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Cambridge professor raises £50m for 5-minute electric car charging









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Utah Elected Officials Invited to Blog

Most states currently do not provide constituent service blogs for their legislators. One reason is the fear that blogs can be misused. Legislative staff make every effort to offer non-partisan services and information and fear that blogs could be used as state sponsored tools for campaigning.

Most U.S. Representatives and Senators have both official governmental websites and private sites for operating campaigns. The question is, could state governments promote a similar dual model of separate sites/weblogs for constituent services and campaigning?

Elected officials and those running for office have seen how RSS news syndiction can help them spread their message. Howard Dean rose out of obscurity last year using a combination of weblogging and local web meetups to become his party's front runner in the presidential race. Dean and others learned that this technology can even the playing field and allow someone to rapidly organize a grass roots campaign. RSS syndication can help create a dynamic website and produce both email and online newsletters in the same process. With legislative staffs slow to offer the service, there is an inviting market niche for the private sector.

Recognizing this golden opportunity, LaVarr Web, Publisher of UtahPolicy.com today issued an "Invitation to Blog" to elected officials and party leaders wishing to communicate directly to citizens. Mr. Webb writes:


We would like to invite you to become a blogger. UtahPolicy.com is creating the Utah Policymaker Blog and we hope you will be part of it. It is an opportunity for you, as a Utah policymaker, to publish your opinions, thoughts and ideas to a wide audience of opinion leaders. It is an opportunity to participate in an exciting new high-tech communications medium that is becoming a powerful tool in politics, business and in every walk of life.

It's fun and exciting to be a blogger. You are probably aware of how bloggers are credited for toppling the powerful Dan Rather and CBS News. The phenomenon of blogging is growing rapidly and as a leader in Utah you ought to become familiar with this new method of communicating and use it to your advantage. In effect, Utah policymakers will have their own electronic publication in which to communicate with the public.

Some reasons UtahPolicy.com offers as to why elected officials ought to consider blogging include:

  • You can communicate directly to citizens and other policymakers and opinion leaders without having your comments and opinions filtered by the news media.

  • You can talk back to the news media. You can comment on news stories published by newspapers, and magazines and aired by television and radio. You can even link to the original articles.

  • You can promote your pet projects, priorities, legislation, causes, and issues.

  • You can respond to others' comments in the blog, creating a dialog.

  • You can learn how to use an entirely new, and very powerful, communications channel. At some point you might want to create your own personal blog, and this will give you experience.

  • You will be joining millions of other bloggers, some of whom have developed large followings.

  • The Utah Policymaker Blog will become a very popular blog if enough policymakers participate. News reporters will read it for story ideas. It will help set the political agenda of the state. It will become a valuable forum for the exchange of opinions and ideas on public policy issues in Utah.

Utah policymakers interested in the offer should send an e-mail expressing their interest to daily@utahpolicy.com. While the general public will be able to read the blogs, only invited policymakers (i.e. elected and appointed officials and a few key opinion leaders) will be able to publish to it.

This is an example of the union of business and government to promote democracy and inform the citizenry using RSS news syndication. We wish them well in their efforts!




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Feeding the Utah Legal Community

A crack cocaine smoking judge who allegedly presided over his court while high? An attorney disbarred for abandoning his law practice and clients in the pursuit of the unlawful use of methamphetamine? These are only some of today's tintillating stories from official Utah judiciary sources that my news aggregator served me.

The Utah Administrative Office of the Courts and the Utah State Bar have been experimenting with the syndication of news and publications for quite some time. They've now published links to their first public syndicated feeds on their homepages.

Utah Courts offers an RSS feed for "Recent Court Opinions" that links to recently released and archived opinions of the Utah Supreme Court, Utah Court of Appeals, and Per Curiam decisions. If you'd rather get the same information by email, Steve Brown, Courts Webmaster, offers a notification subcription service.

http://www.utcourts.gov/rss/opinions/index.xml


The editors of the Utah Bar Journal with the assistance of Utah State Bar IT Director Lincoln Mead have imported the Journal into Movable Type. Recent past issues are also archived in PDF format.

http://www.utahbar.org/barjournal/index.rdf

This is a good trend because RSS syndicated legal information makes its delivery more timely and its content more findable and accessible.




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Blog Revolution in China

While the government may not be enthusiastic over offering RSS news feeds, the Chinese people themselves are embracing Internet communications with gusto and particularly RSS news syndication in the form of blogging.

According to China's biggest blogging service provider blogcn.com, the number of subscribers has soared from 10,000 in June last year, to more than 500,000 now.

A couple of years ago technology writer Fang Xingdong at his site blogchina.com coined the Chinese term bo ke to mean blogger. He encouraged his readers to try blogging by registering on blogger.com. “Blogging is a true revolution,” he wrote. “One needs zero technology training, zero institution and zero cost to become a blogger.”

The number of Chinese online has quintupled over the past four years. Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China, a telecommunications and technology consulting firm based in Beijing, said in an email message to the to Tom Zeller, Jr. of the New York Times, "China's rulers are bent on putting communications, mobile phones, Internet access and the new growth area, broadband, into as many hands as possible."

"China is already the largest mobile communications subscriber market in the world," reports the Internet Herald Tribune, "with more than 320 million subscribers." Internet users, who numbered fewer than 17 million in 2000, are now estimated to be somewhere near 90 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre, the government's clearinghouse for Internet statistics. China is second only to the United States in the number of people online."

Beijing has an uneven record of late in allowing citizens access to Google English News headlines giving Chinese searchers access to uncensored news from all over the world. According to Reporters Without Borders, China is censoring Google News to force Internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports.

Similarly, the government is also ambivalent about how allowing its citizens to freely blog. Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley runs the China Digital News blog and is monitoring the pulse of blogging in China.

Qiang reports that by January 2003, China had about 2000 bloggers when, without warning, the Chinese government blocked all access to blogspot.com, the server that hosts all blogs registered on blogger.com. According to Qiang:

[The] crackdown in 2003 closed websites and internet cafes and saw the arrest of dozens of online commentators.

Yet this is not proving enough to stifle the pluck and ingenuity of China’s bloggers. The rise of the blog phenomenon was made possible by blog-hosting services. Just as companies like Yahoo host email accounts, sites like blogger.com, based in the United States, host blogs.....

Blog services are now sprouting all over China. By the end of October 2004, China had more than 45 large blog-hosting services. A Google search for bo ke will return more than two million results, from blogs for football fans to blogs for Christians.

Sources:




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3 Sydney Opera House Doppelgängers You Should Know About

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognizable buildings in the entire world, but what if we told you there are several buildings that look just like it? Architectural marvels that look like doppelgängers of Australia’s timeless symbols are scattered all around the world, and these three have to be seen to be […]




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Memes and GIFS: Is This…the Future of Your Brand?

The new influencer marketing – memes and GIFs: There is increasing popularity for memes and GIFs on social media. Every brand is making its story simple with memes and Gifs for attracting distracted audiences. Creating brand awareness between millennials and Gen Z is not an easy task as brands need to satisfy both the generations. […]

The post Memes and GIFS: Is This…the Future of Your Brand? appeared first on The Design Inspiration.






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New Google Travel Ads Feed Format May Be Rolling Out

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced the new features for travel search ads through integration with travel feeds. These may now be out in the wild, as we are seeing pricing and other rich markup showing up for hotel ads in Google Search.

Lluc B. Penycate posted some examples and screenshots on X of these out in the wild. He wrote, "I think we are seeing the new Google Hotel Ads format announced last week(s) which integrates rooms, prices and availability."

Here are those screenshots:

Google wrote a couple of weeks ago, "all hotel advertisers can now showcase feed data, such as hotels, prices, dates, ratings and images, in this ad format" and then shared some mock examples of those ads. But these look like them in real life.

Forum discussion at X.




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Google November 2024 Core Update Is Now Rolling Out - What We Know So Far

Google has begun rolling out the third core update for the year, the November 2024 core update. This update started to roll out on November 11, 2024 at around 3:30 pm and will take about two weeks to complete rolling out. This seems like a typical core update, without any new specifics about what changed or what improved.

We knew this update was coming - and it finally arrived yesterday afternoon. Google also told us not to expect HCU victim sites to recover with this update.

So far, we are seeing some folks suggest their rankings went down even more. But the vast majority of people are saying they are not seeing movement as of yet, as of the time I published this story. Of course, I will keep track of the chatter and let you know what people are seeing over the coming days. In addition, the volatility tracking tools are mostly all showing normal volatility - so maybe this has not kicked in as of yet.

And yes, it was released on the Veterans Day US holiday, but it seems like it was released well before the big holiday shopping season, post-Thanksgiving holiday.

Google posted this update on LinkedIn and X and wrote:

Today we released the November 2024 core update to Google Search.

This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.

We'll update our ranking release history page in the near future, and update it when the rollout is complete. For more information about core updates, please see here.

The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.

Google November 2024 Core Update Quick Facts:

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

  • Name: Google November 2024 Broad Core Update
  • Launched: November 11, 2024 at around 3:30 pm ET
  • Rollout: Will take about two weeks to roll out
  • Targets: It looks at all types of content
  • Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
  • Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
  • Impact: The normal core update stuff around helpful content.
  • Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
  • Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google's core update advice.
  • Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.

Google November 2024 Core Update Details

Google didn't say much specific about this November 2024 core update. Google did say, "This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search."

So it seems like it is more of the same:

  • Show more content that people find genuinely useful.
  • Show less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.

Yes, a lot of joking in the SEO community about these statements. Yep, it sounds a lot like the helpful content update statements... Yes, the helpful content update is no more, it's part of core updates now, in some sense...

Previous Broad Core Updates

Here is a list of the most recent core updates we've seen since Google started to confirm them. Previously we nicknamed them Phantom updates or unconfirmed updates.

Previous Helpful Content Update Impact

Here is the list of the previous Google helpful content updates:

Previous Unconfirmed Updates

We had a ton of unconfirmed updates between the August 2024 and November 2024 core update. I won't list them all, but you can scan them over here.

As a reminder, Google did tell us that an search update is coming soon. The last time we reported on an update was when I named it the Google Election 2024 unconfirmed update and before that was the Google Halloween 2024 Google search update and then before that on October 23, 24 and 26 and 27th and before that, October 19th and 20th volatility and then on October 15th, October 10th and then before that on October 2nd which lasted a couple of days. The Google August 2024 core update started on August 15th and officially completed on September 3rd. But it was still super volatile the day after it completed and also weeks after it completed and it has not cooled.

We saw big signals on and around September 6th, September 10th or so and maybe around September 14th. We also saw movement around September 18th, last weekend and Septmeber 25th and September 28th or so.

Google Tracking Tools On November 2024 Core Update (So Far)

Here is what these Google Search volatility tools are showing so far; keep in mind that this update can take about two weeks to fully roll out. And so far, the tools are mostly showing normal volatility but that might change in the coming days.

Semrush:

SimilarWeb:

Sistrix:

Wincher:

Cognitive SEO:

Accuranker:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Mozcast:

Mangools:

Algoroo:

SERPstat:

Data For SEO:

SEO Chatter

It just started rolling out last night, so the chatter is early, just like the tools:

Just the reminder I needed to "focus on quality content"'"again. Thanks, Google, I'd almost forgotten!

So by quality, do you mean similar to what previous core updates focused on or is there a specific change to look out for?

In search of "quality" and "usefulness" in the age of generative-AI-driven SERPs.

It will take 2 weeks to complete and 2 years to recover?

Asking for friends.

Fasten your seatbelts, Google has launched the November 2024 core update.

This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search

Good luck to the people still fighting.

Traffic on the very low tide since a week (billable visits), impression seem stable according search console, CTR dropping.

Luckily I'm busy with something not Google related !

Traffic Down :)

Swings on my personal results have been wild over last few days actually. Like normal, but on steroids!

Searched 150+ queries since morning unrelated to my niche...each of these queries were answered by AIO in a very organized form. So...worth not keeping hopes after this

It's been very quiet over the last few days. One article of mine gained a small bit of traction, but a couple of others barely saw any traffic at all. Not sure if it's the same for others.

Recently the fluctuations were too great. Either business as usual or downward. I am seeing more PAA boxes. More YouTube at the top. Other than that I do not see much.

Just more downward movement ಠ' ï'µ' à² 

Yes, lots of keywords back on page one, including some near the top, but I doubt it will result in a traffic increase because there are AIOs everywhere.

It's just a mess. shuffling, even more AI overviews for shopping comparison articles.

Also some local SEO chatter, and core updates do impact local rankings:

Seeing movements this early for local organic ranking for the following sectors (mostly Canada): Landscaping, HVAC, Psychologist, local furniture maker, renovation contractors.

Also later last night I asked if anyone is seeing movement:

While most say it is too early to tell, which I 100% agree with, here are the ones that say they are seeing movement:

It is probably too early to tell right now but we will keep you posted on what the SEO community is seeing over the coming days.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Black Hat World, Local Search Forum, X and LinkedIn.




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New: Google Search Supports C2PA Metadata For About This Image Feature

A couple of months ago, we reported how Google Search will label if an image was AI-generated, edited by photo editing software or taken with a camera by working with Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) as a technical standard. Well, now Google officially supports C2PA metadata in the about this image feature.

Google wrote this morning, Google Search now supports this [C2PA] metadata in the "About this image" feature."

Google updated its image meta data documentation to add a new section for "How C2PA metadata can appear in Google Search results."

The new section reads:

If an image contains C2PA metadata, Google can extract those details and may show information in the "About this image" feature, such as how the image was created or if it was edited with AI tools. This metadata comes from a signer, which is usually an app, device, or service (for example, photo editing software, the camera itself, or other services that modify or create images) that meets the following conditions:

  • The app, device, or service has adopted C2PA version 2.1 or later.
  • The image's manifest must be signed by a certificate from a Certification Authority on the C2PA Trust List.

It does seem like Adobe products, like Photoshop, Illustrated, and others, do support this metadata.

I just wonder how it handles the image above, which I generate using Midjourney AI and then edit later in Photoshop.

Forum discussion at X.




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Shutterstock AI launches – And Just Like That, The Revolution Starts

Shutterstock, the $2 billion market cap digital content company, has just announced the launch of a free AI generative art service. The announcement wasn’t exactly unexpected, but even so it’s going to rock the foundations of the creative arts industry to its core. It’s one thing to watch small upstart companies like Stability AI and Midjourney unveil artificially generated imagery. It’s altogether another to see a publicly quoted giant like Shutterstock embrace the technology as a first mover advantage. The...

The post Shutterstock AI launches – And Just Like That, The Revolution Starts appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.




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Tevel Autonomous Fruit Harvesting Bots – produce pickers face a fruitless future

Fruit harvesting is one of the trickiest parts of the agricultural spectrum. The fruit not only has to be selected when it’s at the ideal ripeness, but also has to be picked very carefully so it doesn’t bruise or suffer damage. Now Israeli made Tevel fruit harvesting bots promise to revolutionize the process of fruit harvesting in a big way. The technology, which integrates A.I. based computer vision with clever vacuum based drone technology, offers fruit farmers a perfect way...

The post Tevel Autonomous Fruit Harvesting Bots – produce pickers face a fruitless future appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.




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Want to play games under the stars? The Music Center is turning into an outdoor arcade

IndieCade's Night Games returns to downtown's Music Center, bringing a host of unique and experimental games focused on communal play. And being silly.




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How Adam Rosen Makes 7-figures/Year From Cold Email Outreach  

When Adam Rosen founded his first tech startup, he learned a lot of important skills before he eventually sold it. One of those skills was using cold email as a sales technique. Fast forward to today, Adam has his own…

The post How Adam Rosen Makes 7-figures/Year From Cold Email Outreach   appeared first on Niche Pursuits.




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How Jamie Penney is Growing a +$4000/Month Flipping Furniture YouTube Channel

Jamie Penney’s entrepreneurial adventure began when he was in university.  He dabbled in niche sites and a travel vlog on YouTube successfully until the recent Google updates, but he really found his groove when he focused his efforts on a…

The post How Jamie Penney is Growing a +$4000/Month Flipping Furniture YouTube Channel appeared first on Niche Pursuits.




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Fixing Google Search? Site Reputation Abuse Crackdown!

Jared and guest host Thomas Smith are here this week to offer an overview of the main news affecting Google, small publishers, and SEOs. They also share some interesting side hustles and a few very weird niche sites. They kick…

The post Fixing Google Search? Site Reputation Abuse Crackdown! appeared first on Niche Pursuits.







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It’s All About the NBA Playoffs in Atlanta, GA




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Have the signal loss challenges of the future already arrived?

It feels like just yesterday Google announced its plan to phase out the third-party cookie and sent the entire advertising industry into a tailspin.




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U.S. Open Outpaces the NBA Finals in Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL




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It’s All About MLB Baseball in Cleveland, OH




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The Paradox of Prayer and the Revelation of Beauty

Fr. Stephen speaks about the paradox of prayer and the personal character it has in our life as well as the personal character of beauty and the resolution of all paradox.




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Truth and Existence

Fr. Stephen looks at the Orthodox connection made between truth and our existence and what it means for our life.




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Truth and Existence: the Consequences

Fr. Stephen looks at last week's podcast on truth and existence and the impact it should have on how we live.




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Speaking with Authority

Fr. Stephen looks at the nature of authority and its root in the reality of the Cross.




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The Icon as Truth

Fr. Stephen looks at how it is possible to distort an icon and how the distortions within our own hearts affect what we see.




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I Don't Know About That

If you have ever felt like the right words in an argument simply won't come, perhaps you should read these thoughts.




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To Believe the Truth

What do the Scriptures ask of us when they speak of "believing?" Fr. Stephen looks at the nature of true believing and its importance for our lives.




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To Tell the Truth

Fr. Stephen looks at telling the truth as a matter that goes to the heart of our true existence.




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Existence and Truth

Fr. Stephen examines the association between existence and truth as set forth in the work of a number of modern Orthodox writers, as well as the Fathers.




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Get Out of Your Mind

Are "mental" and "spiritual" the same thing? Fr. Stephen looks at how modern misunderstandings of the spiritual life can distort our Orthodox practices.




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Evolution, Creation, and the Hidden Cause

Fr. Stephen reflects on the hidden nature of God's work.




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Christmas Throughout the Ages

Fr. Stephen offers thoughts on the daily consequences of the "Word made flesh" and suggests ways that we might live Christmas every day of our lives.




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The Truth of the Soul

There is a distinction between our personality and what it means to be person. Fr. Stephen Freeman explains this in terms of the soul and offers very helpful thoughts on what awaits us in heaven.




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The Truth of Ourselves

Fr. Stephen observes that the real truth of our lives before God is best found in our weaknesses rather than in our strengths.




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Nothing But the Whole Truth

Fr. Stephen looks at Orthodoxy and our lives as a matter of the "whole" truth, rather than a "one-sidedness." He urges us to press forward into the whole truth of Christ.




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18 Lessons I’ve Learned about Blogging

The post 18 Lessons I’ve Learned about Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

In November 2002 I first heard the word blog after a mate e-mailed me a link and said I should consider starting one. Within 24 hours I’d created my first blog (a blogspot blog that doesn’t exist today). Since that time I’ve run 20+ blogs (most have survived, some have ...more

The post 18 Lessons I’ve Learned about Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

     



  • Miscellaneous Blog Tips

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Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? 7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging

The post Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? 7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

Ever wondered if tapping away at your keyboard can really pay the bills? Is it really possible to make a living from blogging? Is it just a small number of people making money from blogging? Is it only really possible to make money blogging if you write about the topic ...more

The post Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? 7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

     




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All About the Church New Year (September 1)

This episode kicks off the new "A Year in Time" series with the Church New Year. Find out why we celebrate a new year in September, and what Caesar Augustus and St. John the Baptist have in common. We'll also read through a section of the beautiful Akathist "Glory to God for All Things." Happy New Year!




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Summertime: Checking Out to Check In

In which Nicole considers how to check out this summer--in order to truly check in. Apologies to the entire southern hemisphere. Also a unique strategy to reduce addiction to social media. Connect with Nicole on Instagram or Twitter (@NicoleRoccas). Mentioned in this episode: ● Romans 12:2 and Hebrews 12:1-2 ● Akathist of Thanksgiving, Ikos and Irmos 6 ● “Quit Social Media Every Other Day,” James Hamblin, The Atlantic (June 15, 2017): https://bit.ly/3k6Ifj5 ● TIME ETERNAL BOOK CLUB - August 12, 2021 - Register on Eventbrite: https://bit.ly/2UMvP5r The intro and outro of this podcast are the songs "Idea" and "Remedy for Melancholy" by Kai Engel, available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.




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Ep 070: Ghost of Trauma Future (Time in Trauma Part 6)

Some thoughts on how trauma affects our capacity for hope and our attitude toward the future. Send listener questions to Nicole via email (timeeternal@ancientfaith.com) or as private message on Instagram (@nicoleroccas), Twitter (@nicoleroccas), or Facebook (@Nicole M. Roccas). The outro of this podcast is the song "Remedy for Melancholy" by Kai Engel, available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.




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Losing Our Christian Youth?

Joining Bill and Fr. Barnabas is Dr. Ann Bezzerides, the Director of the Office of Vocation and Ministry at Hellenic College/Holy Cross. Together they bring empirical and practical perspectives in assessing the existing challenges and focusing on workable solutions that parishes and parents can implement.