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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

The Tech Deck archive for Oct. 2013

THURSDAY, OCT. 31, 2013

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 30, 2013

Star Trek Meets Monty Python

I'm stealing this video shamelessly from my friend Frank because it deserves to be seen by the multitudes. I present to thee: Monty Python's Camelot song set to some video from Star Trek (the awesome original series, not that Deep Space Nine trash.) We're knights…

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Fat guy jumping stilts

I love finding toys and gadgets that I absolutely should not own. Like this: Those are jumping stilts, specifically the Air-Trekker CZ120 Adult Edition for hefty people who weigh 265-300 lbs. Because, why not? Fat guys need to jump too. It's one of those products…

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MONDAY, OCT. 28, 2013


Upgrading your Mac to Mavericks

Goodbye cat land (Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Garfield, Lion, Mountain Lion, etc.), hello California (pronounced kal-ee-four-knee-uhhh). Today we're going to update my personal 11" Macbook Air to Mavericks, the newest OS from Apple. They released it a few days ago, but only n00bs upgrade the…

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FRIDAY, OCT. 25, 2013

Spokane's famous sheep video 

Thanks to the heads up from Luke Baumgarten on Facebook, but this is awesome and you have to see the Greenbluff sheep that could use a lozenge. Read the Yahoo article about the sheep In other news, there needs to be a better word for…

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Programming one-liners

I hope you weren't expecting actual programming one-liners (Python, SED, AWK, PERL, Ruby), were you? Presenting the best programming one-liner JOKES I could find (compiled from the Stack Overflow thread): *** Java: write once, debug everywhere. How many IT Support reps does it take to…

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The PC is dead. Er, actually...

ZOMG! The PC is dead! The PC is dead! That's the battle cry of the masses of people sporting their smart phones, giant smart phones, ginormous smart phones, mini tablets, mid-sized tablets, big tablets and humongous tablets. (I am waiting for the moment when the…

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THURSDAY, OCT. 24, 2013

Sweet LOTR documentary

Alright, I'll be straight with you. I read the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion in the pre-Peter Jackson years, back when you were made fun of for liking fantasy anything. These days, I'm not into movies or games or whatnot that…

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WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23, 2013

iversity.org: A new MOOC on the block 

There's a new MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in town and... Well, it's not in town. In fact, it's actually in Europe. Germany, to be precise. Berlin. Smart people, them. Anyway, iversity.org is the site. At the moment, iversity offers 10 courses in German and…

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TUESDAY, OCT. 22, 2013


World of Warcrack

In yesterday's paper, there was a story about a woman in Coeur d’Alene who lost her children because she was playing World of Warcraft for "six to eight hours a day." In the comments, reader catchaserguns mentioned, "Thats why I call it World of Warcrack."…

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MONDAY, OCT. 21, 2013

FRIDAY, OCT. 18, 2013

THURSDAY, OCT. 17, 2013

Cyan's new Obduction game + Kickstarter campaign 

Spokane's own (Ok, MEAD's own) Cyan has a Kickstarter campaign for Obduction, a real-time, first-person adventure reminiscent of their blockbuster Myst and Riven games of yore. And Obduction looks *awesome*. I just found out about it today, but I'm going to follow up with the…

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How to erase a cd like a boss

Maybe you have company trade secrets or a convoluted terrorist plot to overthrow the US Federal Government with your backyard pumpkin trebuchet filed away into neatly organized directories on your CD-R. Or maybe you really hate your mother's/sister's/brother's/other's John Mayer CD. One thing is for…

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WEDNESDAY, OCT. 16, 2013

Play Super Mario Bros. in your browser

I love the Super Mario Bros. more than any other game on the planet. I spent countless hours perfecting my jumping skills, learning the secret pathways through the game, and advancing to the point where I could go through the whole game without dying. All…

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Robots with guns 

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love our AI Overlords Remember the movie Short Circuit, where a military robot short circuits and becomes self aware? I loved that movie. It had a good story about what it means to be "alive," but mostly…

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TUESDAY, OCT. 15, 2013


FRIDAY, OCT. 11, 2013

List of free programming books

On the heals of my Learn how to program with MOOCs blog post, Hacker News this morning had a link to a fabulous resource for people who want to learn how to program but also don't want to spend $$$ on hideously expensive programming tomes.…

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THURSDAY, OCT. 10, 2013

Learn how to program with MOOCs

You should learn how to program. Right now, more than any time in history, learning how to program is easy. In the ye olden times (1960s-1990s), programming was relagated to über nerds and scientists, but with the advent of MOOCs, almost anyone can learn right…

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WEDNESDAY, OCT. 9, 2013

Glover Middle School's Discovery Days

I got to speak to a bajillion middle school students at Glover Middle School's Discovery Days today about web development and digital journalism. I forgot what it was like to be a 7th grader. Favorite parts: 1. When I mentioned that video game programmers turn…

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NY Times: What Is the Higgs

If you haven't seen it yet, the NY Times' "What is the Higgs?" is a totally rad interactive graphic that explains what the Higgs-Boson particle is. They do it with style and their storytelling ability is top notch so you should check it out. I…

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TUESDAY, OCT. 8, 2013

SteamOS: Worth the hype? 

If you haven't heard by now, there's a new gaming system called SteamOS that is trying to bring the world of PC gaming into the console-dominated living room. A custom Linux operating system that has been optimized specifically for video games, SteamOS is causing all…

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