Author Archives: web gangsta

Hate your body? Try a HUMAN UPGRADE

By web gangsta | Published: January 22, 2012


Upgrade Me: Our Amazing Journey to Human 2.0
Upgrade Me: Our Amazing Journey to Human 2.0

Do you remember the classic TV show, MAN FROM ATLANTIS?

It featured an actor with webbed fingers and toes, able to swim deep into the ocean to solve crimes.  Our recollection is that he had gills and could breath underwater like Aquaman, but there’s been a lot of alcohol in our system since then so we may be confusing two different characters.

But the webbed fingers and toes?  Those were real.

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How much money do porn sites make?

By web gangsta | Published: January 21, 2012


The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google
The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google

In 2006, the US adult industry made over $13 billion in revenue.

In revenue, porn brings in more money than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix, and Earthlink combined.

Let’s say that last word again:  combined.

Yes, online (and elsewhere) we can safely say, “porn is king”.  Just like the porn industry is credited with the rise of VHS over Beta, the porn industry is also credited with pushing the technology envelope and make today’s Internet what it has become.

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How much do you tip your waiter? Chances are, you’re paying them way too much

By web gangsta | Published: January 20, 2012


How to Make Money and Bigger Tips as a Waitress
How to Make Money and Bigger Tips as a Waitress

How much do you tip your wait staff when you visit a bar or restaurant?

Some people go for the standard 20% off the final total of the bill — just take the total, move the decimal point, and multiply by 2… voila! No math required and you left a 20% tip.

Some people jump through complicated hoops to come up with a 15% or 18% tip.

We’ll be honest here – there have been times that Web Watch has left less than 15%… but trust us, the wait staff didn’t do their job that day by listening to what the customer wanted (they didn’t bring us the requested drink, the requested condiment on the side rather than on the sandwich, etc – and it wasn’t because the restaurant was busy that day… it was just bad service all the way around.)

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What to do in Vegas? In 2011, “not gamble” was on the list

By web gangsta | Published: January 19, 2012


Weird Las Vegas and Nevada: Your Alternative Travel Guide to Sin City and the Silver State
Weird Las Vegas and Nevada:
Your Alternative Travel Guide to Sin City and the Silver State

Web Watch loves visiting Las Vegas.

Then again, we also agree with our friends who say that “a little Las Vegas goes a long way”.  In other words, these people don’t necessarily enjoy the entire gambling, casino, nightlife, gambling aspect of Sin City.

Web Watch knows people that took a vacation out to Nevada and other points west, and their Las Vegas experience consisted solely of driving down the Las Vegas Strip.  They didn’t stop, they didn’t browse.  They had lunch as a nearby McDonald’s (not even at the In-n-Out!) before continuing on their merry way.

We don’t blame them.  There are aspects of Las Vegas that we don’t appreciate either.  But to each their own.

But then the Nevada Gaming Control Board decided to come out with their compilation of revenue numbers and financial analysis of the 2011 gambline business, and the numbers look a bit unusual to us here at Web Watch.

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Seven rights you don’t have when you take a cruise

By web gangsta | Published: January 18, 2012


What You Need to Know About Your First Cruise - Cruise Like a Pro Your First Time
What You Need to Know About Your First Cruise – Cruise Like a Pro Your First Time

Have you ever taken a cruise before?

Well, they’re a lot of fun.  And not filled with old people playing shuffleboard.  Of course, it helps if you’re able to take a cruise with a large group of people, so you always have someone fun to hang out with besides your Significant Other.

But let’s keep in mind that a cruise ship is its own entity – especially when it gets out into International Waters, where almost anything can happen when you’re outside of a specific country’s jurisdiction.

So in order to keep order, cruise lines have tiny fine print on the back of their tickets (maybe not literally, but at least figuratively) that you have to sign away on when you agree to board the boat.

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Music Mashup fun: Disco remixes of your favorite hits from today (Adele, Gaga, others)

By web gangsta | Published: January 17, 2012


Village People - Can't Stop the Music
Village People – Can’t Stop the Music

Nobody can deny that disco music is, well, just plain fun.

It may have been the height of cheese back in the day when it was new, but there’s something special about hearing those synth riffs and rock flute over a hip-shaking beat that just makes you want to move your booty.

So here’s one person who mashed up today’s hits from Adele, Enrique Iglesias, David Guetta, Timbaland, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Taio Cruz, and others with a little bit of that 70′s disco beat that can just get your feet moving. 

Hear the tunes after the break…

 

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The 25 Least Expensive Places to Live

By web gangsta | Published: January 16, 2012


Cost of Living and Doctor's Fees in 1848
Cost of Living and Doctor’s Fees in 1848

Sometimes it’s not so much how you live as where you live that determines how much money you can really save over the course of a year.

And we can thank the COUNCIL FOR COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (C2ER) for their annual COST OF LIVING report that lists the LEAST EXPENSIVE CITIES to live in, based on the monthly rent for a 2-bedroom apartment, monthly average house payment, a gallon of gas, a hamburger, and a 1/2-gallon of milk.

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Video Fun: Disney and Pixar Movies remixed into Pop Music

By web gangsta | Published: January 15, 2012


Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World's Most Creative Corporate Playground
Innovate the Pixar Way:
Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground

Web Watch is always amazed at the creativity that the Internet has sparked.

Maybe that creativity and innovation has always been there, but the Internet has certainly made finding these things more exciting and accessible to all.

So when we stumbled upon this remix of audio clips from the FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR, we thought that we’d take a look to see what else POGOMIX has done.

And that’s when we discovered this treasure trove of audio remixes from various DISNEY and PIXAR films.   Watch below, and enjoy…

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Video Fun: Did you know that the James Bond theme song had lyrics? Now you do!

By web gangsta | Published: January 14, 2012


Shaken & Stirred: The Feminism of James Bond
Shaken & Stirred: The Feminism of James Bond

Did you know that the theme song to James Bond had lyrics?

Check out this lyric-filled tribute to our favorite 007 Super Spy:

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66% of employees surveyed will respond to email while on vacation

By web gangsta | Published: January 13, 2012


Vacation
Vacation

66% of people surveyed said that they will respond to emails and text messages from work while on vacation.

Combine that with the 83% of diehard workaholics that say they check business email after-hours after they’ve left the office, and the 29% who still attend online meetings and/or conference calls while taking a day or two off, and what you have is a bunch of people who just can’t learn how to relax.   Heck, Web Watch is guilty of this ourselves, having done everything from creating Powerpoint presentations while sitting in a Las Vegas casino hotel lobby to hosting a conference call while on the Mad Tea Party teacups at Walt Disney World. 

We’re not proud of the latter, but one does what one has to do.

Not everybody can be “on” all the time; everyone is entitled to having some sort of downtime… and if your office can’t survive for an evening without your prying eyes micromanaging everything, then maybe you’re working for the wrong company.

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The 100 Most Mispronounced Words in the English Language

By web gangsta | Published: January 12, 2012


Mastering the American Accent
Mastering the American Accent

The other day, Web Watch was chatting with a friend when she said that she “often” does stuff.

But she didn’t say “off-en”, she said “off-ten”.  In other words, she pronounced the “T” in “often”.

It’s understandable.  It’s a common mistake.  It’s certainly wrong, but she didn’t know.  She always that that she was pronouncing it perfectly.  Now she’s totally embarassed, wondering what else she had been saying that she has been pronouncing wrong all these years.

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Is that YouTube video legal? Check out the YouTube Copyright School to learn more

By web gangsta | Published: January 11, 2012


Harry Potter and the Order of the Court: The J.K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use
Harry Potter and the Order of the Court:
The J.K. Rowling Copyright Case and the Question of Fair Use

Copyright is an important aspect of online life today, and not very many people understand it.

“The Internet is FREE”, they claim.  “Everything on the Internet is free for the taking!”

No, not so much.  Rule number one of Internet legalities:  Just because someone posted it on the Internet doesn’t mean that there is no copyright or that the material is free to be shared/taken. 

Fact is, the very act of writing something yourself gives you an automatic copyright to that material that YOU created.  Let’s emphasize that YOU created portion again.  It has to be original work from YOU for you to claim the copyright – and even then, you can only claim the copyright on the portion that YOU edited.

Even large mass-edited projects like Wikipedia have a copyright… but Wikipedia explicitly says that the individual Wikipedia editors can’t claim copyright on the text that is contributed directly to Wikipedia articles — just adding the text to Wikipedia grants Wikipedia a licence to make that text available for public use.  (Content that is already copyrighted outside of Wikipedia and still contributed by the original author falls under a different set of copyright guidelines — be sure to read that WP article for all the copyright details that may pertain to you.)

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List of 2012 Top Business Franchises

By web gangsta | Published: January 10, 2012


The Educated Franchisee: The How-To Book for Choosing a Winning Franchise
The Educated Franchisee:
The How-To Book for Choosing a Winning Franchise

Are you looking for a business to invest in, perhaps becoming an owner-operator of your own established chain of [whatever]?

If so, then you probably already subscribe to Entrepreneur magazine. In their most recent issue, they’ve published their list of the TOP FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2012.

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How much bandwidth does your cell service provider give you?

By web gangsta | Published: January 9, 2012


Will Work for Bandwidth
Will Work for Bandwidth

Do you know how much bandwidth your cell phone provider gives you on your mobile phone contract?

We know – why does it matter how much our providers charge us for bandwidth?  The Internet is free, right?

Yeah… not so much.

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Sudoku so hard, it took one team a giant computer and an entire year to solve a single puzzle

By web gangsta | Published: January 8, 2012


Will Shortz Presents Simply Sinister Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles
Will Shortz Presents Simply Sinister Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles

If you enjoy working on Sudoku puzzles as much as Web Watch does, then this may be of interest to you.

First, let’s talk a little bit about what Sudoku is, for those Web Watch readers who may have been living under a rock for the past 10 years:

Sudoku is a puzzle that is rumored to have been created by a puzzle creator living in Indiana, seemingly around 1979.  In 1984, it was published in a Japanese newspaper… and the rest, they say, is history.  The puzzle typically is a 9×9 square, and the object is to put the numbers 1-9 into the boxes so each row, column and 3×3 sub-block contains all the 1-9 digits.

In other words, it’s a game that’s absolutely perfect of playing on an iPad or phone.

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