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Ask the Readers: Basic Financial Frameworks?

Rich — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:42:24 EST

One common request from new GRS readers is some sort of central location where they can find a list of introductory articles to guide their progress. This is a great idea, and I’m working on it. Some of the GRS elves are working on a “Guide to Money” that will provide some of this info, [...]

USS Enterprise Coffee Table Is Furniture's Final Frontier [Star Trek]

Gadget — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:42:10 EST

When I was a in middle school, I built the bridge of the Enterprise in my parents' basement out of old computer parts. It wasn't this cool, but I was pretty proud of my level of Trek fandom. Now, Inhabitat found something that tops that level of Trekkie swag: a coffee table modeled after the USS Enterprise. More »

Kinect coming to laptops? Why?

Gamespot — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:42:05 EST

Intel showing off a Kinect-like laptop concept at CES 2012.

(Credit:
CNET)

Hey, look at this: Kinect on a laptop. Okay, so there we go. According to The Daily, companies are well on their way to making laptops--or, at least, laptop prototypes--running Windows 8 and equipped with Kinect motion camera hardware instead of standard webcams.

The Daily got to see some of this technology firsthand on what they believe were Asus laptops. Intel's CES 2012 press conference featured a stage re-enactment of a similar Kinect-like idea on a laptop, shooting a virtual catapult in a game.

The real question here is, who's going to use this?

For those not able to easily type, a motion-control camera could be useful. Maybe motions combined with keyboard controls could add touch-like gesture vocabulary to a hinged device like a laptop in a more logical/ergonomic way than, say, a touchscreen. Gaming, media and application switching controls, and universal access for disabled individuals are the three uses that The Daily's Matt Hickey discusses. I agree with the latter the most, but I... [Read more]Related Links:Does Kinect for Windows warrant a new hacker bounty?Kinect for Windows: Five ways to put it to use Microsoft's final CES keynote: A lot of talking, not much said Culture: Five predictions for 2012 Gesture control is the new touch: Kinect inventors

Aliens: Colonial Marines cinematic trailer sneaks in

Gamespot — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:42:01 EST

Gearbox treats fans to new footage after delay disappointment.
Dry your eyes - here's a new cinematic trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Click here to read the full article

38 Studios head Curt Schilling apologizes for 'buggy' Reckoning demo

Gamer — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:41:35 EST

38 Studios head Curt Schilling has found the NeoGAF forums, folks, and he is quite pleased with them. In a lengthy letter addressing the community, he starts things off by thanking everyone for a massive thread about his company's upcoming game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. And after some minor promotion of said project, he quickly devolves into an apologetic rant about the recently released demo.

"Let me start by apologizing. The demo? Ya, it is way way WAYYYYY more buggy than anything ANYONE should ever release, much less a demo," Schilling wrote. He said that due to "the depth of breadth of a game that has anywhere from 40-50 hours (main quest line play) to 2-300 hours (for completionist)," it was inevitable there would be bugs. However, rather than releasing a demo with said inevitable issues, he argued with EA to not put out a demo at all. A fight that he said he's glad he lost.

"The demo has been a God send, especially when I realize even in this thread, how many people became aware because of the demo," Schilling said. "In a partnership there is a lot of give and take, and I believe in my team, they are world class, but when you have a publisher there are things happening you'd rather not choose. Shipping old code out 3 months prior to gold master to a 3rd party with no stake in the demo success can be problematic." Regardless of the issues, Schilling ultimately says he was glad for the exposure the demo granted Reckoning, and he'll be "chatting more" on NeoGAF in the future.

[Thanks, Wombat!]

38 Studios head Curt Schilling apologizes for 'buggy' Reckoning demo originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did the Galaxy S III just pop up on Samsung's support site?

Gadgetman — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:41:28 EST

Seriously, we can't caveat this one enough -- there is no way of knowing if this is in fact the Galaxy S III or, if it is, when it might come to market -- but, it looks like Samsungs "next big smartphone" just made a cameo on the company's support pages. Listed as the GT-i9300, the mystery device reared its head over at the Global Download Center of the United Arab Emerites site. If Sammy is to keep with its naming scheme i93XX would be a flagship device -- the i90XX line was the Galaxy S, i91XX represents the S2 series, while the i9250 and i9220 are the Nexus and Note respectively. As we warned before though, this could be some mid-range device and Samsung could be changing its naming conventions. Or, perhaps, its yet another variation of an existing model. Still, we'll take this as a good sign that Seoul squad has something interesting brewing.

Did the Galaxy S III just pop up on Samsung's support site? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: This year's Cars.com Super Bowl commercial weirds us out

Schumacher — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:41:24 EST

Filed under: Car Buying, Marketing/Advertising

Remember when the dot-com ads started to flood the airwaves during the Super Bowl? The ads were almost always wacky, and half the time, we didn't even know what was being sold. Well, it's been a long time since the 1990s, and very few Internet-based companies are still hocking services during The Big Game.

Cars.com is one of the WiFi warriors that is still swinging for the fences, and some of their past work has been reasonably funny. Their 2012 ad is all about using Cars.com to gain confidence at the dealership, but we're not sure what to think about it. There is something about a man with a freaky second head that doesn't sit well with us, and we like it even less when noggin part deux is intentionally obnoxious. Seriously, we could do without the gyrating, it's creeping us out. Hit the jump to preview the 30-second ad for yourself.

Continue reading This year's Cars.com Super Bowl commercial weirds us out

This year's Cars.com Super Bowl commercial weirds us out originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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12-Year Old Cracks Burglary Case Before Cops

Clumsy — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:41 EDT

A 12-year-old girl who attended a summer program at the Fulton County District Attorney's Office that teaches youth how crime fighting works wasted no time putting the things she learned to good use.

Chickens in a library

Humorist — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:40 EDT

A pair of chickens walk up to the circulation desk at a public library and say, ‘Buk Buk BUK.’ The librarian decides that the chickens desire three books, and gives it to them…and the chickens leave shortly thereafter. Around midday, the two chickens return to the circulation desk quite vexed and say,’ Buk Buk BuKKOOK!’ [...]

Today's Joke

Funny — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:40 EDT

What's the difference between an oral thermometer and a

rectal thermometer?

The taste.

Johnny Has A Sweet Tooth

Joker — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:36 EDT

One fine afternoon a gentleman was walking down the street; and as he came around the corner he spotted a young boy sitting in front of the local candy shop. As he approached, he realized it was his neighbor's kid - Little Johnny.

The boy was shoving sweet tarts and chocolate bars down his throat as fast as possible, so much that it prompted the man to offer some advice: "You know, Johnny, it's not healthy to eat all that candy."

Little Johnny looks up at him and quickly retorts "You know, my grampa lived to be 96 years old."

"Oh," the man replied, "did he eat lots of candy?"

"Nope," retorted Little Johnny, "he minded his own damn business!"

Similar Funny Jokes You Might Like:

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Little Johnny Wants Some Ice Cream Little Johnny rushes home from school. He invades the fridge...

Little Johnny: Contagious In A Sentence At school one day, Little Johnny's teacher asks the class...

Will You Need to Repay the 2009 'Making Work Pay' Tax Credit?

MoneyMaker — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:35 EDT

When Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it meant millions of working taxpayers started receiving little bit more money in their paychecks. By year’s end, people who qualified had received $400 for singles and $800 for married couples.

But here’s the rub … Personal finance experts Ken and Daria Dolan of Dolans.com explain how the law contained some serious mistakes that resulted in certain taxpayers receiving money they shouldn’t have received. Now approximately 15 million taxpayers will have to repay Uncle Sam!

If you fall into one of the following categories, you can expect a smaller tax refund or a larger tax payment once all your 2009 paperwork is finalized.

Make a Donation to Uncle Sam

Multimillionaire — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:35 EDT

You (or Warren Buffett) can give to the government to help pay off public debt.

More Volatility: What Investors Should Do Now

Financier — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:34 EDT

Filed under: Market News, Personal Finance

Another week, another selloff, another nauseating bout of volatility: The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its fourth straight week of losses, and Friday marked the tenth session this month featuring a 100-point swing. What's the average investor to do?

Revisit Your Strategy

Take a deep breath and revisit the reason you invested in stocks in the first place. If you are in your 20s, 30s or even 40s and seek long-term growth for retirement, you may still be in the right place. Take the...

More Volatility: What Investors Should Do Now originally appeared on DailyFinance.com on 2011-08-20T22:30:00Z.

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Music Videos about Money from Kevin McKee, the Thousandaire

Rich — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:34 EDT

It’s been a l-o-n-g time since I shared fun finance videos on a Saturday morning. And I’m way behind on highlighting some of my favorite videos from this year’s Get Rich Slowly video contest. Today I’m going to kill two birds with one stone. Back in May, Kevin McKee won the “personal finance tips” category [...]

BlackBerry Bold 9900, 9930 Will Run BlackBerry OS 7

Newsmaker — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:33 EDT

RIM kicked off its BlackBerry World event in Orlando, Florida by launching the not-so-secret BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 models, also dubbed "Bold Touch."

While the devices don't noticeably stray from RIM's design choices from the past decade -- they're instantly recognizable as QWERTY keyboard BlackBerrys -- the 9900 and 9300 pack some impressive guts. While the 2.8-inch VGA touchscreens won't impress many in today's world of 4-inch screens, but the devices are RIM's thinnest yet at 10.5mm.

Continue reading BlackBerry Bold 9900, 9930 Will Run BlackBerry OS 7

BlackBerry Bold 9900, 9930 Will Run BlackBerry OS 7 originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 20 May 2011 11:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Urlesque Looks Back on Three Years of Memes: A Compilation

Murdoch — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:33 EDT

Filed under: Videos, Mash-Ups, Last Shot, Exclusives

Almost three years ago to the day, we introduced you to our new site that hopefully became your daily stop for all things meme- and Internet-related. Nearly a year ago, I contributed my first post -- my mom rapping classic hip-hop songs if you're keeping track -- and today marks the last post (for me, at least.)

For my last vid, I wanted to combine earnest sentimentality with ridiculous absurdity, two traits that have served the site well since launching in April 2008. It's been scientifically proven that playing Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday" over ANY slo-mo video induces cheap empathy, and I am nothing if not a whore for cheap empathy.

With that, I created the video below that looks back on all the big memes since we launched the site, starting with the shiba inu puppies and ending with... well, if you don't know what we end with, you need to brush up on your memes. Thanks for watching. Now if you'll excuse us, we have a keyboard and a cat to set up.

Ed's Note: Urlesque.com is moving shop. From today on, you'll find a handful of your favorite Urlbots still delivering all the memes, trends and amazing Internetness that we can find, but we won't live at urlesque.com anymore. We're really grateful to all our fans for being a big part of our family for all these years. Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr and keep a look out for more information within the next few days. We <3 you.

And, of course, big big hugs to Urlbots past and present. You guys were the dream team.

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FitDesk – Another Exercise While You Work Solution

Gizmo — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:32 EDT

By Carole Sinclair I’m just as un-keen on exercise and work as the next… well… everybody. So picking off these two birds with one stone is always the dream. Our desk-based work days have been blamed for their fair share of our oft-lamented ‘sedentary lifestyles’, and solutions like those office-chair-bouncy-ball-thingys don’t suit everyone’s tastes. (*Rubs [...]

EZ Catch, The Quicker Chicken Picker Upper

Geek — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:31 EDT

This is a chicken "vacuum" used to harvest chickens from the yard and crate them before slaughter so they can finally be put out of their f***ing misery. It's...a great example of what's wrong with the manufactured meat industry. Aaaaaaaand why I don't eat the animals. God knows it's not for health reasons. That and one time I found an unprocessed pig asshole in a hotdog.

Hit the jump for the last thing a chicken ever sees.

We've seen the first footage from The Avengers! [The Avengers]

Gadget — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:20:31 EDT

The first extended look at The Avengers just premiered at Disney's D23 Expo. Here's our spoiler-y rundown of what we saw. Here's the spoiler-free version: everything we saw looked like an awesome mix of epic, funny, and badass. More »