Mountain View, CA – Tuesday By Joshua Mauldin Google announced this morning that image searches for stills from the 1998 made-for-television movie Gia have increased exponentially over the last twelve hours. The film, based on the life of troubled model Gia Carangi, was relatively forgotten until early Tuesday morning. “We’re at a loss to explain why interest in a fifteen-year-old movie starring Mercedes Ruhl and Faye Dunaway could have exploded like this,” said Google Chief Reinhardt August. “Faye Dunaway didn’t die did she?” UPDATE: You know you’re going to search for either Gia or Original Sin today. Don’t lie, Google knows your...

If you read my column on the reg, then you know I spend about half my waking hours designing iPhone games. Oh and I also use an iPhone for my PHONE. So basically there is almost always an iPhone in my hand. This is a sad state of affairs, considering the fact that I’m not an Apple fanboy. All kidding aside, I give the iPhone its due; it made GPS maps actually usable on a handheld for the first time, it created the App store and improved the whole industry of making games for phones. We could go on, but let’s complain, that’s more fun. So here it goes, the reasons why iPhones make my life worse. Texting While Driving I think texting while driving is super duper dangerous, and I’d advise you to never ever do it. But remember when I had my T9, old school texting phone? The one with 9 numeric keys? You could text with that thing with one hand like it was your job. And because it had tactile, physical keys, you could do it without looking. So though you shouldn’t text while driving, you could text and walk, while looking at where you were going. With iPhones, you have to look AND use both hands to text. So with the advance in tech, you lose some of the very mobile functionality of the more simple phones. Oh and we all have to look like chipmunks with a nut when we text now. And that’s just not sexy. People talking on that stupid white headphone Mic That’s really nice of Apple to include a headphone with a mic with all iPhones, but we need to issue a PSA: You’re not really  supposed to use it that way. It’s supposed to be...

For my favorite post of the year for Fierce and Nerdy, I chose to re-publish my Kickstarter how-to. It was by far my most popular post, probably because there are not a lot of straightforward, honest articles of how to succeed in doing a Kickstarter for a video game (I know, because I searched for it before we did the campaign). By now is a success on the app store, and we’re thinking about the next thing. Time Flies! So I’m republishing it because it’s useful, unlike most of the things I write, which are usually half rant and half awkward jokes. Enjoy!  -Matt My little outfit, Part Time Evil, recently decided to do a Kickstarter to fund our indie game . Not the “I need money to live off for a year to make this thing” type of Kickstarter. Everyone on this project is employed in the day, so we raised enough for contractor pay, software, account to publish on iTunes, and all the other things that can really add up. So my point is, the project has zero budget. But as we all know, there’s no such thing as zero budget. That being said this article is something I’m writing so other designers can read it and get a leg up on doing a Kickstarter for a game. We were fortunate enough to succeed in getting the funding, which is not super common on Kickstarter. But it could have been easier, and we could have raised more money if we’d been on top of the following: Let’s just jump right in. What’s a Kickstarter This is a good topic to start with, because you may not know either.  Kickstarter is the worlds largest funding platform for projects. So there are things like crazy...

Dear Dr. Miro, I adore my girlfriend of six months but lately she’s been telling me I need to give her my email and Facebook passwords. When I said that I didn’t want to she accused me of being untrustworthy and secretive. I’m not hiding anything from her but I just don’t feel right about it. Should this be a deal-breaker & just get out? Sincerely, Should I Run? Dear SIR?, In our world with little to no privacy – people publicly blogging their Dear Diaries, pictures of family on Facebook, everyone’s home address a Google search away – it is important to hold onto some semblance of the personal. Sure, your girlfriend may think it is you being “untrustworthy and secretive” but really, where is HER trust? Her faith that you will not do anything to disrespect what you have together has to get in place, too. Maybe it will not. That is something you will need to feel out. This issue is coming up more and more. There has been a big deal made about middle and high school kids sharing passwords at an attempt towards special intimacy with one another. It makes sense: what else do they have to which no one else has access? There are some adult couples that even share email addresses! However, in the case with tweens and teens, it is bound to end messy. And, more often than not, the adult couples have a lot of issues around it, as well. Since you have discomfort with your Adored One’s demands, let her know. What is it about sharing your passwords that truly freaks you out? Think about it honestly. This could be a great opportunity to communicate what is and is not acceptable to both of...