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Father’s Day special edition gift guide

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Dad’s been good to you. Very good to you. Why, without him you quite literally wouldn’t be on this earth, and that’s something to be thankful for. If he’s anything like you, he probably has a bit of a passion for the latest and greatest in tech. But, it can be very hard to know what to buy in this dynamically changing world. Lucky for you, dear reader, we’ve put together this handy list of great gadgets and last-minute shopping ideas for dear ‘ol dad.

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The Turtle Beach Ear Force XP500s Are The Gaming Father’s Dream

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Author: Angela Stephens

As a dad it ’ s incredibly difficult to play computer games. First, I ’ m not great at them any longer – try practicing sniping n00bs when you ’ re checking out to feed a 3-year-old something aside from Goldfish crackers – and 2nd I can easily ’ t play them in their full aural glory since they seem like WWII carefully blended with a dreadful mishap at a jackhammer factory. In short, they ’ re too hard and too loud.

Certainly I can easily fix the “ too challenging ” part by just playing Yoshi ’ s Tale. But just what about the “ too loud ” part? I ’ m glad to state the Turtle Beach XP500s have taken care of things.

These headphones are totally wireless and link to a Bluetooth base station. You can course the sound into the box via an optical cable or RCA jacks and the headphones – huge cans that fit the ears with ease – are linked to the base with Bluetooth.

I ’ ve never truly liked wireless headphones. Numerous called for line-of-sight hookups thanks to wonky IR sensors and the audio quality was sub par. This new style – based upon Turtle Beach front ’ s PX5 headphones – is a great deal more impressive. First, it collaborates with both Xbox and PS3 and an included 360 dongle enables for a direct wireless hookup to the controller ’ s audio plug-in.

The headphones additionally add a few interesting noise processing tricks to the mix. First, you can easily change the “ sound arena, ” decreasing the sound of explosions and highlighting little sounds – tracks, guns cocking – that can be failed to see while sneaking with a warehouse or a jungle.

The headphones also mimic complete surround noise and delivers in-game tone morphing so you can easily disguise yourself. After all, on the Net nobody understands you ’ re a pet – until you bark.

The XP500 is rather cool, however I did run into a few problems. For instance, in my setup the sound was very low, thus needing me to turn many of the volumes up quite a bit. It was very certain to my receiver and I was at some point able to correct things by plugging straight into the TOSLink interface, however it was a bit frustrating at first.

Second, it ’ s an extremely complex pair of headphones and while there are loud tone prompts for nearly every action, it ’ s still a bit mystifying without the manual. All of its abilities are concealed behind little, featureless buttons and it ’ s easy to press the incorrect thing.

The rate is a bit high, also, particularly for a gaming peripheral. At $ 270 you could most likely simply buy a pair of Sennheisers and a long headphone cord. Nevertheless, the value added by the different DSP attributes as well as the microphone connectivity make things a little more appropriate.

Concealing your gaming from your kids is effort and anything that makes it easier is a boon to the young dad. I, for one, welcome Turtle Beach ’ s developments to the craft into my life and thank them for avoiding me. Now if I can only get past the odd baby animals in Dead Space 2 without screaming obscenities, waking up my young children and propelling them to ask exactly what, exactly, a “ c \* nting f \*\* kb \*\* tard on hot toast ” is.

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Bose music-to-go package Father’s Day Deals SoundDock for iPod and iPhone Cheap Price 2012

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Cheapest Price 2012 See HERE ► goo.gl Bose music-to-go package – SoundDock for iPod and iPhone (Gloss Black) Easy portability featuring slim design, built-in carry handle, rotating iPod docking station�plus rechargeable lithium-ion battery for hours of playing time between charges. Rechargeable lithium-ion battery delivers more power and longer playing time than other rechargeable batteries. Charges whenever the system is plugged into a wall outlet (power cord included).
Video Rating: 0 / 5

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Inhabitat’s Week In Green: cities in the sky, a cloned Chinese village and a few green DIY Father’s Day projects

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Author: Tech Blogger

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

DNP Inhabitat's Week In Green tktktk

As the race to develop new, more efficient modes of transportation heats up, it could soon become even easier (and greener) to jet around the globe. This week saw the Solar Impulse — that broad, funny-looking airplane — complete the world’s first solar-powered intercontinental flight. Meanwhile, Boeing’s hydrogen-powered ‘Phantom Eye’ drone aircraft successfully completed its first flight, releasing only water as a byproduct. Both developments signal growing confidence in employing new green technologies in air travel. Now that green airplanes are taking flight, what will we do with all of those old fuel-guzzling planes that are currently in use? One Oregon man may have found an answer — Bruce Campbell transformed an entire Boeing 727-200 into his home, converting one bathroom into a shower and installing a computer monitor in the middle of the control panel.

Continue reading Inhabitat’s Week In Green: cities in the sky, a cloned Chinese village and a few green DIY Father’s Day projects

Inhabitat’s Week In Green: cities in the sky, a cloned Chinese village and a few green DIY Father’s Day projects originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jun 2012 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GeekDad Puzzle of the Week Solution: Triple-Encoded Fatherâ€™s Day Card

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Author: Tyler Evans

Image and Card by Jeanette Giancaspro

Well it seems that the Daves are not the only ones who enjoy a good code cracking puzzle. Melanie Croos-Dabrera also enjoys a cryptographic conundrum. Her hard work and some random number crunching combined to make her this weeks winner of the ThinkGeek $50.00 Gift Certificate.

Melanie deciphered our Fathers Day card which started out looking like this:

“Dad here are a few special words to sum up how we feel about you”

F cf gmc fey ezhl Hyosbnk Xih iygq

B ck eie ufp Qoyusie Tcee ty ttcye Utfe

Y ar zbs rsq Bfwbnepltop Easm jf Zfuix

C hm spp etb Eacm jjrsarn mr sbv uzgixf’s vr b blp

A ck eie ufp PFS hqiwfaee qbss sbv jzhb

U ar zbs rsq Xmlqiapkj bxllhyf uflf ty zzpr

E gd rll lgy Qvlrqlhk zhq Eplslhk aiblq zz qbw rbrmd

Agq nzdg nmj eadylgye, Ufpk pjwkf TFCVPXX.

S viee rsmq gwzhf ufp illdc nb nc.

Here’s Melanie’s solution:

The first line:
“Dad here are a few special words to sum up how we feel about you”

AABAB AAAAA BAABB AABBB AABAA BAAAB BAABA AAABB AAAAA BBAAA
F……….A……….T………..H……….E……….R……….S……….D……….A……….Y……… <–with this being the keyword, found using a Baconian cipher, with Distinct codes. (from “How I Wish You Were Here”)

The next cipher used was an Alphabet cipher or VigenÃ¨re cipher (from “Through the Looking Glass”), using the word “fathersday” as the key.

F at her sda yfat hersday fat hers
F cf gmc fey ezhl Hyosbnk Xih iygq

will give you:

A cm zil nby guhs Auxaynm Sio bupy
using the tabla recta for an alphabet cipher.

Repeating this for each line of the card, we get:

A cm zil nby guhs Auxaynm Sio bupy
Y cm zil nby Ylywnil Mynm qy vocfx Qcnb
Y cm zil nby Yfywnlihcwm Ecnm qy Vocfx
E cm zil nby Ecxm qcnbion om sio qiofxhâ€™n vy u xux
X cm zil nby XCS jlidywnm nbun sio fipy
U cm zil nby Umnlihigs julncym nbun qy bupy
X cm zil nby Xohayihm uhx Xluaihm viiem ih nby mbyfz
Jon nbyg uff niaynbyl, Nbys mjyff AYYEXUX.
U qilx nbun gyuhm nby qilfx ni gy.

Now the third cipher used was a Caesar cipher (from either “Riddles and Ciphers and Jumbles, Oh My!”, or “A Very Shifty Situation”). It used a Caesar shift of 6, giving us the final, deciphered version of the poem:

G is for the many Gadgets You have
E is for the Erector Sets we build With
E is for the Electronics Kits we Build
K is for the Kids without us you wouldn’t be a dad
D is for the DIY projects that you love
A is for the Astronomy parties that we have
D is for the Dungeons and Dragons books on the shelf
Put them all together, They spell GEEKDAD.
A word that means the world to me.

Congratulations Melanie! I must say including the past puzzles that used the ciphers earned you a few geek points. Geek points also go to Eli Carter who points out the misplaced capitalization in “You” ,”With” “Build” and “They” can be rearranged into “They Build With You” which is what we GeekDads love to do!

Come back next week when Dave Banks returns with a puzzle to amuse, abuse and confuse your gray matter.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

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GeekDad Puzzle of the Week Solution: Triple-Encoded Fatherâ€™s Day Card

Posts Tagged ‘fathers’

Father’s Day special edition gift guide

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The Turtle Beach Ear Force XP500s Are The Gaming Father’s Dream

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Inhabitat’s Week In Green: cities in the sky, a cloned Chinese village and a few green DIY Father’s Day projects

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GeekDad Puzzle of the Week Solution: Triple-Encoded Fatherâ€™s Day Card

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

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