geekosystem

We've had many screaming matches polite discussions about spoilers here in the Geekosystem office, but this is probably something everyone can agree is a good thing. A 17-year-old coder named Jennie Lamere has created software that filters your Twitter feed for discussion of shows you don't want spoiled. Lamere created the software at a competition where she was the only woman who presented a project, and -- spoiler alert -- she took the grand prize.

It looks like Electronic Arts will have to chalk up this past weekend as unintentional free advertising for their Origin network. See, the video games giant handed out a coupon code worth $20 -- only good on Origin -- to those that took a survey about their digital distribution service. This is not an uncommon thing to do in the industry, and EA has a history of such coupons. Unfortunately, they may have got more than they bargained for this time. Users discovered that they could reuse the coupon, and it wasn't unique to them, so the Internet acquired thousands of games on Origin for free.

If you've ever made your way across the endless wasteland that is YouTube, chances are you've come across a variety of seemingly "stuck" videos. They have thousands of likes or dislikes while seeming to have a mere 301 or similar number of views. YouTube user numberphile has tracked down the reason behind it.  And there's a good explanation: YouTube verifies anything above 300 views to their strict standards of legitimacy. But why is 301 so popular rather than 300? That traces back to an errant less-than-or-equal-to sign used in the code to count the views. It's a bit more complicated than that, sure, but ultimately a single decision made 301 become a number of note on the internet.

Educational video games are an important part of video gaming history. I mean, how many of us grew up without playing a little Math Blaster, or Reader Rabbit, or OutNumbered!? Of course, these are generally aimed at children, but with Rock Band and Rocksmith endeavoring to teach people of all ages to actually play instruments, we're seeing the educational spectrum really open up. What better time for Code Hero, a game that strives to teach you to code video games, and does that from inside a video game. [Obligatory "yo dawg."]

Whatever your plans are this Valentine's Day, we know you: you're yearning, aching for something, and you don't quite know what. Well, we think that we have just the thing to soothe your urges: a V-Day Power Grid featuring the 10 sexiest programmers ever to do some hard, hard coding. What's the true language of love: Yukihiro Matsumoto's Ruby, or Guido van Rossum's Python, or Larry Wall's Perl? Can open standards and cross-platform portability spice up a relationship? And who's got the largest stack variables? These answers, and more, in our rundown of  the 10 sexiest programmers.