Computers – Strider’s Web

Over 7000 Courses Free On Pluralsight for April only

Thanks to COVID-19, many of us are trapped at home for the next month or 3, and are looking for a productive way to spend our time or keep the kids occupied. What better way than learning new skills in something you are really interested in doing while spending no money for the training? Pluralsite is one of several companies offering such training, in their case for any kind of computer skill set you can imagine. For some of us that means training in a wide range of IT jobs that you can do remotely, which could mean additional income during the current crises. Then there are things like video game creation, 3D modeling, and programming, all across a range of platforms, that can grab the imagination of anyone who wants to become truly creative. You don’t need to give them a credit card to sign up for the free courses, just an email address, but you only have until the end of April to take the classes; come May 1st it will go back to costing money to get access to them.

Thanks to the folks at Games from Scratch for the heads up on this opportunity. I am including their YouTube video on the Pluralsite offering, where they go into some detail about what you will actually have access to there. They also mention several of the other training opportunities, such as 3 months of free classes on every aspect of making games for the Unity Game Engine with free courses, projects and tutorials to get you creating with style.

Cats, Rats, A.I., Oh My! – Ben Hamm

Ben Hamm had a cat problem, which he solved using AI. This was his presentation of the project from Ignite Seattle, and thanks to the team at i-programmer for the heads up on this.

What the Tech Industry Has Learned from Linus Torvalds

What the Tech Industry Has Learned from Linus Torvalds was a TEDx event, a local self-organized event where x = independently organized TED event. This particular one was put together by Jim Zemlin, who is the Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. He knows better than most just what Linus has contributed to the world, and why it works so well. Prepare to be amazed.

SIGGRAPH Asia

A few highlights from SIGGRAPH Asia 2017, and an invitation to make the 2018 gathering. If you are into creating your own animations, or you like doing 3D modelling, you really don’t want to miss this event.

Site Update Report

I updated my web site tonight, and I am very happy to report it doesn’t look like I lost too much (or maybe even any) of the database of articles I have been collecting here. And I even managed to retain the basic layout, with the header at the top (silly place for it, I know), and the menu/widgets functions all running down the left side of the page. It looks like all I lost was the graphics branding (the images making up the banner, the border/trim colors, and the font choices/colors) and the widgets and content of the left menu/widgets area. I will only be putting a few of the widgets back in place, but will treat the rest of it as my opportunity to rebuild my site with an improved functionality, and maybe even a better sense of style. OK, that last may be a stretch (stop sniggering, those who know me in RL), but with any luck this site will look at least half way decent in the next few weeks! Let me know what you think as I try to pull it back together!

Something to Watch: Discs

Before I Fall has the teen protagonist living the same day over and over, dying at the end of each iteration, and trying to get it right. While the basic premise seems to be somewhere between Groundhog Day and All You Need Is Kill, this one is based on best selling author Lauren Oliver‘s book of the same name. We also get The Last Kingdom: Season Two this time around, the multi-award winning presentation of the uniting of England in the days just before King Arthur might have come along.

In Anime, Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is the companion movie that goes along with the series. I didn’t get to see it in theaters, mostly because I don’t live in New York or San Francisco, and I am looking forward to finally checking it out. If anyone has streamed it before now, it completely escaped my attention. Endride: Part 1 finds Shun transported deep below the Earth’s surface, although which Earth isn’t immediately obvious. His only hope of getting back home is to team up with Prince Emilio, who is out to kill the king; this first dozen episodes introduces you to the story, and takes you through the point Shun discovers his new powers and gathers a team of rebels to help him move forward. I have to say I have a bit of a problem with the title Gosick: The Complete Series, Part One; it can be the complete series, or it can be part 1, but it can’t be both. Now that I have that out of my system, this is a tasty little series set in the 1920s, with a series of mysteries to solve and a brilliant detective who never leaves her hothouse to solve them (sound familiar?). Enough of the cases have a para-physical shading that I get to count it as genre and include it here. Finally Hi-sCool! Seha Girls: Complete Series is just silly fun, with three girls being the human avatars of classic Sega game platforms, fighting their way to 8 Bit Heaven!