Monthly Archives: March 2011

iPhone Playing Cards

by Robin Parrish
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iPhone Playing Cards

Only hardcore Apple fanboys and fangirls need apply. For $25 plus shipping, you can show the world just how serious you are about your love for the world’s most magical phone — the iPhone. That hefty price is probably related to the unusual size of the cards, which are about an inch taller than the standard. There’s also the smoothly rounded-off corners, made to match the design of the iPhone 3G and its tapered back. My favorite part is the cheeky variations on some of the cards, where iOS interface elements are superimposed over the card faces. The Queen of Diamonds, for example, has an iPhone keyboard covering the lower half Read more »

Every Image From the Opening of The Big Bang Theory

by Noemi Twigg
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Every Image From the Opening of The Big Bang Theory

I don’t know about you, but I definitely felt the absence of The Big Bang Theory last week. True, I was away and couldn’t have watched the show if they had aired anyway, but I still felt off not having my weekly TBBT fix. Luckily for me – and every other TBBT addict enthusiast out there – some guy didn’t have an Internet connection for a week and didn’t have anything else to do. Tell me honestly – do you sit through the intro of the show every time you watch it or do you skip the intro? Here’s my confession for the week – I sit through it every Read more »

New Transformers Media: It’s Laserbeak!

by Robin Parrish
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New Transformers Media: It’s Laserbeak!

If anyone can turn in a decent Transformers video game, it’s High Moon Studios. It’s the studio that crafted the fan-favorite Transformers: War for Cybertron game. Thankfully, High Moon has been given free reign to do whatever they want with the game based on the new movie, so they’ve crafted an original storyline that serves as a prequel. A set of media just released for the new game shows off characters both new and old, but the one that jumped out at me is Laserbeak. This vulture-like Transformer originally debuted as one of the tiny cassette tapes that came with boom box Decepticon Soundwave. In the new movie, Soundwave is Read more »

14 Awesome Homemade Board Games

by Robin Parrish
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14 Awesome Homemade Board Games

History has records of people playing board games going back nearly to the dawn of civilization. Modern players can shop for mass-produced games, but the earliest players had to make up their own games, or at least fashion personal copies of whatever was popular. Today, the most enterprising gamers make up their own board games just for fun. Maybe they’re throwing a themed party. Maybe they just have a great idea. Or maybe they love a popular game but want to put their own mark on it. Whatever the reason, here are 14 board games made entirely by hand, that flat-out rock. Settlers of Catan It’s been called the greatest Read more »

The Sound of Pi

by Robin Parrish
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The Sound of Pi

I don’t usually dig math. I’m a writer; words are my thing. But never before have I seen math translated into such exquisite art. A musician named Michael John Blake has taken the holy grail of mathematics — Pi — and transformed it into music. He stresses that his song is an artistic interpretation, not an exact, scientific rendering. Proceeding from the notion that numbers can be represented by musical notes on a piano, Blake used 31 decimal points of Pi to make a complex melody that I’d call beautiful and even joyous. I’d love to know how long it took him to create this. In the above video, watch as Blake Read more »

DIY Pulse Laser Gun – It Works!

by Noemi Twigg
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DIY Pulse Laser Gun – It Works!

Who has not dreamt about playing with a pulse laser gun? Well, actually, I can think of a number of people who are not into guns; but if you are a responsible gun enthusiast, you will want to watch this video. A guy named Patrick Priebe put his DIY talent to good use and created a homemade pulse laser gun. This is not science fiction, folks. It may be homemade, but it works! Here’s the dish on the gun: It has a small pulse laser head. Small it may be, but it has lots of energy – a 1kW pulse of coherent infrared light. It is 320 mm long and Read more »

Super Mario with realistic sound effects

by Jayvee Fernandez
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Super Mario with realistic sound effects

OK so here’s something to add to your daily dose of strange. I’ve seen Super Mario done live, seen it done in stop motion .. what else hasn’t been done? Well this is how Super Mario would sound like if it were dubbed with sound effects from a first person shooter: you can recognized bits and pieces of the FX from Quake. But I really have to say, there goes my childhood. Read more »

Tech Demo Shows Off the Future of Gaming

by Robin Parrish
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Tech Demo Shows Off the Future of Gaming

Historically speaking, there have long been two titans in 3D video game engines: id and Unreal, with the latter being put to use in more games than any other engine available. id has been responsible for game engines such as the celebrated Quake II engine and the more recent Doom 3 engine. Their latest iteration is id Tech 5, and it’s being used to create the dynamic, post-apocalyptic world of Rage. Gears of War developer Epic Games is behind the Unreal engine, which has been used on dozens of games — everything from BioShock to Mass Effect. Epic’s latest version is Unreal 3, and last week at the Game Developers Conference Read more »

New Blood

by Darren Burr
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New Blood

We are now on the third issue of the newest Vampirella series, taken in a whole new direction from the recent mini-series. No longer do we see the empowering message of ‘we are all Vampirella’ (well, sort of), but we return to the long-term battle between the Daughter of Drakulon and the legendary Dracula himself. At least, that’s how the series starts, but with the latest developments it hints at a more Lovecraftian or Necroscope style take, which harkens back somewhat to the Warren Publishing days, where our Vampi made her name. Now I missed the original Warren days, and still hunt those back issue bins for precious missing issues. Read more »