tool). pgBadger is a fast and easy tool to analyze your SQL traffic and create HTML5 reports with dynamics graphs. pgBadger is the perfect tool to understand the behavior of your PostgreSQL servers and identify which SQL queries need to be optimized. Docs, Download & Demo at http://dalibo.github.io/pgbadger/
About DALIBO: DALIBO is the leading PostgreSQL company in France, providing support, trainings and consulting to its customers since 2005. The company contributes to the PostgreSQL community in various ways, including : code, articles, translations, free conferences and workshops Check out DALIBO's open source projects at http://dalibo.github.io | You are subscribed to email updates from PostgreSQL news
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How Ads On Instagram Will Look Like
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:32 AM PDT
| How Ads On Instagram Will Look Like Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:00 AM PDT A few weeks ago, Instagram shared their plans to introduce advertising on its platform. In this article we show you how these ads will look like. 
Instagram said the ads will begin appearing in users’ feeds in the coming week Plans for a broader rollout remain a bit vague beyond that. Instagram says the sponsored icon users will see in the ads, will be tappable to give folks more information on how ads work. It further adds that users will also be able to hide individual ads and offer feedback on why they chose to do so. If you're in the United States, you'll see the sample ad below sometime in the coming weeks. This is a one-time ad from the Instagram team that's meant to give you a sense for the look and feel of the ads you will see. 
Instagram wants the ads to be creative and engaging, so they're starting with just a handful of brands that already have a positive contribution to the network, according to Instagram. Companies like Ben & Jerry’s, Lexus, Levi’s and PayPal will be taking part in the first phase of the rollout. Here are some examples on how they will look like: My opinion? Instagram and Facebook already know a great deal about what you like and what ads you’ll be most interested in seeing. The service is going to use data from your Instagram and Facebook habits, such as your friends, likes and interests, to help it choose what ads to show. This is could be a great social retargeting option. I also like the fact that Instagram wants brands to use creative and engaging ads. File sharing service WeTransfer also pushes their advertisers to come up with great visuals and attractive ads. It's what you call a win-win situation. You get to enjoy pretty pictures and advertisers get to enjoy high click-through rates and unprecedented levels of site traffic. And this could be the best solution for not pushing away users who get annoyed by (to much) annoying advertising. What about you?
So what are your thoughts on this advertising solution? Would you consider use it for your campaign? Follow & Share
Want more stories on breaking with the status quo? Browse our category Viral & Social Video, join us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, RSS and get our weekly E-mail Newsletter for updates and free bonus content. About the Author
Laurens Bianchi is an independent online (sport) marketing professional from the Netherlands and has been blogging on ViralBlog since 2008. Currently Laurens is also the Social Media Consultant for the Royal Dutch Football Association. Follow him on Twitter or contact him on LinkedIn. The post How Ads On Instagram Will Look Like appeared first on VIRALBLOG.COM.     |
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New FAA Guidelines Permit More Device Use, All The Way From Take-Off To Landing
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:31 AM PDT
| New FAA Guidelines Permit More Device Use, All The Way From Take-Off To Landing Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:12 AM PDT  For years now, most of us have been quietly not turning off our phones and devices at landing and take off, and merely putting the screens to sleep and stuffing them in seat pockets instead. Now, we'll be able to do that officially and more, according to the FAA. The American government organization overseeing air travel today announced that travelers won't face regulations that are quite as strict when it comes to electronics on planes. Don't start celebrating just yet – this doesn't mean you can continue playing Candy Crush while waiting for your massive, heavy hunk of metal to defy physics and launch itself into the air as of this very moment. The changes will differ depending on each airline, the FAA says, since there are differences between types of planes and how things are run at each different carrier, but the FAA anticipates that most will allow passengers to use their gadgets “in airplane mode, gate-to-gate, by the end of the year.” Passengers can use e-book readers, play games and watch videos on devices, and can hold gadgets during both take-off and landing, or else stow them in the seatback pocket. These gadgets need to be in Airplane Mode or have cell service turned off during both landing and taxi/take-off, but you can actually use Wi-Fi during your flight and continue to use Bluetooth accessories connected to your phone. There are still some things the FAA says travelers need to be aware of regarding these rules, to make sure they're still in compliance with guidelines. Here's a full list of those points flagged by the regulatory organization: 1. Make safety your first priority. 2. Changes to PED policies will not happen immediately and will vary by airline. Check with your airline to see if and when you can use your PED. 3. Current PED policies remain in effect until an airline completes a safety assessment, gets FAA approval, and changes its PED policy. 4. Cell phones may not be used for voice communications. 5. Devices must be used in airplane mode or with the cellular connection disabled. You may use the WiFi connection on your device if the plane has an installed WiFi system and the airline allows its use. You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards. 6. Properly stow heavier devices under seats or in the overhead bins during takeoff and landing. These items could impede evacuation of an aircraft or may injure you or someone else in the event of turbulence or an accident. 7. During the safety briefing, put down electronic devices, books and newspapers and listen to the crewmember's instructions. 8. It only takes a few minutes to secure items according to the crew's instructions during takeoff and landing. 9. In some instances of low visibility – about one percent of flights – some landing systems may not be proved PED tolerant, so you may be asked to turn off your device. 10. Always follow crew instructions and immediately turn off your device if asked.
Earlier this year, the FAA seemed ready to relax the rules around personal electronics use in-flight, but they quickly noted that this didn't mean we'd see blanket bans lifted immediately. Now, the FAA is taking pains to roll this out more quickly, and is “streamlining” approval of the new rules via clear instructions and guidelines for airlines about implementation of device use. Delta has announced that it's the first to submit its plan to comply with the new regulations, and that it will do so by November 1, it hopes. With any luck, some passengers might be able to watch Home Alone 2 on their new iPad Air while winging their way home to enjoy a family Christmas dinner. It's about time. | | Apple Looking Into Practical Solar Charging For Notebooks, iOS Devices Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:58 AM PDT  A new patent application published by the USPTO this week (via AppleInsider) indicates that Apple has been thinking about how to practically deliver the benefits of solar power to mobile devices, without requiring clumsy and gigantic external converters. Solar charging is still fairly fringe when it comes to the general gadget-using population, but Apple's patent, filed originally in 2012, looks like it could provide a way to make getting your power from the sun something that's generally palatable within a few years' time. The system in Apple's patent is a power management array for accepting both power adapter and solar power direct from gathering devices or traditional mains-based chargers. So in other words, you could plug in your MagSafe or iPad/iPod adapter, or alternatively hook a MacBook or other piece of hardware directly to a solar panel with a simple cord. There's also a means for accepting both inputs at the same time, according to the patent, for a power balance that would likely charge your device quicker but with more economical use of juice from the grid. The key to this patent is that the system described is both composed of readily available power management techniques achievable with existing hardware, and; able to be built using componentry that takes up very little space, making it theoretically possible to integrate it into existing device designs without much modification. Both of those indicate that Apple could build this into products sooner, rather than later, should it choose to go that route. I'd still expect this to take a while to come to fruition, if it does at all, but it is one way that Apple could explore the possibility of expanding device battery life in non-traditional usage situations, like while out and about in nature and separated from any mains access. The key will be whether this can be done without making any sacrifices to battery or device size, and that seems to be where Apple is focusing its R&D efforts around solar, according to this application at least. | | Nexus 5 Launch Likely Coming Today, Here's What We Know So Far Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:18 AM PDT  Google's Nexus 5 is not a real thing yet, but at this point it's a foregone conclusion; Google will update its Android reference smartphone, which comes with the clean stock version of its mobile operating system, and it'll probably do it today. Which is why it makes perfect sense that the leaks are now flying fast and furious. The Nexus 5 will reportedly be unveiled later today, sometime around 8 AM PST according to a report from GottaBeMobile, and it'll begin shipping tomorrow, November 1 with orders starting immediately. Whether or not it happens right at that time, the case remains that we're probably going to see the phone today at some point, since a number of earlier reports also indicated Oct. 31 as the time for its official debut. Google's Nexus 5 is likely sourced from hardware partner LG, just like the Nexus 4, and it is said to have a 4.95-inch, 1080p display, with a Snapdragon 800 processor running at 2.3GHz, 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32 GB of storage, an 8 megapixel rear camera/1.3 megapixel front, and Android 4.4 KitKat. It'll likely be the first KitKat device, which is a software update that brings a lot of refinements, along with replacing the stock SMS app with Google Hangouts now that it has SMS integration, we're hearing. According to one T-Mobile employee, the Nexus 5 will be available at that carrier the same day it's announced, and will cost roughly the same as the Nexus 4 did on T-Mo last year (which is to say, at a considerable markup). Google has also updated the look and design of the Play Devices web store, prompting some to note that this could be in preparation for a Nexus 5 listing. Google's Nexus 5 seems like it'll be a match for the current crop of top Android smartphones, at least on paper, and it's a handsome device if early render and photo leaks are to be believed. Price and international availability remain the biggest question marks at this point, as well as the exact timing of availability, but we'll be sure to bring you more as soon as we get any official info from Google. | | Hardware Alley At Disrupt Europe 2013: Connected Home, Connected Car And More Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:08 AM PDT  TechCrunch Disrupt Europe 2013 wrapped up in Berlin yesterday, but the show lives on in memory, and in video. Here's a look at the companies that took part in our Hardware Alley exhibition, including some familiar to TechCrunch readers like Tado and Occipital Labs. There's also a company that wants to put electrical vehicle chargers in every lightpost, and one that makes a Fitbit for delivery and other industrial/commercial drivers. And a car that was maybe 3D printed? I still can't really figure it out. But I sat in it, whatever it was. Overall, Disrupt Europe had some of the most impressive and fully-formed hardware and gadgets I've ever witnessed at a Hardware Alley exhibition, and I think it's telling that we also had a hardware startup (Lock8) win the Disrupt Europe 2013 Startup Battlefield. Europe's got gadget fever, and the only cure is more hardware startups. | | Tesla Officially Opens West Coast Supercharger Circuit, Covering San Diego To Vancouver Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:31 AM PDT  Tesla's West Coast Supercharger Corridor opened today, making it possible for owners of the Model S to travel free between San Diego and Vancouver, using Highway 101 and Interstate 5. This makes a Supercharger reachable within 200 miles to over 99 percent of Californians and 87 percent of those in Oregon and Washington. A lot of attention has been paid to Tesla's efforts to make a coast-to-coast trip in one of its vehicles a reality, via Superchargers and other charging stations, but blanketing the West Coast means that Tesla S owners can now travel from essentially the Mexican border to within the Canadian one without paying any money to fill their cars, and with a minimal amount of charging time required. Superchargers can charge a Tesla S to a capacity worth around 200 miles of driving distance in just 30 minutes, and the stations are positioned near restaurants and shopping centers to give you something to do while your car powers up. To promote the new corridor, Tesla is having two Model S vehicles make the trip from San Diego to Vancouver, and they'll be pushing updates to their various social media properties along the way. Spoiler alert: those cars are definitely going to make it without incident. Supercharger rollout continues globally, with Tesla announcing plans in September to cover 100 percent of the population of Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark and Luxembourg, and 90 percent of the population in England, Wales, and Sweden with a station within 320 kms by the end of 2014. Getting past that basic excuse of “I can't buy one, there's nowhere to charge” is clearly a huge part of the company's global rollout strategy, which is why each of these Supercharger network expansions is a big win for Tesla and for founder Elon Musk. | You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch » Gadgets
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Sarah Palin hits President Obama 'ShamWow' speech (Tal Kopan/Politico)
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:29 AM PDT
| Sarah Palin hits President Obama 'ShamWow' speech (Tal Kopan/Politico) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:25 AM PDT   Tal Kopan / Politico:
Sarah Palin hits President Obama ‘ShamWow’ speech — Sarah Palin is keeping up the infomercial peddler charge against President Barack Obama, criticizing his “ShamWow” speech in Boston and accusing him of lying to the American people. — Palin took to her Facebook page early Thursday morning …
| | Hillary Clinton: I'm 'minded to do it' (Katie Glueck/Politico) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:25 AM PDT  Katie Glueck / Politico:
Hillary Clinton: I'm ‘minded to do it’ — Hillary Clinton, the subject of intense 2016 speculation, recently said abroad that she is “minded to do it,” according to a Scottish newspaper. — “Again, Mrs Clinton politely gave a neutral answer,” Scottish outlet The Herald reported last week … | | How Wendy Davis can win (Zachary Roth/msnbc.com) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:25 AM PDT  Zachary Roth / msnbc.com:
How Wendy Davis can win — You've heard about the explosion in Texas' Hispanic population that looks set to make the deep-red state competitive for Democrats before too long. But most experts say those trends won't become game-changers for another decade or so—too late to help Wendy Davis' bid for governor next year. | | Photos View photos (Toronto Star) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:05 AM PDT  Toronto Star:
Photos View photos — Toronto Police have recovered the video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair said Thursday. — Blair said at a press conference, “The video files depict images that are consistent with what has previously been reported” in the media. | | Press Release - FAA to Allow Airlines to Expand Use of Personal Electronics (Kristie Greco/FAA) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:05 AM PDT | | Top Dems made same promises (The Hill) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:00 AM PDT  The Hill:
Top Dems made same promises — Democratic leaders in Congress echoed President Obama's promise in 2009 that people would not lose their healthcare plans if they liked them. — Republicans have pounced on Obama's repeated pitch for the healthcare overhaul, especially after plans across … | | Booker's big day in Washington (Paul Steinhauser/CNN) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:00 AM PDT Paul Steinhauser / CNN:
Booker's big day in Washington — Washington (CNN) - He doesn't get sworn into the U.S. Senate until Thursday afternoon, but Cory Booker's nameplate is already up outside his new office in the Senate Hart office building. — Earlier this month, the two-term Democratic Mayor of Newark … | | At least 140,000 Minnesotans will lose current health policies (Kevin Diaz/Associated Press) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:55 AM PDT | | 37% Say Zombies Would Do Better Job Than Federal Gov't, 37% Opt for Feds (Rasmussen Reports) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:55 AM PDT | | Looking for a Way Around Keystone XL, Canadian Oil Hits the Rails (Clifford Krauss/New York Times) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:55 AM PDT | | Reports: Syrian air base destroyed in missile attack from sea (Yasser Okbi/Jerusalem Post) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:35 AM PDT | | BREAKING: Hawaii Senate Passes Marriage Equality By Overwhelming Majority (Zack Ford/ThinkProgress) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:25 AM PDT | | McCain Threatens To Hold Yellen Nomination Over Benghazi Details (Catherine Thompson/Talking Points Memo) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:25 AM PDT | | Joe Biden: President Obama and I not tech 'geeks' (Lucy McCalmont/Politico) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:25 AM PDT  Lucy McCalmont / Politico:
Joe Biden: President Obama and I not tech ‘geeks’ — Vice President Joe Biden joined the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in apologizing for the Obamacare enrollment site, saying he and President Barack Obama are not “technology geeks.” | | Obama Has Presided Over 5 of 6 Largest Deficits in U.S. History (Terence P. Jeffrey/CNSNews) Posted: 31 Oct 2013 08:25 AM PDT | You are subscribed to email updates from memeorandum
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5 Ways to Prepare Your Facebook Page for the Holidays
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 09:29 AM PDT
| 5 Ways to Prepare Your Facebook Page for the Holidays Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:00 AM PDT Have you prepared your Facebook page for the holidays? Are you looking for tips on how to use your Facebook page this holiday season? If you haven’t even started thinking about the holidays yet, it’s time! In this article, you’ll find five ways to make your Facebook page festive for the holidays. Why Customize For [...] | You are subscribed to email updates from Social Media Examiner
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