Ken Newquist The “Virtual Card for You” e-mail hoax has mutated yet again, promising hard drive devastation in a slightly different form: that of an Olypmic torch that “burns” your hard drive. While it earns bonus points for imagry, “Invitation” remains just as false as its predecessors. Here’s the text of the email: Date Captured: 8/17/2006 Be … Read more
I’ve pulled together all of my fatherhood posts from the time Jordan was born until now, and grouped them into a category called, simply enough “Geek Dad”. These posts have proven popular over the years, and they’ve been languishing in obscurity since the redesign. Now they’re back and easy to find — just go to … Read more
Douglas Adams died at the gym. If geeks ever needed an excuse to avoid the gym, the death of the grandmaster of science fiction humor would do wonderfully. But geeks have never needed any excuses to avoid the gym, having come up with dozens on their own.
After all, we’re not athletes. It’s not that we don’t love games. We’ll play anything — card games, board games, role-playing games, war games even live-action role-playing games — as long as it doesn’t require some sort of physical activity on an actual turf playing field. The reasons for this are legion, though for me personally it’s a combination of bad habits picked up in high school (where a nerd in the gym was a ripe target for ridicule), laziness (after all, I used to go biking every morning when I was a teenager) and a sincere desire to do something more intellectually compelling (in this, I am not alone).
In a post-WorldCon entry on his blog Contrary Brin, science fiction author David Brin worries that the grey hairs that dominated the convention are yet another sign that science fiction fandom is aging … and that this does not bode well for the future of the genre. He writes: The number of elderly people, riding … Read more
Home improvement once again takes center stage as my wife and I prepare to re-paint our living room. But it’s not all painting and scraping: I’ve also got two new sites to talk about — GenCon (Almost) Live and Geek Acres — and a run down of my favorite games for the Nintendo DS. And … Read more
Once, geeks were reviled. Ridiculed. Ignored. Now … we’re sex objects. Yes, that’s right folks, there are now romance novels about geeks and nerds. I found this out accidentally, while walking through my local Giant supermarket on a quest to buy diapers and milk. There, on the book frontend, in bright blue and yellow pastels, … Read more
One of the many pleasant surprises following the birth of my son NeutronLad on June 14 has been how much reading I’ve been able to do. This is partly because I chose some particularly good books to read, but also because I have a lot more time thanks to those early morning and late night feedings, … Read more
Technology vlogs — also known as video podcasts — take center stage in Radio Active 36 as I run down the big list of video podcasts I watch every morning while eating my Cheerios and feeding the baby, including commandN, Digg Nation, dl.tv, Geek Brief and Geek Entertainment TV. I’ve also got news about the … Read more
Movie geeks can film their way to cinematic glory with the first-ever Dungeons & Dragons Fan Film Contest. The film contest is seeking 5-minute video segments dealing with D&D, with the winner receiving video editing equipment, a computer and a boatload of D&D stuff. The deadline is September 1, 2006, which is unfortunate given that … Read more
Yeah, it had to happen eventually. I’ve created a MySpace account, partly as another way of promoting Nuketown and Radio Active, partly to play with something new, and partly so I know what the hell I’m talking about when I’m asked about it (or pontificating on my ol’soapbox). MySpace has given rise to some of … Read more