There are three truths when it comes to advertisements vs reality. First, those pants never look as good on your fat ass as they do on the model’s less-fat ass. Second, the girl from the internet never looks as good as her profile picture. And finally, that fast food burger isn’t going to look anything like it does in the commercial.
That doesn’t mean that it won’t still taste good, it just means that we have all accepted the lies that advertisements feed us on a daily basis. Nobody expects their taco from Taco Bell to be spilling from the brim with meat and toppings. I’m sure the majority of people are content with the fact that their KFC chicken bucket won’t actually be overflowing and pouring off steam.
So, exactly why does the food you order in fast food restaurants look nothing like the same menu item in the commercial?
Two words: Food Stylist.
You see, your average McDonalds employee makes your burger in a matter of minutes. When preparing the food for those ads you see on TV, the food stylist takes much, much longer.
Plus, they employ plenty of little tricks to make the burger look as good as it can possibly look. In a video uploaded by McDonalds, their Canadian Director of Marketing walks us through an ad photo shoot and shows us exactly how they create the burger that you’ll never actually see in real life.
First, an edge-only cooking process that obviously leaves the burger looking plumper…
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Add a bit of loving care to make the condiments, cheese, and veggies look just right…
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Sprinkle in a touch of photoshop:
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And there you have it. The perfect, completely unrealistic Quarter Pounder w/ cheese. Check it out below:
It may be surprising to see that it’s actually McDonalds that’s taking the time to show this process. In their defense, they aren’t really lying to you (well, the photoshopping is debatable). All of the items that go into the real burger and the ad version are the same, but it’s clearly all in the preparation. Still, it’s fascinating to know that the job of burger fluffer really exists.
The second season of HBO’s insta-classic drama series Game of Thrones has come to a close, which of course elicits feelings of anguish, rage, depression, and despair. Like any emotional-draining experience, we eventually find acceptance – but only because Breaking Bad is less than a month away. Without fawning any more over a show that is nearly universally respected and adored, I’ll just say that we’re going to miss it during it’s long hiatus.
The show has a lot going for it – great writing, perfect casting, HBO-level blood and gore. But it has been one particular aspect of the show that has thrust it into a not-always-flattering spotlight…
Sex. Naked people. Naked people having sex. If you’ve only ever seen a second of it, you’ve still probably been treated to some the show’s now-notorious carnal focus. It’s not like it’s the first premium cable show to push this envelope, but a few prolonged and exceedingly graphic scenes have made some people question whether or not it’s really necessary in the context of the story.
I’m not one of those people, and if you’re not either, I suppose you’ll want to keep reading further.
Oliver Noble over at The Huffington Post has given us a super cut of every single scene from the first two seasons that involves sex, nudity, or both. It’s really that simple – sixteen minutes of stuff you probably don’t want to watch with your parents. Of course, not all of the sexual encounters in Game of Thrones are romantic – and some are downright hard to watch (especially if you know the context)…
But check them out below, every single one of them:
Have you been searching the interwebs for a good guys-in-suits-finding-interesting-ways-to-hand-each-other-a-beer videos? Good, me too – and today is our lucky day.
“Hey, Pass Me A Beer” proves that “in Milwaukee, they don’t just HAND each other beer.” In fact, it’s probably not even worth drinking if it doesn’t arrive in your hand in some sort of interesting fashion.
This viral video comes to us deeply rooted in the tradition of YouTube trick shot vids. Those started to gain popularity after some guys decided to spend all day trying to make ridiculous basketball shots. Then, some other guys decided to make basketball trick shots – but with a football. There are all kinds of trick shot videos out there, some of the most popular featuring amazing beer pong shots. I guess this was just the logical conclusion.
Before you cry “WASTE!” and give me the “sober kids in India” spiel, let’s all be honest here – we’re dealing with Old Milwaukee. And what about “American dry lager” doesn’t make you think catapult? The point is, I’m not going to pretend I’m too upset about the spilled beer – especially considering the use of trampolines, fishing poles, and the aforementioned catapult as delivery methods.
Check it out below, courtesy Almost Twins, Jack Packard, Nick Packard, and Tim Higgins (originally posted on Funny or Die)
Jimmy Kimmel likes to put people in uncomfortable situations for our amusement – and that applies to his late night show and beyond. Whether he’s harassing old people to comment on Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, coaxing people to unplug the Super Bowl at a crucial moment and capture it on video, or poking fun at the President at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, it always seems to make for great viral content.
But it’s when he goes after kids, well, that’s the real gold. He’s already pranked some unfortunate children by asking their parents to wake them up and tell them they’re late for school, pretend like they ate all of their kids Halloween candy, and give them a terrible present for Christmas.
Now, he’s strapped some poor kid to a fake lie detector and made him miserable for a good five minutes. Seriously, the kid looks like he’s about the cry the whole time and it’s great.
Check it out below:
As you probably did as well, I kind of lost it when the kid had to say his favorite bad word. There’s quite the debate raging on reddit and YouTube concerning what the kid actually said. Was it “F*ck, and stuff?” “Go f*ck yourself?” Whatever it was, Kimmel seems to think it’s rather funny.
I think we can all rejoice in the fact that they uploaded this video as “Jimmy Kimmel Lie Detective #1,” which hints at the fact that there’s a #2, #3 and maybe even more to come. If there’s one thing we remember about Jimmy Kimmel Live in 100 years, I sure want it to be his undeniable skill at the craft of kid trolling.
In times of unyielding, epic boredom, my nerdiest groups of friends and I used to play a game we called “Random Connections.” The game was simple: a moderator chose two seemingly unrelated things – they could be physical items, people, places, or even abstract concepts. The goal was to connect the two random entities using a fewer amount of connections that your opponent (or, in some cases, a more interesting set of connections – no matter the amount).
For instance: Carabiner and Primus. People keep keys on a carabiner > keys go into the ignition > “Ignition” is song by R. Kelly > R. Kelly was featured on South Park episode Trapped In The Closet > Primus wrote the original theme song to South Park. Done.
In our later years, this all turned into a drinking game with disastrous results. Seriously, try to tell a drunk guy that his connection makes no sense and ask him to elaborate – chaos will ensue.
That game, which I in no way think we invented, has found its logical conclusion in WikiWars.
WikiWars, too, is simple. Players must connect the dots between two seemingly unrelated words by navigating through Wikipedia. The only catch is that they can only click on links provided in the Wiki articles to get from entry A to entry B. Of course, this game can be played alone when desperately bored, but as with most things, it’s much better when it’s turned into a competition.
Cue Autotune the News’ Gregory Brothers, whose latest YouTube upload pits Evan against Michael in a best-of-three fight to the Broccolini. As they say, “victory requires mental focus, precise clicking, a surprisingly large need for a knowledge of geography, & the ability to not start hyperventilating.”
Back in 2008, the world was introduced to the romantic aspirations of young Amber Lee Ettinger, or as you may know her, The Obama Girl. Her video “I Got A Crush On Obama” went viral prior to the presidential election and ended up spawning dozens of parodies, including one from the folks at Saturday Night Live. Her quick rise to internet fame also earned her interviews on various cable news shows and other TV appearances.
Her crush on Obama has apparently lessened in the past four years, as she recently told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that she’s not sure who she’s voting for this time around. Of course, that leaves a giant opening for a new internet admirer. Who will step of and fill the void left by Obama Girl? Who has an undying, internet-friendly crush on our Commander in Chief?
Well, this time around it’s not another pretty Obama Girl. This time it’s a dude.
Of course, the entire idea of Obama Boy must have be precipitated by President Obama’s announcement that he made officially supporting gay marriage. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.
The video’s star, Justin Brown, might not see the level of instant stardom that Obama Girl achieved – but you have to admit, it’s a catchy little number.
It’s clear that having a Portal gun would be pretty useful in a variety of scenarios. Need to catapult yourself over a high wall? Simple, just climb up high, blast one portal on a wall behind you and one on the ground below and jump. Too lazy to get up and walk across the room to grab your remote off the floor? Easy, just use your protal gun to drop it down to yourself through the ceiling.
Those practical uses don’t even touch the impractical, incredibly fun, but highly dangerous activities that could come from a real life Portal gun.
You know, like terminal velocity?
As we’ve seen in countless science fiction stories for centuries, human nature is en enemy to scientific development. For every amazing breakthrough in any scientific field, there are at least a few people who would opt to use the new technology in some…unintended ways.
For instance, you know that everything that happens in this amazing short entitled POrtal: Terminal Velocity is spot on. If you and your buddies were screwing around with a real-life Portal gun, it would only be a question of when, not if someone would drop someone from the ceiling.
This project comes to us from visual effects artist Jason Craft:
I tried to match the game as close as possible. This was the most challenging project I have ever undertaken, consisting of 3D tracking, seamless camera cuts and 3D camera projection. This started out as an experiment since I didn’t think I could even pull it off, if I knew it would’ve turned out as good as it did I would’ve put more of a story behind it. O well, it makes up for in Visual Effects.
In the interweb realm, so many people get so much credit each and every day. I’m talking about the girl who starts on online petition and ends up affecting real change, or the guy who uploads a stunning cover of a popular song to YouTube, shattering our misconceptions. What about the guy who makes a breathtakingly insightful post on some social media channel – everybody lauds him for his work.
But there are plenty of people out there online that work just as hard will much less recognition. In fact, few if any respect the dedication that it takes to scour the YouTubes and the Facebooks and the reddits hour by hour, day by day in a frantic search to find hot-headed, gullible people to piss off.
Of course, I’m talking about the trolls – God bless ’em.
Courtesy of Clever Pie comes this delightful tribute to all the sexually aggressive, racist, homophobe, misogynistic, cowardly, illitterate, wastes of human skin out there. It’s called “Thank You Hater!”
And it’s a stanza like this that makes this one of our favorite virals we’ve seen in a while:
You wished me cancer and misspelled “cancer”
But I know that it’s a metaphor. You hope that I will grow,
Just like the tumour you hoped would kill me
Inside the tits on which you said you’d also like a go.
There are very few television personalities that have achieved icon status in the way that Fred Rogers has. For 895 episodes spanning a few decades, Mister Rogers taught kids to love and respect themselves and their neighbors in his trademarked frank manner. To millions of people, Mister Rogers remains one of the most influential figures from their childhood, and his lessons actually had a real impact on their development into adulthood.
In short, Mister Rogers is one of the most beloved celebrities of the 20th century. Because of this, I expect the following video will go all kinds of epic levels of viral.
PBS Digital Studios has just uploaded “Garden of Your Mind,” which sees the legendary figure’s words remixed into a mesmerizing song. Despite my natural aversion to autotune, I had no trouble waxing nostalgic about my childhood hero after watching this amazing tribute.
When we discovered video mash-up artist John D. Boswell, aka melodysheep, on YouTube, we immediately wanted to work together. Turns out that he is a huge Mister Rogers Neighborhood fan, and was thrilled at the chance to pay tribute to one of our heroes. Both PBS and the Fred Rogers Company hope you like John’s celebration of Fred Rogers’ message.
PBS says that this is but the first in a series of remixing PBS icons. I think we all know who they should tackle next.
Brace yourselves, the direwolves are coming. That’s because they probably heard the melodic sounds of these squeaky toys playing the Game of Thrones theme music.
YouTube user advaitnemlekar realized that his dog’s toys sounded a lot like some of the elements to the Game of Thrones music and decided that the concept needed to be explored.
My dog was biting on the toys shown in the video and by chance he ended up making a sound which sounded like the game of thrones music.That turned into this.. The audio is indeed recorded on these very toys…from my phone and then auto-tuned to sound like the way it does. Special thanks to my dog ‘Simba’ for allowing me to use his toys for this video.
The final product, while not as epic as the Game of Thrones floppy drive remake, is pretty fun. And since that opening music is so incredible, I’ll most likely never tire of hearing it covered in interesting ways.
Check it out below:
The season two finale airs on Sunday night at 9pm EST, and I can hardly contain my excitement. It’s been an astounding season and last week’s penultimate episode set things up for a remarkable finish.
Below I’ve included the preview of that episode for you. You better watch it here instead of seeking it out on YouTube, as some readers of the book series have taken it upon themselves to be total asshats and litter the comments with spoilers.
Earlier this month the music world was hit with the loss of Beastie Boys co-founder Adam Yauch, better known as “MCA.” The legendary artist had been fighting a battle with cancer after discovering a tumor in his salivary gland back in 2009. Tributes for the late Yauch rolled in from all over the place, while fans as well as colleagues and other musicians shared their grief on Twitter and Facebook.
But as far as tributes go, it’s going to be really hard to beat this.
Amateur filmmaker and possible best dad of all time James Winters grabbed his children, his nephew, and his wife and decided to recreate the Beastie Boys’ legendary video for their song “Sabotage.” You know the one, right? The awesome 1970’s throwback video that’s found itself in the pantheon of MTV classics, mentioned by many as one of the best music videos of all time.
Without further ado, here’s “Sabotage” – with kids:
The Beastie Boys released “Sabotage” in 1994. Along with rocking the bass for the track, MCA had two roles in the iconic music video. The Spike Jonze-helmed video was nominated for “Video of the Year” at the MTV Music Awards, but lost out to Aerosmith’s “Cryin’.”
The video caused a minor controversy due to some of the imagery. The dude-falling-off-a-bridge scene had to be cut for the video’s normal playback on the network. As you can see, Mr. Winters decided to go full body-on-pavement for his recreation.
As awesome as that tribute video is, I’d be remiss to leave the original out of your heads:
In the annals of internet memedom, it’s hard to find a more widely used and recognized meme than Scumbag Steve. He’s the guy that asks for a ride and then spends the entire time dissing your car. He’s the guy who asks if he can borrow money and takes a year to pay it back. He’s the guy who sleeps with your sister and won’t shut up about it.
Basically, Scumbag Steve is used to express any sort of behavior that’s, well, scumbaggy. Not only is the now-ubiquitous image of Steve in his sideways fitted hat and furry coat an internet staple, but that legnedary hat is shopped on images to give anything “scumbag status.” Scumbag brain, scumbag congress, scumbag Google Chrome – almost anything can achieve it.
After shooting to quick infamy online, Scumbag Steve was identified as 21-year-old Blake Boston. He apparently has a pretty good sense of humor and according to his blog…
Hey I’m Blake Boston aka Scumbag Steve. The meme, What ever the f*ck that is. Ya, it’s really me. Im down with the meme. Like I had a choice?
He says that his mom snapped the famous picture during a photo class. He was 15 or 16 when it was taken.
Looking to capitalize on his internet fame a little more, Blake Boston has just dropped a rap titled “Scumbag Steve Overture.” What can I say? It’s not great. As one YouTuber put it: “Who just killed his own f*cking meme? Scumbag Steve, Scumbag Steve.” You’ll start reading that comment in a melodic fashion after listening to the rap below (NSFW):
Well, at least he’s not bitter about being the butt of a giant internet joke. If you want to see more of the real Scumbag Steve (if), you can check out this interview he did last year.
Coming soon, the next new Facebook feature that everyone is bound to hate: Talking event invitations?
Okay, as of right now Facebook doesn’t have any plans to bring user videos to event invites, but does that really sound all that out of the realm of possibility? The somewhat frightening concept is explored in the this funny vid from Jared Fried and Chris Distefano, who ask “What If Facebook Invites Could Talk?”
And here’s the problem: they sound really stupid. There’s no slick James Bond “this message will self destruct” vibe here – just a couple of annoying people reading even more annoying messages. Because the main problem with a large majority of Facebook invites is that they are written in a certain way (which this video captures perfectly), and their absuridty doesn’t become clear until they are read aloud.
It’s GOIN DOWN. BANG. Check it out below (NSFW language):
Back to the possibilities here. Although this viral vid was made in jest, what would you think about talking Facebook event invites? Facebook could easily include a “message from the creator” section within the invite, where users could upload their own videos directed toward their possible attendees.
Would that make you more or less likely to attend? It probably depends on the message. I bet your hipster friend from high school is just dying to be able to play you a few chords in the invite to his show this weekend.
Google’s Matt Cutts put out a new Webmaster Help video. It’s one of those where he answers his own question (as opposed to a user-submitted one), so you know it’s something Google deals with all the time. The question:
There’s a page about me on the web that I don’t like. Will Google remove the page from its search results? Why or why not?
In short, Google will not remove a page just because it says something about you that you don’t like. This isn’t really news. In fact, Cutts even references a blog post he wrote about it back in 2009. However, such requests are clearly still something Google has to deal with on a regular basis, hence this video.
“In general, when you come to Google, and you say I don’t like this page, if it’s under your control, we’re happy to have you remove it,” says Cutts. “But if it’s under somebody else’s control, that can be a little bit more of a delicate situation. Because if there’s a he said, she said situation, and we don’t know who’s right, it can be a little bit risky for us to try to just pick sides arbitrarily. We don’t really have the resources to investigate all the different people who come to us and say I’m right. This person’s wrong, and this page should go away.”
I’m not sure Google doesn’t have the resources. According to its most recent earnings report, the company employed 33,077 full-time employees as of March 31, 2012 (up from 32,467 at the end of last year). But clearly, Google would rather have these resources focused on other things. That said, I can’t say I disagree with their approach.
“And if you think about it, in cyberspace, there’s many of the same laws that apply,” Cutts says. “So if somebody has libeled you, if they’re saying something that is factually, completely wrong, or if there’s some fraud going on, you can take that person to court. And there’s even ways that are shy of taking them to court, like sending a cease-and-desist letter. So there are other avenues available to you than coming to Google. And if you just come to Google, and you get something removed from Google, that doesn’t take it off of the web. It only removes it from our index. So people could still find it on Twitter. They could still find it on Facebook. They could navigate directly to it. They can find it in other search engines. So just removing a piece of content from Google’s index doesn’t remove it from the web. It doesn’t keep people from finding it. ”
Yes, the web does still exist without Google, which is kind of Google’s point with all of the antitrust stuff. “Competition is always a click away,” as the company likes to say.
“So think about some of the situations,” Cutts continues. “If there’s something that’s just egregiously wrong, hopefully the webmaster will listen to reason or listen to a threat of legal action and take it down. And then everybody’s happy. Now, if it’s something like a newspaper, where it’s factually accurate, and you don’t like it, there may not be that much that you can do about that. In that sense, Google is trying to reflect the web. We’re trying to show the web as it is, almost like a mirror. And so if something’s true, if you were convicted of a crime or something like that, and it ranks for your name naturally, that’s not the sort of thing that we would typically take action on.”
Cutts goes onto talk about how you should be managing your online reputation.
“If something happened 10 years ago, and you’ve got a lot of fresh new content, that can often outrank the stuff that’s a lot older,” he says.
He’s certainly right about that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had trouble finding specific older content in Google, as it’s buried under more recent content, particularly since Google launched its freshness update last year. And freshness continues to be a theme in Google’s monthly lists of algorithm updates.
Those of us who text and walk, or walk and talk, or Facebook and walk have plenty of dangers to worry about. While we’re looking down at our smartphones and traversing the city, we could get flattened by a car, smash our heads into a streetlight, accidentally tackle an elderly lady – really any number of accidents could occur from not paying attention.
One of the dangers that I never really thought about was plunging down into a sinkhole.
But that’s just what happened to a teenager in China. Today reports that the young girl fell 20 feet, as did the nice cab driver who tried to help her. Miraculously, all parties involved are okay thanks to the work of the firefighter rescue squad.
Even more miraculous (for everyone on the interwebs), it was all captured on video. It’s kind of painful to watch, but you know you wanna:
Having almost ended the life of some dumb kid on his iPhone who was walking across the street the other day, no kind of distracted walking story can surprise me. Besides being run over by a car, I guess falling in a giant hole is probably the most devastating thing that can happen to the perpetually unaware.
Maybe the idea of a smartphone sidewalk lane isn’t really that bad of an idea. As an April Fool’s joke, the city of Philadelphia put up a texting-only “E-Lane” on one of their city sidewalks. It was a joke, but maybe it was rooted in an actual need for something like this?
In all seriousness, however, wtf China? I’m sure there was a caution sign somewhere, but could it hurt to put up some ropes or some tape around the area? Jeez.
We often see version of films, TV shows, and other motion picture art remade with Legos, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen a proper Playmobil version of something. In fact, until I did some digging, I couldn’t remember ever seeing one. After some searching, I found an awesome Playmobil Joy Division video, but we’ll get to that later.
Because first up, we have today’s coolest trailer – a remake of the original Game of Thrones season one trailer, with Playmobil toys.
You all know Playmobil, right? The nearly 40-year-old company has been completing with the likes of Lego for a couple of decades in the toy-person market, as well as the realm of toy train, cars, buildings, etc. If you’ve never built your own Playmobil diorama, you probably had a weird childhood.
And I hope we all know Game of Thrones by now. The widely populat book series by George R.R. Martin has been turned into and even more popular TV series on HBO. It’s currently into its second season, and only getting better. Let’s just put it this way: I can’t wait for my weekend to end so I can watch Game of Thrones on Sunday evening. I know how bad that sounds.
So it’s no surprise that I think that this video, courtesy of HSMprojects, it pretty great. Check it out below:
Remember what I said before about stumbling across another awesome sto-motion Playmobil creation. Here, you can have that too:
Here’s the thing: I know that by showing you this video I’m giving in. I can make all of the snarky comments that I want but in the end, I’m still showing this video to people, which is exactly what its producers want. But then again, you chose to read this, which means there has to be at least some level of morbid curiosity lurking around your brain.
Having fully dealt with my initial shame, I’ve decided that there’s just no way I can not touch this one.
In June, 2011, the wedding of the summer involved an unknown 16-year-old bride and a relatively well known actor who has graced respectable (and oftentimes superb) productions like Lost, The Green Mile, and The X-Files. He happened to be 51 at the time of their nuptials.
Of course, when people see that a 51-year-old actor has married a 16-year-old blond of questionably genuine assets, it creates quite a stir. Some called it disgusting, others called it an obvious publicity stunt. A select few defended Doug Hutchison and Courtney Stodden, making the argument that if they in fact truly love each other, age should throw up no barriers.
There was a lot of discussion about her age – mostly the fact that she looked closer to thirty than thirteen. But, a birth certificate was unearthed and all of that was put to bed.
Now, the couple has apparently begun their own YouTube series. Or maybe she did it and dragged him into it. Either way, a video posted to Stodden’s YouTube channel reads…
Episode 1 in the continuous YouTube series of Courtney’s Countdown to her 18th birthday — Watch her as she deals with a sprained foot injury. 135 days and counting…
It looks like it’s fashioned in the form of a reality show, according to her tweet:
I don’t really know what to say here. It’s five minutes of bitching about a foot injury. I don’t think it’s going to get picked up by VH1 or E!, we’ll put it that way (although it wouldn’t shock me in the slightest):
Stodden, who has “entertained” us with her interesting music videos and awesomely alliterative Twitter feed for almost a year now has obviously taken the next step to internet reality show actress. As one youTuber points out, only a few more months until she’ll be officially allowed to watch her own video (it’s been restricted based on YouTube’s community guidelines).
Say what you will about Hutchison and Stodden – their marriage has lasted at least 120 Spears and about 100 Kardashians. The truly sad part about all of this is that what you just watched is not a lot worse than some of the stuff you might have watched last night on the tube.
What if I told you that someone had made something called “Zelda: The Musical?” Did your heart flutter? Good, so did mine.
That’s the good news – it exists. The bad news is that it’s only four minutes long and not coming to a stage near you. At least not yet.
It’s the old Legend of Zelda meets the (relatively) new Legend of Zelda with this masterpiece, written and compaosed by Mitchell Moffit. Featuring the characters of Link, Ganondorf, Zelda, Malon, and of course, Deku Tree, take a trip back to Hyrule, Broadway style with Zelda: The Musical.
As WebProNews writer Zack Walton put it, “this just went from endearing to what the hell. I like it.” Indeed. Check it out below:
Z..Ze…ZELDA!
Just hearing her name and I’d say “Hell Ya!”
I’ll save Hyrule and leave my life behind
I’m only 10 and can’t control my sex drive
Somewhere she is waiting for me
And I know she’ll have my babies
…yeah, we all knew the real reasons, Link.
In a world cluttered with musical interpretations, video game-based fan videos, and even fan made musical interpretations of video games, this one really stands out. It actually makes me want to go back and beat Ocarina of Time again – maybe even in 25 minutes.
Yesterday, Bethesda posted a mysterious screencap on Facebook of a dirty, grizzly man with the caption “Tomorrow.” We knew that they would unveil something today, but we weren’t sure what. Skyrim DLC perhaps? Maybe even something pertaining to Fallout?
Our hunches said it would be regarding Dishonored, Arkane Studios’ upcoming first-person stealth game with an awesome steampunk style. That’s exactly what it turns out to be. Today, we’re graced with the debut trailer for Dishonored.
Dishonored casts you as a supernatural assassin driven by revenge. You are the once-trusted bodyguard of the beloved Empress. Framed for her murder, you become an infamous assassin, known only by the disturbing mask that has become your calling card. In a time of uncertainty, when the city is being besieged by plague and ruled by an oppressive government armed with strange technologies, dark forces conspire to bestow upon you abilities beyond those of any common man.
In Dishonored, creatively eliminate your targets with the flexible combat system as you combine the numerous supernatural abilities, weapons and unusual gadgets at your disposal. Pursue your enemies under the cover of darkness or ruthlessly attack them head on with weapons drawn. The outcome of each mission plays out based on the choices you make.
And without further ado, the (uncommonly long) debut trailer:
Google’s Matt Cutts, as you may or may not know, often appears in Webmaster Help videos addressing questions about what Google does (and what it doesn’t do) in certain situations. Usually, the questions are submitted buy users, though sometimes, Cutts will deem an issue important enough to ask the question himself.
In the lastest video, which Cutts tweeted out on Monday, a user asks:
“Just to confirm: does Google take manual action on webspam? Does manual action result in a removal or can it also be a demotion? Are there other situations where Google remove content from its search results?”
Who better to address this question than Google’s head of webspam himself, Matt Cutts?
Cutts responds, “I’m really glad to have a chance to clarify this, because some people might not know this, although we’ve written this quite a bit in various places online. Google is willing to take manual action to remove spam. So if you write an algorithm to detect spam, and then someone searches for their own name, and they find off-topic porn, they’re really unhappy about that. And they’ll write into Google and let us know that they’re unhappy.”
“And if we write back and say, ‘Well, we hope in six to nine months to be able to have an algorithm that catches this off-topic porn,’ that’s not a really satisfactory answer for the guy who has off-topic porn showing up for his name,” he says. “So in some situations, we are willing to take manual action on our results. It’s when there are violations of our web spam quality guidelines.”
“So, the answer to your question is, yes, we are willing to take manual action when we see violations of our quality guidelines,” he says. “Another follow-up question was whether it has to be removal or whether it can be a demotion. It can be a demotion. It tends to be removal, because the spam we see tends to be very clear-cut. But there are some cases where you might see cookie cutter content that’s maybe not truly, truly awful, but is duplicative, or you can find in tons of other places. And so it’s content that is really not a lot of value add – those sorts of things.”
“And we say in our guidelines to avoid duplicate content, whether it’s a cross-domain, so having lots of different domains with very, very similar or even identical content,” he says. “So when we see truly malicious, really bad stuff, we’re often taking action to remove it. If we see things that are still a violation of our quality guidelines, but not quite as bad, then you might see a demotion.”
A bad enough demotion might as well be a removal anyway. I’m sure a lot of Panda victims out there have a thing or two to say about that.
“And then the last question was, ‘Are there other situations where Google will remove content from it search results?’,” continues Cutts. “So, we do reserve the right to remove content for spam. Content can be removed for legal reasons, like we might get a DMCA complaint or some valid court order that says we have to remove something within this particular country.”
“We’re also willing to remove stuff for security reaons, so malware, Trojan horses, viruses, worms, those sorts of things,” he says. “Another example of security might be if you have your own credit card number on the web. So those are some of the areas that we are willing to take action, and we are willing to remove stuff from our search results. We don’t claim that that’s a comprehensive list. We think that it’s important to be able to exercise judgment. So if there is some safety issue, or of course, things like child porn, which would fall under legal. But those are the major areas that we’ve seen, would be spam, legal reasons, and security. And certainly, the vast majority of action that we take falls under those three broad areas.”
“But just to be clear, we do reserve the right to take action, whether it could be demotion or removal,” he reiterates. “And we think we have to apply our best judgment. We want to return the best results that we can for users. And the action that we take is in service of that, trying to make sure that we get the best search results we can out to people when they’re doing searches.”
Speaking of those security concerns, Cutts also tweeted on Monday that Google has sent messages to 20,000 sites, indicating that they may have been hacked. He attributes this to some “weird redirecting.”
We posted a video Google uploaded this week of a Matt Cutts presentation from late January at a webmaster conference in Korea. Here it is again, in case you missed it:
There’s a interesting section of his talk, in which he notes that Google runs over 20,000 search experiments a year. We know Google makes hundreds of changes to its algorithm each year, but Cutts sheds a little more light on the process Google goes when making a change. Here’s one of the slides he showed demonstrating the process a change goes through from the idea stage to the launch stage:
“So these are numbers from 2009, but the proportions, the rough percentages, are about the same,” says Cutts. “We would try out anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 ideas. Of that, many more thousand, 8,549, we would send to these blind side-by-sides, and then a smaller fraction of that actually get sent out to real users and to see whether users tend to click on the newer results or tend to click on the older results. And the final number changes that we launched last year was 585.”
If you have the time, check out the full 45-minute presentation.
