********** MUSIC **********
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Filter efficiency 100.000 (0 matches/810 results)
********** XKCD **********
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Room Code
Match ID: 0 Score: 1000.00 source: xkcd.com
qualifiers: 1000.00 xkcd
Ocean Loop
Match ID: 1 Score: 1000.00 source: xkcd.com
qualifiers: 1000.00 xkcd
Local Group
Match ID: 2 Score: 1000.00 source: xkcd.com
qualifiers: 1000.00 xkcd
Exponential Growth
Match ID: 3 Score: 1000.00 source: xkcd.com
qualifiers: 1000.00 xkcd
Filter efficiency 99.506 (4 matches/810 results)
********** TRAVEL **********
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Be a better tourist! 28 ways to have a fantastic holiday – without infuriating the locals
Tue, 28 May 2024 09:00:48 GMT
From badly behaved travellers to horrendous carbon emissions, summer holidays aren’t always an unmitigated good. Here is how to travel responsibly and still have a great time
Tourism is almost back to pre-pandemic levels – which is good news and bad news. However much holiday destinations rely on them, no one wants badly behaved tourists blocking views, partying wildly in the streets or pricing local people out of their own cities. Overtourism, carbon emissions, nature depletion and plastic pollution are all huge concerns. But that doesn’t mean you have to cancel your holiday. Here are 28 ways to be a better tourist this summer.
Continue reading...A report by cross-party MPs offers a damning verdict, six years after a ‘root and branch’ review called for wide-ranging reform
The vertiginous pace of events since Boris Johnson’s 2019 election victory has been such that pledges made only a few years ago seem almost to belong to another era. “I am a great believer in rail,” said Mr Johnson in 2021, announcing a major programme of reforms to the country’s network, “but for too long passengers have not had the level of service they deserve.”
Travellers habituated to late-running, overcrowded and over-expensive trains knew how right he was. But to reprise the famous assertion of Mr Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, three years on “nothing has changed”. This week, the last word on successive Conservative governments’ incompetent handling of the railways was delivered by the House of Commons public accounts committee. The MPs’ damning report concluded that since the “root and branch” Williams review was commissioned in 2018, following timetabling mayhem in the north of England, “very little” has been achieved, and that “no one is putting the needs of passengers and taxpayers first”.
Continue reading...We were supposed to be on the Italian Riviera, but an impromptu switch to a glamping break on the Llŷn peninsula proved a more than acceptable substitute
Everyone has a good holiday disaster story, don’t they? Even experienced travel journalists.
Ours was a twist on the classic passport fiasco, that saw us having to “exchange” a two-week trip to the sunny Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera for sitting on a compost toilet in Wales.
Continue reading...Is this what the “pro-life” movement wanted?
The post Sterilization, Murders, Suicides: Bans Haven’t Slowed Abortions, and They’re Costing Lives appeared first on The Intercept.
ICC warrants against Israeli officials would mean they can’t travel — and their patrons in the U.S. would be pressured over continued arms sales.
The post Can a U.S. Ally Actually Be Held Accountable for War Crimes in the ICC? appeared first on The Intercept.
When asked what makes this an “emotional support squid” and not just another stuffed animal, its creator says:
They’re emotional support squid because they’re large, and cuddly, but also cheerfully bright and derpy. They make great neck pillows (and you can fidget with the arms and tentacles) for travelling, and, on a more personal note, when my mum was sick in the hospital I gave her one and she said it brought her “great comfort” to have her squid tucked up beside her and not be a nuisance while she was sleeping.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered...
The 71-year-old veteran peace activist discusses the war on Gaza, the Biden administration, and shaking up Congress.
The post Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin on Disrupting the U.S. War Machine appeared first on The Intercept.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Commercial galleries across the capital open their doors to showcase work by their most important artists, from American football and fountains to porn theatres and Palestine
This weekend (and beyond), commercial galleries all over the city will be showcasing work by their most important artists – and admission is free. Here are 10 great shows to drop in on if you’re in the capital, from a film by Nan Goldin to images of Palestinian youth.
Continue reading...The 2018 hit about a cleaner who dreams of becoming a star in Nashville will begin theatre run in Edinburgh
Wild Rose, the award-winning movie about a Glasgow country singer, is to be turned into a musical. Writer Nicole Taylor is adapting her 2018 screenplay and working with John Tiffany, the director of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The show will begin at the Royal Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh in March 2025, with further dates expected to be announced.
Taylor adapted the recent Netflix hit One Day, and her other small-screen credits include Three Girls, The Nest and The C Word. She said she always believed in the dramatic potential of Wild Rose: “I held on to the rights, even though as a first-time writer I had no negotiating position and I’d never written a word for theatre. I knew it would take theatrical form at some point.”
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak is so palpably convinced he can’t win he’s promising any old mad thing. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are falling off kayaks
People say manufacturing has declined under the Conservatives, but the sheer volume of outrage manufactured by Rishi Sunak’s national service wingnuttery at the weekend was last night compounded by his decision to unveil a quadruple lock to the state pension. Truly the seven-blade razor of advanced pensions technology. It’s so innovative it might even spin off and manufacture another deranged Loose Women segment. I am still howling at the moment on the show a couple of weeks ago when Janet Street-Porter demanded of Sunak: “Why do you hate pensioners? WHY DO YOU HATE PENSIONERS? That is the only conclusion I can come to.” State of the art lunacy, made end-to-end in the UK. Let’s face it: this is what you call a joined-up manufacturing industry.
But look, for whatever reason, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves preferred to spend their afternoon at a facility where they manufacture something other than abstract nouns: Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage. A lot of election campaign visits are to places connected with jobs the politician probably wanted to do when they were little. Digger driver. Train driver. Biscuit factory worker. Today’s broadly fell into the category “spaceman”. Airbus are serious manufacturers in aerospace and defence, and recently won a new contract to maintain the Skynet military satellite system (although, I obviously massively misunderstood the movies because I hadn’t realised we were supposed to think calling things Skynet was cool?).
Continue reading...Ruddy, born in Canada, produced more than 30 movies, and was on hand for the very top and very bottom
Albert S Ruddy, a colorful, Canadian-born producer and writer who won Oscars for The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, developed the raucous prison-sports comedy The Longest Yard and helped create the hit sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, has died at age 94.
Ruddy died “peacefully” Saturday at the UCLA medical center, according to a spokesperson, who added that among his final words were: “The game is over, but we won the game.”
Continue reading...After Guardian writers picked their top big screen franchises of all time, from Alien to Toy Story, now you have had your say
Having seen Furiosa last week, my vote goes to Mad Max.
Continue reading...Joe Bloom put an old-fashioned red phone on a bridge and invited random strangers to share their views with the world. The result is an Instagram sensation – even if young people can’t work a landline
Joe Bloom has always admired the art of the phone conversation. “You see it in movies: it’s always this nostalgic and almost glamorous thing, holding a phone up to your ear and talking into this object,” he says. (Ironically, we’re talking over Zoom.) But many of us have cut phone calls out of our lives, losing touch with their otherworldly magic. While we’re perfectly content staring at screens and scrolling through endless content, speaking into the ether has become unnervingly unnatural. And even when we do take a call, it’s usually through earphones on the move rather than by actually sitting down and putting a phone to our ear.
For Bloom, this telephobia is part of a wider trend relating to our increasingly poor connections with each other. “There are a lot of barriers now stopping us from talking in certain ways to each other,” he says. As a young person, Bloom himself struggled with face-to-face interactions. “Growing up I found eye contact really difficult, and it made me struggle talking to someone.”
Now, though, Bloom talks and listens for the sake of art. His Instagram series A View from a Bridge invites strangers walking over London’s bridges to share their thoughts on life through an old-school red telephone, and pairs each recording with an introspective, carefully chosen piece of music. The project has been a hit; just three months since he posted the first video – which featured a man called Jason talking about the dangers of being overly patriotic – the page has amassed 232,000 followers.
Continue reading...
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
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From badly behaved travellers to horrendous carbon emissions, summer holidays aren’t always an unmitigated good. Here is how to travel responsibly and still have a great time
Tourism is almost back to pre-pandemic levels – which is good news and bad news. However much holiday destinations rely on them, no one wants badly behaved tourists blocking views, partying wildly in the streets or pricing local people out of their own cities. Overtourism, carbon emissions, nature depletion and plastic pollution are all huge concerns. But that doesn’t mean you have to cancel your holiday. Here are 28 ways to be a better tourist this summer.
Continue reading...Concrete is strong and durable – which is why it’s the basis for so much of our infrastructure. It’s also terrible for the planet, due to one key ingredient: cement, which is responsible for almost 90% of concrete emissions. Researchers have now found a way to recover old cement while also reducing the environmental impact of recycling steel. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Julian Allwood, professor of engineering and the environment at the University Of Cambridge, to find out how the process works, and what it could mean for the emissions generated by the construction industry
Find more on concrete here in a special series from the Guardian
Continue reading...Vulnerable economies must be supported with finance and practical aid to find long term solutions, says Jorge Moreira da Silva of Unops
The world has a “moral responsibility” to support the fight for survival being faced by small island states, according to a leading UN agency chief.
Ahead of the fourth annual conference of small island developing states (Sids) being held in Antigua and Barbuda this week, Jorge Moreira da Silva, the executive director of the (Unops), called for recognition of the problems faced by what he called “some of the most vulnerable economies in the world” who contributed less than 1% to global carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Buying refurbished tech might feel risky if you’ve never done it before – but we’re here to tell you, it’s the future. Here’s what you need to know ...
Whether it’s eating less meat, swapping your car for a bike or saying no to single-use plastic, many of us are making lifestyle switches to live more ethically. However, fewer of us are aware of the huge environmental impact of something we use every day – our smartphone – and what we can all do to reduce it. Keen to know more? Here are five reasons why your next smartphone should be refurbished …
Keep your carbon footprint in check
The metal extraction, shipping and production that take place before a smartphone ends up in your hands create carbon emissions – and carbon emissions are the number one cause of the climate crisis. Metal mining and the manufacturing of smartphones, which predominantly take place in the global south, are also very polluting and therefore damaging to delicate ecosystems. Extending the lifespan of a smartphone can help to reduce this impact – the longer a smartphone is in use, the less damage is done to the planet. Obviously it’s not always possible to avoid needing a new phone, so this is why buying a refurbished one – and selling or recycling your old phones – is a more sustainable choice.
SEMrush and Ahrefs are among
the most popular tools in the SEO industry. Both companies have been in
business for years and have thousands of customers per month.
If you're a professional SEO or trying to do digital
marketing on your own, at some point you'll likely consider using a tool to
help with your efforts. Ahrefs and SEMrush are two names that will likely
appear on your shortlist.
In this guide, I'm going to help you learn more about these SEO tools and how to choose the one that's best for your purposes.
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a popular SEO tool with a wide range of
features—it's the leading competitor research service for online marketers.
SEMrush's SEO Keyword Magic tool offers over 20 billion Google-approved
keywords, which are constantly updated and it's the largest keyword database.
The program was developed in 2007 as SeoQuake is a
small Firefox extension
Features
Ahrefs is a leading SEO platform that offers a set of
tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors, and monitor your
niche. The company was founded in 2010, and it has become a popular choice
among SEO tools. Ahrefs has a keyword index of over 10.3 billion keywords and
offers accurate and extensive backlink data updated every 15-30 minutes and it
is the world's most extensive backlink index database.
Features
Direct Comparisons: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Now that you know a little more about each tool, let's
take a look at how they compare. I'll analyze each tool to see how they differ
in interfaces, keyword research resources, rank tracking, and competitor
analysis.
User Interface
Ahrefs and SEMrush both offer comprehensive information
and quick metrics regarding your website's SEO performance. However, Ahrefs
takes a bit more of a hands-on approach to getting your account fully set up,
whereas SEMrush's simpler dashboard can give you access to the data you need
quickly.
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the elements
found on each dashboard and highlight the ease with which you can complete
tasks.
AHREFS
The Ahrefs dashboard is less cluttered than that of
SEMrush, and its primary menu is at the very top of the page, with a search bar
designed only for entering URLs.
Additional features of the Ahrefs platform include:
SEMRUSH
When you log into the SEMrush Tool, you will find four
main modules. These include information about your domains, organic keyword
analysis, ad keyword, and site traffic.
You'll also find some other options like
Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have user-friendly dashboards,
but Ahrefs is less cluttered and easier to navigate. On the other hand, SEMrush
offers dozens of extra tools, including access to customer support resources.
When deciding on which dashboard to use, consider what
you value in the user interface, and test out both.
If you're looking to track your website's search engine
ranking, rank tracking features can help. You can also use them to monitor your
competitors.
Let's take a look at Ahrefs vs. SEMrush to see which
tool does a better job.
The Ahrefs Rank Tracker is simpler to use. Just type in
the domain name and keywords you want to analyze, and it spits out a report
showing you the search engine results page (SERP) ranking for each keyword you
enter.
Rank Tracker looks at the ranking performance of
keywords and compares them with the top rankings for those keywords. Ahrefs
also offers:
You'll see metrics that help you understand your
visibility, traffic, average position, and keyword difficulty.
It gives you an idea of whether a keyword would be
profitable to target or not.
SEMRush offers a tool called Position Tracking. This
tool is a project tool—you must set it up as a new project. Below are a few of
the most popular features of the SEMrush Position Tracking tool:
All subscribers are given regular data updates and
mobile search rankings upon subscribing
The platform provides opportunities to track several
SERP features, including Local tracking.
Intuitive reports allow you to track statistics for the
pages on your website, as well as the keywords used in those pages.
Identify pages that may be competing with each other
using the Cannibalization report.
Ahrefs is a more user-friendly option. It takes seconds
to enter a domain name and keywords. From there, you can quickly decide whether
to proceed with that keyword or figure out how to rank better for other
keywords.
SEMrush allows you to check your mobile rankings and
ranking updates daily, which is something Ahrefs does not offer. SEMrush also
offers social media rankings, a tool you won't find within the Ahrefs platform.
Both are good which one do you like let me know in the comment.
Keyword research is closely related to rank tracking,
but it's used for deciding which keywords you plan on using for future content
rather than those you use now.
When it comes to SEO, keyword research is the most
important thing to consider when comparing the two platforms.
The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer provides you with thousands
of keyword ideas and filters search results based on the chosen search engine.
Ahrefs supports several features, including:
SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 billion
keywords for Google. You can type in any keyword you want, and a list of
suggested keywords will appear.
The Keyword Magic Tool also lets you to:
Both of these tools offer keyword research features and
allow users to break down complicated tasks into something that can be
understood by beginners and advanced users alike.
If you're interested in keyword suggestions, SEMrush
appears to have more keyword suggestions than Ahrefs does. It also continues to
add new features, like the Keyword Gap tool and SERP Questions recommendations.
Both platforms offer competitor analysis tools,
eliminating the need to come up with keywords off the top of your head. Each
tool is useful for finding keywords that will be useful for your competition so
you know they will be valuable to you.
Ahrefs' domain comparison tool lets you compare up to five websites (your website and four competitors) side-by-side.it also shows you how your site is ranked against others with metrics such as backlinks, domain ratings, and more.
Use the Competing Domains section to see a list of your
most direct competitors, and explore how many keywords matches your competitors
have.
To find more information about your competitor, you can
look at the Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools and type in their URL
instead of yours.
SEMrush provides a variety of insights into your
competitors' marketing tactics. The platform enables you to research your
competitors effectively. It also offers several resources for competitor
analysis including:
Traffic Analytics helps you identify where your
audience comes from, how they engage with your site, what devices visitors use
to view your site, and how your audiences overlap with other websites.
SEMrush's Organic Research examines your website's
major competitors and shows their organic search rankings, keywords they are
ranking for, and even if they are ranking for any (SERP) features and more.
The Market Explorer search field allows you to type in
a domain and lists websites or articles similar to what you entered. Market
Explorer also allows users to perform in-depth data analytics on These
companies and markets.
SEMrush wins here because it has more tools dedicated to
competitor analysis than Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs offers a lot of functionality
in this area, too. It takes a combination of both tools to gain an advantage
over your competition.
When it comes to keyword data research, you will become
confused about which one to choose.
Consider choosing Ahrefs if you
Consider SEMrush if you:
Both tools are great. Choose the one which meets your
requirements and if you have any experience using either Ahrefs or SEMrush let
me know in the comment section which works well for you.
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