apps

Chris Knight's avatar

Incest is a terrible thing.  But when you’re one person among a population of 300 thousand, your odds of contributing to genetic bottleneck go substantially up.  That’s the problem in Iceland, where just about everyone is related to everyone else and some downright… creepy… marital relations have inadvertently come about.

(I’m assuming those were inadvertent anyway…)

Enter App of Icelanders, a new app for Android-based devices.  Utilizing a database called Book of Icelanders that has data on 95% of the country’s native population going back 300 years, smartphone users can find information about their family with the touch of a finger.  But the real gimmick is what the developers have named the “Incest Prevention Alarm”: by merely touching your Android smartphone with another also loaded with App of Icelanders, the software automatically determines if you and the other person are cousins.  Or brothers.  Or sisters.  Or parent and child…...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Last spring I added a new vice to my list of stuff worth spending valuable time on. I haven’t spoken about it on this blog yet but those who know me best will tell you that I have become a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire (AKA Game of Thrones), the fantasy novel series by George R.R. Martin. Kristen gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday last year and I used it to buy A Game of Thrones. When June rolled around I wound up taking A Feast for Crows along on our trip to Oregon. And just before Christmas I finished the most recent book, A Dance with Dragons.

I am digging the heck out of this series! My three absolutely favorite characters are Jon Snow, Arya Stark and Tyrion Lannister. Especially Tyrion: it’s impossible to get enough ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

This past winter master musical parody artist “Weird” Al Yankovic published his first-ever book, When I Grow Up. Yankovic’s children’s book resonated with audiences of all ages and fast found itself on the bestseller lists. If you’ve read it (and even if you haven’t yet, you hooligan!) and you happen to have an iOS gizmo like an iPad or an iPhone, you’ll be sure to want to check out the When I Grow Up interactive book on Apple’s App Store. The entire book with all its artwork is here, along with at least 27 (quite possibly many more) hidden surprises, all accompanied by Yankovic’s voice! There are also a few mini-games that will have you honking with laughter. Not kidding: “Gorilla Masseuse” for a few days recently was the most-played game on my iPad! I think it took me the better part of the week to keep that poor ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

As of this evening I haven’t seen Super 8, but some of the coolest cats that I have the honor of personally knowing seem to be completely losing their minds about how incredible it must be. I’m gonna be catching it Sunday afternoon with friends and am really looking forward to it 🙂

But in the meantime, thought I’d turn y’all’s attention to 8mm Vintage Camera, a sa-weeet lil’ app from Nexvio for Apple iOS devices that are camera equipped (doesn’t matter if it’s an iPhone, iPod touch or the newest iPad). 8mm Vintage Camera turns your newfangled Apple contraption into an old-school 8mm movie camera with all the fixins. Select from different lenses, various types of film stock, and you can even give it a classic camera frame jitter effect. I’ve had this app for a few weeks now and it has definitely become one of ...

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