You’ve probably had this problem before: you try to take a photo, but it’s too dark to get a shot without the flash—but then when you turn on the flash it washes everything out or you get unwanted glares. And you can’t always fine-tune your lighting options on your smartphone camera (though that’s improving). Here are two little gadgets from Photojojo to help you out.
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Tim Fowers has two Kickstarters currently running: a long-awaited reprint of Wok Star and the new deck-building word game Paperback.
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I’ve played a lot of digital puzzle games that involve bending lasers with mirrors to hit targets, but now I’ve got the real thing. Laser Maze is a new puzzle toy from Thinkfun with mirrors, beam splitters, and—of course—a real laser.
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In the world of comics, just as with novels or kids’ books, there are some stories that transcend the realm of “hey, it’s just entertainment” and become Serious Literature. Let’s start with a few big names, the usual suspects.
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Jake Parker is the creator of Missile Mouse, an action-packed comic book series for kids, and last year he successfully Kickstarted a comics anthology titled Antler Boy and Other Stories. This year, Parker is back with a printed collection of drawings hand-picked from his sketchbooks.
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What’s small and red and can take over the world in three years? The story of Rovio and its tiny little juggernauts is the subject of Angry Birds: Hatching a Universe, a new art book by Danny Graydon.
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It has now been thirty years since Mr. Mom was in theaters, yet for some reason the image of incompetent dads is still the only thing that comes to mind for many people when they encounter a stay-at-home dad.
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I discovered recently that both Flatland and Sphereland have been made into films, produced by Seth Caplan. Here’s why they’re worth watching.
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Agricola, the fantastic worker-placement farming game, hit the iTunes store this today!
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Wil Wheaton calls it “Disneyland for gamers.” John Scalzi had a lot of fun dungeon stomping, and Patrick Rothfuss called it “among the coolest, most enjoyable gaming experiences of my entire life.” What is it? True Dungeon.
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If you’re in the Chicago area next weekend, here’s something the geeky dads may enjoy: The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo. It’s free!
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I’ve written before about my desire to have it all. Not only do I want to consume all of the good books, movies, TV shows, and games ever created, I also want to be everything. I think, if I just had a little more time, I could learn to build stuff, play guitar, make movies, design games, write books … oh, and of course raise wonderful kids who understand not to over-commit themselves.
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Join 24-Hour Bookclub on Sunday, June 9, to discuss These Days by Jack Cheng.
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If you’ve been reading GeekDad for a while, you may already be familiar with Rory’s Story Cubes, a set of dice with little pictures that can be used to create stories. I’ve seen a lot of other similar types of writing prompts, from the StoryWorld Create-a-Story sets to Daniel Solis’ Writer’s Dice to the Storymatic. Here’s a new one that caught my attention: Storyteller Cards by Jason Tagmire.
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The Windcatcher is an air pad, the sort you use for camping, but with a special valve that lets you inflate it in seconds using nothing more than your lungs … and science.
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Many of us grew up with videogames; our kids are certainly growing up in a world where videogames are a given. But for those of us in our thirties and forties, something else is true: videogames grew up with us, and for that reason I think we feel a special bond with videogame culture. Here are two projects that I think videogame fans will appreciate.
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Spring is here, and if you live somewhere other than Portland you might be out enjoying the sunshine. (We had about a week of hot, sunny weather before the rain decided to return.) Well, here’s a backyard toy that’s something of a mix of horseshoes, bocce, and bowling: Rollors.
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The second in the White House’s “We the Geeks” hangouts is scheduled for today at 2pm EDT, and the topic is asteroids.
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Kazu Kibuishi is illustrating a new set of covers to celebrate Harry’s 15th anniversary. The cover for book two was revealed today at Book Expo America.
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Tegu, the maker of really cool wooden blocks with embedded magnets, has announced a Father’s Day Challenge. Get Dad a Prism Pouch set, and he could win a 40-block Explorer Set. (You know, for the kids.)
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Next Thursday, DailyLounge will be hosting an online round table discussion about the rising trend of stay-at-home dads.
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My wife and I just welcomed our third baby last month, and since it’s been several years since the last time, I’m becoming reacquainted with the lifestyle of a new parent. One thing I quickly realized was that I haven’t had as much time lately for playing games—and that the games I do have don’t really seem very relevant to my day-to-day obligations. Here are a couple of games inspired by real-life parenting.
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BookExpo America (BEA), a huge publishing show held in New York, has been making a series of videos about various books and authors. This video, about comic book artist Paul Pope, caught my attention. Pope’s epic superhero story Battling Boy will be released in October by First Second Books, and this “BEA In Your Space” video gives a closer look at Pope in his native habitat.
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Today, the White House launches a series of Google+ Hangouts entitled “We the Geeks,” focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and innovation. The first Hangout, scheduled for 2:00pm EDT, will focus on Grand Challenges.
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The Fraggles are turning 30! Wow, they don’t look a day over … wait, how old are the Fraggles supposed to be, anyway? At any rate, it’s been three decades since these colorful mop-headed creatures went on the air, and (as Ben Folds Five demonstrated last fall) we’re still singing along.
We’re giving away five copies of Meet the Fraggles to celebrate!
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The Spiderwick Chronicles is ten years old! To celebrate, I asked Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black a few questions about the series.
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David Weinstock, the creator of the great abstract strategy game Zoxso, just launched a Kickstarter campaign for something else entirely: the Thinket. So what is it?
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A geeky dad and a couple of Star Wars–loving kids put together this little trailer for Star Wars Episode 7: Return of the Junior Jedi. Sam Koji Hale, who successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign recently for Monster of the Sky, made this with his son and a few friends during a bit of down time.
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Happy Star Wars Day! Insight Editions shared this spread from their upcoming coffee table book Angry Birds: Hatching a Universe, out this June. The book is filled with sketches of the characters and settings and stories about Angry Birds’ journey from iPhone app to global juggernaut.
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Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a graphic novel by Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks about bad sportsmanship, robots with chainsaws, scary cheerleaders, and bad politics. I got an early look at the finished book, so here’s a brief review as well as a Q&A with Shen and Hicks.
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