1. Stop: Stop: Play. Skip advertisements in movies and go strait to the movie.
2. Dial 0 during most automatic menu phone systems to be taken to operator to route your call. also, mashing buttons may work as well. Whenever you have a voice automated phone system, typically saying “representative” gets you someone right away. Update In regards to Cheat Code # 2 I recommend this site: http://gethuman.com/
3. keep a spare car key in your wallet/purse. If you have a bulky Key that won’t fit in your wallet, get a key made that doesn’t have the electronic chip on it. It will still unlock the car, it just won’t start it. changed by popular request Risk Update: if your wallet is stolen they have your car key. All they need to do is go to your house some time later and take your car out of your driveway.
4. Riding a bicycle will save you lots of money on gas, parking, medical bills, and gym memberships.
5. If you are speeding and suddenly up ahead see a cop that clearly just tagged you, slow down and wave to him/her. Your odds of being pulled over are quite a bit reduced.
6. Don’t be rude, but NEVER answer any cops questions when they call you in for questioning.
7. when getting lectured into voice mail, hit 1, pause momentarily. If you aren’t put through immediately, hit *, pause. Finally, hit # if neither 1 or * worked. It is called the 1-star-pound technique, and it works for all cell carriers.
8. If your credit card magnetic stripe starts to get worn from use and being in your wallet, and doesn’t always read in the card reader, you can use the plastic bag trick. Put the card in a plastic grocery bag and then swipe it. Not sure why it works, but it does.Taking it further though, you can simply apply a piece of quality cellophane tape over the mag stripe for a “permanent” plastic bag trick.
9. At the end of your shower turn the water really (or all the way) cold. This will wake you up and get blood flowing. Update update 9: It also closes your pores to allow for less dirt and bacteria to get in to help reduce acne problems.
10. Macy’s credit cards usually have a 20% discount on purchases. I pay with the Macy’s card, then while still at the register, I immediately pay off the charge with my debit card. I just got 20% off my purchase and I never get a credit card bill. - this also works with JCP and kohl’s cards.
11. im replacing the free movie rental cheat because its unpopular…mostly with movie rental clerks :-/ heres a new one! When you buy something online, you usually get a chance to enter a promo code before you purchase. Google the promo codes. They’re out there - you can get anything from free shipping to 25% off the purchase.
12. Turn it off, then on again.
13. Buy things out of season, this can save you money. Unless its food, then buy it in season.
14. When you have forgotten someones name, simply say : “I’m sorry, but what was your name one more time.” They may act offended, but when they give you there first name you simply reply “No, I meant your last name.” (more socially acceptable to forget). Bingo. First and last names.
15. When eating buffalo wings, the flat portions. You can detach the smaller bone on one end very easily, then twist it a bit and it will just slide out. You’re now left with a big hunk of meat and only 1 bone, you can just bite it off into your mouth in one piece, flintstones-style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRcOY-PvOC8
16. Gently work an orange in your hands to loosen the peel from the fruit. This makes it easy enough to get the whole peel in one shot.
17. Can’t find your car in a parking lot? hitting the lock button trying to get it to beep? Extend the distance of key-less entry by putting the key under your chin. The signal will resonate in your skull increasing the range dramatically. I swear to god this works, and I’m told it’s safe because the radiation is non-ionizing. verification notice from ddrt via AskReddit sent 20 hours ago 9 is called the scottish shower. Just sayin’ EDIT: I just tried #17 holy shit it works!
18. If you get a ticket on the windshield of your car, you can potentially get away with parking illegally in the same lot for the rest of the day by keeping the ticket on your windshield. edited reduced from a few days for a single day.
19. Most tinfoil and saran wrap boxes have little push-in tabs on the sides. If you push them in, the roll won’t fall out when you try to rip out a sheet of it.
20. Keep a list of all of the credit card phone numbers (1-800) in your cell phone. This way, if your wallet is ever lost, you can call them immediately to have them disabled. It’s also a good idea to place all of the cards in your wallet on a copier and print a page to keep at home. This will give you access to your License #, etc. Update: You should update 20. If you lose your wallet.. as in misplace it.. put a hold on your credit cards. Do NOT cancel. If you cancel it can later show up on your credit report. If you believe you are going to find it later, placing a hold saves you the red mark on your report.
21. If you are driving an unfamiliar car and you don’t know which side the gas tank is on, just look at the little pump icon next to the gas gauge on the dashboard. The pump handle on the icon will be on the side of the tank. Update: saw the gas tank one on an older reddit, turns out the handle thing is not consistant. But there IS usually a little arrow next to the icon. Second Update 99% of the time the gas door is opposite of the tailpipe. So far, I have only found that early-mid 2000 Pontiac Vibes break this trend. Third update if there is no arrow, then it most likely is on the passenger’s side. I’ve yet to see one without an arrow that wasn’t on the passenger’s side
22. this tip was unpopular, so im changing it This one changed my life. If you’re at home/work/party or GOD forbid your girlfriend’s house and the toilet starts to overflow, take the lid off the back reservoir part and lift the long handle as far up as it will go. The water will stop rising and then you can quietly mutter curses at it till it goes back down (which it does, more often than not…)
23. to peel a boiled egg, roll it around on your plate for a while until all of the eggshell is cracked evenly. Then it’s easy to remove the complete shell at once. After you boil eggs immediately place them in ice cold water for a few minutes. No vinegar or salt or oil or whatever people use. Shells slip right off
24. you spill any liquid that will stain on your carpet (red wine, juice, etc), pour some salt on it. Work it into the carpet - just rub it in with your hands. Leave it there for a few hours (for serious stains, up to a day) and vacuum it out. Voila, stain gone.
25. If you park in a large parking garage/shopping centre, get out and take a photo on your cell phone of the nearest parking sign (Area B2, etc). You will never lose your car again.
26. If you drive stick and the battery s dead, get some friends, put the key to the on position, put the car in 2nd and push the clutch down. have your friends push your car. when you get a decent speed going let the clutch up. (this is called “Popping the clutch.” your car with start and you can drive around for a while to recharge your battery(provided nothing is wrong with the battery or the alternator). Update thanks for the input guys, i switched it from 1st geear to 2nd gear.
27. Tapping on the top of a beer or soda can will make it fizz less!
28. Peel a banana from the bottom, which is one of /r/sciences 2nd highest scoring link of all time! http://www.reddit.com/r/science/top/?t=all
29. 4,2,3,1 — Vending machine cheat code. (As in, the vertical buttons machines, like this one http://www.enterprisevending.com/Images/vending.jpg ). will grant access to vending machine’s diagnostic menu. most times the fun features are disabled, but i’ve gotten a free powerade and a couple cokes in the past.
30. College Parking Cheat Code: Anyone who’s gone to a college or university knows they usually charge a ridiculous amount of money for parking (usually $300+ for a semester pass or $10+ for the daily passes), a service that should fucking be free for students considering the high cost of education. Fuck them. Buy one daily pass at the beginning of the school year (usually a small paper ticket printed out a machine on the lot), take it home and scan it, photoshop the date for tomorrow, and print. Repeat for the next 4 years. Anyone with even the most rudimentary photoshop skills can pull this off convincingly. Even if your printer is shitty, from behind the tint and glare of a car windshield, it might as well be a 7-11 receipt. I did this for 2 years at a UC and saved hundreds of dollars.

Jeoron Wijering from the Netherlands has a Open Source flash player, jw player, that you can use to embed videos easily on your website. Its a brilliantly simple and easily implemented javascript and flash object that you can use to stream existing movie files, or even stream from various video streaming website such as youtube.

I created a simple website, video.eviljr.com that streams all the top youtube videos collected from youtube, digg and reddit. When you select the ‘channel’ a php script collects all the top youtube videos from the various site’s page and creates an XML playlist which then is played in the onscreen jwplayer.

A continous stream of silly nothingness.

Now you can watch all the top videos from the various sites at once and when someone asks if you saw a certain funny random video, you can say  ‘thats so yesterday’.

Ben Heck is the master of portable conversions of almost all game consoles. His latest creation is a favorite console of mine, the Sega Dreamcast.

Bask in the greatness:

Heres a video of the awesomeness:

Makes me want to dust off my Dreamcast console and play a few rounds of Crazy Taxi..

Digital picture frames has become ubiquitously cheap and affordable to be in everybody’s home, gone are the heydays where techies with spare laptops had to hack it to create a medium to display a slide show of your digital pictures.

I had received a a Pan Digital Picture Framelast christmas, I loaded up a whole bunch of pictures, but theres only so many times you can cycle through your 1000s of pics before you bore yourself, and you cant even cycle through them once to your peers without them openly hating you.

One cool feature that seems to be underutilized in the more recent digital picture frame is its capability to play various video files.

The resolution of the pandigital picture frame is 320×234 and has slots for Compact flash and SD. With the recent plummet of SD memory cards prices, its possible to pick up a 8GB for under 30 dollars.

With the recent collection of Music Videos I created with the various playlists in my previous post, I thought it would be AWESOME to be able to watch the videos on my picture frame.

Youtube video’s native resolution is 320×240, so its pretty damn close to the 5.6 Pan Digital Picture Frame of 320×234, so playback would match the quality you view on the website.

How I did it:

The idea of having access to 200-300 of your music videos available at your finger tips on a $50 dollar digital picture frame and a 30 dollar memory card is pretty keen.

Another plus is that youtube often ‘cleans house’ and removes copywritten materials, so your playlists that you create online will become ‘gappy’ with ‘content removed’ youtube notices. With this method, your collection is forever safe on your picture frame.

Also, having a slide show of all your favorite music videos is magnitudes more interesting to casual browsers than 100 pictures of you and your friends smiling into a camera at some random location which browsers have no desire to hear the background story to.

This would also be an awesome gift for your SO, friend, family etc of their favorite videos, especially for the more untechnically inclined, having access to all their videos without having to own or know how to work a computer, all with a setup for less than 80 dollars.

26 Year old Canadian, Sean Aiken started his journey after graduating from college in Business Administration to seek out his dream job by trying a new job every week for one year.

His website, Oneweekjob.com solicites visitors for jobs for one week. It has taken him across the continental US, Canada, and recently, as a park ranger at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

Aiken has taken on various jobs from photographer in New York, Realtor in LA, Preschool teacher in Idaho, and many others. Hes wound down his yearlong adventure as mayor in his home town, Port Moody, British Columbia.

He has a slew of youtube videos of his adventures and press coverage he received over the year.

His yearlong adventure has come to a close, but he will be writing a book on his travels and adventures of his ultimate job hopping experience, and is producing a video documentary.

Very interesting and inspiring concept, as many meander through their lives hoping to come across something they love doing, but with the constraints of time and money, most don’t have the luxury to do what Sean Aiken has done.

At least we can daydream how great it would have been to do what he has done through his documentary.

As a fan of the 80s, and more specifically the New Wave Genre, I decided to create the ultimate collection of all the best music videos from the birth of alternative emo.

Here is a review of the various websites/programs I tested in creating my own personal playlist:

Mixtube.org

Mixtube’s main feature seems to be its open directory of playlists so you can view user created video playlist based on search keywords. Outside of that, the interface and management of your playlist is very limited.

Pros:
Simple to Use,
Accessible anywhere online
Able to Share Playlist

Cons:
Cannot Edit your own Playlist after saving
No Inline Search for videos,
Limited to Youtube
Limited Features,
When playing videos the small youtube video is placed hidden at the bottom of the screen, almost defeating the purpose of having a video playlist
Unable to export playlist
Unable to randomize Playlist

My Playlist (about 70 videos):
http://mixtube.org/playlist.php?id=695

Youtube Playlist

One shortcoming is that its limited to its own library, so you cant search Google’s Video archive. Additionally, the video playing screen is crowded with tons of peripheral advertisements and related videos, so the interface is a bit crowded when viewing the video.

Pros:
Native Youtube Playlist
Does not ‘lock out’ third party embedding of youtube websites
Able to share playlist
Accessible anywhere online

Cons:
Limited to Youtube
Unable to export Playlist
Unable to randomize Playlist

My Youtube Playlist: (About 140 artists/videos)
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B187A3D3969B9951

You can also view the playlist embedded into this post above.

Youplayer

Youplayer has a embedded search bar which you can type in a keyword and it will display the youtube search results in your browser. You can add videos into your playlist by dragging the link of the video into the playlist, or you can add the youtube URL and name of the song manually (tedious!)

You can either view the playlist inline, or you can export the playlist and play within your Windows Media or Winamp with the appropriate plugins.

Pros:
Private Playlist for your own use

Cons:
Unable to share your playlist online
Limited to the local computer you have the plug in installed

Songza

The play interface is very clean, and lets you cycle and shuffle through all the videos in your browser.

I created my master list of 270 best New Wave vidoes of the 80s through this website.

Pros:
Very cool intuitive flash interface.
Clean uncluttered interface
Accesses both Google Video and Youtube

Cons:
Unable to export the playlist
Gets ’stuck’ if the video is unavailable.

My Master Playlist:
http://www.songza.com/psurf/

RSS Feed:
http://api.songza.com/1.0/feed/psurf.rss

Overall

As for accessing the playlist, there isnt a built in interface, but through html source backdoor scripting, I was able to get all the urls for the videos.

Coming Soon, how I batch downloaded all 270 videos from Songza locally to your computer and converted for desktop access, ipod, and into 3gp format for my non-iphone.

100,000 of Esquire’s 75th anniversary magazine cover out in newstands now has an embedded e-ink display that provides a glimpse into what print technology may hold for us in the very near future, all for the cost of a magazine ~$5.

Like the newspapers in Tom Cruise’s Minority report, or the campy Harry Potter papers which featured animated content, a select few of the Esquire magazines features a cover that uses e-ink technology that displays text on a embedded lcd a little thicker than a thin cardboard.

The neat thing about this technology is that Esquire welcomed people to ‘hack’ its embedded e-ink electronics and several people and websites has begun to tinker into the circuitry to see what can be done.

Although the technology seems crude and limited at this point, this could truly be the welcoming trumpet call for the vision of e-ink technology that we’ve seen in various futurism movies.  Next up, jetpacks!

Through the Rasterbator website, you can upload your own images, or point to an image on the Internet, specify the area you want ‘rasterbated’, select the paper type and size, style and it will create a multi-page PDF that you can print out and piece together to create a huge poster on your wall.

So any images can be converted into any sized poster for free to fill an empty void on your walls.  There are several artistic filters you can apply to create an surreal flair to the mondo sized images to post on your wall.

This could be used for a quickie  banner that needs to be created for some random event that corporate doesn’t want to spend any money on. (except vast amounts of color PDF pages from their color printer)

Check out the gallery to see some amazing rasterbated images posted around the world.

If I were still in college, my walls would be filled from top to bottom of random pics found on the Internet, but now  Im sure my wife wouldn’t appreciate postersized lolcat on the walls of our home now.

One of the common  gadgets thats used in spy movies over the years is a spy video camera embedded into common everyday devices.

I came across this fairly cheap (~$33) video camera thats embedded in a pen at dealextreme.com. (free shipping to boot!)

The form factor and design is nice, and the video pen isn’t large or unusual looking enough to spurn suspicion. The camera pin hole is right above the clip, so if you have it in your front pocket, it’ll be facing forward. It records audio and video for up to 1 1/2 hours on a single charge.

The pen has  2GB of embedded flash memory, and is easily accessed via usb. It charges by a separate charger, so you don’t have to keep replacing the batteries. The specs indicate that it records at 352×288, 15fps, with H263 codec.

Here’s a sample video:

Although dealextreme.com is based in Hong Kong, Ive ordered from the site many times and they have always delivered. The reviews seem mixed for the product, but at the price its a neat toy to tinker with.

Its amazing how cheap this technology has become and remember, this should be used for good, not evil.

Basically the Stewie bot is a program/robot that simulates a human conversation that you can communicate through Gmail instant messaging with quotes from Stewie from the Family Guy.

Eliza is a computer program written in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum which copied a therapist by rephrasing input into questions, thus almost simulating an interactive conversation. Eliza has been ported to many languages and is available in various websites you can interactively try out.

Setting up a bot on imified is fairly straight forward, go through a basic registration process, name your bot, (in my case, talky@bot.im) point to a url where your chat bot script will exist then add the bot as your buddy.

Although there is a fairly robust perl version available, my hosting account doesn’t have that perl Eliza module, so I found a php version written by Wayne Egert of Techdose.com. After some modifications, and customizing the text responses, I uploaded a customized version of the php script (http://www.planetsurfer.net/talky.php) to interface with the imified bot.

After getting the basic php eliza working with imified, I could talk to my bot via gmail talk by adding talky@bot.im as a buddy.

The personality and responses were culled quotes from Stewie of family guy. Modifying The knowledge.txt file with responses based on certain keywords, and random responses if the Stewie bot doesn’t understand your input, Stewie Gmail Bot was born.

You can talk to Eliza-Stewie-Gmail-Bot by adding talky@bot.im to your gmail talk buddies.

or

You can talk to the webbased one I created here!

Ok, its not the smartest, and it almost seems more like a random quote generator, but it does have some language parsing, keywords like how, what, why, i, i know, god, where triggers different responses.