Computers. They have power buttons and stuff. Sometimes you even press them. Then, you wait five minutes to actually use it while it turns on. If you are a particularly boring person, you might actually sit and watch. And while you were waiting, you were thinking. What if taco tuesday is just a secret government … →

Note: while this article is about Bitcoin specifically, most of the same principles apply to other cryptocurrencies – they all share a common base. —————————— By now, you have probably already heard of Bitcoin. Or you live under a rock – but some rocks are nice and shiny, so that is understandable. If you are … →

Delicious. But those aren’t the kind of cookies we are talking about. Instead, we are talking about cookies on the Web. In order to understand cookies, we first need to eat them know a few things about HTML and HTTP. HTML and HTTP Webpages are created using HTML. For example, if we have this HTML: … →

There you are, wandering the web. You read some articles, watch some cat videos. All in a day’s work, right? Then you notice something. Ads. Lots of ads. It isn’t just the number of ads, though. There is something else going on. You sent your friend an email about your surfing failures, and get ads for … →

Procedural generation is when you create something by using an algorithm, rather than hand-making it. Peddle your definitions elsewhere, you say. What does it actually mean? I think this can be best illustrated with examples. Consider standard Mario platformers – you know, the 2D ones where you go from left to right jumping on turtles … →

If you use email, you have likely gotten a message with pictures in it. Not because I sent you cat pictures or anything, rest assured. So there you are with your fancy email with pictures. Well, not quite. The pictures are blocked. You can choose to show them, but they don’t show by default. Why is … →

Pointers are generally regarded as somewhat confusing to learn in C. This is because they introduce not just new syntax, but a new way of thinking. Despite this initial difficulty, they are extremely useful and commonly used. This article discusses pointers from a C perspective. However, pointers in C++ are effectively identical. To understand pointers, … →

As it happens, water doesn’t compress very much. I would tell you what happens if you jump a hundred feet into the water, but then I would have to kill you. Of course, if you did that, you would already be dead. You know, because water hates you. Thankfully, files do compress. Compressing files magically … →

Ducks. Sleds. Cardboard boxes. Candles. What do these all have in common? I don’t know. That is why I asked you. What is this post about? Electrical outlets. Printers. Batteries. Computers. And a bunch of other stuff, but we will focus on these for now. What do all these items have in common? They are standardized. Standards … →

Control-alt-delete. Likely the most famous (or, perhaps, infamous) combination of keys ever. Despite being known by most computer users, there is a lot more most people don’t know about it. To start, it hasn’t always done the same thing. The IBM PC The story begins with IBM, before the release of the IBM PC. This was before … →