Each day I commute about 60 miles and I see a lot of things on the road. Some things are just gorgeous, like the snowcapped Olympic Mountains, while the other stuff I see is sheer stupidity, like the lady who decided to go against the flow of traffic today. These a pretty much non-issues in the world of driving, while we think that the real threat are the boys in blue. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against our task force, but getting dinged for going 5 mph over the speed limit is a bit too ridiculous in my book. Over the years, I’ve noticed ways of how to avoid tickets at little or no cost to you. Continue reading for some tips!

Click to continue reading 3 ways to avoid speeding tickets that won’t cost you a thing

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Last week we showed you a few sneak peaks at Super Bowl ads focused on cars. Now that the Big Game is over, we wanted to hand it to Chevy GM for making a commercial worth viewing.

The spot takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. The Chevy rises from the ashes, unscathed, and drives away. The end of the commercial is what made us laugh. Chevy had the guts to take a blatant stab at Ford. Though that’s a ballsy move on its behalf, I’d suggest they take a closer look at the competition before calling them out. I’d like to draw your attention to the Ford video below. You can watch a Chevy drive away from a CGI apocalyptic hell, or you can watch a Ford drive away after being tossed around in a hurricane. You be the judge.

Click to continue reading Chevy calls out Ford in Super Bowl ad

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I’m very picky  when it comes to how my car is washed. I’m not a fan of the drive-thru carwashes that seemingly miss many spots, and sometimes even scratch it. That's why I'm envious of those folks who are lucky enough to live in the Bay Area, as you now have a new option—Cherry!

Cherry is a mobile car wash service. You can schedule the car wash from anywhere, using the Cherry Web site or handy mobile app. Within 20 minutes or so, someone will come by and start washing your car. Payment of $29 is accepted through the app or website as well. Your vehicle is tracked using geotags, so (in theory) you don’t even have to meet the person washing your car. Convenience? I think so. 

Cherry says that the company only uses 3 gallons of water to wash up to six cars. We’re not sure how that works, but it seems to be a viable business venture in a state such as California, which has implemented car-washing bans. Cherry plans to expand its services beyond the Bay Area in the future. For 29 bucks we’d be more than happy to have them wash our cars here in Seattle.

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We chat with Parrot about its upcoming AR Drone 2.0, the successor to the wildly popular Parrot AR Drone. The AR Drone 2.0 is a quadricopter that is controlled using an iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) or Android device over Wi-Fi, and it has a high definition 720p camera in it as well, so you can see what the AR Drone 2.0 sees as it flies. The device can also perform tricks and stunts. We give you a full demo in this video. This was recorded at CES 2012. You can find Parrot quadricopter products on Amazon.

Big thank you to MozyPro and JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out! MozyPro provides simple, automatic, and secure data backup. As for JackThreads, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like on the site.

Here's how to get the show:
[Download] - iPod-formatted H.264
[Download] - 720p HD
[Download] - 1080p MP4

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Watchmen! Shazam! Archie! Oh my goodness! Could a weirder week get any weirder? Oh, it can. It’s only February.

Here’s a few things to read until the Super Bowl fever hits you and, oh, wait. No one reading this cares about sports!

Well, of course DC was going to do Watchmen prequels and create more Watchmen-related graphic novels. The series will never be considered out-of-print (and now with online availability, you can get it digitally 24/7/365 so it will truly be “in print” in perpetuity). Since it’s a thing that can’t be stopped, I wish the creators well and I wish the original creators well as well (and hope they’re being compensated for the reuse of their creations). Forbes, the journal of the 1% weighs in with the “It can’t be wrong if everyone’s doing it” argument. Although Before Watchmen has to be one of the least grabby titles in modern comics history.

Michael Cavna at Comic Riffs, the Washington Post blog, collects various opinions on the coming new era of Watchmen prequels.

Here’s the Daily Beast on the behind-the-scenes soap opera at Archie. Once you realize that this is all about controlling the privately-held company, it starts to fall into place.

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So I’m watching the trailer for the new Ghost Rider movie, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance with Nic (”I’ll do anything!”) Cage and it dawns on me.

Nowhere in the trailer is there a mention of Marvel Comics. No attempt to tie it into the Marvel Universe.

No mention that it’s from the company that brought you Captain America, Iron Man and Fantastic Four. There’s a Marvel Knights logo that flashes oh-so-briefly onscreen at the beginning but that’s hardly the same.

Even the homepage for the Sony release doesn’t play up the Marvel connection.

It’s just a movie about a biker with a flaming head. Trying to help a woman and her little boy.

The same plot as Jean-Claude Van Damme's Nowhere To Run and dozens of other movies.

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It’s no secret that being a freelance writer or artist (or letterer or colorist) is a risky business.

Aside from the variable availability of steady work, you have to find and pay for your own health insurance.

Some creators simply do without - they’re young, and they’re invincible of course, but more realistically, they just can’t afford it based on their freelancer income. It’s a risky strategy, though understandable.

I once went for a couple of years without health insurance and it was very stressful because I was always thinking about how not to get seriously sick or have some kind of accident. (It didn’t work out - I did end up in the local ER on a weekend and had to drop a few hundred bucks I nearly didn't have).

Read More | Robot 6

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We give you a look at FitBit in this episode, focusing on two of their fitness gadgets, the FitBit Ultra and the FitBit Aria Wi-Fi scale. The FitBit Ultra is a small device that you wear on your belt or in your pocket that tracks how many steps you've walked, stairs you've climbed, calories you've burned, etc. It syncs with the FitBit Web site, giving you a graph of your activity history.

You FitBit Aria scale is Wi-Fi enabled, and monitors your weight, BMI, and body fat percentage. The scale uses Wi-Fi to sync your data to the FitBit Web site, where you can view your history. This was recorded at CES 2012. You can find FitBit products on Amazon.

Big thank you to GoToMeeting and JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out! GoToMeeting provides rich, super-simple collaborative cirtual meetings. As for JackThreads, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like on the site.

Here's how to get the show:
[Download] - iPod-formatted H.264
[Download] - 720p HD
[Download] - 1080p MP4

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I make the Macs we use at Gear Live work pretty hard, and am always looking to squeeze out any extra performance that I can. I've used SSD drives for about three years now, long before they were as available and affordable as they are today, even in a Mac Pro. I recently downgraded from a 2009 Mac Pro to the 2011 iMac, and had to make a few concessions as it related to a bunch of things. I mean, the Pro was a beast with an SSD, 3 HDD drives, 16 GB RAM, 3 video cards, etc. Going from that to an iMac gave me some concern. Using the iMac, though, had been fine, with the exception of slowdowns once the computer was out of RAM. Even matching it with the 16GB RAM that was in the Mac Pro wasn't enough for what we do. Granted, right now I've got about 15 tabs open in Chrome and over 40 tabs open in Safari, while iMovie is exporting a 1080p video episode of Bleeding Edge TV, with 20 apps running in the dock. I may be an edge case, but I deserve a speedy computing experience just as much as the next guy! I recently maxed out the RAM in the iMac to a ridiculous 32GB, and now things are flying.

I took a chance on an unknown (to me) brand called KomputerBay that I found on Amazon, and they sell 8GB RAM modules in sets of two (so 16GB total) for less than I've seen anywhere else, by a substantial margin. After installing, performane was markedly improved, and I have yet to experience any of those "out of RAM" slowdowns that plagued me before. Not bad for inexpensive RAM. If you've got a 2011 iMac, your system has four RAM slots and can support up to 32GB RAM. Alternatively, if you're running a recent MacBook Pro, you have two slots and can bump it up to 16GB using these modules. Each 16GB set currently costs $139.

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Here in the U.S., we’re familiar with the semi-trucks we share the highways with during our commutes and rely on to deliver our goods...but seeing a semi as a taxicab, that’s something unheard of. Europe’s semi truck manufactures take pride in their products, and one brand in particular is out to prove they’re the best. That brand is Mercedes-Benz. It's have won Truck of the Year for its newly redesigned Actros. However, that wasn’t enough for the Mercedes. So someone got the bright idea of using an Actros as a taxicab. However, the Actros was set to pick up customers from competing manufactures such as Volvo and Man. Watch a video of their reactions after the jump!

Click to continue reading Mecedes-Benz Actros used as a taxicab

Read More | Autoblog

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