Justice O’Connor Says Videogames ‘Fabulous’ Teaching Tools

This year, the Supreme Court will decide if California’s law banning the sale of violent games to kids is constitutional. Too bad for us that retired justice Sandra Day O’Connor isn’t still on the bench.
In an interview on Good Morning America Wednesday, O’Connor extolled the virtues of videogames as a teaching tool for young kids. [...]

House GOP Launches a Republican Reddit

House GOP members unveiled a Reddit-like website Tuesday that lets users submit and rank policy ideas in categories ranging from national security to “American values.”
“It gives Americans a voice in changing the way Washington works and the policy it pursues,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California), said Tuesday on a video posted atop the site, Americaspeakingout.
But how [...]

May 14, 1771: Industrial Utopian Robert Owen Born

1771: Robert Owen is born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, in North Wales. The capitalist and social reformer will gain influence as a proponent of the humane treatment of industrial workers, a critic of unrestricted child labor, a co-founder of labor’s cooperative movement and the founder of several utopian communities.
The son of a saddler and ironmonger, [...]

May 10, 1869: Golden Spike Links Nation by Rail

1869: Four years after the Civil War, the United States is joined from coast to coast by a transcontinental railroad, as a ceremonial final spike is driven at Promontory Summit, Utah. Travel time from Atlantic to Pacific will soon fall from as much as six months, down to one week.
In an early example of [...]

April 27, 1791: Samuel F.B. Morse, ‘American Leonardo,’ Born

1791: Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the practical electromagnetic telegraph, is born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He’ll also make waves in the art world and in politics.
Morse’s father, Jedidiah, was the co-inventor of cerographic sterotypy (a wax-based printing process), and he improved the bathometer (for measuring water depth). He also wrote and edited geography textbooks [...]

April 23, 1516: Bavaria Cracks Down on Beer Brewers

1516: Two Bavarian dukes issue a decree that limits the ingredients used in brewing beer to barley, water and hops.
Referred to today as the Reinheitsgebot (purity ordinance), the decree has come to be known as a beer-purity law that was intended to keep undesirable or unhealthy ingredients out of beer. But the original text doesn’t [...]

Report: StarCraft II Rated Adults-Only in South Korea

StarCraft II has run afoul of South Korean censors.
The Korea Times reports that StarCraft II received an 18-and-up rating from the South Korean government’s Game Rating Board.
StarCraft II is a forthcoming real-time strategy game sequel from Activision Blizzard. The original was a worldwide hit that found particular traction in South Korea, where it was central [...]

April 13, 1953: CIA OKs MK-ULTRA Mind-Control Tests

1953: Central Intelligence Agency director Allen Dulles authorizes the MK-ULTRA project. The agency launches one of its most dubious covert programs ever, turning unsuspecting humans into guinea pigs for its research into mind-altering drugs.
More than a decade before psychologist Timothy Leary advocated the benefits of LSD and urged everyone to “turn on, tune in, drop [...]

Top 10 Geeky Changes Included in the Health Care Reform Bill

Here at GeekDad we tend to stay out of politics in general and we certainly don’t choose sides. However, with the recent passing of the Health Care Reform bill through Congress we can’t pretend we aren’t aware of what is going on in the world. Not getting too deep into the politics or the function [...]

Australian Game Censor Resigns

Michael Atkinson, South Australian attorney general, resigned from his position on Sunday. Atkinson has long been considered the roadblock to Mature-rated videogames being sold in the country.
Australia is the only Western democracy without a rating similar to our Mature classification. Atkinson came under fire from gamers for refusing to help create an R18+ rating for [...]