Mon., Oct. 21, 2013
Privacy is a hot-button issue these days. Between Facebook/Twitter/Google tracking your movements across the web and the NSA implanting tracking code in your brain... (Hyperbole, yes. But until all of Snowden's NSA whistle-blower secrets have been divulged, it's best to assume that the Gov't has…
Fri., Oct. 18, 2013
Recently I became aware of a few websites that, for some, are real downers. They don't tell a story that is intrinsically sad, they don't preach, they don't argue. They simply present facts about the shortness of our time on this earth in solid, numerical…
Thu., Oct. 17, 2013
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…
Thu., Oct. 17, 2013
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…
Wed., Oct. 16, 2013
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…
Wed., Oct. 16, 2013
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…
Tue., Oct. 15, 2013
Honeywell, why didn't you tell us you made such cool safety products? I don't know how I even got on your website, but I think you deserve to have a page telling you how much I admire your super nerdy gear. CHAINEXTWO Tunic It's a…
Tue., Oct. 15, 2013
"I can put it down whenever I want." — Every Minecraft user ever You might have a pre-teen in your household who can show you everything you could possibly want to know about Minecraft, but I'm just going to show you one dead simple way…
Fri., Oct. 11, 2013
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.…
Thu., Oct. 10, 2013
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…
Wed., Oct. 9, 2013
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…
Wed., Oct. 9, 2013
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…
Tue., Oct. 8, 2013
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…
Mon., Oct. 7, 2013
So some of your favorite government websites are shut down, such as the U.S. International Trade Commission (oh noes! Not the US ITC! How else am I supposed to search the current Harmonized Tariff Schedule?) I snarkily replied that it was "a completely nonsensical (from…
Mon., Oct. 7, 2013
Because I get asked this all the time, I thought I'd share with you the best way to identify a font. Does it look like Helvetica? It's probably Arial. Does it look like a restaurant menu? It's probably Papyrus. Does it look like the very…
Thu., Oct. 3, 2013
Google released a new app called, imaginatively, Google Web Designer. Being a web designer myself, I thought I'd take it for a spin and give you my thoughts. (Before we start, I should let you know of my pre-exisiting biases. As someone forced to use…
Wed., Oct. 2, 2013
Girls speaking Klingon and 16 Gig caches, writing in code with some dots and some dashes, Wood Elves with bows fighting dragons with wings, ... these are a few of the nerdiest things.--Jim Stone, local nerd Last week a friend made a joke on the…
Wed., Oct. 2, 2013
In case you haven't heard, the Federal Government is shut down for the moment. In a completely nonsensical (from a technical perspective) act, a bunch of federal websites have been taken down and replaced with this very welcoming message: In case you really, really needed…
Wed., Oct. 2, 2013
Our newsroom has an iPad Mini, codenamed "iPad Mini", for testing stuff. It's still using the archaic and antiquated iOS 6, so let's update it. First we open our Settings app. Then we go to General settings, and at the top we see Software Update.…
Tue., Oct. 1, 2013
Welcome to the Spokesman-Review's new Tech Deck blog, where we discuss all sorts of different nerdy things, with an Inland NW slant. As one of the online developers for spokesman.com, I fortunately/unfortunately cannot escape the moniker, so I might as well represent. One goal of…
