Category: Geek Culture

Adventurers League

D&D Adventurers League: Session 10 Report

James Floyd Kelly2

This week, I was fortunate to be sitting at a table when a brand new player, Ryan, walked in. He’d never played D&D before, and only understood basic concepts of levels and XP from the video games he’d played. It’s important to remember that the Encounters events are designed for new players; although almost everyone at my event has past experience with D&D, it’s still nice to see how a novice is welcomed and made to feel at home. We got him up to speed on the rules, provided him with a pre-generated character (a level 1 Halfing Rogue) and we had a good mix of combat and role-playing provided by DM Martin. When the night’s game was over, Ryan told us he’ll see us next week… a good sign that he enjoyed the night’s adventure. He tells us he’s going to create a custom character, too… can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

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Macworld - first and last

Thank You, Macworld.

James Floyd Kelly3

True story — in 1984 my dad made what I believe to be one of the most important purchases in my 14-year-old life. He bought our family one of the very first Macintosh computers. Correction — while my younger brother and sister used it, I am under no illusions that this purchase was primarily for my dad and myself. I can’t remember my mom ever using it, and years later I would realize what a sacrifice my parents made to purchase that quite expensive computer (for the time) and give their oldest son access to what was most likely the hottest growing sector at the time.

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The Mothership: A Visit to the New SparkFun Building

Garth Sundem

The shipping department was full of dudes with asymmetric facial hair on skateboards. An engineer had picked up about a thousand Keva planks and on an upstairs wrap-around counter space, there was a crowdsourced build going on — in which you could tell the crowd had higher than the average bear’s level of design thinking skills. Strung on a wall was a DIY art piece made of light bulbs and wire that was set to ripple in response to sounds. A trigger-operated race car track wound underneath a 7-foot tall version of one of those wooden dinosaur skeleton kits.

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Atlanta Maker Faire Arrives, Is Awesome!

James Floyd Kelly6

Back in 2010, I attended the first Atlanta Mini Maker Faire held on Georgia Tech’s campus. That day, there were less than 50 exhibitors, the September weather was unbelievably hot, and there were no vendors for food and water… the sole provider of anything that day was King of Pops, an Atlanta-based popsicle vendor, that proceeded to sell out in record time. Still, it was a start…

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