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This easy Indian dal is ready in under an hour, and makes a satisfying vegetarian lunch or dinner. Serve with rice or naan. This soup also keeps well and can be frozen for up to three months.

Red Lentil Dal

This easy Indian dal is ready in under an hour, and makes a satisfying vegetarian lunch or dinner. Serve with rice or naan. This soup also keeps well and can be frozen for up to three months.

Red Lentil Dal

This easy Indian dal is ready in under an hour, and makes a satisfying vegetarian lunch or dinner. Serve with rice or naan. This soup also keeps well and can be frozen for up to three months.

Red Lentil Dal

This easy Indian dal is ready in under an hour, and makes a satisfying vegetarian lunch or dinner. Serve with rice or naan. This soup also keeps well and can be frozen for up to three months.

Continue reading “Best Holiday Fruitcake” »

Don Imus, Legendary ‘Imus in the Morning’ Host, Dies at 79

December 28, 2019Tim Dempsey

2:19 PM PST 12/27/2019 by Duane Byrge , Katie Kilkenny

The controversial radio personality passed away on Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas.

Don Imus, the radio personality whose insult humor and savage comedy catapulted him to a long-lasting and controversial career, has died at 79. His three-hour radio program, Imus in the Morning, was widely popular, especially with the over 25-male demographic.

Imus died Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized on Christmas Eve, a representative said. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Mike and the Mad Dog host Mike Francesca tweeted Friday, “Shocking news on the passing of my friend, Don Imus. He will long be remembered as one of the true giants in the history of radio.”

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough added, “Morning Joe obviously owes its format to Don Imus. No one else could have gotten away with that much talk on cable news. Thanks for everything, Don.” Morning Joe started as a fill-in for Imus in the Morning after Imus was fired from MSNBC in 2007.

Imus in the Morning, which debuted on WNBC-AM in New York in 1971, most recently reached radio listeners via Citadel Media and was simulcast on the Fox Business Network.

Imus was loved or hated for his caustic loudmouth. Outspoken in an age of political correctness, his often coarse satire offended sensibilities. Yet his listeners included those whom he often ridiculed. His call-in guests included President Clinton, Dan Rather, Tim Russert, Bill Bradley, David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and political analyst Jeff Greenfield, who once remarked, “He’s out there talking the way most of us talk when we’re not in public.”

He sparked national outcry in 2007 when he made derogatory, racist remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. CBS Radio and MSNBC then dropped his show.

He rebounded by signing a multiyear contract with the Fox Business Network in 2009 to simulcast Imus in the Morning from 6-9 a.m., with Fox anchors appearing during the program.

Imus battled a lifelong addiction to drugs and alcohol. In 2009, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Imus was often compared to syndicated shock jock Howard Stern, who also had a stint on WNBC radio early in his career, and they frequently appeared on each other’s shows. Although Imus could not match Stern’s audience in terms of numbers, advertisers were well aware of Imus’ better-educated and richer demographic, often preferring him.

Imus in the Morning sandwiched music around his in-your-face commentary in which he mocked authority figures and ridiculed social and political problems. His no-holds-barred humor, including gags and pranks, spurred the onset of “shock jocks” like Stern. A mix of rock ’n’ roll, raunchy humor, call-ins and hard barbs, Imus in the Morning was a huge hit.

He also performed stand-up for a time, garnering favorable reviews from such unlikely reviewers as The New York Times.

An active philanthropist, Imus and his wife, Deirdre, founded the Imus Ranch in 1999, where each summer children with cancer could enjoy the outdoors.

John Donald Imus Jr., was born on July 23, 1940, in Riverside, California. He was raised in Prescott, Arizona, where his family owned a large ranch. He dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Marines and after basic training won a chair in the band.

Following discharge, he worked at an array of odd jobs: window dresser (he was fired for staging mannequin striptease shows), uranium miner and railroad brakeman, where he suffered a serious neck injury and won a large cash settlement.

While recovering, he set his sights on becoming a disc jockey, ostensibly to play his own music on the airwaves. He moved to Los Angeles, enrolled in a Hollywood broadcasting school and landed his first deejay job at KUTY, a station in Palmdale, California.

During an eight-month stint there, he developed a skill for comic patter and moved to KJOY in Stockton, California, where he staged satirical social and political gags, including an Eldridge Cleaver look-alike contest when the Black Panther was on the lam. His station manager did not see the humor, and he was fired.

He moved to KXOA in Sacramento, where his satirical hijinks were appreciated by the station manager who counseled him that his humor would be more lethal and less likely to attract legal action. Intent on becoming more lethal, Imus created a slew of satirical characters, including the huckster Rev. Billy Sol Hargus.

His on-air antics infuriated authorities, including the FCC, which was not amused when he phoned a fast-food outlet and ordered 1,200 hamburgers and requested a bizarre array of toppings. The gag resulted in a ruling that deejays must identify themselves when making on-air calls. The clash with government authority, not surprisingly, boosted his ratings, and KXOA was No. 1 in Sacramento while he was there.

Imus is survived by his wife, Deirdre; sons Wyatt and Lt. Zachary Don Cates; and daughters Nadine, Ashley, Elizabeth and Toni.

“Don loved and adored Deirdre, who unconditionally loved him back, loved spending his time watching Wyatt become a highly skilled, champion rodeo rider and calf roper and loved and supported Zachary, who first met the Imus family at age 10 when he participated in the Imus Ranch program for kids with cancer, having battled and overcome leukemia, eventually becoming a member of the Imus family and Don and Deirdre’s second son,” his family said in a statement.

The family will hold a private service in the coming days and asks for donations to be made to the Imus Ranch Foundation.

Revenue train kept rolling all year long for Salesforce

December 27, 2019Tim Dempsey

Salesforce turned 20 this year, and the most successful pure enterprise SaaS company ever showed no signs of slowing down. Consider that the company finished the year on an $18 billion run rate, rushing toward its 2022 revenue goal of $20 billion. Oh, and it also spent a tidy $15.7 billion to buy Tableau this year in the most high-profile and expensive acquisition it’s ever made.

Co-founder, chairman and CEO Marc Benioff published a book called Trailblazer about running a socially responsible company, and made the rounds promoting it. In fact, he even stopped by TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco in September, telling the audience that capitalism as we know it is dead. Still, the company announced it was building two more towers in Sydney and Dublin.

It also promoted Bret Taylor just last week, who could be in line as heir apparent to Benioff and co-CEO Keith Block whenever they decide to retire. The company closed the year with a bang with a $4.5 billion quarter. Salesforce, for the most part, has somehow been able to balance Benioff’s vision of responsible capitalism while building a company makes money in bunches, one that continues to grow and flourish, and that’s showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Salesforce at 20 offers lessons for startup success

All aboard the gravy train

The company just keeps churning out good quarters. Here’s what this year looked like:

How to Create Facebook Video Ads in Minutes: Tips For Beginners

December 27, 2019Tim Dempsey

Facebook video ads are an essential part of any business’ social media toolkit. According to Wyzowl, people recall just 20% of the information they read compared to 80% when info is presented in more visual formats. This largely explains the rise of self-directed learning on Youtube.

We’re at an age where every marketer knows videos are important. But not every marketer knows yet that videos are surprisingly easy to make. You might think good video content requires professional gear, complex software, and a big budget — but that’s not the case.

It’s true that making a video ad used to mean hiring a scriptwriter, director, actors, and camera crew — then paying for professional editing on top of that. But advances in technology have changed all that. There are now very simple and inexpensive ways you can do that.

Here how to create Facebook video ads in minutes:

Take advantage of stock footage and audio

One of the simplest ways to get great content is to use what others have already created. Using stock video footage allows you to include imagery in your video that would be difficult to film yourself.

Say you want a sweeping aerial shot of mountains in your video. Getting that shot yourself would be very difficult and expensive. But if someone else has already filmed it and made it available as stock footage, you can pay a small fee and use it in your own video ad. Most stock video libraries will allow you to search by keywords to quickly find what you’re after.

You might be surprised to know that it’s not the only deadline and budget-driven marketers who use stock media. Even major film studios use stock footage to save time and money.

You can blend stock footage with content you create yourself or even make your entire video from stock by editing various scenes together.

The same goes for stock audio and music. Getting the right to commercially-released music is very expensive and so is hiring a composer. But with stock music, you can add great background music to your video without paying too much.

Use ready-made templates

If you want to create videos very quickly, you can also try using a Facebook video ad template. Templates are helpful because they give you a general outline to fit your content into. These will usually come pre-loaded with stock video and audio, which you can keep or replace, as well as spaces to add your own text.

For example, you could use this travel ad template or this ready-made cafe ad and replace the stock footage provided with original content you’ve shot for your business.

You could also try a dedicated Facebook video ad maker. This will provide you with a simple drag-and-drop interface – just choose stock video and audio that work for your business then add your own text.

Edit your video online

If you are going to use your own video content, it’s helpful to have some basic editing tools on hand. Access to a good editor is helpful because it means you don’t need to nail everything in one take. You can quickly trim down scenes to get the timing right and edit together multiple takes.

There’s plenty of complex and expensive editing software out there but all you need for simple Facebook video ads is a free online editor. With a good editor, you can put together a video and send it straight to your account from the editor.

It may take a little practice, but it’s pretty easy to get the basic editing techniques for making your video content look great.

How to Create Facebook Video Ads That Work

It’s one thing to put a video together but another to create effective content. Here are some tips on how to create Facebook video ads that work:

Ensure your videos are exported in the right file type and size to play easily on Facebook. Check out Facebook’s guidelines for video ads, and always ensure your content is optimized for mobile devices as that’s probably where it will be seen.
Keep your videos short – 15-60 seconds is a good general guide. It’s hard enough to grab people’s attention on social media; don’t push your luck once you do.
Mention your brand early – ideally in the first 3 seconds – and make sure your logo or company name also appears on the screen visually, not just in the audio. More than 85% of Facebook users watch videos without sound!
Speaking of soundless videos, ensure your ad has subtitles and text so people can engage with it even if they don’t turn on the sound. This is also a reason to include good music – if people do turn the sound on, they should be rewarded!
Your videos shouldn’t look sloppy but you also don’t want something overly polished. People aren’t on social media looking for slick ads. So go for good, authentic content that adds value to people’s scrolling experience and just happens to also boost your brand.

Get your video in front of the right people

Don’t forget to target your ad when it’s time to share it on Facebook. You can customize the audience for your ad according to location, age, gender, languages, interests, behaviors, and even connections.

Follow those guidelines and start putting video ads together and you’ll start to see great results. Whether you’re starting off with simple templates or editing a mini-masterpiece, online videos should be a key part of your online promotional strategy.

The post How to Create Facebook Video Ads in Minutes: Tips For Beginners appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

Best Holiday Fruitcake

December 23, 2019Tim Dempsey

This easy Christmas fruitcake is perfect for the holidays. It’s light, tender, and full of dried fruits and nuts. Sprinkle the loaf with brandy, or leave it out! Either way, this fruit cake is a welcome addition to the holiday table.

Jimmy Kimmel goes after Trump over shocking joke about dead congressman

December 20, 2019Tim Dempsey

Jimmy Kimmel goes after Trump over shocking joke about dead congressman

At the same time the House was voting to impeach him on Wednesday, President Donald Trump was holding a rally in Michigan, tearing into everyone and everything that even slightly displeased him. Among his targets was Rep. Debbie Dingell, who voted for impeachment.

On Thursday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel highlighted how Trump retaliated against the perceived slight by implying that Dingell’s late husband, long-serving Rep. John Dingell, was in Hell, “looking up” at her.

“Trump believes that since he graciously allowed the flags of federal buildings to be lowered to half mast to honor John Dingell, his widow should have shown her appreciation by voting not to impeach,” said Kimmel. Read more…

More about Donald Trump, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy Kimmel, John Dingell, and Debbie Dingell

Jimmy Kimmel goes after Trump over shocking joke about dead congressman

December 20, 2019Tim Dempsey

Jimmy Kimmel goes after Trump over shocking joke about dead congressman

More about Donald Trump, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy Kimmel, John Dingell, and Debbie Dingell

Asian shares retreat from highs, markets take Trump impeachment in stride

December 19, 2019Tim Dempsey

Asian shares pulled back from a one-and-a-half year peak on Thursday as investors took some money off the table ahead of holiday trade and looked to fresh data on the state of the global economy.

Chinese leader Xi visits gambling hub Macau as nearby Hong Kong seethes

China’s President Xi Jinping begins a three-day visit to the gambling hub of Macau on Wednesday to mark the 20th anniversary of its handover to China, with security tight and some media barred entry as protests rock nearby Hong Kong.

Chinese leader Xi visits gambling hub Macau as nearby Hong Kong seethes

Chinese leader Xi visits gambling hub Macau as nearby Hong Kong seethes

Chinese leader Xi visits gambling hub Macau as nearby Hong Kong seethes

I’m Listening’s Anita Flores
Let’s Talk About Cats’ Mary Phillips-Sandy and Lizzie Jacobs
Broken Record’s Justin Richmond
Criminal/This Is Love’s Lauren Spohrer
Jeffrey Cranor of Welcome to Night Vale
Jesse Thorn of Bullseye
Ben Lindbergh of Effectively Wild
My own podcast, RiYL

How I Podcast: Family Ghost’s Sam Dingman

December 17, 2019Tim Dempsey

The beauty of podcasting is that anyone can do it. It’s a rare medium that’s nearly as easy to make as it is to consume. And as such, no two people do it exactly the same way. There are a wealth of hardware and software solutions open to potential podcasters, so setups run the gamut from NPR studios to USB Skype rigs.

We’ve asked some of our favorite podcast hosts and producers to highlight their workflows — the equipment and software they use to get the job done. The list so far includes:

For three seasons, Panoply’s “Family Ghosts” has explored the deep, dark and true mysteries that have haunted families for generations. Show creator Sam Dingman is a Moth Grand Slam Winner, who also served as the producer for the popular podcasts “Bad With Money” and “You Must Remember This.”

I fell in love with podcasts in 2009, during the depths of my bizarre tenure as a customer support rep at an ill-fated software concern (RIP LimeWire). My job was to answer the phone and tell irate users who’d contracted viruses from illegally downloading music (read: porn) that we didn’t give refunds. Podcasts were a welcome reprieve from this firehose of outrage, and before long, I got up the nerve to start one of my own. I proceeded to fritter away entire workdays combing through recording forums (shout-out to Gearslutz!) and Googling pictures of radio studios, lusting after large diaphragm condenser mics and palpitating over preamps.

Unfortunately, all I could afford was an Audio-Technica AT2020 USB mic — which led to a series of initial recordings which were as spirited as they were unintelligible:

[A recording session for my (mercifully) short-lived first podcast, circa 2009].

Thankfully, I’ve learned a lot in the ensuing 10 years, and have also, via the grace of the audio gods, somehow acquired enough of a production budget to build my own studio space in a cozy basement studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Earlier this year, my friend Alan and I spent two truly endless days in said basement attempting to decipher the instructions for constructing a Whisper Room, where I now record all of the narration for “Family Ghosts,” soothing my constant fear that the whole thing is going to collapse on my head with the calming presence of a magenta lava lamp.

My starry-eyed Googling at LimeWire convinced me that a Holy Grail vocal chain could be achieved via the pairing of a Neumann U87 mic with the rich analogue circuitry of a Great River ME-1NV preamp, and I accordingly sprung for both as soon as we got the last screw turned on the Whisper Room. Every time I take the Neumann out of its wooden jeweler’s box for a recording session, I whisper “Hello, Magic Mic.” The Great River sits on my desk with its stately black knobs and austere gain meter, and I love the warmth and nuance it imparts upon the voices that flow through it.

Of course, recording narration in the Whisper Room is only half the battle for a “Family Ghosts” story — when I’m not in the studio, I’m usually lugging around a backpack full of my field recording gear: a Zoom H5 digital recorder, two Rode NTG2 shotgun mics, two desktop mic stands and XLR cables, a wall adapter and extension cord so that I don’t have to worry about draining the batteries on the Zoom during long interviews, a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones and a stereo ¼” -to-⅛” cable, which allows me to record good-quality phone interviews on the Zoom.

Then I bring the whole works back to the basement in Greenpoint, load the audio into Pro Tools, fire up the lava lamp, buy some coffee and obsessively re-arrange waveforms into the wee small hours of the night, forever grateful that I somehow found a way to leave the screaming customer service calls behind.

Bread Pudding

December 16, 2019Tim Dempsey

This best-ever Bread Pudding is so easy to make. Just soak bread cubes with eggs, sugar, and milk, then bake. Add bourbon-soaked raisins and spices to make it extra-special. This New Orleans dessert is a classic for Christmas, Mardi Gras, or any special meal.

Continue reading “Bread Pudding” »

The new new weird

December 16, 2019Tim Dempsey

Neo-Pentecostal gangs in Brazil, driving out other faiths at gunpoint. A mob of 100 lawyers attacking a hospital in Pakistan to revenge themselves on violent doctors there. Anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, and red-pillers. Sometimes it seems like the world has fragmented into a jagged kaleidoscope of countless mobs and subcultures, each more disconcerting than the last.

Much of this is selection bias: if it bleeds, it leads, in both mass media and social-media algorithms. But it does seem plausible that the Internet is contributing to this kaleidoscope, to this growth in worrisome fringe subcultures, in three separate ways: complexity, information, and connectivity.

Connectivity is the most obvious avenue. The Internet empowers everyone to find their like-minded people, and this is as true of the hateful and vengeful as it is of the dispossessed and downtrodden. Furthermore, the power of a group increases nonlinearly with its size. The hateful views of one man in a community of 100 people are unlikely to make a huge collective difference; worst case, they become a fabled missing stair. But 1% of a nation of 100 million? That’s a million people. That’s a movement ready to join, to march, to pay tithes, to reinforce one another.

Information is more subtle. There’s a fascinating quote from the recent New Yorker profile of William Gibson: “Gibson noticed that people with access to unlimited information could develop illusions of omniscience.” You can get any kind of information you want on the Internet. You can find what appear at first glance to be closely argued and well-supported claims that global warming will kill off all but half a billion people by the end of this century, and also, if you prefer, that global warming is an authoritarian hoax.

No wonder people increasingly act as if the truth is something you choose from a buffet rather than a fact that will eventually bite you, hard, if you refuse to believe in it. As Philip K. Dick put it, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” But if all your information comes from the Internet, and is never testable, you never have to stop believing in it … until it’s far too late.

Complexity is, I think, the saddest. It has nothing to do with being led astray by evil companions or disinformation. It’s just that our modern world has become so complicated, such an endless buzz of noise and events and obligations, that lashing back against it, fixating on a simple solution to all the world’s problems, makes people feel strong. This delightful article about schisms among believers in a flat Earth includes the telling quote: “When you find out the Earth is flat … then you become empowered.”

Is the world going to get weirder yet, with new and more bizarre and inexplicable subcultures erupting from the Internet with every passing year? Have we hit the plateau of an S-curve? Or are we in a local minimum, and as we get better at dealing with connectivity and complexity, will we look back on these as the crazy years? My money’s on door number two … but I’ve been outweirded before.

Volkswagen to bring self-driving electric shuttles to Qatar by 2022

December 14, 2019Tim Dempsey

Volkswagen Group and Qatar have agreed to develop a public transit system of autonomous shuttles and buses by 2022 for the capital city of Doha.

The agreement signed Saturday by VW Group and the Qatar Investment Authority is an expansive project that will involve four brands under VW Group, including Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania, its shared ride service MOIA and Audi subsidiary Autonomous Intelligent Driving, or AID.

The aim is to develop the entire transport system, including the electric autonomous shuttles and buses, legal framework, city infrastructure and ride-hailing software required to deploy a commercial service there. The autonomous vehicles will be integrated into existing public transit.

“For our cities to progress we need a new wave of innovation,” QIA CEO Mansoor Al Mahmoud said in a statement. “AI-enabled, emission-free transportation technologies will help advance urban mobility, while diminishing congestion and improving energy efficiency.

The fleet will include 35 autonomous electric ID. Buzz vehicles from the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles unit, which will shuttle up to four passengers on semi-fixed routes in a geo-fenced area of Doha. Another 10 Scania buses will be used for larger groups.

Closed testing of the shuttle vehicles and buses is expected to begin in 2020. Trials could start as early as 2021. VW and QIA said the project will go live by the end of 2022.

Johnson wins ‘huge’ mandate for swift Brexit in UK election

Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a resounding election victory on Friday that will allow him to end three years of political paralysis and take Britain out of the European Union within weeks.

With a roar, Scotland’s Sturgeon cheers win against LibDem leader

With a roar and a double fist pump, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon cheered the defeat of Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson by the nationalists in a clip that went viral on social media early on Friday.

Factbox: How the mighty fell – biggest upsets in the UK election

The British election threw up some shock results on Friday, including the ousting of the pro-European Liberal Democrat leader and the fall of a veteran Labour lawmaker known as the “Beast of Bolsover”.

U.S. sets terms for China trade deal, sources say, but Beijing mum

Washington has set its terms for a trade deal with China, offering to suspend some tariffs on Chinese goods and cut others in exchange for Beijing buying more American farm goods, U.S. sources said on Thursday.

How Boris Johnson’s election gamble paid off

It was a straight forward message: “Get Brexit done.”

Reliance Industries acquires a majority stake in SaaS startup NowFloats for $20M