Category: Geek

I like cards: collectable card games, baseball cards, Tarot cards, Iraqi bad guy cards, etc. And then there are geek trading cards. I love the idea. In fact, Mark Frauenfelder and I created robot geek trading cards illos for my robot book. Now some guy has created cards of the Tiger OS X engineering team. Not as compelling as Rabbi Trading Cards (“Woot, you have the Rabbi Shnerson rookie card!”), but where else are you going to see “Can Summon a Master Device Port” as a stat line?

You knew it was only a matter of time: The PSP Linux Project is just getting under way, looking for developers. Wonder how long it’ll be before we see a distro on that gorgeous 480 x 272 wide-screen display.

We’re taking all the credit. In a recent post, we were getting on Tomi’s case (the artist behind PodBrix) for only producing limited-edition versions of his cool, clever, and coveted LEGO- and iPod-related products. Today, he’s launched PodShirts, a commercial outlet for his work which’ll sell iPod-related merch, the first being a shirt similar to the one mentioned in our earlier post.

The PodcastNetwork, aiming to be the go-to link for the best Podcasts online, has a podcast program covering O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology (ETech) conference. As the motto on their page sez: “We go…so you don’t have to.” This Podcast “channel” is called “The Tech Conference Show,” and they will be covering other technology shows. They started off with coverage of DEMO@15.

Techpodcasts.com is a cool portal of tech and Net-related Podcasts. There are some really well-done and professional-sounding programs here, with decent tech reporting, humor, product reviews, and more. Forget about G4 TechTV. It’s VERY burnt toast. Techpodcasts looks far more promising.

Remember the Etch-A-Sketch and how you would shake it to erase it? Imagine shaking your laptop to empty its trash. Silly, maybe, but doable, thanks to Sudden Motion Sensors found in some laptops (used to safely “park the head” of a hard drive if the laptop gets whacked or falls). A hacker discovered such a sensor in the latest Apple PowerBook and folks have been having fun programming apps that make other use of the sensor (such as creating tilt-sensitive games and a way of switching iTunes with a smack of your hand). Wired News has a piece about the phenom (with some links) here.

Street Tech co-founder Sean Carton has a new book out, called the 2005 Gamer’s Almanac. Subtitled “Your Daily Dose of Tricks, Cheats and Fascinating Facts,” this all-color tome is crammed to the binding with all sorts of brain food for game geeks. Knowing how much effort Sean put into this title, it makes me nauseous just to thumb through it; it’s a phenomenal effort. Each day of the year has an actual event in gaming history attached to it, and then there are game and hardware reviews, tips on games, articles on various aspects of game culture and history, cheats codes, and on and on. It also covers every game platform, from PCs to consoles to cellphones. (Sean wants everybody to know that he had nothing to do with the wizard on the cover who’s carrying a football helmet and fitting off attack helicopters.)

Remember the item we posted a few weeks ago about PodBrix, modified LEGO pieces turned into things like iPods? Now Tomi, the artist behind these toy mods, has a sweepstakes to give away a LEGO-fied version of “The Woz,” Apple co-creator, Steve Wozniak. Hacker body odor and “code pies” (late night pizzas) sold separately.

[via TUAW]

In honor of St. Patty’s Day (sorry, Danny), we bring you this link to an interview with Street Tech pal and “Life Hacks” guru Danny O’Brien. Danny is probably best known among Street Techies as the editor of the long-standing, snarky UK tech e-journal NTK.

As most gamers here likely know already, the Game Developers Conference 2005 happened last week. GameSpot has some excellent coverage on their site, including interviews with developers, game trailers, and some juicy rumors on the Xbox 2.