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satanfemme · 2 years ago

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im really trying to find a place in my spirituality/religion/personal philosophy or whatever as an excatholique. idk. i get that it takes time and effort to find a new place in the world. but right now really i just wanna smoke a fat blunt with ol luci downstairs. any advice?

honestly? my advice is that if right now u wanna smoke a fat blunt with luci, you should literally go ahead and do that (u know, metaphorically speaking lol). try it out! see if it fits! it might, or it might not, or it might feel good now and then bad in a few weeks/months/years -- and if that happens you can just try something else out instead. nothing wrt ur personal spirituality needs to be inherent, permanent, or serious.

letting urself experiment with different beliefs/paths is hard when you're raised catholic, but ime it's the only way you're gonna find a comfortable niche! just keep it no-pressure, low-stakes. because it is. genuinely. I 100% promise. despite what the church sometimes teaches, an all loving g-d will always forgive you and welcome you back if you change your mind later or if you wanna go back at any point. and this is just my personal opinion: but most deities are like that in general too.

being a human is so hard and confusing if you get too focused on the big picture. so for now, focus on this moment. pursue however you feel in this exact moment. then stay mindful. and when the moment changes, you may notice the way you feel changes too, and then you should pursue that instead. this includes taking a break when you want to take a break, or analyzing your beliefs through a psychiatric lens if you ever notice a pattern of distress.

stay open, too. read and learn from as many varying sources as you can. different religions, sects, teachers, philosophers, etc. and be critical of those sources. ask yourself, "why do they believe this? why do they want others to believe this? who does this benefit? who might this hurt?", as well as "if I followed these teachings, who would I be? would I be the person I want to be? would I be someone else? how would I benefit? how would others benefit? could this hurt me in any way? could this hurt others in any way?" thirdly, pay attention to the other people involved in whatever you're looking at, and ask, "are these the kinds of people I want to surround myself with? are these the kinds of people I want my unaffiliated friends, s/o, or family to associate with? how do they treat people with different beliefs? how do they treat me? what do they have to gain or lose from me joining them? would they be ok if I left later on?"

and on a serious note: learn the BITE model. cults are real, and prey upon questioning people. scientology, mormonism, and jehovah's witnesses are all cults and dangerous. in the left hand path, joys of satan is a cult. the church of satan and satanic temple are not cults (afaik) but deeply flawed/harmful in fairly covert ways. individual churches/groups within an otherwise harmless religious sect can also be cults, so don't necessarily trust people based on the seemingly-safe labels they advertise. also, relatedly, please please go out of ur way to actively research antisemitism, dog whistles, and antisemitic appropriation. these prejudices are unavoidable no matter what path you look at (excluding judaism itself, I'm assuming), so you're inevitably going to encounter them again and again (and most likely already have). don't contribute to that harm.

anyways, that's a lot to process but I hope it helps. I understand how difficult this can be, myself being an excatholic occultist/devil worshiper (who still holds loose ties to catholicism anyway cause fr this shit isn't serious and it's fun to mix-n-match). and btw if ur ever really craving xtianity but don't wanna put up with the shittiness of most xtian churches, universal unitarianism is generally pretty ok and openly leftist (and not strictly xtian either, but that still kinda depends on the individual church imo).

wishing u the best of luck!

#Anonymous

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phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust · 3 years ago

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do you have any theories about the india trip ?? personally, im not sure what to think about it, but i’d love to hear your thoughts !!

(Sorry its taken me so long to answer this - it just got lost in my drafts cause im an idiot lmao 🤦‍♀️)

Im not entirely certain on what I believe happened in India, if in fact anything did happen at all - but more on that later! I guess though that these are the main theories (though if you have any differing opinions/theories, feel free to discuss them!):

1. Paul rejected John’s advancements

2. John wanted to further their relationship, and Paul wanted to maintain the ‘friends with benefits’ situation they already had

3. Nothing significant happened between the two (yet something still changed in John)

I’ll try to discuss which theories I find the most convincing, compelling and substantiated - as well as offering my own opinions and hypothesis’s ^^ (discussion bellow the cut)

1. Paul rejected John’s advancements

The theory I would say im most drawn to - not the theory that im necessarily most convinced by though - is that John made a move on Paul, after a few years of pining for him, and was subsequently rejected. Its a theory that I tend to be compelled by, but I have to admit that its one I struggle to justify entirely. The problem with this theory, for me, is that this is a conclusion ive drawn based mostly off of what their relationship appeared to look like after India. It seems as though something must have happened between them to have ruptured their relationship as profoundly as it did - and because they were on relatively good terms before India*, combined with certain inferences we could draw from comments John made regarding his feelings towards Paul and their relationship, it feels as though it’s possible that he made an advance on Paul, which was rejected and thus caused the ultimate disintegration of the Lennon/McCartney relationship.

(*I mean, their relationship was always complicated and difficult - but it seems that it was okay-ish prior to India, and then just inexplicably plummeted after the trip)

But nobody (as far as im aware) has confirmed, or even really alluded to, this advancement or rejection ever having happened. And the lack of evidence substantiating the claim is a major draw back for me!

However, I do also feel as though nobody’s really come out about anything that happened in India - all ive heard is that they meditated, wrote songs, John and Cyn fought, and Ringo ate baked beans. But like, more must have happened on the trip, surely? Im not saying the absence of information regarding the trip is proof that there was a big “lovers quarrel” between John and Paul, and that everyone involved in that trip is now just sworn to secrecy or something - but like, id just like to see a biographer really investigate the holiday, and try to conclude what events might have occurred during the trip, because as of right now, with the information we have, it seems to have been, bizarrely, both a lacklustre and uneventful, yet still hugely impactful event. If the narrative of the “India trip” were to be shifted in the future in light of new information, the same way the narrative of “Let It Be/Get Back” is being changed, I wouldn’t be surprised!

2. John wanted more, but Paul didn’t

Another popular theory is that John and Paul were engaged in something of a physical affair, but in India John proposed (or perhaps demanded even) that they take their relationship further, and Paul just wasn’t compelled to do so.

Beliefs vary regarding this, based on how far you personally think their relationship went: some might say they only ever did a little drunken experimenting with one another, and that it was just a fun fling until John suggested they take it further. Others might argue that they were in fact in a committed relationship, and John wanted to go public with it - or at the very least, demanded exclusivity between him and Paul.

In entertaining this theory, im most compelled to believe that John and Paul were engaged in occasional “flings”, and perhaps by ‘68 were even acknowledging that there was some deeper and more sincere between them - but ultimately, I don’t think Paul would have ever been inclined to fully commit to John, because I think he always wanted children and a family. In addition to this, though its clear John and Paul were passionate about one another, it isn’t clear how compatible they were in the long term - and with Paul being the more grounded of the too, I suspect he would have recognised this incompatibility, which John (the idealist) might not have.

Though I admit that John could certainly be unrealistic and irrational, im not convinced that he suggested to Paul they go public with their relationship, because I think John still had a fairly strong sense of his place in popular culture, and would have still been able to recognise that if they were to “come out”, it would probably deeply and irreparably damage both their careers - as well as George and Ringo’s too - at least amongst the general public. They’d still have some ardent fans, but their following overall would have become far more niche, and the “beatlemania” would’ve worn off swiftly. Im not sure if either of them would’ve been willing to take that heat in ‘68, especially not Paul, who as I mentioned earlier, I think might have recognised the futility and incompatibility inherent in their relationship.

Then again though, John was always a little “cocky”* when it came to his sexuality - I think if an interviewer were to genuinely have enquired into his sexuality, straight up asking him “Are you bi? Gay?” I get the sense that he would have told us! Sure he’d probably have dressed the response up with a dozen quick quips and jokes, but ultimately, I think he would have given a sincere response. And so, perhaps he did feel he had the confidence, at least in India, to actually “come out”, but if Paul wasn’t willing to make this official with him, perhaps this confidence dissipated.

(*No pun intended you pervs🤦‍♂️)

Another thing to note about India is that they’d have been relatively secluded, as well as off the drugs/drinks for the most part - and this would have forced them to really reflect upon their relationship. Perhaps John saw that he wasn’t contented with Cynthia, and recognised his desire for more from Paul - and so in such a raw state of mind, I can see how he’d become so shattered if Paul were to have rejected him (that statement could relate both to the first and second theory, I feel). Perhaps John made an advance upon Paul whilst they were both sober for the first time, and that changed their relationship somehow? Just thinking out loud here!

But again, this theory overall has the same problem as the first in that, though it appears to make sense, it still lacks proof; it ultimately isn’t a substantiated claim.

3. Nothing happened between J&P, but something changed

This is probably the theory that everybody is least interested in hearing, but I still think its a pretty valid one, albeit the least dramatic (In my opinion though its still a really interesting perspective to explore though!).

Its possible that nothing of particular significance happened in India, but something still shifted in John, causing him to vilify and reject Paul. The issue with this though, is that it begs the question: why did John undergo such a significant change in India then?

Id argue that perhaps John was making very subtle and slight moves towards Paul, that Paul either ignored or didn't pick up on. Id assume that perhaps John had been hinting at this desire for awhile now, and maybe he got it into his head that in India, where him and Paul would have a lot of time to be alone and intimate, his feelings would finally be reciprocated. But then, Paul never picked up on these hints, and never made any advancements - and this broke something within John. It would fit neatly within the Yoko narrative, because it offers reasoning to the abrupt but intense attachment John formed towards her almost immediately after India - as well as explaining the sudden vilification of Paul. But I suppose that the first two theories also fit pretty neatly within the Yoko narrative, because they all relate to the same basic concept that John wanted more from Paul, and Paul didn’t - and so he tried to replace him with Yoko.

I suppose though, that the this theory overall could also be countered by making the argument that Paul also began to spiral after India, and so some occurrence presumably must have happened to Paul too. I wonder though if its possible that maybe Pauls spiralling was kind of a result of Johns? I get the sense though that Paul would need a change in his life to cause his mental health to seriously deteriorate, but I don’t feel like the same is necessarily true for John - I think John is sort of the type to spiral, irregardless of whether his life undergoes a significant change or not, because I think John was the force driving a lot of the drama and troubles throughout his lifetime. So if Johns mental well-being started seriously deteriorating, I can see this being a cause of panic and anxiety for Paul.

But something that further inclines me to believe that an actual event occurred between John and Paul is this extract from Geoff Emmericks memoir (x)(id recommend reading the entire extract, its interesting!):

‘I glanced in Paul’s direction. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless and weary. He didn’t have much to say about India that day, or any other. I sensed at that moment that something fundamental in them had changed.”’

It just really feels as though there was some confrontation between John and Paul that had to have happened to perpetuate the miscommunication later seen between them. Like if there hadn’t been some kind of confrontation, then I can’t really understand why Paul would be reluctant to speak about India, or harbour any regrets or dismay regarding the journey. Perhaps you could drill it down to the betrayal they appeared to have felt by Maharishi allegedly hitting on girls - but I feel like this was a “betrayal” mostly felt by John, I never really got the sense that Paul was deeply effected by it.

But yeah - those are the main theories I think.

Overall, I think that the third theory is probably the most substantiated claim, but I think it leaves a lot to desired. It just doesn’t feel like it totally fits together, as though theres more to the story - but I guess relationships and peoples psyches aren’t puzzles, and so not everything is always going to piece together perfectly; but I dunno.

Like I said though, the theory im most compelled by is the first. I acknowledge that it lacks evidence, but it just seems to make a lot of sense to me! But really, who knows what the hell happened in India?

If anyone else has an opinion on all this, or wants to expand upon or even suggest a new theory, feel free to! I always like hearing from you guys!

#mclennon #asks #@cinnamontoastandtears #thanks for the ask!#india #what the fuck happened in india #maharishi #pauls sexuality #discussion

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alanajacksontx · 6 years ago

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Writing SEO meta descriptions in 2018: best practice across mobile and desktop

Back in 2016, my colleague Christopher Ratcliff wrote an excellent how-to guide about meta descriptions here at Search Engine Watch.

Much of what is included in that article is still useful. The good and bad examples Chris analyses are still on point and you would do a lot worse than to write your own descriptions according to his takeaway checklist even two years down the line.

But as is case in the world of search, things are always changing. SEO copywriters and marketers need to be adapting to an ever-evolving SERP landscape across multiple screens and taking into consideration Google’s oft-tweaked algorithm.

Google is increasingly unpredictable with how it displays meta descriptions. Today, the length at which it truncates descriptions can vary significantly from result to result. Sometimes the service will auto-generate descriptions or amend them. We are even seeing SERPs with far less descriptions in use at all with the rise of other rich features such as answer boxes and carousels.

Let’s take a look at some examples and consider meta description best practice for 2018.

First things first – what are meta descriptions?

Meta descriptions are a short piece of written content marked up in the HTML of a webpage.

Good examples typically elaborate on the information given in the title tag and aim to entice the searcher to click through. They might give a flavour of the content on that particular page by describing it…

…or providing an excerpt…

They sometimes give a broader description of the site.

And if the result is a branded one, the meta description might describe the brand more generally.

We often associate meta descriptions with the grey text displayed under the URL in the search results. They also appear when pages are shared on social channels like Twitter and Facebook.

Descriptions can also be tweaked specifically for Facebook optimization using Open Graph markup and for Twitter using Twitter Cards.

Meta description lengths – they’re changing

Until very recently, it was standard practice for Google to set a fairly predictable limit for how long meta descriptions could be. As Chris highlights in his last piece, we could expect descriptions typically being truncated at around 135-160 characters. But this is no longer the case.

The above example SERPs (for the phrase ‘best baby led weaning foods’) include a meta description for Netmums being truncated at around 330 characters, as well as shorter descriptions more in keeping with the classic 135-160 character length.

We can also infer from this that Google’s algorithm is judging the usefulness of the meta description – choosing to include more if it’s likely to answer the query of the searcher quickly.

We can also see the Mother & Baby result clearly looking like it has been written with traditional character limits in mind. It is still, I’d argue, the most persuasive description of the bunch in terms of making me want to click. But, we can clearly see from this results page that experimenting with longer meta descriptions is now an option for marketers.

Variations between mobile and desktop?

When it comes to thinking about our search results in the mobile context, is Google more harsh with how long meta descriptions can be on smaller screens? Surely the search engine wants to devote more space to links and titles, than descriptions?

Let’s compare the above results with how they fair on mobile SERPs.

The short answer: there is – for this query at least – very little difference between how Google is presenting the descriptions across screens.

We need to accept a number of caveats. This is just one query, in one niche, across just a couple of devices, but it is quite illuminating. Both of the longest meta descriptions from the desktop SERPs are kept at the same length on mobile.

But that’s not to say Google isn’t making some amendments for SERPs on handheld devices.

The well-crafted Mother & Baby result is being tightened up by a few characters, cutting out “finger friendly. Say no more, we’ve got all the answers, including”. If we dive into the source text, we can get a better picture of what’s going on.

In this case, Google is being pretty smart about truncating the marked-up meta description in order to favor text from the page that includes some keywords. It is doing this across desktop and – to a slightly more severe extent – on mobile.

But the rule is not as simple as assuming mobile descriptions need to be shorter. As the earlier examples prove, if the description includes relevant key phrases or is doing a good job at answering the query, Google is happy to include longer snippets – even on mobile.

Meta descriptions in the era of rich features

Google is clearly always improving at understanding our intent as searchers.

Its algorithm makes a jugdgement on this before deciding how much or how little a description snippet to include. But it may well decide to include many rich features in the SERPs. These include answer boxes, information graphs – as well as elements in and around the description itself, such as star ratings and ‘jump to…’ links.

As I covered in a recent piece about visibility in modern day SERPs, it depends on how well marked up your content is in order for the search engine to include these features.

Interestingly, for all the rich functionality of today’s SERPs, the humble meta description is still incredibly important. In fact, with Google’s willingness to present longer descriptions – we could even argue that well-crafted 300 character descriptions could improve visibility as well as CTRs.

Google is increasingly smart, but it does its best job if it is obvious from the way our content is written and marked up. The trick is getting the balance right with ensuring your markup is alerting the search spiders to the relevant information on your page and ensuring that your meta description is useful to your reader.

Google will have the final say with whether it deems other content on your site as more useful depending on the intent of your searcher – and may well display a tweaked snippet accordingly. If it has that option, thanks to the effort we put into our onsite SEO, we can expect the best experience for our searchers.

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/07/03/writing-seo-meta-descriptions-in-2018-best-practice-across-mobile-and-desktop/ from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/175507811670

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ubizheroes · 8 years ago

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How Small Digital Publishers Can Grow Their Network and Save Time

Posted by lydiagilbertson

Being a small or startup publishing company is hard. The digital advertising industry is broken. Larger companies like Vox and Buzzfeed are some of the only online publications that can hope to monetize their content effectively. Smaller niche publications often have an even harder time attracting return visitors or getting people outside of their current active users to see their content at all. Already at a disadvantage, most small publications are also understaffed and underfunded. These publications can use content marketing and search marketing concepts within their online distribution strategy to better reach their audiences and to compete with bigger publications.

Platforms as distributors

Somehow, platforms have long been both the saviors and the destroyers of the digital publishing industry. Regardless, they’ve become a necessary evil for the content distribution strategy of almost all online publishing companies. There’s no real harm in trying out different ways to reach your audience, but don’t waste your time on a platform that isn’t growing your audience or enhancing its engagement. The usual contenders being Facebook and Twitter, there are a few more platforms that can be easily utilized towards helping you to reach your audience.

1. AMP

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) project is a complex attempt by Google to make pages load faster on mobile devices, keep users on their platform, and to better engage with the publishing community. Many larger sites report a lot of success using AMP. Smaller publishers may be wary of trying out AMP on their sites, out of fear that it will further overwork their staff or that it requires an intense amount of web development knowledge. However, Google AMP is fairly simple to implement (more on how further down the page) if you’re using WordPress or another common content management system.

Companies using WordPress will have an especially easy time adding AMP to the list of ways they distribute their content. Both WordPress and Yoast have plugins available to put (and manage) your content into the AMP format. Medium is also in the process of allowing its users an easy way to designate AMP content. Here are a few things to keep in mind before publishing your content via AMP:

Make sure it’s in article format. AMP is meant for blog posts and news articles, so don’t try to publish products or landing pages using Google AMP.

Be conscious of the audience you’re publishing for when using AMP. Articles that appear in the Google AMP carousel in the SERP are usually topical and considered “news.”

If your site is struggling with speed issues, AMP could be a part (but not all) of the solution, as it will help your articles load more quickly on mobile devices.

If your site doesn’t use WordPress, implementing AMP might be a little bit harder than just downloading a plugin for your CMS. Find more out about that process here.

Analytics tracking should be included in your overall traffic and segmented to show how much traffic comes from AMP. Find out more about AMP and Google Analytics here.

2. Medium

Medium is another platform that can help more users to see your content and stay on the page long enough to read it. Like any platform, hosting your entire site on Medium comes with the risk of giving your content to another entity rather than your own website. This is a concern because hosting all of your content somewhere like Medium means it could make changes to the platform that you may not like, or in severe situations shut down entirely (and take your content with it). It also has limited capabilities with on-page ads. However, there are some larger publishers that have been adopting Medium as their main source of content distribution. There are several benefits to doing this:

Medium has a built-in audience of millions of engaged readers.

Most of the content on Medium is high quality.

Migrating your entire site to the Medium platform is actually relatively easy for both WordPress and non-WordPress sites. Be sure to keep in mind that hosting all of your content on a platform can be risky.

Another way to utilize Medium’s built-in audience is to republish your content onto the platform. Medium allows for its users to write content on their platform and then canonicalize to their own website (that’s not on Medium). This allows small publishers to pick which content goes on Medium (much like a social media platform) in order to make sure it’s targeted to Medium’s user-base.

3. Google News

Google News is a section of the search engine results page that focuses entirely on timely news content. In order for many websites to be featured in this specialized SERP, they have to go through the application process and get accepted into the Google News program. After acceptance, the site has to follow and keep a specific set of meta tags up-to-date, only posting timely content designated for the platform. Find out more about how to get accepted into Google News here.

Utilize content marketing tools

Outside of monetization, the number-one hurdle that most small publishing companies face is being understaffed and overworked. One way to remedy this is using tools that help diminish the workload involved in managing content-heavy sites. Here are a list of tools that can help small publishers cut down on their tasks:

1. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is editorial calendar software that minimizes time spent keeping track of all of the posts you want/need to do on any given day. It’s designed for both small and enterprise companies, but is better suited for smaller ones due to its all-in-one approach. CoSchedule allows you to plan your posts in advance and set a time for when to post them on social media platforms, all in a single tool.

2. BuzzSumo

Ideating different pieces of content for your site takes a significant amount of time. Utilizing a tool like BuzzSumo could help you to come up with a ton of different article concepts based on what’s trending on different social media platforms.

3. Canva

Having a small team usually means that your graphic designer is extremely busy (or nonexistent). Making quick graphics and supplementary images for your posts can totally be done utilizing Canva, without bogging down your graphics team with more work than it can handle (plus, there’s a free version).

Focus on your niche

Find your niche and build your audience. Obviously, this is easier said than done. But, it’s extremely important as a small publisher to be filling a void or taking a different perspective in the already overflowing content funnel of the Internet. Find your unique voice and the people that want to hear it. Sticking to your publication’s brand or niche will in turn build you a specialized audience. This allows prospective advertisers to better target and then convert using your content.

Don’t always focus on quantity, but quality

Similar to the last point, in addition to not overstretching your genre, don’t overstretch your posting frequency. Rather than posting more times per day just to meet an imaginary quota, it’s better to create fewer posts of higher quality. Moz did a publishing experiment that illustrates the complexity of publishing frequency and content quality. Pay more attention to what your users want rather than what you assume Google does.

Summary

Being a small publishing company is hard. Most small publications find themselves understaffed and overworked trying to catch up with much larger companies.The best way to try to compete with larger publishing companies is to keep your focus small and to use external applications. They’ll help you save time and make creating easier. Utilize all of the platforms that work for your audience — not just all of the platforms available.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

from Moz Blog https://moz.com/blog/small-digital-publishers via IFTTT

from Blogger http://imlocalseo.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-small-digital-publishers-can-grow.html via IFTTT

from IM Local SEO https://imlocalseo.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/how-small-digital-publishers-can-grow-their-network-and-save-time/ via IFTTT

from Gana Dinero Colaborando | Wecon Project https://weconprojectspain.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/how-small-digital-publishers-can-grow-their-network-and-save-time/ via IFTTT

from WordPress https://mrliberta.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/how-small-digital-publishers-can-grow-their-network-and-save-time/ via IFTTT

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