Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Horror films are commonly built around characters that do things that seem destined to fail disastrously. Whether it’s the 1958 horror classic “The Fly” about a scientist whose teleporter crosses his DNA with a fly, or next week’s “The Lazarus Effect” about researchers who concoct a method to reanimate recently deceased living beings, common sense rarely exists in the horror genre. With that said, if these fictional characters could protest, I’m sure they’d all say their experiments started with mankind’s best intentions in mind. In the real world, several innovations follow this same storyline (think napalm and DDT), and if I were to pick one modern invention that may slowly be turning from societal gift to oppressive burden, it might be Wi-Fi. The ability to network electronic devices and gadgets via wireless connections has been an absolute godsend to modern living. Phones, televisions, computers, remotes, cars, watches, ca...

Content wheel at ResponsiblyWild.com Maintaining an online footprint can be exhausting. Pretty much anyone who keeps tabs on their professional versus personal image knows exactly what that entails. As fun as it is to make snarky remarks on Twitter, are you comfortable with a prospective employer reading them? It can get especially frustrating when pretty much everything you've ever produced or will produce exists somewhere on the information super highway. That is scarily close to my situation. Virtually every news report, wedding video, podcast, graphic, fundraising video, tech column, music video, and everything else I've produced can be found online. Sure I upload a great deal of it myself, but I suspect for every four things I personally put online, a fifth item is uploaded with my name attached by someone else. Of course the major difference in these items is the fifth one is completely out of my control, such is the case for everyone; Someone uploads a nasty photo ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com If social media is good for one thing, it’s recommendations. If you were to pull out your phone right now and ask your Facebook friends what to watch on Netflix tonight, you will get a slew of ideas. The problem with this method of soliciting guidance is that it’s a firehose. The inundation of possibilities you’ll receive will likely overwhelm you, and it’s just as likely that none will fit your taste. Thankfully for films there is a massive, longstanding Internet system (and in Cityview!) in place of critics and websites that give qualified suggestions tailored to your taste. But films are easy to consume, and even the terrible ones only cost you a couple hours. Books, on the other hand, take a great deal of dedication to see all the way through. Pick up a book that’s terrible and you’ll throw it out. A boring book? You’ll probably drop it in a few hours. The world is full of mediocre books that everyone seems to recommend. ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The Super Bowl is hands down the biggest television event in the country. For six years straight, the National Football League’s season-capping game has broken the record for largest television viewing audience. While the Super Bowl is the ratings champion, it seems sitcoms, award shows, live broadcasts and other sporting events are forever trapped in the race for second place. The obvious tech equivalent to the Super Bowl is Facebook. In the world of social networking, Facebook rules. Try as they might, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, LinkedIn and startup Ello are locked in an eternal struggle for second place. Google Plus technically has more users, Pinterest refers more traffic to online businesses, and Ello has that new car smell, but Facebook is king. Facebook has 1.35 billion active monthly users, 4.5 billion user “likes” daily, 300 million daily photo uploads, the largest population of 25-34 users anywhere online (the ...