Dork Tower #944 by John Kovalic
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Star Wars Chess (Flickr/origamiguy1971)
Over on the UK GeekDad blog we’ve been thinking about how we can help our kids get more hands on with the tech, games and gadgets that we love. Mark Changizi just shared this story about how his daughter reinvented the game of chess…
Recently I sat down with my eight-year-old and taught her how to play the king of all games: chess. Soon afterwards however, she surprised me by reinventing the game from the ground up. At first I was a little perplexed at this controversial move, but I soon realized that there was a fundamentally good scientific principle at work here.
I remember playing chess with my father at the same age. The passing down of chess across generations seems timeless, and takes little note of nation or culture — my father learned chess from his bronze-maker father in 1940s Iran.
I was understandably touched when she came to me the next day wishing to play chess. “Of course!” I replied. “Great,” she said. “Here are the rules.”
She handed me a packet of papers, and at the top of the first she had written, “Plastic Animal Chess.” Below this was an enumeration of the kinds of pieces to be used (with blanks where we would record which plastic animals would be the stand-ins for each type), along with what each kind of piece does.
“This is complicated, Honey,” I wondered aloud, worried it would be far too difficult for her — and me. There were, by the end of her four hand-written pages, 10 distinct piece types and 18 pieces in all. “Chess only has six types, and it is already immensely difficult!” I said.
But more than my fright at the complexity of her game was another reaction, this one in my gut. Wasn’t there something mildly wrong about this new game of hers? Chess is a revered institution. What kind of heretic plays chess once and immediately presumes to do better?
[This article, written by Andy Robertson, was originally published on Thursday. Click through to read the rest of the story, and please leave any comments you may have on the original.]
A retired Minneapolis bus driver who died in a fire last year had a passion for comic books. The fire that took his life started in the kitchen, but a back bedroom filled with more than 20,000 comics was spared. It was just recently that the surviving family members realized the collection was worth about $1 million.
Philipp Lenssen/Flickr
According to the Star Tribune, Gary Dahlberg started collecting comic books in the 1960s and would spend lots of time in comic stores or at comic book conventions. He also collected Star Trek–related items of all sorts, and liked having some of his figurines in the refrigerator to have something to look at when he opened the door.
Living a humble life, he sold two comics before his death — one to buy a computer so he could catalog his collection, and one to help pay off his home. Some family members questioned the value of his hobby, but now that the collection has been appraised, the Star Tribune says the hobby is more valuable than they ever could have imagined:
2,500 to 3,000 of Dahlberg’s 20,000 comic-book collection would end up “easily” worth more than $1 million. “Maybe closer to $2 million,” said Ed Jaster, senior vice president of Heritage Auctions.
Some of the comics of note in the collection are from 1963 : The Amazing Spider-Man No. 1 and No. 2. The No. 2 issue is one of only five known copies. The company hired to appraise and certify the collection will sell the comics in the coming year. While 3,000 of the comics are valuable, the majority will only be worth around twice the cover price.
So, collectors, look for comics from the Gary Dahlberg Collection.
[This article was written by Russ Neumeier and was originally published on Thursday. Please leave any comments you may have on the original article.]
