- British scientists have discovered a technique which can make a decayed tooth repair itself.
- Scientists have created a bionic pancreas that outperforms insulin pumps.
- Democratic lawmakers will unveil a piece of bicameral legislation Tuesday that would force the Federal Communications Commission to ban fast lanes on the Internet.
- Tesla is now most important automaker in world, Morgan Stanley says.
- Hackers reverse-engineer NSA's leaked bugging devices.
- Quantum computing firm calls 'bullshit' as scientists undermine its technology
Making Sense of Technology.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Links of the Week and a Look Ahead
This past week was without its major conferences but it was far from
slow as far as science and technology goes. There are plenty of big time
video game sales going on with the Steam Summer Sale as ell as
Gamefly's sale.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Netflix Casting and Game of Thrones Finale Sets a Piracy Record
Consensualtechs.wordpress.com
Deadline reports that Naveen Andrews, Daryl Hannah and Brian J. Smith are among the 14-member cast of Netflix‘s upcoming sci-fi drama Sense8from the Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski. The remaining cast members include Tuppence Middleton, Tena Desae, Doona Bae, Max Riemelt, Alfonso Herrera,Erendira Ibarra, Jamie Clayton, Miguel Silvestri andTerrence Mann. Co-showrunner J. Michael Straczynskigave the first details about the show, stating that “The series follows eight characters around the world who, in the aftermath of a tragic death, find themselves linked to each other mentally and emotionally,” “They can not only see and talk to each other as though they were in the same place, they have access to each other’s deepest secrets. Not only must they figure out what happened and why and what it means for the future of humanity, they must do so while being hunted by an organization out to capture, kill or vivisect them.”
Marvel and Netflix announced that acclaimed actress Rosario Dawson has joined Marvel’s Daredevil, which premiers on Netflix in 2015. Rosario Dawson will play a dedicated young woman whose quest to heal the wounds of Hell’s Kitchen brings Matt Murdock unexpectedly crashing into her life, while her own journey forever alters the course of his battle against the injustices of this broken city. Dawson joinsCharlie Cox who will portray Daredevil and his alter-ego attorney Matt Murdock as well as Vincent D’Onofrio cast as villain Wilson Fisk also known as Kingpin in the critically-lauded cast of Marvel’s Daredevil. “Rosario Dawson is one the most charismatic, talented and powerful actresses in Hollywood, so she was always at the top of our list for ‘Marvel’s Daredevil,’” said Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television. “Her role in the series is absolutely critical to Matt Murdock’s journey to become the hero we know as Daredevil.” “Marvel’s Daredevil” follows the journey of Matt Murdock, who was blinded as a young boy but imbued with extraordinary senses, now fighting against injustice by day as a lawyer, and by night as the super hero Daredevil in modern day Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.
Deadline is also reporting that Chelsea Handler will be getting a talk show on Netflix launching in early 2016. Keeping in line with her current E! late-night show, the Netflix talk show will feature Handler’s unfiltered opinions on topics of the day as well as guest interviews. It is still yet to be decided if show will be released daily, weekly or in between. “The Internet has disrupted many of the conventions of traditional television and together with Chelsea Handler, Netflix is looking forward to reimagining the late night talk show for the on-demand generation, starting with the late-night part….” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. In Handler’s now infamous Howard Stern Show radio interview in March, in which she called E! “a sad, sad place to live” and “a failure,” Handler suggested that after she leaves the cable network she would be interested in going to an outlet like Netflix. It was the first time Handler addressed her plans for the future as her E! contract was coming up, and several months and a ton of speculation later, she landed at Netflix, giving the streaming service its first talk show. “If I was going to continue working in this industry, I knew I had to do something outside the box to keep myself interested,” Handler said. “I wanted to sit with the cool kids at lunch so I approached Netflix to make sure they were as cool as I thought they were, and when I confirmed my suspicions, like with any other future lover, I made my move. I’m more excited than I’ve been in awhile, and the team at Netflix is the most forward thinking, alert group I’ve sat down with in ages. No offense to the Shahs Of Sunset.” Before she starts her new talk show, Handler will tape an one-hour stand-up special during the June 20 stop of her tour “Uganda Be Kidding Me” Live in Chicago. It will premiere on Netflix on Oct. 10. And next year, Handler will create four new docu-comedy specials for Netflix featuring her efforts to gain a better understanding on a variety of subjects ranging from NASCAR to politics and from Silicon Valley to the NBA draft. The talk show, stand-up special and docu-comedy specials will be produced by Handler and her partners in Borderline Amazing, Tom Brunelle and Brad Wollack.
TorrentFreak is reporting that the Season 4 Finale ofGame of Thrones broke not only viewership records for HBO, but also among online pirates. The official U.S. ratings show that “The Children” was the most viewed season finale thus far, with 7.1 million people tuning in. In the black market the same episode did well too, setting a mind-boggling piracy record. The latest episode resulted in the largest BitTorrent swarm ever. That is, never before have so many people gathered to share a single file on the Internet. A few hours after the first torrent of the show appeared on torrent sites, the Demonii tracker reported that 254,114 people were sharing one single torrent at the same time. 190,701 were sharing a complete copy of that particular torrent while 63,413 were still downloading. The previous record was also held by Game of Thrones, with a little over 200,000 people sharing a single file. There was also quite bit of interest in higher definition releases. The most popular 720p copy was shared by 108,539 BitTorrent users simultaneously, and the most shared 1080p release had 23,922 people connected to it.
Deadline reports that Naveen Andrews, Daryl Hannah and Brian J. Smith are among the 14-member cast of Netflix‘s upcoming sci-fi drama Sense8from the Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski. The remaining cast members include Tuppence Middleton, Tena Desae, Doona Bae, Max Riemelt, Alfonso Herrera,Erendira Ibarra, Jamie Clayton, Miguel Silvestri andTerrence Mann. Co-showrunner J. Michael Straczynskigave the first details about the show, stating that “The series follows eight characters around the world who, in the aftermath of a tragic death, find themselves linked to each other mentally and emotionally,” “They can not only see and talk to each other as though they were in the same place, they have access to each other’s deepest secrets. Not only must they figure out what happened and why and what it means for the future of humanity, they must do so while being hunted by an organization out to capture, kill or vivisect them.”
Marvel and Netflix announced that acclaimed actress Rosario Dawson has joined Marvel’s Daredevil, which premiers on Netflix in 2015. Rosario Dawson will play a dedicated young woman whose quest to heal the wounds of Hell’s Kitchen brings Matt Murdock unexpectedly crashing into her life, while her own journey forever alters the course of his battle against the injustices of this broken city. Dawson joinsCharlie Cox who will portray Daredevil and his alter-ego attorney Matt Murdock as well as Vincent D’Onofrio cast as villain Wilson Fisk also known as Kingpin in the critically-lauded cast of Marvel’s Daredevil. “Rosario Dawson is one the most charismatic, talented and powerful actresses in Hollywood, so she was always at the top of our list for ‘Marvel’s Daredevil,’” said Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television. “Her role in the series is absolutely critical to Matt Murdock’s journey to become the hero we know as Daredevil.” “Marvel’s Daredevil” follows the journey of Matt Murdock, who was blinded as a young boy but imbued with extraordinary senses, now fighting against injustice by day as a lawyer, and by night as the super hero Daredevil in modern day Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.
Deadline is also reporting that Chelsea Handler will be getting a talk show on Netflix launching in early 2016. Keeping in line with her current E! late-night show, the Netflix talk show will feature Handler’s unfiltered opinions on topics of the day as well as guest interviews. It is still yet to be decided if show will be released daily, weekly or in between. “The Internet has disrupted many of the conventions of traditional television and together with Chelsea Handler, Netflix is looking forward to reimagining the late night talk show for the on-demand generation, starting with the late-night part….” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. In Handler’s now infamous Howard Stern Show radio interview in March, in which she called E! “a sad, sad place to live” and “a failure,” Handler suggested that after she leaves the cable network she would be interested in going to an outlet like Netflix. It was the first time Handler addressed her plans for the future as her E! contract was coming up, and several months and a ton of speculation later, she landed at Netflix, giving the streaming service its first talk show. “If I was going to continue working in this industry, I knew I had to do something outside the box to keep myself interested,” Handler said. “I wanted to sit with the cool kids at lunch so I approached Netflix to make sure they were as cool as I thought they were, and when I confirmed my suspicions, like with any other future lover, I made my move. I’m more excited than I’ve been in awhile, and the team at Netflix is the most forward thinking, alert group I’ve sat down with in ages. No offense to the Shahs Of Sunset.” Before she starts her new talk show, Handler will tape an one-hour stand-up special during the June 20 stop of her tour “Uganda Be Kidding Me” Live in Chicago. It will premiere on Netflix on Oct. 10. And next year, Handler will create four new docu-comedy specials for Netflix featuring her efforts to gain a better understanding on a variety of subjects ranging from NASCAR to politics and from Silicon Valley to the NBA draft. The talk show, stand-up special and docu-comedy specials will be produced by Handler and her partners in Borderline Amazing, Tom Brunelle and Brad Wollack.
TorrentFreak is reporting that the Season 4 Finale ofGame of Thrones broke not only viewership records for HBO, but also among online pirates. The official U.S. ratings show that “The Children” was the most viewed season finale thus far, with 7.1 million people tuning in. In the black market the same episode did well too, setting a mind-boggling piracy record. The latest episode resulted in the largest BitTorrent swarm ever. That is, never before have so many people gathered to share a single file on the Internet. A few hours after the first torrent of the show appeared on torrent sites, the Demonii tracker reported that 254,114 people were sharing one single torrent at the same time. 190,701 were sharing a complete copy of that particular torrent while 63,413 were still downloading. The previous record was also held by Game of Thrones, with a little over 200,000 people sharing a single file. There was also quite bit of interest in higher definition releases. The most popular 720p copy was shared by 108,539 BitTorrent users simultaneously, and the most shared 1080p release had 23,922 people connected to it.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Crash Course: What Is Reddit?
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Reddit is a user submitted social news site which calls itself “The front page of the internet”. Anyone can view the material on Reddit but you would have to register an account if you would like to vote on the submitted material or if you would like to customize your experience, the point of submitting content is for ‘karma’, or simply imaginary internet points. Material is grouped into subsets(subreddits) so if you would like to view only political news or gifs of cats, there is a subreddit for that. Recently Reddit underwent a change in their default subreddits(what an unregistered user would see) where they removed one of the most popular subreddits, /r/AdviceAnimals which specializes in memes, better explained as internet inside jokes.
The Good: Reddit is a great place for certain communities, I always refer to /r/dogecoin as one of the best communities that I have ever been a part of, I list some of their fundraising ventures in my feature about Dogecoin. /r/IAma is also a great place to be able to interact with celebrities or most anyone else you may admire, some noteworthy AMA(Ask Me Anything)’s include President Barack Obama, Bill Gates and very recently Julian Assange. Beyond its communities and celebrities Reddit does what it is supposed to do very well, it compiles links from news sites in one place so you don’t have to mess with your browser’s RSS feeds, just go to the subreddit of choice and there you should have it. I have also found Reddit to be useful in learning, when I first signed up almost two years ago I knew next to nothing about CSS or programming, through individual community assistance I have people to consult when I am lost.
The Bad: Redditors like to think of themselves as part of some indie/underground culture when the reality is that Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet. Taking a look at the front page right now while not logged in, I would say not even half of the top 25 posts are worthwhile, currently the top 3 are a Flintstones gif; a picture of someones game inspired cappuccino and a meme. I may have praised certain communities in ‘The Good’ but as a whole the individual subreddit communities are terrible, in most popular threads’ comment sections you will be met with ongoing puns and re-referenced inside Reddit jokes. To put the inside joke mentality into perspective, let’s say you have one friend whose idea of being funny is to recite lines from movies/television or just keeps talking about the same thing from a year ago over and over again. There is also an oft-referenced hivemind mentality that comes with Reddit, if you are unfortunate enough to declare your position on a topic and it happens to not be the popular decision, you can expect to hate when you see your new message indicator.
The Ugly: Reddit has not been without its controversies, taken from its own wiki:
Reddit is a user submitted social news site which calls itself “The front page of the internet”. Anyone can view the material on Reddit but you would have to register an account if you would like to vote on the submitted material or if you would like to customize your experience, the point of submitting content is for ‘karma’, or simply imaginary internet points. Material is grouped into subsets(subreddits) so if you would like to view only political news or gifs of cats, there is a subreddit for that. Recently Reddit underwent a change in their default subreddits(what an unregistered user would see) where they removed one of the most popular subreddits, /r/AdviceAnimals which specializes in memes, better explained as internet inside jokes.
The Good: Reddit is a great place for certain communities, I always refer to /r/dogecoin as one of the best communities that I have ever been a part of, I list some of their fundraising ventures in my feature about Dogecoin. /r/IAma is also a great place to be able to interact with celebrities or most anyone else you may admire, some noteworthy AMA(Ask Me Anything)’s include President Barack Obama, Bill Gates and very recently Julian Assange. Beyond its communities and celebrities Reddit does what it is supposed to do very well, it compiles links from news sites in one place so you don’t have to mess with your browser’s RSS feeds, just go to the subreddit of choice and there you should have it. I have also found Reddit to be useful in learning, when I first signed up almost two years ago I knew next to nothing about CSS or programming, through individual community assistance I have people to consult when I am lost.
The Bad: Redditors like to think of themselves as part of some indie/underground culture when the reality is that Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet. Taking a look at the front page right now while not logged in, I would say not even half of the top 25 posts are worthwhile, currently the top 3 are a Flintstones gif; a picture of someones game inspired cappuccino and a meme. I may have praised certain communities in ‘The Good’ but as a whole the individual subreddit communities are terrible, in most popular threads’ comment sections you will be met with ongoing puns and re-referenced inside Reddit jokes. To put the inside joke mentality into perspective, let’s say you have one friend whose idea of being funny is to recite lines from movies/television or just keeps talking about the same thing from a year ago over and over again. There is also an oft-referenced hivemind mentality that comes with Reddit, if you are unfortunate enough to declare your position on a topic and it happens to not be the popular decision, you can expect to hate when you see your new message indicator.
The Ugly: Reddit has not been without its controversies, taken from its own wiki:
- Anderson Cooper of CNN devoted a segment of his program to condemning /r/jailbait and criticized Reddit for hosting it. Initially this caused a spike in Internet traffic to the subreddit, causing the page to peak at 1.73 million views on the day of the report. In the wake of these news reports, a Reddit user posted an image of an underage girl to /r/jailbait, subsequently claiming to have naked images of her as well. Dozens of Reddit users then posted requests for these nude photos to be shared to them by private message. Other Reddit users drew attention to this discussion and the /r/jailbait forum was subsequently closed by Reddit administrators on October 10, 2011. Critics such as /r/jailbait’s creator /u/violentacrez disputed claims that this thread was the basis of the decision, instead claiming it was an excuse to close down a controversial subreddit due to recent negative media coverage.
- A year after the closure of the jailbait subreddit, a Reddit community called “/r/Creepshots” drew controversy in the press for hosting sexualized images of women without their knowledge. In the wake of this media attention, /u/violentacrez was added to /r/Creepshots as a moderator,and reports emerged that Gawker reporter Adrian Chen was planning an exposé that would reveal the real-life identity of this user, who moderated dozens of controversial subreddits as well as a few hundred general-interest communities. Several major subreddits banned links to Gawker in response to the impending exposé and the violentacrez account was deleted. Moderators defended their decisions to block the site from these sections of Reddit on the basis that the impending report was “doxxing” (a term for exposing the identity of a pseudonymous person), and that such exposure threatened the site’s structural integrity. Chen published the piece on October 12, 2012, revealing that the operator of /u/violentacrez was a middle-aged programmer from Texas named Michael Brutsch. Within a day of the article being published, Brutsch’s position was terminated by his employer and the link to the exposé was briefly banned from Reddit. He stated on Reddit after the article was published that he has received numerous death threats.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Amazon Unveils Its First SmartPhone
http://consensualtechs.wordpress.com/
Yesterday Amazon revealed its first foray into the smartphone market with its Amazon Fire Phone, which starts shipping on July 25th. Amazon is looking to separate the Fire Phone from its smart phone contemporaries by offering several options not currently available with any other smart phone.
Yesterday Amazon revealed its first foray into the smartphone market with its Amazon Fire Phone, which starts shipping on July 25th. Amazon is looking to separate the Fire Phone from its smart phone contemporaries by offering several options not currently available with any other smart phone.
- Dynamic Perspective: A custom-designed sensor system that responds to how you hold, view, and move your phone. You can tilt to navigate menus or access shortcuts; swivel to access important notifications and quick actions; peek to access Yelp ratings or take the perspective of your character in a video game. You will also be able to auto-scroll, making it easier to read one-handed.
- Firefly technology: Allows you to identify printed text which can let you make a phone call, save a new contact, send an email or visit a website without having to type. Firefly can also recognize a song which will allow you to access artist information, download albums directly to your phone, or add them to your Wish List.
- Amazon Prime: Your Fire phone will have access to Amazon’s digital video and audio libraries with a full year of Amazon Prime with phone purchase, existing Prime members receive the year added to their existing membership.Prime also grants you access to free two day shipping, Amazon is listing the free year of Prime as a limited time offer.
The Fire Phone also features a 13MP
camera with optical image stabilization which will film in full 1080p at
30 fps from both front and rear-facing cameras; A 2.2 GHz quad-core
Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM to launch apps and websites
faster as well as an Adreno 330 graphics processor for its immersive
gaming. Amazon is currently listing its price at ranging from $199.00 – $649.00 and it is exclusive to AT&T.
I figured that I would do a
comparison of the Amazon Fire Phone to the recently released Samsung
Galaxy S5 both priced at $649 without a contract. The Galaxy S5 has a
2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor also with 2GB of Ram and a
16MP rear-facing camera/2MP front-facing camera. It should be noted that
the Galaxy S5 in this case has 16GB of internal memory where the Fire
Phone in question is 32GB, Amazon seems accurate in their description of
“32GB for the same price as other 16GB smartphones“, you can also get 64GB of internal memory for $100 more.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Why Your Tech Person May Hate You
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Do you have a go to tech guy/gal? Maybe it’s a relative or a coworker, or maybe you are in the minority of people that keep a technology expert on retainer, if you are of the latter group I personally wish to thank you. I have been professionally working on computers for near two decades now, my first job was employed by the government when I was still in High School as part of a Cooperative Office Education Program. I never liked a single area of computers enough to allow myself to be restricted by any one field, though I started my tech life doing hardware in the past decade have had a shift towards software. I have been employed to do everything from PC Repair, networking, programming, marketing, consulting, etc….please note the emphasis on employed.
Not everybody knows computers, sure they are familiar with their individual devices and are aware of exactly what they want them to accomplish, but they do not know anything about how they work. If you are going to ask me to take time out of my schedule to help you, and yes fixing your computer issue helps you and not me, then you need to understand that I am offering you a service that you yourself are not capable of. If your question is a simple one to answer, “How can I improve my wireless signal?” then I will most likely give you an answer and be on my way. It’s when some people now feel that I am there as their personal computer professional and I now somehow owe them something, that I take issue.
I had one acquaintance in particular a few years back, for the sake of this post we shall call him Nate. Nate found out that I knew about computers and asked me a simple question, as I stated before, I answered and moved on. No more than a week later Nate calls saying he bricked his computer and needs to get the stuff off of his IPhone, my mistake is that I did not broach the subject of payment right then and there. I am not an Apple device user so this may no longer be the case, but at that time to get his music from his IPhone to a new storage device I had to download 3rd party software and could only transfer a certain amount of files at a time, this took at least an hour and when I finished he went on about his way. He would call or text with any question under the sun and I just got to the point that I would not respond, finally I told him that I usually get paid for this kind of stuff and he didn’t seem to grasp what I was implying. Later on Nate cracked his laptop screen and I flat out told him what I charged for this, he agreed yet when he showed up with his laptop he told me he didn’t have all of the money. Nate’s laptop sat and collected dust for months as he still didn’t have the money to pay me, nor had he paid me for any of the questions he would call me with at all hours of the night. After almost a year of his laptop sitting in a corner, and him posting on social media all of the nights he was at clubs and the new toys he had bought, yet didn’t have the money to pay me, he found some other sucker to do it for him, I never heard from him again after that.
I wish that last paragraph was the exception here but it is not, I see it all of the time. Even at my current main employer, which has nothing to do with technology, I am almost expected to jump and help with any sort of technology related issue, yet I am apparently the bad guy when I tell them what said job would charge. Respect your technology friends, if you offer to pay that person they will possibly even refuse to take the money, it’s more the respect that you offered. If you are a person that is in need of a computer expert for a wide array of issues, then offer to pay one and keep them on retainer. Keeping an expert on retainer means no matter what the issue is and no matter what the time of day is, if you need them they will be there.
Do you have a go to tech guy/gal? Maybe it’s a relative or a coworker, or maybe you are in the minority of people that keep a technology expert on retainer, if you are of the latter group I personally wish to thank you. I have been professionally working on computers for near two decades now, my first job was employed by the government when I was still in High School as part of a Cooperative Office Education Program. I never liked a single area of computers enough to allow myself to be restricted by any one field, though I started my tech life doing hardware in the past decade have had a shift towards software. I have been employed to do everything from PC Repair, networking, programming, marketing, consulting, etc….please note the emphasis on employed.
Not everybody knows computers, sure they are familiar with their individual devices and are aware of exactly what they want them to accomplish, but they do not know anything about how they work. If you are going to ask me to take time out of my schedule to help you, and yes fixing your computer issue helps you and not me, then you need to understand that I am offering you a service that you yourself are not capable of. If your question is a simple one to answer, “How can I improve my wireless signal?” then I will most likely give you an answer and be on my way. It’s when some people now feel that I am there as their personal computer professional and I now somehow owe them something, that I take issue.
I had one acquaintance in particular a few years back, for the sake of this post we shall call him Nate. Nate found out that I knew about computers and asked me a simple question, as I stated before, I answered and moved on. No more than a week later Nate calls saying he bricked his computer and needs to get the stuff off of his IPhone, my mistake is that I did not broach the subject of payment right then and there. I am not an Apple device user so this may no longer be the case, but at that time to get his music from his IPhone to a new storage device I had to download 3rd party software and could only transfer a certain amount of files at a time, this took at least an hour and when I finished he went on about his way. He would call or text with any question under the sun and I just got to the point that I would not respond, finally I told him that I usually get paid for this kind of stuff and he didn’t seem to grasp what I was implying. Later on Nate cracked his laptop screen and I flat out told him what I charged for this, he agreed yet when he showed up with his laptop he told me he didn’t have all of the money. Nate’s laptop sat and collected dust for months as he still didn’t have the money to pay me, nor had he paid me for any of the questions he would call me with at all hours of the night. After almost a year of his laptop sitting in a corner, and him posting on social media all of the nights he was at clubs and the new toys he had bought, yet didn’t have the money to pay me, he found some other sucker to do it for him, I never heard from him again after that.
I wish that last paragraph was the exception here but it is not, I see it all of the time. Even at my current main employer, which has nothing to do with technology, I am almost expected to jump and help with any sort of technology related issue, yet I am apparently the bad guy when I tell them what said job would charge. Respect your technology friends, if you offer to pay that person they will possibly even refuse to take the money, it’s more the respect that you offered. If you are a person that is in need of a computer expert for a wide array of issues, then offer to pay one and keep them on retainer. Keeping an expert on retainer means no matter what the issue is and no matter what the time of day is, if you need them they will be there.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Expanding Consensual Techs
I am approaching the one month mark for this blog and though I think that I have been doing well so far, I just want to do better. I will now be posting on consensualtechs.wordpress.com as an easy transition towards getting my actual website consensualtechs.com up and running, as of now that will be in addition to, and not a substitution for, this blogspot address. I have been using twitter to increase recognition of Consensual Techs' web presence and over the past four days I have averaged 100 new followers each day. I will continue to produce how-to material and get interviews with experts in their respective fields in an effort to acquire and maintain credibility for this brand.
In addition to what we are currently doing, you can look forward to new material including Convention coverage and the ability to hire our techs for anything from consulting, web design, social media marketing, custom built PC's and computer/laptop repair among others, just keep in mind that we are based in South Florida. Thank You to everyone for your early support and I will strive to continue to make technology easily accessible and understandable for everyone.
In addition to what we are currently doing, you can look forward to new material including Convention coverage and the ability to hire our techs for anything from consulting, web design, social media marketing, custom built PC's and computer/laptop repair among others, just keep in mind that we are based in South Florida. Thank You to everyone for your early support and I will strive to continue to make technology easily accessible and understandable for everyone.
Getting Started With Game Collecting
I got started game collecting years back and though I do not keep up with it as much as I used to, I still managed to obtain a decent collection and I am capable of adding to it whenever I feel inclined. Game collecting can also be a source of extra income where you find great deals and then turn around to sell them for profit, I would label myself both a collector and a seller. The main thing that I would recommend for a person looking to get involved in any form of collecting is to know what you are collecting, specifically are you focusing on a particular franchise, genre, platform, etc. I am going to list a variety of places that you can use to buy/acquire games, I will only discuss methods that I myself have used so understand that there are always more options at your disposal.
- Large Retailers(Target, Walmart...): The Pikachu 3DS XL is one of my favorite items in my collection and I picked it up at a Target store when it was on sale for $160, including tax I paid a total of $176. I never opened my copy and just a couple of days ago one sold on Ebay for a total of $400 including shipping.
- Ebay: Not only is Ebay the best idea of what a game is actually worth, you could also come across a great deal. Some people that list on Ebay do not know what they are listing and can miss out big time, that particular game Earthbound will sell for over $130 all day.
- Pawn Shops: I have scored great finds more frequently at pawn shops than anywhere else, they tend tend carry current releases as well as older games but if you do not know what you should be paying for a game you could easily overpay. I have managed to pick up older consoles and games complete in the box and rare gems that I would have had to pay 10x more had I gotten them anywhere else.
- Yard Sales: Second to only pawn shops as far as where I have gotten the best deals, you may need to get there early but you can always negotiate(what would be the total price if I bought all of the games?) and you may have to ask specifically if they have games for sale, some people look at those old things and tell themselves that nobody would want to buy them.
- Thrift Stores(Salvation Army/Goodwill): Recently I have been having the most luck here, you can find all sorts of unique items and I recently picked up a brand new in box NES "dogbone" controller for a couple of dollars.
- Friends/Coworkers/Neighbors...: There are probably more people than you realize that are currently sitting on a bunch of old games collecting dust. Given that these are people that you personally know, you should offer to buy the games, especially if your intent is to turn around and sell them.
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