Culture

​Dirty, Dirty, Dirty Computer

June 27th, 2018

“Dust isn't just unattractive—it can potentially damage or even destroy parts of your computer. Cleaning your computer regularly will help you keep it working properly and avoid expensive repairs.” I just copied the above sentences from a website. It is a perfect example of “Spin”. Something that happens all the time on the internet and in the media in general. If you clean your computer regularly will it help you keep it working? I clean my computer once a year. Is that…

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​Dream factory

June 22nd, 2018

Design by Raul Gomez

By Oscar de Leon
oscarldeleonjr@gmail.com

Tucked away near the rolling hills of West Hollywood, Chris Haskell, a former student at MSUM, makes his usual trek into his office where he edits footage to craft trailers to some of the biggest films coming in the industry. After a long day of breaking down movies, and going over studio notes, he takes his usual route down the palm tree lined Hollywood Boulevard and notices a large mass blocking the traffic.

Spectacularly, he realizes, he is…

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​Life and Laughs with Brian Regan

June 20th, 2018

Brian ReganStand-up comedy can certainly be a cutthroat business. Despite the fact that everyone loves to laugh, humor is highly subjective. What splits one person’s sides may offend the other. More than one comic has watched a show (or a career) go down in flames due to their jokes not landing or some public image fiasco.

That makes a comedian being able to succeed at a decades-long career, while generally steering away from explicit humor to boot, an impressive feat. That is exactly what…

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​Transgender Day of Visibility

June 20th, 2018

Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event, occurring on March 31st, that aims to raise awareness of the discrimination, violence, and harassment that transgender individuals experience. It also serves as a day for people who identify as trans to claim and give power to their identity. It is day for them to speak up and out about who they are and what they’ve faced.

Transgender Day of Visibility is important because the number of people who personally know a transgender person is…

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​I might need a service plan for my Laptop…

June 13th, 2018

I don’t think so. You might be tempted to buy a service plan—also known as an extended warranty—on your next laptop, desktop or other electronic gadget. But chances are what you spend will be money down the drain.

Retailers may push hard to get you to buy these plans because they’re cash cows for them. Stores keep 50 percent or more of what they charge for these contracts. That’s much more than they can make selling products. Decades ago when I was selling stereo equipment…

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​A Cute Little Computer Story

May 30th, 2018

I normally don’t tell stories in this column but I couldn’t resist this one. With Iran in the news, I am reminded of the destruction of the Iranian nuclear development program by a piece of software called Stuxnet. I remember back in 2011 the smartest people in the room commenting about the software and wondering what would happen if that software code were let loose on the world.

It's now widely accepted that Stuxnet was created by the intelligence agencies of the United States and…

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​A Love Letter to CoreCon

May 23rd, 2018

Professionally people know me as a trans activist, educator, or community organizer. This is often the topic of my Trans Corner column. What they may not know is I’m an incredible geek who spends her time unwinding playing video games, reading books, watching anime, and everything else that made my teenage years a lot more fun and interesting.

While I don’t have as much time as I used to, to enjoy these forms of art, I still love to deconstruct games to discuss their mechanics and…

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​Filling a gap: A proposed science museum in FM

May 23rd, 2018

“We need a science museum in this town.”

That’s what NDSU Geosciences lecturer, Jessie Rock, and some of her colleagues and friends have been saying for years. She was quoted saying it in the Fargo Forum in April, and it was like a phrase that launched a thousand clicks. Rock received many calls and emails from people who had read the article and reached out in agreement and to request appearances at events and classrooms with her fossils. The response was enough to prompt Rock,…

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​The DCP wants YOU!

May 9th, 2018

By John Showalter and Sabrina Hornung

We had a chance to chat with McKaila Ruud, the Events Coordinator for the Downtown Community Partnership (DCP) and she let us in on a few new and exciting tricks that the DCP has up their sleeves. One involves everybody’s favorite downtown event--The Street Fair. The street fair is North Dakota’s largest free outdoor event. It’s not only a celebration of downtown Fargo it showcases a host of arts, crafts, and food, and it attracts close to…

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​The Big Cloud comparison

May 9th, 2018

Small businesses all over the world are trying to figure out if they should jump to the cloud or not. Likewise, the little guys like us are trying to do the same thing. We have to do a comparison between the cloud and a microserver.

The microserver is another box for storing files locally in the small business. The big hangup is that it requires much time to repair and maintain the microserver. There is much work to be done, most of which is not necessary to explain here. Suffice it to…

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