Category Archives: Technology

Enigma: Crypto-Cryptography For Kids

[from my GeekDad post]

No, that’s not a typo. Graeme Base’s newest book Enigma can teach kids about cryptography, but it deserves an extra “crypto” for the clever way the subject is hidden in a story about magic, friendship, and family. Bertie Badger visits his grandfather, the retired magician Gadzooks the Great, and learns that he and the other residents have all lost their magical items. Bertie offers to search for them, meeting each of the quirky ex-tricksters in turn. The search itself is fruitless, even after the perpetrator (Grandfather’s rabbit Enigma) is found, but Bertie saves the day by showing where true magic comes from.

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Mr. Lee, the Three-Eyed Cat

[from my GeekDad post]

OK, so he’s not a mutant, but he’s no ordinary cat. Mr. Lee has been outfitted with his very own CatCam, designed and built by his owner, J. Perthold, from a keychain digital camera and some custom circuitry. The CatCam provides a peek into the daily adventures of Mr. Lee as he prowls the neighborhood.

The success of the original Mr. Lee CatCam has spawned more feline tech accessories, like the CatTrack GPS tracker and the forthcoming CatCam Live, a CatCam with integrated antenna for broadcasting live TV feeds. Each has detailed (but accessible) technical specifications and build notes; it’s obvious that Perthold is a real enthusiast.

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in which i join you in the 21st century

[from my GeekDad post]

I have a confession to make. Compared to most GeekDads, I’m kind of a Luddite. I don’t have a video game console, or a TV to plug it into. I play games with cards and boards, not on the computer. My pets are biological, not robotic. Heck, I don’t even have a microwave. It’s not that I’m opposed to technology, of course, it just tends to get in the way of my life and family.

So I felt odd having a “2001″ technology moment this month.

2001 videophone

You know the scene, that videophone call Heywood Floyd makes to his daughter back on Earth. It never made sense to me: he steps off a frickin’ spaceplane onto a frickin’ space station on his way to the frickin’ Moon, and the first thing he does is hop into a phone booth to have a chat with a nearly-incoherent five-year-old who doesn’t care about what he’s doing as long as he brings back a present. (“Way to move the plot along,” I always thought, followed by, “What’s a bush baby?”)

And now I get it, because I’ve done the same thing. Well, substitute a city bus for the spaceplane and my kitchen for the orbiting Hilton, but the rest is spot on. See, the Geeklet and Mrs. Geek are visiting friends for the entire month of August, and due to a bit of bad planning I won’t be joining them until the very end of their trip. I call every day, but to the Geeklet phones are just instruments for saying “Hello” and “Goodbye” to disembodied voices with familiar names. After a few days, he refused to talk to me at all. So I reluctantly did what any GeekDad probably would have started with: I set up a video chat.

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