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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

The Tech Deck

FRIDAY, NOV. 15, 2013

Un-boxing a Playstation 4

Remember, remember, the 15th of November... as Playstation 4 un-boxing day! After an exhaustive search through the box, we discovered to our delight that Sony has thrown in an HDMI cable, which they skimped out on when I un-boxed my old PS3. Of course, now…

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THURSDAY, NOV. 14, 2013

The Tech Deck Retro Desktop Wallpaper

Because everyone needs something as rad as this as their desktop wallpaper. (Click on the image to go to the large version) If you're interested in how I made it, I created it in Adobe Illustrator following the gist of this tutorial: Create a 1980s…

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WEDNESDAY, NOV. 13, 2013


Burger King delivery followup

A fellow Burger King eating compadré of mine had this to say about Burger King's delivery service: They delivered in 20 mins when we ordered by phone. Wonder if there was a delay in getting the order from the website to the store. And that…

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TUESDAY, NOV. 12, 2013

Doge meme Python shell script

Familiar with the doge meme? It's dumb. Sometimes funny, but always dumb. Programmers, of course, have to take memes to an n+1 level, so Github user "thiderman" has created a Python shell script to create a doge in your console, with lots beautiful text and…

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MONDAY, NOV. 11, 2013

Star Wars .gifs

I'm going to start a new feature here on the Tech Deck. Every Monday I'll post my favorite Star Wars .gifs. Because the world needs someone to recognize some of the greatest pop art in the world. And because the world needs more of this:…

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FRIDAY, NOV. 8, 2013

Yep.

Not much to explain, really. I actually remember this Sesame Street bit from when I was a wee little lad and computers were as mysterious to me as they were to the alien guys here. Yep.

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THURSDAY, NOV. 7, 2013

Internet Explorer 11 released

Microsoft announced today that they were releasing Internet Explorer 11 into the wild for Windows 7 users and will be rolling it out in their auto updates across the world. If you're a Windows 7 user, this means you'll soon have a brand new baby…

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Museum of Mario

I hate to talk too much about Mario since I'm not really much of a gamer anymore, but IGN recently put up a Museum of Mario HTML5 webpage that is a great use of newer web technology to create an interactive and entertaining experience. It's…

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TUESDAY, NOV. 5, 2013

Sword making dude youtube playlist

There's a dude who makes swords, and he's on YouTube. And there's a playlist of his videos. I know that's probably one of the worst SR headlines you've ever read, but it's accurate. And it's cool. In a different life, I too was a blacksmith/machinist.…

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Nikon Df: Nikon's throwback camera

For the past few years, I was a Pentax guy. Old Pentax glass is amazing and their newer digital bodies themselves are good, capable and affordable. I flirted briefly with a Canon 5D, but I traded that away for a motorcycle, so now I have…

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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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The Tech Deck