Amazon Fire TV: The Decision

It has been two weeks since I accepted Amazon's offer for a Fire TV, free for thirty days, and I know at this point that I will not need the additional two weeks to make my decision. If you do not have a streaming device already in your entertainment center I believe a Fire TV could be a welcome addition, but I do not see it replacing a single thing already in your collection. I personally have a PS3 and a Wii collecting dust as of right now, the Wii never made it past novelty while I filled up the PS3's hard drive and it got moved to the back burner. If you are looking for a gaming device the Fire TV is not your answer, you would have to pay extra for their gaming controller on top of purchasing the device and that will put you in the range of buying a new Xbox 360 which does everything a Fire TV does but better. While using my Fire TV I noticed that the Amazon content streamed without issue, the Netflix application on the other hand played like it was in a constant state of buffering. I previously addressed the voice command which did a great job of finding what I was looking for with the exception of "Flight of the Conchords". Again, at $99 if you are currently in the market for a streaming device then the Fire TV is a viable option but in my opinion that is where its worth lies.

Why The Government Doesn't Need To Spy On You.

People Overshare On The Internet: Individuals create their own online profiles to which they have attached their names, addresses, family trees, work history, pictures, cell phone number, hobbies, friends and almost anything else you could want to know about a person. Our cell phones have GPS that can give the exact location you are currently at and a healthy percentage of people are okay with letting the world know where they are at all times. In 2008 the Bling Ring robbed the homes of several celebrities by using Google, TMZ and the celebrities own Twitter accounts to learn when the stars would be home. The gang would then use Google Earth to study aerial photos of the celebrity homes to determine the best points of entry. The gang was finally caught after captured CCTV footage from the robberies of Lindsay Lohan and Audrina Patridge was released which led to the identity of one of the criminals while his Facebook led to the identity of the others.

People Don't Take Steps To Protect Themselves: The days of thieves dumpster diving to steal your identity are no longer needed, now criminals retrieve your personal data from improperly disposed of  PCs, servers, cell phones and memory devices. Carelessness in properly protecting your web device of choice can also lead to harder to remove adware, spyware and ransomware. There are plenty of people that spend their free time seeking and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network for profit, protest, challenge or simply enjoyment.

People Don't Realize Once Something Is On The Internet It Is On There Forever: In the old days if you wanted to take risque photos of yourself you would most likely use a Polaroid camera, the image would print instantly and you wouldn't have to take your photos to be developed where someone else could see them. Today if you wish to send risque photos of yourself than you would snap a picture with your cell phone and then message or e-mail them. Scarlett Johansson, Blake Lively, Vanessa Hudgens, Jessica Alba, Kat Dennings and many more celebrities have found themselves in the public eye for nude photos, some of which arguably may have been intentionally leaked. Girls that post themselves to popular nude posting forums, then later wish for them to removed, also learn that you can get a million sites to remove your image but all it takes is for one person to have saved them and those images are never gone. It's not just nude photos that people should concern themselves with, people can lose their jobs for what the post on Facebook. More recently in the headlines, Justin Bieber and his racist rants were released from back when he was fourteen years old.

If a service came along tomorrow that told people it would maintain their online profile from across Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and anywhere else they wanted to include, it would be a successful app/service but the same people that use it will wonder in ten years how there entire existence is documented online. Technology isn't going anywhere and it's only going to get more difficult as time goes on to remove this information about yourself, why not start protecting yourself better now?

Up Your Password Game

Let's pretend that the majority of people you know are in some way accessible on social media and for the sake of this post let's pretend they post about their lives. Some of the most regularly used security questions for password reminders are as follows:

• "Where did you meet your spouse?"
• "What school did you attend in __ grade?"
• "In what city were you born?"
• "What is your oldest sibling’s birthday month and year?"
• "What was your first pets name?"
• "Who was your childhood best friend?"

Now, how many of those answers do you think could readily be found on a person's Facebook? People like to get worked up when they feel their privacy is being encroached upon but they never stop to think about how much more information that they themselves make available in the first place. Let's say that there are people that exist whom have an excessive amount of free time at their disposal that they spend on the internet. Hypothetically, of course, these people could use information from your Facebook to gain access to change your Facebook password. How much more personal information would they be able to acquire from your privacy settings, private messages or from pretending to be you and messaging friends from your account? Maybe you're smarter than that and a person wouldn't be able to get your password through those means, they could always go the password cracker route. The best advice I could give someone is to:

1. Answer a security question in only a way you would know, example: "In what city did you meet your spouse?" Answered with "Neil Degrasse Tyson". Clearly that isn't the answer to the question, but the only thing that matters is that is is an answer that you will remember.
2. Make a secure password. This should be a no-brainer but a lot of the time I am fixing a person's computer they utilize a very basic password. Do not use words followed by numbers or vice versa and for the love of god do not use a single password for everything. Lets say you use 'password1234', you could make a couple of changes to make that a lot harder to crack. First lets capitalize a letter making it 'passWord1234', then we could rearrange the number placement to '12pass34Word', we could also add a space before so it would be ' 12pass34Word' and finally you could make this universal revolving password by changing it to ' 12pass34Wole' for Google or ' 12pass34Woer' for Twitter. Here is a security check of the example password.

Now you may run into a couple of sites that do not allow for a space in the password but even without it you should be able to remember your password formula. You may not use your computer for more than Instagram but you need to understand that there are plenty of people that do, some of which want your information and could use that information as a stepping stone towards stealing your identity. It takes no time at all to create a new e-mail account, I would recommend having a separate e-mail address for your personal use and for social media. Beyond changing your security questions, password and using a different e-mail address you could always not use your name on social media, tomorrow we will delve a little deeper as to why.

Netflix: A Streaming Giant

Netflix was started in 1997 in California and moved into streaming in 2007. Blockbuster turned down a chance to purchase Netflix for $50 million in 2000, today Blockbuster is no more while Netflix is worth more than $1 billion. You can stream to a variety of devices beyond your computer such as Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo consoles as well as smart phones and tablets.The service costs less than $10 a month and by far has the most vast library of any streaming video service.

On July 18th, 2013 Netflix earned the first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for original online only web television at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards. House of Cards, Hemlock Grove and Arrested Development combined for 14 nominations and House of Cards Director David Fincher's won for his work on the episode, Chapter 1, again a first for a web only Series. On December 12th House of Cards was nominated for 4 Golden Globe Awards at the 71st Golden Globe Awards, with Robin Wright winning Best Actress, another first for Netflix and web based programming. On January 17, 2014 Netflix earned it's first Oscar nomination with The Square, a 2013 Egyptian-American documentary which depicts the ongoing Egyptian Revolution of 2011 from its roots in Tahrir Square.

Other original shows available on Netflix are Orange is the New Black Season 2 available this Friday, June 6th @ Midnight PST; Lilyhammer which returns late 2014; Season 8 and 9 of Trailer Park Boys as well as 3 additional Specials; Season 3 of DreamWorks Dragons will be moving to Netflix in Spring 2015; Season 4 of The Killing. Looking towards the future, there have already been a slew of original series announced for the streaming service. Sense8, created by J. Michael Straczynski, who will serve as executive producer alongside The Matrix trilogy creators Andy and Lana Wachowski. Bojack Horsemen, an adult-oriented animated comedy featuring voice work from Will Arnett, Aaron Paul and Amy Sedaris. Marvel Comics will be bringing its characters Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, and will be teaming those characters for a miniseries based on the Defenders, totaling 60 episodes in all. Netflix is also looking beyond original series to include Stand-Up Comedy, the first being the already released Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive, and original documentaries.

PC vs Mac: Why You're Wrong and Why it Doesn't Matter

I would like to preface this by saying that I use Windows 7 and I most likely will not change my preference in OS until I am ready to, before Windows 7 I used Windows XP and completely skipped Vista. I am not opposed to Apple products nor do I hate Apple products, I just know that they are not for me. I build my own desktop computers so I can make my desktop bigger, stronger and faster than any Mac on the market and save money in doing so, I understand that these are not skills that everyone has and I am firmly in the minority here. There is a healthy percentage of people that just want to use their device for the internet and I am not going to look down on them for not spending hours researching/shopping/building a desktop to accomplish that task, again I find myself firmly in the minority. As it stands only religion or politics can bring about a more heated debate than Mac vs PC.

In case you weren't on Twitter, Facebook or the internet yesterday, Apple had their Worldwide Developers Conference and instead of printing out everything that was discussed, I will let Forbes do that. Now I don't expect anyone to sift through that wall of text, so thankfully Gizmodo put together a much shorter list. Does anyone actually believe that Apple "borrowed" their new iOS8 additions from any of the existing companies? Well, at least one of those companies' CEO's does. Apple also discussed their increase in overall computer market share yesterday but let's take an unbiased look at the numbers from companies that don't have a dog in the fight. It should be noted that though Apple is losing control of the smartphone market, from an application developer standpoint they are a more profitable option. Personally I am more impressed with the iOS8 features that Apple didn't address in yesterday's WWDC as well as the addition of cryptocurrency apps. I should also note that in my experience with Mac OS' I have found them to be very user friendly but I am a creature of habit. I will say that when I started programming I found it odd that Windows was the only OS that did not come with Python pre-installed.

Which OS is better? Which computer is better? Which smartphone or tablet is better? I belive Eddie Murphy's Coming to America put it best...

 

Lee Roy Myers and Woodrocket Blast Off

Lee Roy Myers may not be a household name, however, if you are familiar with the adult industry chances are you are familiar with his work. Myers has directed almost 40 porn parodies according to his IMDB page, among them Game of Bones, The Simpsons, Tru(e Blood) and That 70s Show. Porn Parodies have become huge for the adult industry so much that there are now parody specific awards given by AVN and XRCO, and its not just the adult industry that they impact. In an Entertainment Weekly interview with True Blood creator Alan Ball he stated, "We just found out that they're doing a porn parody of True Blood. That's certainly a moment of going 'Wow, we've arrived.'" In 2010, actress Anna Paquin, star of the HBO original series True Blood, talked about the porn parody of her own show on the TBS late night talk show Lopez Tonight. Paquin stated, "You know, actually what's interesting is that [fellow cast member] Steve (Moyer) and I were so amused by it that we got it for everyone on our cast and crew as a wrap gift so I think we probably bought every copy in existence." Copies of Tru: A XXX Parody were given to the entire cast and crew at the wrap party for the show's third season.I had the opportunity ask LRM a few questions regarding his impact on the adult industry as well as his latest venture, the NSFW woodrocket.com.

• What inspired you to start woodrocket.com? "The porn I made, especially the parodies seemed to be appreciated by the mainstream world as much as traditional porn viewers. It seemed like a good idea to create a website that continued to put out shows and movies and other content that appealed to both. And since my partners and I believe in a free access to content model, it just made sense to start woodrocket.com."

• The tagline of woodrocket is "the future of porn", how is woodrocket the future of porn and what are you doing with it that nobody else is doing currently? "We have a free website that either produces our own content or licenses it. And we combine comedy & porn in almost everything we do. We believe that the future of entertainment will fully embrace sex. So, hence the tagline."

• Is it difficult to maintain ownership over your material given how vast and unsupervised the internet is? "Yes. But, I watermark my work and hope that people that pirate my content will at least credit my work. I don't mind people taking it, if they help support me making it."

• How important do you see the internet being to pornography's future? "I think it is everything's future. Okay, maybe eventually the internet will evolve into some newer form with a new name, but connectivity and interactivity, high-quality content and information is the present and future. And pornography has become a part of popular culture. It will continue to thrive on every popular platform the future holds."

• It appears that woodrocket is providing more original content, do you see yourself doing work solely for your site in the future? "Currently I rarely work on anything but WoodRocket or WoodRocket's affiliated companies. It is a lot of work to try and keep porn & pornotainment fresh and new. If I find time to work on somebody else's project it'll be right after I take a weekend off."

Thank You For The Support, What's Next?

I have only worked on this blog for ten days now and I wasn't quite sure if I had anything worth saying, or anyone wanting to hear it. With over 200 pageviews, mine not being tracked, in a week I decided that I'm all in. I definitely need to thank Reddit's /r/dogecoin community and in particular user/aesarium for assisting not only creating the banner for this blog but also for creating this which allows for Dogecoin donations:

Now all I have to do is figure out how to add it to the blog. Here soon I will begin the process of getting consensualtechs.com up and running, so far the only thing operational about it is my e-mail address. I now have a twitter account @ConsensualTechs that I will be using for giveaways and contests. Feel free to message me here, via Twitter or e-mail at admin@consensualtechs.com if there is anything you would like to see featured on ConsensualTechs. I will be starting off the week tomorrow with a Q&A of Award Winning Adult Film director and Founder of Woodrocket.com Lee Roy Myers