I need your help–please. Call your congressperson?

by on November 16, 2011

in Personal

(This is post is my personal opinion.)

Normally I don’t like to ask people for help, but I could really use your assistance. If you’ve ever watched one of my webmaster videos, or if I’ve responded to you on Twitter, email, or somewhere else online, please take 5-10 minutes to help me out today.

Here’s what I need:
1. Take a few minutes to learn about the SOPA/E-PARASITE/PROTECT IP bills. They’re really bad bills.
2. Take five minutes to call your Congressperson on the phone. If you live in Texas, Michigan, Vermont, or Iowa, this goes double for you.
3. Get the word out. Tell your friends on Facebook, Twitter (maybe a hashtag like #stopsopa), or Google+. If your parents live in a different state, ask them to call their Congressperson too.

I would really, really appreciate the help. If you’re the kind of person who reads my blog or follows me online, I’m pretty sure the more you read about SOPA, the less you’ll like it.

If SOPA becomes law, it could stifle the innovation (and jobs) that the technology industry creates. That’s why Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Google, Yahoo, eBay, AOL, LinkedIn, and Zynga all oppose SOPA. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue–Red State thinks SOPA is a bad idea too.

I could go on and on (and I’m sure I will in the future) about the abuses that these bills would allow. But for now, I need your help. Please call your Congressperson right now and explain that this bill overreaches and would do serious harm to the internet. Thank you!

{ 70 comments }

Grow a moustache and fight cancer!

by on November 1, 2011

in 30 days,Fun

For my next 30 day challenge, I’ll be growing a mustache to raise awareness and money for men’s health issues, and specifically prostate cancer research. Men of search and SEO, please join our team. You can raise awareness, or raise cash. And it’s super simple: just don’t shave your moustache for 30 days. The name of the event is Movember and it should be a blast. Here’s my profile page, for example.

To keep myself honest, here I am, clean-shaven, with a today’s issue of USA TODAY on November 1st:

Matt Cutts, clean shaven on Nov. 1st

By the way: Kim Kardashian is getting divorced‽! I really thought they had a love for the ages.

This is going to be an extra-fun 30 day challenge because I’m joining up with Duane Forrester of Bing and we’re both raising money for the cause. I have to warn Duane though: he might not realize how fast my moustache grows. For example, here I am just an hour after I shaved clean:

Matt Cutts, just an hour later!

That’s right Duane, I can grow a moustache in an hour, so look out! :) By the way, thanks to Mike Halvorsen for asking a timely question about Movember during our recent live Q&A on YouTube.

This should be quite a fun month:
- If you’re a woman (or a man who can’t or won’t grow a moustache), you can still help out the cause by donating to our team.
- Men, I hope you will grow a moustache this month. A great cause like Movember only comes around once a year–why not join us? All you have to do is not shave. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
- The Twitter tag is #seostache if you want to root us on. I hope to see some serious stache from fellow people of search!

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Halloween costume: stickman from xkcd

by on October 31, 2011

in Fun,Personal

For Halloween this year I asked people on Google+ what I should be for Halloween, and someone suggested going as the blackhat stick man from xkcd. You know, this guy:

Black hat stick man from xkcd

That sounded like a good challenge. I finished the costume and taped a video, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to get the video to the quality level that I wanted. Here’s the video:

A couple quick things: 1) I know the video is cheesy and lo-fi, but that’s what I was going for. 2) With a little more time and more work on the video (e.g. better lighting, turning off automatic brightness on the video camera, a little more time spent on the greenscreen key) I think it could have been pretty great. But sometimes you run out of time, and October was a busy month. :)

Maybe I’ll write a bit more about the costume and the video later. Happy Halloween everyone!

{ 31 comments }

Halloween Pumpkin: Portal Turret!

by on October 24, 2011

in Fun,Games,How to

I made a Portal turret for my Halloween pumpkin! I was trying to think of things to carve: vampire Android? R2-D2? Zoidberg? Then I thought: I could do a character from Portal 2! I was going to carve something like GLaDOS or Wheatley, but then I realized that a portal turret would be perfect:

To make the glowing red eye, I punched a small hole in the pumpkin, taped an LED to a battery, and pushed the LED from the center of the pumpkin through the small hole. I thought about doing an actual red laser, but 1) I don’t want to blind any kids walking by my pumpkin, and 2) laser beams aren’t visible unless there’s fog or smoke or something for the beam to hit.

To make the side “gun” sections of the pumpkin, I had a small dowel rod lying around, so I just cut two small stakes from the dowel rod and jammed them into the pumpkin sides. It’s a bit rickety, but it works. For the video, I played some turret sound effects and moved my red laser over the pumpkin as if another turret was locking onto it.

I didn’t want to take long to carve my pumpkin. I finished it in maybe an hour, but check out this really elaborate pumpkin that someone else did. And it turns out that they work at Google too!

I like how my pumpkin came out overall:

Portal 2 turret pumpkin for Halloween!

Happy Halloween, and I hope you’re getting creative with your pumpkin carving!

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New 30 day challenge: going vegan!

by on October 1, 2011

in 30 days

Okay, I’m starting up a new 30 day challenge: I’m going to eat vegan for the next 30 days. That means no meat, dairy, or eggs. I’m curious to see how it will go.

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