{"id":11045,"date":"2014-11-14T15:27:40","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T20:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=11045"},"modified":"2014-11-14T15:27:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T20:27:40","slug":"the-geek-month-in-review-october-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=11045","title":{"rendered":"The Geek Month in Review: October 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By JB Sanders<\/p>\n<p>On to Halloween! <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.geek.com\/geek-cetera\/disney-made-the-best-cake-of-all-time-using-projection-mapping-1605954\/\" target=\"_blank\">Animated Cake<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nAnd no, I do not mean animated as in part of an animated movie. I mean, Disney has a special wedding package for folks getting married at the enchanted castle (Disney World, mind you), and it includes a cake that they project various animations on top of. It looks like the cake itself is showing short little movies.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2014\/10\/05\/zombie-apocalypse-diy\/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&#038;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_source=feedburner\" target=\"_blank\">Not Your Average Zombie Survival Guide<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nIt has all the links, illustrations, and how-to\u2019s you could ask for and more. Just be sure to read, and prep, all this stuff before the actual End of the World.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paper Airplane Machine Gun<\/strong><br \/>\nWords you didn\u2019t think would go together, right? Well, engineers can be crazy, and what happens when you put science and crazy together? Mad science. Or I guess, mad engineering.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"373\" height=\"210\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J7K91g8yG_w\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mentallandscape.com\/C_Catalog.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Soviet Space Image Catalog<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nEver wonder what happened to all the photos the Soviets took with all the space probes they got into space? Well, someone else did, too, and they went out and collected them into one handy web page. Plus digital remastering. Want to see the surface of Venus?<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/the-multiverse\/2014\/10\/gallery-brickcon-the-biggest-lego-convention-weve-ever-seen\/\" target=\"_blank\">Super Geeky LEGOs<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nCheck out this gallery of photos from BrickCon, the largest LEGOs con around.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2014\/10\/cosmic-ray-particle-shower-theres-an-app-for-that\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cosmic Ray Detector via Distributed Array? Sure, Use Cell Phones<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nSo some kooky scientists realized that the they could \u201cbuild\u201d a cosmic ray detector using an app on cell phones. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencealert.com.au\/news\/20141510-26335.html\" target=\"_blank\">Force Field Umbrella<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nOk, not exactly a \u201cforce field\u201d, and more like a \u201cfield of forced air\u201d. Picture carrying around a very special fan, which blows a field of air around you to not only keep the rain off your head, but also the rest of you. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/gaming\/someone-built-working-iphone-inside-minecraft\/\" target=\"_blank\">Working iPhone Built in Minecraft<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nYeah, so, we\u2019ll be seeing more and more of these crazy devices in virtual spaces.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www-cs-students.stanford.edu\/~amitp\/game-programming\/polygon-map-generation\/demo.html\" target=\"_blank\">Random Island Generator<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nNo, not a giant machine that actually makes islands (although that\u2019s only a matter of time), but a web-based program that creates maps randomly. Useful if you\u2019re building a world and need a few islands pronto.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/gaming\/2014\/10\/22\/minecraft-city\/17720427\/?utm_source=feedblitz&#038;utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&#038;utm_campaign=usatoday-techtopstories\" target=\"_blank\">City Built in Minecraft<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nApparently it\u2019s all about the Minecraft this month. Take a virtual tour of a city that took 2 years to build. It has 96 buildings, and the creator plans even more. These are full-sized skyscrapers, people, not some kind of model, they\u2019re functional.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/jtevans.kilnar.com\/rpg\/dnd\/tools\/\" target=\"_blank\">Random Generators, Various<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nSpeaking of tools to generate things, here\u2019s a website with a way to come up with names (in varieties like dwarf, Drow, orc, arabic), treasure, magic items, Giant\u2019s bags, calendars, baubles, cities, and spell books. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/john1.bmp\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/john1.bmp\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"272\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2629\" \/><\/a> <strong>About John:<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>John&#8217;s a geek from way back. He&#8217;s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it&#8217;s on his desk).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Geek Credentials:<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>RPG:<\/strong> Blue box D&#038;D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.<br \/>\n<strong>Computer:<\/strong> TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w\/reel-to-reel backup tape<br \/>\n<strong>Card games:<\/strong> bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993<br \/>\n<strong>Science:<\/strong> Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983<br \/>\n<strong>His Blog:<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glenandtyler.com\/\"target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.glenandtyler.com\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to BrickCon, the paper airplane gun, have the wedding cake of your dreams, and more in the latest Geek Month in Review from JB Sanders!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31,11,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}