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How To: Make a Hyperbolic Paraboloid Using Skewers

In Monday's post, we created a sliceform model of a hyperbolic paraboloid. In today's post, we will create a similar model using skewers. The hyperbolic paraboloid is a ruled surface, which means that you can create it using only straight lines even though it is curved. In fact, the hyperbolic paraboloid is doubly ruled and is one of only three curved surfaces than can be created using two distinct lines passing through each point. The others are the hyperboloid and the flat plane.

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.

Modular Origami: How to Make a Cube, Octahedron & Icosahedron from Sonobe Units

Modular origami is a technique that can be used to build some pretty interesting and impressive models of mathematical objects. In modular origami, you combine multiple units folded from single pieces of paper into more complicated forms. The Sonobe unit is a simple example unit from modular origami that is both easy to fold and compatible for constructing a large variety of models. Below are a few models that are easy to make using this unit.

News: Kaplan University's Visionary Voices–A Collection of Ideas on Continuing Educa

Kaplan University presents Visionary Voices, a series of interviews that chronicle our goals in regards to adult education and continuing education throughout your life. Kaplan University offers online degree programs designed to expand the way you think and help you develop both personally and professionally. Students turn to us to develop their critical thinking skills, to challenge and prepare them for successful careers.*

News: Kaplan University Graduate Debra Eppley and her Online Nursing Degree

Kaplan University nursing alum Debra Eppley was already working in the nursing field when she started her RN-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing completion program (RN-to-BSN program). Kaplan University’s flexibility and support offered her the opportunity to complete her degree online while continuing to work. Once she completed her Bachelor of Science Nursing online, she was able to make a career move that not only increased her salary, but also her level of job satisfaction.

How To: Make Torus Knots from Soft Metals

Torus knots are beautiful knots formed by wrapping a line around a torus and tying the ends together to form a loop. The resulting knot has a star-like appearance when viewed from above. The 36 examples with the least number of crossings can be seen at the Knot Atlas's page on torus knots.

Math Craft Monday: Community Submissions (Plus Polyhedral Stellation)

It's another Monday, which means it's once again time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Additionally, I thought we'd take a look at the process of stellation and make some stellated polyhedra out of paper.Rachel Mansur of Giveaway Tuesdays posted a video from animator Cyriak Harris, which zooms into fractal hands, where each fingertip also has a hand and fingers. A few more details can be found here, as well as some other really cool pic...

Scrabble Bingo Weekly Roundup: Guisard, Reaphook and Veronica

There's only a few week left until costumes and candy take over the streets, which means they'll be more and more seven-letter words in the Scrabble Bingo of the Days that relate to the Fall season, horror movies, and of course… Halloween. Below you'll find bingo words relevant such films as Halloween, Children of the Corn and The Wicker Man.

How To: Make Minecraft Potions

Sometimes mining and crafting gets boring. The thrill of hunting mobs, exploring strongholds, or the Nether is often much more satisfying and appeals to the RPG nerd in all of us. Well, Mojang took the hint and as part of the 1.9 release, there will be potions, more mobs, other worlds, and enchantments added to the game. To preview this release, read my tutorial on how to download and install 1.9.3.

News: Indie Games Hit the Red Carpet at the IndieCade Awards

Last Thursday, on October 7th, indie game developers from around the world walked down a red carpet in Santa Monica, California in the hopes of winning an IndieCade award. We previously discussed the IndieCade festival and conference, but the award show is a smaller, more inclusive event that provides finalists the opportunity to see their project on stage with rewards by sponsors such as LG, who presented this year’s ceremony.

News: The 5 Best Word Game Mobile Apps Besides Scrabble

When you don't have anyone to play with in the flesh, nothing beats a round of competitive online Scrabble. If you're constantly on the move, the Scrabble app developed by Electronic Arts (EA) for Android and iOS mobile devices is probably your favorite way to play. But let's face it—if you love Scrabble, you probably love all types of word games, and if you're on the hunt for that next fun and challenging logological mobile game, I've got a few suggestions for you...

News: 3 Long Awaited Indie Games at PAX That Should Be Released Already!

The small size of most indie game development teams is a strength, but also a weakness. It allows them to take risks and explore revolutionary ideas that a larger company could never justify to its shareholders, but also means they must navigate the game development labyrinth with minimal help, taking much longer than those with big development teams. Some of the most exciting indie games currently in development have been so for years, or look like they will be.

News: Canon's 5D Mark II Invades Hollywood

Since its release three years ago, Canon's EOS 5D Mark II has been the most sought out digital SLR for photographers everywhere. But it's also becoming a favorite amongst cinematographers, thanks to its compact size and high-def video recording mode, seeing action in everything from independent features to Hollywood blockbusters and even big network TV shows.

News: BioShock's Libertarian 'Rapture' of the Deep Evolves into Real-Life Seastead Cities

BioShock is one of the best games of all time. It combines FPS gameplay with RPG storytelling and supports multiple systems better than any other game, that much is for sure. And the setting of its amazing story is a place called Rapture, a high-tech libertarian colony at the bottom of the Atlantic built by Andrew Ryan, a greying industrialist clearly inspired by John Galt and his creator Ayn Rand, the mother of Objectivism and modern American libertarianism in general. Ryan is a Soviet exile...

News: Child Molesters and Sexy Fighters: A Study of Video Game Commercials

The Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move might be fun to play with, but people do not look very cool while they're doing it. Air guitar is not particularly flattering (even if done on stage), and neither is air-anything else, as pleasurable as it might be. This is why I find it strange that a group of admen somewhere in the world think these kinds of commercials would appeal to anyone.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Turn-Based Storytelling for 2 Players

What's more fun? Winning against your friends or winning against others with them? It's an age old question, and in video games, the former one-on-one multiplayer has been the norm. But cooperative multiplayer has made a comeback, with Halo and Diablo II starting the trend, the first mainstream shooters and RPGs with great co-op modes. And now good local and multilplayer co-op games are available in almost every genre.

News: Is Google+ More of a Threat to Twitter than Facebook?

Much of the press around the launch of Google+ has pitted it squarely against Facebook. This was highlighted painfully for Facebook with their (misguidedly dubbed) "awesome" announcements yesterday. Their launch of a new design, video calling, and group chat might have been exciting, had not Google announced its Hangout feature for Google+ a week earlier (and by the way, introduced their own 1-on-1 video calling inside of Gmail way back in 2008). Hangouts took video calling a step further and...

News: Protect Your Dropbox Files from Prying Eyes (+ 2 Alternative File Hosting Options)

Dropbox continues to make headlines with their recent programming blunder which left the accounts of its 25 million customers wide open during a four-hour time span. During the duration, anyone in the world could access any Dropbox profile by typing in any password. And seeing as this wasn't the first security failure, everyone, including the most loyal users are considering dropping the Dropbox.

Child of Eden: First Impressions

A woman from space that who has been dead hundreds of years has been resurrected on the internet and you're the IT assigned to fight the viruses attacking her. Child of Eden is a mesmerizing musical game, with fluid animations, great game play, and lots of replay ability.

Not Your Ordinary Gamer: Yahtzee Croshaw Does It All

Most employed in the game industry have two-word job titles that start with “game”—game designer, game producer, game critic, game tester, etc. Usually, they’re one or the other, even though some can be both a game designer and a game tester or game critic and game tester. And rarely does one person get to call themselves a “game everything”. Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw is the exception.

News: 10 Uses for the Front-Facing iPhone Camera

If you're a lucky owner of the iPhone 4, you know that the upgrade to its camera app includes a front-facing camera feature which acts like a video cam on your computer. Apple, of course, intends the front-facing feature to be mainly used for the FaceTime application which enables you to hold video phone conferences with other iPhone 4 and Mac users who have FaceTime installed on their device. This is all well and good, but there several other ways the front-facing camera can be used.

How To: identify gang graffiti (P1)

Dangers abound in the world of srteet art, however one danger stands out as increasingly dangerous. Gangs around the country use graffiti to mark their terriotory and do not take kindly to street artists. In several parts of los angelos gang members will stop you in the middle of the street and ask you if you have spray paint if you are wearing a backpack or a messenger bag. If you answer in the affirmitive (or if they take your bag and find spray paint or markers) its very likely they will s...

How To: Create Strong, Safe Passwords

Movies like to show hackers breaking passwords with fancy software and ludicrous gadgets. The reality of busting passwords open is much more mundane. Simple as it may sound, most passwords are broken purely by guesswork. Check out this infographic from ZoneAlarm, as well as this list from the Wall Street Journal of the fifty most common passwords gleaned from the 2010 Gawker hack. If your password is on one of those lists, you need to change it. Right now.

DIY Plastination: Turning Dead Animals Into Science-Jerky

If you found the world renown Body Worlds exhibition gnarly and perverse, perhaps you'll find this latest parade of plastination a little less so—considering we don't share the same DNA as these specimens of jerky-in-the-name-of-science. The Koerperwelten der Tiere—or Animal Body Worlds–doesn't showcase preserved corporal matter, but rather 20 odd plastinated mammals, currently on display at the Cologne Zoo in Cologne, Germany.

News: Are You Noob-Positive or Noob-Negative?

noob - Short for "newbie." Someone with little to no experience or skill. In some gaming communities, there is fierce debate over the distinction between "noob" and "newb"—one being derogatory while the other simply indicates being a novice. While some may argue the semantic differences, "noob" is the most common spelling seen around the internet, for both purposes.

News: Final Fantasy 14 First Impressions

These impressions are coming from a person completely new to the Final Fantasy Online world. Never played FF 11 or the FF 14 Beta. This game is not friendly to new people. The account creation is a Kafka like experience in things that don't make sense. For the game itself, the beginning tutorial is awful and does not really teach you the basics of combat. Here is a small breakdown of my opinions, with the good points first so that they don't get overshadowed by the negatives.