https://boingboing.net/2020/08/04/massive-explosion-rocks-beirut.html

Running a small business drops a lot on to the plate of just one person. And between juggling a dozen tasks that need to get handled daily, it’s no surprise that there are a dozen more equally vital tasks that can just as easily go overlooked.

While posting to social channels and making web posts may not seem like top of the list action items, any entrepreneur who doesn’t have a sound and reasoned digital marketing plan is not only shortsighted but may even be dooming their business to failure.

With the training in The SEO and Social Media Ads Certification Bundle, you’ll learn all the most important factors in getting your message out and boosting contact with your most receptive audience members via the web.

You’ll get six courses offering a 360-degree look at all the most popular methods for reaching customers online covering everything from the most traditional forms of online marketing all the way up to best practices for selling via social media platforms.

The training starts with a focus on how search engine optimization (SEO) works in Introduction to SEO Split Testing and Optimization. This course also digs into the tools used to do split testing, otherwise known as A/B testing, which can quickly help identify which of your SEO solutions are effective and which ones aren’t.

Next, the How to Start an Online Store Using WordPress and WooCommerce training lays out a step-by-step guide for getting an attractive, web-friendly digital storefront up and running that leverages the power of WordPress and the popular business-focused WooCommerce plugin. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/this-training-in-seo-and-socia.html

China isn't prepared to accept the “theft” of Chinese technology company TikTok, and has the capability to respond to Trump's move to push ByteDance to sell short-video app TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft, state-controlled China Daily newspaper said on Tuesday.

From Reuters:

The United States’ “bullying” of Chinese tech companies was a consequence of Washington’s zero-sum vision of “American first” and left China no choice but “submission or mortal combat in the tech realm”, the state-backed paper said in an editorial.

China had “plenty of ways to respond if the administration carries out its planned smash and grab”, it added.

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said on Monday it was in talks with ByteDance to buy parts of TikTok after U.S. President Donald Trump reversed course on a plan to ban the app on national security grounds and gave the firms 45 days to strike a deal.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said over the weekend that Trump would take action shortly against Chinese software companies that shared user data with the Chinese government.

More at Reuters.

Microsoft says it has Trump's permission to buy Tik Tok

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/china-will-not-accept-theft.html

You love to see it.

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/portland-maine-votes-to-ban-f.html

“We will be suing in Nevada. And that’s already been taken care of, we’ll probably file something tomorrow,” he said during a White House briefing.

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/trump-threatens-to-sue-nevada.html

Twitter disclosed in a regulatory filing it faces up to $250 million FTC fine over use of your phone # & email data to target advertisements

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/ftc-probing-twitters-use-of.html

The importance of reading is well documented. About half of America’s unemployed between 16 and 21 years old are functionally illiterate. And there’s an almost direct line between how much you read and your earning potential, with the richest Americans three times more likely to read than those with a household income below $30,000. 

However, picking up a book and diving in isn’t always so simple. Between work, family, and the rest of our crazy lives, many of us have a tough time finding the hours in the day to do any serious reading. Then there are the approximately 14 percent of adults and children who suffer from learning or reading difficulties like dyslexia or ADD, disorders that make reading and learning so much harder.

For those who have trouble carving out reading time as well as those who face reading problems, the Speechify Audio Reader is a powerful tool for clearing away those obstacles.  

Speechify takes virtually any text and turns it into an audio file, allowing you to effectively read or learn everything you want, but while listening at your leisure in the car, at the gym, or pretty much anywhere.

If you’ve got a PDF or another file format of the book or article you want to read, Speechify can translate it into spoken word almost instantly. If you’ve got a physical book, document, or worksheet in front of you, just take pictures of each page with your smartphone. Speechify will use its whip-smart artificial intelligence technology to analyze your images and turn them into listenable audio. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/reading-doesnt-have-to-be-a.html

As the world has shifted the last few months, it’s very likely your assortment of EDC items has changed too. While you’re still looking to slim down the number of items you have to tote around every day, there’s a good chance you’re keeping an even tighter focus on how safe those items are and how much protection they offer against COVID and everything else out there in the world right now.

KeySmart has been thinking about the same thing, so they’ve assembled a package of items that they think nobody should be without with their KeySmart Pro with Tile/CleanTray/CleanKey collection.

This collection gathers up three of KeySmart’s best-selling items, all uniquely positioned to help streamline your day and keep you healthy no matter where your travels take you.

The centerpiece of the bundle is their KeySmart Pro, dubbed the world’s smartest key organizer. At its most basic level, the KeySmart Pro is a ridiculously efficient sleeve to keep up to 10 keys from jangling around in your pocket all the time. Crafted from stainless steel, the KeySmart Pro is compact, lightweight, and a perfect method for keeping all those rogue keys in line.

But the KeySmart Pro truly separates itself with its smart capabilities. When synced with the Tile app on your smartphone, your keys are now fully trackable online. If you lose your keys in your home, the app can locate them and sound a tone so you can find them, no matter where they’re hiding. If you left them 200 miles back on your road trip, the map can geo-locate the keys so you’ll know exactly where to circle back. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/this-3-piece-collection-from-k.html

Here's an item from the latest issue of my weekly Recomendo newsletter:

One of my favorite things about Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was listening to clips of 93 KHJ, a radio station that pioneered the “boss radio” sound in the 1960s. The DJs were all vocal virtuosos, and the most talented of the bunch was a guy by the name of “The Real Don Steele.” Almost all of these broadcasts have been lost to time, but fortunately, some people recorded KHJ on their tape recorders in the 1960s, and the recordings found their way to the Internet. The Internet Archive has a couple of recordings from the 1960s of Steele’s show on KHJ. Here’s another, and another (with other KHJ DJs, too). If this kind of thing interests you, you can dig up more by searching “khj airchecks.” Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/enjoy-the-boss-radio-sound-of.html

In 1971 the great Sammy Davis Junior told Dick Cavett about the time he bombed on stage in Osaka in a nightclub attended by "elderly Japanese people." Davis gives quite a performance merely recounting the story.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/sammy-davis-jr-describes-his.html

Gum Soft-Picks do a better job than toothpicks or floss for cleaning food and plaque from between my teeth. For me, it's just much more convenient than using dental floss. The rubbery green brush pushes out all the gunk without hurting.  You can buy them in packs of 50, 100, 150, or 300.

 

  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/i-prefer-gum-soft-picks-to-flo-2.html

A man who refused to wear a mask in a store, stole two cigars, fired a handgun at the clerk and later an AK-47 at cops coming to arrest him, injuring one of them, was "not handling the pandemic well," says his lawyer.

Adam Zaborowski, 35, was taken into custody after the shootout with officers in Bethlehem Township, Pa., police said. Lehigh Valley Live reports the kind of day that only some of us can get out of alive.

The 35-year-old Slatington man was charged Saturday with attempting to kill seven police officers near his home at 801 Main St. That shootout followed an incident Friday where Zaborowski allegedly shot at a clerk at Cigars International in Bethlehem Township. He allegedly refused to wear a face mask in the cigar store despite the threat of COVID-19. ...

“He just wasn’t dealing well with the loss of his job, the loss of his child, just not handling the pandemic well,” Waldron said. “I think he was getting stretched too tight.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/man-who-fired-ak-47-at-cops-wa.html

I wrote about the original 8bit Card Deck a couple of years back, and now a second edition is live with tweaked designs and the same pixel-perfect look. $15 a deck, target hit, and no question about fulfilment as the print order's already in with Gambler's Warehouse.

The 8Bit Deck is back with a fresh new look! The new iteration features red backs and a gold foil embossed tuck box! ... My name is Michael B. Myers Jr. (drawsgood) and I am a huge fan of pixel art and retro gaming. In 2019, I began designing a few face cards for what, at the time, might have been an 8-Bit solitaire game or something similar. As the process continued, the idea of making these pixel art cards in to actual high-quality playing cards came to mind, and thus the 8Bit Deck was born. Each card has been crafted pixel by pixel, and the color palette was heavily inspired by the Pico-8 fantasy console, developed by Lexaloffle

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/new-edition-of-8bit-card-deck.html

A lot of people need help right now with food and housing. The musician Superstar and Star are two such people, and they are facing eviction from their home. Superstar starred in King Baby, a movie directed by Case Esparros that my daughter appeared in, and everyone in the cast and crew became Superstar's friend because he's a warm and caring person. I met him during the screening of the film and was struck by his kindness.

Superstar's friends have set up a crowdfunding effort to help support Star him and keep them from being evicted from their home in Omaha, Nebraska.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/musicians-superstar-and-star-n.html

Casey William Kelley, age 42, enjoyed the good life for a few days when he came up with the idea of printing phony checks, say police in Florida. They accused  Kelley of using one of the fake checks to buy a swell-looking Porsche 911 Turbo for $139,203.05, and another check for $61,521 to buy three Rolex watches.

From The Palm Beach Post:

However, the jeweler kept the watches until it could be determined if the check would cash. Thursday, it was reported to WCSO that the check was a fake.

When arrested Wednesday afternoon, Kelley told investigators he printed out the cashier’s checks from his home computer and did not get them from his bank.

Kelley was transported and booked into the Walton County Jail without incident.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/gentlemen-arrested-for-buying.html

When you first hear "emojis can be racist," it might sound like the kind of reductive hyperbole of progressive discourse that you'd find on Hannity as he tries to make a big deal out of a single stupid tweet that some intern dug up in order to further prove that the Culture War is real.

But when you actually break it down — as seen in this presentation by Sara Mei Ling Goldstein and Megan E. Glavin — emojis can reveal some surprisingly complex levels about "default whiteness" and the ways that we pretend that certain things are "colorblind."

This is something I've noticed myself in the past, but was never able to articulate as well as this 10-page presentation does. For example: you're on Slack, and a Black colleague uses a Black thumbs-up emoji to react to someone's comment. Is it weird as a white person to also tap that Black thumbs-up, to show your support and solidarity? If you're a white person, is it better to use the Simpsons-neutral-but-actually-white yellow thumbs-up? If you use a lighter-skinned emoji, it might look like a white power move. So what do you do?

The answers aren't easy. But, as this presentation shows, they're worth considering.

If emojis can be flirty, they can also be racist: a guide to understanding the "unbearable whiteness" of emoji [Sara Mei Ling Goldstein and Megan E. Glavin] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/how-emoji-use-can-reinforce-ra.html

Recently, a new directive was issued to the CAF, detailing, in no uncertain terms that racism, sexism, and most definitely, extremism, had no place in the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy or the Royal Canadian Airforce.

Hate isn't tolerated.

Hate and violence are considered to be performance deficiencies. According to the Defence Administrative Order and Directive, if you're a commissioned or non-commissioned member of the Canadian Armed Forces and are caught doing any evil unto society, "...including the display or communication of words, symbols or images, by a CAF member, that they knew or ought reasonably to have known would constitute, encourage, justify or promote violence or hatred against a person or persons of an identifiable group, based on their national or ethnic origin, race, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics or disability," you're supposed to be held to account for your bullshit.

Except for when you're not.

In November of 2019, Unicorn Riot, identified Boris Mihajlovic, a 29-year Leading Seaman in the Royal Canadian Navy, who claimed affiliation to Atomwaffen and the Calgary, Alberta chapter of Blood and Honour—you know, Nazis. Better still, Unicorn Riot uncovered that Mihajlovic had been farting around under the handle MOOONLORD, attempting to sell military-grade munitions to another user on the neo-Nazi Iron March web forum:

In an exchange held over Iron March forum comments, ‘MOONLORD’ agreed to arrange to sell handguns to ‘FrenchSoldier’. He also offered to sell an AK-47 (€500), a rocket-propelled grenade launcher (€2500) and hand grenades (€50 each).

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/the-canadian-navy-is-cool-with.html

Kim Driver was wading chest-deep in the Winnipeg River with her husband and friends when she suddenly screamed "Someone's got my leg," before being pulled underwater. Vice reports that the "someone" was a muskie, a fish that "can grow up to 6 feet long and weigh more than 50 pounds." it also has very respectable teeth.

Kim fought her way to shore, and Terry and his friends shifted from disbelief to panic mode as they saw the extent of the damage along her right calf.

“It completely engulfed her calf from pretty much knee to ankle,” Terry said.

“As soon as we saw the wound and the blood we knew it was a muskie, because we’re all fishermen out there. Nobody’s ever seen one do that before. Nobody’s ever seen one T-bone someone’s calves.”

Thankfully, the couple’s beach crew included nurses and Ontario Provincial Police officers, who administered first aid while they told Terry to get his truck and rush her to a hospital in Kenora.

  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/giant-freshwater-fish-attacks.html

This surprisingly funky Muzak version of "Funkytown" (1979) by Lipps Inc. turned up on r/ObscureMedia. Steven Greenberg wrote the original while living in Minneapolis with aspirations of moving to New York City, a scene that would "keep me movin', keep me groovin' with some energy." Following the Reddit posting, a commenter alerted us that in recent years, Greenberg redid his jam in "15 different shades of sound" available for licensing and also curated a collection of fan covers from around the globe. Below, Greenberg's own folk, reggae, and metal versions:

image above: album art Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/surprisingly-funky-muzak-versi.html

GNS Foods of Arlington, TX supplies nuts to airlines. Now that Airline traffic has taken a nosedive, the company is stuck with 42 excess tons of cashews, pistachios, pecans, and almonds. They've taken to selling them at their retail store for $6 a 1.25 lb bag, "selling for less than they cost GNS wholesale, even though the company has to roast, season and bag the nuts," says U.S. News and World Report. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/03/after-airlines-stop-serving-wa.html