Author Archives: Jonathan-Liu
Fact or Myth? “Elephants Are Kindly, But They’re Dumb.”
If you ever find yourself in Africa surrounded by elephants, you should speak English to them. Oh, not because they’ll understand you better, but because at least then they’ll consider you non-threatening. Or you could try Swahili–that apparently doesn’t bother them too much either. Just don’t speak Maa, the language of the Maasai, because that […] Continue reading
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Have Some Fun Playing With Guerilla Bob
Poor Bob. While he was in the army becoming a national hero, his childhood friend John became a criminal. Eventually John set Bob up and got him kicked out of the army in disgrace. Vowing revenge, Bob found out where John and his troops were holed up and sabotaged the army’s plan to nuke the […] Continue reading
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Quick! Get Yourself the Indie Love Bundle
I’m a big fan of “casual games,” the sort of thing that’s often played in a web browser; point-and-click puzzles, side-scrollers with some sort of twist, beautiful abstractions with lovely sounds. I stumbled across the Indie Love Bundle, a collection of six fantastic independent games (all of which have won some sort of award or […] Continue reading
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Tagged And Yet It Moves, Auditorium, Aztaka, computer games, Electronic Geek, Eufloria, independent games, Machinarium, Osmos, Toys and Technology
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How to Raise Racist Kids
Step One: Don’t talk about race. Don’t point out skin color. Be “color blind.”
Step Two: Actually, that’s it. There is no Step Two.
Congratulations! Your children are well on their way to believing that <insert your ethnicity here> is better than everybody else.
Surprised? So were authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman when they started researching the […] Continue reading
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Tagged Black History Month, diversity, Everything Else, NurtureShock, Parenting, racism, Science and Education
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Cogs Will Spin Your Gears
I’ve always loved sliding tile puzzles, from the simple number kind to distant relatives such as the Rush Hour Traffic Jam puzzles. There’s just something appealing about putting things back in order with only the one open square to work with. Cogs adds a new dimension to the idea.
Created by Lazy 8 Studios, Cogs was […] Continue reading
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Tagged Electronic Geek, iPhone Apps, review, sliding puzzles, Steampunk, Toys and Technology, Videogames
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Love Your Kids: Have Them Shot
I’m talking about vaccinating your kids, of course.
You’ve heard most of this before, from Amy Wallace’s Wired cover story in November to Matt Blum’s piece about the H1N1 vaccine in October. But last week there was one more piece of news: The Lancet, the medical journal that broke the news about the autism-vaccination link, publicly […] Continue reading
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Tagged Andrew Wakefield, autism, debunked, MMR, Science and Education, vaccinations, vaccines
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Slugging It Out: Slug Wars for iPhone
Down in the garden there is a war being fought … slowly. Two armies of slugs face each other across the battlefield, each determined to break into the opponent’s base. Armed with acorn guns and salt shakers, they race—er, trudge—into the fray.
Slug Wars is a new real-time strategy game for the iPhone and iPod touch, […] Continue reading
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Tagged Electronic Geek, iPhone Apps, IPod Touch, Slug Wars, tower defense, Toys and Technology, Videogames
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Have a Super Game Day With Kai-Lan for the Wii
Kai-lan and friends are featured in a new game for the Nintendo Wii, Super Game Day. Like the TV show, the game is geared toward younger kids, and features the same voice actors as well. The characters and settings carry over pretty well from Ni Hao, Kai-lan and my kids really enjoyed playing it.
One of […] Continue reading
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Tagged Electronic Geek, Toys and Technology
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The Future of Board Games … Or Not?
What does the future of board games look like? Ten years from now, will we still be playing with silly cardboard hexagons and wooden meeples? Or will it look more like something out of science fiction?
Science Daily reported last week about an experiment predicting the future of board games by associate professor Roel Vertegaal, from […] Continue reading
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Tagged Armchair Geek, Board Games, electronic games, Electronic Geek, Queen's University, Roel Vertegaal, video games
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How Do We Stop Hollowing Out the Middle of America?
Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America by Patrick Carr & Maria Kefalas
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the majority of our readership doesn’t live in a rural area. I mean, the majority of America’s population doesn’t live in a rural area—that’s […] Continue reading
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Tagged Armchair Geek, Books, brain drain, community development, Education, Midwest, reviews, rural, Science and Education, small town, youth
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