“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
On the subject of feline bathing, bacon products, and tongue salons
Sometimes I wake up from an otherwise perfectly sound sleep with the oddest ideas. Take this morning, for example. I lay there in the dark at just before 3 a.m. wondering just why I had awoken. I was just about to drift off back into blissful slumber, when I heard it.
SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP...
My orange tabby, Marari, was rather noisily taking an early morning bath right next to my head. I don't know what trouble he got himself into in the middle of the night that he felt required some extreme cleaning, but he was really going at it.
SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLUP SCHLEP SCHLUP lick lick lick SCHLUP...
At first, still halfway asleep, I thought the noise presaged the wet, hairy, unwelcome arrival of a hairball upon the clean sheets I had just put on the bed the night before. My two cats are quite healthy, but they seem to have a terrible allergic reaction when it comes to two things: 1. clean bedding, and 2. clean laundry. I don't know what it is about clean laundry that seems to necessitate an immediate purge of the feline stomach of unwanted hair they have ingested while bathing, but it has happened enough times to make me suspicious.
Yes, I'm afraid that more than once, I have been awakened from a sound sleep by the awful HURRRRP HURRRRRP that signals another hairy, steaming present is about to be bestowed upon the world.
That isn't the kind of thought one can have and stay half asleep, so of course I instantly sat up in bed and turned the light on.
What is the Internet hiding from you?
More than you might think. In this short but sweet presentation at TED, Eli Pariser reveals that the major search engines, content aggregators and portals are filtering what you see on an unprecedented level.
Pariser argues very effectively that we're passing the torch from human editors to computer algorithms that end up providing not what we should see, but what we want to see.
You're Doing It Wong Part 2: Consistency Breeds Consistency
In part 1 of this series, we talked about how the one rule for successful content is 'What do you genuinely enjoy making?' In other words, don't try to be something that you're not. Create content that you're passionate about, and you will find people who share that passion.
Today I want to expand on that idea a little more and reveal another secret that Freddie Wong has also hit upon. It is both the single hardest and the single easiest thing about building a website through rich content, and yet it is something that eludes probably 95% of all websites that are setting out to do what you're doing.
You're Doing It Wong Part 1: The One Rule for Content
Filmmaker Freddie Wong is one of those Internet success stories that really make you sit up and take notice. Manager of Los Angeles-based media production company Overcrank Media, Freddie made a name for himself producing extremely creative short action films, many of which went viral (one of my favorites that always makes me laugh is Fire Hands).
Recently, after exceeding over one million subscribers in one year on his YouTube channel, Freddie wrote an excellent article sharing some of the secrets he learned in his meteoric rise. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be expanding some of his fantastic points in greater detail. The first concept I want to talk about today is, I think, the best answer I've ever seen to the questions, "What should I write about? What type of content should I post to my website?"
In Defense of Metaphors
I have to say that there's an awful lot of hot air on the Internet... and despite our name, we really aren't in the business of making more of it. Clarity is often endangered by overly colorful writing.
Almost thirty years in the making, the river Beautiful will be published as a premium hardcover, a value softcover, and a very special online multimedia experience.
Select a chapter below to view exclusive content from the upcoming collection of new and selected works by Jason Christopher Hackwith.
original prose, poetry, lyrics, illustrations and typography
