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Boredom Chasers?
yuggler asks: "Ever found yourself in a boring meeting, class or lecture? Sure! Does anyone know of something to do to make time fly? I feel that somekind of simple game, at the most requiring paper and pen would be the ultimate soultion. So, my question to you is: Does anoyone know of a game with childishly easy rules, yet with a depth that can keep the player(s) spellbound for a small eternity?
An excellent example of what I'm trying to describe is the game Sprouts which only takes 30 seconds to learn, but will take a good portion of your meetings to fully understand. I am currently being tormented in a Swedish highschool, and feel in desperate need of something to get me through classes like Swedish, and Chemistry, while waiting for the programming and technology-classes."
I can usually fight off boredom by thinking critically about the topics being covered. Then when I feel myself getting bored, I start to think of good points to raise or questions to ask. If those tactics don't work out, I recommend reading Flow : The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Amazon)
First of all:
/point finale/. Lectures in general, IMO, are rather pointless exercises in pseudo-education. For me at least, with a topic of anything more than nominal complexity, a textbook is invaluable while lectures, put simply, are a waste of time. I'm surprised that slashdot has turned up so many droids-in-training! Seriously, though. My suspicion is that people like the psychological kick in the ass associated with waking up early,going to class, etc.; it makes them feel as though they're sacrificing something to 'learn', and therefore that they have more to lose by slacking, and therefore they'll study harder on their homework, and therefore do better, and therfore attribute this to going to class, therefore, they go to more class, and the current educational model perpetuates itself. ( The model, I believe, is analogous to that used by many major religions to maintain piousness: Show up at place X at time Y every N days and you're saved! ) So long as you're disciplined enough to focus on the time on the homework w/o the psychological guilt-crutch, then you can skip almost unlimited amounts of time.
;) You can write the rules to the game in about four instructions, and it can be played on any size of board or grid. Better still, each individual piece is never moved after being placed on the board (until removed -- which doesn't happen frequently enough to be annoying (unless the pieces are your own ;) ) ), which means that 'Go: Napkin Edition' can be played whenever you have a pencil handy.
* Paying attention in class is not necessarily necessary, especially if you already know the subject,
But whatever works for you...
* And as for your actual problem: Learn Go. (aka 'Wei Chi', which certainly yields more relevant hits in Google
Oh, did I mention that the gameplay requires more thought than Chess? And that GNU-based Go servers and clients are available at all over the known Internet, as well as (passable) AI oppoents?
Okay, so it's two players... but once you get good, you'll want to practice constantly, and it's the sort of game conducive to experimentation and situation-analysis. In particular, books of Go problems are quite fun... take a look at one of the problems, and go to your lecture. By the time lecture is over, you just might have solved it.
- undoware.ca
Another simple game. Can be played verbally or written on paper if silence is needed, or email if distance is a problem.
First person {says|writes|emails} "Tree". Second person does "Fluid". First person does "Tree". Second person goes "Fluid". And so on.
Until someone says "Sap!" at which point they are declared the winner.
Of course you could win every round by just saying "Sap!" first time, but that would be boring. The skill is saying "Sap!" on the go before your opponent wants to say it, thus causing the maximum amount of annoyance to them! It is very rewarding to get through about ten echoes of 'Tree - Fluid' and then hit 'Sap!' and have the other person go "I WAS JUST GONNA SAY IT!!!". Ahh, satisfaction. Similarly there is great pain in being 'Sapped' just as you are about to say it.
When played face-to-face there can be a lot of psychology and body-language involved. Look for any sign of hesitation in your opponent, that's normally a sign of an impending 'Sap'. Have no mercy, hit back straightaway.
Strangely I cant find any web sites devoted to Tree-Fluid...
Baz
If you're in Sweden, isn't there some hot Swedish girl nearby you can stare at during the class?