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Hey, it's Dave! In this episode we talk to Treehouse Teacher, Dave McFarland. Dave is an author, web developer and teacher with over 19 years experience building, designing and programming web sites. He's also a magician.
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Hi I'm Craig,
welcome to the Treehouse Show.
0:00
The Treehouse Show is a weekly
conversation with the Treehouse community.
0:02
[MUSIC]
0:05
In this episode we'll be talking
to the Treehouse teacher,
0:10
tech degree success manager, and
all around great guy Dave McFarland.
0:13
Thanks for being on the show today Dave.
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>> It is a pleasure to be here Craig.
0:18
>> Can you tell us a little bit
about how you got into technology?
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Yes.
0:24
So, when I was in college,
I was actually an English major.
0:25
And I had a job in the library in
the Multimedia Center, it was called.
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>> Okay.
0:32
>> Yes, and one of the things that I
did was took care of the computers,
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where people learned.
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The training,
they did Desktop Publishing and
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I actually got into desktop publishing,
it was the first thing.
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>> What's Desktop Publishing?
0:44
>> Yeah right that's an older thing so,
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that was actually the design of things
that are printed not on the internet.
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They're actually things
you hold like magazines,
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news papers, news letters and
I did that actually after college.
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I was at, what they call pre-press person,
so I worked at a print shop and
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I used computers to lay out
stuff to get it printed.
1:04
From there I became a designer,
a graphic designer and an art director.
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>> Okay.
>> I went to a small non-profit and
1:13
they needed a website it was in
a very early days of the web 1995.
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>> Okay I can imagine what
that website looked like.
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>> It was great.
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It was a beautiful,
beautiful website, it was amazing.
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Tables, all table based,
if you even know what that is.
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And from there, I actually moved
th UC Berkeley as the webmaster.
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That was my title, and
I managed the university kind of front
1:35
portal that some people moved to
the computer science department.
1:41
I started left college,
left the university and start
1:44
up a web development company with the few
other people and did that for a while.
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Got into teaching.
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>> Okay.
>> So I was teaching at art schools at
1:56
a graduate level and undergraduate level
in colleges, and started writing books.
1:59
>> Awesome.
2:04
>> And then basically taught and
wrote books and
2:04
did sort of freelance web development for
many years.
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>> Okay cool.
2:09
That's great.
2:10
What do you teach at a Treehouse?
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Where are the students meet you?
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>> Where will they meet me?
2:15
>> Yeah.
>> I'm all over the place.
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>> Yeah.
2:17
>> But mostly in JavaScript.
2:17
So I'm the teacher that they start off
with mostly, yeah with JavaScript.
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And I introduce the language and
that's kinda what I teach.
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>> Okay.
Do you teach anything else on the site?
2:27
>> Yeah.
I have a Git workshop that I do.
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Git gets the-
>> Yeah.
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[LAUGH] Git is a version control system.
2:36
>> Okay.
>> And GitHub is a very popular sort of
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public repository of different
code basis that people write.
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They can share code,
work on projects together like
2:50
open source projects around their,
so I've taught that as well.
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>> Awesome, great.
2:57
So outside of what the students
can learn from you,
2:59
is there something else that you could
show or share with the students?
3:01
What's something they
wouldn't know about you?
3:06
>> Yeah well, not a lot of people know
that I'm really good at magic, well.
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I do magic [CROSSTALK] Well there
was nothing there a second ago,
3:13
it appeared magically.
3:16
>> [LAUGH]
>> But I was wondering,
3:18
maybe we could do a little thing.
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>> I would love to.
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>> Because I've always wanted to
show off in front of an audience.
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>> I would love to, let's do this.
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>> So I got a deck of cards.
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52 cards in a deck, right?
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So the odds of any one cards 1 in 52.
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But the thing is, when you ask people,
like hey what's your favorite card,
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whatever?
3:38
Pick a card out of thin
air out of your mind.
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It's never random, there's usually one or
two that is most popular.
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>> Sure.
>> So what do you think is most popular?
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>> If I had to guess it's
the ace of spades, right?
3:47
>> Yes.
3:50
The ace of spades is the most popular.
3:51
So what I want to do is a little
experiment here with you.
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Why don't you hold out your hand flat.
3:55
And I'll put cards here in your hand,
and we're gonna do something together.
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I'd like you to take half of those
cards and put them into my hand here.
4:03
>> Half of these cards, there we go.
4:05
>> Yeah about half of them, that's good.
4:06
And what were you thinking about,
were you thinking about ace of spades?
4:08
>> The ace of spades, yes.
4:11
>> Okay, so what other cards might me work
with that would help us do some magic?
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>> Like the 2?
4:25
>> The 2.
>> The 2 of Diamonds.
4:27
>> Right, we could do that,
or how about 2 aces?
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Why don't we try doing that?
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>> Okay [LAUGH] [CROSSTALK]
>> Why don't you just flip through your
4:35
cards and find a card, something that
you feel, a feeling that you have.
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And I'm gonna find it,
this one feels really good to me.
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It's all about intuition.
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>> So I got to use my intuition?
4:46
>> Yeah.
[CROSSTALK]
4:47
>> Just sort of, okay.
4:48
I'll take that.
4:50
You take this one.
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>> Okay?
>> All right, so let's exchange.
4:52
Put them on top.
4:53
>> Put them on top?
4:54
Okay.
>> Yeah.
4:54
And what did you say
the most popular card was?
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>> Ace of spades.
4:58
>> Let's see what I gave you.
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>> How did you-
>> Yeah, the ace of spades.
5:02
Let's see what you gave me.
5:04
Wow, we got 2 aces out of 52
cards on our very first try.
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>> How did you do that?
>> What do you say, lets do it again.
5:12
>> Okay.
>> Lets do it again.
5:14
You've got 2 aces,
do you think you can get 4 aces?
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>> There's no way that, [LAUGH].
5:17
>> There is no way we can get four aces?
5:19
>> No.
>> Are you sure?
5:20
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
5:21
Let's see, I think there is
a way that we can get four aces.
5:22
I think it's by concentrating,
that's how we're gonna get our four aces.
5:24
So let's do the same thing, but
5:28
concentrate harder this time,
cuz it's gonna be twice as hard.
5:29
>> All right.
5:32
>> I got a card for you,
you got a card from me?
5:33
>> I'm feeling this one right here.
5:35
>> Okay, great.
5:36
I'm gonna take that.
5:38
Why don't you take that one?
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>> Okay.
5:40
I put it on top again?
5:41
>> Yeah put it on top.
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And then, what do you think?
5:43
One out of 52.
5:46
One out of 52.
5:46
One out of 52.
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Let's see.
5:49
>> Dude, how did you do that?
5:52
>> What's more amazing about this,
is not only did we get the four aces, but
5:55
we got the only four
cards in the entire deck.
5:59
All the other cards are completely blank.
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>> How did you do that?
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Where did you?
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Thanks for watching the Treehouse Show.
6:13
If you'd like to get in
touch with the show,
6:15
please reach out to me on Twitter,
or hit us up in the forum.
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[MUSIC]
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