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Geeky Gifts for New Dads, The Goodfather
The Moose at Dr.MOZ writes "The Goodfather, 'for the baby he can't refuse.'
The Goodfather is a custom-boxed CD-ROM that teaches new dads hundreds of baby skills and baby related definitions through a fun parody of a famous American gangster epic (The Godfather). The baby/parenting topics in The Goodfather CD-ROM were selected for men by experienced dads and grandfathers, and edited by licensed nurse-midwives to ensure the material is medically sound.
In addition to the hundreds of baby skills lessons and definitions, The Goodfather also has a Baby Name Book with approximately 15,000 baby names and a Baby Card Maker which allows new dads to make and print their own baby cards. New dads choose from dozens of "new dad" card-types with provided art, or they are able to import JPGs to create their own customized baby cards! The Goodfather runs on both Windows® and Macintosh® systems and is proving to be the next 'must have' gift for the sometimes ignored new dad on the baby shower list."
I don't know which is more annoying: that Slashdot publishes ads as stories, or that they have to be insulting about it. I mean, really, would it really be impossible to think that people are capable of making the giant leap of insight from "GoodFather" to "GodFather" without needing to spell it out ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
PS I have some products I would like to advertise on Slashdot as well, please contact me with pricing information.
-Lod
I've already seen the usual "This is news?" posts, so here's my experience. This matters because there are some nerds that meet a member of the opposite sex, score, and have a kid.
Something like this could have been handy when I was a new dad, seven plus years ago. As it was, I hit gold when I did a Yahoo search on "colic", which my kid had. Some enterprising geek dad came up with a series of rotating images that calmed kids down. So when 3am rolled around and it was my turn to console the unconsolable I would fire up that web page and ALT+TAB between that page and Baldur's Gate. I actually think Baldur's Gate had a more calming influence than the colic web page - what could be more soothing and calming than leading a party through kobold infested mines?
As for the advice about Baby Showers? If you're a man don't attend. Not all things are equal and I'd rather be knee deep in an imploded Diaper Genie than at another baby shower... It's pure humiliation to listen to what women talk about those things. It was probably a significant reason the standing army was invented.
My advice is buy yourself a BabyBjorn so you can do normal stuff without worrying about the baby crawling into an open pit or getting mauled by a household pet. These things let you hang the infant off the front or back. If it hangs in front with the little geek-to-be facing outwards they'll watch your computer screen for hours. It helps to have something other than /. up, like Baldur's Gate - a little bit more to watch. My kid particularly enjoyed it when the mage hit third level and started leveling the playing field with fireballs.
He'll grow up to be a geek yet ;-)
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Goodbye /.
...
I just can't keep picking through the blatant ad stories, totally irrelevant junk, shockingly incompetent editing
Besides the fact that this has nothing to do with technology (and please don't point out that it is a multimedia-cd, that is hardly noteworthy) nor does it bring any relative news of any kind of social, legal or political struggle. This is the sort of plug that might appear on foxnews or somesuch. One can only wonder if the poster confused slashdot.org with loveourchildrenusa.org. This, surely, is the most antithesis to the website's slogan. Newsflash for editors, "stuffit!", say the commentators. Babysitting techniques indeed! Now all they need is our creditcard numbers and expiration dates.
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
The episode I have in mind is where Spock is presented with a baby, which makes squalling noises until Dr. McCoy shows Spock how it is done.
- hold the baby so its' spine rests on the fore arm; left arm is preferred - the natural reflex is to hold the baby close to your chest; give in to it - your heartbeat is a reassuring sound to a newborn - newborns breath incredibly lightly, so the panic of "is s/he still breathing?" should be expected
There is nothing more profound and scary then being presented with a new life; especially one that is totally dependent on your care.
Here is a hint: pass the bad baggage back, pass the good stuff on
There is a lot of good stuff that a geek has to offer: playfulness, curiousity and a free spirit are but a few of the bonuses of a Geek parent.
But the greatest gift you can give to the new souls in your life, to everyone, actually, is just being yourself. Warts and all.
This is progress?
Instead of being able to filter by topic and author, could we get some baysian filtering for /. ?
/. learns what I like and what I don't.
/. needs ad bucks to roll, think of the advantages here - self-selected target audiences, anyone? Also, if there's enough performance, it may be possible for the mods to see how many people will filter out the post before it's posted. They'd have to adapt and thus improve story quality.
I'd really, really appreciate if I could mark stories as "spam" and
Since
Just an idea, you know...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My daughter was born November 14th this year (few days/weeks ago).
:)
I work nights. My wow habits used to kind of make my wife worried, but now I just follow the routine.
Play wow for 2 hours.
Change diaper
Feed 2oz breastmilk
burp
Change diaper again if needed.
My wife think's i'm such a good father
--toqer
You may be aware that Scott Adams actually had hundreds of letters from women saying, in effect, that they were either married to a Dilbert or would like to marry one. Marrying a jock is fine till he (a) just starts playing around (b) has his mid-life crisis (c) the boiler fails and he's helpless while the geek just gets in there, criticises the design of the controller and the user interface and fixes it in thirty minutes.
Pining for the fjords
If you look at the Amazon.com product info page for this thing:
0 7O22WI
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00
There's a "See more products by this manufacturer," and the manufacturer is "Dr. MOZ," so once again this is just a guy/corporation spamming Slashdot with his product as a way to line his own pocket. Additionally, Amazon lists this product as having been first released on January 29, 2005, nearly 10 months ago, so this isn't even a new product. I wonder how many times this guy has submitted this thing before it was finally accepted?
It would be great if the Slashdot admins would make some sort of statement about the clear increase in press release/marketing material that's wending its way into Slashdot as "Stuff that matters," because the last I heard about it was the supposed April Fools joke about Slashvertisements, but it seems to be happening for real more and more - yesterday's "story" about a "blazingly fast" USB thumb drive was almost sickening in that not only was it a crappy ad disguised as a pseudo-article, it was for a crappy product! This GoodFather thing is neither relevant nor new. I don't mind off-topic discussions (I'm really not a "THAT'S NOT NEWS FOR NERS!!!!!" type), but if you're going to be running ads as stories, at least follow Google's lead and make them targeted.
rooooar
I wish they'd just make a "Slashvertisement" topic. I probably wouldn't even block it, since I'm lazy and at least some of the products might be interesting. But to pass off ads as real stories is pretty sleazy. Especially when the product in question doesn't even run on Linux!
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Or rather, starts gaming at 2,4,6 AM when the kids wake up for feedings....
Seriously, this would have been appreciated when they (www.lifewithtwins.com) were born... those first two weeks kicked our ass!
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.