The Cincinnati-based auction house Cowan’s has returned a hand carved wooden statue of the Zuni War God Ahayu:da to the Zuni Pueblo of New Mexico. The sacred 15-inch figure was removed years ago from a holy shrine before turning up in an Ohio estate and eventually being consigned to Cowan’s. The firm’s director of Native ...
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The Role of Art During a Pandemic
"Art is how we express, how we feel our anxieties," said Sally Tallant, the president and executive director of the Queens Museum. "It's how we can touch on things that are difficult to touch in other ways. You can go to any museum and see thousands of artists trying to process grief. And [after the ...
Inscription from Apollon Aksyros Temple in Saitta Returned to Turkey from Italy
An 1,800-year-old Lydian era atonement inscription was returned early Wednesday to Turkey, where it was smuggled 23 years ago and later found in Italy. Source: 1,800-year-old artifact delivered to Turkey from Italy News from long term litigation involving a private collection in Italy and the Turkish government.
Where is the Salvator Mundi?
The painting has been described as a devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s most famous work, and is said to have an “extraordinary, communicative presence”. But Lewis, the author of the acclaimed book The Last Leonardo, explains why questions remain about its origin. Last year the painting did not appear in the Louvre’s blockbuster ...
Embrace Spontaneity in Your Zoom Calls
Most surprising, he said, was how much his students came to enjoy brief appearances from his pug puppy, Gus. Warner hasn’t decided yet whether Gus will continue his cameos, but the response was a good sign that spontaneity still has a place in Yale’s classes. “It acknowledges that we’re all doing this from various spaces ...
About the Microsoft and Walmart Acquiring TikTok Deal
The idea would be to help turn TikTok U.S. into more of an e-commerce app for creators and users, much like what TikTok parent company ByteDance does with a similar app in China. Source: Microsoft working with Walmart on TikTok deal - Axios One of the main reasons TikTok has taken off with influencers, soccer ...
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Chalk Apocalypse
So, when Hagoromo announced that it was going out of business in 2014, it caused a rupture in the math community." I referred to it as a chalk apocalypse," Conrad said. In a panic, mathematicians across America began stockpiling resources in preparation." I calculated how many boxes I would need to last 10 to 15 ...
Maybe George Lucas Was Right
I’ve been rewatching Star Wars with my 4 year old son the last few weeks. We started with A New Hope > Empire > Jedi then worked our way back to Phantom Menace and now Attack of the Clones (with Revenge of the Sith then Clone Wars after that). I have to admit... after the ...
Rise of OnlyFans, Decline of Influencer Marketing
Interesting dynamics for the marketing world (something I've been arguing for since "influencer marketing" became a thing years ago) as we continue to see re-evaluations of things like Google Ads and social media marketing as well. The landscape is changing rapidly and I've been on a ton of strategy calls with clients lately trying to ...
“Reopen” Domain Surge
Propaganda and misinformation are easy to propagate on the web as one of my mentors, Wayne Porter, would frequently show me. Now is not the time to let our guard down. That lookup returned approximately 150 domains; in addition to those named after the individual 50 states, some of the domains refer to large American ...
5 Years of Apple Watch
Wow, seems like yesterday... can't believe it's been five years. Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Apple Watch launching on April 24, 2015. Source: Looking Back on Five Years of Apple Watch - MacRumors
Facebook Launches Messenger Rooms to Go After ZOOM’s Market Boom
Interesting play that was pretty predictable. But I do wonder if Facebook's presence with nonprofits, churches, and small businesses will mean that Messenger Rooms takes off on a steep path of adoption? I think it just might because so many people in those areas are "already on Facebook" and comfortable with the platform as opposed ...
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Google Slashing Marketing Budget
Read the tea leaves, folks. Things aren't "re-opening" anytime soon. This is a long term situation and those at the top of the food chain are very much aware of the coming choppy waters... Google is slashing its marketing budgets by as much as half for the second half of the year, according to internal ...
Google’s Ads Updates in Search Results
We manage a number of Google Ads campaigns for clients. We've definitely noticed an uptick in desktop CTR's since the updates (same as what happened with mobile last year). But a Google Ads campaign is only as good as the conversions it drives. If the quality tanks b/c of more junk clicks, ad spends will ...
On Aliens
Aliens exist, there’s no two ways about it. There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life. Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply ...
Top Posts of the Teens
I started writing email newsletters in 2002 and blogging in 2003 for a couple of marketing outlets. I was mowing the lawn on October 13, 2006, and had the bright idea to start a marketing blog called CostPerNews. It took off rather quickly and before I knew it, I was getting citations on Techmeme and ...
Thoughts on AirPods Pro
I was going to pass up on the AirPods Pro. I was incredibly impressed by the first generation of AirPods. In many ways, the AirPods became the revolutionary technology that we all thought the Apple Watch might be. The integration with Siri and the ability to interface with a voice-first assistant set the devices apart, ...
Build your own website and stop using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for your personal online persona.
There’s another option for developing an online presence that doesn’t leak any data you don’t want it to, if you’re willing to put in the effort: a personal website. Last year, a Vice reporter, Jason Koebler, made a compelling case for bringing personal websites back into style. Before Facebook, setting up your own page on ...
The Problem with Trying to Do Your Own Email Marketing
Web designers always bemoan online website creators like Wix and Squarespace for making it too easy to build a website and undercutting their own trade (and pricing). We've certainly battled with that at Harrelson Co over the years, especially given that our main client base is made of nonprofits, churches, small businesses, and generally those ...
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Spaying and Neutering Dogs
Well this is an eye-opening piece that has caused me to reconsider lots of presuppositions... In other words, to solve the problem of our unwillingness to keep track of our dogs, we do not address our own unwillingness. To address the overpopulation of unwanted dogs, we do not address the overpopulation. Instead, we non sequitur: ...