Kyle Perkins Author

Why you need to start using Airbnb

Okay, so I just got back from a mini vacation that I randomly decided to take. I injured myself at work(broken finger), which prevented me from working for a couple of weeks, so I thought, “hey, why not?” I took the family and we went to Gatlinburg, which is just an awesome city. If you’ve never been there, definitely check it out. You’ll get some pretty cool scenery there, and in the Smoky…

The Indie Book Community Is Toxic.

So, I’ve been in a lot of toxic communities, from alt-right incel groups, to gaming groups and nothing is quite as toxic as the indie book community.

**I was in alt right groups to fuck with them, I was not actually alt right**

I stopped writing long ago, and have even considered changing the name of the blog, but if you write a book you’ll always be an author. So, I trashed the idea.…

How to reseason cast iron with salt, soap and oil.

So, I had several pieces of cast iron cookware which definitely needed repairing, as they had been put through the ringer. Unfortunately food was left in them, and they had rusted out. I forgot about the pots and pans for a long time, months in fact because I had a lot going on and the situation only got worse.

As you can see, it wasn’t going to be an easy task.

So, what you’ll need for…

It’s been a while.

I apologize for my absence, but quite a lot has happened since I posted last.

So, in July of this year, my dad died. My dad was one of my best friends. We hung out on a daily basis, shot the shit, and had a really good relationship. I needed to go to the doctor one day after work and my dad offered to drive me up there. Nothing odd about that, because he was always trying to help out in one…

The Alt-Right: How did this happen?

Let me start by saying that the whole “right vs. left,” thing is no longer a matter of preference that you can just brush off. This is a matter now of good vs. evil. If someone you know is trying to keep republicans in power, they are selfish, and evil. There is no reason to mince words.

It all started a few years ago when lgbt people, people of color, and women were trying to get an even playing…

Fitbit, Weight Gurus, and How I Quit Smoking.

Several months ago, I set out to quit smoking. I accomplished it, but it wasn’t easy, and took a lot of conviction. What helped me the most, was having a purpose to quit. A lot of times, we can convince ourselves that it’s our body and who gives a shit, right? I have always been that way, dumping alcohol into my liver, filling my lungs with smoke. I never really cared, nor had a reason to.…

Start investing with Robinhood today.

I have written an article regarding Robinhood in the past, which detailed a way to use an algorithm to gain an edge in trading. However, since then, quantopian has dropped all support for Robinhood despite a public outcry against that decision. Their loss. The reason I am back today writing about this same topic again, is to stress the importance of this app, and how game changing it really is.

I…

As with Myspace’s fall due to the arrival of Facebook, MeWe has arrived to stand on Facebook’s chest as it takes its last breath. MeWe is a new form of social media, with enough familiarity to make it inviting, but enough different about it to ensure that boomers stay far the fuck away from it(as they hate any change whatsoever).

So, let’s take a look at some of the cool features!

Free Storage:

By signing up for the site, you instantly have access to your own cloud. The site gives you 8gb which is a lot of space for pictures and what not. You can delete everything you want, anytime you want, and you can even download all content you’ve ever posted easily, and quickly.

Quick Deletion:

Ever notice how with Facebook when you want to delete your account, it isn’t really deleted, and instead sits there in limbo until you sign back in? Well, with MeWe, if for whatever reason you need to delete your account and everything you’ve ever posted, the process is quick and painless.

Groups:

Groups are VERY easy to make, and manage. Not to mention MeWe also creates a group chat, which mixes the best of Facebook and Discord into one package. You can easily share content from a group to your wall, and manage permissions of what each “type,” of member can do.

Censorship:

The good news here is that MeWe takes an entirely different approach to censorship than Facebook. You ONLY see what friends post, so why censor anything? If you don’t want to see something that someone posted, or they offended you, you can just stop being their fucking friend. This thought process might be a little too complex to the giant pussies who sit around reporting everything that doesn’t align with their fragile sensibilities, but MeWe has seemed to figure this out. In Facebook, you can even be reported in private groups, for posting something that Facebook themselves flags as inappropriate, which could be something as small as a breastfeeding pic, or even a picture of a cloud, depending on their mood.

Events:

Planning a group party, meetup, or group takeover? Well, now you can schedule those things nice and neatly into a calendar and share the events with your group or friends without bombarding them with annoying invites.  It keeps you organized, too. You don’t need to have a third party app to manage when you should be wear, it’s all right in the header.

Audio:

Now you can record clips of you speaking, in private messages, group chats, comments on posts, or even on your wall. So, if you don’t feel like making a long winded and rambly post in text, you can just drunkenly blurt out shit into your mic and post directly to your wall. Amazing!

Mobile Apps:

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The mobile app is fantastic, and is a lot snappier than the bloated shitware known as Facebook. It loads right up without issue, and zero lag. It also has the full functionality of the desktop version without anything removed. The best part? You don’t have to download two fucking apps just to use the platform. The “messenger,” side of it is integrated into the one app. This will save you a ton of room on your device.

Everything else:

Everything else works pretty much like Facebook. You can post to your timeline, chat with friends privately, etc. The only thing missing is pages, but pages are a bit redundant when all of that information can be put into a group or added to your profile anyway. Many authors are not allowed to use pen names because Facebook needs to know who you really are, you know, to properly sell your information. That problem doesn’t exist in MeWe. Use all of the pen names you’d like. Say what you want to say. It’s truly the freedom we’ve all waited a very long time for. Give it a shot yourself. If you like it, it gives you ways to easily invite people from your contacts. You might be surprised by who is already on the network. Many authors have started making the switch. It’s everything you want in a social media, without the added bullshit.

If you’d like to add me, just click the picture below, or use MeWe to scan the image(you get your own QR code, too!).

Ingress: The best phone based ARG ever made.

Many of you are aware of the game Pokemon Go, I mean, how can you not be? A lot of people are far less aware of Niantic’s first game, which in my opinion is far more entertaining. Especially when you sprinkle in the ARG aspects of it. The game takes place using our reality melded with another storyline. Two realities in one, though…

So first, here is my parts list.

Rexgear Micro ATX Cube – $49.99

Patriot Viper 3 Series, Black Mamba, DDR3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit – $62.99

MSI AMD FM2+ A68H DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX Motherboard – $46.99

ARCTIC Alpine 64 Plus – 90 Watts Low Noise CPU Cooler for AMD AM4 Sockets – $13.77

AMD AMD A6-7400K Dual-Core 3.5 GHz – $49.79

Hitachi 1TB (1 tb) SATA II 7200 RPM 32MB (Quantity: 3) – $34.58 x 3.

APEVIA ATX-VS450W Venus 450W ATX Power Supply – $21.99

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So, I got all of this for under $350, but all you really need is a cpu, power supply, motherboard, ram, case, and a hard drive. You can do this in any combination, and chances are, you have some shitty old PC laying in a closet somewhere that you could easily use.

You will also need two flash drives. They both should be empty. You need to put the nas4free installation media on one, and the OS will go on another.

So, now that you have your PC built, let’s get started.

First, go here.

Make sure to click on the link with the latest date. Since we’re using USB, we will be selecting this.

It will begin downloading. This could take fifteen minutes or so. Once that is completed, head over and download rufus.

Once that is finished, you have everything you need to install nas4free.

Turn on your freshly built PC. It will lead you straight to the BIOS, and you’ll need to switch the boot order to make booting from USB first priority. There are a million tutorials on how to do this, but it’s pretty straight forward. Find boot order, move everything related to USB to the top. It might be smart to make it reboot upon power loss as well. Save and exit.

Now, you need to plug a USB into the computer you are used to using. Open rufus, then select this usb. After, go down to where it says ISO, and change to DD. Find the nas4free image that you downloaded earlier.

Make yours look like mine, other than the very top option. It will be whatever your USB is called.Next to DD, where that CD looking icon is, that’s what you’ll click to browse and find the nas4free you downloaded earlier.

After you hit start, it will begin installing nas4free onto the USB. Once it completes, you’ll take the USB, along with the other blank one, and put those into the new PC. Then, reboot that PC.

Once you reboot, it will begin loading the new OS. Once it’s finished, you will come to a screen that looks like this.

Select option 9. Then you can begin installing the OS onto the other USB that will stay permanently in the PC. The next screen, pick the preferred option. Then it will guide you through. Once it comes to selecting the device to install on, pick the blank USB.

Once finished, you’ll be back to the first screen. You’ll need to configure a network IP. Go to your normal computer, and run command. (either windows key+ r, then type cmd.exe then hit okay, or type command in cortana or search in start menu). Once it’s open, type in ipconfig and hit enter. It will bring up important information about your network, but you’re looking for information on the gateway.

Now, you’ll know your gateway. So, back to the new PC, go select option 2. Then, it will bring you to these prompts.

For this option, select no. I know it is highlighted on yes, but select no.

For this, you’ll put whatever your gateway is. Usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, but you’ll change the last one to something over 20. So, 192.168.0.21 or 192.168.1.56 etc.

24.

Now, you’ll put your gateway that we found in command earlier.

For DNS, let’s use google’s. Just type 8.8.8.8

Finally for this, select no.

Now you will have a GUI login, or a way to log in from your normal computer. You can now unplug monitor and keyboard from new pc. You won’t need them anymore.

So, in your browser, go to the ip address you set up for your NAS. Whether it was the 192.168.0.21 or 192.168.1.56, or whatever you chose. This will bring you to..

Username will be admin and pw will be nas4free

You can change these later.

Now you have a fully functioning NAS. But, you want to be able to store things on it easily on your computer right? Well, first we need it to recognize your hard drives. So, go to the disks tab.

Then, it will drop down, go to management.

Hit import and you’ll see your disk, or disks. After this, click the HDD format tab.

Select UFS, then click all of your disks(aside from USB where OS is installed. Then hit next and go through prompts.

Then, return to HDD management. Click the little wrench next to each disk and make it look like this.

With everything we do, we will save, save and restart, or apply. It will give you one of these options. You must select them.

Now, we need a mount point on the disks. You get there from the disks tab>mount point.

When you get there, hit the + button.

You’ll want to select each disk, then make each of them look like this.

Naturally changing media to what you’ll be storing on the particular disk, and change the description to reflect it.

Once that’s done, you’re disks are complete and ready to store. Problem is, windows can’t see them. Let’s fix that.

Once you’re in there, make it look like this.

Then go to the shares tab.

Once you’ve hit the plus button, change your to look like this.

Of course, change the emelia to whatever you want the folder to appear as in windows. On the path, click the three little dots, then go to the mnt and shares that you created earlier. You can create as many as you’d like. One for each disk, or use all three disks as one. If you only have one disk, just go to mnt and hit okay.

Now, you are sharing with windows. So, open up your explorer and at the top, type in whatever ip address you use to login to nas from web browser. So, \\192.168.1.25 or so on.

Now, right click each folder, and click map network drive.

Now, you can use your entire new NAS as a network folder on your computer. You can save documents, photos, movies, games, etc all in the folder and it will store it externally, outside of your computer. Now, everyone in your network(everyone using your modem or router), can use these folders. It will work as a community hub for anything you want to save or share.

But, that’s only on your network, and you’re limited as a guest. If you want to use this as a cloud server, where you can use this even outside of your network(say you travel to the other side of the planet and want to save something in the NAS sitting on your desk)), well, we need to create users and enable ftp.

So, go to access tab, then users & groups.

Like always, you’ll click the plus button.

Then make yours look like mine.

Pay special attention to the additional groups section. Make sure that ftp, dlna, and wheel are all highlighted. Then save. Repeat for every user in your house.

Now, go back to network shares in windows. You can right click them and disconnect. Go back to your \\ipaddressyousetup and remap the network drives, but this time, sign in with user credentials.

And now put in your user credentials, and have everyone use theirs on their computers.

Now you’re secure. But to access from outside of the network, we need to enable ftp.

So, go to services tab>ftp

Make yours look like mine, then save and restart.

Now, download winscp.

Once you’re done, you’ll open it to a screen like this.

But you’ll have no idea what to put here. Well, you’ll want to put port 21 and your nas user name and pw that you set up earlier, but as for ip address? We need to get your public one. So, click here. Now, hit login after you save. (So that you won’t need to do this every time. Now, if it won’t let you log in, it just means that your modem/router is being a pain in the ass and the port needs opened. (port 21).

There are so many variations of routers and modems that we couldn’t possibly go through every one, but your model number should be written on the modem or router itself. Put that into google with a “open port” or “port forwarding” for a tutorial on how to do this. Once that port is open, you’ll be good to login.

Now, you can send files to your humble little NAS from across the world.

BUT, you also want your media to play on your TV from the NAS. I got you, fam.

Go to services>DLNA/UPnP MiniDLNA>MiniDLNA then make your screen look like mine, selecting your mount point obviously.

Now, your smart TVs can pick it up and you can stream directly to it.

To make things easier, you can also download Plex.

Sign up, and then you will get a server. Make sure to do this on the strongest computer in your house. When it prompts you to pick your media directory, make sure to select the mnt point on the NAS that we made earlier.

Then, once it’s downloaded, go to your settings and enable remote access and DLNA. This will make sure that your smart TV can receive it, and you can also watch anywhere in the world on any device.

More info here:

Well, I hope you enjoyed this long and thorough tutorial. lol.

Enjoy your new NAS, you can thank me later.

Final product for me?

I have spent the majority of my life wondering who I am, and where my family came from. I heard stories and rumors growing up about our heritage, but they never really seemed to connect to a person who I could point back to as proof of these claims. Finally, a couple of months ago, I decided to see for myself. I started with a family tree, and used information from my grandparents, parents, and…

I’ve done Best Tv Dramas, and I’ve done Most Disturbing. Now, it’s time for the funniest TV shows of all times! AMERICAN VANDAL. A true-crime satire that explores the aftermath of a costly high school prank that left twenty-seven faculty cars vandalized with phallic images. WILFRED. The story of Ryan, a depressed man who believes he is getting nowhere in his life and plans to kill himself. In the…

Recently, 4chan started a new trolling campaign where they left fliers around campuses that read, “it’s okay to be white,” and the internet lost its mind. Now, why a large group of people would lose their mind over people saying that it’s simply okay to be a certain race is beyond me. Is it not okay to be white? Is this what we need to teach kids? Do we want an entire race of people growing up…

I have watched a lot of TV and film over the years, probably more than I would care to admit, but during my adventures into cinema, I have come across a lot of truly bizarre films. Some that you probably wouldn’t show your family over fear of being put onto some kind of watch list. So, I have decided to catalog these films so that you can cringe along with me. You can find most of these on TPB,…

Recently, I did an article about the most disturbing films of all times, but today I wanted to do a “Best TV Drama article,” to catalog some of my favorite shows. I’ll likely end up doing a “funniest TV shows,” list, and maybe even a mindfuck list as well. Like I said in the other article, I have consumed entirely too much TV and Film for a normal person. This list will help prove that. 50. I’M…

I have watched a lot of TV and film over the years, probably more than I would care to admit, but during my adventures into cinema, I have come across a lot of truly bizarre films. Some that you probably wouldn’t show your family over fear of being put onto some kind of watch list. So, I have decided to catalog these films so that you can cringe along with me. You can find most of these on TPB,…