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How To: Pick a Spoke-Hedz 3-Digit Combination Lock

My kids found an old Spoke-Hedz three digit lock, and wanted my help to crack it open. One of the first things I noticed was that it doesn't function like a normal code lock, where one half of the lock will open, or the lock itself separates. In this lock, the locking bail extends through the lock mechanism, and the lock mechanism itself slides back and forth across the bail.

How To: Convert video to cartoon in After Effects

In this three part tutorial Creative Cow leader Aharon Rabinowitz explains the process of converting video to cartoon by using only After Effects and Adobe Illustrator CS2. Even if you don't want to create this exact effect, this tutorial covers a TON of basics and is a worthwile learning experience. Topics discussed: Dealing with interlaced footage, Basic Color and Image Correction, Creative Outlines, rendering an image sequence, using layer blending/transfer modes, Motion Tracking, Hold Key...

How To: Benefit from Effective Internet Marketing Strategies

Business owners and marketeers are diverting from traditional marketing techniques, including billboards, radio and TV advertising, brochures, and any other outdoor promotions, to cheaper but effective Internet marketing strategies. Under the new arrangement, business owners reach out to the final consumers through advertising on the World Wide Web.

News: BBC Censors Video Showing Syrian Rebels Tricking Prisoner

The BBC has sensationally censored a news story and a video showing Syrian rebels forcing a prisoner to become a suicide bomber, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, presumably because it reflected badly on establishment media efforts to portray the FSA as glorious freedom fighters. » BBC Censors Video Showing Syrian Rebels Tricking Prisoner to Become Suicide Bomber Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!.

Dichromatic Disaster: Teal and Orange Everywhere

I'm really glad someone finally wrote this article. Todd Miro @ Into The Abyss details the teal and orange look that's pervading mainstream and independent films. In essence, because orange is the color that is the closest to skin tone, DI colorists are forcing its complementary color - teal - into the image. It's a simple trick that, when used subtly, can create color contrast and really pop an image. Unfortunately, more often than not, actors look like Snooki's cousin and trees and shadows ...

How To: Make bird feeders out of gourds

Fall is the best time to start a bird-feeding program that will last until spring. As the temperature begins to drop, the natural food supply dwindles, forcing birds to look for alternative sources to get them through the cold winter months. A feeder put out in the fall is sure to become a regular stop on birds' winter feeding rounds. The foods birds love include black-oil sunflower seeds, suet, peanuts, cracked corn, peanut butter, thistle, fruit, and shelled sunflower seeds.

News: Banks, Global Elite Confirmed to Hold $32 Trillion in Offshore Accounts

Major banks and the financial global elite are now confirmed to have as much as $32 trillion in hidden assets stashed away in offshore accounts that are subject to little or no taxation. As a result, around $280 billion is estimated to be lost in tax revenues. In other words, the multi-trillion dollar banks and elite families are avoiding any taxation while forcing United States citizens to foot the bill. Amazingly, the $32 trillion stashed away represents the overall GDP of the United States...

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.

News: Finally! A Practical Use for Arcade Game Skills

Most kids who play video games will never become professional gamers. Those that do are part of a very select group— it's like being a professional actor or athlete. It's nice work if you can get it. For everyone else, the sad realization usually arrives sooner or later that time spent playing games might not have the practical rewards that homework or working hard at your job might deliver.

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: Mobile Game Developer Fined $50,000 by FTC for Soliciting Emails from Minors

Children under the age of 13 possess insight that can blow the minds of their elders, but not the wherewithal to make important life choices for themselves. This is exactly why there are strict rules against marketing cigarettes to them. In 2000, a law went into effect called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act that institutes similar consumer protections for our youth's online identities, prohibiting companies from soliciting personal information from children under 13 years of age ...

News: Super Tiny (And Cheap) DSLR Intervalometer for Time-Lapse Photography

If you're lucky, your digital camera has a built-in intervalometer that lets you operate the shutter regularly at set intervals over a period of time. Why would you be lucky? Because you can create some very awesome time-lapse videos, like the horribly beautiful eruption of a volcano or vivid star trails in the night sky. You can capture the stunning display of the northern lights or even document the rotting of your favorite fruit.

Shadow: Why, God, Why?

Any time a feature is introduced in an MTG set and not replicated in subsequent sets, balancing issues are surely forthcoming. You wind up with one set that can do things the others can't, forcing players to counter that set with other cards from it, and generally limiting the creativity with which one can effectively play the game. Playing these types of cards is like playing trap defense in hockey or boxing like Floyd Mayweather: you might win, but neither you, your opponents, nor the peopl...

Kinotopic: How to Get Excited Taking iPhone Photos Again

Last week I reviewed Kinotopic, the iPhone app that lets you easily create cinemagraphs. While I loved the result, I found the app hugely flawed. Kinotopic forced you to use a Facebook log-in, and didn't store the finished video on your phone itself. Instead, you had to visit the Kinotopic website to see your cinemagraphs or link to your Kinotopic page using Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.

News: Welcome to the Google+ Insider's Guide!

Google+ is the most exciting new social network to come around this decade, and the only product with a chance of challenging the monopolies we know as Facebook and Twitter. As an Internet addict, I've joined every major social network there is - from Friendster (who?) to MySpace (so ugly) to LinkedIn (yawn) to Twitter (irritating) and Facebook (annoying to manage). Competition is delicious, especially between well-financed monopolies. Google+ really seems to have identified an Achille's heel...

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: An Amnesiac Retrospective

Three years ago, Double Fine productions held an in-house event called the Amnesia Fortnight. The company was split into four teams, each of which set out to spend two weeks developing an idea for a small game and present it to the other groups at the end of the duration. All of the ideas turned out to be winners, and founder/owner Tim Schafer secured publishing deals for all four games to be released on a combination of XBLA and PSN. In honor of the excellent Trenched becoming the third game...

How To: Restore Netflix's Former "Watch Instantly" Web Layout

Netflix may be killing its competitors, but they're losing fans thanks to their reputation for rolling out interface updates without user knowledge or consent. PlayStation 3 owners were upset at the Netflix interface change earlier this year, and now nearly 5,000 diehard Netflixers are irate at the website's new look for its Watch Instantly section.

How To: Remove Those Annoying Image Previews on the Updated Twitter Apps for Android & iPhone

Twitter is now forcing you to look at pictures that you might now even want to look at with their newly implemented Image Preview feature, which automatically displays image and Vine video thumbnails directly in your timeline on the updated Android and iPhone apps. That photo of your friend's baby that you don't want to see? It's there.That video of a stupid cat doing something stupid? That's also there.

Minecraft Monster Slaying: How to Surprise Your Aggressors with a Long Drop and Sudden Stop

No one likes having their home invaded, and sometimes you just don't want to have to wait those precious few seconds for someone or something to drown, suffocate, or burn up. This trap utilizes gravity to destroy anyone who may want to pillage your home, be they monster or player. No drowning or suffocating here... they just go splat at the bottom of a deep hole, and you can instantly forget about them.

News: 10 Unconventional Hangover Cures

For most Americans, the bane of the hangover is typically remedied by lots of water, painkillers, greasy food, and a day wasted on the couch. But if you're tired of potato chips and fried eggs, perhaps it's time you enter unfamiliar territory. Below, a combination of unorthodox methods for taming the beast, derived from science, sparkly Whole Foods new ageism, and the far East.

Adult Swim Games: It's Not Just for Aqua Teen Anymore

The days of having to pay for video games are over. Generally, retail games are better because they're made with more effort and care than their free counterparts. But free browser-based game sites are insanely popular, specifically Kongregate, Armor Games, and the grandaddy of them all—NewGrounds. Despite not receiving funds directly from the players, they’ve become a profitable niche in the games industry. And that popularity has attracted more talent and money to the production of web game...

News: The Revolution of the Hacked Kinect, Part 1: Teaching Robots & the Blind to See

In 2007, Nintendo introduced the world to motion control video games with the Wii. Microsoft and Sony built on Nintendo's phenomenal success and released their own motion control products for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 late in 2010: the Kinect and the Move. The Move is basically an improved Wiimote that looks like a sci-fi Harry Potter wand, but the Kinect just might be the most important video game peripheral of all time.