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GeekDad HipTrax #58 (With Bonus CD Giveaway!)

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GeekDad HipTrax Logo by Dave Banks

As summer draws to a close and the faintest bite of autumn appears in the air, we at GeekDad choose to reflect. Today, for example, we focus on the waning convention season, beer and Chris Isaak. Y’know, the important stuff!

This edition of GeekDad HipTrax features:

“CONtact” by Mega Ran & K-Murdock

Conventions are serious business, and personal hygiene is no laughing matter! Just ask poor Random, a cat who’s done his time amid the (literally) unwashed masses. Why not brighten the man’s day by contributing to his Kickstarter campaign? You’ll be glad you did. Because of the hip-hop.

“Beer, Beer, Beer” as interpreted by Marc Gunn

I’m sure some parents would argue that a song about beer isn’t an ideal choice for a child-friendly podcast, and I would agree. Of course this one’s about the discovery of beer. That makes it educational! Lovers of Celtic-folk and free stuff are encouraged to leave a comment, as a random poster will receive free copies of both Marc’s Kilted for Her Pleasure and The Bridge.

“Wicked Game” as covered by sadnes

The GeekDad HipTrax audience has already heard Carl Peczynski’s phenomenal cover of Weezer’s “In the Garage” under his stage name OxygenStar. Now you can also experience his take on Chris Isaak’s classic “Wicked Game,” from the Fill My Head EP, which was released under the name sadnes. Yet another fine freebie from netlabel Pause!

Need more? Subscribe to the GeekDad podcast in iTunes (see the button on the sidebar), or directly through the RSS feed. You can also download GeekDad HipTrax #58 via this link.

The HipTrax theme song was created by Snake Eyes. His love is only gonna break your heart.

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GeekDad HipTrax #58 (With Bonus CD Giveaway!)

Comic-Con Round-Up: For Tweens and Teens

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Author: Nancy Kennedy

How could you not like a book called Zombies vs. Unicorns?

Following up on my Comic-Con Round-Up for Kids, I have a whole lot of things for older geeklets. There were some hits and some misses, but here are things I thought were worth mentioning, good, bad, or ugly. Some of these I’ll do a more in-depth review later on.

Zombies vs. Unicorns

Physics Quest: Spectra the Laser Girl, Nikola Tesla and the Electric Fair

My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill

The Eternal Smile

PS238, Full Frontal Nerdity, Backward Compatible

The Unsinkable Walker Bean

The Search for WondLa

A few upcoming titles – The Curious World of Bugs, TRON: Betrayal, and Axe Cop!

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Comic-Con Round-Up: For Tweens and Teens

Comic-Con Round-Up: For Tweens and Teens

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Author: Greg

How could you not like a book called Zombies vs. Unicorns?

Following up on my Comic-Con Round-Up for Kids, I have a whole lot of things for older geeklets. There were some hits and some misses, but here are things I thought were worth mentioning, good, bad, or ugly. Some of these I’ll do a more in-depth review later on.

Zombies vs. Unicorns

Physics Quest: Spectra the Laser Girl, Nikola Tesla and the Electric Fair

My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill

The Eternal Smile

PS238, Full Frontal Nerdity, Backward Compatible

The Unsinkable Walker Bean

The Search for WondLa

A few upcoming titles – The Curious World of Bugs, TRON: Betrayal, and Axe Cop!

Read this article:
Comic-Con Round-Up: For Tweens and Teens

New iPod Touch Has a Vibrator

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Author: Troy Barnes

Steve Jobs wasn’t kidding when he called the iPod Touch the “iPhone without a phone”. We have been calling it that for years, of course, but with each iteration the two iOS devices get closer and closer in terms of features. Now a vibrating alert has been added to the the Touch.

The first iPod Touch was a chunky slab of metal and glass, and didn’t even come with a hardware volume-control. As the product-line has evolved, Apple has added not only a volume switch but a speaker (the latest version has a proper speaker, not the tinny thing hidden in the headphone socket like last year’s model), a pair of cameras, a gyroscope and a microphone. The only the Touch now lacks are the cellular radio, the GPS and the mute-switch on the side.

The vibrator shows up as an alert for FaceTime on the iPod accessibility page:

If somebody wants to start a video call with you, youâ€™ll receive an invitation â€” along with a vibrating alert â€” on your iPod touch asking you to join.

The obvious use though (no, not that one) is for games. Tactile feedback has been around on bigger consoles for years, and as the Touch is being pushed as a gaming device, adding in a vibrator seems like a great idea.

Which makes me wonder how long it will be before the Touch really is a phone-less iPhone. Is it possible that the next step is to add in cellular data, just like the iPad 3G, leaving out only the actual telephony hardware? That would still suit Job’s other nickname for the Touch, which is the “iPhone without a contract.” Couple that with FaceTime and who needs a cellphone anyway?

Video calling with FaceTime [Apple via MacRumors]

Photo: FCC

See Also:

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

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New iPod Touch Has a Vibrator

Review: Flick the Little Red Fire Engine for the iPad

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Author: Rod Sutherland

The ongoing relationship between Kiwa Media’s Qbooks and Penguin New Zealand has produced this little “retro” number – a retelling of an old classic that I was previously unaware of called “Flick the Little Red Fire Engine“. I previously reviewed “Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy” and this title backs that one up very well.

I am a fan of what this partnership is producing. They are going for good quality stories and content. They are treating theÂ originalÂ stories and illustrations with respect. They are getting serious voice talent for their books (this one has Sam Neill as Narrator). But, they are still making the experience an interactive one for children and making use of what the iPad has to offer.

I enjoy the use of sound effects sparingly â€” a bark for a dog, the wail of a fire engine â€” maximum two per page. The fact children can point at individual words, and have that single word read to them is an excellent device for early readers. You’ll see it demonstrated at the end of the above promo video, it even spells out the word. I guess what I am getting at is that the developers have kept the best of the book, the thing that makes children’s books so enjoyable like the actual story and illustrations and they’ve given it some extra educational value and a few nice technological tweaks. This is done with a simplicity that makes it work. It isn’t about all the bells and whistles but about the story, and that is what many creators of ebooks for children are missing. Just like the ABC apps, there are a lot of books that are missing the mark. But these ones don’t.

That said, I am not sure the song at the end of this ebook app was really required. It obviously has a history, and the crackle and hiss remind me of the old vinyl LPs I had as a kid that played stories and songs to me (“And when you hear the bell, then turn the page”). What value it really adds to this story isn’t that great.

Wired: A great story, that will capture younger readers and encourage reading.

Tired: Not sure the song was aÂ necessaryÂ element.

Note: The author of this piece received a free review copy of the application

See the original post here:
Review: Flick the Little Red Fire Engine for the iPad

14 Geeky Cocktails For Your Labor Day Weekend (GeekDad Wayback Machine)

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Author: Jack Schmidt

Credit: Eliot Phillips (Community Commons)

Have you ever noticed certain cocktails are perfect for specific geeky pursuits? Whether it’s a special kind of ‘tini for tinkering or a hearty grog for saluting an awesome rocket launch, we (non-teetotaler) adults appreciate a cocktail that complements our hobbies. Here are some examples to sample over this long weekend as you pursue whatever it is that makes your geeky heart happy:

Sissy Klingon
Activity: Good for softening the blow of ‘The Undiscovered Country.’

If you can’t handle real Blood Wine, pataQ, try this one out. Strong, sweet and sophisticated, just like Worf circa TNG, when he couldn’t win a fight to save his life.

1 shot Flor de CaÃ±a rum
1/2 shot Raspberry Pucker
1/2 shot Bombay Sapphire gin
Cherry Bomb Jolt

Instructions: Mix the booze together in a shaker and pour over ice. Add the Jolt to taste.

Neon Geek (Matt Blum)
Activity: Good for drinking with action shows/movies.

1/2 oz Mountain Dew, Sprite, or 7-Up
1/2 oz Bourbon
1 oz Cinnamon Schnapps

(Sodas are listed in order of preference.) Mix together with ice, then pour into a margarita glass. Garnish with mint.

Green Acres Punch
Activity: Great for relaxing after (not before!) some heavy-duty carpentry.

2 oz. Flor de CaÃ±a 4-year old
1oz. Flor de CaÃ±a 18-year old
0.75 oz. rich demerara simple syrup*
1 oz. lime juice
6 oz. HOT STRONG Green Tea
1 mint sprig

Instructions: All of the ingredients should be combined and left in a container overnight. Strain the next day, then refrigerate and drink at your leisure. Pour the punch into a glass and garnish with a lime wheel and mint sprig.

*Demerara syrup can be made in a pot over low heat on stove top.
2 parts demerara sugar to 1 part water. Heat and stir until dissolved.

Romulan Ale
Activity: Drink while rewatching TNG episodes.

1 1/2 oz White rum
1 oz Blue Curacao
7-Up
6 drops Tabasco sauce

Instructions: Mix all ingredients together. Pour into a tall, narrow glass. Add a grain of salt.

(Via webtender.com)

Sazerac Cocktail (Bill Gurstelle)
Activity: Sipping while sitting in a leather easy chair reading Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide.’

In 2008 the Louisiana House of Representatives voted to make the Sazerac the official cocktail of New Orleans. It’s a great mix of flavors and packs a kick. A favorite with those who understand the art of living dangerously.

1/2 cup ice cubes
1 sugar cube
3 dashes Bitters
2 ounces rye Jim Beam or Old Overholt RYE (not bourbon) whiskey
1/2 teaspoon of absinthe
Lemon twist

Chill an old-fashioned glass by filling it with ice and water. In second old-fashioned glass, mix together sugar, bitters, and 1/2 teaspoon water thoroughly. Add cognac or whiskey and remaining 1/2 cup ice, and stir well, at least 15 seconds. Take the chilled glass, discard ice and water and pour in absinthe. Swirl it around so the absinthe coats the interior of the glass. Add rye whiskey mixture into the chilled, absinthe-coated glass. Add lemon peel and enjoy.

The Princess Leia
Activity: Writing yourself into your favorite fanfic.

Classy yet strong, just like its namesake. The acai-flavored VeeV adds a little tang to your ‘pagne while the gin supplies the kick.

1/2 shot Bombay Sapphire gin
1/2 shot VeeV Acai liquor
Champagne

In a champagne flute, add the VeeV and Sapphire, stir, then top off glass with your sparkling wine or champagne of choice.

Sapphire Collins
Activity: Harvesting parts from a busted piece of consumer electronics.

2 parts Bombay Sapphire Gin
1 part fresh lemon juice
3/4 part simple syrup
Club soda

Instructions: Pour first three ingredients into a Collins glass with ice and stir well. Add more ice and top with club soda. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

Royal Tea (Royalty) (Curtis Silver)
Activity: I like to drink while using the Adobe Creative Suite to edit videos and pictures of my kids.

Arizona Iced Tea (original with lemon)
Crown Royal
Fresh lemons

Fill 16oz cup up with ice to brim, then iced tea to three quarters cup. Fill in rest with Crown Royal. Cut a lemon in half. Squeeze one into the cup and discard. Take the other half and cut it into fours. Put that right into the drink

(via Don Martelli, Boston PR Madman.)

Cherry Grog (Michael Harrison)
Activity: Perfect for a night spent powerleveling your guildies through Deadmines (again) or roleplaying your way through the pirate city of Freeport. Splice the main brace, mateys; just don’t overdo it and pull a Leeroy Jenkins, ya lightweight.

Collins glass (or a pewter beer stein, if you’re feeling saucy)
Mountain Dew Game Fuel, Horde Red
Light rum
Lime juice
Limes

Instructions: Fill glass with cracked ice and drop a shot or two of spirits over the ice. Fill the rest up with the Game Fuel. Add a splash of juice and garnish with a wedge of lime

The Mom Mellowing Cocktail (Corrina Lawson)
Activity: It is best consumed after a long, exhausting day, to clear the mind.

Two fingers of vodka with lemon flavor
Any flavor of diet cola but Diet Coke with Lime works best.
Add ice.

This is your basic soda & hard liquor mixed drink but I drink it for two reasons:
1. I cannot drink vodka straight.
2. It is somewhat low calorie, with the use of diet soda.

Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (Matt Blum)
Activity: Best to drink with the old HHGttG TV show or the decidedly-mediocre movie.

There are multiple versions this legendary Hitchhikers Guide beverage. This one comes from webtender.

2 oz Vodka
1 oz Triple sec
1/2 oz Grenadine
Pineapple juice
7-Up or Slice

Instructions: Fill Collins glass with ice. Add 2 oz. of vodka and 1 oz. triple sec. Fill glass almost to the top with pineapple juice, add Grenadine for color, and top off the glass with 7-Up or Slice. Shake or stir until the drink turns a light orange-pink color.

Humongor (Curtis Silver)
Activity: All-night HALO benders.

Bottle of Jonnie Walker Black or Red
Liter of Mountain Dew
One large sports cup

Mix 50% Jonnie Walker (didn’t use the cheap stuff to avoid headaches) and 50% Mountain Dew, warm, in a large sports cup. CHUG.

Photo: John Edgar Park

The Ramos Gin Fizz
Activity: This cocktail takes a lot of shaking to fix — great for combining with dice-shaking activities like D&D or Yahtzee!

Ah. Born in 1887 to Henry Charles “Carl” Ramos. Not technically a cocktail, but a fizz. A morning-after drink for clearing the haze after you’ve had a few too many the night before. Downright delicious; a creamy, frothy, fragrant, lovely way to set things right again with the dawning day.

1 1/2 oz Old Tom Gin*
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz Fresh squeezed Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Fresh squeezed Lime Juice
3/4 oz Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 oz simple Syrup (2:1)
1/2 an egg white (this drink is traditionally built for two, in which case, double the recipe and use the whole egg white)
2 oz Club Soda
3 drops Orange Flower Water

Pour the citrus and egg white in a Boston Shaker with the spring from a
Hawthorn strainer and dry shake for one minute. Keep ingredients in the tin
and in the glass add the Gin, Cointreau, Cream, and Simple Syrup. Fill with
ice reconnect with the tin and Shake for one minute. Strain into a large
Highball glass (no ice,) top with Club soda, and garnish with Orange Flower
Water.

(Note: Learn more about the Ramos Gin Fizz on John Park’s website.)

Lucid Frappe
Activity: Great for moistening a parched throat after an invigorating soldering session.

1 oz. Lucid Absinthe
0.5 oz. of Simple Syrup
6-8 Fresh Mint Leaves
1 oz. of Soda Water

Muddle mint leaves in the bottom of a frappe style glass. Add absinthe, simple syrup and fill with crushed ice. Pour mixture into shaker and shake vigorously. Pour contents into glass, top with splash of soda water and garnish with mint sprig.

…………..

So, what are your favorite recipes? Leave a comment.

[Note: This article was originally published in September of 2009.]

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14 Geeky Cocktails For Your Labor Day Weekend (GeekDad Wayback Machine)

Setting Fires With a Giant Electric Blower

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Author: Mark Jeffries

This weekend, I’m going to be sparking up the grill with the Looftlighter, an electric firestarter that looks like an oversized curling iron, sounds like a hair dryer, and gets a good-sized pile of charcoal briquettes ready to grill in just a few minutes.

I’ll admit I was skeptical about the $80 Looftlighter, which comes from Sweden and whose name, I believe, must be pronounced with as much Nordic accent as you can muster. It’s basically an air blower tucked behind a heating element. The idea is that it delivers a focused blast of hot air out the front. It’s hardly the “flamethrower” I’d been led to believe it was, however, and an initial test in the Wired offices proved that it was incapable of doing much more than charring the edges of a business card.

Plus, it looks dorky and requires access to a three-prong 110v power outlet. Even with the built-in bottle opener on the bottom, this isn’t exactly a manly-man kind of gadget.

But I put my doubts aside and tested the Looftlighter on a couple of recent barbecuing occasions. To my surprise, it works.

The Looftlighter really does look like a curling iron. Photo courtesy Looft Industries

For the first twenty seconds, nothing seems to be happening. You have the ridiculous feeling that you’re blow-drying a pile of charcoal.

But then, the heating element inside turns cherry red, and in short order the edges of the briquettes start to glow.

Sixty seconds in, you start to see flames shooting out of the briquettes in all directions. Fan the Looftlighter back and forth, and it quickly heats up the entire pile.

Within two to three minutes, your pile of charcoal is hot and just about ready to cook: Each briquette is glowing red on the inside and coated with a fine layer of white ash. Perfect.

It may be dorky, and it’s not suited for camping or picnic use — but for starting charcoal grills at home, I have to reluctantly admit that the Looftlighter works pretty well.

And it would probably be just the thing for starting a one-briquette Altoids tin mini-grill.

Wired’s review: No More Gas-Tasting Burgers: Super-Heated Air Lights BBQ Fire

Top photo credit: Dylan F. Tweney / Wired.com

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

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Setting Fires With a Giant Electric Blower

Get Caught Up With Scoob and the Gang in Mystery Incorporated Marathon

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Author: Jamie Colby

Image from Cartoon Network

[This is a guest post by friend-of-GeekDad Jayson Peters, who also blogs at Nerdvana.]

Since it debuted in 1969, Scooby-Doo! has always been about snacking, solving mysteries, snacking and unmasking phony monsters (except for a few excursions into “monsters are real” territory that are generally best forgotten). And did I mention the snacking?

But the latest entry in the mythos, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, is a different animal. While the basic foundations of the characters are unchanged, the show now has a story arc that goes beyond the monster of the week, along with a witty self-referential streak that will reward longtime Scoobyphiles for their fanaticism. And there’s also romance in the airÂ â€” but it’s not between Fred and Daphne.

This Saturday, you can catch up on the new Cartoon Network series with a marathon viewing of the first eight half-hour episodes (check your local listings). You’ll learn why the adults in our young sleuths’ lives would prefer the children mind their own business, and you’ll be introduced to a shady new character, “Mr. E,” who hints at a dark fate for the last group of meddling kids to come out of Crystal Cove. In this “most haunted town in the world,” nothing is quite as it seems. If you haven’t seen Mystery Incorporated, fire up your DVRs and get ready for a wild ride in the Mystery Machine.

In other Scooby news on the horizon, Sept. 14 will see the latest direct-to-DVD release, the feature-length Camp Scare, with the same voice cast as the new TV series (longtime Fred and Scooby Frank Welker, recent Velma and Daphne voice talents Mindy Cohn and Grey DeLisle, and Matthew Lillard, who played Shaggy in the two live-action feature films and has taken over the cartoon role from the now-retired Casey Kasem).

October will bring us Curse of the Lake Monster, a live-action romp on Cartoon Network that reunites the cast of last year’s The Mystery Begins, which served as a prequel to the live-action movies of 2002 and 2004.

Continued here:
Get Caught Up With Scoob and the Gang in Mystery Incorporated Marathon

Mobile Devices Need Custom Maps

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Author: Troy Barnes

Interactive Map of Afghanistan for iPad. Image By/Used Courtesy Of Development Seed

GPS maps for smartphones generally require a fairly high-speed wireless internet connection, consume significant processor resources, and are optimized for driving. But what if your 3G connection is unreliable or unavailable, and you still need to get from point A to point B — perhaps on foot?

Last week, I spoke with Eric Gunderson and Ian Cairns at Development Seed, one of the companies developing tools to create custom maps that work in a wider variety of situations, like this one. It’s not that farfetched: In a natural disaster and in the developing world, mobile phones may be useful navigational aids, but only if they can work without a reliable data connection and are optimized for different kinds of transportation than just zooming down the highway to the nearest Starbucks.

Development Seed caught our attention with a post that Cairns wrote for PBS’s MediaShift Idea Lab on custom maps for cyclists and drunken, late-night pedestrians. For StumbleSafely, DC Bikes, and DC Nightvision, a typical street map was overlaid with crime data, bike lanes, bar and bike shop locations, and municipal infrastructure: “Not just buildings and roads, but even crosswalks, medians, and topography lines.” In short, all of the data that actually helps you get where you’re going when you’re not in a car.

These maps were built with TileMill, an open-source program the company created to help governments, NGOs, news organizations, and others easily create custom maps. The idea is to make map image tiles and Geographic Information System (GIS) data as easy to work with as RSS feeds or CSV databases are today.

“We want to put these tools in the hands of the subject-matter experts and see what they can do,” Gunderson told Wired.com. Development Seed won a Knight News Challenge award for the project.

Knight News Challenge: Tilemapping from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

One of the most-needed and currently most-poorly-served markets for mapping and data visualization support is in international development. As Gadget Lab reported this week, mobile devices are thriving in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the developing world, but data bandwidth and easy-to-find electricity aren’t.

“You can’t get an application like Google Earth working in Afghanistan,” Gunderson said. Maps On A Stick offers full-fledged, data-and-image-rich maps on a USB drive for no-bandwidth or poor-bandwidth use. The company and clients have plenty of experience with those scenarios, mapping uncharted road data in Africa, or helping relief workers provide housing assistance after Hurricane Katrina.

I think about those disaster scenarios often, just as I think about the people I love walking home alone in the city late at night.

When Apple launched the iPhone, it made a big deal about how its software team had written its own Maps client, using Google’s data only for the backend. It had to work for the touch interface, but it also had to make sense for how people would be likely to use Maps on a mobile device.

Now that easy mobile maps have become a natural part of our smartphone-carrying, 3G-surfing lives, it may be time for us to broaden our assumptions about the kinds of maps we’ll need and the conditions we’ll have when we need them.

See Also:

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Mobile Devices Need Custom Maps

GeekDad Gets a Better Half â€“ Announcing GeekMom.com

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Author: Ang Nguyen

Ever since I took on the job of Editor at GeekDad, and would meet people at events like Maker Faire, the question I kept hearing over and over was “but what about GeekMom?!” Sometimes it was spoken with a bit of humor, but more often with a sense of real desire to see such a site.

To the best of my ability, I’ve always run GeekDad to be as much as parenting blog as it is a dad blog, to the point of including four wonderful geeky mom writers on our team. But it comes down to the fact that a site named GeekDad will always skew just a bit to one side of the gender line.

And so, with the help of our founding father Chris Anderson, we’ve been able to acquire the URL for GeekMom.com, and over the last couple months I the four GeekDad moms (Natania Barron, Kathy Ceceri, Corrina Lawson and Jenny Williams), with loads of help from GeekDads Michael Harrison, Anton Olson, Dave Banks, Nathan Berry and others, have built out the new site, gathered a tremendous team of contributing writers, and set ourselves the awesome goal of doing for geeky moms what GeekDad has done for us dads.

This is intended as a soft launch, and we’ll be taking reader feedback and tweaking the site and the content over the next month before the “official” launch (think of us as a Google beta, but with an actual end goal). So please, check it out!

The rest is here:
GeekDad Gets a Better Half â€“ Announcing GeekMom.com

Posts Tagged ‘Air’

GeekDad HipTrax #58 (With Bonus CD Giveaway!)

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Comic-Con Round-Up: For Tweens and Teens

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Comic-Con Round-Up: For Tweens and Teens

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New iPod Touch Has a Vibrator

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Review: Flick the Little Red Fire Engine for the iPad

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14 Geeky Cocktails For Your Labor Day Weekend (GeekDad Wayback Machine)

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Setting Fires With a Giant Electric Blower

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Get Caught Up With Scoob and the Gang in Mystery Incorporated Marathon

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Mobile Devices Need Custom Maps

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GeekDad Gets a Better Half â€“ Announcing GeekMom.com

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