First Timers Search Results

How To: Make Fractal Cupcakes

Last post, we looked at fractal cookies based off of the recipe by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. In this post, we'll follow their recipe for fractal cupcakes based off of the Koch Snowflake, which we used previously to decorate pumpkins for Halloween.

News: Art as a Weapon

Although most religions have inspired a variety of art, Buddhism seems to have a special relationship with the arts. Something about the endless circle of birth and rebirth seems to intrigue the minds of artists. Of course even if the art is not directly related to Buddhism, the Buddha has always been a fan of art. The Buddha has been quoted several times speaking about art, and most of his sayings are truly profound:

News: Minecraft World's Minecon Wrap-Up

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Minecon 2011 went really well. If any of you World Members attended, please post about your experience to the community corkboard. The opening ceremony was amazing! Here's a video of the release: After the release, we attended the panels for Scrolls and Cobalt. We then attended the Official Mojang Panel.

News: 18 Easy Exploits to Raise Spellcasting Skills in Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim set off a bang in the video game world this month. It will likely be video game of the year a few times over. Skyrim is another part to a series set in the fantasy world of Tamriel, a world filled with mystical creatures, folklore, and even its own history. It's quite the beatuiful and immersive experience. If you have not picked up the game yet, please do (my fiancée even plays!). Also, make sure to buy it new, so the hard working coders at Bethesda get the money ...

How To: Make Sierpinski Carpet Cookies

Since it is now the holiday season, I thought we could spend this weekend making some baked goods that have mathematical patterns on them. In this post, we'll look at making cookies that have a fractal pattern based off of a modification of the pixel cookie technique.

News: 20 Amazing Minecraft Costumes at MineCon 2011

MineCon 2011 (held at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas) was in a word, awesome. The crowd was overwhelmingly young, the vibe was fun and nerdy, and best of all, the costumes were inspired. Below are my favorites, which unfortunately aren't of the best quality (lighting was low and super yellow, which wasn't helped much by my standard point-and-shoot). If you happened to attend Minecon as well, post about your experience to the community corkboard... if you're pictured below, please comment!

How To: Convert Protected M4P Files to MP3 Songs with iMovie and iTunes

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it's awesome that you can now download music from the iTunes Store that's free of DRM (digital rights management) limitations. That was always my biggest problem with buying music from iTunes. Paying a buck for a song that I can only play on Apple devices? Really? That's what finally led me away to other legal music downloading services like eMusic and Amazon.

How To: Deep Fry Your Thanksgiving Bird

Looking for something a little more exhilarating this Thanksgiving? Something with a bit more kick? Forget traditional roasted turkey. If you've got the stomach for it, try turducken, a wonderful triplex of turkey, duck and chicken with sausage stuffing and Cajun seasoning. Or go for good ol' American fried food, the deep fried Thanksgiving bird.

How To: Make a Thanksgiving Turducken

Ah, turducken. The fondest of all portmanteau words and the tastiest of all Thanksgiving day meals. Turducken is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken—three glorious poultry meats molded into one marvelous, boneless hunk of flesh that any sane carnivore wouldn't dare resist. It's slapped together with pork sausage stuffing, sometimes even three different kinds, and caked with Cajun seasonings.

Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 2 - Legal Hacker Training

Welcome to the closing of the second HackThisSite and programming Community Byte. First and foremost, I would like to ask that people start showing up on time to the Community Bytes. If you need help converting your time zone to PST, go to Time Zone Converter. When users do not show up on time, we have to go backwards and catch everybody up. This wastes time and will also make other users' experience less enjoyable when they have to watch and listen to the same thing 100 times. Punctuality as...

News: Lightweight Programs You Should Use for a Faster Linux

Some people are what is labeled a power user. I am one of these people. No matter how fast I get my system, or how quick of programs I have, it is never good enough. There is always at least one program that I could swap out for a more advanced, text-based counterpart that increases performance just a bit. Luckily, you don't have to use text-based programs without graphical user interfaces to get blazing fast speeds on Linux. There are tons of open source alternatives to the mainstream progra...

News: Performance Hacks & Tweaks for Linux

If you have made the switch from Windows to Linux, I want to congratulate you in advance. I'm sure you have noticed a huge performance increase when using Linux over other operating systems. This is only half the battle, though! Most users who are new to Linux end up using Ubuntu. I have no gripes with Ubuntu, but I do not agree with their philosophy. It almost mimics Windows. Ubuntu favors ease of use, and despite valiant efforts by the development team thus far (Ubuntu is crazy fast), all o...

News: Street Poets Inc.

Street Poets inc. is a great resource for everyone. They are great motivators and inspirational poets. I guarantee you will view the world differently one you meet them. Seeking Peace is a workshop they have every Tuesday and Friday. Check their site <3

How To: Get the 'How Pedestrian' Achievement in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Here's a nice little challenge for you to try this weekend. For those of you with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and are looking to make an easy 25G, this is for you. The 'How Pedestrian' achievement asks you to walk the entirety of the level "Halo". You know, the massive second level of the game. However, there's one big obstacle standing in your way, and that's where the Achievement Hunters come in. See, you have to grenade jump your way across a pretty large gap. I'd try to explain it, ...

How To: Run an FTP Server from Home with Linux

File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, is a network protocol made for transferring files in a client and host fashion over a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) network, such as the internet. FTP is integrated into most browsers, and you have probably used it before. It is a common way to host files and transfer them easily. To access an FTP, a login is required, unless the server is configured to use anonymous logins (like the Arch Linux mirrors).

News: Tom Friedman's Twisted Math Art

Tom Friedman is one of my favorite artists. He's got a great sense of humor, and his work is meticulous and beautiful. He forays into Math Art, and from a partisan perspective, he seems to be inspired by mathematics, but the end results are more of a whimsical twist than a mathematically "correct" execution. But I could be totally wrong. Comment below and fill me in.

Modular Origami: How to Make a Truncated Icosahedron, Pentakis Dodecahedron & More

Last post, the Sonobe unit was introduced as a way to use multiple copies of a simply folded piece of paper to make geometric objects. In this post, we are going to explore that concept further by making two more geometric models. The first is the truncated icosahedron, which is a common stitching pattern for a soccer ball. The second was supposed to be the pentakis dodecahedron, but through systematic errors last night, I actually built a different model based off of the rhombic triacontahed...