Bomb Cyclone Winter Weather Likely To Result In Reduced Internet Use, Ecommerce Sales

January 5th, 2018 by Chris Silver Smith

With the “Bomb Cyclone” hitting the eastern seaboard, there’s one thing that can be predicted with a good degree of certainty: the secondary effects of the winter weather are highly likely to negatively impact the internet usage of the areas most heavily affected, as well as ecommerce sales originating from those areas for internet retailers.

Bomb Cyclone - Weather 2018

Bomb Cyclone simulation satellite pics by Ryan Maue of weather.us.

What typically can happen is this:

  • The intense weather storm powered by the bomb cyclone (under the process dubbed “bombogenesis“) is already propelling extreme weather elements from over the Atlantic into the northeast towards the interior of the United States. These elements include snow, flooding, freezing temperatures, and high winds.
  • The cold storm elements will knock out core infrastructure and utilities in various areas.
  • Electric power will be knocked-out when ice causes tree limbs to break, snapping electric lines. CNN is already reporting that over 13,000 homes have lost power in the northeast.
  • Internet cables can also be disabled when utility lines are snapped, cutting off access for homes and businesses alike. For some areas, the internet services will get knocked-out simply if they themselves lose power.
  • Although typically a little less vulnerable to outages, cell phone towers can also get knocked offline. If you’re in an area with fewer backup towers to pick up your signal, and your cell towers are taken offline, you may get cut off from communications and internet.
  • Outages of these sorts can last for days and even for a week or longer, depending on the severity of the storm and how easy it is for utility crews to reach affected areas.

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My Visit to Google’s Pop-Up Store in Manhattan

November 1st, 2017 by Chris Silver Smith

Google Popup Store Sign, NYCWhile I was in New York attending the recent SMX East conference, I learned that Google had recently opened a curious little pop-up store not far from where I was staying in Manhattan, in the Flatiron District. While perhaps the Google Pop-Up Shop‘s most interesting feature is a Stranger Things 2nd season tie-in, the shop was set up to promote their new Pixel, Google Home Mini / Max, and Daydream View products.

The interior of Google's futuristic popup store in New York City's Flatiron district.

The interior of Google’s futuristic popup store in New York City’s Flatiron district.

The Stranger Things living room with the Demogorgon monster via augmented reality stickers in the new Pixel 2 phone camera.

The Stranger Things living room with the Demogorgon monster via augmented reality stickers in the new Pixel 2 phone camera.

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Gray Malin’s Book Signing at Google’s Pop-Up in NYC

November 1st, 2017 by Chris Silver Smith

I happened to attend Gray Malin‘s book signing at Google’s Pop-Up store in New York City’s Flatiron district last week. He is a rising fine art photographer who is particularly known for pristine, bright aerial photos, and he was promoting his new book, Escape. Having this art event hosted at Google’s little shop might have seemed apropos, since many assume that his photos must have been made with the help of drones, or that they are digitally manipulated to the stunning brightness they display. But, this isn’t the case.

ESCAPE - book by Gray Malin

ESCAPE – book by Gray Malin

I was visiting Manhattan while attending the annual SMX East conference where I spoke on leveraging social media for the benefit for search engine rankings, and I also took the opportunity to check out Google’s trendy little popup store. As I describe in my article about the store, Google seems to be seeking to entertain visitors and to enchant them with their displays and demos at the location. For instance, one wall had a number of reproductions of famous pieces of art hung on it, and signs invited one to use the latest Pixel phone to identify them via invoking Google Assistant.

Malin Gray book signing, Google Popup Store, Flatiron District, New York

Malin Gray book signing, Google Popup Store, Flatiron District, New York

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Best Vegetarian / Vegan Restaurant in Dallas

October 1st, 2017 by Chris Silver Smith

When you live in Dallas but are not the meat-a-holic that everyone else in the state of Texas seems to be, it can seem to be a bit of a dry desert in terms of finding vegan or vegetarian restaurants. There are a few good options out there, however, if you know where to look. But, my favorite vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Dallas is currently V-Eats Modern Vegan at Trinity Groves.

The Southern Plate - vegan comfort food and my favorite vegan dish in all of Dallas-Fort Worth!

The “Southern Plate” – vegan comfort food and my favorite vegan dish in all of Dallas-Fort Worth!

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Mike Apyshkov, Reflections On His Passing

February 4th, 2017 by Chris Silver Smith

Michael ApyshkovI hardly know how to express how terrible it was to lose my friend, Mike Apyshkov, this last weekend. Some of the light went out of the sky for me when I received the news that he had fallen to his death from the top of one of Kyiv’s tallest and trendiest skyscrapers in Ukraine, at the Olympic business center (Олимпийский).

To say that Mike was one of my friends seems to understate what he was to me. Certainly he was a friend, but it was deeper than “just a friend”. He was an inspiration to me, a protégé, a roommate, an adoptive son, a colleague, a collaborator, and a sort of a muse. I feel it all the more intensely because he has left as abruptly as he came into my life, and at far too young an age: 26 years old.

The Ukrainian news story - a young man fell from the 29th floor of the Olympic business center.

The Ukrainian news story – a young man fell from the 29th floor of the Olympic business center. (source)

I’m unable to attend Mike’s funeral this week in Ukraine, and so I’ll write a bit about him here on my blog as a tribute and as a means of mourning him. Word of his passing has left me raw, and weak, and it seems some of the air has gone out of my lungs and I cannot regain it, no matter how much I inhale. I also set up an online memorial site at: Mike Aphyskov: Forever Missed.

How I Came To Know Mike Apyshkov

I met Mike through another good friend of mine — his father. Vlad worked with me when we were both at Verizon’s Superpages, and we became good friends after I left the company in 2007. In about 2011, Vlad notified a number of his friends that he was delighted by the fact that his son, Mike, was moving here to Dallas to live with Vlad and to go through the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. I don’t precisely remember that first meeting, but it was probably at some restaurant for dinner. I didn’t have much interaction with Mike until a few months later when Vlad had to leave the country for some weeks on business, and he asked me to be available in case Mike needed help with anything while Vlad was away, since Mike was unfamiliar with the city and with the American ways of doing things.

Mike, doing a sort of planking pose in a hallway in Ukraine, I think maybe in the building where he launched his company.

Mike, doing a sort of planking pose in a hallway at Donetsk National University in the Mathematics Facility. Playful, gymnastic interactions with his environment were something he was always doing.

When I realized that Mike was going to be all alone at Vlad’s house for the last few weeks of November, I immediately felt that he absolutely had to experience a traditional American Thanksgiving. My mother, who lives down in central Texas, readily agreed — in fact, bringing in foreigners for our Thanksgiving feast is a very long tradition in our family, and it likely started because my parents were professors and we lived in academic communities where there were always people who were far away from their homes during the holidays. I was going to my mother’s place a few days early, and planned to work from my father’s old home office before Thanksgiving day. Mike agreed to go with me early, and he worked on his computer from the office as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Seattle Seahawks File For Trademarks To Escape 12th Man Agreement – Can They Do This?

January 28th, 2015 by Chris Silver Smith

Seattle Seahawks Retired Number 12The Seattle Seahawks have applied for 24 trademarkes in the last 15 months, three of which involve the number “12”. As I wrote a year ago, the Seahawks were once sued by Texas A&M over using the “12th Man” name. That earlier suit was settled, resulting in a multi-year licensing agreement. The Seattle Times reports that the Seahawks are aggressively registering a few variations, such as “The 12s”, “We Are 12”, and others.

The Eagle’s article on the subject quotes A&M’s Interim V.P. of Marketing & Communications, Shane Hinckley, stating merely that the licensing arrangement satisfies A&M’s needs and that the Seahawks have been a “great partner”. However, the agreement will expire in mid-2016 if the two teams do not renew it.

Home of the 12th Man by UW Dawgs - October 13, 2013 game between the Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans at CenturyLink Field. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Home of the 12th Man by UW Dawgs – October 13, 2013 game between the Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans at CenturyLink Field. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Can A&M officials actually be happy about the Seahawks’ efforts to trademark variations around the number 12? Read the rest of this entry »

Church Launches World’s Largest Chalk Painting ‘Skyvertisement’

April 19th, 2014 by Chris Silver Smith

I’ve mentioned before how my church, Fellowship Church, has leveraged their position directly in the landing path zone near DFW Airport to promote themselves through the use of a huge logo painted directly on their roof — a form of ‘Roofvertising‘, as it were. They’ve now done yet another type of “Skyvertising” by painting a huge chalk portrait of Jesus on the church parking lot:

Fellowship Church's Chalk Portrait of Jesus

Fellowship’s Chalk portrait of Jesus. The chalk portrait coincides with the week leading up to Easter holiday weekend, and the chalk painting is a form of skyvertising. Aerial Photo Credit: WFAA

While this is clearly more of a novelty and a PR ploy to remind people that this is Easter weekend (many people only attend church twice per year — Easter Weekend and Christmas services), roofvertising and skyvertising are actually serious forms of marketing that can often reach a great many people who are exposed to the promotions when they fly over them or see them when browsing through satellite imagery and aerial photos in Google Maps, Bing Maps, Mapquest, and other mapping applications. KFC’s “Space Ad” — an image of their iconic “Colonel” mascot/logo built at large scale out in the desert of Nevada — was probably the most famous example of this type of marketing.

Fellowship’s chalk portrait of Jesus certainly allowed them to abruptly stand out from the crowd of other churches all vying for attendees this weekend. Many churches do little more to promote themselves at Easter than to hang a large banner outside. Read the rest of this entry »

Snowpiercer Delayed Distribution Driving Up Piracy & Malware

April 10th, 2014 by Chris Silver Smith

I’ve been waiting quite some time for the SF flick, Snowpiercer, to appear in U.S. theatres or for the DVD to be available. Apparently, I’m not alone. I noticed this week that if you search for “snowpiercer download”, you can find about 11 DMCA takedown notices removing 21 results from the listings in Google:

Snowpiercer DMCA and piracy in Google search results - Snowpiercer Download

Snowpiercer, is based on a graphic novel from France named Le Transperceneige,” authored by Jacques Lob and Benjamin Legrand, and illustrated by Jean-Marc Rochette. The novel set in a dystopian future where there was apparently some failed attempt to halt global warming that instead resulted in a new Ice Age that kills off all life on Earth except for a group that lives on a train called “Snow Piercer”, which runs around the planet, powered by some sort of perpetual-motion engine. Over time, a class-segregated society develops on the ever-zooming railroad, and the story focuses upon how a struggles emerges between the rich/advantaged who live at the front of the train versus the poor at the back.

The concept sounds fairly unbelievable, but the visuals in the trailer along with a compelling cast that includes Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and Ed Harris have made me want to see it. The kookiness of the concept also attracts me to it!

Since I frequently work along with various attorneys on reputation management cases, I’m accustomed to seeing takedown notices at the bottom of search results — Google and Bing have very kindly taken down materials that can be proven to be defamatory or otherwise illegal, such as in the case of copyright infringements covered by DMCA. But, I don’t recall running across a search results page with quite so many notices at once.

It’s also interesting that there appears to be no official website for the film as of yet — and provision of one would further displace secondary pirate sites, most likely, rendering them marginally less visible to consumers.

What’s further interesting about this is that I think the slowness to distribute in the U.S. has perhaps driven a lot more piracy and copyright infringement than it needed to. Many SciFi film buffs and comic book enthusiasts are interested in viewing the film, and are frustrated to be unable to get access (I count myself in this set). Read the rest of this entry »

The 12th Man

February 4th, 2014 by Chris Silver Smith
12th Man Logo

The logo of the 12th Man Foundation, designed by Chris Silver Smith

The recent Super Bowl hoopla brought the Seahawks 12th Man to national attention, but I wonder how many realize that this fan support concept was founded by Texas A&M University? Most of my friends and acquaintances are unfamiliar with my past ties to the A&M organization and its iconography as well. Shortly after college, I worked for TAMU as a scientific illustrator, mapmaker and graphic designer. While in that capacity, I designed the 12th Man’s iconic logo.

If you’ve driven around the state of Texas for any length of time, chances are good that you’ve seen this logo on decals on the back windows of a great many vehicles. I think it’s probably the most widely visible thing I’ve ever designed.

So, how did the 12th Man itself come to be associated with the Seahawks, way up in Seattle, Washington? Read the rest of this entry »

Google Treasure Maps

April 1st, 2013 by Chris Silver Smith

Have you tried out Google Maps in “Treasure Mode” today?

Google Maps in Treasure Mode

Google Treasure Map of Dallas

I just noticed it late in the day. On the left side is a box for more information about the new beta program: Read the rest of this entry »