This weekend is North Carolina’s MakerFaire, held at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh. MakerFaire is an amazing festival for DIY-everything, connected with the awesome Make magazine. I attended the New York MakerFaire when I lived in Brooklyn, and was really pleased to discover there’s a North Carolina version. I couldn’t resist sharing photos from the…
When I lived in Beijing, I used ChinesePod language lessons to work on my Mandarin. ChinesePod beat out Berlitz and other language tapes because it offered short, targeted lessons. I could practice a short dialogue with vocabulary words for the post office before I went to mail a letter. Plus, ChinesePod was available as a…
Yeah, that’s right. Amazon.com is now selling indie games. Here’s what they had to say about this: Game development is an art, like any other. It can be personally rewarding, and like other forms of artistic expression, great games can come from anywhere. Powerhouse game studios don’t hold a monopoly on inventiveness or creativity, and…
Just in time for the new movie Star Trek: Into Darkness, my friends at North Carolina game studio Elephant Mouse has released Star Trek: Rivals, a two-player card game available free on iOs. Elephant Mouse’s previous titles include a cute and casual pet game, Lil’ Birds, and casino sim The Godfather Slots. Star Trek: Rivals…
I saw these amazing Link and Zelda costumes at last weekend’s Animazement, and as I got closer to compliment the cosplayers, I realized both outfits were totally handmade. Zelda (check out her photos at Cookie Cosplay here) was kind enough to answer some of my questions about cosplay. What got you interested in cosplay? What…
Samurai How-To For this presentation at Animazement, four of the young men from stage-combat group The Jacabals demonstrated how to properly wear a hakama. A hakama is the wide-pants bottom worn over a kimono in old samurai movies. The Jacobals began with a demo battle in full, traditional outfits. Their translator called this type of…
Entertainment Earth’s Back To The Future II Delorean Vehicle Entertainment Earth’s Back To The Future II Delorean Vehicle is a 1:15th scale model of Doc’s beloved time-traveling car. Enterntainment Earth describes the model like this: The toy you always wanted is finally here. Based on the 1989 Back to the Future II movie, this is…
International Geek Girl Pen Pal Club is a new organization dedicated to the awesome intersection of meeting new geek friends and the dying art of letter-writing. The amazing staff, four creative and geeky ladies of different nerd-doms, match pairs of pen pal seekers with their geeky soulmates. Emily Farquehausen, one of the organization’s founders, was…
Even if you’re one of the few people who hasn’t been sucked in, you’ve probably seen the cute Candy Crush icon all over your Facebook feed. Candy Crush Saga: Cute Matching Addiction King.com’s Candy Crush Saga is available on Facebook, iOs and Android. The simple mechanic of matching three candies of the same color doesn’t do justice to the addictive cuteness…
Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck is a new interactive fiction game from Christopher Brendel and Choice of Games. Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck follows Heroes Rise: The Prodigy, Choice of the Star Captain, and Choice of Dragons. Interactive Fiction In Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck In Treasure Seekers, players find themselves consorting with aliens on…
I recently came across a collection of back issues of Electronic Games magazine from the early 1980’s. Electronic Games was founded by Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz, and ran from 1981 to 1994. These issues are full of retro gaming art and reviews, and it’s a delight to see what’s changed in our hobby and…
Steampunk MMO. Singing zombie puppets. Banging your friends. In today’s post, I’m following up with some of my previous Geek Insider posts/topics to see what’s happened next. I wrote in February about Misfit Heights, the zombie puppet musical debuting at GenCon. Since then, the filmmakers have taken the movie to C2E2, Chicago’s Comic and Entertainment…
Gardening With BitPonics About two years ago, I got the chance to check out MoMA’s Talk To Me exhibit, a really interesting show playing with everyday objects and communication. The entire show was engaging, but I was most struck by Botanicalls. (Excuse the quality of the cell phone snap — if I had know…
Glide, the Video Walkie-Talkie I got the chance to talk with the Glide team here at TechCrunch Disrupt, just before they won Monday’s audience choice for best startup! Glide is a video-chat messaging app for mobile. Users can communicate with short videos, sending them to friends, to be watched immediately or held, like a text,…
New Startup ‘InBetweenJobs’ ‘ Like most people my age, I’ve frequently found myself “in between jobs”. As job security becomes a sweet old-fashioned concept like white gloves and monogrammed notepaper, we’re all spending more and more of our time looking for our new project. TechCrunch Disrupt’s startup InBetweenJobs knows this feeling. Their new site is…