We kicked things off with Rob recapping his experience at the Tool concert. We then discussed Dave Mustaine's recent interview...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #543 - Gong Solo appeared first on Metal Injection.

This week, we had a very special guest, our Livecastard of the Month, Eric, who actually signed up for our...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #544 - 33% Drained appeared first on Metal Injection.

MetalSucks' Axl Rosenberg was back to sit in on the show. We kick things off talking about Chanukah and our...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #545 - Pre-Snatch with Axl Rosenberg appeared first on Metal Injection.

We kick things off talking about annoying holiday commercials. We discuss Christmas music this episode, and why Hanukkah lands on...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #546 - Grandma Smoothie appeared first on Metal Injection.

We kick things off talking about how we spent the holiday break and previewing the bonus Patreon episode coming next...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #547 - Crab Rangoomba appeared first on Metal Injection.

It's the first show of the new year and the new decade. We kick things off with a little math...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #548 - A Different Kind of Steamie appeared first on Metal Injection.

We kick things off with our New Year's resolutions. Noa explains her future vision board. We discuss climate change and...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #549 - Loose Hot Dog appeared first on Metal Injection.

We kick things off discussing our Tad's Patreon episode, and our fast food preferences. We then discuss the sad status...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #550 - Don Docking appeared first on Metal Injection.

We're so excited to have a huge guest on the show – big time comedian and noted metalhead, Brian Posehn,...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #551 - Where Nickelback Shines with special guest Comedian Brian Posehn appeared first on Metal Injection.

What's with all the good drummers dying? We kick things off discussing the sad news. Noa discussed locking herself out...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #552 - Penis II Society appeared first on Metal Injection.

What an eventful edition of the Metal Injection Livecast! We kick things off talking about the new Dave Mustaine memoir...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #553 - Full On Lip appeared first on Metal Injection.

We're so excited to finally have British death match legend Jimmy Havoc on the show. We talked about how he...

The post Squared Circle Pit #57 - Jimmy Havoc Talks Death Match Wrestling appeared first on Metal Injection.

We kick things off talking about the Rage Against the Machine reunion. We then discuss the summer touring season and...

The post METAL INJECTION LIVECAST #554 - Rob's Nolita appeared first on Metal Injection.

Every time we contribute to an open source project, in any way, we are answering an important question: Why don’t I walk away and start a new fork? I’ve been working in and with and around open source software for the better part of 15 years, and over that time I’ve seen the rise of […]

The post Walking Away and the Ethos of Open Source appeared first on MOR10.

2019 was the year of the “ethical source” licenses – or ‘open source with a moral clause’ licenses. It was also the year many in the open source movement labeled any attempt at adding moral clauses to open source licenses not only made them not open source licenses, but were a dangerous attack on the […]

The post Value Neutrality and the Ethics of Open Source appeared first on MOR10.

“You can consult canada.ca/coronavirus to get the best updated information about the spread of the virus.” – Justin Trudeau, April 3rd, 2020 A daily mantra rings out from government officials around the world: The call to visit official websites to get the latest information on the COVID-19 pandemic and to access essential services. Yet to many constituents accessing […]

The post The Internet is an Essential Service appeared first on MOR10.

Web designers have skills and expertise that open up a whole world of possibilities. Many designers and developers choose to pursue personal projects in their own time, which can be a nice change of...

Click through to read the rest of the story on the Vandelay Design Blog.

There are a number of different ways to make money as a web designer aside from simply creating websites for clients. Many freelancers choose to supplement their income from client work by doing some...

Click through to read the rest of the story on the Vandelay Design Blog.

Online marketing with visual content continues to grow and drive tons of traffic. The team at Venngage gathered together the latest data in the 14 Visual Content Marketing Statistics to Know for 2019 infographic and built it using their own tool.

From Nadya Khoja at Venngage:

Two years ago I asked 300 different online marketers to help me figure out how they were using visual content as part of their marketing strategies in 2016 and their predictions for 2017.

This year I wanted to see if there were any changes in how marketers were creating visuals, and what kind of content engagement they were seeing.

I also asked a couple of additional questions to see how the use of various visual formats impacted their blogging strategies.

Conclusion:

The data says it all–visual content isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Not only are more brands leveraging the use for of visuals for various social media platforms, but there is a lot of added benefit when it comes to SEO and organic rankings as well, particularly in Google’s image search results.

And of course, creating engaging visual content is a surefire way to resonate with your audience and communicate your ideas more effectively.

There are a few things to unravel here:

• It’s good survey data, but take it with a grain of salt. Venngage is a visual design tool, sharing data about visual content marketing.

• The infographic is a fantastic format to summarize the survey results and use in social media to draw in readers to the full article.

• The infographic is built using Venngage, so it’s also a great way to showcase what their design tool is capable of. In fact, clicking on the infographic gives you the opportunity to use this design as a template for designing your own infographic.

• Sections 5 & 10 are disappointing visually. There are no data visualizations, just a bunch of percentage values shown in text.

• I’m not a fan of the bright color scheme, and it’s visually distracting from highlighting insights in the data.

• The article still references 2018 data, even though the infographic has been updated with newer data from 2019.

Google’s ranking algorithm continues to get more and more complex, and the Ranking Factors 2020: Facts and Myths infographic from Link-Assistant tries to break through some of the misinformation that’s out there.

It seems a little while ago that Google hinted at having 200+ ranking factors. Though in fact, it happened in the year of 2009, and we are heading to 2020 now.

Google has drastically evolved over the past ten years. Today, neural matching — an AI-based method — processes about 30% of all searches, and Google can recognize concepts behind keywords. They have introduced RankBrain, mobile-first indexing, and HTTPS. As we need to adapt to changes and find ways to get atop of SERPs, the topic of ranking factors remains as fresh as ever.

So let's have a look at what ranking factors to consider in 2020, and what ranking myths to leave behind.

I have mixed feelings about this infographics design:

Good:

• It’s a concise summary of very complex information that’s laid out in the more detailed, full article.

• The infographic is a handy reference sheet and great for use in social media as promotion for the article.

• Clean arrangement that’s easy to read from top-to-bottom

Bad:

• Almost all text.

• Not that there’s much data that could have been visualized with charts, but some visual design elements would have made the infographic easier to read and more enticing to readers.

• Text URL to the article! When the infographic gets shared, how are readers supposed to find the article when it’s not linked??? Put it in the footer on the infographic!

Big tech companies have been spying on us for years. This knowledge isn’t new information, but what could be surprising is exactly to what extent each company does it. Security Baron categories what data six of the biggest tech companies collect from you in The Data Big Companies Have On You infographic, and these are just the ones they admit to collecting on their own privacy pages!

The seemingly endless stream of Facebook privacy scandals of late—including the latest involving users as young as 13 years old—may have you questioning how much the social network and other tech giants actually know about you.

The folks at Security Baron examined the privacy policies of Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, Amazon, and Microsoft and put together a handy infographic showing the types of data each company admits to collecting. For Facebook and others, data is money. But just how much these tech giants actually know about you might be surprising.

As you can see in the infographic below, Facebook is particularly data-hungry, even gathering information about your work, income level, race, religion, political views, and the ads you click in addition to more commonly collected data points such as your phone number, email address, location, and the type of devices you use.

"Facebook is unusually aggressive," Security Baron pointed out. "This data can be exploited by advertisers and (hopefully not nefarious) others."

Twitter, in comparison, is "comparatively hands-off," the site notes. The microblogging service, for instance, doesn't collect your name, gender, or birthday (Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all do), but Twitter does know your phone number, email address, time zone, what videos you watch, and more.

Google and Microsoft, meanwhile, are the other big players when it comes to collecting data.

"With Cortana listening in and Gmail seeing all of your emails, the ubiquitous nature of Google and Microsoft gives them access to an uncomfortably large amount of your information," Security Baron wrote.

Check out the full infographic below to see what Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, Amazon, and Microsoft may know about you. For tips on securing your digital privacy, check our story, "Online Data Protection 101: Don't Let Big Tech Get Rich Off Your Info.

This is a fairly simple infographic design using a comparison table. I think the use of the icons is particularly effective showing which of Google’s or Microsoft’s apps are collecting the data.

Although the types of data are identified down the left side, I wish there was a way to identify the more sensitive types of data.

Original article can be found at https://www.pcmag.com/

Highlighting some of humanity’s biggest construction achievements is the 10 of the Top Construction Projects in the World informational infographic from 53 Quantum.

Human societies have always looked to build the biggest and best monuments to their ingenuity, resources and craftsmanship. From the Empire State Building, to the Eiffel Tower, and the Great Pyramids of Giza to the Great Wall of China, we’ve always looked to build the biggest and best. Mind blowing historic building projects now litter travel-minded folks bucket lists everywhere, and they make up a huge part of the historic tapestry.

But it’s 2019 now. We need to talk about the Burj Khalifas and Libyan Irrigation projects of the world. For the first time in history, there are societies wealthy, powerful, and most importantly, cohesive enough to build spectacularly huge projects. By working together with our geographical neighbours, we’ve been able to give the world some truly unbelievable, innovative projects. The International Space Station leaps to mind as a collaboration between nations.

With so many stunning projects continually on the go around the planet, we at 53 Quantum thought it’d be an idea to put together a quick infographic of ten of the biggest and best. Of course, there’ll be examples we missed and things we left off, because how do you compare a massive railway restoration and modernisation with a super skyscraper project? Apples and oranges!

Nevertheless, here are ten of the world’s most impressive construction projects.

Although I like the infographic, this design falls short in a few areas.

• Where’s the Data Visualization? The biggest missed opportunity in this design is that the data isn’t visualized. You want readers to understand how big or how expensive these projects were, you need a visualization that puts that into context!

• Nice illustrations, but that isn’t enough. Most of the impact of the size and scale of these projects is lost because it’s buried in the text.

• A map of the locations would be nice.

• Is there any logic to the order of these projects in the infographic? Readers will look through the list from top-to-bottom in order. They’re not sorted by cost or on a timeline.

Thanks to David for submitting the link!

In the world of smartwatches, the two big contenders are the Apple Watch and the Fitbit Versa. The Smartwatch Showdown infographic from The Watchstrap is very timely with recent news that Google has just acquired Fitbit.

In the world of wearable gadgets, smartwatches are all the rage at the moment. The smartwatch market is growing by the day, and new and improved devices are constantly being released. This means that picking the right smartwatch can be a real head-scratcher. To help you choose the right device for your needs, we’ve compared two of the hottest smartwatches on the market: the Apple Watch Series 4 and Fitbit Versa!

If you want to find out which of these devices came on top in the end, don’t miss the comprehensive infographic below!

First, this is a great use of infographics in content marketing! The Watchstrap is an online retailer of watch bands, and the infographic is a comparison design without being a sales pitch. It draws in traffic by providing valuable information, which build credibility for their brand.

There are a handful of things I didn’t like about the design itself that could be easily improved to make this a better infographic design:

• Too much text. I realize there isn’t much data to work with, but they need to cut down the text in the infographic. Paragraphs of explanation don’t belong in the infographic, they belong on the landing page. The infographic should be short and draw in readers to the website if they want to learn more.

• The scale is wrong in the Size & Design section of the infographic. The dimensions of the Apple Watch are larger, but the graphic illustration on the page is smaller. The illustrations should be visually correct to scale.

• Eliminate any word wrap when possible. There are a number of list points that have one hanging word wrapping to a second line. This could be avoided by shortening the text or just widening the text box. There’s room in the design without wrapping some of these words.

• The URL in the footer should link to the infographic landing page, not the home page of the company site.

• Copyright or Creative Commons license is completely missing.

• Don’t obscure the source by only listing the home page URL. What’s the link to the research data?

The team at StarTrek.com has released an official infographic video A Timeline Through the Star Trek Universe, Part 1 that includes all of the various TV and Movie series in their inter-connected places on the timeline.

WATCH: A Timeline Through the Star Trek Universe, Part I

The Star Trek saga has boldly traveled through space and time throughout its over fifty year history. Starfleet has visited the distant past, the far future, and even some alternate timelines. Need some context before you dive deep into Star Trek: Discovery and prepare for Star Trek: Picard? We've got you covered in Part One of our video timeline.

Here’s a snapshot of the complete timeline:

Interesting that they call this “Part 1”… Implying that there is much more to come.

From a DataViz design perspective, I’m not a fan of timelines that don’t keep a consistent scale. There’s a huge jump from the Big Bang 13.8 Billion years ago to the year 1900, then the scale is pretty even with 50-year jumps until the year 2150, and then the scale changes again, making the 50-year jumps are much farther apart.

It appears that this is an evolution of an original design project collaboration between Rachel Ivanoff and Jordan Twaddle that was on exhibit at the The Museum of Pop-Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle, Washington in 2016. The new video adds Star Trek: Discovery to the timeline, and video snippets from each of the shows.

Back in 2016, they shared this great animated GIF of the design evolution from the original timeline design process:

I hope they were involved in the development of the new timeline video as well.

How Much Does It Really Cost To Produce Your Favorite TV Show? infographic compares the cost to make the show to their ratings on IMDb. Cashnetusa.com comes to the conclusion that, while Game of Thrones paid out the big bucks and received the huge ratings, it isn’t always necessary. Peaky blinders received great reviews and spent 10 million less per episode!

Our new guide to the cost of producing the best and worst rated shows on TV in 2019 reiterates this sense that it’s not always the size of your production budget that counts, but what you do with it. The costly robots of Westworld are rivalled in ratings by the non-union zombies of The Walking Dead for a third of the price; Lost In Space was just as mediocre as the decidedly more earthbound NCIS: New Orleans.

And in the short-term, with the complete series rating hovering around 9.5 on IMDb, Game of Thrones still manages to top our new table as both the highest rated and highest costing show. But when you consider the bitter taste on the tongues of millions of disappointed HBO subscribers, would a more thought-through finale have been a better investment than all that extra cash? Or are GoT fans just sour because (as experts suggest) they’re going through an end-of-show ‘break-up’?

This infographic design does a lot of things right:

• Good scatterplot data visualization to illustrate their data

• Data points are clearly identified with data titles using proximity, not connecting lines necessary. This can often be a design challenge!

• Sources clearly identified with links so anyone can look into the data

• Use of Creative Commons to protect the infographic and encourage sharing

• The text on the infographic landing page includes the clickable data source links and a methodology description.

Found on Geekologie.com

Simon Scarr and Marco Hernandez at Reuters created Drowning in Plastic, visualizing the amount of plastic bottles we consume, recycle and throw away every hour, day, month, year and decade.

Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. As the environmental impact of that tide of plastic becomes a growing political issue, major packaged goods sellers and retailers are under pressure to cut the flow of the single-use bottles and containers that are clogging the world’s waterways.

Plastic production has surged in the last 50 years, leading to widespread use of inexpensive disposable products that are having a devastating effect on the environment. Images of plastic debris-strewn beaches and dead animals with stomachs full of plastic have sparked outrage.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are commonly used for soft drinks and mineral water, but can also be used in other household or personal care products. Data from Euromonitor International, shows that more than 480 billion of these bottles were sold last year alone. That’s almost 1 million every minute, as shown in the animation at the top of this page. The illustrations below show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over a longer period of time.

The visuals of massive piles of plastic bottles next to recognizable landmarks helps provide context and scale to readers.

They also provided a nice Sankey Diagram showing the fate of most plastic bottles is to end up in the landfill.

Found on FlowingData

Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions for the coming of Spring on Groundhog Day haven’t been that accurate, and the U.S. National Weather Service is here to prove it with an infographic!

Every February 2, a crowd of thousands gathers at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to await a special forecast from a groundhog named Phil. If the 20-pound groundhog emerges and sees his shadow, the United States can expect six more weeks of winter weather according to legend. But, if Phil doesn’t see his shadow, we can expect warmer temperatures and the arrival of an early spring.

Even though he’s been forecasting since 1887, Phil’s track record for the entire country isn’t perfect. To determine just how accurate he is, we’ve compared U.S. national temperatures with Phil’s forecasts. On average, Phil has gotten it right 40% of the time over the past 10 years.

Using real data wins!

For what it’s worth, Phil didn’t see his shadow in 2020, and predicted that Spring would be coming soon!

Social media is predicted to continue to be a big tool for businesses in 2020. Big surprise. The Social Media Content Trends for 2020 and Beyond infographic from MicroCreatives lays out their predictions for upcoming trends.

Before the inception of social media marketing, brands used traditional marketing channels to reach out to and engage with consumers. Online social networks have made communicating with consumers a breeze and marketing easier and highly targeted for brands.

By 2020, more than 5 billion people will use social media platforms—that’s roughly two-thirds of the world’s population. Now is the perfect time to get started with social media marketing if you haven’t been doing so already. If you’re already doing it, how is it going for you so far? Perhaps it’s time to evaluate and update your social media content strategy to stay relevant and get ahead of the competition.

Here are some content trends we anticipate to be popular across social media in 2020 and the coming years. See what could work for your brand and start planning ahead.

Sometimes an infographic is a great way to summarize a larger, in-depth article. This is a good example that keeps the text in the infographic short & sweet because the article contains the longer descriptions.

They definitely missed out on using data visualization for the statistics though! Big mistake! They are completely lost in the text, and have no visual impact on the audience.

Found on prdaily.com

WildEarth Guardians Press Release Federal Court Overturns Leasing of Lands to Oil and Gas Industry SANTA FE, NM — In a victory for New Mexico’s air, climate, and water, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico today … Continue reading →

From the National Science Foundation Birds — the only surviving descendants of dinosaurs — are used to study a large range of fundamental topics in biology, from understanding the evolution of mating systems to learning about the genetic and environmental … Continue reading →

Center for Biological Diversity Press Release WASHINGTON – Four commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides can harm bees and other pollinators, according to a new analysis by California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation. The study found that current approved uses of the “neonics” … Continue reading →

By Julia  Conley Common Dreams “Our message as scientists is simple: Our planet’s future climate is inextricably tied to the future of its forest.” With a new statement rejecting the notion that drastically curbing emissions alone is enough to curb … Continue reading →

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “This is a wake-up call,” says one Australian marine biologist. “Given sea temperatures usually increase as we get towards March, this is probably conservative.” Delivering yet another “wake-up call” after recent studies have shown that … Continue reading →

By Julia Conley Common Dreams “Nature is not a ‘nice to have’—it is our life-support system.” Scientists from around the world issued a stark warning to humanity Tuesday in a semi-annual report on the Earth’s declining biodiversity, which shows that … Continue reading →

By Jon Queally Common Dreams “This is the stuff that worries me most. We don’t know what we’re doing, not trying to stop it, [and] with big consequences we don’t really understand.” The first global scientific review of its kind … Continue reading →

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams “We face a stark choice [between] radical, disruptive changes to our physical world or radical, disruptive changes to our political and economic systems to avoid those outcomes.” As people across the globe mobilize to demand … Continue reading →

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams Far-reaching global assessment details how humanity is undermining the very foundations of the natural world     On the heels of an Earth Day that featured calls for radical action to address the current “age … Continue reading →

By Jake Johnson Common Dreams Rapidly falling insect populations, said Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, “will make it even more difficult than today to get enough food for the human population of the planet, to get good health and freshwater for everybody.” A … Continue reading →

Andrew Rickmann posted a photo:

A Dragonfly seen at the ponds at Rodley Nature Reserve.

Andrew Rickmann posted a photo:

SS Peter and Paul in Wantage, Oxfordshire.

Andrew Rickmann posted a photo:

Andrew Rickmann posted a photo:

Andrew Rickmann posted a photo:

Andrew Rickmann posted a photo:

The Vulcan at RAF Fairford

See rest of travel photos to India.

By David Suzuki David Suzuki Foundation In July, Solar Impulse 2 became the first airplane to fly around the world without using fuel. At the same time, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been working on electric planes. … Continue reading →

By The EPA The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today launched a new online portal that will provide local leaders in the nation’s 40,000 communities with information and tools to increase resilience to climate change. Using a self-guided format, the … Continue reading →