Tag Archives: geek

Playing Dungeons & Dragons on Microsoft Surface? Geektastic.

I played Chess, browsed news and otherwise enjoyed using Microsoft’s table-sized touchscreen computer at the “NERD” offices in Cambridge last year. Fun, but not quite mind-blowing. Interactive Dungeons and Dragons? THAT I could get into:

You can watch another demonstration by the team from Carnegie Mellon University working on the Surfacescapes project, courtesy of CrunchGear’s hands-on review.

Pretty cool. Geektastic, in fact. Now if Microsoft could just do something about that $21,000 price tag for the hardware.

Hat Tip to @StevenWalling: “I’m trying to Force Orb a Dragon over here.”

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Homer Simpson’s brain runs on Macintosh System 6

On Sunday, I flipped over from Iron Chef America‘s “Super chef battle” to find that Homer Simpson‘s brain is a Macintosh. And an old Mac, at that.

Homer Simpson's Brain runs Macintosh System 6

Homer Simpson

If I’m right, my geeky friends will analyze the screenshot and confirm that my guess that Homer is running Macintosh System 6 is correct.

The writers of the Simpsons may have altered some icons to avoid a notice from the litigious legal department at Apple but to this geek’s eyes, that looks like a Mac, circa late-80s.

Who else would call it a “Finder?”

Not Apple, in fact.

If you look at the screen shot of System 6 below, via Wikipedia, you’ll see that there’s no “Finder,” just the Apple symbol on the top left.

The OS above, however, is more similar to System 6 than the more rounded icons in the GUI that Apple introduced in System 7, along with a host of other improvements.

Given that the Simpsons debuted in 1989, System 6 would have been the OS in use at the time.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all, given the glorious geekiness of those writers, if Homer’s brain hadn’t been upgraded since.

Thursdays With Abe” is free to watch online now, for as long as Hulu makes it available.

Skip to the 9 minute mark for the key bit.

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Classic Nintendo game themes, acappella? Massive geek WIN.

It may be an “online classic” (read: from 2006) but as a child of the 80s and a confirmed acappella geek, this live performance of classic Nintendo game themes by the University of Washington’s Redefined was too good not to share.

The Tetris choreography was particularly inspired. And when the bass did the little theme from the dungeon level in Mario Brothers, I instantly thought of Stockwell singing “you are in the dungeon. you are in the dungeon.”

Fun diversion on a busy morning.

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Upcoming: Tron Legacy [Movies to geek out over]

[Hat tip:  Lance Ulanoff]

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