Bad Trades Search Results

How To: Shop for an eReader

These days, eReaders are everywhere. For die-hard book nerds, eReaders offer the convenience of a full library without having to sacrifice shelf space. Sure, there are the paper buffs who swear that you just can't take an eReader with you into the bathtub, but when's the last time anyone actually did that? Face it, eReaders are convenient and here to stay. But there's a dizzying array of information out there, so what should you look for in an eReader?

News: News Clips - June 6

Collapse At Hand Ever since the beginning of the financial crisis and quantitative easing, the question has been before us: How can the Federal Reserve maintain zero interest rates for banks and negative real interest rates for savers and bond holders when the US government is adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt every year via its budget deficits? Not long ago the Fed announced that it was going to continue this policy for another 2 or 3 years. Indeed, the Fed is locked into the policy.

News: Curbing our Hubris

"The suspect is based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. He has been identified as a staff sergeant in the Stryker brigade who was taking part in a village stability operation in Afghanistan. He is a 38-year-old married father of two on his first deployment to Afghanistan after three previous deployments in Iraq.", reads an article from MSNBC.

News: Killing American Citzens

US can legally kill Americans in terror groups You read it right. The US can now target Americans who are supposedly part of terrorist groups. Here's my analysis of Attorney General Eric Holder points (keep in mind though, these are point's brought up by MSNBC, original article here):

News: Fallout Inspired underground bunker

As my in game name (TehGeekFather) would suggest I tend to like things on the Geekier side of things. Games being one of them. (duh I'm on a Forum dedicated to Minecraft) That being said I am a huge Fallout fan. (NO! not the band. <Sigh>) I'm referring to the post apocalyptic series first developed by Black Isle Studios, the roll playing game division of Interplay, back in 1997. Fallout 1 and 2 were pretty big back then open game play, being able to complete tasks in different ways depending ...

News: Hack Your Computer's BIOS to Unlock Hidden Settings, Overclocking & More

Your BIOS, or Basic Input Output System, is the firmware on your motherboard responsible for initializing your computer's hardware when it is first powered on. It probes for video adapters, RAM, the whole works. The BIOS provides a small library of basic input/output functions used to operate and control the peripherals such as the keyboard, text display functions and so forth, and these software library functions are callable by external software such as the OS and system software within sai...

How To: Hack Your Xbox Gamerscore

Nearly everyone has the capacity to be a cheater. Sometime or another, all Xbox users have yearned to get their gamerscore to unimaginable thresholds—for bragging and egotistical purposes. I can relate to this desire. However, I also don't want to mod my gamerscore, because it's just unfair and not nearly as much fun as doing it the honest way. To me, it's synonymous to entering the cheats into a game after you've beaten it. Cheats can add new life into a game once you're done, but since the ...

How To: Fix a Bricked iPhone or iPod Touch After a Failed Jailbreak

I can't believe it, but I've actually read about dozens of people getting their iTouch, iPhone, or iPad stuck in a bricked recovery loop and then going out to buy a new one. This is overly unnecessary. When it gets stuck in the recovery loop, some people mistake themselves by thinking that it is impossible to get the device back into DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode. Getting the device back into DFU mode would at least allow us to jailbreak the device, essentially bringing it back from its ...

How To: Hack Wireless Router Passwords & Networks Using Hydra

Leaving your wireless router at its default settings is a bad idea. The sad thing is, most people still do it. Once they've penetrated your network, hackers will change your router settings so they'll have an easy way back in. This allows them to change your network into a shell or proxy so they can forward their traffic anonymously through you when committing other dirty deeds.

How To: Stream Media to a PS3 or Xbox 360 from Mac & Linux Computers

One of the main reasons I was held back from fully switching over to Linux was the fact that media streaming is nearly impossible. You have two choices in Windows: either you use file sharing with Windows Media Player, or you can just use the Windows Media Center. But both of these softwares are not for Linux or Mac. Microsoft doesn't like to make open source software because they believe in making a profit, instead of allowing others to innovate it.

News: Next Professor Layton Game to Include 100-Hour Long Bonus RPG

Games have been getting shorter in length over the last decade. RPGs like The Elder Scrolls series are still tremendously long, but most single-player game experiences have gotten shorter as production values, costs, and manpower requirements to create them have gone up. It seems that elite Japanese developers Level-5 and Brownie Brown have decided to completely disregard that trend for their forthcoming collaborative effort Professor Layton and the Last Specter, which will feature what might...

News: FOX News Outraged Over Liberal Eco-Minded Kids Games

We've all seen FOX News commentators get worked up about silly non-issues. It occurs more than we'd like, but what happened last week on popular morning show FOX and Friends was not only a misleading and pointless attack on video games, it was an unintelligible attack on a mediocre and forgotten game from 2007, along with a handful of recent indies that no FOX and Friends viewers, or any of their close family members, had ever heard of before this broadcast.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Arcade Games Are Dead

If you're between the ages of 20 and 40, then video arcades probably hold a special place in your heart. Whether you all but lived in one (me), wished you could, or detested those with a liking for them, there's no denying that arcades were a ubiquitous part of American culture. They were everywhere, from big chains to little mom-and-pops, housing better systems than gamers had at home and with all the best games and newest titles.

News: Sing Along to Your Favorite Songs with the musiXmatch Mobile Lyrics App

You may not do it in public, and you might not admit to it among your friends, but you do it. We all do it... sing. We sing when we're alone in our cars, at home when no one's listening, and when we've had a little too much to drink and don't care anymore, all inhibitions aside. We love to croon and belt out lyrics to our favorite songs because it makes us feel good, no matter how good or how awful we are, or how well we know the words. Well... now you can at least be proud of one of those th...

How To: Replicate Colonel Sanders' Kentucky Fried Chicken Secret Recipe

Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of those things that nearly everybody loves. But if your craving is strong and you want to make it yourself, think again – the Colonel’s not keen on parting with his top secret recipe. According to KFC’s official site, “one company blends a formulation that represents part of the recipe while another spice company blends the remainder. As a final safeguard, a computer processing system is used to standardize the blending of the products to ensure neither company ...

News: Google Kills Gaming on Android

One of the biggest advantages iOS has over Android as a mobile platform is how readily and fully it has embraced mobile gaming. There are over 200,000 games available in the Apple store, compared to approximately 100,000 in the Android Marketplace. As an Android-using gamer, this has always bothered me.

How To: Clean Your Computer

I love my laptop. It goes wherever I go. Unfortunately, that means that it also gets pretty grubby after a while. The screen gets dusty. The frame gets smudgy. The spaces between the keys fill up with crumbs of questionable origins. And my desktop? That thing is a dust bunny magnet.

News: Google Music Now Live in Beta Mode

At Google I/O this morning, Google finally announced the launch of its much awaited Google Music service. It's currently in invite-only beta mode, but they claim it will open up to the masses soon enough. To start syncing your music library with Google's Cloud now, you need make sure you're signed into your Google Account, then click here for a personal invite. It's currently free for a limited, undisclosed amount time.

News: MyndPlay Gives Mindf*** Movies a New Meaning

Were you horrified when Gwyneth Paltrow's head ended up in a box in Se7en? Do you share Harrison Ford's opinion that Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi? Think Kurt Russell could have handled aliens better in The Thing? Well, sorry—you're out of luck. There's nothing you can do to prevent William Wallace's beheading or Carrie's mayhem. But thanks to MyndPlay, controlling the plot to future films is totally possible.

News: Fluorescent Puppies You Can Turn On and Off

Always wanted a fluorescent dog but didn’t want to commit? Well, here’s your solution. Researchers at Seoul National University developed fluorescent puppies that only glow when you want them to. Just inject the special pups with doxycycline and they’ll glow like a black light poster for a few weeks. Then, they return to dull, furry normal.

News: Carnivorous Furniture Eats Flies and Mice for Energy

PETA wouldn't consider James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau's ingenious flypaper clock very eco-friendly, but I might beg to differ. The clock doesn't require any electricity or batteries. Instead it captures flies and converts the bodies of the dead insects into energy. Eight dead flies makes for roughly twelve days of power. Not bad.

Fallen Empires: The Worst Ever?

I started playing MTG in 1994, the same year that the Fallen Empires set hit the market. It was, in fact, the first new set released after I started playing, making me one excited nine-year-old. I harangued my father, he took my friends and I to Gameworks again and again, and the booster packs started to mount. The problems only started to occur once we got them open.

News: Proposition 25

Prop 25 prevents a suspension in CA’s budget. It means that legislators will not get paid if the budget is not passed on time. A budget will be passed with the vote of a small majority rather than two-thirds like it was before. However, a two-thirds vote is required to increase taxes.

How To: How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit?

Tawkon has developed an app for the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry that measures the radiation levels at any given time. The demonstration below shows how the radiation levels go up for each phone when a "death grip" is applied. What's a death grip, you may ask? A death grip is a simple term used to denote a hand that has recently killed. What a troublesome thing to have.