Do your dominos make too much noise? Are your hands tired from having to physically flip your dominos over and place them on the board? Do you have a hankering to play dominos with your friend, but you’re in Center City and they are ALL THE WAY OVER in Fishtown?

Well, have we got and app for you! ‘Domino!’, produced by local Philly developers Flyclops, is a beautifully produced iOS rendition of a game that has been around for centuries.

The game covers the classic version of dominos. You play multiple rounds, and first to 150 points wins. The game also integrates with Facebook, making it easy to connect up with friends for turn-based action. Don’t have any friends? You’re in luck! You can play against strangers or play against the computer.

‘Domino!’ is available now for download from the Apple App Store.

Frankford Hall

Nerd Nite Philadelphia is a monthly lecture series, and coming up soon is version No. 14. Past renditions have included the apocalypse, chemistry, skydiving, radiowaves, free will, and dinosaur biology.

On the docket for this month:

Steve Lakawicz will be speaking on “The Fidelity of Video Game Music”.
Liz Coleman will speak about “Every Joyful Conspiracy”.
Matt MacDonald will speak about “Social Networking at the Synapse: how complex protein interactions provide insight into psychiatric disease”.
Juggling by David Darwin and singing and guitar playing by Matt Young. That’s right. Juggling.

You can check our their website and Facebook page to see what is going on each month!

Nerd Nite Philadelphia
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Showtime at 7:30. Doors open at 7:00, $5 Cover

Frankford Hall (Hopefully in the beer garden)
1210 Frankford Avenue
www.frankfordhall.com

“Go head-to-head with other Tetris fans with a 100% original Hive76 Tetris Arm Wrestling game.”

The above is the description for the Hive 76 event on Thursday, April 26 from 7pm to 9pm during Philly Tech Week. It’s sparse in details, but what other information do you need? It’s “Over the Top” meets “The Wizard”.

Tetris + Arm Wrestling = Awesome to the Max, and that’s all you need to know.

Think about your favorite Tetris song. What does this say about you as an Tetris Arm Wrestler?

Type A: The slower methodical beat of Type A shows that you’re in it for the long haul. You know Tetris Arm Wrestling isn’t some layman’s sport, you are strong like bull and you will grind your opponent down like the weak L-Block that they are.

Type B: The more upbeat rhythm of Type B exhibits a more cunning and methodical Tetris Arm Wrestler. You’re like a fox and you know exactly what to do when each piece that falls. When the iron is hot you simultaneously strike down with both a Tetris and a slamming of your opponent’s crushed hand.

Type C: If you’re a Type C fan, you’re evoking the spirit of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was an amazing Tetris Arm Wrestler, and he bested Handel in the 1706 World Tetris Arm Wrestling Championships in Berlin. You will reign a symphony of terror and Tetris pieces onto your opponents.

Tetris Arm Wrestling at Hive 76, Philly Tech Week
Thursday, April 26, 7pm to 9pm
915 Spring Garden St, Philadelphia, PA 19123
phillytechweek.com/events/Tetris_Arm_Wrestling_Tournament

Jarvus Innovations is hosting the Jarvus Digital Media Gallery during this year’s Philly Tech Week.  Taking place on Monday, April 23rd from 7pm to 10pm, this event will feature local digital art on a series of TVs, monitors, and projectors around the studio.

Do you like supporting the local arts?  Do you like free food and drinks?  Do you LOVE pixels?  Then this event is for you.

And if you’re a local digital artist, you can have your artwork featured!  Visit the Philly Tech Week website to find out how you can submit your work.

Jarvus Digital Media Gallery @ Philly Tech Week
Monday, April 23 from 7pm to 10pm
908A N. 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 1912
www.facebook.com/events/277485352317164

Deals on the Way is a nifty Chrome Extension that integrates into Google Maps and aggregates data from deal sites to help you find discounted food and entertainment in your local area.

Once you install the extension, ask Google for directions and you’ll see a button that opens up a window offering up discounted gift certificates, event tickets and vouchers.  You can even customize the deals that you see by modifying the filters across the six categories and the 50+ sub-categories.

Here’s a video of how it works:

Deals on the Way from Aksel Gungor on Vimeo.

The “on the Way” part of the name represents the idea that you can find deals even when you’re traveling outside of Philly.  We know you would NEVER leave Philly, but let’s pretend you were shipped out of town for work.  Instead of eating at the crappy hotel restaurant and watching reruns of Family Guy on TV, you can use this site to find something interesting and different without having to sign up for a plethora of local deal sites.  Heck, it can even help you find something interesting right here in Philly!

The group that created the extension, Ridaroo, is a local Philly-based start-up run by a group of Drexel graduates.

Photo via Visit Philly

As a reader of Geekadelphia, you no doubt have vast quantities of knowledge on obscure topics stored away in your brain. Why not put that to good use at the 8th Annual Quizzo Bowl?

The event has a Caribbean theme this year, which may well include tropical-themed questions on geography, movies & entertainment, and sports. There will also be a live-music round, so get pumped up by listening to come Caribbean tunes and get Quizzo-ing!

Quizzo Bowl is usually hosted by Johnny Goodtimes, but a posting on the event’s website indicates that Quizzo Bowl VIII will now be hosted by Johnny Greattimes. That may be confusing, but it’s kinda like how Gandalf the Grey falls with the Balrog into the deep subterranean lake under Moria and becomes Gandalf the White. This of course can only mean positive things for the event.

What would your Caribbean-themed team name be? Leave it in the comments!

Quizzo Bowl VIII
February 18th at 7:30pm
johnnygoodtimes.com/2012/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-quizzo-bowl-viii

World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut Street (19104)
(215) 222-1400
www.worldcafelive.com

View Geekadelphia – Benjamin Frankin in a larger map

Today we celebrate Benjamin Franklin, who was born on on this day, January 17th, in 1706.

He has no doubt left his mark on Philadelphia, so to commemorate we have put together a map of local things in Philadelphia that he was directly connected with and things that named in his honor.

Franklin, according to Wikipedia, was a “leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.”

We can also argue that Franklin, who had a hand in all sorts of brainiac activities, was in fact the original Geekadelphian. So today, we honor him with this Google Map.

Yellow marks are for places and things Franklin himself was involved with.
Blue marks are places and things named in his honor.

Enjoy!

The Internet Society (ISOC) is hosting a conference on Maintaining Trust: The Future of Internet Security and Privacy on October 5, right here in Philadelphia.

The ISOC, who brought us World IPv6 Day, is a non-profit group that provides leadership in Internet related standards, education and policy. They work to further discussion and action to help protect the future of the internet.

Whether you like it or not, information about you is everywhere on the Internet. Any time you sign up for a website or buy something online, you trust that site to keep your information safe and secure from security breaches. Even non-online transactions like heath records that are stored within the internal networks of companies can be vulnerable to outside attack.

The conference will address some of these risks, and key topics of the day include Data Security, System Security, Customer Data Management, and Protecting Information in the Cloud.

So while this post isn’t about comic books or celebrity interviews like we normal cover, the event is a great opportunity to learn about Internet security and connect with leaders in the field of information risk-management.

Maintaining Trust: The Future of Internet Security and Privacy
Hosted by The Internet Society (ISOC)
October 5, 2011

Sheraton Philadelphia
201 N. 17th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

TwizShow, an iOS app developed right here in Philly by Clickable Bliss, tests your knowledge of how well you know the people you follow on Twitter.

After logging in to your Twitter account, the game asks you 20 random questions like “Who has the most followers?”, “Who has the most tweets?”, and “Who tweeted this?”

Points are awarded based on number of correct answers and how quickly you get them. You even have three 50/50 tokens to use during the game to help you narrow down your choices.

The game fuses the multiple choice gameplay of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” with the stylings and soundtrack of retro game shows like “Press Your Luck” or “Card Sharks”. Big Money No Whammies. (more…)

The Dude Hates Cancer is a local Philly event that lets you bowl, fight cancer, and quote your favorite bowling movie.

Started in 2006, this annual event was created by local resident Tim Maxwell in support of his parents, who were both diagnosed with leukemia.

So spare me your gutter mouth, grab your balls, and let’s go bowling! Teams of 6-10 will compete against each other with three hours of bowling, free shoe rental, free t-shirts for all participants, and free admission into Jackie Treehorn’s After-Party. The winning team will have their car set on fire and get into a fight in the parking lot with some nihilists. Make sure to register now, as there are only 39 teams and the time slots will fill up soon!

Money raised from the event will so to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Geeky sports fact: In bowling, there are 1024 possible pin combos after you throw your first ball.

The Dude Hates Cancer Bowling Tournament
Date: Saturday, August 27th, 2011
Time: 11:30am – 8:30pm

North Bowl Lounge N’ Lanes
909 North 2nd Street (19123)
www.northbowlphilly.com

The Belkin Conserve Insight is a cool gadget that helps you monitor your electricity usage in your home. “Insight” is the key word here, because in my test spin of the product I’ve been able to glean some interesting anecdotes about the way my precious electronics contribute to the electricity bill each month.

The premise of the product is simple. Take the Insight, plug it in to one of your electronics or appliances. Right away, you get instant feedback on wattage, cost, and CO2 production. Then, go ahead and use it like you would normally. After 45 minutes it comes up with an average across all three measures, and the longer you let it sit the more accurate the reading is.

I’ve often wondered how much my electronics cost me. Here’s a chart that highlights different electronics and states that I used them in, and their corresponding cost per month.

Here are more specific breakdowns about the things I was trying to test…

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This past weekend was the TooManyGames convention, held this year at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA.

If people didn’t get their fill of video games this weekend, then they clearly did not try hard enough.

We had the pleasure of hitting up the Expo on Friday evening when the event was kicking off, right when they were about to host a screening of “The Wizard.”

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